The, curtain of memory had rolled back fully now. Once again she was standing at the door of the pathology department ... with the door of the little side office half open. Michael, and in his arms that theatre staff nurse with the fluffy light hair. And beside Ann, Nurse Comprerse, with a rather malicious smile, saying: “We’ve all been wondering how long it would take you to find out. It’s been going on for so long.”
Ann remembered that she had turned blindly, her hands outstretched, fumbling for the way...
She didn’t look at Michael any more. She had walked out of his life completely when she had gone stumbling along the corridor away from the pathology department. Her eyes were only for Iain, his face, twisted to a sarcastic smile, and his nostrils dilated slightly with distaste.
“Excuse me now, Miss Woods, if I leave you to talk over old times with your friends. I mustn’t neglect my guests any longer.” He gave her a jerky little bow, and his eyes, icy as a blast from the North Pole, forbade her to dare to try to justify herself.
Ann watched him walk away and then her eyes, grave and aloof, flickered again over the two men. Gateworth was still grinning, but Ann wasted no words on him. He had done his worst. He had confronted her with Michael Lenforth and forced her to remember. As to Michael himself...
“Ann, my darling,” he began, “you look wonderful. There’s so much I want to say, and to know.”
Her big lavender grey eyes set him at a remote distance. “I’m sorry, Michael, but there’s nothing I have to say, or that I want to hear. When I returned your ring, I told you that everything between us was finished, and I haven’t changed my mind. I’m sorry if you’ve been brought down here on false pretences.”
She spun round, and almost ran from them, searching instinctively for somewhere to hide.
She wondered afterwards what she would have done had she not run almost into the arms of a kindly cloakroom attendant.
“Why, dearie!”
Ann was swaying as the woman caught her. Providentially, the corridor was deserted, and there was a service kitchen nearby.
“Come in here for a minute.” There was tolerance in the kindly voice. A pretty girl who had drunk more than was good for her at a dance, she was thinking.
But the woman’s expression changed when she saw Ann’s face. “Why, madam, you’re ill! Can I get you anything? Or find your friends?”
Ann shook her head. “Would you please leave me here to rest? I just want to be quiet. I shall be better after a while.”
“I’m just going on duty at one of the cloakrooms. You’re sure you’ll be all right, madam?”
Ann nodded and the woman went away with a backward glance and a promise that she would come back to see the young lady when she could spare a moment.
The girl sat on the hard wooden chair which the woman had placed for her and rested her aching head on the cool wood of the cupboard. She was shaking with nerves and tension. So this was what she had been running away from, she told herself with sick distaste.
She looked back and viewed the past as if she were watching a film. Everything was painfully clear now, and it all seemed so long ago, as if it had happened in another existence.
It had been a rather foggy morning, she remembered, when she had arrived back in London. Her soft lips were straightened with pain and her hands trembled as she picked up her two suitcases and looked for a porter. How grim those ten weeks had been since she had left Queen Frida’s to go home to nurse her mother.
The bad news of her mother’s illness had come just at the time when she had learned that she had gained her State Certificate, and was all set for another year to study for her Queen Frida’s Certificate. After that, then...
“Then” had centred completely round Michael Lenforth, with whom she had become friendly in her first year. They had got engaged last year when he had been promoted and they were to be married as soon as she had qualified.
When the bad news about Mummy’s illness had come, Matron had given her compassionate leave, though Michael had tried very hard to dissuade her from going home to far away Cumberland. Perhaps he had known that once she had gone he would fall an easy victim to temptation.
At home, everything had been so much worse than she had expected. Mummy had been terribly ill and wanted Ann with her all the time, day and night. Ann’s stepfather had been of little help. He was a wealthy and very successful farmer and his excuse for being out all the time was “business.” Not that Ann had any desire for his assistance. She had disliked him when she had first met him two years previously, and poor Mummy had evidently lived to regret most bitterly her second marriage.
The end had come at last, and feeling drained of all emotion, numb and incredibly weary after weeks of day and night nursing, Ann had packed her clothes and returned to London.
Back in hospital, the normal routine was set in motion. Michael was on duty and she was unable to contact him. She had hoped he would be at the station to meet her, but he evidently hadn’t been able to make it...
A couple of hours later, Ann was walking rather aimlessly down the corridor away from the office of the Nurses’ M.O. He had just told her to go back home to Cumberland for another month. She was, he said, on the verge of a breakdown, and needed a complete rest. She must not dream of resuming her duties until she had had this, and four weeks would be a minimum.
The M.O. had assumed that there would still be a home for her in Cumberland despite her mother’s death, and Ann did not trouble to undeceive him. She would see Michael and he would arrange everything for her.
And now she was going up in the lift, with another nurse standing beside her. Jean Comprerse had been in her set in the Preliminary Training School, but Ann had never known her well and they scarcely exchanged a word on their way up. Jean was carrying some specimens and vouchsafed the information that she was going to the pathology lab.
Once out of the lift, Ann would have preferred to hang back and let the other nurse get on with her business, but Comprerse suddenly took it in her head to be talkative.
