Nurse in Waiting (9 page)

“I know. I’m sorry. I’ve been having potato-cakes and milk with
René
Menden at the Dower House.” She smiled at Mrs. Kimstone. “Thank you so much for keeping Mr. Carnehill company while I was away!”

The older woman unbuttoned her lips so far as to say: “Nonsense! We often come over and sit with him. Don’t we, Roger?”

“Yes, often,” said Roger, looking as if he had only just stopped short of adding: “Too often.”

Mrs. Kimstone made an effort and went on, with a sort of supercharged brightness: “But, my word, you’ve made some changes since we were last here! All the furniture in this room
—
it has disappeared! There’s practically nothing left to sit on!”

“They’ve probably heard the price Americans will pay in Grafton Street for antiques, and they’ve sold the lot,” suggested the Colonel facetiously.

Roger said: “Joanna disapproved of it and turned it out. If you must sit on it, you’ll find it in the attic,” he added pointedly.

Mrs. Kimstone ignored the invitation and asked archly:
“
Who
disapproved of it?”

“I did,” put in Joanna briskly. “As furniture it was excellent, but none of it was very suitable for a sickroom. It all had to be dusted, you know!”

Mrs. Kimstone looked slightly taken aback by this direct challenge. “Yes, well I suppose it had. But it makes such a
ba
re
n
e
ss
—just like a hospital ward!”

“That
,
” murmured Roger “was the idea. Or so I gathered.”

Colonel Kimstone levered himself off the windowsill. “We’d better go Marty, and leave Roger to
—
to
Joanna
.”
And he winked broadly.

“Are you staying to dinner?” inquired Roger, almost cordial at the prospect of release.

“We’ve been asked.” The Colonel gave his wife a little push towards the door. “Have to give Mrs. Carnehill a chance to try out her latest recipes, eh Nurse?” he grinned at Joanna as they left the room.

When they had gone Joanna said, because she was beginning to be able to say such things to Roger: “You weren’t being very gracious, were you?”

“If you mean I was being a complete boor, why don’t you say so?” he snapped.

“Perhaps because I’ve seen you behave even worse,” she said, though she was surprised at the violence of his reply.

“The woman is like a mosquito—her mind follows you around, deciding where to nip you next!”

Joanna thought she understood. “Oh, you mean
—
about the furniture
?” she began laughingly.

“No, I do
not
mean about the furniture. That’s nothing to the snooping she does into the more remote corners of people’s private lives
—”
He
paused, frowning, and Joanna was wondering whether he would be more explicit when, characteristically, he abandoned the subject and asked abruptly:

“Well—you saw
René
? What could he tell you?”

“Nothing. I couldn’t ask him.” At risk of angering him further, she added: “Don’t you see that it would put the boy into an awkward position? It
—
it’s too much like spying. I’d rather go straight to Mr. McKinley himself.”

“
That
would get you a long way!” put in Roger sarcastically.

“Well, as a matter of fact I did speak to him. He came in while I was at the Dower House.” She parried Roger’s look of inquiry with a question of her own. “Did you know about the timber that’s being felled over by the east wall of the park?”

He frowned. “Yes
—
I did.”

“Oh. Well, Mr. McKiley said that it was a good thing to do, considering the price that timber is fetching, but he didn’t seem to think that you approved.” Joanna was finding this very heavy going.

“So you discussed my approval or disapproval of the disposal of my property with McKiley? I must say, Joanna, that you go rather far!”

Joanna flushed. “I didn’t know you had been consulted about the felling. And I supposed it was one of the things you wanted to know about
—”

“ ‘A good price for it’!” fumed Roger. “What’s the good of that to me, when I don’t know
what
price it fetches—when I never see an account book?”

“I put that to Mr. McKiley too,” said Joanna quietly. “I suggested that you wanted and ought to have more control
—”

He made a resigned gesture. “Joanna, you’re impossible. And I thought you were an ally! As if McKiley, at this stage of things, would listen to the sweet reasonableness of inviting my co-operation! But leave it
—
it doesn’t matter.”

