by Norrey Ford
The third-year nurse on the Children’s Ward was Phyllis Arnott. She stared at Jacqueline when she reported for duty, the pale blue eyes opening wide; then she became remote, impersonal, efficient, never for a moment diminishing the distance which lay between her and her new first-year nurse. She was splendid with children; they all adored her and obeyed her instantly. When she held a baby in her arms, her plain sweet face was transformed into beauty, and Jacqueline thought she would make a wonderful wife and mother, if some man was perceptive enough to see beyond her face to her embracing, affectionate heart.
Jacqueline adored the children but was slightly afraid of them. The very sick ones seemed so fragile, the almost-well children so active, determined and powerful. The hour she dreaded most was when she had to cram the older ones into outdoor clothes and take them for a walk round the hospital grounds when the sun shone. Under Nurse Arnott’s eye, they marshalled themselves into a straggling crocodile willingly enough, but once they had left the ward and knew they had only Jacqueline to contend with, they became aggressive and hurled themselves into any mischief which might present itself. One morning she took them round another way, as she had been reproved for letting them stand at the door of the boiler-house watching the janitor. They were supposed to keep moving, to keep themselves warm.
As they straggled, a pushing, chattering mass, round to the east side of the block, she saw her mistake. Here, in the shade, a mass of snow had congealed, and though it was now blackened with Barnbury soot, the children recognised it—indeed, they would probably not have recognised the pure white variety—and fell upon it with whoops of joy, snowballing each other disastrously.
“Stop at once, children! Do you hear? That snow is dirty, covered with soot. Just look at the mess you’re making!” As they were all Barnbury children, they regarded soot-covered snow as normal, and thought Jacqueline’s protests fussy. Gary, a stocky child who was the ringleader in the less attractive forms of naughtiness, squinted at her under the low-pulled peak, of his blue check cap.
“Waffor?” he demanded, aggrieved. The melting snowball in his hand was a temptation. He hurled it at Jacqueline and scored a direct hit on the snowy bib of her apron. All the others yelled like Red Indians and moved in to the kill. This was as good as Saturday morning cinema, except that it was happening in the nasty fresh air instead of a nice cosy fug such as they were used to. Black snow flew through the air in one direction only, while Gary did gangster-like gestures with his arms, and encouraged his men in a mixture of Barnbury and American which they understood best.
Suddenly there was stillness and silence. The gangsters became orderly children again. Alan Broderick was there, and by the mere force of official masculinity had quelled the riot. “If any child moves,” he said sternly, “I’ll snickersnee him at once.”
Jacqueline longed for the ground to open and swallow her. Her apron was sopping wet and streaked with dirt, her cap had been trodden underfoot, and one of the boys picked it up belatedly and offered it to her, a limp grey rag.
“Dear me, Nurse,” Alan said softly. “You don’t seem to be good at children, do you?”
“No,” she admitted miserably.
“Well, don’t look so downcast. Worse things happen at sea. I expect you’ll have to change that apron. Do forgive me for laughing. It’s so d-darned funny!”
“It must be!” she retorted, stung.
“I’m sorry. That was mean of me. Here, take my handkerchief and mop up a bit. I wanted to see you, but we never seem to meet now.”
“I’m on Children’s Ward.” The information was so unnecessary that she was able to smile faintly.
“So it seems. Look, it’s nearly spring. Isn’t it time we saw you at the Moor Hen again? Lance and Mollie often ask about you. Must you wear a starched apron all the time, child? There’s a St. David’s Day dance—I’d like to take you to it, if I may. Will you come with me, Jacqueline?”
Her pulses bounded with excitement, her predicament forgotten. She said quickly, “Oh—I’d love to—” And then the eager happy look faded. “No. I’m terribly sorry, but I can’t.”
“On duty? Couldn’t you get a late pass?”
“N-no. I mean—I have already. That is, I’m going to the dance with—with Guy.”
