Nurse in White (10 page)

“After that, I heard nothing from her. I was a bit surprised to hear nothing at Christmastime but the boys were pretty sick and I was busy as you can well imagine. And Vi, while a sweet youngster, was never particularly thoughtful of others—spoiled, you know.

“Well, yesterday morning I was having my hair done—the radio was going and I heard a news commentator tell about Lady X. The description fitted Vi, and although I had no reason to think it might be she, I felt suddenly terrified and called my husband. Of course he scoffed at my fears, but offered to telephone the Townsend town house in New York. The butler told him the family had gone to Florida. That Miss Terrill, who had spent only a day or two there, had left for Boston on the morning after the Townsends’ departure for the south.

“That was three weeks ago! Of course Pete was frantic and I packed a bag and caught the first plane for Brentwood and here I am—and—” the bright face clouded and her eyes filled with tears “—she doesn’t know me from Adam. But where was Kent, her maid, all this time? I can’t understand how it happened that she was alone. Kent had been her nurse and went everywhere with her. Isn’t it strange she doesn’t know me? I—”

“She doesn’t know anyone—not even herself,” Ellen comforted. “But she will—I’m sure of it. I imagine she has had a terrible experience.”

Mrs. Langham’s hands clenched and her voice hardened. “Hanging is too good for those beasts!”

Dr. Dent joined them. Ellen’s lip curled as she noticed how polished his manner had become. “You have no idea how relieved I—we are to find her people, Mrs. Langham,” he murmured. He turned to Ellen, very much the doctor and wholly impersonal. “You see, nurse, that publicity did the trick after—”

A piercing scream sent the three scurrying into the ward just as a shot rang out in the courtyard below and echoed through the long room.

CHAPTER TEN

At
the other
end of the ward, Janet Hoyt bent over little Angela Dubail as if to shield her from whatever harm impended. Ellen, seeming to know instinctively it was something pertaining to Lady X, rushed to her bedside, to find she had fainted. The window nearby was partly open and after a moment Dr. Dent thrust out his head. A small crowd was gathered in the courtyard below, and a dark object lay huddled halfway down the fire escape. Ward L was palpitant with excitement.

“I seen ’im, doctor. I seen ’im,” cried Mrs. Levin, two beds down the ward. “ ’E ’issed something’, and then th’ pore thing screamed bloody murder an’—then’e wasn’t there anymore.”

“Who wasn’t there? I’m afraid you’re imagining things, Mrs. Levin.” Dent, his face stern, shook his head at the garrulous old woman.

“Imaginin’ things, is it?” Mrs. Levin sniffed in offended dignity. “Then what made ’er scream? Tell me that.”

But no one answered and, bleak-eyed, she lay and muttered to herself.

The screens, withdrawn during the past few days, were again in place around the mystery girl’s bed. MacGowan, being particularly interested, was summoned but was unavailable and Dr. Braddock came in his stead. The faint was a prolonged one. Mrs. Langham was frightened. There was something sinister in the whole affair.

“Sometimes a shock of this kind proves a blessing in disguise, madam,” Braddock reassured her. “I have known cases where a sudden shock such as this has not only restored the memory but has been instrumental in reviving a dormant nervous system.”

Ellen, busy chafing the patient’s wrists, heard the house physician tell the others that the man on the fire escape had been shot by the watchman when he refused to come down. He was badly hurt and was in Emergency right now with MacGowan and Fielding probing for the bullet that had lodged in his groin. Police had been notified.

So she had been right, after
all
, Ellen told herself, but with no feeling of triumph. While the publicity had undoubtedly found Lady X’s friends, it had been the means of arousing her enemies to further deviltry. Yet, why should anyone want to harm this lovely girl?

Came a long, quivering sigh. The violet eyes opened, a look of bewilderment in their purple depths.

“O—oh!” she breathed. “Am I ill?” Her hand still and lifeless so long, brushed the bright hair from her face. She frowned as her eyes met those of Nancy Langham. She smiled questioningly. “Why—why, Nancy! How did you get here?”

“There was an accident, Vi, and I came as soon as I heard. Feeling better?” Mrs. Langham’s voice was tremulous.

“Yes—but why can’t I move? I—”

“You see, Miss—Miss Terrill—” Dr. Dent’s voice was gentle, his eyes tender—“your back and head were injured and we had to put you in a cast for a little while. But you are a great deal better and will soon be all right again.”

Ellen thought,
either Ann is right and he’s fallen hard for Lady X or he’s going to be a terribly successful doctor with an enviable bedside manner, but—pity the poor patient if she has a susceptible heart and a weakness for glamorous blond men!

Violet Terrill shuddered and suddenly began to cry weakly. She clung to Cy’s hands. “Such terrible dreams!” she sobbed, then smiled through her tears. “I’m just a great baby to let go like this.”

To Ellen’s further disgust, Dr. Dent’s face said quite plainly to her, “Maybe, but you’re a most adorable one!”

