Only by Chance

‘O’ course. Them clerks and posh businessmen don’t want no cleaning ladies mopping floors round ‘em, do they?’ She gave him a pitying look. ‘Don’t know much, do yer?’

Mr Ross-Pitt took this in good part. ‘I’m learning,’ he observed placidly, and smiled so that the woman smiled too.

‘I dare say you’re a good doctor,’ she conceded. ‘We’ll get ‘er back ’ome.’

‘I have a car outside. Supposing I drive Miss Cowper back and you go ahead and get her bed ready and the room warm?’

‘If yer say so.’

Henrietta opened an eye. ‘I’m quite able to manage on my own.’ She added with weary politeness, ‘Thank you.’

He quite rightly ignored this remark too, and, since she felt too peculiar to protest, he carried her out to his car after a brief word with his two colleagues, laid her gently on the back seat and followed the greengrocer’s van through the murky night. Henrietta, her eyes tight shut against a ferocious headache, said crossly, ‘I’m perfectly all right.’

‘Close your eyes and be quiet,’ said Mr Ross-Pitt.

‘You aren’t going to be all right for a couple of days, but you’ll feel better once you’re snug in bed.’

Henrietta made a half-hearted sound which sounded like ‘pooh’ and slid back into uneasy dozing. She really was too weary to bother.

CHAPTER TWO

MR. ROSS-PITT slid to a gentle halt behind the van and got out of his car to find the van’s owner waiting for him. ‘Mrs Gregg’s gone up ter see ter the room,’ he explained. ‘Do you want an ’and?’

‘I think I can manage. The room is upstairs?’

‘Top of the ’ouse, mate. Bit of a climb, but she’s not all that ‘eavy.’ He grinned. ‘And yer no lightweight.’

Mr Ross-Pitt smiled. ‘I’ll carry Miss Cowper upstairs. Thanks for your help—quick thinking on your part to bring her to the clinic.’

‘My old lady’s been on and off. Thinks ’ighly of it.’

‘Thank you.’ Mr Ross-Pitt opened the door of the car and lifted Henrietta out.

She roused herself from a feverish doze to protest. ‘I’m very comfortable, thank you, if I could just go to sleep...’

Mr Ross-Pitt trod up the narrow stairs, his magnificent nose flaring at the all-pervading smell of cabbage, cooked to its death, mingled with a strong whiff of onions. By the time he reached the top floor the smell was fainter, but it was a good deal colder and the room he entered, the door obligingly left open by the landlady, was icy.

‘I’ve lit the fire,’ Mrs Gregg told him unnecessarily. She was smoothing the rumpled bed and shaking out Henrietta’s nightgown—a sensible garment chosen for its warmth rather than its glamour.

He took a quick look round the room, laid Henrietta on the bed, and said, ‘I’ll be outside on the landing. I’ll take another look at Miss Cowper when you’ve put her to bed.’

He paused as he went to the door. Sitting in his cardboard box, Dickens was glaring at him, the kitten huddled against him. ‘Well, well,’ said Mr Ross-Pitt, and went downstairs to find the van driver.

‘Will there be a shop open?’ he wanted to know. ‘Miss Cowper will need milk and eggs, some kind of cold drink, and there are two cats which will need to be fed.’

‘Two now, is it? Me shop’s shut, but I’ll bring what you want for her—I’m in the next street.’

Mr Ross-Pitt produced money. ‘That’s good of you. I take it Miss Cowper is on her own?’

‘Yes-‘as been ever since she came ’ere. And as nice a young lady as you could find in a month of Sundays. Never says nothing about ‘erself, though. Proper lady she is, too. I’ll be off. Bring it upstairs, shall I?’

‘Please.’ Mr Ross-Pitt went back upstairs, knocked on the door and was admitted. Henrietta was in her bed. Her appearance reminded him of a wet hen, and he studied her with no more than a professional eye. She was flushed and hot, and her hair, of which there seemed to be a great quantity, covered the pillow.

He took her wrist and frowned over her rapid pulse. If he had known that she lived in an attic with, as far as he could see, few comforts, he would have driven her to St Alkelda’s and had her admitted. She opened her eyes and he said kindly, ‘You’re back in your bed. Stay there for a couple of days and take the pills I’m going to leave with you.’

