Nurse with a Dream (23 page)

“I only found out last night. I suppose I knew always, from the moment I met her. She crept deeper and deeper into my heart, and I didn’t even realise it until I thought she was in danger—and that her being so was my fault for being so blind and stupid.”

A pulse beat wildly in her throat. When she spoke, her voice was a thread of sound. “Alan—who is this girl?”

When he lifted his face, she knew beyond all doubt. “Darling, darling girl! Will you believe I love you? I’ve always loved you, ever since the first day we met—but—oh, Jacky, I’ve been such a fool.” He bent his head and pressed his lips to her two hands. “When I think how I stood back and let you walk head-first into danger, I am ashamed down to my roots.”

She freed a hand and stroked his dark smooth hair. “You rescued me every time I needed rescuing. You stood back and watched until I needed you—and then you came riding, like a knight on a white horse in shining armour.”

He grinned up at her. “Rather a tin-pot knight. I ought to have set you on my horse and ridden away with you months ago. I had to lose you before I learnt how much I wanted you.”

“
Did
you lose me, Alan?” Her mouth was grave and sombre but her eyes shone.

“I thought I had, but—is there hope for me? Could you love me, darling? I’m a bit old for you, and shockingly bad-tempered and impatient. My best friend couldn’t call me good-looking, and I’d never be on hand when you wanted me. I’m a bad bargain, but if you could love me, all my golden ships would come home, and all my birds would sing.”

She laughed very tenderly and gently. “My love! My dear one! Don’t you know I’ve been loving you and loving you?” She put her warm round cheek to his hard lean one. “You do not speak very well for yourself, but luckily for you, your heart speaks for you.”

“What does it say—my heart?”

“It says you love me and I love you, and we belong to each other for ever and ever.”

“And your heart?”

She gave a soft sigh of pure happiness. “My heart says the same as yours. The golden ships are in harbour and all the birds are singing.”

“My funny young angel! Will you marry me?”

She laughed tenderly. ‘Try to stop me! Mind you, I don’t think junior nurses are allowed to marry important men like you. I don’t know what Matron will say.”

He laughed and took her in his arms—and just then Mollie came back.

“Sorry if I’m interrupting anything, my pets.”

“You are,” Alan said crossly. “This child has just promised to overlook my shortcomings and marry me.”

“You took your time, Alan,” Mollie said severely, hugging Jacqueline. “Lance owes me tuppence. I knew all the time you were made for each other. I’m sorry to spoil the moment, but Guy is here.”

“By heaven, is he? I’ve a thing or two to say to Guy Clarke.”

“No, Alan. He’s in desperate trouble. He spent ages searching for Jacky on the moors and nearly cried when I told him she was here and safe. But it’s Connie. She collapsed and he doesn’t know what to do. He has come for help. You’d better speak to him.”

“Send him in.”

Guy went straight to Jacqueline. “Thank God, you’re safe. I searched for you. I thought—I thought she’d hurt you...” He brushed his hand across his eyes. “She’s mad, Jacky—raving mad. She attacked me with the poker. I had to get it from her, and she fought like a wild cat. It was horrible.”

He sank on to a chair and buried his face in his hands. Jacqueline knelt beside him. “What happened then?” she asked gently. “Tell us, Guy.”

He looked at her. “I’ve lost you, haven’t I? I knew all the time you weren’t for me, really. I just kept hoping and hoping, trying to force things. I thought if you married me, it would be all right. But you were right—I couldn’t have been happy, knowing you didn’t love me or come to me of your own free will.”

“I’m sorry, Guy. It was wrong of me to let anyone force me into promising to marry you. I was cruelly unfair to you. Can you forgive me?”

“It’s for you to forgive me. She attacked you, didn’t she? I knew she had. She fooled me about the lumbago.”

“It wasn’t your fault. She was too cunning for you.”

“To think she had the brains to think it all out!”

She shook his shoulder. “Yes, but—tell us what happened to Connie.”

“I didn’t know what to do. I got the poker from her. She was screaming. Then suddenly she made a funny sort of noise and dropped on the floor. I thought she was going to die. I carried her on to her bed. After a bit she got quieter, so I came for help.” He looked up at Alan. “I locked her in the bedroom. It seemed safer.”

