GUARDIAN NURSE
by
Joyce Dingwell
Burn West had engaged Frances to look after seven-year-old Jason West in the joint capacity of nurse, governess—and guard. But why should the child need to be guarded?
Just what was going on?
CHAPTER ONE
Frances looked across the wide polished desk at the man in the executive’s chair and decided she didn’t like him.
One hour ago Miss Clegg of Clegg Agency had telephoned the flat and said crisply, concisely and very Miss Cleggishly, ‘I appreciate you are resting between positions, Miss Peters, but this is one that you alone on our lists can fill.’ Being Miss Clegg she had made a statement of it, not praise, and being used to Miss Clegg’s economy Frances had accepted it as that.
She recalled her first interview at the Clegg Agency, Miss Clegg looking at her teacher’s as well as nurse’s diploma and asking suspiciously, ‘One of each! Does that mean you lack staying power?’
Frances had explained that when she had finished her college degree her mother had been struck down with an incurable disease that put her into an infirmary for the three years prior to her death, and how it had been a solution for a homeless and anxious girl to take up nursing in the same hospital instead of launching out in her original career.
‘I see,’ Miss Clegg had accepted.
She had ‘placed’ Frances regularly from then on, for Frances, after her mother had died, soon afterwards again the end of the affair with Scott, had found herself shrinking from accepting anything permanent, anything in which she might be tempted to put down roots. Sometimes Miss Clegg had produced a governessing post, more often recuperative nursing, but this time, Miss Clegg had said, it was both. Salary, of course, to match. She had told Frances the salary, adding in explanation of the very high remuneration though characteristically still without praise, ‘Mr. West only deals with the best.’
Frances had made a note of the city address ... but not with enthusiasm. The money was very good, but she had looked forward to a break between jobs, poor old Mr. Lake of the last assignment had been quite a handful; also something about this perfectionist Mr. West who only dealt ‘with the best’ did not appeal to her.
Sitting on the opposite side of the desk now he appealed even less. Not his looks, they were strong, even rugged. But the mouth suggested arrogance, she thought, and the eyes were cold. Cold, anyway, was her description when she considered that he was speaking of a small, disabled boy.
‘How disabled, Mr. West?’
‘The leg suffered several severe breaks. It will be some time before he can be a normal child again.’— How could anyone say that in such a clipped voice? Frances thought.
‘How did he do it?’ she asked conversationally, for she felt if she didn’t make conversation she might get up and leave this brittle person, and leaving would affront Miss Clegg and could be disastrous, for future occasions, to herself.
When he did not answer, she looked up and received a chilly impact of narrowed eyes and set lips.
‘That needn’t concern you, Miss Peters.’
‘No. I’m sorry.’
He nodded brief acceptance of the apology, explaining then that she would be in sole charge of the child.
‘What’s his name?’ she asked.
‘Jason West. Seven and a half years. That’s why I requested someone who could teach as well. He has never gone to school.’
Frances opened her mouth to ask was it because of his injury, remembered her last rebuff, closed her mouth again.
‘The injury has been a difficult one, and still is, recently the limb was returned a third time to plaster for a further period, but when he comes out of the cast at last he will need constant and expert attention, and this, Miss Clegg informs me, you are able to give as well. Originally I had intended to have a governess, too, but would sooner keep numbers down so as not to confuse the boy. As regards remuneration, though, you would be counted as two, and compensated accordingly. You consider the sum I directed Miss Clegg as enough?’
‘It’s generous,’ she admitted.
‘Not for the service I demand.’—Demand, Frances noted. Not ask. Not desire. Demand. She disliked him even more.
‘When can I meet Jason?’ she asked.
‘At once.’
‘At once?’
‘He’s here. This office has an adjoining residential suite.’
‘But—’ She saw to it this time, though, that she did not finish the sentence. She had learned very early, she thought coolly, that it was best not to speak out of turn ... or what he evidently considered out of turn. All the same she could think things, and to her idea an office block in the heart of Sydney was not the right place for a disabled child.
