Nurse Ann Wood Read online

  “It would be a pity to disturb Mrs. Woods more than she may have been disturbed already,” she remarked.

  Averil took the hint. “All right, I’ll go, but I expect them back in the nursery straight away. Frankly, I don’t like my arrangements upset.”

  She went out of the room, a glowering expression upon her face. When she had closed the door, Ann separated the children, retrieved her dressing-gown and slippers, and then began to fold her top blankets. These she wrapped round the two little figures, told them they were all playing at being Indians and that they must creep very silently back to their nursery without making a sound or the “palefaces” would hear them.

  This was an exceedingly popular suggestion and they arrived back in the night nursery with the minimum of fuss or noise. They were reluctant to relinquish her cream-colored blankets, until she pointed out that those on their own beds were much prettier, pale pink and pale blue with handsome satin bindings. Then she made her escape, leaving "Miss Pollard to deal with the ensuing massacre of “palefaces” in the shape of a panda, a teddy bear and two of Emma’s dolls.

  Having deposited the children in the nursery, Ann dressed and went downstairs to find no sign of breakfast in the dining-room. She ventured through a baize door and came to the kitchen where she found several people sitting round the table, having a meal.

  A spare, elderly woman with straggling grey hair and brown eyes got up from her place and came over to the girl who was standing in the doorway.

  “I don’t want to disturb you,” Ann said “I’m ... Ann Wood. I’m up rather early and I foolishly didn’t find out last night what time breakfast is.”

  “Oh, so you’re Miss Woods, are you?” the other replied in no friendly fashion. “I’m Mrs. Marchdale.” She was speaking in an undertone, obviously with the idea of preventing the others in the kitchen from hearing what she said. “I’m the housekeeper and I looked after ... the real Anne when she was a baby, just as I looked after poor Miss Beverley ... and still do...”

  Her brown eyes challenged Ann and her voice was fiercely possessive, as if she dared this, or any other nurse to come between her darling and herself.

  “Oh, good morning, Mrs. Marchdale,” Ann said, rather taken aback by the hostility.

  “You’ll have to call me March,” the woman replied grimly. “That is if we’re to go on with this play-acting, and the mistress says we are to, though Miss Beverley thinks it’s ridiculous and so do I.”

  Ann disliked the hectoring voice even though it was low and guarded. She said again, “I don’t want to interrupt your breakfast.”

  “Madam has a tray in her room, Miss Beverley never has any breakfast and I don’t start cooking for the dining-room till half-past eight.”

  “What about the children?”

  “All rules here apply to the children as well as to everybody else,” was the tart reply. “Do you want bacon and egg this morning?”

  “No, I have only tea and toast.”

  “Then it will be in the dining-room for you at half-past eight.”

  It was, and Ann sat there alone. The only real life she had seen in the house, she reflected, centred round the kitchen and the nursery. Mrs. Woods seemed a shadowy figure, and Beverley, her supposed sister, the girl who had become overnight a widow and an invalid, was more shadowy still.

  However, later in the morning, after Mrs. Woods had administered a rebuke about the children being in Ann’s bedroom, and giving her no time at all to make either excuses or apologies, she went on more pleasantly:

  “As soon as I’ve had a talk with March, I’m going to see how Beverley is this morning: You must come with me, for I want you to meet as soon as possible and I hope she will take to you. She needs to have someone young with her — someone young and sensible, I mean. Someone who will talk to her for her own good.”

  Ann did not relish the role that Mrs. Woods seemed to be allotting to her. She was assuming that Ann could carry far more responsibility than at the moment she felt capable of doing.

  Of course she would do her best. She felt terribly sorry for that girl, now an invalid, who probably spent far too much time brooding about the husband she had lost so tragically.

  Lunch-time came, and Ann had not been summoned to meet the invalid. Miss Pollard brought the children down, but when Mrs. Woods came into the dining-room, she gave no explanation.

  There was a tricky moment when, sitting at the head of the table, she said brightly to Emma, “Don’t you think Auntie Anne looks nice in her uniform?”

