Nurse Saxon's Patient

by Marjorie Norrell

  Poor Garth! Julie could not stop the thought. With all his enthusiasm for design, for planning towards modern living...

  ‘I like to see things when they’re finished,’ Tansy was running on. ‘I like lovely houses, pretty things...’ She gestured round the room. ‘Anyone can see that. But I don’t like to know about drainage and things of that kind. That’s for the builders and such people to worry over, not people like me.’

  ‘But Garth—Mr. Holroyd—drew his plans with the thought in his mind of the kind of people who would one day live in the houses he was designing,’ Julie put in quickly. ‘People like you and me.’

  ‘But who wants to know about the bones of their house?’ Tansy demanded. ‘I don’t. Let me see it finished and I’ll tell you then whether I like it or not. Most people are the same, I should imagine. Everyone I know is, anyhow.’

  ‘And so,’ Julie ventured as Tansy paused for such a long time she began to think the story would never be concluded, ‘you had a quarrel?’

  ‘That’s right. I was leading up to that.’ Tansy was round-eyed. ‘I just couldn’t find the words. However did you guess what I wanted to tell you?’

  ‘It was fairly obvious, from all you’ve just told me,’ Julie smiled. ‘I don’t imagine you said anything you couldn’t apologize for, once Mr. Holroyd is in a little better shape...’

  ‘If it was only that’—Tansy gave a heavy sigh—‘I’d look for my moment and do it like a shot, but it’s something more. You see, we’d just turned the corner to start going up the hill and he said, in such a quiet voice I could scarcely hear him, that it seemed we had both made a mistake and that we weren’t really suitable companions at all. He went on—talking so quietly and reasonably he might have been discussing the weather, saying how we hadn’t the same tastes in friends, in amusements ... in anything, and that he knew he couldn’t change from what he was to the sort of person my friends appeared to be. He said—all quiet and controlled, you know—that he had nothing against my friends, that they were all very nice people, but that he had nothing in common with them nor did he hope to have, and he ended by saying that as things were he thought we ought to recognize the fact that we had made a mistake and ‘call it a day’ before matters progressed any further.’

  ‘And what did you say?’ Julie asked as the spate of words petered out again.

  ‘I’m afraid I said he’d been influenced by his Aunt Lavinia—Mrs. Crossman, you know. She doesn’t like me. She doesn’t think I’ll make a suitable wife for her precious Garth. I said he would grow prim and old-fashioned, and he was really angry. Then, just as we got halfway up the hill I was so mad I tore off my engagement ring and tried to make him take it back.’

  ‘And...?’

  ‘He wouldn’t have it. He told me it had cost a great deal of money and I’d better sell it and buy myself a fur coat like Maisie’s as I admired it so much when I’d seen it.’

  Julie waited, not prompting this time, and at last Tansy spoke again, her voice so low that Julie had to strain to hear the words.

  ‘I was so furious I banged open the glove compartment and flung the ring in there, banging it shut again,’ she said slowly. ‘It was as I shut the flap that the trailer hit us. Garth flung himself in front of me, and I don’t remember any more until the men with the ambulance helped to get us out of the wreck.’

  ‘That was why you wanted to know where the car was and so on,’ Julie realized. ‘I did ask Mr. Greensmith, and I was right, it’s at Bell’s garage. Mr. Greensmith said if Mr. Holroyd was worrying about it he’d go along and check the damage ... but I don’t know what to say about this...’

  ‘I want my ring back,’ Tansy said firmly. ‘If Garth has lost his memory because of the accident he won’t remember I tried to give it back to him and we can start all over again. I didn’t really want to break things up,’ she said coaxingly. ‘It was just that I was so angry. I have a quick temper, and it did seem to me that he was treating me like a spoiled child and not as a grownup person, let alone his fiancée. I only wanted to ... teach him a lesson. Now I don’t want him to remember just what did happen, all that ugly scene. He isn’t likely to recall any of it, when he hasn’t remembered it all this time, is he, Nurse?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Julie said slowly. ‘I must ask Mr. Greensmith. He has more experience of these cases than I have. He’ll be calling for me in a few minutes...’

