Wedding at Blue River

by Dorothy Quentin

  At first Jane and Mrs. Newbery had waited in the Sisters’ sitting-room, where the big windows opened on to a wide veranda gay with potted plants and ferns hanging in baskets from the ceiling. Sister Mollie had even remembered to send a wardmaid out to them with a tray of coffee and two generous doses of what the girl said shyly was “medicinal brandy.”

  “Was it really as awful as they’re saying, Mrs. Newbery?” she asked, loth to go without getting some firsthand news. She had been on duty this morning, but the wildest rumours were filtering into the hospital with every caller, and the Casualty Department was a shambles.

  “Aye, it was bad. The worst I’ve ever seen forbye the Grand National, Nola.”

  The girl giggled, and catching sight of Jane’s anguished eyes caught herself up suddenly. “It sounds terrible. It’s never happened on the flat before—we haven’t got fences and a Becher’s Brook in Oonga!” She was gone at last. Jane roused from her thoughts to refuse the coffee and brandy, but Nubby insisted. “In a while Steve will need you, my dear, there’s no sense in sitting there thinking he’s going to die.”

  “If he does, it will be my fault!” Jane declared in a low, passionate voice, “I should never have come to the Blue River. I shouldn’t have stayed.” Nevertheless she drank the laced coffee obediently, and it sent a cheering warmth through her shocked body and tired mind. She looked at the older woman guiltily, “I’m an impostor, Nubby. Steve had never set eyes on me before I stepped out of the utility a week ago.”

  A week ago...

  Her own words gave her an added shock. It didn’t seem possible that so much could have happened to her in one short week; that she should feel so much at home at the Blue River that she felt as if she had known the place and its people always, and Steve.

  Steve, who had nearly lost his life defending her pride in front of the Finches this morning, who might still die. In spite of Dr. Banjo’s quiet confidence, she knew that Steve had only a fifty-fifty chance of recovery. Even then there might be some damage to his brain. And he might very well be permanently lamed ... she couldn’t imagine Steve unable to stride over his land, Steve not capable of controlling Ranger or riding on a muster or breaking in his own horses.

  She remembered his words about preferring to die, and die quickly rather than go through life a half-man, that he had said with such conviction in the plane three days ago.

  Nubby was also looking pale and shadowed under the eyes with pain and shock, but she looked at Jane with great kindness and said gently, “If it will ease your mind, Jane, tell me. All this has something to do with Stewart, has it not? And mebbe Lisa?”

  Jane nodded, not knowing where to begin the ridiculous humiliating, incredible story. Then, suddenly and simply, it spilled out of her. Nubby listened quietly, even smiling once or twice. She understood Steve’s odd mood before the arrival of the English girls now, and she had a shrewd idea what had happened in the saddling enclosure this morning.

  “It sounds so stupid—no one would believe all this,” Jane sighed at the end of the brief summary. Her grey eyes were sad as she turned them on Nubby, her smile twisted.

  “Och, aye. Ye see, I know them a’. I’ve known them since they were bairns. Steve, and Alison, and that puir Stewart—he could charm the heart out of a body, that one.”

  “He tried deliberately to murder Steve today,” Jane said quietly. “I don’t want revenge, the poor wretch has paid the price, but I can’t feel pity for him.”

  “Ye will, when Steve is better. Steve never carried a grudge in his life.”

  Jane nodded, her grey eyes dark with pain and shock. “Steve actually wanted to—to buy him for me. To offer him part of the property if we got married.”

  Nubby nodded. “Aye, and he would have done no less. He’s aye had a deep sense of responsibility, Steve. He’d want to make up to ye for the way ye were tricked, and Lisa too. I daresay Stewart was counting on juist that, he knew the way Steve’s mind worked, ye see.”

  Jane stared at her wonderingly. “So—today when Steve introduced me as—as his fiancée—”

  Nubby nodded again, sadly. “Stewart knew his plans had miscarried. What we ca’ a boomerang here. Ye had taken him at his word and come out sooner than he expected ... instead of a nice English girl with a crippled sister whom he wanted to marry, and settle doon if he could hae’ a portion of the Blue River for his ain, there you were installed already as the future mistress of the Blue River.”

