Nurse Errant

by Lucilla Andrews

  The village hall was packed. Mrs Withers beamed from behind her White Elephant stall. ‘We took the First, Nurse! We’d never have got it without your clever young sister. The jungle theme was all her idea. She drew these cut-outs, showed us how to mount them. I’m so pleased she’s doing so well. Do tell her about us next time you go over to the County.’

  ‘Nurse Sanders. How are you with a rifle?’ Peter Ebony was beside me.

  I smiled. ‘Never held one.’

  ‘No time like the present.’ He took my elbow, steered me through the crowd. ‘Move over, chaps.’ He brushed aside an assortment of young farmers. ‘Nurse here is going to out-shoot Annie Oakley.’

  ‘I think that’s highly unlikely, Peter.’

  It was. My aim was so bad that the young men politely suggested I took aim a yard wide of the target as then perhaps I might hit it.

  ‘Nurse!’ Billy Yates, unrecognisably spruce, bounded up and down in front of me. ‘Nurse, Lindy says to tell you to come! She just saw you, and she’s keeping you and me a place for the show.’ He grasped my hand. ‘You got to see the show! It’s super.’

  The young farmers advised me to go quietly. ‘You’ll get no peace if you don’t, Nurse. The kids think the world of Ted Arbuthnot’s show.’

  I let Billy haul me across the hall, wondering what kind of show Mr Arbuthnot, the owner of the village store, provided to arouse such enthusiasm in our television and movie-minded village children.

  Every child for miles was lined up in front of an old-fashioned Punch and Judy stall. They rocked with laughter when Toby stole the sausages, doubled up at each appearance of the splendid white ghost with luminous teeth who scared the daylights out of Judy, yelled with glee at every whang of the policeman’s truncheon.

  When a breathless Mr Arbuthnot announced, ‘That’s your lot!’ they pleaded, ‘Just once more, Mr Arbuthnot ‒ pleeese!’

  ‘All right. Just the once, mind.’

  A sigh of delighted expectation swept through the ranks. They leant against each other in ecstasy, exchanging lollies, sweets, and sugar buns with rare amiability.

  The vicar came over to me. ‘They are not quite so sophisticated as one thinks, I’m glad to say.’ He chuckled. ‘I am enjoying this quite as much as they are.’

  After the encore he asked if I had seen his wife. ‘No? Then do go along to her Bits and Pieces, Nurse. I know she wants to see you.’

  Mrs Carter was enveloped in a frilly gingham apron. ‘I am glad you were able to get here, Nurse! Come and meet Mrs Gerrard from St Crispin’s. She has so kindly come to help out.’

  Mrs Gerrard was a very tall, still very good-looking woman. ‘I am so pleased to have met you at last, Nurse Sanders. I’ve heard such a lot about you from my old friend Mary Graves.’ She smiled pleasantly. ‘I wish my daughter was here this afternoon. I believe you are joining her party next week?’

  She seemed a charming woman and just as I had pictured her. If her daughter resembled her she must be beautiful.

  Mrs Carter asked after Angela. ‘I’m afraid our village affairs seem a little tame to dear Angela after her gay life in town.’

  ‘She does so love London,’ agreed Mrs Gerrard, ‘and it keeps her away from us. She’s back there to-day ‒ some very special party.’ She smiled tolerantly. ‘My husband tends to worry over her love of parties: I have to keep repeating the hackneyed phrase that one is only young once.’

  Mrs Carter said she tried to keep a broad mind with her teenagers. ‘I don’t mind their being “sent” over some extraordinary young man who can’t sing a tune, or playing guitars all round the house. But my girls are all far too plump for tight trousers, and they will wear them! Being a mother to adolescents, Nurse, is a nerve-racking experience. In this Age of the Teenager, I’m thinking of founding a society to preserve the rights of middle-aged parents. But we mustn’t bore you, dear, you’re not so far removed from our young yourself.’ She looked round the hall. ‘I’m surprised Mary Graves has not yet arrived. Has Paddy gone to London with Angela?’ she added, as if that was a natural follow on.

  Mrs Gerrard nodded. ‘So I believe. I can’t say I know for sure, as Angela is so allergic to discussing her plans. If he’s in town they’ll be together.’

  A prospective customer claimed her attention.

