Nurse Linnet's Release (9 page)

CHAPTER
X
I

In the morning, when Linnet went in to draw back Diana’s curtains and give her her morning tea, Diana looked at her sleepily and then asked:

“Was that a car I heard stop in the lane last night?”

Linnet picked up her bed-jacket and put it about her shoulders, and then handed her the glass of mixed orange and lemon juice that accompanied the tea on the tray, and she answered quietly:

“A car did stop in the lane, yes.”

Diana handed back the glass.

“I thought perhaps it was someone coming to call, at rather a
late hour—some friend of my godfather’s, perhaps. But you didn’t have any callers?”

“No.”

Diana looked at her for a moment rather curiously, and then yawned and stretched herself.

“Ah, well, we’re very much off the beaten track here, I’m afraid, and I don’t suppose we shall be bothered with many visitors. I hope you aren’t going to be dull, Nurse. We haven’t even got a car, but if you want to go shopping at any time into Danby St. Peter you can always ring up and hire one. You’ll probably want a hair-do from time to time—so shall I, if it comes to that—and we’ll make some arrangement with a local garage.”

Later in the morning she insisted on getting up and sitting in the garden, and Linnet made her comfortable with cushions and rugs. Already the country air had brought a tinge of natural colour into her cheeks, and she admitted that she had had an excellent night. She looked well satisfied with herself, like a contented cat.

“I’m determined to get completely well again as quickly as I can,” she said, “and with that end in view I shall do everything you tell me and everything Adrian tells me as well.” (The Adrian dropping so naturally from her lips caused Linnet to look up in faint surprise.) “He’s a pet, isn’t he?” she murmured complacently. “I don’t mind confessing I’m going to miss his daily visits, but he’s promised to stay the night the next time he comes, and they’re putting him up at The Bull.”

“Oh?” Linnet murmured back.

Diana reached for the cigarettes on a little table beside her, and although Linnet was watching her and taking note of the fact that this was the first one that day, lay back and inhaled with obvious satisfaction. Her gaze wandered dreamily over the garden.

“Do
you
feel we’re going to be happy here, Nurse?”

“I can’t think how we could be anything else in such a delightful spot.”

“You love the country, don’t you?”

“I’m a country girl,” Linnet admitted, with her attractive, gentle smile.

Diana surveyed her suddenly with interest. Linnet was wearing a simple cotton dress, and she looked younger even than Diana, and definitely more unawakened. There was something eager and ardent about her mouth and eyes, but there was also a faint shadow of uncertainty—of perplexity and groping in her expression, that was more noticeable this morning than it had ever been. Diana studied her deliberately.

“Have you got a boy friend, Nurse? And how’s he going to get on while you’re here with me?”

“I
—
”

A delicate blush spread lightly under Linnet’s fair skin, and Diana smiled with amusement.

“Don’t tell me about him if you don’t want to,” she said. “But there’s something about you which tells me that you’re in the throes of some sort of an affair just now, and you’re not quite happy about it. Personally, I’d advise you to be most frightfully careful before you consider giving up your job in order to marry anyone. Marriage is for the few—at least, that’s the way I feel about it. And only marry when you’re quite, quite sure about the man.” She crushed out the end of her cigarette in an ash-tray, and then reached automatically for another, but Linnet checked her. She smiled ruefully. “Oh, all right—but it’s partly habit, you know!”

She nestled her head in her cushions and looked upwards at the blue sky across which little fleecy clouds were drifting lazily.

“I married when I was eighteen, but it was a silly thing to do. My husband was eighteen years older than I was, and he took me out to Rhodesia, and expected me to be content in a spot where there wasn’t even a club-house, and our nearest neighbour was miles away. After a time we fought like tigers, and I grew positively to loathe him.” The smile on her lips chilled Linnet’s blood. “It’s a ghastly thing when you have to live with a man as his wife and put up with his more-or-less undiluted society week in and week out
...
Only I’m afraid I wasn’t cut out to put up with it for long, and I found a way out. At least, I found a way to make things more bearable.”

