Nurse in Waiting (19 page)

And after all—what need was there, wondered Joanna sadly. If Roger did not love Shuan yet, at least he must love what she would ultimately stand for in his mind—the age-old stability and continuance of Carrieghmere in which he had his roots and which would have its future in his children.

For little was more certain than that Roger Carnehill would marry, have children
—
and that she, Joanna would not be there to see!

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Eve
r
y day now
Roger was beginning to be able to undertake the ‘little more’ which signified his body’s return to strength and power. And increasingly every day Joanna expected to get the recall to London which would mark the ending of his ‘case.’

She did not know anything about a certain interview between Mrs. Carnehill and Dr. Beltane on that very subject
...

The doctor had just left Roger one morning and was on his way out to his car when he found himself waylaid by his patient’s mother.

He forestalled the question he knew she was about to ask by remarking obliquely with a twinkle in his eye: “I’ll soon have to start paying garage bills again now! For hasn’t Michael been servicing my car free for two years and more? And what excuse will I have for coming out to Carrieghmere at all soon?”

Mrs. Carnehill laughed, taking his meaning at once. He was telling her that
Roger was cured! She retorted teasingly: “You’ll have to take your
meals at home
too, Robert Beltane! The times beyond count that your poor wife must have had to
lunch alone—!
”

At that they both laughed. The doctor’s readiness to accept hospitality was an old joke at Carrieghmere.

M
rs. Carne
h
ill went on more seriously: “He is getting on, isn’t he? Don’t you notice the change in him every time you see him?”

“Isn’t that what I’m telling you? He doesn’t need doctoring now. Nor, for that matter, nursing.”

“That’s what I wanted to see you about,” put in
Mrs. Carnehill quickly. “Joanna
—”

“You’ve been thinking he can do without her now? Well, so he can. I’ll tell her as soon as you like that the case is finished and that she can be
recalled. I’ll write to her matron
—”

“But you don’t understand. I don’t
want
her to go
—
at least, not yet.
I
need her!”

He looked at her with quizzical inquiry. “And for what would a hale woman like yourself be needing a trained nurse, Ena Carnehill?”

“Don’t be obtuse, Robert! Of course I don’t need her. But I want her. I want to keep her for a while.
I—like her. She is a great comfort to me, especially now that Shuan has taken to being a bit difficult lately. I want her to stay on. But you’ll have to
convince her that she is still needed. There’s a difference!”

“
There is indeed! And you’d have me fabricate
an
excuse for keeping her here, against my proper
se
nse of duty that should by rights be sending her to the clamour of patients that would be wait
ing
for her at this very moment? Have you no heart for them, Ena Carnehill?”

Mrs. Carnehill emitted a sound that was suspiciously near a snort.

“English, probably, every one of them!” she said. “And by that token, expecting sympathy from me only in the abstract, I dare say! Bless them all, and I’ll hope they get well quickly. But that’s not offering th
em
Joanna! Will you do as I say now, and not
be
forcing me to think of an excuse for myself?”

“How long would you be wanting her?”

“Say a month? Maybe two. Does it matter to a day or so?” Mrs. Carnehill replied vaguely.

“
All right. I’ll convince her—and her matron
—
that Roger still needs nursing. After all, whose conc
e
rn is it but yours, since you’re prepared to go on paying her salary?”

“
Whose indeed?”

“Except perhaps mine!” pursued the doctor with a relentless shrewdness. “Mine, as your old friend,
E
na, to ask you whether it is really you who don’t w
a
nt to see Nurse Merivale go? Or whether it’s
R
oger himself? Maybe it’s your fear that when she does go he is going to miss her beyond all seeming?”

Mrs. Carnehill’s eyes dropped before his shrewd
face.
“I think—he
is
going to miss her terribly,” she
said
slowly.

“As a nurse
—
or something more?”

She hesitated. “Just as—Joanna, I think. Right from t
he
beginning she seemed to—to dovetail into some
m
ood of his that I hadn’t understood. She gave him something which he got neither from Shuan nor
f
rom me
—”

(
“You mean,” the doctor was thinking, “that she helped him to keep his individuality as a man, which you and Shuan were wresting from him by sheer devotion!”) But aloud he said dryly: “That sounds as if he might be thinking of her In terms of the emotion which, so we are assured on the best authority, makes the world go round. D’you mean you’d be happy about that?”

Again she hesitated. “I don’t know. But even if he were thinking of her—like that—it wouldn’t be any good, because Joanna is engaged to a man in London.”

“Is she now? I didn’t know that. She doesn’t wear a ring.”

“No. Well, perhaps there isn’t actually an engagement, but she told Roger about him soon after she came, and he’s been over to Dublin since, and before he went back he came out here to see her.”

“What was he like? I hope he deserves her, for she’s a fine girl
—”

“I didn’t see him. I thought he would stay for a meal, but Joanna came back on duty, bringing his apologies and saying he’d had to get back to Dublin in time for the night-mailboat out from Kingstown. She looked rather white and upset, I thought, so I didn’t question her. Besides, it was just when Roger was so ill and nobody could think of much else. Afterwards, he told me that she changed about then ... that until then he’d been able to tease her about her ‘hydrogen-bomb specialist’—this man is engaged in some sort of research, I gather—but that, after that, she didn’t seem to want to talk about him—rather as if the whole thing might have crystallized into something a good deal more serious, and that she was intimating to Roger that it was no longer any conceivable business of his. I think that was the impression he got.”

