by Fern Shepard
She walked slowly, paying no attention to Grace Barnes, the stout, pleasant-faced nurse who was wheeling a cart of breakfast trays; not answering Grace because she didn't even hear her call: "You in a cataleptic trance, Nora?"
Chapter 2
In his choice corner room with a spectacular view of the hills which were now decked out in a froth of April green, Andrew Fine lay on the bed where he had been trapped for a solid month. The man was a born worrier. As a boy, he had worried about how to become a rich man. Once he became rich, he worried about getting richer. Now that he had more money than he had any use for, that was beginning to worry him. What had he gotten out of all his money? Certainly not happiness. So maybe he had been all wrong to start with. That was enough to worry any man—thinking that maybe he had spent his life struggling to get something he didn't very much want after he got it.
This last month, of course, he had been worried about dying. It had been a close thing; he had been hit by a coronary attack while he was eating dinner in a town he had never heard of before. He had just happened to be driving through, on his way back to New York from New Orleans. Finding himself hungry, he had stopped. The next thing he knew, he felt a pain like a red-hot knife stabbing his chest. And the next thing after that, he was in a hospital, with wise-looking docs in white coats shaking their heads and warning him not to move without help.
He had been pretty sure he was a goner, just from the way they looked. He had never thought much about dying. He certainly wasn't ready to go. But he understood that there was a distinct likelihood that his number was up.
So that worried him. Every time he thought about dying—and he thought quite a lot about it as the days passed—he would get the most terrific sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Even after he was well on the road to recovery, he would still get the feeling. And he was not at all sure that he ever would have recovered if it had not been for that lovely, sweet-faced nurse, Nora.
The wise-looking docs in their white coats had done their bit, to be sure. But when all was said and done, a doctor had his limitations. It was the nurse who served as a—well, as a kind of mother-figure, he supposed you'd call it.
It was Nora who had cheered him up when he was feeling low.
Nora could give his spirits a lift just by opening the door and walking in with her lovely smile. And she had a look in her eyes, as if she really cared about him as a person. Maybe it was just an act, but he didn't think so. He believed she was a truly thoughtful, compassionate human being who cared about other people and would put herself out to help them over the rough places.
He thought of all the little favors she had done for him: writing business letters for him; reading to him, when the docs wouldn't allow him to sit up and read for himself; coming back in the evening sometimes to visit with him, on her own time. "I know how rotten lonely it must be for you," she would say, "lying here all by yourself."
And she would laugh and talk about all sorts of things. Sometimes she discussed what was going on in the world. At other times she told him about herself—not very much, but enough for him to read between the lines. He was sure, as much from what she had not told him as from what she had, that she had a family who were riding on her capable little shoulders. The very thought angered him. Why was it always the nice girls, the loving, unselfish girls, who got stuck with a bunch of deadbeats for a family?
He wished he could do something about that. He probably could not. But at least he wanted to make some gesture which would tell Nora how much he appreciated all that she had done for him. And that had led to another thing that worried him.
On the bed beside him was the watch in a jeweler's box which had just arrived air mail from New York. He had ordered it a week ago, by phone. He picked up the box and studied the little watch, which was studded with diamonds and very nice indeed. But what was Nora going to think about it, or rather, think about him?
That was what disturbed Mr. Fine at the moment. The last thing he wanted was for her to get the idea that he was a silly, middle-aged widower who had fallen for his pretty nurse.
He realized, of course, that it was very possible he had done precisely that. If so, he would keep it to himself. No need for a nice, level-headed girl like Nora to know all about his secret thoughts and dreams. His job was to make her understand that this was strictly a gift of appreciation, that his feelings about her were much like those of—well, say a loving uncle toward his favorite niece.
But the question was: would Nora believe that and accept his gift on that basis? He would become sick all over again if she misunderstood his intentions.
"Hi, there." The door opened, interrupting his thoughts. Immediately he brightened as Nora came in briskly, her smile warm and friendly as always, her voice gay. "I'm told you want a baby-sitter, and I'm elected. You know what I think?"
She was carrying a tray on which were a bottle of ginger ale, a small saucer with several capsules and a razor. She placed the tray on the night table. "I think you're just an old fraud, Mr. Fine. You're practically well, and you don't really need a special nurse. You just want to be babied."
"Sure I do." He smiled up at her, marveling at how much better he felt, the minute she came in.
Nora herself was feeling better. She had stopped in the rest room to splash cold water on her face, have a cup of coffee, and tell herself to stop moping like an adolescent schoolgirl who was afraid her "steady" was stepping out with another girl.
"Any law against an old fellow like me wanting to be babied?" he asked, before submitting to the inevitable thermometer which she pushed between his lips.
"You old! Ridiculous." She was grinning. "Forty-five. A mere stripling, and you don't look even that."
He didn't look it, either. Making allowances for his illness, Andrew Fine could easily have passed for forty, a quite handsome forty. There was just enough gray in his black hair to give him distinction. Flashing dark eyes were set in a strong-featured face, and his whole face lighted up when he smiled.
