Nurse Saxon's Patient

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Nurse Saxon's Patient Page 5

by Marjorie Norrell


  ‘Nurse!’ The change in his tone made Julie spin round, but apart from the sudden fear in his eyes he looked exactly the same, and she came quietly to the bedside, aware that it was something in his subconscious, something connected with this queer, half-returned memory of his which was bothering him now.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked quietly. ‘Is there something I can get for you?’

  ‘Only whatever bit of my memory I’ve lost.’ He made an attempt to joke about it, but the attempt was not very successful. His face sobered as he continued: ‘You said there was a girl with me. I believe she came in the other day, but she didn’t say very much and I couldn’t think of anything to say to her either. Who was she? Does she know any more about this than I do?’

  ‘Her name is Tansy Maitland.’ Julie watched him closely, but apart from repeating the name like a child repeating a lesson there was no change in his expression.

  ‘She didn’t say very much,’ Julie told him, ‘because she had been warned not to excite you. I think she’ll be in to see you this afternoon. Maybe you’ll be feeling a little better by then and be able to talk to her a little, but you’re not to worry about it at all, remember. That blow on your head will take some days to wear off, and you’ll find things will grow easier day by day if you don’t attempt to force them.’

  ‘I’ll be good,’ he smiled at her. ‘Don’t think me ungrateful, but Aunt Lavinia says I’m to go to Woodlands as soon as the doctors say I may, and I love Woodlands. I used to stay there often when I was a child. It’s just the right sort of place to recover quickly from anything.’ From under the bandage his dark eyes studied her. ‘You’ll love it there too,’ he went on. ‘My aunt says you’re to go with me. Will you mind?’

  ‘It will be a change from hospital routine,’ Julie assured him gravely. ‘I’m sure I shall enjoy it, especially if it does all you say to make you get better quickly.’

  ‘I must.’ There was a sudden emphasis on the words. ‘Get better quickly, I mean,’ he rushed on. ‘There’s so much to do. This development scheme means a great deal to Aunt Lavinia, and she’s so pleased and proud that I’ve been awarded the prize. The judges were all independent of the Borough, you see,’ he explained carefully. ‘It was the only fair way. That means nobody could have been influenced by the fact that Mrs. Crossman is my godmother and great-aunt,’ he ended.

  ‘I can see that.’ Julie frowned and hastily took his temperature. The volatile temperament which had made him so enthusiastic about his work was already lighting fires of enthusiasm now, which might well impede his physical progress, and if that happened, Julie reflected, Ian would be really angry with her.

  ‘Now, you mustn’t get so excited about it,’ she cautioned him. ‘Remember, the quieter you are for the next few days the greater your chances of a fairly speedy recovery. It’s up to you...’

  By the time Ian came in, not many minutes later, she was thankful to find Garth trying to follow her advice to settle down and relax.

  Ian made his customary quick but careful examination of the patient and pronounced himself well satisfied with Garth’s progress. He was in an unusually lighthearted mood, and Julie wondered if that was because he had planned to go and bring Tansy’s ring from the wrecked car, putting her engagement to Garth once more back on a visible if somewhat insecure footing. As though he could read her thought his next question to Garth was whether or not he would like Ian to ‘make a survey for you’, and Garth’s delighted acceptance set the seal on the project.

  ‘I have a consultation in Catherine Street this afternoon,’ Ian said. ‘As you know, that’s at the end of the road where Bell’s garage is, so I thought I may as well slip in and see how things were for you. I know if it were my car I’d want to know.’

  ‘I do,’ Garth told him gratefully. ‘I was asking Nurse about it only this morning.’

  ‘I’ll report later, then,’ Ian smiled down at him. ‘You’re making fine progress,’ he went on. ‘Soon you’ll be at Woodlands and on the last lap of your progress towards recovery.’ Just before he left the room he called Julie to one side and, with the temperature chart before him, as though that were the subject under discussion, he said very quietly: ‘I’ll give the ring to you before Miss Maitland arrives. Try to tell him who she is and why she’s wearing it before she comes. If he’s distressed, warn her to take it off ... he’ll have vague recollections of something being wrong.’

