Nurse in Waiting

CHAPTER
ONE

Off the
10.28 from Dublin that morning there was only one passenger for Tulleen—a girl in a grey travelling topcoat and a soft felt hat, the brim of which, as she stepped on to the platform, she pulled down against the soft drizzle which drove in upon the wind.

Joanna Merivale watched the train go on and noticed that without it Tulleen station looked more bleak and unwelcoming than before. The drizzle was turning now to a downpour, and so, with another tweak at her hat-brim, she set out briskly towards the hanging notice which said, in Irish characters and in English—
“
Way Out.”

Her suitcase was quite heavy, and she was thinking that it would have been kind of the Carnehills to arrange to meet her on the platform instead of, as was probable, to send a chauffeur to sit stiff-backed at the wheel of his car until she appeared. But when she reached the station yard there was neither car nor chauffeur nor anyone at all who looked as if they were expecting an arrival from England.

Joanna set down her suitcase in annoyed dismay. She had been travelling since yesterday afternoon, arriving in Dublin in a bleak, unwelcoming dawn, had breakfasted five hours ago and
surely,
when she had given the precise time of her arrival at Tulleen, the Carnehills might have made some arrangements for meeting her? Thrusting her hands into the pockets of her coat she swung back into the booking-hall, almost colliding with the station-master-cum-chief-porter who was on his way out.

With the politeness which showed he had no more urgent call upon his attention than to help her he asked:

“Now it’s something that you’d be wanting. Miss?”

“Yes. A taxi or something.” (Did they have taxis in places like Tulleen? Or did they still get about in jaunting-cars?”) “I can telephone from here for one, can’t I?”

“You can indeed. But you will not.”

Joanna looked at him sharply. “Why not?” she demanded.

“For the reason that it’d be a waste of your time this morning. Patrick Sheean, the taxi-man—we have but the one in Tulleen—is to Naas market with his pigs. ‘Tisn’t often, y’see,” he added apologetically, “that we get anyone needing Patrick’s car, off the 12.4. Now where is it you’d be wanting to get to, Miss?”

“To Carrieghmere. Mrs. Carnehill is expecting me. I’m supposed to be there in time for lunch.”

His old eyes were turned upon her in benevolent curiosity. “Carrieghmere? Now you’d be a visitor, like?”

“I’m going as nurse to Mr. Roger Carnehill.” Joanna’s tone was clipped and businesslike. “How far is it to Carrieghmere?”

But her question was ignored by the station-master.

“Ah, Master Roger, is it? There’s the sad thing, now! That such a fine young man in the joy of his youth should have come by such a terrible accident that laid him on his back these many months! To think that our eyes may never again be gladdened by the sight of him, riding through Tulleen with the pride of the wind in his hair!”

Heavens! thought Joanna. Do they really talk like this?

“I haven’t had instructions that Mr. Roger Carnehill is likely to be a permanent invalid. I expect to find him beginning to be convalescent
—when
I get to Carrieghmere. But now—how do I get there? Could I walk?” she asked.

“Arrah, you couldn’t walk. ‘Tis all of seven miles.” He took a large watch from the pocket of his green waistcoat, consulted it and then, as if he had read the information upon its face, announced: “It’s Wednesday.”

Joanna waited patiently.

“It’s Wednesday, and McKiley’ll be out from Carrieghmere any minute now to put the eggs on the 1 o’clock train. There now, you can go back with him! Maybe Mrs. Carnehill meant it to be that way all the while!”

“Maybe,” commented Joanna dryly, thinking, all the same, that it was an odd and casual arrangement to be expected of people as wealthy as she believed the Carnehills to be. Meanwhile, who was Mr. McKiley?

He was the agent for the Carrieghmere estate, her informant told her. Worked under Mr. Roger until the latter’s riding accident and then carried on when poor Mr. Roger took to his bed. And in with the eggs he’d be, any moment now. She had only to wait...

Reflecting that she had already done quite a lot of this already, Joanna refused an invitation to go in and sit by the ticket-office fire. “I’ll look out for Mr. McKiley here,” she said, and wandered out into the rain, wanting to stretch her legs after the long journey.

So this was Ireland! And so far, true to all the traditional pictures of it. Casual, easy-going and, if the immediate surroundings of Tulleen station were anything to go by, revelling in a comfortable squalor which seemed to worry nobody.

Carrieghmere would be different, of course. For Carrieghmere was an estate commanding an acreage which would spell imposing wealth in England. And old Colonel Kimstone, who had been exclusively her patient in the London nursing home from which Matron had sent her to this post, had spoken glowingly to Matron of the comfort she would know there.

Probably the communities of the big houses hereabouts were fairly self-sufficient. But where, wondered Joanna, for whom such things had always been close at hand, where on earth did anyone do any shopping or visit an occasional cinema?

