Nurse Linnet's Release (6 page)

CHAPTER V
I
II

A week later Linnet was in the Sluice Room with Jane Farr when Cathie Blake came in and joined them. It was the day that was to be crowned with the dance at St. Faith’s, and Cathie was already thinking of her green brocade and the copy of a Dior model which it now faithfully resembled, and which she was to wear for the dance. Her titian hair looked more strikingly titian than ever under her cap, for it had been specially washed and set the day before.

“I’m hoping that my new bronze sandals aren’t going to cripple me,” she announced, as she stood for a moment looking on at the other two. “The heels are perilously high, and I’ve a naturally weak ankle, so don’t be surprised if you see me being carried off the floor.”

Linnet looked round at her.

“I must see to the teas,” she said. “That new old lady in No. 17 is rather fussy about hers—it has to be very weak China—and she likes bread and butter cut so thin that you can see through it. But she’s a bit of a pet all the same, and I don’t mind pandering to her whims.”

Cathie looked at her indulgently, while Jane scrubbed away.

“The trouble with you, Linnet, my sweet,” she said, “is that you don’t mind pandering to quite a lot of whims, and the discerning quickly get to realize that. You’re not so much a nurse as a kind of ministering angel, which is all right so long as your example isn’t expected to be faithfully copied by the down-to-earth rest of us. And, oh, by the way, if you’re taking along tea to No. 29, Dr. Shane Willoughby is at this moment closeted with the patient, so you’d better take him a cup, too.”

“Oh!” Linnet exclaimed, and dried her hands. She inspected the tea-trays carefully in the kitchen, adding a fairy-cake here and another slice of bread-and-butter there, and a fresh tray-cloth when in her opinion the one already laid out on the tray was a little soiled. Then she carried her tea to the old lady in No. 17, who was a bad heart case, and not particularly patient, although she always smiled when she saw Linnet.

“How nice that it’s you, Nurse!” she exclaimed, when Linnet set the tray down on her bedside table, and then lifted her pillows against her back-rest and saw that she was as comfortable as human hands could make her. “You never look as if you’re in such a hurry that you can’t spare a few words for an old woman like me, and you never look impatient or vexed about anything. In fact, for one so young you always strike me as extraordinarily placid.”

“Perhaps I’m placid by nature,” Linnet flashed back at her, the dimple appearing at the corner of her mouth.

“I wouldn’t say that, Nurse.” The old eyes were on the young and faintly flower-like mouth—that was not so flower-like that there wasn’t a suggestion of ardour about it somewhere. And those deep eyes—like violets hidden in the depths of a leafy woodland dell—they had warmth in them, too, and compassion, and tenderness. “No, Nurse, you’re not placid—and one of these days when you marry some really nice man you’ll discover that you never have been placid!”

Linnet smiled at her, and asked her whether her bread-and-butter was thin enough.

“Beautifully thin. And, Nurse—”

“Yes, Mrs. Armitage?”

“When I was young I was just a little bit like you, but I’ve grown more troublesome and exacting as I’ve got older. But then I lost my husband five years ago, and he was a wonderful man—we were always so happy together! There’s nothing like marriage for bringing out all there is in one, but it’s got to be to the right man, of course! Don’t make a mistake, Nurse, and marry the wrong one
—that
is the most disastrous thing in life! And unfortunately, if you don’t believe in divorce, there isn’t very much you can do about it.”

“No,” Linnet agreed, soberly. And then she smiled again. “But at the moment I’m not even thinking about getting married.”

“You will.” The old eyes which had something strangely clairvoyant about them, studied her again carefully. “In a very short while you will be thinking about it quite seriously, but I do
beg of you not to make a mistake. You’ve got to be very careful.”

“I promise you I’ll be very, very careful,” Linnet told her, the dimple very much in evidence, and went out to collect another tea-tray.

When she arrived outside the door of No. 29 she tapped at it before entering, and it was Dr. Shane Willoughby’s voice that called to her to come in.

Diana was sitting up in bed and looking her enchanting best in a bed-jacket and nightdress both the colour of a primrose stalk, while the nightdress was edged, with a mist of lace. Her golden hair was tied with a ribbon of the same shade.

