A Case of Heart Trouble Page 6

  “Hello, Nurse. Your last day at Loring Court you were loaded with parcels, I remember. Get in, and I’ll give you a lift.

  But Dallas declined the offer hurriedly.

  “No, thank you, Doctor. I really came out for exercise, and I enjoy the walk.”

  “In this weather?” He looked at the dismal sky, and the thinly falling rain. “Well, it won’t do you any good, I can assure you of that. It won’t do that cough of yours any good, and it’ll fill you with rheumatism. Get into the car.”

  He leant across to hold open the other door, but she chose to be obstinate.

  “It’s really very good of you, Doctor, but I honestly prefer to walk. I’ve one or two things I want to do before I report back on duty, and—” He glanced at the wet front of her coat She wasn’t even wearing a raincoat.

  “Get in,” he said tersely, and because she couldn’t very well do anything else she got in. But she was suddenly seething with resentment, and the fact that she had been forced to do something she was entirely opposed to doing brought a bright flush to her face. Her green eyes sparkled like stars on a frosty night, and she bit her lower lip hard.

  He smiled sideways at her, with compressed lips. “At least you won’t be soaked through by the time you get back to Ardrath

  House,” he remarked. “I wasn’t going straight back to Ardrath House,” she told him, untruthfully. “As a matter of fact—” “Yes?”

  “I was going to have some tea somewhere.” “Good,” he exclaimed, as if that was entirely satisfactory; “Then you can come back with me and have some tea with us. This happens to be an unusually free afternoon for me, and I’d like you to meet my—” “Oh, no, no! ” she exclaimed, quite determined now that she was not going to be coerced. She had no doubts at all that he was going to say, “and I’d like you to meet my wife,” and although she had already met her the very last thing she felt she could endure in her present slightly bedraggled condition was to be ushered into a comfortable drawing room in Harley Street and pressed to take tea

  with Maureen Loring, wearing something that she had probably bought in Paris on the way home from the Bahamas, and looking lovelier than ever now that she was reconciled with her husband.

  For the first time the doctor seemed slightly taken aback.

  “My dear girl,” he said, a somewhat odd note in his voice, “I’m sure I don’t want to trespass on your free time, but it occurred to me you might like to renew association with my aunt, for one thing. I believe you two got on very well. And she’s returning to Loring tomorrow.”

  “Tell her I hope she’ll have a very comfortable journey,” Dallas said huskily.

  “And you won’t spend half an hour with her? Twenty minutes, if that’s too long?”

  “No, I’d rather not, if you don’t mind. I haven’t really got the time ... I mean, I’m due back on duty at five o’clock, and—it was only an idea about having tea somewhere. . . .” She was beginning to sound agitated. “If you’d be so good as to drop me at the nearest point to Ardrath House . . . I mean, I don’t want you to make any detours for my sake. If—if it won’t take you out way . . . ? “It won’t,” he returned briefly, and started up the car. During the short drive to Ardrath House they neither of them said anything at all, and Dallas was so conscious of the silence that her fingers twined and untwined themselves about the string of her parcels that were clutched in her lap. It was the first time she had travelled in the low-slung Jaguar that the doctor drove himself, and but for the fact that she was so anxious to get out of it she might have enjoyed the superbly comfortable drive through the wet streets of London, with the lights beginning to stream out from the shop windows and dancing brightly in the puddles. She might have admired his meticulous driving, and marvelled how he came to be involved in an accident, but she was waiting almost breathlessly for the moment when she could say:

  “Set me down here, please! ” and he need not go right up to the front of the nursing home, where they would be under observation from all sorts of odd pairs of eyes. And afterwards she would have to endure the surprised looks, the frankly envious looks —for the fact that she had been chosen to nurse Dr. Loring had hardly made her popular with the more senior members of the nursing staff. And she was in no mood to be twitted, with archly upraised brows, and gleaming hostile eyes.

  “You’re doing very nicely with Dr. Loring, aren’t you, Nurse? Yesterday he stopped to talk to you, today he gives you a lift ... !”

