Nurse with a Dream (6 page)

“It seems stupid to carry on old feuds. It was a silly quarrel, anyway.”

He shook her hand heartily, in a hard grip. Then he put an arm across her shoulders and kissed her lightly on the temple. “Half-cousins are kissing cousins, Jacky. We’ll say they are, anyway.”

For no reason at all, except the fun of being young on a summer’s day, they both laughed, and Guy gave her shoulder a friendly squeeze before releasing her.

Guy was her second Englishman, and he disturbed her more than her first—in a different way. Alan’s quiet mind and serene spirit spoke to hers in a language she understood well; with him she felt she could tread familiar paths. But Guy swept her into a new path which promised adventure and gaiety. He had youth, good looks, and abounding vitality. The touch of his firm hand, the brush of his warm lips on her smooth skin, sent her blood coursing headily.

Connie Clarke’s coarse voice interrupted their laughter. “Guy! Don’t stand there all day, gommicking! There’s them hen-runs to see to.”

She stood in the doorway, a squat, powerful-looking woman, as much part of the environment as Guy himself; but she looked like an earthy troll. To Jacqueline, turning from the handsome, laughing boy, the older woman’s face was hideous with evil—with envy, jealousy and hatred. The girl shivered in the warm air.

“Somebody walking over your grave?” Guy asked.

She turned to him with a startled exclamation
.
“
What
?”

“Don’t look so horrified. It’s an expression we use when someone shivers for no apparent reason. It doesn’t mean anything.” He laughed. “I do believe I’ve scared you.” “No, I’m not scared. I hadn’t heard the expression before, that’s all.”

Suddenly she longed to get away. The whole atmosphere of Timberfold was hateful, menacing.

“Look here,” Guy seemed not to have noticed the interruption, “I can’t let a cousin—one of the family—stay at a pub. You must come here. Let’s go and fetch your luggage. You belong to us.”

“No—oh no, I can’t! I mean, it’s awfully good of you, but—” She sought for an excuse. I can’t, she thought wildly, I simply can’t sleep under the same roof as that awful woman. “It wouldn’t be convenient for Aunt Connie. I’m sure she wouldn’t like it. Please, Guy, take me back to the Moor Hen.”

“
Aunt Connie!
Just call her Connie, as Deb and I do. She’s only a housekeeper really. Dad married her after Grandma died because she said folk would gossip if she stayed on just with Dad and me. Deborah had left home then and wouldn’t come back to housekeep—and I don’t blame her. On the whole, it was simpler for Dad to marry Connie than to get another woman to live so far from civilisation.” He laughed loudly. “The old girl was set up with herself, too. Mistress where she’d been maid. Gave her no end of a kick. Deborah and I just laugh. She doesn’t count really.”

“Maybe not, Guy. But I shall call her Aunt Connie, because she
was
Uncle Saul’s wife. If she doesn’t like it, I shall say Mrs. Clarke.”

“Aren’t you a prim creature? Have your own way, but I shall have my way about your staying here. My lass, do you want to disgrace me in the eyes of the neighbourhood? My own cousin staying at an inn when there’s room at Timberfold? We may be moor-enders, but we have our pride. Even Connie will see that. Wait here, I’ll tell her.” He hurried off, then came back to where she stood by the gate. “I forgot to ask how long—?”

“Only a night. I have to be back at the hospital by Sunday evening.”

“Hospital? Not St. Simon’s?” His voice rose with surprised unbelief.

“Do you know it?”

“I spent half a lifetime there last year, when I crushed my foot with the tractor. Lot of young bullies, you nurses. You
are
a nurse?”

“The youngest and least experienced in the world. I still shake with fright—but I don’t let the patients see.” He hit his thigh. “Well, if that isn’t the darndest! Of course it’s the only decent hospital around these parts, but—you at St. Simon’s! It beats cockfighting.”

“I don’t see why it should. I wanted to nurse in England. I wanted to see Timberfold. St. Simon’s was the obvious place.”

“Yes, but—”

“
Guy
! Do thee hear!”

“Lor’, I forgot about the old girl. Wait—I’ll go and explain.”

