Wedding at Blue River

by Dorothy Quentin

  Dr. Banjo, shaved, bathed and refreshed, came with her to have a look at his patient. Nurse Hardyman, a coloured nurse of much experience, went off duty after handing over her report and the patient’s chart.

  “He is sleeping normally, he has not opened his eyes or spoken one word, Doctor. But he has not been at all restless.”

  “That is good. That is what we want.”

  In a little while he left Jane to her vigil. “Ring the bell if you want me. I shall be next door if I am not in the hospital. Every hour I will come and see how it goes.”

  The light was shaded, but not too dim to see any change in her patient. Jane sat down in the comfortable basket chair. For the first time they had met she could look her fill at Steve Forrest, unobserved, and her expression of love and compassion would have revealed her feelings instantly to anyone who chanced to come through the ward door. But no one was likely to come. The DO NOT DISTURB notice for critically ill patients was hanging from the door-knob outside.

  Steve’s sleeping face was strangely peaceful; like the face of the newly dead, she thought with fear in her heart ... but not of someone who had died in pain or violence. His head was perforce still in the head immobilisation splint, his injured leg in plaster up to the groin and attached to an extension splint under the cradle that made a mountain out of the sheet and thin blanket, all the bedclothes necessary on this warm night.

  The little town was oddly quiet, too, as if everyone was waiting for news of Steve. Before she left the hotel, Mrs. Cooper had sent friendly messages for Jane to give when he awoke. Looking at that sleeping face, as vulnerable as a child’s, Jane hoped she would be able to deliver all the messages—from Lisa, too, and Copper, and from Joel.

  Joel said, “You tell the boss I’m taking the boys and the horses home tomorrow. That’ll do him good. Then he won’t think we’re sittin’ around like vultures, waitin’ fer him ter die, see? An’ he’ll know that everythin’s all right at the Blue River, that’s what matters most to old Steve.”

  “I’ll send a message to the camp as soon as there’s any news,” she promised. She was touched, seeing the common sense behind his action but knowing that he wanted to stay on in the township until Steve was out of danger.

  Mrs. Cooper had said, “There’ll not be the usual drink-up in town tonight, and the dance for tomorrow night has been cancelled. No one feels like pretendin’ to enjoy fun and games yet awhile.”

  Jane checked the blood drip that was attached to the needle in Steve’s left arm, and resumed her thinking. Out of all the muddle, confusion and shock of the past eight days one thing was clear. Steve Forrest mattered more to her than any other man ever had, or ever would ... even her foolish first love for Ian. The up-and-coming Surgical Registrar at Joe’s who had gradually but firmly jilted her when she had to remain in Melcoombe indefinitely. At the time it had added bitterness to her grief for her parents; now it mattered nothing at all. She could even see Ian’s viewpoint. He had plans for specialisation and Harley Street; an S.R.N. would have been a capable helpmeet in the early days. But a fiancée who had just missed her finals, who wanted him to work in a rural cottage hospital under the National Health, was of no use at all to a man like Ian Westlake.

  He wasn’t even worth remembering. And Stewart—what she had felt for Stewart was a mixture of physical attraction and the unexpected joy of being rushed off her feet, and—she faced it candidly at last—the promise of a new life for Lisa and herself, without the lonely responsibility and the money worries.

  The love she felt for the man lying so still on the hospital bed—a man who might still slip away in the night or wake with a damaged brain—was so vastly different that she knew it would never change. Whether he loved her or not, for the rest of her life he would be her one and only love.

  She smiled a little, in spite of her aching heart; remembering what Dr. Banjo had said about Lisa and Copper—“Sometimes it happens like that ... an attraction that will not be denied—”

  And he had been right. Lisa had been terribly shocked this morning, she was genuinely concerned for Steve, but her joy over the discovery that she would be able to walk again when her legs had recovered their strength, and her confidence in Copper, had burst through her concern.

  “Tell Dr. Banjo I’ll come for the treatments, Jan—while we’re staying here. But when you go back to the Blue River with Steve, I’m going to Cairns. There’s a perfectly good hospital there if I need any more treatment. As soon as they’ve finished filming the Great Barrier Reef thing, we’re going to be married.” She’d added hurriedly, seeing Jane’s dismay, “Oh—and they’re going to destroy the film Pete made of the race this morning. They don’t want tragedy, they’re cutting the race sequence altogether, it’s not a newsreel.”

  “But you’ve only known him three days!” Jane said, when she could get a word in, “And—oh, Lisa! do you realise you’ll be able to dance again—? You—perhaps you’ll be able to do all the things you wanted—act, dance, have a career.”

  Lisa had reached up to give her sister a quick hug. “I don’t give a damn about a career any more! I’m going round the world with Copper, filming odd things—and if he ever wants a pretty girl posing in one of his old mature mysteries, he can give me a walk-on.”

  Jane responded to the hug, keeping her reservations to herself. For another six months she was still Lisa’s legal guardian. Copper would have to come and talk things over with her, before carrying Lisa off to Cairns...

  But somehow she knew that the American would get his way. He and Lisa belonged. As she belonged to Steve, and both of them belonged to the Blue River.

