Winter of Change & A Matter of Chance
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Betty Neels
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CHAPTER ONE
SISTER THOMPSON made her slow impressive way down Women’s Surgical, bidding her patients a majestic good morning as she went, her sharp eyes behind their glasses noticing every small defect in the perfection she demanded on her ward—and that applied not only to the nursing and care of the ladies lying on either side of her, but also to the exact position of the water jugs on the lockers, the correct disposal of dressing gowns, the perfection of the bedspreads and the symmetry of the pillows. The nurses who worked for her held her in hearty dislike, and when posted to her ward quickly learned the habit of melting away out of her sight whenever their duties permitted. Something which Mary Jane Pettigrew, her recently appointed staff nurse, was, at that particular time, quite unable to do. She watched her superior’s slow, inevitable progress with a wary eye as she changed the dressing on Miss Blake’s septic finger; she had no hope of getting it done before Sister Thompson arrived, for Miss Blake was old and shaky and couldn’t keep her hand still for more than ten seconds at a time. Mary Jane, watching Nurse Wells and Nurse Simpson disappear, one into the sluice room, the other into the bathrooms at the end of the ward, wondered how long it would be before they were discovered—in the meantime, perhaps she could sweeten Sister Thompson’s temper.
She fastened the dressing neatly and wished her superior a cheerful good morning which that good lady didn’t bother to answer, instead she said in an arbitrary manner: ‘Staff Nurse Pettigrew, you’ve been on this ward for two weeks and not only do you fail to maintain discipline amongst the nurses; you seem quite incapable of keeping the ward tidy. There are three pillows—and Miss Trump’s top blanket, also Mrs Pratt’s water jug is in the wrong place…’
Mary Jane tucked her scissors away in her pocket and picked up the dressing tray. She said with calm, ‘Mrs Pratt can’t reach it unless we put it on that side of her locker, Sister, and Miss Trump was cold, so I unfolded her blanket. May the nurses go to coffee?’
Sister Thompson cast her a look of dislike. ‘Yes—and see that they’re back before Mr Cripps’ round.’ She turned on her heel and went back up the ward and into her office, to appear five minutes later with the information that Mary Jane was to present herself to the Chief Nursing Officer at once, ‘and,’ added Sister Thompson, ‘I suggest that you take your coffee break at the same time, otherwise you will be late for the round.’
Which meant that unless the interview was to be a split-second, monosyllabic affair, there would be no coffee. Mary Jane skimmed down the ward, making a beeline for the staff cloakroom. Whatever Sister Thompson might say, she was going to take a few minutes off in order to tidy her person. The room was small, nothing more than a glorified cupboard, and in order to see her face in the small mirror she was forced to rise on to her toes, for she was a small girl, only a little over five feet, with delicate bones and a tiny waist. She took one look at her reflection now, uttered a sigh and whipped off her cap so that she might smooth her honey-brown hair, fine and straight and worn in an old-fashioned bun on the top of her head. The face which looked back at her was pleasant but by no means pretty; only her eyes, soft and dark, were fine under their thin silky arched brows, but her nose was too short above a wide mouth and although her teeth were excellent they tended to be what she herself described as rabbity. She rearranged her cap to her satisfaction, pinned her apron tidily and started on her journey to the office.
Her way took her through a maze of corridors, dark passages and a variety of staircases, for Pope’s Hospital was old, its ancient beginnings circumvented by more modern additions, necessitating a conglomeration of connecting passages. But Mary Jane, her thoughts busy, trod them unhesitatingly, having lived with them for more than three years. She had no idea why she was wanted, but while she was in the office it might be a good idea to mention that she wasn’t happy on Women’s Surgical. She had been aware, when she took the post, that it would be no bed of roses; Sister Thompson was notorious for her ill-temper and pernickety ways, but Mary Jane, recently State Registered, had felt capable of moving mountains… She would, she decided as she sped down a stone-flagged passage with no apparent ending, give in her notice at the end of the month and in the meantime start looking for another job. The thought of leaving Pope’s was vaguely worrying, as she had come to regard it as her home, for indeed she had no home in the accepted sense. She had been an orphan from an early age, brought up, if one could call it that, by her grandfather, a retired Army colonel, who lived in a secluded house near Keswick and seldom left it. She had spent her holidays there all the while she was at the expensive boarding school to which he had sent her, and she had sensed his relief when she had told him, on leaving that admirable institution, that she wished to go to London and train to be a nurse, and in the three years or more in which she had been at Pope’s she had gone to see him only once each year, not wishing to upset his way of living, knowing that even during the month of her visit he found her youthful company a little tiresome.
