Nurse Saxon's Patient

by Marjorie Norrell

  Dinner was a fairly silent meal, Mrs. Andy and her husband holding the conversation together as they so often did when Tansy was present, but this time there appeared to be some subtle difference. Not until Mrs. Andy asked Julie a question about Roger’s work was there any sign of animation from either of the other two, and then it was Tansy who turned to Julie almost before she had finished replying to her hostess.

  ‘Did your brother always want to do this sort of thing?’ she asked. ‘Go to strange places, write about them and about different ways of life? Would you say he was ... adventurous?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Julie considered the question. ‘When he was little he used to talk about being an explorer,’ she remembered, ‘but I think all little boys go through that phase. When he grew older he wanted nothing else but writing, that was why he joined the Chronicle, but he didn’t want to remain a reporter. He’s always wanted to write books,’ she recalled, ‘even before Mother and Dad died. He always said he would, one day. I don’t think he’d ever thought of filmmaking, that’s something which has arisen out of this book. But that was something he always did want to write. We had a book of legends and folk lore given to us one Christmas, and Roger loved the stories of Old Mexico. He always said he would go there one day. When that song came out, “Far-away Places”— they’ve revived it recently—he always used to say that meant Mexico for him and that he meant to visit it one day.’

  ‘And he did,’ Tansy breathed. ‘I read about it in the paper. He went for a long holiday...’

  ‘Not exactly a holiday.’ Julie smiled, remembering the heart-burning discussions she and Roger had shared before he finally, as he phrased it, ‘took the plunge’. ‘What actually happened was he asked for a year’s leave of absence from the paper, and the editor, who took a very dim view of people not being satisfied with what he considered a good and responsible job for a young man, told him he could take a chance. He could have the year’s absence, but he would be paid no retaining fee nor would he be guaranteed a job on his return. If his place was vacant, all well and good. If not, then Roger would have to look for work on some other paper, and the Chronicle is the best—the only one, really—in Hyncaster.’

  ‘And he took the chance!’ There was no mistaking Tansy’s admiration. ‘What did he live on?’ she asked next.

  ‘He did all sorts of jobs,’ Julie remembered. ‘He even sang in a cafe where he’d worked as a waiter. I don’t know half the things he did do, but they brought him enough to live on and gave him enough time to write in the evenings or the afternoons, depending on what job he was doing at the moment.’

  ‘That’s what I admire about him,’ Tansy asserted. ‘He’s evidently not the sort of man to be daunted by circumstance! I’m crazy to meet him. You mustn’t let him leave before I come again, Julie.’

  ‘I can’t interfere with his plans,’ Julie told her, ‘but I don’t think he’ll be leaving for a while, as I told you.’

  For the remainder of the evening Tansy was more lively than any of them had ever seen her during her visits to Woodlands. She talked incessantly of men she had known, people she had read about, who were not content to look only for security but went out looking for the unexpected, ‘for adventure’. It seemed to Julie that, whether deliberately or not, she was talking ‘at’ Garth, comparing his decision to stay and carry on with the Development Site instead of accompanying Tansy to the States with Roger’s determination to fulfil a boyhood dream.

  It’s not the same thing at all, Julie thought in mental protest on Garth’s behalf. Roger went because he wanted to, because it was part of the work he felt he could do best, part of himself. If Garth gives in and goes with Tansy it’s only because he is pandering to her whims. It won’t mean anything to him. I’ve read about these tours. He won’t even have time to see any of the modern buildings and things he’ll want to know about ... She’s just being purely selfish.

  By the time they all retired to bed Tansy had almost exhausted the subject, but her conversation was still directed at Garth in a roundabout way. Julie went in with him to help him, and found him tense and angry.

  ‘I’m not giving in,’ he said suddenly as she helped | him off with his coat. ‘She needn’t think so. I’d be letting everybody down if I went off the moment I was well enough to take up my new appointment. Aunt Lavinia, the Borough Architect, the Council members ... everybody who is waiting to get on with the job. Just because she wants me dangling along while she sings.’

  Julie used all the tact she could bring to the occasion to smooth over his ruffled feelings and when she left him he was his usual smiling self.