He must, she decided, have been a real dream boat when he was young. However, from what he had told her about himself, except for the wife who had died five years ago, he had never had much time for or interest in girls. He had always been too busy making money.
He spoke of that now, after the thermometer bit was finished, and after he had told her to forget about the razor. He wasn't in the mood for a shave. "Bring a chair over and sit down."
When he handed her the jeweler's box, saying: "I want you to take this as a little gift of appreciation," Nora stared at the little jeweled watch.
She was mad about it! What girl wouldn't be? But of course she could not accept such an expensive gift. "I wouldn't feel right about taking it, Mr. Fine."
"Andy. What would be wrong about it?"
"Well—" As she floundered, he began to talk about himself; about the thoughts that had gone through his mind during all the tedious hours and days he had lain there, with nothing to do but stare at the ceiling and look back over his life.
It was a sad thing, he said, for a man to look death in the face and realize that he had never really lived.
"You don't really mean that, Mr. Fine. Why, you—"
"Andy," he corrected her.
"Okay," smiling, "Andy. Why, with all your money, you could have almost anything in the world you want."
"Sure."
But all he had ever really wanted to do was to work to make money. That was all he had had time for, all that really interested him. "You call that living?"
"Well—" Nora's experience with wealthy men was extremely limited; still, she had seen his type before: men who had to reach the end of the trail, or see themselves coming close, before they realized that money wasn't everything. She began to feel sorry for Andrew Fine.
There had been, he said, so many things he had never learned to do. His wife had been crazy about traveling. He was not. He could never see the point in wasting time rushing off somewhere, anywhere, just so it w
as far away and you'd never been there. He was too busy for that sort of nonsense.
"I never learned how to play," he said sadly. When he was a kid, he had been too busy helping his dad in the crummy little corner grocery store in the crummy little town on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. And if you didn't learn to have fun when you were a youngster, the chances were you'd never learn.
Another thing he had never learned, he said, was how much happiness a man could find, just in doing things for others. Not that he had ever willfully been heartless or selfish. He simply never gave much thought to other folks, or to what he could do for them. "Too busy," he said grimly.
He took a deep breath. Well, if he was lucky enough to get out of the hospital in reasonably good health, he was sure as heck going to change his ways.
"It's been a lesson to me," he said unexpectedly, "just watching you, Nora."
"Me?" Her brows arched in surprise.
"Sure. I've never known anyone who put himself out for others the way you do. You've been so kind and good, putting up with my griping, kidding me along, doing a thousand little things that aren't required of a nurse. You think I don't know?"
"Oh, Andy." She looked embarrassed. "You just imagine all that, the way patients often do."
"No. I don't imagine it." His hand reached for hers, covered it gently. "You're a good girl, Nora, a very nice girl. You're sweet in your ways, and so very kind, so thoughtful of others."
Silent for a moment, he studied her. "There aren't too many like you, my dear. And—well, I just wanted you to know how deeply I appreciate all you've done for me. That's why I got the watch for you, as a gesture of appreciation. Please take it."
"But, Andy—" She hesitated, not sure what was the right thing to say or do. She didn't want to hurt him, and yet—a diamond wrist watch!
"Try it on, Nora. See how it looks. Please?"
She unfastened the beat-up leather strap binding to her wrist the cheap silver watch which had cost four ninety-five by mail order. In its place she fastened the little beauty, and pondered.
Why shouldn't she take it?
It would make him happy, and it would most certainly make her happy to have it.
Of course, there were all the comic jokes about middle-aged men becoming infatuated with young nurses. But he hadn't said a word about liking her in that way; only that he was grateful.
"Listen," she said. "I love this watch, and I'd adore keeping it. But if I did keep it, how could I know there wasn't a string or two attached?"
He surprised her. "There is." Then he modified that unexpected answer. "That is—in addition to everything else you've done, there's one more favor that would mean quite a lot to me. It hasn't anything to do with my giving you the watch. I expressed myself badly. But if you could do this one additional favor for me—"
"And exactly what favor is that, Mr. Fine?" Her eyes were narrowed now, her tone dripping suspicion.
"Andy," he corrected again. After watching her for a moment and reading her mind, he laughed heartily. "You're all wrong, Nora. This is what I have in mind. The doctors tell me I should take a good long rest after I leave here. I can't think of a more wonderful place to rest than right here in these mountains. Can you?"
"Well, no."
"But where would I stay? I'm told there are no rest homes for convalescents in this neck of the woods, and I suspect your one hotel is no great shakes."
"No, it isn't." The rooms didn't even have private baths. "You'd never stand it there for a week."
"Ummmm. Just what I figured. So I've been wondering, Nora, if you, or perhaps I should say your mother, would rent me a room for the summer. Would you consider doing that?"
She was astonished, but after a moment's thought, decided it was not an unreasonable suggestion. That barn of a house was big enough for a dozen people to get lost in. The rent money would come in handy, too.
"Is there any reason you can't at least consider taking me in for a few months?" Suddenly he was grinning. "I'll need somebody to check on my blood pressure, you know."
