Nurse Trent's Children (4 page)

“Bread and jam.”

“Strawberry, not apricot,” added one of the girls. “We got it out of Mrs. Jessopp ’s own cupboard.”

Cathy said briskly, “Dr. Malcolm, this is not getting us anywhere. In a very short time we shall be invaded by an army of girls. No use reminding me of large quantities of pink icing, I
know
my imps. No matter what they’ve consumed, they’ll still be empty.”

“Children,” called the doctor, “this is your new Aunty Cathy. Say hello to Aunt Cathy.”

They obeyed him in low dubious voices. They eyed her speculatively. She smiled brightly back at them, but she made no attempt to win them. She knew from experience never to rush things, especially when there was plenty of time ahead. Immediately there was an important matter to be attended to. There was the matter of the filling of thirty small stomachs.

They all went inside. Cathy had a fleeting impression of recreation rooms, library, and sun veranda, with that comfortable lived-in air. There was a wide flight of steps. She expected that would lead to the dormitories and bathrooms. She followed Dr. Malcolm out to the kitchen.

He went unerringly first to the refrigerator and then the cupboard. Any detachment he might have evinced before was completely dissolved. He opened up each office knowingly, as though he had done it before.
It is all familiar to him,
thought Cathy.

She did not have time to puzzle over it. He was back at once, looking as angry as she had already found only he could look angry.

“Old so-and-so
...
”

“Careful—the children.”

“Well, so she is. Picked her exit at the most inconvenient time. There’s nothing in the house but bread and butter.”

“No tinned provision?”

“Nothing at all. She must have had a move like this in her mind.”

“Well,” said Cathy practically, “it will have to be eggs.”

He looked at her hopefully. “Can you poach eggs? It’ll have to be you, I’m afraid. None of the girls are up to that yet, and I can’t cook. Elvira, as you heard, is taking Saturday off on Thursday.”

Cathy laughed. “Yes, I can poach eggs.”

“For thirty?”

She hesitated, remembering how she used to prepare the special meal in the children’s ward at St. Cloud, but it had only been one at a time, not thirty.

Jeremy Malcolm took her hesitation for lack of confidence.

“I expect you only to break thirty eggs into a big pan and bring it to a boil,” he said helpfully.

“You certainly do not,” she shuddered. “I doubt, anyway, if there would be a pan big enough for thirty eggs.”

Rita said brightly, “And there are no eggs.”

“That,” shrugged the doctor, “settles tea tonight. It will have to be toast.”

At that moment Cathy’s twenty arrived. They came in shyly, quietly, eyeing the other girls with quick, birdlike glances. It was hard to think that within a couple of days they would be as much at home at Redgates as these ten present residents who now stared unblinkingly back.

“Aunty Cathy, we all got bathing suits,” said one of Cathy’s originals.

“We’ve had togs a long time.” The residents looked triumphant.

“What are togs?”

“Bathing suits, of course.”

“We came in a ship.”

“So did we.”

“Ours was the
Winona.”

“Ours was—”

“Tea and toast it is,” decided Cathy briskly. “I’ll cut the bread while you toast.” It suddenly came to her that probably he was anxious to get home and find out from his replacement all that had happened during his
absence. Then, of course, he would be
married
. Most
doctors were married.

“I’m sorry,” she said rather breathlessly, “your wife, of
course
...
”

“What wife?”

“Yours.”

“I haven’t any.”

“Oh
...
” She took up the bread knife and started to cut. “But
aren’t you anxious to get to your office? To learn all the things
that have been done and
...
”

“Keep cutting,” he answered briefly.

She darted a quick look, took the bread, and cut.

An hour later thirty girls had been satisfactorily filled. The improvised meal had bridged the preliminaries that would have existed over a formal table. Cathy said so to Dr. Malcolm as they climbed the stairs to start the baths.

“Yes,” he said briefly again, but the brevity had a teamsman quality to it. They seemed, temporarily at least, to have reached an understanding that needed no explanation.

