Nurse Ann Wood (5 page)

Nearly a year ago! That was a very long time to a young child. Children soon forgot. Ann’s coloring, Mrs. Woods had said thoughtfully, was very similar to that of her younger daughter. If she wore her uniform the first time she saw the children, they’d be taken in. They’d never seen their Aunt Anne in uniform.

Emma’s seraphic gaze turned from her brother to the girl in the doorway. “Don’t be silly, Guy,” she chided him. “She isn’t our real Auntie Anne. We’re just calling her that to be polite.”

Miss Pollard expostulated rather weakly, “Really, Emma, you...”

Ann decided that it was time she spoke. “You haven’t seen me in uniform before, Emma. How do you like it?”

“It makes you look pretty — prettier than you were before,” observed Guy generously Guy was obviously a pet. Ann warmed to him. The danger, she was quick to see, was going to come from her “niece.”

“You haven’t seen her before,” Emma was insisting now as she turned her large reproachful eyes in his direction, “so how can you know that she looks prettier in uniform?”

Once more her gaze engulfed Ann. “It
is
nice,” she admitted magnanimously, “and you
are
pretty. Are you married?”

“Darling, you know I’m not married, or there’d be an uncle something or other with me.”

“We shouldn’t have to call your husband ‘uncle.’ We should call him Mr. ... whatever his name was. We’re just calling you Auntie Anne because it’s polite and sounds nicer than ‘nurse.’ ”

“Really, Emma!” ejaculated Miss Pollard again, but the look she turned on Ann was sharp and inquisitive, though her voice was apologetic when she spoke.

“She isn’t usually so naughty. It’s odd—”

“I’m sorry I came while they were having a meal,” Ann said to the governess. “It’s bad to have them disturbed just now. Could we leave them to finish while we go into the other room to talk?”

“I don’t think ...” the girl began. “I mean ... well, they just wouldn’t finish. They’d follow us, or run out into the garden.”

Ann refrained from raising her eyebrows. “All right, I’ll stay with you here till they’ve finished.” She looked at the clock. “What time do they go to bed?”

“In about half an hour. They usually play after they’ve had dinner — supper, that is — but it’s been getting later and later. They — well...”

“Miss Pollard says we were too repressed when we were with Aunt Mary,” Emma put in now, blandly. “Silly old thing!”

“Emma, I’ve told you...” Miss Pollard’s voice threatened, but there was a quaver in it which no child could fail to recognize.

“It’s what
you
said,” Emma responded, with an upward flick of her long eyelashes.

“Emma, your behavior certainly hasn’t improved since I saw you last,” Ann put in now, softly.

That brought the little girl’s attention back to her. “Are you...?” she began, but Ann shook her head firmly. “No more talking and no more questions till you’ve finished supper.”

She turned again to Averill Pollard. “Perhaps we could have a talk when the children are in bed,” she suggested, in a low voice.

Averill tossed her head, her cheeks very pink. “Really, I don’t know that there’s much I can say. I’ve been here only three months. I haven’t had a chance...”

Fortunately, Guy made a welcome diversion. “I’ve finished my dinner,” he shouted, climbing out of his chair, “and I like you, Nurse Auntie Anne. I like you, I like you.”

As was apparently usual, Emma had the last word. “You can’t call her Nurse Auntie Anne. You must either call her Auntie Anne or Nurse Anne.”

Guy was raising an angelic face to be kissed. Emma, not to be left out, rushed forward, her face also raised invitingly. Ann bent to hug them. Since she had left the hospital in Mrs. Woods’ company, she had felt cold and depressed. But with this welcome, her heart warmed.

She had not yet seen the children’s mother. Beverley Derhart was having one of her bad days, and didn’t feel, as Mrs. Woods expressed it, like interviewing a strange nurse. Mrs. Marchdale, who had been her nurse when she was a child, was with her. When she had really bad spells, no one could do anything with her except Marchdale.

“Though once she has got used to you, I hope it will be different,” Mrs. Woods continued, a faint frown drawing her forehead. She went on briskly:

“I’m glad your meeting with the children was so successful. I’m dining out this evening, but you and Miss Pollard can have your meal together. I should get to bed early if I were you. After all, you are still only convalescent, and Doctor Lievers was most emphatic that you should rest when you could.”

