“It’s thrilling,” Jane decided as she climbed the steps to her flat and let herself inside
,
conscious of the elderly caretaker’s stare following her progress “to be part and parcel of all this, to know one is taking part in something the end of which none of us can possibly foresee! This could be the very beginning of something wonderful, and I should count it a privilege to be able to help in any way at all!”
All the same she was tired, more tired than she ever remembered being in her life. She kicked off her shoes and padded round the flat in stockinged feet, conscious of the chill of the thick linoleum with which the floor was covered.
“I’ll buy some rugs—or make some,” she decided
,
raking the stove and being rewarded by a cheering glow. “That’ll give me something to do in my off-duty
,
and
keep me out of mischief
,
as Mother would say!” she told herself
,
smiling. “Thank goodness Ann left me her record-player
,
though I suppose I shall soon know all the tunes on her records backwards as she said she did! I never imagined I’d miss the radio so much! However
...!
”
Characteristically she looked for ways and means to keep herself busy and yet not too energetically so, as she busied herself about the place. Soon there was a delicious aroma of toasted bread. The bread from the shop Ann had recommended was rather more coarse than any Jane had ever seen
,
but the scent of it as she browned it before the open stove was wonderful.
Always willing to experiment
,
she had bought what
looked like very tiny sausages, and soon they were frizzling gaily on top of the stove. She did not want to eat in the hospital staff kitchen. Not yet. She wanted to savour the joy of housekeeping for one in the
little
flat which was her own small territory in this alien land.
She was happily engaged in' brewing her tea when there was the sound of heavy feet ascending the stairs, and before she had time to wonder whether or not she was afraid, someone was knocking furiously on her door.
Jane knew her heart was pounding like a mad thing, but she forced herself to remain calm as she walked over to the door, finding a lack of dignity in her shoeless feet, though, at the moment, no one was there to see.
“Who’s there?” she demanded, and held her breath. When the answer came it was so unexpected it startled her.
“Karl Brotnovitch, Nurse Kelsey,” came the answer in perfect English spoken with just the trace of a continental accent. “I would like to have words with you, if you will please be so kind as to open the door.”
There was no order, no demand, and yet, because she remembered all too clearly the way this man’s eyes had looked at her, Jane felt a sudden chill run over her body. It seemed strange, too, that he spoke her own tongue so easily.
“Just a moment,” she said, and pattered across the floor in search of her shoes. She could not find them, and realised she was acting in a flustered manner—as if, she thought with self-scorn, his knocking on my door makes me feel guilty! Desperately anxious not to antagonise him, she thrust her feet into slippers and hurried to open the door.
He seemed larger even than she remembered him. He loomed in the doorway like a giant, and somewhere below, she knew the e
lderly caretaker was watching. K
arl Brotnovitch took a step further into the room and
closed the door behind him, a faint smile showing on his thin-lipped mouth, although not, she realised, in his eyes.
“It would be better were no one able to overhear my warning, Nurse!” he announced. “Not that Hevrow could understand much of what I have to say, but it is better he should not overhear anything. What little of your language he knows is more than sufficient for
his needs.”
“You speak it very well yourself, sir,” Jane felt the title might mitigate something of whatever it was he had come to say, and she was rewarded, if rewarded it could be called, by another chilly smile.
“Thank you, Nurse,” he seemed to enjoy saying the word “nurse”. “I was fortunate to share lessons with the son of the first ambassador here some years ago. I have always been grateful. It was of especial help to me in assisting Doctor Lowth establish all he has managed to do so successfully here. I hope I may be able to help him further, as he is hoping so much from his forthcoming extensions.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Jane said, thankful to be on what must be safe ground. Karl Brotnovitch smiled again and shook his head, moving a pace nearer. There was nowhere she could retreat, for she was standing before the stove.
