Betty Neels - Only by Chance

It was on the next Monday morning that he went down to the occupational therapy unit to check on a patient’s progress since he had operated on him to remove a brain tumour. His progress was excellent, and he told Mrs Carter so.

‘Well, I’m sure we do our best, sir, although it’s hard going—there’s that girl, not turned up this morning. I knew she would be no good when she was taken on—’

‘Perhaps she is ill?’

‘Ill?’ Mrs Carter snorted in disgust. These young women don’t know the meaning of a good day’s work. she’ll turn up on Wednesday with some excuse.’

He answered rather absentmindedly and Presently went away, his mind already engrossed with the patient he was to see that afternoon—a difficult case which, would need all his skill.

It was on Wednesday evening that he went along to the clinic, after being at the hospital for most of the day. It was another wet night, cold and windy with a forecast of snow, and the dark streets were gloomy. There was a light over the clinic door, dispelling some of the dreariness.

He parked the car and went inside, past the crowd in the waiting room, to the two small rooms at the back. Both doctors were already there. He greeted them cheerfully, threw his coat onto a chair and put on his white coat.

‘A full house,’ he observed. ‘Is there anyone you want me to see?’

‘Old Mr Wilkins is back again—blood pressure up, headaches, feels giddy...’

Mr Ross-Pitt nodded. ‘I’ll take a look.’ He went into the second room, cast his eye over Mr Wilkins’ notes and then fetched him from the waiting room. After that he worked without pause; the clinic was supposed to shut at eight o’clock, but it never did. As long as there was a patient waiting it remained open, and that evening it was busier than usual.

It was almost nine o‘clock when the younger of the two doctors put his head round the door. ‘Could you cast an eye over this girl? She’s just been brought in—came in a greengrocer’s van. Looks ill. Not our usual type of patient, though; ought to have gone to her own doctor.’

‘Let’s have a look...’ Mr Ross-Pitt went into the almost empty waiting room.

His eye passed over the two elderly women who came regularly, not because they were ill but because it was warm and cheerful; they were the first to arrive and the last to leave. It passed over the young man waiting for his girlfriend, who was with the other doctor, and lighted on the small group on the bench nearest the door—a shabby young man with a kind face and an elderly woman with beady black eyes, and between them, propped up, was Henrietta, looking very much the worse for wear.

Mr Ross-Pitt bit back the words on his tongue and went to bend over her.

‘Miss Cowper, can you tell me what happened?’

She lifted her head and looked at him hazily. ‘I’m not feeling well,’ she said unhelpfully, and the woman spoke up.

‘Bin ill since Saturday night—got a room at my ’ouse, yer see—never see ’er on Monday and Tuesday, and then she went to work this morning same as usual and they brought ’er back. Fainted all over the place, she did.’

He frowned. Why hadn’t they kept her at the hospital if she had been taken ill there? His thought was answered before he could utter it. ‘They couldn’t bring her back at once, see? They ’as ter get the offices cleaned before eight o‘clock, and someone ’ad ter finish ‘er jobs for ’er.’

‘Yes, yes. How far away is this job? How was she brought home?’

‘On a bus, o’ course; there ain’t no money for taxis for the likes of us. Put ‘er ter bed, I did; leastways, got ’er ter lie down and put a blanket over ’er. Thought she’d pick up, but she ain’t much better.

‘You didn’t take her to the hospital?’

‘Brought ’er ’ere, ’aven’t we?’

‘You have done quite right I’d like to see her in the surgery, please.’

He scooped Henrietta up, nodded to the woman to come too, and carried her to the second empty room.

Ten minutes later he sat down at the desk to write up his notes while Henrietta was wrapped up in her elderly coat and a scarf was tied over her head.

‘A rather nasty influenza,’ said Mr Ross-Pitt. ‘She’ll be all right in a few days, provided she takes these tablets regularly, stays in bed and keeps warm.’

Henrietta opened her eyes, then. ‘I’m never ill; I’D be all right at home.’

‘You’ll look after her?’ asked Mr Ross-Pitt, taking no notice of this. ‘She should have gone to her own doctor, you know.’

‘Couldn’t, could she? He don’t see no one on a Sunday, unless they’re at their last gasp, and on weekdays she ’as ter be at the offices by half past six.’

‘In the morning?’

‘O’ course. Them clerks and posh businessmen don’t want no cleaning ladies mopping floors round ‘em, do they?’ She gave him a pitying look. ‘Don’t know much, do yer?’

Mr Ross-Pitt took this in good part. ‘I’m learning,’ he observed placidly, and smiled so that the woman smiled too.

‘I dare say you’re a good doctor,’ she conceded. ‘We’ll get ‘er back ’ome.’

‘I have a car outside. Supposing I drive Miss Cowper back and you go ahead and get her bed ready and the room warm?’

‘If yer say so.’

Henrietta opened an eye. ‘I’m quite able to manage on my own.’ She added with weary politeness, ‘Thank you.’

He quite rightly ignored this remark too, and, since she felt too peculiar to protest, he carried her out to his car after a brief word with his two colleagues, laid her gently on the back seat and followed the greengrocer’s van through the murky night. Henrietta, her eyes tight shut against a ferocious headache, said crossly, ‘I’m perfectly all right.’

‘Close your eyes and be quiet,’ said Mr Ross-Pitt.

‘You aren’t going to be all right for a couple of days, but you’ll feel better once you’re snug in bed.’

Henrietta made a half-hearted sound which sounded like ‘pooh’ and slid back into uneasy dozing. She really was too weary to bother.

CHAPTER TWO

MR. ROSS-PITT slid to a gentle halt behind the van and got out of his car to find the van’s owner waiting for him. ‘Mrs Gregg’s gone up ter see ter the room,’ he explained. ‘Do you want an ’and?’

‘I think I can manage. The room is upstairs?’

‘Top of the ’ouse, mate. Bit of a climb, but she’s not all that ‘eavy.’ He grinned. ‘And yer no lightweight.’

Mr Ross-Pitt smiled. ‘I’ll carry Miss Cowper upstairs. Thanks for your help—quick thinking on your part to bring her to the clinic.’

‘My old lady’s been on and off. Thinks ’ighly of it.’

‘Thank you.’ Mr Ross-Pitt opened the door of the car and lifted Henrietta out.

She roused herself from a feverish doze to protest. ‘I’m very comfortable, thank you, if I could just go to sleep...’

Mr Ross-Pitt trod up the narrow stairs, his magnificent nose flaring at the all-pervading smell of cabbage, cooked to its death, mingled with a strong whiff of onions. By the time he reached the top floor the smell was fainter, but it was a good deal colder and the room he entered, the door obligingly left open by the landlady, was icy.

‘I’ve lit the fire,’ Mrs Gregg told him unnecessarily. She was smoothing the rumpled bed and shaking out Henrietta’s nightgown—a sensible garment chosen for its warmth rather than its glamour.

He took a quick look round the room, laid Henrietta on the bed, and said, ‘I’ll be outside on the landing. I’ll take another look at Miss Cowper when you’ve put her to bed.’

He paused as he went to the door. Sitting in his cardboard box, Dickens was glaring at him, the kitten huddled against him. ‘Well, well,’ said Mr Ross-Pitt, and went downstairs to find the van driver.