The big, soft, fickle idiot,
Ellen’s heart stormed.
I
hate him. How I hate men, especially handsome, blond doctors!

The house physician held a glass to the patient’s lips, his hand beneath her head. “Too much conversation, I’m thinking,” he said gruffly. “Our patient needs quiet and sleep. As my young nephew would say, suppose you scram.” He spoke to them all, but looked at Cyrus Dent, who colored and removed his hand from where it lay clasped in the thin one of Violet Terrill. The girl smiled into his eyes and he hastily withdrew.

“Not everyone, please, doctor.” The violet eyes shifted to Ellen. “Stay with me, nurse.” Her voice had changed somehow—taken on a note of authority, or did Ellen imagine it?

“All right, but you be quiet, remember. No talking,” the doctor ordered. “I know what two girls are when they get together with their hair down.” He glanced at Ellen, his eyes keen.

“You need have no fear, doctor,” Lady X said and Ellen was sure now that her voice was changed.
Why the little snip is actually putting Dr. Braddock in his place!

The others withdrew. Lady X lay with her eyes closed. Ellen wondered if she was trying to fill in the gaps that still eluded her. Perhaps she was never to remember that brief black chapter in her life. But the mystery girl was a mystery no longer. X equaled Violet Terrill, cousin of the wealthy socialite, Nancy Langham of Boston and, Ellen ruminated, now ripe and eligible for Cyrus Dent. Was that to be the answer?

Boston? Cy would take that swanky job and eventually marry Violet Terrill and Ellen would be free from him forever. And although she felt she had now settled things smoothly and satisfactorily for all concerned, a tear slid down Ellen’s cheek and made a round wet spot on her immaculate uniform. She dabbed at her eyes and grinned shamefacedly.

Idiot,
she chided, wordlessly.
You know you’re thoroughly pleased at the happy and romantic solution. Only
—
only
—
you’re tired! Snap out of it!
She jerked to attention.

What of the man who had been shot? Who was he? She stole a glance at the window that looked onto the fire escape and shuddered. Just what had he planned doing? Was it one of the abductors trying to enter? And for what purpose, if any? She rose and went to the window. The night was very black. Bright rectangles of light from windows were reflected against the concrete and shrubbery. The fire escape, supposed to be a safety measure, could also prove a menace as tonight had shown. Ellen had no doubt in her mind that the man on the fire escape was one of the kidnappers. She reached up and pushed the lock into place, then pulled down the shade. There was a faint but devout, “Thank heaven!” from Mrs. Levin.

Ellen smiled. There were no visitors in L tonight. No doubt the intense cold had something to do with it. Ellen was glad of the quiet. Callers would only prolong the excitement and tend to produce wakefulness. She walked slowly through the ward, straightening a blanket, adjusting a pillow, adding a word of comfort or advice or perhaps giving a friendly, understanding little pat to a hand outside a coverlet. It was Ellen’s endearing way and Ward L loved it.

“Some excitement
you had over in L the other night.” Ann Murdock, minus the troublesome wisdom tooth, lay on an exercise mat in the gymnasium and contemplated her carefully manicured nails. “And now Lady X is no longer the honored guest of Sweet Charity. Tell me, Ellen, why do these things always happen when I’m out?”

“Don’t ask me, Ann. It was exciting all right, but it certainly wasn’t pleasant. They think the man will die.”

“So what? You don’t expect me to weep over that, do you? If I remember rightly, you were for boiling the whole gang in oil not so long ago.”

“I know, and they deserve it.” Ellen agreed, “but if this man dies they may never find out who the others are.”

“Won’t the lady in the case open up?”

“The lady? You mean Violet Terrill? That whole episode is gone as far as she is concerned. She remembers nothing after leaving the Townsends’ three weeks and more ago. Perhaps it’s as well if she never remembers all the horrors of that time.” Ellen turned a complete somersault and bounded to her feet, shaking the hair from her face.

“What does she talk about, Ellen?” Ann asked curiously. “Is she as ritzy as Marcia says?”

“Well, she’s English—typically so, and she’s sweet, Ann. Everyone’s crazy over her beauty and jubilant over her recovery.”

“Yeah. Watch out for these sweety-pie folks, darling. They’re poison. I’ve had experience with ’em.” Her voice hardened. “I noticed Dent wearing a particularly fatuous grin when I inquired for her a few minutes ago. They do say he haunts her room. What does Angus think about it?”

“Pleased as can be, of course, especially as her back is coming along so nicely. She can use her legs now, you know. Mrs. Langham wants to take her to Boston as soon as she can be moved.”

“Good!” Ann said it emphatically. “She’s a menace, I tell you. Dent’s completely gaga over her.”

Ellen turned another somersault before she made any comment. She, too, had seen the eager light in Cyrus Dent’s eyes whenever he entered Violet Terrill’s room. And, she told herself stubbornly, she was glad of it.

“Why shouldn’t he be?” she asked crisply. “She’s charming and Dent’s a fine man. However, Ann, your imagination is probably running away with you—again.”