Joanna’s heart sank. She too had begun to think of herself as an ally. And here they were, through her well-meant efforts on his behalf, at the edge of another of his despairs.

With her hand upon the bell-rope which would
s
ummon help for his bedmaking, she said slowly: “There’s one way in which you could get your way and run the estate as you please. You could determine to get well sooner than anyone expects.”

“Oh, that? I have a lot to say in the matter, don’t I?” His tone was bitter.

“Well, you could begin by trying to believe in the new treatment they are going to give you in Dublin.”

“Yes, and if I ever do get on my feet again, when all’s done there’ll be the Marty Kimstones of this world watching me like hawks to see what I’ll do with my freedom!”

Joanna did not reply. She did not understand the implication of his last remark and it was useless to try to argue with him in such a mood.

It was Shuan who answered the summons of the bell. She was full of having gained a pupil for riding lessons and chattered away to Roger, though Joanna thought that he answered with scant interest.

“My dear,” she exclaimed, “the woman’s got a seat like a sack of potatoes and she uses her hands like a couple of flatirons. Roger
—
you’re not listening!”

“Yes. I am. Potatoes. Flatirons. What else?”

But it seemed to Joanna that it was his eyes that followed Shuan about the room, rather than that his mind followed her chatter. It was almost as if he was seeing the girl afresh, in some new light. Joanna did not understand it, but it
was
clear that for the moment his whole interest was absorbed.

Was it possible that Mrs. Kimstone had talked about the girl, had criticized her or praised her, and now he was silently assessing the matter for himself? Before the evening was out Joanna was to know.

After dinner
—
which consisted of an excellent soup, grilled trout and a savoury
—
she was left alone with Mrs. Kimstone while the other three went off in search of confirmation of a piece of Irish history which was in dispute.

Mrs. Kimstone took from a handbag as big as a holdall a piece of shapeless grey knitting upon which her needles clicked vigorously.

“You don’t knit, Nurse?” she inquired sharply.

“Sometimes. But I’m not doing anything at the moment,” admitted Joanna.

Mrs. Kimstone began to count stitches, did some calculations, frowned, and then launched herself upon some frenzied unravelling.

“I always say it’s so
soothing
!”
she said tritely.

“It is
—
when it goes well!” replied Joanna demurely, and was careful not to meet the inquiring glance of the small eyes as their owner wondered if she was being laughed at.

There was silence until the grey mass was once more dangling from the pins. Then Mrs. Kimstone said, with the same arch brightness which she had used with Roger: “It’s so nice, isn’t it, to think that when Roger gets better Mrs. Carnehill’s plans for her two young people will probably have a happy ending after all?”

Joanna said: “Plans? For whom? I don’t understand.”

Mrs. Kimstone tittered. “Oh, come. Nurse! Don’t pretend to be blind! Or is it that you feel, in your position here, you have to appear detached? In that case, perhaps I’d better not go on. But you mean you hav
e
n’t realized what’s afoot between Roger and Shuan? That Mrs. Carnehill would be so happy if they made a match between them?”

“Between
Roger
and
Shuan
?”
Joanna realized too late that she had used her patient’s first name aloud. “Surely you are wrong, Mrs. Kimstone? Mrs. Carnehill, I feel certain, doesn’t hope for or suspect anything of the sort!”

The tight lips pursed. “I dare say I’ve known Ena Carnehill for longer than you have. Nurse! She would be delighted to have Shuan happily settled with Roger. After all, you can never tell with a son
—
the flipperty-gibbets
I’ve
seen imported into decent homes like Carrieghmere
—
!”

“
But Mrs. Carnehill told me that there was nothing more than a brother-and-sister relationship between
them! She was quite happy about that, but
—”

Joanna paused, wondering why she felt so impelled to deny the possibility of an understanding between Roger and Shuan, and decided quickly that it was due to an impis
h
desire to contradict the sharp-eyed little gossip across the hearth. She went on: “Mrs. Carnehill did suggest that Monsieur Menden—the farm-student, you know
—
had begun to care for Shuan
—”

“But she didn’t suggest that Shuan cared for
him
?”
retorted Mrs. Kimstone quickly. “I happen to know that nothing is further from the girl’s thoughts. And quite right too. Nasty foreigner—frogs and all
that
—”
The whole of the non-English-speaking
races were dismissed with the contemptuous click of a knitting-needle.