  ‘I’ll do that, Mr. Greensmith,’ Julie said quietly, but her heart seemed to twist suddenly with a completely unexpected feeling of pain so that she had to turn aside lest Ian should read her expression and place his own interpretation on what he saw there.

  Garth was sleeping when Ian returned from his consultation. He drew Julie into the corridor and handed her the small half-hoop of diamonds and sapphires, glittering in the shaded corridor lights.

  ‘I believe I saw her downstairs as I came up,’ Ian said as he parted with the ring, ‘so try to give it to her before she goes in to see him.’ He looked suddenly very grave as he added: ‘I wonder if we are doing the right thing after all, Julie? When one talks to him, gets to know him a little. Garth Holroyd is a very decent sort of chap, the sort one would be proud to call a friend. Somehow I have the vague feeling that in giving this ring back to the girl we’re giving her the key to untold misery for him, and yet he wouldn’t have proposed to her in the first instance if he hadn’t thought she was the right person for him.’

  He was making an argument to convince himself, Julie realized, but she did not feel very inclined at that moment to give voice to her own thoughts on the matter. For one thing, she was by no means certain of her own feelings after all. She thought of what Tansy had said ... that Garth had not been comfortable at the party, that the people there were not ‘his sort of people’, and, as Ian waited for her reply, for some assurance that she shared his doubts, she knew she could not voice her own opinion, because Ian would immediately read into what she said an entirely different reason for her words. He would say she did not want Tansy to have her ring back because she was interested in Garth herself, and, somewhat shaken, Julie knew now that this was the truth.

  But if it’s Tansy he wants ... needs ... her mind reasoned, I’ve got to remember she was his choice...

  ‘Give it to her.’ Ian’s voice cut in on her thoughts so unexpectedly that she was startled. ‘After all, they can always break it up later if that’s what they really want, but most couples go through a stage of wondering if they have made the right choice, usually at the beginning of their engagements and so on. When he gets really well it will be time enough for them to sort out that angle of things, and’—he looked into her eyes and his own twinkled suddenly so that she knew this thought had been at the back of his mind all the time—‘you’ll be back here, where I can keep an eye on you, not over at Woodlands, with Mrs. Crossman’s romantic garden and beautiful house to blind you to realities!’

  ‘I hope superficialities don’t mean as much as all that to me, Mr. Greensmith,’ Julie was stung into replying, but he only smiled.

  ‘I’ll keep an eye on Mr. Holroyd,’ he announced, avoiding further discussion. ‘You nip along and give Miss Maitland her ring before she comes up while—if he’s awake—I warn him that it’s his fiancée who is coming to see him.’

  There was nothing else for it. Julie turned and went down the corridor, but her own doubts had been crystallized by Ian’s words, ‘I wonder if we’re doing the right thing?’ Who could know? They could only wait now and see what happened, see how he reacted to the news that Tansy was not only the girl who had been with him in the car that fateful night but also the girl whom he must have asked to be his wife.

  She met Tansy already on her way to Emergency Three. There was no mistaking the other girl’s eagerness as she greeted Julie.

  ‘Have you got it?’ she demanded, as soon as Julie was within earshot. ‘Did Mr. Greensmith get my ring?’

  ‘Here it is.’ Julie held out the engagement
ring on the flat of her hand and watched as Tansy, with a sigh of relief, slipped it on to the third finger of her left hand.

  ‘Thank goodness,’ she said, asking quickly: ‘Does he ... remember any more? Does he know about me?’

  ‘Mr. Greensmith is with him now,’ Julie said quietly. ‘He said he would tell him that the young lady who was with him in the car, who has already visited him once and is coming today, is his fiancée. You must tread carefully until you see what effect that knowledge has on him now his mind is beginning to pick up the threads of everyday living again.’

