A Nurse's Duty (21 page)

‘It’s a good thing it’s your night off the night after tomorrow,’ declared Annie. ‘It’s not natural for folk to work all night and sleep during the day. It’ll make a nice change for you to be free on a Saturday. It’s better than your usual Friday at least.’

It was the time of day Annie enjoyed the most, the half-hour before Karen had to go on duty. It was a chance to talk except that lately Karen had had much less to say for herself. She seemed to have something on her mind.

‘There’s nothing bothering you, is there, Karen?’

The question made her glance up, startled. She had been staring at her teacup thinking of Patrick. Why had he acted as he had? He loved her, she was sure of that, he couldn’t have made it any more plain. And yet he had acted as though he hated her afterwards. She could not rid herself of the memory of him as he came down the stairs that night; he had acted as though he couldn’t bear even to look at her. She went over and over the scene in her mind. Feeling wretched, she forced herself to reply to Annie.

‘No, don’t worry so much about me,’ she said, making a deliberate effort to lighten her mood. ‘As you say, I’m ready for my night off. And the weather has been so wet and dreary. I think we are all waiting for the spring.’ The phrase sounded trite in her ears.

‘Look, I’m going into Romford on Saturday, why don’t you come with me? We can look round the market and have a spot of lunch, what do you say? If I feed the animals before we go, they’ll be all right until tea-time. What do you think?’

‘Oh, I think I’d rather just spend a lazy day at home, Annie. You don’t mind, do you? I’ve letters to write and I want to sort out my wardrobe. But you stay as long as you like. I tell you what, I can lock up the hens and feed the pigs then you could go to the moving pictures, what about that?’

Annie was disappointed and it showed on her face. ‘Well, if you don’t want to go with me …’ she muttered, and disappeared into the scullery.

Karen gazed after, knowing she was upset. But her own misery was so intense it excluded other feelings. All she wanted to do was hide away at home, she felt so depressed and tired. Sighing, she went back up to her room to prepare for work. Only one more night after this one. With any luck she would get through to Saturday without encountering Patrick, she told herself, yet she longed to see him.

The unusually long-lasting lull between batches of new patients
was
over, she discovered, as she entered the old house. There was an air of bustling activity about the place though the hall was deserted. Karen climbed the stairs to Matron’s office to take the day report.

‘Good evening, Sister. Fifteen new patients today, amputees mostly. I’ve put them in the small wards so they can have some peace and quiet.’

The small two-bedded wards, thought Karen numbly. If they had only arrived five days earlier, then there would have been no place in the hospital for her to come together with Patrick and she wouldn’t be carrying this great lump of misery around with her now. But even as she walked over to the desk and took the book from Matron, she was berating herself for thinking such a thing. What were her troubles compared to those of the wounded?

‘They are a little later than usual coming to us, casualties from the November campaign at Cambrai,’ Matron was saying. ‘All of them are recovering nicely, so you shouldn’t have much trouble with them.’

As Karen entered the first of the two-bedded wards with her medicine tray, she was struck by the cheerfulness of the two soldiers lying there, even though one had only one arm and the other’s leg had been amputated below the knee. Nick was sitting on a hard chair between the two beds but he sprang to his feet when he saw Karen.

‘Hello, Sister,’ he said, sounding quite animated, the depression following the death of Private O’Donnel lifted now. ‘I didn’t know you were back. We’ve been talking. John here says that now the Americans are coming over, none of us will have to go back, not never. There’s thousands and thousands of Yanks, you know, millions. The war will be over before we know it.’

‘Well, I daresay John knows what he is talking about,’ she answered him as she put the tray down on an elegant inlaid occasional table, probably dating from the Regency period and
left
here by the owners of Greenfields. ‘Now … Private Jenkins. That’s you, John, I take it?’

He nodded and pulled a wry face as she measured out a dose of Syrup of Ferrum, and handed it to him. ‘Do I have to, Sister? I feel fine, really I do.’

‘You’ve lost a lot of blood. Now don’t be such a baby,’ she said severely.

‘Well, can I have a black bullet for after?’

Karen cast him an exasperated glance and saw he was grinning impishly, obviously ragging her.

‘Just take your medicine, Private Jenkins,’ she said, trying to sound like Matron.

