The Doctor’s Girl. Бетти Нилс

the reason why the job centre lady wasn’t very helpful. She had to admit that it looked rather awful when she caught sight of it in a passing shop window. Tomorrow, if it wasn’t better, she would go to the nearest hospital and get something for it. Next she applied for a job as a waitress in a large, noisy café and was told to stop wasting time by the proprietor.

      ‘Oo’s going to order from a girl with an eye like that? Been in a fight, ’ave yer?’

      The next morning she caught a bus to the hospital, a mile away. It was a vast Victorian building, its Casualty already overflowing. Since Loveday’s eye wasn’t an urgent case, she was told to sit on one of the crowded benches and wait.

      The benches didn’t seem any less crowded; rather the opposite. At midday she got a cup of coffee and a roll from the canteen and then settled down to wait again. She was still waiting when Fforde, on his way to take a clinic in outpatients, took a short cut there through Casualty. He was late and he hardly noticed the sea of faces looking hopefully at him. He was almost by the end doors when he caught sight of Loveday, or rather he caught sight of the black eye, now a rainbow of colours and swollen shut.

      It was the mouse-like girl who had been with that abominable Miss Cattell. Why was she here in the East end of London with an eye like that? He had felt an instant and quite unexpected liking for her when he had seen her, and now he realised that he was glad to have found her again, even if the circumstances were peculiar. He must find out about her… He was through the doors by now and encircled by his clerk, his houseman and Sister, already touchy because he was late.

      Of course by the time he had finished his clinic the Casualty benches were almost empty and there was no sign of her. Impelled by some feeling he didn’t examine, he went to Casualty and asked to see the cases for the day. ‘A young lady with a black eye,’ he told the receptionist. ‘Have you her address? She is concerned with one of my patients.’

      The receptionist was helpful; she liked him, for he was polite and friendly and good-looking. ‘Miss Loveday West, unemployed, gave an address in Spring Blossom Road. That’s turn left from here and half a mile down the road. Had her eye treated; no need to return.’

      He thanked her nicely, then got into his car and drove back to his consulting room. He had two patients to see and he was already late…

      There was no reason why he should feel this urge to see her again; he had smiled briefly, they had exchanged goodbyes on the doorstep and that was all. But if the opportunity should occur…

      Which it did, and far more rapidly than he anticipated.

      Waiting for him when he reached his rooms on the following morning was Miss Priss, his receptionist-secretary. She was a thin lady of middle years, with a wispy voice and a tendency to crack her knuckles when agitated, but nevertheless she was his mainstay and prop. Even in her agitation she remembered to wish him a good morning before explaining that she had had bad news; she needed to go home at once—her mother had been taken ill and there was no one else…

      Dr Fforde waited until she had drawn breath. ‘Of course you must go at once. Take a taxi and stay as long as you wish to. Dr Gregg will be back today, and I’m not busy. We shall manage very well. Have you sufficient money? Is there anyone you wish to telephone?’

      ‘Yes, thank you, and there is nobody to phone.’

      ‘Then get a taxi and I’ll ask Mrs Betts to bring you a cup of tea.’

      Mrs Betts, who kept the various consulting rooms clean, was like a sparrow, small and perky and pleased to take a small part in any dramatic event.

      Miss Priss, fortified by what Mrs Betts called her ‘special brew’, was seen on her way, and then Dr Fforde sat down at his desk and phoned the first agency in the phone book. Someone would come, but not until the afternoon. It was fortunate that Mr Jackson, in the rooms above him, was away for the day and his secretary agreed to take Miss Priss’s place for the morning…

      The girl from the agency was young, pretty and inefficient. By the end of the next day Dr Fforde, a man with a well-controlled temper, was having difficulty in holding it in check. He let himself into his small mews house, tucked away behind a terrace of grand Georgian mansions, and went from the narrow hall into the kitchen, where his housekeeper, Mrs Duckett, was standing at the table making pastry.

      She took a look at his tired face. ‘A nice cuppa is what you’re needing, sir. Just you go along to your study and I’ll bring it in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. Have you had a busy day?’

      He told her about Miss Priss. ‘Then you’ll have to find someone as good as her to take her pace,’ said Mrs Duckett.

      He went to his study, lifted Mrs Duckett’s elderly cat off his chair and sat down with her on his knee. He had letters to write, a mass of paperwork, patients’ notes to read, and the outline of a lecture he was to give during the following week to prepare. He loved his work, and with Miss Priss to see to his consulting room and remind him of his daily appointments he enjoyed it. But not, he thought savagely, if he had to endure her replacement—the thought of another day of her silly giggle and lack of common sense wouldn’t bear contemplating.

      Something had to be done, and even while he thought that he knew the answer.

      Loveday had gone back from the hospital knowing that it wasn’t much use looking for work until her eye looked more normal. It would take a few days, the casualty officer had told her, but her eye hadn’t been damaged. She should bathe it frequently and come back if it didn’t improve within a day or so.

      So she had gone back to the basement room with a tin of beans for lunch and the local paper someone had left on the bench beside her. It was a bit late for lunch, so she’d had an early tea with the beans and gone to bed.

      A persistent faint mewing had woken her during the small hours, and when she’d opened the door into the garden a very small, thin cat had slunk in, to crouch in a corner. Loveday had shut the door, offered milk, and watched the small creature gulp it down, so she’d crumbled bread into more milk and watched that disappear too. It was a miserable specimen of a cat, with bedraggled fur and bones and it had been terrified. She’d got back into bed, and presently the little beast had crept onto the old quilt and gone to sleep.

      ‘So now I’ve got a cat,’ Loveday had said, and went off to sleep too.

      This morning her eye was better. It was still hideously discoloured but at least she could open it a little. She dressed while she talked soothingly to the cat and presently, leaving it once more crouching there in the corner, she went to ask Mrs Slade if she knew if it belonged to anybody.

      ‘Bless you, no, my dear. People who had it went away and left it behind.’

      ‘Then would you mind very much if I had it? When I find work and perhaps have to leave here, I could take it with me.’

      ‘And why not? No one else will be bothered with the little creature. Yer eye is better.’

      ‘I went to the hospital. They said it would be fine in another day or two.’

      Mrs Slade looked her up and down. ‘Got enough to eat?’

      ‘Oh, yes,’ said Loveday. ‘I’m just going to the shops now.’

      She bought milk and bread and more beans, and a tin of rice pudding because the cat so obviously needed nourishing, plus cat food and a bag of apples going cheap. Several people stopped to say what a nasty eye she had.

      She and the cat had bread and butter and milk pudding for lunch, and the cat perked up enough to make feeble attempts to wash while Loveday counted her money and did sums. The pair of them got into the chair presently and dozed until it was time to boil the kettle and make tea while the cat had the last of the rice pudding.

      It was bordering on twilight when there was a thump on the door. The cat got under the divan and after a moment there was another urgent thump on the door. Loveday went to open it.

      ‘Hello,’ said Dr Fforde. ‘May I come in?’

      He