  So when she saw the lamp-post on the corner, and the door in

  the side turning with the words Tradesmen’s Entrance painted on it in white letters, she spoke sharply and a little feverishly:

  “This will do, Doctor. I always slip in here, anyway.”

  But he drove right up to the front of the building, and set her down before the square portico. With crimson cheeks she scrambled out and thanked him.

  “Not at all,” he said dryly, as her thanks seemed a little excessive, having done the same for anyone. Now get inside out of the rain. Good afternoon, Nurse.”

  And he drove away before she had time to say another word, leaving her feeling foolish and a little ungracious on the pavement.

  C H A P T E R S E V E N

  SHE saw him constantly in the next few weeks, but he didn't stop to speak to her, or single her out for any special attention. She was glad of this, because it prevented her being singled out by her fellow nurses for surprised looks and double-edged comments. The fact that she had been selected—over the heads of the more experienced and far more suitable—to nurse him on her own for a whole month at Loring Court had not gone down well with the other members of the nursing staff at Ardrath House. They had received her coolly when she returned, and even Matron, she was sure, had been rather more than surprised because he had picked on her.

  But, now that she was back, and sunk in obscurity once more, those who had once been friendly were friendly again. Life was very much as it had been before Dr. Loring had had his collision with a taxi, and little Nurse Drew was reasonably popular. She was relegated to her rightful position, made pots of tea and coffee for the visiting doctors and surgeons and carried them into Matron's private office without being noticed by anyone—the fact that she was so pale these days seemed to have detracted from her looks, for one thing—fetched and carried for whoever wanted her to fetch and carry, and spent a lot of time in the sluice-room.

  During her off-duty periods she took advantage of London's pale sunshine—whenever there was pale sunshine—and walked in the park and the quiet squares surrounding the nursing home, without getting any more color in her cheeks. She tired easily, and she still had the remains of a cough, but she couldn't have said she felt ill. Just a little wistful, sometimes, when she dreamed of a world where there were no endless miles of corridors to traverse in rubber-soled shoes, no demanding patients paying very large weekly sums to have their bells answered immediately, and to be lifted, reassured, listened to, when she had a dozen other tasks to perform.

  And, above all, no demanding Day Sister, who would never forgive a lapse, watching her critically all the time, and perhaps reporting on her to Matron.

  But she loved nursing, and was quite sure that when the spring came—the real spring, not just a few deceptive fine days—she would begin to feel much more like herself, and have a new zest for her job. So she went about ticking the days off on the calendar, delighted when February dragged to an end, thrilled by the squally arrival of March.

  And it was on a wild day in March, when Matron’s room was filled, nevertheless, with great bowls of daffodils and vases of other spring flowers, that she was sent for by Matron, and the summons drove every scrap of color out of her face because she was sure that, at last, there was to be some complaint about her work.

  But Matron greeted her smilingly, and waved her affably to a chair. She seemed to understand the slightly petrified air of the youthful Nurse Drew, and explained at once that the reason she had been sent for was a very plea
sant one ... a remarkable piece of good fortune for Nurse Drew, who was receiving preferential treatment for the second time in a matter of months.

  “Doctor Loring came to me this morning and explained that he had a problem,” she said. “His daughter, Stephanie, is recovering from some childish complaint that she caught at school, and because she appears to be in rather a run-down condition she’s being sent home for a while. As you know, Yorkshire is quite healthy country, and it’s hoped that the pure moorland air will do her a lot of good. Unfortunately, Dr. Loring’s aunt is rather elderly to have a delicate child thrust on her to take charge of, and since someone must take charge of her he has thought of you. Are you prepared, Nurse, to leave London almost immediately for Loring Court?”

  Dallas was so utterly taken aback that she could say nothing immediately. And then the only thing she could think of to say was: “But—what about Dr. Loring’s wife? Surely she—? The child’s own mother . . . !”

  Matron looked both shocked and pained.

