by Sheila Burns
Lunch was laid on the long refectory table in the far corner, for apparently this was an all-purpose room.
‘It’s smallish, I know,’ said Sir Charles, ‘but then today this pays, for there are times when even here we cannot get help. This means that Mavis has to do all the work, which is no fun, so for her Stable House is large enough.’
‘We’ve been luckier with help lately,’ she said.
‘I know, but one can never be sure how long it will last. That’s the bother.’
Sir Charles went over to the side, opened a cabinet and started to pour out drinks. The lunch was cold, the sort of meal one would never get in the nurses’ home, as Mavis knew, and it was a real delight. Cold chicken and ham, with salad; a trifle in a big cut-glass bowl; coffee cups on the side.
‘We have to get home earlyish,’ Sir Charles told his niece, ‘so let’s have lunch now. I’ve got to get hold of Mrs. Heath and take Sister to see her. There is a lot to be fixed.’
Apparently Mrs. Heath was the village queen, and Claire gathered that she was a busybody. Her nose was into most things, and one had to be careful.
‘I’ll get hold of her after lunch,’ said Sir Charles, ‘and I suggest I go over there first and make the ground clear. Mavis, you bring Sister along later in your own car. All right?’
He had it all arranged. At St. Julian’s they always said he left nothing to chance.
‘Of course.’
They ate happily enough in this very pleasant surrounding, and then when Mavis went into the adjacent kitchen to make the coffee, Sir Charles spoke to Claire. In hospital he was known as ‘the man who sees everything, but says nothing’, and she knew that he had been noticing the atmosphere. That did not need words.
‘I want you to get on with Mavis,’ he said. ‘If you are coming here to live for a time, it would be nice for you to like each other. Mavis is sticky, I’ll admit it, but she has a heart of gold under it all, or maybe I like to think so.’
‘We’ll get on, I’m sure,’ yet all the time there was that niggling little doubt. There was something different about Mavis, Claire did not have to be warned to recognise it; it was there.
‘She’s had trouble.’ Sir Charles spoke quickly, almost as though this was something which distressed him to talk about, and yet he felt that he ought to do it. ‘She lost her parents in a car accident when she was very young, and she has gone from pillar to post. You know what families are. I took pity on her in the end. She’s shy at heart, so bear with her. Half her offhandedness is that really she does not know what to say. When she gets to know you, she’ll adore you.’
Already two barriers had presented themselves, and Claire knew that she shrank before them. They were Mavis, and the ominous Mrs. Heath.
Sir Charles got in touch with Mrs. Heath as soon as he could, and whilst the women were having coffee, arranged to take Claire along there this afternoon. He would go on ahead to talk with Mrs. Heath, and when the girls had washed up, Mavis would bring Claire along in her own little car.
Left together, Mavis thawed. They talked for a time, then got ready to follow Sir Charles. Mavis put on a Breton sailor hat in burnt straw, a shape and a colour which she should never have worn, but which apparently she liked. She was now trying to be nice, no doubt aware of the fact that she had been offhand.
‘We’ll go slowly,’ she said when they got into the little Anglia waiting at the back of the house. ‘Uncle thought that you might like to see the park first.’
‘It’s all quite lovely. I wish the house had not come down. I am sure Sir Charles would have loved to live in it, if only for old times’ sake.’
‘There’s quite enough to do in the cottage. I should be stuck with a big house. Help is not as easy as you would expect it to be. At the moment I am busy because Mrs. Wilkins is ill.’
They drove round the park, with the two lakes; the big house had stood between them, and it must have been utterly beautiful at that time. It seemed that Sir Charles had wanted to keep it going, but the repairs would have cost too much. He had thought of it as a convalescent home.
‘He would!’ said Claire. ‘He is the kindest man who ever was.’
‘Who says so?’ Mavis asked.
‘Everyone.’ Claire was quite surprised. ‘The hospital loves him.’
