Nurse with a Dream

by Norrey Ford

  The main hospital building was hideous, a Victorian mock-Gothic structure in red brick. The front entrance, used only by V.I.P.s, was Scottish baronial in style, designed for silk-hatted doctors arriving in broughams. There were two men chatting under the portico. They separated, and one strode towards the doctors’ car park. It was Mr. Broderick, alone.

  Without giving herself time to think, she plunged after him. “Mr. Broderick! Please—may I speak to you?”

  He turned inquiringly, waited till she had caught him up, breathless.

  “Mr. Broderick—this is the day I go to Timberfold, to stay.”

  He frowned, as if faintly puzzled. He doesn’t even remember, she thought desperately. He orders me to go, quite casually, and doesn’t know how important it is to me. “You know,” she urged. “The farm. You said I had to go.”

  His brow cleared. “Oh—the farm. Yes, yes, have a good time and come back looking less transparent. At the moment you look like a wax angel.” Struck by his own simile, he looked at her more closely. Funny young thing—she had indeed that look of innocence, of childlike belief in man’s goodness, which characterised a pale-haired Christmas angel. A windflower, a snowdrop. A vaguely protective feeling stirred in him. What was such a girl doing amid the harsh realities of hospital life? Someone ought to wrap her up carefully in tissue paper, take her away and cherish her.

  Suddenly he laughed aloud. She was no drowned Ophelia. She had fire and courage, her own flash of temper. He remembered her determined grip on the water-jug. He patted her shoulder indulgently. “You’ll do fine on fresh air and good milk.”

  Her eyes filled with tears, part desperation, part temper. "You won’t understand, will you! I’m afraid, Alan. Can’t you hear? Afraid. Listen—someone attacked me up there. I didn’t fall; someone hit me. They want to kill me, they always hated Daddy—Uncle Saul, Connie, and all that side of the family. They drove him from home and now they hate me.”

  He gripped her wrist, his fingers biting the flesh cruelly. “Steady! This is hysterical talk. You’ve no proof anyone tried to kill you. Why should they invite you to stay, take such an interest in you, if they hate you? You’re letting this old feud become an obsession.”

  She gulped, blinking back the tears. She felt slightly ashamed of her outburst, but she had had about as much as she could stand to-day from St. Simon’s and everybody connected with it. “Yes, there is that. They got rid of me, and needn’t have come to see me or asked me there. But—there was the dog.”

  “Don’t tell me they set the dog on you?”

  She shook her head violently. Guy would be here any minute and she had to make Alan understand. “No—not at the farm. But I saw a dog, just before I was struck down. A black-and-white dog like a collie, with white feet and a white tip to its tail—”

  “Sheepdog, a very common marking. Dozens like that.”

  “But this one had a map of England on its shoulder. Well, a patch rather like a map. Someone shouted to it, to lie down, and it obeyed. Then someone hit me.”

  He frowned, rubbing his chin. “You are sure someone hit you?”

  “Positive. I dreamt it twice.”

  “And what you dream twice is true, eh? Aren’t you making a lot of fuss over a dream, you silly child?”

  She stamped impatiently, entirely forgetting that he was a surgeon, she the least important member of St. Simon’s. “It wasn’t a dream. At least, I mean—oh, don’t be such a fool!”

  Before he could answer, Sister Clarke seized her arm. “Nurse! What are you thinking of? Don’t molest Mr. Broderick like this. I’m sorry, sir, I’d no idea she was going to chase after you. I was speaking to my brother—he’s just arrived—”

  ‘That’s all right, Sister.” He nodded briefly to Jacqueline. “I shouldn’t worry too much about those dreams. They’ll vanish in time. Bound to have a few nightmares after the fright you had.” He strode away, and Jacqueline was marched back to Guy’s car, her arm firmly gripped by Deborah’s remarkably strong hand.

  Guy drove cautiously through the dingy streets surrounding the hospital. “Deb was in a wax. Why?”

  “I spoke to Alan Broderick. Juniors aren’t supposed to.”

  He pulled down the corners of his mouth. “Outside the hospital and off duty? What nonsense! Deborah’s mad because she’s jealous. She’s keen on him herself—and you are younger and prettier.”