  She broke off as the door-bell rang, knowing it was Ian by some instinct she could not place.

  ‘Don’t tell him anything,’ she advised as Tansy hurried to the door. ‘Leave it with me, and I promise I’ll get your ring back for you if I possibly can.’

  Ian’s arrival appeared to have put a brake on Tansy’s tongue. She spoke very little, and Ian was obviously determined to remain aloof, leaving it to Julie to bridge the gap. He refused coffee, and when Tansy said, suddenly speaking shyly, that she would make supper for the three of them ‘in less than no time ... I’ve a fridge full of all sorts of things...’ Ian’s mouth set in the firm lines Julie knew meant that he had taken his stand and was not going to be moved.

  ‘No, thank you,’ he said politely. ‘It’s very kind of you, but I’ve already booked a table for two at the Blue Moon.’ He smiled down at Julie, infuriating her as he so often did by the suggestion of intimate friendship between them. ‘I think you’ll like what I’ve ordered,’ he said, ‘and we mustn’t be late.’

  Julie rose, accepted her coat from Tansy and prepared to leave. The other girl looked suddenly so lost and forlorn that Julie longed to sit down again and try to comfort her, to tell her everything would be all right and her problem solved, but Ian had no such inclinations. He made such brisk and definite movements to indicate departure that Julie had no alternative but to follow his lead.

  ‘Don’t worry too much,’ she advised Tansy as they said goodbye. ‘I’ll discuss this with Mr. Greensmith, and when you come to the hospital tomorrow I’ll let you know what we’ve decided is best to do.’

  ‘What was all that about?’ Ian demanded, as he settled her in his car and closed the door. ‘What was the problem, anyhow?’

  ‘Apparently they had a quarrel,’ Julie told him. ‘They’d been to a party given by one of Tansy’s friends to celebrate an offer of a good part in a television series. Garth hadn’t enjoyed the party, said it wasn’t his kind of an evening and so on. I think they must have had other such disagreements previously. It seems he had taken her to meet Mrs. Crossman and, as we know, his aunt didn’t approve of his choice. Knowing Mrs. Crossman, she would be polite about it, but I can well understand how a girl like Tansy would sense the disapproval—and resent it. Anyhow, what happened in the end was that Tansy took his ring from her finger and offered it back to him.’

  ‘Did he accept it?’ Ian asked with the first show of interest since she had started the story.

  Julie shook her head. ‘No, he told her to sell it and buy herself a fur coat—not very polite, but I gather he’d been rather goaded all evening. Anyhow, she flung the ring into the glove compartment just as the trailer hit them. She’d just banged the flap shut and can’t remember anything more.’

  ‘So the ring should still be there?’ Ian said musingly. ‘That’s interesting. What does she want to do now? Get the fur coat, as Garth suggested?’

  ‘No,’ Julie replied slowly, and was surprised to find how reluctant she was to say the necessary words. ‘She wants the engagement on .again. She doesn’t want him to remember that she was prepared to let him go.’

  ‘Because since then he’s won the prize, made a name for himself, will be somebody in the very near future,’ Ian said cryptically. ‘That’s what she wants. The limelight, the excitement ... But he must have known she was that kind of person before he proposed to her.’

  ‘Maybe he did, or again maybe he didn’t know her well enough then and was only just finding out what sort of person she really is,’ Julie said musingly.

  Ian stopped the car outside the new Chi
nese restaurant which had recently opened in the town and was proving a popular rendezvous with the local people.

  ‘Let’s discuss it over supper,’ Julie suggested.

  Ian was by no means reluctant to reopen the subject once their meal was set before them. To her own surprise it was Julie who felt they should have no more to do with the whole business.

  ‘If he meant what he said ... that they had made a mistake,’ she said seriously, ‘wouldn’t it be wrong to ... help start it all up again?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Ian eyed her gravely, and under his concentrated gaze she felt the reluctant colour creeping up under her skin. ‘I only know that if you’re going to Woodlands to nurse Garth Holroyd then I would feel a great deal happier about the whole affair if this engagement were definitely on again. They can sort themselves out again later, once he’s better, if they want to. Once he’s recovered it won’t take him long to know whether or not they are suited, or to rediscover that they’ve made a mistake. The main thing, from my point of view,’ Ian said definitely, ‘is that the engagement should be on when you nurse him during his stay at Woodlands.’

