Nurse in Waiting

by Jane Arbor

  “How did you find out?”

  “I think it was by being away from each other for a while when I came over to Eire. Things seemed to fall into focus better ... and I began to be afraid that Dale and I were missing something. And when I saw him again it was like trying to blow upon dead ashes, hoping that just a single spark would glow for us. And when it didn’t, the only thing to do was to admit that—the fire had never been alive at all.”

  “You had never been in love!” said Shuan with an air of clarifying the matter.

  Joanna smiled. “No. We had never been in love,” she echoed.

  Again Shuan said impulsively: “Joanna, I’m sorry. You see, I was terribly jealous of you at first—you were so capable and cool and everything that I wasn’t—and even when I began to like you and be grateful to you for Roger’s sake, I didn’t seem to be able to show it. But today I know that I want you to be happy—wherever happiness lies for you. Do you suppose,” she added ingenuously, “that that’s because, if they let me marry René, I know I’m going to be so happy that I want to share it?”

  “I expect so. Happiness is like that—it has to bubble over. But don’t worry about me, Shuan. I shall be happy. I’ve got my work. And my mother used to quote a Spanish proverb which said, ‘When one door shuts, another opens’. When Dale and I parted we shut a door on something which had never existed. One day another door will open—for me.”

  It was the same philosophy which she had expressed to Roseen that morning. She had guessed then that she had voiced it as much for herself as for the younger girl. In the days to come she would have to remind herself of it often. And it would help...

  But Shuan was savoring it too. She repeated slowly: “ ‘Another door opens’— D’you know, in a way that’s what has happened to me? I mean, I made that sort of vow to myself that, because his accident was my fault. I’d sacrifice everything to Roger. And then you came, and I was hurt because I could see how much more value you were to him than I was and how he was beginning to care for you—So that it was like another door opening for me when I suddenly found that none of it mattered so much after all, because I was falling in love with René—”

  She stopped at sight of Joanna’s blanched face. Joanna said rather shakily: “You use the words ‘care for’ in strange places, Shuan!”

  “But I don’t! Not this time. I mean them. I mean that Roger was falling in love with you. I knew it. He knew it himself. It was when he learned about the man in London that he began to fight against it. You could see it happening. He didn’t want to go on loving you when you belonged to somebody else. Roger is proud—and that’s the way his pride works—”

  Joanna stood up. “That’s not true, Shuan. You’re letting your imagination run away with you. In any case, even if it were true, you would be betraying his confidence by telling me—”

  “I would not! Roger has never talked to me about you. It’s something that I just know about him. You probably think you have to snub me, because of professional etiquette or something. But I want Roger to be happy. Even when I was hideously jealous of you I’d have tried to be glad if he had asked you to marry him. I mightn’t have succeeded very well then. But I’d be terribly glad now.” Suddenly the smudged greenish-blue eyes clouded with tears of sheer weariness, and Joanna put a protective arm about the girl’s thin shoulders as she drew her towards the door.

  “René and Michael will be waiting. Let’s go home,” she said gently.

  But Shuan held back. “You haven’t said whether, if he asked you now, you would say yes,” she accused childishly.

  It was Joanna’s turn to be conscious of a wave of utter weariness. “Shuan, please! You don’t understand. There are a dozen reasons against it!”

  “But would any of them matter,” asked Shuan simply, “if there were just one reason on the other side—that you loved each other?”

  Joanna’s glance dropped before the importunate innocence in the shadowed eyes raised to hers. She said, in a tone which was meant to be brisk with finality, but which was merely sharp with unspoken pain: “Roger doesn’t love me. He never has done. He is longing for me to leave Carrieghmere—”

  “He told you that? But don’t you see that was only his pride talking? That he must have made up his mind that he can do without you, if he must?”

  “No. I’ve never been any more to him than a crutch he is able to discard. And it is Carrieghmere that matters to him now.”

