An Ideal Wife

He said smoothly, ‘I’m sure that Miss Howarth and I will work well together.’

Sir James said cheerfully, ‘Oh, I’m sure you will. She is most reliable—a splendid worker. Not easily put out either.’ He chuckled. ‘Copes with emergencies …’

Louisa shot a look at Dr Gifford. He was smiling. She didn’t much care for the smile. She said rather tartly, ‘Fortunately, these occur very rarely.’

‘Ah, well,’ said Sir James cheerfully. ‘One never knows what lies round the corner. Thank you, Miss Howarth; I expect you will wish to get on with your work.’

Louisa murmured and slid away. For a big girl she was very light and quick on her feet. Dr Gifford, listening gravely to his colleague’s observations, considered her at his leisure. Big, but beautiful with it. All that tawny hair piled up in a rather haphazard arrangement, that lovely face with its wide grey eyes, haughty little nose and too large mouth which lifted at its corners, and a nasty temper when roused, he reflected.

Louisa went back to her desk and began the day’s work: answering the phone, booking patients, greeting them with just the right amount of friendly sympathy they hoped for, offering them cups of coffee, cheering the faint-hearted, providing the social side of the practice while Mrs Grant, Sir James’s head practice nurse, dealt with the more tiresome aspects of it. They got on well together, she and Louisa. Mrs Grant was a motherly woman, and she was comfortably plump with a bright rosy-cheeked face and iron-grey hair.

Louisa sat down at her desk, and since there were no patients for the moment Mrs Grant popped out of her little treatment room.

‘Jilly’s gone for coffee,’ she said. ‘She may be pretty but, my goodness, she’s slow. What was all that about? Sir James introduced me to Dr Gifford; he looks nice enough.’

‘I’m sure he’s a very pleasant kind of man,’ said Louisa, not meaning a word of it. ‘Jilly must be delighted …’

Mrs Grant cast her a shrewd look. ‘Jilly is delighted with anyone wearing trousers. I suppose a pretty face is good for the practice.’ She smiled suddenly. ‘You’re pretty enough for several Jillys …’

Louisa said without conceit, ‘But I’m big, aren’t I? Men like wispy girls.’

Mrs Grant laughed. ‘Not all of them, love. My Ronny settled on me, didn’t he? And I’m not exactly sylph-like, am I?’

Jilly came back then, and Louisa, sitting watching her as she came into the room, had to admit that she was extremely pretty. Probably some of the younger patients, especially the men, found her very attractive.

‘Well, what did you think of him?’ she asked Louisa.

‘Dr Gifford? Well, he must be a good man if Sir James wants him for a partner. We didn’t speak, only to say how do you do.’

‘Oh, I know he must be a good doctor,’ said Jilly impatiently. ‘But didn’t you think he was frightfully good looking? And he smiled …’

‘Why shouldn’t he smile?’ asked Louisa matter-of-factly, and then added, ‘I must get on; Mrs Wyatt’s due in five minutes.’

Jilly wasn’t to be put off. ‘Don’t you like men? Haven’t you got a boyfriend?’

‘Well, of course I like men. And I do have a boyfriend. Now, do let me get on …’

She began sorting the morning’s work—patients’ notes, phone calls to make, accounts to deal with. She turned to the computer and stared into its blank face. She wasn’t sure that Percy would like to be described as a boyfriend. It would be beneath his dignity, and smacked of a relationship which he would never tolerate. Nor would she, for that matter—not that he had ever asked her opinion.

Percy, an inch shorter than she was, would have liked to call her his ‘little woman’, only great strapping girls such as she could never be that. It was a pity that he had taken it into his head that her continued refusal to marry him was merely what he called ‘womanly wiles’. Once or twice she had longed to give him a good thump and tell him to find some meek girl who wouldn’t answer him back, but she had been well brought up—there were some things one just didn’t do.

She sighed, and then smiled nicely as the next patient came in.

The last one went two hours later and Sir James went away to do his hospital rounds, taking Dr Gifford with him and leaving a pile of letters on Louisa’s desk.

‘See to that lot, Miss Howarth. Leave them on my desk and make out the cheques. Oh, and bank the cheques that have been paid, will you? I shall be back some time this afternoon.’