She waited obediently, hoping against hope that Connie would refuse to have her. It’s only one night, she comforted herself, and it will be fun, to sleep under the Timberfold roof just once. She tried not to regret the comfort of the Moor Hen or the fact that she would not see her friend Alan again.

It was not Guy, but Connie who came to her. “You’re Peter’s wench, then? He’s—she jerked a thumb over her shoulder—“says you’re to stop. A proper heart-scald your Dad was to his poor Ma. Quarrels and shouting all the time it was, with Master Peter.”

“It was his father who did the shouting. Daddy didn’t want to be a farmer, that’s all. If they could have seen his point of view—”

“Artist, he wanted for. There’s no living in that.”

“He designed lovely silks and made a jolly good living.”

“Well, come your ways in. The room is damp, and I hope you’ve no objection to spiders, because spiders there is, and neither you nor I nor Queen Elizabeth could get rid of them. They come off the tree. You can have your father’s room.”

Jacqueline followed her demurely, feeling that if her welcome was not exactly rapturous, at least she had not been turned down. Now that she was actually embarked upon the small adventure, she felt excited. It would be interesting to see upstairs, to use her father’s old room.

It was a big draughty room with two windows opening on to the moor. One window was obscured by the branch of a big tree, and below it, an easy distance, was the roof of a shed.

“Cart shed. Peter used to climb out o’ this window and slide down roof, after his Dad had sent him to bed in disgrace. Ee, it seems queer you’re his lass. Peter wor a pretty boy, in a way.” For a brief, revealing moment her harsh face softened and her tone was gentler. ‘Too la-di-dah for a farmer—his hands were more like a lady’s. Twor that made his Dad so mad, his la-di-dah ways. The more Peter tried to be a gentleman, the more his father shouted and swore at him.”

Jacqueline peered out of the window at the shed roof. The tiles were broken and mossy. “Poor little Peter. No one understood him except his mother, and she was too frightened to stick up for him.”

“Wrong, wrong!” Connie jerked a dust-sheet off the bed angrily. “I understood him. I understood all about him.”

Jacqueline turned to her in amazement. “Why, Aunt Connie, you helped Saul to tease him!” Then she went hot with embarrassment, for the women was her hostess.

Connie was not offended. She looked slyly under her skimpy lashes. “Aye, I knew which side my bread was buttered, I knew Master Saul would be boss when his Dad went. And when they’re so small and helpless, sometimes it comes over you; you can’t help it. They sort of
ask
for it. Anyway,” she added defiantly, “Peter didn’t like me. He called me a kitchen cat. He said I had mucky ways and talked common.”

“Then he was very rude and naughty!” She turned to the window again. “He used to walk on the moor at nights, when everybody was asleep.”

“Up to no good.”

“He only walked. He used to shout poetry into the wind. It was Saul who—” She checked herself, remembering Saul had been Connie’s husband and also that her memory might not be over-accurate. In her childish imagination, the villain of every story had been a Saul.

“Saul was all right. He went girling o’ nights, like any normal chap. But who knew what mischief Peter hatched, up on the moor alone? He never wanted a girl with him, didn’t Peter.”

In this, at least, her memory did not err. Peter Clarke had hated, feared, despised the young servant-girl. Perhaps he had not realised that she knew and resented it. It was evident that she still resented it, still cherished the bitter memory that Peter, young as he was, had coldly rejected her.

“He didn’t hatch anything very bad.” She craned out of the window, glad of an excuse to end the talk. “I think I see Guy waiting for me. He is driving me to the Moor Hen to collect my luggage. Oh—who is that? It must be my grandmother.” She pointed to a portrait over the wide stone chimney-piece. “Is it like her?”

“Pretty like. Done by a chap painting inn-signs, they say ‘twas. Stopped here a night or two, and painted that for his keep. She wor young then.”

The girl studied the stiff, unskilful painting. “She doesn’t look happy.”

‘That’s all the young ones think of now. Happy—what’s happy? If you’ve got four good meals a day under your pinner and a good man to fend for you, and if you’ve no rheumatism and such, you ought to thank God. I dunno about happy.”