‘Well, orders is orders,’ he replied dolefully and downed the thick treacly stuff. Groaning, he clutched his stomach theatrically with his one hand.

‘I’ll fetch you your cocoa, that’ll take away the taste,’ said Nick sympathetically and hurried from the room.

‘I won’t have him running about after you two always, mind,’ declared Karen as she handed the other soldier his dose, ‘tomorrow you will wait for the trolley coming round like everyone else.’

Private Jenkins grinned at her as she left the room but his grin faded as he glanced over at his companion. ‘A nice little billet we’ve landed in, mate,’ he said. ‘Nothing like a pretty nurse or two about the place, is there, Tommy? A better tonic than that bloody awful syrup.’

‘You’re right there,’ Tommy nodded. ‘But then, any billet’s better than the one we had in Cambrai. It’s almost worth having to learn to walk with a peg leg to get away from that hell-hole.’

In the next ward, Karen heard the conversation through the thin wood of the partition as she measured out a dose of the medicine for the occupant of the bed where she and Patrick … No, she wasn’t going to think about that, not now. She deliberately began
to
consider the progress of the war. Was it true that the arrival of the Americans would be enough to tip the balance in favour of the allies? Fervently, she hoped so. The fact that Joe was still over there, in ‘that hell-hole’ as Tommy described it so graphically, was a constant worry in the back of her mind.

Karen was lying on the sofa before the fire in Annie’s cosy parlour. The house was quiet. It was Saturday and Annie had gone to Romford so Karen had the house to herself. She couldn’t even hear the ticking of the kitchen clock from where she lay. She felt warm and content as she drifted off to sleep. Her agony over Patrick was less dominant in her thoughts though still there, hovering in the background.

Her dreams were of home. She was sitting in the front room of the house in Morton Main with Dave. They were on the horsehair settee and Dave had his arm around her waist and was whispering in her ear.

‘I’ll send for you, Karen. I will, I promise I will,’ he was whispering, and she was nodding her head. ‘I won’t desert you, Karen,’ he went on, ‘I swear I won’t.’ But now it wasn’t Dave, it was Patrick.

She was abruptly anxious and tried to look up at his face but he held her head against his shoulder so she couldn’t move. She struggled to pull away from him but his arms tightened round her and she couldn’t move. Panic rose in her so that in the end she was fighting to get away and he let her go. She jumped up and ran to the door where she turned to see him sitting with his legs crossed and his arms resting along the wooden frame of the back of Mam’s settee, tapping on the wood with his fingertips, tap, tap, tap, tap.

‘You’re a frigid bitch,’ he said pleasantly, as though he was complimenting her. ‘No wonder you can’t keep a man once he finds out you’re no good in bed.’ And his fingers tapped, maddeningly, on and on.

Karen sat up with a start, disorientated until she realized she was in the front room all right, but this was Annie’s front room, the parlour, two hundred and more miles from Morton, and someone was knocking at the door.

‘Karen? I’m sorry if I startled you. I knocked but there was no answer and the door was open –’

‘Patrick!’

She started up to go to him as he stood uncertainly in the doorway, love and hope leaping within her and shining from her eyes. But he didn’t hold out his arms to her, just stood woodenly in the doorway, and she stopped, elation fading a little though not altogether. For surely he had come to her because he loved her? He had been wanting her as much as she had been needing him, else why had he come? She gazed into his eyes, trying to read the emotions she saw there. His grey eyes were deepened now almost to blue. There was such an appeal in their depths, she knew it. He did love her, he did!

‘Karen, I … we have to talk about this,’ he said at last, his voice husky.

‘Yes.’

She put out her hands to him and drew him into the room. Closing the door behind him, she moved closer to him, holding up her face for his kiss. And he stepped back.

‘Karen, I have to explain to you, show you how impossible this is. I’m sorry, Karen. Oh, so sorry. My dear, it should not have happened, I should not have let it happen, it was all my fault. My life is dedicated to –’ But she put her fingers to his lips and hushed him before he could say any more. She wasn’t going to listen to him.