  They were soon on the main road to the moors. “Oh, Guy, isn’t it good to be out of doors! I’m in everybody’s bad books, I think.”

  “Not in mine. I think you’re wonderful.”

  “Thank you for those kind words. They are balm to the soul. Say it again.”

  “I think you’re wonderful.”

  “Thank you. That’s very sweet of you. My ego is inflating already.”

  Alan Broderick drove himself home, to a square stone cottage which dated from the time before Barnbury was industrialised. The Beck Cottage windows had once looked out on fields and woods, the stream at the end of the garden once sparkled and sang, where now it flowed heavily, yellow with effluents. The grey stone walls were blackened with half a century of grime, but indoors the cottage was bright and clean, the few good pieces of Early Victorian furniture shining with generations of housewifely care.

  Mrs. Hawkins, his housekeeper, hurried from the kitchen to meet him. She had been washing her aspidistra, and dried her hands hurriedly. “Ee, doctor, you look tired out—proper grey and no mistake. I wonder if we’ve lost kettle?”

  Correctly understanding this as a promise of a cup of tea, he nodded and entered his double-windowed study, which Mrs. Hawkins referred to quite simply as Room. He sank thankfully into a deep leather chair and lit his pipe. The room was quiet, but not entirely silent, for a marble clock ticked heavily, sparrows squabbled outside the open windows, and Mrs. Hawkins’s voice could be heard faintly as she talked to herself in the kitchen. Mrs. Hawkins was a juggernaut talker, slowly and relentlessly crushing opposition. Failing an audience, she talked to herself, even in her sleep.

  As he enveloped himself in a cloud of blue smoke, like—Mrs. Hawkins said—a Chinese idol, tension slipped from him. He had fought two hours for the life of a fat toy-manufacturer, bald as a baby and with three chins in front and two at the back of his neck. The fight had been won—for the present. If all went well; if nothing unexpected happened; if the man’s heart stood up to it. Nothing must go wrong. Alan remembered the wife, her plump fingers squeezing out of white lace gloves, rocking to and fro in agony of mind, the make-up standing out on her fat, gray face. “Neddy boy, get better—oh, get better for Gladys, love.” She had turned a daubed, trusting face to Alan.

  “It had to be you, Mr. Broderick. He would come to St. Simon’s for it. He started mekkin’ his first toys in my back kitchen, seems like yesterday. But he can afford to pay for the best now, can Edward. He’s got on.”

  Edward for the man who could afford surtax, double chins and private treatment. But that poor woman was in the old back kitchen again with her soft, continual moan. “Neddy, Neddy-boy, get well.”

  Mrs. Hawkins brought the tea, in a big brown pot with a salmon-pink and yellow cosy, product of a missionary sale. She was ticking for gossip. “Noo, doctor, been cutting anybody up to-day?”

  He said patiently, “I don’t cut people up, Hawkey. If you must know, a man called Neddy whose wife wants him back.”

  “Poor soul! Will she get him?”

  He took the cup from her. “Depends on good nursing now. In the long run, it always does.”

  “Aye. And faith and prayer, I reckon.”

  “And faith and prayer, Hawkey. Is there a tea-cake?”

  Mrs. Hawkins started on a story involving her sister’s nephew which would sooner or later bring her round to tea-cakes, so Alan opened a drawer of his desk and took out a long bright knife; it was not sharp, being, in fact, a letter-opener, but he fingered the blade lovingly, fixing Mrs. Hawkins with a look at once speculative and absent-minded, and in a
moment she hurried away. He threw the ever-useful paper-cutter back and sipped his tea.

  Nursing! That reminded him of the little Clarke girl. When she spoke to him he had been lost in thought about the toy-manufacturer and his wife, and had not given the girl his full attention. Now he recollected that he had spoken to her like an elderly uncle, patted her on the head and told her to run away and play. He scowled, trying to remember exactly what she had said. She had been serious, desperation in her voice and small piquant face. She had appealed to him for help twice, and he had taken no notice.

  Dash it, what had she said? Something about a dog and being attacked? And he had dismissed it as a dream!

