by Susan Barrie
“You old fraud!” she exclaimed softly. “A nurse to look after you, when you don’t need anyone to look after you! What is the meaning of this?” Martin smiled at her in his slightly one-sided, whimsical fashion. Dallas noticed that they didn’t shake hands, but Mrs. Loring went up to him and caught him by the shoulders, and if she didn’t actually embrace him she did the next best thing. Even
presenting the exquisite coolness of her cheek to be kissed.
He saluted it lightly.
“If you didn’t jump to conclusions, Joanna, you’d make fewer mistakes in life,” he told her dryly. “Nurse Drew isn’t looking after me at all, she’s looking after Stephanie.”
“On?” Her lips pursed. “Is the child ill?” “No, but she’s not as fit as she might be, and I’ve decided to let her have a summer free of schooling. Nurse Drew is going to take charge of her.”
“How nice for Nurse Drew,” the beautiful Joanna commented, smiling dazzlingly at Dallas. “You’re becoming quite indispensable at Loring Court, aren’t you? But won’t looking after a child interfere with your training? I thought all nurses were madly keen to pass their finals, or whatever it is they do pass, before launching out into private nursing.”
“It won't be exactly private nursing looking after Stephanie,” Dallas remarked.
“No? Well, what would you call it ... ? Companion-governessing Which seems even odder when you’ve had some sort of a training! ”
“You can take it from me that Nurse Drew is being extremely self-sacrificing in agreeing to help
me out like this,” Martin Loring assured her, regarding her with an intrigued, amused air that didn’t escape Dallas. “And considering that she once had to put up with me as a patient for a month it’s rather a marvel that she didn’t turn the idea down flat!”
Joanna directed at him a somewhat pitying look.
“Darling, don’t be silly,” she said quietly.
The tea came in, and Dallas asked Mrs. Temple-Stewart whether she would like to pour out. Mrs. Temple-Stewart was a lazy woman who disliked waiting on other people when she could be waited on herself, and she delegated the duty to Mrs. Loring. Joanna cast off her white duffle coat and sank down gracefully on the low chair behind the tea-tray, and Dallas undertook the task of handing round the cups and offering plates of sandwiches. Martin Loring frowned at her when she offered him his cup, and told her to sit down.
“If anyone’s going to make themselves useful I’ll be the one to do it,” he said.
Joanna elevated her eyebrows at Dallas, and regarded her with renewed interest.
“Why, is Nurse Drew as fragile as she looks?” she enquired. “I remember when I met her before that she struck me as perfectly healthy, but hardly hefty enough to cope with a great slab of a man like you, Martin. All of six feet in your stockinged feet, I’d say!”
“Well, and what of it?” Martin enquired, treating her to that slight, provocative smile he seemed to reserve for her. “Do you imagine Nurse Drew spent her time dragging me about, or something like that?”
“No, but she had to lift you, and things like that . . . or I imagine she did! A man with a broken leg can't be an easy patient, and must be very dependent on his nurse. She looked towards Dallas almost challengingly. “Did you enjoy looking after him, Nurse? Did you run a special ballot amongst the nursing staff at Ardrath House to find out who should have the coveted job of looking after him for a month? If you did, I should say there were some disappointed faces when you pulled the lucky slip out of the bag!” “If it’s of any interest to you,” Martin told her with rather less expression in his voice than before, preventing Dallas replying to this somewhat embarrassing form of question, “I asked for Nurse Drew myself, because she’s the only really pretty nurse they’ve got at Ardrath House. And I couldn’t bear to be looked after by someone with a face like a plate! ”
“And there we have it!” Joanna exclaimed, taking a bite out of a sandwich and chewing it thoughtfully while she continued to regard Dallas. “You’re here because you’re pretty, Nurse, and we’ll hope because you’re competent! It makes me wish I’d taken up nursing myself, and I might have got in before you! ”
“Heaven forbid,” Martin exclaimed, but so softly that she rounded on him with nothing more reproving than one of her sudden, delightful smiles.
