Nurse Ann Wood (2 page)

“Let
me
try.” It was as if the words had an electric current behind them. He had shouted them out at the top of his voice ... but no, he hadn’t. His voice wasn’t very loud, but it was magnetic. It had also, at some time or other, been amused and then concerned ... and he had called her “little lost girl.”

But she had been dreaming then. He had never come again, so she had known that she must have been dreaming.

He had given her such a wonderful sense of assurance — as if when he were there nothing could go wrong. He had seemed like a spar to cling to when she was alone on a wide sea of bewilderment. No, a spar moved, and he was fixed, solid ... more like a rock — that big, dark man with his keen light eyes and his lazy, amused smile. Odd that she should dream about him, when no one else ever came into that grey twilight in which she floated. Because it
was
a dream ... that magnetic voice...

A faint smile curved her pale lips, and the dark silk fans of her lashes fluttered a little. It was a pleasant dream. She would like to go on.

Then came another shock. “If you persist in being the sleeping beauty, someone will have to be the prince,” a deep voice said.

She couldn’t be dreaming. It was
his
voice, with that undercurrent of tender amusement which she remembered so well. The silky black eyelashes flew up and, wide-eyed, stared at the little group standing about her bed.

She had seen the doctor and Sister often enough and her glance flickered quickly over them, to fix itself on the third person, that tall, broad-shouldered, rock-like man to whom she had clung ... oh, so long ago that it seemed to be in some other existence. He had come to her in the darkness ... when she had believed she was completely alone in the world.

“You told me not to be afraid,” she said, in a whisper. “You said you were there and I must hold on to you, whatever happened. But you didn’t come again, and so I thought you were a dream.”

He looked down at her, a curious expression on his face. “So you were awake all the time. You heard what I said — about the sleeping beauty?”

A faint color stole into her cheeks and she laughed weakly. “Yes, I heard you, and you were much too flattering. At first, I thought I was still dreaming. Why didn’t you come before?”

She was greeting him happily, as a friend, this man who had been kind to her when she needed kindness badly.

“I didn’t know that you were waiting for me to come before you decided to get well,” Sherrarde remarked rather dryly. “But now you’re going to be a sensible young woman, I hope.”

Ann nodded her dark head and her voice was childishly eager. “Yes, I feel better already. Will you come to see me every day now? It will be something nice to look forward to.”

Sister interposed briskly. “I think Mr. Sherrarde would like to hear you say that you’re going to try to eat all your dinner tonight, Miss Woods. That’s the way you can thank him for coming to see you.”

Doctor Lievers said smilingly, “I’m sure our patient is going to be most co-operative from now on. Aren’t you, Miss Woods?”

Ann turned her wide lovely eyes upon him. “It didn’t seem to matter before about getting well,” she explained naively. “It didn’t seem worthwhile.”

The S.M.O. eyed her with a close professional scrutiny, but the tall dark man at the foot of the bed made an impatient movement. “That’s feeble,” he remonstrated. “I thought better of you than that, little lost girl.”

A smile flashed across the small pale face, lighting it up. “You called me that before, when you found me. And I believed it was a dream,” she whispered delightedly.

There was all at once an atmosphere of intimacy between them, so that the other two men were aware of being outside the circle. Doctor Lievers drew back slightly, looking pleased. His experiment was proving a success. Sherrarde had provided the stimulus which the patient had required, and now she had been roused she should make a quick recovery.

Sister’s face in no way reflected the doctor’s complacency. From the moment he came into the private wing she had been aware of a coolness in Mr. Sherrarde’s manner. Evidently he hadn’t liked being called in in this fashion, and you couldn’t really wonder at it now the patient had proved to be a member of that dreadful family into which poor Ray Derhart had married.

Sister’s lips tightened. What she had seen of Mrs. Woods had disposed her to think that none of the gossip about her widowed daughter was exaggerated. A baggage from all accounts, that’s what she was, or had been till that dreadful accident which had killed her young husband had made an invalid of her.