  ‘Whether it’s on or off makes no difference to me.’ Julie was annoyed and showed it in her manner ‘He’s going there as a convalescent, I’m merely his nurse. What his private concerns happen to be at the time is none of my business, unless they are such that his emotions are disturbed sufficiently to delay his recovery.’

  ‘Spoken like a true nurse,’ Ian observed grimly, ‘with the welfare of her patient at heart. Only it happens to be my own welfare that’s causing me the greatest concern at the moment, Julie, my dear.’

  Suddenly he leaned towards her over the small table, looking directly into her eyes.

  ‘I’ve taken my dismissal from you so far,’ he said slowly, ‘because I felt I could afford to wait, that it was simply a matter of time before you realized that I’m right and that we should be the perfect pair. You were so keen on your work—your studies and your patients came first, and that I admired—but there was no hint of anyone else, any other man, on the horizon.’

  ‘There still isn’t,’ Julie said steadily, but she knew the faint, tell-tale colour had risen in her cheeks again and she knew too that she was not speaking the entire truth.

  ‘Isn’t there?’ Ian asked softly. ‘I’ve known since the last Hospital Ball, Julie. You were more than a little interested in Garth Holroyd then. I don’t suppose it was all casual conversation that kept you together so long, that lit stars in your eyes and made him follow your every movement with his glance. Any more than it was casual interest that made him remember what you wore, what you looked like, what you talked about, six months and a serious accident later!’

  ‘We talked mainly about the scheme he had worked out for the competition,’ Julie said, and was annoyed with herself because her tone revealed that she was already standing on the defensive. ‘He couldn’t talk of much else...’

  ‘And he didn’t want to see you again?’ Ian persisted. ‘I haven’t asked you before, Julie, because I sensed you gave him the same answer you had given to me, but now he’s come into our lives again there is something different about you. That, and his memory of your meeting six months ago, makes me a little afraid...’

  ‘He’s just a patient.’ Julie gathered herself together and spoke firmly. ‘Admittedly an interesting patient, but he has a fiancée, and—’ She broke off. She could not bring herself to say the words she had been about to say, that Tansy appeared to be devoted to Garth, for if the engagement had been broken off just before the accident, then, technically, it existed no longer. And Garth doesn’t even remember who she is, she thought bleakly.

  ‘And...’ Ian took her up, ‘she has put on a good show of devotion—once she knew he had won the competition which meant so much to him. But you know— and I know—that there isn’t really an engagement to worry about.’

  ‘Garth—Mr. Holroyd—doesn’t know that yet,’ Julie countered swiftly.

  Just then the waiter arrived with their sweet course and created a welcome diversion. When he had left them Ian spoke again.

  ‘We don’t know how much he does remember,’ he said slowly, ‘or how much he subconsciously wants to remember. But tell me one thing, Julie, please. If this engagement is ended, and if Garth Holroyd does show an interest in you as he did at the Hospital Ball, if he sought you out ... makes a fuss ... can you honestly tell me now that it’s a matter of no interest to you?’ Julie faced him across the table. All her respect and sincere admiration for the man opposite her rose to the surface as she met his glance. She could not lie to him. She had never done so. She had told him the truth from the beginning, that although she liked and respected, admired him, she could never love him, and this he had refused to accept. Now he was asking her if there was someone else whom she felt she could grow to love, and she knew that if she were honest she must admit that Garth Holroyd held a strong attraction for her, a far stronger attraction than she had ever felt from any human being before.

  ‘No,’ she said at last, ‘I can’t say that. But we can’t see what is going to happen, can we? When he recovers he may remember only that he was engaged to Miss Maitland and nothing at all about their quarrel. Or he may remember the quarrel and nothing which led up to it. We must wait and see.’

  ‘That doesn’t concern us,’ Ian said shortly. ‘All I want to know is, if this engagement fizzles out and Garth Holroyd is a free man when he accompanies you to Woodlands, if his interest in you is what I believe it to be ... have I a serious rival?’