He looked disappointed. She saw now that he was tired; his dark hawk’s face was lined and grey with fatigue, and across it flitted unmistakable disappointment. For a second, she had imagined he had offered her the dance as a consolation prize, recompense for having laughed at her. But the laugh had been kindly, with real sympathy behind it, and he had really wanted to take her to the dance. She felt sorrier than she had ever felt before. It was hateful to have to refuse Alan.
“I see,” he said quietly and with finality.
“I’m truly sorry, and I do appreciate your asking me.”
He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. So long as Cinderella goes to the ball. How do you propose to get there?”
“It’s my day off, luckily. Guy is fetching me in the afternoon and will drive me home afterwards.”
“I see. Well, good luck!” One of the smaller children fell over inexplicably in the way children do, and he upended it solemnly.
“Miss,” Gary shouted at full lung-power, “there’s a nurse coming.”
“Gerraway!” said a thin girl in plaits. “That isn’t a nurse, it’s a wumman!”
“ ’Tis a nurse, so says I” Gary insisted, and to prove him right, Deborah Clarke turned the corner, taking a short cut to the Nurses’ Home. She had been shopping, and carried a small, elegant parcel. She took in the scene with narrowed eyes.
“What is the meaning of this, Nurse?” She ignored Alan. “Why are these children standing about in the cold wind? Why are they—and you—wet and dirty? You’d better take them back to the ward at once and report to your Sister. She’ll probably send you to Matron. Really—such incompetence!”
Thoroughly awed now, the children submitted to being marshalled into a crocodile. To save Jacqueline further embarrassment, Alan moved off—a fact which infuriated Deborah. She had hoped to send Jacqueline away in disgrace and be left alone with him. Instead, he had gone and she was left with Jacqueline and those filthy children.
“I’ve warned you before,” she said in a low voice, “to keep off Mr. Broderick. He won’t thank you. for scheming to meet him.”
“Scheme? I didn’t scheme. He just happened along.”
“Tch! Don’t you know he regularly uses this path as a short cut to the car-park? Of course you do—or else why did you bring the children this way? You know they are supposed to go round by the west block.”
“Is that a rule? Sister said take them anywhere in the sunshine. I came this way to avoid the boiler-room. I didn’t know about the snow.”
“That was your bad luck, wasn’t it? But you did know about Alan Broderick. Don’t you know what a place like this is like? A breath of gossip and he’s ruined. You ought to have more consideration for him than to chase him so openly. He’s supposed to have saved your life—haven’t you any gratitude, or must you repay him like this?”
“I’m not chasing him.”
“You appear to be. People go by appearances.”
“Well then—surely any scandal would fall on my head, not on his.”
Contempt was in the older woman’s voice. “You? What do you matter?”
Jacqueline was too puzzled to be further stung by Deborah’s tongue. “But nurse O’Hara goes about quite openly with Dr. Gregory. Why isn’t it wrong for them?”
For a moment Deborah was nonplussed. Then she shrugged. “Really—if you don’t understand, it’s not for me to explain.”
Dispiritedly, Jacqueline shoo’d her children forward, praying that she might meet no one else before she reached the shelter of her ward. Matters would be bad enough there, but if she should meet Matron—or one of the other Sisters—who would look down her nose and make disparaging remarks about Children’s Ward to the discomfiture of
Sister Braithwaite, who was kind but rather touchy!
She was unpopular with everyone on the ward because she had to go and change just as the first lunch trays were due. She wondered, as she fumbled nervously with fastenings, whether she could ask somebody—Liz, perhaps?—about this business of gossip. Why is it different for Bridget and Dr. Gregory? Why am I so dangerous to Alan, she puzzled? That’s the worst of not being brought up in England—there are odd things one just doesn’t know. I wouldn’t hurt him for the world—he’s so kind to me. Maybe I’d better keep away from him or be a bit more stand-offish.
She adjusted a clean cap and grimaced comically at her reflection. “When you and Alan Broderick meet, girl, you’re never in a position to be stand-offish!” Suddenly she saw the morning’s episode as absurd, and giggled. These women have no sense of proportion, she decided. Heaven save me from taking myself too seriously.