  “But Steve only said that to save my face!” Jane cried wanly. “It was the only way to stop Stewart’s tricks.”

  Nubby reached over and took the girl’s hand for a moment, holding it firmly. She said, “Oh, Jane! Even Steve wouldn’t go that far.”

  Jane’s hand trembled in her clasp. “I—he’s been so very, very kind and generous,” she whispered. Then she blurted, “I think he’s in love with Lisa.”

  “I wondered, at first,” Nubby agreed drily. She added in the same tone, “When he brought you across to the stand juist before the race, I forgot about Lisa. It’s you he loves, Jane. It was written there in his face, for a’ the world to see.”

  Jane, remembering the passionate tenderness of his kiss, freed her hand gently and walked out on to the veranda. She didn’t want Nubby to see the tears that were running silently down her cheeks. She wished fervently she could believe what Nubby had just said. Every word of it.

  Nubby, seeing the slender shoulders shaking, said briskly, “I’ll juist take the tray along tae the kitchen, they’re busy here today,” and she left Jane alone for a little while. The poor lass had had her share of shocks during the past seven days...

  Stewart, she thought, had reached the climax of his wickedness today. If Steve had died, and Stewart had claimed that his horse got out of control, he and Alison would have inherited the Blue River. Distant cousins though they were, Steve had no other kith or kin. But if Steve was going to marry Jane, and have children to inherit his property, there would be no future in it for the Finches.

  Nubby, who had known Stewart when he was a mischievous, wheedling naughty little boy, could only pray that his violent end would atone for his sins. As for Alison—Nubby had seen Alison on the racecourse just before they took Stewart’s body away, and the woman’s face had been cold as stone. She and Stewart had been identical twins, closer than any ordinary brother-and-sister relationship, yet Alison had shown no signs of grief. She had had the look of a gambler who has staked the last of his money on a long chance, and lost; a sort of stony frustration.

  After leaving the tray on the kitchen hatch Nubby went in search of Dr. Jeffries. She was so well known in the hospital that the nurse on duty in the Transceiver Room told her she could go through to the doctor and Sister Mollie in Casualty. She pushed the hair off her damp forehead tiredly, and switched off the confused sounds coming from the receiver to smile at Mrs. Newbery. “My goodness! We’re getting calls in from every station on the network! They heard the broadcast, you see, and want to know who is injured and how they’re getting on. My voice is giving out, telling them who has been hurt, who is warded and the one’s we’ve been able to send home. Lots of folk want to know about Mr. Forrest, but of course there’s no bulletin about him I can send, yet.”

  “People are very kind,” the Scotswoman smiled, “Dr. Banjo will pull him through if anyone can, Sally.”

  “People are very curious!” the girl muttered to herself as she turned the switch to “receive” again, but her voice as she answered the next enquirer was calm and professional and confident.

  Nubby found Mike Jeffries strapping up Tom Elliot’s broken ribs.

  “I never thought I’d be glad that Moonstrike’s not a stayer,” Tom said ruefully. “Ouch! Do you have to pull that damned stuff so tight, Doc? If we’d been travelling at his top speed I’d have had more than a couple of busted ribs.”

  “If you don’t do some damfool thing and get pneumonia, Tom, you can go home now. Tell Maisie I said to keep you quiet for a couple of
days, and to let us know at once if you raise a fever.”

  “Willco. Thanks, Doc.” Tom allowed himself to be helped into his cerise jockey’s shirt, wincing at the pain and at the shirt. He slid off the couch and said, “I hope it goes well with Steve, Mrs. Newbery. That was a crook deal. We’ll be listening for news every day. See you.”

  “We’ll let you know, but don’t call the hospital, Tom—Sally’s just about going up the wall already with folk asking questions.”

