New Doctor at Northmoor Read Free Page B

just see her father looking impatiently over the top of his glasses at her, and demanding to know what tomfoolery she had been up to now. She could well imagine what her mother would have to say about it. Bad enough when Mummy heard about Fairmead being sold to someone who just wanted to live there, but what about Mummy ’ s old people ’ s home?
    The doctor snorted at the idea of his telling Dr. Kinglake about his daughter. ‘ I hardly think the information would come well from me, ’ he told Gwenny severely.
    He was a very forceful young man. He had her in his car before she could blink. She had the feeling that if she hadn ’ t consented to walk out, he would have just swung her up into his arms and carried her. Such a thought made her feel quite peculiar. She watched him collect the bike and put it in the boot, then he carefully shut the front door of his domain and drove round to the back. So he knew that way in, did he? For some reason, she had been aching to see if he would try and go down the drive and what he would do when he got to the bits that were overgrown. With anyone else, she would have never entertained such a thought; she would have been quick to warn the stranger. But this man, now that she had time to consider it, aroused the most unfamiliar feeling of antagonism in her. All her first feelings about him had fled. She just wanted to fight him now.
    He seemed to know the way to Queen ’ s Heath all right and he also seemed to know where Old Square was. He drove unerringly to it, but once there, he said curtly, ‘ You ’ d better tell me which house the doctor ’ s is, for I don ’ t see the usual signs. Shouldn ’ t there be a plate outside, or a lamp with the word “ surgery ” on it? ’
    That put her back up at once. ‘ The plate came unstuck and fell off, and it didn ’ t seem worth putting it back because everyone knows where we live. And the lamp got smashed when Bobby Barker hit a six with his new cricket bat, and we ’ re too hard up to replace things that really aren ’ t necessary. ’
    She didn ’ t catch what he said, but gathered from his rather grim expression that he considered it disgracefully irregular.
    ‘ Well, which house is it and I ’ ll pull up outside and get the bike out for you, but I won ’ t come in. ’
    She might have said it wasn ’ t worth his while to do so because no one was likely to be at home, but she restrained herself. Why tell him anything? she asked herself angrily.
    He did everything with speed and precision, she thought resentfully, as she watched him prop the bike against the front hedge, which incidentally badly needed clipping. She supposed he was looking at that fact, too, and disapproving.
    She got out, found she could stand without the ground behaving oddly, and she walked sedately towards him.
    ‘ Thank you very much, and goodbye, Dr . ? Oh, you didn ’ t tell me your name, did you? ’
    ‘ You ’ ll know it soon enough, ’ he said grimly. ‘ Meantime, concentrate on what really matters—getting yourself into good medical care at once. You do understand me, don ’ t you? ’
    Gwenny went into the house and stood at the end of the silent hall and looked around her. In the quiet of the square she heard his car purr to life and depart. Like himself that car was rather splendid-looking and efficient but aroused antagonism in her. What right had this supercilious stranger to come in his splendid car and make their own look more shabby than before? What right had he to buy Fairmead from under her mother ’ s nose, to live in —live in ! That great big house for one man! And goodness knows how much money it would take to put it right again!
    Gwenny fretted about who he could b e. He was a doctor, yet she hadn ’ t heard about him, and they had a grapevine which they called a jungle telegraph in Queen ’ s Heath, which operated through the string of small shops, the cottages (carried by the children doing errands) and the adults (the