  “If he had been able to believe that you loved him he would have shared Carrieghmere with you,” said Shuan slowly. “Joanna, you’ve said that you don’t think he loves you. But—do you love him?”

  It was the question Joanna had dreaded. And though she made no answer in words she was conscious that her very silence might have told Shuan too much.

  In the car, when they were still miles from Carrieghmere, Shuan began to shiver uncontrollably. René wrapped a rug about her and tucked his own coat round her shoulders. But Joanna could tell from her racing pulse and flushed face that she was at the outset of a fever which would need more than mere blanketing. She urged Michael to drive at top speed again, knowing that time was all important in getting Shuan to bed and under Dr. Beltane’s care.

  Upon their arrival at Carrieghmere she was to realize that, as she had feared, their decision to leave no message for Roger had been unwise. For it seemed that, on his own arrival home, Roseen had been waiting for him with an excitable tale of woe of which he had been able to make little sense.

  His greeting was uncompromising. “Where have you been?” he demanded. “What has Shuan been doing?”

  “Roger—” His name was no more than a sigh of exhaustion upon Shuan’s lips. By now the girl was near to collapse, and Joanna’s protective arm about her shoulders tightened its clasp.

  “Shuan isn’t well,” she said briefly. “I’m going to put her to bed and I’d like Dr. Beltane called at once, please.”

  She turned away, drawing Shuan with her. She sensed that Roger had resented her authoritative tone. But after a moment’s hesitation he said quietly; “Very well, I’ll see to it.”

  Shuan began to cry softly, and Joanna, glancing at René, knew that he was longing to comfort her. She said gently: “René, will you tell Mr. Carnehill all that we know ourselves—all that Shuan has told us?”

  René nodded gratefully. “Immediately! She—she will be—all right?” he added in a whisper.

  “Very soon, I hope. But she is very, very tired!”

  She took Shuan up to bed then and as, with the unhurried skill which was second nature to her cool hands, she performed the deft tasks which made all the difference to the girl’s comfort, she told herself that in her work alone would she find, one day, the serene contentment which would overlay pain. For while you worked you had no urge to think ... to question ... to remember. And day-long, healthy tiredness might even banish dreams...

  She stayed with Shuan until Dr. Beltane came. When he had examined her and they had left her room together, he commented: “Well, she’s in the sort of nervous condition that would give the ‘come hither’ to any wandering germ. She lives at a great rate, to be sure. What do you suppose she has been up to lately to get herself into that state?”

  “She has been worrying needlessly. But principally, I think, she has been falling in love!”

  The doctor’s astonishment was gratifying. “Falling in love, eh? Bless my soul, what’s the new generation coming to? When I was young we took that sort of thing in our stride—we didn’t run temperatures over it! And where in the bog would she have found anyone to fall in love with, when she’d not take a second glance at the Belgian fellow spreading himself to make a mat for her feet?”

  “It is René Menden,” smiled Joanna.

  “You mean—she’s taken him? And to think that I was sorely tempted to tell him his technique was all wrong—that the girls don’t want ‘em faithful—they’d rather have ‘em masterful any day! Looks as if I was wrong—I’m glad I didn’t in
terfere. But tell me, is she being crossed in love? Is the family proving difficult?”

  “I don’t think anyone knows, so far. It was only today that they admitted to each other that they both wanted the same thing.”

  “And where’s the young man now?”

  “He is with Mr. Carnehill. Mrs. Carnehill should be back from Dublin soon—Michael will have gone to meet her train—”

  She broke off as at that moment Mrs. Carnehill came hurrying upstairs looking puzzled and worried. At sight of them she exclaimed:

  “Joanna, what has happened? Michael was late meeting me, because he said he’d had to be driving you and René more than half-way to the border—that you were following Shuan somewhere! He said you had brought her back—‘and she, unable to stand on her feet at the latter end’—that’s how he put it—and he had some version of his own that she had been trying to run away with Justin, though, of course I, knew that couldn’t be true—”

  The fear that Michael’s story might indeed prove to have some truth in it spoke in her face, and Dr. Beltane put a reassuring arm round her shoulders. “And for what,” he demanded, “would she be running away with a man like McKiley? Rest easy now, Ena Carnehill! All that’s wrong with Shuan is that she has a little fever that she won’t be long getting over, though Nurse here tells me she’s also got a little fever of another kind that she won’t want to be getting over!”