  Mrs Carter drew me to one side. ‘Angela Gerrard has wonderful parents without realising it. I think Paddy Larraby does. He is quite devoted to Mr and Mrs Gerrard. And, of course, he and Angela have always been very great friends. She is such a pretty, willowy girl. I’m only surprised no man has snapped her up. I told dear Paddy that only the other night. I have a notion he feels she’s not yet ready to settle down ‒ and he may well be right not to press her. Young girls don’t have to hurry into marriage these days as there are so many more young men about.’

  I studied her wares without seeing them. ‘Are they unofficially engaged?’

  ‘My dear, I should say so from Angela’s proprietary attitude. My girls are sure of it. I’ve never actually been told, but ‒ oh ‒’ She waved at someone in the crowd, then tapped Mrs Gerrard’s shoulder. ‘Here’s your Dick!’

  Dick Gerrard was smaller and slighter than the mental picture I had formed of him. He was very dark, his hair as near black as any Anglo-Saxon’s can get; his features were quite staggeringly good. His manner was friendly. He had the tough, hard hands of a working farmer.

  ‘I’m glad we’ve run into each other, Miss Sanders. It seems we’re going to do so again next Thursday night. It should be a good dance. You know the White Hart, of course?’

  ‘Afraid not. I’ve not lived here long.’

  ‘So I’ve heard.’ His smile was his mother’s. ‘As a matter of fact, I’ve been well and truly briefed about you from a great mutual friend ‒ and one of your ardent admirers.’

  I smiled politely and braced myself. ‘Whom?’

  He grinned. ‘Percy Hassell. Alias Grandpa.’

  I relaxed and grinned back. ‘I adore Grandpa. He tries so hard to be fierce.’

  ‘He certainly adores you.’

  We talked for some time. I liked this good-looking, unaffected, and very civilised young farmer. If I had never met Paddy I should have much enjoyed the prospect of being in a party with him. But it was too late. I had met Paddy, and had now reached the stage of comparing all other men I met with him, to their detriment.

  Dick Gerrard was better looking; I suspected he had a kinder nature. But he lacked Paddy’s sense of humour and wonderful deep voice. Also, he was not Paddy.

  The vicar was there, the conversation became general. I waited until a new batch of customers arrived before I slipped away unobserved. I threaded my way through the overwhelmingly cheerful crowd, feeling sunk in gloom at the thought of Paddy and Angela in London. I wanted to get home, quickly. Then I recollected Grandpa. I had to see him, so I made for the coconuts.

  ‘There ye are!’ Grandpa bellowed even though I was only a yard away. ‘You got to have a go at me coconuts! Stand back, me lad!’ He thrust aside one of his respectably elderly sons. ‘Let the nurse come! There ‒’ He handed me a set of wooden balls. ‘Now, you take aim for the base. Proper low, mind. That’s it ‒ near! Ah!’ He slapped his thigh. ‘Lovely. Real lovely. I reckoned as you’d get ’un for yeself, but I had another handy case you didn’t.’ He scowled at his younger daughter-in-law. ‘And what might ye be wanting, Ethel?’

  Mrs Ron Hassell meekly suggested I might care to guess the weight of the cake. Grandpa reckoned that would be just up my street after all them babies.

  I balanced a cake the size of a small wheel on one palm. ‘Five and a half? No, bit more. Five pounds, ten, I’d say, Grandpa.’

  He winked. ‘You have a go for me, Nurse.’

  Mrs Ron looked worried. Grandpa turned purple.

  I said quickly, ‘I know what. Hold it, Grandpa.’ I handed him the cake. ‘Tell me if I’m right. Five, ten, or perhaps still a little more?’

  ‘More, eh? Eleven? Twelve?�
� I nodded. ‘Twelve it is. Mind you get that down right, Ethel, me girl.’

  A few minutes later the vicar climbed on one of the trestle-tables and asked for silence. ‘The cake weight has been correctly guessed by Mr Percy Hassell to whom we offer ‒’ But he could not offer anything. His voice was drowned in a roar of ‘Good old Grandpa!’

  Grandpa’s voice rose over all. ‘Mr Percy Hassell AND the nurse! She tipped me off, she did! I’m not saying as I done it on me own!’

  The hall cheered again. It was generally agreed that a man with the wisdom to seek expert advice deserved to win.

