The Nurse Novel

by Alice Brennan

  He plunged down the steps and to his ancient, battered car, driving off with an angry roar and a spattering of gravel and sticks from the overgrown drive.

  Lindsay watched him go. Then she braced herself and went back to Miss Jennifer, who lay among her pillows.

  “Suppose you think I’m a hellion not to let myself go on being robbed by that fat lummox,” she growled at Lindsay.

  “I wouldn’t dare think anything, Aunt Jennifer, without your consent,” Lindsay drawled.

  “Well, that’s just as well. You’ve been away from here so long you don’t know one tarnation thing about what goes on here. This is my place, and I’m the one to decide what happens here,” Miss Jennifer assured her.

  “How right you are, Aunt Jennifer,” Lindsay said as pleasantly as she could. “Now don’t you think you’d better have your nap?”

  “Why? What are you going to do while I’m napping?”

  “Nothing in particular, unless there’s something you’d like me to do for you.”

  Miss Jennifer studied her for a long moment, and Lindsay waited for whatever the old woman might take it into her head to say.

  “Well, I don’t know as there’s anything you can do for me,” said Miss Jennifer with obvious reluctance.

  “Then I’ll put the bell right here and go out on the verandah. If you want me, all you have to do is ring,” Lindsay told her, and the old woman nodded.

  Accepting that as a dismissal Lindsay went back to her own room, picked up a book she had brought with her and went back to the verandah and the old swing. But the book lay neglected in her lap while she sat in deep thought that was far from happy.

  She heard the sound of the old car long before it managed its way up the drive. She knew the moment she heard it that it was not Dr. Corbett’s car or Dr. Potter’s jeep, and she waited curiously for it to round the curve in the drive so she could identify it.

  It came into sight, a stripped-down remnant of a car that staggered a little as it approached, but persisted valiantly until it came to a shuddering halt near the house, and two men got out and came toward the verandah.

  Lindsay recognized the almost spectacularly good-looking Jay Hutchens, but the man with him was a stranger. Shorter by a few inches than Jay, and dressed in sports jacket and slacks, he was obviously a “city feller.”

  “Well, hi, Lin,” Jay greeted Lindsay from the bottom step. “Like you to meet a friend of mine, Alden Mayhew. Miss Mallory, Alden.”

  The freckled, earnest face of Alden Mayhew wore a frankly astonished look as he stared at Lindsay with startled, blue-gray eyes.

  “Oh, but surely you can’t be Miss Mallory!” he protested as though the words had been forced from him by his incredulity.

  “Oh, not the old gal!” Jay grinned. “This is Miss Lindsay Mallory, Miss Jennifer’s niece.”

  Alden Mayhew looked enormously relieved and grinned at Lindsay boyishly.

  “Well, that’s a relief,” he admitted frankly.

  Lindsay’s eyes twinkled, but she only said demurely, “Why, thank you, Mr. Mayhew—I think…”

  Jay spoke before Alden could. “Alden’s here in the Bayou to write some articles about interesting people here,” he reported, and stuck out his broad chest happily. “First one is about me and ’gator hunting. But I’ve told him that’s just one of many good stories he can pick up if he stays here long enough.”

  Alden was watching Lindsay with lively appreciation, and Lindsay asked politely, “Oh, and are you staying long, Mr. Mayhew?”

  “Well, now that depends a whole lot on your aunt, Miss Mallory,” he answered.

  Lindsay’s brows went up slightly.

  “You mean you want to write a story about my aunt?”

  “Well, maybe eventually,” he answered cautiously. “But what I really came for is quite different. Jay and some of the people in the Village felt perhaps I might be able to find room and board here, since the Village doesn’t have either a hotel or a motel, and none of the houses are large enough to take paying guests, and I’ll have to find some place to stay while I’m working.”

  The words came swiftly, as though he were anxious to get them said before she could stop him.

  Lindsay stared at him in shocked surprise.

  “Oh, but, Mr. Mayhew, I hardly think Aunt Jennifer would be willing to accept a boarder,” she protested.

