Nurse with a Dream (4 page)

“That will be splendid. Thank you enormously. I can find my own way back.”

He laid an earnest finger on her arm. “Not across the moors. You’ll get lost and Lance and I will be put to the trouble of finding you. Or you might fall over Black Crag and be drowned in the beck at the bottom. Guy must bring you back in that estate-car thing of his.”

“I can walk. Mrs. Medway says it is six miles by road. You see, I don’t actually know anybody at Timberfold. I just want to see the house.”

“Why? You don’t want to buy it or anything, do you?”

She shook her head. “My father lived there, as a boy. He adored the house but hated farming; I want to see all the places he knew. He came here often, to the Moor Hen. They used to do ham-and-egg teas then. That’s how I knew about the inn.”

“Are the Timberfold folk relations, then?”

“I suppose so. My grandmother married a widower—he had a little boy called Saul, and a baby girl whose name I can’t remember ... I think she died. Grandmother had Peter—that was my father. Saul had the farm and Peter ran away to be an artist.”

“What a delightfully romantic thing to do. Do go on, I am incurably inquisitive about other people’s business.”

“He wasn’t a proper artist painting pictures. He studied textile designing at Leeds—at evening classes because he had to earn his living during the day. There he met my mother, who was also studying textiles. Her father was a silk manufacturer in Lyons. They fell in love, married, and—”

“Lived happy ever after?”

“For a time. Daddy designed for the silk, of course. We lived in France, just outside Lyons. Then the war came.”

He cupped a big hand over hers, as it lay on the black-and-white checked cloth. “I sense a sad ending to this tale.”

“They were Resistance, naturally. Mummy was killed first, Daddy about a year later. I shouldn’t complain, it happened to so many, and I had Grand’mère and Grand-père. They were angels, and didn’t even grumble when I wanted to come to my father’s country. I
had
to come, to find out how much was real and how much was fairy-tale. Daddy told me stories by the hour, and I’m pretty muddled by now. I was so young, you see. The bit about the fire never going out for a hundred years I firmly believed was fairy-tale—but it’s true!”

“And the family? You don’t intend to announce yourself as the long-lost—what are you, niece?”

“Certainly not Saul—Daddy’s half-brother—was a pig. He was bigger and stronger than Daddy, who took after his mother, fair and slight, like me. You’ve noticed I’m rather small and colourless?”

He choked. “I’ve noticed you are a pocket battleship, but if you think you are colourless you’ve another think coming.” He half-closed his eyes and tilted his head back, as if examining a work of art. “Not the obvious beauty, perhaps; a connoisseur’s girl. Your hair is the colour of polished pine wood and your skin is—what? Apple blossom, that’s it—the faint flush of pink. Oh dear me, no. Not colourless, by any means. And now I’ve made you blush. Sorry.”

“I am used to compliments, because young Frenchmen can be rather complimentary without meaning much. But up to now I haven’t been dissected.”

For some unknown reason that amused him, and he laughed so loudly that Mollie, coming in with fresh hot toast leaned over and asked to be told the joke.

“I am accused of dissecting Jacqueline,” Alan complained bitterly. “We were discussing her looks.”

“Then you’re probably guilty,” Mollie said sternly. “Was he being rude, Miss Clarke?”

“He didn’t mean to be.”

“Then he wasn’t. Alan can be ruder than any man I know, but only when he intends to be.”

“Go on, about your father,” he ordered, when Mollie had left them.

“Grandfather Clarke was a bully—a big, dark man. He loved Grandmother for being small and fair, but he couldn’t seem to help bullying her. And Daddy he bullied, too. Said he was a nincompoop. He loved his son Saul best, because Saul was like him, huge and black.”

“What happened to Saul?”

She frowned. “Mrs. Medway says he is dead. I suppose the Guy you mention is his son. But I’m puzzled, because he married a fair girl, like mayblossom, Daddy said. And now Mrs. Medway says Saul’s widow is called Connie. Connie was the maidservant in Daddy’s time.”