  Mrs Withers was one of the many who rushed to congratulate the old man in person. ‘There’s no one like a doctor or a nurse for getting the cake weight right,’ she added to me. ‘The old doctor’s guessed it year after year. Like you, dear, he always tipped the wink to one of the old people.’

  An assortment of Hassells invited me to join their table for tea. I used the genuine excuse that it was nearly time for my evening round. Grandpa escorted me to the door, clutching my coconut and his cake. ‘Mind as you call in in the morning, and you and me’ll have a good tuck-in.’ He peered over my shoulder. ‘Seems there’s someone a-wanting you, Nurse. It’ll be that Dr Bowers.’

  Dr Bowers stopped his car just by us. ‘Afternoon, Grandpa. Nurse, you’re the very person I was hoping to see. I saw your garage empty as I passed your cottage and hoped you’d be here. Can you do something for me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Would you drive over and lend Mrs Graves a hand? She’s not ill. Just a trifle shocked after her fall this morning.’

  ‘She had a fall? I didn’t know. I am sorry.’

  He nodded gloomily. ‘Hasn’t done her any good, but no bones broken. She slipped on a rug on her polished sitting-room floor. These old ladies with arthritis will insist on all that polish ‒ and they invariably end by cracking their femurs ‒ but there it is!’

  Grandpa had left us. I said, ‘I wish she had let me know.’

  ‘Mary Graves is a tough old soul. She doesn’t like giving in. I had a look at her, told her there was no serious damage, but she must take it easy. She hasn’t. And the situation being what it is, Paddy Larraby’s just had to ring my wife to ask if she could go over and lend a hand. My wife would have gone, but she’s got a touch of this ’flu that’s going round, is running a temperature, and I’ve insisted she stays in bed. I said I’d go, but now your colleague Nurse Elseworth wants me on a baby. So you’ll take over?’

  ‘Now.’ I hoped my surprise at Paddy’s return did not show in my expression. ‘I suppose Paddy Larraby tried to reach me while I was here?’

  ‘No. My wife said he hadn’t wanted to bother you for a job that scarcely requires a trained nurse. It’s just a case of filling hot-water bottles, making tea, lighting a fire.’

  ‘You were going.’ I smiled faintly. ‘I’ve done all three a good many times down here, Mr Bowers.’ And I wondered why Paddy could not bestir himself without shouting for help. I tried not to feel hurt all over again at this new evidence of his determination to avoid me.

  As I drove closer to their cottage, hurt changed to anger. What the devil was the man playing at? What did I care whether he wanted to see me or not, was in London or on the marsh? Only a fool would think a man like him worth loving. He could not even be bothered to look after his own aunt.

  I left my car behind the high hedge, slammed the door furiously, marched up the front path. My ring nearly pushed the bell through the front door. Even so, I had a long wait. I reached up to ring again as he opened the door.

  It was early evening. There were lights in the porch and hall. I was standing directly under the former.

  He smiled normally. ‘Sorry to seem so dilatory. My new line in eye-drops has a somewhat disorientating effect. It adds giddiness to mistiness ‒ which sounds like a detergent ad. Do come in, Dr Bowers. It’s really big of you to have come so fast.’

  I stood still, staring at him. For one moment, I thought he was joking. Then I realised he could not see me at all. He genuinely thought I was Dr Bowers.

  Chapter Nine

  MY DATE FALLS THROUGH

  For a few seconds I went on staring at him, too stunned for coherent thought.

  ‘Paddy,’ I said at last, ‘it’s Lesley. Dr Bowers asked me to come over. Janet Elseworth wants him on a baby.’

  He was standing with one hand on the door knob. The knuckles of that hand whitened. Otherwise, his composure was unruffled. He even kept on smiling.

  ‘And shouldn’t I have guessed my guardian angel would have been on hand, even if it is only a flipping domestic crisis. Bowers shouldn’t have bothered you, darling, but come on in. You know you’re welcome.’

  I did not know anything of the sort. And I was remembering his opening remarks. ‘What was that about eye-drops?’

  ‘I have ’em from time to time,’ he replied off-handedly. ‘Now do you intend taking root on our porch, or will you step inside? It’s getting damned cold.’

  ‘Sorry.’ I walked into the hall feeling as if my legs were stuffed with sawdust. ‘I thought you were in London?’

  ‘I was.’ He shut the door and leant against it. ‘I got home an hour or so back.’