  “Not even one that will pay well, because I’m on an expense account with a boss who doesn’t ask too many questions?” Alden asked anxiously. “And one that’s guaranteed housebroken and promises to be no trouble whatever and will eat just about anything that doesn’t fight back? Be a pal, Miss Mallory! A fellow’s got to eat and have a place to sleep!” he pleaded.

  Lindsay said quickly, “It’s not for me to say, Mr. Mayhew. I’m only here temporarily, until my aunt’s housekeeper gets back from the hospital. But I feel pretty sure she wouldn’t even listen to you. She might even be insulted.”

  Jay drawled, “The old witch insulted because somebody offers her money? Oh, come on, Lin!”

  Alden was watching Lindsay anxiously.

  “Couldn’t I at least talk to her, Miss Mallory? I am supposed to be a fairly persuasive guy when there’s something I very much want. And I’d like nothing better than to make this my headquarters while I get my work done. It probably won’t take more than two or three weeks, and I’ll be out of the house all day, so I won’t be underfoot or a bother.”

  There was the sudden clamor of the bell, and Lindsay said, “Aunt Jennifer is awake. I’ll go and see if she’ll let you come in and try your powers of persuasion on her. But I can’t promise much.”

  “All I ask is a chance to talk to the lady,” Alden insisted. Lindsay nodded and went into the house.

  Miss Jennifer demanded, “Who’s that out there? Corbett back?”

  “No, Aunt Jennifer. It’s a Mr. Alden Mayhew, who is a writer doing some articles about the Bayou and who would like to live here while he is writing them.”

  Miss Jennifer stared at her.

  “What does he think this place is—a boarding-house?” she demanded furiously.

  “I told him you wouldn’t even consider it, even if he does insist he’ll pay very well and be no trouble.” Lindsay turned toward the door.

  Miss Jennifer stared at her.

  “So he offers to pay, does he?” she mused.

  Lindsay looked at her in astonishment.

  “Well, of course he does, Aunt Jennifer. You don’t think he is just a wayfaring stranger begging shelter for the night?”

  “How would I know what he is or who he is, since I haven’t even seen him?” snapped the old woman. “Bring him in and let me talk to him.”

  Lindsay nodded and went back to the verandah.

  “Aunt Jennifer will see you, Mr. Mayhew.” She smiled and made a gesture that invited him inside.

  Jay grinned at her and winked. “Told you she would,” he reminded both Alden and Lindsay.

  Lindsay took Alden to Miss Jennifer’s door and announced him.

  “Come in, Mr. Mayhew.” Lindsay’s eyes widened at the graciousness in Miss Jennifer’s voice. “You needn’t stay, Lindsay. I’m sure Mr. Mayhew and I can discuss this alone.”

  Alden held the door open for Lindsay and, his back to Miss Jennifer, grinned at Lindsay and winked, as she left the room and he closed the door behind her.

  Jay was lounging on the steps when Lindsay went back to the verandah. He looked up at her, his darkly handsome face split by a white-tooth grin, his eyes boldly admiring.

  “That’s quite a guy in there, Lin,” he told her. “He’s been around the Village several days, and the gals are all excited about him.”

  Something in Jay’s brashness offended Lindsay, and she said a trifle stiffly, “I can’t see why they should be. He seems a nice young man, but s
urely nothing spectacular.”

  Jay grinned at her.

  “I’m sure glad you feel that way about him,” he responded with a heavy emphasis on the pronoun that Lindsay dared not neglect.

  “Why should it matter to you how I feel about him or any other man, Jay?” she demanded, and there was frost in her voice.

  His voice was pitched to an intimate murmur, and Lindsay was conscious of the sheer animal magnetism of his good looks.

  “Oh, you and I used to be pretty good friends when we were kids, and I was hoping we could improve on that now that you’re back and we’re both grown up,” he told her deliberately, his eyes clinging to hers with a force that she could not for the moment resist. “You were a cute kid, and you’ve grown up into a beauty. And I don’t want you to think that because I’ve stayed here at the Bayou, I’m just a backwoods hick that wouldn’t know how to treat a lady like you. I’ve been places. I could show you a mighty good time, Lin.”

  Lindsay stared at him, shocked and affronted.