“H’m, a family of big black men marrying a series of small fair women. Evidently their taste runs that way—better look out, child, or one of these Calibans will be after
you.
Saul probably lost his mayblossom wife and married the servant for convenience. They do, you know. A widower needs a housekeeper, and the woman imagines there’ll be gossip if they don’t marry. I know the pattern of life in these parts. One meets it so often.”

Alan led the way along a sheep track. He made no concessions beyond the small one of carrying Jacqueline’s sandwiches in his rucksack. He plodded on at a steady pace which ate up distance, and did not look behind to see if Jacqueline was there. From time to time he halted and beckoned her to his side to point silently to a landmark, a splash of colour, a stream; to warn her of a pool of black boggy water, or indicate a hummock of dry bents she could use as a stepping-stone across a patch of wet ground. Or he would signal her with a downward gesture, and together they’d drop in their tracks, remaining silent, utterly immobile until her muscles ached, while some bird flitted back and forth, hither and yon, settling too far away or flying off without giving him the chance he wanted for a photograph.

After a particularly long and fruitless wait, she rose, rubbing her calf muscles ruefully. “How patient you are! Don’t you long to wring their little necks?”

He grinned over his shoulder. “One good photograph in a week-end is as much as I expect. I shan’t do much good to-day.”

Her chin tilted. “Because of me? Sorry I’m in the way. I dare say I can find the path quite well by myself now. Good-bye—I’ll be going.”

He grabbed her arm. “Don’t be touchy, child. This must be deadly dull, and I am abominably rude. Sorry—I get so interested I forget other people. Let’s drop down to the beck and eat. We are quite near the Timberfold footpath now.”

A narrow stream raced noisily between grey rocks, which were padded with thick moss and diamonded with spray. The water was beer-coloured, the thick foam a deep cream. “Peat makes it like that,” he explained. He spread an oilskin on a mossy boulder and invited her to sit down. “The sandwiches will be good. Lance and Mollie specialise in them. Ah yes—beef with lots of mustard. Here is your share.” He folded his long legs compactly and sat beside her.

They munched contentedly, relaxed and easy. A silence fell, not of constraint but of companionship. The sky was a vast pale blue bowl, and the slight breeze made a singing in the heather stems like fairy music very faint and far away.

“Those are good shoes,” he said suddenly. “Well scuffed, too. Old and good and comfortable, I guess. You’re a walker.”

She smiled lazily. “In the Alps, with my grandfather. He’s an enthusiast, and has taken me with him heaps of times. Not serious climbing, you know, but a few good scrambles.”

“Lucky girl. That’s our only scramble.” He pointed to where a steep cliff jutted unexpectedly into the smooth rounded hills. “Black Crag. No one knows quite why it is there. The local lads try a bit of rock climbing on it, and it is surprisingly difficult and treacherous. I shouldn’t try it alone, if I were you.”

“There you go—dictating,” she teased. “Black Crag looks interesting, I’d like to have a go.”

He spoke sharply. “With any experience of climbing at all, you ought to know it is foolhardy to try a strange climb alone. The crag may not be as impressive as the Alps, but it has its funny ways.”

She laughed aloud. “Don’t worry. I didn’t intend to try it alone.” She stood up and shaded her eyes, trying to see the crag more clearly in the faint heat haze. “It looks fun.”

“Maybe your cousin Guy will take you.”

She sat down again. “I told you, I don’t know the family, and don’t want to know them. I shall have a look at the house from a respectful distance and go away.”

“Without looking inside?”

“How could I?”

“You could ask for a glass of milk or the time.”

“So I could. There’s a clock on the wall over a flour-bin which looks like a chest-of-drawers painted yellow. Or was the flour-bin in Hansel and Gretel? No, it’s real, because Saul and Connie locked my father inside once—when it was empty, of course—and he thought he would suffocate, and screamed and screamed. And the clock said tock tock tock, and never said tick.”

“Quite a story-teller, your father.”