She became conscious of his eyes on her, very cool, very deep green eyes ... river green, she thought. Though they were narrowed again there was no mistaking his awareness of her unspoken criticism ... and his own consequent scorn.
‘The apartment is large,’ he said quite factually. ‘However’... a deliberate pause ... ‘I will not be keeping the boy here. He will go home.’
‘His home?’ She waited again for a rebuff.
‘Ours.’—So the boy was his son. He hadn’t said so before and she had considered an alternative. Now she knew the family position ... or so his flicked, slightly contemptuous glance informed her.
However, she still dared a further question. ‘Where is your home, Mr. West?’
‘The Riverina. Would you know it?’
‘Only in passing.’ The Riverina suited this river-eyed man, she decided.
‘I have properties in the Mirramunna district. Three quite large ones in fact, that’s why I need a city stand. The accounts and affairs of Seven Fields, Great Rock and West of the River demand something more than an office pushed in the back of a homestead.’
‘Seven Fields and Great Rock describe themselves,’ she said politely, ‘but on what river is the last property?’
‘It’s on an offshoot of the Murrumbidgee ... to my idea the Riverina is the ’Bidgee. However, it’s not entirely because of the river that the homestead is called what it is. As children we lived with our parents at the original homestead of Seven Fields, then my older brother Gareth was given Great Rock, then I the third estate. They died.’ He said it quite flatly.
‘Your brother, too?’
‘Yes.’ Still the flat tone. He finished, ‘The entirety is now mine.’
‘And West of the River?’ she persisted, wondering if it had not been called that simply because it was on a western river bank why it had received the name.
‘I am West,’ he reminded her significantly.
‘I see.’ She certainly did see. She saw this arrogant man as a younger arrogant man, calling his property after himself, calling it: West of the River. His parents had not named their estate West of the Fields nor his brother his station West of the Rock, but this—this king—
‘To be quite fair to me,’ he came in with a rather disconcerting knowledge of her thoughts, ‘it’s on a western arm, though I must admit there was something more personal to it than that. I was always a land child. Even as a youngster I would look at the property that my father had earmarked as mine and think of myself as West of the River. Do you follow?’ She nodded, but without enthusiasm; she found she really disliked this man. ‘What are on the properties?’ she asked next.
He looked incredulously at her. ‘Even passing through you would have gathered that.’
‘Sheep,’ she faltered.
‘Hay, maize, oats, fruit, horses, swine, potatoes, and at West of the River some gold as well.’
‘Gold?’ she echoed.
‘No credit to me, the river has done that. The gold, of cou
rse, is alluvial, and strictly only for fun.’
‘But interesting,’ she nodded.
‘Yet not for you,’ he came in quite sharply. ‘Your attention will be solely on the boy.’
‘Certainly,’ stiffly. ‘But Jason no doubt will be glad of the diversion.’ She had a vision of taking the child panning on the river, willows misting down fairy draperies, gnats flicking silver wings over a cloud-mirrored stream, the chirp of crickets and the ring of birdsong.
He broke in with an imperative, ‘Only under supervision.’
‘Of course I would supervise the boy.’
‘I meant only if I or one of my men are there as well.’
‘I’m usually considered fairly capable, Mr. West.’
‘Only if I or one of my men are present,’ he repeated flintily.
She looked up at him quite angrily. ‘What is this?’ she asked.
‘A direction. You’re to go no further afield with Jason than I permit.’
‘And I by myself? Am I permitted?’
The flinty look had been wiped off. He appeared almost bored. ‘On your time off that’s your affair.’
‘Thank you,’ she said.
They went into a few details of her future duties, first of all education. She learned that Mr. West had arranged for correspondence lessons which she would be required to supervise. As for nursing, she knew about that herself, and any more involved medical directions would be taken from Doctor Muir of Mirramunna, their nearest town.
