i f6c06dd9cf3fe221 by Unknown (100 books to read in a lifetime .txt) 📗

Rodney wondered what he was really like. He had felt Davidson would be worth knowing, but at the same time knew it was impossible; they met seldom in the course of their rounds, and the only other way would be through social visiting. For himself, he wouldn't mind in the least, but Stella!

Well, he couldn't imagine her and the Jarrow girl, somehow.

They were in the bedroom before Rodney spoke.

"I'm sorry, Davidson, I've had to ask you to turn out on a night like this; Christmas Eve, too."

"Oh, don't let that worry you, it's all in the game. Hello, Kate 1' he said, bending over the bed, with his hands on his knees.

"You're going to have a Christmas baby, eh?"

Again that tone of familiarity. Rodney watched Kate's face; she smiled as one would at a friend. Rodney felt a little stir of professional jealousy; she hadn't smiled at him like that; nor would any of his patients, he thought, treat him as they did Davidson.

He had tried for three months to get below their wary surface; he had tried, indeed he had, to put them at their ease, little guessing that his voice alone put him in the category of "The Class' and that, in their fierce independence, they resented the necessity for what they unwordingly thought his condescension.

With great reluctance he took off his coat and rolled up his sleeves; the chill of the room seeped through his fine wool shirt and vest. As he opened his case and picked out what he required, voices from below the window came to him like words spoken through a thick towel:

"Hello there, Joe 1 Merry Christmas."

"Same to you. Jimmy. Same to you."

"Coming for a wet?"

"Ee, lad, no; ah haven't been year yet. The missis'll likely bash me over the heed when ah puts me nose in the door!"

Muffled laughter, then the thick silence from the street again.

Davidson was still talking to Kate, and a feeling of utter and absolute loneliness suddenly flooded through Rodney. He seemed divorced from every human contact and feeling; everyone he knew, his family, and Stella all stood aloof and condemning . sending out their displeasure through the bleak stares of their eyes. He saw them all as a hillside covered with sturdy oaks, and himself a little stream at their feet, bent on winding his own way past them. They were so powerful, but helpless to stop his meandering. And he had wound his way into the valley where there were these people . those men in the street, this girl on the bed, this big, burly doctor who held life steadily by the reins; they were all one. He was in their midst, but he couldn't get near them either; and, oh, he wanted the touch of some friendly hand.

He was lost in that vast, unknown and terrible continent of loneliness; it stretched on and on, very white and hopeless, and quite bare.

Good heavens The thought, this won't do. I'm lightheaded. No breakfast, no dinner; must have something as soon as this is over. He looked across at Davidson who was still talking to Kate.

"Well, there it is," he was saying.

"If you want the place it's yours. Their own girl won't Deleaving for a month, and it's five shillings a week.

So there you are, Kate; you're all set up and nothing to worry about.

"

Rodney nodded to him, and Davidson came round the toot of the bed to the wash-hand stand.

"Afraid it's going to be a bit of a job; I think it advisable to give her a whiff." He handed Davidson a bottle and a pad of cotton wool.

Davidson nodded and walked back to the bed.

"Two old boys nearly eighty and their sister about seventy, and only eight rooms. When they told me today their girl was leaving I thought of you right away, Kate;

and it's a lovely little house, down Westoe. If you go there you'll be set up. Now just breathe steadily, Kate. That's it, th . at's it.

Now we are all set," he addressed Rodney.

"That'll have eased her mind a bit; the main part of their worry is to get into a good place. Poor little beggar 1 She's only a child herself."

"Do you know her?" asked Rodney, pulling the prostrate form into position.

"Yes. Watched her grow up. Everybody knows Kate Hannigan; she was too beautiful to miss. Byl she was a lovely kiddy. It always struck me as odd how old Tim Hannigan could have a child like her. I didn't know she had got into this mess until yesterday; it surprised me. Somehow she always appeared different; quiet, a little aloof, as if she didn't quite belong around these quarters. Didn't run round with the lads, either; kept them at their distance. And if she hadn't, old Tim would have.... And now this. Poor Kate!"

Doctor Davidson gently lifted one of the long, nut- brown plaits off Kate's face with his free hand, while with the other he felt her pulse.

"Not as strong as it should be," he muttered.

"How is it to time? Was it due?"

"Yes, as far as I can gather. But I couldn't get much out of her,"

said Rodney.

"She didn't come home until the day before yesterday. She had been working in some lodging

house in Newcastle; the mother thought she was still in service. She hasn't been home for months, having made one excuse after another.

Then she turns up like this. Knowing that beast downstairs, you can't wonder at her being terrified to come home; but I should have thought the workhouse would have been preferable to facing him. Yet she seems to have a horror of it. "

The smile disappeared from Doctor Davidson's face as he asked.

"You don't know much about the workhouse, do