“I expect you’re going along to see Doctor Lenforth, are you? By the way, you are still engaged to him, I suppose?” And she peered with inquisitive eyes at Ann’s slim left hand with its ring of sapphire and diamonds.
Ann merely smiled. It was such a pointless question — not worthy of a reply. The pathology department seemed to be an endless corridor of doors, some open, some closed. The one halfway along outside which Ann paused was just slightly ajar. Michael was there, behind it, his smooth, fair head bent over Lisa Nuttall’s fuzzy blonde curls. In gay abandon she had thrown away her cap. It lay on the green-tiled floor near Ann’s feet, like a big white butterfly that had alighted in a grassy meadow.
Ann found that she was a long way further down that corridor, and that Jean Comprerse, malice in her pale eyes, was saying, “Now do you see why I asked whether you were still engaged? It’s been going on for so long, almost all the year, and long before you went on compassionate leave.”
Ann did not speak. Her lavender grey eyes were wide and staring.
She was back in the nurses’ home now. Someone whom she scarcely knew said, “There’s a letter for you, Nurse Wood. It’s been here for ages. I can’t think why it wasn’t sent to you.”
She slit it open, not even glancing at the writing on the envelope. It was from an address near Sunbury, and it implored someone addressed as “Anne” to go there to keep an eye on Beverley and take charge of the children.
Ann thought apathetically: They’ve muddled us up again. This is for that fourth-year nurse in men’s surgical. How stupid! Our names aren’t really the same. She’s Anne Woods and I’m Ann Wood.
She thrust the letter into her handbag. She would have to enclose it in another envelope, with an explanation.
She picked up her two suitcases from the porter’s lodge, glad that the porter was out somewhere so that there was no need to counter his inquisitive enquiries. She walked slowly down the steps and stood wa
iting for a taxi.
Ann wondered whether she had been asleep. She was sitting on a hard chair, her head leaning forward and resting on a cupboard door. A cheerful voice said, “So you’re still here, dearie. You must have been feeling bad!”
Ann stood up. She felt weak and giddy, and as if a whole lifetime had elapsed since she had spoken to the woman earlier in the evening.
“Is the Ball over?” she asked.
“As good as,” was the reply, accompanied by a big yawn. “Are you here alone, miss? If not, surely your friends...”
“I came in a party, but I expect they all think I’ve gone home,” Ann explained quickly. “Thank you for letting me rest here. I’m all right now.”
As she walked along the corridor she thought: They will all have gone. They were going to leave early. Iain...
But she found she couldn’t think of Iain Sherrarde.
There were very few people about now, though the strains of the band drifted up to her as she went down the stairs.
She wondered about asking for a taxi, and then remembered she hadn’t sufficient money to pay for one. Her coat? That was at the back of Robert Leedon’s car.
Ann thought: What am I going to do? But it was the future which was in her mind, not her immediate plight — a future which seemed to stretch ahead, dark and cheerless ... When she returned to London she would never see Iain again.
And then he was there, his face cold and dark and furious.
“Where have you been?” he demanded. “I’ve been looking for you for hours.”
“I ... I ...” Her face took on an oddly blank look. Where had she been? All she remembered was that Ralph Gateworth, with a horrible smirk, had confronted her with Michael, and Iain, with an expression of ice, had excused himself. He didn’t have much faith in her, it would seem, despite the fact that he had held her in his arms, and kissed her like a lover.
“You haven’t been with either of them,” he said violently. “I know that, for they’ve seldom been out of my sight. What other poor fool have you been with all this time, and why didn’t he see you home?”
Ann shook her cloudy dark head. She felt that she couldn’t struggle or fight any longer.
“Where is your coat?” he asked harshly now.
“It’s in Mr. Leedon’s car.”
His face went even darker. “So you’ve been with him! He’s the latest! Of all the despicable people I’ve ever met you’re far and away the worst. Women like you turn men into beasts. You’re...”
“Sherrarde, I used to admire you as a man and as a doctor, but I’m beginning to realize now that not only are you a fool but also a brute.” The tone was so gentle that Ann could scarcely believe the impact of those trenchant, searing words.
She looked at Doctor Lievers, her face forlorn. “I — I’ve remembered,” she murmured.
“All right, child. I guessed you had, earlier on, but I held back, waiting to give this ... this fool his innings! But not this sort of innings.”
He turned to Sherrarde, whose expression was bewildered at the unexpected intervention and attack. “Get your car round here as quickly as you can ... and some rugs. She’s going back into hospital immediately. You’ve been shouting to high heaven that you despise her, but presumably even you don’t want to kill her.”
“Kill her?” repeated Sherrarde, and his eyes went to Ann in a fashion that made Lievers nod.
“Hurry with that car,” he ordered. “Sit down here, Miss Wood — for it is Wood, not Woods, isn’t it?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“THEN Doctor Lievers had begun to think that I wasn’t Anne Woods,” Ann said, sitting up in bed, her eyes very wide.
“Megan, I feel an awful fraud, being here in bed again and you waiting on me. I’m not really ill, you know.”
