Nurse in Waiting (20 page)

“Never in this world,” he retorted airily.

“Not even,” she asked with an uncontrollable touch of malice, “the mysterious occupation which you once offered to me?”

The glance he gave her was a studied insolence. “Not even that,” he said. “On more sober thoughts I came to the conclusion that our friend Magda
—
for all her shortcomings
—
fulfils that particular role better than anyone else could. Besides—it suits
her.
A furnished flat in Merrion Square, clothes, money, good company—no, my sweet Magda would never forgive me if I offered
her job to
anyone else!”

“Then,” said Joanna breathlessly upon a sudden resolution, “if the story that you were going to get Shuan a job was a complete fabrication, why do you trouble with her at all? She is years younger than you are, and—and she is in love with Roger Carnehill!”

Too late Joanna realized that in deciding to appeal to him for Shuan’s sake she had betrayed to him
—
to him of all people!—the girl’s secret.

They had reached the house now. With the merest gesture of a bow Justin made as if to leave her.

“That, my dear Joanna,” he said mockingly, “would not surely be a consideration which you would expect to weigh with me?”

Then he turned away in the direction of the stables and Joanna watched him go, wishing with all her heart that she had not counselled Roger to keep him on at Carrieghmere for a day longer than was necessary. The man was evil, she was convinced. But how he was seeking to use Shuan for his own ends, that she did not know.

When Horse Show Week came Dr. Beltane advised Roger against trying to attend it.

“Next year, old chap, we’ll probably all be there to see you competing. This year I’d give it a miss, if I were you, though of course you’re not under my orders any longer.”

Joanna, who was present, glanced quickly at the doctor. She was wondering why, if she considered Roger to need no more doctoring, he had advised her matron that he would like her own services to continue for a while longer. Soon now, surely, he would wish her to go?

Roger accepted the advice with better grace than she had expected. But this was typical of the new, adult person he had become since his recovery had set in—his petulant self-pity was a thing of the past. Shuan, however, was deeply disappointed and showed it, as a child would have done, in her crestfallen face and trembling upper lip.

“Oh, Roger,” she said. “I was
counting
on your being there!”

He took her by the shoulder and shook her gently. “I’m sorry, poppet, but I know I couldn’t stand the crowds. You’ll have Mother and
René
to support you. Your event is bo
un
d to be on TV—Joanna and I will listen in and report back all the nice things the commentator says about you.”

Shuan turned to Joanna in surprise. “Oh—aren’t you coming either?”

“She’ll be staying with me,” put in Roger quickly. It was a crisp, decisive statement of fact with which there was obviously
t
o be no argument. He went on: “How are you getting to Ballsbridge, by the way?”

“Major Petrie is letting me send Lady of Belmont over with his string,” Shuan told him. “Mother and
René
are going with Michael in the car, and—Justin has offered to take me.”

“And you’ve accepted the offer?”

“Yes,
I—”

“Then I’d like you to tell him you’ve changed your plans, that you’ll be going with the others.” Again it was clear that Roger was giving an order which was not to be questioned.

Shuan protested: “But that’s ridiculous! We shall be such a crowd, and Justin’s car will be empty!”

“I’d still prefer that you didn’t help to fill it,” retorted Roger coldly.

For a moment Shuan stared at him as if wondering whether to continue the argument. Then she shrugged her shoulders and turned away. But before she reached the door Roger said: “Shuan!” His voice was unexpectedly gentle. “Shuan—supposing Lady of Belmont were placed—what about a party of celebration?”

Her face lighted up instantly. “Oh, Roger, how lovely! It would be the first since—well, for ages,” she substituted. “But ought you to—I mean, could you stand it?”

“I’d try,” he promised with a smile. “What form would you like it to take?”

“Oh, a dance—a fancy-dress affair with a band brought out from Dublin! Could—could we manage that, d’you think? Roger darling,
could
we?”

“That,” he teased, “is for Lady of Belmont to say!”

Her face fell slightly. “Yes, of course. She must get a place. If only I were riding Deirdre
—
!”

But she went off happily enough, and Roger turned to Joanna with a grimace. “Well—I’m committed!” he said.

“You made her very happy,” said Joanna quietly. “I do hope her mare is placed.”

He looked at her indulgently. “My dear Joanna, don’t you realize that, even if Lady of Belmont took it upon herself to refuse at every jump on the course. I’m
still
committed to the dubious delights of a ‘fancy-dress affair with a band brought out from Dublin.’ It was that sort of a promise.” He frowned suddenly. “In fact, it wasn’t so much of a promise as—a bribe! Though I haven’t an idea why I should stoop to bribing her to keep away from the fellow!”

“She would not need bribery if you treated her more as an equal and less as a child to be alternately scolded and indulged!” Joanna heard herself saying almost sharply. “She doesn’t take orders graciously!” (How could she tell him what she really thought—that Shuan, given only an inkling that her feeling for him was returned, would cease to be a petulant, rebellious child and would, in that instant, be—a woman?)

After a moment she tried to give him a hint. She went on: “I don’t think, you know, that Shuan is actually attracted by Mr. McKiley. In fact, I don’t know that she likes him at all.”

“Then why, in the name of goodness, does she cultivate his company? She hasn’t been doing it openly lately, but you can see for yourself that the association is still going on!”

“Yes, but
—
Well, from something Shuan said,
I gathered that she had some reason of her own for it—a secret reason perhaps.”