  He chuckled flatly at his own joke, but Mrs. Carnehill’s bright face creased into greater bewilderment than before. “Robert Beltane, don’t be exasperating! What has Shuan been doing?”

  Joanna put a hand upon her arm. “René has asked Shuan to marry him, and I was there when she said Yes,” she said quietly. “René is with Mr. Carnehill now, explaining everything, but Shuan was taken ill suddenly and I brought her straight to bed.”

  “Shuan? René? But what’s all this about Justin? Oh, dear, let me go to the child—!”

  Unobtrusively the doctor’s sturdy bulk guarded the way to Shuan’s door. “Just a peep,” he promised. “But I hope she is sleeping by now, and that’s the way I want her. You mustn’t mind because I was let into the secret before you. After all,” he added with the unashamed curiosity of the accepted family friend, “there’s a lot about this business that I don’t understand myself—”

  In the hall below, the telephone shrilled, interrupting him. The door of Mrs. Carnehill’s study opened and Roger went to lift the receiver. As he did so he glanced up, saw his mother, and beckoned to her to go down to him. She did so, followed by Joanna and Dr. Beltane. They stood, a silent little knot, intuitively guessing that the message Roger took had significance for them all.

  His own part in it consisted almost wholly of monosyllables.

  “Yes ... Yes ... Where? I see. Tomorrow morning? ... Yes, of course ... No, I think not ... Thank you.”

  He laid down the receiver, stood for a moment without speaking, then turned to face them.

  “McKiley has been arrested at Musveen on the border. Two other men charged with smuggling drugs were arrested with him, and the police have a warrant for searching the Dower House for evidence tomorrow.”

  Mrs. Carnehill gasped, and her voice was no more than a whisper as she asked: “Shuan? Roger—Shuan isn’t involved?”

  He opened his arms to her, and she went to them trustingly. “Poor Mother!” he said gently. “You are completely in the dark, aren’t you? No—Shuan isn’t involved. There’s nothing wrong with Shuan—”

  He paused. He had been looking down at his mother’s bent head, but now he looked straight across and into Joanna’s eyes. “Except,” he said slowly, “that perhaps she has loved—too much.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Shuan tossed restlessly all night and Joanna spent most of it at her bedside. When Dr. Beltane came he said that she might be feverish for some days, but added dryly: “She has her best medicine handy—down at the Dower House! You may let the boy see her whenever you think fit. Nurse.”

  “But—”

  He looked quickly at Joanna. “Oh, I forgot. When were you sailing?”

  “On Thursday.”

  “Well, Mrs. Carnehill will need help with Shuan for a week or two. If I wired your matron you’d have no objection to staying on, would you?”

  “No, Doctor, none.”

  “Then that’s settled. Everyone here would rather have you about than somebody new.” Dr. Beltane trotted towards the door, but as he reached it. “By the way, I didn’t get near enough to you at Shuan’s dance to congratulate you on your Clarissa Carnehill get-up. It was a grand idea, surely. What did Roger think of it?”

  “I think perhaps he agreed with you that it was original. At least—he wasn’t annoyed—”

  “Annoyed? Bless my soul, why should he have been? His own ancestress reproduced perfectly by a living girl? One of these days I may take it upon myself to tell him that he could do worse than import a ‘Clarissa’ of his own.”

  “You mean—marry someone who is English, as Clarissa Carnehill was?”

  The doctor’s eyes twinkled. “Well, not just anyone English, d’you understand, but a nice girl—someone we could all get to love, and maybe with the sort of looks that would match Clarissa’s. The Carnehill men have always had sense enough to look further than the next village for their wives. There’s no reason why Roger should be any exception.”

