Dear Tiberius; (aka Nurse Nolan) (2 page)

They were approaching the open French windows that admitted them to the little room off the drawing room through which they always reached the hall on these occasions, and Miranda was leaning forward and clutching the side of her chair and looking, if she hadn
’
t been quite so young, as if she had been stricken by disaster and was unable to think of any means to cope with it.

Lucy halted the chair outside the windows and removed the plaid rug from the small invalid
’
s knees, and lifted and swung her up into her arms without any difficulty whatsoever. For she was so light and fragile and almost unbelievably thin that it was like lifting a large doll and bearing her into the dim, cool shadows of the small, paneled room. As she did so two large tears welled up in Miranda
’
s eyes, spilled over her lashes and rolled down her cheeks.

“
Lucy, you
’
re a pig to want to go!
”

“
I
don
’
t want to go, darling, but
I
must. Think of
all
the patients in the world who
’
re just waiting for me to take charge of them.
”

“
I
don
’
t believe it! And my father
’
s rich enough to keep you forever if I need you—and
I
do need you!
”

“
You
’
re highly flattering, my child, but
I
don
’
t think your father would see eye to eye with you. In fact
,
I
’
m sure he wouldn
’
t.
”

“
I shall ask him not to let you go when he comes back to Ketterings,
”
Miranda said stubbornly.

“
I wouldn
’
t my dear, if I were you,
”
Lucy urged her gently.
“
In this life we have to learn to accept things, you know.
”

But she felt she was being brutal.

Purvis, the elderly butler, c
ame forward quickly when they reached the hall, and Lucy handed Miranda over to him. This was all part of a daily ritual, when it was fine and they were able to spend part of the morning out of doors, and Purvis bore his master
’
s daughter upstairs to her own rooms and her own lunch, entrusting her to the care of the waiting Fiske, while Nurse Nolan washed her hands and then repaired to the dining room to wait for Purvis to return and resume his normal duties.

Except when the master was at home, there was never anyone in the dining room, but Lucy had grown used to sitting in state at the long oak table and being pressed to enjoy a little of this or that by the well-trained manservant. He knew her likes and dislikes very well by now, for it was nearly three months since she had first come to Ketterings, and usually there was a little choicely served fish or chicken, followed by a feathery-light sweet or souffle, coffee and dessert.

Purvis frequently prepared her a peach that had arrived at perfection in the Ketterings peach houses, or had ready for her a slice of pineapple or a few bloomy dark grapes.

The dining room at Ketterings was somber, with a great mullioned window inset with armorial bearings, and there was a coat of arms above the fireplace, and crossed broadswords on the walls. There were also one or two portraits that frowned down from their paneled background, and the hall of the house was hung thickly with portraits, climbing the wall beside the graceful, fan-shaped staircase, and overflowing into the long gallery.

But neither the portraits nor the armorial bearings had any link with the present owner of the house or his forebears. He had a title that had been handed on to him by his father, it is true, but the first Sir John Ash had sold newspapers in the streets of a large industrial city at a time when other boys of his age were still at school. By the time he died he was, however, not only the head of a firm of shipbuilders, but had amassed a fortune that had enabled him to bring up his son along very different lines from those that he himself had been forced to follow. The present baronet had acquired Ketterings, a lovely Elizabethan house, from the impoverished descendants of a family who had lived in it for generations, and he had taken it over lock, stock and barrel—even including Purvis, or so Nurse Nolan had been given to understand! And he had spent a great deal of money on it, especially the grounds, which were really beautiful, and in the summertime attracted sightseers who paid to be allowed to wander over them.

But the thing that astonished Lucy Nolan was that, having acquired his house and restored to it some of its former loveliness, Sir John himself came to it but seldom, and then only for the most fleeting visits. On the fourth Friday in every month his big, chauffeur-driven car arrived with him at the foot of the steps, and every fourth Sunday evening it took him away again. In between visits there was not even a telephone message—save for the short period when his daughter
’
s life was despaired of—and Lucy had come to the conclusion that everything that made life worth living for him had its roots ineradicably driven into the pavements of the big, bustling, thriving city where his father had started his hard climb upward.

Ships, apparently, meant everything to him—much more than a daughter whose mother had died when she was still too small to remember her! And not even when that daughter, on holiday with a school friend, had become the victim of a car crash that might so easily have terminated her short life altogether, did the father betray very much in the way of any really noticeable emotion that would have indicated that her loss would have affected him very deeply. Or even that it would have affected him at all! A daughter was a poor thing, or so it seemed, compared with a ship that could be launched triumphantly and go out across the broad seas to the other end of the world, carrying hundreds of passengers who paid fantastic sums for the luxuries the Ash-Aird Line offered them. For the Ash-Aird Line did really make ocean travel a thing without any sort of boredom or discomfort or inconvenience of any kind. And the man at the head of it, in his imposing offices that had once been not so imposing, but had provided the first rungs of the ladder for the first Sir John to get his two feet satisfactorily planted on, bent most of his endeavors nowadays to the still greater improvement of the line and the growth of his own prestige.

Or that was how it seemed to Nurse Nolan. She had had three interviews with Sir John, and three only. And on each of those he had struck her as a man it was next door to impossible ever to get to know.