“I mean it,” she assured him. “I really mean it, Martin! I’d adore looking after you . . . taking complete charge for a month. Saying, „do this, do that’, making myself indispensable. I’m sure you’d think up some excuse for keeping me on when my time was up. You couldn’t bear to part with me!” But he shook his head at her dryly.
“The day when you devote yourself to someone— even for a month!—and want to stay on afterwards will be a remarkable day,” he replied, as if he was unimpressed.
Mrs. Temple-Stewart, who had been trying to break into the conversation without sounding rude, now delivered herself of a reminder she felt she might otherwise forget.
“Joanna darling, don’t forget the real reason for our visit! You know you wanted to ask Martin about your old studio. We’re going to be in a dreadful mess when the decorators move in next week, and if you can’t work at Vineys where will you work?”
“Oh, yes.” Joanna gave up nibbling sandwiches and helped herself to a cigarette from her own case.
When Martin offered her one of his she shook her head at him.
“Surely you haven’t forgotten, darling, that I never smoke anything but my own?” she said reproachfully. “However, to get on to the subject of the studio . . . would it upset your household arrangements if I begged to be allowed to use it again for a few weeks?”
“Why?” he asked, a little tersely.
She regarded him through a faint haze of cigarette smoke, her eyes very large and almost liquidly beautiful.
“Because I’ve a lot of work to do, darling—preparing for an exhibition—and Aggie’s already being terribly kind by having me to stay with her, and I don’t want to drive her to desperation by insisting on working in a disordered house. If I could use the studio again—and I promise I’d creep in very, very quietly, and no one would know I was there—it would be of the utmost possible help to me, and I’d be tremendously grateful. After all, it isn’t as if you’re living here yourself, and I wouldn’t interfere with you. . .
Her eyes weren’t merely beautiful, they were provocative, and he stood up rather suddenly and walked to the other side of the room. On the pretext of providing her with an ash tray he went round looking for one, and then walked back with it in his hand.
“How long would you want to use the studio for?” he asked, his speech still a little clipped.
She put back her head and looked up at him. Almost, her dark, satin-smooth head touched him.
“I’ve told you, darling, a few weeks.”
“How many days a week?”
“Oh, three or four. I’d try not to be here at weekends, when you might possibly be here too,” and this time there was mockery in her soft, clear voice.
He shrugged his shoulders and walked away from her.
“It wouldn’t matter to me if you were here when I was here. But there’s Aunt Letty to be considered, and Mrs. Baxter. She makes rather a thing of keeping the rooms in order, and you’re inclined to demand a lot of attention. The last time you occupied the studio you demanded coffee at all hours, and you surrounded yourself with such a state of chaos that Mrs. Baxter very nearly threatened to resign when she saw it.”
She smiled as he turned and regarded her accusingly.
“My dear Martin, all artists are terribly untidy, and I’m no exception, I admit. But I promise I’ll make an effort this time and be as neat as a new pin, and I’ll bring my own coffee with me in a flask since you’re so inhospitable.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said shortly, flung away his newly lighted cigarette and capitulated.
“Of course you can have the studio,” he said.
“O
h, darling,” she exclaimed, “I knew you wouldn’t have the heart to say no! ” She jumped up, encircled him with her arms, rubbed her cheek against the front of his immaculate charcoal grey suit, looked up at him meltingly and kissed him. “Thank you, thank you a thousand times, Martin darling! ” she breathed.
He detached himself almost immediately from her hold, and Dallas received the impression that he would have done so even more hastily if he could. Another impression she received was that the contact wasn’t so much unwelcome as inclined to alarm him, as if it was something he shrank from because, like fire, it could burn him, or at any rate scorch him.
Joanna laughed softly, but was evidently well satisfied.
“I give you my word I won’t make a nuisance of myself this time,” she said.
Shortly after that she and Mrs. Temple-Stewart took their departure, but before they left Mrs. Loring looked across at Dallas and smiled at her.
