Queen's Nurse by Jane Arbor

Author:Jane Arbor
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

FOR JESS, MUIR’S unexpected use of her Christian name remained with her—glowingly, like a caress—for days afterward. Then its significance began to fade and when, at their next meeting, his manner was as coolly formal as ever, she saw that she had read into it, and into the rest of his kindly care of her that night, something that had not been there. After his coldness on the occasion of Michael’s surprise visit and his assumption that Peter Seacombe had been making love to her, she had craved a gesture from him. With the quiet tenderness of his “Good night—Jess” she had deluded herself that she had got it. But of course she had not. It had been no more than a slip into the way in which he probably responded when Liane or Peter called her Jess. Nothing more than that.

Meanwhile the lovely summer had broken up into a tempestuous autumn, which, on that bleak, open coast, had nothing mellow nor lingering about it. Sometimes winter seemed already to threaten and when Jess huddled prematurely into woollies under her uniform and set out, morning after morning, in topcoat and boots, she dreaded what the real depth of winter might bring.

Once or twice she cast a rueful regret toward Michael and her promise that he should come down for a weekend before the autumn. By now even autumn seemed on its way out, but with the onset of the bad weather Jess’s work had increased so much that she had had little chance to arrange anything with him. She supposed that he would suggest coming when he wanted to. Meanwhile, her weekends seemed as full of work as the rest of her days.

As Peter Seacombe’s leave drew to an end Jess saw less of Liane and of him than she had done before. She could not quite decide what was the cause of this. Earlier, while the weather had still been good, they had sometimes called for her to go swimming or to walk around the golf course with them, and though she had not always been able to go, sometimes she had done so. She was much busier now and her professional visits to Mrs. Seacombe had finished, so inevitably they met less. But all the same Jess had a feeling that Liane was avoiding her, not wanting to be pressed to the step she knew Jess thought she should take. Jess, understanding and pitying her, tried not to be hurt. But she was. And Liane’s avoidance of her made her promise to Peter an empty one. For how could she persuade Liane to act, when the girl shied from even the gentlest approach to the subject of Muir?

Then, one stormy morning, when Jess was driving to the village of Crane she came upon Peter sheltering from a sharp bout of rain beneath an entirely inadequate hedge.

She drew into the curb and opened the near door for him.

“Hop in, and I’ll give you a lift,” she said.

“Thanks.” Peter dived in beside her, spattering water like a spaniel.

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