Nurse Kelsey Abroad

by Marjorie Norrell

  NURSE KELSEY ABROAD

  Marjorie Norrell

  “Do your job, mind your own business.”

  And Jane Kelsey intended to do just that

  She had come to the Balkan country to satisfy a desire to travel and use her nurse’s training in a worthwhile way—not to get involved in politics.

  Then, innocently, she found herself drawn into the activities of some young dissidents. The situation became frightening, but it forced dedicated Dr. Jim Lowth to come to her rescue—and to reveal he was not as indifferent to her as she had believed!

  CHAPTER 1

  STAFF Nurse Jane Kelsey descended the wide, impressive staircase of the Mowberry Private Nursing Home slowly and thoughtfully. It was not the first occasion since she had come to work here that she had experienced serious doubts as to whether or not she should remain.

  Could she not have been doing the same sort of work, and doing it equally well, in the confines of the Rawbridge General Infirmary where she had worked for the past four years, right until she gave in her notice and responded to Angela Power’s appeals to join her and help her make the nursing home a real success?

  There was certainly no possible doubt as to the success of the nursing home, Jane reflected. Every bed was fully booked for months ahead, with the exception of the four in the emergency side ward, all of them booked by people who could afford not to leave their names any length of time on the waiting list at the Infirmary. No doubt when any one of those on the waiting list could be classified as a genuine emergency a bed would be found at the Rawbridge General, but those who could afford it preferred to have their operations or indispositions over and done with, not to linger on until room could be found to deal with whatever ailed them.

  That was the principal reason Jane had agreed to join in Angela’s venture. The knowledge that for even a minority of people almost immediate help would then be available had been a great influence, even though she had known at the start the bulk of the money behind the venture had come from Henry Crabtree, a man she could not stand at any price, but the man, it seemed, Angela was about to marry.

  Henry had money in everything, and everything into which he put money appeared to have the knack of rapidly acquiring more. He had come to Rawbridge some years previously, opened up a small plastics factory, later branched out with a Second factory doing light engineering, and had recently added a supermarket to his many activities. The nursing home, Jane knew, had been but one of the minor irons in his fires of ambition, and now that too was more than beginning to pay its way, according to Dudley, who was delighted.

  Jane reached the huge hallway as her thoughts encountered Dudley. Angela’s brother, he was an accountant and had recently joined Henry’s engineering firm, handling the books as well as those of the plastics factory, the supermarket and the nursing home. In brief, Henry Crabtree was “going places” and he was taking Angela and her brother with him.

  “But not Staff Nurse Jane Kelsey!” Jane reflected, turning kitchenwards. “And he’d be the last to realise that that suits me down to the ground!”

  She couldn’t remember when it was she had really decided she had had enough. From the moment of their introduction Dudley had expressed his admiration of her very fair hair, so fair, so fine it looked almost silver in some lights; of her rose-pink complexion and her unexpectedly dark blue eyes.

  Jane wasn’t a vain girl, but she would have been stupid had she not realised long ago that most men found her looks attractive. Her colouring, her small, pointed face with the expressive eyes and mouth, appealed to the majority of them, just as did her small “pint-size” figure which looked so trim and businesslike in her navy and white uniform.

  Dudley, to use his own words, had been bowled over right away, and at first it was very obvious that this delighted Angela. Later, as Henry became more possessive where Angela was concerned and as he took more than a passing interest in the nursing home, Dudley’s life, and a possible future for himself and Angela together, Jane had sensed the elder girl’s gradual withdrawal.

  She did not mind. She liked Dudley Power well enough, but she could never love him, never in a million years, she told herself. He just wasn’t the type she admired, not in any way, and he did not appear to take the hint that she wasn’t interested in going out with him, in risking his sister’s obvious disapproval—for Angela, Jane was certain, had someone more influential and more wealthy than her senior staff nurse marked out as a possible and more welcome future sister-in-law.

  “I wonder if that’s why she wants to see me now?” Jane asked herself as she collected her afternoon cup of tea from the staff kitchen and retreated to the quiet of the staff sitting-room to enjoy it in peace. “If she does, she can have the pleasure of getting across to Dudley exactly how I feel about him,” she reflected. “I’m sure he’d listen to her when he won’t listen to a word of protest I may utter, no matter how firmly.”

  She glanced at her watch. The message had been brought to her by a junior nurse that Matron Power would like to see her in her office at three-thirty precisely. “And when she says three-thirty that’s exactly what she means!” Jane reflected. She thought back to the days when Angela had been Ward Sister on Women’s Surgical at Rawbridge General, and when she had acquired a name for being the most insistent person on the staff where punctuality was concerned.

  “Whatever she wants I’d better be there!” she counselled herself as she finished her tea and rose to check her appearance in the large mirror which hung above the disused fireplace. “If it is, and I think it must be, something to do with Dudley, then I shall have to tell her I’m not in the least interested in him, and that she would be doing me a favour if she could convince him of that! I’ve tried to tell him, every way I know, but he either can’t or won’t take even the broadest of hints!”

