A Man To Tame - Rachel Lindsay (Roberta Leigh) (4 page)

'As Peter recommended the job,' she
murmured, ‘he suggested I leave all the arrangements to him.'

'I'm surprised you didn't consider
it a sign of weakness to do so.'

'I try to find advantages in being
female, Mr Howard, and leave others to find the
disadvantages.'

He did not appear to appreciate the
comment, nor did he ask if she wanted another cup of coffee, but stood up to
indicate the lunch was over. 'I will have Dermot Kane show you around.'

She nodded and walked beside him as
they left 4he private dining room. The large one was already deserted and
glancing at her watch she saw they had only been an hour at lunch. But
obviously this was considered too long for the man beside her, for he had
increased Ms stride as though he were impatient to
return to his office. Unwilling to lag behind Mm, she half-ran to keep up with
him and her breath was fast and shallow by the time he reached the end of the
corridor. Expecting Mm to stop at his secretary's door, she barely stopped
herself in time. As it was her arm brushed against his and she drew back
sharply. Close to Mm she felt even smaller than usual and had to tilt her head
back sharply in order to look into Ms face. He must be
all of six foot three, she surmised, and had the build of a rugger
player. No wonder he had felt he could ride rough-shod over her when he had
seen her.

He opened the door and beckoned her
to go in ahead of him. She did so and Dermot Kane jumped up from a chair. He
glanced from her to his employer and appeared to read the man's expression, for
he gave Kate a faint smile.

'Show Dr Gibson where the surgery
is,' Joshua Howard said abruptly, 'then take her and
get her settled in the house.'

‘What house?' she asked, turning
quickly to look at him.

‘Read your letters, Dr Gibson,' he
said coldly. ‘You will find it all written there.'

Colour came and went in her cheeks and without a word she walked
out He really was the most insufferable man she had met!

'Don't let him rile you,' Dermot
Kane said, falling into step beside her. 'If he knows he can get under your
skin he'll do it all the more.'

'You mean he's a sadist as well as
a bully?' Even as she spoke she knew how childish the words sounded. 'Don't
take any notice of me, Mr Kane. I'm tired and in a
bad mood.'

'It must be an ordeal taking up a
new post.' 'It isn't easy,' she admitted. 'You knew Mr
Howard would try to send me away, didn't you?' she continued.

knew he hadn't realised you were
a woman when he engaged you. You signed your letters K. Gibson. I spent quite a
time wondering what it stood for. I finally came up with Kenneth. It never
dawned on me it would be——-' He paused. 'What actually is it?'

'Kate.' Her look was still
speculative. That's why you didn't recognise me when
I got off the train this morning-'

'I was looking for a middle-aged
man in tweeds!'

'It's Peter's fault,' she said
crossly and, seeing Dermot Kane's questioning look, added: 'He's one of the
partners in the group practice where I've been working. He knows Mr Howard personally. It was foolish of him not to warn me
he was a woman-hater.’

'Howard a
woman-hater!' The young man stopped in
his stride. ‘You've got to be joking.'

‘Then why did he want to get rid of
me?'

'Only for the reasons he gave you.
The company has never employed a woman doctor and most of the men won't like
it.'

'I could wear a moustache.'

'On you it would look beautiful!'

She laughed and, hearing the sound,
knew it was the first time she had felt amused since she had arrived here.
Somehow it did not augur well for the future and she wondered at her temerity
in standing up to Joshua Howard. But she couldn't back down now, nor would she
give him the opportunity of dismissing her. She would not only have to tread
carefully; she would have to tread with super care.

The surgery was the most up-to-date
Kate had seen since leaving hospital. It held everything an ambitious general
practitioner could desire, plus several pieces of equipment one normally found
in a hospital.

‘
Mr
Howard spares no expense to get the best,' she commented.

'He never does. That's his motto—in
the long run the best is cheap.'

She wondered if he applied this to
everything in his life and knew a sharp curiosity to see his home and wife.
Whatever she looked like, in character she would have to be docile, of that
there was no doubt.

Kate sat down at the desk and moved
experimentally in the swivel chair. It was reassuring to see all the
instruments around her and the examination couch with its red blanket folded
neatly at one end. This was the world she knew and the people who came into it
were ones she could help and feel a sense of relationship with; unlike the
tough, incisive man with whom she had spent the last couple of hours. She would
never be able to feel at home with him.

