Betty Neels - Hilltop Tryst

Mrs Browning was sitting on a chair outside intensive care; she looked as pale as her daughters, but gave them a cheerful smile. She looked at Dr Latimer then. ‘I’m eternally grateful,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what we would have done without your help. And I do believe you when you say that Tom is going to get better.’ She gave him a sweet smile. ‘May the girls see him?’

‘Certainly. Two at a time, I think. I’ll just make sure that they won’t be in the way…’

He disappeared, to return presently with a white-gowned Sister. ‘Carol and Kathy?’ he suggested. ‘You’ll have to put on white gowns. Sister will show you.’

They were only gone for a minute or two, and then it was Beatrice’s and Ella’s turn. ‘And not so much as a snuffle from you,’ warned Dr Latimer, giving Ella a gentle push.

Beatrice had steeled herself to see her father’s grey face once more, but despite the tubes and wires he looked more like her father again, with colour in his face, and apparently asleep. The sight of him acted like a tonic upon her; he was alive and he was going to get better. Dr Latimer had said so. She quelled a great desire to burst into tears, and urged Ella back into the waiting-room.

Dr Latimer went away presently, excusing himself on the grounds of a brief consultation with Dr Stevens, leaving them to drink coffee a nursing aide had brought them.

They said goodbye to their mother when he returned, and he drove them back to Hindley, to share the sandwiches which Mrs Perry had made and write his phone number down for Beatrice, with the reminder that she was to phone him as soon as she had an applicant to be interviewed. He wished them all a cheerful goodbye, and for Beatrice at least the house seemed very empty when he had gone.

But she had little time to sit and be sorry for herself; the most pressing necessity was for someone to carry on the practice while her father was away. While her sisters scattered to do the various jobs around the house, she went to the study, found the address of the agency her father had always used and phoned them.

It had been a miserable day so far, now lightened somewhat by the news that there was a newly qualified vet on their books who might be exactly what Beatrice was looking for. An appointment was made for the following day, and she went to find her sisters and tell them the good news.

‘If he can come straight away, we shan’t need to hand over too many of father’s regular accounts. I can manage the surgery for a few more days, and we’ll just have to go on as usual. I expect Mother will come home as soon as Father is out of danger.’

She spoke with a confidence she didn’t feel, although Dr Latimer had told her with quiet certainty that her father would recover.

Dr Latimer phoned again around teatime; Mr Browning was showing a steady improvement, their mother would stay the night at the hospital, but if everything was satisfactory in the morning she would return home by lunchtime. ‘Everything all right your end?’ he wanted to know.

‘Yes, oh, yes, we’re managing. There’s someone coming from the agency tomorrow morning, about eleven o’clock.’

‘I’ll be with you before then.’ He hung up with a brief goodbye.

Tired out with anxiety and worry, they all slept soundly, but Beatrice was up soon after six o’clock, to let Knotty out into the garden, feed the cat, Wilbur, and make a cup of tea. Perhaps it was too early to ring the hospital, she decided, and then changed her mind, knowing that she wouldn’t be content until she had news of her father.

He was continuing to improve, said Night Sister; they hoped to take him off the life-support machine very shortly, and perhaps Beatrice would like to telephone later in the day.

Beatrice drank her tea and set about the day’s chores. There were several cats and dogs convalescing behind the surgery; she attended to them, fed Knotty a dish of tea and the bread and butter he fancied for his breakfast, and then went to wake the others.

Breakfast was almost a cheerful meal. ‘I’ll wait and see Mother,’ said Carol, ‘and then if everything is all right I’ll go back—I can go straight to the hospital if—if I have to.’

‘And I’d better go back, too,’ decided Kathy, ‘but you’ll let me know at once if I’m wanted?’

Beatrice looked at Ella. ‘You’d better go to school, love—Father will be disappointed if you don’t do well in your exams. Yes, I know you don’t want to—supposing we wait until Mother gets here and I drive you back in time for this afternoon’s paper—biology, isn’t it? Father would be so proud if you got good marks for that.’

Beatrice was clearing away after surgery when her mother arrived, and with her Dr Latimer. Her mother kissed her and said quickly, ‘Oliver brought me back—such a good man and so clever. Your father’s going to be all right, and we have Oliver to thank for that. He’ll stay if you want him to just to cast an eye over this locum you’ve arranged to see.’

‘You didn’t mind me seeing to that, Mother? We must keep the practice going well until Father can take over once again.’

‘I’m only too thankful that you were here to deal with everything.’

She turned round as Dr Latimer came in with her case, and Beatrice said, ‘I’ll get Mrs Perry to bring in the coffee; there’s still half an hour before that man comes.’

She smiled at him and thought how tired he looked—she had thought of him as a youngish man, but he looked pale and lined in the morning light. She was too worried about her father to bother much about the doctor; she went off to the kitchen and laid a tray while Mrs Perry made the coffee and got out the biscuits. By the time Beatrice got back, the other three were there as well as Miss Scott, and since everyone had a good deal to say and a great many questions to ask no one noticed that the doctor was rather quiet.

The doorbell interrupted them. ‘You go, dear,’ said Mrs Browning. ‘You know as much about the practice as your father. Do what you think best.’

By the time Beatrice had reached the front door, Dr Latimer was beside her. ‘The study?’ he asked, and went there while she went to the front door.

Worried though she was, she couldn’t help but be pleasantly surprised by the sight of the young man on the doorstep. James Forbes was young, too, but thick-set and slow and pompous; and Dr Latimer, regretfully, seemed a lot older than she had at first thought. This man was splendidly different. She blushed faintly at allowing her thoughts to stray so frivolously. Guilt made her voice stiff. ‘Mr Wood? Will you come in?’

He smiled at her, self-possessed and charming. ‘Miss Browning? The agency did explain…’ They shook hands and she led the way across the hall to her father’s study, where Dr Latimer stood looking out of the window.

He turned round as they went in, and she introduced them. ‘Please sit down, Mr Wood—would you like a cup of coffee?’

‘I stopped in Salisbury, thanks.’ He glanced quickly at the doctor, who met his look with a bland one of his own. ‘I understand your father needs a locum for a month or two. I’m planning to go to Canada in the near future, so perhaps we might suit each other.’

He smiled at Beatrice, who smiled back; he was really rather nice and they might get on well together… She explained about the practice. ‘I have been helping my father for several years; I’m not trained, but I do a good deal round the surgery and help with operations.’

He asked all the right questions and she had time to study him. He was good-looking, with dark hair curling over his collar, pale blue eyes and a delightful smile. She found herself hoping very much that he would take the job.

Dr Latimer had said almost nothing, and she thought pettishly that he might just as well not be there; he was certainly giving her no advice. Not that she would have taken it; when Colin Wood suggested that he might start in two days’ time, she agreed with a readiness which made the doctor raise his eyebrows, but since she wasn’t looking at him that escaped her notice.