Not that he didn’t love her in his own reserved, elderly fashion, just as she loved him, and would have loved him even more had he encouraged her to do so. As it was she accepted their relationship with good sense because she was a sensible girl, aware too that she would probably miss a good deal of the fun of life because she would need to work for the rest of it; even at the youthful age of twenty-two she had discovered that men, for the most part, liked good looks and failing that, a girl with a sound financial background, and she had neither, for although her grandfather lived comfortably enough, she had formed the opinion over the years that his possessions would go to some distant cousin she had never seen, who lived in Canada. True, old Colonel Pettigrew had educated her, and very well too, provided her with the right clothes and given her handsome presents at Christmas and on her birthday, but once she had started her training as a nurse, he had never once offered to help her financially—not that she needed it, for she had the good sense to keep within her salary and although she liked expensive clothes she bought them only when she saved enough to buy them. Her one extravagance was her little car, a present from her grandfather on her twenty-first birthday; it was a Mini and she loved it, and despite her fragile appearance, she drove it well.
The office door was firmly closed when she reached it and when she knocked she was bidden to enter at once the outer room, guarded by two office Sisters, immersed in paper work, one of whom paused long enough to wave Mary Jane to a chair before burying herself in the litter of papers on her desk. Mary Jane perched on the edge of a stool, watching her two companions, feeling sorry for them; they must have started out with a desire to nurse the sick, and look where they were now—stuck behind desks all day, separated from the patients by piles of statistics and forms, something she would avoid at all costs, she told herself, and was interrupted in her thoughts by the buzzer sounding its summons.
The Chief Nursing Officer was quite young, barely forty, with a twinkling pair of eyes, a nice-looking face and beautifully arranged hair under her muslin cap. She smiled at Mary Jane as she went in.
‘Sit down, Staff Nurse,’ she invited. ‘There’s something I have to tell you.’
‘Oh lord, the sack!’ thought Mary Jane. ‘Old Thompson’s been complaining…’ She was deep in speculation as to what she had done wrong when she was recalled to her surroundings by her companion’s pleasant voice.
‘It concerns your grandfather, Nurse Pettigrew. His housekeeper telephoned a short time ago. He isn’t very well and has asked for you to go to his home in order to look after him. Naturally you will wish to do so, although I’ve been asked to stress the fact that there’s no’—she paused—‘no cause for alarm, at least for the moment. I believe your grandfather is an old man?’
Mary Jane nodded. ‘Eighty-two,’ she said in her rather soft voice, ‘but he’s very tough. May I go at once, please?’
‘As soon as you wish. I’ll telephone Sister Thompson so that there’s no need for you to go back to the ward. Perhaps when you get to your grandfather’s, you’ll let me know how things are.’
She was dismissed. She made her way rapidly to the Nurses’ Home, thankful that she wouldn’t have to face Sister Thompson, her mind already busy with the details of her journey. It was full autumn, it would be cold in Cumbria, so she would take warm clothes but as few as possible—she could pack a case in a few minutes. She was busy doing that when her bedroom door was flung open and her dearest friend, Janet Moore, came in. ‘There’s a rumour,’ she began, ‘someone overheard that you’d been sent to the Office.’ Her eyes lighted on the little pile of clothes on the bed. ‘Mary Jane, you’ve never been…no, of course not, you’ve never done anything really wicked in your life. What’s up?’
Mary Jane told her as she squeezed the last sweater into her case, shut the lid and started to tear off her uniform. She was in slacks and a heavy woolly by the time she had finished, and without bothering to do more than smooth her hair, tied a bright scarf over it, pushed impatient feet into sensible shoes, caught up her handbag and the case and made for the door, begging her friend to see to her laundry for her as she went. ‘See you,’ she said briefly, and Janet called after her:
‘You’re not going now—this very minute? It’s miles away—it’ll be dark…’
‘It’s ten o’clock,’ Mary Jane informed her as she made off down the corridor, ‘and it’s two hundred and ninety miles—besides, I know the way.’
