Dear Tiberius; (aka Nurse Nolan)

by Susan Barrie

  “Y-yes,” Lucy stammered. “Dr. Wern is teaching me to ski.”

  “As to that,” Rupprecht Wern remarked, offering the other man a cigarette, “Nurse Nolan is becoming so rapidly proficient that it will soon be quite unnecessary for her to receive any tuition at all.”

  “Really?” Sir John replied, but he did not sound particularly interested. He glanced for a moment at Lucy, and then away again. “Well, it is something to know that you have not been bored. I rather feared that you might be, unless there were several other guests in the hotel. That Dr. Wern has been able to do something to prevent your feeling dull is most fortunate.”

  There was silence for a bare half second, and then Lucy—feeling suddenly strangely appalled, for this was a Sir John she had never met before, not even in those early days at Ketterings, when she had thought him hard and distant—rushed into speech.

  “Have you seen Miranda since you arrived, Sir John? How do you think she is looking? I do hope you’ll find her almost normal again. Dr. Wern is quite delighted with her.”

  “Yes, I have seen Miranda.” He studied the glowing end of his cigarette, and then absentmindedly crushed it out in an ashtray. It was only half-smoked. He produced his own cigarette case and offered it to the other two. Lucy shook her head; she had not accepted one of Dr. Wern’s. “I think she is remarkably improved, but Frau Wern thought she ought to have a little rest before lunch, and she is having one now in her room.”

  His avoidance of Lucy’s eyes as he spoke was almost marked, but it was absolutely clear to Lucy what he was thinking. He paid her an excellent salary to care of his daughter, who was still only recovering from her severe illness, and yet not only did she delegate some of her duties to Frau Wern—who presumably had her own concerns to worry about—but she spent the morning enjoying herself out of doors on skis with the surgeon who had performed the operation! She was cheating her employer, and she was carrying on something that looked like a flirtation while she had no right to be doing anything of the kind!

  A burning color rose up in her face, suffusing it from chin to brow, and she turned away from both men hurriedly. She moved toward the foot of the wide oak staircase.

  “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and have a look at her now,” she said, in a voice that did not carry very clearly, because it was all at once a trifle choked. She felt Rupprecht Wern’s eyes follow her with a certain quiet sympathy in their depths, but Sir John did not even lift his head, and he remained standing stiffly by the stove. “I don’t suppose there’s anything she needs, but in any case it’s nearly lunchtime and....”

  She broke off and set one foot on the stairs, and then she raced up them hurriedly, and they heard her moving with equal speed over the polished boards of the gallery.

  Dr. Wern turned to Sir John and studied him gravely for a few moments, and then he said quietly, “Now that you have arrived, Sir John, I imagine you’ll be staying for a few days at least? Miranda will be pleased to have you here.”

  “It was my plan to remain for a few days,” Sir John replied. And then he touched a bell on the table somewhat impatiently. “Is it too early for a drink?” he asked. “And if it isn’t, will you join me?”

  “If you’ll excuse me,” Dr. Wern said, inspecting his hands, “I must go and get cleaned up for lunch. But it most certainly isn’t too early for a drink. The bell will be answered in a moment.”

  At lunch Lucy felt as if the excellent food that was placed in front of her was liable to choke her at any moment, and she left most of it on her various plates. Sir John, who was sitting opposite her, did not appear to notice that she had an extraordinarily poor appetite for one who had recently indulged in a very healthy form of exercise, and Dr. Wern had declined an invitation to lunch at their table and was sitting at his usual table near the window. Miranda—for some reason that Lucy felt was merely another coal of fire heaped upon her head—had decided that she would prefer to have her lunch upstairs on a tray because she was just a little bit too tired to make the descent of the stairs.

  Lucy wondered whether it was because she was not yet accustomed to taking her meals with her father, and that for some reason she shrank from doing so, at least until she knew him better.

  Which, thought Lucy, feeling a sudden, hot anger rising against Sir John, was proof that his treatment of his daughter in the past had been altogether wrong, and he might yet live to regret it seriously.

  But despite her lack of appetite, and Sir John’s grim looks, the meal was not partaken of in absolute silence, for Sir John made a point of asking her certain direct questions concerning Miranda’s progress. And when it was over, to Lucy’s relief, he and Dr. Wern disappeared for a time, no doubt in order that Sir John would receive a first-hand report from the man who really knew what he was talking about. Lucy—so Lucy realized—was not in sufficient favor for her simple statements to be accepted without someone else vouching for them.

  She devoted the whole of that afternoon to Miranda, and the two of them sat on the balcony outside Miranda’s room. At tea—the English afternoon tea that was always prepared for Lucy—Sir John did not appear, and Lucy went back to Miranda, who was happily drinking fruit juice and being entertained by Lise with folk stories of the region. Lise had a fund of these folk stories, and her attractive manner of passing them on to other people—especially young people of Miranda’s age who were naturally fascinated by such stories—always made her immensely popular.

  But unhappily for Miranda her father appeared on the balcony in the very middle of one of these imaginative tales, and Lise hastily gathered up her wide skirts and made room for him beside his daughter, afterward disappearing into the house. Lucy, who was standing by the balcony rail, also turned and walked quietly into the bedroom behind her, and Miranda was left alone with Sir John.