‘Dickens,’ she whispered from a sore throat, ‘and Ollie. Don’t let them out.’

‘No, no, they are sitting in a box. I’ll feed them before I go; that’s what you want, isn’t it?’

She nodded. ‘Please.’ She turned her head and saw Mrs Gregg on the other side of the bed. ‘Sorry to be such a nuisance...’ She added anxiously, ‘Don’t let them out...’

Mr Ross-Pitt took her hand. ‘I promise you your cats will be taken care of until you feel better. Mrs Gregg is going to keep an eye on you and them, and someone will be along to see how you feel tomorrow.’

There was a knock on the door and the milk and groceries were handed in. Mr Ross-Pitt took them, refusing to accept the change with exactly the right casual air. ‘Certainly not, my dear chap; we’re beholden to you.’

‘Oh, I’ll nip off ’ome then; the missus will be wondering where I’ve got to. So long, guv.’

‘So long.’ Mr Ross-Pitt went back into the room and stowed everything away tidily, fed the animals and then thoughtfully put them on the end of the bed. Henrietta didn’t open her eyes but he saw her little smile.

‘Will you leave a small light on, Mrs Gregg? Perhaps we might have a word downstairs.’

The word, accompanied by the handing-over of suitable financial support, didn’t take long. ‘Miss Cowper should be in hospital, but I am sure that you will take good care of her. Someone will visit her tomorrow to make sure that she is quite comfortable, but I know I can depend on you, Mrs Gregg.’

Mrs Gregg fingered the notes in her pocket and assured him that she would look after Henrietta like a mother.

Which she did. She wasn’t one to bother about her various tenants—as long as they paid their rent and kept quite quiet she felt no concern for them—but Henrietta was a good tenant, paid her rent on the dot and was as quiet as a mouse. No gentlemen-friends, either. Mrs Gregg would have done her best for her even without being paid for it.

As it was, she rose to the occasion, going upstairs several times during the night and following morning, warming milk, offering cold drinks, feeding the cat and kitten. She washed Henrietta’s face and hands and straightened the bed while Henrietta tottered, wrapped in her dressing gown, down to the floor below to the loo, where she was quietly sick, to return, very wobbly on her feet, and climb thankfully back into bed.

The doctor with whom she had registered came to see her later that day. He was a busy man with a large practice but, asked courteously by Mr Ross-Pitt to visit Henrietta, he had consented to do so. He had agreed, too, to let him know if she showed signs of improvement.

He had been taken aback at the sight of the attic; she had been to his surgery once or twice and he had formed the vague opinion that she was a cut above his usual patient, probably living in one of the new blocks of flats springing up on the bulldozed sites of abandoned terraced houses.

He examined her carefully, wondering why Mr Ross-Pitt, whom he had met once or twice at the hospital, should take an interest in her. He had said something about her working at St Alkelda’s, which would account for it, he supposed.

He phoned the hospital later and, since Mr Ross-Pitt wasn’t available, he left a message. Miss Cowper was suffering from flu and not feeling too good, but she seemed a sensible young woman, taking her antibiotics and staying in bed, and her landlady appeared to be a good sort.

His message was received with a grunt as Mr Ross-Pitt bent over the operating table; the girl was in good hands now, so he forgot about her, absorbed in a tricky bit of surgery which demanded his powerful concentration.

At the end of the day Mr Ross-Pitt remembered Henrietta again, though. It would do no harm to make sure that Mrs Gregg was looking after her. He stopped the car outside a small flower shop near the hospital gates, picked a bunch of daffodils and narcissi at random and drove to Mrs Gregg’s house.

Waiting for her to open the door, he felt impatient; he had had a long day and he would have to spend the night at his flat It was imperative that he visited his patient later that night and if necessary in the early morning; the quiet evening that he had been looking forward to would have to be curtailed.

The door opened at last and Mrs Gregg stood aside and allowed him to enter.

‘Upstairs I was, sir; came as quick as I could. Do you want to see Henrietta?’

‘Please. I understand her doctor has been?’