“No, really,” Mona replied. “I’ve got to be home for tea. I promised Mummy I would.”
There was the sound of the front door slamming and a second later Arthur Howlett put his head in at the door.
“Visitors!” he exclaimed. “Oh, it’s you Mona. What are you two girls doing – gossiping?”
“Of course we are,” Mona replied.
“Well, that’s nice for Dorothy,” he said, coming into the room. “She’s not had a chance to unburden her soul since you went away. To tell anyone anything in Little Cobble is the same as shouting it from the house-tops. Well, I can’t stay long, I’ve got a case over at Willington. I only came in to pick up some medicine.”
“You’ll have a case here in your own home if you don’t look out,” Mona said severely.
“Who’s that?” Arthur Howlett asked. “One of the children?”
“One of the children nothing!” Mona replied scornfully. “Dorothy’s doing too much. She’s wearing herself out fussing round with this W.V,S., the evacuees and Heaven knows what else.”
“I know,” Arthur Howlett agreed. “She ought to have a medal for it.”
“Medal!” Mona retorted. “She doesn’t want a medal, what she wants is orchids.”
The doctor looked at Mona as if she had taken leave of her senses.
“Yes,” Mona insisted. “And I’d just like to ask you one thing, Arthur. How long is it since you took Dorothy out for an evening, took her to the pictures, took her out to dinner, or, indeed, made love to her?”
“Oh, Mona, really!” Dorothy interrupted. “You mustn’t say things like that. Arthur will think I’ve been complaining, and I haven’t, have I?”
“Of course you haven’t,” Mona answered. “You wouldn’t complain if he asked you to stand still while he hammered nails into you. You’re too good to that man, Dorothy, and you always have been. But he’s always been the same, taken up with his beastly profession, treating the house like a hotel and noticing nothing unless his supper was late or his bed wasn’t ready for him when he came in dead tired.”
Arthur Howlett looked uncomfortable.
“I say, Mona, you’re being a bit hard on me, aren’t you? I dare say there’s a lot in what you say, but really, ever since the war, I don’t seem to have a second to myself. Two doctors have gone from the neighbourhood and I have taken over their work.”
“I don’t care if ninety doctors have gone,” Mona said, “Dorothy’s got to come first. I don’t mind telling you that when I saw her last week it gave me quite a shock. Why, she isn’t much older than I am, but she looks a hundred!”
“Don’t mind me,” Dorothy interposed. “Don’t spare my feelings, will you?”
“I shan’t,” Mona said. “I’m being brutal for your own good. I’m taking you into Bedford tomorrow or the next day to get a permanent wave and what’s more you’re going to have some nice clothes and use all Arthur’s coupons. If anyone goes barefoot this winter, it’s going to be him.”
“I’ve used most of them already for the children,” Dorothy said apologetically.
“You’ve made as much a fixation of the children as Arthur has of his patients,” Mona scolded. “They’re both charming in the right place, but you’re losing your grip on life, both of you. It’s no use sinking lower and lower into the mud of Bedfordshire until you wouldn’t recognise a dance tune if you heard one. I only wish to goodness there was an attractive young man in the village who would make love to Dorothy and give you, Arthur, the fright of your life.”
“Well, I must say, Mona, you don’t mince your words,” Dr. Howlett said.
But there was a twinkle in his eye and a smile touching the corners of his mouth. He ran his fingers through his hair and looked for all the world like a schoolboy who had been caught out stealing the apples.
“What about it, Dorothy?” he said. “As this tornado has entered our lives, I suppose we must pay some attention to it. Would you like me to take you to the pictures tonight when I get back from Willington?”
“Tonight?” Dorothy exclaimed. “Oh, I don’t think I can.”
“Of course you can,” Mona said fiercely. “Don’t you dare refuse him. You’ll go and you’ll enjoy it, if I have to come down here and look after your squalling brats.”
“They’re not squalling and they’re not brats,” Dorothy said with a flash of spirit. “They’re perfectly charming children.”
“In which case you can leave them with an easy conscience,” Mona retorted. “In fact, to make quite certain that you come I am going to ring up Michael now and ask him if he will give us all dinner at the Swan.”
“Oh, but you can’t do that!” Dorothy protested. “He will think it so extraordinary.”
“Let him think,” Mona replied. “Besides, what’s he got money for? If I don’t spend it for him, I expect someone else will.”
She went out of the room to telephone but noted with satisfaction as she left, that Arthur Howlett, who was chuckling, bent to kiss his surprised wife.
‘They just want waking up,’ she thought to herself. ‘They’re a darling couple but they’ve got into a rut.”
She rang up Michael and found that he was at one of his farms. She put through another call, then waited for nearly ten minutes while he was fetched to the telephone. She explained to him what she wanted and heard him laugh at the other end of the line.
“I knew you couldn’t manage to be subdued for long, Mona,” he said. “I thought you’d have to get your fingers into some sort of pie, even if it weren’t your own!”
“Don’t be rude, Michael,” Mona replied. “Will you fetch me this evening?”
“I will,” he promised.
Mona ran back to the sitting room with the good news. She found Dorothy alone with a somewhat flushed face.
“I don’t know what you’ve done to Arthur,” she said. “He quite embarrassed me with his affection.”
“Arthur’s the nicest man in the world,” Mona answered, “but he’s as blind as a bat. Things have to be very obvious for him to see them. Subtlety will never work with Arthur, as you ought to know. If you don’t draw attention to yourself, he’ll forget that you’re not a robot.”
“That’s not quite true,” Dorothy said loyally, “but I admit that sometimes I have felt as if everything exciting that had ever happened to me was in the past and that the future was pretty drab and uninteresting.”
