Nurse with a Dream (17 page)

She saw Guy making his way towards her, and in a sudden absurd desire to postpone further conversation with him, she stepped behind a pot-bellied palm lent by the Parks Committee.

“Ah—there you are!” said Alan smoothly, appearing like a genie at her side. “I’ve been looking for you. You are like a birchwood this evening, in your silver and green. Let’s dance.”

He steered her expertly through the crush. He felt her tremble in his arms, and was conscious, as always, of a desire to protect her. He hadn’t got to the bottom of that sheep-dog business yet, and while he knew she was safe enough inside the hospital, here she was to-night dancing away with that big dark brute Guy Clarke, who certainly seemed struck on her. Maybe he had something to do with the dog, maybe not. But the whole thing was tied up with Timberfold, and Jacqueline was better away from the place and its influence.

“Cousin Guy is in fine fettle to-night,” he said experimentally, steering her round another vegetable tribute by the Parks Committee.

“Yes.” She was non-committal.

“What do you two talk about? Sheep, appendectomies, liver fluke, sterilisers?”

“Mostly he asks me to marry him.”

He felt a faint but definite shock. He had not anticipated this move. Did it eliminate Guy—or implicate him? “Good God! That’s ridiculous!”

She glanced sideways at him. “Why?”

“I don’t know. It just
is.
You don’t know him.”

“How do you ‘know’ a person? Is there a set time, or could you know someone really well in five minutes, or a day? There are people I don’t know at all, after years.”

“True. Getting to know? Maybe it’s like peeling an onion—taking off layer after layer of protective covering, finding more and more of the true personality until at last you reach the core. And liking what you find there.”

“And how about the people you ‘know’ straightaway?” He chuckled. “Maybe you come across them ready peeled, so to speak. When they have already shed their outside personalities and are walking around in mental dressing-gowns and slippers.

“Or take potatoes,” he went on. “You might peel off the skin and find them frosted or bad; you might peel and peel hoping to get to a good piece, and find in the end you had nothing left in your fingers—barely enough for one decent chip.”

She laughed. “What do you know about peeling potatoes?”

He swirled her into an intricate step. “Everything. Was I not in the army, girl?”

They danced in silence for a while. “What do you think of Miss Lovell?” he asked. “The man she is dancing with now is her father. He looks like a pink cod, but he’s a decent chappie—genuine.”

“She’s very beautiful.”

He nodded, but seemed to be waiting for further comment.

“And exquisitely dressed.”

He was impatient. “Yes, yes—what else? Use your eyes.”

“She seems very unhappy.”

“And very ill.”

She glanced at him, startled. ‘Ill? Is she?”

She’ll be in St. Simon’s within three months, mark my words.”

“Does she know?”

“Probably suspects and is fighting her suspicions.”

“Oh, dear—I’m so sorry for her. And for you. I mean—are you—?” She paused, conscious of having said the wrong thing.

He prompted her gently. “Am I in love with her? Is that what you meant to ask?”

“Well, yes, it was,” she admitted honestly, “but I shouldn’t. Do please forgive me. I say what comes into my head, I’m afraid.”

He was not in the least offended. “You do, my pretty, you do. It’s part of your very refreshing charm—a childlike quality I admire in you. Don’t start casing yourself in armour—at least, not for me. No, I’m not in love with Miss Diana Lovell. I like and admire her father. As to Diana, let us say I am—peeling.”

As there seemed no possible answer to this, they finished the dance in silence. Deborah was dancing with a senior house officer, and gave Jacqueline a cold look as the two couples danced side by side for a moment before being separated by the crowd. They encountered Guy, dancing with a pleasant-featured girl with wavy brown hair and perfect skin. Jacqueline mentally put a cap on the brown hair and remembered seeing the girl in the staff dining room—third-year, she thought. Guy looked sulky, and she knew him well enough by now to recognise the look. This was a duty dance and he did not want to do it. She smiled at him as he passed, hoping to cheer him up and make him look a little happier—that poor girl must feel humiliated.

Later, dancing with Guy, she asked, “Who is that, Guy? I know she’s a nurse, but I haven’t met her.”

“Phyllis Arnott. She was on the ward when I was in here last year. Had to give her a dance, out of politeness.”

“You weren’t very polite. You made it pretty obvious you were bored.”

He seemed surprised. “I wasn’t. She’s quite a nice little thing. But I wanted to get back to you. You make all the others look so dull and ordinary. You’re like a little dancing flame to-night, can you blame me for being crazy about you?”

