Nurse Ann Wood

by Valerie K. Nelson

  “Well, don’t fall in love with Iain now you’ve met him,” Beverley said, quite deliberately. “I may take all sorts of foolish risks with my own life, when I’m feeling depressed, but I wouldn’t answer for what I’d do if anybody tried to take him from under my nose. I’m like that with men, you know — possessive. There are a certain few whom I regard as my own property, and he happens to be one of them. No matter how much the gossips may speculate about his marrying that ginger-haired Maureen Lyntrope, he’s going to remain my property. See?”

  Ann said coldly, “I think you’re talking a lot of nonsense, Beverley. I’d better call you that, hadn’t I?”

  “Really, why should you?”

  “If I’m supposed to be your sister, I can’t address you as Mrs. Derhart.”

  “I don’t see why you should pretend to be Anne. It’s a completely ridiculous idea of Mummy’s,” Beverley said in a sulky voice.

  “Maybe,” Ann returned, “but imagine what would have happened last night, if I hadn’t been here.”

  “There are trained nurses at the Institute. Some of them were here in the room when I collapsed.”

  “I didn’t mean about that,” Ann explained. “I meant about the children...”

  “What about the children?” Beverley demanded now, her face alert. “Did the poor darlings play up because they weren’t allowed to come in and say goodnight to me?”

  “They weren’t at Fountains,” Ann told her gravely. “Miss Pollard took them out for a walk yesterday afternoon, they ran ahead of her and before she could catch up with them—”

  “That ginger cat Lyntrope had kidnapped them again.” Mrs. Woods’ voice, crude and harsh, completed Ann’s sentence, as she pushed open the bedroom door and came into the room.

  “She — what?” ejaculated Beverley furiously. “Mummy, do you mean the kids are back at Dainty’s End, with Aunt Mary?”

  “No, they’re not there now, but they would have been had not Ann — Sister Anne — rescued them,” answered Mrs. Woods with a thin, significant smile.

  “Why, what did you do?” Blazing blue eyes were turned upon Ann.

  “I fetched them back,” the girl replied simply.

  “You did — just like that?”

  Ann’s lips quivered. “Well, perhaps not just like that. There was a ... little tussle...”

  “Between you and Iain?”

  Ann shook her head. “No. Mr. Sherrarde supported me.

  “He did?” Beverley looked at the other girl from eyes that were now half closed, but watchful and suspicious. “Now I wonder why.”

  “Obviously because he thinks she is a suitable person to look after the children,” put in Mrs. Woods dryly.

  “I wonder...” Beverley’s voice was charged with suspicion.

  “Well, I don’t. I just know,” Mrs. Woods said decisively. And then: “Iain phoned early this morning, Beverley. He’s worried about you.”

  “Is he?” The girl’s voice held a note that Ann couldn’t quite define. “Then he knows what to do.”

  Her mother made a gesture of exasperation. “Darling, do be your age. If the clan disapproved, as they would...”

  She caught Beverley’s eye and stopped. She — and even Beverley now — might be willing to pretend that this girl was Anne Woods, but actually she was a stranger and they couldn’t speak freely in front of her.

  “I’d like to talk to Beverley for a few minutes,” Mrs. Woods said, and looked significantly at the door. “I’ve sent Marchdale out, so perhaps you'd like to look round the rest of the suite. It’s quite marvellous, I think.”

  Ann took the hint, well aware that they wished to discuss something connected with Mr. Sherrarde — something too private for her, a stranger, to be included.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ANN stood outside the bedroom door and reflected forlornly that it was not difficult to imagine what mother and daughter were now saying. Iain Sherrarde was very worried about the lovely, wilful young widow. He was the guardian of her children and obviously very fond of them, very anxious that the best should be done for them.

  Beverley herself had made no secret of her feelings for the handsome Director of the Sherrarde Institute. She had warned Ann bluntly not to be so foolish as to fall in love with him — had suggested he was already her property and that she would brook no rival in his affections.

