New Doctor at Northmoor by Anne Durham Page A

came to see Gwenny. She looked strange and unfamiliar in the protective clothing, but if Gwenny could have seen her before the mask and gown had gone on, she would have found the old woman looked even more peculiar, for Mrs. Yeedon had donned her Sunday best, a stiff outfit of rusty black which she re-trimmed season by season, and at the moment the old black hat was resplendent with artificial fruit, and there were new coloured buttons on the tight black coat.
    ‘ I never expected you! How lovely !’ Gwenny cried.
    Mark Bayfield had specially said Mrs. Yeedon could come. The old woman knew how to keep infection away, and she would be such a tonic for Gwenny, he thought.
    Mrs. Yeedon said, ‘ Dearie me, lovey, how comfortable you do look, in this nice little room. I never thought they let you have a little room to yourself in hospital. That ’ s what comes of having a doctor for a father, I ’ m thinking. ’
    ‘ No, it ’ s because I might be infectious, ’ Gwenny told her. ‘ Aren ’ t you afraid of catching it from me? ’
    ‘ Not me, my lamb. Now, is there aught you would want me to bring you, before we get down to a nice old chat? ’
    ‘ Not a thing, but I ’ ve got lots I want to ask you. What about Clem? ’
    ‘ That nincompoop !’ the old woman said wrathfully. ‘ I gave him a piece of my mind, and that ’ s a fact. He should have — Oh, well, what ’ s the use? What ’ s done is done. What happened about your parents when they found out? ’
    ‘ It wasn ’ t very nice, ’ Gwenny admitted, in that new spent little voice that tore at the old woman ’ s heart. ‘ Mother was so angry, because she didn ’ t know I ’ d been being ill, and that Mark Bayfield had been the one to discover it. ’
    ‘ Didn ’ t you tell her what I told you—that it was me who called him in? ’
    ‘ Well, you know my mother—I didn ’ t get much chance to say anything. Daddy was furious, too. A thing called professional pride, if you know what that means. He felt he ought to have been treating me all this time, and called in a specialist of his own choice. He asked me how I thought he felt, not having known about it. Well, ’ said Gwenny, her face crumpling, ‘ how can you get through to people? He doesn ’ t know what I ’ m thinking and I don ’ t know what he ’ s thinking, and there ’ s a gap that ’ s growing wider and wider, and nothing I can do will make it close up. I have tried to tell him, lots of times, but things always seem to happen to stop him from being able to hear me. ’
    The old woman had her own ideas about the Kinglake family, but she wasn ’ t going to voice them. It would only hurt Gwenny. She looked so alarmingly frail, with those blue smudges under her eyes. The old woman tried to persuade herself that fair people started out with a frailish look sometimes, but she wasn ’ t being successful. Gwenny was, she felt, slipping away from them.
    ‘ They all love you so much, lovey, and affection for someone in the family takes a funny direction sometimes, and a body ends up hurting the other person more than helping them. Don ’ t you fret—they ’ re most like all kicking themselves for not having looked after you better while you were in their care. ’
    Gwenny shook her head. ‘ It ’ s so much more than that, you see. It ’ s not knowing what I ’ ve got, and Mark Bayfield seems to think he does. Daddy hated that. And there ’ s the thing about my sister Priscilla. She ’ s so angry about him, yet she wants to know all about him and I ’ m wondering if she and Mark Bayfield were in love and then quarrelled. Do you think that ’ s likely? ’
    Mrs. Yeedon hoped devotedly that such was not the case. She personally couldn ’ t stand the sight of Gwenny ’ s sister Priscilla, who was what the old woman called, in her mind, a ‘ hard piece .’
    ‘ What comes to my mind, lovey, is that when she was at her hospital and he was there, he likely rapped her over the