  Tom nodded. “I guess we’ll hear anyway on the natter session. Our love to Steve when he comes round. I’ve asked Jack to fly us home this afternoon, but I guess you’ll want to stay in town—is there anything you’d like done at the Blue River until—”

  “No, thank you, Tom. I expect Joel will be going home as soon as he knows how Steve is. The girls and I will be staying with Mrs. Cooper for the present.” When Tom had gone the doctor wiped his sweating face with a wad of gauze and grinned at her. “And what can I do for you, Mrs. Newbery? Steve won’t be out of the theatre for a couple of hours or so yet.”

  “Can you give Jane and me something to do, Mike? It’s easier than sitting and waiting. She’s a nurse, ye ken, and I can turn my hand to any job that needs doing.”

  The young doctor flicked a lighter at his cigarette and drew at it slowly, savouring it. He glanced at the disarray of the examination room and grinned again. “We could use four extra hands,” he admitted cheerfully, “this has been a busy morning, Mrs. N. But Banjo said Jane would probably want to special Steve when he’s put to bed—huh?”

  “I think she’d rather be working while she waits, and I know I would.”

  “O.K., I’ll ask Sister Mollie to put you to work. Some of the other fellows are pretty crook—not as bad as Steve, but they need watching. Three of our girls are on leave, and that means the rest of us are being tight-scheduled.”

  Sister Mollie accepted the offer of help without fuss, and Jane, scrubbing and sterilising used instruments, discovered some relief in the once-familiar tasks. At least, it stopped her weeping. Mrs. Newbery collected soiled linen from the cubicles and tidied up generally, and helped distribute lunch-trays to the patients able to eat. In the middle of their own lunch in the hospital dining-room Sister Mollie was called away to Reception to admit Mrs. Hawkins, whose baby was arriving prematurely.

  “It isn’t due for another two weeks,” she told Mrs. Newbery when she returned to her lunch, “but she was at the race this morning and now she’s in labour.”

  “Business as usual. Crying tonight,” Dr. Jeffries said, and somehow the feeble joke was comforting to Jane.

  When Dr. Banjo sent for Jane and Mrs. Newbery, he looked grey with exhaustion and he kept wiping off the sweat that trickled down his face and neck. It had been a long and intricate double operation, and the shade-temperature was in the seventies. In the theatre it had been like a Turkish bath. One day, he told himself, we’ll have air-conditioning ... real air-conditioning instead of those extractor fans...

  In spite of his fatigue his eyes were serene as he looked at Jane and Mrs. Newbery.

  “It’s lucky for Steve he has a thick skull,” he said drily, “and that he knows when to slide out of the saddle. If the fence had not been in the way, he would have got off with compound fractures of the femur.”

  “Will he be all right, Doctor?” Nubby made no effort to hide her anxiety. Jane said nothing, but her eyes never left the surgeon’s.

  “He’s a strong, healthy man in his prime. His leg took a lot of punishment, it was crushed against the rail. About the skull fracture—” he paused, trying to explain it in words that Mrs. Newbery would understand. Jane probably knew what the odds were. “I have removed the fragment of bone causing the pressure. We shall know when he is fully conscious whether or not I was in time. It is possible that some permanent damage has been done to the brain. With severe concussion it is always possible. We relieve the pressure as quickly as we can.”

  “I see.” Nubby felt like a mother worrying about her son. Steve had always seemed to her like a son. “And ye can really tell, when he comes round—if he’s—sensible?”

  “Oh, yes. He will be dazed, naturally. Apart from the physical injuries there will be—” the little doctor lifted his shoulders and his hands expressively. He added gently, “I think people will want to forget what happened today. Such things are best forgotten. But Steve must have been shocked when he realised what was happening.

  “Aye. There was nothing he could do about it, was there?” Nubby said sadly.

  “No. He was too close to the fence to jump it, to get out of the way.”

  “Thank you for all you have done, Doctor Banjo. We are lucky to have you here with us today.”

  He smiled at last, looking at Nubby very affectionately. “Perhaps it is a little return for all I have received from the Blue River, no?”