  What fools we’ve all been! We were all so confident she had climbed Black Crag and fallen, in spite of her strenuous denials. Why were we? The note she left for me, and the innumerable questions she asked Guy Clarke about the crag—the way she’d said I can’t wait to see it. A suspicion made his scalp crawl. Suppose she’s right all the time—suppose they do hate her, at Timberfold; suppose they’ve asked her there in order to get rid of her!

  Bosh—melodrama! An excitable girl! Excitable—no, she wasn’t that. She had been first-class, all that morning they spent together. Look how she’d dropped in her tracks, frozen silent and motionless, whenever he’d given the signal. How coolly she’d behaved when she found an intruder in her room! No, she wasn’t excitable—only warm, impulsive, human. His lips twitched in a smile. Bless the child, she had not yet been moulded into the hospital pattern; she was finding it hard going, and Deborah Clarke wouldn’t help. Deborah as a nurse was hard as nails; she believed in efficiency but hadn’t a notion of what made a really good nurse; she used her brain but not her heart. Little Jacqueline would find it tough if Deborah got a down on her.

  He had made a fool of himself over Deborah; attracted by her vibrant femininity, the lush promise of cherries-and-cream, he had broken his own strict rule about nurses, and taken her out—twice. But twice was enough to see that she was a jealous, possessive woman, not content to let their friendship develop naturally, but too eager to force it in an emotional hothouse. He had dropped her quickly, before any harm was done, and had never again broken his rule. No nurses, ever, for him.

  “Here’s your nice tea-cake, Doctor,” said the housekeeper, returning. “Will it be all right if I pop down to butcher’s? He’s saving a nice chop for your dinner, and don’t stop at that hospital till all hours, mooning over your patients. Let the nurses have a chance.”

  “I don’t moon.”

  “Course you do. You’d like to do everything for them, wouldn’t you? I believe you can’t trust anybody to do a thing right except yourself. You think just because you’ve saved their lives you’re responsible for them for ever more.” “Hawkey, you’ve hit on a profound truth. If you save a life you’re responsible for it—for evermore. That’s why—here, pass me my engagement-book. How am I for the week-end?”

  “Same as usual. Free, barring accidents—and there always is an accident, one way or another.”

  “I want to go to the Moor Hen. Telephone Mrs. Medway, there’s a dear, and ask her to be sure to keep my room.”

  “Don’t they always?”

  “Last time they let it to a girl. A little fair thing like a Christmas angel.”

  “That’d be a bit frail for everyday life.”

  He shouted with sudden laughter. “She’s got a temper like the kick of a horse. She thought I was a ghost or a burglar, and coolly ordered me out Then she threatened to throw a water-jug at me—but that was after I saved her life. So now I’m responsible for her. Hawkey, don’t forget to telephone, it’s urgent. Now, I’m going back to my toy-manufacturer, I want to have a look at him. If anybody wants me, I’m at the hospital.”

  The front door banged behind him. Mrs. Hawkins pursed her lips curiously, nodding to herself. Then she trotted into the kitchen to finish her aspidistra, and was so lost in her own thoughts that Mr. Tomkins, the ginger cat, was able to wheedle an extra meal out of her by rubbing his head on her stout ankles and telling her a tale about not having had a bite since breakfast. She gave him the last of the tin of cat food and put her plant back on its stand. Then she rang the Moor Hen and gave Mollie Alan’s message.

  “What’s this about a girl, Mrs. Medway?” she said with the confidence of long acquaintance. ‘The doctor’s talking blethers about a girl like an angel who threw things at him.”

  Mrs. Hawkins was for ever torn between two desires—the itch of every woman to marry off any eligible bachelor within reach, and the fear that Alan’s marriage might cost her a comfortable job. But for the moment the match-making instinct was uppermost.

  “Girl?” Mollie Medway’s voice warmed with interest. “I don’t know, Mrs. Hawkins. What do you mean, talking blethers?”

  ‘Talking nonsense, that’s what. He says she looks like an angel, and if that isn’t a sign of something I don’t know what is. It’s my belief he’s head over heels in love with her, but of course he doesn’t know it.”

  “Mrs. Hawkins! Are you sure?”

  “Well, no. I only feel it in my bones. I mean, it’s noticing her face that worries me. Mostly he recognises them by their insides. Anyway, Mrs. Medway, you’ll see for yourself, and don’t say as I’ve said anything, will you?”