  When Lucy later assisted her to bed she bewailed the fact that Lise’s story had been interrupted, and she was inclined to feel resentful because Lucy had left her alone. Apparently Sir John, in one of his less approachable humors, had not even thawed in the presence of his daughter, and Miranda was by no means uplifted by the prospect of having her father with her for several days.

  In fact, she made a face when Lucy told her that he would be staying at the hotel, and once again Lucy was more than a little shocked, because she felt this was a very unfair attitude toward the man who paid her own salary.

  “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”

  The words passed through her mind, and she knew that in a way they were applicable. But it did occur to her to wonder whether, if there had been no Lynette Harling in the case, Miranda might have felt more drawn toward her father. For at least she would have known then that she would not almost immediately be sharing him with someone, just when they could have got to know one another a great deal better than they had ever known one another in the past.

  And if Sir John had to marry again—well, if he had chosen someone for whom Miranda could feel affection ...!

  But Sir John’s marriage to anyone just then was a painful subject to Lucy, and she put it right out of her mind. She knew she could not bear to dwell upon it. But she did not find it so easy to induce Sir John to drop this new, freezing manner toward her whenever they met. She was bewildered by it and she was also hurt to the very core of her being.

  She could think of nothing—nothing that she had done that could justify this cold, censorious attitude, and the bleak hostility in his gray eyes whenever they looked at her.

  At dinner that night he treated her in the same fashion as he had treated her at lunchtime, and although she wore the red dress—why she put it on instead of any other she did not quite know—it did not apparently recall for him another evening when they had been on very good terms together.

  She saw his eyes flicker over her when she descended the stairs to the lounge before dinner, but his greeting was curtly formal. Even to Dr. Wern he was not quite the same. But Dr. Wern, apparently, was impervious to this fo
rm of treatment, and he was exactly as he always was, except that he was even more noticeably attentive to Lucy, and made efforts to include her in the conversation that took place before dinner and during dinner, when he accepted an invitation to dine at their table.

  Lucy went to bed that night feeling utterly dejected, and without any ray of hope for the future. She felt that something had gone badly wrong with her world—something worse even than the news that Sir John was about to be married! That she could have borne, because nothing could alter it—but this unfair and almost brutal detachment—this air of silently condemning her for something she knew nothing about made her want to weep.

  She did weep when she got into bed at last, because Sir John’s last words before he said good night were, “Tomorrow we will have to talk, Nurse Nolan—” his voice still seemed to hold the drip of ice “—a talk about the future! Especially Miranda’s future ...!”

  “Especially Miranda’s future!

  Was he proposing to tell her that after thinking the matter over he had come to the conclusion that it was unnecessary to retain her as a companion-nurse for Miranda any longer? Or perhaps he had decided that Miranda was not making the kind of progress he expected under her, Lucy’s, care, and that it might be advisable if she was placed in other hands...? Or perhaps Lynette Harling was going to join them on that round-the-world cruise, and she, certainly, would wish to dispense with the services of Lucy Nolan!

  She put out her light and lay down under her enormous feather eiderdown, and the whole house seemed very still and quiet, with that white wilderness of snow outside, and the great guardian mountains brooding above them. Lucy felt suddenly forlorn and alone. She was not really alone, she knew, or she need not be—not while Rupprecht Wern’s eyes told her every time she looked full into them that if she would only give him just one sign her whole future would be taken care of!

  For one instant she dallied with the idea. What a wonderful thing it would be to be taken care of by Dr. Wern—what absolute security! The two of them sharing the same interests, having the same attitude toward their fellow human beings—or very nearly the same. Lucy could never do as much—not a tithe as much—for them as Dr. Wern could. But in her heart she knew that it would have given her immeasurable satisfaction if she could. She would have felt that life could be really worthwhile under those circumstances. Even marriage to Dr. Wern.... But she turned her face into her pillow and shut out the thought of marriage to anyone. She was not in love with Rupprecht Wern—she was in love with someone else! That someone else was not in love with her!

  The thought of the cold snow outside made her shiver even underneath her warm eiderdown.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The next day Sir John did not seek her out for the talk he had indicated the night before he would like to have with her. Instead, even before she came downstairs to breakfast he had gone out into the white and gold of the brilliant new day with a pair of skis—she discovered later that he was an expert skier—that he had borrowed from Dr. Wern, and did not return until lunch was very nearly over. Then, after lunch, he disappeared again, and it was not until evening that Lucy came face to face with him again at the dinner table.

  All day she had remained rigidly glued to Miranda’s side—determined to provide him with no excuse for rebuking her, even if it was only by a look, for neglecting her duties. And in the evening she expected that he would at last seize the opportunity to give her an outline of his future plans.

  She was tense and prepared to hear almost anything, but instead Sir John unearthed a book that must have appealed to him, for he never lifted his head from it until Lucy rose from her chair to say good-night. Then he looked at her briefly, said good night curtly, and returned to his reading.