‘I expect you’re biassed. He isn’t like that at home.’ From her voice Claire got the impression that here was a cold woman, a woman who had a bone to pick with life. A woman who hated people who had been kind to her, suspected them, and shrank from them. Doggedly Mavis drove on.
She drove well, with the precision of someone who learnt stolidly, and makes no mistakes. Yet all the time Claire had the idea that she was hiding her real self from others. Half of her was afraid of something which Claire did not understand; half of her was silent.
They returned to the main gateway with the one lodge pulled down, and the other a mere ruin slumping into the dust.
They turned into the main road, which during the lunch hour, seemed to be quieter. Mavis said this was the easy time, usually the traffic was unending, for it was used as a short cut to the coast, and at week-ends it could be unbelievable.
‘You must get a lot of accidents.’
‘No, that’s the funny thing, we don’t. You would have thought we did, but this part of the world has never had a bad accident yet.’
Even as she said it they heard the quick sound of a car approaching them at high speed. Coming round the bend into the straight, they saw the car, a small red MG (Claire would have called it ‘a young man’s car’), moving very fast indeed. Just as they came nearer she gave a gasp, for she saw that it was completely out of control. She got the impression of a young fair-haired man sitting in it, and in a flash Mavis recognised her own danger, and turned sharply on to the verge.
Because she was one of those drivers who never exceed the speed limit, and are scrupulous about obeying all the rules, turning aside did not hurt her, and she stopped before the actual crash came; the small red MG took the opposite hedge. It happened at such speed that it was almost impossible to keep count of the actual details. There was the sound of a sharp explosion, of impact, and then ‒ which was even worse ‒ the silence.
‘Good heavens!’ Mavis had got out of the Anglia, and she had gone sheet-white.
It was then that Claire became all trained nurse. She saw the fair-haired young man sprawled in a strange way across the green verge, and thanked heaven that he had chosen grass on which to fall. She went across to him (not running, for all the teaching of a great hospital had been to take her time, and one approached the dangerous moment coolly, and with confidence).
At least he was still breathing.
She knelt down beside him, surprised that as far as she could see there were no broken bones, though the right arm was swelling up in a strange manner. He bled from the nose, which worried her, for if he had fallen on his head (it had all happened far too fast for her to see what had actually taken place), that would be the answer to profuse bleeding.
She laid him more comfortably, then turned to Mavis. She had made no attempt to help, but had gone deadly white and stood there her teeth jittering, and pulling hard at a corner of her handkerchief, as though that could help her.
‘I turn faint so easily. I’m no good with this sort of thing … just no good.’
‘Then stay where you are. There is a bad cut on his cheek, have you anything I could use as a bandage?’
Mutely Mavis offered her first-aid set which lay in the back of the Anglia, and she took it across. The young man was completely unconscious, and he was possibly quite the most fair-haired young man she had ever seen; his hair was sheer gold, like a radiant field of corn, and it seemed a shame to waste such lovely-coloured hair on a man! His skin was burnt brown, she would have thought that recently he had been abroad, and he would be about twenty-six, she supposed. She knew instinctively that his eyes would be blue, and a girl would have given much for such good looks.
‘Oh dear! And I do feel so awful!’
‘I expect he will be feeling fairly awful when he comes to, and he needs our help. There must be a telephone.’
‘He ‒ he isn’t going to die?’
‘One never knows after a crash like that,’ Claire paused. ‘I can’t tell the extent of his injuries yet, it is the skull that worries me. Please try to get help?’
‘You ‒ you are not afraid to be left alone with him?’
‘Afraid? Of course not! A nurse isn’t much use if she gets afraid.’
She had somehow guessed that it would be an eternity before help came. Others passed by them. Possibly they did not realise what had happened, for the smashed car had plunged down the ditch on the far side, and was not visible from the road. But surely they could see that the man was ill? She put her hand in his pocket and drew out his driving licence, and it gave the name, it was Terence Anderson, and an address off Cheyne Walk in Chelsea.
