A Case of Heart Trouble (11 page)

Dallas waited until Edith had disappeared, and then she stood up quickly and offered to withdraw to the schoolroom.

“I can give Stephanie tea up there,” she said. “And, in any case, you’d probably prefer it.”

He cocked a slightly amused, slightly reproving eyebrow at

her.

“My dear Nurse, who’s going to pour out tea?” he returned. “Don’t be silly! Sit down again. Joanna Loring isn’t going to eat you!” His eyes met hers directly. “And she’s quite a nice person, really. You’ll like her when you get to know her.”

Dallas doubted it, but she had no time to do very much doubting, or even to battle with a sensation like being caught like a rat in a trap, for Mrs. Temple-Stewart came bustling in, and Mrs. Temple- Stewart was the sort of person who carried everything before her once she appeared on the scene. Dallas had met her once before, in the days when she had been nursing the doctor, and she knew that she had a friendly air which was possibly deceptive, and she knew that she owned a very large and attractive white Georgian house on the fringe of the village. She was a widow, smartly dressed, in her late fifties, and Aunt Letty admitted that she found her exhausting. Martin Loring was accustomed to dealing with women of all ages, effusive and otherwise, and even if he found them exhausting he had the same manner of coping with them.

He was consistently charming to them all.

“Why, Mrs. Temple-Stewart!” he exclaimed, as if he had been living for the moment when he would see her again; and while she offered him a lengthy explanation of the reason why she hadn’t been to see him before this Joanna Loring strolled in and greeted Dallas with a look of unmistakable surprise.

“What, you again! ” she exclaimed. She was wearing scarlet slacks and an off-white duffle coat with a hood that was lined with scarlet, and if anything she was more beautiful than when Dallas saw her before. She was just back from a winter sports holiday in Switzerland, and she had collected a wonderful golden tan. Her eyes were magnificent, her hair was so dark there appeared to be shades of violet and indigo mixed up with it.

Her slim eyebrows ascended.

“Don’t tell me poor old Martin is suffering again? I understood he was one hundred per cent fit, and looking it! ”

Martin came over and enabled her to judge for herself. She peeped at him under fantastically long eyelashes that were heavy with mascara, and slowly her scarlet lips parted over her flawless little even white teeth.

“You old fraud!” she exclaimed softly. “A nurse to look after you, when you don’t need anyone to look after you! What is the meaning of this?” Martin smiled at her in his slightly one-sided, whimsical fashion. Dallas noticed that they didn’t shake hands, but Mrs. Loring went up to him and caught him by the shoulders, and if she didn’t actually embrace him she did the next best thing. Even

presenting the exquisite coolness of her cheek to be kissed.

He saluted it lightly.

“If you didn’t jump to conclusions, Joanna, you’d make fewer mistakes in life,” he told her dryly. “Nurse Drew isn’t looking after me at all, she’s looking after Stephanie.”

“On?” Her lips pursed. “Is the child ill?” “No, but she’s not as fit as she might be, and I’ve decided to let her have a summer free of schooling. Nurse Drew is going to take charge of her.”

“How nice for Nurse Drew,” the beautiful Joanna commented, smiling dazzlingly at Dallas. “You’re becoming quite indispensable at Loring Court, aren’t you? But won’t looking after a child interfere with your training? I thought all nurses were madly keen to pass their finals, or whatever it is they do pass, before launching out into private nursing.”

“It won't be exactly private nursing looking after Stephanie,” Dallas remarked.

“No? Well, what would you call it ... ? Companion-governessing Which seems even odder when you’ve had some sort of a training! ”

“You can take it from me that Nurse Drew is being extremely self-sacrificing in agreeing to help

me out like this,” Martin Loring assured her, regarding her with an intrigued, amused air that didn’t escape Dallas. “And considering that she once had to put up with me as a patient for a month it’s rather a marvel that she didn’t turn the idea down flat!”

Joanna directed at him a somewhat pitying look.

“Darling, don’t be silly,” she said quietly.

The tea came in, and Dallas asked Mrs. Temple-Stewart whether she would like to pour out. Mrs. Temple-Stewart was a lazy woman who disliked waiting on other people when she could be waited on herself, and she delegated the duty to Mrs. Loring. Joanna cast off her white duffle coat and sank down gracefully on the low chair behind the tea-tray, and Dallas undertook the task of handing round the cups and offering plates of sandwiches. Martin Loring frowned at her when she offered him his cup, and told her to sit down.