  ‘You know I’m right, don’t you, Julie?’ he demanded, ‘If it comes to a showdown between Tansy and me, shall I have the medical authorities on my side? Tansy thinks a change would do me good. But I think it will be sufficient change to get back to my desk and drawing-board, to go round the site and so on,’ he ended belligerently.

  ‘Mr. Greensmith doesn’t think you should go, if that’s any comfort to you,’ Julie told him. ‘I’ve no doubt he’ll have something to say if Tansy persists in asking you to change your mind.’

  She was astonished to see the light burning in her own room as she opened the door. She knew she had switched it off as she went in to Garth, but as she entered the room Tansy rose from the chair by the window, smiling in her most winning way.

  ‘I just had to come in,’ she said apologetically. ‘I do hope you don’t mind. I just wanted to ask you some more questions about your brother. I couldn’t ask you there, not in front of them all. What sort of a person is he, Julie? Big, handsome? Quiet or jovial? What sort of friends does he like, what sort of hobbies has he?’

  ‘I ... that’s rather a tall order.’ Julie smiled at Tansy and sat down on the edge of the bed, taking her cigarette case from the side table and offering one to the other girl before lighting up herself. ‘Let me see,’ she wrinkled her brow in thought: ‘Roger’s a big man, takes after our father. He’s taller and broader than either Garth or Ian. His hair is dark gold, a bit darker than mine, and his eyes are a sort of sea-blue—he likes people, but they must be interesting people. He likes new things, new places, new ideas. He reads a great deal, and he likes music. But he likes to be quiet sometimes too,’ she ended thoughtfully. ‘He likes to talk...’

  ‘Has he a—girl friend?’ Tansy asked next. ‘What sort of girls does he go for? Will he think I’m a silly sort of creature? I know Mr. Greensmith does, and Garth does too, deep down in his heart. I’m not,’ she went on defiantly. ‘I’m serious about my work—about all sorts of things—but I just can’t get up an enthusiasm about drains and sinks and things, nor about people’s illnesses. I’m asking all this,’ she ended with a sudden burst of confidence, ‘because I want to make a good impression on your brother. From what I’ve read about him he’s the type of man I’ve always thought of as the hero type, and I’ve never met one in real life before. I’d hate to meet one now and then have him think me a scatterbrain. That’s what Garth called me this afternoon.’

  ‘Roger won’t think any such thing,’ Julie assured her, ‘and I’m sure you two will get along like a house on fire. He hasn’t ever had what one might call a real girl friend, but the ones he’s taken out from time to time have been girls like yourself, good to look at, fun to be with. One I remember was a reporter on the paper with him. She was a very lively girl, lovely too, but she had a boy friend in the Services or something. They just went out together as friends. Of course’—she rose, laughing— ‘he may spring a surprise on me and have brought someone back with him from Mexico, but I think he’d have given me warning if he had. Don’t worry,’ she ended, smothering a yawn which, whether intentional or not, had the effect of making Tansy rise and prepare to leave her room, ‘Roger’s the easiest person in the world to get along with, and in any case, all new people fascinate him ... that’s the journalist in him coming to the top, I suppose.’

  ‘So long as he won’t think me a nitwit�
��—Tansy turned at the door—‘that’s all I’m worried about. I’m getting tired of people who think I’ve no brains at ill!’ With which enigmatical statement she said goodnight and left Julie to make what she liked of the interview.

  When Tansy left Woodlands, late on the Sunday evening, her farewell words to Julie were a reminder that she was ‘looking forward to meeting your brother’, before she went out to where Bailey was waiting to drive her back to Hyncaster. Julie had turned and returned to the house when Garth caught up with her, evidently not waiting to watch his fiancée out of sight.

  ‘I’m intrigued by all this interest in your brother, Julie,’ he commented as they went into the drawing room together. ‘Is he really Tansy’s type?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she confessed, wondering whether she had imagined the hopeful note in his voice. ‘He may be.’ And her heart added, despite herself, Which is more than you are, my dear.

