An Innocent Bride. Betty Neels
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added, ‘Is there anything I can do while I’m here? Phone someone?’
She said bleakly, ‘We haven’t got a phone.’ She finished the tea and felt better. ‘I’m sorry to have been so rude and ungrateful.’
‘It’s of no consequence.’
He sounded so casual she wished she hadn’t said anything. I don’t like him, she reflected crossly. He’s being kind and helpful and all that, but that’s because he’s a doctor, and it wouldn’t do if he were to jump into that great car of his and drive off.
The doctor, aware of her edginess towards him, decided that, although she was one of the prettiest girls he had seen for a long time, she had a decidedly sharp tongue and had all the obstinacy of the proverbial mule. Probably had an unhappy love affair, he thought idly, and it’s soured her. A pity.
He went back downstairs and poured himself a mug of tea, and sat drinking it with the little cat curled up on his knee. What might have been the beginnings of a friendly relationship between them had become indifference on both their parts. Now and again, going through life, one met someone with whom one was incompatible, he reflected, allowing his thoughts to wander to the work waiting for him.
Presently he went quietly upstairs again and found her asleep, her hair an untidy cloud all over the pillow, her mouth a little open. There were scratches on her cheek and there was a bruise developing on one arm. She was a big girl, but now she looked like a child. The doctor studied her at some length, wondering why she chose to live so remotely. But that was none of his business.
He went back to the kitchen and later, when he heard the gate being opened, he went to open the front door.
The lady walking briskly up the path was of an indeterminable age, very tall and thin, with a narrow face and a sharp nose, wearing a no-nonsense hat and a dateless beige coat and skirt. When she was within a yard of the doctor she asked briskly, ‘And who are you, young man? I don’t expect to find strangers on my doorstep. You’re surely not a friend of Katrina’s?’
If that was a compliment it was surely a left-handed one, thought the doctor, and he stood aside to allow Miss Thirza Gibbs to enter her home.
‘No, no such thing. Your niece has had a slight accident and I happened to be the person to find her. Nothing alarming…’
‘I am not easily alarmed,’ said Miss Thirza Gibbs tartly. ‘Kindly get to the point. Presumably she is here?’
‘In her bed.’ The doctor had assumed the armour plating of his profession: an impersonal courtesy leavened with a touch of bracing sympathy. ‘Your niece was knocked off her bicycle by a motorcyclist who didn’t stop. She has a cut on her leg, is scratched and bruised and shocked. Dr Peters has been to see her and will call again. She didn’t lose consciousness.’
‘Why are you here, in my house?’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Your niece is hardly in a fit condition to be left alone, Miss Gibbs. I trust that she will make a speedy recovery. Good day to you.’
Miss Gibbs went an unbecoming red. ‘I’m sure it was very kind of you,’ she began stiffly.
But she was stopped gently by his ‘Not at all, Miss Gibbs. Please give my best wishes to your niece.’
He got into his car and drove away, and she went into the house and then slowly climbed the stairs.
Katrina was still sound asleep and, despite her scratches and bruises, looked her usual healthy self. Her aunt went down to the kitchen, made herself a sandwich, laid a tray with bowl, plate and spoon, set soup to warm and sat down to wait. She had had a tiring morning, and her meeting with the strange man had upset her; she had always been in the habit of speaking her mind even at the expense of other people’s feelings, but the man had been kind. She dozed off, and when she woke, half an hour later, Katrina was sitting at the table, polishing off the last of the soup.
When her aunt opened her eyes she asked, ‘Has he gone? That man—he brought me home. I didn’t thank him properly. You saw him?’
Miss Gibbs got up and put the kettle on, for she felt the need for a cup of tea. ‘Tell me what happened, and, yes, I saw him, but only for a few minutes.’
‘Well, this motorcyclist was on the wrong side of the road—on that bend by the turnip field, you know?’ Katrina gave a matter-of-fact account of the whole business, because her aunt had no patience with emotional outpourings or embellished facts, and when she had finished she said, ‘It must have been a great nuisance for him.’
‘He is a doctor?’ Miss Thirza Gibbs frowned. ‘I’m afraid that I was a little brisk with him. Perhaps he gave his name to Peters, in which case it would be quite correct for us to write him a letter of thanks for his help.’
‘I wouldn’t bother,’ said Katrina. ‘I should think he’s forgotten all about it by now—besides, he didn’t like me.’
‘Did he say so?’
‘No, of course not, Aunt, but he was—’ she paused, seeking the right word ‘—forebearing. As though he was doing his duty and found it all a bit of a bore. I didn’t like him.’
‘In that case,’ said Miss Gibbs, ‘it is fortunate that we are unlikely to see him again.’
Katrina agreed, ignoring a sneaking feeling that even if she didn’t like him it might be nice to know a bit more about him.
But even if she were never to meet him again, at least she was to know more about him, for later that day Dr Peters came. Evening surgery was over, and he was on his way home, but he sat down for ten minutes, drank the tea Katrina offered him, and expressed the view that she was perfectly fit again although she would look a bit unsightly for a few days.
‘This man,’ said Miss Gibbs. ‘Katrina tells me that he is a doctor.’
‘A specialist. He’s a consultant at St Aldrick’s—a haematologist—a well-known one, too. He didn’t tell you? Well, he’s not a man to blow his own trumpet, I should imagine. Stayed for lunch, did he?’
Miss Thirza Gibbs looked awkward. ‘Well, no. We exchanged a few words and he drove away.’
Dr Peters shook his head at her. ‘Thirza, I suspect that you bit the man’s head off. We’re all used to you in the village, but a stranger might be taken aback.’
‘Perhaps I was a bit sharp. But now we know who he is we can write to him and express our gratitude.’ She gave Katrina an enquiring look as she spoke.
Katrina said, with a bit of a snap, ‘Aunt Thirza, we agreed that he would have forgotten us.’
‘I doubt that,’ said Dr Peters, ‘seeing that his whole day was disorganised.’
‘Well, I think we’re making a lot of fuss about nothing. I’ll write a letter if you want me to, Aunt, but I doubt if he’ll read it—he’ll have a secretary to deal with his letters—or his wife,’ she added slowly. He would be married, of course, with two children, a comfortable house in a good area of town and probably a country cottage or a villa on the Algarve. Even if she didn’t like him, that was no reason to grudge him success in life.
Dr Peters said, ‘I think a letter would be civil, don’t you? And by the way, he’s a professor—I looked him up in my medical directory. Simon Glenville—you could send it to the hospital. He’s got consulting rooms but I haven’t the address.’
He went presently, and as he and Miss Gibbs walked to the gate he said, ‘Katrina’s been a bit shaken; make her go gently for a couple of days. It isn’t like her to be snappy.’
Which was true enough, for she was a warm-natured and kind girl, liked by everyone in the village, always ready to give a hand where it was wanted, and, unlike her aunt, prepared to like everyone who crossed her path. All except, for some reason, the man who had come to her aid that morning. But that was no reason to be ungrateful to him. That evening Katrina sat down and composed a