“Of course not,” he agreed, “but you will, if you remain with us long enough, and I sincerely hope you will do so! I called to warn you that you must beware of Dr. Lowth’s colleague, Dr. Dean. He is a clever young man,” he nodded sagely,
“
but too clever, perhaps. He does not heed the warnings given for his own wellbeing. He flouts authority whenever he encounters it outside the hospital. He has been warned, on more than one occasion. The next time,” his eyes held their hard expression again and his thin mouth tightened, “I shall have to take steps to ensure he is kept under proper control.” Without any warning he reached out suddenly and touched her hair, stroking its silky texture as though she were a kitten.
“Beautiful,” he said in an abruptly dreamy tone which went oddly with his militaristic appearance. “You ought to have a special permit to wear it so all the time! The sight would, I am sure, do your patients as much good as certain of the medicines Dr. Lowth prescribes for their ills! Isn’t there,” he was suddenly completely Dalasalavian again, “someone at home, in your own country, who is longing at this moment to touch, as I do now, this lovely hair, the colour of moonlight? Isn’t there someone, some man to whom you are betrothed, who waits and longs for your return to your own home? I am sure there must be
...
and he is a very lucky man!”
“There isn’t anyone, no boy-friend, no
...
man,” Jane found herself saying wildly, wondering what it was about this man she found so unnerving. She had done nothing wrong, said nothing wrong, why should he have the power to make her feel as guilty as though she had committed every crime in the Seonyata calendar?
“I am pleased,” he said quaintly. “That is a good thing. Now, please to remember, you must be careful in your dealings with Dr. Dean. Remember he is under suspicion because he is always interfering with matters which are no concern of his. He is here to work in the hospital, to assist Dr. Jim. Not to help our young people
—some
of our young people—” he corrected himself quickly, “become discontented with their lot! As time goes by there will be all they need here, in Seonyata, all they need and more! It is not the time now to try and make the changes, to attempt to push matters on when we are not ready for further progress! False moves now would destroy all we have worked and hoped for, and people who do not heed the warnings as they are
given
must
be regarded as enemies of the state! We do not have much patience with our enemies!” he said soberly, and again the chill ran over her body.
Making a determined effort, she moved to one side, forcing herself to speak as pleasantly as she could in the circumstances.
“I was just about to make myself some tea,” she said gaily.
“You are most kind.” Before Jane had realised his intention he had moved across to where she stood, snatched her hand from her side and kissed it resolutely.
“I will tell my driver,” he informed her. “He will be back for me in ten minutes. He will continue the round until then.”
Jane hurried to make the tea and to pour the two cups full. She had no idea whether or not he preferred it weak or strong, milkless or with plenty of milk, sweet or otherwise, and just then she did not care.
When he returned he took a chair, after waiting until she was seated, and drank his tea with every sign of enjoyment. Yet all the time, and all the time he was telling her of the wonders of his country, his gaze remained fixed on her face and hair. And all the time Jane felt uncomfortable, as though she were already, in some strange way, on trial.
It was a relief when he rose to take his leave, the driver, a thickset, taciturn young man, having appeared at the door, knocked and gone back downstairs.
“I have so enjoyed our chat, Nurse,” Karl Brotnovitch informed her, clicking his heels and bowing. “Perhaps one evening, when neither of us is on duty,” again th
e
chill smile, “you will allow me to escort you to one or other of the places of entertainment or educa
tion I have just talked about?”
“That would be
...
very kind,” Jane managed. “Thank you.” She did not say she would go, and inwardly made a resolution to always have
some
form of duty ready, mentally at least. She didn’t want to g
o
anywhere with Karl Brotnovitch, no matter how important he was. Yet at the same time there was something about the man she f
o
und fascinating, but it was with the fatal fascination the snake is said to hold for its prey!
“I’m being foolish!” she reminded herself as she heard him being driven away. “It’s all strange, that’s all it means. I’ll just have to remember what Dr. Lowth
—
and Ann—and now Brotnovitch have said, and leave Kevin Dean to play his own silly games. But at least,” her ever bubbling spirits revived suddenly as she recalled his obvious admiration of her colouring, “life in Seonyata promises to be diverting, if nothing else!”
CHAPTER 5
HAD she spent a week thinking of nothing else, never in her wildest dreams would Jane have believed life in this out-of-the-way capital could prove so diverting, so full of excitement. It was not, for which she duly gave thanks, excitement of a dangerous nature, but it was sufficiently stirring to keep her on her toes and, as always, interested in everything and everyone around her.