Alan nodded. “A sensible precaution, but I don’t think she’ll move. I’ll telephone the hospital; they must send an ambulance for her. Deborah had better come, too.” He dropped a kindly hand on Guy’s shoulder. “You’ve had a rough time. We’ll take care of it from now on.”

“Thank you. The worst part was not knowing what had happened to Jacky. She’s—she’s going to marry you, isn’t she?”

“Yes. I’m sorry if that hurts you.”

“It does, but—funny, I only
wanted
her. I didn’t look beyond that, to everyday life. If I had, I’d have known she couldn’t live at Timberfold, with Connie, and share my sort of life. I hope she’ll be happy.”

Alan said gravely, “I’m going to devote the rest of my life to seeing that she is.”

Mollie said, “I’ve got the hospital on the line. You speak to them, Alan.”

“Thanks. What a competent person you are!” He spoke crisply to the hospital and in a few moments came back. ‘They’ll send straightaway. Come along, Jacky, let’s get going.”

She followed meekly to the car. When they were speeding towards Timberfold, she said, “I thought never to go to the farm again. I wonder which was right—the coin or the heather?”

“Coin?”

“I tossed up whether to go to Timberfold or not. The coin said
don’t go!
And if I’d obeyed it, I’d have saved myself a heap of trouble.”

“You would, indeed!”

“But there was a sprig of white heather, and I took that for a good omen and went on. If I hadn’t, we might never have met again, or at least,” she dimpled mischievously, “only at the hospital. And if I hadn’t set my mind on visiting Timberfold and the Moor Hen all those years...”

“We’d never have met at all. Look out, what’s that?”

He brought the car to a sudden halt. Guy, following, caught up and stopped too. “What’s up?”

“There—just off the road. A bundle of old clothes, or a man.”

Jacqueline’s blood ran cold. “Guy, it’s Michael, isn’t it?”

Alan shouted, “Come on.” And ran towards the crumpled heap.

It was Michael, wet to the skin and half delirious. The men carried him to the car.

Alan sniffed. “Whisky! But I don’t think this is altogether drunkenness. We’d better send him to the hospital, too. Put him in the back and we’ll cover him with my old raincoat. Doesn’t he smell ghastly! We’ll get those wet clothes off him when we reach the farm—the damp brings out the riper smells.”

Alan shook his head over Connie. “Nothing much we can do, I’m afraid,” he admitted to Guy. “Perhaps it is a mercy, after all. She made a homicidal attack on you?”

“She meant to kill me. But all the same, I don’t like to see her like this. She was kind to me, in her way.”

‘Then be thankful. I don’t think she’ll recover consciousness. Funny—how sometimes the thing we love best destroys us, if we love it in a selfish, grasping way. You might say Timberfold destroyed her. The threatened loss of it destroyed her mind.”

Jacqueline attended to Connie as best she could singlehanded. Then she went downstairs to have a look at old Michael. Alan helped her to remove the wet, dirty clothes and bundle the old man into Guy’s clean pyjamas.

“A few hours ago,” she said softly, “these two people were trying to kill me.”

“That’s the way it is. If I could save that woman by operating, I’d do it with all the skill I possess. Healing is a dedication, Jacky.”

She covered the old shepherd up with a blanket. “I always knew that. Now I’m learning it—in my bones, as the children say. How long will the ambulance be, do you think?”

“Not long.”

Michael opened his eyes and struggled into a sitting position. Jacqueline supported him, no longer shuddering at his touch.

“You’re Peter’s little lass, aren’t you? I was looking for you, but you ran away. I wanted to tell you—” He choked a little. “She’s trying to get rid of you. Be careful. She made me give her those l’il seeds, but don’t you eat ‘em, lassie. Bad, they be for ye. Real bad.” He seemed to drowse away, then opened his eyes again. “She was a bonny little wench, you know. I alius loved her, but she would have Saul. She wasn’t to hold nor to bind, but she would have him. She’d ha’ done better wi’ me. But she was bonny.”

“I’m sure she was, Michael.”