It wasn
’
t merely that she felt sure he was
iron hard
, for there was nothing in his appearance or in his method of conducting the interviews, that would have justified that description. On the contrary he was exceedingly polite, and his voice never rose above a certain minor key, although it was at times quite noticeably incisive. He was not a particularly tall man, but he was so exceptionally spare that he gave the appeara
nce of being taller than he was,
and his face was thin and finely drawn, with tiny lines like crow
’
s-feet at the corners of his eyes. The eyes were quite expressionless, of the cold gray of pewter, and he had very black hair, that, but for the fact that he dealt with it determinedly with brilliantine, would have been inclined to tumble forward over one eyebrow.

Lucy Nolan, whose dark blue eyes gave away the fact that she had Irish blood in her veins, found it difficult sometimes to control the impulsiveness that was a part of her nature—and that four years of hospital discipline had only temporarily held in check—and in the presence of such a man as John Ash she was conscious of being at a loss. He never advanced any opinions, he waited for her to express hers and whilst waiting he appeared to study her without at the same time conveying to her any impression that he was even remotely interested in what he saw. She had the feeling that she was up against a curious insensibility, an imperviousness, perhaps it was, to everything but his own concerns that seemed to emanate from him, and that had the effect of numbing her wits and making her voice sound stumbling and uncertain in her own ears.

Matters she had wished to discuss with him, and which had seemed to her of vital importance, seemed all at once to lose a great deal of their importance while those dispassionate, cool eyes of his surveyed her. She felt young and inexperienced, and even trivial, as if she was an unsatisfactory witness in a court of law being subjected to a scrutiny by the judge—and not quite a human judge, either!

He displayed no concern over his daughter
’
s welfare—no serious concern, that is—but he surrounded her with every care. He was a meticulous and a thorough man, and at least he had not neglected to pursue every avenue that might lead to the child
’
s complete restoration to health. There was one man—an Austrian surgeon with a worldwide reputation— with whom he had been in touch, but whether the contact had yielded anything hopeful she had no idea, for apart from a letter that she herself had written to him a few days ago, warning him that she considered herself now more or less redundant at Ketterings, and to which he had not replied, they had had no contact since their last meeting. But Purvis, while he waited on her at breakfast that morning, had let her know that the master was expected the following day, which would be the fourth Friday in the month since his last visit to the home that saw so little of him.

So perhaps he was waiting until he arrived home to summon her to his presence and discuss the question of her leaving. And in case he made any attempt to persuade her to remain with her patient a little longer, she had quite made up her mind to resist his persuasions, not in her own interests but in the interests of Miranda. For the child was becoming so dependent upon her for companionship that the longer Lucy remained with her, the harder would it be for the small invalid when she did finally take her departure.

From her o
w
n point of view she knew that she was going to miss Miranda enormously, for in three months she had become really fond of her, and sometimes she was almost agonizingly sorry for her. And the superb comfort of Ketterings, the loveliness of its surroundings and the old-fashioned, never-failing attentiveness of Purvis were things she would never quite forget.

Today, while he served her lunch, he looked, she thought, a little downcast, and when she questioned him as to whether anything was wrong, he gave a sudden sigh and made a rather hopeless movement with his shoulders.

“
Nothing in particular, nurse, only Miss Miranda seems upset because she insists you are going to leave us very soon. Is that true, nurse?
”

“
I
’
m afraid it is, Purvis. But she can do without me now, you know. You, Mrs. Abbott and Fiske are all she needs. Between the three of you I know you
’
ll combine to spoil her and do all that it is possible to do for her nowadays.
”

The old man, who had served another family in this same house, but had never, perhaps, had quite such a fondness for any member of it as he had for his present master
’
s small, golden-haired, helpless wisp of a daughter, poured Lucy
’
s coffee carefully, and then fetched another sigh from the depths of his being.

“
Do you think she
’
ll ever be herself again, nurse?
”

Lucy looked up at him, a smile in the blue eyes he thought rarely attractive.

“
We can but hope she will, Purvis.
”

That night w
hile she lay in
bed, Lucy heard a car purring its way almost noiselessly up the driveway, and since there was no disturbance of any kind, and the front door opened and closed as soundlessly as the car had glided over the gravel of the driveway, she could only conclude that it was the master of the place who had come home one day earlier than was his normal custom. He had arrived at Ketterings on a Thursday, instead of on a Friday!

In the morning Purvis confirmed that Sir John was home, but Miranda, when Lucy went to her after her own breakfast, had not seen her father. She had been fed and washed by Fiske, who was secretly only happy when she was doing things for the invalid, and a queer look invaded her overbright blue eyes when she learned that Sir John was back.

“
Oh!
”
she said, looking at Nurse Nolan with her head on one side, a birdlike habit she had formed.
“
Then I
’
ll be seeing him, won
’
t I?
”

“
I expect so, darling,
”
Lucy replied.
“
He
’
s bound to want to have a chat with you.
”

It seemed unnatural to her that a father, after an absence from home of a whole month, should not have gone hastening to his daughter at the very earliest opportunity, but she knew that would have been quite unlike Sir John.

She purposely kept rather out of the way that day in case Sir John should wish to have a talk alone with his daughter, and she saw nothing of him herself until evening. Then, when she was thinking of making some alteration to her dress in preparation for having dinner alone in her own sitting room, the summons she had been expecting came.
“
Sir John would like to see you in the library. Nurse Nolan!
”
It was Purvis who tapped quietly at her door, and who conveyed the summons to her.