It seemed to take a long time to get out of London, but once she was clear of the suburbs and had got on to the A1, she put a small, determined foot down on the accelerator, keeping the little car going at a steady fifty-five, and when the opportunity occurred, going a good deal faster than that.
Just south of Newark she stopped for coffee and a sandwich and then again when she turned off the A1 at Leeming to cross the Yorkshire fells to Kendal. The road was a lonely one, but she knew it well, and although the short autumn afternoon was already dimming around her, she welcomed its solitude after the rush and bustle of London. At Kendal she stopped briefly before taking the road which ran through Ambleside and on to Keswick. The day was closing in on her now, the mountains around blotting out the last of a watery sun, but she hardly noticed them. At any other time she would have stopped to admire the view, but now she scarcely noticed them, for her thoughts were wholly of her grandfather. The last few miles of the long journey seemed endless, and she heaved a sigh of relief as she wove the car through Keswick’s narrow streets and out again on to the road climbing to Cockermouth. Keswick was quickly left behind; she was back in open country again and once she had gone through Thronthwaite she slowed the car. She was almost there, for now the road ran alongside the lake with the mountains crowding down to it on one side, tree-covered and dark, shutting out the last of the light, and there was only an odd cottage or two now and scattered along the faint gleam of the water, larger houses, well away from each other. The road curved away from the lake and then returned and there, between it and the water, was her grandfather’s house.
It stood on a spit of land running out into the lake, its garden merging into the grass alongside the quiet water. It was of a comfortable size, built of grey stone and in a style much favoured at the beginning of the nineteenth century, its arched windows fitted with leaded panes, its wrought-iron work a little too elaborate and a turret or two ornamenting its many-gabled roof. All the same it presented a pleasing enough picture to Mary Jane as she turned the car carefully into the short drive and stopped outside the front porch. Its door stood open and the woman standing there came to meet her with obvious relief.
‘Mrs Body, how lovely to see you! I came as quickly as I could—how’s Grandfather?’
Mrs Body was pleasant and middle-aged and housekeeper to the old Colonel for the last twenty years or more. She took Mary Jane’s hand and said kindly, ‘There, Miss Mary Jane, if it isn’t good to see you, I must say. Your grandfather’s not too bad—a heart attack, as you know, but the doctor’s coming this evening and he’ll tell you all about it. But now come in and have tea, for you’ll be famished, I’ll be bound.’
She led the way indoors as she spoke, into the dim, roomy hall. ‘You go up and see the Colonel, he’s that anxious for you to get here—and I’ll get the tea on the table.’
Mary Jane nodded and smiled and ran swiftly up the uncarpeted staircase, past the portraits of her ancestors and on to the landing, to tap on a door in its centre. The room she was bidden to enter was large and rather over-full of ponderous furniture, but cheerful enough by reason of the bright fire burning in the grate and the lamps on either side of the bed.
The Colonel lay propped up with pillows, an old man with a rugged face which, to Mary Jane’s discerning eye, had become very thin. He said now in a thin thread of a voice, ‘Hullo, child—how long did it take you this time?’ and she smiled as she bent to kiss him; ever since he had given her the car, he had made the same joke about the time it took her to drive up from London. She told him now, her head a little on one side as she studied him. She loved him very much and he was an ill old man, but none of her thoughts showed on her calm, unremarkable features. She sat down close to the bed and talked for a little while in her pretty voice, then got up to go to her tea, telling him that she would be back later.
‘Yes, my dear, do that. I daresay Morris will be here by then, he knows all about me.’ He added wistfully, ‘You’ll stay, Mary Jane?’
She retraced her steps to his bed. ‘Of course, Grandfather. I’ve no intention of going back until you’re well again—I’ve got unlimited leave from Pope’s,’ she grinned engagingly at him, ‘and you know how much I love being here in the autumn.’
Tea was a substantial meal; a huge plate of bacon and eggs, scones, home-made bread and a large cake, as well as a variety of jams and a dish of cream. Mary Jane, who was hungry, did justice to everything on the table while Mrs Body, convinced that she had been half starved in hospital, hovered round, urging her to make a good meal.