Linnet’s eyes looked large and shocked as she watched her, and the smile which grew on Diana’s scarlet lips gradually chilled her still more.

“Unfortunately, however, I had to put up with jealousy—the worst kind! And jealousy becomes boring, as well as infuriating, after a time. I often wonder what would have happened if things
hadn’t ended the way they did—suddenly
...
!
”

Her hand started to shake suddenly as she once more groped for a cigarette.

“Just one more,” she pleaded. “I promise I’ll be good all the rest of the day if you’ll just let me have another one now! And I would like something to drink
...
Let’s have a sherry apiece, shall we? Or could you mix a cocktail? I believe there’s everything in that cupboard in the dining-room, and all we lack is ice, but we can put up with that. Be a pet, Nurse Kintyre, and see what you can produce!”

But Linnet shook her head very firmly.

“Dr. Shane Willoughby left instructions that you were to have a sherry before your lunch if you wanted it—but only if you particularly wanted it.” She decided not to mention a sherry before dinner. “But I can get you a nice long cool drink if you’d care for one? And if it wasn’t so near to lunch time I’d suggest coffee—”

“Coffee?” Diana looked faintly revolted. “I don’t want coffee, and I don’t want a long drink. And if you won’t let me have what I do want to drink, or even another cigarette, I’ll just sit here in the sunshine and sulk—or snooze, anyway,” with a rather petulant laugh nevertheless. She shut her eyes tightly and determinedly, as if she no longer had any desire for conversation with Linnet.

Linnet wandered away across the lawn. She had the feeling that Diana could, and would, prove extremely difficult if the mood descended on her, and knowing that she was away from the restrictions of the nursing-home, and there was no one but Linnet to hold her in check, she might in time try to take advantage of the situation if Linnet wasn’t very firm. Linnet decided that she would have to be very firm, and felt the beginnings of actual uneasiness stir in her.

After lunch Diana was once more tucked up in her bed, and Linnet found some sewing and took it down into the garden. She sat in the far corner under the oak tree, and she was putting fine stitches into a nightdress she was making for herself when Guy Monteith’s car came creeping along the lane, and as soon as he had passed through the white-painted gate he caught sight of her and came over.

He was looking, she thought, unusually fit—some of that haggard look seemed to have left him—and he was wearing light grey flannels and a dark blue blazer with a club badge, and a silk scarf knotted carelessly about his neck. He looked casual and countrified and completely at his ease, and also rather debonairly handsome in his dark, intense way, and Linnet felt suddenly excited as she looked up at him. He smiled and threw himself on the short grass at her feet.

“Don’t disturb yourself, my sweet—you look enchanting sitting there, in that blue thing.” She had changed into egg-shell blue linen, with a white belt and sandals, and the delicate colour emphasized her own delicacy. “I’m lucky to find you alone. Where’s the patient?”

Linnet looked warningly towards the house, but he continued to smile lazily as he threw himself back on his elbow.

“Don’t worry, darling, I’m not afraid of her! And it’s natural for even a distant cousin to come inquiring after the health of an invalid when she suddenly arrives in the neighbourhood. Have you told her we’re going to be married?”

“No, of course not, Guy
!
”

“Why ‘of course not’? We are, you know.” He looked up at her in a slightly amused fashion. “Tomorrow I’m going to London to buy you an enormous diamond ring that will make that slender third finger of yours look positively weighted by it. Unless you’d prefer a sapphire—?”

“Guy, we hardly know one another!”

“We know all it’s necessary to know! And as for the rest—well, we’ve all our lives before us to find that out! It’s exciting to think that there’s so much to find out, isn’t it?” looking at her under his thick black eyelashes in a way that secretly turned her bones to water. She actually felt herself begin to tremble a little.

“We may be quite unsuited to one another,” she managed to remark while she re-threaded her needle.

“I may be unsuited to you, but you’re all and more than I’ve ever dreamed about!” He reached out and lightly touched the peach-coloured nylon in her lap. “What is this?” he asked.

Linnet’s blush gave away the fact that she found the question embarrassing, and he laughed softly, caressingly.