To begin with there had been a mild outbreak of dysentery, and Jane felt the same relief that Dr. Lowth had expressed when it had finally been established that the epidemic was due to Flexner’s an
d
Sonne’s bacillus, and not to Shiga’s which would have meant tropical dysentery.
Barrier nursing had been, naturally, more than usually difficult, since St. George’s was by no means equipped as yet to cope with an epidemic of any size in anything but in the most primitive manner.
Wonders, according to Dr. Jim, had been accomplished, mostly due to Jane’s careful handling of her meagre staff and her own unceasing hard work. By the time they could say, with any truth, they were free to decide that the epidemic had run its course, Jane was worn out. Had she now found the free time in which to enjoy herself she knew she could not possibly have found the energy required for even a visit to the Golden Fiddle.
One of the victims of the epidemic, and one of the worst afflicted, had been a Madam Brentlov. She was a middle-aged woman, well built and attractive when the illness first struck. By the time she was brought to St. George’s she was gaunt, haggard and in despair. She was
a cultured woman, and as Jane sat beside her bed during one of the worst nights of her stay in the hospital, Madam Brentlov began to talk.
Her husband was in charge of one of the few factories which Seonyata boasted. The factory was as up-to-date as he could possibly make it, and on the whole his workpeople seemed a contented, happy lot. Madam was worried, she admitted, because some of the younger members of the community were only too anxious to take matters a number of steps further. They were no longer content to wait and work for the marvellous day when they would be suitably rewarded. They were young, Madam sighed, and did not know new ideas took a long time to develop. They would have all they asked for and more, when once the factory was supplying its goods throughout the world. It was merely a matter of time, time and patience. If only the young people would wait
...
Jane murmured all the right things—at least she
hoped
they were the right things—moistened the dry mouth and gave Madam a small drink of water. She reflected that the sulphaguanidine drug was taking an unconsciously long time to work where Madam Brentlov was concerned, and, not only because she was a patient, and where Jane was concerned that was always enough to ensure all the extra care and attention possible, but because she liked Madam so much, she redoubled her efforts to make certain that, in this distressing illness, she suffered the minimum amount of discomfort possible.
As with all the other patients, Madam Brentlov’s illness had to run its course, but at length her husband collected her as discharged, both of them overflowing with gratitude to Dr. Lowth, the staff, and to Jane in particular, for all the care and attention she had received. Jane had been surprised and touched when a hamper arrived at the flat shortly afterwards, full of all the many and varied items the factory made for export. She knew by now how much the Dalasalavians as a whole worked to increase their country’s prosperity, and she knew this was indeed a great favour, since the gift, once given, would not be reclaimed and the contents of the hamper join the rest of the goods intended to swell the firm’s export drive.
The epidemic died down and by the week before Easter all the patients who had been thus afflicted were once more back in their own homes, all of them equipped with dietary sheets worked
out by Dr. Lowth and Jane, and painstakingly copied by the nurse, using Jim’s old typewriter.
“Sometimes,” Jim Lowth admitted, sitting back in his chair for a moment and running his hands through his hair, “I wonder if it
is
all really worth whil
e? I know your admirer thinks so
,” he shot a mischievous glance in Jane’s direction, knowing she could never resist rising to his bait, and that she was as embarrassed by Karl Brotnovitch’s attentions almost as greatly as he was amused by them.
“He quite possibly believes it too,” Jane answered quietly. “At least he’s sincere in trying to do what he believes to be the best for his country and its people!”
“And don’t you think he’s equally sincere in
...
other ways?” Jim teased, but today, for some reason, she refused to be provoked.
“Maybe,” she sighed, “but he knows it’s all ridiculous,” she said firmly. “I shall go back home when my two years here are ended, and that,” she added with a sort of flat finality, “will be the end of that!”
“You’ve made up your mind to stay the two years, then, Jane?” Jim gave up trying to tease. For weeks now he had wondered what she would do when the six months’ term of trial came to an end, but life at the hospital had been too busy for any private conversations, and on the rare occasions when they had both been off duty for a short time, they had been too tired for discussion of any than a purely routine kind.
