Doctor in Clover

'Thank God for that,' they cried together.

'Now, if you please, Dr Grimsdyke, we shall return to your surgery.' He pulled out that great gold watch of his. 'We have really little time for discussion before the four o'clock train.'

Sir Lancelot didn't mention the patient on our way back to the uncle's cottage, being more interested in describing all the different methods of thatching. I had to wait till he was enjoying a cup of tea in the parlour, when he declared:

'Apart from an uncomplicated healing fracture, there's nothing whatever wrong with Lord Nutbeam. But there's one thing he needs desperately-an interest in life. Believe me, it's perfectly easy to be bored to death. What do you suggest?'

'More books, sir?'

Sir Lancelot seemed to find this amusing.

'From you, Grimsdyke, a remarkable answer. The advice about never judging others by yourself is one of the stupider of proverbs. If humanity didn't show an astounding sameness, the practice of medicine would come to a dead stop.'

He spread a scone with clotted cream and strawberry jam.

'I agree that after a lifetime playing the recluse, Lord Nutbeam's expedition to hospital was something of a shock. With the appalling advance of specialization, hospitals have become quite overcrowded with staff-it is, of course, completely impossible to get any rest in them. Did you notice his nurses?'

'As a matter of fact I did, sir. There was a staff nurse and-'

Sir Lancelot raised his hand. 'It is quite enough answer, Grimsdyke, that you noticed them. No doubt Lord Nutbeam finds the amateur ministrations of his sister-in-law less agreeable. I shall send down a qualified nurse from a London bureau tomorrow. You will see to it that she isn't overruled by the family.'

'That might be a bit difficult, sir.'

'Rubbish!' He helped himself to a slice of fruit cake. 'There's only one way to handle difficult patients, difficult relatives, and difficult horses, and that's by keeping on top. I hope my visit has clothed you with a little added authority. That's often the only value of the consultant appearing on the scene at all.'

'How about tonics, sir?'

'To my mind there is only one effective tonic. I shall arrange for that to be sent from London also. I think I have time for another cup of tea, if you please. By the by,' he went on, as I put down the pot. 'You knew your cousin Miles was putting up for the consultant staff at St Swithin's?'

'He did mention it to me, sir.'

'How's he fancy his chances?'

'I think he's modest by nature, sir,' I replied cagily.

'H'm. I am only betraying an open secret by saying that Cambridge is being remarkably difficult in the selection committee. Obstinacy is such an extremely unpleasing characteristic.' Sir Lancelot stroked his beard. 'How are your relations with your cousin?'

'We do rather move in different worlds, sir.'

'I don't know if you are sufficiently familiar to drop a hint that his chances at St Swithin's would be considerably bettered if he were a little more disgustingly human. Otherwise he's an exemplary candidate. His work has ability, his manner has confidence, and, what is more important, his wife has money. But whoever the committee elects, you have to live with the feller for the rest of your professional lifetime. And nothing is more trying than being yoked to a pillar of virtue, as you can find from the divorce courts any afternoon.'

'I'm sure Miles is dedicated to his profession, sir,' I remarked, taking the chance to slip in a good word for the chap.

'Nothing,' declared Sir Lancelot, 'is quite so dangerous as the dedicated man.' Shortly afterwards I drove him to the station. I no longer had any qualms about tackling the Nutbeams, even over the nurse.

'A nurse? That will be rather tedious, Doctor,' Amanda objected at once. 'We had one in the house before, the time my husband had pneumonia. It really was most difficult. They feel quite entitled to have their meals at the same table, and even attempt to sit with one in the evenings.'

This annoyed me more, because I'm a great admirer of the nursing profession, or at least of some of it. Remembering Sir Lancelot's advice, I said pretty stuffily, 'If you don't obey your doctor's orders, there really isn't much point in having one.'

'I assure you I can put up with any inconvenience for the sake of my brother-in-law's health,' she returned. 'I will instruct the housekeeper to prepare a room immediately.'

I myself wasn't much looking forward to sharing the clinical management of Lord Nutbeam with a nurse, knowing how Sir Lancelot's taste in them lay. His ward sisters at St Swithin's were a couple of women who could have kept Attila the Hun in bed for a month on bread-and-milk, and I expected someone about six feet tall with a chin like a football boot, old enough to have spanked Lord Nutbeam as a baby and tough enough to try it now. It was therefore with some astonishment that I arrived at Nutbeam Hall the next evening to discover the most beautiful girl I'd seen in my life.

'Good evening, Doctor,' she greeted me. 'I am Nurse Jones. I have given the patient his bath, and he is ready for you to see him now.'

I couldn't do anything except stare and bless my luck. She was a dainty, demure creature, with a little bow thing under her chin. She looked like Snow-White, just growing out of her dwarfs. I was hopeful that our professional relationship would quickly ripen into something more promising, the sub-postmistress being all very well for country rambles but having the annoying habit of continually explaining how you counted postal orders.

'Oh, jolly good,' I said. 'I hope you like it here in the country? Perhaps you'd care to see the local beauty spots one afternoon when you're off duty?'

She gave a smile as gentle as the ripples on the village pond.

'That is really most kind of you, Doctor, but I'm afraid I shan't find much time to spare with such an important case.'

'We'll see, eh?' Nothing brings a man and woman together like treating someone else's illnesses. 'Let's go and inspect his Lordship.'

I found Lord Nutbeam sitting in bed sipping a glass of champagne.

'Where on earth did that come from?' I exclaimed.

'But the note from Fortnum and Mason's said you'd ordered it for me, Doctor.'

'Oh, did I? Yes, of course I did. Bollinger, eh? Sir Lancelot's favourite tipple. Jolly good tonic, don't you find?'

'I would never take alcohol except on doctor's orders, of course. But I must say, it does make me feel extremely well. How much do you want me to drink of it, Doctor? I believe six dozen bottles arrived downstairs.'

I murmured something about a bottle a day keeping the doctor away, and invited myself to a drop.

'How do you like your new nurse?' I asked, as she disappeared to find a glass.

Lord Nutbeam thought for some moments.

'She reminds me of a little Crabbe.'

'She doesn't walk sideways,' I said, feeling this rather uncomplimentary.

'Courteous though coy, and gentle though retired,' he quoted. 'The joy of youth and health her eyes display'd. And ease of heart her every look convey'd."

I felt that the case had taken a turn for the better.

11

Nurse Jones was a great success all round. In a couple of days she had old Nutbeam out of his wheel-chair tottering round sniffing the flowers. The next week she'd taken to driving him about the countryside of an afternoon in the Daimler. And, calling one lunch-time, I was surprised to see he'd gone off his usual diet of poached egg on pulverized spinach and was tucking into a steak the size of a bath-mat.

Even the Percy Nutbeams didn't object to the new regime, partly because his Lordship was every day in every way getting better and better, and partly because of the way Nurse Jones handled the missus. Nurses are charming girls, though unfortunately inclined to be bossy, doubtless the effect of spending their formative years telling old men to get back into bed. But Nurse Jones was as sweet and gentle as Gee's Linctus, and always took care to address Mrs Nutbeam like an Edwardian housemaid straight out of the orphanage.