by Sheila Burns
She had always condemned others for losing their hearts to men who did not really matter, but now she knew how easy it was and how terribly it hurt. She did not want any food. Too tired, she told herself. She went back to her room and lay down for a little while. Maybe later she could fancy something, but she must have fallen asleep, for she heard a clock striking midnight when she woke.
Now there was nothing to do but undress, and go to bed properly. It took her far longer than she would have thought possible, maybe because she was so desperately tired. Thank Heaven this was her long week-end off. She could lie-in when morning came, but one thing she must not forget was that at eleven-thirty she must find Sir Charles’s car in the courtyard and start off with him for the garden of England.
I was mad to say I would, she thought.
Then, lying in bed, she thought that she wanted to change her job after all. It represented escape. She dreamt of village life, and of old-world cottages and a quietly friendly people whom she could help. She thought of babies she could bring into the world and love, their softness and their warmth, and their pathetic helplessness.
In the garden of England maybe she could do something worth doing, and start all over again. She had thought that her life story here would end on the day that she married Chris Long. Now the romance was dead. But she still had the power to help others and she would help them ‒ in the garden of England!
Chapter Four
Claire slept late, and sprang up in a hurry, only to realise that she was off duty, and that time did not matter to her. This was her long week-end.
She put on a little navy-blue linen suit. It was simple yet smart, with its spotless white lace jumper, and she pinned it with the chunky old cameo brooch which had been her mother’s before her, and which always looked nice in a lapel.
She did not know why she wanted to look particularly nice today, but then it was a rather particular week-end. She was late for breakfast, and the Sisters’ dining-room looked untidy with a crumby table, very much the ‘morning after’ appearance, which she loathed. She got some coffee and a boiled egg, but judging by the way that the staff were behaving, none of them were particularly pleased with her for turning up now, even if she had every right to do so.
Perhaps she loitered, for she had time to waste, and she worked hard enough herself, surely she had the right sometimes to a little leisure?
She could not believe that the affair with Chris was over, she wanted to cry when she thought of it. She had been too much in love, perhaps. Too happy. Once someone had warned her that it was a dangerous thing to be too happy; it meant that something horrible lay ahead. It was all wrong that a girl could not control the truant emotions when she fell in love, instead of letting them run away with her. Chris was so utterly charming. He was one of those compelling personalities who go to the head in one’s life. The first kiss had been trivial (or so she had thought at the time), then she had started to remember it. She had lost her heart at that moment, and she knew it. Never having been in love before made it worse, at her age most of the girls had had something in the way of an affair, but she had centred on her work. There had never been the time.
Now I’ve got to get over it, she told herself, to be brave, and settle down to common sense.
Before she started, she wandered round the hospital, knowing quite well that she was hoping against hope that she would run into Chris, and they could have a few minutes together which would put everything right. They did not meet. All for the best, she thought, and yet regretted it. The girl in love can be as foolish as all that. Because she herself was loyal, the trusting kind, it made the present situation ten thousand times more difficult. She tried to remember the teaching of her youth, and that kind old aunt who had told her, ‘When in doubt, leave well alone’. It was sound teaching, but surely the most difficult to follow?
She was waiting in the hall, when Sir Charles finally arrived. She had begun to wonder if he had forgotten about her, and had had to reassure herself that his car was still there in the courtyard. She saw him at last coming strutting through the hall, trying to hurry, and it was only too plain that it was not his fault that he had been delayed. He was rather like a robin, she thought, and he walked like a robin, too. Yet, although he was trying to hurry, he could not do it, for the effort was too much for him. He was growing older. St. Julian’s said that he used all his energy for thinking, and had none left for getting about, and maybe they were right.
‘I say, I really am most awfully late,’ he said.
‘Not really, sir, and I had nothing else to do. It’s quite all right.’
‘But I am late. I got stuck talking, that is always my worry, for I do talk too much. I know that I do it, but can’t break myself of the silly habit. Tst! Tst! Tst! I hope you have not been waiting here since breakfast?’
‘Only a few minutes,’ and she glossed over it with a smile.
‘Then come along right now. We’ll be in Kent in a jiffy. I hope you like travelling fast, for it is one of my secret vices.’
‘I adore it,’ she lied, for privately it scared her stiff.
They went out of the hospital into the courtyard to the car. It was an infinitely bigger car than any in which Claire had ever driven before, large and luxurious, and cushioned in a grey plushy material which went admirably with the pale grey paintwork. It made hardly a sound, scarcely a throb, as Sir Charles started it up, and the radio was on, for there came the faint low echo of music, soft classical music which was soothing. Already she was glad that she had come.
‘I’m desperately sorry to be so late, but I’m afraid I have become a proper old gasbag!’ and he laughed. He had that very infectious chuckle which was a delight. ‘Never mind, the road down will be all the clearer if we let the first of the morning’s heavy traffic go on ahead. You know this way out of London?’
She did not, and she said so.
‘It’s horrid at first, but better after we get through Rochester. That is a big place, better since the bypass took the worst of the heavy traffic away, and I love the look of the old castle over the Medway. That is where Henry the Eighth met the “Flanders Mare”, having been sold the lady by a flattering portrait. That is the castle where he had his first really bad fit!’
