Queen's Nurse Read online

  “But I wanted it—very much.”

  “If you wanted it so much you could have entered the bidding for it. I’m presuming you understand the practice of auction sales?”

  Stung by the sarcasm, Jess retorted, “Of course I do. And Dr. Leyden—who bid against you—was bidding for me.

  “But surely, before it was too late, you had an obvious solution? Can you offer any good reason why I should now relinquish my fairly acquired property to you? Not—” dryly “—to mention the doubtful propriety of your attempting to do a private deal with me in the street!”

  It was Jess’s turn to recoil before the withering irony. What must he think of her? This man believed her to be a cheap opportunist who had deliberately held back in the salesroom in the hope of striking an advantageous bargain with him later. Why, he might even believe she had been waiting to waylay him!

  She said frigidly, “You must forgive me. I should have known what to expect, approaching you in such a way.”

  “And you’ll forgive me, if I’m intrigued to know why, when you let the thing go while you had the chance to secure it, even if not at your own figure, you should now want it so much?”

  “Please forget that I mentioned it.” She supposed she should be thankful she had not appealed to him through the sentimental value that the dresser held for her. He might equally have misunderstood that, so that at least she had been spared his pity, if not his scorn.

  He shrugged. “As you please. I’m sorry I can’t accommodate you, but I’d remind you that you claimed to think I paid too much. That does raise the question of what particular value you set upon it?”

  “It was the only thing I wanted in the sale, but I didn’t think it would go so high,” she answered indirectly.

  “But I assure you that I was able to buy it for far less than its real value. I happen to know something about furniture of its type. Also—” his pause was calculated while his eyes challenged hers “—I happen to think a buyer with expert knowledge has certain obligations to the seller in such matters.”

  “You mean you deliberately drove up the price, lest it should go for too little?”

  “I did. You consider that quixotic, no doubt?”

  “It is—unusual.” For all her chagrin Jess was conscious of a gleam of respect for his action.

  “Thank you, though it is only self-indulgence really. I find I get more pleasure out of something for which I have given a fair price rather than a mean one. And I should judge that the owner of that stuff on sale today is in need of the money.”

  “You don’t know the owner?”

  “No, but I know that she is a young woman who has been forced to sell up her home after her father’s death.”

  “How—how do you know that?”

  “I happened to hear it. If you like to think so, perhaps it further explains my tenacity in the matter of the dresser.” The corner of his mouth quirked into the ghost of a smile. “I’m rather hoping that she may be glad of that money.”

  Jess’s chin went up. “And I dare say you’d expect this unknown girl to be gratified by your—charity?”

  “Not charity,” he corrected infuriatingly. “I’ve also got good value for my money. But I’d like her to be gratified with the proceeds of her sale, however much I have to regret the frustration that that must spell for you—”

  Jess whitened. “I have already apologized. That was unnecessary and unpardonable!”

  “What was? Look here, Jess, is this man making himself a nuisance to you?” It was Michael, bristlingly protective, at her side.

  “Please, Michael—” She laid a hand upon his arm. Beside the stranger he looked like a very small dog with ineffectually raised hackles, and she did not know why the comparison between the two men should irritate her. Her fingers tightened as she tried to draw Michael away. But with an adroit movement he took her hand and imprisoned her arm possessively beneath his. Holding her so, he faced the other man.

  “Now,” he said truculently, “any unpardonable remarks you have to make can be made to me. This lady happens to be my fiancée—”

  Jess suppressed a gasp of dismay. The murmured suavity of the stranger’s, “Really? You are to be congratulated,” sounded like a calculated offense, but her real annoyance was for Michael’s misguided attempt to create a scene.

  With a supreme effort she wrenched free of his hold and turned toward the car. Over her shoulder she urged, “Michael, please don’t interfere. It was my own fault. I can explain,” and sighed with relief when, with a final glare of hostility, he joined her and they were able to drive away.

  There was silence between them until Michael said contritely, “I know what you are hating most—my claiming you as my fiancée like that!”