  ‘I hope he never remembers about that party and the quarrel,’ Tansy said passionately. ‘I hope that’s blotted out for ever. I want my engagement to go on now ... there’s so much I can help him to do ... if he’ll do it.’ She glanced up at Julie through her thickly fringed lashes. ‘I’m not just commercially minded, you know,’ she said unexpectedly. ‘It’s just that we’re different kinds of people. Garth needs someone to help him see just what he can make of this job, besides being the man who draws the plans. He can be a social success as well if he has a mind to!’

  ‘That’s something you’ll have to settle between yourselves,’ Julie commented. ‘Come along now, or visiting time will have ended before you have seen him.’ She was scarcely aware that Tansy was still chattering on, saying, ‘If he wants to break it off later that’s just one of those things, but I don’t think he will. At least this way he won’t be shocked into remembering that awful quarrel.’

  Julie held open the door of Garth’s room. He was sitting up and talking to Ian, and although he looked slightly puzzled he greeted them pleasantly enough, but as she drew out a chair for Tansy one thought teased Julie’s mind. What if something brought back the memory of ‘that awful quarrel’ and he knew then that someone else had been responsible for the returning of the ring to Tansy? Would he know they were trying to help, or would he think of that as a base betrayal?

  CHAPTER V

  Another week slipped by before Ian pronounced Garth fit to make the journey to his aunt’s home at Woodlands and to begin his convalescence there. The bandages still covered his hands and the plaster had not been removed, but the bandage had gone from his head and apart from a certain pallor and look of strain about his eyes he was more as Julie remembered him at the time of the last Hospital Ball.

  To Ian’s obvious relief he had accepted the surgeon’s word that his ‘fiancée, Miss Maitland’, was coming to see him, and although he had expressed no surprise at the title thus given to Tansy, there was a puzzled look in his eyes as he greeted her and as his glance rested on the ring on her finger, it was as if, Julie decided thoughtfully, watching him, he sensed that all was not as it should be, but as yet he could not pinpoint exactly what was wrong or why. She was a little worried in case he should question her, but as day followed day and he made no comment she relaxed a little, only the remaining look of bewilderment which she saw in his eyes from time to time worried her and made her a little uneasy.

  Tansy, once the first visit was over and she realized that Garth had apparently accepted Ian’s definition of her status and reasons for visiting him, relaxed more in his company, but once, when she began to chatter about her work, Julie saw the bewilderment in his glance increase and she frowned at the other girl, warning her to be silent. It seemed that Tansy was not adverse to taking a hint, for she quickly changed the subject, but obviously found it difficult to think of anything which would prove of interest to them both.

  ‘Am I having special privileges, Nurse?’ Garth asked one afternoon as Tansy had left them. ‘I mean ... surely it isn’t visitors’ day every day, is it?’

  ‘Not normally,’ Julie told him. ‘We just thought that as you are rather a special case, and as Mrs. Andy—Mrs. Crossman—is so interested in your welfare, it might be pleasant to have your fiancée call each day ... help you to pass the time.’

  ‘That was very kind,’ Garth said slowly, ‘a kind thought, whose ever it was, but it doesn’t seem fair. There must be other people in the hospital just as ill as I am and longing to see their dear ones more often than whatever short time is allowed. I ought not to be allowed extra things simply because of Aunt Lavinia ...’ Julie looked at him, and somehow, without his putting it into words, she knew he was trying to say he did not want Tansy coming to see him every afternoon. Watching him closely these past days Julie had seen how tired he was after the girl’s visits, and knew that had she been in his place Tansy’s endless chatter would have driven her mad, but she could say none of these things.

  ‘You’re going to Woodlands on Wednesday, all being well,’ she told him instead. ‘Miss Maitland will no doubt come to see you there, but she won’t be able to visit you so often. It’s quite a drive out of town, and I understand she has to be within reach of her phone unless she is actually working.’