  “My dear Nurse Drew, if the child’s mother was alive do you think that Dr. Loring would be calling in an outsider? His daughter is not ill ... she merely requires someone to be with her and take charge of her, preferably someone young like yourself; and of course your nursing experience will be an advantage. That and the fact that you know Loring Court.

  “B-but—but ... ” Dallas was stammering hopelessly. “But I don’t understand! I was quite sure that I met Mrs. Loring while I was at Loring Court. She came there. ... ”

  Matron began to look impatient.

  “You must be referring to his sister-in-law, Mrs. Roger Loring. She and the late Mrs. Martin Loring were sisters—twins—and in case you’re confusing a photograph they were very much alike. Mrs. Martin Loring, however, died nearly four years ago. I do hope you were not indiscreet enough to let the doctor know you imagined his sister-in-law was his wife! ”

  “No, no, of course not.” But Dallas was only aware of one thing . . . Martin Loring was not marrie d, and when he took his recent trip to the Bahamas it was not a honeymoon trip! If she’d gone to tea in Harley Street six weeks ago she would not have found herself confronted by a confident, smiling wife . . . She could have had a cosy chat with Aunt Letty, who must have thought it extremely odd that she was adamant in her refusal to be taken back to Harley Street, and wondered in what way she had offended the sensitive Nurse Drew! Extraordinary over-sensitive, she must have thought, or merely ungrateful and rude!

  There came a light tap on the door, and Dr. Loring himself entered. He glanced, with a slight smile on his face, at Dallas.

  “So I’ve arrived at precisely the right moment,” he observed. “Sister Kenton has just been taking me on the rounds, but I thought I’d look in here before I left, Matron, and find out whether you’d had a word with Nurse Drew. And lo and behold, Nurse Drew is here in person! ”

  Dallas could almost feel the criticism in his look as it roved over her, and she realized he was not entirely impressed by her appearance. She also sensed something else in the way he looked at her ... a kind of enquiry, as if he was by no means sure she had fallen in at once with the proposition put to her by Matron.

  “Well, Nurse?” he said, his head a little on one side, his eyes oddly inscrutable as they met and held hers. “Can I take it that you will not let me down? I’m depending on you, you know!”

  Dallas looked away, concentrating on the bowl of flowers on Matron’s desk.

  “No, Doctor, I won’t let you down,” she replied, a trifle huskily.

  “Good!” he exclaimed quietly, softly. He turned to Matron. “Then Nurse Drew can be released immediately, is that it, Matron? She’ll require a day in which to make her preparations, and I’d like to leave early in the morning. This time,” he said to Dallas, “we shall do the journey in a day. It’s simple when you’re not an invalid.”

  And he most certainly was not an invalid any longer. She had the feeling that he was bursting with vigor, lean, hard, tanned and fit . . . with nothing about him to remind her of the man who had been so dependent on her once.

  For the rest of the day she went about in a daze, hardly believing in her good fortune. Or was it good fortune, when her feelings had not changed for the man who was to employ her for several months? And he had said, casually, that he would probably require her services for several months . . . and there would be no need for her to wear uniform. He made this clear in Matron’s office. It would be better for his daughter if her companion was someone she could look upon as a kind of elder sister, rather than someone connected with the nursing profession. And as Matron agreed without any hesitation Dallas went round putting her uniform dresses and aprons away carefully before attempting to pack her ordinary everyday clothes.

  Once more she came in for envy, but this time some of the looks she received were friendly.

  “It’ll do you good, Dallas,” her particular friend said, when they said goodbye overnight. “You’ve been looking pretty peaked for weeks now, and I’m surprised Matron hasn’t done something about you long before this. We all thought you ought to have had a longer period of sick leave.” “Oh, I’m perfectly fit now,” Dallas declared; but Dr. Loring didn’t think she was perfectly fit, and he told her so the following day.

  She was wearing a warm tweed coat lightly flecked with green, and her golden cap of hair swung lightly on her shoulders. Normally she wore it twisted into a kind of little knot in the nape of her neck when she was wearing her uniform cap, but now it was flowing free and it had a pale primrose beauty in the morning light. Dr. Loring frowned at it at first, said she ought to wear a hat or a headscarf until the frosty chill died out of the atmosphere, and she obligingly produced a headscarf from her pocket and tied it under her chin.