Nora stood up. "I'll have to think about it, Andy. I'd have to talk it over with my mother, too."
"Excellent. You take your time to decide." Apparently satisfied that he had won his point, Andrew smiled, patted her hand in a fatherly way, and closed his eyes.
As usual, he fell asleep in a minute or so.
Nora straightened the light covers over him, then spent the next ten minutes moving noiselessly about, doing the dozen and more things that always need doing in a sick room: closing the blinds, disposing of some wilted flowers, cleaning the already sterile-clean basin in the adjoining toilet room, then heading back to the bed to make sure that her patient was sleeping and breathing normally.
He was.
So what now? Oh, well, she could always think about Paul, who seemed to be changing into a man she did not know at all.
Chapter 3
Sometimes Nora wondered if she had fallen in love with Paul at first sight, on the day when he had walked into the children's section and said: "Hello, everybody. I'm told I'm to be in charge here, so I guess you'll all have to put up with me." And he grinned, a charmingly shy grin, while he walked down the long room shaking hands with the nurses. He stopped beside several of the single beds to reassure one or another of the small patients, who were all eyes, some of them frightened eyes, at the sight of this tall, white-coated stranger whom they had never seen before.
"Hi, fella. How're you doing? Feeling lousy? Well, don't you worry. Old Doc Anderson is on the job."
The words seemed to come easily enough, as did his cheerful, outgoing manner. But Nora sensed immediately that it was a carefully thought out approach, that basically he was a shy man who had to work to put himself over.
A basic lack of self-confidence? Perhaps.
But one thing was certain. There was no lack of self-confidence when Paul Anderson picked up the scalpel and one of his brilliant operations got under way. Some of his surgery demonstrated nothing short of genius, and before he had been at Summitsville many months, everyone said so.
"Of course I think you're a wonderful surgeon," Nora told him. "I also think you're a very, very wonderful guy. And if you really mean what you say about wanting to marry me—" Close in his arms, she sighed blissfully. "Well—"
"Well, what, honey?"
Another ecstatic sigh. "I'm only the luckiest girl in the world, that's what."
By that time they had been dating off and on for weeks, whenever Paul could get away from the hospital, where he seemed to think he should spend twenty-five hours out of every twenty-four.
His occasional evenings with Nora were almost the only relaxation he allowed himself. Very often, as on that very special evening, they met in the house where Paul had his room. They had been taken to their hearts by Mr. and Mrs. Lodge, the elderly couple who owned the house.
They were lovely people, warm and friendly, and they begged Nora to feel free to use their living room for her dates. "We're just two lonely old people who are only too glad to have a little youth and life around us. So you come right on over whenever you feel like it, Nora."
It was a wonderful arrangement. For one thing, it solved the TV problem which, at home, complicated everything. The television set was in the living room, and Caroline had her special evening programs which were a must. After Jerry's return, with his family, there were even more complications.
Everybody had to look at TV; each had his or her own pet programs. This left Paul and Nora as much privacy, or chance to be alone together, as a hotel lounge would have.
It was maddening.
With Mr. and Mrs. Lodge it was altogether different. They didn't even like TV, or pretended that they didn't. "We'll just skip up to our room," Martha Lodge would say cheerfully, "which is where old folks belong after the sun goes down. You two young things get on with your courting."
With a smile and a wave of her hand, she would say good night, order her "old man" to get along upsta
irs, and follow right after him. She never forgot to leave a little treat on the dining room table—a steaming hot apple pie, or perhaps freshly baked doughnuts.
So that was where and how Nora and Paul had done most of their "courting."
The wonderfully good, companionable evenings spent getting acquainted came first, of course. Usually they sat on the divan in front of the open hearth, where a huge pine log burned lazily.
At first Paul was reluctant to talk much about himself. There was that basic shyness which was part of his nature. In addition, as he told her, with that crooked grin which she thought so charming: "I'm one hundred percent Swede, and you know how Swedes are: great ones to dummy up about themselves."
But with Nora he got over that. She learned that he had been born and brought up in Minnesota, where his dad owned vast acres of farm land. Since he was an only son, the father had expected Paul to stay on the land which would be his some day. When Paul announced his determination to study medicine, the father had gone into a cold rage and had not forgiven him to this day.
"Because you wanted to be a doctor?" Nora was shocked. "Most fathers would have been proud."
But not Paul's. Having come to the country as an immigrant boy and achieved his shining dream of some day owning land, lots of land, he wanted his boy to take up where he left off. "He did everything to stop me," Paul said. "For instance, he threatened to disown me." And he probably would have if Paul's mother had not taken Paul's side.
"When all else failed, he warned me that I wasn't cut out to be a doctor, that it was just a fool notion I'd gotten into my head, and one of these days I'd find it out, when it was too late."
Paul also told her that he had never had a girl before. "Guess I was always sort of scared of girls." The crooked grin again. "When I'd try to wisecrack and kid them the way other fellows did, I'd feel like a fool. Maybe I was just shy."