Nurse Ann Wood (6 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

EVEN though she had wished she were dead on the previous night, when Ann woke next morning in her dark little room, to find that the pale spring sunshine was creeping in, she thought that perhaps after all, it was still good to be alive. She stretched her slim arms above her head, yawned and wondered whether she was imagining that someone was at the door.

No, there it was again — a sort of bump. She called “Come in,” and reached for a fluffy white bedjacket to pull around her shoulders.

Two angelic-looking faces appeared round the crack. “We wondered if we’d been dreaming last night,” Guy whispered. “Emma said we couldn’t dream the same things, but we often do.”

“Silly, we don’t,” pronounced Emma, no less lordly this morning than she had been last night. “I tell you my dream and then you say you’ve dreamed the same, but you never tell me first.”

“I don’t remember at first,” Guy explained apologetically.

As they were speaking, they appeared completely round the door, clad in their pyjamas, no dressing-gowns, and no slippers on their bare feet.

“Goodness, you’ll be frozen!” expostulated Ann. “Hop into bed, quickly.”

“It’s been freezing outside. You can see some white on the lawns and on the trees,” Emma shouted, as she moved the curtains and stared out of the window.

Guy was only too willing to accept Ann’s invitation. He snuggled up to her and sighed blissfully as she rubbed his cold toes. “Your feet are like ice,” she scolded.

Guy evidently set little store by the scolding. “I like you, Nurse Auntie Anne,” he announced. “You smell nice and you’re warm.”

Ann began to laugh, but Emma wasn’t going to allow the remark to pass without pungent comments “She’d be as cold as you are if she walked round the house without her slippers and only in her nightgown. And I told you, Guy, you can’t call her Nurse and Auntie at the same time. She’s not both.”

“Then she’s Auntie Anne,” Guy declared. “She’s too pretty to be just Nurse.”

“You
are
rather pretty.” Emma, having pulled back the curtain so that considerably more of the pale sunshine flooded the room, now approached the bed and examined Ann’s face earnestly. “Yes, you are rather pretty,” she conceded again.

“But you look like a nurse when you’re wearing uniform. Even though you didn’t have a cap on. Why didn’t you have a cap on?”

“I don’t know,” Ann said weakly. And when Emma’s big, china blue eyes continued to survey her incredulously, she went on, “Oh, I suppose because I hadn’t the energy to make one up.”

“Make one up!” repeated her interrogator.

Ann nodded. “Yes, they’re bands of linen, very stiff, and you have to pin them...”

“Oh, will you show me?”

“I shall only show you if you come into bed and get warm.”

“Come in, Emma. It’s lovely and warm, and Nurse Auntie Anne is so soft and cuddly ... Like my big panda,” Guy added for generous measure.

Emma wasn’t to be won so easily. “It isn’t Nurse and Auntie — and I’ve told you and
told
you, Guy!” And then to Ann, “Could I put your dressing-gown round me and sit under the eiderdown at the bottom of the bed?”

“Yes, anything to get you warm. You’re shivering.”

“Well, perhaps I am the tiniest bit cold,” the little girl admitted, and climbed on to the foot of the bed, while Ann reached forward and tucked the dressing-gown around the plump little figure.

When she had unpacked on the previous evening, Ann had laid the starched band and her box of pins on the dressing-chest, which in this small room she could easily reach by putting out her hand.

The two children watched her intently as she pinned the cap into its attractive butterfly shape and then perched it on the top of her head.

“Now, you see,” she said.

“It makes you look pretty,” said Guy, with precocious masculine appreciation of a nurse’s uniform.

“You
are
a nurse or you wouldn’t know how to do it as quickly as that,” Emma admitted. “When are you beginning to look after us instead of Miss Pollard?”

“I’ve no idea,” Ann said dryly. “Now it’s my turn for questions. Have you any pets? A puppy, or a kitten, or a tortoise or rabbits?”

They both fixed her with large, serious blue eyes. Emma as usual took it upon herself to explain. “No one likes animals. When we stayed with Auntie Mary — she’s too old to be a real auntie, but that’s what we were told to call her — when we stayed with her, she said it wasn’t hi — hi — hydrogen, I think. It means they have germs, and those are little creatures which bite you, Miss Pollard says...”

“Uncle Iain is a germ chaser,” Guy put in sleepily from his warm nest under the bedclothes. “He says—”

“Nana — I mean Nana Woods — doesn’t like animals,” interrupted Emma, determined as always to pursue the matter to a final conclusion. “She says it’s enough trouble looking after all the human beings at Fountains, without having any animals.”

Ann resolved that as soon as she was in charge of the children, she would get permission for them to have a kitten or a puppy, or even both.

She turned to Guy. “You were telling me something that your Uncle Iain had said,” she queried softly.

“I’ve forgotten now,” came the sleepy voice.

“Miss Pollard says that Uncle Iain is a heart-throb. What is a heart-throb?”

From the foot of the bed, Emma looked at Ann enquiringly.

“Something that Miss Pollard is perhaps more competent to speak about than I am,” returned Ann dryly, reflecting that the governess must be a complete idiot to talk so freely before young children as she apparently did. She must know that they would repeat at some time or other whatever they heard her say. She could imagine Iain Sherrarde’s look of icy disdain if the remark had come to his ears. Some of Miss Pollard’s indiscretions must have done so, for him to have spoken of getting rid of her.

That cold feeling of embarrassment which came to Ann every time she thought of him now lightened a little when she remembered that for her sake, so that she should not be overburdened, he had said last night that Miss Pollard must stay on.

Guy now threw off his sleepiness and sat up. “Heart-throb, heart-throb, what does it mean?” he shouted excitedly.

“I certainly don’t answer questions addressed to me in
that
tone of voice,” Ann returned quietly.

“You are funny,” Emma remarked reflectively from the foot of the bed. “You speak quietly when we shout. You don’t scream at us like Miss Pollard does.”

“I should hope not,” remarked Ann cheerfully. “Hush, Guy. Was that someone knocking at the door?”

It was and she called “Come in,” while the children, at a signal to each other, vanished out of sight under the bedclothes.

Averil Pollard, in her dressing-gown, stood in the doorway, a worried expression on her face. “I thought I heard...” she began uncertainly. “Miss Woods, have you seen the children? They aren’t in their beds and they are so fond of running away. If Mr. Sherrarde — oh, there you are, you little wretches! Come back to bed at once. I shall lock the door of the nursery, that’s what I shall do. You’ll see.”

Without any “by your leave” to Ann, she advanced into the room, flung up the eiderdown under which Emma had slid, and seizing her by the arm, pulled her roughly on to the floor.

“Careful,” Ann said warningly.

Emma set up an angry wail, and Guy leapt to life, flung the bedclothes away, scrambled across Ann's prone figure and began to punch the governess as, with a red face, she pulled Emma to her feet and tried to shake her into silence.

For a second or so Ann looked on in silent consternation. Then she leaned forward and dragged Guy back to the pillow end of the bed.

“Sit there and behave yourself, Guy,” she commanded. “Emma, please come here at once, and both of you stop shouting this moment.”

She had not addressed Miss Pollard, whose hands were still on the little girl’s shoulders and who was shouting as loudly as the children. But her clear, commanding voice had an effect on all of them, for there was a sudden silence.

“You’ll waken everybody in the house with all that noise, and it’s still quite early,” she went on pleasantly. “Miss Pollard, I suggest you go back to bed, and I’ll bring these two along to the nursery when I’m ready to get dressed.”

Averil Pollard stood back, her face sulky. “I want to get them ready for an early breakfast. They’d no business to come creeping down here. They’re not allowed to wander about in this part of the house, and they know it. I don’t think they should be encouraged in their disobedience.”

This was flinging the gauntlet down with a vengeance. Both children looked at Ann with lively interest. Her face remained calm. “I agree with you, Miss Pollard. I’ll bring them to the nursery in a little while.”

“I can take them myself,” Averil snapped.

Ann looked significantly at the pair, who with the acute perception of children had already realized that this new aunt of theirs was going to be victor in the encounter. Being opportunists, they had decided that they had better make the most of their remaining seconds of freedom, so they were scuffling together at the head of the bed.

“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 too 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.