That was when a car drew up alongside, asking if she was in need of help. The man was middle-aged, and kind; a local, so he told her. She asked if he could go on and ring up Sir Charles, who would be visiting a certain Mrs. Heath and get help from him.
‘But of course, have you been here long?’
‘Not really long, but it always seems to be too long. Sir Charles’s niece has gone to telephone for the ambulance, and a doctor.’
‘If she has gone to the house at the top of the hill she will be quick, for the Sinclairs have a doctor pal spending the week-end with them. You’re in luck! But I’ll go on ahead and telephone Sir Charles at Mrs. Heath’s. I know both of them.’
Then everything happened, and all at once. Mavis came back with a young man in her car, and this was the doctor who was staying with the Sinclairs. Never had Claire been happier to see someone who could help her, for the bleeding had continued, and now the patient was having considerable difficulty with his breathing.
‘I’m afraid that he is not too good,’ she said.
‘No.’ The young man knelt down on the other side of the patient, and she watched the trained fingers going over his body. He talked as he worked. ‘They are sending the ambulance right away from the cottage hospital, so they say. He did come a purler! What about the skull?’
‘There has been considerable bleeding.’
‘No sign of returning consciousness?’
‘None at all.’
Out of the distance they heard the shrill bell which told them that the ambulance was on its way. It jerked to a stand-still alongside Mavis’s car, and the men came out with the stretcher. ‘Careful now,’ said the young doctor.
As Claire rose from the dust, she saw the young man who was unconscious, for one moment opening his eyes, and he looked directly at her. They were as she had thought they would be, the bluest eyes that she had ever seen. He muttered something, she leaned closer hoping to catch it, but she failed.
‘You’re all right,’ she told him, ‘we are seeing after you and you’ll be quite all right.’
But he was lost to her again.
They got him quickly into the ambulance, and the doctor went with him. He was really a very nice young man who had come down from hospital for a week-end and had walked into this. Claire was grateful that he was plainly concerned for the young patient. By this time a policeman had appeared out of the blue on a motor bicycle, and he was asking questions about the accident.
‘We simply must get on,’ said Claire, ‘Sir Charles will be waiting, and we have not got all that time.’
The accident had already bought up too much time, and as yet nothing had been settled about her job here. If the young policeman kept them arguing they would never be through, and really this had got to stop. She got into the car with Mavis.
‘We ought not to delay too much, your uncle will be worried, and there is an awful lot to be arranged.’
She knew that Mavis was considerably more upset than she had thought; her hands were shaky, her skin had gone a curious shade of putty. She was a strange woman, for she ought not to be feeling so badly about it.
She said, ‘I suppose you haven’t any brandy in the car? It might help you.’
‘No, we don’t ever have it with us. I don’t know why, but we just don’t. I’ll be all right. It ‒ it’s shock.’
‘It has upset you quite a lot.’
‘Yes, but I’m that sort of person. I have a phobia about accidents, I hate them and they terrify me.’ Again, and in a flash, she was disclosing her real self, someone who was afraid. She was not austere at all, nor reserved or unfriendly, but got panic-stricken and then lost her head.
‘It’s all right, you know,’ Claire said.
She must have seen the searching look in Claire’s eyes, for after a moment she said, ‘I ‒ I do get easily upset. I never know quite what happens, but I go funny. It’s silly, of course, but I can’t stop it.’ She drew in a long deep breath, in an attempt to steady herself. ‘Let’s forget it and get along to Mrs. Heath’s. There isn’t much time to get everything arranged, and after all that is what you came down for, isn’t it?’
‘Of course.’
Already the veil of reserve was again settling over Mavis’s face, almost like some curious yashmak, something which Claire did not actually see, but felt in an uncanny way.
‘Let’s go,’ she said.
Chapter Five
Mrs. Heath’s house was an imposing one of William and Mary origin, standing back from the road behind tall iron railings, and with handsome gates. It was most impressive. In the drive Sir Charles’s car was waiting, and it was he who came to the open door, for he must have been listening for the sound of the Anglia. He looked extremely worried.
