Nurse for the Doctor by Averil Ives

Author:Averil Ives
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER X

In SPITE of a reasonable night Josie certainly did not feel a hundred per cent fit the following morning. However, she was determined to get up, although Michael had ordered her to remain where she was until he saw her again. She felt certain that Mrs. Duveen would not approve of her acting the part of an invalid when she received a salary to take care of one herself.

Magdalena brought her her breakfast when she had had her bath, and Josie had the tray placed on the little table on her balcony, because after the storm of the day before the weather was once more serenely fine and warm. Magdalena pursed up her lips when she saw her looking obviously peaked, and rather heavy-eyed, but Josie quickly strove to assure her that there was absolutely nothing wrong with her.

“I may be in for a bit of a cold, but that’s all,” she said. “I’ll dose myself with some quinine.”

Magdalena shook her head.

“It would be better for the senorita to remain in bed, and let the doctor see her.”

But Josie merely smiled at her, and when she had drunk a couple of cups of coffee, but ignored her rolls and preserve, she selected her pearl-grey linen dress from the wardrobe and went down to find the ground floor of the house deserted. She was about to retrace her steps upstairs and go along to find out how Michael himself was, when heard Dona Maria came in together from the garden. Dona Maria was wearing a white suit, and she carried a half-opened scarlet rosebud in her slender fingers. There was dew upon the rosebud, and a brightness in Dona Maria’s eyes, like the brightness of the morning; and although Josie felt curiously wavery, as if the earth were not solid, and that at any moment she would need to catch hold of something to steady herself, the thought passed through her mind that Dona Maria looked happy. More than that, she looked radiant, as if something that had evaded her for a long time was in her grasp at last, and she knew it.

“Josie!” Michael exclaimed, his black brows all but meeting in a heavy frown. “What on earth do you think you’re doing wandering about the house when you look like death? Have you taken your own temperature this morning?”

“No, of course I haven’t,” Josie answered glibly, although she was not conscious of actually forming the words herself. “It isn’t a nurse’s job to take her own temperature—she’s paid to take other people’s.”

She swayed up against a black oak chest in the hall, and reached out to steady herself against it.

“I’m a bit—giddy,” she admitted.

“My poor child, you look really ill!” Dona Maria said, and went to her and slipped an arm about her, while Michael cast aside his stick and caught her other arm. Dona Maria’s grey eyes were full of genuine concern. “We will have to get you back to bed,” she said.

Josie laughed weakly.

“It’s absurd,” she said, “but I didn’t feel nearly so shaky when I got up.

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