by Norrey Ford
“And how did the exam, go? I kept my fingers crossed for you.”
“How kind of you to remember! We all declared we couldn’t remember a thing at breakfast, and by the time we actually faced our papers we couldn’t have cared less about the result. We staggered from question to question like people in a haunted house at a fairground, never knowing what horror would meet us next.”
“Goodness! Sit down and let me ply you with something powerful. You look shaken and pale still.”
“Ginger ale is my very strongest. Pale was the word. We all knew we’d failed, of course—and whoever set question three must have been crazy.”
She sipped her ginger ale. “Or perhaps we were. On comparing notes we think we may have slight chances.” “Splendid! I never doubted you for a minute.”
Lance came over to speak to them, and she sat back contentedly, warm now and supremely happy, watching Alan. This was what she had been waiting for, a satisfying sweetness, a warmth round the heart. It was going to be hard to talk to him without giving away her secret.
Mollie swept down on the group. “Jacky, I’ve been trying to talk to you all evening, but I couldn’t get round your tame gorilla. Have you got rid of him at last?” “He’s outside, doing something about the engine, keeping it warm or cooling it down or whatever men do to engines. He won’t be long.” She spoke more confidently than she felt. Guy was capable, in his sulky mood, of driving off, forgetting or ignoring the fact that she had to go back to Barnbury to-night.
“You promised to spend a week-end with us. Could it be soon?”
Jacqueline promised to spend her next free week-end at the Moor Hen, and Lance, who had disappeared at a nod from Alan, came back with Guy in tow.
Alan invited him to a drink. “May I have one dance with your partner?”
Guy waved his glass. “Go ahead. She was expecting you, anyway,” he said ungraciously.
As they danced, Alan said, “That man is not in the best of tempers. Shall I knock his block off for you?”
“Please don’t. He is a bit cross, but it’s all my fault. I’m behaving very badly.” After a moment she added, “You do dislike him, don’t you?”
“I dislike a spoilt child masquerading as a man. But then,” he added lightly, “I’m not a woman, and a number of women seem to like a Peter Pan husband, I’ve noticed. In serious illness it’s usually the wife who is the tower of strength, and however sick a woman may be, she comforts the husband.”
“You’re the second person who has told me Guy is a child. Yet he doesn’t look much like Peter Pan, does he?”
He grinned. ‘The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Don’t let my jaundiced opinion of mankind influence you. I see them in times of crisis, a few weeks or months out of a whole lifetime. And of course whole squads of people never meet a crisis at all—my kind of crisis. I’m not a fair judge.”
“Your opinion would mean a lot to me,” she said gently. “I’ll bear it in mind.”
It was odd that such an important thing as falling in love could happen between one minute and the next and no one notice any difference. She glanced across at Guy; he was in a good humour again, laughing with Lance; once more handsome, debonair, drawing the eye of more than one girl in the room. But for her the bubble had burst, he held no more magic, the memory of his kisses was hateful. They had nothing in common but youth and vitality; did not share a single thought. In a month or a year, she thought with deep thankfulness for her escape, we’d have bored each other to tears.
The road to Barnbury was a long switchback across the moor, unfenced for some miles, which meant that Guy had to travel slowly in case a sheep had decided to sleep in the middle of the road, which, for some sheep like and exasperating reason, they often did. Jacqueline was anxious. Guy had cut the time close, and she did not want to be in trouble again by overstaying her pass.
In a dip at the most desolate stretch, he stopped, and switched off the engine.
“Is anything wrong?” she demanded anxiously.
“No. I’m trying strong-man tactics. We don’t leave this spot till you promise to marry me.”
“Don’t be absurd. You’ll make me late. This is no time for joking.”
He folded his arms, grinning. “Better for you to give in at once, then. Will you marry me?’
“No.”
‘Temper, temper. Take your time. It doesn’t matter to me what time I get in. I can wait.”