'At last you've come into your
own,' Dermot Kane commented, and she whipped round in her chair to see him
watching her.

‘You mean I now look like a
doctor?'

'Still a most
unlikely one. You're so fragile.'

'I wield a mean scalpel!'

‘Don't get your knife into me,' he
said in mock alarm, and opened the door of the surgery. 'Come along, Mr Howard wants me to take you home and get you settled
in.'

'I was under the impression I would
be living in lodgings,' she said carefully.

‘Not unless you want to. You're
taking over Dr Morris's house. He's the chap you're temporarily replacing.'

'I see. I had assumed he would
still be living in his home.'

'
He's
convalescing in Australia by courtesy of Howard
Engineering.'

‘Mr
Howard is very generous.'

‘He is,' Dermot Kane replied.
'You'll find that out for yourself.'

Kate didn't think she would, but
followed the young man to the entrance hall.

'I haven't yet met the nurse,' she
said as they walked to the ear.

'I expect she's in the factory
tending to some minor injury.' He held open the door of the station wagon and
within a moment they were travelling through the trading estate towards the
town. On the outskirts of it, in a crescent-shaped road whose front gardens
looked on to a rectangular green and whose back gardens gave on to a view of
the hills, the car came to a stop.

The last house at the end,' Dermot
Kane said, and Kate jumped out eagerly and looked at her home-to-be. It was one
of a row of whitewashed houses, square and snug with prim little windows and a
narrow blue-painted front door.

'It's beautiful,' she said with
pleasure.

There was no comment and she
understood why, when she stepped into the hall, for the interior was dark and dingy
and held the minimum of furniture?

‘Dr
Morris seems to have gone in for brown,' she said, staring
at the paintwork and the ugly brown armchairs.

‘He didn't bother much about his
creature comforts,' Dermot Kane agreed, ‘but I'm sure Mr
Howard won't have any objection to your changing things. If you give me a list
of what you would like altered, I’ll put it in hand
right away.'

'No, thanks,' she said hastily,
unwilling to be beholden to Joshua Howard for any favours.

'It's no bother,' came the reply. 'I'm here to see you are comfortably
settled.'

'I'm sure I can manage,' she said
firmly. 'After all, this is
Dr
Morris's home and I wouldn't dream of changing it
^.’

‘We wouldn't sell his stuff,'
Dermot Kane smiled.
‘Only
just put it into storage for him. It isn't
very feminine,' he added, looking around. 'I suggest you go into Burman's at the weekend. It's the best store in Llanduff and they have a surprisingly good collection of furniture
and fabrics. Order what you like and——-'

'No, thank you,’ she said firmly.

He shrugged. 'Well, if you change
your mind, just go right ahead and do so. Incidentally, you have permission to
drive Dr Morris's car. In fact he insisted on it. It won't do it any good to
stand idly in the garage.'

'I was going to ask about
transport,' she said-with a sigh of relief, ‘but I never expected anything as
grand as
a
car. I thought I'd have to manage with a bike.'

He chuckled. 'It's a nice little
Triumph.'

'Aptly named for me,' she said
dryly, and was rewarded by another chuckle.

'I think you'll find enough food in
the larder for today,' the young man continued, 'though you'll probably need to
fill it up. The shops have nearly everything you can get in London except the
more exotic type of vegetables. For those you'll have to go to Cardiff.’

'Do you live near here?’ she asked
curiously.

'About five minutes' drive away.
I'm in digs with a Mrs Hughes.'

‘I
should think nothing is more than five minutes away from
anything else in Llanduff,' she commented.

The town isn't as small as it
looks. There's a new shopping section on the far side which you didn't see as
we drove through, and quite a big. housing estate too.
Then there's the Howard Estate where most of the employees live.' He went to
the window and pointed across the green to rows of chimneys, like a pink smudge
on the skyline. That's it,' he said. 'Five hundred houses-enough for most of
the married workers.'

'Within walking distance of me,'
she commented. 'I'm surprised Dr Morris didn't have a surgery here too.'

There's a small one set up at the
back of the house but it's nothing like the one at the factory.'