“I’ll take the babies,” he said, “you see to the big girls.”

“You
mean
...
”

“They all have to be washed, haven’t they?” His voice was practical.

“Of course,” she agreed. She called Rita to help her, and they started the bath routine.

There were more smaller girls than bigger ones. Cathy had hers finished before Dr. Malcolm.

She went into one of the bathrooms and stood a moment regarding the tall doctor briskly drying a small six-year-old. “Keep still, Jenny,” he said. “If I don’t towel your back you’ll grow a dorsal fin like a fish.”

“What’s a dorsafin, Dr. Jerry?”

“Keep still, you ragamuffin.”

Cathy saw there was still Christabel to do. She picked her up promptly.

Jenny was borne away to bed with the others, and Christabel was being buttoned into her nightie when the doctor came back.

“Phew,” he said, “what a welcome home.”

Cathy said thoughtfully, “It might have been a good thing. Those kiddies have broken down any barriers in a matter of one hour.”

“No thanks to Mrs. Jessopp.” He scowled.

“Perhaps we shall be well rid of her.”

“No doubt about that, but who will take her place? Domestic help is hard to come by in Australia.”

“I expect Elvira and I can cope for a few days. There, Christabel, I think you’re done.”

Christabel snuggled down in the irresistible way she always did when she was tired. She was the naughtiest of little girls awake and the sweetest on the verge of slumber. In a sudden impulse Cathy caught her to her and kissed the soft baby cheek.

She kissed it hungrily, lovingly, and raising her eyes she surprised Dr. Malcolm’s brown eyes upon her, no longer hard and sardonic, but more gentle than she could have imagined.

For a moment the two looked at each other.

“Would you like me to stay here?” he asked quietly.

She said no so quickly she knew it must come as an outraged reproof to him, that it must sound too emphatic, priggish.

“I mean,” she amended hastily, “you know what these places are
...
I mean, even though there are thirty children
...
” She was painfully aware that she was stammering. She felt callow and foolish.

“By all means,” he conceded with an exaggerated bow. “By all means let us pay due regard to the proprieties. Elvira will be in early in the morning. Probably early enough to deal with more toast and jam. Meanwhile, I advise you to put that child in her cot.”

S
omething had broken the spell between them. They were no longer a team working together.

She said levelly, “Of course, Dr. Malcolm,” and carried Christabel to the one remaining empty crib.

As she pulled up the bedclothes she heard him run down the steps. A moment later she heard the car depart.

CHAPTER THREE

Dr. Malcolm was wrong. E
lvira did not arrive early in the morning. She arrived that night.

Cathy was brushing her straight fair hair before the mirror in the room that Rita assured her was always the aunty’s room when she heard the steps on the stairs. Before she had time to become alarmed there was a tap on her door. A voice said, “Miss Trent, it’s Elvira.”

Cathy said at once, “Come in, won’t you, Elvira?” because she knew instantly that she would like the owner of that voice. After hearing Elvira she would never decry Australian voices-again. Perhaps the vowels were reedy, but in Elvira’s instance it was a crystal reediness. She had the Australian habit of finishing her sentences in a question mark instead of a full stop. It was lovable
with Elvira.

The door opened and the woman entered. She was a dumpling of a thing, quite plain, almost middle-aged, and the only feature that matched that singing voice was her black eyes, round and rather small like boot buttons but surprisingly liquid and tender.

“You poor dear!” The liquid black eyes became more liquid still in their sympathy. “Dr. Jerry came around at once, so I got mother fixed and left straight away. That terrible woman, to abandon my little children.” Elvira’s black boot buttons shone as though the wards were indeed her little children. “It’s an ill wind though,” she declared with force. “We’ll be well rid of her, the
tyrant.”

“I’m awfully sorry you returned tonight, Elvira. After all, it
was your day off.”