She was furious. “You can’t do this to me! My answer is no, no, no. I’d already decided to say no, but I meant to tell you gently. I felt sorry for you. But this is the absolute end. You can wait all night but you’ll still get the same answer, so please try to do the decent thing and drive on at once.”
“Certainly. When you’ve promised.”
“It’s a child’s trick—and utterly pointless. I could promise now and take it back to-morrow.”
“You wouldn’t. If you promised, you’d keep your word.”
“But even if I kept such a promise, could you be content or happy with a wife you’d won in such a mean way? You can’t have an atom of pride.”
“I’d be proud of besting you. And if you jibbed a bit at first, you’d soon come round. Women like to be mastered.”
She laughed with a touch of hysteria. “Strong-man tactics! This is nursery stuff. Didn’t it occur to you that I’d rather face a row at the hospital than a lifetime with you? I’m calling your bluff.”
She had scored. He bit his lip. “It’s not bluff. I’m prepared to stay here all night. Spending the night out with a man means more than a row. We’re a bit old-fashioned up here in the North. We haven’t your loose French notions.”
She stared. “Whatever do you mean? It’s Englishmen, I believe, who have these loose notions, as you call them. Let me tell you, a young French girl of good family is much more strictly brought up than any English girl I’ve met so far.”
“Then you’ll be all the more anxious not to be sent back to France under a cloud. Come off it, Jacky. Don’t be so high-falutin. I’m not bluffing and I mean to have your promise.”
They had been quarrelling so hard that they failed to notice a car draw up quietly behind them. A voice out of the shadows drawled, “Engine trouble? Can I help?”
“Alan!” It was almost a sob. “Please take me to the hospital at once.”
“Sure. Hop into my car.” Alan helped her out and, leaving her to make her own way to his car, turned to Guy. “What happened, Clarke?” His voice rasped.
Guy clambered out of the driving-seat and moved towards Alan, catlike on light feet. “Is that your affair?”
“I merely want to know if you’ve had a breakdown. If so, why weren’t you trying to put things right? If not, you’ve no excuse for detaining your cousin.”
“You want to know the heck of a lot, Broderick. I’m taking Jacky home. Now clear off.”
“You were taking her home.”
Guy was taller, broader than Alan. He thrust his head forward. “Why, you—”
The men’s tempers exploded into action. Alan’s arm came up and then Guy was sitting in the road, propped ludicrously on straight arms and shaking his head slowly from side to side.
Alan slid into his own driving-seat. “Sorry about that, Jacky. My temper got the better of me. He’ll be all right. Was his car busted?”
“No.”
He accepted that, asking no questions. The big car gained speed. She said wonderingly, “You left before us, and your car is much faster. I thought you’d be in Barnbury by now.”
“Sheep-dog instinct. I smelled trouble and thought a spare car might come in handy, so I waited and tagged on behind.”
After a pause she said, “You are always pulling me out of trouble. Thank you once again.”
“No need to thank me. I have a knack of anticipating where trouble is most likely to break out. Be quiet now, there’s a good girl. I can speed on this stretch and we need to make up time.”
The needle, f
aintly illuminated, rose steadily. Jacky linked her fingers in her lap. She loved speed and, with a driver she could trust, did not care how fast she travelled. She was happy to be so close to him again.
I love him, she exulted. He understands my every thought before I think it, my every action. He can laugh at me, because he can never hurt me. In my deepest need he has always been there to help; quietly, unobtrusively there.
The white heather led me to him. Because without it I’d never have had my accident and he would not have saved my life. The Bubbling Well did grant my wish, after all—let me find my true love or let my true love find me. And sure enough, Alan found me, only a few hours later. Is the well always so quick to grant a wish, I wonder?
He slackened. “Thirty area now. We shall just be in time. Pity it’s started to rain. Never mind, the worst of the journey is over and we can’t speed now.”
“You’ve saved my bacon—I’ve hardly lived down the snowball episode yet. Could you put me down at this end of High Street—I don’t want to make myself conspicuous by arriving in such a well-known car, and there are a crowd of us out late to-night. You may be sure they’ll all arrive at the last minute, too.”