  “I certainly won’t.” Mollie replaced the receiver and went into the kitchen to look for her husband. He was chopping onions. “Lance, my darling, you owe me tuppence. Alan has fallen for the girl. His housekeeper says so.”

  “I’ll pay when Alan says so. You women live in a daze of romance. It’s a wonder there’s a bachelor left on earth.”

  She kissed the back of his neck, the only part of him she could reach. “There wouldn’t be, if you men didn’t band together in clubs and secret societies for safety. Lock the doors and keep the women out, that’s your idea. We only catch the ones who stay out after curfew. And you still owe me tuppence.”

  “If you’d listen to reason—”

  “When women start listening to reason, men will get their own way, darling—and then, where would the world be?”

  Jacqueline, Guy and Gypsy were in Tegger’s Clough, a ravine hidden in the fold of a hill. Its sides were clothed in bracken, gold and green. A tiny beck trickled down the clough, a thin silver thread where in winter, Guy said, it would be a torrent. In these long, airless days of autumn, the sheep were troubled by pests which hatched in the wool and weakened the animals till they crept into the bracken to die if they were not found and treated by a shepherd. Gypsy ranged wide, panting in the heat. The cloth-of-gold covering of bracken, so lovely to look at, was a death-trap for an infested sheep.

  “The heather is gone,” Jacqueline said rather sadly. “It was too beautiful to last long. Guy, I absolutely must sit down a minute by this little pool and cool my wrists. I never knew shepherding was such hard work.”

  Gypsy took a long drink, then flopped on the short sweet turf, one eye on her master to see if this rest was allowed. Jacqueline dipped her hands in the pool; the water was ice-cold, refreshing. A thread of water dropped into it from the pool above, with a bell-like tinkle.

  She lifted her wet hands and shook them, laughing over her shoulder at Guy. “The sun will dry them, my hankie isn’t big enough.”

  He put his arms round her, drawing her away from the water and turning her to face him. “Jacky—you’re lovely,” he murmured urgently. “The loveliest girl I’ve ever seen.”

  She caught her breath. She had wondered what it would be like to hear that special note in a man’s voice. Now she was alarmed, unsure. Was Guy the one? How should she respond? His big hands held her gently, but she could feel their strength, the warmth of his body close to her, see a pulse beating in his golden-tan throat. In a way, it seemed perfectly natural that this should happen.

  “You’re so tiny, so fair,” he went on, a little breathless. “I’m afraid to touch you, yet I want to take you in my two hands and hold you like—like a s
nowdrop lodged in a cranny of rock, protected from cold winds. I’d like to shelter you from the cold winds, Jacky—all the winds that blow.”

  She said uncertainly, “You shouldn’t talk that way, Guy, unless you—” She hesitated, voice uncertain.

  “Unless I’m in love with you, want to marry you? But I am, darling. I do. Please, Jacky, marry me—soon. I do love you so much.”

  Gently she withdrew her hands. “That’s sweet of you, and I’ll always remember you asked me. But I can’t answer yet, either yes or no.”

  His face clouded. “Someone else?”

  “No, Guy—there’s no one else. And I do like you, very much. But we don’t know each other properly. How can we decide to live together for the rest of our lives, when we don’t know whether we agree about a single important thing? I can’t tell whether I love you or not.”‘

  He made an impatient gesture. “But love, darling—that’s not decided by whether you like or dislike the same things or vote the same way. It’s bigger than all that—it overrides everything. I know I love you; I don’t have to know whether you like sugar in your tea, or black coffee. I knew I loved you, that first day, the minute I set eyes on you. I said ‘that’s for me’—and you are, you know.”

  She could not help smiling. “Guy, you’re so intense. Don’t you see, you silly man, we can’t decide our whole lives in a minute. You can’t just say “that’s for me’ as if I were a cake in a confectioner’s window.”

  He cupped his hands over her slim shoulders, shook her slightly, smiling into her face. “I’m going to have you, my lass. My mind is made up. It’s all or nothing for me.”

  His assurance, his over-confidence, made her angry.

  Pushing his hands down, she said, “Nothing, then—if you can’t give me time to make up my mind.”

  Her coolness checked him. He said more reasonably, “Don’t be like this, darling. So distant, so remote. Don’t you like me at all?”