'Do show me,' she said eagerly, and
followed him through the small kitchen to the back garden. Here a onetime
conservatory had been made into a waiting room and surgery. The rooms were’
small but adequate for their requirements, and she decided that once she had
established a routine for herself at the factory she would start to have
consulting hours here too. 'Did many of the men come to see Dr Morris here?'
she asked.

They mostly saw him in the factory.
He intended this set-up to be used by the wives and children. But I gather the
experiment didn't’ turn out successfully and after a few months he said he
didn't get enough patients to make it worthwhile to open.'

Kate refused to let this
information depress her into changing her plans. With Dermot Kane beside her
she returned to the house. It realty was exceptionally dreary and cold. She
shivered and he saw it.

There's central heating here,' he
said, ‘but it works, from a boiler.' He looked at the small coal stove that
stood in the comer of the kitchen. ‘I’ll get it going for you.'

‘Please don't worry,' she said more
cheerfully than she did. 'I'll go out for a snack tonight and then see about
settling in properly during the weekend.'

‘What's wrong with tomorrow?'

‘
I
rather assumed I would be expected to start work then.'

‘Mr
Howard doesn't expect you to start until Monday. The idea of you coming down
mid-week was to give you a chance to settle in.'

'I won't need all that time to get
settled in,' she said positively. ‘I’ll be at the factory first thing in the
morning. They start at eight, don't they?'

‘Dr Morris didn't begin Until nine. Nine to eleven, three to five. The rest of the
time he Went out on visits.’

Kate felt that her predecessor had
not overworked himself. If he only had to deal with the men—since according-to
Dermot Kane the women had not utilized his services—he should have had a great
deal of spare time.

'I will keep the same hours to
begin with,’ she said, 'and increase them if——' She stopped, unwilling to say
more lest it be considered a criticism of the man whose place she was taking.

But when Dermot Kane left, having
given her his phone number and enjoined her to call him should she feel in need
of company or require any help, she thought there were many things about this
job which she intended to alter. First would be to set up surgery hours in the
house. It seemed nonsense that the work force could only consult a doctor
during working hours, and she found it surprising that Howard himself, who
seemed the picture of efficiency, had not suggested that some of the doctor's
surgery time should be in the evenings or at weekends, thus giving the men a
chance to consult him in their free time.

Leaving the dismal sitting room,
she went up to her bedroom and unpacked her things, setting out a few personal
belongings around the room. There was a faded photograph of her parents, whom
she barely remembered, since they had died when she was six, and a small colour photograph of her Aunt Mary, her mother's twin
sister who had brought her up from that time and with whom she had lived until
the woman’s death two years ago. As always when she thought of her aunt, Kate
was both happy and sad. Happy that the woman had lived to see her succeed in
her ambition to become a doctor and sad that, after all the years of scrimping
and saving to help pay towards her keep at medical school, she had died before
Kate had been able to repay her for all the sacrifices made. True, the first
thing she had done when she had joined the group practice was to move with her
aunt to a spacious flat in an old house near Regents Park, which had enabled
her aunt to enjoy the sight of trees and grass which their previous dingy flat
in Paddington had not afforded them. How Aunt Mary would have loved this house
had she been able to come and share it with her! In next to no time she would
have transformed it into a home. Kate herself would have done the same had she
moved here six months ago, but now she was too weary and anxious only to
conserve her strength for her work.

Her unpacking done, she went down
to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. The larder held only a packet of tea, a
jar of coffee, some dried milk and a box of stale biscuits. It seemed odd that
Joshua Howard had not made more welcoming arrangements for his new doctor, but
hard on this thought came the realisation that, expecting
a man, he had probably assumed she would be coming with a housekeeper or a
wife. She thought of her own flat in London—sub-let to the doctor who had taken
her place in the group practice; a nice young man who was obviously hoping she
would like Wales so much that She would want to ‘settle there. Carrying her
coffee into the sitting room, she sat on one of the straight-backed leather
chairs and had to resist the urge to pack her bags and return to London
forthwith. Only the knowledge that by so doing she would be playing into Joshua
Howard's hands kept her where she was. He wanted her to find things too
uncomfortable to stay. Well, he had a lot to learn about her. She might look
frail and she might even feel it, but she had a deep core of obstinacy which
she would call upon in lieu of strength.