Nurse Lang

by Jean S. MacLeod

  Hastily she tore the flap open, her heart beating a fraction more quickly as she thought of Jill achieving her heart’s desire and going to marry Greg, although she herself had never quite felt sure of his stability as a husband.

  The first two lines of her sister’s letter told her the truth, and she gave a sharp gasp of dismay and protest. Instantly Grant’s eyes were upon her. “What is it?” he demanded. “Bad news?”

  “It’s Jill.” Mechanically she held the sheet of paper out to him. She felt too stunned to say more, too shocked by what she had read to be able to think clearly, and Grant took the letter from her to read it for himself.

  “I’m coming home,” it said. “I’m giving up my job. I can’t go on working in this ship with Greg, day after day, now that I know he never really cared two straws about me. He’s going to marry a South African—a millionaire’s daughter, I believe. I want to laugh about that, but I can’t. Life’s finished as far as I am concerned. I wish I were dead.

  JILL.”

  “I’ve no idea when the ship gets in,” Moira said automatically. “Jill will be taking this badly, I’m afraid. I’ve got to meet her. She won’t know what to do.”

  “Leave this to me,” he said. “I’ll get in touch with the shipping company and find out when the Tavistock docks. I think you would have heard from Jill if she is already in the country.”

  “I can’t let you take all this added responsibility on your shoulders,” she protested, even while the thought of his help and guidance was more than comfort to her. “You have so much to do already with Philip and your work.”

  “It’s just a case of sharing things,” he said briefly. “I’m expecting as much—and more—from you because of Philip.”

  “But you don’t even know Jill!”

  “Does that matter? I suggest that you bring her here until this has blown over. I don’t think that she will really die of love.”

  “I don’t think you understand how my sister feels,” she said, her voice trembling. “She gave Greg Paston all her heart. She was madly, passionately in love with him and now she must feel that fate has played her one of the shabbiest tricks there is!”

  “There are times when we all come face to face with that sort of thing,” he said harshly, “but we can’t give up life because of it. Perhaps the same malignant fate grants us the power to go on.”

  His tone silenced her. It had been deep and shaken, and although he dismissed the subject in the next instant, forcing her to drink hot soup as she sat in the chair on the other side of the hearth from him, it stood between them there in the quiet room till she rose and said that she must go to bed.

  “I’ll let you know in the morning what I’ve found out about the ship,” he promised.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The S.S. Tavistock docked at Southampton three days later and Grant insisted on sending Moira in the car to pick her sister up and bring her to the Priory.

  Grant had been more than understanding about this meeting, feeling that Jill would want to be with her alone at first and, indeed, Moira was doubtful if Jill would agree to all their plans for her.

  Jill, however, looked incapable of disagreeing with anything when they met, and to Moira’s complete consternation Gregory Paston came down the gangway in her wake, helping her with her numerous pieces of luggage.

  Jill was obviously trying to look unconcerned about this parting, showing him that she did not care, but her brave little effort was hopeless. Her love looked out of her eyes and her cheeks were hollow in spite of their healthy-looking coating of tan.

  “Jill’s deserting us,” Paston said, keeping up a jaunty air in the face of guilt. “She’s had enough of the old S.S. Tavistock! It savours of disloyalty to me, but I guess she knows her own mind best!”

  Moira barely answered him, although she knew that the last thing Jill would want him to know was that she had written home in despair.

  “You’re coming to Mellyn,” she said, turning to her sister. “Everything is arranged.”

  She led the way across the quay to where Grant’s chauffeur had parked the car and relieved Greg of Jill’s luggage.

  “If you don’t want to go back with the company we can find you a job at Mellyn,” she said in the awkward silence when the luggage was safely stowed away.

  Jill did not make any protest. She seemed to have lost all her former spirit, and when they drove away she did not even look back at Greg standing, tall and handsome, on the quayside.

  “Whose car is it?” she asked when they were several miles nearer Mellyn. “You seem to be well taken care of.”

  It was no time to tell her about her own engagement to Philip, Moira thought.

  “It belongs to Mr. Melmore. He lent it to me. He feels that you would be better not to go back to sea for a while.”

  “You told him!” Jill turned round on her. “Do they all know—all the people where you work, I mean?”

  “No, just Grant.”

  “Grant?”

  “Mr. Melmore.”

  “Are you going to marry him?”

  “No.”

  Jill looked relieved. The thought of anyone else’s happiness was practically unbearable just now.

  “Why is he proving so generous?”

  “I—have been nursing his brother.”

  “Of course—the invalided airman! Is he all right now?”

  Moira swallowed hard.

  “Not quite.”

  “Pity,” Jill mused indifferently. “He seemed rather a nice sort.”

  “You’ll get to know Philip—and Grant, too.”

  Moira was not quite sure why she had said that, but perhaps it had been to give Jill assurance when she needed it, to make her conscious of Grant’s desire to help.

  “I don’t see that I have any right to inflict myself on these people,” Jill objected. “After all, I’m a complete stranger to them.”

