"JILL DOESN'T COUNT"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 December 1940, Page 10

"JILL DOESN'T COUNT"

COPYRIGHT. PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

By

Phyllis Hambledon.

(Author of “Youth Takes the Helm.”)

CHAPTER VII. (Continued!. He felt deadly tired, incapable of getting into touch with anybody. His limbs felt heavy and inert. He thought he had caught more cold in coming out of Viva’s overheated drawing room. The pain in his chest was worse. He wasn't sure that he hadn’t a temperature. A lot of use, me having a temperature, jeered Oliver to himself, with a heavy surgery in front of me! And there’s Jill.

He had to make a clean heart of things to her, to ask her. forgiveness, to ask her once again to help him fight this weakness within. He was glad that his last memory of Viva, was Viva angry, Viva saying spiteful and bitter things, Viva in spite of black velvet and pearls at her very worst, in fact. I’ll go on thinking of her like that, he decided. That’s my only chance. He was again delayed on his way home. Another patient waylaid him. He had to go to the chemist’s to give explicit instructions about a surgical belt. When he put the car into the garage, he saw that the waiting room was already lit, that the lamp blazed outside, and that patients were trailing up the path. Well, let them wait for once, the thought irritably. I’ll have a cup of tea and a cigarette before I see them! It was striking six as he entered his house by the private door. He called out: “Jill!” There was no answer at first, so he called again.' Then Mrs. Flynn came out of the kitchen. “Mrs. Vereker has gone already, Doctor,” she said. x “Gone already?” said Oliver blankly. “Yes. She said she’d just have time to get to her aunt’s tonight, if she hurried. Really bad, the old lady, sounded. But there, it’s the time of the year for illness, isn’t it? We must expect it. And a green Christmas make a full churchyard, they say. I’ve the kettle on the boil for you, and I’ll stay and get you your supper after surgery.”

At first Oliver suriously enough, suspected nothing. Perhaps his own weariness and cold dulled his perceptions. He knew that Jill had an aunt who was often ailing. And Mrs. O’Flynn’s manner had been so ordinary. He was surprised, however, at his sudden sense of loss and disappointment. The sitting room looked lonely and lost without Jill, though the fire burnt brightly. She had, in fact, come in to see to it, the last thing before she went. It was only he went into his consulting room, that Oliver saw the note propped against the inkstand for him. and guessed in a flash at the truth. He sat down heavily at his desk and read the letter. The words blurred in front of his eyes. She had gone, quite simply and quietly, as Jill did everything. Gone! “I thought I could share you. I find that I cant’.” And the arrangements for his comfort and for the practice: “Get Miss Croft —send old Firth his bill.” And at the end: “I love you so! —Jill.” Oliver jumped to. his feet, opened the door violently. Then he stopped. The clock in the hall was striking sixthirty. That meant that the London train had gone. Somehow he knew that Jill would have taken it. No, it was no use. She had left him. She had said that it might be a month or two, before he heard from her. “Why shouldn't she have left me?” said Oliver. “What have I ever done to keep her?”

He realised that he had spoken aloud, and that brought him to his senses. He certainly did feel ill and queer. And in the waiting room, patients were coughing and shuffling impatiently. Your wife can leave you, and the surgery bell still has to be attended to. You may feel like death yourself, but you have to prescribe for headaches and stomach aches, for colds in the nose, and sprained ankles. “Your servant, the doctor,” a doctor-author had called himself bitterly, and that’s what you were—servant to suffering humanity, to anybody asking for help and sympathy. “I love you so, Jill.” He could not htink of that. He had no time to think of that.

He opened the waiting room door. “Come in!" he said curtly. They came in, one after the other, in turn, none of them perhaps as sick or as sad as he was. Most of them were panel patients, and he could give them prescriptions. But there were private cases too. Tonight he did not dispense for them. He gave them prescriptions also, instead of making up the medicine like Jill did. From six-thirty to eightthirty the surgery went on; whenever the waiting room grew empty, a fresh lot of patients would fill it again. It seemed an eternity before the surgery door closed upon the last of them. “I’ve cooked the fish for your supper Doctor,” said Mrs. O'Flynn, suddenly appearing, “and now I’ll have to be getting back ’ome. It’s my Arthur’s bath night.” Oliver sat down at the table and tried to force himself to eat. but it was no good. Jill had had a knack of cooking inexpensive fish, but Mi's. O’Flynn hadn’t, and the fish tasted as cheap as it really was. It stuck in his throat. He threw most of it in the fire rather than hear Mrs. O’Flynn expostulating. While he was dealing with it, another message came from Wynyard’s Yard. Yes, there’s going to be an epidemic all right, thought Oliver. He’d better go now before Mrs. O'Flynn went, while she was still here to answer the door to other patients. He went out to the car and found himself shaking. Jove, he wasn't going to be really ill, was he? The car swerved, as ne took it out of the garage. Funny if they had him up for dangerous driving Darn funny, the sort of joke that you simply screamed with laughter at! And it was indeed mother case of scarlet fever. The young man who had caught it, was tubercular already. He’ll probably die, thought Oliver.

