Nurse in Waiting (8 page)

“There, Nurse Merivale, we heard you were here!” said the Colonel, greeting her warmly. He turned to Mrs. Kimstone with an air of Joanna’s being his own invention. “Didn’t I say now,” he demanded, “that this was the very thing for Roger?”

Mrs. Kimstone, a short, buttoned-eye woman whom Joanna had not met while she had been nursing the Colonel in London, pursed her lips and nodded twice, though Joanna thought her appraising glance was a little doubtful.

“I think I’d been expecting someone
older
,”
she said.

“Nonsense! There are no old nurses—they all get married before that, eh, Roger?” exclaimed the Colonel, roaring with laughter at his own quip. Then he said briskly: “Now we’ll take care of the patient. Nurse. Off you go and get some rare sunshine into you.”

Joanna, who had been longing wistfully for some air, accepted her freedom gratefully. She hurried to her room, changed into tweeds and low-heeled shoes and set off for a tramp round the park.

The gardens behind the house were not extensive; they had an air of having been sacrificed to the outbuildings, stables and kennels ranged alongside. But beyond stretched the wide vista of the park, full of magnificent timber; the spreading branches of many of the old trees were so low that Joanna had frequently to dodge beneath them as she struck off ‘across-country’ towards the boundary wall which was out of sight.

She knew that the park’s circumference was about two and a half miles, but she had not yet had time or opportunity to walk round it. She half-wondered whether she would ask Shuan to come with her, but in the end she set out alone.

Towards the end of her walk, she came to the weed-ridden drive leading down to the main gateway and turn up it towards the house. But before she reached it curiosity took her over a narrow path to the right, in order to look at the Dower House where McKiley and the Belgian farm student lived together.

It was small, of the Georgian period, with a slate roof and characteristic windows; it was more homely looking and seemed to be in better repair than Carrieghmere itself. Joanna was just about to turn away, remembering how she had told Roger that she could not question
René
Menden” on Mr. McKiley’s doorstep,” when someone came up behind her and she turned about to see it was young Menden itself.

He clicked his heels and bowed formally, though he was in working-clothes. “Mademoiselle Merivale? You wish to visit us?”

“No, not really. I only came over to look at the house
—”

“But you will come in? In this country they have
n
o
t
—”
he corrected himself carefully—”do not
have
—
the custom of the five o’clock tea,
but
Madame ‘Agerty know I find her
potato-cakes delicious, and at about this hour they often await me. You will share them with me, no?”

“Well, just for a minute.” Joanna’s healthy appetite, stimulated by her walk, was registering considerable interest in the matter of potato-cakes. By now she was no stranger to them. They would be hot, with butter oozing out at the sides
...
Besides, her curiosity about Justin McKiley extended to the house where he lived and this was her opportunity to see it.

René
Menden stood aside as she passed into the hall before him. Then he flung down the hedge-stake he had been using as a walking-stick and going to the head of a flight of basement stairs at the back of the hall, called down them: “Aggy,
chérie
!” a summons to which there was no immediate response.
René
unbent so far as to ma
k
e a face at Joanna over his shoulder before he tried again: “Aggy, my cabbage!”

This time the fat Irishwoman whom Joanna knew to be Mrs. Hagerty, Justin McKiley’s housekeeper, came hurrying up the stairs, wiping her hands on her apron as she came.

“Now, Menden,” she said, pronouncing each syllable to rhyme with ‘ten,’ “ye’ve no call to be addressin’ a Christian woman by thim vegetable names. What is it ye want, now?”

René
spread his hands. “But potato-cakes, surely? and perhaps tea for Mademoiselle Merivale?”

“There’s no tea but what I had to me dinner. There’d be a lick of it lef
t—”

Joanna shuddered. “Not for me,” she said hastily. “A—a glass of milk will do.” (At least they couldn’t stew milk for a couple of hours and turn out the result as a black, viscous broth!
)

“
Alo
r
s!
Milk and potato-cakes, very hot!” ordered
René
. He turned to Joanna. “This way. It is here that we eat.”