Sister stiffened as the doctor stepped forward. “I expect you’re feeling tired now, Miss Woods, after all this excitement. But first of all, you must have a really big meal. Sister...”

He beckoned her forward and at the same time managed to convey to Iain Sherrarde that it was time for him to leave. The patient’s long black lashes were fluttering.

“You’ll be here again. You won’t be just a dream,” she murmured, and was asleep almost before the sentence was ended.

Outside in the corridor, Lievers nodded in satisfaction. “That did the trick. I’m very pleased.”

Iain Sherrarde’s remote look sharpened. “She’ll be all right now, you think?”

The other nodded. “Yes. She may even have forgotten all about you when she wakes up again. But you were the link between that nightmare of the crash and the light. Once she found you there again, she dared to come into the light. If she does remember you, and we tell her that you’ve gone to the United States, she will accept that readily. By the time you’re back again she will probably have left hospital.”

Sherrarde said curtly, “Don’t hurry that ... her leaving hospital, I mean. Don’t hesitate to bring in the best people for consultation. The cost doesn’t matter. Dullanty of Bristol is particularly outstanding in the psychiatry of amnesia.”

The S.M.O. nodded. “I agree, but when she improves physically, I think the amnesia will disappear without much need for treatment.”

Iain Sherrarde turned to Sister and gave her one of his rare, charming smiles. “Thank you, Sister, for all that you’ve done,” he said.

As he went out to his car, he reflected distastefully that he had better ring up Mrs. Woods. As soon as her daughter could leave hospital she should be taken to Fountains to be with her own people.

Her own people! His handsome mouth twisted in a grimace. A good thing he was going to America. By the time he returned she would be in her own circle, reflected in their light, and he would be able to see her as she really must be and not in that soft rosy glow which had, on that night of their first meeting, placed her apart from any other girl he had ever met.

CHAPTER TWO

THE grey, misty twilight no longer had any attraction for Ann. When she awoke again she opened her eyes immediately and looked at the door. All at once she realized she felt hungry.

She also felt very, very happy. It hadn’t been a dream. He was real, that big man with the keen eyes who had looked at her with concerned tenderness and held her hands tightly when she had wanted to scream and scream against that nightmare from which she had run. But she mustn’t think of that any more. It was behind her, and now she was going forward.

She stared eagerly at the opening door. It was Nurse Elliott with her wide, beaming smile. “Now, darling, how are you feeling?” she asked.

“Hungry,” returned the patient, in a much stronger voice than anyone had heard her use till now.

A few minutes later, when she returned to the private wing kitchen, Nurse Elliott was remarking, not very originally: “You could have knocked me down with a feather! There she was, nearly sitting up of her own accord and demanding food. I wouldn’t have believed it.”

Sister, who was supervising “special diets,” looked at her sharply. “More to the point, nurse — is she eating her meal?”

“She’s taken all her soup, Sister,” the nurse replied. “I propped her up in the pillows and she said she could manage, so I thought it was better to leave her to eat the second course without my helping her or watching her. She’ll know that she’s getting better if she manages it herself.”

When the young nurse returned to the pleasant room at the end of the corridor, the patient’s plate was almost empty. Ann smiled at her. “I’ve really enjoyed that, nurse. Oh, how pretty!”

For the nurse was setting before her an attractive-looking concoction which disguised a nourishing blend of milk and fruit.

“Oh, I
am
pleased with you, darling,” Elliott said exuberantly. “My fiancé says I’ve got you on my mind. And I had, really. I could see you just fading away, starving yourself to death.

“Of course, we shouldn’t have let you do that,” she added hastily, “but that’s what it kept looking like to me. I’m not a very experienced nurse,” she went on confidentially. “Now
you’ve
got your State...”

As soon as she had spoken, she put her hand over her mouth and looked horrified. “Oh, I shouldn’t have said that.”

Ann, propped up among the pillows, put down her spoon. “Oh, have I?” she asked blankly. “How do you know? I don’t seem to remember myself.”