Doctor Lievers had no idea that his patient was going to do anything but rest, though neither of them mentioned that.

As she had driven with Mrs. Woods out of Sunbury, Ann’s eyes had wandered from landmark to landmark. It seemed to her that she had never seen this rolling green countryside before. Where was the lane down which she had wandered and had almost been run down by Iain Sherrarde’s car?

“Where was the railway accident?” she enquired.

Mrs. Woods laughed. “You nurses are all the same — always interested in accidents and blood and such horrors,” she said, and gave a delicate shiver.

Ann made no reply to that, and the other went on quite inconsequentially, “Iain Sherrarde is supposed to be a confirmed bachelor, you know.”

Ann was so genuinely surprised by the remark and the flicker of malice that showed in Mrs. Woods’ small brown eyes that she registered nothing but surprise. She repeated his name, raising her small chin slightly, and there was in her voice, the delicate inflection of a question.

“Yes, the man who found you wandering about somewhere near Melling Hall where he should have dined that night. Instead, he took you to hospital and presumably is going to foot the bill for your private room and all the expensive treatment you’ve had there.” There was no trace of tact in Mrs. Woods’ voice.

Ann was shaken, partly with disdain and partly with embarrassment. She’s a vulgar woman, she reflected, and remembered with dismay that everybody would believe they were mother and daughter. And in her shrunken world “everybody” really meant Iain Sherrarde.

She said, in her clear voice, which held more than a tinge of pride, “I’m afraid I’ve been rather stupid. I just didn’t think about — bills. But surely no bills would be sent to him, when everybody believes that you and I are ... related.”

Mrs. Woods’ expression was all at once very cold. “
I
haven’t been asked to pay any bills, and indeed, I should refuse to do so.
I
didn’t arrange for you to have private treatment.”

Ann’s face was distressed. In her handbag there were only a few pounds and she hadn’t the faintest idea whether she had any savings. “Then I must pay them myself, as soon as I’m able,” she said.

“You’ll be a fool to bother. He has plenty of money. And in a way, he’s a relative of ours. I always think of him as such.”

That was quite untrue. Mrs. Woods never thought of Iain Sherrarde except with intense dislike and antagonism, but she wasn’t going to tell Ann that. She was going to pretend all the time that she and the Director of the Sherrarde Institute were on the best of terms.

She went on, “Of course, we should all like to see Iain married. He’d make a marvellous husband. His aunt, Mrs. Trederrick, who lives with him at Dainty’s End, is trying to do some matchmaking. She invited a distant cousin, a young woman doctor, to stay with her. A lot of people are beginning to think Iain will fall for her, for they are seen about together a great deal. She certainly appears to have what it takes ... looks, breeding and a common interest with him in medicine, but...”

She stopped and laughed, and her eyes were suddenly rather sly.

“Of course, there is another possibility.”

Ann’s breath caught sharply in her throat. What was this dreadful woman going to say now? And then her eyes rounded as Mrs. Woods went on musingly, “My daughter Beverley is a very lovely girl and Iain visits her very frequently. They have so much to discuss — money affairs, the children. Sometimes they quarrel violently, and it’s that which makes me wonder. Haven’t you noticed, Ann, that people who quarrel at first very often fall in love later?”

Her glance was full of mockery and it was just as if she had guessed Ann’s secret and was saying to her: “You’re a silly little fool if you give Iain Sherrarde another thought. He would never look at
you
!”

But thoughts aren’t so easily banished, and as she saw the gardens and the beautiful front of Fountains for the first time, Ann was still thinking of him.

When she entered the house, Ann’s first impression was of disappointment. The decor, the furniture, the carpets were in contemporary style, and seemed a little out of character in the old house, but worse still, there was a faint air of neglect about the place. The furniture did not shine and there were no flowers.

She had no reason to alter her first impression when Mrs. Woods took her upstairs. “I’m giving you the room my daughter would have,” the other told her loftily, “but when Miss Pollard goes, you’d better have hers, which is next to the children’s night nursery. It will satisfy ...” She was about to refer to Iain Sherrarde, but it would be better if the girl did not know how much power he had, so she substituted “their mother. She worries in case they wake in the night. Guy, the little boy, sometimes has nightmares.”