  “That’s better,” he said. He touched the green tweed coat. “At least this is warm. You’d better put that window up on your side, and tell me if you feel a draft at any time. We’ll stop for some coffee in about an hour. By that time we should be well clear of London.”

  She lay back against the warm scarlet upholstery and sighed. The cream car was so superbly comfortable, there was a thick plaid rug over her knees; she took pleasure in watching Dr. Loring’s lean brown hands on the wheel, and she still couldn’t believe in her good luck in leaving London.

  “You mustn’t treat me as if I’m fragile, Doctor,” she remarked, after his display of concern for her

  well-being. “I’m a Cockney, you know, and Cockneys are notoriously tough.”

  “Some of them may be, but you are not,” he replied, almost curtly. His hand came out and rested lightly on her knee. “I want to offer you an apology, Dallas, for that last day at Loring—that day when you had tea with my cousin. If I hadn’t been in such a devil of a temper I wouldn’t have allowed you to be despatched so summarily back to London. It was the wrong time of year for you, I

  had other plans for you, and—”

  “Yes?” she said, quietly, waiting for him to go on. “Why did you dash off that day without giving me any warning that you intended to stay away for lunch, and not get back until five o’clock?” he

  asked curiously.

  She looked down at her gloved hands, lightly clutching one another in her lap.

  “I ... I think it was the arrival of your visitor,” she explained, at last. “She said she was Mrs. Loring, and I thought she was your wife, and I —I thought you would want to be alone with her.” “I— see,” he commented. There was silence for a moment, and then he asked: “But you know now that she was not my wife?”

  “Yes.” She glanced at him for a moment, and then away. “Matron told me yesterday.”

  “Only yesterday?” He was watching the road ahead very carefully. “That day you went to Oldthorpe what did you do, apart from have tea with my cousin?”

  “I—I wandered about. There wasn’t very much to do.”

  “But you preferred wandering about in an aimless fashion to meeting the woman you thought was my wife ag
ain at lunch? And perhaps hearing that she was going to stay on for a few days?”

  “Y-yes.” She bit her lip, moistened it with the tip of her tongue, and kept her eyes glued to the window on her side of the car.

  “And did it never strike you as odd that I didn’t mention a wife to you before?” His tone was a little

  dry. “What did you think I had done with her? Did you think we were separated?”

  “I suppose. I thought something of the kind.”

  “Hence the smack on the face that time when I kissed you?”

  She glanced round at him swiftly, and her face turned brilliantly, revealingly pink.

  “I’ve already apologized more than once for smacking your face.”

  “Yes, you have.” His tone was now queerly, quietly content. “And in addition you practically shed tears over me at the time! I’ve never forgotten how extraordinarily bright those tears looked welling up in your green eyes, Dallas! And one of them splashed over and ran down on to your hand! ”

  “D-did it?” she said, and looked down at the hand, now encased in a suede glove.

  “Yes. I ought to have saluted the hand as a sign that hostilities were over between us, oughtn't I?” glancing at her sideways and smiling at her with a gentleness that actually shook her. “Only fortunately they weren’t over, for not much more than a week afterwards I was calmly agreeing to your packing your bags and returning to London. And I went off on a boring jaunt to the Bahamas! ”

  “But it did you a wonderful amount of good,” she declared speaking swiftly, but still not daring to look properly at him. “You were completely fit when you got back to London. You’re obviously wonderfully fit now! ”

  “And you, my poor little one, are not at all robust.” He sounded very sober all at once. “I had a word with Dr. Crawthorne, who has been keeping a check on you, and he says there’s nothing really seriously wrong with you, but you do need looking after. You had a virus infection, on top of which you nearly, but not quite, developed pneumonia, and it’s left you with a tendency to pick up chills more readily than you would do normally. You need cosseting for a bit, it was certainly necessary to get you out of London, and the strain of nursing was too much for you. You and Stephanie will be very good for one another.”