Queen's Nurse

by Jane Arbor

  She stepped out into almost knee-high water, and only when she moved from the shelter of the jeep did she experience the full force of the undertow that dragged ceaselessly at her feet as she struggled forward. Only her arms spread wide served to balance her, and when the choppy waves swept down upon her with wearying regularity she was carried off her feet more than once, and left panting and exhausted.

  She fought her way to the side of what, overnight, had been Cranemouth’s straggling main street, and in the lee of the houses gained some freedom from the wind and found the flood shallower by a few inches. And now ahead she could discern a widening fan of sky and the open sea beyond. That was Cranemouth’s front and, she hoped, the end of her journey.

  She reached the front and looked anxiously about her. Everywhere on the flowing tide’s surface tossed a pathetic flotsam that had been the everyday belongings of people’s homes. Further out, half a dozen herring boats, beached in safety a few days ago but now torn from their moorings, drifted and turned in a slow, aimless dance at the will of wind and tide. Southward, The Warrens were covered completely by a surging mass of water. Northward, near the jetty, there were, Jess thanked God, a little knot of men knee-deep in water, and a couple of rowboats rocking on the tide.

  She shouted. But her voice cracked with weariness and the wind seemed to take the sound and fling it scornfully behind her. She tried again—and was dismayed to see the group break up and the men move off as if on an agreed patrol, while the rowboats circled and began to sweep away, too.

  “Oh, wait!” Jess broke into a stumbling run, quite heedless now of the caution she had exercised so far. The breath sobbed in her throat. Why, if they were separating, could not one of the men have turned in her direction? Even the one figure who remained sentinel fifty yards ahead stood with his back to her and neither heeded her shouts nor her desperate waving arm.

  There—he had turned! She waved again and saw his arm as it shot up in answer. And he shouted. But though the wind flung the sound of his voice toward her it carried none of the hoarse warning in his words.

  “Stop! Get back there! Deep water between—the whole roadway’s gone!”

  It was too late. Jess’s very next step was no more than a panic-stricken fumbling for the foothold that was not there anymore. She tried to throw herself back but had already lost her balance. She struck out in an instinctive effort to swim. But the drag upon her boots and her clothes made it impossible, and she could only flail wildly with her arms, unconsciously aiding the relentless undertow that was sucking her under.

  Before she was engulfed she heard more shouts, nearer now and encouraging her to keep afloat at all costs. The shouts seemed to follow her as she sank and were still there, challenging that other roaring in her ears, when she surfaced again. She tried to answer them but could not. She had no breath nor strength left. And the darkness below was waiting for her again...

  When she came up her conscious will to struggle had gone, and she heard the wooden sound that was the resting of oars in rowlocks as something that had little to do with her.

  But then she felt rescuing arms about her, the rough comfort of a man’s coat enwrapping her and the demanding thrust of a brandy flask against her lips. And at the moment of her rescue, the roaring in her head seemed to be exchanged for another sound that was infinitely unreal. It was the sound of Muir’s voice seeming to say, “Jess, my darling—thank God I’m in time!”

  At the jetty there were willing hands to steady the boat for her as she got out, and there were some compassionate murmurs of, “You don’t want to go looking for trouble of that sort, nurse!” and, “Do take her home, squire. She be wholly wet!”

  She could only smile her thanks. But when she felt Muir’s hand beneath her elbow she turned urgently to him. “I—I had to find you, and there wasn’t any other way of reaching you. It’s about Liane—”

  Muir stood still. “Liane? She has come back? There’s been news?”

  “No. Not exactly news, but—”

  “Then it must wait,” he cut in brusquely and, taking her by the elbow again, hurried her toward the shelter of a fish-store shed, where he directed her to climb the upright ladder to the upper floor.

