Dear Tiberius; (aka Nurse Nolan)

by Susan Barrie

  “She is like her mother,” he said.

  And Lucy wondered how much he had thought of the woman who had borne him this fragile slip of a child, and how he had felt when he had lost her.

  They both stood there in absolute silence beside the bed for a minute longer, and then, as if by mutual consent, they withdrew from it and returned to the sitting room. Lucy bent down to stir the fire, but Sir John wandered aimlessly around the room, picking up ornaments and returning them to their places, examining a photograph here and there. There were deep, frowning lines between his brows, and his lips were very tightly compressed. The movements he made with his hands were restless and uncertain.

  Suddenly he came to a halt behind Lucy, and she replaced the poker and stood up. Golden tongues of flame leaped up from the fire in the grate and filled the room with pleasant, golden warmth, and Lucy’s pale cheeks were warmed by it. Her eyes were held by Sir John’s, and they looked unflinchingly at one another.

  “Remember,” he told her, “that if you need me—at any time—I will come at once. You have but to let me know.”

  “I will,” she promised.

  Gently—surprising her considerably—he took possession of both her hands. He looked down at them where they lay in his clasp, slender, well-formed, well-cared-for hands, faintly flowerlike, but also extremely capable. Lucy felt the breath catch in her throat while that contact was maintained between them, and the virile warmth of his fingers sent a tumult of wild, almost ungovernable feeling rushing to her heart and she started to tremble slightly. Sir John gave her fingers a hard, close clasp, and then released them. He smiled at her in a way he had never done before, with so much regret in his look that she could scarcely believe the evidence of her own eyes.

  “And I want to thank you making yourself so indispensable to Miranda. Without you I would never have consented to her going to Vienna.”

  “You wouldn’t?” She was surprised, and also a little unbelieving. “But why not? Surely it’s Dr. Wern—”

  “Dr. Wern may achieve a miracle, but without you to give her confidence Miranda would stand, I feel, a very poor chance. As it is, she has a chance—and let’s hope it will come off!”

  “It must!” Lucy breathed, and she wished in that moment she had his hands to cling to, for somehow they gave her courage, and the strength to feel optimism where Miranda was concerned. Standing with her hands clenched down at her sides, she felt lost and forlorn, and frightened for Miranda. He read aright the look in her face.

  “Remember,” he repeated, “if you want me—I will come!”

  She nodded, feeling as if she had been stricken suddenly dumb.

  “Would you like me to see you both off tomorrow at the airport?”

  “Oh, no,” Lucy said quickly, although she was not at all sure why she so hastily negatived the suggestion. “I don’t think that is in the least necessary. You have made all the arrangements, and we will be perfectly all right.”

  “And last-minute farewells are always rather painful,” he observed.

  Lucy agreed with him. She knew that they could sometimes be very painful.

  “So I will wish you a good journey tonight, and hope to hear from you when you arrive. You will naturally keep me informed of all that transpires.”

  “Naturally.”

  Once again he took her hands. This time his clasp was quick and hard.

  “Au revoir, Nurse Nolan—or can it be Lucy tonight? I hope you won’t mind, but lately I always think of you as Lucy.”

  “Do you?” She felt as if he had rewarded her in a way that was out of all proportion to what she deserved. “Of course I don’t mind,” she added.

  He smiled at her.

  “Well, then, au revoir, Lucy!”

  “Goodbye, Sir John!”

  An instant longer he stood looking at her, and then she was letting him out of the door of the apartment. When Kathleen and her husband returned she was sitting quietly gazing into the fire, while Miranda slept dreamlessly in the little bed that had been prepared for her, and Kathleen was astonished to discover that the food she had prepared for supper was untouched in the refrigerator. Lucy seemed surprised when she mentioned it.

  “Supper?” she echoed, although it was after eleven at night. “I ... I forget all about supper.”

  Kathleen studied her consideringly.

  “And Sir John wouldn’t remain and have some with you?”

  “I didn’t ask him,” Lucy confessed.

  Kathleen thought she looked white and strained and tired.

  “Well, you shall have a hot drink now,” she said, but as she went away she was thinking very deeply—principally about Sir John Ash. She asked herself whether Lucy thought of him wholly and solely as an employer, and the father of her patient.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The following day Lucy had no time to think about anything save Miranda and the journey to Vienna. This went off very smoothly, and Miranda enjoyed it as much as she had imagined she would.

  Sir John had arranged everything for them, and there were no hitches of any kind. The flight was smooth, the attention they received during the flight made it pleasant for both Lucy and her patient, and when they arrived at their journey’s end a private ambulance was waiting to take them the last few miles to Dr. Wern’s clinic.

  The matron received them with quiet warmth, and Lucy discovered later that she was a relative of Dr. Wern’s. She was hs aunt, a dignified, handsome, obviously extremely capable woman, who was sufficiently like him to recall him at once to Nurse Nolan. Dr. Wern himself was not due at the clinic until the evening.