  “I reckon you paid that account long ago. I would like tae see Steve, but I daresay—”

  “Later. For now, he must sleep, he would not know you were there.” He turned to Jane. “He is in good hands while he sleeps. Later, when he becomes conscious, he will want to see you there, I think. The next few days and nights will be critical, but to be useful you must have your proper periods of rest, Jane. I want you to return to the hotel now, and take the draught I will give you, and come back here at six o’clock. You will special Steven for the first two nights, no?”

  “Yes, Doctor. Thank you.”

  She did not want to go away from the hospital and she doubted if any draught would give her sleep, but her training had made her obedient to doctors’ orders and she had great faith in this doctor. She knew he was right. Worn out by anxiety and lack of sleep, she would be no use to Steve as a nurse during those critical night watches that lay ahead.

  “Good.” He put his hand on her shoulder briefly, “I will send for you at once if there is any need. The hotel is only across the road.”

  Jane smiled wanly. "You must be tired—” from force of habit she nearly added ‘sir’. Joe’s was an old-fashioned hospital in its courtesies if not in its techniques and equipment. And the little Polish doctor had somehow become a giant in her estimation.

  Mrs. Newbery said apologetically, “About his leg, Doctor Banjo—? That will be important—to Steve—too.”

  “Ah, the grazier’s legs!” This time he really smiled. “If he does what his good nurse tells him, Steve should be able to ride in about eight weeks. In about three months that poor leg will be—how you say—as good as new?”

  “Och, that’s good news! I’m away tae tell Joel—the puir wee body has been sitting on the hospital steps for two hours or more, waiting tae hear—” Mrs. Newbery hurried out to Joel, while Dr. Banjo unlocked the medicine cupboard and mixed her sedative himself. While she drank it he gave her a few directions about the nursing Steve would need, satisfying himself that she understood.

  “I have done everything possible, now we can only pray,” he said simply, “even if there is no physical damage to the brain, there will be great distress about his cousin, you understand? Steven is a generous man.”

  Jane nodded, her eyes full of tears.

  Dr. Banjo put two fingers under her chin, raising her face. Then he nodded. “Yes. He will need much loving, little one. You will stay at the hotel until we can send him home, and go with him to the Blue River, and nurse him until he is quite well in mind and body, no?”

  “Yes,” Jane nodded. “I shall be here as long as he needs me.”

  “Then you will be here for always, Jane.” At her rueful expression he changed the subject abruptly. “I would like Lisa to come here for physiotherapy twice daily while you are staying at the hotel. You will arrange that?”

  “Lisa?” she said stupidly. She had hardly thought of her sister for the past four hours.

  “Yes, Lisa.” Dr. Banjo, tired though he was, showed a gleam of amused triumph in his eyes. “You did not see what happened when the accident occurred? Lisa was shocked and t
errified like all the others. She grabbed the railing and pulled herself out of her chair—you remember?”

  Jane shook her head. She had had eyes only for what was happening to Steve. “I expect she was standing up by hooking her hands over the rail. Her arms are very strong—and they have got much stronger during the past eighteen months. She’s used them so much—”

  “She was standing on her feet, when I looked back,” the doctor was convinced, a little excited. “One shock causes traumatic paralysis. Another may cure it. You know that is so, Jane. When I examined her last Sunday there was no more treatment I could suggest. Now it will be different. When she realises what has happened, she will need physiotherapy to make her legs strong again, to retrain the muscles.”

  “I can hardly believe it!” Jane whispered. If it was true it was wonderful news. If something good could come out of this day’s tragedy it would be like a miracle.

  “Ask her.” Dr. Banjo smothered a yawn as he escorted Jane to the entrance. “Make sure she keeps on believing. She must not slip back now, whatever happens.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  JANE had passed her senior hospital but not her senior state examinations before leaving St. Joseph’s to go home and nurse her father through his last illness. She had been the gold medal nurse of her third year. She was used to taking responsibility for the critical night watches over patients who had to be specialled. But she had never endured the mental agony of a vigil like the one she began that first night in the little hospital in Oonga.

  They had put Steve in a single ward at the back, where it was very quiet except for the night orchestra of the cicadas and the occasional cry of an owl.