Nurse Errant

by Lucilla Andrews

  Donald came out to my car with me. ‘If you’ve no objection, Nurse, me and the missus would like the youngster to have your name. Only we’ll change the “y” to an “i”, seeing he’s a lad.’ He pumped my hand. ‘We’re real grateful ‒ me and the missus.’

  The birds were singing their dawn chorus when I got to bed. I listened to them, too tired for immediate sleep, thinking over the hectic rush of the last few days, those black moments before the baby cried, and Paddy. I suddenly realised I was going to see him in a few hours. I fell asleep smiling. When I woke the sun was on my face.

  I had to get up early to let Janet Elseworth know about Mrs Croxley. She was relieving my day off as usual; we had had our routine handing-over telephone-call before Donald called me out.

  ‘’Streuth, Lesley! You have had ’em. Poor old girl. All well?’

  ‘Eventually. At one point I was sure I’d need an oxygen tent.’ I gave her the details. ‘Enjoy my district.’

  I made breakfast, took it back to bed. For once there was no hurry. Either the habit of hurrying was too strongly engrained, or I was too emotionally restless to slow down. I raced through the meal, household chores, turned out two perfectly tidy cupboards without feeling at all calmed. I was starting on a third cupboard when someone knocked on our front door.

  ‘Mr Gerrard? Hallo. Won’t you come in?’

  ‘If you don’t object to my stocking feet ‒ thanks, I will.’ Dick Gerrard stepped out of his wellingtons on the path and followed me in. ‘I was passing, so I thought I’d call in to say how sorry I am this evening has been scrapped. I suppose,’ he added casually, ‘you’ve heard from Paddy?’

  I looked at him quickly, returned his polite smile. There was something that felt like lead in my stomach. ‘No. He may have tried to contact me yesterday. I was out pretty consistently until just before dawn.’

  ‘He said he had tried to reach you when he rang me last evening. He’ll probably contact you later to-day.’ He offered me a cigarette. ‘Just as well I did drop in.’

  ‘Yes, indeed.’ My smile felt hideously bright. ‘Would you like some coffee?’

  He said he would love some if I did not mind him taking it rather quickly. ‘I’ve a sick heifer. That is actually why I’m here. No ‒ not to ask your professional advice ‒ but to explain Daisy’s probably going to keep me sitting by her all night. But for her, I’d have liked to ask you to come along with me this evening.’

  I was grateful for his good manners. ‘What ails Daisy?’

  ‘She’s calving for the first time and overdue. She’s very restless this morning. My stockman thinks she’ll come off sometime in the next twenty-four hours.’

  He came into the kitchen while I made the coffee, drank his leaning against the kitchen table. I said, ‘What with my sister dropping on her head, your sister dropping out ‒ then Paddy ‒ and you ‒ I feel like the last woman standing.’

  He had not heard of Ann’s accident.

  ‘That was rough. Going on well? Good.’ His smile really was delightful. I tried to enjoy it. I did not succeed. ‘My sister could be said to be going on well also, in a different context. She’s living it up showing her future Yank in-laws the sights of London and staying at their expense at the classiest hotel in town.’

  I choked over my coffee. ‘In-laws?’

  He laughed. ‘I see you haven’t been out this morning. The village is a-buzz with this latest local-girl-makes-good tale. Angela’s intended is the only son of Ellis B. Jefferson. Know whom I mean?’

  ‘Biscuits?’ I asked weakly.

  ‘That’s him. Biscuit king in the States. But what has pleased my aged parents more ‒ Paddy says Ellis Junior is a decent man. Paddy’s no mean judge.’

  This was something else I had to take in slow stages. ‘Your parents don’t know him?’

  ‘Not yet. My mum actually had a letter from Angie this morning. She’s bringing Ellis Junior home this weekend. And I’m almost thankful for poor Daisy’s interesting condition. By God, the cleaning that’s going on at home this morning!’

  I sympathised with him. ‘Has Angela known him long?’

  ‘Paddy introduced them some months ago. His firm designed one of old man Jefferson’s English factories. I expect you’ve gathered Paddy and his brother are roughly members of the Gerrard family?’

  ‘Roughly.’

  ‘Paddy particularly. My mum has an especially soft spot for him because he once saved my life.’ He set down his cup. ‘Which reminds me, shouldn’t you and I say snap?’

