by Sheila Burns
‘It’s nothing to me, a nurse is used to it, you know.’
‘Again, I can do it. I’m not that mad about growing ancient. Where’s Mavis?’
Mavis was still busy in the kitchen, and Claire could feel suspense hanging over the whole house. It was a sense of apprehension and unrest, as though one paused in life before rushing into some big vital scene which lay only just ahead of one. It was detestable.
She made Sir Charles have his tea, and talked to him, and he became happier. Curiously enough the trouble did not break that night as he had expected, but Mavis was in what he called one of her ‘lowering moods’. It was as though an internal storm drowned her real self, and wrapped her in something which her uncle had always felt was a ‘dark shroud’. She was in one way unapproachable, and he expressed the hope that if nobody said anything and she was left well to herself, this would pass.
He wanted to avoid the cloudburst.
Terence was better; after supper he got up into a dark red silk dressing-gown and came out into the garden room to sit with Sir Charles. The pain had gone, he felt crushed by the after-effects, very weak, he said, but would get over it given time.
Claire went to ask Mavis if she could help with the washing up, but this was refused. When she was in this mood it would be impossible to press her, for a mere spark might ignite the real row, and this must be avoided if it could.
The evening became a blue dusk with the nightingale singing once more in the nearby woodland, the eternal love-song of perfection. When Claire had done what she could ‒ and she dared not do too much ‒ she went into the garden. She had had time to think about her own future while Terence Anderson was resting. About Vernon this afternoon and what he had said about his mother’s angle on her difficulties.
She was convinced that she must have this row out. She must draw Mrs. Heath’s attention to the fact that being young is not a sin, and it was not her fault that the farm labourers were irritating her. She could hardly believe that Mrs. Heath would be on her side, yet to avoid this clash would be to bring about a greater fiasco later on.
She would have to go through with it.
In the garden room she felt that the two men had had a heart-to-heart talk, unloading their personal cares, and feeling all the better for it. They had talked of pictures, she gathered, which had put Sir Charles into a better mood, for he adored painting, and often bought pictures which interested him.
When Claire had made her adieux, Terence walked out to the gate with her, the red silk dressing-gown still on him. She realised that he had not felt well enough to get dressed.
‘I did want to tell you that you have been quite wonderful,’ he said.
‘Not really. I am here to do my job. Nurses come with the idea of making things easier.’
‘If all nurses thought that, what a different world it would be! In hospital they were offhand, they couldn’t be bothered. When you feel awful it is so depressing to get the idea that you are nothing more or less than a prize nuisance.’
‘You misunderstood them perhaps. Their job is to be bothered.’
‘That’s the way you look at it. Some don’t.’
She got into the little car, and perhaps because the evening was so lovely, perhaps because she was in this new mood, she did not start up the engine. He wanted to talk, she knew, and maybe she too wanted to talk.
‘In your work, painting I mean, you bother, I am sure. I imagine that you spend hours and hours over a picture, changing it, perfecting it, altering this and that, and you do not spare yourself?’
‘Of course not! Only real hard labour can produce the perfect goods in the long run.’
‘How does a picture come to you?’ she asked. ‘How do you find something that you want to paint? Inspiration is what it is called.’
He spoke for a moment quite haltingly about the germ of the idea. To listen to him was fascinating, for the gate opened on a strange new world, the world of creation. She brought living creatures into the world, he gave pictures to the world. The embryo was born in the mind first, it gradually took shape and became matter. One went on thinking about it, he said, until the moment when the hazy almost unreal thing that it was became real, and started. Then the impression of the finished picture would float into his mind, but the dream was always the foundation stone, and anything could evoke the dream; one could meet it round the next corner of life, it came out of the mist, the sky, the earth, the sea, one became used to expecting it, wanting it, and recognising it when it actually came into being.
‘It happens this way,’ he said.
