The Shy Nurse's Christmas Wish

by Abigail Gordon

  But he wasn’t relishing having to account for another misunderstanding after omitting to tell Darcey that he had wasted no time in trying to find a replacement to take on his lifeboat duties.

  * * *

  When she appeared later, looking heavy-eyed and pale, he was quick to apologise for his memory lapse. ‘I’m so sorry for making my demands of you last night with regard to you taking Bethany under your wing during working hours,’ he said, ‘as that doesn’t apply to the coming week, does it? You are on leave and that is how it must stay after all the time you put in during the Christmas break.’ With a glance at the sleeping child, he added, ‘The person who is due to take your place will manage very nicely, I’m sure, and what is more Cordelia and her family are here. They arrived at six o’clock and have gone up to the restaurant to have a quick bite before I leave them to it, as I have a very busy day ahead in Theatre and on the wards.’

  ‘Which makes me all the more intent on being here,’ she told him. ‘They are good friends and have shown me much kindness during my solitary existence over Christmas.’ She gently reached out a hand and stroked Bethany’s hair before saying, ‘I will need to know your wishes regarding Bethany’s treatment before you sign off. And, Daniel, with regard to us, maybe we were too hasty in allowing a commitment to form between us that we are not capable of fulfilling.’

  ‘So that is what you think, is it?’ he said with steely calm, restraining the urge to demonstrate how mistaken she was about that. Collecting the paperwork that he had been working on during the night as his young charge had slept, he passed her the sheet on top and said, ‘Those are my instructions regarding Bethany’s treatment. If you have any problems, you will find me somewhere in the building.’

  Then he had gone and she did so wish that he hadn’t. When his sister and her family appeared some seconds later Cordelia exclaimed, ‘Darcey! We thought you were due for some time off? This can’t be right.’

  ‘It is very right indeed that I of all people should be here for my friends and their hurt little one,’ she said gently. ‘I had nothing planned for the coming week and if I had I would have cancelled it. Daniel has given me all the details for Bethany’s treatment and her progress so far before he went to start on his usual Monday morning clinic, with instructions to seek him out immediately if the need arose.’ She sent a smile in Katie’s direction. ‘When you come next time, bring your nurse’s outfit and you can help us on the ward.’ She was rewarded with a cry of delight.

  At that moment Bethany awoke and as Cordelia helped her daughter eat, Darcey went to check on the rest of her young patients and wished that Daniel was there, doing his rounds with her as he would normally be, while instead his presence had been restricted to the night hours that were going to be followed by a very busy day.

  Yet typically he managed to call at the ward for a few moments in the lunch hour and was satisfied to hear that the soreness of Bethany’s lower spine was decreasing, she was in less pain and that a second X-ray had shown no further complications.

  ‘When will we be able to take her home?’ Lawrence asked, while Cordelia plied her brother with a sandwich and a mug of tea and Darcey stood by silently.

  ‘In a few days, I would think,’ Daniel told him, and with his glance on her continued, ‘But I don’t want to rush it as I did with something a few days ago that went all haywire.’ He got to his feet, ready to depart, and she knew that she didn’t want him out of her life ever, no matter what happened.

  * * *

  By Friday Bethany was well enough to go home. The damage to her back was healing well. She was able to walk slowly around the ward, getting to know some of the other children, and when Cordelia and Lawrence came for her she was almost reluctant to leave, but the thought of being able to play with Katie again and sleep in her own bed sorted that problem.

  Daniel had been to see his small patient on her last morning in the children’s ward and as Darcey watched them together it was there, as if only said a moment ago, that she was the one he wanted to give him children, which she would have been so happy to do, if only he had been equally willing to calm her fears regarding his commitment to the lifeboat, because there was always the memory of how she and Alex had been left young and parentless amongst the snows that day.

  He appeared at her side when she was having a coffee and a sandwich in the staff restaurant during the lunch hour and asked, ‘Have you sorted out the free time that I denied you when Bethany was brought in?’

  ‘Yes,’ she told him levelly. ‘I’m having next week off. I haven’t planned anything so far, but thought I might go and see Alex for a few days.’ Alex had emailed to let her know he’d run out of money, so had come home and was staying with friends. He was working in a bar to get enough money to go travelling again. ‘It will mean staying in a hotel somewhere near where he’s staying, but as long as he’s around so that we can meet during any free time he has, it will be fine.’

  ‘So he’s home, then,’ he commented. ‘When did he get back?’ Without waiting for an answer, he commented, ‘I could drive you there if you want. If you recall, the trains were very busy on the day we found ourselves going in the same direction and to the same place.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ She recalled it all right, Darcey thought weakly, and to be next to him for a couple of hours in the closeness of the car in the present circumstances, which had arisen only a week ago when Daniel had wanted her to marry him, would be an ordeal she didn’t want to have to face.

