Nurse Ann Wood (7 page)

“Well, a cousin of Mr. Sherrarde’s. The one I mentioned who is likely to ... er ... marry Iain saw them as she came along in her car and took them to Dainty’s End. You can imagine what
I
felt like ... when I was rung up and told that.”

This gave Ann a further opportunity of speaking about last night. But even then she didn’t seize upon it. She said ' vaguely, “They are very lively children. They take a great deal of watching, I’m sure.”

“They certainly do,” returned Mrs. Woods in a heartfelt voice. “As soon as the Pollard girl has gone, I’ll appoint a nursery maid to help you.”

“Mrs. Woods, there—”

“There’s someone outside. Oh, it’s you, March,” as the door opened and the housekeeper appeared. “No, it’s no good looking at me like that. You know how headstrong Beverley is.

“All right, er — Ann. Go off for your walk, but be back in time to change and be ready for the party at half-past five. No, March, it’s no good trying to get me into a long discussion about it. I want to go up and have a rest. Those children disturbed me far too early this morning.”

When she was up in her own room again, the girl went over to the window. The sun hadn’t kept its early promise and the day was rather grey, but she felt that she would go mad if she stayed aimlessly within four walls for much longer.

She changed her shoes, put on her coat and picked up a scarf. It looked as if there might be rain, but she didn’t mind that.

She crossed the garden, following the path that she had taken on the previous night. This time the woodland path, though gloomy, was sufficiently light for her to see the end of it. As she walked along, she realized that the trees formed a small copse, and that beyond it the path led to a gate in a high stone wall. Beyond lay the main road...

The trees seemed to separate the gardens of Fountains from those of another house, and as she emerged from the copse, Ann caught a glimpse of that house, grey stone, with white painted woodwork and many well-planted flower-beds stretching in front of it.

That must be Dainty’s End from which Iain Sherrarde had walked last night. But why then had he come by way of the main drive of Fountains? This was a shorter and far more pleasant way than by the main road. She pondered uneasily, for she could not help feeling that Mr. Sherrarde might have started to come this way, and then in the gloom of the copse, coming upon two figures obviously very interested in each other, he had turned back to the gate and continued his journey by the road.

On his arrival at the house, he had met her coming in the other direction ... accompanied by Burrows. He might have come to the conclusion that she had been Burrows’ companion earlier on, and the thought angered her beyond endurance. Surely he hadn’t assumed that the very first day she had arrived in the house she had begun a flirtation with the handyman! And yet he had been so stiff, so coldly contemptuous. Till now, she hadn’t been able to understand why. But now ...

And it’s the sort of misunderstanding that can never be put right, she decided miserably. He had accused her of nothing, so there was no chance of justifying herself. Only events in the future could do that.

The thought gave her little comfort as she came out on to the main road and began to walk along the path close to the stone wall which enclosed the two houses and their gardens.

The high stone wall continued, and she walked along it for a minute or two more, but whatever savor there had been in her first tour of exploration had gone now. She felt tired and depressed, but reminded herself, as she started back to Fountains, that she might not be quite so strong yet as she had believed she was.

Just before half-past five, she took a last look at herself in the mirror and then went downstairs. This blue suit was smart and even sophisticated — more expensive than she would have thought a nurse could afford. Its label was that of a small but quite exclusive fashion house, but that thick wall in her mind stopped any surmise as to when and why she had bought it...

She waited in the hall, and Mrs. Woods joined her after a few minutes, saying brightly, “Come along now, to Beverley’s suite. I see some of her friends have already arrived.”

When she had been in the garden earlier in the afternoon, Ann had noticed that there was a second drive in the grounds of Fountains, and this led to the south wing of the house with a door and a glassed-in porch and terrace. She had guessed that that was the wing in which Beverley Derhart had her own rooms.

Mrs. Woods, with Ann following, went through a door leading from the main hall, along a corridor at the back of the house, and so into a smaller hall. At the opposite end was an outer door through which a group of young men and women were just entering.

“Most of the people here today will be from the Institute,” Mrs. Woods remarked. “It isn’t very far along the main road, beyond Dainty’s End. If you walked in that direction this afternoon, I expect you saw it — a red-brick building with some recent extensions.”

Ann shook her head. “I went only a little way past a gate and then a drive, which I suppose led to Dainty’s End. You said that was where Mr. Sherrarde lived.” And that girl with the auburn hair! she added to herself.

“He’s got a flat in the Institute as well,” Mrs. Woods told her. “I wish Beverley wouldn’t have so many of the Institute people here. They...”

