Nurse in Waiting

by Jane Arbor

  Joanna said: “Plans? For whom? I don’t understand.”

  Mrs. Kimstone tittered. “Oh, come. Nurse! Don’t pretend to be blind! Or is it that you feel, in your position here, you have to appear detached? In that case, perhaps I’d better not go on. But you mean you haven’t realized what’s afoot between Roger and Shuan? That Mrs. Carnehill would be so happy if they made a match between them?”

  “Between Roger and Shuan?” Joanna realized too late that she had used her patient’s first name aloud. “Surely you are wrong, Mrs. Kimstone? Mrs. Carnehill, I feel certain, doesn’t hope for or suspect anything of the sort!”

  The tight lips pursed. “I dare say I’ve known Ena Carnehill for longer than you have. Nurse! She would be delighted to have Shuan happily settled with Roger. After all, you can never tell with a son—the flipperty-gibbets I’ve seen imported into decent homes like Carrieghmere—!”

  “But Mrs. Carnehill told me that there was nothing more than a brother-and-sister relationship between them! She was quite happy about that, but—”

  Joanna paused, wondering why she felt so impelled to deny the possibility of an understanding between Roger and Shuan, and decided quickly that it was due to an impish desire to contradict the sharp-eyed little gossip across the hearth. She went on: “Mrs. Carnehill did suggest that Monsieur Menden—the farm-student, you know—had begun to care for Shuan—”

  “But she didn’t suggest that Shuan cared for him?” retorted Mrs. Kimstone quickly. “I happen to know that nothing is further from the girl’s thoughts. And quite right too. Nasty foreigner—frogs and all that—” The whole of the non-English-speaking races were dismissed with the contemptuous click of a knitting-needle.

  “No,” said Joanna slowly, “I don’t think anyone could suppose that Shuan had any ideas in the direction of René—”

  “How could she,” put in her companion triumphantly, “when it’s quite obvious that she is devoted to Roger?”

  “But their ages!” protested Joanna. “She is eighteen, I think. And Mr. Carnehill is—thirty? Besides, I’m with him a good deal, you know. And he has never given any indication that he—he feels in that way about Shuan.”

  “That difference in age is of no consequence. Nurse! In fact, quite the ideal, everyone said when I married the Colonel—and as for Roger’s not showing his feelings, he wouldn’t so much as give me a hint!”

  “You asked him?” inquired Joanna shrewdly, suspecting that she now understood much of her patient’s cryptic commentary on his visitor.

  “Oh, not in so many words, of course! I probed him—very tactfully. But it’s clear that he is keeping things to himself, because that’s his idea of nobility—of what, in his circumstances, is the manly thing to do. His accident, you know!”

  “His accident?”

  “Yes. He feels that he ought not to ‘speak’ while he lies there, not knowing what his future may be.”

  “Then he can’t be very confident of what Shuan feels for him,” said Joanna with conviction. “And no ‘nobility’ can justify his not telling her that he loves her if he does, of not giving her the chance to make her own decision in the matter!”

  Mrs. Kimstone’s eyebrows were raised distastefully. “Dear me, Nurse, I didn’t know that we were talking about love!”

  “Then what,” cried Joanna in exasperation, “what, in the name of goodness, were we talking about?”

  “Surely”—the needles clicked with a kind of smug satisfaction—”we were talking of a match which everyone would find entirely suitable? I don’t know that, as they’ve known each other since childhood, that there would be anything particularly romantic about it—even if that were at all desirable—!”

  Joanna said nothing. She looked across at the self-satisfied figure opposite; upon whose dry lips the lovely words ‘love’ and ‘romantic’ had been no more than shrivelled negatives, denying all that should be most precious in life. And it was with a sense of shock—the second lately!—that she thought, “Perhaps that is how our friends look on at Dale and me—telling each other that since we’ve known each other for so long there needn’t be ‘anything romantic’ in our marriage when it happens. Perhaps, even that’s how Dale thinks of it. Perhaps it’s how I think of it myself!”