“But it’s pouring by now. You’ll spoil your shoes.”
“I’ll take the risk. I am sure riding in your car would be considered uppish in a junior. We are supposed to keep to our stations in life, and mine is lowly.”
“Very well. I hate to do it, but I sympathise. Barnbury life is still narrow and somewhat hag-ridden by Mrs. Grundys of both sexes, gossiping old women who hate youth and life since both have passed them by.”
“Tell me something. Are doctors specially vulnerable to gossip? Does it harm them more than anybody else?”
“What funny questions you ask.”
“It’s because of not being brought up in England. You see, some things are more free and easy, and some more rigid.”
“One forgets you have no English background. I suppose doctors and lawyers are the most vulnerable of all. We know so many secrets and are in such an intimately personal relationship with our patients—or clients as the case may be—that the least hint of untrustworthiness would blow the whole thing sky-high. And it doesn’t harm only the individual but his whole profession. These little back-o’-beyond towns are much more dangerous, because people are old-fashioned and haven’t much to talk about.” He laughed easily. “I know I’d hate to be involved in a scandal here in Barnbury. They’d have the hide off me.”
“But you wouldn’t do anything wrong.”
“Bless you, they wouldn’t wait for that. The least hint of smoke and off they’d go, puffing it all up into a roaring fire. Why on earth are we talking about this?”
“You’re enlightening my ignorance. Somebody said something which made me wonder. I know now, thank you.”
He patted her hand affectionately. “Sometimes I think you are a very sweet child, Jacqueline. Want to get out here—or will you drive up to the door? It’s still raining a bit.”
“Not much. Put me down here. I’ll run and be in quickly. I shan’t get wet, really I shan’t.”
He leaned across her to open the door. They were very close together and he smiled into her eyes. “Good night, little Jacky, sleep well.”
“Good night, Alan. And thank you—for everything.” He brushed her soft lips gently with a kiss.
Jacqueline lay awake thinking of Alan. At the Moor Hen; sheltering from the storm in the shepherd’s hut; squatting in the heather, grinning over his shoulder at her as he waited for a bird to settle. Alan in the hospital, so different and withdrawn a personality. Who would believe, here, that their grave and dignified Consultant had knocked a man down and left him sitting in the road, his truculence subdued. What fun it would be to tell the other nurses and watch their faces! But of course one couldn’t.
She sat up and switched on her bedside lamp, to find the sprig of white heather, faded and brown now, which had started the whole thing. She laid it on her palm and stared at it. As she did so a cold hand gripped her heart and squeezed until the pain was unbearable.
That first day, in the heather, Alan said a lot about love. He said: I am a man with a passion—a passion which means more to me than the love of any woman I’ve ever met.
The bright fire of exaltation died. In the excitement of her discovery, in the humility of the true lover, she had not considered love as a two-sided affair. But now she knew that to love where love could not be returned could lead only to unhappiness. Alan would never return her love. She was too young, too silly for him—a child, in and out of scrapes.
She touched her lips, where the memory of his kiss lingered warmly. It could not have meant anything more than a goodnight kiss to a very young friend.
She put the heather away carefully, slid down between the sheets again. It was almost morning before she slept.
Jacqueline was on night-duty in Private Patients’ block. This was separate from the main building, lighter, more modern, and alleged to be easier on the nurses’ feet. The private patients were much like those in the wards, with the same fears, hopes, courage or the lack of it. Some would suffer any inconvenience rather than trouble the nurses; others were impatient, inconsiderate, rude—just as on the wards. The difference was that here the inconsiderate patient had a bell, and used it.
Liz had gone to Women’s Medical and Bridget came up with Jacqueline, resenting the move from the X-ray Unit because her affair with Hank Gregory was going so well.
She swore Jacqueline to secrecy and confided that Hank’s first name was really Cyprian, because his parents had hoped he’d become a bishop.