The day before the dance was hectic. It was a taking-in day. The new children were frightened and homesick, those going home were wild with high spirits. But at last there was comparative quiet, most of the ward asleep. Phyllis Arnott found Jacqueline busy in the kitchen.
“Oh, there you are, Nurse. To-morrow, we shall have to—”
“It’s my day-off to-morrow.”
“So it is. I forgot. What an appalling day it has been! If I were in your place I’d spend all to-morrow in bed with earplugs in.”
“That child in the end bed is the loudest I’ve heard yet. Thank goodness, I’ll be miles away from him to-morrow. I’m going to the Moor Hen, to a dance.”
The senior girl glanced at her sharply. “With Guy Clarke?”
“Yes.” She wiped a Noddy feeding-plate carefully, avoiding the other girl’s eyes. “You know him, don’t you? He said you nursed him?”
“You know how it is with a patient—close friends for a week or two, then—finish. I saw you with him at the Staff Dance. He’s a sort of relation, isn’t he?”
Nurse Arnott’s voice had an undertone which warned Jacqueline this was not idle chit-chat. She was interested in Guy, wanted to ask questions about him.
“Our fathers were half-brothers. Was Guy a good patient?”
“He had a way with him. Like a child in some ways. If you understand children, you understand men, mostly. I didn’t mind. I’m the mothering sort, I suppose. He—well, it didn’t finish when he was discharged, we went out together a few times. He liked me, I know.” Suddenly, dreadfully, she began to cry, noisy gulping sobs. “I love him. I’ve never loved anybody before and shan’t again. And he was nearly in love with me. Then somebody else appeared and he dropped me like a hot brick.”
“Look—I’m terribly sorry. Please don’t cry like this. If someone should come—oh dear, is there anything I can do?”
“You can get out of the way. Do you think I don’t know it was you? Take him if you want him, but if you don’t want him, get out of the way. It isn’t fair.”
“I’m sorry, honestly sorry. I’d no idea there was anyone else, and I didn’t try to attract Guy. But it is true he has asked me to marry him and true that I wanted time to think it over. One has to be sure of these things.”
Phyllis looked helplessly at her damp handkerchief. “I’ve no pride, have I? In love one hasn’t. I wouldn’t have needed time to think. I knew at once he was the one for me, and if you hadn’t turned up, we could have been happy. He’s just a child, he needs someone to cling to.”
“That’s exaggeration. No one could think of Guy as a child.”
The girl smiled wanly. “Just because he’s so big? Don’t be taken in by size. You don’t understand him, that’s all. I do. I know he is self-centred, cruel and possessive. He’s so jealous he’d rather destroy a thing than let someone else have it. He sulks if he can’t have his own way. I suppose you think that’s awful?”
“I do, rather.”
“Well, I don’t. I’d marry him to-morrow. He probably wouldn’t make me happy, but I’d rather be unhappy with him than happy with anybody else.” She pushed her handkerchief away and recover herself. “Forget it, will you?” She walked out of the kitchen as poised as ever, gentle, self-contained.
Jacqueline went off-duty, resolved that the next day she would make up her mind once and for all about Guy and give him her answer. She could understand the attraction he had for poor Phyllis, but surely the girl was mistaken in her estimate of his character. He did sulk—but what about all those other things? Could one believe that of a man and still love him? Surely Guy’s attraction lay in his complete masculinity, his male arrogance, his looks and vibrant aliveness? How on earth could Phyllis imagine he was a helpless child?
CHAPTER SIX
Jacqueline was not enjoying the dance. She had come to the Moor Hen determined to say yes or no to Guy. He was obviously set on getting an answer. But somehow, what should have been an enjoyable evening turned into a long-drawn-out squabble.
“There’s only one argument,” he said obstinately. They were sitting in his old car, Jacqueline wearing a scarlet duffle coat lined with white, over her dance dress. “And this it is.” He pulled her towards him, kissed her violently, on lips, hair, throat, until she was breathless and shaken. His arms crushed her slight body till she could hardly breathe and panicked as if she were in the grip of a wild animal. She pushed with all her strength against his chest, fighting to be free.