  Lucy was accommodated temporarily in a small but comfortable room close to the room in which Miranda was quickly and expertly put to bed, and where she seemed to be affected by no sensations of strangeness. Joey was with her, and when Lucy saw her tucked in her narrow white cot with the cool green bedspread that matched the green walls and curtains, the penguin was nodding its head over the top of the startlingly white sheet.

  Miranda looked quite pleased with herself, and her eyes were bright, although to Lucy they were a little overbright. She clung tightly to Lucy’s hand, however, when she sat beside her for a brief while before the sedative that was given her on arrival had time to work, and she was most anxious to know exactly where Lucy’s room was situated, and how far distant from her own.

  Lucy had dinner served to her in her own room, and after the strain of the past few days she was glad to go to bed early, and to know that for once it did not depend upon her to be alert and ready should Miranda want her. Miranda was now in other hands, but at least she was near to her, and could give her all the moral support she might need. But this first night in Vienna she was glad to forget everything in sleep, and even the novelty of knowing that she was in a strange capital could not keep her awake.

  In the morning, interest in her surroundings would probably be aroused, but tonight nothing mattered save the opportunity to seek forgetfulness in a deliciously comfortable bed, in a quiet room, with familiar, subdued hospital’ noises going on around her.

  The Wern Clinic was not actually situated in the city of Vienna, but in the district beyond the Prater, an immense stretch of parkland lying between the Danube canal and the famous Danube itself. It was peaceful and rural, and although at that time of year it was also bleak, there were none of the noises of a populous area to interfere with anyone’s repose.

  Lucy’s eyes closed and she drifted into slumber as soon as her head touched the pillow, and in the morning, although she awakened to gray skies and a threat of snow in the air, she felt infinitely more rested, and therefore infinitely more hopeful—at least where Miranda was concerned.

  Dr. Wern arrived at the clinic around eleven o’clock, driving up to the severe front of the building in a powerful and obviously expensive car. He looked exactly as Lucy remembered him—lithe and fit and brown, with a warm smile that had a tonic effect on her. His hand was warm, too, and somehow comforting, when he
greeted her and clasped hers closely.

  “So we meet again, Nurse Nolan,” he said.

  For Miranda he had a special smile, and as she, like Lucy, had had almost a dreamless night, she was displaying few of the aftereffects of a long journey. She was already accustomed to the change of attendants around her, and already well on the way to becoming a prime favorite with the bright-eyed, cheerful-looking nurses. They were careful not to regard Joey as nothing more nor less than a nightdress case, and after the monotony of the last few months of her life at Ketterings the change of faces and the change of scene were highly welcome.

  Dr. Wern seemed satisfied with his examination of Miranda that morning, and afterward he had a little talk with Lucy in his aunt’s, the matron’s, private office. His aunt joined them for coffee when the talk was over, and Lucy was struck afresh by her extraordinary dignity, and by the calm beauty of her face while she sat in a reposeful attitude with her hands quietly clasped together in her lap. She had hardly one silver hair on her head, although she was obviously nearing, or probably turned, sixty. Her hair was a pale golden color, although her eyes were brown. The similarity in their direct regard to the direct regard of her nephew’s eyes was another thing that struck Lucy.

  “We thought,” said Dr. Wern, “that it would be pleasanter for Miranda if you remained near to her, but of course if you would prefer it, a hotel room can be booked for you. You may possibly find it a little dull here....”

  “You forget,” Lucy reminded him quickly, “that nursing is my job, and this is my natural environment.”

  He smiled.

  “No, I do not forget. But Sir John was insistent that you should have every comfort, and that time should not be permitted to hang upon your hands. That is why I suggest, if you would prefer it, a hotel.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of removing from here to a hotel,” Lucy told him, her delicate pink color rising in her cheeks because of the warm glow that surrounded her heart as soon as he mentioned Sir John’s name, and the little revelation of his thought for her. “At least,” she added, “if I am not occupying valuable space?”

  Fraulein Wern shook her head, surmounted by its neat, starched cap.

  “Nothing of the sort,” she assured her. “At the moment we have plenty of room.”

  “Then perhaps I might be permitted to help ...?” Lucy suggested. “It would be better than allowing me to be completely idle.”

  But again Rupprecht Wern smiled.

  “There is no need for you to be completely idle,” he assured her. “It is your job to keep Miranda’s spirits high, and that may yet prove no simple task. And as you have not visited our capital before—or, indeed, our country—there will be much for you to see here, and it is only right that you should see it. Today I would be glad if you would lunch with me, and perhaps it would interest you before that to be shown over the clinic?”

  “Oh, it would,” Lucy assured him at once. “And,” she added, rather more shyly, “it is nice of you to ask me to have lunch with you.”

  “Not at all,” he answered, looking down at her rather curiously, and Lucy noticed that his aunt smiled, in a calm, wise, almost a Madonna-like fashion, where she still sat with folded hands.