To Claire a new world opened itself, and it seemed that for one thrilling moment she peered into that nebulous world, and saw inspiration with a vivid halo around it. She brought a child into the world, but the child was already there. He brought a picture into reality, and the idea had never been there save in his fertile mind.
‘It sounds unbelievable,’ she said.
‘But it’s true. An artist gets used to it and is not worried by it. He half expects it.’
She nodded.
‘It’s wonderful.’ Then realising that she had stayed here talking to him far longer than she should have done, ‘I may be wanted, I’ll have to go.’
‘Come back tomorrow?’ How encouraging were those eyes of his, with the thick surround of lashes which any girl would have envied!
She said, ‘I’ll come back. I shall keep an eye on you till you get really well again, and say goodbye to those fierce headaches for ever.’
‘You really believe they will go?’
‘Of course! What do you think?’
‘They might be an awful legacy which the accident has left me,’ he murmured.
He’s scared, she thought, it is worrying him and he does not like to say so. She patted his hand. ‘Look here, Doctor would have told you if there was likely to be anything of that sort. Doctor knows it is just post-accident, and not something to worry about. Awful whilst you have it, but leave it to people who understand, and can get rid of it for you. I promise you it will go.’
He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. It was so unexpected, and so unreal in the hazy half light of this perfect evening, that for a moment she found she was strangely moved by it.
‘I must go,’ she said, not only for his sake but for her own. One must not be ridiculous about a patient. There are moments in life when a duet can become dangerous music, and this must end now.
She drove away.
She went through the crumbling lodge gates, and past the broken-down sole remaining lodge, which stood back from the road, almost a ghost of the past.
Within a fortnight Chris would be down again, but first of all there was the ordeal tomorrow, when she simply must see Mrs. Heath and have this out. Thank goodness
Sir Charles is here for a few days, she thought. She ran the car into the little shed, locked it, and then went into the cottage. She was lucky to be here, she knew, for there was a certain happiness which the background gave her. Perhaps the new life was taking shape after all. Perhaps she herself was changing. I’ve got to be brave about this, she thought.
Chapter Thirteen
It was a restless night with dreams swaying between a man kissing her hand and the awful prospect of seeing Mrs. Heath with morning. After a breakfast which she did not fancy, Claire rang up Mrs. Heath and fixed the hour.
The second she had done this, she got the jitters, badly! When the moment came, she drove up punctually, and was shown into the big drawing-room which she had gone into that first day when she had come here with Sir Charles. Mrs. Heath rose from her place by the bureau, and about her was the unapproachable air of cool dignity.
‘You wished to see me, Sister?’
‘Yes, please. Mr. Heath brought me those lovely flowers yesterday, and I wanted to say thank you.’
‘I have good gardeners,’ and Mrs. Heath smirked slightly. She was wonderfully efficient at blowing her own trumpet.
Claire plunged straight
into it. ‘Mr. Heath dropped a remark which brought me here today. He says you disapprove of my being so young. I am afraid today girls do become Sisters when they are very young. The old times have gone. Perhaps villages do not realise this.’
Mrs. Heath’s face reddened, and for a moment she gasped with dismay. Her eyes were marbles in a florid face. Icily she said, ‘I object to the way in which you encourage the village men.’
‘I am not encouraging the village men,’ and the voice was very much that of Sister. ‘Why should I, seeing that they can be of no possible interest to me, save as patients? I gather that my predecessor was fifty?’
‘All the nurses have been mature,’ said Mrs. Heath guardedly, and she was not enjoying this. Something ghastly is going to happen, Claire thought, but having begun she had to go on.
‘I was taken on here when you knew my age. Now it is rather futile to complain that I am too young. I came with top recommendations, Sir Charles got me here.’
This was the Achilles heel, for Sir Charles was on the local board. Mrs. Heath avoided that one. ‘You could suppress the men’s behaviour.’
‘How? I have tried everything I know, and would be only too glad of help.’
