"JILL DOESN'T COUNT"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 November 1940, Page 10

"JILL DOESN'T COUNT"

COPYRIGHT. PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

By

Phyllis Hambledon.

(Author of “Youth Takes the Helm.”)

CHAPTER 11. (Continued*. You’ve not eaten prison feed and done prison exercise, and seen nothing, nothing, but the faces of fellow inmates, of warders. You’ve not come out, as I have, and had everything you wanted taken from you. come back to find your practice ruined by a drunkard and a slut. Running away—well, have it like that—l am running away.” “You’re very sorry for yourself, Oliver aren’t you?” said Jill. “Sorry for myself?” Suddenly all the pent-up emotions of the last twelve months were too much for him. He sat down again, his elbows on the table. Utter misery and desolation overwhelmed him. Twelve months ago he had haa everything, a livelihood, a girl, a future. Now nothing—not even a home, not a friend to turn to. His shoulders shook. “Oliver, Oliver dear, don’t!” Jill was kneeling beside him, her arm round his shoulder. “Oliver, don’t! Oh, I’m managing so dreadfully badly. I wish I was clever I so that I could say what I felt! Oliver ’ listen! You’re not running away! Oliv-' er, there’s chance for the practice yet! | I spent the day in Charnford when I

came for that cough mixture; I talked about you, I went into shops and cafes and the local pub and gossiped like any old woman! ' Some of them blame you, Oliver; some think you really were drunk, lots of them, though, blame Viva. There was an old woman, keeps a haberdashery, said to me: ‘Dr. Vereker saved my life, Miss! If he’d been in prison a dozen times I'd stick to him!” “That must have been Mrs. Henderson," said Oliver. “Perforated appendix. Dashed her into nospital, just in time. You can’t run a practice on one Mrs. Henderson. “But there must have been others that I didn’t meet,” said Jill. “It isn’t worth it,” said Oliver. “I want to get away from it —out of it. I’m going, I say! I’m going.” “Then you are running away,” said Jill. She had risen to her feet, and her eyes were brilliant. “You’re running away like a coward. Oliver, I tell you, if you're willing to fight you can get the practice back! Oliver, I can help. I’m willing to help. I haven’t told you yet, perhaps I ought to have begun with that —while you were —away —l learnt dispensing. I passed my examinations. I’m a qualified dispenser now-.” “But, good Lord!” said Oliver. He raised his head and stared at her. “I thought you were going to stay on the films, Jill?” “Oh, I’m sick of the films,” said Jill. “And Viva doesn’t really need me now. She can afford a proper maid now that she's getting a decent salary. Oliver, listen, let me help. I always loved a fight with the odds against me. I've a little money. I have to live somewhere. I’ll take rooms in Charnford. I'll come and look after the surgery. I'll do your dispensing, I’ll do the book-keeping. No dispenser,” lied Jill, “gets a salary the first three months, you know. They do the job for the sake of experience. After the three months you can pay me what you can afford." •“You’re mad, Jill,” said Oliver.

_ “Mad?” said Jill. “You mean I’m sane. You see, dear, all these months I've seen this coming. You needn't think I'm being kind or anything. As a matter of fact it’s a business proposition first and foremost —not that I don’t mean to enjoy it. but the dispensing profession is overcrowded. I'm grabbing a job that I know will turn into a jolly profitable one before we’ve finished. That is unless you really do go. Oliver don’t go! I’ll be out of work then, as well as you. I know that we could make a success of it.” “Could we?” said Oliver.

“Cculdn’t we!” cried Jill. Now her face was glowing. “Listen, I wouldn’t be just a dispenser. We’d clear the place up between us. I could lend you a spot of money—you’d pay interest on it, of course —we’d get everything shining, efficient; paint the outside of the house even, show that you were starting again—the establishment entirely under new management, so to speak. You wouldn’t need a maid, Oliver; you know I’m not a bad cook, don't you? You’d just have to get a woman, for the rough work. Why, it ought to oe fun!” “Fun!”

Could anything ever be fun again, he wondered. And yet, well. Jill had a way with her! Almost when she spoke with such enthusiasm, he thought it might. She’d be a jolly kid to work with, he'd always liked her. Oh, but he was tired, tired! She didn't know how tired he was. The look of hope left his face. He was about to refuse when Jill spoke again. “After all. that's the one way of getting Viva back, isn’t it?” she said. She had not meant to use this argument, because secretly in her heart, she didn't think he would ever have Viva back. She had kept it as her very last means of persuasion. But in the end she had to use it. Because she knew he mustn’t go now, because she knew with what was half a child’s instinct and half a woman’s love, that Oliver mustn’t run away, that his whole future depended on facing this like a man. in refusing to go under. As the effect cf the argument on him was amazing, it was pain, as well as relief, to see how his face lit up at the thought of Viva, how even now he was ready to forgive her.

“Why, Jill,” he said slowly, “that rather alters the case doesn’t it? To get the practice back for me—nothing doing! To get it back for Viva—that’s different! You and I both love her. don't we? Shall we really have a go at it, Jill, my dear?” “Of course we will,” said Jill. She held out her hand to him. “That's a pact.” she said. “We’ll make the practice the finest practice in Charnford!” “For the sake of Viva,” said Oliver.