  The conducted tour of the clinic was something that Lucy, in the capacity of a nurse who loved her job, found supremely interesting. To begin with it was the very last word in up-to-date and expensively equipped clinics, and she could not but admire the spaciousness and the airy light and warmth of the place. Miranda’s room was even more cheerful than the one she occupied at home, and there was a wide veranda outside the tall window on which she could recline when the sun was warm. But there was no hope of the sun being warm today, for feathery flakes were already falling from the sky, although Lucy was told that there was little fear of a really serious snowfall for a week or two yet.

  She was slightly surprised that Dr. Wern had insisted on an operation of such major importance being performed at that season of the year, and not being postponed until the spring, at least. But she could only conclude that he had his reasons for going ahead with it at once, and that they were excellent reasons.

  Warmly wrapped up, she was driven by him to a hotel for lunch, and from the windows of his big car she was permitted to make her first acquaintance with the real Vienna—the Vienna that she had merely been vaguely conscious of the night before, and that was still one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. Hitler’s war might have damaged it, but the Viennese are like their songs and waltzes, lighthearted and gay, and the scars of the war have been all but banished.

  They have determinedly pressed forward with rebuilding and repairing, and the general impression is one of harmony once again. The inner city, with its old palaces and interesting churches, that forms the heart of Vienna, is surrounded by the magnificent palaces and parks of the Ringstrasse, and busy streets radiate from there out into the suburbs. Beyond the suburbs the hills of the Vienna Forest climb softly away to the northeast, and it is these hills that were romanticized by Johann Strauss.

  At the hotel where Dr. Wern took Lucy to lunch he was obviously well known, and the attention they received was quite marked. Lucy found him a most pleasing companion when he was away from all the cares of his clinic, and he talked to her of Vienna, and all that there was to see. She felt that he was postponing any more serious talk until they reached the coffee stage, but even then he barely touched upon the subject of Miranda. He had already informed Lucy that the operation would not be performed until she had had about a week to accustom herself to her new surroundings, and to rest after the flight from England, and beyond that he was not prepared to discuss the matter.

  But as she watched his keen, clever face, and studied in secret his singularly beautiful hands, with their flexible surgeon’s fingers, and sensitive fingertips, she was comforted by a sudden uprising of confidence that temporarily transformed her whole outlook. Surely with this man Miranda’s future was safe!

  Watching her also across the flower-decked table, he seemed to find pleasure in letting his eyes dwell on her smooth oval face, and the charming blue eyes with their thick, curling lashes. Lucy’s dark curls revealed sudden little gleams under the rays from a silk-shaded table lamp—for outside the sky had darkened still more, and a cutting cold wind was blowing from the eastern spurs of the Alps.

  “Sir John has every confidence in you, Nurse Nolan,” Dr. Wern told her, as he offered her a cigarette. “Without you I do not think he would have even contemplated allowing his daughter to be brought out here.”

  Again Lucy felt that absurd little rush of pleasure to her heart because Sir John had openly stated that he believed in her.

  “But if it is for the child’s ultimate good,” she murmured, “it seems to me that there was no other course.”

  “There was not,” Dr. Wern agreed soberly, staring at the tip of his own cigarette. “But you will not always get a man of Sir John’s mentality and outlook on life to agree with you over a matter of this sort.”

  “You mean that he was not easily persuaded?”

  “He was not exactly difficult, but at first I was a little confounded by his attitude toward this only child of his. To risk the life of an only child is something almost any parent would shrink from, but Sir John is detached—it is difficult to learn very much of his secret thoughts. Only on one point was he clear—and that point was you! He believed that you would not have hesitated yourself, and therefore he did not really hesitate.”

  Lucy felt her eyes widening, and the color rising in her cheeks.

  “You must not deduce from that that Sir John is not interested in Miranda,” she defended her employer quickly. “He is secretly, I believe, devoted to her.”

  “Do you?” He looked at her curiously. “Perhaps you are able to see beyond the mask Sir John adopts more easily than other people—unless it is, perhaps, the charming ballet dancer I met when I was at Ketterings!”

  “You mean Miss Harling—” Lucy wished he h
ad not introduced her name just then “—Miss Lynette Harling?”

  “Ah, yes—that is the lady’s name! Miss Lynette Harling!”

  Lucy crumbled bread on her plate, and stared at the tips of her fingers while she did so.

  “Miss Harling is very charming.”

  “Can it be that Sir John thinks so, also?” he inquired, in his soft, Austrian voice, with the faintest suggestion of an accent. “Or did I perhaps form a wrong impression when I decided that the little Miranda might one day acquire a stepmother?”

  “I think it is highly likely that she will one day acquire a stepmother,” Lucy answered, a little flatly.

  “So!” he exclaimed. He lit another cigarette, watching the smoke curl upward. “And all the indications are that that stepmother will be Miss Lynette Harling?”

  “I ... think so,” Lucy answered, still crumbling bread. And then she added quickly, looking up at him almost defensively, “She is a very celebrated ballerina, and of course Sir John is still quite young. It is only natural that he should wish to marry again. And then there is Miranda to think of....”

  “In your opinion it is a good thing that he should marry again?”

  “Good for Miranda, you mean?”

  “Yes.”