  ‘I hope they get on well together, anyway,’ Garth said reflectively. ‘When Tansy takes a dislike to anyone—or perhaps it would be more understanding to say is frightened of anyone—she makes the atmosphere difficult all round, whether she knows it or not.’

  Without being told Julie knew he was referring to the strange antipathy which Mrs. Andy and Tansy had for each other. There was nothing basic about it, Julie knew. Mrs. Andy was too generous a person for that, but she knew instinctively, just as Julie herself knew, that Tansy was not the right person for Garth, and there was nothing she could do about it as matters stood at the moment.

  They said no more on the subject, and when she helped him prepare to retire later in the evening Julie was astonished when he asked abruptly: ‘Can you drive, Julie? A car, I mean.’

  ‘I can,’ she confessed, ‘and I have a licence. Roger has a little Ford tourer and he taught me to drive, but it’s not licensed or insured at the moment. We couldn’t afford it, with all the expense we had just before he went away. Why?’

  ‘Because I had a letter from Bell’s this morning saying my car is all right again and that they would bring it here today if I required it, or they would keep it in their garage until I was ready for it. Aunt Lavinia says it can be kept here—that will save me the garage fee for storing—and as soon as my right hand is out of the plaster I want to try it out again. That won’t be by morning,’ he made a rueful grimace, ‘and I’ve a sudden yearning to go down and look over the development site. Sort of get it planned in my head a stage further, see where’s best to begin and so on. I was wondering if you could perhaps drive me down in the morning before your brother comes. You did say he wasn’t expected until late afternoon, didn’t you?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Julie agreed. ‘I don’t see why not. Give Bell’s a ring in the morning and ask them to have it brought out straight away and then we can make an early start. We needn’t stay at the site very long, I take it?’

  ‘Not this time, Julie.’ Garth smiled in relief. ‘Bless you for understanding, for not trying to argue me out of it because your brother is coming. I promise we won’t be late back, but somehow, ever since Tansy put forward her idea of this going to the States—taking a holiday before starting work—I’ve been longing to get down there and make some sort of a start, even if it’s only in my head!’

  ‘Then we’ll do that. I’ll give you an extra early call,’ Julie promised. ‘I’d like to see the site myself, I’ve heard so much about it,’ and as she said goodnight her heart sang a little poem of thankfulness that it was evident he was sufficiently recovered to make his own decision about not taking the trip to the States, with or without Ian’s medical evidence as support.

  When Julie went in to help Garth the following morning she found him attempting to complete his dressing unaided, a sure indication to her mind of his eagerness to make the excursion.

  ‘Sure you don’t mind?’ he queried, when they were ready to go down to breakfast together. ‘Aunt Lavinia’s promised to send down immediately if Roger arrives before we expect him.’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ Julie assured him, laughing. ‘If we were just sitting around in the garden, waiting for him to come, I’d get too excited to think. I’d rather go with you and be seeing something new and interesting,’ she told him.

  ‘It is new, and it is interesting,’ Garth assured her gravely. Seated opposite to his aunt at the breakfast table he gave the elder woman an affectionate glance. ‘If Aunt Lavinia hadn’t been so shocked by what might well have been the ‘Braithwaite tragedy’ all this new planning might have been years in coming to Hyncaster, and heaven knows it’s needed badly enough with the overcrowded conditions there are there since the war.’

  ‘It isn’t all my doing,’ Mrs. Andy put in with a smile. ‘Crossman’s is a wealthy firm, that I grant, but Crossman’s alone couldn’t have made this possible.’

  ‘Crossman’s sold the Borough the two hundred acres of land at a ridiculous price to begin with, Aunt Lavinia,’ Garth put in with a smile. ‘That meant as much as anything towards getting the Council’s go-ahead. And I know Crossman’s put up the money part of the prize for the design,’ he ended. ‘But even though I’ve won it, it’s a far more satisfying way to achieve what I want than having you give me the money in a direct way as you wanted to do,’ he reminded her.