  The thick dark lashes stirred. Steve tried to move his head and found he couldn’t. He opened his eyes and searched the soft shadows of the room beyond the bed.

  “Jane—” he could see her, hazily. His voice was a rusty whisper. His head and his whole body felt as if it had been put through a mangle.

  “I’m here, Steve.” She took his hand in her cool, steady grasp, feeling his pulse. “Keep quite still, darling,” the endearment slipped out so naturally she was hardly aware of it. She was watching Steve’s eyes beginning to focus properly as they glanced up at the blood bottle on its drip-stand and came back to her face. Her hands might be cool and steady but her heart was thudding in her chest as she saw the recognition and sanity in his eyes.

  “Can’t do much, can I?” he croaked, “trussed up like a Christmas turkey—Banjo’s work?”

  She nodded. “You’re in the hospital and Dr. Banjo has patched you up. You’ll be as good as new in a few days if you keep still, and rest a lot.”

  He licked his lips and there was the ghost of a grin on them before he grimaced with pain. “Thought I’d bought it—when my leg cracked—too close to that bloody fence.”

  “Ssh—don’t try to talk yet, Steve. Just blink your eyes once for ‘Yes’ and twice for ‘No’. Would you like a drink?”

  He blinked once, and she put some of the iced water into the feeding-cup and held it to his lips. He drank thirstily, until she thought he’d had enough. “More later.” She touched the bell-push beside his bed once, lightly.

  With his right hand he pulled her closer, gently, and she obeyed the command in his eyes and kissed the parched cracked lips very tenderly. For the present he was a child, her child. Whether he would need her when he was up and about again she didn’t know, but her heart was overflowing with gratitude for the present.

  “Dr. Banjo will want to see you,” she said unsteadily, “he worked on you for four hours, Steve. You owe it to him to be very quiet, very obedient... just for a little while.”

  “Jane! You silly mutt—you’re crying—” he stroked her cheek with a hand that was becoming stronger moment by moment. There was a flicker of laughter in the tired grey eyes. “Do Pommie nurses—cry all over their—patients?” he croaked again, and she put a finger on his lips.

  “I’m crying because I’m happy,” she answered absurdly.

 
Dr. Banjo was very pleased when he came up a few moments later. “So—you have come back to us!”

  “What’s left of me. I feel like hell. How long do I have to be trussed up in all these gadgets?”

  “The transfusion will be finished tomorrow, I think. The head-splint two or three days, perhaps. I had to cut a hole in that thick skull of yours. The plaster on the leg should be off in about eight weeks, but you can go home before then—if you don’t start any fun and games.”

  Steve grinned feebly. “Home—with Jane?”

  The doctor grinned too, and turned to Jane. “If she wants to take it on, yes. But she should be warned—an Outback patient is no joke when he is convalescent. It will not be an easy assignment.”

  The pain-filled grey eyes searched her face, and she said quietly, “Of course I’ll go home with you, Steve, for as long as you need me.”

  “I’ll need you the hell of a long time,” he whispered, and Dr. Banjo was suddenly very busy preparing an injection. Jane bared Steve’s right arm and swabbed it with spirit.

  “This—to ease the pain. You must sleep, please, and no more talking tonight. Tomorrow you can talk—a little—with Jane and Mrs. Newbery. Later with all the others,” he talked casually while he gave the injection. Jane had never heard doctors talk so frankly with their patients, but here it seemed natural and right. These were men who liked to know the truth, and face it. “Already the transceiver is jammed with enquiries for you—I don’t know how we’re going to clear it for incoming calls. Soon there will be people blocking the entrance, flowers, letters—the very best V.I.P. treatment.”

  “Phooey!” Steve said rudely. “Keep ’em all out and leave me with Jane. Give my love to Nubby. What happened to old Ranger, Paul?”

  “He got away, the clever one. Galloped off, jumped the fence, and returned to the camp. Joel has seen to him. And now—more sleep, no?”

  “No.” Steve’s hoarse croak was stronger. “Two minutes’ talk with Jane, then I’ll sleep.”

  The doctor shrugged, smiling, “O.K., at all costs you must be kept happy. See you, Steve.”

  “See you, Paul. And thanks for the patchwork.” When he had gone Jane drew her chair closer to the bed and took his free hand in both of hers.

  There was a question in his eyes and at last he put it into words, rustily, “You coming back to the Blue River to—pay a debt—Jane?”

  “To pay a debt, and because I want to,” she said simply.

  The tired grey eyes smiled at her. His brown fingers gripped hers with surprising strength. “I’m going to need you the hell of a long time,” he croaked, and seemed a little surprised at something, “I love you—at least, all of me that’s left seems to think so.”

  “I thought it was still Alison. Or—or perhaps Lisa.”

  Steve grinned. “When I get out of this birdcage and can kiss you properly, you’ll know. Would you mind if we get old Father Michaels out to marry us at home? He married my parents at the Blue River.”

  Jane smiled at him before his eyes grew sleepy with the drug. “I’d love a wedding at the Blue River, my darling,” she said softly and distinctly.