  For a moment Julie looked back at him without speaking. She was so afraid of hurting him, and yet she knew it would be wrong to allow him to believe she might change her mind about him when she was perfectly convinced she would never do such a thing. Choosing her words carefully, she answered him.

  ‘How can you have a rival, Ian?’ she asked softly. ‘We’re ... just good friends, and anyone, girl or man, may have more than one very good friend.’

  To her relief he smiled. But that was one of the secretly irritating things about him, she thought abruptly, this refusal to take her dismissal of him seriously.

  ‘In that case I have nothing more to worry about than I had at first, have I?’ he remarked pleasantly, preparing to leave. ‘I’m not worrying, Julie, please don’t think that I am, but I would feel very much happier if Garth Holroyd’s ring were back on Miss Maitland’s finger. They can please themselves whether she takes it off again later or not.’

  ‘And in the meantime’—Julie rose and he put back her chair—‘the ring is still in the glove compartment of Garth’s car. What can we do about that?’

  ‘I’ll see him in the morning.’ Ian piloted her from the restaurant carefully. ‘I’ve no doubt he’ll be relieved to have a first-hand personal report of the condition of his vehicle, apart from whatever the police and the insurance companies may have had to say.’ He opened his car door. ‘What about a little drive along by the river before we go back to the hospital?’ he went on. ‘We can’t go very far ...’

  ‘But it will be very pleasant,’ Julie supplied. ‘I’d love it, but I mustn’t be late in. I haven’t a late pass!’ And, ignoring Garth Holroyd, Tansy Maitland and their problems alike, they spent a pleasant half-hour driving beside the water, being, as Julie had phrased it earlier, just the best of good friends.

  CHAPTER IV

  When Julie went into Garth’s room the following morning she was delighted to see that he looked much better, more as she remembered him on the night of the Hospital Ball. He was sitting propped upright, his bandaged hands spread out on the coverlet before him, and his eyes were brighter, his glance more alert, than they had been since he first recovered consciousness.

  ‘I’ve been wondering, Nurse,’ he began as Julie gave him his breakfast, ‘just how badly damaged is my car? From what I look like after the impact it could well be a complete write-off. Do you think the insurance will cover all the damage?’

 
‘I expect so,’ Julie assured him, adding because she was essentially a truthful person, ‘but I really don’t know much about these matters. All I know is that the police had it towed away to Bell’s garage and that they and the insurance companies—your own and that used by the owner of the lorry—have both seen the car, so I expect there will be reports somewhere which you will be able to see when you’re better.’

  ‘It’s not my line at all,’ Garth reflected ruefully, ‘either assessing the damage or knowing about the insurance, but Aunt Lavinia says her solicitor will look into it all for me, so I don’t have to worry—only about whether or not I’ll have a car fit to drive by the time I’m capable of taking it out again.’ He gave a woebegone glance at his hands. ‘When will they take these plaster things off, Nurse?’

  ‘That I don’t know either,’ Julie smiled at him, ‘but I do know you’re not to worry, not about the car or your hands or anything else. Mr. Greensmith will be in to see you very shortly. He is a keen motorist himself, and something of an amateur mechanic as well, I believe. I’m sure that if you asked him he would go along and look at the car for you when he has a free period. He would give you a truthful and near-accurate account of exactly what the damage is, I’m sure. Just as he is the one who’ll be able to tell you when the plastic surgeon is likely to take the plaster casts from your hands.’

  His meal ended, Garth relaxed against the pillows watching Julie at her work. He felt strangely contented, and as he watched her deft movements he wondered what it was about this girl which was at once so much a stimulant, so that he wanted to be up and doing, working at his drawing-board, and at the same time so soothing that he could content himself lying there simply because that was what she had said he must do. At the back of his mind there still lay the memory of this same girl as he had remembered seeing her when consciousness had first returned and he had wakened to find her bending over him. Then, despite the nurse’s uniform, his imagination had held a picture of her in a dress of some filmy blue material, with a high neckline and a huge pink rose at her throat. What was it she had told him? ‘That was six months ago, at the New Year Hospital Ball ... I wasn’t with you last night ... there was a girl with you...’