“You’ve appeared at exactly the right moment, Nurse,” she told Linnet. “Dr. Shane Willoughby and I have been discussing you hard, and we’ve got a proposition to put to you.”

“Oh, really?” Linnet murmured, endeavouring not to look as surprised as she felt while she arranged the patient’s tea-tray on the little table which extended across her bed. Then she handed the doctor his cup of tea, and his look of pleased surprise caused her to wish she had some of the excellent Fuller’s cakes she knew he liked with which to regale him, for unfortunately the fairy-cakes were a little dry.

“This is very kind of you, Nurse,” he said, and she noticed, not for the first time, that his voice had a deep, quiet note in it at times.

“Now, Nurse,” began Diana, after sipping hurriedly at her tea, “you’re not to run away because we’ve got to talk to you
...
”

“Unless,” put in Dr. Willoughby, in that quiet voice, “the moment isn’t quite convenient?”

“Well, as a matter of fact, it is fairly convenient,” Linnet admitted, for she had seen to it that all her patients had their tea before bringing it along to No. 29, and she was well able to spare them a short while. “But,” looking a little questioningly at the widow, “isn’t it something you’d rather discuss with Sister—?”

“No, certainly not, with you!” Mrs. Carey answered.

Dr. Shane Willoughby rose.

“Do sit down, Nurse,” he said, offering her his chair.

Once again she looked surprised.

“No, thank you very much,” she declined the offer.

“But I insist,” he said, and because it was not professional etiquette for a second-year nurse to argue with anyone of his eminence Linnet found herself subsiding into his vacated chair. He took a seat on the edge of the wide window ledge.

Diana was looking mildly excited, and it made her small face look pink like a rose, while her eyes were wonderfully deep and golden. Dr. Shane Willoughby’s eyes rested on her, Linnet thought, with a kind of amused gentleness.

“It’s like this, Nurse Kintyre,” Diana began again. “I’m going to be released from here—on condition,” she added, shooting an arched look at the doctor, “that I behave myself like a good girl! And in order that I shall do nothing else but behave myself we have decided that I must have someone with me who will be firm enough to keep me in my place when it’s necessary, but not be too hospitalish-nursish and bossy, and also be a companion to me as well. And as you’re the very person, and I’d really love having you around for a time, and you’re quite the nicest nurse in Aston House, I’d like it to be you! Do you think you can possibly get them to let you off the leash for a time so that you can come away with me?”

Linnet was so surprised that for a few seconds she could say nothing, and Dr. Shane Willoughby put in quietly:

“Mrs. Carey does need someone completely reliable with her—someone who understands her condition—and as she’s going into the country, and the particular spot where she’s going is very pleasant, I don’t think you need hesitate on the grounds of finding it perhaps not very much to your taste. I know you like Kent, and Hertfordshire is very attractive—”

“Hertfordshire?”

“Yes. You know it perhaps already?”

“No, but I—” She broke off. She was about to add that Major Monteith lived in Hertfordshire, or his mother did, but decided perhaps just in time that it might be as well to keep this piece of information to herself. “I know it’s a very nice county,” she concluded, rather more feebly.

“Then you like the idea?” Diana’s voice was quick and eager, and she smiled as if the whole thing was as good as arranged. “My godfather, Sir Paul Loring, has insisted that I go down to his cottage and stay there until I’m quite fit again, and although I’ve never seen it it’s bound to be a pet of a place if he spends week-ends there himself. He’s terribly fussy, and a bit of a connoisseur where old houses and so forth are concerned, and there’ll be a housekeeper there to look after us, and it should be the greatest fun—if you’ll only come with me! Please say you will,” in a charmingly coaxing manner that was well-nigh irresistible. The same method of appeal tried out on a man would be equally irresistible Linnet realized.

“Well, I really don’t know—” she was beginning, when once again Dr. Shane Willoughby interposed.

“If you’ve any fears that the Matron here won’t give her consent, then I might as well tell you that I’ve already won her consent,” he told her, with a smile.

“Oh!” Linnet exclaimed.

“And, as a matter of fact, she thinks it’s a good idea.”

