‘The town understands.’
‘Paper come?’
‘I didn’t look,’ she said.
‘Any post?’
‘None,’ and she went out, slamming the door behind her.
‘Very unusual for her,’ and he suddenly remembered their conversation of the previous evening. ‘Good heavens, no. She can’t have gone off to see that Dr Hughes? I won’t see him, I won’t. Stupid woman.’
But Margiad Thomas was already bent in that direction, a crusading light in her eye, resolute of purpose, determined. And at this very moment was sitting in the waiting-room, among the coughs and colds, the pains and aches, and just long enough there to find her neighbour’s severely asthmatic breathing something of a trial. It was the very first time she had even been in a doctor’s waiting-room, for Margiad Thomas would have beamed had you told her that she was as full of good health as she was of sense.
‘Miss Thomas?’
She looked up, and there was the smiling receptionist. She got up and followed her across the corridor. ‘This way,’ and paused at the door and knocked. ‘A Miss Thomas, doctor.’
‘Show her in.’
Another smile, and Miss Thomas was suddenly facing the doctor, already studying her over his pincenez. ‘Do sit down, Miss Thomas.’
‘Thank you,’ and he was quick to note her stiffness of manner.
‘What can I do for you?’
‘It’s about my brother, Doctor.’
‘I - - - see,’ dragging the reply. ‘Have we met before?’
‘Some years ago, really,’ Margiad said, and would have liked to have been proud, and added, ‘of course my brother Mervyn, is also very healthy.’
‘You’re not ill?’
‘Oh no, Doctor.’
‘Good. Now about your brother, Miss Thomas?’ and he sat forward and looked closely at her.
A matron with a prim look, well dressed, wholly at ease save for the continually twitching fingers in her lap.
‘Tell me about him? Is it urgent?’
Miss Thomas leaned to him. ‘My brother has become a changed man, Doctor. In these last weeks his whole character has changed. He is really not himself, and I’m worried about him. There’s something wrong, he’s not well.’
‘Continue.’
She leaned even closer, dropped her voice, and continued: ‘Ever since a certain woman came to this town, Doctor, to work for that Mr Blair, the solicitor, he has been a changed man. He forgets things, neglects the parish, and is hardly ever in the house.’ The loud chatter from the waiting-room penetrated Dr Hughes’s ears.
‘Could you be more explicit, Miss Thomas, there are others waiting?’
It was a whisper that followed. ‘He doesn’t sleep well at all, some nights I look into his room, and there he is, sat in his chair facing the window, still dressed, and often in the darkness .…’
‘How old is your brother?’
‘Fifty this year.’
He respected the anxiety all too visible in her face. ‘Thomas, Thomas,’ he thought, ‘surely not on my list.’
‘If I could have some pills for him, doctor .…’
‘Is he on my list, Miss Thomas?’
‘Yes, Doctor.’
He got up and began running through the files in the cabinet.
‘Some rheumatic trouble, five years ago, correct?’
‘That’s it.’
‘I’ll give you something that will help him to sleep at night,’ he said, and thought to himself: ‘Following a woman, what woman?’ He wrote out a prescription and handed it to her. ‘There!’
‘Oh! Thank you, Doctor. I’m sorry to have bothered you, never wished to, really .…’
He waved it all away, and asked, ‘Following what woman, Miss Thomas?’
‘A Miss Vaughan, she’s staying at that little hotel, Cartref, at present….’
Laughing, he said rather boisterously, ‘Never heard of her,’ and he rose when she rose and showed her slowly to the door, suddenly put a hand on her arm. ‘Miss Thomas!’