  Satisfied that there was nothing in her dress or personal appearance which could bring down Angela’s wrath on her head, she went quietly and swiftly up the stairs again, and then mounted the second narrower flight which led to the shut-off flat and the generously appointed private office which were Angela’s own domain.

  A quiet knock on the door at exactly three-thirty was answered immediately by the red light over the bell push which signalled her to come in. As she walked towards Angela’s desk the older woman glanced at her watch and then with a satisfied nod, in the direction of the electric wall-clock.

  “Good afternoon, Staff,” she said formally. “Please sit down.”

  Jane sat in the chair on the opposite side of the desk, her hands folded circumspectly in her lap, and waited. She had to wait for some few minutes while Angela read over two papers on her desk, then she pushed these to one side and regarded Jane gravely, her slate grey eyes almost expressionless.

  “When we were at the General,” she began, and her tone said she now completely dissociated herself from having ever worked there in any subordinate capacity, “you were always talking about wanting to join the World Health Organisation, to nurse abroad, to do anything and everything, I believe were your words, in your own field, which would make life more exciting, more interesting. Do you remember?”

  “Very well,” Jane permitted herself a slight smile. “I’ve always wanted to travel, and it seemed to me that when I was qualified was the time to do something about it, only...”

  “Except that I persuaded you to join me ... here?” Angela said. “Precisely. Would you still care to go?” she asked unexpectedly. “I don’t mean World Health and all that. What I mean is would you still care to do something like you’re doing now in another country?”

  “I ... I expect so. Yes, why not?” Jane murmured, thinking Angela must be worried if she were even prepared to send her senior staff
nurse off into the blue to save her from accepting Dudley’s intentions. “Where, exactly?”

  “I don’t suppose you’ll have heard of the place,” Angela coloured slightly and ruffled through her papers again. “It’s at a small general hospital run by the British Embassy in Seonyata. Seonyata is the capital of Dalasalavia, which is a small Balkan state,” she explained as though she herself knew all there was to know about the place itself. “There are some British firms there, a number of others have interests in the area, and you would quickly make friends. A girl I knew at P.T.S. went there some time ago. She’s coming home to be married, and she’s written to me to ask if I know anyone I would recommend to take her place. Ann—her name’s Ann Palmer, by the way—seems to have had a marvellous time, but her fiancé has received unexpected promotion and an offer of an excellent position in Australia to boot, so they plan on being married as soon as possible, and as Ann writes, Tor me that means just as soon as I can be certain there is someone coming to take my place here.’ When would you be free to leave?” she continued with the direct question.

  Jane’s thoughts were whirling. It was one thing to say in the Sisters’ and staff nurses’ sitting-room at Rawbridge, as she distinctly remembered having done, that she wanted a change, to see something of the world, and quite another matter to have the opportunity not only presented but her acceptance urged in this manner! It was also one thing to decide in her own mind that Dudley’s attentions were more of a nuisance than a welcome diversion, and quite another to feel she was being moved out of his orbit, like a pawn in a game of chess, whether she liked it or not!

  “I’d like to talk it over with my parents first,” she said quietly. “I’m the only one at home now, except for my sister, and they still have years of helping her before she can hope to do much in the way of companionship or actual helping in return. If Betty hadn’t gone to New Zealand...”

  “But she did,” Angela interrupted crisply. “That’s all water under the bridge, really. She’s gone to make a new life there, with her husband. When you come home think what a lot you’ll have to tell them—and your young sister—what you’ll have to talk about when you get a long vacation!—your brothers would jump at the chance to get over there! One can’t tell, there may be all sorts of opportunities for the right people, in just their line of work. They’re both in engineering, aren’t they?”

  “Yes,” Jane said, frankly puzzled. She could not see what Barry’s qualifications as an electrical engineer and in computer design could have to do with her own choice of place of .work, or Alan’s degree in physics which he hoped would, sooner or later, be the gateway to the kind of career he wanted in the engineering field.

  “Take a forty-eight-hour pass,” Angela didn’t suggest, she rather commanded. “Go home and talk it over with them all. I realise how you feel about leaving your mother so soon after Betty’s departure, but your mother’s a sensible person, and I know she would not wish to stand in the way of any one of her children attaining his or her heart’s desire. You did make rather a song and dance about the possibilities there were of advancement after wider experience, if you remember!”

  “I remember perfectly,” Jane said, and knew that was true. She had always longed to travel, but this was so out-of-the-blue, so totally unexpected she didn’t know quite what to say about it. She could only remember how bleakly her mother had looked round the room the day Betty and her husband had departed for their new life in the New World of sheep farming, miles and miles away from home, and the memory wasn’t a happy one.

  “Then that’s settled,” Angela said briskly, shuffling the papers together and half rising as if to indicate that the interview was ended. “I’ll telephone your mother you’re coming and will be staying two nights. Then you’ll have plenty of time to discuss the whole thing with all the family. Of course your salary will be higher, and the rate of exchange is to your advantage as well!” As Jane made no comment she continued in the same brisk, businesslike manner: “I think it’s an invaluable opportunity, a chance not to be missed, especially for someone who’s always said she wanted experience, travel and all the rest of it!”