  Mrs. Kimstone was saying rather acidly: “You don’t seem to like the idea, Nurse! Now I wonder why?”

  “You suggested yourself,” Joanna reminded her, “that perhaps I ought to remain ‘detached.’ It’s not, after all, for me to ‘like’ or ‘dislike’ any of my patients’ private plans. It’s simply that I was rather surprised, in view of what Mrs. Carnehill had said to me.”

  “Oh. I supposed perhaps that you might feel offended because Roger hadn’t confided in you. I thought the modern nurse liked to feel that she had the full confidence of her patient. After all, they’re going in for that side of things—the psychology of people—so much more nowadays. However, you mustn’t mind if, because I’ve known Roger longer than you have, there are things about him that I can sense, without his having to tell me a teeny word!”

  “I won’t mind,” promised Joanna demurely, determining that though it was impossible to be annoyed with anyone so self-satisfied and obtuse, she would not say anything more upon the subject.

  How right she was about Roger Carnehill and Shuan, Joanna could not tell. But if this were indeed true it certainly explained Shuan’s jealousy of herself, her chagrin at being “ousted”, as she saw it, from the care of Roger. At the thought Joanna felt a sudden surge of understanding—an understanding of the girl’s feelings that was, all the same, mingled with a complete bewilderment over the whole situation.

  Was it possible—was it anyhow possible that two such volatile people as Roger and Shuan, neither of whom ever made any attempt to hide their feelings, should conceal their intention to marry, for any reason at all? They didn’t behave like people in love ... On that first afternoon Joanna had seen them kiss, but it had seemed a kiss of exuberant greeting on Shuan’s part, and Roger’s attitude, then as always, had been that of ‘elder brother’. No, there could be nothing like that in it at all...

  But when she reached her room that night she realized wryly that in thinking over Mrs. Kimstone’s story she had achieved none of the detachment she had intended! In fact she had become quite passionate about the whole affair. She was thinking, as she put on her dressing-gown and sat down to brush her hair, that she needed something or someone to bring her back to a sense of proportion—to the realization that she was here at Carrieghmere on a case, and that deeply passionate interest in other people’s private lives was certainly no part of her work.

  But it was difficult to be entirely indifferent to people like those at Carrieghmere. Their unconventionalities and even their ill-humors served to make them rounded and colorful—as if, somehow, they insisted on your attention! It seemed that she had conveyed that even to Dale, thought Joanna with a smile. For his last letter had held an odd resentment of her preoccupation with them. If it had been anyone other than Dale she would have said he was jealous! But the letter itself was here somewhere...

  Joanna drew it from a drawer and propped it before her on the dressing-table. After telling her news of mutual interest Dale wrote:

  “My dear, what a menagerie you seem to have got yourself into this time! A menagerie, if you say so, which appears to bristle with personable males! The pages of your letter were fairly peppered with their names—each with a separate appeal to your interest, I gather.

  They do seem a queer lot. And reading between the lines, I thought that you seemed to be taking their troubles rather to heart—especially the vagaries of the outlandish child who hadn’t the manners to report having accepted my wire. One wonders if this sort of thing happens often and if so, how your Mrs. Carnehill manages to conduct any sort of businesslike journalism? I’d say to you, Joanna—Don’t exhaust yourself with personalities—these people, with their idiotic jealousies and general haphazard behaviors, have merely bo
ught your skill and when you’ve got your patient well they’ll let you go without even remembering your name six months afterwards. You’ll have become ‘that nurse we had for Roger’—no more than that!

  “I don’t know why I’m telling you this, because you must know it, and you usually preserve the most correct of detached attitudes to your cases! But in this one you seem to have got involved ... I don’t quite know how far. When I wrote ‘involved’ I nearly added ‘emotionally’. But it isn’t that, is it, Joanna? I think you’d have told me if it had been. You would, wouldn’t you?”

  Dale’s letter had stopped abruptly there and Joanna sat staring at it, her head propped in her hands while her fingers thrust deeply into the loosened falls of her hair at each side of her face. Suddenly she did not want to smile at the tone of the letter any more. Dale didn’t often write like that—her own letter must have said more than she meant to convey, and Dale seemed really disturbed.