She went on down the street, looking about her and becoming aware of a curious scent in her nostrils. Rather pleasant! She sniffed at it experimentally and then realized that it was the smell of peat smoke and that, with it, Ireland—the strange country—was indeed about her.

At the sound of a car in the distance she began to retrace her steps. But when a luxurious saloon of American make swept past her, she decided that it would not contain the expected Mr. McKiley, who was only the agent for Carrieghmere and would probably deliver farm produce in a shooting brake or a van. However, when she reached the station yard, there stood the Lincoln, while a man in riding-breeches and tweed coat unloaded egg-cases.

She stood near by, watching him until he sensed her presence and looked up.

“Good morning,” said Joanna with a smile.

“Good morning.” He took his hat from his head, and there was a flash of very white teeth beneath a clipped black moustache. His eyes passed over her in a single inquiring glance.

She explained: “If you are Mr. McKiley I think I’m going to have to ask you to take me back to Carrieghmere. My name is Merivale—Nurse Merivale, and I dare say you’ll have heard that I’m expected.”

Again the swift glance swept over her, and again the smile flashed out. Then he held out a hand.

“Yes, I’m McKiley. I suppose old Thomasoy told you I’d be along. And I’d certainly heard that a nurse was expected, though forgive me!”—he sketched a bow towards her—
“
I hadn’t looked to see anyone quite like you.”

Joanna ignored the implied compliment. Tulleen station yard in the rain seemed a singularly unsuitable place for either the making or acceptance of pretty speeches. She said briskly:

“Well, could we go soon, please? I’m supposed to arrive in time for luncheon.”

He gave her an odd look and then said casually: “Time enough. Thomasoy can see these things on to the train and then we’ll be off. You won’t get your lunch until near three, anyway. At The House they usually eat when it’s ready, or when they feel like it—not before.” He piled cases up to his chin and looked at her over them as he added: “So don’t worry yourself. You won’t be late. Unless, of course, you’d care to have lunch with me!”

Joanna shook her head. “Thank you, no. I should have been there before this. My train came in at twelve.”

For a moment his conventionally handsome face looked almost sulky. Then he shrugged. “All right. Have it your own way. Only don’t suppose that anyone will have flattened themselves with anxiety, waiting for you. Get into the car now, and I’ll be back in two shakes.”

Joanna fetched her suitcase and set it near the open trunk before slipping into the seat beside the driver’s. She leaned back, feeling suddenly very tired and extremely hungry. She gave a rueful little sigh. She had often been out to cases before, but this was surely her oddest reception yet! She would certainly have something to write to Dale about when she got to the end of this day. She only hoped that he would be able to see the funny side of it with her. Sometimes Dale didn’t think things were funny when she did. Though he had no rights over her comings and goings at all, he was quite liable to suggest that she must throw up the case and go back to England at once. On second thoughts, she probably wouldn’t tell him that she had been asked to lunch with an extremely handsome man to whom she had spoken no more than a dozen words
...
!

“Well now,” send her companion as he accelerated and tore down the village street at a pace which scattered children and hens impartially, “let’s be hearing about you. You came off the 12.4 and you’re bound for the job of nursing Roger? How are you going to like that?”

Joanna looked down at her gloved hands. “I—usually enjoy my cases,” she said non-committally.

He glanced at her mockingly. “That was a very professional touch. It said ‘Get to your corner, Justin McKiley!” All right. You haven’t met Roger? No, you couldn’t have, of course. What about Mrs. Carnehill? Do you know her?”

“No. I nursed a Colonel Kimstone, who I believe is a neighbour of Mrs. Carnehill’s, when he was in the Marrone Nursing Home in London. It was he who recommended me to her as a nurse to Mr. Carnehill.”

“M’m. Old Kimstone, lives twenty miles away across the bog. But—as you’ll find—that does constitute near neighbourhood around here.” He nodded out of the car window on his own side. “That’s part of the bog there. And if you look out on your side and crane your neck you
’
ll see the Wicklows in the distance. Or maybe you won’t, in the rain.”

But Joanna did as she was told and believed that, despite the driving mist, she could distinguish the blue line of the hills on the horizon.

“Of course you’ll have seen them from the sea, coming over,” he suggested.

“No. It was still dark when we got in.”

He turned and looked at her. “You’ll be tired, so. What about changing your mind and stopping in for lunch with me? Mine will at least be ready!”

But Joanna was firm. “No, I mustn’t do that.” She added politely: “I think the station-master said you were Mr. Carnehill’s agent? Do you live on the estate?”

“Yes. In the Dower House—or what would be the Dower House if there were a dowager, which Mrs. Carnehill is far from being, either in fact or in her own opinion of herself. I’ll show it to you as we go past. Then if you are ever in need of further help—or even of light relief from the set-up at the house—you’ll be able to find me! Here is the drive now.”