  ‘You did?’ I looked harder at his eyes. There was no doubt about it, they were not focusing. ‘How?’ I grasped at trivialities, the way you do after a shock. ‘There’s no mid-afternoon train down on Sundays. The coach doesn’t get in until the evening.’

  ‘Angel, all this high-powered detection is very impressive. Maybe you’re in the wrong trade?’

  ‘Maybe. How did you get down?’

  ‘A man called Blake gave me a lift in his car.’

  ‘Hilton Blake? It was you?’

  ‘What was me?’ His voice was dangerously gentle.

  I explained very briefly. All the same, it took all the training I had ever had to keep my voice steady.

  He smiled. ‘Good old Michael. So he didn’t talk? You had me scared there, darling. For one moment, you shook my faith in my own judgement of a man.’

  ‘Sorry about that.’ The blow my own judgement was taking made me reel mentally.

  There was a highish oak chest in that hall. I sat on the lid, while a host of seemingly unconnected pictures strung themselves together, raced through my mind like an over-speeded movie.

  His indefinite holiday; his laziness about driving; those moments of peculiar clumsiness on the roof, and again when he poured that boiling kettle over his foot; the heron he called a gull; and his uncanny ability to walk through that marsh mist.

  ‘I’ve a suspicion you’re wearing a face long as from here to Kingdom Come, angel. Would you mind taking it off? I’m allergic to angels with long faces, even when I can’t see them.’

  I roused myself. ‘Sorry. Paddy, how long have you had these drops?’

  ‘A few months. I’ve no head for those kind of figures.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘And why would I have done that? You’ve enough patients and problems of your own. I’ve caused you enough trouble, cracking my head and dousing my foot. Why the hell should I make a habit of it? Old Michael’s been around. He’s a great doctor, is old Mike.’

  ‘He is.’ I thought how Mike had guarded all this, how often he had ‘just happened to drop in on old Paddy’. It all made ugly sense, and I was hideously ashamed of my thoughts of fifteen minutes ago.

  ‘Since we’ve that straight, would you nip up to Aunt Mary? She’s resting in her room. She’ll love to see you.’

  ‘I’ll go now.’ I removed my coat. ‘I’m sorry she had this fall. I wish I’d known.’

  ‘How the devil would you get your real work done if the whole village hollered for you each time a home help was needed? Be your age, angel. That’s not what you’re here for.’

  ‘But Dr Bowers is?’ I suggested drily.

  ‘I rang Joan Bowers only because Mrs Ron is at that ruddy Fair. But for these nameless dr
ops, I could have managed on my own.’

  ‘I see.’ I watched him closely. ‘Got your balance back, yet?’

  ‘It’ll come. Blake warned I’d feel not drunk but as if I’d drink taken for an hour or so. I’ve known worse feelings.’

  I said, ‘Don’t think I’m fussing, but didn’t he also warn you to take things easy until the effect passes?’

  He said he had a shocking memory and wouldn’t life be dreary if one always did what one should. ‘Get on up them stairs, angel.’

  I did as he asked because I was sure he would not shift from the door until I was out of the way. I stopped on the landing, looked down.

  ‘If you’re thinking of playing Grandmother’s Footsteps with me, my dear, don’t. I hold the all-time record. Although a shade muzzy in the eyes,’ he called, ‘my hearing’s mighty good.’

  Mrs. Graves was very apologetic. ‘John Bowers told me to go quietly. But I did want to turn out Paddy’s room before he got back. I would have managed if I had not rushed. I can manage most things, provided I take my time. That’s the great difference between youth and age, m’dear. Youth has such reserves of physical strength. Age is willing, but the reserves are used up.’

  I thought of the way she had borne the shadow of Paddy’s incipient blindness. ‘Not all yours, Mrs Graves.’

  ‘Paddy?’ She touched my hand. ‘That boy has been like one of my sons to me. I’ve tried to help him in the best way. That, for Paddy, is his way. So we never discuss it.’ She fell silent, holding on to me. Then, ‘He is so like my boy Edward. Edward, as his father used to say, could talk the hind leg off a donkey about unimportant matters, but when something really concerned him, even as a very little boy he could never bring himself to mention it.’ She looked up at me. ‘My poor Paddy. His work meant so much to him and he was doing so well. Now you know, m’dear, can you tell me something I have never dared ask that nice boy Michael Ellis. If they cannot operate how long before he is blind?’