  Ann was sensible enough to allow for a certain amount of exaggeration. Beverley was a sick woman and it was certain that she was neither very reserved nor prudent. But she was very lovely, the loveliest creature Ann had ever seen, and she was sure that almost all men — so why not Iain? — would find her irresistible.

  Beverley had said, just now, significantly, “He knows what to do,” which could only mean that she meant he should marry her, and then he could take care of her properly.

  Mrs. Woods’ warning about “the clan” would refer to Mrs. Trederrick, and Doctor Lyntrope and other members of the family who would not approve ... But what man took any notice of aunts and cousins when his own feelings were involved?

  Ann realized that she could not go on standing outside the bedroom door. If it opened suddenly, Mrs. Woods might believe she had been trying to listen to that private conversation. Better follow her suggestion and explore the suite.

  There was a very large room, running the length of this side of the house, and looking out on to a square, walled garden. This was where the cocktail party had been held yesterday. On the other side of the hall was a small dining-room and beyond it a beautifully fitted kitchen. A door further down the hall on the same side as Beverley’s bedroom revealed a smaller one, and between it and the main bedroom was a bathroom which Ann already knew communicated with it.

  The whole suite was newly decorated in a rather fantastic modern style, which she guessed had been Beverley’s own choice, and much of the furniture was also new and in the contemporary fashion.

  Ann went into the kitchen and noted that it was fully equipped for the preparation of elaborate meals. At the moment, however, it was overflowing with dirty glasses and plates, the aftermath of yesterday’s cocktail party.

  Ann, who hated to see disorder of this kind, decided that she had better tackle the chaos, and she was in the middle of washing up when a woman in an overall came in. She was one of the daily women who formed part of the indoor staff at Fountains.

  “You shouldn’t be bothering with that, Miss Woods,” the woman protested. “I cleared up the sitting-room first thing in case the doctor came early, but I hadn’t time to finish here because I had to go and help with breakfasts and prepare lunch. I’ll get on with things here now.”

  Ann relinquished her place at the sink, and the woman continued, “The children were flying round the house a few minutes ago, asking where you were.”

  “I’d better find them,” Ann remarked, and had scarcely gained the big hall in the main part of the house when a voice shrilled, “There you are, Nurse Ann. We were just going to Mummy. Have you seen her this morning yet?” Ann placed herself between the children and the door leading to Beverley’s suite. They certainly couldn’t be allowed in there today. “Mummy isn’t very well this morning,” she told them.

  “Are you going to nurse her? Is that why you’ve got your uniform on?” Emma demanded.

  “Yes, I’m nursing her,” Ann replied.

  Guy’s lips were pulled down. “Miss Pollard said you’d come to be our nurse,” he began to whine.

  “I’ve come to do a bit of both,” she said cheerfully. “This morning I’m busy with Mummy.”

  “Mummy doesn’t want a nurse,” Emma proclaimed, in her loud, direct voice. “She says she’s sick and tired of doctors and nurses. She never wants to see another nurse in her life. She told me so. But she likes doctors,” the little girl went on thoughtfully. “She likes Uncle Iain and she likes Lee and Doctor Butler. She says they all make her laugh.”

  “She likes Uncle Iain best,” Guy put in, and for once Emma could find no point o
f disagreement.

  “Yes, she does,” she assented. “She’s always quarrelling with Lee.”

  Ann thought: Even the children know. They wouldn’t be taken by surprise if Uncle Iain all at once became “Daddy.” And she remembered again, with a pain in her heart, how Guy had talked last night of having a “mummy and daddy” — just like ordinary children.

  “Where is Miss Pollard?” she asked briskly. “I thought you were both big enough to be doing lessons.”

  “We’ve done them,” responded Emma sweepingly. “We’ve both read our books and I’ve done some sums. Guy can’t do any sums yet. He’s too little.”

  “I’m not, I’m not,” came the angry protest, and the resulting scuffle carried both of them out on to the terrace and away from the door leading to the right wing of the house. They had forgotten for the moment that they had intended visiting their mother.