  “Oh, sure.” He grinned that tantalizing grin that added to his good looks and his animal magnetism. “I’m not a fancy guy like Doc Corbett and some of those doctors and folks you meet at the hospital. But I’m not a swamp bully, either.”

  “I’m sure you’re not, Jay,” Lindsay managed faintly, startled and bewildered.

  “Then how about it? How about a date?” suggested Jay eagerly.

  Lindsay said quickly, “I’m on duty here, Jay. I’m not free to go out on dates.”

  Jay’s handsome face darkened.

  “Except with fancy guys like Doc Corbett, huh?”

  “That was a job for Aunt Jennifer, to check on what was going on at the Tavern.” Lindsay hated herself for offering the explanation.

  Jay grinned wolfishly.

  “Then we could have a date and check up on some more of her business enterprises, couldn’t we?” he suggested.

  Lindsay made a flying clutch at her composure and asked gently, “I’m wondering what your girlfriend would say to that.”

  Jay chuckled, the chuckle of a man quite aware of his good looks and his appeal to women.

  “Which girlfriend?” he drawled. “There’s several of ’em.”

  “I’m sure there are,” Lindsay answered stiffly. “It was Posy I had in mind, though. She’s a lovely girl.” Jay’s grin made her feel hot and uncomfortable.

  “Oh, sure, Posy’s quite a gal. Her man’s out with the shrimp boats, and he’ll be home soon, and then they are going to get themselves married. That is, if she can convince him she’s been behaving herself while he’s been gone.”

  Lindsay heard footsteps in the hall and turned with acute relief as Alden came out of the house, his boyishly beaming, freckled face telling her even before he spoke that his interview with Miss Jennifer had been satisfactory.

  “I’m to have the room at the top of the stairs as soon as it can be made ready for me, and she thinks I can count on moving in tomorrow morning,” he announced smugly.

  Lindsay stared at him.

  “You mean she accepted you as a boarder?”

  “Well, of course.” Alden seemed all but indecently proud of himself. “I told you I could be a very persuasive guy, given a chance.”

  “So you did,” Lindsay agreed, and studied him curiously.

  Alden asked anxiously, “Are you going to mind very much having me here, Lindsay? I refuse to go on calling you Miss Mallory, now that I’ve met the real Miss Mallory. I promise not to be a nuisance or get into your hair or be underfoot. I’ll be out all day except when I’m up in my room writing! I promise!”

  Lindsay made a small gesture that indicated her helplessness.

  “It’s Aunt Jennifer’s house, and if she says you may stay, then I have no right to say you can’t. It’s just that I’m surprised, that’s all.”

  Alden studied her, his blue-gray eyes worried, his head with its thick sandy hair a little on one side.

  “But if you would rather I didn’t stay, Lindsay, I won’t,” he told her quietly.

  “Oh, stay, of course, if you want to so much,” Lindsay yielded. “I probably won’t be here more than a few weeks, since my aunt’s housekeeper is getting along so well at the hospital.”

  “Two or three weeks should get me all the material I need for my articles, and then I’ll be out of your way,” Alden promised her.

  “Just one thing, old man!” Jay’s voice was unexpectedly harsh, his dark eyes sullen. “Don’t forget that Lin is my girl.”

  “Jay, how dare you say that!” Lindsay flashed out at him hotly.

  Jay studied her coolly, deliberately exerting all his not inconsiderable charm.

  “Oh, maybe not now, but you’re sure going to be one of these days,” he drawled, and turned toward the car. “We’d better get going, Alden, if you intend to get back to the mainland for your car and your duds. See you later, Lin honey.”

  Alden hesitated as Jay lounged toward the car. He looked down at Lindsay’s outraged face and at her eyes, that blazed with anger at Jay’s words.

  “Shall I clobber him for you?” he asked softly.

  “I may ask you to do just that before long,” she answered.

  “Anytime at all, Lindsay. It would be a real pleasure,” Alden answered her, even as Jay called impatiently from the car, “See you tomorrow, Lindsay.”

  Lindsay stood on the verandah steps, drawn to her full height, anger at Jay’s outrageousness seething through her, as the car struggled down the drive and out of sight.

