Nurse Trent's Children (9 page)

Elvira, however, was not laughing. “You don’t understand. With the embroidery, no one
knew.
With the lipstick they’d have to know. I mean the
board
would know, Aunty Cathy.”

Cathy was thinking quickly of all the board members she had already met. Old Mr. Grant and Colonel Manning and Miss Marriott would have no objection, she was sure. The Reverend Mr. Flett would probably compliment Rita on her appearance, while his wife, if they happened to meet her, would undoubtedly join in the important purchase.

“
Of course they would know,” she said reasonably. “We were not intending trying to conceal it. So long as it is my expense and not the board’s I can’t see how it would matter. These days there could be no objection surely to a girl of almost sixteen occasionally wearing a discreet coat of lipstick.”

Elvira said coaxingly, “Maybe, but all the same, couldn’t you tell Rita only to put it
o
n when ... that
is...”

“No,” said Cathy firmly, “I couldn’t. I don’t intend making a clandestine thing of it, Elvira. All along I intended asking first.”

“I guessed that,” said Elvira gloomily. “You know whom you’ll ask, don’t you? The women members generally attend to the
girls
...
”

“Naturally.”

“And that will mean permission from Mrs. Dubois. Fayette Dubois is the final word among the women; in fact, she’s the final word with the entire board.”

“Well?
Well,
Elvira?”

Elvira did not answer. She inserted a sheet in the machine and treadled stolidly for a long line of hem. Her concentration was anything but encouraging, and with a sigh Cathy took up a pillow slip and began to patch.

Of course Mrs. Dubois won’t refuse permission,
she thought,
she’s only human. She mustn’t refuse it. It sounds trivial, but it’s really quite important. It’s important to Rita. It’s more than just a first lipstick, it’s in its way an issue.

“Elvira,” she said above the machine’s whirr, “Rita
asked
me if she could have this lipstick.”

“Oh, dear,” said Elvira, stopping abruptly. “
That’s
bad.”

That night they received the news that the boys would be arriving in the morning. The quarters were finished; the staff, who had been placed in other branches while the renovations were attended to, were contacted to start duty again at Redgates, and now it needed only the bus to pull onto the driveway and disgorge its noisy occupants and Little Families would be together again. Not together as Cathy—and Jeremy Malcolm—wanted them, but as close as the next building, and that at least, was something.
In a little while,
thought Cathy, climbing the stairs to acquaint the young Bannermans and Curtises that tomorrow they would have their brothers to play with,
in a little while, please Heaven, they’ll be nearer than the next building. They'll be as near as one roof can bring them, and that, surely, was what God intended when
He made that structure we call a family.
She recalled Jerry Malcolm’s fierce words and paused a moment, her hand on the banister that was well polished by years of trailing little fingers. “I believe the family is a structure,” he had said. “I believe that you can’t take away from a family without destruction.”

With a sudden warm flush she remembered he had said something else. He had said after he had spoken of the family structure. “That is what I shall expect
my
family to be.” All at once she was running up the
rest of the stairs.

The Bannerman twins and Brenda and Shirley Curtis were disappointingly phlegmatic over the impending family reunion.

“Pooh,” was Anne Bannerman’s brief but enlightening comment when Cathy announced, “Guess who’s coming tomorrow? Brother George!” She added, “And Tony will be here, too, Brenda and Shirley.”

“He’s not having a loan of my book,” declared Brenda.

“I’m going to pinch him,” said Shirley.

Cathy went out, wondering for a deflated moment if the Australian separation
was
unwise after all, if the original policy of Little Families
had
been unrealistic, as some people thought. She recalled how David Kennedy had warned her of this lackluster response in certain of the brothers and sisters. He, too, had felt that a family should be kept together irrespective of sex, but he had assured her that separation in some instances was no hardship. It seemed he was right with the Curtises and the Bannermans.

She made her way downstairs, feeling all at once lighter and brighter because David would be back tomorrow. Now that he was coming she realized how much she had missed him—his unfailing cheerfulness, his fund of resource, his charm with the children, his patient way of looking at things—yes, and she had missed him, too, simply for himself.

Now she would have someone to run to for advice; if she wanted to go out she could ask David to lend an eye to the girls; he could help organize the basketball, the swimming, do a dozen things she had found strenuous. On an impulse she ran outside and picked a large armful of dark blue delphiniums. These handsome soaring spires, she felt
,
were suitable for a man. It was dark, but the darker crowns of the flowers showed clearly in the moonlight. She borrowed some tall vases from the girls’ building and went across to the boys’ section, pushed the door open and pulled on the light.

Everything was in apple-pie order. She smiled ruefully, wondering how long it would stay like that. David would see it was kept neat and clean and masculinely shipshape, but he would see, too, it was a haven, not a lodging. He was that kind of a man.

She set some of the delphiniums in the hall, then filled the other vase and climbed the stairs, meaning to put them on the landing.

She switched on the upper light to assure herself that everything was as it should be, just as the lower door opened and someone came into the lobby.

Instead of stepping forward, momentarily startled, she stepped back. There was a door behind her, and impulsively she opened it and entered, still holding the vase in her hands. It was then she realized she was acting quite foolishly and decided to put the flowers down and go out and speak to whoever had come in.

She set down the vase carefully, but as she stood up a voice accosted her. It was deliberate and cold voice, and the words had a sharp edge to them.

“Have I interrupted something, housemother? Some message of the flowers or the like? Blue for true love, isn’t it? These, surely are
very
blue.”