  Upon a sudden impulse Joanna said: ‘Mrs. Kimstone told me once that she believed he would marry Shuan.”

  Dr. Beltane snorted scornfully. “That one? She’d have to be filling her empty mind with fool ideas like that, for fear of having to admit it was a vacuum! Roger marry Shuan? And they with twelve years of age between them and at least half a generation of sense! Well, little Shuan has scotched that story by beating Roger to it and going afield for her own romance!”

  “They’ll be happy, she and René, don’t you think?” asked Joanna.

  “Arrah, she’ll think for six months or so that she has him twisted round her pretty finger and he’ll delude himself for a few months more that he’s master in his own house. Then, maybe, they’ll tug two ways for a while. Then—only slowly perhaps—they’ll learn their ultimate dependence on each other for the realities—the different things each of them brings. And that will be—marriage. It takes some living, but, sure, it’s worth it in the end!”

  “I’ve heard it described,” said Joanna slowly, “as ‘friendship lit with passion’.”

  “Ah, it’s that too. And it’s giving, and having, and learning, and looking back at the last, to know that you wouldn’t have had it otherwise if you could. It goes on and on—love, I mean—and yet the strange thing is that the wonder and the glory of it can be upon you almost before you know it.”

  Joanna turned away, believing that in her eyes must lie betrayal of her knowledge that he spoke the truth. She was surprised to feel his hand laid gently upon her shoulder.

  “You’ll be telling them in London what an unprofessional, philosophizing old gossip I was! But doctors—like mothers—often know more than they’re meant to know. And sometimes they’re human enough to want to guess the rest. Maybe I’ve been a blundering old fool—trying to tell you something about love that you know already?”

  “No—!”

  The shrewd eyes beneath the bushy brows held hers. “Forgive me for an old busybody,” said Dr. Beltane. But as he turned to go he added cryptically: “D’you know, on my way out I’m going to have another look at Clarissa. I’ve always thought that quiet smile of hers was very wise. I wonder what she was wise about?”

  By late afternoon Shuan seemed better, so Joanna allowed her to sit up in bed and to see René, who had come on shy tiptoe to her door.

  Warning him not to let Shuan talk too much, she left them together and went downstairs, where she found Mrs. Carnehill alone.

  “How is Shuan now?” asked the older woman anxiously.

  “Much better and very happy, I think,” smiled Joanna. “René is with her, a
nd I left them holding hands across the coverlet and not uttering a word!”

  “Bless them! You know, Joanna, it’s odd and rather sad, the way the nursery folk can steal a march like that! Of course it was never possible to miss what René felt about her. But Shuan has always seemed such a child! To think of her twisting about in her head all that fantastic idea of her responsibility to Roger, and that dangerous dabbling in Justin’s affairs—And now, wanting to marry René—it takes my breath away!”

  “This morning Dr. Beltane was talking about love,” said Joanna slowly. “He said that ‘the wonder and the glory’ of it could happen almost before you knew it. I’ve been thinking of it since, and I believe it was that way with Shuan—she never even wanted to. It simply happened!”

  “And she, not nineteen, and sometimes with the ways of a twelve-year-old! But, of course, Robert Beltane is right—it does work out like that. I remember when I met Roger’s father I was actually engaged to another man! Later he ran away with his wife’s dressmaker, so perhaps it was just as well—But they wouldn’t let me marry until I was twenty-one, and René wants to marry Shuan at once!”

  “You mean—he will take her back to Belgium with him?”

  “Well, I don’t think René has worked that out yet. But Roger and I sat up late last night, talking. And he said then that he would like to keep René on here to help him with the estate when this wretched business about Justin is all cleared up. If René agreed, Roger’s idea was that they should have the Dower House.”

  “But—”

  “I know what’s in your mind! You were going to say that when Roger marries the Dower House should be my home. But, as I said to Roger, the place will be big enough for three when the time comes—even if they have to give me a kitchen of my own to experiment in!”