Love in a Mist by Susan Scarlett

Author:Susan Scarlett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dean Street Press
Published: 2022-07-22T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 4

Emma Takes a Hand

Dad-Tring was not one as a rule to let things get on his mind. The moment he felt something irritating him he got annoyed, and then he took action. His unchristened grandchildren had been on his mind, and though he was annoyed, he had not taken action. This was partly due to Emma’s tact but mainly to the doctor. Doctor Charles Wilks was the jovial, friend-of-the-family type of doctor. He had owned an enormous practice in which he had, with the quietest of consciences, soaked the rich to pay for the poor. With the coming of the National Health Service, still with the quietest of consciences, he had so balanced his affairs that he might live in the manner to which he was accustomed. The poor and medium incomes obviously paid nothing, but the rich, in spite of sticking expensive stamps weekly on to a health card, got no visits from him unless they paid, and paid in cash. “Must do it,” he told Dad-Tring. “They can come to my surgery if they like, but if they want to lie in their beds it’s cash; with those few pounds free of income tax I can just get by.”

Dad-Tring knew this to be only a partial truth. He was quite aware that many guineas free of income tax slipped into the doctor’s pockets, but he also knew that if there were real illness it made no difference whether the patient were rich or poor, the doctor would be at the bedside fighting for a life or easing somebody’s way out of the world, with never a thought of himself, rewards from the Health Service or from anybody else. Dad thought the world of the doctor. They were fellow Masons and Rotarians, and were usually to be seen roaring with laughter while they told each other broad jokes; actually beneath this façade of merriment they were solid friends. The doctor shortened Dad-Tring to D.T., and Dad called him Charles. It had been in one of their quiet, friendly times together that the unchristened state of Jimmie had first been discussed. The doctor had listened while Dad, his face more like the cliffs of Dover than usual, had exploded about “That damn daughter-in-law of mine”. “Never have anythin’ to do with a clever woman, Charles,” and “It’s a disgrace that’s what it is. A grandson of mine no better than a heathen.” When there was a pause he had broken in:

“Nothing to do with me, of course, D.T., but I see a lot of women every day, and your Doris may be pig-headed, but she’s not a fool. If she says she won’t have little Jim christened, then she won’t. That clever sort would rather be burned at the stake than do something that seems to them old-fashioned and foolish.”

Dad had let out a sound as if he were ejecting Doris from his mouth.

“You call a christenin’ old-fashioned or foolish?”

“I don’t. I don’t call curing a wart by as

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