“If anyone’s going to make themselves useful I’ll be the one to do it,” he said.

Joanna elevated her eyebrows at Dallas, and regarded her with renewed interest.

“Why, is Nurse Drew as fragile as she looks?” she enquired. “I remember when I met her before that she struck me as perfectly healthy, but hardly hefty enough to cope with a great slab of a man like you, Martin. All of six feet in your stockinged feet, I’d say!”

“Well, and what of it?” Martin enquired, treating her to that slight, provocative smile he seemed to reserve for her. “Do you imagine Nurse Drew spent her time dragging me about, or something like that?”

“No, but she had to lift you, and things like that . . . or I imagine she did! A man with a broken leg can't be an easy patient, and must be very dependent on his nurse. She looked towards Dallas almost challengingly. “Did you enjoy looking after him, Nurse? Did you run a special ballot amongst the nursing staff at Ardrath House to find out who should have the coveted job of looking after him for a month? If you did, I should say there were some disappointed faces when you pulled the lucky slip out of the bag!” “If it’s of any interest to you,” Martin told her with rather less expression in his voice than before, preventing Dallas replying to this somewhat embarrassing form of question, “I asked for Nurse Drew myself, because she’s the only really pretty nurse they’ve got at Ardrath House. And I couldn’t bear to be looked after by someone with a face like a plate! ”

“And there we have it!” Joanna exclaimed, taking a bite out of a sandwich and chewing it thoughtfully while she continued to regard Dallas. “You’re here because you’re pretty, Nurse, and we’ll hope because you’re competent! It makes me wish I’d taken up nursing myself, and I might have got in before you! ”

“Heaven forbid,” Martin exclaimed, but so softly that she rounded on him with nothing more reproving than one of her sudden, delightful smiles.

“I mean it,” she assured him. “I really mean it, Martin! I’d adore looking after you . . . taking complete charge for a month. Saying, „do this, do that’, making myself indispensable. I’m sure you’d think up some excuse for keeping me on when my time was up. You couldn’t bear to part with me!” But he shook his head at her dryly.

“The day when you devote yourself to someone— even for a month!—and want to stay on afterwards will be a remarkable day,” he replied, as if he was unimpressed.

Mrs. Temple-Stewart, who had been trying to break into the conversation without sounding rude, now delivered herself of a reminder she felt she might otherwise forget.

“Joanna darling, don’t forget the real reason for our visit! You know you wanted to ask Martin about your old studio. We’re going to be in a dreadful mess when the decorators move in next week, and if you can’t work at Vineys where will you work?”

“Oh, yes.” Joanna gave up nibbling sandwiches and helped herself to a cigarette from her own case.

When Martin offered her one of his she shook her head at him.

“Surely you haven’t forgotten, darling, that I never smoke anything but my own?” she said reproachfully. “However, to get on to the subject of the studio . . . would it upset your household arrangements if I begged to be allowed to use it again for a few weeks?”

“Why?” he asked, a little tersely.

She regarded him through a faint haze of cigarette smoke, her eyes very large and almost liquidly beautiful.

“Because I’ve a lot of work to do, darling—preparing for an exhibition—and Aggie’s already being terribly kind by having me to stay with her, and I don’t want to drive her to desperation by insisting on working in a disordered house. If I could use the studio again—and I promise I’d creep in very, very quietly, and no one would know I was there—it would be of the utmost possible help to me, and I’d be tremendously grateful. After all, it isn’t as if you’re living here yourself, and I wouldn’t interfere with you. . .

Her eyes weren’t merely beautiful, they were provocative, and he stood up rather suddenly and walked to the other side of the room. On the pretext of providing her with an ash tray he went round looking for one, and then walked back with it in his hand.

“How long would you want to use the studio for?” he asked, his speech still a little clipped.

She put back her head and looked up at him. Almost, her dark, satin-smooth head touched him.

“I’ve told you, darling, a few weeks.”

“How many days a week?”

“Oh, three or four. I’d try not to be here at weekends, when you might possibly be here too,” and this time there was mockery in her soft, clear voice.