  “Grant hopes that you won’t look at it in that way, Jill,” Moira said. “He won’t greet you with embarrassing pity, either. He’s not that type.”

  “Is that why you’ve fallen in love with him?”

  The question was so utterly unexpected that Moira was taken completely off her guard.

  “No one knows why they fall in love,” she said huskily. “But don’t let’s talk about it, Jill. There’s the future to consider, and what we’re going to do about it. I’m nursing in the local hospital at Mellyn, though Grant has insisted that I should stay on at the Priory. If you wanted to work at the hospital there’s plenty to do, but if you would prefer to go somewhere else we could go together.”

  “I don’t care where we go.” Jill had sunk back into despondency again. “And I don’t care what I do. Hospital work will suit me well enough, I expect, provided I’m not asked to mop up in the operating theatre!”

  “You wouldn’t be asked to do that right away,” Moira assured her. “I’ve been put into the physiotherapy wing and I find it most interesting. I’m on out-patients just now.”

  “I’ll never be a good nurse,” Jill concluded. “I never was—not for that sort of thing. I’m not like you.” She surveyed her sister enviously. “You’ve got everything!”

  They reached Mellyn early in the afternoon when the April sun was shining full upon it and Jill drew in her breath in frank surprise.

  “I had no idea it was like this,” she said. “You are lucky, you know!” They drove up to the main doorway of the Priory where Serena stood waiting for them in the hall. Grant was nowhere to be seen and Moira’s heart contracted in senseless disappointment.

  “My cousin has been called away,” Serena informed them coldly. “He has gone to London by train. Normally, of course, he would have travelled by road.”

  The inference was unmistakable. They had been using Grant’s car and he had been forced to travel by rail at greater inconvenience to himself.

  “I’ve no intention of sponging on these people for more than a day or two,” Jill said when Serena had left t
hem.

  “You’ll not be sponging,” Moira tried to assure her. “Grant invited you quite freely.”

  “And—Miss Melmore?” Jill asked with unusual insight. “There’s nothing free about her welcome, is there? A dose of strychnine couldn’t be less to her liking than having me here. If Mr. Melmore feels welcoming, at least his cousin doesn’t!”

  When Jill reported at the hospital a week later she was put on Philip’s ward.

  Philip was sitting up in bed reading when Jill went in and he put down his book to study her.

  “You’re new,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “What’s your name?” he mumbled.

  “Jill Lang.”

  “You’re Moira’s sister?”

  “Don’t try to speak while you have a thermometer in your mouth,” she commanded. “You’re liable to swallow it and they’re expensive to replace!”

  “You’re a martinet!” he shot at her out of the corner of his mouth. “I don’t like bossy women.”

  “And I have a horror of men who won’t do as they are told!”

  “We should get on well.”

  “We should!”

  “So long as we know where we stand with one another,” he pointed out.

  “Don’t talk!”

  “Who wished you on me like this? Was it Grant?”

  “No—Matron.”

  “I wonder why?”

  “I couldn’t say, but you can always ask her when she does her rounds. You appear to be grossly over-privileged.”

  “On the contrary,” he protested, “I’m something of a martyr. Being the brother of one member of the staff and engaged to another, I am granted as few concessions as possible.”

  “Oh,” Jill said. "You’re engaged?”

  “Hasn’t Moira told you?”

  “Moira?” She gazed at him incredulously. “You can’t mean that you are engaged to Moira?”

  “Why not?”

  “Because—” She hesitated, not quite sure of what she had been about to say and confused because denial had leapt instantly to her lips.

  “I—don’t know,” she ended lamely. “Perhaps Moira didn’t want to tell me just at first.”

  “Why shouldn’t she? There’s no reason why she should want to keep it a secret, is there?”

  Jill felt more confused than ever. She had got quite the wrong impression of Moira—of Moira being in love with Grant Melmore.

  “She may not have wanted to tell me when—when my own love affair had come unstuck so recently,” she confessed.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I had no idea—”

  “How could you know? I don’t suppose Moira went round broadcasting my affairs before I came here.” She began to pick up magazines from the floor where he had let them fall. “Your brother got me this job when I left the shipping company.”

  “He told me about that. He said you were fed up with the sea. Were you?”

  “No.”

  “I see.”

  He continued to watch her as she tidied the ward, laying some of his array of books and periodicals on the empty second bed in the far corner.

  “You’d feel better if you had someone in here with you,” she said.

  “I’ve always got you!” he pointed out derisively.

  When she went off duty she returned to the Priory with a sense of superiority. At least, Serena Melmore was not going to make her feel an intruder now that she knew the truth! As Moira’s sister she felt that she had some right to be at the Priory, just as Moira had.

  She met Grant in the drive on his way back from London, and he pulled the car up to speak to her.

  “How did the first day go?” he asked.

  “Not too badly!” He was amazingly handsome, she thought, though still rather formidable in a dark, demanding way. “I met your brother.”

  “And how was Philip?”

  “Perky, I should say.” Jill was rarely at a loss for an expression. “He’s been telling me about his flying experiences.”

