By
Sylvia Lloyd (pseud. , ©1965
Cover
illustration by Martin Koenig
Also published as Dr. Walker’s People
Lovely,
city-bred Claudia Snowden came to Maine to nurse her aging aunt—isolated in a
remote New England village. Expecting to find an old-fashioned doctor using
outmoded methods, Claudia found herself working instead with young, handsome
Dr. Adams—who was as dedicated as the top-notch physicians she had worked with
in the city… so dedicated that Claudia apparently could not tear his attention
away from his work to herself. Should she abandon all hope of ever reaching
this aloof doctor and say yes to the man who really needed her?
GRADE: B+
REVIEW:
When we first meet Claudia Snowden, she’s standing in her
rich great-aunt’s over-decorated living room in Reachwood, Maine, evaluating
the contents for its monetary value (she doesn’t find it) and wondering, “Where
was the Snowden money?” She’s been dispatched to this godforsaken backwoods to
care for old Elizabeth Snowden, an aging spinster with pneumonia, by her
widowed mother in the hope of securing a prominent position in the old bag’s
will. But Claudia is not the best option for a special nurse. Upon graduating,
she had decided that “she wanted no more of bedside nursing” and had gone to
work for an upscale specialist where patients pass quickly through, and “there
was no feeling of involvement of responsibility.” She is full of scorn for the
country doctor who has not admitted Elizabeth to the hospital, particularly
because “when she met a man for the first time, she took for granted that
instantaneous spark of interest and admiration in his eyes”—and the look the
good Dr. Adam Walker bestows upon Claudia is rather one of scorn. Indeed, he dresses
her down for criticizing his treatment plan, telling her that “Miss Libby” has
refused hospitalization.
So Claudia is stuck in Maine, caring for Aunt Elizabeth. The
only friend she has in an unctuous unsuccessful self-proclaimed artist, Chase
Carpenter, though “the challenge of capturing Dr. Walker’s interest still remained.”
Chase is entertaining, but Claudia has her doubts about him: He leaves his two
boys, ages 7 and 8, at home alone; he refuses to pay Dr. Walker’s bill when one
of his sons was ill; he shows no compassion for the poor. But when he finally
kisses her, she is “astonished” to find that she enjoyed it. “Had she fallen in
love at last?” Uh, no, dear. That’s just your glands talking.
She’s certainly not impressed with the townsfolk, who,
though they regularly drop by with a bucket of milk or a cold ham for Miss
Libby, aren’t warm and embracing. Indeed, Claudia finds them taciturn and
coldly aloof, narrow-minded and insular. So when Aunt Elizabeth is clearly on
the mend, Claudia is about to blow town when Chase falls out of the loft where
he paints and shatters his leg, requiring surgery. He refuses to go to the
hospital, however, unless Claudia stays with him morning and night. To get him
to go, she agrees, thereby cementing his idea that she is in love with him,
loudly proclaiming to every patient and healthcare professional that Claudia is
“his girl,” much to her chagrin. Oddly, however, she doesn’t seem able to
correct him on that score. But at the short-staffed hospital she helps out when
she’s not rubbing Chase’s back, and manages to make herself useful, even coming
to feel attached to a few of the patients.
Then comes the unfolding of a commonplace plot: Adam is cold
to Claudia because he thinks she’s engaged to Chase, and she can’t bring
herself to tell him—or Chase—that she’s not. It’s one of the more idiotic
turns, because it seems utterly ludicrous that she can’t just open her mouth
and start talking. But the book is largely redeemed by the way it presents her
gradual unbending into a less grasping and materialistic individual into a
caring, conscientious professional and human being. I also appreciated that
Adam is always depicted as an admirable person; his initial disdain for Claudia
is well-deserved and we know it, so we are spared another VNRN convention that
I cannot stand, the complete ass presented as a dreamboat. The ending hits a
small rough patch, though, with a dark secret from Adam’s past revealed but
never really resolved. If the writing gives us nothing for the Best Quotes
category, it goes down easy, and overall this is a pleasant enough book.