  “No. It was—dear of you, really. I know why you did it.”

  “Well, it was obvious, wasn’t it? I mean, you can always crash the real outsiders by letting them realize a girl has someone behind her, someone to stand up for her.”

  “He wasn’t an outsider.” Jess surprised herself with the sharp disclaimer. “I told you—it was my fault. When he came out of the salesroom I recognized him as the man who had bought the dresser, and on a sudden impulse I asked him to resell it to me.”

  “And he got offensive about it? I wish I’d knocked his block off!” mourned Michael.

  “Not really offensive. But he was quite determined to keep the dresser, and he saw fit to rebuke me for wanting to get it at too low a price. Just as you arrived he’d said that he had no sympathy for my frustration at not getting it, and I suppose that set me off—”

  “What a nerve! Your own property, too!”

  “He didn’t know that,” said Jess quickly.

  “Didn’t you tell him? Why on earth not?”

  But not even to Michael could Jess explain the stubborn pride that had scorned to accept the charity of pity at the hands of a man she was never likely to meet again.

  By mute common consent the subject was dropped, and during the rest of the journey they discussed Jess’s immediate plans. But outside her hotel, just before they parted, Michael said awkwardly, “Jess, I suppose I can’t hope that that premature announcement of mine might come true?”

  It was useless to pretend she did not know what he meant. But there was only one answer she could give, and Michael, accepting it ruefully, achieved a simple dignity that almost shamed her.

  “But you’ll write to me, won’t you?” he begged.

  “Of course I will.” An occasional letter to Michael would not fill the gap of the long newsy ones she used to send home and to which her father had looked forward so much, but it would help.

  “And I might come down when I get a free weekend?”

  “Yes, but Michael—”

  “It’s all right, pet.” His grin was reassuring. “I won’t make a habit of thrusting nonexistent engagements upon you, I promise!”

  “It didn’t matter a bit!” They smiled at each other, a friendly, cooperative smile, and then Michael was gone.

  She watched his car disappear into the traffic and felt suddenly forlorn. As if she was watching for the sun to break through a cloud, she waited for a ray of eagerness for her new life and her new responsibilities to reach and exhilarate her. But none did. Tonight she felt quite alone. One week later she was writing to Michael.

  You know, there’s really so much to describe that I don’t know where to begin!

  I did tell you something about the layout, I think—about Starmouth (partly seaside and partly industrial with a sugar-beet factory and a tannery) being the headquarters from which my chief, Dr. Gilder, works, while my district is the whole of the area surrounding the Cranes.

  ‘The Cranes’—as everyone about here calls them—are really three villages: Cranemouth, Crane-by-Sea and Crane. Cranemouth and Crane are no more than hamlets; Crane-by-Sea has a post office and five shops and is my center, as you know. The difference between them is that Cranemouth can almost see the sea at low tide; Crane
-by-Sea, further up the creek, only sees it at high tide; and Crane, which is halfway along the inland road between here and Starmouth, doesn’t see it at all except through a telescope!

  Just south of Cranemouth there is a great jutting bulge of land known as The Warrens, which the local squire, a man named Forester, has given as a bird sanctuary, which is partly covered at high tide and which grows only sea lavender and reeds. It is all very pleasant now, but it must be a desolate coast in the winter. You can’t think how I miss my Kentish trees. I’d even exchange a London plane tree for the few gale-bent specimens there are here!

  There is a car I am to have the use of for going about the villages and to the outlying houses and. farms. So far I’ve had only four patients—a convalescent appendix, a prenatal and a couple of fractures, the result of an accident at the beer factory where most of the menfolk work—that is, those who don’t work for the squire.