What Mrs. Woods’ next remark was to have been, Ann never found out, for she suddenly shut her lips tightly together as if she was afraid of saying too much. They had moved through the hall now, and following the crowd, into a big room which was so full of people that you could scarcely see the furniture.

The crowd was thickest near one of the big windows, and as a little group of people moved away, Ann saw that they had been congregating round a rose-colored settee. She could just glimpse the head of its occupant — a deeper-than-primrose-colored head.

“There’s Beverley,” Mrs. Woods remarked rather grimly. “Thank goodness she has had the sense to remain on her back. Though what she will be like after all this excitement, I don’t know.”

Ann was conscious of a mounting excitement within herself, as she followed her companion through the crowd, Mrs. Woods elbowing her way relentlessly towards her daughter. Finally she reached the settee with Ann a step or two behind her.

“Hullo, Mummy. Another new hat!” There was an amused inflection in the attractive drawl. “Has anyone found you a drink?”

“No, I’ve only just come in, Beverley,” Mrs. Woods replied. And then with a kind of elaborate carelessness. “Have you seen who’s here?” To the girl behind her, it seemed that there was a queer intonation in the older voice — a kind of warning. Or was it an appeal?

Beverley Derhart gave a curious little laugh. “My ... er ... sister,” she drawled. “Sister Anne, where are you, my sweet? What a long time it’s been!”

Someone moved, so that Ann could draw level with Mrs. Woods, and she looked at last at the lovely girl lying high on the piled-up pillows. For she
was
lovely ... almost heartbreakingly so with her flower-like face, her large blue eyes and her wonderful hair, redder than primrose, but not quite red-gold.

How could any man — and just now in Ann’s vocabulary that meant Iain Sherrarde — fail to be attracted by her? No wonder that when Mrs. Woods had spoken about the gossip on the subject of his marriage to Doctor Maureen Lyntrope, she had laughed and mentioned another possibility...

It was only when she had pushed back her own fears that Ann began to sort out her other impressions of Beverley Derhart. How very much like her the children were, and particularly Emma! And a closer look at the lovely face revealed the fragility, the shadows, and the slightly-pinched nostrils — all rather disquieting to a nurse’s experienced eye.

This girl, reflected Ann in a troubled manner, ought not to be the centre of a noisy gathering, with the radiogram blaring at one end of the room, the atmosphere of the over-heated room stuffy and smoky and with people milling around her.

Beverley’s voice, half impatient, half amused, jolted her. “Stop looking at me like a nurse, Sister Anne,” she entreated.

Ann said rather breathlessly, “Sorry — was I? I suppose it’s a habit.”

“A habit you’ll have to lose pretty quickly,” came the reply, and now behind Beverley Derhart’s attractive drawl there was something cold and sharp. “That is, if you’re going to stay here. I like doctors and nurses very much — no one better — but only when they’re off duty. You agree, don’t you, Lee darling?”

She turned slightly to look at the man nearest to her and Ann’s glance followed hers. He was an almost colorless young man, slight in build with very light hair and a pale, clever face. A second glance revealed that he wasn’t young at all — or at least that he was very much older than most of the other guests.

“I always agree with whatever you say, as you well know, my lovely Beverley,” he assured her.

Ann looked at him again. He sounded as if he had been drinking and had reached a stage of absurd solemnity, but surely the party had only just begun.

“Anne is my sister,” Beverley went on with a mocking glance in the other girl’s direction. “Not much alike, are we?”

“At the risk of seeming ungallant to Miss Woods, I still have to say that there couldn’t possibly be anyone like you, my most uniquely beautiful Beverley,” the man replied, still with a kind of owlish solemnity.

“Anne is a nurse. I’ve told you about her before, haven’t I? I don’t suppose she approves of doctors who drink as much as you do, Lee.”

“Lee” turned his pale face and solemn eyes in Ann’s direction. “I don’t know that I’m very worried about anybody’s approval or disapproval,” he announced coolly.

Ann, pushing aside her feeling of discomfort, decided it was about time she said something. “How are you, Beverley?” she enquired.

“Quite uninterested in my own health,” came the reply. “What about yours? You’ve been having a bad time, haven’t you, getting yourself knocked on the head by a runaway train or something.”

“And being rescued by H.E.,” put in a girl on the other side of the settee, with a giggle. “Weren’t you thrilled? I should have been.”