She did her best, asking questions while she ate, but Mrs Body’s answers were vague, so it was with thankfulness that she went to meet the doctor when he rang the bell. She had known him since she was a little girl and held him in great affection, as he did her. He gave her an affectionate kiss now, saying, ‘I knew you would come at once, my dear. You know your grandfather’s very ill?’
They walked back to the sitting room and sat down. ‘Yes,’ said Mary Jane. ‘I’ll nurse him, of course.’
‘Yes, child, I know you will, but that won’t be for long. He’ll rally for a few days, perhaps longer, but he’s not going to recover. He was most anxious that you should come.’
‘I’ll stay as long as I can do anything to help, Uncle Bob—who’s been looking after him?’
‘Mrs Body and the district nurse, but he wanted you—there’s something he wishes to talk to you about. I suggest you let him do that tomorrow morning when he’s well rested.’ He smiled at her. ‘How’s hospital?’
She told him briefly about Sister Thompson. ‘It’s not turning out quite as I expected, perhaps I’m not cut out to make a nurse…’
He patted her shoulder. ‘Nonsense, there’s nothing wrong with you, Mary Jane. I should start looking for another job and leave as soon as you can—at least…’ He paused and she waited for him to finish, but he only sat there looking thoughtful and presently said: ‘Well, I’ll go and take a look—you’ll be around when I come downstairs?’
He went away, and Mary Jane went along to the kitchen and spent some time helping Mrs Body and catching up on the local news until Doctor Morris reappeared. In the hall he said briefly: ‘He’s fighting a losing battle, I’m afraid,’ then went on to give her his instructions, ‘and I’ll be in some time tomorrow morning,’ he concluded.
There was a dressing room next to the Colonel’s room. Mary Jane, who usually slept in one of the little rooms, moved her things into it, had a brief chat with her grandfather, settled him for the night and went down to the kitchen where the faithful Mrs Body was waiting with cocoa. They sat at the table, drinking it, with Major, the Colonel’s middle-aged dog, sitting at their feet, and discussed the small problems confronting them. Mary Jane finished her cocoa and put down her cup. ‘Well, now I’m here,’ she said in her sensible way, ‘you must have some time to yourself—these last few days must have been very tiring for you. If I’d known, I’d have come sooner.’
Mrs Body shook her head. ‘Your grandfather wouldn’t hear of it, not at first, but when Doctor Morris told him—he couldn’t get you here fast enough,’ she concluded, and sighed. ‘All the same, I’ll admit I’ll be glad of an hour or so to myself. Lily comes up each morning as she always does, she’s a good girl, and now you’re here, I could get away for a bit.’
Mary Jane agreed. ‘Supposing you take the Mini for a couple of hours each day? You could go to Keswick or Cockermouth if you want to do some shopping. I’ll be quite all right here—I can go for a walk when you get back.’
The housekeeper gave her a grateful smile. ‘That’s kind of you, Miss Mary Jane, I’d like that. I want my hair done and one thing and another—you don’t mind me using the Mini?’
‘Heavens, no. Now I think I’ll go to bed, it’s been a long day. Will you be all right? I’ll be in the dressing room and I’ve fixed Grandfather’s bell and I shall leave the door open—besides, he’s had a sedative. You will sleep? or shall I bring you something?’
‘Bless you, child, I’ve never taken any of those nasty pills yet, and don’t intend to. I’ll sleep like a baby.’
It was a bright, clear morning when Mary Jane woke the next morning and her grandfather was still sleeping; he had wakened once in the small hours and she had gone and sat with him for an hour until he dozed off again; now he would probably sleep for another hour or more. She put on slacks and a sweater, tied her hair back and went downstairs. Mrs Body was already up, so they drank their early morning tea together and then Mary Jane took Major into the garden and across the grass to the lake’s edge. The water was calm and as smooth as silk, the mountains reflected in it so that it took on their colour, grey and green. Across the lake Skiddaw loomed above the other peaks, the sun lending it a bronze covering for its granite slopes.
Mary Jane looked about her with pleasure as she threw sticks for Major, a pleasure tinged with sadness because the Colonel was ill, and although he was an old man, and didn’t, she suspected, mind dying, she would miss him very much. He had been all the family she had known; now she would be alone, save for the cousin in Canada. She had never met him and her grandfather seldom mentioned him. She supposed that after her grandfather died, this cousin would inherit the house and whatever went with it. She knew nothing of the Colonel’s affairs; he had encouraged her to earn her own living when she had left school and she had always imagined that he had done so because he couldn’t afford to keep her idle at home, for although the house was a comfortable one and well furnished and there was no evidence of poverty, common sense told her that the old man and his housekeeper could live economically enough, whereas if she lived with them, she would need clothes and pocket money and holidays… She went back into the house, and after a reassuring peep at the Colonel, went to eat her breakfast.
