“Yes. They all say the same,” agreed Macdonald. “They like Dr. Ferens, but they miss old Dr. Brown.”
“He was homely-like. Never frightened the childer,” said Hannah.
“Look, Hannah: as we’re going upstairs, you can show me just what happened when Dr. Brown came for his weekly visit. He came on Monday mornings, didn’t he?”
“Iss. Mondays at eleven to the minute. I was always ready for he, to open door and take he up to dispensary, and the childer, they was ready and waiting, too.”
“I’ll go to the front door and you can let me in and pretend I’m Doctor,” said Macdonald, and she nodded, evidently quite proud to be asked to assist.
Hannah was nothing if not thorough. She had been drilled to the same actions for so many years that she performed them accurately. On opening the front door, she said: “Good morning, Doctor,” and waited. Macdonald said, “Good morning, Hannah . . . My hat and gloves . . .” (He had neither.)
“And your stick,” she said firmly, setting them on a chair in dumb show. “If you’ll kindly step upstairs, Sister’s quite ready.”
She led the way up to the little room called the dispensary, knocked on the door, and opened it. “Doctor, Sister.”
There were two chairs, and Hannah indicated the more important for Macdonald. “Doctor’d mention the weather and maybe his rheumatiz,” she went on. “Sister would answer very polite—her stood up by table, see—and Doctor’d say, ‘Anything to report?’ and generally ’twas, ‘All doing nicely, thank you, Doctor,’ and her would show him lists of the children’s weights and that, and mention if we’d any in bed. And then him’d say: ‘Well, have them in. I like to see them,’ and then I’d go to door, so, them being all ready on landing, and them’d come in, walking round table so, while Sister said their names: girls first, then boys. And us taught them all to say, ‘Good morning, Doctor. Thank you.’ And times he’d stop one and say, ‘Put out your tongue, now. Sister will give you a nice drop of summat tonight,’ though ’twas always that Gregory powder he meant, and a real poisonous taste that has; and then I’d see the childer go downstairs all quiet and respectful-like and Cook’d be waiting with their milk and a bite o’ summat. If so be we had any in bed, I’d show the way up and wait inside by bedroom door till Doctor and Sister had done, and then I’d bring they down in here again. And maybe Doctor’d write an order if so be we wanted more medicine or plasters or suchlike, and he’d give the paper to Sister and her would copy the order in her book, and Doctor might say a word or two about they in the village—new babies and the old folks he called his dear old chronics—and then he’d always say: ‘Mustn’t stand gossiping. Hannah wants to get on with her work and I can’t find the way downstairs unless her shows me,’ and in winter maybe he’d say, ‘Give me an arm, Hannah, my dear. My rheumatiz is playing up today, and you two women’ll be the death of me with your polished floors,’ and I’d take he downstairs and give mun his hat and his gloves and his stick and say, ‘Good mornin’, Doctor, and thank you.’ ’Twas always the same.”
“Thank you, Hannah,” said Macdonald. “You’ve got a very good memory. Now when Dr. Brown wrote the orders for more medicine from the chemist, didn’t he ever look in the medicine cupboard?” Hannah’s face puckered in disappointment. “I did forget to put that bit in,” she said. “Doctor, he had many a good laugh at our medicine cupboard. ‘None o’ they newfangled notions here,’ he’d say. ‘Gregory powder and Epsom salts and cascara, bicarb, chlorate o’ potash, ammonia-quinine, cod-liver oil, and castor oil: good old-fashioned remedies and you can’a beat they.’ ”
She went through her list complacently, and Macdonald told Reeves later that the list sent a reminiscent shiver down his own back. He had been dosed with all those remedies in his own childhood, and the one he had resented most was the chlorate of potash tablets, which had tasted repellent. He got up, took the keys from his pocket, and unlocked the medicine cupboard. It was a tall built-in cupboard with double doors. In the right-h and section were all the “good old-fashioned remedies,” together with medicine glasses, thermometers still in their glass of disinfectant, methylated spirits, enamelled basins, rolls of bandages and cotton wool, boracic powder, and carbolic ointment. All the bottles were clean and polished and not a drip or stain sullied the scrubbed shelves. The other half of the cupboard was latched top and bottom; when opened, it showed one of the shelves shut in by an extra door labelled ‘Poisons.’ Macdonald unlocked it and surveyed the contents: there were several bottles of disinfectant, camphorated oil, chlorodyne—and a bottle of aspirin. Hannah pointed at the latter.
“Sister never did hold with they,” she said. “The housemaids would make free with aspirin and suchlike if so be they’d a headache or that, and Sister wouldn’t have it noways. If so be we found they’d been a-buying they when them was out, Sister’d take ’em away. Her always went through their rooms reg’lar, and the place they’d hide things in you’d never believe.” (When Macdonald repeated this to Reeves, the latter so far forgot himself as to say, “I can’t think why the woman wasn’t drowned years ago—poor brats of girls.”) “Sister always kept this cupboard locked,