Ann was saved from making a reply by Mrs. Woods interposing smoothly, “Anne has made a remarkable recovery, thanks to the kindness of Mr. Sherrarde and the wonderful attention she received in the hospital at Sunbury.”

“And she’ll be going back to her own hospital pretty soon, I expect,” Beverley remarked, with a malicious sparkle in her blue eyes. “She’ll be bored stiff down here with no one to nurse. Besides, what about that wealthy patient you’re looking for, to marry, Anne? No, don’t blush. You know that’s what you always said you were going to do. Many nurses marry doctors, but not you, you’ve always said. You were going to be sensible and—” Evidently Mrs. Woods thought it was time she intervened again. “Anne can’t go back to hospital. What about the children? Don’t forget that Miss Pollard is leaving at the end of the month.”

Beverley yawned. “So she is. I forgot about that. Have you met the children?” Once again she addressed Ann directly. “Little devils, aren’t they?”

Mrs. Woods interposed smoothly, “Of course she has renewed acquaintance with her niece and nephew. It’s nearly a year since she saw them and naturally they didn’t remember her very well. But they were crawling all over her bed this morning and having a fine time, believe me.”

Mrs. Derhart continued to be maliciously amused by her mother’s manoeuvres.

“What about you, Anne? Did
you
remember them?” she queried with a sly smile.

Ann said quietly, “I’m afraid not. I can’t remember anything further back than the night of the accident.”

The blue eyes opened very wide indeed. “Can’t you really? How funny! You aren’t just pretending?”

The man called Lee gave a short, sharp laugh. “Loss of memory isn’t a joke, Beverley, my sweet. Sometimes it’s a very great blessing, though.” And he gave Mrs. Woods, and Ann a sidelong glance before turning to pick up a cigarette from a box on the table.

Mrs. Woods returned him a glance of dislike. “Beverley darling, you aren’t going to overtire yourself, are you? All these people — all that noise!”

The lovely face amongst the pillows was suddenly distorted with temper. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Mummy, stop acting as if I were half dead! I’m doing nothing, just lying here like a log. The crowds and the noise are just a pale reflection of living — just a faint reminder that once I was a real person in the world and not just a shadow.”

Lee bent over her. “There, darling,” he soothed, “don’t get all het up. No one as lovely as you could ever be a shadow.”

She relaxed and began to smile. Ann saw Mrs. Woods’ lips tighten. It was obvious that she did not like this man.

Another group of people had edged forward and Ann found herself pushed back. She did not make any effort to keep her place, but turned away, and found a spot by another window. She felt dismayed at the task Mrs. Woods had assigned to her, though she felt sorry for the lovely girl with the shadow of illness across her face and frustration in her big blue eyes.

“Here you are, Ann. I’ve brought you a drink.” A glass was thrust into Ann’s hand and she turned in a bewildered manner to a pleasant-featured young man with very dark hair.

“I — I—”

“You don’t think you know me,” he grinned. “No, but I know you.”

Ann’s heart seemed to stop beating. This was it. Someone from her past...

“Megan has talked about you so often,” he continued easily. “You remember Megan? Nurse Elliott? She’s a friend of mine, rather more than a friend actually.”

Ann’s face cleared. “Oh, you must be Doctor Whitely.” He looked down at her with glinting eyes. “Yes, Frank Whitely. I recognized you from Megan’s description. Feeling all right now?”

“Wonderful,” she agreed. “Thanks to Megan’s nursing.”

“She’ll be thrilled to have that testimonial,” he commented. “Honestly, though, is the old frontal lobe back to normal?”

Ann shook her head thoughtfully. “No, not that, I’m afraid. I still can’t remember any further back than, the train accident.”

He smiled sympathetically. “Too bad! But everything will probably come back all in a rush, and then maybe you’ll wish it hadn’t.”

A cold little shiver ran through Ann. It seemed that, like Mrs. Woods, he guessed that there was something in her past from which she was running away.

“I’m surprised to see you, here, actually,” Doctor Whitely continued. “Most of us — the people here this afternoon are mainly from the Institute, you know — are here for free drinks and a change from Institutional surroundings, but you ... well, you’re intimately concerned. You surely aren’t prepared to stand by and see that girl commit suicide! After all, she
is
your sister, and you
are
a nurse.”

Ann’s face was very grave. “You’re very blunt, Doctor Whitely.”

He put his hand to his smooth dark head. “I know I look like a Welshman, and indeed I am half Welsh. But the other half is Yorkshire and that half makes me put my big feet where they shouldn’t go. Sorry. Please forget it.”