The room was not very attractive, quite small, right at the end of the corridor, in an angle of the house and consequently rather dark. There was a film of dust on all the furniture and it seemed as if no one had been asked to prepare it for her occupation.

Now, after Mrs. Woods had dismissed her, Ann came back to her room, feeling unutterably depressed. But that was silly, she told herself. Better to try to improve the appearance of the room, rather than to sit moping about it.

Having done what she could in the way of tidying the room, and making up the bed, she unpacked and then went over to the window. As she looked down, she saw a man in flannels and a grey sports jacket come from one side of the house and walk through an opening in an old-fashioned yew hedge. Ann thought he might be a gardener, and wondered about the staff in the house, for as yet she had seen only one young girl who had brought tea for Mrs. Woods and herself.

She felt lonely, depressed and fearful. This silent, neglected house was a terrible change from the friendly brightness of the private wing. Megan Elliott had said that she would cycle over on Tuesday to see her, but that seemed a long way off.

She moved her slim shoulders impatiently. She wouldn’t sleep if she stayed here. She would go out for a walk, and perhaps tire herself physically. The long spring twilight hadn’t faded yet, and the air was quite mild. Ann, still in the uniform which she had donned on Mrs. Woods’ instructions before she went to see the children, picked up her cloak. Strange that she had been travelling with uniform in her luggage. Just as if she had known that she was coming on a case...

As she glanced out of the window she saw another figure running across the lawn towards the opening in the thick yew hedge. This time it was a woman, and unless she was very much mistaken, Averil Pollard. Ann went downstairs and through the silent hall, shivering a little, though it was not cold.

The garden was full of the indescribably sweet scents of the burgeoning year. This was the west country, and spring came earlier here. When she had left London...

Again there was that blank wall, blotting memories of the life behind her. She had an impression of coldness ... of frost... and then even that impression was gone.

“Don’t try to force anything. Don’t consciously try to remember. Better to let it come back to you naturally,” the doctors had said.

With something of a start, Ann noticed that the path she had been following for several minutes had come to an end. In front of her was a gate, standing open. The way beyond was rather dark and shaded by trees. She hesitated, wondering where it led, and whether the path would soon come again into the open.

As she stood, she heard the sound of voices and laughter. It would seem that she had come in the same direction taken by a couple she had noticed in the distance and hoped to avoid. She turned hurriedly, caught her foot on a stone and, unable to regain her balance, fell heavily with her shoulder striking the iron railing just near to the gate. Her heavy cloak, partly responsible for her fall as her arms had been inside it, shielded her from the worst of the impact, but all the same the jolt was painful, and as she got to her feet her face was rueful. She would have a stiff shoulder tomorrow and probably a bad bruise.

As she brushed herself down there was the sound of flying footsteps, and along a parallel path that she hadn’t noticed till now a young woman flew past and disappeared behind the bushes.

It’s time I went back, Ann thought wryly. There’s too much cloak and dagger stuff around here. She began to walk back in the direction from which she had come, and after a few moments she heard hurrying footsteps behind her. She turned, and saw a man, evidently the partner of the flying nymph who had disappeared in the direction of the house.

It was the man she had noticed earlier from her bedroom window. He fell into step beside her, saying affably, “Good evening, miss. Out for a walk, are you? I hope our good air at Fountains will soon bring an improvement in your health.”

Ann smiled. “Good evening, and thank you.”

“I’m Burrows, the chauffeur-handyman,” he told her.

“Oh,” murmured Ann, realizing with slight amusement that he was discontinuing his pursuit. In any case, Averil must by now be in the house.

He continued civilly, “I understand you’re going to keep an eye on the children as well as nursing your sister. I hope you won’t find it too much for you. If you’ll excuse my saying so, it seems a formidable undertaking for anyone in full health, but for a young lady, still convalescing, well, to me, it’s a bit inhuman to ask you to do so much. If you’ll excuse my saying so.”

Ann did not excuse him. She thought his expression of opinion uncalled for and his manner too familiar. The little note of distance that had so infuriated Mrs. Woods was in her voice again. “You’re very kind.”

He had the grace, it would seem, to recognize the note, and they walked in silence back to the yew hedge and to the house. They had reached the steps which led on to the terrace and to the front door when a man appeared from the other side of the house. Ann’s heart began to pound heavily. It had come, then, this moment for which she had been waiting so long. Even in the dusk there was no mistaking him.

