Scold's Bridle

'I don't work it that way.'

'How do you work it then?'

But Hughes refused to say another word.

I have brought Joanna and her baby home to live with me. I could not believe the squalor I found them in when I arrived in London. Joanna has given up all attempts at caring for the child or even practising elementary hygiene. She is clearfy not fit to live alone and, while I abhorred that wretched Jew she married, at least while he was alive she had some pretensions to normality.

I am very afraid that the shock of Steven's death has sent her over the edge. She was in the baby's room this morning, holding a pillow over the cot. I asked her what she was doing, and she said: 'Nothing,' but I have no doubt at all that, had I entered the room a few minutes later, the pillow would have been across the baby's face. The awful part is that I saw myself standing there, like some ghastfy reflection in a distorted mirror. The shock was tremendous. Does Joanna suspect? Does anyone, other than Jane, suspect?

There is no cure for inbred insanity. 'Unnatural deeds do breed unnatural troubles...'

*13*

Jane Marriott marched into Sarah's office in the I Fontwell surgery the following morning after the last 'patient had left and deposited herself firmly in a chair. Sarah glanced at her. 'You're looking very cross,' she remarked as she signed off some paperwork.

'I feel cross.'

'What about?'

'You.'

Sarah folded her arms. 'What have I done?'

'You've lost your compassion.' Jane tapped a stern finger against her watch. 'I know I used to wig you about the length of time you spent on your patients, but I admired you for the trouble you took. Now, suddenly, they're in and out like express trains. Poor old Mrs. Henderson was almost in tears. 'What have I done to upset Doctor?' she asked me. 'She hardly had a kind word for me.' You really mustn't let this business over Mathilda get to you, Sarah. It's not fair on other people.' She drew an admonishing breath. 'And don't tell me I'm only the receptionist and you're the doctor. Doctors are fallible, just like the rest of us.'

Sarah pushed some papers about her desk with the point of her pencil. 'Do you know what Mrs. Henderson's first words to me were when she came in? 'I reckon it's safe to come back to you, Doctor, seeing as how it was that bitch of a daughter what done it.' And she lied to you. I didn't have a single kind word for her. I told her the truth for once, that the only thing wrong with her is an acidulated spleen which could be cured immediately if she looked for the good in people instead of the bad.' She wagged the pencil under Jane's nose. 'I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that Mathilda was right. This village is one of the nastiest places on earth, peopled entirely by ignorant, evil-minded bigots with nothing better to do in their lives than sit and pass judgement on anyone who doesn't conform to their commonplace, petty-minded stereotypes. It's not compassion I've lost, it's my blinkers.'

Jane removed the pencil from Sarah's grasp before it could lodge itself in her nostril. 'She's a lonely old widow, with little or no education, and she was trying in her very ham-fisted way to say sorry for ever having doubted you. If you haven't the generosity of spirit to make allowances for her clumsy diplomacy then you are not the woman I thought you were. And for your information, she now thinks she is suffering from a very severe condition, namely acidulated spleen, which you are refusing to treat. And she's put that down to the cuts in the Health Service and the fact that, as an old woman, she is now considered expendable.'

Sarah sighed. 'She wasn't the only one. They're all cock-a-hoop because they think Joanna did it and I resent them using me and my surgery to score points off her.' She pulled her fingers through her hair. 'Because that's what today was all about, Jane, a sort of childish yah-boo-sucks at their latest victim, and if Jack hadn't decided to play silly buggers, then there wouldn't have been so much for them to gossip about.'

'Don't you believe it,' said Jane tartly. 'What they can't get any other way they make up.'

'Hah! And you have the nerve to haul me over the coals for cynicism!'

'Oh, don't assume I'm not just as irritated as you are by their silliness. Of course I am, but then I don't expect anything else. They haven't changed just because Mathilda's died, you know, and I must say it's a bit rich accusing Mrs. Henderson of only seeing the bad in people when the greatest exponent of that has just left you a small fortune. Mrs. Henderson's view of people is positively saintly compared with Mathilda's. She really did have an acidulated spleen.'

'All right. Point taken. I'll drop in on Mrs. H. on my way home.'

'Well, I hope you'll be gracious enough to apologize to her. Perhaps I'm being over-sensitive but she did seem so upset, and it's not like you to be cruel, Sarah.'

'I feel cruel,' she growled. 'As a matter of interest, do you talk to the male doctors like this?'

'No.'

'I see.'

Jane bridled. 'You don't see anything. I'm fond of you. If your mother were here she would be saying the same things. You should never allow events to sour your nature, Sarah. You leave that particular weakness to the Mathildas of this world.'

Sarah felt a surge of affection for the elderly woman, whose apple cheeks had grown rosy with indignation. Her mother, of course, would say no such thing, merely purse her lips and declare that she had always known Sarah was sour at heart. It took someone with Jane's generosity to see that other people were diplomatically inept, or weak, or disillusioned. 'You're asking me to betray my principles,' she said mildly.

'No, my dear, I'm asking you to stand by them.'