Nurse Trent's Children by Joyce Dingwell

Author:Joyce Dingwell [Dingwell, Joyce]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: cookie429, Extratorrents, Kat
Publisher: Mills & Boon
Published: 1961-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

He looked steadily back at her, seeing instead of the white kitchen an autumn hill, two figures, fingers that intertwined. “Besides...” he said.

“Yes?”

“You want it yourself. Deep in your heart you know you want it.”

“I don’t.”

“Again you lie. You know you lie. You know you have never stopped regretting that lost diploma. You were keen enough to work through the drudging years, and when the end was in sight you lost hold of the reward. You must have liked your work to have stuck to it. You must be conscious of something short of the fulfillment for which you strove. Be honest with yourself, Trent—if that is possible.”

She ignored the brutality in his voice. She searched her heart. Yes, it was true. She did regret it. Every letter she received from Helen, every letter she wrote to Judith, had that regret somewhere between its lines. To be so near and yet so far away from achievement. As far, really, in bare words, as the rawest probationer, for she, too, was uncertificated.

He was watching her closely. “Well?” he asked.

“I don’t want to leave Redgates.”

“You needn’t.”

“Then how?”

“You can brush up privately, then sit with the nurses at the Northern District Hospital.”

“Is that permitted?”

“Only on occasion. This is an occasion. Leave that part of the business to me.”

“I’d never pass. I’ve gone rusty.”

He raised his brows. “In two ... three months?”

“It’s not the amount of time, it’s the different environment. I haven’t been thinking in terms of nursing.”

“You were tonight.”

“That was an emergency. Anyone would do that.”

“Not anyone.” It was his only commendation, and it was brief and unadorned.

She flushed.

“I couldn’t, Dr. Malcolm,” she said presently. “I haven’t my notes. I have forgotten a terrible lot of things.”

“They’ll return with tutoring.”

“Whose tutoring?”

He paused, then said deliberately, “Mine.”

“Yours?”

“Is there anything so unusual in that? I can instruct on such matters, hard though it might be to believe.”

“I believe you, only...”

“Yes?”

“You wouldn’t have time.”

“I’d make time.”

“I wouldn’t have time.”

“Then you must make time, too. Your children sleep, don’t they? My patients sleep as well. After evening office hours, I suggest, and starting in a week. Christabel will be in hospital then and in good hands. There will be nothing to disturb us.”

“It is an order, Miss Trent.”

“I don’t know why you are bothering like this.”

“I told you. The ripe peach...”

She went a vivid red.

“And the degree less of fulfillment that, to me, seems a mighty waste of time and effort.”

There was a silence.

“I’m waiting,” he said.

Cathy looked at him and shrugged. “It seems futile to answer if you already have everything settled.”

“It is futile. It is settled. But I just thought I’d like some show of approval. What is worrying you, Miss Trent? Not the same worry about the proprieties as before?” His eyes probed, then laughed insolently at her.

She remembered the night of her arrival here. It seemed she would always be reminded of it.

“Because if that is the trouble, I might assure you of Mrs. Williams. She is always present.”

“Mrs. Williams ... You mean we would have the lessons there?”

“At my office, yes.

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