She was to remember later that Burrows said, with a more pronounced inflection of familiarity than he had used previously, “I’ll say good evening now, miss. And maybe I’ll be able to take you on another tour of exploration some evening soon?” At the moment, she scarcely noticed him.

“Good evening, Mr. Sherrarde, sir,” he continued, with a marked change of voice. “I’ve just been showing the young lady a bit of the garden.”

“Good evening, Burrows.” The tone was dismissive and the chauffeur did not linger. He sketched a salute to Ann and went off in the direction of the garage.

Ann managed to get some control over her racing pulses. But her voice was slightly breathless when she said, “Good evening, Mr. Sherrarde. I thought ... I understood you were in America.”

“I arrived back this afternoon.” In the dusk it was difficult to read his expression, but the coldness of his voice struck her like a blow. “So you’re out of hospital, Miss Woods. How are you?”

Ann realized that she was shivering, that her shoulder had begun to ache, and that all at once she felt faint. When she did not speak, he went on, still without any trace of warmth in his voice, “We’d better go inside. If I may say so, wandering about in the damp of an English spring evening is not really sensible in one who has only just come out of hospital.”

“But I’m quite well now,” Ann responded in a small voice. Something inside her shrank at his coldness. He spoke as if he were a stranger, or even something worse — a man who felt bored or indifferent about meeting her. But perhaps she was being fanciful. She had been living in a state of blissful anticipation of seeing him again, and perhaps she had been expecting too much. After all, they had to get to know each other again.

They went up the steps together, and then he stepped back for her to precede him into the hall, but she paused, saying nervously, “I’m afraid I don’t know where the switches are.”

He replied impatiently, “Where is everybody? Surely it’s Burrows’ job to put on the lights and see to the windows and curtains.”

“I don’t know,” Ann replied, still in that very small voice. “I ... I ... only arrived here this afternoon.”

“So I understand,” he replied frostily. “Allow me, then.” Perhaps he had been in touch with the hospital to enquire about her. The thought warmed Ann’s chilled heart slightly.

The hall had now sprung into light and he went forward into a room on the right. It was a sitting-room — a drawing-room no doubt it had once been called — and unlike most of the house, it was decorated and furnished with the soft elegance of the Edwardian era.

“This was my grandmother’s favorite room,” he remarked as he went to the windows to draw the pale rose curtains. “I asked that it should be left as it was when the rest of the house was redecorated.”

“It’s ...” Ann looked round and altered the beginning of her sentence. “It could be lovely.”

They looked at each other for a moment and then he moved over to the fireplace, bending to a switch.

Ann sat down abruptly. Those memories of hers from their two other meetings had not prepared her for this encounter when she was no longer ill. She hadn’t realized that he was so good-looking, with fine light grey eyes and a handsome profile. She wasn’t prepared for his masculinity, for the vitality which emanated from him as he began to stroll round the room.

No wonder Mrs. Woods, having by some diabolical instinct guessed how attracted she had been to her benefactor, had shown a certain amount of malicious amusement. This was a man who would obviously have a wide choice when he contemplated marriage.

He looked angry and impatient. Perhaps it was because of the neglected appearance of this room. She forced herself to ask, “You wanted to see...” She could not bring herself to say “my mother,” so she did not finish the sentence.

“I came to see the children,” he told her abruptly, “but I suppose they are in bed.”

“I expect they are. Miss Pollard is with them.” Surely that must be true, since Averil had run ahead of Burrows and herself.

“Oh,
is
she?” His frown deepened and another layer of ice was added to his voice.

Ann sat very still. The pain in her shoulder was growing worse, and her head was swimming with faintness. He went on almost accusingly, “where is everybody? Surely you haven’t been left on your own — you, a sick woman!”

She raised her head protestingly. “I’m
not
a sick woman, Mr. Sherrarde. At least, not physically, and the doctors say that here, among people I know, my memory will soon return.”

But she didn’t know them, she thought forlornly. They were strangers, and if Mrs. Woods was anything to go by, not particularly friendly. And the source from which she had expected kindness...