  Finally she heard her aunt’s bell and went into the house to answer it.

  Miss Jennifer was lying against her pillows, a smug look about her mouth, avarice shining in her shrewd old eyes.

  “Well, Lindsay, seems we are going to have a boarder,” she announced unnecessarily.

  “Yes, so he told me. I’d better get Lucy-Mae and Jasper to get his room ready for him, hadn’t I?” Lindsay said with professional cheerfulness.

  Miss Jennifer cocked an eye at her, and a small smile touched the trap-like mouth.

  “Well, don’t spoil him,” she warned. “The bed up there in the room at the head of the stairs is fairly comfortable, and it will have to be aired. Hasn’t been used in years; suppose it will have to be swept and dusted, too, though can’t see there’s much reason to do a whole lot of cleaning. Men never notice whether a place is clean or not.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Lindsay protested. “Alden Mayhew seems like a man who would expect decent living quarters.”

  “Then what’s he doing here at the Bayou? Answer me that!”

  “How should I know? He says he’s writing some articles.”

  “And you believe that?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Then why are you taking him in?”

  “You know of an easier way to make fifty dollars a week?”

  Lindsay stared at her, shocked.

  “Aunt Jennifer, you’re not charging him fifty dollars a week?”

  “Why not? He offered it. I’d have been a fool not to take it.” Lindsay stood silent for a long moment, and Miss Jennifer’s face hardened and her eyes became dark marbles.

  “It’s none of your business, girl,” she snapped. “He said he wanted to stay here. I told him he couldn’t because this wasn’t a boarding house; and then he said it would be worth fifty dollars a week to him to stay here for two or three weeks. And I said if it was that important to him, he could stay. And he gave me a week’s board money in advance. So now go get his room ready, and put that lazy, worthless Lucy-Mae to work planning some decent food for him. Men always want to eat hearty, and I reckon we can feed him as well as anybody at the Village could.”

  Lindsay knew it would be a waste of breath to argue with the old woman and,
as Miss Jennifer had pointed out, it was really none of her business. If Alden Mayhew had made the offer, then he must surely know what he was doing.

  As she turned toward the door, Miss Jennifer said thoughtfully, “I’d certainly like to know what possessed him to want to stay here.”

  And Lindsay could not keep from saying, “I can’t imagine what would possess anybody to want to stay here!” She escaped before Miss Jennifer could manage an answer.

  Lucy-Mae looked up from the ironing board as Lindsay explained that they would have to prepare a room for a stranger.

  “You mean us goin’ to take in a boarder?” Lucy-Mae gasped. “At Bayou House? Miss Lindsay, you’re surely funnin’. Who’d want to stay here?”

  “I know what you mean, Lucy-Mae,” Lindsay told her grimly. “But this man says he’s writing some stories about the swamp and the wild things here. There isn’t a hotel or a rooming house in the Village, and it takes too much time to go back and forth to the mainland. Aunt Jennifer says he can have the room at the top of the stairs, and we have to get it ready for him today, because he will be here tomorrow.”

  Lucy-Mae put down the iron and stood for a moment in thought. And then she grinned, a flash of white teeth in her dark face, and said, “Be kinda nice, Miss Lindsay, havin’ a man around the place for you to talk to, won’t it?”

  Lindsay smiled. “Never mind the match-making, Lucy-Mae. I’ll be going back to the hospital before long.”

  “Yessum, and I bet you won’t be sorry, neither,” Lucy-Mae answered.

  “You are so right, Lucy-Mae!”

  As Lucy-Mae followed Lindsay up the stairs, she said softly, “If Gran-Amalie finds out ’bout this, she’ll get right up out of bed, busted hip and all, and come right straight back home! Ain’t nobody there can stop her!”

  “Oh, I think they will, Lucy-Mae!” Lindsay smiled at her. “You’d be surprised how doctors and nurses can keep patients from walking out on them, especially when they’re in Amalie’s condition.”

  Chapter Six

  Alden looked about the big room and beamed happily at Lindsay, who was waiting anxiously for his verdict.