“You’ll be seeing something of me in the next few weeks, Nurse Drew,” she remarked. “It’ll probably relieve your boredom a little to have me in the house. After all, a child, however enchanting, is a bit of a bore sometimes . . . though Stephanie’s a pet, of course. But, after an interesting male patient ...”
She shot a glance across at Martin, caressed him wickedly and openly with her eyes, and then darted after Mrs. Temple-Stewart, who was complaining that her car never behaved well if it was left standing too long in the cold.
When Martin returned from seeing them off Dallas was automatically collecting cups and saucers, and stacking them on the tray. She was also relieved to hear Stephanie’s voice in the hall, and to know that she was safely back home again.
Martin entered the library with his daughter clinging to his arm and wanting to know whether Aunt Joanna, whom she was sorry she had missed, had brought her a present, because she nearly always did when she visited her at school.
“I don’t think so, darling,” Loring returned, a trifle absentmindedly, and then asked her to run upstairs to the schoolroom and get Edith to take her some tea there, for he wanted to have a few words with Nurse Drew.
As soon as they were alone Dallas looked at him in surprise. He appeared uncomfortable, vaguely uneasy, and also considerably preoccupied. When he looked full at her she felt that he hardly saw her.
“Nurse,” he said—and this in itself indicated that he wasn’t really seeing her—”I’m sorry that you’ve got to have Mrs. Loring inflicted on you in the next few weeks, but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t get on very well if you see much of one another. She’s a friendly soul . . . really very friendly and human under all that surface bubble.”
“She’s very beautiful,” Dallas said, as if the other woman’s beauty had actually hit her between the eyes.
He looked at her as if the scales were falling from his own eyes, and he was alert and curious to know what she really thought of Joanna Loring, his equally beautiful dead wife’s sister.
“Yes, she is, isn’t she? Fantastically beautiful.” He started to pace up and down the room, staring at the carpet, a frown between his well- marked brows. “It’s the sort of beauty that is unbelievable at first, and even when you’ve had an opportunity to grow accustomed to it you don’t really get used to it. My wife had the same sort of beauty—she and Joanna were twins, you know— and she had the same sort of disposition, too. Vital and warm, alluring and enchanting, and unforgettable as a—well, a perfume!”
Dallas picked up the loaded tray and heard the china rattle as it shook in her hands. Martin suddenly realized what she was doing, and frowned at her.
“Put that down,” he ordered. “It’s far too heavy for you.”
“I was going to take it out to the kitchen and save Mrs. Baxter’s legs.”
“Mrs. Baxter isn’t the only one in the kitchen. There’s Edith.” “Edith is attending to Stephanie’s tea.”
“So she is. Well, anyway, the tray can wait.” He started walking up and down again. “I thought I ought to warn you about the sort of impact Joanna is likely to make on you. She carries everything before her, you know . . . and she’ll carry you before her if you allow it! You’ll just have to stand squarely on your two feet and not allow it! ”
Dallas was completely at sea, and she had no idea at all what he was trying to warn her of, but she did know that he was agitated, and his agitation carried him over to the window, where he stood looking out into the early March dusk and suddenly gave vent to a sigh.
“I think I’d better go back to London tomorrow. Yes, I’m fairly certain I ought to go back. . . . It’s the sensible thing!”
CHAPTER TEN
THAT night he was very quiet and thoughtful during dinner, and Dallas wished she had been allowed to have hers upstairs on a tray with Stephanie. At least, with Stephanie, she felt at ease, and the child’s chatter diverted her . . . the somewhat heavy silence which kept constantly falling between herself and her employer was the kind of silence that allowed all sorts of uneasy and tormenting thoughts to dart across her brain and entirely destroy her appetite.
