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it—he must have put it there ready for her and she set to, collecting patients’ notes from the filing cabinet by the desk. She had arranged them to her satisfaction when the first patient arrived—old Mr Trimble, the pub owner’s father. He was a silent man with a nasty cough and, from his copious notes, a frequent visitor to the surgery. He grunted a greeting and sat down, to be joined presently by a young woman with a baby. Neither the mother nor the baby looked well, and Matilda wondered which one was the patient.
The room filled up then and she was kept busy, aware of the curious looks and whispers. Miss Brimble had been there for so many years that a newcomer was a bit of a novelty and perhaps not very welcome.
Dr Lovell opened his surgery door then, bade everyone a brisk good morning, took Mr Trimble’s notes from Matilda and ushered his patient inside. He ushered him out again after ten minutes, took the next lot of notes from her and left her to deal with Mr Trimble’s next appointment.
It wasn’t hard work but she was kept busy, for the phone rang from time to time, and some of the patients took their time deciding whether the appointments offered them were convenient, but by the time the last person had gone into the surgery Matilda was quite enjoying herself. True, Dr Lovell had taken no notice of her at all, but at least she’d had glimpses of him from time to time…
She dealt patiently with the elderly woman who was the last to go for she was rather deaf and, moreover, worried about catching the local bus.
‘My cats,’ she explained. ‘I don’t like to leave them for more than an hour or two.’
‘Oh, I know how you feel,’ said Matilda. ‘I have a cat; he’s called Rastus…’
The door behind her opened and Dr Lovell said, with well-concealed impatience, ‘Miss Paige…’
She turned and smiled at him. ‘Mrs Trim has a cat, and so have I. We were just having a chat about them.’
She bade Mrs Trim goodbye, shut the door behind her and said cheerfully, ‘I’ll tidy up, shall I?’
He didn’t answer, merely stood aside for her to follow him back into the surgery. As they went in, the door leading to the house opened and a tall, bony woman came in with a tray of coffee.
Matilda bade her good morning. ‘How nice—coffee, and it smells delicious.’
The doctor eyed her with an inscrutable face. Matilda had seemed so meek and quiet during her interview. He said firmly, ‘While you drink your coffee, please make a note of various instructions I wish to give you.’
She didn’t need to look at him to know that she had annoyed him. She said, ‘I talk too much,’ and opened her notebook, her nose quivering a bit at the aroma from the coffee pot.
‘Be good enough to pour our coffee, Miss Paige. I should point out that, more frequently than not, you may not have time for coffee. This morning was a very small surgery and normally I depart the moment the last patient has gone, leaving you to clear up and lock the door and the cabinets. I should warn you that the evening surgery is almost always busy.’
He opened a drawer and handed her a small bunch of keys. ‘If I am held up then I rely upon you to admit the patients and have everything ready, or as ready as possible, for me. Miss Brimble was most efficient; I hope that you will be the same.’
Matilda took a sip of coffee. Strange, she mused, that, of all the millions of men in the world, she should have fallen in love with this coldly polite man with cold blue eyes and, for all she knew, a cold heart as well.
‘I shall do my best to be as like Miss Brimble as possible,’ she told him, and after he had given her a list of instructions she asked, ‘Do you want me for anything else, Doctor? Then I’ll just tidy the waiting room and lock up.’
He nodded, not looking up from the pile of notes on his desk. ‘I shall see you this evening, Miss Paige.’ He glanced up then. ‘This is not a job where one can watch the clock too closely.’
She got up and went to the door, where she said in a quiet little voice, ‘I expect you miss Miss Brimble. We must hope for the best, mustn’t we?’
She closed the door quietly behind her and the doctor stared at it, surprise on his handsome face. But presently he allowed himself to smile. Only fleetingly, though. Miss Paige must conform to his ways or find another job.
Matilda went home, donned an apron and began to load the washing machine. Her father was in the study; her mother was getting coffee in the kitchen.
‘Well, how did you get on?’ she asked. ‘I don’t suppose it was hard work. Is he nice? Your father has to see him within the next few days. Such a nuisance that he has to see the doctor so often; I should have thought that once he had got over his heart attack he would have been cured.’
‘Well, he is cured, Mother, but it’s possible to have another attack unless a doctor keeps an eye on him. He’s feeling fine, though, isn’t he? This is the ideal life for him…’
Mrs Paige said fiercely, ‘Oh, it’s perfect for him but what about me? There’s nothing to do here in this poky little village…’
‘It’s not poky. It’s really quite large and Mrs Simpkins was telling me that there’s always something going on. There’s amateur theatricals in the winter, and bridge parties, and tennis in the summer and cricket. Once you get to know the people living here—’
‘And how do I do that? Knock on people’s doors? We’ve been here almost two weeks.’
‘If you went to the village more often…’ began Matilda. ‘Everyone goes to the village shop…’
‘Everyone? Who’s everyone? No one I can make a friend of. When I think of the pleasant life we had at the vicarage—my friends, the interesting people who came to see your father…’
‘I’m sure there are interesting people here, too,’ said Matilda. ‘Are you going to have coffee with Father? I had some at the surgery. Shall I make a macaroni cheese for lunch?’
Her mother shrugged. ‘What is he like? Dr Lovell? A typical country GP, I suppose.’
Matilda didn’t answer that; she didn’t think that Dr Lovell was typical of anyone, but then, of course, she was in love with him.
She took care to be at the surgery well before five o’clock. She had the patients’ notes ready on his desk and was sitting at her own desk in the waiting room when the first patient arrived. The doctor had been right; there was a steady stream of patients—several nasty coughs, a clutch of peevish children and two young men with bandaged hands. She had seen from the notes that most of them had come from outlying farms, and since they all appeared to know each other the room was full of cheerful voices interspersed with coughing fits and whining small voices.
There was no sign of the doctor and it was already well after five o’clock. Matilda left her desk to hold a fractious toddler while its mother took an older child to the loo. She was still holding it when the surgery door opened and the doctor invited his first patient, an old man with a cough, to come into the surgery.
He looked at Matilda with raised eyebrows but made no comment and by the time he called for his second patient she was back at her desk, busy with the appointments book, very aware that she was being looked over by everyone there. After all, she was a newcomer to the village, and although Mrs Simpkins had given her opinion that Matilda was a nice young lady—a bit quiet, like, but polite—the village had no intention of making up its mind in a hurry.
Parson’s daughter, they told each other—well, Miss Brimble had been that, too, but twice this one’s age. They bade her a lot of cheerful good evenings as they went home and over their suppers gave their varied opinions: a nice enough young lady, not much to look at but with a ready smile.
As for the doctor, dining at the Reverend Mr Milton’s table that evening, he professed himself satisfied with his new receptionist. He had no more to say about her than that, though.
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