  Grant’s look sharpened, but he said lightly enough:

  “That must be the first time he’s mentioned flying since his accident. It appears to be—quite a sign. You won’t overdo it, of course.”

  He gave her another keen look and passed on, turning off to the stables where he garaged the car. Typical consultant! Jill mused. One isn’t really there so far as these people are concerned. It’s the patient that counts! When she reached the house Serena met her in the hall.

  “I thought I heard my cousin’s car,” she said, dismissing Jill with little more than a glance. “But no doubt it was someone bringing you back from the hospital.”

  “It was Grant’s car.” Jill had used the name deliberately, though she felt it would be some time before she could bring herself to address Grant personally by his Christian name. “He’s gone round to the stables. What time does Moira get back?”

  “I really couldn’t say. Your sister has never made a habit of coming back here for her meals.”

  “That’s rather strange, isn’t it?” Jill said. “Considering that she will probably live here when she is married.”

  “What do you mean?” she demanded.

  “Moira is engaged to Philip.”

  “I dare say,” Serena returned coldly, “but that doesn’t make your sister the future mistress of Mellyn Priory. Philip is the younger son.”

  “You think Moira has chosen unwisely?”

  “It was never a question of choice!” Serena flashed. “Grant will never marry.”

  “Good gracious! Why ever not?”

  “My cousin has had one disastrous experience of love,” Serena informed her curtly, “and once should be enough for any man.”

  “Yes, I suppose it should.” Jill was suddenly reminded of her own unhappy love affair and the fact that she should be able to sympathize with Grant about first love and its finality. “When did it happen?” she asked.

  “Less than a year ago,” Serena informed her.

  “It isn’t very long, is it?” Jill mused, but it was plain that a year was still a very long time to her. “There hasn’t been much opportunity for him to forget.”

  “Grant’s not the type who will ever forget,” Serena said with conviction as her cousin’s step sounded on the gravel outside. “I presume you will be with us for dinner” she added icily.

  “Yes—thank you very much,” Jill said airily, “I’ll run up and change, if you don’t mind. I’ll look much better once I’ve got out of this grubby apron!”

  She came down to dinner in a blue silk dress which she had bought in Cape Town because Gregory Paston had told her that it was the color of her eyes, and the memory stabbed painfully for a moment. The time might come when she wouldn’t think of Greg every day, she assured herself, but she was far too near her loss to put him from her mind completely. The fact remained, however, that she now thought of her first frenzied outburst with a little sick feeling of horror, remembering her impassioned denunciation of Greg and love and everything else with something like shame. She had said, too, that she hadn’t wanted to live, and that had perhaps been true at the time, but living was something that had to be got through in spite of love. She supposed that coming back to hospital work to be plunged immediately into the hurly-burly of life on the wards had helped to push her personal sorrow into the background,. . but it seemed that something about Mellyn had helped too. The Priory was a lovely old place and Grant Melmore had been more than generous with his offers of a horse to ride and Holmes to take her anywhere she wanted to go in the car. Impulsively, she thought that she ought to thank Grant and, being Jill, she took the first available opportunity of doing so.

  He came down to the hall several minutes before the gong sounded, looking immaculate in his dinner jacket but strangely preoccupied after he had acknowledged her.

  “Hasn’t Moira come in yet” he asked.

  “I gather she never does,” Jill said bluntly. “She has most of her meals at the hospi
tal; probably she finds it more convenient when Philip is over there.”

  Grant said, “Yes” without, she felt, having heard her very distinctly.

  “There’s something I would like to say,” she began awkwardly for a person who was normally so self-possessed. “I want to tell you how grateful I am for what you’ve done for me—finding me a job at the hospital and letting me come here when I needed it most. But I suppose you understood about—about everything. Moira told you about Greg Paston, of course, and you had the same sort of experience yourself with—the girl you loved.”

  He wheeled round, his face dark with passion, and Jill stepped back in alarm, but almost instantly he had controlled his emotions.

  “Two people’s experiences are never quite the same, Jill,” he said concisely, “and I think you are talking about something you don’t understand. I’ve been in love—yes, but that’s past now and I have my life to live as best I can. I have also my work. That should help. If I have been able to do something for you, I’m glad.”

  Neither of them had seen Moira standing at the head of the stairs. For the first time in weeks she had come back to the Priory early in order to hear how Jill had passed her first day at the hospital, but Jill had been in her bath when she had knocked on her bedroom door and had dressed and gone downstairs before Moira had changed out of her uniform. It was only when she had hesitated on the upstairs gallery that she had been aware of Grant, and his deep voice had floated clearly up the well of the great staircase to where she stood. “I’ve been in love, but that’s past now.”

  As she came downstairs Moira apologized to Grant for causing Serena extra work by her presence.

  “She is used to guests, she’s been here seven years,” he replied.

  “That’s what I mean.” Moira clasped her hands in front of her in a small gesture of supplication. “Please try to help me out in this, Grant. I’m not complaining about Serena and I’m not ungrateful for all you’ve done for Jill and me, but it would be better if I went away—better for us all.”