Martin didn’t appear to notice that she ate little. For that matter, he ate very little himself, but he drank quite a lot. Before dinner, instead of his usual couple of sherries, he had downed two very large whiskies, and at the outset of the meal he had ordered Mrs. Baxter to bring up a bottle of wine from the cellar. It was only a light French dinner wine, but Dallas merely sipped at half a glass, and he seemed disinclined to leave very much in the bottle.
When they went through into the drawing-room to have their coffee he asked her whether she would like a liqueur, but she refused very firmly. He smiled at her for an instant, with a hint of his old whimsicalness, said she was not very companionable, and decided to have one himself.
After that Dallas was not surprised when he became more conversational, but she was certain that before that he had been dwelling on some private grief—almost certainly the loss of his wife, and the memories called up by the visit of her sister. Or—and this was much more remotely possible— the visit of the sister had upset him because the sister herself attracted him, and he was unwilling to become involved with her in any serious way. That would account for his recoil when she approached too near to him, and his watchfulness— wariness—when she was not actually close to him. His disinclination to have her once more establishing herself in his house (possibly, in the past, she had
spent a lot of time at Loring Court) and the bright, provocative sparkle in her eyes whenever she looked at him.
The link, Dallas was certain, was somewhere between the two sisters . . . the unhappiness was there because of either one or both of them. And in any case, having been brought face to face with his memories he was not in a mood to have Dallas breaking in on his thoughts and destroying them. Not until the effects of the mellowing wine at dinner, and the liqueur following, cast a rosy veil over those thoughts, and rendered him more approachable.
But by that time Dallas was wishing she was miles away from where she was, and her own tongue had become almost completely tied. She had to make a tremendous effort to appear as if she was her normal responsive self, and when he rallied her on looking a little downcast—as if the thought of his departure the following day was actually weighing on her! —she denied anything of the kind with a somewhat severe note in her voice as if she disliked the personal element he at times sought to infuse into their relationship.
“As a matter of fact, I was thinking that, from tomorrow onwards, Stephanie and I will settle down into a kind of routine,” she said. “If I’m to earn the extremely generous salary you’re paying me I must do my job properly, and I feel that it will be good for Stephanie if we begin as we mean to go on. A little work and a little play . . . after all, she mustn’t be allowed to forget school lessons altogether.”
He smiled slightly.
“What a glutton you are for earning your salary, aren’t you?” he observed. “I remember that when you were here, before, looking after me, yo
u insisted on earning your salary.” His eyes, a trifle over- bright now, rested on her as she sat with her head bent over a piece of embroidery in her lap, and he lay back comfortably relaxed in his chair. “It’s odd to think that by this time tomorrow night I shall
be miles away from you. Will you think of me, Dallas, and wonder what I’m doing?”
She bit her lip.
So it was to be ‘Dallas’ again for a short while!
“Naturally, I shall think of you,” she replied coolly. “You’re my employer, and Stephanie’s father, and as such I shall hope that you have a very good journey back to London, and will arrive there safely and not too tired after the journey.”
“And your thoughts will have nothing more personal about them than that?”
“Why should they?” putting back her head and meeting his eyes levelly as if she was defying him to take advantage of the peculiar intimacy of their situation, and remember that she was, after all, an employee.
“Why should they not?” He frowned at her almost forbiddingly, and then went across and sat on the arm of her chair and removed her embroidery from her fingers and tossed it on to an occasional table. “You’re such a peculiar person, Dallas, so correct and formal and prim and dull.”
“Dull?” Her green eyes blazed up at him indignantly.
“Yes. Despite the fact that you have green eyes . . .” bending forward to peer into them deliberately. “You’re always weighing the consequences of every word you utter, every look you fling at me. You’re not at all sure of me . . . you never were. To you I could be dynamite, and then again it’s quite possible you’re not interested in dynamite. You’re so contained, so much like a closed book. One can’t even begin to guess what lies beneath the surface.”
“Please,” Dallas said, keeping her face averted from him. “I’d like to have my embroidery back if you wouldn’t mind handing it to me.”
“And I refuse to sit opposite you and watch you concentrating all your attention on that piece of material.”