Mrs Body left soon after Lily arrived and Mary Jane went upstairs to make her grandfather comfortable for the day. He seemed better, even demanding his razor so that he might shave himself, a request which she refused in no uncertain manner. Indeed, she fetched the old-fashioned cut-throat razor which he always used, and wielded it herself without a qualm, an action which caused him to ask her somewhat testily exactly what kind of work she did in hospital. There seemed no point in going too deeply into this; she fetched the post, opened his letters for him, and when he had read them, offered to read The Times to him. Perhaps it was her gentle voice, perhaps it was the splendid sports news, one or other of them sent him off into a sound sleep. She put the bell by his hand and went downstairs. It was barely eleven o’clock, Mrs Body wouldn’t be back until the afternoon, Lily was bustling around the sitting room—Mary Jane went into the garden, round to the front of the house where she would be able to hear her grandfather’s bell; there was a lot of weeding which needed doing in the rose beds which bordered the drive.
She had been hard at it for fifteen minutes or so when she became aware that a car had stopped before the gate, and when she looked round she saw that it was a very splendid car—a Rolls-Royce Corniche convertible, the sober grey of its coachwork gleaming against the green of the firs bordering the road behind it. Its driver allowed the engine to idle silently while he looked at Mary Jane, who, quite unable to recognise the car or its occupant, advanced to the gate, tossing back her mousey hair as she did so. ‘Are you lost?’ she wanted to know. ‘Cockermouth is only…’
‘Thank you, but no, I am not lost,’ said the man. ‘This is Colonel Pettigrew’s house.’ It was, she realised, a statement, not an enquiry.
She planted her fork in between the roses, dusted off her grubby hands and advanced a few steps. ‘Yes, it is.’ She eyed him carefully; she had never seen him before and indeed, she wouldn’t have forgotten him easily if she had, for he was a handsome man, not so very young any more, but the grey hair at his temple served to emphasise the intense blackness of the rest, and his eyes were as dark as his hair, under thick straight brows. His nose was a commanding one and his mouth was firm above an angular jaw. Oh, most definitely a face to remember.
‘I’ve come to see Colonel Pettigrew.’ He didn’t smile as he spoke, but looked her up and down in a casual uninterested fashion.
She ignored the look. ‘Well, I’m not sure that you should,’ she offered calmly. ‘He’s ill, and at the moment he’s asleep. Doctor Morris will be here presently, and I think he should be asked first, but if you like to come in and wait—you’ll have to be quiet.’
The eyebrows rose. ‘My dear good young woman, you talk as though I were a pop group or a party of schoolchildren! I’m not noisy by nature and I don’t take kindly to being told what I may and may not do.’
‘Oh, pooh,’ said Mary Jane, a little out of patience, ‘don’t be so touchy! Come in, do.’ She added, ‘Quietly.’
The car whispered past her and came to a silent halt at the door, and the man got out. There was a great deal of him; more than six foot, she guessed, and largely built too. She wondered who he was, and was on the point of asking when she heard the bell from her grandfather’s room. ‘There,’ she shot at her companion, a little unfairly, ‘you’ve woken him up,’ and flew upstairs.
The Colonel looked refreshed after his nap. He said at once, ‘I heard a car and voices. I’m expecting someone, but there’s hardly been time…’
Mary Jane shook up a pillow and slipped it behind his head. ‘It’s a man,’ she explained unhurriedly. ‘He’s got beetling eyebrows and he’s got rather a super Rolls. He says he wants to see you, but I told him he couldn’t until Uncle Bob comes.’
A faint smile lighted up her grandfather’s face. ‘Did you, now? And did he mind?’
‘I didn’t ask him.’
Her grandfather chuckled. ‘Well, my dear, if it won’t undermine your authority too much, I should like to see him—now. We have important business. Morris knows he’s coming and I don’t suppose he’ll object. Tell him to come up.’