‘Muir?’ she said a little tersely, and hoped he did not notice. But there could be a score of Muirs, and Mirramunna was not a place where she would ever see Scott. ‘How near a town?’ she asked rather hurriedly.
‘Only some thirty miles. We’re very convenient.’ As she looked a little dismayed he said, ‘But don’t worry about your relaxation periods. I will, of course, provide you with a car.’
‘I wasn’t worrying, but a car would be nice. Thank you. Jason and I-’
‘You will not take Jason in the car without—’
‘Without supervision.’ She said it before he could this time. ‘Mr. West, just what is this?’ She could not stop herself from asking once again.
‘It’s simply an order, Miss Peters. If you feel incapable of obeying it, tell me now, then leave.’
‘I’m quite capable of obeying orders, but for the child’s sake I’d like to know.’
‘It’s for the child’s sake I’m issuing the orders, and that, for the present, anyway, is all you need to be told. Well, Miss Peters?’
‘Well?’ she asked a little stupidly back.
‘Are you going on with it or not?’
‘I’m going on with it. It—it was just that I didn’t like being blindfold.’
‘Then learn to walk that way,’ he advised her unfeelingly. ‘No doubt you’ll pick up threads here and there, I carry quite a staff at West of the River.’
‘If you’re implying that I intend to probe—’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ He hunched his shoulders irritably. They were big shoulders, the shoulders of a land man, though concealed now in a very expensive-looking town suit.
He got up and signalled for her to do the same.
‘Come and meet the boy,’ he said.
Jason West was sitting at a window and looking down on the city traffic. He was small, pale, and one leg was stiffly outstretched. He looked at his father without any flicker of emotion, affection or otherwise, and Frances did not wonder, with such a stern set face above him like that.
‘This is Miss Peters, Jason. She’s going to teach you and nurse you. What do you want to call her? Teacher or nurse?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Miss Peters, then. Is that too hard?’
‘Nothing,’ Jason said again.
‘Perhaps Frances,’ Frances suggested.
‘That’s not a name, it’s—’
‘Yes, Jason, what is it?’ asked Mr. West quickly.
‘A something else,’ evaded Jason.
‘A country?’
‘Yes.’
‘Now that’s fine. You know a country. But it’s really France, not Frances.’
‘How about Fran, Jason?’ suggested Frances. ‘Would that do?’
‘Nothing,’ the boy said again.
They talked unsuccessfully for a while, then the big man signalled Frances that they would leave.
‘You can see,’ he said back in the office, ‘it’s not going to be a pushover. Want to change your mind?’
‘No.’
‘Good. Can you move in tomorrow?’
‘Here?’
‘Yes. I still have some business to finish before we go home. We’ll be several more days in Sydney.’
She hesitated. ‘Could I come to work from my own flat? I mean—’
‘You mean it’s not done?’ he said directly. ‘That the child is an insufficient third? I’m sorry, but I didn’t tell you that my housekeeper and my overseer also are resident.’
She felt embarrassed, annoyed with herself. ‘I really meant,’ she stammered, ‘I’d have to pack, make new arrangements for the flat, all that, and—well—’
‘Do it tonight,’ he dismissed brusquely. ‘I need you immediately. I have to do some city rounds and the child must not be left.’ He must have seen her puzzled look, for he said at once, ‘If you choose to consider it cloak and dagger, then do so by all means, only don’t look to me for explanations and reasons, for I simply have neither the time nor the inclination to enlighten you. All I ask is compliance, Miss Peters. I want the child taught, tended, guarded.’
‘But particularly guarded?’
‘You have it in a nutshell.’ He took out a tobacco pouch, a paper and began rolling a cigarette. It seemed out of place in an expensive city suite, but the long brown fingers were the same even though the cuffs at the strong wrists were fine white instead of those of a stout work shirt. But perhaps he didn’t work at his properties, only directed, and he was certainly good at that.
‘Well?’ he asked once again.
‘Well?’ Once more ... stubbornly ... she conveyed that she did not understand.