“Greed’s been the curse o’ this farm. Everybody grabbing and nobody giving. Young Peter knew. He wouldn’t thole it—not at no price. He got away, and you must get away, Peter’s lass.” He shook his head slowly. “I alius told her it was wrong to stop Peter’s letters getting to his Ma. That was cruel.”

Jacqueline looked up at Alan, tears streaming down her face. “So that’s how it happened. Poor Grandmother, poor Daddy.”

Michael clawed her arm. “But I loved her, I alius loved her, don’t mistake me. I did what she asked me, even if I thowt it wor wrong. Until
she
did wrong. Aye, very wrong she did. She killed my dog with her own hands.”

“Oh, Mike!”

“After she killed my dog, I knew she was wicked. Sin it was—sin. So I knew I had to tell you, to tell you she was trying to kill you. It was only a little drink I needed to give me courage, but when I’d drunk enough whisky, you ran away and I ran after you, but I couldn’t catch you.”

She said softly, “Never mind. I know now.”

“Here’s the ambulance,” Alan said quietly.

Jacqueline whispered, “Will he die?”

“Mike? Not he—tough as a cowhide, and well waterproofed with whisky.”

Deborah came in, brisk and competent in uniform. As she hurried upstairs, Guy came down.

The second nurse in the ambulance was Phyllis Arnott. “Why—Phyllis?” said Guy. “You here?”

“I didn’t come on purpose,” she said defensively. “It was my turn to come.”

Jacqueline drew Alan into the yard. “It wasn’t so much her turn,” she said quietly, “as her bit of white heather. What perfect timing! Guy’s life is empty just now, and Phyllis loves him.” She gave the old house a long, long look. A look of farewell. “What a home the right woman could make of it all!”

Alan put his arm round her. “I’m faintly jealous. You don’t regret Guy—or the house?”

“I’m sorry for him, that’s all. But he’ll be all right eventually. Phyllis is a nice girl, and if she doesn’t make the most of the opportunity Fate has thrown into her lap, she doesn’t deserve him. Guy didn’t love
me,
I’m sure. Not the me inside my skin. He was in love with an idea.”

“Our work is done here, my sweet. Come into the wood.” Arm linked in arm, they left the cobbled yard and the old dark house. In the wood birds were fluting and chittering. They walked on a soft carpet of needles.

“Those people, with their needs and weakness, interrupted our very first kiss.”

She smiled up into his eyes, a soft invitation. “So they did, Alan.”

“That is how it will be—always. Our tenderest, our most important moments—humanity will barge in and interrupt. Are you prepared for that? Will you always understand—and know that I love you best and dearest; that you are of all beings most important to me?”

“After to-day—yes, I will. I’ll always say ‘Lord, he whom Thou lovest is sick’—and I won’t resent your leaving me, because I’ll know you will come back.”

He stroked her soft hair and, cupping her face in his hand, gazed into her steady eyes. “I don’t deserve all this love. I’ve done nothing to earn it. Yet here it is, poured out so generously, for me, I am the richest man alive.”

“I am rich, too. Perhaps nobody ever really
deserves
love. It’s a bonus!”

“Your soul looks out of your eyes, my darling. I love the ‘me’ under your skin—the pilgrim soul in you.” He hesitated. “Tell me something—if you care to. Why exactly did you get engaged to Guy? I know it was because Deborah pressed you, but what made
you
do it? What made you give in to her? You’re not weak or suggestible, and you’re capable of giving Deborah as good as she gave. So why?”

She studied him quizzically. “Don’t you really know?”

“When we spoke about it earlier, I was too eager to find out if I had a chance with you. But you said it was ‘nothing’—which means something, of course. And I asked if she was blackmailing you, and
you
said—”

He stepped back and a light broke over his face. “Glory be,” he said under his breath. “You did it for me! The blind fool I’ve been! Oh, Jacky, my little white darling—I ought to kneel at your feet and ask forgiveness. There I was, yapping about my love for you, and asking if you could possibly love me—when you’d been willing to sacrifice your own happiness to save my reputation. You never even waited to see if it was really necessary—you just plunged in, in your impulsive, warm-hearted way.” He was suddenly too deeply moved to speak, and turned his head away.