“No,” said Joanna slowly, “I don’t think anyone could suppose that Shuan had any ideas in the direction of
René
—”

“How could she,” put in her companion triumphantly, “when it’s quite obvious that she is
devoted
to Roger?”

“But their ages!” protested Joanna. “She is eighteen, I think. And Mr. Carnehill is
—
thirty? Besides, I’m with him a good deal, you know. And he has never given any indication that he
—
he feels in that way about Shuan.”

“That difference in age is of no consequence. Nurse! In fact, quite the ideal, everyone said when I married the Colonel—and as for Roger’s not showing his feelings, he wouldn’t so much as give me a hint!”

“You asked him?” inquired Joanna shrewdly, suspecting that she now understood much of her patient’s cryptic commentary on his visitor.

“Oh, not in so many words, of course! I probed him—very tactfully. But it’s clear that he is keeping things to himself, because that’s his idea of nobility
—
of what, in his circumstances, is the
manly
thing to do. His accident, you know!”

“His accident?”

“Yes. He feels that he ought not to ‘speak’ while he lies there, not knowing what his future may be.”

“Then he can’t be very confident of what Shuan feels for him,” said Joanna with conviction. “And no ‘nobility’ can justify his not telling her that he loves her if he does, of not giving her the chance to make her own decision in the matter
!
”

Mrs. Kimstone’s eyebrows were raised distastefully. “Dear me, Nurse, I didn’t know that we were talking about love!”

“Then what,” cried Joanna in exasperation, “what, in the name of goodness, were we talking about?”

“Surely”—the needles clicked with a kind of smug satisfaction—”we were talking of a match which everyone would find entirely suitable? I don’t know that, as they’ve known each other since childhood, that there would be anything particularly
romantic
about it—even if that were
at all
desirable
—
!”

Joanna said nothing. She looked across at the self-satisfied figure opposite; upon whose dry lips the lovely words ‘love’ and ‘romantic’ had been no more than shrivelled negatives, denying all that should be most precious in life. And it was with a sense of shock
—
the second lately!
—
that she thought, “Perhaps that is how our friends look on at Dale and me
—
telling each other that since we’ve known each other for so long there needn’t be ‘anything romantic’ in our marriage when it happens. Perhaps, even that’s how
Dale
thinks of it.
Perhaps it’s how I think o
f
it myself
!”

Mrs. Kimstone was saying rather acidly: “You don’t seem to like the idea, Nurse! Now I wonder why?”

“You suggested yourself,” Joanna reminded her, “that perhaps I ought to remain ‘detached.’ It’s not, after all, for me to ‘like’ or ‘dislike’ any of my patients’ private plans. It’s simply that I was rather surprised, in view of what Mrs. Carnehill had said to me.”

“Oh. I supposed perhaps that you might feel offended because Roger hadn’t confided in you. I thought the modern nurse liked to feel that she had the
full
confidence of her patient. After all, they’re going in for that side of things—the
psychology
of people
—
so much more nowadays. However, you mustn’t mind if, because I’ve known Roger longer than you have, there are things about him that I can
sense,
without his having to tell me a teeny word!”

“I won’t mind,” promised Joanna demurely, determining that though it was impossible to be annoyed with anyone so self-satisfied and obtuse, she would not say anything more upon the subject.

How right she was about Roger Carnehill and Shuan, Joanna could not tell. But if this were indeed true it certainly explained Shuan’s jealousy of herself, her chagrin at being “ousted”, as she saw it, from the care of Roger. At the thought Joanna felt a sudden surge of understanding
—
an understanding of the girl’s feelings that was, all the same, mingled with a complete bewilderment over the whole situation.