“You going to Birdie Cartwright’s farewell party, Jacky? It’s a house shower, they say she’s got a swish little flat. Can’t you see her having cosy tea-parties, queen bee in her own skep and patronising the Sisters still at work—they’ll drink gallons of tea and tell each other nurses are not what they were in their young days. What can we buy, for five bob?”
There was an unwritten law that no one spent more than five shillings on a contribution to a shower, and normally this did not present any difficulty. A girl getting married needed practically everything and her fellow-nurses gave rein to their own somewhat specialised brand of humour. But Matron had let it be known that she and some of the senior house officers would be attending Sister Cartwright’s retirement party, and the gifts would have to pass that august scrutiny.
“I’m embroidering a tray-cloth. Half a yard of fine white linen, and the thread I already had by me. I hope that isn’t cheating.”
“There’s a bell,” said Bridget happily, secure in her slight seniority. “Pop along, like a good little nurse. Who is it—I haven’t memorised this lot yet? Number Seven—appendix—perforated. Blimey!” She hummed a song which she declared had been her father’s favourite, the only lines she really knew being:
More work for the undertaker,
Another little job for the tombstone maker!
“Diana Lovell, Miss. Skip along, infant, she sounds impatient. And don’t fret your fat, she’s been in ages; she must be doing all right. H’m—Broderick, naturally.”
Diana Lovell was fretful. “A clean handkerchief, Nurse. My pillow is as hard as iron, I believe you stuff them with skulls. Why didn’t I have a sleeping-tablet to-night? I can’t sleep without something.”
“You probably weren’t ordered one, Miss Lovell. I’ll go and look, if you like.”
“I ought to have been ordered one. Bring me something to make me sleep. Hurry, Nurse.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t do that on my own responsibility, Miss Lovell. You must wait till it’s ordered officially.”
“Goodness, don’t be so stuffy. Who would know—one pill more or less can’t make any difference. You can sneak one from somewhere.”
“I certainly shall not ‘sneak’ a sleeping-pill, Miss Lovell. I’ll ask about one for you. Now, is there anything else before I go?”
“Yes. Refill my hot-wa
ter bottle. You’re new, aren’t you? What’s your name?”
“Clarke.”
“I’ve seen you before somewhere. Are you any relation to Sister Clarke? She comes and talks to me at night, and I’m a special friend of Mr. Broderick. He was very anxious about me, and says I’m to have every attention. I nearly died, you know.”
Jacqueline turned at the door. “We give every attention to every patient, Miss Lovell, whether they pay or not. If you nearly died, so did a number of other people in here. I’m not impressed by your special friendship with Sister Clarke, who is a distant relative of mine. Nor with Mr. Broderick. I shall do my duty as I’ve been taught to do it—and they will both uphold me. Now, if you don’t need anything more, I’ll go and attend to a patient who had her operation this afternoon. Yours was over ten days ago.”
She closed the door softly and went to find Bridget, to whom she passed the message about the sleeping-pill. Bridget studied the report. “She was fast asleep at ten p.m. and, anyway she’s not down for one. What’s she like?”
Jacqueline grimaced. “Impressed upon me she was a special friend of Mr. Broderick.”
“That sort? She’ll give us trouble, mark me.”
“It’s true, Bridie. She was with him at the Christmas dance.”
She filled the hot-water bottle and took it back to Room Seven. Was this girl Alan loved, to whom his heart was given? She was lovely enough, she had the cherished look which comes from exquisite, expensive grooming; beautiful as a fragile hothouse flower.
Diana was not an easy patient. She was young and had a splendid constitution, so she made rapid progress, which she found disconcerting. She had cast herself for the role of interesting invalid, to find it slipping away from her before she was tired of it. She formed a habit of waking about two in the morning, demanding a fresh bottle, a cup of tea or anything else which occurred to her. Then she would detain the nurse as long as possible in conversation about herself, her symptoms, admirers, flowers—and Alan Broderick.