  “I’ll think it over, Matron,” Jane said, rising. “Thank you for giving me this opportunity.”

  She left the room as quietly as she had entered and stood for a moment outside Angela’s door. The lift gates were to the side of the door, but the staff were not permitted to use the lift except in an emergency, and with a sigh at the thought of the two long flights of stairs she turned away just as the lift slid to a noiseless halt and the gates opened to allow Dudley to come through.

  “Jane!” There was no mistaking the pleased look on his face, the delight in his eyes as he let the doors of the lift slide shut and came to stand before her. “Nothing wrong, is there?” he asked anxiously. “Angie’s not been ... upsetting you?”

  “Not really,” Jane laughed at his concern. “On the contrary. She’s just offered me an opportunity to go right to the other side of the world, doing the kind of work I’m doing now and having an unusually interesting time from now onwards, at least by the sound of things.”

  “The other side of the world?” Dudley repeated like a parrot, Jane thought unkindly, then checked her reflections. He was obviously genuinely disturbed and she knew that, tiresome though he might be from time to time, she would miss his presence if and when she went away. Dudley was always so good for her morale! He not only thought her beautiful, but he considered her a born nurse, and although Jane would have blushed to admit it, that was exactly what she was.

  “What’s the drill?” he asked now. “One of her wealthy patients going off on a world tour and wanting their own private nurse all the way?”

  “Nothing like that,” Jane laughed a little, easing the sudden tension which had appeared to leap into the air between them after her first announcement. “She has a friend, it appears, Ann something or other, who’s been nursing in a place in one of the Balkan states I’ve never even heard of. This Ann, whoever she is, wants to come home to be married. Her fiancé’s got a marvellous job somewhere in Australia, and she’s apparently written to Angela asking if she can recommend anyone to take her place.”

  “Ann Palmer,” Dudley announced. “I remember her. And,” he swung off at a tangent, “naturally Angela thought of you! Don’t you see, Jane, this is a perfect way for her to put distance between us? She knows perfectly well if you went back to the General—and you said last evening you were thinking of doing exactly that—I could and would see almost as much of you as I do now! If you’d allow me to, that is. It’s Angie’s way of separating us, that’s all. You don’t have to go, you know. There are more nurses required in this country than there are people trained to fill the demand. If you don’t want to tell her,” he offered, and Jane knew this was a tremendous thing for him to say, since Angela had practically guided his life since adolescence, “I’ll tell her for you. You could get back to the General like a shot, and you wouldn’t be so much under Angie’s thumb then. She’s all right,” he conceded with brotherly candour, “but she gets bees in her bonnet about one thing or another, and unfortunately the ones that buzz loudest and most persistently have always something to do with me and my affairs!”

  “I wouldn’t, if I were you,” Jane managed at last to stem the flow of words. “I always said I’d like to take a position abroad once I was qualified. That was one of the reasons I took my midwifery as well. You have to have that for W.H.O., you know, and for most of the countries where nurses are badly needed.”

  “You still don’t have to go, Janie.” Dudley was almost pleading, and for some reason or another that irritated Jane, suddenly strung to top pitch by the unexpectedness of the opportunity offered and the strangeness of her possible destination. “When does she want your decision?”

  “She’s telephoned Mum to say I’m coming home on a granted forty-eight-hour pass,” Jane told him a little unhappily as she anticipated his next words. “I was just going to pa
ck my weekend case and go for the four-fifteen bus.”

  “Ga and pack,” Dudley said in a quite unexpected authoritative manner. “I’ll run you home. I’ll just pop these accounts on Angie’s desk. Don’t worry,” he grinned in a suddenly boyish manner—for normally there wasn’t much boyishness where Dudley was concerned—“I shall only pop in and out. She won’t even know we met, not until we’ve had more opportunity to talk things over.”

  Jane knew it would be useless to argue. When he chose Dudley could be as stubborn as the proverbial mule, and she had grown to recognise the signs! She merely nodded and smiled her thanks and hurried off to pack her small case and to arrange with the junior staff nurse about the unexpected change in rota. She would have to convince Dudley later that she really wanted to accept this chance, even though she was by no means convinced herself that she did ... at least it would solve the Dudley problem, and by the time she returned he would, in all probability, have teamed up with someone else.

  Jane was too kind-hearted a person to do more than show Dudley she was not over-enthusiastic for his attentions. It was quite beyond her to turn round and tell him with any degree of definiteness that his presence was not welcome, nor did she want to be thought of as “Dudley Power’s girl-friend”, yet the way in which he hung about her ever since she had arrived at the nursing home was sufficient to make anyone believe they were next-door to being engaged!

  “It’s got to stop,” Jane vowed to herself as she snapped the lock on her small case. “I know Angela’s against it. She doesn’t seem to realise I’m not keen, and Dudley’s the last person in the world to take a hint if he doesn’t want to! Altogether this may well be the simple way out, and even though I can’t say it’s exactly the kind of avenue I’d have chosen, given the choice, I won’t quarrel with it, if Mum doesn’t appear to mind too much.”