  ‘I shall make sure that I don’t travel in the rush hour,’ she said hurriedly, ‘but thanks for the offer.’ And with a complete change of subject that came from her love for him, and knowing how much he achieved with regard to the burden of care for others that he coped with all the time, she asked, ‘Have you had time for some lunch?’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘but I’m going to do something about that in the next few moments.’ As she arose hurriedly, her lunch break at an end, he wished that someone, somewhere would want to take over from him on the lifeboat. In the meantime, he was hoping that the lighthouse he had bought in memory of his father would soon be ready to be unveiled for all to see.

  * * *

  When Darcey phoned her brother to say that she intended to pay him a short visit during the coming weekend he was highly pleased. ‘I’ve missed you,’ he said. ‘It was fabulous while we were away but no one will ever take your place, big sister. Shall I book you in somewhere?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ she told him. ‘From Friday morning to Sunday evening somewhere close to you.’

  ‘Will do,’ he’d promised buoyantly. ‘I’ll ring back as soon as I have that sorted, and if I’m not working when your train is due, I’ll meet you at the station.’

  * * *

  When they’d finished chatting Darcey sat back and gave some thought to how she was going to occupy herself for the rest of the week, and a vision of the derelict lighthouse came to mind. She had never seen it since the day that Daniel had taken her there when she’d viewed it in its dilapidated condition.

  Now from what Bridget and Ely had told her when she’d dined with them on Christmas Day, the alterations were almost complete. Soon there would be a public dedication of Daniel’s tribute to his father, and with the burden of their quarrel about the lifeboat raw and hurting she did not intend to attend that occasion.

  But in her free time during the coming week there was nothing to stop her from visiting the scene on her own while he was occupied at Oceans House, she thought, and the following day she caught the promenade tram as far as it went in that direction and walked the rest of the way beneath a wintry sun until the lighthouse, resplendent in a fresh coat of white paint, came into view, with the words In Memory of Mark Osbourne on a brass plaque fitted centrally.

  There were still workmen present and one of them stopped next to her and said, ‘You are the sister from the children’s ward at Oceans Hou
se, aren’t you?

  ‘Our little boy was in there a few weeks ago after a bad fall off his bike, but he’s all right now.’

  Darcey managed a weak smile, knowing the fact that she’d been seen at the site of the lighthouse renovation was sure to be mentioned to Daniel the next time he came there, and he would want to know the whys and wherefores of her visit.

  But she would explain all that when the time came, and in the meantime the light of the winter afternoon was fading and the tram that had brought her there would be arriving soon to take her back, along with the bulk of the workforce, but she had yet to see the empty manor house and the other unoccupied properties that Daniel had described to her, which were vaguely visible on the horizon a mile or so away.

  So, pointing herself in that direction, she walked briskly towards them, and the moment she was level Darcey understood Daniel’s yearning to do two things, live in a house within sight of the memorial he had chosen for his father, and bring life back to the remote yet amazingly beautiful village where he had wanted to bring up their children when they arrived. But could she live with the thought always there that she might lose him to the sea, as she had lost her parents to the snow, and if he didn’t understand her reasoning, could they have a happy life together?

  Lost in her musings, she turned to make her way back to the lighthouse and was horrified to see the tram disappearing into the distance with not a soul in sight as it transported the workforce home on their last journey of the day.

  Within minutes the winter dark fell on the empty houses behind her and with it came heavy rain, slashing against doors and windows as she ran from one to the next, desperate to find shelter. Until the heavy oak door of the manor house swung back on creaking hinges and she moved slowly into its unexpected shelter.

  The most sensible thing would be to stay there until the rain cleared, she told herself, and then set off in the dark on the long walk back to her apartment, being careful to stay clear of the cliff edge where the lighthouse stood.

  A depressing thought was that she wasn’t going to be missed as no one at the hospital knew where she had set off to, and as she was on leave, neither Daniel nor Cordelia and Lawrence would expect her to do something as crazy as getting lost and having to shelter in a big empty house before starting on the long walk back to Seahaven in the dark.

  It seemed that her phone wasn’t working in the isolated place that she found herself in, and along with panic came the thought that there was someone who might have noticed that she was missing from the tram on its last journey of the day.

  The man whose young boy had once been in Oceans House for treatment might have realised that she was not to be seen on its return journey and act accordingly.

  * * *

  It had been a really busy day and Daniel was on the point of leaving the hospital when one of the men he was employing to work on the lighthouse appeared and asked if he could spare a moment. Hoping that it would be something minor, Daniel took him into his office and waited to hear what he had to say. Surprisingly, it wasn’t about work.

  ‘I might be fussing about nothing,’ his unexpected visitor told him, ‘but felt I had to tell you that the sister on the children’s ward here must have been off duty today and came to view the progress of the lighthouse renovation.’ As Daniel observed him in amazement he went on to say, ‘We chatted for a few moments and then she wandered off in the direction of the manor house and the other empty properties not far away, and when the last tram of the day came and we all piled on it, I didn’t notice that she wasn’t there until it had reached the promenade, and I felt that I must mention it as the weather up there left a lot to be desired.’