  “Strip everything,” he ordered. “You’ll find some dry clothing of sorts—only male, I’m afraid—on the bench. Take whatever will fit you, and I’ll be back. My car is out of action, and I’ve had to abandon it, and we shall have to wait until some heavy transport is going inland before I can get you back to Quintains. Meanwhile, dry clothes for you are the important thing, so don’t delay a minute in getting rid of your own.”

  On the upper floor a gently boiling kettle on an oil stove had steamed up the atmosphere. But it was warm and comforting, and Jess was only too thankful to drag the sodden garments one by one from her chilled limbs. From the rough assortment on the bench she chose a pair of long, sea-boot stockings, some corduroy slacks and a thick fisherman’s jersey, before toweling her hair as dry as she could with a scarf she found in the pocket of the slacks.

  When Muir reappeared at the top of the ladder he nodded approval. “Not exactly a Savile Row fit, though,” he commented, indicating the slacks that she had had to fold over at the waist.

  “Not exactly—” She felt more shy of him than she had ever done before.

  “Well, the refreshment is equally humble, but I want you to drink a cup of well-laced cocoa before I take you back.” He indicated some enamel mugs on a tin tray and drew the kettle forward over the flame of the stove.

  “How did you get down here?” he asked.

  “I borrowed your jeep and drove down. I got about as far as the middle of Cranemouth Street. I came the rest of the way on foot.”

  “You risked the conditions down here to tell me something about Liane that doesn’t amount to news of her?” The note of critical asperity in his voice destroyed Jess’s last illusion that he had ever uttered those earlier tender words. Even the fact that a quarter-of-an-hour ago he had saved her life had not drawn them closer, for even now they were talking in the clipped, brittle tones of strangers.

  She said, “Not news. Perhaps not even a clue, but I thought you should know about it. Liane took a telephone call from London before she left the house yesterday.”

  “From London? How do you know that?” Muir’s tone held none of the sudden enlightenment she had hoped.

  “Ethel, the kitchen maid, was in the hall while she was taking it. Ethel was out afterward, and no one thought to question her about Liane when she came in. Doesn’t it tell us anything fresh?”

  Muir drew in his lips thoughtfully. “I’d give a lot to think so. But I can’t see that it does. I have friends in London, of course, and she has acquaintances I know of. It could have been a call from any of them, but I can’t conceive of any urgent demand that could have taken her, say, to London, clad just as we know she was and without leaving any message for me. But when I take you back to Quintains I’ll check on every possible London contact she had, though of course it could just as easily have been a shop that was calling her.”

  “Yes, I suppose so.” Tears of disappointment sprang to Jess’s eyes. She turned quickly away as she blinked them back.

  Muir watched her closely. “You must have hoped for a great deal from this?”

  “Yes, I did—”

  “Enough to risk your life in order to tell me of it? Jess, how much do you care for Liane?”

  “A great deal, I think. She is so lovely and gentle and—”

  “And rudderless?” prompted Muir with a hint of bitterness. “Do you remember describing her so to me?”

  “Yes, I remember. I thought at the time that if you had assured her then of all that she meant to you, her great need of understanding would have responded as—as you wanted.”

  “All that she means to me? Do you believe you can gauge that?”

  “I think—I know,” whispered Jess.

  Muir set aside his cup and clasped his hands between his knees,
staring down at them. “I wonder if you do,” he said with heavy emphasis. He went on almost to himself. “Whether, indeed, any woman could gauge all that Liane means to me through my feeling for her father.”

  “You loved him—too?”

  Muir nodded. “I loved him. My own parents died when I was very young, and all my life he had been father, brother and friend. And when, at the beginning of the Kenya troubles he put Liane’s future into my hands, should anything happen to him, it was a trust I wouldn’t have foregone or betrayed for all the world. I was proud—proud, do you understand?”

  “So that when you did all that you did for Liane, it must have seemed as if you did it for him, too?”

  Muir’s glance was grateful. “So you understand that? Yes, it was. When he was killed, she was homeless and frightened and utterly vulnerable, and the trust I’d been given appeared a hundred times less than I wanted to do for her. I longed fairly to wrap protection about her and to make her understand that, for anything she needed, she had only to turn to me.”