  ‘I had to find some way of helping you as well as the town,’ Mrs. Andy laughed. ‘You wouldn’t let me do anything for you, you wanted to do it all for yourself, and this way you have done so. I knew,’ she smiled complacently, ‘that if there was an open competition for this site you stood every chance of winning it, and you have done ... that’s reward enough for me. Little Hyncaster, or whatever they decide to call it when it’s finished, will be there long after we’ve all gone, and I’m glad and proud to have had a hand in bringing it into being.’

  ‘I shall be glad to see the actual place,’ Julie said with real interest. ‘You may be able to visualize al] these wonderful things-to-be just from the typed sheets and the drawings, but I’m afraid I have to see at least the foundations—nothing is real to me until it’s actually there in bricks and mortar.’

  ‘It’s real all right,’ Garth spoke with the enthusiasm he appeared to reserve for his work, ‘or will be as soon as we get cracking. But I know what you mean, Julie. Many people find it difficult to get a picture of a finished site from the architect’s plans and drawings. I did myself when I first began to study...’

  He broke off as Edna brought in a telegram which she handed to Julie. It was from Roger, saying he would be delayed a little longer than he anticipated, but that he would be along ‘some time today’.

  ‘Then we needn’t hurry looking round,’ Julie said brightly, although she felt unreasonably disappointed that Roger would not be with her as early as she had hoped. ‘We can spend more time there...’

  ‘I’ve had Cook pack a picnic lunch for you,’ Mrs. Andy told them. ‘The coffee will keep hot in the new Thermos, and I’ve packed a bottle of light dinner wine as well.’

  ‘Then we’d better go.’ Julie rose. ‘It’s a long time since I’ve driven a car,’ she confided. ‘I shall be a wee bit hesitant at first, simply because this one isn’t mine and I don’t know where we’re going.’

  ‘There are no big hills, anyway.’ Garth pulled back their chairs and they both laughed. ‘We’ll be all right, Julie. You’ll enjoy the run.’

  She was not surprised to find herself doing exactly that. The August day was hot, the sun strong, and when Garth suggested they put back the hood she fully enjoyed the sensation of the wind on her face. At her side Garth watched her admiringly, knowing her completely competent.

  ‘Why do you persist in wearing your cap and apron?’ he asked suddenly. ‘I know you don’t every day—that you’re wearing them today because we’re out of the house, away from Woodlands, and you think you ought. But nobody will see you. The site isn’t built yet. Aunt Lavinia says they’ve only just begun to clear the land. Take your cap off and let the wind blow your hair. You have such lovely ha
ir ... it’s a shame to keep it fettered up all the time like that!’

  Julie did not take much persuading. Suddenly she felt free and unrestricted, as a girl out with her boy friend and not in the least like a nurse taking her patient for a run in his car.

  ‘Left here,’ Garth said suddenly, shattering her thoughts. ‘Go right down the little lane, right to the bottom...’

  At the end of the lane Julie was astonished to see what looked to her like a hive of activity. Overalled men were working bulldozers, excavating machines, driving lorries and working with picks and shovels. She turned to Garth with a look of sheer disbelief.

  ‘I thought everything was held up until you were fit?’ she queried in a tone so accusing that he laughed in spite of the seriousness of her expression.

  ‘Mr. Beechman, the Borough Surveyor, came down and marked out where the land needed clearing,’ he explained. ‘We want to get a good start before summer turns into autumn and autumn into winter. This town is scheduled to be officially opened next spring. On the first day Ian says I may use my right hand—even a little—we shall come down together and mark out the roads, the main drainage and water pipes, the sewage and so forth. Then, just as soon as we can, we shall set out the first block of houses ... the others will follow ... then the school...’

  ‘Can we drive round any of it, do you think?’ Julie asked next. ‘I don’t want to be responsible for the ruination of your car’s springs, though!’

  ‘They’ll manage,’ Garth grinned. ‘Everything’s been overhauled and she’s as good as new, but I don’t think we’ll be able to go all the way round.’ He pointed to where a big open trench lay ahead of them. ‘Bear to the left, Julie, please,’ he requested. ‘Drive to the bottom of the hedge line. That’s where the parkland Aunt Lavinia owned stops, the little wood behind stays just as it is. We can walk around from there. That’s the corner for one of the churches,’ he added. ‘Let me show you...’