Nurse Elliott’s face continued to register concern. “Oh, please forget what I said,” she pleaded. “Sister has given me the strictest instructions...”

“Nurse Elliott,” Ann said smilingly, “I want to know about that S.R.N. certificate. Since I’ve been here, I’ve watched Sister and the staff nurse and you and Nurse Tims and the others, and I’ve realized I must be a nurse, for it’s all a familiar routine. But how do you know I’m qualified, and where did I train?”

But Elliott had fled to the door. “I’ll ask Sister to come,” she gasped. She was taking no further responsibility here...

When she had gone, Ann lay with a puzzled expression on her face. Only now had she begun to wonder why she was here. Previously she had lain unquestioningly, drifting on that twilight sea, waiting indifferently until she finally submerged.

Now she tried to think back as far as she could, but beyond the twilight was only the memory of darkness and flame and of herself running ... running ... running ... to get away from something and finding safety in the stalwart strength of Iain Sherrarde’s broad shoulder.

Yes, she remembered that. She remembered being with him in his car and clinging to him in hospital after they had treated her in the casualty ward. It was after that that she had sunk into the dim twilight of indifference, because he had left her and had not come again.

But how long ago had all that happened? And why was nothing about her earlier life in her mind at all? There was a dark wall and behind it — a blank. It hurt her even to think.

She put a rather weary hand to her head as Sister came into the room. The older woman gave her a keen professional glance. “I hear that you’ve eaten your dinner like a good girl,” she said smoothly. “Now I can see that you’re quite tired. Wouldn’t you like a little sleep?”

By the time she had plumped up the pillow and straightened the sheet Ann’s white lids were beginning to droop and her dark lashes were almost lying on her thin cheeks.

“Yes, perhaps I am,” she yawned. “Yes, I am tired.”

For the time being, she had completely forgotten about all the questions she had intended asking. Sister, watching her, gave a sigh of relief. It looked as if this was going to be a plain, straightforward case after all. The girl’s memory would no doubt be back to normal next time she woke up and then it would be only a matter of a day or two before she was on her feet. Sister supposed that the relatives would want to have her home immediately.

As it happened, Sister Private Wing was, in this particular case, over-optimistic. For the next day, although the patient continued to take a little more food and was roused from her state of dreamy acquiescence, she showed no desire to ask questions.

Her face went very white and still when she was told that Iain Sherrarde was leaving for America that day. She didn’t speak of him again for a day or two, and then, when Nurse Elliott was sitting with her, she enquired whether he had gone for a long time or even for good.

“Goodness, no,” the young nurse returned, in surprise. “He often goes, just for short trips. Never for more than ten days or a fortnight.”

Ann asked no further questions and Megan plunged into a racy account of her latest quarrel with her fiancé. They were both Welsh, both temperamental, and seemed to enjoy quarrelling for the joy of making up afterwards.

“I should like to meet him. He sounds great fun,” Ann smiled.

Nurse Elliott rolled her fine eyes. “I don’t think I would dare risk letting him meet you ... a pretty thing like
you
,” she replied with laughing emphasis. “It took me quite a long time to manoeuvre into the position of being first in his thoughts, and I’m not willingly putting in front of him anyone prettier than I am.”

“Pretty! Am I?” That sent the patient’s thoughts in an entirely different direction. By moving her head slightly, she could see her reflection in the mirror of the dressing-table, and now she craned her neck forward to do so.

Nurse Elliott went quickly across to the dressing-table and picked up the hand mirror. “Have a good look at yourself,” she invited.

Anne gazed at the reflection in the mirror as if she had never seen it before, and indeed she could not recollect having done so.

“Why, I’m quite plain,” she exclaimed in a disappointed voice. Beside the rounded rosy cheeks and jet black curls of the Welsh girl, she looked thin and drawn and anaemic.

“Plain!” ejaculated Megan Elliott. “Don’t be silly. You’re lovely, with those big eyes and that white skin. I never saw such eyes. They’re always changing color, as the mood takes you, sometimes lavender, sometimes nearly as deep as violets, and sometimes grey.”