  ‘Must be a queer sort of job she has,’ Garth murmured half to himself, so that Julie did not dare to answer, uncertain whether he remembered exactly what Tansy did or was simply trying to find out without asking the direct question.

  When Tansy had visited him on Tuesday it came as a surprise to both Julie and to her patient to learn that Mrs. Andy had already been in touch with the girl and told her she would be welcome to spend the weekend at Woodlands if she cared to go. Tansy did not seem particularly excited as she passed on the information.

  ‘I shall come down on Friday evening,’ she told Garth, ‘but I shall have to leave early Sunday as I’ve a recording session early on Monday morning and I don’t want to be late.’

  Garth, Julie noted, made polite noises, but it was obvious he was not quite certain what Tansy was talking about. Wondering how she might mention this to the other girl without upsetting her, Julie accompanied Tansy from the room, but before she had an opportunity to say anything Tansy began to speak, her words tumbling over one another in her haste to say all she wanted to say before Julie had to return to her patient.

  ‘You’ll be there, won’t you, Nurse?’ she asked quickly. ‘At Woodlands, I mean. I understand you are to go with him?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll be there,’ Julie assured her. ‘As his nurse, of course.’

  ‘The main thing is you will be there,’ Tansy said in evident relief. ‘You’ve no idea what it was like the last time. His Aunt Lavinia is a wonderful woman, and I know she does some wonderful work for the town, helps a lot of people and all that sort of thing, but she makes me feel so ... inadequate. I just don’t belong when she’s around. I’d like to feel you’re there, someone who knows me and who doesn’t look at me as though I’m something left over from last night’s buffet meal!’

  ‘I’m sure Mrs. Andy would be dreadfully distressed if she ever dreamed she made you feel that way,’ Julie said, half laughing. ‘She wouldn’t upset anyone if she could help it. She goes out of her way to put people at their ease. You must have caught her in an off moment the last time you were there.’

  ‘It was what I said about the polished table.’ Tansy grinned suddenly. ‘It’s a massive thing, acres and acres of it, and it shines so much you can see your face in it from a distance, no kidding. I said something about it being ideal to dance on. I was joking, of course, but the old lady took me seriously and I was off on the wrong foot from the word go. The same thing applied over a number of incidents—I can’t remember them all now, except one was that she asked me to sing and nobody got the jokes in the songs I sang. Guess they just weren’t their cup of tea, more for a modern, sophisticated party group, but I’d had no warning, I didn’t know what to expect or I’d have looked out something sweet and sugary.’

  ‘Somehow I don’t think that would have been right either,’ Julie assured her gravely. ‘I only know Mrs. Andy from what I’ve seen of her here at the hospital and what I’ve read in the papers, but I should imagine an old ballad, or a light, modern song with happy words and a gay tune would have filled the bill ... or,’ she frowned, trying to put herself in Mrs. Andy’s place, ‘a folk song ...
they go down very well with people of all ages these days, and Mrs. Andy would like anything like that.’

  ‘I’ll have to mug one or two up for the weekend, then, just in case she asks me again,’ Tansy commented, ‘but somehow I don’t think she will. Her expression said that one such experience was more than enough for her. Anyhow, I’m glad you’ll be there. I won’t feel so lost and bereft this time!’

  ‘You ought not to feel that way with Mr. Holroyd with you,’ Julie chided her, but even without trying too hard she could sense exactly what Tansy meant.

  Wednesday was a lovely day in late June. The sky was blue and the sun hot, but there was a cool little breeze coming through the sunshine roof of the huge limousine as Bailey, Mrs. Andy’s chauffeur, drove them through the lush country lanes to Woodlands.

  Watching her patient, Julie saw how his face lifted gratefully to the breeze, how his eyes drank in the beauty of the countryside through which they passed, but his fingers, tips protruding from their bandages, curled and uncurled in tension until at last she could be silent no longer.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked gently. ‘Shall I ask him not to drive so quickly?’

 

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