He shrugged his shoulders and walked away from her.

“It wouldn’t matter to me if you were here when I was here. But there’s Aunt Letty to be considered, and Mrs. Baxter. She makes rather a thing of keeping the rooms in order, and you’re inclined to demand a lot of attention. The last time you occupied the studio you demanded coffee at all hours, and you surrounded yourself with such a state of chaos that Mrs. Baxter very nearly threatened to resign when she saw it.”

She smiled as he turned and regarded her accusingly.

“My dear Martin, all artists are terribly untidy, and I’m no exception, I admit. But I promise I’ll make an effort this time and be as neat as a new pin, and I’ll bring my own coffee with me in a flask since you’re so inhospitable.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said shortly, flung away his newly lighted cigarette and capitulated.

“Of course you can have the studio,” he said.

“Oh, darling,” she exclaimed, “I knew you wouldn’t have the heart to say no! ” She jumped up, encircled him with her arms, rubbed her cheek against the front of his immaculate charcoal grey suit, looked up at him meltingly and kissed him. “Thank you, thank you a thousand times, Martin darling! ” she breathed.

He detached himself almost immediately from her hold, and Dallas received the impression that he would have done so even more hastily if he could. Another impression she received was that the contact wasn’t so much unwelcome as inclined to alarm him, as if it was something he shrank from because, like fire, it could burn him, or at any rate scorch him.

Joanna laughed softly, but was evidently well satisfied.

“I give you my word I won’t make a nuisance of myself this time,” she said.

Shortly after that she and Mrs. Temple-Stewart took their departure, but before they left Mrs. Loring looked across at Dallas and smiled at her.

“You’ll be seeing something of me in the next few weeks, Nurse Drew,” she remarked. “It’ll probably relieve your boredom a little to have me in the house. After all, a child, however enchanting, is a bit of a bore sometimes . . . though Stephanie’s a pet, of course. But, after an interesting male patient ...”

She shot a glance across at Martin, caressed him wickedly and openly with her eyes, and then darted after Mrs. Temple-Stewart, who was complaining that her car never behaved well if it was left standing too long in the cold.

When Martin returned from seeing them off Dallas was automatically collecting cups and saucers, and stacking them on the tray. She was also relieved to hear Stephanie’s voice in the hall, and to know that she was safely back home again.

Martin entered the library with his daughter clinging to his arm and wanting to know whether Aunt Joanna, whom she was sorry she had missed, had brought her a present, because she nearly always did when she visited her at school.

“I don’t think so, darling,” Loring returned, a trifle absentmindedly, and then asked her to run upstairs to the schoolroom and get Edith to take her some tea there, for he wanted to have a few words with Nurse Drew.

As soon as they were alone Dallas looked at him in surprise. He appeared uncomfortable, vaguely uneasy, and also considerably preoccupied. When he looked full at her she felt that he hardly saw her.

“Nurse,” he said—and this in itself indicated that he wasn’t really seeing her—”I’m sorry that you’ve got to have Mrs. Loring inflicted on you in the next few weeks, but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t get on very well if you see much of one another. She’s a friendly soul . . . really very friendly and human under all that surface bubble.”

“She’s very beautiful,” Dallas said, as if the other woman’s beauty had actually hit her between the eyes.

He looked at her as if the scales were falling from his own eyes, and he was alert and curious to know what she really thought of Joanna Loring, his equally beautiful dead wife’s sister.

“Yes, she is, isn’t she? Fantastically beautiful.” He started to pace up and down the room, staring at the carpet, a frown between his well- marked brows. “It’s the sort of beauty that is unbelievable at first, and even when you’ve had an opportunity to grow accustomed to it you don’t really get used to it. My wife had the same sort of beauty—she and Joanna were twins, you know— and she had the same sort of disposition, too. Vital and warm, alluring and enchanting, and unforgettable as a—well, a perfume!”

Dallas picked up the loaded tray and heard the china rattle as it shook in her hands. Martin suddenly realized what she was doing, and frowned at her.

“Put that down,” he ordered. “It’s far too heavy for you.”

“I was going to take it out to the kitchen and save Mrs. Baxter’s legs.”

“Mrs. Baxter isn’t the only one in the kitchen. There’s Edith.” “Edith is attending to Stephanie’s tea.”