“Doctor Lievers thinks you need a rest, having been made a slave by those awful people, when you should really have been convalescing.” Megan Elliott put down the tray on which Ann’s lunch had been set and smiled at her patient. She had never been able to understand why anyone as nice as Ann could have a mother like Mrs. Woods and a sister like Beverley Derhart. Now, it seemed, they were not related to her at all.
“Come along and eat your lunch, darling. It looks very nice.”
“Don’t try to change the subject, Megan,” Ann said, with a laugh. “I want to talk.”
Megan shook her head. She had said too much already by referring to Ann’s stay at Fountains. “Sorry, Ann, but Sister has given me strict instructions that you’re not to talk. You need to be quiet and to rest.”
“I’m ... well, perhaps she’s right.” Ann suddenly looked forlorn. What did it matter, after all? Nothing really mattered now.
“Now don’t look like that. I’ve got a surprise for you — a pleasant one.”
For a few seconds, Ann’s mouth was ardent, her eyes eager. Then indifference crept in as Megan went on, “Two of your friends are coming down to see you at the weekend. Two nurses from Queen Frida’s.”
Ann turned her head away. She wondered how soon the doctors would say she was well enough to return to London and resume her training.
Would she mind going back to Queen Frida’s? Could she bear to be under the same roof, or roofs rather, vast though they were, as Michael?
Ann’s lips curved in a smile that was unconsciously wistful. In a way, it might have been easier if it had mattered. But the simple truth was that it didn’t. She had never really known what love was, until she had come here, and meeting Michael again on the night of Matron’s Ball, after the first shock, had meant nothing at all to her. During the time she had sat trembling and bewildered in that service kitchen of the hotel she had scarcely given him a thought, except when she recalled the incidents which had preceded her taking a railway ticket to Sunbury. As to why she had done that ... Ann shrugged, and with that little movement she pushed Michael Lenforth out of her life.
She began to wonder about that further year of training at Queen Frida’s which lay ahead of her when the doctors finally pronounced her fit. Even when she had been engaged to Michael, and looking forward to their marriage, she had still been insistent that she should get her Queen Frida’s Certificate first. But now even that didn’t matter any longer.
Ann turned her face to the wall and sighed dispiritedly. Megan Elliott bit her lip and turned away. In a way, she was glad that Sister had given her such strict instructions that she wasn’t to allow the patient to talk very much, or to ask questions. She didn’t really want to be the one to tell Ann that Iain Sherrarde was leaving the Institute and going to America for an indefinite period.
It was several days later that Sister said briskly, “Go out and sit by the sea this afternoon, Miss Wood. Once you’re back in London, you won’t get any sea air.”
“No,” Ann agreed rather apathetically. Tomorrow she was leaving for London, and she supposed she would never come to Sunbury again.
A little while later she was walking down to the beach where once — how long ago it seemed — she had strolled with Iain Sherrarde and he had told her that the children would soon be going to school.
There had been no news at all from Fountains, and no one had visited her in hospital. Iain ... She turned her thoughts resolutely to the children, wondering whether they had missed her and how their questions had been answered.
It was sunny and warm and she decided that she would walk right to the headland, but she had taken only a few steps when she heard a voice calling and she turned to see Averil Pollard waving.
She went back towards the other girl, and saw that the children were immediately below, playing on the sand.
“I’ve been wondering whether we should see you, Ann,” Averil remarked excitedly. “I could kick myself for being such a fool not to guess all the time that you weren’t really that Anne Woods. What a nerve that woman had, taking you to Fountains and making you slave looking after Beverley and the children, and not paying you a penny for it.”
Color bur
ned in Ann’s face. How had Averil got that information? She herself had never spoken of it.
“So the children haven’t gone to school yet?” she said, changing the subject.
“Oh, they’re not going now. They’ll be joining their mother in London in another few weeks. I think Mrs. Trederrick and Doctor Lyntrope will be glad to see the back of them.”
“So you’re all at Dainty’s End!” Ann’s expression was one of surprise. “Has Mrs. Derhart left Fountains?”
“Mrs. Leedon now. They were married all the time, you know.”
“No! I knew they had been married before, but there was a divorce.”
“Yes, and then they re-married, it seems, while she was still in London, recovering from her accident. She didn’t want anybody to know, and so she pretended to be crazy about Mr. Sherrarde. I suppose it was a pose,” Averil went on doubtfully, “just to take everyone’s attention from her and Mr. Leedon. He got the job down here to be near her — pulled all sorts of strings to get it, Burrows says. But then, when his cousin and all the family were killed in that plane accident, Mr. Leedon came into an estate and a lot of money, so madam decided there was no longer any need for secrecy and no longer any need for keeping well in with Mr. Sherrarde. They’ve gone off for a second honeymoon and then they’re going to have the children with them in London.” She smiled. “I promised I’d stay with the children till then. After that ... well, Burrows has got a job at the Institute, and we’re going to be married.”
Ann offered her congratulations, but after a few minutes’ talk about her own plans, Averil said, “There was a terrific bust-up with Mr. Sherrarde the day after Matron’s Ball. It’s my opinion that it was after that that Mrs. Derhart decided to admit she was married and clear out altogether. Emma was hiding in a cupboard in the lounge, and she heard the row. That’s how I know about it.”
Nurse Ann Wood Page 19