Roger laughed a little cynically. “If she imagined that she had, that would be just like her, though in Justin’s case I can’t think what it could be. But ever since she was a kid she has had periodic pursuits of cock-eyed ideas that she tries to turn into crusades, to which, while they’re biting her, she is prepared to sacrifice herself and everyone else’s peace of mind. Once she was inspired by a broadcast talk about a dogs’ home, and she immediately took to the road meaning to
walk
to Dublin in order to press her total wealth—one-and-sevenpence, I think it was
—
into the hand of the astonished warden of one of those places. She got there all right with the help of lifts, but did she care that we were nearly distracted with worry about her? That was one occasion; there were others, which went on longer and from which she took a good deal more extracting. Joanna”—his face creased into a smile—
“
you don’t think she has got some idea of—of levering Justin away from his Magda for what she sees as his own good?”

Joanna smiled back at him. But she said rather gravely: “No. If she has a reason at all, it’s
—
something more personal than that. Something that matters rather deeply to Shuan herself, I think.”

“But if she gave you a hint that she had this mysterious ‘reason,’ didn’t you ask her what it was?”

“In a way, yes. But though I gathered that it was something she wasn’t very happy about, all she said was that she ‘couldn’t hope anyone would understand.’ She told me nothing.”

“Well—she’ll tell me,” said Roger decisively. “I’ll not tax her until she’s free of this Horse Show business. But after that there’ll b
e no more
nonsense with McKiley.”

Joanna longed to plead: “Be gentle with her! She loves you, and that should entitle her to kindness, if nothing more, at your hands!” But she said nothing, and Roger went on:

“In any case, the whole thing will stop automatically, for McKiley goes at the end of the month.”

“Goes? You’ve decided that?”

“Yes.” He looked beyond her to the open park. “He doesn’t know it yet. But this
—
this half-light between my illness and my beginning to manage my own affairs must come to an end sometime. And it seems to me that the measure of it is my affair now. McKiley will go. And so, Joanna, must you.”

He was still not looking at her as she replied in a low voice: “Yes. I am here still only under Dr. Beltane’s orders. But I agree that it’s for you to decide now. You don’t need me any more.”

He looked back at her quickly. But her head was lowered and her eyes did not meet his. He said slowly: “You must understand about this, Joanna. Justin’s going will make me free of Carrieghmere again. But while you are here I can’t belong completely to it. That’s why you must go.”

“I do understand. You mean that I belong—as no one else about you does—to a time when your future with the estate seemed a very long way off? I think it’s very natural that you should long to be rid of—of all the associations I stand for
—”

“All the associations you stand for!” echoed Roger. “Well, perhaps that’s putting it as well as I could myself. But perhaps I have been tempted to put it more floridly by saying that you’ve been the blessed guide to my weaknesses, whereas I suppose I’ve got to find my strength—alone. I can’t keep you for ever, Joanna. Don’t you see that I’m afraid of finding that I’ve kept you too long?”

There was a strangely pleading note in his voice, a note which she did not understand.

But she did not try to answer it. And she stilled the crying of her own heart with words which sounded as cold, as impersonal, but were as necessary as a surgeon’s knife. She said:

“I do understand that you don’t need to rely upon me any longer—for anything. That’s natural—and gratifyingly healthy. And—we don’t need to make an emotional issue of it—do we?”

She did not have to look at him to know that he had flinched from the implied rebuff. But his reply showed that he accepted it. He said:

“I’m sorry. But I warned you that I might sound over-florid in trying to tell you what you have meant to me while you’ve been here. I forgot that in England it’s not ‘good form’ to mention the feelings. The Irish
are
the other way. And, on the whole, you and I are fairly typical products of our races. Don’t you agree?”

It was as studied a rebuff as her own had been. And it seemed to Joanna that she would hear for ever the brief, defensive coldness of the words they used to each other, and which symbolized the inevitable parting of their ways.

After that, she noticed that Roger appeared to be at pains to emphasize the fact that he was no longer dependent on either her nursing or her company. He went out on to the estate every day now, and when it looked as if they might be left alone together he would make an excuse to leave her or would contrive for someone else to break up a possible
téte
-a-
téte
.

On the day of Shuan’s ordeal at the Horse Show he was out all the morning, and when the time for the programme came around he asked Cook and Roseen to watch it too. And at an exciting point Mrs. Kimstone walked in, announcing herself brightly as having come to “keep lonely Roger company.”

“The Colonel has gone to the Show so I drove myself over, as I had heard you weren’t going. Of course I didn’t expect to find you surrounded by
b
evies
—!
” she said brightly, her eye lighting somewhat accusingly upon Joanna.

Roger ignored the archness of this remark as he motioned her to a seat and said briefly: “Sit down and shut up. There’s a good soul, Marty. The kid has had a ‘clear round’ and she hasn’t come on yet for the jump off. But she’s still got a chance of a place
...
”

With elaborate caution Mrs. Kimstone moved across to the ch
a
ir he had indicated. “I’ll be like a little mouse,” she promised. “Of course I realized how wrapped-up you would be in watching Shuan’s event. But I hadn’t grasped that Nurse Merivale was still with you, or I wouldn’t have made rather a sacrifice in coming over on what I
thought
was an errand of mercy
—”

“Marty,
please
!”
begged Roger.

The thin lips pursed and she looked slightly offended. “Oh, all right,” she said. “Now tell me
—
how far has Shuan got? But of course—you
were
just telling me, weren’t you
—
?”

Her voice trailed away as Roger looked at her with
r
en
e
wed exasperation. And after that only the commentator’s voice broke the silence.