“Oh, no, my sweet, not again. You could have had Dent anytime you liked during the whole of the past year—well, six months anyway; but you’re so darned efficient—so unapproachable—so indifferent to male overtures—so bent on becoming a martyr, that no doubt you cooled—I mean, froze—his ardor. But cheer up, darling, there’s still Angus. Had any rendezvous lately? I’ve sort of lost track since I’ve been down in Hades.”

It was quite useless to be annoyed with Ann. She was just naturally meddlesome and curious. Ellen bit her lip, then laughed lightly. “Did you
ever
try writing novels, Ann? Why don’t you? You manage to see romance in the drabbest, most ordinary occurrences, and you know there have been nurses who became famous writers.”

“They should. They see life in the raw,” Ann conceded. “I could give the reader an ear—I mean an eyeful, all right. If I see the
romance
in life, Ellen, I see also the rottenness, the filth, the—
well
, the malignant side of it, too. You’re an idealist. You see mainly the perfection to which you hope to lift the physically, mentally and morally sick. My eyes are open to the plain facts—the slime that will cling to them as long as they live—the slough in which they more often than not wallow—by preference. You see, Ellen, I’m a realist, and aside from the kids who are innocent victims of life and perhaps a few—a very few cases due to unavoidable accidents, the great majority of the patients we get are here because of self-indulgence, laziness, or plain filthiness. Not necessarily of the body—I mean of the mind and soul. I’m just about fed up, Ellen. But I could write a book all right; the trouble is, who would publish it? I should be put away as a perverter of morals. I, who am so moral that it positively hurts!” She laughed shrilly.

“It’s the selfish people, without morals of any kind, who get the breaks in this world, my child,” she continued while Ellen dutifully went on with her exercises. “So—” she watched the girl before her with smoldering, green gray eyes “—I’m chucking all troublesome inhibitions—oh, yes, I have them thar pesky deterrents to success and a good time—believe it or not—I inherited ’em and I’m playing my cards so that I’m getting a real break. The case I’m taking on tonight should prove the turning point in my life. A break—that’s all I ever needed.”

“So? What case is that?”

“Bill Munson, the paper man. Oh, you needn’t turn up your nose. Miss Gaylord. He’s only a means to an end-—and what an end! That’s what I keep my eye on, my child, the end—not the means, that doesn’t count. Well, as I started to say when your snooty look stopped me, Bill’s in seventy-four with a broken leg—his own, I assure you. He came day before yesterday. Hess was on one night. She says he’s a villain—worse than any spoiled child she ever had. Wants not only a nurse but a messenger, as well. I’ll tame him! Holmes is down with a sore throat and I’m taking over. Not for nothing have I been cultivating Agatha these past few days.” She laughed maliciously. “How the old girl falls for a bit of flattery! I’ve been laying it on with a trowel.”

Ellen refused the bait. She knew Ann was probably exaggerating as she did even the simplest events, yet she had no doubt the girl had wormed her way into the superintendent’s good graces, using any and all means for the purpose, the
while keeping
her tongue in her pretty cheek. And although she wondered idly what Ann had done to get around Miss Forsyth, she wasn’t interested enough to ask. She didn’t have to.

“Can you feature me in the role of Cupid; Ellen?” Ann asked mischievously, still flat on the mat, “I’m not so bad at it, either, though this time it cost me three bucks and I’ll have you know that three bucks are three bucks in this institution.”

Ellen tossed high a medicine ball and caught it without apparently having heard. A group of girls left the Ping-Pong tables in favor of the pool. Ann and Ellen had the big gymnasium to themselves.

“Know what I did?” Ann’s voice became confidential. “I bought two tickets for last night’s symphony at the high school auditorium—the seats side by side. I mailed one to Angus and the other to Agatha. Compliments of the orchestra. Agatha’s tight as a drum and Angus is Scotch, so of course I was sure they would use them. I owe Angus one for bawling me out last week. The pill! I know Aggie feels that Angus, while far beneath Braddock, is but little lower than the angels. Imagine them at the concert and—” she closed her eyes and grinned wickedly, “—fancy the glorious surprise when they discovered themselves seatmates! Angus, who hates women and wouldn’t be seen in public with one of the creatures! Would that be a swell tale to discuss over the Brentwood teacups! Don’t look so darned disapproving, Miss Gaylord—and listen—this will slay you! I went to Agatha’s sanctum this morning and just sort of hinted that I’d seen the chief buying tickets—I didn’t say when, or where—didn’t have to, she fell all right and blushed to her ears. Her eyes got sort of soft and she just looked off into the rose-colored distance and I fancied she was probably hearing bagpipes askirling and seeing bony-kneed old Angus in kilts—imagine! I had to know if she went so I asked if she liked symphonies. She assured me that she had enjoyed last night’s concert very much, and listen, she said, ‘It was generous and thoughtful of Dr. MacGowan to give Dr. Braddock and me that delightful evening.’