He led the way into a room off the hall, where a small peat-fire burned in the grate and where the tablecloth had an air of being more or less permanently laid. A couple of Dublin newspapers hung over the arms of the worn leather chairs by the fire, but there seemed to be no books anywhere. A castor-oil plant stood on a bamboo table in the window embrasure, and the room looked as if its interior decoration had been inspired more by Mrs. Hagerty’s standards of taste than those of anyone else.

René
Menden looked at Joanna’s dismayed face and laughed.
“
Tous les con
f
orts mode
r
nes
—every modern convenience, no?”

“Wel
l—”
began Joanna. She had not expected
the debonair Justin McKiley to be contented with this.

René
shrugged. “It is nothing!” he declared. “We are not much here, Mr. McKiley and I, after the morning. And he has his own room over there.” He nodded across the hall to a closed door. “It is there that he does a great deal of his work, sees his friends, has parties.”

“And you—what about your friends?” put in Joanna gently.

The boy looked startled. “I? But in Ireland I have no friends. Here—I am the stranger, Mademoiselle Merivale!” He spoke without a trace of self-pity, but Joanna felt as sorry for him, the alien, as she did for the ancient grace of the house which, so far as she could see, had been betrayed into dinginess.

She said slowly: “For you then, Ireland is no more than a—a kind of corridor in your life?” She was thinking that for her, when her work with Roger Carnehill was done, her stay here would appear as no more than that—a passage between one part of her life and the next.

But
René
was shaking his head. “No. It is more than that. I shall stay here for a time, learn my work and then go home. But when I return to Belgium I shall at least take memories—perhaps even something more!”

They looked at each other, both knowing that he was speaking of Shuan. Then the boy laughed quickly and make a gesture embracing the room. “It is terrible, this! Do you know, one day Mademoiselle Shuan and I have amused ourselves, giving the whole house a new decor, as for a newly wedded pair of lovers coming to live here? We have begun at the front door and have finished at the tiny attics under the roof. We have given it everything—but everything!” He sighed reminiscently. “That day she has been interested—as but rarely since! And even then, when all was done, she has said crossly: ‘But this is silly! For a pair of married lovers will never live here. When Roger marries, it will be the Dower House again and Madame Carnehill must retire to it!
”

“But it was fun, furnishing it?” asked Joanna, enjoying the fantasy.

“Oh, yes, it was droll. But I think it was she who most enjoyed the artistry of it and I, the sentiment.” He turned about to take from Mrs. Hagerty a tray containing a jug, two tumblers and a dish of potato-scones. Then he and Joanna sat at adjacent sides of the table and fell to upon the impromptu meal.

“This,” commented
René
between munches, “is
—
as you would say—
‘f
un.’
”

“Yes, isn’t it?” Joanna picked up her glass confidently, then after the first mouthful, choked and set it down hastily.

“What ?” began
René
, then burst out laughing. ‘Ah, it is
le
lait-du-be
ur
re
—
the buttermilk
!
I always have it. Do you not like it?”

Joanna grimaced. “I’m sorry—not a bit!”

“You do not have it in England?”

“No
—
I suppose we don’t make enough butter!”

“That,” said
René
gallantly, “I find it difficult to believe. For it is the buttermilk which gives the exquisite complexion, and yours. Mademoiselle—!”

Then, laughing, he picked up the jug and Joanna heard him clatter down the stairs to the kitchen.

She glanced at her watch. Soon she must go back to relieve Colonel and Mrs. Kimstone. But just then there was a sound in the hall and Justin McKiley appeared at the open door of the room. With legs apart he stood regarding her, while he bent a riding crop-bow-wise between his hands.

He said: “So you came to find me after all! Didn’t I suggest that you would?”

CHAPTER FIVE

Joanna said coolly: “I was out for a walk and I came to look at the outside of the Dower House.
René
met me and invited me in to share potato
-
cakes with him.”