  Emma gave her grandmother a considering stare. “She’s prettier than Auntie Anne — our real Auntie Anne,” she remarked.

  Miss Pollard looked up quickly from her task of helping Guy to cut his meat. Her eyes were on Ann so that she did not notice Mrs. Woods’ disconcerted expression. The woman recovered herself quickly, noting Miss Pollard’s interest. A pity that Emma was so sharp!

  She said with a laugh, “Well, that’s a compliment to you, Anne. All those beauty treatments you’ve been having seem to have achieved a marvellous result if your niece’s opinion is anything to go by.”

  Mrs. Woods now seemed anxious to get the meal over as quickly as possible, and see the last of the children, but when they were going out of the dining-room, she called Ann back.

  Her face was rather worried as she said in an undertone, “Beverley seems to be better ... at least, she says she is. She has invited some people for cocktails ... later on today, so I think then would be the best time for you to meet her. She’s always in a good mood when she has a crowd of people around her. She loves parties ... always did...”

  Ann’s face was sympathetic. It was dreadful for a girl who had been so much the centre of life as Beverley Derhart must have been suddenly to be forced to lead the life of a semi-invalid. All the same...

  “Is she allowed to have cocktail parties? I mean, is she strong enough?” she queried in a puzzled voice.

  Mrs. Woods shrugged. “When you’ve met Beverley, you’ll realize that the word ‘allowed’ doesn’t enter into her vocabulary. She does what she likes, and then pays for it afterwards. That’s why I wanted Anne, my daughter Anne, I mean, down here. I thought that with her professional training she might make Beverley see sense. I hope to goodness that you’ll be able to do something.”

  Ann’s lavender .eyes widened between their thick fringe of dark lashes. It was a habit of hers when she was doubtful or worried. “Is that likely? I mean — she knows that I’m not really Anne Woods.”

  Mrs. Woods nodded. “Yes, of course she knows and she is quite against your coming here, though that is largely because you’re a nurse. To be frank with you, she didn’t want her sister to come either. But I’m hoping that she will eventually realize that it would be wise to have you here.”

  While they talked, Mrs. Woods had been leading the way out of the dining-room, and now she began to go up the wide stairway. Then she turned back. “Don’t wear your uniform this afternoon. It might cause some comment. You’ve a little navy jersey suit with you, I remember. Wear that.

  “Oh, I see you’re wondering how I know what there is in your wardrobe. Your two suitcases were in the train. I searched through them to see if there were any clues to your identity before they were sent on to the hospital. There was nothing except a few name tags ... Ann Wood.”

  “Yes, I know,” replied Ann, her eyes once again very wide. “Will it be all right if I go for a walk?” she asked now, feeling that she couldn’t stay in the house a minute longer. The time that she had sat around this morning had seemed like a weary year. “I think that perhaps I shouldn’t be with the children while Miss Pollard is still here. That is...”

  A thought struck her, but before she could frame it into words, Mrs. Woods came down the stairs again and walked back into the dining-room, indicating that Ann should follow her. She closed the door and leaned back against it.

  “I shall be glad when that girl has gone,” she said, with a frown. “She was far to
o interested in Emma’s reactions about you. Odd that the little monkey hasn’t accepted you. I didn’t think children had long memories.”

  “They usually haven’t,” Ann replied. “At least, not at Emma and Guy’s age.”

  “When you’ve been here a few days, they’ll accept you,” Mrs. Woods said, with bright confidence. “Perhaps, as you suggest, it will be best not to see much of them until after that Pollard girl has gone. I wish I’d packed her off without any notice.”

  “I don’t think she wants to go,” Ann murmured unhappily. It was odd that something which had been in the forefront of her mind all the morning should be so difficult to mention. Why on earth when she had first seen Mrs. Woods this morning had she not just remarked casually: “Mr. Sherrarde called last night after you had gone out. He stayed only a few minutes.”