  At what? What could she have said or hinted at to be taken up so seriously? She could not tell. Tomorrow she must write to him again, be really facetious this time or else ignore altogether the subject of the Carnehills and their complicated affairs. And yet—mightn’t that puzzle Dale even more? It would be better to write assuring him that, indeed, she was as “detached” as usual, intent only on doing her work well, finishing it at last and being quite content to become ultimately “that nurse we had for Roger.”

  Slowly she began to fold Dale’s letter, knowing that if she were completely truthful she would not be content to become for the Carnehills a mere forgotten name. But why should it happen like that? Colonel Kimstone had remembered her—That—surely—was the least she could ask of Carrieghmere when she had left it behind her. But was it the most she wanted to ask of it—was it?

  She started at the sound of a knock upon her door. Her thoughts immediately flew to her patient—someone had come to call her, and she would have to dress and go to him.

  But when the door opened it was Shuan Ferrall who stood upon the threshold. And Shuan was mindful of nobody’s urgencies but her own.

  She said breathlessly: “Can I come in? I—I want to talk to you. I’ve got to get away from Carrieghmere!”

  CHAPTER SIX

  The two girls looked at each other for a long minute. Then Joanna said gently:

  “Yes, come in. Come and sit down.”

  “You were just going to bed.” It was the nearest approach to an apology for her intrusion which Shuan could be expected to attempt.

  Joanna smiled. “Getting on that way. But I’m afraid I’m a dreadful “potterer’. I wasn’t quite ready for bed.” She paused, then looked directly at the girl to challenge: “Why must you get away from home?”

  “I want to. I—Oh, it’s no good my staying here! But I haven’t said a word to Mums. I came to you because of what you said about—about antique shops or something. You said I ought to get a job in one—”

  “And you said it was impossible!” Joanna reminded her with a smile.

  “Yes, well—I’ve changed my mind. I thought I’d go to Dublin.”

  Joanna reflected swiftly: How careful one ought to be! On the strength of this child’s smattering of knowledge about good glass I seem to have taken it upon myself to point her career!

  Shuan went on blandly: “Mums wouldn’t let me stay there, of course. I should have to go in every day. But there’s a train from Tulleen that’d get me there between ten and eleven in the morning—”

  Joanna took a deep breath. This was where these vague blossomings of an artistic ambition had, regretfully, to be nipped in the bud! As gently as she could, she said:

  “I don’t think that would do, Shuan. You see, no establishment that was worth anything at all to you would want you trailing in to begin a day’s work at that time. But I dare say you haven’t had time to think of the practical difficulties at all. You would have to leave here very early every morning—even Saturdays!—and you’d have either to bike to Tulleen station or go in with René on the milk-float—”

  “I’d bike,” put in Shuan morosely.

  “Even so, you’d still have to get back the same way each evening. And what about all the things you do here? Weren’t you telling Mr. Carnehill you’d got a new pupil for riding?”

  “She could have her lesson on Sundays—or go without!”

  “The customer,” murmured Joanna dryly, “is always right! But, then, there are your dogs?”

  A shadow crossed the girl’s face. “Yes, I know.” She looked truculently at Joanna. “You suggested it.”

  “I realize that. But when I did so I’m afraid I hadn’t thought of the practical difficulties either. I’m sorry, Shuan. But—would you care to tell me why you’ve suddenly decided that you want to take up the idea?”

  “It’s—oh, it’s because of—of you and Roger!”

  There was a charged silence. Then:

  “What about—Mr. Carnehill and me?” asked Joanna.

  “Well—since you’ve come he—he doesn’t want me any more. I’ve tried to pretend to myself that he still likes me to do things for him and be with him when you’re not. But it isn’t any good. He is always quoting you and—well, I suddenly decided that I couldn’t bear it any more! And when I told him about what you’d said about my getting a job in Dublin he said he thought it was a grand idea and why didn’t I. So then I knew it wasn’t any good going on trying!”