“Apparently you’re not one of those super-charged nurses who can keep going indefinitely,” Diana put in, with amusement in her tone, “and according to your aunt you need a change almost as badly as I do. Apparently you all but passed out in the winter, so we’ll be two nice comfortable crocks together, won’t we? And we’ll do one another an enormous amount of good!”

“I certainly think it won’t do Nurse Kintyre any harm to have a little country air for a change,” Dr. Shane Willoughby observed, studying the pale outline of Linnet’s cheek.

“So there you are, Nurse Kintyre!” Diana exclaimed. “Doctor’s orders!”

And after that there seemed nothing very much that Linnet could say against the scheme, although she was by no means certain in her own heart that it appealed to her, or even that she thought it wise from Diana’s point of view. The lovely young widow might be more safely entrusted to the care of someone a little more capable of unshakable firmness than she was, and a little less inclined to reveal sympathy.

Now that she was so very much better Diana needed sympathy, but she also needed a great deal of bolstering for her morale, and a great deal of strength of mind and purpose in a constant companion. There must be no giving way to her when she resorted to those attractive wheedling methods, and no allowing the stronger will of an invalid to get the upper hand. Linnet was not at all sure that her own will was strong enough to cope without outside assistance with anyone like Diana Carey, who although small and apparently fragile was, she felt secretly certain, a most dominant personality.

“If you’re quite sure I’m the right type—?” she asked, looking a little uncertainly at the doctor.

For an instant he looked surprised.

“Right type?” he echoed. “My dear Nurse Kintyre, I haven’t a doubt of it!”

“Splendid!” Diana cooed. “And we’ll be leaving in about a week, nurse, and Dr. Willoughby is going to drive us all the way there. Isn’t that lovely?”

Outside in the corridor Linnet found that the doctor had followed her, having said a somewhat hurried farewell to his patient.

“I’m inclined to forget that I’ve a great many calls on my time when I find myself inside Aston House,” he told her, and she accepted that as a confession that he found it difficult to tear himself away from the golden-haired Diana.

She smiled at him a trifle mechanically, but said nothing as they walked along the corridor together.

“You’re quite happy about this—this new arrangement, Nurse, aren’t you?” he asked, looking downwards and sideways at her a trifle keenly. “You wouldn’t have preferred time to think it over?”

“Oh, no, I don’t think so. So long as you think I can give satisfaction,” she added.

“I’m quite sure of it,” he told her.

Before they reached the end of the corridor he suddenly smiled with a touch of almost boyish inquisitiveness and asked:

“As an old St. Faith’s nurse are you going to their dance tonight?”

She looked up at him in surprise.

“Yes—although I don’t think I’m really entitled to do so. But Nurse Blake and I have both been invited.”

“I see,” he said, but he did not ask whose were the invitations they had accepted. “Well, I hope you enjoy yourself, Nurse,” and with the merest inclination of the head he left her at the open gateway of the lift.

That night when she got upstairs to her room Linnet found Cathie already occup
y
ing it, wrapped in a bath robe, and anxious to borrow a handful of face tissues.

“I must do something about my face,” she said, “and the one thing I forgot was face tissues. But I’ve a wonderful new face pack, described as a miracle face-pack, which I shall apply while I’m in the bath, and that will give it plenty of time to work.” She examined her face in Linnet’s dressing-table mirror for several seconds before departing with the face tissues, and just as she was leaving she asked: “By the way, darling, what are you wearing? I forgot to ask you before whether you’ve been rash enough to indulge in something new?”

“As a matter of fact I have been rather rash,” Linnet admitted, and went to the wardrobe and lifted out a new evening-dress. Cathie gave vent to a whistle, and then her whole face beamed approval.

“If that isn’t exactly your dress I’m a Dutch-woman!” she exclaimed.

Linnet shook it out on its hanger, and the creamy-pink swirls of net which comprised the skirt swayed like a creamy-pink cloud. It was like the heart of a china rose, so delicate, so gossamer that only anyone as delicate and fragile-looking as Linnet could have worn it. The bodice was tiny and draped, with a few glittering sequins adhering to it, and Linnet had chosen sandals as insubstantial as moonbeams to go with it.