  ‘You felt right,’ Daniel told him with a sick feeling inside. He was already on his feet, reaching for his top coat, and asked, ‘So there wasn’t anyone there who might have given Darcey a lift home by car at all?’ The other man shook his head. ‘No. Sometimes we get the occasional motorist curious to see what is going on but not today, and the rest of us use the tram all the time.’

  ‘Thanks for taking the trouble to let me know,’ Daniel told him, tense and tight-lipped at the thought of Darcey lost in the dark of a winter night. If she’d gone to view the manor house after him mentioning it, he would be to blame if Darcey was lost out there in the cold, he told himself grimly, and when he saw the whiteness of the newly painted lighthouse at the top of the cliffs he leapt from the car in the hope that for once the workmen might have left it unlocked to provide some sort of shelter, but all was in order, there was nothing to make one want to linger there.

  With his anxiety peaking, he took a lantern out of the car boot and once it was lit headed swiftly towards what had once been a thriving small village and was now dark, still and unlived in, but not as empty as he’d thought it would be if Darcey was lost in there.

  * * *

  The rain had stopped and in what was now a clear sky the moon shone down onto the place where Darcey had been sheltering, cold and lost for what had seemed like a lifetime, and she was now about to leave for the long walk back to civilisation, until she heard a twig snap under someone’s foot not far away. The door swung back slowly to reveal the one person she had longed to be with in the dark silence that lay all around her.

  ‘Daniel!’ she sobbed, as tears of relief ran down her cold cheeks. ‘I was praying that the workman that I’d chatted with earlier had noticed that I wasn’t on the tram!’

  He was taking his warm winter coat off with all speed and wrapping it around her, and only when she was snugly inside it he said softly, ‘Your prayer was answered, but only when he was back home and stopped off at the hospital to inform me of his concern about you. I have to say I was amazed as after our last misunderstanding I would have thought that the lighthouse and the manor house that I’d thought of buying would have been the last two places you would want to visit on a free afternoon in doubtful weather.

  ‘Having seen it in this condition, I imagine that your doubts regarding it must have multiplied, but I need to get you back to the car where the heater is, and I’ve got a flask of coffee that I coaxed out of the hospital snack bar before I left.’ Giving Darcey the lantern to hold, he swung her up into his arms and carried her carefully back to the car.

  Once inside he kissed her gently and said, ‘Don’t ever scare me like that again, no matter what our disagreements are.’ And out came the flask with the coffee, and the car heater was serving its purpose delightfully, but she wanted to weep because nothing had changed regarding their different points of view about the lifeboat but she loved him too much to ever contemplate life without him.

  For his part, Daniel was overwhelmed with regret for not making it clear to Darcey that he had done as promised and asked that another coxswain should be found to replace him on the lifeboat.

  If Cordelia knew he was on the point of finding true happiness with Darcey and was hesitating, she would think he was crazy, but so far no one had come forward and he didn’t want her to think that she meant so little to him that he wasn’t bothering.

  When they reached the promenade and her apartment was in sight he said, ‘I think you should come to my place for the night. It will be warm in there and I can make you a meal and be there in case you suffer any side-effects from your ordeal.’ But she shook her head.

  ‘No, thanks just the same,’ she told him, and getting out of the car she took off his coat and passed it to him.

  His patience faltered. ‘Fine, suit yourself!’ he said in clipped tones. ‘You know where I am if you need me.’ And he drove off into the night.

  When he arrived home there was a message from Cordelia to say that she hadn’t seen Darcey for a while and was she all right? So before settling down for what was left of the evening he returned the call and explained that he had just left her, having driven her home from getting lost in a strange place that she’d been exploring because she was due som
e free time from the hospital.

  ‘What a shame that you weren’t both off together!’ she exclaimed, ever hopeful, and left him to the solitude that once had been enough and now was the last thing he needed.

  * * *

  There was a note on his desk in a sealed envelope from Darcey the next morning. Brief and to the point, it said that she wished to apologise for her lack of gratitude for his kindness in bringing her home safely after her foolishness in getting lost like she had, and it went on to explain that she wouldn’t be around for the next few days as she was going to see her brother while she had the opportunity.

  Daniel groaned when he’d read it. First, because he wanted her in his arms, not a brief message on paper, and, second, much as he understood Darcey’s need to see her brother, his days were going to be long without her being near.

  Cordelia was due in with Bethany for another X-ray during the morning, hopefully the last, and if all went well she would be able to go back to school after the weekend with the damage to her back having healed satisfactorily. If that was the case, her older sister was also going to be denied the wearing of her nurse’s uniform at every opportunity, unless another small patient appeared from out of nowhere.

  There had still been no further callouts for the lifeboat, which was unusual for the time of year, and Daniel was hoping that it would stay that way until a replacement was found to fill his position, and once that was sorted the way ahead should be clear if Darcey loved him as much as he loved her, but until his place was filled there was no way he could betray his father’s trust.

  If Cordelia knew the situation he was in, she would be sure to say that their father would understand and would want him to be happy, but he had no intention of bringing his sister into the confusion of his thoughts. When he had given Bethany a clean bill of health he sent mother and child happily on their way without mentioning his own problems.