But in spite of the airy way in which he had dismissed it, it took an eternity to leave the long strips of modern houses behind them and come to Rochester. The traffic was heavy when they got there, the streets narrow, and when they got up the hill they seemed to trail on for ever through the remorseless suburbs. It was an ugly place, she felt, disappointing to a girl who had always thought of this as being the garden of England, for it was houses all the way.
Quite suddenly Sir Charles turned the big car sharply to the right in the direction of Maidstone. They came into the world of cherry orchards. The blossom was over, and already the tiny green fruit was hanging like a ball fringe of tassels from the boughs. There were the hop gardens too, and Claire had had no idea that they grew hops this way. The tall poles, and the abundant greenery that was everywhere.
They passed through the little villages with the half-tiled Kentish houses which were so original and so utterly charming. Village greens were there, some with fat geese squawking about them, one with the homely donkey, and always some little church nearby, its tower half belfry yet with a tower.
‘It’s so lovely, I do like it,’ she gasped.
‘I always say that Kent has something of its own. It is the county with the big personality, and if you like this bit of it, you’ll simply adore Charnworth, for that is infinitely prettier.’
‘I am sure I shall adore it anyway,’ and she had the premonition that she had done the right thing. This kind old man was guiding her, and guiding her admirably.
He brought out a great wooden box of liqueur chocolates which he had tucked away by his seat, and she knew that they had been specially bought for her.
‘What a fool I am, I forgot about these until now!’ he said. ‘I do
hope that you are not slimming. You don’t need to, and a nurse’s job demands too much of a girl for that. Half the girls one meets today can’t touch this or that, and it is a bit spoiling for the man who wants to spoil them. You like liqueurs?’
‘I’ve never seen such a big box of them before.’
‘Then eat it up! It won’t go to your head. There is not enough of the juice that matters for that.’
How kind he is! she thought, and somehow that box seemed to bring them closer. They travelled smoothly, and they got talking. She asked him about his home at Charnworth. His great-grandparents had owned a big house there, the sort of place which nowadays has gone for ever, and he remembered his associations with it as being all part of a beautiful dream.
Recently the old house had been pulled down. A couple of wars had got it into a bad state, and anyway there was not the money left to reinstate it, and certainly not the money to live in it, even if he had managed to repair it. The house itself had gone down into the dust, but he had retained the stables and had turned them into a cottage, or a small house would be more like it, and here he now lived.
He had in him an overwhelming love of home, born from the mansion which now had gone into the dust for ever. He regretted it, of course, it had been home to him, and every time his car passed through the lodge gates (only one lodge was left today, and gate itself had gone), he felt sad about it.
But the stable house was a charmer, even though he said it himself, and his niece Mavis adored gardening and had made herself very useful to him. Somehow Claire thought of a lively and pretty young girl, and maybe something that she said gave him the idea that this was the impression she had got.
He said, ‘Don’t think of Mavis as being very young. She is my elder sister’s child, one might say that she has come to those years when she could be dubbed as an old maid, which is a most ghastly thought. Mavis is thirty-eight.’
It was more than she had expected, and she hurriedly covered it with ‘That is nothing today.’
‘No, but to me it is quite a lot. Maybe I am an old-timer, to whom nearing forty is nearing forty.’
He paused, then he changed the subject, quite plainly there was something about his niece Mavis which for now he did not wish to discuss. He talked of his father who had been a local J.P. His father had enjoyed his work on the Bench and had been highly popular. It is always difficult to be the son of a father who has done well for a place, and he only hoped he was doing his best. He had a good deal of authority in Charnworth, authority which was the fruit of having been born there and his family living there before him. He was on the board which dealt with such details as the district nurses, and the fact that he had put up the idea of Claire taking this job would mean quite a lot.
‘It is not very easy to get the right person these days,’ he explained, and she could have guessed this.
There were four villages over some miles and all part of the original estate. He spoke of the places with love and affection; she knew that he was fond of it, and that he very much wanted to be sure that she would like it. Somehow seeing him at St. Julian’s, she would never have supposed that he could adore four small villages situated in the garden of Kent. Also adore the ghost of a big house, now pulled down and gone, and miles of overgrown parkland which he refused to sell for building purposes, yet found an incubus having to keep.
‘But I hate mushroom houses in squads,’ he said, and laughed gaily. ‘I hate new estates. I may be old-fashioned, and possibly am, but I am not alone in disliking the way England is going today. Somebody must stick out, and I’m the sticker-outer!’
They were now approaching Charnworth. They had come down the steep hill into a valley where cottages displayed notices about eggs for sale, strawberries and vegetables. There were long strips of roadway without houses, big trees, and once a poaching cat scudded out before the car and gave them a real fright.
‘That goes on round here quite a lot,’ said Sir Charles.
