New Doctor at Northmoor Read Online Free Page A

Street.
    Priscilla ’ s room was a mess and smelt horribly of stale make-up. There wasn ’ t much Gwenny could do about it without risking an awful row when her sister came home for forty-eight hours, and she was due almost any moment. Gwenny wandered into her brother ’ s room and, disheartened by now, began to gather up his papers into a neat pile to put on his desk. In the end, she bundled everything into the desk and pushed the flap up, then got a duster and went over the place. It looked a lot better, but was unfamiliar enough for her to have a prick of doubt. It wasn ’ t a very nice room. The wall of the next door house blocked the view of the Green, and he needed new curtains and bed cover, but as he wasn ’ t home very often, Gwenny supposed her mother didn ’ t consider it worth the expense.
    The spare room wasn ’ t made up, but Gwenny could and did remove the thick layer of dust on everything, and she did get out the carpet sweeper and go over the strip of worn carpet along the landing, but after that she felt like doing nothing else but lying flat on her back on her own narrow bed and wonder what was to become of her.
    Something wasn ’ t right, but it was so nebulous that she wouldn ’ t know how to explain it to her father. Unless she fainted at his feet, he wouldn ’ t think anything was wrong with her. There had been an occasion when that had happened, and he had seemed concerned, but there had been a telephone call. She had been put on a couch in the dining-room and he had gone to the telephone, but it had been Mr. Wilkes up at Overberry Farm, who had caught his hand in the combine harvester, and there was no arguing round that one. Gwenny had heard her father bark some instructions into the telephone, things about stopping the flow of blood and getting the ambulance, then he had belted out to the garage because Mr. Wilkes ’ wife was almost ready to start a baby and she had gone to pieces. A little thing like Gwenny fainting was soon forgotten.
    True, her father had seemed concerned about her when he had got back, but it was four hours later, and her mother had said, ‘ Oh, don ’ t fuss, dear. She ’ s all right now. I expect it was the heat, ’ and there the matter had rested.
    Yet something ought to be done. She made up sentences of explanation, such as, ‘ You know that time I fainted, Father, when Mr. Wilkes caught his hand in the combine harvester —’ but of course, that was too long a sentence. Her father would either be called out again or discover it was time for surgery or have to finish writing out some bills, and would beg her to tell him some other time. That was always the way.
    She could, of course, say, ‘ I feel rotten !’ but then he would look alarmed, take her into the surgery, get out his stethoscope and ask all the horrid personal routine questions he asked his patients, and quite suddenly Gwenny found she didn ’ t want to have to answer her father. It wasn ’ t so bad when she was a child, but not now. She was adult, and he would accept that. He wouldn ’ t accept it in any number of ways, like giving her an allowance or letting her get a job. He still insisted on giving her pocket money—a very small amount at that!
    She fell asleep wondering drearily if all the daughters of country doctors had the same problem, and she dreamed of the young doctor who was buying Fairmead taking her into his surgery and telling her that he could tell, just by looking at her, that she was going to die, and very soon, and that nothing and no one could save her.
    She awoke feeling tight all over and very scared. It was dusk and there were a lot of voices in the house. Her mother ’ s voice, raised in argument with Mrs. Otts.
    Mrs. Otts was saying, ‘I never saw the place like it before, no, I never! No, I ’ m not saying it ’ s as burglars getting in—what ’ s here to steal, that ’ s what I ’ d like to know !’
    ‘ Don ’ t be impertinent, Mrs. Otts! ’ Oh, dear,