For the sake of you, thought Jill, but she did not say it aloud. CHAPTER 111. Four ladies sat round a tea-table talking, as ladies round a tea-table can talk. “Well, I call it perfectly disgraceful!” said Mrs. Jones, the bank manager's wife. “The man must be brazen. The least he could do was to sell the practice, and clear out!” “I don’t imagine there’s very much practice to sell by this time,” said Mrs. Beaton of the Laurels. “Not many people like a gaolbird as their medical attendant,,” said Mrs. Grahame. “Two lumps, please, Mrs. Beaton! May I pass you the cucumber sandwiches, Miss Croft?” The scene was Mrs. Beaton’s draw-ing-room, and the topic of conversation the return of Dr. Oliver Vereker to his practice. During the past eight months Charnford had become used to seeing his house look dirty and neglected; Dr. Grahame, the rival practitioner, had found his visits almost

' doubled by the fact that Oliver had . been sent to prison. The man’s done | for! had been the unanimous verdict, ;and perhaps the Grahames-had done more than their fair share of stating the fact. And today even the two lumps of sugar in her tea had no power to sweeten Mrs. Grahame’s expression, as the three of them discussed the latest nine day’s wonder. “New paint outside, and new curtains

inside!” cried Mrs. Jones. “And the brasses cleaned for the first time in months. Yes. and flowers in the win-dow-boxes. It looks more as if he were coming from his honeymoon than out of prison!” • \ “Well, I don't think his dispenser looks much like a bride,” tittered Mrs. Beaton. “A homely little thing if ever there was one.”

“My charlady says she's been scrubbing the house from top to bottom,” said Mrs. Jones. “I wonder what the doctor pays her for that?” “I expect the next thing we shall hear is that he is in the bankruptcy court.” said Mrs. Grahame. “I think you’re all too bad!” cried a voice from the corner of the room. The three married ladies looked round in amazement. It was Miss Croft who had spoken; she was the old maid of the party who existed on the tiniest of incomes, and whom they all patronised; to whom they gave their old dresses when they had finished with them, and sent along gifts of rhubarb and apples in season. There she was now, timid no longer, red as a turkeycock.

“I’ve known a great many doctors in my time,” sh’e said in a voice that was trembling with anger and perhaps with nervousness. “As you know, I've always been delicate. I’ve known rich doctors who ignored' me because I couldn't pay big fee.<u I've known sympathic doctors and unsympathetic doctors, stupid ones and clever ones. But I’ve never, never known anybody so kind and so sympathetic and so clever as Dr. Vereker. Why he wouldn't hurt a fly if he could help it! The very way he gives me hypodermic shows it.” “But he killed a man,” said Mrs. Grahame drily. “I’ll never believe it was his fault—never!” flashed Miss Croft. “I still think that girl pulled his arm. If she did, why the road was up, it was the sort of accident that might happen to anybody! If it hadn’t been after a party he wouldn’t have been sentenced. A n d now, why it's grand of him to come back! I guess it would have been easier to' clear out, but he didn't do it. He stayed instead. It’s fine of him. it’s —it's magnificent of him. it's just what I would have expected of him! And what's more I am going—now—to tell him so.”

With that Miss Croft marched out of Mrs. Beaton's drawing-room and actually had the impertinence to slam the door as she went. The three women looked after her in amazement. “Well, she won’t get my mauve georgette now!” said Mrs. Jones. “Obviously the woman is in love with Vereker,” said Mrs. Grahame, and lit a cigarette contemptuously. And Mrs. Beaton who had put a basket of gooseberries ready for her—they had more than they could eat decided that the gooseberries should waste rather than they should supplement Miss Croft's meagre diet. Miss Croft, as she walked down Mrs. Beaton s opulent drive, guessed all these things, and told herself that she did not care. Actually she knew that latei she might care very much indeed But now she was filled with the glow that comes of standing up for the defenceless. She d spoken her mind, as she had often wanted to do, to those three hags, to Mrs. Grahame, whose husband had taken most of Dr. Vereker’s practice, to Mrs. Beaton who disliked him, because he had never shown a fancy for her very plain daughters, to Mrs. Jones who had always been a scandal monger. I’m glad 1 said what I did say. I don’t regret a word of it! Miss Croft told herself.

She was in the High Street now. a comic enough little figure in her tussore coat and skirt, at least four seasons old, with her battered hat and her neat gloves; a typical dowdy old maid you might have called her. But she felt like the defendant of thp losing side as she rang Dr. Vereker’s surgery bell. She too, noted how beautifully polished were the brasses, how shining the paint! That’s the proper way to stage a comeback, thought Miss Croft, with flags flying! The door opened. A girl in spotless white stood on the threshold. She smiled at Miss Croft, as if everything in the world was well. “Good afternoon,” said Miss Croft. • Dr. Grahame didn't run to an efficient looking white-robed damsel of this kind, she was telling herself gleefully). “Is the doctor at home?"

(To be Continued).