He released her, grinning. “You love me, Jacky. No use fighting against it or against me. We can’t struggle against destiny. Fate brought you to me, sweetheart—over the years, the land and sea. You travelled so far and so long—and then you nearly turned back; but the bit of white heather sent you on to me. At the end of your journey we found each other. You see—you were meant for me from the beginning, so say you’ll marry me. Say it now.”
His urgent words, uttered in a quick hoarse whisper; his hot kisses, the burning desire in his eyes, were almost irresistible. Was it Fate, which had made her take that childish resolution years ago; which had drawn her, down the years, to Timberfold at last?
It seemed to Jacqueline that the moor was still and breathless, waiting for her answer. The vast expanse beyond the small, brightly lit inn folded mysteriously into its own darkness; the velvet sky, star-studded, the stone walls bent and wise with three hundred years of human habitation; all waited.
She moistened dry lips. “I don’t know! I don’t know!”
His voice hardened. “I’m not good enough for you, is that it? Now you’re in with Broderick and his sort, a moor-end farmer isn’t posh enough. I’ve a country accent and country manners and they’re too rough.”
“You speak the way my father spoke, with a north-country burr. I like it—it’s homely and genuine. There is only one thing not good enough for me—my feelings. When you kiss me, you carry me away. But is it enough? That’s what troubles me. Is that being in love? One reads about it, in books and poetry, but one doesn’t really know.”
“If it wasn’t for Broderick, you’d know soon enough. He’s turned your head.” His temper rose. “All the time we were dancing, you were watching the door. For him—think I don’t know? You’re a girl in a dream, and I know darned well what that dream is. Alan Broderick!” He spat the name at her viciously. “You’re in love with him.”
“Stop it! That isn’t true!”
He held her wrists cruelly. “Isn’t it, my bird? Aren’t you so fascinated by him that you won’t look at another man? And he is in love with you, too. He’s coming here to-night, and you know it.”
“You’re hurting my wrists.” He released her sharply and she rubbed the reddened skin, hating the feel of his hands. “You’re utterly mistaken. Alan is not coming here to-night.”
“Ah, so you know that—for certain. Did he tell you so? Is he staying away because you are here with me, is that it?”
“How can you be so stupid! I won’t stay and listen to nonsense. I’m going inside.” She was out on the road before he realised her intention. She wanted to slam the do
or in his face and tell him to go to blazes, but she must keep on good terms with him, for he was her only means of getting back to the hospital that night.
“This quarrel is rather pointless, Guy. It’s cold out here and I’d much rather dance.”
She ran across the cobbles and into the flagged entrance hall, where she encountered a late-corner divesting himself of a khaki duffle-coat and driving gloves. It was Alan.
He greeted her casually. “Hi, Red Riding Hood!”
Such a flood of happiness surged over her at the sound of his voice, the sight of his kind, reliable face, that she knew Guy was right, after all. She loved this man.
She was dumb with confusion. Had Guy tousled her hair, was her lipstick smudged? What would Alan think of her, tearing in out of the darkness like that?
“Been admiring the stars?” He took her scarlet coat from her and hung it beside his. “You look remarkably pretty to-night, if I may say so.”
“T-thank you.”
Alan studied her as he joked. He could have sworn she was scared stiff as she ran in, but now her eyes shone and she was glowing like a girl newly in love. Had the cousin proposed, had she accepted him, out there under the stars?
The thought gave him a bleak, shut-out feeling. He couldn’t lose that queer sense of responsibility, the conviction that because he had saved her life he owed it to her to keep watch and ward. A father must feel like this, he thought ruefully, when his daughter falls in love. The chap isn’t good enough by a long chalk; he’ll never understand her quick flights of fancy, her snowdrop freshness.
“You’re shivering. Come, let me find you a drink to warm you. You seem to have lost your escort.”
“He’s—he’s attending to the pumpkin coach. You know I’m a Cinderella.” She gave him her warm, full smile, suddenly excited and full of joy because she was with him. “I’m still under a cloud about those wretched snowballs.” They laughed together.