  Ann followed them to the door. They were a wild pair.

  No wonder Averil Pollard had little or no control over them.

  She had just separated them when Averil appeared. “Sorry,” she panted. “I gave them a break from lessons and directly I turned my back, they had gone. I came after them as soon as I could. “By the way, someone phoned you a little while ago. I heard Mrs. Duxton asking where you were.”

  “Oh, was there a message?” Aim’s face flowered. It could be Iain ringing her about Beverley, perhaps, or maybe about the children.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  Ann went back into the house to look for Mrs. Duxton. Would he ring her again? A pity the call hadn’t been put through to Beverley’s suite.

  Mrs. Duxton proved to be the thin young woman who served in the dining-room and the nursery, and helped Mrs. Marchdale in the kitchen. She wasn’t very bright and it seemed she had forgotten to ask who was speaking.

  “I always do forget,” she giggled. “I’m so anxious to hear what they’ve got to say that I quite forget, every time.”

  “Was it a man or a woman?” Ann demanded.

  “Oh, a man, dearie.”

  All at once there seemed to Ann to be a hollow somewhere inside her.

  She found she couldn’t bring herself to ask whether it had been Iain Sherrarde. She felt that her voice and her face would give far too much away.

  “Well, what did he say?” she demanded.

  “Asked for you — Nurse Anne Woods — and when I told him I couldn’t find you, and that you’d perhaps gone out, he said that he’d ring again. And the line went dead before I thought to ask who was speaking.”

  “I gather you didn’t recognize his voice,” Ann remarked now, with an elaborately casual manner.

  “No, it wasn’t anybody I’d heard speak on the telephone before,” Mrs. Duxton answered emphatically.

  Ann walked slowly into the hall and along the corridor to the luxurious suite in the right wing. Who was it? she wondered. It might have been Iain, for Mrs. Duxton was rather stupid and would be quite capable of not recognizing his voice. But she was sure that Iain would have proclaimed his identity before ringing off.

  She found Mrs. Woods standing at the door of the little kitchen, enquiring of the daily woman where she was.

  “I went back into the house and I stopped for a few words with the children. Then—”

  “I hope to goodness you didn’t mention their coming in here to their mother,” Mrs. Woods interrupted her rudely. “She’s far too ill.”

  “No, I told Miss Pollard to keep them away,” Ann responded, put off now from mentioning the telephone call. “How is she?”

  “Rather excited,” the older woman admitted evasively. “I think she ought to have one of those tablets the doctor left last night, but whether she’ll take it or not is another matter.”

  Ann didn’t waste any further time in talk. She went quickly into the bedroom and found Beverley lying face downwards and sobbing hysterically.

  “This won’t do,” she said kindly. “You’ll make yourself ill again — really ill. Now let me sponge your face and give you something to make you have a nice sleep.”

  “Sleep!” shouted the girl hysterically. “I’m sick and tired of lying here and being told to go to sleep.”

  “Well, you must have been told that if you rested more there would be an improvement in your condition,” Ann replied. “Come along. You’ll feel much better when I’ve sponged your face.”

  “But you’ll wash off all my make-up,” the girl protested.

  “It’s all gone all streaky, anyhow,” the other smiled.

  “Heavens, I must look a sight!” Beverley gave a little shriek, forgetting her tears. In many ways she was strangely like the children.

  She rolled over, reached for her hand-mirror and surveyed her lovely blotched face.

  “Do something,” she beseeched.

  Ann moved round the room silently, fetching a bowl of water and a sponge from the bathroom and soft, fluffy towels.

  “I never had water on my face until I got into the hands of you nurses,” the invalid observed gloomily.

  “It’s very refreshing. I’m putting some cologne in the water.”

  Beverley gave a little shriek. “I hate it!”

  “Only a little,” Ann coaxed, and somehow managed to have her way.

  When the girl’s face and hands were dry, she put aside the soft pale pink towels and picked up one of the gold-backed hair-brushes.