  “She has always known that,” murmured Jess.

  “Perhaps. But she didn’t respond easily, and I was disappointed. Perhaps at the beginning, I overwhelmed her with my need to serve her father through her. Perhaps she couldn’t appreciate the deep, protective feeling she roused in me. I was baffled, and when you said she was rudderless and unhappy and in awe of me, I fought against believing it, but I began to think I had failed. And with all this—” his despairing gesture expressed all his fear for Liane’s fate “—I know that I have.”

  “You mustn’t think that. She has been unhappy—for a reason she must tell you when she is found.” Jess had to force her voice to steadiness to add, “But you haven’t failed her—or her father. Even if, at the beginning, you accepted the trust for love of him, for his sake, you have borne it since for love of her. And I can’t believe that love as completely selfless as yours for Liane can fail—” Muir lifted his head very slowly to look at her. His eyes traveled over her from head to foot, and when they returned to her face she could feel wave upon wave of color mounting in her cheeks. She had seen that look in his eyes before. But it had not been for her—not for her—!

  Now he was saying in a low voice, “You don’t believe, ' Jess, that I love Liane?”

  “Liane believes it—”

  “She couldn’t believe it! Never, by so much as a word or a touch, have I given her to think that I regard her as more than a dear younger sister or as a child thrown by circumstances into my care! I’ve told you—I loved her father, and my feeling for her is through that love, through my pride in being able to cherish her for its sake.” Muir rose abruptly and drew her up by both hands to face him. “Jess, you couldn’t have believed it! You must have known for a long time where my real love has been given beyond any power of recall! You must have understood—if you’ve not been deliberately blind—that Liane has had no share in the love that a man gives once in a lifetime into only one woman’s keeping?”

  She longed to believe that there was no mistaking his meaning. But so much was dark between them yet that she dared not yield to the wonder of it.

  She said, “Liane knew that her father’s dearest wish was that you and she should marry. She told me that you wanted it, too, but that you hadn’t asked her up till then because you were unselfish enough to be willing to wait until she had recovered from her shock and until she was sure she loved you in return.”

  “This is fantastic! She isn’t in love with me, surely?”

  “At first, when she confided in me, she wasn’t sure that her gratitude for you wasn’t love. Later, when she knew that gratitude wasn’t enough, she was afraid to tell you so for fear of hurting you—”

  Muir flung back his head in despair. “Oh, Jess, Jess—what a tangle! What a twisted mess of misunderstanding we’ve contrived! I told her once, I remember, that her father’s wishes were mine and that however long it took for them to be fulfilled, she must make Quintains her home, and I would stand by without question until they were. Could she have taken that to mean that I was telling her I was willing to wait for her love?”

  “She did, I think.”

  “But that must mean she thought I knew her father hoped we should marry? Jess, you must believe that all he had asked of me was that, if he should die, I would bring Liane to England and give her a home until she loved and married the man of her choice. That I was eager and proud to do. The other—lovable as she is—never! So far as she is concerned I have only wanted to be allowed to give—for her father’s sake. Never, never to give and to take equally in the sweet independence of real love—the sort I hoped you and I would share until I realized there was no hope of that for me.”

  “No hope?” echoed Jess wonderingly.

  The line of his jaw hardened, though there was something akin to worship in his eyes. “You know when I gave up hoping, don’t you? I kissed you in Mrs. Castle’s little sitting room and—”

  “You weren’t loving me then! We had been saying some bitter things to each other, and I had wounded your pride—”

  “No. Earlier, while I believed Jane’s story, there was a point at which I was almost willing to accept that you had failed in your duty, because my despair of you needed to vent itself in some justifiable anger against you. Then when I learned the truth, I came to you in all humility, meaning, however frail my chances with you, to make one supreme bid for your love. But you gave me no chance. You stood aloof, despising me for believing Jane instead of you. I felt as if I were groping toward you in a fog, and every word we spoke took you farther out of my reach. When I kissed you I’d begun to despair of words—”

  Jess glanced up at him from beneath her lashes. “You didn’t try any kindly ones!”