Was it possible
—
was it
anyhow
possible that two such volatile people as Roger and Shuan, neither of whom ever made any attempt to hide their feelings, should conceal their intention to marry, for any reason at all? They didn’t behave like people in love
...
On that first afternoon Joanna had seen them kiss, but it had seemed a kiss of exuberant greeting on Shuan’s part, and Roger’s attitude, then as always, had been that of ‘elder brother’. No, there could be nothing like that in it at all
...

But when she reached her room that night she realized wryly that in thinking over Mrs. Kimstone’s story she had achieved none of the detachment she had intended! In fact she had become quite passionate about the whole affair. She was thinking, as she put on her dressing-gown and sat down to brush her hair, that she needed something or someone to bring her back to a sense of proportion
—
to the realization that she was here at Carrieghmere on a case, and that deeply passionate interest in other people’s private lives was certainly no part of her work.

But it was difficult to be
e
ntirely indifferent to people like those at Carrieghmere. Their unconventionalities and even their ill-humors served to make them rounded and colorful—as if, somehow, they
insisted
on your attention! It seemed that she had conveyed that even to Dale, thought Joanna with a smile. For his last letter had held an odd resentment of her preoccupation with them. If it had been anyone other than Dale she would have said he was jealous! But the letter itself was here somewhere
...

Joanna drew it from a drawer and propped it before her on the dressing-table. After telling her news of mutual interest Dale wrote:

“My dear, what a menagerie you seem to have got yourself into this time! A menagerie, if you say so, which appears to bristle with personable males! The pages of your letter were f
ai
rly peppered with their names—each with a sep
a
rate appeal to your interest, I gather.

They do seem a queer lot. And reading between the lines, I thought that you seemed to be taking their troubles rather to heart—especially the vagaries of the outlandish child who hadn’t the manners to report having accepted my wire. One wonders if this sort of thing happens often and if so, how your Mrs. Carnehill manages to conduct any sort of businesslike journalism? I’d say to you, Joanna
—
Don’t exhaust yourself with personalities
—
these people, with their idiotic jealousies and general haphazard behaviors, have merely bought your skill and when you’ve got your patient well they’ll let you go without even remembering your name six months afterwards. You’ll have become ‘that nurse we had for Roger’
—
no more than that!

“I don’t know why I’m telling you this, because you must know it, and you usually preserve
the
most correct of detached attitudes to your cases! But in this one you seem to have got involved
...
I don’t quite know how far. When I wrote ‘involved’
I nearly added ‘emotionally’. But it isn’t that,
i
s it, Joanna? I think you’d have told me if it had been. You would, wouldn’t you?”

Dale’s letter had stopped abruptly there and Joanna sat staring at it, her head propped in her hands while her fingers thrust deeply into the loosened falls of her hair
a
t each side of her face. Suddenly she did not want to smile at the tone of the letter any more. Dale didn’t often write like that—her own letter must have said more than she meant to convey, and Dale seemed really disturbed.

At what? What could she have said or hinted at to be taken up so seriously? She could not tell. Tomorrow she must write to him again, be really facetious this time or else ignore altogether the subject of the Carnehills and their complicated affairs. And yet—mightn’t that puzzle Dale even more? It would be better to write assuring him that, indeed, she was as “detached” as usual, intent only on doing her work well, finishing it at last and being quite content to become ultimately “that nurse we had for Roger.”

Slowly she began to fold Dale’s letter, knowing that if she were completely truthful she would not be content to become for the Carnehills a mere forgotten name. But why should it happen like that? Colonel Kimstone had remembered her—That
—
surely—was the least she could
a
sk of Carrieghmere when she had left it behind her. But was it the most she
wanted
to ask of it
—was
it?

She started at the sound of a knock upon her door. Her thoughts immediately flew to her patient
—
someone had come to call her, and she would have to dress and go to him.

But when the door opened it was Shuan Ferrall
w
ho stood upon the threshold. And Shuan was
mindful
of nobody’s urgencies but her own.

She said breathlessly: “Can I come in? I—I want to talk to you. I’ve got to get awa
y
from Carrieghmere!”