‘Do you want to bow out or not? I’ll see you’re recompensed for the interview.’
‘I don’t want to. I said so.’
‘And I said you will start tomorrow,’ he reminded her firmly.
‘Tomorrow,’ she complied.
‘There’s plenty of room here. Would you like to see where you’ll sleep?’
‘Thank you, no, I’ll take your word for it.’
‘Jason is in a small attached box-room. But once back at West of the River you will have properly connected suites. Sorry for now, but it’s all I can do for a few days. City appointments don’t exactly spread themselves, it’s different in the country.’
‘That will be all right, Mr. West.’
‘Nine-thirty tomorrow, then. I’ll send my car.’
‘You needn’t trouble—I mean I can call a taxi, get here myself.’
She might have saved herself the bother of telling him.
‘I’ll send the car,’ he said. ‘Good afternoon, Miss Peters.’
‘Good afternoon, Mr. West.’
Out in the street again Frances stood for a moment. It was the most curious interview she had ever had. She looked back at the list of tenants, read the Mirramunna Estates she had read before, but this time noted the bracketed B. West she had previously missed. B. West. What did B. stand for, she wondered ... as well as Boss?
West of the River, she thought. A distinctly odd name for a property, yet not odd when you knew it had been named for himself. Himself. Always himself. That, she decided, typified this man. She recalled his arrogance, his impatience, his unsmiling face.
The boy Jason, unfriendly, uncooperative, apparently without any enthusiasm, came next in her thoughts. The whole situation, definitely unusual and unrevealing, ‘cloak and dagger if you choose’ as he had said, followed the estimation of the child.
&
nbsp; Frances gave herself a mental shake and decided to think instead of the river part of her assignment. She had always felt drawn to rivers. It had been a childish love in her. Cool meandering rivers. Little chattering rivers—Green rivers.
But at that, West’s narrowed green eyes came at once to her mind. Impatient with herself, she jumped into a homebound bus.
It would be quite simple to finish her arrangements tonight, though she had not told him this when he had so cursorily directed her. She shared her flat with a parcel of three girls. She would not inconvenience them moving out, for she was ahead with her rent and new flatters were easy to find. She had not become very close to any of them, so goodbyes were uninvolved and short.
Her packing also did not take long. She simply had very little. When her mother had become ill, and sold the house, she had lived almost in a suitcase. She supposed after four years she had got into the habit.
She went to bed early, but did not sleep. She had finished her conjectures on the unattractive ... in manners, anyway ... B. West, but something he had said, a name, now kept her wide-eyed.
Muir. Doctor Muir. But it could not be Scott.
She thought of Scott, and was annoyed at the prick of tears in her eyes. Scott, so utterly different in looks and ways from the property king who had interviewed her this afternoon, the man who was to be her employer. B. West. B. for Boss.
She had met Scott in the nursing home where her mother was a patient and she was a nurse, and the young doctor had attracted her at once. Scott was gentle, considerate; initially she had simply appreciated his kindness to her mother, but soon it had been more than that. And it had not been just on her side, either; a woman senses in a man what she feels in herself. She is aware of a sudden sweet glance, a fleeting touch. Oh yes, Scott had known something as well. Then why ... why ...
But she shouldn’t go on like this. There had never been anything said; there had been nothing agreed, not even silently. She could never blame Scott. All the same when he had told her he was leaving the hospital and joining the lucrative and social Meldrum practice she had known there were only two ways he could join, by buying himself in ... or through Pamela Meldrum. And Scott had no money.
Her glance had said so to him, and his glance back had not denied it. She had not seen him after that. She, too, had resigned from the hospital, and from then on she had only accepted the posts Miss Clegg had offered out of the Meldrum kingdom—yes, the Meldrum practice had been that, she thought. Over the months she had succeeded in putting Scott at the back, if not out, of her mind, but now, with a casual mention of a Doctor Muir he was with her again, his kindness, his gentleness, his concern. Oh, Scott, Scott!
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