“Fower percent,” mimicked the doctor brutally. “Why, what does an ignorant creature like you know about fower percent.”
The woman muttered a little under her breath.
“What? Speak out. Let me hear what you’ve got to say, my woman. I’ve no doubt it’s something for my benefit—”
But the affronted woman rushed out of the room, and burst into tears on the landing. After which Dr. Mitchell, mollified, largely told the patient how she was to behave, concluding:
“Nourishment! Nourishment is what you want. Nonsense, don’t tell me you can’t take it. Push it down if it won’t go down by itself—”
“Oh doctor—”
“Don’t say ‘oh doctor’ to me. Do as I tell you. That’s your business.” After which he marched out, and the rattle of his motor car was shortly heard.
Alvina got used to scenes like these. She wondered why the people stood it. But soon she realized that they loved it—particularly the women.
“Oh, nurse, stop till Dr. Mitchell’s been. I’m scared to death of him, for fear he’s going to shout at me.”
“Why does everybody put up with him?” asked innocent Alvina.
“Oh, he’s good-hearted, nurse, he does feel for you.”
And everywhere it was the same: “Oh, he’s got a heart, you know. He’s rough, but he’s got a heart. I’d rather have him than your smarmy slormin’ sort. Oh, you feel safe with Dr. Mitchell, I don’t care what you say.”
But to Alvina this peculiar form of blustering, bullying heart which had all the women scurrying like chickens was not particularly attractive.
The men did not like Dr. Mitchell, and would not have him if possible. Yet since he was club doctor and panel doctor, they had to submit. The first thing he said to a sick or injured labourer, invariably, was:
“And keep off the beer.”
“Oh ay!”
“Keep off the beer, or I shan’t set foot in this house again.”
“Tha’s got a red enough face on thee, tha nedna shout.”
“My face is red with exposure to all weathers, attending ignorant people like you. I never touch alcohol in any form.”
“No, an’ I dunna. I drink a drop o’ beer, if that’s what you ca’ touchin’ alcohol. An’ I’m none th’ wuss for it, tha sees.”
“You’ve heard what I’ve told you.”
“Ah, I have.”
“And if you go on with the beer, you may go on with curing yourself. I shan’t attend you. You know I mean what I say, Mrs. Larrick”—this to the wife.
“I do, doctor. And I know it’s true what you say. An’ I’m at him night an’ day about it—”
“Oh well, if he will hear no reason, he must suffer for it. He mustn’t think I’m going to be running after him, if he disobeys my orders.” And the doctor stalked off, and the woman began to complain.
None the less the women had their complaints against Dr. Mitchell. If ever Alvina entered a clean house on a wet day, she was sure to hear the housewife chuntering.
“Oh my lawk, come in nurse! What a day! Doctor’s not been yet. And he’s bound to come now I’ve just cleaned up, trapesin’ wi’ his gret feet. He’s got the biggest understandin’s of any man i’ Lancaster. My husband says they’re the best pair o’ pasties i’ th’ kingdom. An’ he does make such a mess, for he never stops to wipe his feet on th’ mat, marches straight up your clean stairs—”
“Why don’t you tell him to wipe his feet?” said Alvina.
“Oh my word! Fancy me telling him! He’d jump down my throat with both feet afore I’d opened my mouth. He’s not to be spoken to, he isn’t. He’s my-lord, he is. You mustn’t look, or you’re done for.”
Alvina laughed. She knew they all liked him for browbeating them, and having a heart over and above.
Sometimes he was given a good hit—though nearly always by a man. It happened he was in a workman’s house when the man was at dinner.
“Canna yer gi’e a man summat better nor this ’ere pap, Missis?” said the hairy husband, turning up his nose at the rice pudding.
“Oh go on,” cried the wife. “I hadna time for owt else.” Dr. Mitchell was just stooping his handsome figure in the doorway.
“Rice pudding!” he exclaimed largely. “You couldn’t have anything more wholesome and nourishing. I have a rice pudding every day of my life—every day of my life, I do.”
The man was eating his pudding and pearling his big moustache copiously with it. He did not answer.
“Do you doctor!” cried the woman. “And never no different.”
“Never,” said the doctor.
“Fancy that! You’re that fond of them?”
“I find they agree with me. They are light and digestible. And my stomach is as weak as a baby’s.”
The labourer wiped his big moustache on his sleeve.
“Mine isna, tha sees,” he said, “so pap’s no use. ’S watter ter me. I want ter feel as I’ve had summat: a bit o’ suetty dumplin’ an’ a pint o’ hale, summat ter fill th’ hole up. An’ tha’d be th’ same if tha did my work.”
“If I did your work,” sneered the doctor. “Why I do ten times the work that any one of you does. It’s just the work that has ruined my digestion, the never getting a quiet meal, and never a whole night’s rest. When do you think I can sit at table and digest my dinner? I have to be off looking after people like you—”
“Eh, tha can ta’e th’ titty-bottle wi’ thee,” said the labourer.
But Dr. Mitchell was furious for weeks over this. It put him in a black rage to have his great manliness insulted. Alvina was quietly amused.
The doctor began by being rather lordly and condescending with her. But luckily she felt she knew her work at least as well as he knew it. She smiled and let him condescend. Certainly she neither feared nor even admired him. To tell the truth, she rather disliked him: the great, red-faced bachelor of fifty-three, with his bald spot and his stomach as weak as a baby’s, and his mouthing imperiousness and his