He had crossed to the vase and was touching the petals with his lean sensitive fingers. Before he turned to her, Jeremy Malcolm regarded every detail of the room with narrowed eyes. “Everything to your liking, Aunty Cathy? It must be, mustn’t it? Uncle David arrives tomorrow.”

It was then that Cathy realized she had opened the door of the housefather’s room. In disgust at his interpretation of her gesture she made some small rejoinder and hurried down the stairs.

To her annoyance she found the doctor beside her as she crossed to the girls’ building. When they came to the big doors he stepped in front, opened one and allowed Cathy to enter first. He then closed the door behind them and followed her down the hall.

Elvira looked up from her sewing, and her face instantly creased into a smile. “Dr. Jerry, I didn’t know you were here.”

Cathy waited for the reply she felt sure he would make. He would explain coolly that he had seen the light in the boys’ section and crossed to investigate, only to find Miss Trent decorating Mr. Kennedy’s room with flowers.

There was a moment’s deliberation; then Dr. Malcolm answered, “
I
came to warn you that a special board meeting has been scheduled for tomorrow, Elvira. I thought you should be prepared.”

Elvira looked blank. “It’s not down on the date list.”

“It’s a special, as I just said. With Redgates’s two houses filled to capacity, we thought it wise to hold a roundtable conference at once. Everybody will be here.”

“Oh.” This time Elvira did not look blank—she looked cross. The doctor could not help but notice it.

“Come, now, Elvie, it’s not that bad.”

“Then it’s not good. Everything will have to be gone through in the morning, extra cakes made, and the children dressed up and not allowed to move a finger.”

“Elvira, you exaggerate.” Malcolm’s voice was teasing.

The little woman, however, was not to be bantered back to a smile, so the doctor said, “It won’t do the children harm to be on dress parade for once, or the house, either, for that matter. It happens in the army when the colonel pays a visit and in the navy when the admiral comes on board.”

“I suppose next you’ll be expecting me to teach them all to salute or say aye, aye, sir.”

“Just have Miss Trent here teach them the hornpipe,” laughed Dr. Malcolm. “She tells me she is interested in including dancing in their
w
eekly activities.”

Elvira remained
stony
, and Cathy hurriedly intervened with a question about Avery’s sheet-nibbling habit and Gwenda’s restlessness. He promised to look them over one day.

He declined Elvira’s rather apologetic offer of tea and left soon afterward.

Cathy heard the door close and turned and looked questioningly at Elvira.

“An extra meeting with all present means
she’ll
be here,” said Elvira gloomily. “She never misses a special, not her. Everything will have to be perfect, from Mrs. Ferguson’s afternoon tea to Christabel’s behavior. The children hate all the formality.”

“Need they be present?”

“They form a guard of honor.”

“Oh.” Cathy stood irresolute a while.

“And who,” she asked at length, “is the formidable ‘she,’ Elvira?”

You know.”

“Do I?”

“Fayette Dubois, of course,”

“Mrs. Dubois—then I can ask her about Rita’s lipstick.” Cathy’s voice was eager.

Elvira made a last desperate appeal. “Can’t you let Rita have it without any asking?”

“Elvie, we had that out before.”

“I suppose so.” Elvira slumped her plump shoulders.

“I’m off to bed, Aunty Cathy,” she said presently. “There’ll be a lot to attend to in the morning. If I had thought Dr. Jerry was going to surprise us with this I’d have taken my Saturday off tomorrow.”

She climbed the stairs, and as she did so Cathy noticed she carefully examined the banister for any trace of dirt.

Cathy followed her, thinking,
It must be important. Elvira never does that. The marks of little fingers are more important to Elvie than signs of dust or grime.

Cathy peeped into each dormitory, doubled the top of Avery’s sheet away from the slightly parted little pink mouth, tucked Gwenda in more tightly, looked gently on the sleeping Rita, then tiptoed to her own room. In a moment she was back. Going quietly to the smallest cot, she bent over and placed her lips on a ruffled head. The child murmured drowsily.

“Good night, Christabel,” Cathy said.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Cathy woke early t
he next morning to the distant whirr of an electric sweeper.
Elvira at it already,
she smiled wryly and hurriedly dressed.

She descended the stairs and found Elvira cleaning the hall. “Did I wake you, Aunty Cathy?”

“Yes, and I wasn’t pleased, Elvira. All this fuss
is absurd. Window dressing is the one thing we were warned against in London. We were told to be ourselves.”

Elvira looked sad. “I’d like us to be, too, but there are times when we can’t. Oh, I know you don’t believe me, but you’ll soon learn.”

“I hope I don’t. As I said, it’s quite ridiculous. Nonetheless, I suppose I’d better help you. Tell me what to do, Elvira.”

“The vases, I think. I’m not a good hand at them.”

Cathy nodded, took a basket and scissors and went outside. She went past the delphinium spikes from which last night she had plucked an armful of dark blue flowers. She recalled with heightened color Dr. Malcolm’s sarcastic words.

It was a beautiful morning. David Kennedy would see Redgates at its best. Although, as a general liaison officer, he had been attached to Little Families in every Australian state as well as every county in England, he had never yet visited the home at Burnley Hills. The sun was already making a checkered pattern on the smooth grass, and through the translucent air drifted a rain of late cassia blossoms, covering the ground with golden petals. She filled the basket with bronze and rust chrysanthemums and hurried indoors.

She had finished and placed them when it was time to get the children up for breakfast.

Cathy, remembering with disapproval how Elvira had told her they formed a guard of honor, said aloud hopefully, “Perhaps it will all be over before the girls are home from school.”