‘All right, Grandfather, if you say so.’
She found the stranger in the sitting room, sitting in one of the comfortable old-fashioned chairs. He got to his feet as she went in and before she could speak, said: ‘All right, I know my way,’ and was gone, taking the stairs two at a time. She followed him into the hall just in time to hear the Colonel’s door shut quietly on the old man’s pleased voice. After a moment she went slowly into the garden again.
She was still there when Doctor Morris arrived, parked his elderly Rover beside the Rolls, greeted her cheerfully and added in a tone of satisfaction, ‘Ah, good, so he’s arrived—with your grandfather, I suppose?’
Mary Jane pulled a weed with deliberation. ‘Yes, he is—and very high-handed, whoever he is, too. I asked him to wait until you came, but Grandfather heard us talking and wanted to see him at once—he said it was business. He seems better this morning, so I hope you don’t mind?’
The doctor shook his head. ‘No, I’m pleased. You’re both here now—your grandfather was worrying. I’ll go up now.’
He left her standing there. She stared after him; he hadn’t told her who the stranger was, but he obviously knew him. She went indoors, tidied herself and went along to get a tray of coffee ready, to find that Lily had already done so. ‘And lunch, miss—I suppose the gentleman will be staying like last time. I’d better do some extra potatoes, hadn’t I?’
Mary Jane agreed, desiring at the same time to question Lily about the probable guest, but if her grandfather had wanted to tell her, he could have done so, so too could Uncle Bob. If they wanted to have their little secrets, she told herself a trifle huffily, she for one didn’t care. Probably the visitor was a junior partner to her grandfather’s solicitor, but surely he wouldn’t be able to afford a Rolls-Royce? She went outside again and had a good look at the car—it had a foreign number plate and it came from Holland, a clue which she immediately seized upon; the man was someone from her grandfather’s oldest friend, Jonkheer van der Blocq, an elderly gentleman whom she had never met but about whom she knew quite a bit, for her grandfather had often mentioned him. Relieved that she had solved the mystery, she went back indoors in time to meet the doctor coming downstairs.
‘There you are,’ he remarked for all the world as though he had spent the last hour looking for her. ‘Your grandfather wants you upstairs.’ He eyed her thoughtfully. ‘He’s better, but you know what I mean by that, don’t you? For the time being. Now run up, like a good girl. I’ll be in the sitting room.’
She started up the stairs, remembering to call over her shoulder:
‘There’s coffee ready for you—would you ask Lily?’ and sped on to tap on the Colonel’s door and be bidden to enter.
The stranger was standing with his back to the window, his hands in his pockets, and the look he cast her was disconcerting in its speculation; there was faint amusement too and something else which she couldn’t place. Mary Jane turned her attention to her elderly relative.
‘Yes, Grandfather?’ she asked, going up to the bed.
He eyed her lovingly and with some amusement on his tired old face.
‘You’re not a pretty girl,’ he observed, and waited for her to answer.
‘No, I know that as well as you—you didn’t want me up here just to remind me, did you?’ She grinned engagingly. ‘I take after you,’ she told him.
He smiled faintly. ‘Come here, Fabian,’ he commanded the man by the window.
And when he had stationed himself by the bed: ‘Mary Jane, this is Fabian van der Blocq, the nephew of my old friend. He is to be your guardian after my death.’
Her eyes widened. ‘My guardian? But I don’t need a guardian, Grandfather! I’m twenty-two and I’ve never met Mr—Mr van der Blocq in my life before, and—and…’
‘You’re not sure if you like me?’ His voice was bland, the smile he gave her mocking.
‘Since you put the words into my mouth, I’m not sure that I do,’ Mary Jane said composedly. ‘And what do you have to be the guardian of?’
‘This house will be yours, my dear,’ explained her grandfather, ‘and a considerable sum of money. You will be by no means penniless and there must be someone whom I can trust to keep an eye on you and manage your business affairs.’
‘But I—’ She paused and glanced across the bed to the elegant figure opposite her. ‘Oh, you’re a lawyer,’ she declared. ‘I wondered if you might be.’
Mr van der Blocq corrected her, still bland. ‘You wondered wrongly. I’m a surgeon.’
She was bewildered. ‘Are you? Then why…?’ she went on vigorously, ‘Anyway, Grandfather isn’t going to die.’