  Muir began to separate her fingers gently until they spread fanwise upon his palm. “My sweet,” he said thoughtfully, “I’m glad you aren’t experienced enough to know that there are a few supreme moments in a man’s life that even the tenderest words won’t serve. I think one of them may be his first sight of his own child. I know another is when he must offer his all to the woman he loves. And for that he believes he will find a God-given strength in his arms and that his kiss will let him dispense with words. I thought that—and was wrong.”

  “You weren’t wrong—”

  “Jess—say that again!”

  “You weren’t wrong. I loved you at that moment just as much as I think I always have. But I didn’t understand that you could be so angry and unjust and still want to kiss me—for any reason at all. I thought you believed it would humiliate me and that was why. But if only you’d known how much I wanted you to do it again, you would never have sent me that note asking me to forget it and assuring me that you would do the same. Then I knew you had not done it for love, and as you were in love with Liane, how could I have hoped that you had?”

  Muir’s smile was tender. “I was never in love with Liane. We’ve cleared that up between us, if not between her and me. But you—what had I to know of you? That you broke your engagement to one man at about the same time as another—Peter Seacombe—began to pay you attention. But that phone call at Christmas showed me that you were still in touch with Leyden after Peter had gone back. And when Peter was missing, you began to see Leyden again. I understood none of it, and it was only the courage of despair that blinded me to it when I knew that at all costs I must win you if I could. Are you telling me now, Jess, that I’ve the right to ask you to explain?”

  “It’s only one of the rights you have! In the first place, I was never engaged to Michael Leyden—”

  “You told me you had broken it off!”

  “No. Only that we weren’t engaged. Michael was never more than a friend, though on the first day we met—” Jess’s lips curved into a smile “—he claimed me as his fiancée to—to protect me from you. He called you an outsider—”

  “I behaved like one, I admit. But if Leyden meant nothing to you, Seacombe did?”

  “No. Beyon
d ordinary liking, Peter and I had no interest in each other.”

  “But you allowed me to believe otherwise. Why? Simply because it was no business of mine?”

  “At that time—and before and since—I longed for everything I thought or said or did to be business of yours,” she told him wistfully. “No, it was because—” She broke off, biting her lips, on the very brink of Liane’s secret.

  “Because?” Muir prompted. And then, as she did not reply. “Jess—haven’t you gone too far not to tell me the rest?”

  “That part of it is not mine to tell.”

  “Did Seacombe want me to believe it for some purpose of his own?”

  “He didn’t suspect you thought it. It was an impulse of my own.”

  Muir dropped her hands. “But if you loved me then, as you say, how could you have wanted me to think you were involved with another man? To make me jealous?”

  “No! No!” Urgently she sought his hands again, held them tightly as if she dared not let them go. “Please,” she begged, “you mustn’t ask me any more.”

  For a moment he was silent. Then: “I don’t think I need to ask,” he said slowly. “I believe I know, though if you’ve scruples you needn’t tell me if I’m right. You were shielding Liane. She had had no experience of love, which was why she doubted her feelings toward me. Later, you’ve said, she knew that she didn’t love me—because by then she had learned what love really was, and it was Seacombe who had taught her! I see it all now. And for the fear of me that I didn’t believe in, she had a secret affair with him in my house and was even willing to shelter from me behind you, Jess! That’s something I can’t forgive!”

  “You must, you must! I acted upon the impulse of a moment and she never knew. I’d only just learned about her and Peter, and I thought it would give us all the time. Put yourself in her place and pity her a little if you can. She thought you loved her, and she saw her falling in love with Peter as a betrayal of you and of all you had done for her for love’s sake, as she thought—”