“And you still don’t know whether Roger has ever thought in that way about her?” queried Dr. Beltane thoughtfully.

“No, not really
—”

“Then if you want to save him some heartache, wouldn’t it be better to let her go now—she being more or less engaged to this fellow in London?”

Mrs. Carnehill’s lips set stubbornly. “No. He may not need her physically any more, but his spirit still leans on her. I’ve seen him look at her
...
”

“And is it going to lean any less at the end of your ‘month—maybe two’?” inquired the doctor dryly.

“I don’t know. But at least he’ll be stronger, and he’ll be more wrapped up in the work of the estate
—”

“—And possibly more in love, not less!”

“I must risk that. He still needs her and so do I!”

The doctor opened the door of his car resignedly. “All right, Ena. You win. You’re a headstrong woman, aren’t you?”

Her blue eyes smiled charmingly into his. “Headst
r
ong? Not a bit of it,” she disclaimed. “Just—a tiger-cat with young!”

As the summer days drew on and the date of the Dublin Horse Show came nearer, Shuan and
René
Menden intensif
i
ed their training of the mare, Lady of Belmont, which Shuan would ride in the chief Ladies’ Jumping Event, Roger was able to turn out to watch them at the early morning practice, and often Joanna would go along too.

That summer the weather afforded some specially thorough examples of the Irish “soft morning”—the fine, misting drizzle which drives up upon the southwest wind to blot out the horizon completely and to wet the unwary to the skin in a surprisingly short time. It was on one of these days that Joanna, deceived into thinking that the obscured sun would presently break through, had gone out without a coat.

She and Roger stood side by side, waiting for the other two to appear out of the mist for another round of the improvised course. Over his arm he was carrying Shuan’s hooded camel-hair coat which she had discarded upon mounting, but it was not until Joanna gave an involuntary shiver that he seemed to be aware of the rain.

“Here, put this on,” he said quickly. “What do you mean by invoking the elements in this way?”

“In England,” Joanna retorted, “a misted morning sun usually means a fine day!”

“And in Eire even the sun takes its orders from the west wind!” He held the coat open, making an imperious gesture commanding her to put her arms into its sleeves. Joanna obediently turned her back and felt the coat’s welcome warmth gradually drawn up on to her shoulders. But as she made to turn about, fumbling for the edge of the hood in order to draw it over her head, she found herself transfixed. Roger’s hands were still at her shoulders, holding her fast.

For a moment Joanna’s heart seemed to be throbbing in her very throat at the ecstasy of knowing
:
his touch which had no relation to the thousand and one impersonal contacts they had had with each other and which for a blessed self-deceiving instant, she could believe to be an unspoken tribute of service from a man to a beloved woman
...

But the moment passed. His hold slackened and
she drew away, feeling again for the hood with fingers which trembled.

He bent over her then, looking down into her face as his hands drew the hood’s cosiness about it.

Their eyes met in an instant’s unaswered question. Then he said lightly: “In that thing you look about ten years old!”

“Do I?” began Joanna, and then drew back
quickly as Shuan and
René
on their mounts appeared suddenly from the veil of mist which was
closing in upon them. Behind them, on foot, came Justin McKiley.

He and Roger greeted each other briefly. Then Roger turned to Shuan. “How was it?” he asked. “We couldn’t see for the rain.”

“Not good enough.
René
had to fault me
f
our times.”

“Where?”

“At the ditch and again at the gate. Roger—will you come over there with us and I’ll try them again?”

“Of course.” He turned to Joanna. “Will you come?”

She shook her head. “No. I’ll get back and see about organizing some hot coffee for you when come in.
”

She turned away, expecting Justin to accompany the others. Instead, he watched them move off and then fell into step beside her.

“I was coming up to the house anyway,” he explained easily. “Shuan is a lovely little horsewoman, isn’t she? I shouldn’t be at all surprised to see her land a prize at Ballsbridge on the tenth.”

“If she does, it will be because she has worked for it, heart and soul,” declared Joanna.

“Yes, hasn’t she?” he agreed smoothly. “But of course I knew that’s how it would be when we had to sell the other mare. Shuan is sufficiently Irish to regard a lost cause as something to be fought for to the death. When Deirdre went, she didn’t believe Lady of Belmont had a chance of appearing at the Show, but that didn’t stop her from setting her teeth into the idea of getting her there all the same. Haven’t you found Shuan is like that
—
that she’ll ride a conviction
—
however mistaken—to the last whiplash?”

“Yes, perhaps.” Joanna was not anxious to discuss Shuan’s character with Justin, but he went on relentlessly:

“That’s how I see it, and I know her pretty well, I think. Besides, I find her an attractive child, and that’s always an aid to the judging of character. Don’t you agree?”

Joanna did not reply, and he went on mockingly:

“Come! You should know that I like to have attractive women about me. And since you made it clear that you had—other plans
t
o pursue, ho
w
can you blame me for cultivating Shuan who is infinitely more—malleable?”

Joanna moistened her dry lips. “Shuan says that you believe you can get her a job,” she said, find
ing
it hard now to conceal her dislike of the man.

He looked surprised. “Oh, did she tell you that?”

“She told Mrs. Carnehill when I happened to be there. She said you knew some influential people in the antique trade
—”

“In
antiques
?” He
laughed. “Well—that was as good a story as any other—wasn’t it?”

Joanna stared at him. The blatant admission confirmed Shuan’s story. She said: “You mean you never promised her anything of the sort?”