For several minutes they had been travelling along a road flanked by a high wall which was broken down in places. Now Mr. McKiley turned in at an open gateway between tall stone pillars and drove along an avenue of elms.

“That’s the Dower House,” he said. But Joanna had only the briefest glance towards a small house among the trees to her right when the avenue broadened into a sweep of rather weedy gravel before a grey stone house of imposing size.

“Carrieghmere!” he announced as he took out her suitcase and led the way up the wide shallow steps and into a big hall, the atmosphere of which struck coldly to Joanna’s travel-tiredness.

Nobody came out to meet them, so Justin McKiley went across to a fine carved door upon the right, flung it open and called to someone within:

“I picked up Miss Merivale at Tulleen. She’s been travelling all night and she says she was expected to lunch. I’ll leave her with you now, may I?”

Through the open door Joanna could see a woman, who had been kneeling on the hearth before a brightly glowing fire, suddenly spring to her feet with an exclamation.

“There!” she said. “And I wrote it down—
‘
Meet the 12.4. Wednesday.’ Wait now—I have it here!” From a mass of papers on the desk behind her she drew out a minute scrap of paper and handed it to McKiley.

He looked at it and gave it back to her. “It says Thursday,” he remarked dryly.

“
No?
So it does, at that. And the poor girl arriving and not met at all! Let me get at her. You say you brought her up, Justin?”

Without waiting for a reply she pushed past him and came out to where Joanna stood.

She was a short plump woman with a bright colour and deep-set blue eyes below the curling grey fringe of hair on her forehead. She wore a checked apron over a green dress that was unnecessarily fussy, and about her throat she wore a string of pearls which Joanna guessed were real.

“There now! What a welcome! And Roger looking forward to your coming for days! It’s all my fault.” The blue eyes twinkled. “But it usually is, isn’t it, Justin?”

The man looked a trifle bored. “If you say so,” he remarked, adding meaningly: “Miss Merivale still hasn’t had her lunch, you know!”

“Weren’t you telling me that, first thing?” she rebuked. “She’ll get it now, as soon as I have it ready. You off, Justin? When will you be in to see Roger again? Come to dinner to-morrow night? Then you can meet Miss Merivale properly.”

“What time?” he asked laconically.

“Oh—about half-past seven.”

“I don’t mean what time shall I come. I mean, what time am I likely to get my dinner?”

Joanna reflected that if the woman in the checked apron and the pearls were indeed Mrs. Carnehill, as she supposed must be the case, she was extraordinarily tolerant of her agent’s casual, offhand manner. But she seemed quite unmoved.

“Be off with you now,” she said briskly. “Come at eight, if that seems safer to you. Miss Merivale—or would you rather be called Nurse?—you come along with me.”

Joanna followed her into the room from which she had come. To the girl’s surprise, her employer went over to the hearth and picked up a closed grilling grid, upon the bars of which reposed a luscious-looking steak.

“There!” she said with pride. “That’ll be your luncheon. I cook it in here instead of letting them do it in the kitchen, because the fire gets brighter, and I’m old-fashioned enough to like to grill on top instead of underneath.”

As if no other explanation were needed for grilling a steak in a room which appeared to be a very untidy study, she popped the grid back over the glowing coals.

Madder and madder! thought Joanna, finding a vacant chair and sitting on it. So far, there had been no suggestion that she might like to go to her room, have a bath after her journey, get into uniform or even make a preliminary visit to her patient. As if able to read her thoughts, Mrs. Carnehill presently sat back on her heels and said conversationally:

“You’ll want to see Roger, of course. But you shan’t go until you’ve had something to eat and a rest. He rests too after lunch, an
y
way.”

“How does Mr. Carnehill seem?” asked Joanna.

The bright eyes clouded. “I—don’t know. You’ll see for yourself. Nurse. Dr. Beltane tries to be encouraging, and his surgeon from Dublin comes out occasionally too. We’ve got him downstairs, of course, ready for when he uses the wheelchair
—”

“Oh, doesn’t he get about yet?” Joanna’s surprise sounded in her voice. “I thought Matron understood that he was convalescent, that the case would only be a matter of a week or two?”

“You mean—
you’ve
come only for a week or two?” Mrs. Carnehill looked at her in dismay.

“Why, no. I
—
Well, of course I shall stay as
long as you want me—as long as Mr. Carnehill needs nursing.”

Mrs. Carnehill looked relieved at her reply. “That’s all right then. It was the surgeon who suggested having a nurse for Roger, and then Colonel Kimstone told us about you and promised to speak to your matron for me. I’m afraid you will be here for longer than a week or two, so I hope you’ll be happy with us. There now! The steak is just about done. I’ll call someone to show you to your room and we’ll meet in the dining-room.” She bustled out and came back bringing a fat Irishwoman with her.

“This is Cook,” she announced. “Roseen—the housemaid—has a day off, so Cook will show you to your room before she helps me to dish up.”