  The next day followed almost exactly the same pattern, save that Sir John did not return for lunch, and Lise stated that she had provided him with sandwiches and a flask of coffee. Dr. Wern also went off on his own after Lucy had made it clear that she was no longer in any sort of a holiday mood, and although he gave her rather a thoughtful and searching scrutiny before he went, she did not even notice it. She had felt numb and unnoticing since Sir John’s arrival.

  Both men were in the lounge, scrupulously scrubbed and meticulously attired for the evening, when she went down to dinner. It struck her at once how bronzed and fit each of them looked—Sir John, who was normally a trifle pale, had obviously benefited by his day in the sun, and beneath the sleek dark line of his hair his lean face was burnt to the hue of mahogany. In it his gray eyes looked hard and observant, following Lucy’s slight form as Dr. Wern pulled forward a chair for her, and she sank into it and gratefully accepted the aperitif that he put into her hand.

  Perhaps it was because, by contrast with the other two, she looked tonight remarkably fair-skinned, and with the merest suggestion of a line of shadow under each of her eyes resulting from two almost sleepless nights, that the air of delicacy that normally clung to her was accentuated, and made even more of by a cloudy dark evening dress. And having followed her to her chair, and watched her sipping almost nervously at her drink. Sir John’s keen eyes continued to observe her every movement. Looking up at him suddenly, she thought that by some miraculous process the expression on his face had softened, and there was even a look of uncertainty in his eyes.

  Her heart leaped wildly under the filmy material of her dress, and all at once her lower lip quivered, and she took a hasty gulp at her drink.

  Sir John said quietly, “You haven’t been getting much exercise the last few days. Nurse Nolan. Miranda tells me you spent practically all today on her balcony.”

  “But at least I’ve been getting the air,” she said, forcing herself to smile brightly.

  “Well, the air up here is undoubtedly wonderful, but a certain amount of exercise is essential. Perhaps tomorrow you’ll let me see how well you’ve learned to ski?”

  This was so astonishing that Lucy could only stare at him a moment, and then she said awkwardly, “I’m not by any means an expert yet.”

  Dr. Wern said smoothly, “Sir John will be the one to decide whether you are or not when he’s witnessed your performance. You’d better go out together tomorrow, and perhaps you might even get as far as the chalet we did not quite reach the other day.”

  Sir John looked at him, his expression more unrevealing. “Which chalet is that? The one they tell me is to let furnished in the summer months? If so, I’d rather like to inspect it.”

  “Then I’ll provide you with the key,” Dr. Wern said. “It happens to belong to me.”

  “Does it?” But Sir John did not suggest he go along, too—although somehow Lucy felt certain the doctor would have refused if he had. “In that case I’ll ask you for it in the morning. At least—” looking across at Lucy “—I will if the idea doesn’t bore you?”

  “It doesn’t bore me in the slightest,” she replied, subduing a faint inclination of her voice to tremble because the very thought of such an expedition in his company was enough to make her feel temporarily light-headed.

  In the morning they set off almost directly after breakfast. Sir John had a knapsack strapped to his back containing a picnic lunch that Lise had put up for them, and Miranda watched their departure from her balcony, waving her hand to them enthusiastically until they were out of sight.. Then she prepared herself for the sort of morning she enjoyed—a morning of carefree atmosphere of Frau Wern’s kitchen, with Frau Wern and Gretel and Lise all combining to spoil her, and the smell of baking that she enjoyed, and the stories from Lise.

  Lucy was wearing a scarlet cap this morning, a scarlet pullover, and her dark blue trousers tucked into stout ski boots. She looked absurdly young, but not nearly as eager as she felt as they started the upward climb, with the sun falling so strongly around them from a sky like an inverted blue bowl, that the glare was already tremendous in spite of sunglasses.

  Lucy was glad of her sunglasses when Sir John paused occasionally to look down at her, and his
eyes seemed to linger on her. At least he could not tell what she was thinking and feeling, protected by that welcome screen.

  He looked surprisingly fit and vigorous himself, in white wool sweater and black trousers. He was hatless, and his black hair shimmered in the sunshine.

  They toiled on, up and ever up, taking a zigzag course around a jutting shoulder of mountain, with the valley falling away below them. Every particle of snow stood out crisply, blazing occasionally with a kind of startling blue fire, and the shadow of every little clump of pine-trees was inky blue upon the snow. Lucy looked back to see the last of the curving roofs of the Hotel Arlberg before they were hidden from her sight, and she wondered whether Dr. Wern had witnessed their departure and how he proposed to spend his day.

  Shortly before lunchtime they sat down to rest in the heart of a little wood where the sunlight barely reached them, and where it was sweet and cool and silent. The whole of the valley lay below them with its frozen river and the cascades that fed it, and above them soared snow-capped giants while across the valley there stretched tier after tier of lesser mountains. But in the heart of the little wood they could see none of these things, for they were ringed around by the slim, straight trunks that soared into the brazen sky, and Lucy looked up at them without removing her glasses, and sighed because of the sudden heavenly coolness.

  “How much farther, do you think?” she asked, because Sir John said nothing.

  “Why? Are you tired?”