  It ought to have been as easy as that, but it just wasn’t. If she had already given that information it would be quite natural to go on to say now that Mr. Sherrarde had spoken last night of Miss Pollard’s staying on.

  Mrs. Woods’ next grim remark didn’t make it any easier. “Well, she’s certainly going. And don’t think that it’s anything to do with your coming here. She’s an inefficient slut. She allowed the children to run away and they were found on the main road by—”

  She stopped there in order to compose her expression, remembering that she was endeavoring to hide from this girl as long as possible the antagonism which existed between herself and all who resided at Dainty’s End.

  “Well, a cousin of Mr. Sherrarde’s. The one I mentioned who is likely to ... er ... marry Iain saw them as she came along in her car and took them to Dainty’s End. You can imagine what I felt like ... when I was rung up and told that.”

  This gave Ann a further opportunity of speaking about last night. But even then she didn’t seize upon it. She said ' vaguely, “They are very lively children. They take a great deal of watching, I’m sure.”

  “They certainly do,” returned Mrs. Woods in a heartfelt voice. “As soon as the Pollard girl has gone, I’ll appoint a nursery maid to help you.”

  “Mrs. Woods, there—”

  “There’s someone outside. Oh, it’s you, March,” as the door opened and the housekeeper appeared. “No, it’s no good looking at me like that. You know how headstrong Beverley is.

  “All right, er — Ann. Go off for your walk, but be back in time to change and be ready for the party at half-past five. No, March, it’s no good trying to get me into a long discussion about it. I want to go up and have a rest. Those children disturbed me far too early this morning.”

  When she was up in her own room again, the girl went over to the window. The sun hadn’t kept its early promise and the day was rather grey, but she felt that she would go mad if she stayed aimlessly within four walls for much longer.

  She changed her shoes, put on her coat and picked up a scarf. It looked as if there might be rain, but she didn’t mind that.

  She crossed the garden, following the path that she had taken on the previous night. This time the woodland path, though gloomy, was sufficiently light for her to see the end of it. As she walked along, she realized that the trees formed a small copse, and that beyond it the path led to a gate in a high stone wall. Beyond lay the main road...

  The trees seemed to separate the gardens of Fountains from those of another house, and as she emerged from the copse, Ann caught a glimpse of that house, grey stone, with white painted woodwork and many well-planted flower-beds stretching in front of it.

  That must be Dainty’s End from which Iain Sherrarde had walked last night. But why then had he come by way of the main drive of Fountains? This was a shorter and far more pleasant way than by the main road. She pondered uneasily, for she could not help feeling that Mr. Sherrarde might have started to come this way, and then in the gloom of the copse, coming upon two figures obviously very interested in each other, he had turned back to the gate and continued his journey by the road.

  On his arrival at the house, he had met her coming in the other direction ... accompanied by Burrows. He might have come to the conclusion that she had been Burrows’ companion earlier on, and the thought angered her beyond endurance. Surely he hadn’t assumed that the very first day she had arrived in the house she had begun a flirtation with the handyman! And yet he had been so stiff, so coldly contemptuous. Till now, she hadn’t been able to understand why. But now ...

  And it’s the sort of misunderstanding that can never be put right, she decided miserably. He had accused her of nothing, so there was no chance of justifying herself. Only events in the future could do that.

  The thought gave her little comfort as she came out on to the main road and began to walk along the path close to the stone wall which enclosed the two houses and their gardens.

  The high stone wall continued, and she walked along it for a minute or two more, but whatever savor there had been in her first tour of exploration had gone now. She felt tired and depressed, but reminded herself, as she started back to Fountains, that she might not be quite so strong yet as she had believed she was.

  Just before half-past five, she took a last look at herself in the mirror and then went downstairs. This blue suit was smart and even sophisticated — more expensive than she would have thought a nurse could afford. Its label was that of a small but quite exclusive fashion house, but that thick wall in her mind stopped any surmise as to when and why she had bought it...

  She waited in the hall, and Mrs. Woods joined her after a few minutes, saying brightly, “Come along now, to Beverley’s suite. I see some of her friends have already arrived.”