Mollie Medway said good-bye to Jacqueline with genuine regret. “Come again, and spend a week-end with us properly. I told the bar Peter Clarke’s girl had turned up. I hope you don’t mind. It was such an excitement for them—you know they’ve hardly got over his running away with a French girl yet.”

“It seems so odd that here, in his native place, Daddy is still the wild young boy—a scapegrace, though goodness knows his only crime was not wanting to be a farmer.”

“Ah, but no one here can understand such a mentality. We all condemn what we can’t understand.”

“Aunt Connie doesn’t understand me. She keeps asking why I came. I can’t convince her I have no ulterior motive.”

Upstairs she packed her rucksack. She had long ago learned to travel light, as one must when one carries one’s wardrobe in so small a container, and to look neat and pretty at the same time. Soon, Room Four was just as she had found it, with not a trace of her occupation. It was not impersonal, for no room of Mollie Medway’s could be that—it was Alan’s room again.

A mischievous smile dimpled her cheek. She tore a blank page from her diary and scribbled:
Thanks for everything. You may now sleep peacefully.
She studied it a moment, frowning lightly and tapping her lips with her pencil. What could she add, to remind him amusingly of their morning? He had been rather domineering about that cliff—what was its name? Smiling once more, she added:
And I still think your Black Crag would be fun.

“Lance and Alan will be sorry to have missed you,” said Mollie as she left. “They are planning an enormous excursion for to-morrow, because it’s my turn to cook lunch.” As soon as the car started, Jacqueline remembered she had not asked Mollie Alan’s other name. It doesn’t matter, she decided, I’ll never see him again, and he’ll always be simply Alan. Ships that pass in the night—he was rather a nice ship, too.

“Penny for your thoughts?” said Guy.

“Ships. Just—ships.”

It was not a particularly successful visit. Connie cooked a high tea of ham and eggs, slapped the plates down on the tablecloth angrily and did not speak a word until the meal was almost over.

“You’re a weeshy, washed-out little thing like your Grandma, but you’ve got the yellow hair, I see. Pity it doesn’t curl.”

“I like it as it is. I think she’s pretty, Con.” Guy grinned at Jacqueline as he spoke, taking her into an amused conspiracy against the grim old woman. She tried not to mind being discussed so freely.

“I still don’t see what she wants, though,” Connie launched into space, addressing nobody.

“I want nothing,” the girl told her, with controlled patience. “It may seem crazy to you, but I only wanted to
see
Timberfold—to see something belonging to my father.”

“Belonging?” The tone was sharp.

“Not in the literal sense. Belonging in atmosphere.”

“Timberfold belonged to Saul,” the old woman repeated obstinately. “And now it belongs to me.” She had a long, thin, cruel nose, and when she shut her lips firmly her face had a nutcracker look like a witch’s. “Saul was a fine big man, shoulders as broad as a barn door. Ee, I like a big man with meat on his bones and a big roaring laugh. Guy’s a big man, too, though he ain’t come to his full strength yet by a long chalk. Likes his women and beer, too; like his Dad.”

Guy was angry. “Shut up, Connie. That’s daft talk. Come outside, Jacky—let’s go for a walk before I dot the old woman on the head. She’ll leave me no character at all if she starts her silly drooling.”

“I want to show you my favourite walk,” he went on when they had left the farm buildings behind. Instead of crossing the beck, he turned sharply and took a narrow path beside the tumbling water until they reached a low summit where the stream made a miniature waterfall and they could command a surprisingly wide view of the countryside. He pointed out the extent of the Timberfold grazings.

“You must be awfully proud to own so much,” she said, rather awed. “Because of course you do own it, don’t you? It isn’t really Aunt Connie’s?”

“Clever child! Connie doesn’t own a stick or stone of it, and has no money of her own at all. She’ll always have a home at Timberfold, naturally, and what money she needs. All that showing off about owning the place is—well, I suppose she’s a bit cracked on the subject.”

“Poor thing, perhaps she feels insecure and tries to bolster herself up. After all, if you married, your wife might not want Connie—she isn’t exactly friendly.”