“What an adorable small thing you are!” he exclaimed, softly. “And your blush is like the first faint rosy flush of sunrise when it comes stealing over a snowy mountain peak!” She felt as if his look was devouring her. “Linnet, I adore you
...
!
I want to kiss you so desperately at this moment that—”

“Please!” she begged.

He sighed, and lay back on the grass.

“Anyway, we’re going to be married soon,” he said. “You understand that? Certainly before I go back to Rhodesia—”

He could tell by Linnet’s look that she was watching someone approaching them over the grass, and he stood up gracefully to greet his cousin. Diana was looking perfectly composed and not even surprised in a heavy silk suit the colour of her spun-gold hair, and an undisturbed afternoon sleep having warmed the glow in her cheeks and brightened her eyes she was looking much more that attractive.

“So it is you, Guy!” she exclaimed. “I had an idea you came here last night.”

“Oh?” he murmured, and looked towards Linnet.

Diana also looked at Linnet, but the smile on her lips was as much amused as faintly disdainful.

“Oh, I know all about your stay in Aston House, and that red-headed and rather chatty Nu
r
se Blake told me you and Nurse Kintyre were running around together. And when we arrived here and I realized that you must be somewhere quite close—”

“You deduced that it wouldn’t be long before I was on the spot?” He was arranging the foot-rest of a garden chair for her, and Linnet placed cushions at her back, and then tucked in the end of a camel-hair rug. “But Nurse Kintyre and I are
not
running around together! We’re going to be married as a matter of fact.”

“You’re—
what?”
For an instant
Linnet was sure that complete amazement claimed her patient, and her lovely lips even dropped a little apart, as if she knew she was listening to something completely fantastic—even arrant nonsense. And then in another flash her composure had returned to her, and she looked at Linnet through narrowed, strangely smiling eyes.

“Dear me, Nurse Kintyre!” she murmured. “I must congratulate you on a conquest quite spectacular! I’ve never known Guy to succumb before—not to the extent of wishing to marry anyone! It never even occurred to me that he was the marrying kind! I don’t think any of his friends would find it easy to believe that he is seriously contemplating running his head into a noose we’ve often heard him deride
...
What is the secret charm you possess? Are you a ‘dangerous woman’ where men are concerned?”

Linnet felt herself flushing brilliantly, but Guy’s face looked suddenly harsh.

“Nurse Kintyre is the sort of woman I can’t imagine any man not wanting to marry if he had the opportunity,” he cut in shortly; “and,” he added, “I intend to marry her very soon!”

“Which means you’ll be taking her away from me?” Diana enquired, looking mildly disturbed.

But Linnet reassured her at once, feeling annoyed with Guy for making this sudden announcement, and there was reproach in the sideways glance she sent him.

“Of course I won’t be leaving you, Mrs. Carey—not while you want me. I have no intention of—I mean,
I shall certainly remain with you until you are well. Dr. Shane Willoughby knows that.

Mrs. Barnes was advancing across the lawn with a tea-tray, and Diana murmured:

“Ah, Dr. Shane Willoughby
...
!
Has
he
any idea of this romantic attachment?”

“It’s scarcely any concern of Shane Willoughby’s,” Guy informed her, in a careless tone, and flashed his crooked smile upwards at the housekeeper as he helped himself to a cucumber sandwich. “Linnet is a nurse, not a slave to anyone.” Then he lay back and looked up at the front of the cottage. “Nice little place this,” he remarked. “Sir Paul finds it useful for week-ends, doesn’t he? I remember coming along here once for a cocktail party he decided to throw
...
”

“Was it too exciting for you?” Diana inquired, with obvious mockery.

He flashed back at her a look which also contained a good deal of rather brittle mockery.

“No, it was too painfully correct.” He helped himself to another sandwich, while Linnet poured out the tea. “If you’re going to be here for some time,” he said, “I’ll have to offer to drive you both about, and you must come over to Lady’s Mead and stay for a week-end. In any case, I’ve already arranged for Linnet to do that. My mother is most anxious to meet her.”