  This squire, Muir Forester, is rich and seems quite a personality. Apparently he owns some tin mines in northern Rhodesia that suddenly produced bauxite or something equally valuable. His house, Quintains—rather lovely with deep sash windows and a nicely weathered roof—stands above the village here on what passes for a hill in these parts. The whole of its frontage is a wide, terraced lawn where, tradition has it, there used to be tilting at the quintain in olden days. I have to go there tomorrow to give some foot exercises to his housekeeper who broke her ankle some time ago. I get the impression from Mrs. Boss, my landlady, and others that the squire is rather a power in the village, but I can’t decide whether this means that he interferes or that he is genuinely interested in us all. You’ll see from this that I’ve already begun to identify myself with the Cranes, and indeed I think I’m going to love every minute of working here. Be glad for me, Michael.

  She felt glad for herself when, the next morning, she set out upon the short walk up to Quintains, which she was making her first call of the day.

  The weather was holding beautifully. Each morning the thick sea mist over The Warrens cleared as the sun gained strength, and today, for the first time, she felt she would come to love the great flat stretches of countryside that as yet seemed so alien. Today she could see how they gave a sense of space, made room for the spirit to soar ... as her own spirit was soaring this morning with sheer joy of living. She felt happier than at any moment since her father’s death. Today there were no clouds upon her horizon, just as there were none in the vivid and deepening blue of the sky.

  She was expected at Quintains and was shown straight to the housekeeper’s quarters by a manservant. From the brief glimpse she had on the way upstairs she noticed that the house was graciously and knowledgeably furnished. In the wide hall, into which she had first been shown, there were some exquisite pieces, of which she could only guess at the value. She wished she could stay to admire them, but as it was she could only appreciate the whole mellow effect, envying a little the people who lived with them instead of with the blatant mass productions of Mrs. Boss’s front room, now her own sitting room. But did it really matter what your surroundings were, as long as you were as eager and as vital as she felt this morning?

  “Nurse Mawney, Mrs. Seacombe,” announced the manservant, standing aside so that Jess could enter the pleasant room.

  “Good morning.” Jess set down her treatment case and held out her hand to the woman in her fifties who stood to greet her, leaning with one hand upon a stick.

  “Good morning, nurse. I’m glad you’ve come. Perhaps you can tell me how long I’m to be bothered with this nuisance,” gesturing toward the walking stick with distaste. Mrs. Seacombe’s voice was harsh, her figure spare and angular, her hairstyle severe in the extreme. The high neck of her black dress seemed to emphasize the bony line of her jaw, the drawn flesh over her cheekbones. But nothing could disguise the straight honesty of her eyes, though today there were tired lines about them, as if she had been through a time of strain. For all her impatient words she smiled at Jess as she spoke. It was a smile that did not merely come from her lips.

  “Soon now, I hope,” Jess reassured her. “How long has the plaster been off your ankle?”

  “Dr. Gilder removed it two days ago, but my foot is still as weak as if it were tied on with a bit of thin string,” complained Mrs. Seacombe graphically. “Don’t you see, nurse, that I can’t go on like this? Mr. Forester has been most patient about it all, but very soon now he’ll suspect me of malingering!”

  “I don’t think he will,” smiled Jess. “And if you are faithful about the exercises I am going to recommend, you’ll find the ankle getting stronger every day.”

  Presently, as she earnestly rotated her foot at Jess’s direction, Mrs. Seacombe confided, “You see, apart from my obligations to Mr. Forester, there’s another reason why I want to be about again normally as soon as I can. My son is coming on leave from Korea!”

  “Then we must certainly get you skipping about again.” Jess was warmed by the spontaneous confidence. “Will this be his first home leave?”

  “His first from Korea, though not, of course, his first since he was posted abroad. Before Korea he was in Germany. He is a regular, a lieutenant, promoted from the ranks. His C.O. thinks a lot of him.”

  “You must be very proud of him. Is he married, or will he stay here with you?”

  “With me, I hope. Mr. Forester has invited him. But if there’s some girl he wants to go and visit, too, I mustn’t stand in his way, must I?”

  “I don’t suppose you’d really want to. Your foot isn’t tired, is it? Would you like to try something else now?”

  “No, because this feels as if it should help a lot. You can’t think how glad I am that I stood out against Mr. Forester about calling you in—”

  Jess felt a faint chill at the words, as if a tiny cloud had passed over her earlier sunny mood. “Didn’t he wish you to?” she inquired carefully.