Justin McKiley glanced distastefully at the half
laid table. “To share also, I see, the squalor of the dining arrangements imposed on us by Mrs. Hagerty. Come to my room, and I’ll see that you get tea, properly served, English fashion.”

“No, I can’t stay,” Joanna told him. “
René
has gone to get some fresh milk, because I can’t drink buttermilk. When he comes back I must finish my scones and go.”

“But you’ll come again. Having once escaped from bondage, you’ll repeat the experience?”

“I have time off regularly every day,” lied Joanna. “I don’t feel in need of any really dramatic escape.
”

“No? Well, perhaps the tediousness of work like yours has a cumulative effect and I must’nt expect results so soon! Where did you go for your walk?” His tone held only a careless interest.

“Across the park. What a wealth of lovely old trees!”

“M’m. Too many. For too long the Carnehills have pursued a policy of ‘The timber of Carrieghmere is not for sale.’ I’m remedying that.”

“So I saw,” commented Joanna dryly.

“You noticed the felling we’re doing over by the east well? Obviously it was criminal to keep it, considering the price timber is fetching.”

“Does Mr. Carnehill approve?” Joanna heard herself asking.

McKiley shrugged. “I dare say. I don’t know that I’ve urged the necessity on him particularly. But as agent in sole charge I must make my own decisions in certain matters for the good of the place.”

“I should have thought,” said Joanna, surprised at her own temerity, “that the felling and sale of his timber was something which shouldn’t be undertaken without certainty of Mr. Carnehill’s full consent!”

Justin McKiley looked at her quizzically. “Are you taking me to task?” he inquired amusedly.

“No, only
—”
Joanna was uncomfortably aware
that she was launched upon something which she had not sent out to do and for which Roger, particularly, would despise her. She was appealing for him to his agent with whom he had no sympathy.

“Only what?”

“Well—he isn’t told enough of what is going on. I’m his nurse and I believe it would help towards his recovery. Dr. Beltane thinks so too. You and Mrs. Carnehill tell him just so much and not enough. He wants details, figure
s—”

“
And he sent you to get them from me—unofficially, of course?”

“
No
!”
The denial was indignant. “My conviction about it is—is professional. After all, he is no child
—
he’s a man
—
even if he is a sick one!”

“And a sick man appeals to the emotions?” put in McKiley quickly. “Well, I’m sorry, but it’s by Mrs. Carnehill’s wish that he isn’t worried about the estate.”

“But isn’t there some department which he could take over, feel himself responsible for?” persisted Joanna. “You could convince Mrs. Carnehill of that, surely?”

“And force him into feeling that he is the child you claim he isn’t? ‘Here, Roger dear, is a teeny-weeny duty that’s all your own’—how d’you suppose he’d react to that? No, the overall, general picture is best
—”

It was a shrewd point, but Joanna did not feel convinced. However, as she was about to reply,
René
came back with the milk, and she had to swallow a glassful hastily as she finished her scone.

She said to him: “I must go. Thanks awfully for the invitation.” But when she went to the door it was not
René
, but McKiley who accompanied her.

“Next time you come,” he remarked casually, “you will take tea with me?”

“Yes. One day I’d like to.” It was a social evasion as much as it was an acceptance. For Joanna had begun to feel that she understood something of Roger’s lack of sympathy for his agent. Since her first impressions of them the two men seemed to have changed roles in her mind. At first she had thought of Roger as the enigmatic, unpredictable one, and Justin McKiley as the more direct. She still did not understand Justin McKiley. But Roger, she felt, she was beginning to understand better every day—an impression which, however, she was to doubt before that particular day came to an end!

She hurried back to the house to find her patient making no secret of the fact that he had already had enough of his visitors. The Colonel, sitting on the window-sill with his hands in his pocket, seemed placidly unmoved by Roger’s overbrief replies to his remarks, but Mrs. Kimstone was sitting by his bedside, tight-lipped and disapproving.

“
Y
ou
’v
e been a long time!” accused Roger unceremoniously at sight of Joanna.