of dozen times in his life. He’d been further afield than that only once, in the days when his Dad was alive.
The Vicar had organized a coach outing to the seaside on the occasion of the Silver Jubilee of King George the Fifth. Matt’s Dad had prophesied disaster for the outing, and Matt’s Dad had been right.
Matt was sick on the coach going to the sea and even more sick on the coach coming back. As he finally staggered off the coach at the end of the day he vowed never again to set foot on anything more venturesome than the bus into Cannonbridge.
He glanced about him now as he swung along. I’ll slip on up to Farmer Jauncey’s top field, he decided. Plenty of good wood up there and Jauncey didn’t mind him slipping along once in a way to help himself.
Matt was as vigilant and observant as any professional gamekeeper and in return for the blind eye turned on his own pursuits by local landowners he made sure no gangs of townee villains came on to their terrain to plunder and steal in quantities Matt couldn’t and wouldn’t have shifted in a dozen lifetimes of semi-honest endeavour.
He reached the top field and surveyed the ground. He would just take enough wood now to be going on with, he could come back again later.
His sharp eyes spotted some droppings under a tree and he stood for a minute or two staring up into the branches with keen interest.
Then he pulled a length of stout rope from one of his pockets and began to pile up a nice selection of boughs, ready to sling the bundle across his shoulders.
It was still not quite ten o’clock. Miss Jordan went quietly up from the kitchen where she had been drinking coffee with Alma and softly opened the door of Mrs Foster’s bedroom.
She peeped in to see if Mrs Foster was settling down for her nap. But Vera was still wakeful; she heard the whisper of the door.
‘I’m not asleep,’ she said loudly. ‘Come in.’
Miss Jordan went into the room. ‘Would you like your hot chocolate now?’ she asked. Vera was very fond of hot sweet drinks, chocolate in particular.
‘No, I’ll have it later. I want you to phone Doctor Tredgold now, I don’t feel at all well.’
Miss Jordan glanced at her watch. ‘You must phone him right away,’ Vera insisted. The doctor was a stickler about time. He liked all house calls to be notified before ten o’clock.
‘I can’t in all honesty tell him,’ Miss Jordan said with a small sigh, ‘that I think he ought to call. I can’t see that you need him. He’s a very busy man.’
Tredgold was no longer young and his temper wasn’t sweetening with advancing years. But Vera wouldn’t dream of changing doctors. He’d been her father’s doctor, her own doctor since she was a child of seven.
She began to struggle up in the bed. ‘If you don’t phone him, then I will,’ she said with determination.
‘Very well, I’ll do as you ask.’ But Miss Jordan wouldn’t make use of the phone beside the bed. She was far too professional for such amateur indiscretions. She went down to the study; the phone there wasn’t connected to the one in the bedroom.
A few minutes later she went back up the stairs, carrying a tray. ‘Doctor Tredgold will be here about half past eleven,’ she told Mrs Foster.
She set down the cup of chocolate and a small plate of the sugary biscuits Mrs Foster liked. She made no mention of the doctor’s irritated references to neurotic female patients and the wasting of his valuable time.
‘I knew he’d come,’ Vera said with a satisfied smile. ‘He always comes when I want him.’ She waved a hand. ‘I’ll have the white tablets now.’
Miss Jordan brought over the bottle; it was almost empty. Vera tipped a tablet out into her palm. ‘I’ll have to ask him for some more of these,’ she said.
As she sipped her chocolate she suddenly said, ‘You might pass me my father’s photograph.’
This was a large studio portrait. Vera often liked to hold it, to look at her father’s wide brow and resolute chin, letting the happy days of the past rise up before her.
Miss Jordan picked up the photograph in its heavy silver frame and carried it over to the bed.
‘I’ve always liked this one best,’ Vera said fondly. She smiled down at her father, sitting with one hand propped under his chin, gazing back at her with his shrewd and penetrating look.
‘That’s the way I remember Daddy. Sitting at his desk downstairs, looking just like that, thinking about things.’
It was past noon by the time Doctor Tredgold’s car halted outside the front door of Lynwood.
‘Mrs Foster can be very difficult when she chooses,’ the doctor said to Miss Jordan as they went up the stairs. ‘But I’m sure there’s no need for me to tell you not to pamper her.’ He had formed a high regard for Miss Jordan’s competence.
‘Mrs Foster’s very much inclined to make the most of this sciatica,’ he added. ‘Nothing she likes better than being waited on and fussed over.’ A widower now for many years, with his own burden of aches and pains to bear as the years ground remorselessly on, he had less and less sympathy these days with any attitude on the part of his patients that remotely resembled hypochondria.
‘I’ve already mentioned that I’m thinking of leaving in a few days,’ Miss Jordan said.
He nodded energetically. ‘That’s the ticket. Force her to get up. She’d stay in bed till Christmas if we let her.’
They reached the door of Vera’s bedroom. ‘Come now,’ Tredgold said to his patient with forceful joviality as soon as Miss Jordan showed him into the room. ‘Why aren’t you sitting outside on this beautiful day?’ Vera made no reply; her face took on a mutinous look.
The curtains were partly drawn together against the dazzling sunlight and the doctor crossed to the window and drew them fully apart. He glanced out at the valley lying tranquil in the sparkling air.
‘We won’t get many more days like this before winter,’ he said. ‘You should make the most of them.’
Miss Jordan withdrew to the door. ‘I’ll be just along the corridor if you should need me,’ she said as she went out and closed the door behind her.
The doctor stood looking out at the hill opposite, at the porcupine crest of trees along the ridge, the green tints shading from palest lime to deepest olive.
‘I’ve always loved that view.’ He was silent for a moment, remembering how he had stood there in Duncan Murdoch’s time; Duncan had been a valued friend. He gave a little sigh and turned back to the bed with a softer expression.
‘Is the leg really painful still?’ he asked with a little grin. ‘Or are you laying it on – just a bit?’
Vera closed her eyes. ‘The pain comes and goes. It’s still pretty bad at times.’ She opened her eyes. ‘I need some more of the white tablets.’