  I seemed unable to do more than echo him. ‘Snap?’

  He nodded. ‘Once, way back, he and I were out on a party, and like mugs decided to walk home in a mist. We landed on the Stepping Stones, and just to complicate matters I got my foot in a hole and busted my ankle. He heaved me on his back and lugged me to that old net-house down there. We were there all night. Didn’t something much the same happen to you in our last blanket-out?’

  ‘Just like that.’

  He shook my hand warmly, said one of these fine days we must do something towards founding a Net-house Rescuees’ Society, apologised again for being tied up with Daisy, and departed to his boots and car.

  I could not do anything after he had gone. I sat by the kitchen fire thinking over all he had said.

  I did not have much time for thought. Heavy footsteps came round our cottage, someone banged on the back door.

  ‘If that’s you, Tom,’ I called, ‘no bread to-day, thanks.’

  ‘It’s not the bread, Nurse. It’s me. Dan Twist.’

  Dan was the postmistress’s son. He held out a letter directly I opened the door. ‘It come Express for you, Nurse. Mum asked me to fetch it round, sharpish.’

  ‘Thanks, Dan. And your mum.’ I did not recognise the handwriting on the envelope. The postmark was London. I was sure it was from Paddy. I held the envelope as if it was hot.

  Chapter Ten

  NO VISITORS BY REQUEST

  It was from Paddy.

  I have to write to you, angel. It seems I must eat the fine words I used the other evening. As, with good cause, you may think I was just opening my big mouth too wide once again, I will give you the set-up, straight.

  I stopped reading momentarily. He wrote so exactly as he talked, he could have been standing by me. I read on:

  Blake’s pal, a decent man, has kept me incarcerated. He says he wants me under observation for a few days, and may have a go at my eyes on Friday. (Between ourselves, darling, I now know how the birds feel about all those bird-watchers.) To regress. I have tried to persuade this man Evershed-Browne to allow me time off to dance with you tomorrow night. To my great regret, he wasn’t having any. As he is the only man prepared to take a chance among the many who have peered down their ophthalmoscopes at me this past year, I know you will forgive my giving in.

  I would be obliged if you would keep this to Michael and yourself. I have spoken to him, also Aunt Mary. She thinks I am staying with friends for a longish spell. Not far short of truth. This is a pleasant establishment, and I see no reason to worry her unnecessarily.

  I rang Dick Gerrard as well, with a line about a new boss being tough. He was too concerned by the ante-natal problems of his cherished Daisy, one heifer, to ask which boss. It seems he too was going to have to back out of our party. Too bad for him and Daisy. Not for me. It would have been a rare pleasure to have had you to myself for one evening. (No, I have not forgotten our net-house. Maybe we could have found another?)

  Lastly, I have spent most of this day trying to contact you. Angel, you are still inaccessible to me. I hope this reaches you in time. I more than dislike walking out on our date and you. You will understand my lack of alternative, and, inter alia, initiative. You have a talent for understanding, so there is no need for me to write more, my love. You must know that too.

  PADDY

  I re-read that last paragraph until the letters grew blurred. I was suddenly wildly, incredibly, happy. Then I remembered tomorrow
was Friday. I sat on the kitchen table, read the whole letter again. That time I noticed what he had left out.

  There was no address, just a date. He did not mention wanting to see me again. His letter was clearly not meant to be answered.

  For a few moments I was too dazed for coherent thought. Then I knew what to do. I rang Mike.

  Mrs Grimmond answered. ‘My dear, he’s spending the morning buried among textbooks in my husband’s study. I did promise not to disturb him, and it is his day off. Is it very important?’

  I said, ‘Very.’

  A few minutes later Mike answered curtly, ‘Well, Lesley?’

  ‘Sorry to interrupt your book-flogging, but I must see you. Can you come round?’

  ‘Now? Something wrong? Not Ann?’

  ‘Not Ann. Still wrong.’ I hesitated to say more, knowing my old pals on the local exchange.

  ‘All right, if I must?’

  ‘You must,’ I said, and rang off.

  He arrived in a quarter of an hour. It seemed a quarter of a century.

  ‘What’s on your mind, Lesley?’

  I told the truth, if not all the truth.