  Joanna said quietly: “This is going to be an impertinence, Shuan. Don’t answer if you’d rather not. But—do you care for Mr. Carnehill very much?”

  Beneath the deep shadow of her lashes Shuan’s eyes were very bright. “Yes—terribly,” she said.

  “Then—if I were you I wouldn’t consider going to Dublin or anywhere else while he is ill. There are still heaps of things you can do for him. And you could get out of your head the idea that I am more important to him than you or anyone else who wants to see him get well as soon as possible. If he ‘quotes’ me it’s because I’m trained to do some things better than you could hope to. You—you waste yourself in jealousy, Shuan. Together could work for him!”

  “But he doesn’t want me any more!”

  Joanna shook her head, half in exasperation, half in pity. “He’ll learn to want you less if you run away!” she declared. She felt suddenly weary, as if this struggle against the girl’s convictions had drawn all virtue out of her.

  Shuan was saying slowly: “You think he does need me a bit, after all?”

  “As much,” said Joanna tiredly, “as he needs anyone outside himself. But it will be he who will cure himself in the end.”

  Something of her weariness must have showed in her face, for Shuan stood up abruptly. She said: “All right. I’ll go now. And if I can do anything for Roger—anything at all!—I’ll stay.” She hesitated, made a movement as if to hold out her hand to Joanna, but thrust it into the pocket of her dressing-gown instead. At the door she turned, said “Thank you” with an air of its having been dragged from her, and was gone.

  Afterwards Joanna sat on, resting her head in her hand and letting tiredness flow over her. She was thinking: “So she does love him in the way I hoped, after all. It seemed to shine in her eyes when she said she cared for him. Mrs. Kimstone was wrong when she said they were taking each other for granted and that there wasn’t any question of ‘love’ between them. And I’m glad, for I wanted it to be like that for them—didn’t I!”

  When they met next morning there was an air of awkward diffidence about Shuan which Joanna felt she understood. She knew how confidences, freely given overnight, could appear as monstrous indiscretions next day. So she kept her own conversation cool and casual, and soon after breakfast she had something else to think about—Dr. Beltane telephoned to say that Roger was to go for his new treatment into a Dublin nursing home immediately.

  “He’ll travel by ambulance and you’ll go with him, Nurse,” were his instructions. “He’ll be there for a few days and you won’t be wanted during t
hat time, of course. I dare say you’ll make arrangements to get back to Carrieghmere the same evening?”

  “Yes, I shall,” agreed Joanna as she prepared to take from the doctor his further instructions as to Roger’s care before and during the journey.

  Roger himself took the news more philosophically than she had hoped. Mrs. Carnehill was frankly glad and confident, and it was Shuan, Joanna found, who needed comfort and constant reassurance that Roger would be “all right.” She stood about, her hands thrust into the pockets of her jeans and wearing an air of would-be nonchalance. But her eyes were pathetic, and at last Roger, giving way to a flurry of irritation, was driven to expostulate.

  “For pity’s sake, Shuan, don’t haunt so!” he exclaimed. “Talk about a Banshee at a wedding—!”

  At that, Shuan left the room abruptly, and Joanna was shocked at the hurt behind her eyes. Poor Shuan! She was learning that the price of loving could be high.

  Roger said defensively: “Shuan wants to give too much!”

  “It’s a good fault, surely?” murmured Joanna.

  “Yes, but—Well, I only know that she makes me feel more helpless than I am.”

  “I daresay, when you—when you’re very fond of someone it’s difficult to avoid the ‘giving’ process,” said Joanna slowly.

  “I suppose so. But Shuan and I should understand each other better by now. She should know that there are things she can’t give me or share with me. She can’t do my living for me—I wouldn’t ask that she should try.” His lips set in a stubborn line and Joanna thought: “He means what Mrs. Kimstone hinted at—that he won’t offer Shuan anything until he has something more to give her than he has now. What proud fools men are!” And when she answered him quietly:

  “That still doesn’t prevent her wanting to ‘do your living for you,’ as you call it,” she wanted to cry to him instead: