Nurse Ann Wood (3 page)

As her patient still continued to regard herself without any expression of satisfaction, she went on: “Don’t forget you’ve been ill. You’re thin, much too thin, because you’ve been half starving yourself. You’ve got beautiful bones and eyes. As soon as you’re well again, you’ll see. And with make-up...”

“I don’t use much make-up.” Ann looked at Nurse Elliott, apparently seeing nothing odd in this recollection — this patient who had stood in Casualty and held out her hands gropingly, her wide eyes apparently unseeing. “Who am I?” she had called, agonizingly. “Where am I going? I can’t remember ... I can’t remember ... It’s only you whom I know ... only you.” Her big lavender eyes had focused then when she had turned to Iain Sherrarde, and she had clung desperately to him until her final collapse.

It was a little later that Doctor Lievers came into Ann’s room, accompanied by Sister and another woman. The patient, who was sitting, propped up with pillows, smiled at them with equal impartiality, but her eyes flickered slightly when they rested on the handsome, assured face beneath the fashionable hat.

She is the woman who has been here before several times, thought Ann. Once, when Sister went out of the room, she shook me and said I was impersonating her daughter.

That had been during the period of drifting grey twilight from which only the voice of Iain Sherrarde had aroused her. At the thought of him, a light came into her eyes. She let her heavy eyelids droop, completely uninterested in her visitors. She drifted, not back into grey twilight, but into a dream that was lovely as the dawn, shot with rose ... the color of sweet anticipation.

Mrs. Woods stood in a luxurious bedroom with a decor of cream and rose, staring at her elder daughter, who was lying among the tumbled satin cushions of a long couch at the foot of the bed.

“I’ve just come from the hospital, Beverley,” she explained. “The girl is much better, but she doesn’t seem to have a clue as to who she is. At hospital, they still think she is Anne Woods.”

Beverley Derhart gave a petulant yawn. “But, Mummy, why bother to go? Why don’t you tell the doctor, or the police? For all we know she may have stolen Anne’s handbag, and that would explain your letter being in it.”

Mrs. Woods removed her cigarette from her thin, scarlet lips and flicked away the ash. “I’ve been waiting for Anne to write. She has left Queen Frida’s Hospital, apparently. I rang up last night. Of all the selfish, inconsiderable girls!”

Beverley laughed. “For goodness’ sake, Mummy, be your age! Why should Anne come down here for our convenience? Burying herself in this dead-and-alive hole...”

She stopped, her face all at once distorted by angry frustration, and tears began to well up in her big blue eyes. Mrs. Woods said, in quick alarm,

“Beverley, please stop. You’ll upset yourself, and I shall have to send for Marchdale, and you know how cross she is today. Darling,
do
stop crying.”

Her expression was concerned, as she bent over the slim shaking figure. “We shall have to send for the doctor. You’re ill.”

“No, I’m not.” With a lightning change of mood, Beverley sat up and began to mop her eyes. “No, I’m not ill, or at least no worse than usual. But I’m bored,
bored
! So bored that I could scream and scream and
scream
! If we could go back to London, it wouldn’t be so bad. Sometimes I feel I could murder Iain Sherrarde with his long face about my having to take ‘great care’ and his talk about ‘the welfare of the children.’ ”

“You know, darling, I believe he keeps you down here because he’s in love with you. All men are Turks at heart, and would like to keep the women they love behind bars, away from other men. And you’re lovelier now than you’ve ever been.”

Beverley’s big blue eyes widened with delight, as she reached for her hand mirror. “Do you really think so, Mummy? It might be fun to have a love affair with the great H.E. — that’s what the students at the, Institute call him ... short for ‘His Excellency.’ I’ve been so busy hating him because he held the purse strings, but now ... Mummy, you’re a darling. You’ve made me feel interested in life once again.”

Secretly, Mrs. Woods had no faith at all in the idea she had just put before Beverley. Iain Sherrarde was too proud and arrogant to fall in love with an ex-showgirl, no matter how lovely. Beverley hadn’t been good enough in his estimation, for his ward, Ray Derhart.

“Thank goodness we’re having a spell of peace while he’s in America,” she said fervently. “If only Anne had answered my S.O.S., the wicked, selfish girl! With a trained nurse here, he wouldn’t interfere half so much, either with you or the children.”

“So Mummy, you don’t in your innermost heart really believe that Anne gave that girl your letter and sent her down here?”

Mrs. Woods looked despondent. Frankly, she couldn't imagine her younger daughter taking any such trouble. She wasn’t the sort of girl to be moved either by sentiment or family feeling. Her thoughts were diverted then, for Marchdale came into the room. She stared at Beverley, saw the sign of tears and rounded on the older woman. “She’s been crying again. What have you been saying to her?”

She was a thin, wiry old woman, a distant relative, though no one ever remembered that now. She had been a theatre dresser in the days when Mrs. Woods had been a third-rate actress, and when she married had become her housekeeper and then nurse to the two girls. She had always been fanatically devoted to Beverley.

“Don’t be so silly, March,” Mrs. Woods replied haughtily. “There’s nothing wrong.”
‘

“What about a little pick-me-up, my pet? That will soon chase away the blues,” the old woman said softly.

Mrs. Woods’ eyes narrowed and she looked more closely at her daughter. “Beverley, March, you know what the doctor says. Oh, what’s the use?” She got up and left them. She had her own affairs to see to.

Beverley’s suite of rooms was on the ground floor, and Mrs. Woods went through the hall and began to ascend the wide shallow stairway with its thick mushroom-colored carpet

Everywhere in this house there was the luxury that she loved. In her own room, she trod on a thick, soft carpet of her favorite color — the tender green of newly unfurled leaves. On her wide, luxurious bed there was an ivory satin spread and eiderdown. Her furniture was of the very latest design.

Mrs. Woods had been a small-part actress and sometimes a singer in dingy night clubs. Neither her career nor marriage had given her the luxury and security for which she craved. But they had come to her finally by Beverley’s marriage to the heir to the Derhart fortune, and she was grimly determined to hang on to them.

She pulled off her hat, and ran her fingers through her smartly tinted hair. She moved over to the big windows, touching the ivory brocade curtains with caressing fingers. She had always longed for a room like this, like a stage set in a sophisticated comedy, and now it was hers...

Her thin red mouth that had softened slightly tightened again as she noticed a flash of bright red among the trees that stood at the very far end of the gardens. Then she saw another splash of the same color. Emma and Guy, Beverley’s two children, running wild, instead of resting, or doing their lessons, or whatever my lord Iain Sherrarde had laid down in their timetable.

Oh, how she loathed that man! And though he might be in America, there was always his inquisitive old aunt or his snooty girl friend to spy for him. Then the same old complaints would go up. The children were in need of more care and attention than they were getting at Fountains. They would be much better living with Mr. Sherrarde’s aunt at Dainty’s End.

In other words, thought Mrs. Woods grimly, he wanted the children taken away from
her
care and influence. Then they would grow up not knowing her, and if Beverley died, as well she might with this heart trouble, then...

Mrs. Woods clenched her hands. She’d got to stop the children being taken away from her influence. If only Anne ... But it was no good going over that again. Anne had trained as a nurse, and you might have expected tenderness and consideration from her, but instead...

Mrs. Woods recalled the last time she had seen her younger daughter. She had been wearing uniform, that marvellously attractive uniform of a Queen Frida’s nurse. She was pretty, too. Not so pretty as Beverley, but very attractive.

Nurse Anne Woods had said, “I’ve had a hard time for nearly four years. Nursing is said to be easier now than once it was. The discipline is supposed not to be quite so rigid ... not
quite
!” And she had grimaced in a fashion that made her look oddly like her mother. “I’ve stuck it because I know what I want. I want the same as Beverley — security for life. I’m going all out to find a wealthy husband — one who is getting on in life. My best chance of meeting him is in a hospital, in one of those expensive clinics, or as a private nurse, when he’s feeling sorry for himself.

“I’ve got my State and soon I shall have my Queen Frida’s certificate. Then I shall apply for a post in a tiptop clinic. So it’s no good talking to me about coming to nurse Beverley or look after the children. I’ve got myself and my future to think about.”