  ‘If you want to see him before his op it’ll have to be to-day.’ He produced cigarettes, chose one carefully. ‘You realise that?’

  ‘Of course I do. That’s why I had to get hold of you. Who is this Evershed-Browne? Where does he work?’

  He watched me over the flame of his match. ‘Not sure I can answer that.’

  ‘You don’t know, either? Man, use my phone and find out. Hilton Blake’ll tell you.’

  ‘No.’ He wandered round the room looking for an ashtray though there was one beside him originally. ‘I don’t think I should.’

  ‘Then I’ll get his number from Directory Enquiries. He must have a secretary. Maybe she’ll tell me.’

  He shook his head. ‘Paddy wouldn’t want that.’

  I caught on. ‘He asked you to keep dark on this too?’

  ‘Yes.’ He faced me. ‘I’m sorry ‒ no ‒ let me finish. I can understand how you feel ‒ I feel the same. The poor chap’s having a tough time. He knows the odds against this op succeeding, and the alternative. Who wouldn’t feel sorry for him at a time like this? But pity is the last thing he wants. The very last.’

  ‘I understand that ‒’

  ‘You can’t!’ He answered as irately as I had spoken. ‘Or you wouldn’t suggest busting through his defences now. Stop being a moron, Lesley ‒ and shed those ministering-angel instincts for once! Paddy’s in a black spot, but the kindest thing any friend can do for him now is to stand back and let him work things out for himself. God knows he’s got enough on his plate.’ He stubbed out his barely smoked cigarette. ‘I can see his point. In his case, I’d want to be left alone.’

  ‘You’d want Ann to stand back?’

  He said, ‘If I had been in his set-up that question wouldn’t arise. There’s nothing romantic about blindness, Lesley. No man with any guts would ask a girl to involve herself in it.’

  I sat in the red-plush chair, clutched the claw arms. ‘He’d just announce he wasn’t one of the marrying kind.’

  ‘One way of putting it.’

  ‘Paddy’s.’

  His expression tightened. ‘So you guessed about him too? Good for you.’ He did not sound as if he thought anything good. ‘I’ve had the notion you had some crazy idea he was taken with that impossible Angela Gerrard. What made you see the light? Her engagement to this well-heeled Yank?’

  I was pretty sure of my ground now. I had to be quite sure. As Paddy was not going to tell me, I had to get it from Mike. ‘How long have you known it was me?’

  ‘Long as I’ve known him. You hit hard.’ He smiled grimly. ‘You’re a good actress, Lesley.’

  ‘No.’ I let it go at that. ‘Mike, stop prevaricating‒’

  ‘My dear, you know that’s out of the question.’

  I suddenly snapped. ‘Don’t be so damned manly! I’ll see him to-day whether you help me or not, but you’ll save me a lot of time. Hilton Blake won’t give away a thing to me as I’m not a relative, or directly connected with his case, but he’ll talk to you. All the same, the medical world isn’t a closed shop to nurses. I’ve a few strings, and I’ll pull the lot. I’ve a reason for that.’ I shed my remaining inhibitions and told him all I had previously left unsaid. ‘Now, before you give me any blurb about it being a woman’s place to wait and weep, you had better accept the fact I’m not the waiting and weeping type. I love that man, and I want him to know it to-day. I’m not standing back, and that’s flat. I’m not going to let him always have a nagging doubt at the back of his mind because I waited to see what the score was.’

  ‘He’ll kill me for this.’

  I smiled. I had won. ‘Where?’

  The private ophthalmic ward at Hilary’s.’

  I jumped up. ‘Our Hilary’s?’

  ‘Is there another?’

  ‘Then why,’ I demanded, ‘don’t I know this Evershed-Browne?’

  ‘You do. As Joe E. Remember? In my year?’

  The memory of a very fair, very slight young man, with a smooth boy’s face rose to the surface of my mind. ‘Little Joe E.? A pundit?’ I was so intrigued, briefly I even forgot Paddy. ‘Mike, when did he make the staff? No one told me.’

