'No. I don't want to see you at all. The nurse will show you out.'
I left him shaking his head and fumbling nervously with his pince-nez. The poor chap looked as though he really ought to have seen a psychiatrist.
'How did you get on?' asked Connie, answering the door when I called to report.
'Well, I think I won.'
'I hope he recommended shock treatment. Your Uncle Rudolph's in the sitting-room.'
'Good Lord, is he really? Where's Miles?'
'Out on a case. But don't worry-Uncle only wants to offer you a job. One of those rich patients who've been buying up the local country houses has asked him to Jamaica for a holiday. As he's got twenty-four hours to find a locum for the next three months, I suggested you.'
'That's really very decent of you, Connie.'
Since returning from the East, the old uncle had settled at Long Wotton, a pleasant niche in the Cotswolds with thatched roofs and draught cider and cows in the High Street. My session with the psychiatrist not producing much alternative to a lifetime of GP, and Miles' ten quid already having undergone severe amputation, I felt glad of a decent job anywhere. I consoled myself that half rural practice is veterinary medicine anyway, and I'm rather fond of animals.
'My daughter-in-law talked to me for thirty minutes before persuading me to take you as my locum,' Uncle Rudolph greeted me. He was smaller and bristlier than Miles, with hair and eyebrows like steel wool under the influence of powerful magnets, and an equally prickly ginger tweed suit.
'That's very civil of you, uncle,' I told him, 'but as a matter of fact, you're not putting me to any trouble, as I'm quite free at the moment.'
'If you come to Long Wotton on Thursday, I can hand over. My Mrs Wilson will look after you adequately. Though she is attuned to the habits of an elderly widower, so don't expect champagne and caviar for breakfast.'
'Good Lord, no. I couldn't possibly manage anything heavier than cornflakes in the morning, anyway.'
'Kindly remember, Gaston, that there are a large number of important people in the neighbourhood. Most of them are my patients, and I wish them to remain so. Now listen to me. I understand from Miles that you are short of cash?'
'I am rather undernourished in the pocket at the moment,' I admitted.
'You know I have certain funds under my control which I saved you dissipating as a medical student. If you behave sensibly and efficiently at Long Wotton I am prepared to release them. If not, you will have to wait until my demise. And I can assure you that my blood-pressure is excellent.'
'All that matters, uncle,' I told him, 'is giving you satisfaction. In fact, you might just as well advance me the cash now.'
But he didn't seem to grasp the point, and hurriedly asked Connie to fetch him another whisky and soda. Shortly afterwards Miles came in, and nobody took much notice of me any more.
8
I arrived in the country on one of those April days when all the flowers look freshly painted and all the girls look beautiful. The English spring had arrived, as described in the poems and travel advertisements instead of the grey slushy thing we usually get.
I'd already spent a few week-ends at Long Wotton, and found it a friendly place where the inhabitants are all acquainted, if not, as I later suspected from the general feeblemindedness, all actually related. Although I'm not much of a one for country pursuits-guns make such a frightful noise, fishing gives me a bad cold for weeks, and I regard horses as highly unroadworthy vehicles-it was pleasant to find myself respected locally as a learned chap, and not just the fellow who dishes out the chits for false teeth. Also, there was a very amiable young sub- postmistress, and I was looking forward to a few months quietly letting life go by and Avril Atkinson and Porterhampton fade into my subconscious.
After a week or so I was even becoming a little bored, with existence presenting no problems more complicated than keeping the uncle's housekeeper happy, and she seemed very satisfied with the story of the bishop and the parrot. Then I returned one evening from repairing the effects of a pitchfork on some bumpkin's left foot-a very pleasant consultation, with everyone touching their forelocks and asking if I could use a side of bacon- and found the old dear herself standing at the garden gate, looking distraught.
'Doctor, Doctor!' she called. 'Something terrible's happened.'
I was a bit alarmed the cream might have gone off. I was looking forward to my evening meal of fresh salmon followed by early strawberries, particularly as the old uncle had overlooked handing over the cellar keys in his hurry to be off, and I'd just found them-buried under the coal in the outhouse, of all places.
'Doctor, you're to go at once,' she went on. 'It's very urgent. To Nutbeam Hall,' she explained, when I asked where. 'It's his Lordship, there's been a terrible accident.'
A bit of a tragedy, I felt. Fancy missing a dinner like that. But the Grimsdykes never shirk their professional duty, and pausing only to load the Bentley with sufficient splints and morphine to tackle a train crash, I sped up the road to Nutbeam Hall.
Everyone in Long Wotton knew Lord Nutbeam, of course, though I don't mean they played darts with him every night in the local. In fact, most of the inhabitants had never seen him. The old boy was a bachelor, who lived in a rambling house apparently designed by Charles Addams, his younger brother's missus doing such things as ordering the coal and paying the milkman. He appeared only occasionally when they gave him an airing in an old Daimler like a mechanized glasshouse, always with brother or wife as bodyguard.
This was the pair who received me in the hall, a long, dim place crammed with furniture and as stuffy as the inside of the family vault.
'I'm the doctor,' I announced.
'But Dr Grimsdyke-?'
'Dr Rudolph Grimsdyke is enjoying a little well-earned holiday. I'm his locum and nephew, Dr Gaston Grimsdyke.'
I saw them exchange glances. The Hon. Percy Nutbeam was a fat chap with a complexion like an old whisky- vat, which I suppose he'd acquired at his brother's expense. His wife was one of those sharp-faced little women with incisors like fangs, to whom I took an instant dislike.
'Of course, I'm perfectly well qualified,' I added, sensing they might not take kindly to anyone but the accredited family practitioner.
'Naturally, naturally,' agreed Percy Nutbeam, very sociably. 'We don't question that for a moment.'
'I am sure you've had very extensive experience, Doctor,' put in the wife.
'Well, very varied, anyway. Look here,' I told them, feeling rather awkward, 'unless it's a matter of saving life on the spot, if you'd rather call another practitioner-'
'Not at all,' said Mrs Nutbeam briskly.
'My husband and I have the utmost confidence in your handling his Lordship's case. Haven't we, Percy?'
'Of course, Amanda.'
I must admit this made me feel pretty pleased. The old uncle's full of homely advice about wool next to the skin and so on, but after all those years among the hookworm and beriberi he's as out of date in medical practice as a Gladstone bag. I could see they were delighted at an up-to-date chap like myself with all the latest from hospital.
'Then what's the trouble?' I asked.
'We fear a broken hip, doctor,' announced Amanda Nutbeam. 'That's serious, I believe?'
'Could be. Very.'
'Our aunt died after a broken hip,' murmured Percy.
'It all depends on the constitution of the patient,' I told them, remembering my orthopaedic lectures.
'Please let me impress upon you, Doctor,' said Amanda, 'that his Lordship is very delicate.'
'Very delicate indeed,' added her husband.