She watched Dr Gifford’s broad shoulders disappear through the door; he had given her a thoughtful look and said nothing, but she hadn’t expected him to. Before starting on the letters, she allowed herself to wonder if he disliked her. Hopefully she wouldn’t see much of him. She wondered where he had a practice, and later, over their lunch sandwiches, she asked Mrs Grant if she knew.

‘Didn’t Sir James tell you? A country practice not too far from here. Blandford way. Took it over when his father retired. Very rural, apparently, but lovely country.’

She bit into a cheese sandwich. ‘He’s well thought of, so I’m told.’

‘Married?’ asked Jilly, pausing on her way home. She only worked in the mornings, and did that halfheartedly. Louisa thought that Sir James employed her because she was young and pretty and that was what the patients liked. That she was pretty herself, even if she was twenty-seven, was something she didn’t regard.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Mrs Grant. ‘But don’t waste your time on him, Jilly, he’s as good as—to the Thornfolds’ youngest daughter. It’ll be a grand wedding.’

‘Will she like being a GP’s wife?’ asked Louisa.

‘If she loves him then she will,’ declared Mrs Grant.

Not an easy man to love, reflected Louisa, and began to tidy up before going back to her desk.

When she got home again that evening she found Biddy on her feet once more, looking very much the worse for wear but nonetheless preparing dinner.

‘Your Mr Witherspoon’s coming,’ she told Louisa. ‘So the missus told me to do something special.’

‘He’s not mine,’ said Louisa crossly. ‘And why must he have something special?’

‘Dunno, Miss Louisa. The missus is ‘aving a rest; tired out after the ‘airdresser’s.’

Biddy spoke without rancour. Mrs Howarth was no longer young, but she was still very attractive, even beautiful when she had her make-up on and her hair freshly dressed. Louisa agreed cheerfully; she got on well enough with her stepmother although there was no affection between them. Felicity was selfish and lazy and extravagant, but she was easygoing, too, and good company, and she could be very appealing, with her charming smile and her look of helplessness. And she was small and slender so that Louisa always felt at a disadvantage—overlarge and clumsy, conscious of her generously built person.

It was a nuisance that Percy would be coming to dinner. He had begun to take it for granted that he was welcome whenever he chose to invite himself.

She had known him for some years, and really, she had to admit, there was nothing wrong with him. A young lawyer with a secure future, he was a bit on the short side but not bad-looking and an agreeable companion. But not for life—in ten years he would be pompous and, she suspected, mean with money. But her stepmother approved of him, and Louisa, for the sake of peace, had never told her that Percy had proposed several times and she had refused him. Not that that stopped him …

As she changed into a dress and piled her hair she decided that if he proposed again she would make him understand once and for all that she wouldn’t marry him. She had never encouraged him, indeed she had discouraged him as nicely as possible without actually being rude. And a lot of good that had done …

Her stepmother was in the drawing room, leafing through a magazine. As usual she was beautifully dressed, her blonde hair expertly tinted, her face exquisitely made up. She looked up as Louisa went in.

‘Hello, darling. Had a busy day? Why are you wearing that dull dress? It makes you look positively elderly. Whatever will Percy think?’

Louisa went to the window and opened it. It overlooked a small garden at the back of the house, and beyond that there was a splendid view of the cathedral spire. She said flatly, ‘I don’t dress to please Percy.’

She turned to look at her stepmother. ‘Felicity, I don’t intend to marry him, you know. He takes it for granted and so do you, and I’ve tried to be polite about it …’

‘But, darling, he’s so safe, and you would never have to worry about anything.’

‘I don’t want to be safe. I don’t love him.’

‘There are many things more important than love,’ said Mrs Howarth sharply. ‘Security and a nice house, holidays and decent clothes.’

‘Is that why you married Father?’ asked Louisa.

‘I was very fond of your father,’ said Mrs Howarth a bit too quickly. ‘And, of course, before he lost that money we had a very pleasant home and I lacked for nothing.’ She added wistfully, ‘It’s hard to live as I do now. Genteel poverty, I believe it is called.’

Louisa didn’t reply. Her stepmother lived in some comfort and grudged herself nothing. She made no bones about accepting a generous slice of Louisa’s salary for, as she pointed out in a reasonable voice, Louisa enjoyed living in the same comfort in a pleasant house, having Biddy to see to the running of it and eating the good food provided. The fact that Louisa did quite a lot of the housework, helped with the cooking and quite often did the shopping as well were facts which escaped her attention.