Karen held on to his hand and pulled him further into the parlour. She heard what he was saying but refused to acknowledge it. He was making a mistake but she wouldn’t let him reject her. He would regret it all his life and she wouldn’t let him make such
a
grievous error. For he loved her, she was certain of it, she had seen it in his eyes. He couldn’t hide it. He was a man before he was a priest. A man in love with her as she was in love with him. She wasn’t going to give him up to anyone or anything, she would not. She felt strong and filled with the power her love gave her and she would win him, she surely would.

‘Whisht, whisht,’ she murmured, and somehow they were standing before the settee and one of her hands slid up around the nape of his neck to the crisp, short hairs there and her body was close against his as she drew him down with her. Her lips were clinging to his and she was guiding his fingers into her hidden places and somehow they had left the settee and were lying on the soft rug before the fire and then there was nothing and no one in the world but the two of them.

They were lost in a whirl of sensation, deliriously heady. The excitement was mounting, thrilling every nerve in her body, and she knew it was the same for him for they were one now, joined forever. Exultant release washed over them like a spring tide and they sank into it, pillowed by it. Then a languor overtook the wave, a sweet, heavy, slumbrous languor, and then they were still.

It was the kitchen clock chiming four which woke Karen. Patrick’s head was on her shoulder and the floor was hard through the thin covering of the rug so that her hand and arm were pricking with pins and needles. But that was nothing, she wouldn’t have moved to ease her position for anything. The fire had burned low but there was still sufficient life in it to bathe them in a warm glow. Or was it all coming from within her? she wondered lazily. She was filled with a triumphal contentment. She had won, she was sure she had won, Patrick was hers.

He turned on to his back, easing the pressure on her shoulder, and a shaft of pain shot up her arm, making her wince. Patrick stirred and opened his eyes and she smiled at him, full of her love.

‘Hallo,’ she said.

‘Hallo, my love,’ he answered, and bent his head the small distance it needed to be able to kiss her on the nose. ‘I never thought it would be like this,’ he went on softly, ‘so beautiful. I love you, Karen. God help me, I do.’

‘And I love you. Oh, Patrick, we’ll be so happy together, you’ll see, how could it be wrong? We were meant to be together. It’s the most natural thing in the world, can’t you just feel it? Oh, Patrick, I’m so happy.’

A shadow crossed his face and he raised himself on his elbow and leaned over her. He gazed at her as though imprinting her image on his brain.

‘What is it?’ she asked.

He shook his head. ‘Oh, Karen,’ he began, but stopped when he heard the squeak of the front gate opening. ‘Someone is coming,’ he went on, his tone changing completely. Rising to his feet, he adjusted his clothing, for in their haste to come together they hadn’t taken the time to undress fully. Karen too was on her feet, smoothing down her dress, tying the tapes of her drawers. But she was smiling indulgently.

‘It’s only Annie,’ she said softly. ‘She’s been to Romford for the day. It’ll be all right, you’ll see. She will understand when we tell her about us.’

‘No! No, we can’t tell her. Don’t you see, we can’t?’

Karen was startled out of the haze of happiness which had enveloped her and stared at him, seeking an explanation for his vehemence.

‘But why? I thought –’

‘Sit down, Karen, for goodness’ sake. Sit down, please. We must pretend nothing has happened. Please, for my sake, Karen. I can’t have any of this getting back to the presbytery.’

Dimly, she heard the back door of the cottage open and Annie’s cheerful voice.

‘Karen? Where are you, love? I’ve had a lovely time. I bought
a
dress length of artificial silk on the market, a proper snip it was.’

Karen and Patrick stood facing each other. She could hear Annie perfectly well, a part of her mind could even respond to her friend. She opened her mouth to answer and Patrick’s eyes widened in entreaty. Karen sat down abruptly and smoothed her hair back from her face with quick, nervous fingers. Patrick sat too, in the chair furthest away from her, sitting back and folding his hands in his lap, crossing his legs away from her. In the second before Annie opened the door Karen darted a glance at him and quickly away for she couldn’t bear to see his face so set and white, almost like a stranger’s.

‘Karen? Why didn’t you call? Were you asleep?’ Annie came into the room but stopped as she saw Patrick. ‘Oh, I didn’t realize you had a visitor. I’m sorry, Karen. How are you, Father Murphy? Those poor boys up at Greenfields still keeping you busy, I suppose?’