Claire saw the Weald lying around her; this was the first time she had seen it. She felt it had been underrated, for it had a rare wild beauty of its own. There were deep wooded valleys, the tall hills, some with a frail blue mist swirling about them (prophesying a fine day, Sir Charles told her), and all along the road the Kentish houses with their tiled fronts, which seemed to be the guardians of this part.
‘How very beautiful it is!’ she said, and hardly knew how to show her admiration for it.
‘I’m glad you like it. Charnworth is the first village we come to round the corner. You’ll love it.’
They turned the corner and saw the village running down a steepish little hill. The church had the usual spire and belfry in one, and was surrounded by a green churchyard where she knew some of Sir Charles’s people would be sleeping.
There was a war memorial on the green, and a turgid pool with ducks nesting in the reeds, and water lilies growing in it, the white petals just showing.
‘It’s nice,’ he said.
‘It’s heaven,’ she told him.
There were the black-and-white and the red-tiled houses, all standing round the green, and they went on and up the hill which was the other side of the road. There were a few new houses, for possibly there is no village in England which the builders have left alone. Now she saw the houses thinning into what seemed to be a tiny hamlet, and this she gathered was where he lived. She saw the parkland on the right, surrounded by an ash-grey fence, about four foot high, broken here and there, and with holes in it. There were solid oak trees and in the distance the shimmer of water which was deliciously cool-looking, for the day was coming out very hot.
He turned in at the gate.
As he had said, one of the lodges had disappeared, and there was a naked patch where it had stood. It looked rather forlorn, and about that patch there was the sense of a world perhaps lost, and unlikely to find its soul again for many a long day.
They did not go ahead up the main drive, or what remained of it, for you could trace it by the oak trees, but turned sharply left to the stables. Within a few moments they had entered the little courtyard, once the old stable yard, now full of flowers. There were big tubs of dwarf rhododendrons everywhere, still crimson, snow-white and pearl-pink. A lawn had been laid before the stable buildings which had been transformed into a house. Now they were long and low, with pale blue shutters buttoned back against the white walls, and old-fashioned carriage lamps on either side of the open door.
About the place was the look of somewhere which was contented, and had been there when the Regent came to the throne, and had kept the quality of that period with it for all time.
‘How lovely it is!’ she said.
A woman came out of the house to meet them, and Claire knew that she must have been listening for the first sound of the approaching car. This was his niece Mavis. She was plain, looking older than her years, and somewhat austere. Slenderly made, she wore the sort of light blue frock which somehow one would have expected her to select, with too long a skirt for today, and too long sleeves. It had no style. She had been fair, the fairness fading a little, and she walked out to meet them without a trace of friendliness. There was nothing of Sir Charles’s charm and provocative ways.
‘Here is Mavis,’ he said.
Claire felt that she held back, she was half afraid to meet the niece, and Mavis was the first uncongenial factor, the first disturbing element, that she had met.
Until this moment the day had been beautiful, and suddenly it changed, so that she felt that there was a sinister cloud in the sky, something that she could not see but could only feel. Possibly Sir Charles had not told her sufficient about Mavis, or maybe he had not told his niece that he was bringing down the prospective new nurse with him. She sensed that Mavis resented her presence, though she said nothing.
Sir Charles got out of the car and helped Claire out. ‘Here is someone you don’t know, Mavis, and I hope so much that she is coming to the village,’ and he said it quite charmingly.
‘Claire is one of the Sisters at St. Julian’s, we have done a lot of gynae work together, and I think she would be suitable for the district nurse’s job here.’
‘I see.’ She said it coldly.
He must have noticed the tone, for he glanced at her, then went on more quickly. ‘Ever since old Nurse had her accident I knew that we should have difficulty in getting someone who would be suitable. Nurses are no longer ten a penny as in the bad old days, and it has got to be somebody who learns to love the village. Claire is the most suitable girl I know.’
‘I see.’ Mavis’s rather cold eyes were scanning her up and down, and Claire felt almost as if she were being measured for a dress, criticised, possibly condemned, and she did not like it. Then, even more coldly, the niece said, ‘I should have thought Sister a little young for the job. We have always had much older nurses here.’
He laughed at that, with all his charm and gaiety. ‘A little youth can do the village no harm,’ he commented.
But Mavis was immovable.
‘Charnworth is used to nurses being fat, and old, and plain. None of these things apply to Sister, do they?’ and for the first time she smiled.
‘All right. Then they’ll have to change their ideas,’ and Sir Charles went on ahead into the house.
It was enchanting.
The great attraction was that the architect had not tried to detract from the fact that the place was really a stable. The one long room was the shape which speaks of stalls and horse boxes. You could almost trace the line. He had left a couple of iron mangers against the wall, and at the far end the big sturdy old stable clock high in the wall. It had a pale blue face to it, and a heavy solid ticking sound. The walls were whitewashed and all the heavy old oak beams had been left in place. By the door there hung a saddle, and it might be imagination, but Claire felt that the place smelt of the newness of leather freshly polished.
The fireplace was full of flowers, heavy rosettes of rhododendrons, and some white lupins. The chairs and sofas were dressed in a flowery chintz which went with everything else. It was the sort of room in which one wanted to sit and talk.