Dear Tiberius; (aka Nurse Nolan) (13 page)

His own cup of tea was growing cold at his elbow, and she noticed that the knuckles of his clasped hands were showing rather white.

She stood up rather abruptly.

“
I must ask you both to excuse me,
”
she said.
“
I really must return to Miranda.
”

Neither of the two men requested her to stay, and she was sufficiently familiar with the ways of doctors, eminent and otherwise, to know that they had their own methods of breaking bad news to parents. She did not quite like Dr. Rupprecht
Wern
’
s delayed method that send a cold feeling to her heart

Miranda, when she joined her, was lying very still on her bed, but Gentian, the offspring of the stable cat, had managed to creep into the room and was bearing her company by lying comfortably disposed on her pillow. One of Miranda
’
s thin hands was stroking it lovingly. Her eyes—so brightly blue that they made Lucy think of twin blue lakes in the sunshine—gazed up at Lucy with a smile in them.

“
He
’
s nice, isn
’
t he?
”
she said without mentioning any name.
“
Really frightfully nice!
”

“
Dr. Wern? I
’
m glad you think so,
”
Lucy returned, forcing herself to smile back as if she hadn
’
t a genuine care in the world at that moment. She took a seat by the bed and automatically she, too, started to stroke Gentian.
“
It
’
s half the battle when you can honestly say you like the individual who comes and pokes and prods you when you don
’
t want to be poked and prodded.
”

“
Oh, but he didn
’
t poke and prod at all! His hands hardly seemed to touch me.
”

“
Well, that
’
s splendid.
”
But Lucy still felt cold inside.
“
I noticed that he had very beautiful hands.
”

“
Yes.
”
Miranda was gazing out of the window at the dying light.
“
He says he
’
s going to make me walk again!
”

“
He did? Oh...!
”
Lucy felt the breath catch in her throat, and she could not go on. She swallowed hard for a few moments, and then she exclaimed,
“
But that
’
s wonderful, darling, wonderful!
”
She searched Miranda
’
s face with eyes that sought to be absolutely convinced, and the shining gaze of the twelve-year-old returned to her, tinged with a touch of triumph.

“
It is wonderful, isn
’
t it? I knew you
’
d think so! To walk again as I used to do, and to run, and....
”
She broke off, two pearly white front teeth biting hard at her lower lip, while Gentian purred noisily right beside her ear. And then she continued brightly,
“
But it will probably be months before I
can
walk again, and in order that
I
can do so I
’
ve got to go to Vienna
—fly
there! Isn
’
t it thrilling? And you, too, Noly
....”

“
Me, too?
”
Lucy sounded a little weak.

“
Yes, Dr. Wern said so. He said you
’
d be sure to want to accompany me, and when I told him that I couldn
’
t bear it if you stayed behind he said he would use his influence to persuade you if necessary! But it isn
’
t necessary, is it, Noly?
”
gazing at her anxiously.

“
No, darling, not if your father agrees to all this.
”

“
He will! Of course, he will!
”

“
Yes, I expect he will.
”

But Lucy could see that Miranda
’
s eager mind was leaping so wildly ahead, and she was so intensely excited within herself, that a sedative just then seemed highly desirable, and she got up and quietly mixed something in a glass at the bedside table and gave it to her.

“
Now drink this, poppet, like a good girl, and I expect I
’
ll be hearing all about this a little later on from your father, and probably Dr. Wern himself. So, if you go right off to sleep now, in the morning I
’
ll probably have some real news for you.
”

“
It can
’
t be any better news than mine,
”
Miranda murmured, but already she was growing drowsy, and she smiled contentedly, and very soon she was fast asleep.

But although Lucy f
ully expected to hear footsteps outside in her corridor at almost any moment after that, it was not until nearly an hour after dinner that Dr. Wern tapped quietly at her sitting-room door, and she hurriedly bade him enter.

He was still wearing the dark lounge suit in which he had arrived at the house that afternoon, and she wondered whether it was not his custom to change for the evening, or whether it was simply that he had traveled as light as possible. But, whatever the case, he looked extraordinarily impeccable, and she realized that he was a very attractive man. His features were finely cut, and his brown hair was inclined to curl crisply. His eyes had an exceptionally kind look in them as he put out a hand and grasped one of hers.

“I’m
sorry this has to be goodbye. Nurse Nolan—for the time being, at any rate! I
’
m leaving very early in the morning, and so I thought it best to say my farewell to you tonight.
”

“
Oh oh, I see!
”
Lucy exclaimed, as she felt her fingers retained firmly for a moment, and then released.