‘We got a message,’ he said, ‘but I dared not come to you, lest we missed each other on the road, there are three ways to that spot. What happened?’
It was Mavis who spoke, her voice dulled. ‘There has been a most horrible accident, I think the car got out of control and I only got out of the way just in time. The car is smashed, and I am afraid the young man must be dreadfully hurt.’
Her uncle took her arm. ‘Come along inside. You’d better have a drink, come along.’
All three of them crossed the large hall with the gleaming brass, the persian rugs on polished flooring, and the beautiful antique furniture. There was no lack of money here. Claire wanted to like Mrs. Heath, it was somewhat of a necessity if she was to be happy here in her work. She hoped so much that the new friendship would be pleasant, yet was nervous about it because the house did not give a warm impression. They crossed the hall, Sir Charles leading the way, and entered the long drawing-room which was almost the width of the house. Over-furnished, cluttered and crowded with too much that did not matter, it gave Claire the idea that this was Mrs. Heath’s own life. She felt afraid, worried, and apprehensive. I must like her, she thought.
Mrs. Heath came to them. She was plump, no taller than Claire, a stout little thing with hair that had been fair when she was younger, and now was the colour of faded hay on a loft. She had a girlish taste in dress, again too much in the matter of jewellery, and she purred.
‘You poor things! Indeed you poor things! What a horrid drive you must have had here! Get the brandy, do, Sir Charles. For both of them.’
‘Not for me, thank you, I never drink,’ said Claire.
‘But I have a very special brandy, a most expensive one, everybody says that mine is the best brandy in the neighbourhood, and that is what I want it to be. It’ll do you good.’
‘No, thank you.’ She was worried that this was wrong, but what could she do? ‘I just never drink. Anyway an accident is not as horrifying to me as to many, for in hospital they are coming in all the time.’
‘Of course,’ but the voice was a trifle stilted. Had she started off on the wrong foot after all? Maybe this w
as one of those women with whom you must agree, for she did not brook argument, nor permit it.
Already she does not like me, Claire thought, and was glad when Sir Charles returned, for he was a genius in coping with difficult situations. Mavis was better; some colour had come back into her pale cheeks. The conversation went immediately to the new appointment, for no further time must be lost, surely? Mrs. Heath came and sat beside Claire on the sofa; with her there came a too strong aroma of gardenia perfume.
‘Sir Charles has been such a help, and so very thoughtful for our hospital. We have had trouble with the district nurse, somehow we don’t seem able to get the right locum, and we are in straits. He knows you, Sister, and says that you would be ideal, if you would accept the post. This is a charming place and everybody wants to help. I think you would find us all delightful,’ and she gave a slight simper. It was plain that Mrs. Heath would be extremely difficult, but not for the world would Claire let this stand in her way.
‘I’d love to come.’
‘Now that is enchanting!’ Mrs. Heath clasped and unclasped her plump little hands in something of kittenish agitation. ‘I am sure that we shall get on well. We have never had anybody as young as you are, Sister, it will be a change, for we get all the old fogeys here,’ and she laughed.
Sir Charles cut her short.
‘You’ll send Sister a formal acceptance?’ he asked. ‘We want to get this through quickly. The present nurse is working herself to death when she should be in hospital. She has got to get in as soon as she can, and we ought to hurry up.’
‘We can fix it right away,’ said Mrs. Heath, ‘the two of us have the authority and the credentials are admirable. When will Matron release Sister?’
Sir Charles went on, and this was news to Claire. ‘I shall be seeing Matron the moment we get back,’ Sir Charles was quite definite. ‘I would have said that Sister could be down here by the end of the week.’
‘Excellent!’ Mrs. Heath was clapping her hands together with approval. ‘What an exciting day, just as we were almost giving up the ghost! Nurse is being worn to death, and she needs hospital treatment. It has been delayed far too long, poor thing!’