“I think so, yes.” Jane had suddenly made up her mind. Her thoughts returned to a letter
sh
e had received from her mother the previous morning. Mrs. Kelsey had written, lightly but precisely, that “according to rumour, Dudley is acting as Heather’s permanent escort. They say he’s taking her to the Mayor’s charity ball, and you know what
that
means in the eyes of Rawbridge!”
Jane did, and she did not mind, in fact she was more
than
relieved to know that Dudley ap
p
eared to be consoling himself with Henry Crabtree’s niece. That, she decided, should help him enormously in the career of his choice! To return very shortly, when her six months’ trial period was at an end, might be to unsettle Dudley and cause a rift between himself and Henry, Dudley and Heather, and to stir up anger in his sister, who, Jane reflected with an inward smile, must often have congratulated herself on the way in which she had
managed to get Jane out of Dudley’s orbit for a time.
“Why do you hesitate?” Jim persisted. “You’re not worried about old Karl, are you?” he went on, suddenly anxious. “You don’t have to be,
you know. I’ll tell him to take himself off, if he bothers you unduly. I can quite see,” he went on solemnly, “he’s not exactly the sort of chap any girl like yourself would want hanging around all the time. The trouble here is there’s no choice! The only other possible escorts are the chaps at the Embassy, and most of them are married or have
fiancés
at home, and Kevin, and I must say he always strikes me as still too much of a student to appeal to anyone with a real sense of responsibility!”
If he could see all that, Jane thought, suddenly angry, then why on earth couldn’t he see who
was
the one man in Seonyata to whom she would have been both glad and
proud to say “yes” if he were to offer himself as an escort? Why couldn’t he see, there was no beating about the bush where this was concerned, in her own mind at any rate, that
he,
Doctor James Lowth, was not only the one man in Seonyata, or in Dalasalavia for that matter, who would ever count at all! He was, in fact, she admitted to herself for the first time, the one man in the world who would count with her, now and for ever, whether he ever knew it or not.
Strangely shaken by the sudden storm of her own emotion—an emotion for which she had been totally unprepared, since this was the first time she faced the truth even to herself—she sat still and silent, and Jim once more looked anxiously in her direction.
“I know what’s wrong,” he exclaimed with the air of one having made a great discovery, “we’ve none of us had much fun these past weeks. This morning I received the official invitation to the Embassy Easter ball. The locals make a great thing of the Easter festival, and all the time there’s been an Embassy here it’s been the custom for a ball to be held on Easter Tuesday. I’ve only looked in on previous occasions. I’m not much of a dancing man myself, and Nurse Palmer felt if she couldn’t dance with her
fiancé
then it wasn’t worth dancing at all, but if you’d like to go, Nurse Kelsey...
?
” he ended.
“You mean
...
with you?” Jane breathed, sitting up straight. “I’d like to go very much,” she admitted. “Thank you. But not if you’d rather just
...
look in, I think you said?”
“It’s time I made myself more popular,” Jim Lowth laughed. “I want some new equipment next year, and acting the hermit isn’t exactly going to help my getting, permission granted!
I'd
like to go too, Nurse!” he admitted, surprising himself almost as much as Jane. “I think if we could persuade Nurse Wroe to accompany us,
and Dr. Dean, of course, we should make a quite presentable party. There’s no point in asking Nurse Dawlish. She doesn’t approve of such ‘goings on’ on principle!” he grinned, looking suddenly much younger. “By the way,” he rose and prepared to resume his round, “has anyone else asked you to accompany them as yet?”
“Karl Brotnovitch,” Jane admitted quietly. “I told him I was not certain whether or not I’d be on duty.”
“Well, he’s always on duty,” Jim laughed. “Even if he did accompany you, ten to one he’d be called away on some urgent business or other before the night was through, and what sort of an evening out is that, I ask you?”
He went away, humming to himself as he invariably did when he was particularly pleased by events. What, she wondered as she sat on for a few moments, thinking, could he have found to be so suddenly and so completely pleased about?