‘Be cool, calm and collected.’ These were the things that Mrs. Heath never was.
‘I have tried that.’
‘I ‒ I know they are difficult, and today the world is getting out of hand. Nobody has any manners left, nobody knows how to behave.’
‘Then please, do not blame me for their misbehaviour.’
Maybe there was something about the way a nurse learns to speak, without any sign of temper or of indignation, and Claire realised that Mrs. Heath was half afraid, and already wanted to back out of it.
‘You did the right thing to come to me, Sister.’
‘I ask your understanding, and time in which to quench this distasteful interest of theirs.’
Mrs. Heath gulped hard. ‘I’ll do my best.’ Then she changed the subject. ‘You’d like a drink? Oh no, you don’t drink, of course, quite right too, it never pays. My husband …’ then she abruptly stopped herself.
Claire had heard something of it from Mrs. Hopkins, who had had to be interrupted in the story. She did not prolong the interview, it was too unpleasant for that though she felt that she had done well. ‘Now I must be off,’ she said.
At home there was a glowing letter from Chris. He had arranged to spend the following week staying at the little inn, the Woodman, which she frequently passed in her car. Anything less like Chris she could not imagine, for it was simple, very ordinary almost to discomfort, but apparently he had booked there for the inside of a week.
Arrange the arrival of your babies for it; I can’t have you eternally panicking off, he wrote.
Her first reaction was that she did not want him to come down, anyway not for the moment, she wanted to establish herself better first, and she wondered what Charnworth would say. She pored over it, and was just finishing her meal, when to her amazement Terence walked in. Somehow she had not thought of him coming here, on the other hand it almost thrilled her, which was absurd. He must have seen how she felt.
‘Hope I have not done the wrong thing, but Sir Charles suggested it. He wants you to dine with us tonight.’
‘But I’m always there,’ she indicated the armchair, then asked, ‘Have there been further difficulties?’
‘No, it’s almost too good to be true, and both of us want you to come.’ He smiled whimsically, the corners of his mouth trembling. He had not the vivid ebullience of Chris, he offered no suspense, for he was gentle, but he had infinite understanding. ‘I imagine her uncle had a talk with Mavis, and he looks worn out to me. He does too much.’
‘You’re telling me! And he is no longer young, but he will keep on working.’
‘He needs a good holiday. Mavis, too. A cruise?’
‘Surely you’re not suggesting it together? Anyway Sir Charles would never leave St. Julian’s.’
‘We’ll talk him round together.’ He sat on talking easily and happily, and when he went back, she had agreed to go to Stable House tonight. In one way it was relaxation and comforting, but she was dubious about Mavis.
It was a hard day. A child had an accident with a tractor, nothing serious, but with an hysterical mother. At a field cottage, a baby had the idea of being premature. The man was a heavy drinker, married to a girl much younger than himself, a forced marriage, one of those personalities who have no abiding city but flit from job to job, keeping none of them. The young wife lived in a state of mental jitters, with riotous week-ends when he got paid, and dreary weeks when everything had to be got ‘on tick’.
When Claire got there, the man lurched in the doorway half drunk. He said he had had to take something to buck him up, and not being used to spirits, it had been too much for him. Upstairs the girl was wretchedly ill. This, Claire told herself, was a certain caesarian, and nothing could be done until the doctor came. Luckily this time Dr. Holding was quick (punctuality had never been his strong point). He came to the same conclusion.
‘Best to get her out of this, and away where that fellow can’t worry her,’ he said, and sent for the ambulance.
Claire packed the girl’s bag; she did not wish to desert the man, saying that there was nobody to see after him.
Claire told her that other men found a way and this was up to him. ‘He’ll be happy enough when you have a fine baby son,’ she promised.
‘I just don’t want to go and leave him. I just don’t want to go,’ she wailed. It was pathetic seeing that the difficult husband was the one reason why they wanted to get her away. The possible caesarian, of course, but the husband seemed to be almost the bigger difficulty.