The old gentleman in the bed made a derisive sound and Mr van der Blocq curled his lip. ‘I am surprised that you, a nurse, should talk in such a fashion—you surely don’t think that the Colonel wishes us to smother the truth in a froth of sickly sentiment?’
Mary Jane drew her delicate pale eyebrows together. ‘You’re horrible!’ she told him in her gentle voice. It shook a little with the intensity of her feelings and she gave him the briefest of glances before turning back to her grandfather, whom she discovered to be laughing weakly.
‘Don’t you mind,’ she demanded, ‘the way this—this Mr van der Blocq talks?’
Her grandfather stopped laughing. ‘Not in the least, my dear, and I daresay that when you know him better you won’t mind either.’
She tossed her untidy head. ‘That’s highly unlikely. And now you’re tired, Grandfather—you’re going to have another nap before lunch.’
To her surprise he agreed quite meekly. ‘But I want you back in the afternoon, Mary Jane—and Fabian.’
She agreed, ignoring the man staring at her while she rearranged blankets, shook up pillows and made her grandfather comfortable. This done to her satisfaction, she made for the door. Mr van der Blocq, beating her to it by a short head, opened it with an ironic little nod of his handsome head, and without looking at him she went through it and down the stairs to where Doctor Morris was waiting.
They drank their coffee in an atmosphere which was a little tense, and when the doctor got up to go, Mary Jane got up too, saying, ‘I’ll see you to your car, Uncle Bob,’ and although he protested, did so. Out of their companion’s hearing, however, she stopped.
‘Look,’ she said urgently, ‘I don’t understand—why is he to be my guardian? He doesn’t even live in England, does he? and I don’t know him—besides, guardians are old…’
The doctor’s eyes twinkled. ‘At a rough guess I should say he was nudging forty.’
‘Yes? But he doesn’t look…’ She didn’t finish the sentence. ‘Well, it all seems very silly to me, and Grandfather…’ She lifted her eyes to her companion. ‘He’s really not going to get any better? Not even if we do everything we possibly can?’
‘No, my dear, and it will be quite soon now. I’ll be back this evening. You know where to find me if you want me.’
She went back slowly to the sitting room and Mr Van der Blocq, lounging by the window, turned round to say: ‘I don’t suppose you got much help from Doctor Morris, did you?’ He went on conversationally, ‘If it is of any comfort to you, I dislike the idea of being your guardian just as much—probably more—than you dislike being my ward.’
Mary Jane sat down and poured more coffee for them both. ‘Then don’t. I mean, don’t be my guardian, there’s no need.’
‘You heard your grandfather. You will be the owner of this house and sufficient money to make you an attractive target for any man who wants them.’ He came across the room and sat down opposite her. ‘I shall find my duties irksome, I dare say, but you can depend upon me not to shirk them.’ He sat back comfortably. ‘Do you mind if I smoke my pipe?’
She shook her head, and suddenly mindful of her duties as a hostess, asked, ‘Where are you staying? Or are you perhaps only here for an hour or two?’ She added hastily, ‘You’ll stay to lunch?’
A muscle twitched at the corner of his mouth. ‘Thank you, I will—and I’m not staying anywhere,’ his dark eyes twinkled. ‘I believe the Colonel expected that I would stay here, but if it’s too much trouble I can easily go to a hotel.’
‘Oh no, not if Grandfather invited you. I’ll go and see about lunch and get a room ready.’ She got to her feet. ‘There’s sherry on the sofa table, please help yourself.’
Lily, she discovered when she got to the kitchen, had surpassed herself with Duchesse potatoes to eke out the cold chicken and salad, and there was a soup to start with; Mary Jane, feverishly opening tins to make a fruit salad, hoped that their guest wouldn’t stay too long; she found him oddly disquieting and she wasn’t even sure if she liked him, not that that would matter overmuch, for she supposed that she would see very little of him. She wasn’t sure what the duties of a guardian were, but if he lived in Holland he was hardly likely to take them too seriously.
Ten minutes later, making up the bed in one of the guest rooms, she began to wonder for how long she was to have a guardian—surely not for the rest of her life? The idea of Mr van der Blocq poking his arrogant nose into her affairs, even from a distance, caused her to shudder strongly. She went downstairs, determined to find out all she could as soon as possible.