  When she had been in the garden earlier in the afternoon, Ann had noticed that there was a second drive in the grounds of Fountains, and this led to the south wing of the house with a door and a glassed-in porch and terrace. She had guessed that that was the wing in which Beverley Derhart had her own rooms.

  Mrs. Woods, with Ann following, went through a door leading from the main hall, along a corridor at the back of the house, and so into a smaller hall. At the opposite end was an outer door through which a group of young men and women were just entering.

  “Most of the people here today will be from the Institute,” Mrs. Woods remarked. “It isn’t very far along the main road, beyond Dainty’s End. If you walked in that direction this afternoon, I expect you saw it — a red-brick building with some recent extensions.”

  Ann shook her head. “I went only a little way past a gate and then a drive, which I suppose led to Dainty’s End. You said that was where Mr. Sherrarde lived.” And that girl with the auburn hair! she added to herself.

  “He’s got a flat in the Institute as well,” Mrs. Woods told her. “I wish Beverley wouldn’t have so many of the Institute people here. They...”

  What Mrs. Woods’ next remark was to have been, Ann never found out, for she suddenly shut her lips tightly together as if she was afraid of saying too much. They had moved through the hall now, and following the crowd, into a big room which was so full of people that you could scarcely see the furniture.

  The crowd was thickest near one of the big windows, and as a little group of people moved away, Ann saw that they had been congregating round a rose-colored settee. She could just glimpse the head of its occupant — a deeper-than-primrose-colored head.

  “There’s Beverley,” Mrs. Woods remarked rather grimly. “Thank goodness she has had the sense to remain on her back. Though what she will be like after all this excitement, I don’t know.”

  Ann was conscious of a mounting excitement within herself, as she followed her companion through the crowd, Mrs. Woods elbowing her way relentlessly towards her daughter. Finally she reached the settee with Ann a step or two behind her.

  “Hullo, Mummy. Another new hat!” There was an amused inflection in the attractive drawl. “Has anyone found you a drink?”

  “No, I’ve only just come in, Beverley,” Mrs. Woods replied. And then with a kind of elaborate carelessness
. “Have you seen who’s here?” To the girl behind her, it seemed that there was a queer intonation in the older voice — a kind of warning. Or was it an appeal?

  Beverley Derhart gave a curious little laugh. “My ... er ... sister,” she drawled. “Sister Anne, where are you, my sweet? What a long time it’s been!”

  Someone moved, so that Ann could draw level with Mrs. Woods, and she looked at last at the lovely girl lying high on the piled-up pillows. For she was lovely ... almost heartbreakingly so with her flower-like face, her large blue eyes and her wonderful hair, redder than primrose, but not quite red-gold.

  How could any man — and just now in Ann’s vocabulary that meant Iain Sherrarde — fail to be attracted by her? No wonder that when Mrs. Woods had spoken about the gossip on the subject of his marriage to Doctor Maureen Lyntrope, she had laughed and mentioned another possibility...

  It was only when she had pushed back her own fears that Ann began to sort out her other impressions of Beverley Derhart. How very much like her the children were, and particularly Emma! And a closer look at the lovely face revealed the fragility, the shadows, and the slightly-pinched nostrils — all rather disquieting to a nurse’s experienced eye.

  This girl, reflected Ann in a troubled manner, ought not to be the centre of a noisy gathering, with the radiogram blaring at one end of the room, the atmosphere of the over-heated room stuffy and smoky and with people milling around her.

  Beverley’s voice, half impatient, half amused, jolted her. “Stop looking at me like a nurse, Sister Anne,” she entreated.

  Ann said rather breathlessly, “Sorry — was I? I suppose it’s a habit.”

  “A habit you’ll have to lose pretty quickly,” came the reply, and now behind Beverley Derhart’s attractive drawl there was something cold and sharp. “That is, if you’re going to stay here. I like doctors and nurses very much — no one better — but only when they’re off duty. You agree, don’t you, Lee darling?”