her usual bus by the skin of her teeth, raced up Castle Street as fast as she dared without actually running, and hurried through the dignified portals of Sir James Wilberforce’s consulting rooms. She heaved a sigh of relief as she opened the waiting room door; it was empty save for a pretty girl in nurse’s uniform who was putting down the phone as Louisa crossed the room.
‘You’re late,’ Jilly said unnecessarily. ‘He wants you in there as soon as you arrive.’ She added at Louisa’s questioning look, ‘He’s in a good mood.’
Louisa tapped at the door of the consulting room and was bidden in Sir James’s fruity voice to enter. He was standing looking out of his window, but turned to look at her as she went in. He was a short, stout man with a wealth of silver hair and a round face with small, bright eyes. His patients loved him despite his forthright manner.
He wasn’t alone. The man standing beside Sir James turned when he did and gave Louisa a cool stare. Immaculate in his sober grey suit and silk tie, he looked very different from the man who had thumped the door knocker so fiercely that morning. Well, not different, thought Louisa, only the clothes. He was just as tall, his person was just as vast, and his eyes just as cold.
Sir James peered at her over his glasses. ‘Good morning, Miss Howarth. I mustn’t keep you from your work, but I must make you known to Dr Gifford. He is to become my part-time partner, taking over when I am on holiday or called away for any length of time. We shall see him once or twice a week, and you will work for him as you do for me.’
He beamed at her, and she realised that she was expected to show some sort of pleased acquiescence.
‘I’ll do my best,’ said Louisa inadequately, and stared at Dr Gifford’s waistcoat. ‘How do you do?’
He said smoothly, ‘I’m sure that Miss Howarth and I will work well together.’
Sir James said cheerfully, ‘Oh, I’m sure you will. She is most reliable—a splendid worker. Not easily put out either.’ He chuckled. ‘Copes with emergencies …’
Louisa shot a look at Dr Gifford. He was smiling. She didn’t much care for the smile. She said rather tartly, ‘Fortunately, these occur very rarely.’
‘Ah, well,’ said Sir James cheerfully. ‘One never knows what lies round the corner. Thank you, Miss Howarth; I expect you will wish to get on with your work.’
Louisa murmured and slid away. For a big girl she was very light and quick on her feet. Dr Gifford, listening gravely to his colleague’s observations, considered her at his leisure. Big, but beautiful with it. All that tawny hair piled up in a rather haphazard arrangement, that lovely face with its wide grey eyes, haughty little nose and too large mouth which lifted at its corners, and a nasty temper when roused, he reflected.
Louisa went back to her desk and began the day’s work: answering the phone, booking patients, greeting them with just the right amount of friendly sympathy they hoped for, offering them cups of coffee, cheering the faint-hearted, providing the social side of the practice while Mrs Grant, Sir James’s head practice nurse, dealt with the more tiresome aspects of it. They got on well together, she and Louisa. Mrs Grant was a motherly woman, and she was comfortably plump with a bright rosy-cheeked face and iron-grey hair.
Louisa sat down at her desk, and since there were no patients for the moment Mrs Grant popped out of her little treatment room.
‘Jilly’s gone for coffee,’ she said. ‘She may be pretty but, my goodness, she’s slow. What was all that about? Sir James introduced me to Dr Gifford; he looks nice enough.’
‘I’m sure he’s a very pleasant kind of man,’ said Louisa, not meaning a word of it. ‘Jilly must be delighted …’
Mrs Grant cast her a shrewd look. ‘Jilly is delighted with anyone wearing trousers. I suppose a pretty face is good for the practice.’ She smiled suddenly. ‘You’re pretty enough for several Jillys …’
Louisa said without conceit, ‘But I’m big, aren’t I? Men like wispy girls.’
Mrs Grant laughed. ‘Not all of them, love. My Ronny settled on me, didn’t he? And I’m not exactly sylph-like, am I?’
Jilly came back then, and Louisa, sitting watching her as she came into the room, had to admit that she was extremely pretty. Probably some of the younger patients, especially the men, found her very attractive.
‘Well, what did you think of him?’ she asked Louisa.
‘Dr Gifford? Well, he must be a good man if Sir James wants him for a partner. We didn’t speak, only to say how do you do.’
‘Oh, I know he must be a good doctor,’ said Jilly impatiently. ‘But didn’t you think he was frightfully good looking? And he smiled …’
‘Why shouldn’t he smile?’ asked Louisa matter-of-factly, and then added, ‘I must get on; Mrs Wyatt’s due in five minutes.’
Jilly wasn’t to be put off. ‘Don’t you like men? Haven’t you got a boyfriend?’
‘Well, of course I like men. And I do have a boyfriend. Now, do let me get on …’
She began sorting the morning’s work—patients’ notes, phone calls to make, accounts to deal with. She turned to the computer and stared into its blank face. She wasn’t sure that Percy would like to be described as a boyfriend. It would be beneath his dignity, and smacked of a relationship which he would never tolerate. Nor would she, for that matter—not that he had ever asked her opinion.
Percy, an inch shorter than she was, would have liked to call her his ‘little woman’, only great strapping girls such as she could never be that. It was a pity that he had taken it into his head that her continued refusal to marry him was merely what he called ‘womanly wiles’. Once or twice she had longed to give him a good thump and tell him to find some meek girl who wouldn’t answer him back, but she had been well brought up—there were some things one just didn’t do.
She sighed, and then smiled nicely as the next patient came in.
The last one went two hours later and Sir James went away to do his hospital rounds, taking Dr Gifford with him and leaving a pile of letters on Louisa’s desk.
‘See to that lot, Miss Howarth. Leave them on my desk and make out the cheques. Oh, and bank the cheques that have been paid, will you? I shall be back some time this afternoon.’
She watched Dr Gifford’s broad shoulders disappear through the door; he had given her a thoughtful look and said nothing, but she hadn’t expected him to. Before starting on the letters, she allowed herself to wonder if he disliked her. Hopefully she wouldn’t see much of him. She wondered where he had a practice, and later, over their lunch sandwiches, she asked Mrs Grant if she knew.
‘Didn’t Sir James tell you? A country practice not too far from here. Blandford way. Took it over when his father retired. Very rural, apparently, but lovely country.’
She bit into a cheese sandwich. ‘He’s well thought of, so I’m told.’
‘Married?’ asked Jilly, pausing on her way home. She only worked in the mornings, and did that halfheartedly. Louisa thought that Sir James employed her because she was young and pretty and that was what the patients liked. That she was pretty herself, even if she was twenty-seven, was something