He came home, and rang up the fever hospital once more. The voice at the other end of the line sounded peevish. “We’re nearly full up already,” it said. When he had rung off Oliver simply collapsed in his tracks. He sat down at his desk. Nothing in the world, he thought, could ever make his move again. He no longer wondered if he were going to be ill. He was ill. But a doctor mustn't be ill —a doctor must go on and on.

He did not know how long he sat there. Once he thought lie heard the phone ring, but he wasn’t sure, and anyway he couldn't get those miles across the hall. Time passed. He was too dazed to notice. Some time, when he felt more like getting upstairs, he’d go to bed. “Oliver, Oliver, wake up!” x Somebody was shaking his shoulders violently. He started. There stood unbelievably, Jill in her outdoor things. She was a misty, shadowy figure to him. “What are you doing here?” he said stupidly. “I tried to ring you up from town. There was a message I'd forgotten to give you. Mrs. Williams' child’s ill, Wynyard's Yard. I couldn’t get a reply. I thought it might be serious. I’m catch the next train back' to town. Why have you gone to sleep here? It’s cold; the fire's nearly out. Rouse yourself, Oliver. You’re not drunk, are you? What’s the matter? Oh!” She had felt his hand. It was so hot that it had almost burnt her.

“You’re ill!” she gasped. “Oh. nothing to speak of,” said Oliver. He rose to his feet. Must go to Williams, Wynyard’s Yard somehow! No. Silly of me —I forgot. I’ve been — scarlet fever. Regular epidemic of scarlet fever. That’s the surgery bell?” It was. Still in her outdoor clothes, Jill went to answer it.

“Please, mum,” said a voice shrill with anxiety, “will the doctor come at once? Father's had one of them there ‘do’s’ again!” “You must get somebody else,’ said Jill. “The doctor’s ill.” “The doctor’s ill!” gasped the voice. Jill might have said that Big Ben had fallen. “Yes, ill,” said Jill, suddenly losing her patience. “111, and I’m going to gel a doctor for him, myself. Please go now. I hope your father will soon be better.” She shut the door on the patient, and came back to Oliver. He was taking up his bag. “I’ll have to go,” he said. “That’s old Bryant. He may be bad.” “He’s not any worse than you are,” said. “Thing how nice for Dr. Grahame to get another of our patients. Come to bed, dear. I’ll help you upstairs.” “But you’re going away,” said Oliver “I’ve changed my mind,” said Jill. “I’m staying.” CHAPTER VIII. “You know, Mrs. Vereker,” said Dr. Frith, the man who was doing locum tenens for Oliver during his illness, “1 consider myself very lucky to be getting all this experience of scarlet fever. I’m glad, though, that I’ve been innoculated, ha, ha! Six fresh cases again this morning. It’s a pity they all go into the fever hospital, otherwise the Charnford doctors would be making their fortunes. Still there are the fees for notification, and so on. Not so baa not so bad!”

“And in the meantime,” said Jill in a dangerous voice, “my husband has got pneumonia.”

“Oh, he’ll be having his crisis prett} soon,” said Dr. Frith, easily. “I expect he’ll get over it all right. Pneumonias often do recover. It’s a pity he can’t keep quieter, though. Always tossing about, and, of course, a shot of morphia might be dangerous. Who is this Viva person he keeps talking about? Giddy reminder of his bachelor days? I suppose so!” “I suppose so,” said Jill. “Don’t you think you’d better get off on your round now, Dr. Frith? There seems to be a lot to do.” “I’ll get a move on, as soon as I've finished this cigarette,’ said Dr. Frith, kindly. And they were paying ten guineas a week, as well as board and lodging for this, thought Jill scornfully. Dr. Frith was an example of the worst kind of commercial medical practitioner. He was in medicine, as he had already told her, only for what he could get out oi it and he didn’t mean to exert himself more than was strictly necessary. Jill left him and went upstairs. Miss Croft sat beside Oliver. As soon as she had heard of the doctor’s illness, she had offered to help. “Viva, Viva, you didn't mean it, did you? You’re not like that really, are you?” “If only he would be quiet!" said Miss Croft, in a low voice. Jill went to the bed and took Oliver's hand in hers. “Of course Viva didn’t mean it,” she said clearly. “She was only teasing. Viva send her love, Oliver.” "Viva’s love,” muttered 'Oliver. “Viva’s love, Viva’s ” “You’d better go down and have something to eat,” said Jill to Miss Croft. When she was alone, she took her place at Oliver’s bedside. He was obviously, desperately ill. And there was so pitifully little, one could do for him. The district nurse came in three times a day. It had been impossible to get a resident one. There was a terrible outbreak of illness round Charnford. And in the meanwhile Miss Croft and Jill tended him. It was a good thing, it was only Miss Croft to hear these ravings of his, thought Jill. “Viva, Viva! —” Oh, if he’d stop, if he’d only stop! “Well, how is he, this morning?”

(To be Continued)