  ‘He’s only been on six months. That’s when he added the Evershed with the hyphen. He spent years specialising.’ He named the most famous eye hospital in England. ‘Joe E. always was a bright little lad. They say he’s going up and up. He’s got guts as a surgeon and doesn’t let his statistics hold him back. Of course, he is relatively a new boy, which, for my guess, is why Hilton Blake took his time to call him in. Still, Blake’s been exceedingly decent. In his view, surgery can’t help Paddy. But in fairness to Paddy, he’s insisted on a whole series of second opinions. Our Joe E. alone is prepared to take the risk.’

  I said nothing for a few seconds. Then, ‘Mike, do you think Joe E.’s right?’

  ‘He always was a stubborn little bastard ‒ but I never knew him stick his neck out without good reason.’ He stood up. ‘Maybe you’ll be able to have a talk with him this afternoon. Get ready, I’ll drive you to the station. With luck, you’ll make the noon fast up.’

  Mike promised to telephone Joe E. to say I was on my way to see Paddy. He kept his word. The Staff Nurse on duty in the private eye ward that afternoon came out of her duty-room as I announced my name to one of the nurses.

  ‘Miss Lesley Sanders? A Dr Ellis rang about you an hour ago. Would you come in here, please. I will just let Mr Evershed-Browne know you are here.’

  I had spent three months in that ward; six years in that hospital. The realisation that I was now a stranger in my own hospital added to the general sense of unreality which had come over me from the moment I walked into Hilary’s through the visitors’ main entrance. I felt a kind of ghost drifting between a past long-forgotten and a future that might never happen.

  The Staff Nurse finished her telephone conversation and smiled politely. ‘I understand you trained here?’

  ‘Yes.’ I gave the dates. From her expression I might have accompanied Miss Nightingale to the Crimea.

  ‘Mr Evershed-Browne won’t keep you long.’

  ‘Is Mr Larraby expecting me?’ I tried not to sound too desperate.

  Her polite smile reappeared. ‘Mr Evershed-Browne will tell you all about that.’

  I had made Mike talk. I did not attempt to persuade her to do the same. No well-trained nurse whose instructions are to be evasive will ever give one word away. We talked about the weather until a small fair man arrived.

  ‘Lesley! How nice to see you again!’

  ‘And you, Joe.’

  The Staff Nurse shot me a respectful glance as she slid tactfully out of the duty-room and closed the door. Being an old Hilary’s nurse was one thing; being on a Christian-name basis with pundits quite another.

  The little man and I exchanged more civilities. Then, ‘Mi
ke Ellis said you wanted to see one of my p.p.s, Lesley. Larraby.’ He paused. ‘I suppose you know he has specifically asked to have no visitors?’

  ‘I rather guessed that,’ I said. ‘Does he know I’m coming?’

  He shook his head. ‘I wanted to see you first.’ He offered me a chair, hitched one forward to sit facing me. ‘Mike Ellis gave me the general position between you two, very briefly. You aren’t engaged?’

  ‘No. Does that matter?’

  ‘Not technically. As you know, a wife or official next-of-kin has some rights to insist on visiting, not a fiancée. It’s not that aspect that’s disturbing me.’ His pale eyes had grown uncomfortably shrewd in the years since our last meeting. ‘I’m thinking of your angle quite as much as his. If you aren’t engaged and your affairs are still in the air, don’t you think ‒ and I mean think with your head ‒ that you would be wiser not to see him for the time being? He obviously wants it that way. He’s been adamant about no visitors.’ He opened a thin silver cigarette case, held it out to me. ‘I think he’s right.’

  My mouth was too dry for tobacco. ‘No, thanks. You believe I should wait until after his op?’

  He closed the case with a snap. ‘In the long run, if you’ll forgive me, it might be kinder to him. I’m hoping to succeed. I can’t possibly guarantee it. If I don’t he’ll lose his sight. A sightless husband is a very heavy burden for a woman to take on. Have you considered that? Not just from his point of view. It’s dangerously easy to grow over-emotional about that. But from your own and ‒ later ‒ your children’s? He clearly has ‒ which is why he doesn’t want to see you.’

  I said, ‘Joe, I’m a district nurse. I’ve not just seen blindness in a hospital ward, I’ve seen it in people’s homes. I do know what it means, and what you mean. I still want to see him, if you’ll let me. And there’s another thing ‒ I probably know Paddy Larraby a lot better than you. He hasn’t asked me to marry him; if he loses his sight he never will. Not even’ ‒ my voice cracked ‒ ‘if I asked him. Which I would.’