“Oh, he was! Yet he never talked down to me or patronised. We were happy and comfortable together always, like—”

She stopped speaking with a little gasp, knowing suddenly that
to-day
she had been happy and comfortable with a man who had not talked down to her, or patronised, or treated her as a pretty little woman fit only for flirting; to this man, as to her father, she was a
person,
with a mind and ideas of her own. He had shared his morning with her on a person-to-person basis, and she had been happy and carefree.

He did not press her to finish her sentence, but began to make an adjustment to his camera, whistling softly between his teeth. She admired the economical way he used his hands; large hands, with practical, square tips—strong, yet able to make the delicate adjustment precisely. This was a man who would do everything quickly, competently. She had never met anyone quite like him before, except her father. Indeed, she had little experience of Englishmen at all.

She studied him with a frank interest, as he bent over the camera, intent on his work. He was thin; not scraggily thin or gangling, but with a fine leanness as if his flesh had been worn by the fret of nerve and mind; about his folded lips and deep-set eyes there were raying lines; not deep as yet, though some day, when he was older, they would be deep and permanent. She saw with quick perception that he often worked like this, serious, intent, his eyes focused on his quick, skilful fingers, his mind watching alertly.

“Do you often do that?” she asked.

He did not look up. “Do what? Mend cameras?”

“Mend something? Make something? Work with your hands and concentrate like that?”

He chuckled. “You sound like a television panel game. Yes, I work with my hands—and I mend things. There, that’s done. Shall we go? You must be anxious to be on your way.”

“I’m almost tempted to turn back and leave Timberfold unvisited.”

‘To keep it in your dreams for ever, like the figures on Keats’ Grecian urn?”

“Good gracious, are you a thought reader? Are all Englishmen like you? If so, I’ll have to be careful.”

“All Englishmen? You sound as if you don’t know any.”

“I don’t. I remember Daddy, and I’ve met Mr. Medway and you. Plus porters, ticket-collectors and a nice Customs official.”

His eyebrows lifted to a terrifying height. “Heavens, I hadn’t realised that Ought you to be out alone? Let me give you a sound piece of advice. Lance Medway is all right, he’s a grand fellow, and if you take him for a standard pattern you’ll never be far off the beam. But don’t take me as typical. I’m exacting, impatient, touchy. I’m a bachelor, because no woman would ever put up with me, and I am a man with an obsession—a passion which means more to me than the love of any woman I’ve ever met. Oh, my good girl, don’t judge the British male by me. I break women’s hearts by lack of charm, indifference and sheer forgetfulness. But don’t be depressed by what you see. There are lots of nice young Englishmen, who will fall in love with you the minute they see you.”

“I won’t listen to a word you say against yourself. You have been kind, generous and thoughtful to me. And if you think my only interest in men is to have them fall in love with me, you are mistaken. Very much mistaken. Though I admit some of them do.”

He indicated the path, and because it was wider, almost a cart track, they could march side by side, briskly heel and toe.

“I’ll bet they do,” he agreed heartily. “They could hardly help it. You are rather sweet, young Jacqueline.”

“Ah, but that’s only”—she shrugged and made a little gesture with a curled upward palm—“physical attraction. When I marry I want to be loved for
myself
—not blue eyes and pink cheeks, but the part of me that thinks and wonders. My soul, perhaps.”

“ ‘And one man loved the pilgrim soul in you?’ Very nice, very highfalutin indeed, bless you.”

“Are you laughing at me?” She was scarlet-cheeked and cross.

“Heaven forbid! Too many marriages are made on physical passion, which bums away and doesn’t last. But”—he stopped walking so abruptly that she almost fell over him—“love has its roots in the physical attraction between man and woman. That’s why our Creator
made
us man and woman. Do you think He did it absent-mindedly? Of course He didn’t. Love must have roots, girl—deep in the earth. It’s not the whole plant, of course. Not the lovely flower of love. But without earthy roots you don’t get the perfect flower.”

“Gracious me, you seem to know a lot about love.”

He laughed loudly. “Me? I just see other people, and when
I
see them, their defences are down. For myself—my love is elsewhere.”