“And had I guessed I wouldn’t have gone away. Bread and jam for their lunches.”

“Toast for tea,” added Cathy. “Never mind, Elvira, we’ll
make up for that tomorrow; and really, they don’t look much the worse for the ordeal.”

“Probably enjoyed it,” said Elvira shrewdly.

“They did. They had strawberry jam instead of apricot. They took it out of Mrs. Jessopp’s cupboard. I hope she doesn’t discover the theft.”

“Is she coming back then?” Elvira’s voice sang a disappointed song this time.

“Only to collect a little bag that Rita and Gwenda hid to ‘inconference’ her.”

“Well, I hope it did, too,” said Elvira. “I never liked Jessy. She came just as Dr. Jerry left for England. If he’d been here she wouldn’t have lasted as long as she has.”

“Dr. Malcolm takes an active interest in Little Families then?” Cathy’s voice held doubt. Although he had seemed keen enough when he had been toasting bread and bathing babies, she could not dismiss the sardonic light in his eyes as he had discussed the foundation, she could not disregard his plainly stated disapproval
o
f the methods of the foundation.

Elvira opened the boot buttons as wide as they would go. “Take an interest! Why, Miss Trent, Redgates is like his own life’s blood to Dr. Jerry. He fair lives for the place.”

“And yet,” said Cathy wonderingly, “he spoke to me almost as though he hated it.”

“Love and hate are akin,” reminded Elvira wisely. “But what am I doing keeping you out of bed like this? You must be tired out coming all the way from England and then having to turn around and make toast.”

It sounded so funny that Cathy had to laugh. “It took five weeks to come out, and I managed a sleep every night,” she reminded Elvira. After a pause she added, “Dr. Malcolm did the toasting. I only cut.”

“A shocking thing all the same. Such a bad start: It’s a wonder you didn’t pack up and go home.”

“I hadn’t unpacked. Besides, it would be a long way
...
” As she said it Cathy’s heart contracted. It was a very long way home, she thought, and once she got there, there was no one waiting—not now.

Elvira sensed her wistfulness. “You jump into your bed, my dear. It will all be better in the morning.”

“It isn’t really bad now, Elvira. Things are never bad with a lot of children around you. There isn’t time to let them get bad.”

Elvira’s smile was warming. “That’s just how I feel about it. Sometimes I come from mother’s real discouraged and worried—and then I hear the children’s voices and I brighten. When I go home again I tell her little things they’ve said and done and she’s bright, too. We’re the pair of us the same as Dr. Jerry. The home is in our blood.”

Cathy replaced her brush beside its comb. “Elvira, I’ve been thinking about tomorrow. How will we manage?”

“You’re not to worry your head about that. Dr. Jerry said so. If I know Dr. Jerry he’s been on the phone ringing up an agency even before he took his hat off. And him just back from England, too!”

“How have you managed all along? I mean, would you and this Mrs. Jessopp have been sufficient to look after the children?”

“Oh, yes. We have women coming in to do the housework, and the laundry always goes out. It’s only been an aunty we’ve lacked, but seeing we were only ten the board decided to wait till you came, Miss Trent, and now I’ve seen you I can’t say how glad I am they did. It’s not good for kiddies having changes. They want roots—good roots. The moment I spoke with Dr. Jerry I knew he was pleased about something, even if he was displeased at the same time about Jessopp. Then the moment I saw you I knew why.”

Cathy did not have the heart to contradict her. The black boot button eyes were too swimming with belief in her precious Dr
.
Jerry. If Dr. Malcolm had looked pleased, Cathy told herself, it must have been with the financial state of his surgery, not with the new housemother for Redgates. Apart from that brief hour when they had worked side by side filling interiors and washing exteriors of small girls, the atmosphere between them had been distinctly unfriendly.

At length, on Elvira’s insistence, she got into bed. “I’m going to tuck you in. You’re little more than a girl yourself, and you
a
supervisor.”