Yes, that was how Anne had spoken, and Mrs. Woods realized that she had been an optimistic fool to write to her again and to hope that she would change her mind.

And now this other girl had turned up, a girl whom Iain Sherrarde had accepted as Beverley’s sister. He had arranged for her to have a room in the private wing of the hospital, and because of his interest she was receiving quite unnecessary attention and fuss, or so Mrs. Woods considered.

It was really remarkable that he had put himself out for a relative of hers. And it wasn’t as if he had approved of Anne’s coming down here to look after her sister and the children. Indeed he had been exceedingly cool about the suggestion.

Mrs. Woods peered out of the window again. She couldn’t see those red flashes now. She hoped to goodness that Miss Pollard, the nursery governess, was keeping her eye on them, for the busy road lay beyond the trees.

Ought she to go out to see that they were all right? No, definitely not. She was beginning to be obsessed by the safety of the children. Miss Pollard was paid to do her job and it was useless to be worrying every moment of the day as to whether she was doing it properly.

An hour later Mrs. Woods left Fountains, driving the small car. She preferred the big one, but it was not in the garage and she presumed that Beverley had sent the chauffeur-handyman on some errand into town. He considered it beneath his dignity to take the little car.

At her bridge club, she was just settling down for a game when she was called to the telephone.

“I thought I might find you at your club,” commented the voice at the other end dryly. “I decided it was better to contact you rather than Beverley. It’s the children.”

Mrs. Woods’ taut, slim figure grew rigid, as the speaker went on, “they were racing about, quite unattended, on the main road — and you know what the traffic is like there.”

“Are they hurt?” Mrs. Woods’ mouth was dry.

“No, but they might well have been killed.” Mrs. Trederrick, Iain Sherrarde’s aunt, was speaking, and of course he would be informed the moment he arrived back from America about what had happened. And incidentally, what had happened?

The explanation was soon forthcoming. She might have known it, Mrs. Woods thought wrathfully.

“Maureen saw them when she was driving along the main road,” Mrs. Trederrick explained coldly. “She picked them up and brought them here. They came very willingly,” she concluded, with a significant emphasis in her voice.

“How surprising,” Mrs. Woods hit back, but her thin hand was clenched so that her knuckles shone white. The children were friendly little souls and would go with anyone who offered them a ride in a car, even the uppish snob, Doctor Maureen Lyntrope. The only reason she made a fuss of them was because she was in love with Iain Sherrarde.

And now, at Dainty’s End, the pair of them — the aunt and the girl friend — would be pumping the children for all they were worth to find out how badly they were being neglected at Fountains.

Mrs. Woods reflected with a wry twist of her thin lips that she had better go and fetch them back home as quickly as she could. As for that nursery governess, Miss Pollard, she appeared to have no control over them whatever. Iain Sherrarde was right about that. She would have to go.

Someone must be found to replace her, and someone must be found to keep an eye on Beverley. Now Mrs. Woods faced up squarely to the fact that had been nagging at her since she left her invalid daughter's room. Marchdale, in spite of everything the doctor had said, was letting Beverley have alcohol. That was what had been wrong with her earlier in the day. Not that she had drunk too much by any ordinary standards, but what Marchdale and Beverley both seemed unable to realize was that since her accident, Beverley couldn’t be judged by ordinary standards.

Half an hour later Mrs. Woods was driving back to Fountains, her eyes glittering furiously, her two grandchildren, subdued and weary, in the back of the car.

The impertinence of those two women at Dainty’s End suggesting that
she
was to blame, suggesting that the children were being neglected! It was no business of theirs anyway. Iain Sherrarde was the children’s guardian, not his aunt and certainly not Doctor Maureen Lyntrope.

But one thing was quite clear, as far as Mrs. Woods was concerned. That girl in Sunbury Hospital must be persuaded to come to Fountains as soon as possible. Once she was here, in her Queen Frida’s uniform, no one at Dainty’s End would have any grounds for complaint.

CHAPTER THREE

FOR the first time since the night she had been brought into hospital, Ann was fully dressed. The suit she had put on had borne the label of a well-known fashion house, and she found herself wondering if she had been alone when she had bought it.