The ambulance came quickly, and Claire got her into it, promising her to make a ‘cuppa’ for her husband before she left him.
‘You will keep that promise? You won’t let me down?’
‘Of course not.’ Then the pain returned, and the hand had to be held for a moment, and the patient comforted. Poor little girl! She deserves a better husband than that one she has got, Claire thought.
She went back into the kitchen, the man sunk into a sagging chair, his face heavy, and she knew that in between her going out to the ambulance and returning, he had primed himself with more.
‘Damned good of you, Sister,’ he said, when she put the cup before him. ‘It’s the worry gets me down, and I don’t know what you’ll be thinking of me.’
‘I’m not here to judge people, but to help them.’
‘You’ve got something there,’ and he laughed. ‘You’re a nice girl, a damned nice girl, and far too pretty for this work.’
‘It happens to be the job that I chose.’
‘Was it now? Well, the village has talked enough, you know what a place it is! They talk about me too, and there is not a grain of truth in what they say. But you are pretty, very very pretty.’
Quietly she said, ‘Now drink down that tea, I’ll wash-up the cup, and then go to my next patient.’
He put out a none too clean hand, and grabbed her wrist. ‘What about comforting the poor father? Nobody thinks of the dad, do they?’ His giggle ended in a hiccough. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said rather lamely.
She removed her hand. ‘You tidy-up this place, then go along to hospital, and see how she is. She’ll want you, I can’t think why, but she will, for they may operate.’
‘Operate?’ That brought him to.
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘I won’t let ’em. They’ll kill her.’
She stayed coldly calm. ‘You pull yourself together and go to the hospital to see them about that. It is nothing to do with me,’ and she walked out of the door. He followed her with those ugly drink-sodden eyes of his. There is, she thought rather wretchedly, so little that I can do.
At home the note pad was covered with Mrs. Hopkins’s scrawling messages. Johnny James had spots (No. 35 in brackets); Grandad Adams, who had a stroke last week,
was being difficult; Miss Binks’s asthma was bad; and so on. Claire liked the work but it was hard going, but she was glad to be clear of hospital life, the endless walking (she did have the car here), and that awful food. The patients were more part of herself, and Mrs. Hopkins was a good cook.
She got home late, only in time to spruce herself up for Stable House again, and she set off for it. As she turned the corner of the park and the house came into sight, she was privately relieved to find that Mavis was not hanging about. Sir Charles sat in the garden, and he looked extremely tired. She got out of the car and walked over to him.
‘You’re needing a holiday,’ she said.
‘I know that one, but for the moment I can’t get it,’ and he indicated the chair beside him. ‘Do sit down.’
He went straight into the matter, for apparently there had been more trouble with Mavis. He knew that she was getting worse, and she refused to see a psychiatrist. It was curious how these patients always rebelled against help. He had hoped to get her into that good home in Hampstead for a fortnight, but now she would not go; it meant that he would have to wait for her to get worse, before he could take action.
‘It’s Terence, isn’t it?’ Claire asked.
‘Yes. She gets the idea that every man is in love with her, and gets disappointed when she finds she is wrong.’
‘Couldn’t he go back to Chelsea?’
‘I don’t want him to go, for if he gets back he will just work too hard, and that will bring on the headaches even more than they are now.’
It was one of those ever arduous waiting games. He felt that Terence was still suffering from shock, and perhaps waiting was the answer. He asked for her news, and she told him how she had broached Mrs. Heath and had won.
‘She hated it! Of course she dislikes my age, I can’t think why she did not notice it before, for now she feels that I ought to be some ancient chatterbox wandering here and there. Time is on my side. I bet when the hour comes for me to go, the village will weep for me.’
‘I bet!’ But she knew that he was worried. He had never been very good at hiding his feelings (St. Julian’s knew that). She told him that Chris was coming down, and staying at the Woodman.