  “No. In fact he was rather annoyed. He wanted to insist on getting me a private nurse at first, not to mention a physiotherapist and a masseuse when Dr. Gilder recommended exercises for my foot. Dr. Gilder told me you could administer them perfectly well, but Mr. Forester thought otherwise and would have done all the other things at his own expense. As if I didn’t know my place better than that!”

  Jess felt slightly relieved. It seemed that she was up against the fabulous Muir Forester’s expansive generosity, rather than an unjust prejudice against her.

  Mrs. Seacombe went on. “You see, we heard that you had come here straight from your training, and he argued that you wouldn’t have the skill and experience that he would like for me. And when I told him I should follow Dr. Gilder’s advice, he agreed only on condition that you should report on me to him. He’d like to see you this morning in fact—before you go. I hope you don’t mind, nurse? It would help me because if you can sound confident enough about me he’ll have to agree that I was right!” Mrs. Seacombe’s conspiratorial little smile invited Jess to return it. But Jess again felt chilled at the thought of having been judged even before she had arrived. Her chin went up defiantly in her characteristic little gesture of pride. Perhaps it was as well that she was to meet the squire without delay. Afterward she might know where she stood.

  When she was ready to leave, Mrs. Seacombe rang for the man who had shown her up. “Show Nurse Mawney to the morning room, will you? And tell Mr. Forester she is waiting.” She turned again to Jess. “He won’t keep you waiting long, I daresay, especially as I know he means to take his guest, Miss Hart, golfing this morning.” Downstairs, the manservant led Jess to the door of a room so filled with sunshine that for a moment, as she stood upon the threshold, her eyes were dazzled.

  She heard the-door close quietly behind her. And then she stood transfixed, blinking and staring. Against the wall, which faced an open French window, stood her own dresser, actually here in this stranger’s house, to which she had come only by the merest chance of her work!

  Wonderingly she crossed the room toward it, asking he
rself if she could conceivably be mistaken. But even if her eyes might be deceived, her fingers, touching it lovingly, were not. They knew every timeworn line of it, having learned each of them faithfully since the first proud day when she had been allowed to polish its shelves, standing on a chair in order to do so. No, it was impossible that she should not know it now.

  She stood back, remembering her last glimpse of it in the salesroom, and suffered a little pang of jealousy that it could look so congenial and at home here. Someone who had chosen this position for it had known just what it needed to bring out its homely charm. She had always known that it must face windows that took the sun.

  Her thoughts checked suddenly, then flew to the memory of her sharp clash with its purchaser. He had said that he wanted it, would get pleasure from living with it! That meant then—oh, no, it wasn’t possible!

  Or was it indeed possible, by one of the strange challenges occasionally flung down by chance, that she should already have made an enemy of the man whose prejudice toward her work she was waiting to face now?

  She supposed that at any moment she would know. The man named Muir Forester would open the door and come in. They would find themselves strangers—or they would recognize each other. And what then?

  She started quickly as the door opened behind her. But it was a girl who came in, a girl who looked surprised to see Jess, then nodded as if realizing who she was.

  “You are the new district nurse, I expect? Does Muir know you are waiting?”

  “I think so. Mr. Forester’s man went to tell him,” replied Jess. She was staring unashamedly, taken aback by the other girl’s beauty, deeply attracted by the husky quality of her voice.

  She was younger than herself, Jess judged—about twenty, perhaps. Her hair, in the sunlight, was like stranded gold, and she wore it brushed severely from one side of her head to fall in shining waves to her shoulder on the other. She had no makeup except lipstick; her skin was tanned to a golden quality of its own. Her blue eyes behind naturally dark lashes contrasted oddly with the rest of her fairness. She was dressed for golf in a heavily pleated skirt and flat-heeled shoes, and as she spoke to Jess she was dragging a stocking cap onto her hair. Though she did it without benefit of mirror, the resulting effect was enchanting.