  “Now let me brush your hair,” she suggested.

  “All right.” Beverley raised her head, rather like a cat who wanted to be stroked.

  When the hair was smooth and tidy, Ann fetched a glass and one of the capsules that the doctor had left.

  “I said I wasn’t going to take any more of their filthy medicines,” Beverley protested.

  “Now you know your head is still aching. This will do it good.”

  “Oh, if it’s nothing but aspirin, all right.”

  She took the pill, drank the water and then looked at Ann with a quizzical smile.

  “A good thing you came in and took the gin from me. I was in the mood to drink the lot.”

  “Then you would have been ill ... really ill!”

  “Then you would have been able to show what a good nurse you were. Though you did that, too, last night. I hear Iain is already much impressed ... by your nursing skill.”

  “When there are two doctors present, there isn’t much opportunity for a nurse to do other than what she is told.”

  “There must be quite a thrill in that especially if you’re in love with him. Hospital nurses always fall in love with the doctors, don’t they?”

  Ann laughed, though there was a curious, pricking sensation in her brain. “I really don’t know. I can’t remember.”

  “Have you really lost your memory?” Beverley was yawning. “You’re not just putting on an act?”

  “Why should I?” asked Ann calmly.

  “You might be trying to get away from something ... running away because you’ve stolen a pearl necklace from one of your patients.”

  “Patients don’t take pearl necklaces into hospital,” Ann retorted, but once again she was assailed by that feeling of dread. Had there really been something in her life before the accident which she was all too anxious to escape?

  Beverley smiled sleepily. “Sister Anne, I really believe I’m tired.” She curled up, and in a few moments was sleeping as peacefully as a child.

  The doctor arrived a little later, and hearing his car, Ann went to meet him in the hall. She had seen him last night when he had called after Beverley’s collapse.

  He decided not to disturb Beverley when he heard that she was sleeping. “How is she this morning?” he asked.

  Ann told him, and having given her some instructions and a further prescription, he said, “When she has got over this attack, try to persuade your sister to leave this suite of rooms and live with the rest of you. She must recognize, of course, that there are certain things she can’t do, but there is no need
at all for her to lie in bed all day as she does.”

  When he had gone, and having seen that her patient was still asleep, Ann went back to the big hall, realizing with consternation as she looked at the clock that in another ten minutes it would be lunch-time. Mrs. Woods had already arranged that the housekeeper should take over for a couple of hours so she ran up to her own room to get ready for the meal.

  When she came downstairs, Mrs. Duxton crossed the hall, and called to her, “Miss Woods, that man rang again. He wouldn’t give his name, but he’s calling about two o’clock on the chance of seeing you.”

  Ann’s eyes were bright and wide. Who could he be? she asked herself fearfully. Someone who know Nurse Anne Woods? Perhaps Mrs. Woods would see him herself.

  But to her consternation, when Miss Pollard brought the children down they announced that “Nana” had already left the house to keep a luncheon engagement.

  Ann did not know how she got through the meal. Emma and Guy were noisy and obstreperous, but she scarcely noticed and did nothing to help the young governess to control them.

  As soon as the meal was over, Ann eluded the children and hurried up to her own room. She mustn’t panic, she told herself, though her heart was beating heavily.

  It couldn’t really matter to her if this man knew the real Anne Woods. She hadn’t tried to deceive anybody, and Mrs. Woods and Beverley knew the truth. As for his knowing her ... in her real identity...

  Oh, what was the good of speculating? She hadn’t the faintest clue as to who he was and wouldn’t have till he came here. Then would be the time to worry...

  But nothing could banish the insidious, nagging fear ... that he would reveal why she had run away. It was out at last. Ann stared at her white-faced reflection in the mirror. The thought had come to her unbidden, quite out of the blue. So she had run away! But from what, or from whom?

  She turned away from the mirror and went over to the window. She was a fool to allow herself to be so upset. It would be a good plan to refuse to see the man — send a message down that she was unwell. After all, she had been out of hospital only two days.