Perhaps because there was a line of pain between those big, lavender-grey eyes, perhaps because her expression was so forlorn, the man’s voice softened slightly. “Despite your protestations, Miss Woods, you don’t look at all well. I suppose you were lonely, and that’s why...”

He stopped, staring at her questioningly, but Ann’s eyes were averted. She hoped she wasn’t going to be silly enough to faint. When there was no answer to his half-veiled accusation, he went on, his voice hardening, “Where are your mother and sister?”

Ann had decided today before she left hospital that there was a limit of deception beyond which she was not prepared to go. She said in a tired voice, “I can’t remember anything about my family, Mr. Sherrarde. Mrs. Woods seems like a stranger to me, and I haven’t seen — Beverley. I think she is in her own room with the housekeeper in attendance, as she hasn’t been well all day. Mrs. Woods had a long-standing dinner engagement.”

He was watching her intently as she spoke in a flat, almost uninterested voice about the women who were her nearest relatives. Could there have been a mistake? Was she really as alien to these people as she appeared to be?

A gleam of light came into his eyes and went almost at once. Whatever this girl had forgotten, it was certain that neither Mrs. Woods nor Beverley Derhart had lost
their
memories.

He spoke again, dryly. “I understand from my aunt that you’re going to take charge of the children and also to give your sister such care as she requires. Obviously that’s too much for anyone to do. Looking after the children is a full-time job. I’ve been insisting that Miss Pollard must go as she is inefficient, but she certainly can’t leave until you are fully recovered. Otherwise the children must come back to my aunt’s care, which is what I would prefer.”

He was the children’s trustee and Ann could understand his reason for wanting the children under more reliable care than they seemed to be getting at Fountains. But there was that in his voice which stung her to protest.

“You would take the children completely away from their mother?” she asked with raised brows. “Even though she can’t have them with her very much, you surely wouldn’t be so cruel as to deprive her of them altogether?”

He looked uncomfortable. “They could come down each day to see her.”

Ann brought the conversation back to herself. “I’m very strong, really. One has to be, to be accepted as a nurse, and the training toughens one. I shall be able to cope quite successfully with the children and help Beverley when she needs me.”

He continued to prowl restively round the room. “You’re not to live a life of slavery. You must have free time, and some social life.”

“Of course,” Ann replied, though she guessed that Mrs. Woods might take a different view. “Nurse Elliott is going to cycle over on her free afternoons.”

She thought she saw a softening in his expression and she decided that she must broach the subject which was now looming over her like an ugly shadow. She must refer to her debt to him, and acknowledge her obligations.

“Mr. Sherrarde, Mrs. Woods reminded me today of the fact that—”

His brows slanted up over his cool eyes. Ann gulped and forced herself to go on. “I mean the bills for my room ... for the consultants ... which I understand you have met ... I intend to repay you as soon as I’m able.” She concluded the last sentence in a little rush. Not that she wanted to do so, but once she had started on the subject, she had to finish it. It had been a mistake to refer to it at all. She read that in his expression and guessed that he had never dreamed of making himself responsible for her bills. Naturally not, when her own family was here on the spot.

Ann hoped that never again in her life would she feel humiliation as deep as this. Had Mrs. Woods foreseen her schoolgirlish gesture and so warned her not to refer to the subject? She shrank a little more into herself at the thought of that smart woman’s cruel laughter.

She got up and went to the door. “I’ll find out if the children are in bed, Mr. Sherrarde.”

He seemed to shake himself out of his own discomfort. “No, it’s too late. You have seen them? Do you remember them?”

“No.” The girl shook her pretty dark head. “I don't remember them and they don’t appear to remember me. They have never seen me in uniform.”

“No!”

Let the truth be revealed as soon as possible, Ann thought miserably. That she was an impostor ... a silly impostor who...

And now she felt she could bear no more. “Is there anything else I can do for you, Mr. Sherrarde? I’m sorry there’s no one at home.”

“No, I’ll be off now. I think you will be wise to have an early night.”

Only when he had gone did Ann remember that she had offered him no word of thanks for taking her to hospital, for visiting her there and arousing her from the twilight of despair.

Childishly she wished that he had never found her — that he had allowed her to go wandering on until she was run down by some careless motorist, or until she had blundered into the river. Or that he had left her in that dim grey twilight to drift away into oblivion...