“Maybe the thought that he’s apparently scored one over the redoubtable Karl,” she reflected, then her own smile vanished as she remembered Karl’s invitation, given in such a tone that it had seemed almost more of a command.
Perhaps he couldn’t help his manner, she thought. When a man was accustomed to interrogating people, to watching for the slightest deviation from what constituted the law of the land in this part of the world, he must be apt to let his profession more or less rule his daily approach to living.
Repressing a slight shudder, she thought over the times she had seen Karl Brotnovitch since the evening he had come to her flat. Twice in the street the long black police car had slid to a halt beside her and Karl’s head had appeared, asking if she required any assistance, offering her transport back to the flat.
Twice too, he had
been to the hospital; on each occasion it had been to see one of the important officials who had fallen a victim to the epidemic, but on each occasion, too, he had tried to talk to Jane alone for a moment in the office on the first occasion, hastening along one of the passageways on the second.
On both occasions she had been, with perfect truth, able to plead enormous pressure of work, and Karl had said he understood, mouthed fulsome words about her devotion to duty and her work for his beloved country, clicked his heels, bowed and withdrawn. Fortunately on the first occasion, Jane giggled as she remembered, her hands had been full of soiled linen, and on the second occasion she had been propelling a trolley, a duty which Jim had forbidden, no matter how many of the staff were ill or off duty, but on that instance she had been only too thankful to have escaped the hand-kissing she knew would have been hers in any other circumstance.
Then there had been the matter of the gift of flowers, sent to the flat without a card or note, but somehow she had sensed from whom they had come. No one else, she reflected, knew or cared where she lived. No one else, either, would have sent her a canister of tea or a box of the local iced cakes-cum-biscuits which she had grown to love.
“I expect he’s quite a nice person really,” she thought now, rising reluctantly as Nurse Dawlish approached, rustling the extra sheets of dietary notes she had been working on earlier in the day.
With an effort Jane took her thoughts from Karl Brotnovitch and the problem of how she would deal with the situation which might arise when he saw she had, after all, attended the ball. Time enough to meet
that
difficulty when it arose, she consoled herself, and settled down to trying to sort out how best they could substitute for the citrated or peptinised milk required for the patients now recovering, until further supplies came through.
It seemed in some strange way that the advent of the Embassy ball was the signal for new life to flow through St. George’s. Not until she found herself caught up in the preparations for the great night did Jane admit, even to herself, how drab life had become during the weeks of the epidemic. Busy, rewarding, since only two patients had died out of all the number afflicted by the disease, but drab just the same. Each day had been one ceaseless round against the infection, each night a counting up of how they were faring in the battle. Now, with no new cases reported in the last ten days, and almost all those remaining in St. George’s now on the convalescent list, life began to take upon itself a more rosy hue.
A week or so before the great night Jane was sitting listening, for more than the hundredth time, she reflected, to the small store of records Ann had left behind along with her record-player. She did not hear the sound of anyone approaching her door, but there was an unmistakable tap, repeated again as she rose and went to see who was there.
“It won’t be Karl, anyhow,” she reminded herself. “His tread’s unmistakable.”
It wasn’t Karl; outside, looking as remote from the world and from everyday living as she always did except when on duty, Dorothy Wroe stood, holding a brown paper parcel.
“I hope I’m not disturbing you, Staff Nurse,” she said in her customary quiet voice, “but Mother’s always sending me parcels of material. She is a dressmaker,” a slight smile turned the corners of her mouth upwards for a moment then was gone again, “and when things go wrong for her she always finds relief in what she calls ‘creating magic.’ She doesn’t seem to realise I’ve neither the gift nor the inclination, but although I write and tell her not to do it, she persists in sending me these really beautiful materials. We couldn’t get anything like them here, and I don’t want them. I usually give them to one or other of the patients, but,” the smile again, but even fainter this time, “Nurse Dawlish says she saw the last piece of material I gave to someone up at a house as a pair of curtains, and with this,” she held out the parcel, “that would be almost sacrilegious. Look.”