The room was crowded and he held her closely. She was very conscious of his arm encircling her waist, his hand grasping hers firmly.

“No girl could blame a man for being crazy about her,” she said truthfully. “It’s a great compliment. But it troubles me because I’m not sure yet whether I’m crazy about you.”

“You will be,” he said with a confidence that irritated her slightly. “I believe you are now, if only you’d
be honest
with yourself. Incidentally, need you be so forthcoming with our friend Broderick? I noticed you just now, dancing with him. Your face was sort of—alight, shining, I was dashed jealous, I can tell you.”

“You have no shadow of right to be jealous. I shall dance with whom I please, and if I do look a bit interested and as if I’m enjoying myself, you might take a leaf out of my book. The way you looked, dancing with Nurse Arnott, was an insult to the poor girl. I like dancing with Mr. Broderick, and I shall do it again if he asks me.” She was hotly furious.

He was not offended. He held her close, smiling—a curious, thin-lipped smile. “Not after we are married, darling. Then I shall want my wife all to myself—every dance will be mine, and I shall have the right to be jealous.”

“You’re not encouraging me to fall in love with you. No girl can love a jealous man.”

He laughed. “Can’t she? Don’t talk such nonsense. A man is jealous because a woman means something to him. Could you love someone who didn’t care a hoot whether you danced with other men or not?”

He was becoming intense and she felt herself trembling slightly, as if in the grip of a force she could not control. In this mood he was frightening. She forced herself to laugh softly.

“Could you love a woman who didn’t attract other men enough to make them want to dance with her? Don’t be silly, Guy. A dance like this is a social occasion. We know nearly everybody here. It would be different if all these people were strangers.”

“So far as you are concerned,” he said more gently, “they might as well be strangers. I see no one but you.” She was relieved when Liz and Bridget suggested a quick break between dances.

In the cloakroom they repaired their make-up. At the next mirror to Jacqueline, Phyllis Arnott was tidying her hair. They smiled at each other vaguely in the glass; then, as the other girl leant forward to smooth lipstick with a little finger, Jacqueline noticed she had been crying and was attempting to hide the traces.

Jacqueline turned her glance away uncomfortably. Who could have made such a pleasant-looking girl cry till her eyes were red, lips blotched? It couldn’t be Guy, surely? Oh no, not Guy. He said he hardly knew her.

After the heady excitement of Christmas and New Year, January was stale, flat and cold. A mean north wind, laced with sleet and snow, filled the beds with bronchitis and pneumonia patients, then roared up and down the wards as if searching for its victims; old gentlemen broke bones on ice-slides made by the children; old ladies, huddling over gas-fires, set their nightdresses on fire. But bad as January was, it rushed all too soon into February, and those nurses taking the examination went about with glazed eyes and moving lips.

Guy invited Jacqueline to a St. David’s Day dance at the Moor Hen.

“Say you’ll go!” Mary Leigh urged. “The exam, will be over and you’ll be in the mood for fun.”

“When is St. David’s Day?” Bridget demanded. “Because Hank Gregory asked me to a concert by somebody called Bark and I had to say yes, subject to being off duty. But I didn’t dare to say I didn’t know exactly when it was.”

“There’s the ignorant Irish for you,” said Liz. “You think there weren’t any saints except Patrick.”

“There were so.” Bridget was indignant. “St. Kevin and St. Bridget and—”

Mary interrupted to say it was the first of March and the concert was probably Bach, who was dead.

“Live and learn,” said Liz resignedly. “Honestly, Leigh, if we work with you long enough we’ll get quite educated. Who wants late passes, and is it better to go in a bunch or separately?”

Matron was in a benign mood owing to the fortunate purchase of a beige two-piece in the January sales, so Jacqueline got her late pass without difficulty, wrote and accepted Guy’s invitation across the great gulf of the examination and temporarily forgot all about it because a nurse on Children’s Ward started shingles and Jacqueline had to take her place.

Not the least of her regrets about leaving Men’s Surgical was that she would see no more of Alan. Not that she saw him often, but there was always a chance that he would make one of his swooping, disconcerting visits, and, because there was always some patient talking about him, he seemed to be always just around the corner. She had had a hand, however humble, in helping with Alan’s miracles. Once in a while he noticed her, nodded and said good morning. She would miss Alan very much.

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.