“
My talk with Sir John lasted rather a long time, so I was unable to get up to see you earlier. But I
’
ve no doubt the little one has told you—something?
”
He looked at her keenly.
“
Sir John will tell you more, and all the arrangements we have made, and so forth. But the important thing I should like to be sure of before I leave is that Miranda can count on you?
”

“
You mean that that
I
will stay with her until she no longer requires me?
”

“
Yes.
”
He seemed to consider the matter, and then he nodded thoughtfully.
“
Yes, I think you can put it like that.
”

Lucy assured him that Miranda could count on her, but the confirmation of all that Miranda had told her, which she was dying to hear, was not forthcoming. Dr. Wern was obviously a man of few words where his patients were concerned, and he added nothing to what he had already said to her, beyond giving a few instructions and repeating the hope that they would meet again before very long, and then he accorded her a brief, military type of bow, and uttered the words
“
Auf Wiedersehen
.”
A quick flash of his white teeth, and he was gone.

When he had left the room Lucy wondered how he had fared below stairs with the other members of the house party, assuming that he had had to meet them for dinner, even if he and Sir John had remained for a long time in conference in Sir John
’
s library. Later that evening she heard a light gust of peculiarly penetrating feminine laughter, which she recognized immediately, floating to her from the head of the stairs, and she deduced that it was Lynette Harling saying good-night to someone. And when a short, pleasant laugh, which she also already recognized, came in answer, she knew it was the doctor, who must have made an appeal to her. And then doors closed and there was silence once more.

Sir John did not find his way to Lucy
’
s room that night, although she did not dare to think about undressing until it was very late, in case he wished to have a conversation with her. She sat straining her eyes over an embroidered tea cloth she was working, and listening for his step in the corridor, but as the clock on the mantelpiece ticked away the minutes, and at last the grandfather clock in the hall below chimed the hour of midnight, and he did not come
,
she began to be overcome by a feeling of queer but indefinable anxiety. She began to be uneasy. And she was also, she knew—for some reason that she also could not explain—disappointed.

She did not see S
ir John at all during daylight the following day, and Dr. Wern was carried away from the house in his host
’
s big, chauffeur-driven Bentley almost immediately after a very early breakfast that he consumed alone.

Miranda was excited from the moment she woke up, and she wanted to know all that her father and Dr. Wern had had to say to Lucy after she went to sleep the previous evening. And although Lucy was unable to state truthfully that her father had said anything at all to her, she was able to gratify the invalid with the information that the doctor from Vienna had exacted a promise from her that she would remain with Miranda—which no doubt also meant accompanying her to Vienna!

“
Well, that
’
s all that really matters, isn
’
t it?
”
Miranda demanded, with a brightness that refused to dim.
“
My father
must
agree with the doctor, and you and I will go off in an airliner and fly all the way to Vienna—to Austria, just think of it! Do you think we
’
ll be airsick?
”

“
I
hope not,
”
Lucy replied, with a smile. She had never flown herself, but she was an excellent sailor, and somehow she felt certain that Miranda, despite her state of invalidism, would prove an enthusiastic traveler.

The only thing she did not like to think about was what awaited Miranda when they arrived at their journey
’
s end.

That night she was sitting working away at the embroidered cloth when the footsteps she had been subconsciously
listening for all day stopped outside her door. She allowed her needle to remain poised halfway to her work as she called,
“
Come in.
”

Dinner had been over for about a couple of hours, and the house was very still once more. It was the sort of silence that in an old house, can almost be felt, and as Sir John quietly opened the door the grandfather clock in the hall started to chime and shatter it, and it was echoed by the silvery tones of the distant stable clock that seemed to hang quivering in the cold night air without.

Lucy stood up at once to offer Sir John a chair, but he declined it.

“
Thank you,
”
he said, as he stood staring down at her glowing electric fire that simulated the appearance of logs in an antique basket,
“
but I
’
ve been sitting for most of the evening in the library and I
’
d like to stand for a change, if you don
’
t mind.
”

“
Of course not,
”
Lucy said, and wondered whether Lynette Harling had been sitting with him in the library—although it was difficult to picture the strange vividness of Lynette against that somber background—and, if not, why not?

Lucy kept a motionless hand over the needlework in her lap while she studied Sir John secretly under lowered eyelids. He seemed temporarily to have forgotten her presence while he stared at the fire, and for the first time since she had known him she thought that tonight there were lines of natural gravity in his face, and his whole demeanor seemed to be somehow clouded. His dark brows brooded and were drawn close together, and his lips were compressed and there seemed to be a tired droop to them at the corners.

He leaned one shoulder against the mantelpiece, and it was not such an exceptionally broad shoulder. His build was really very slender, and it was emphasized by the dark
clothes he wore at night. Somehow at that moment Lucy could not think of him as the head of a firm of shipbuilders and President of the Ash-Aird Line. There seemed to be little of the steely, self-contained strength about him that she had once suspected—and that must still be there, although the mask had slipped a little under the obvious worry and anxiety that consumed him at the moment. She could
feel
that he was worried, and she knew that he was making no attempt to hide it from her. He was no longer Tiberius—Kathleen
’
s name for him—if, indeed, he had ever shared any of the qualities of the Tiberius who had lived so long ago, which Lucy strongly doubted.