Nurse for the Doctor Page 10

  “It was wrong for you to get up, Chiquita.”

  Chiquita, she kept on saying to herself. Her Spanish was limited, but it was some sort of an endearment, she knew. She had a little Spanish dictionary, and when she was able to do so she would look it up. Chiquita...

  She was always looking round for him, hoping that one day she would find him beside her bed, but although he had promised that he would see her again, he didn’t reappear. She reminded herself that he was Spanish, and the Spanish are very “correct, and that perhaps Dona Maria would think it odd if he took it upon himself to visit, without being invited, the bedroom of an English girl. But she sighed every time the door opened and it was not he who came into the room.

  One morning when she was alone with Michael she unexpectedly uttered the name Carlos aloud, and he looked at her with a faint smile on his lips. He had just induced her to take a long drink, settled her back upon her pillows, and was watching her as she lay staring out of the window at the brightness of the blue sky.

  “You said that as if you like the sound of the name,” he remarked. “Do you?”

  She was sufficiently recovered to be aware that a little more caution might be necessary in future if she was to go on thinking the sort of thoughts that had obsessed her lately. She knew that she blushed suddenly—a heightening of her color quite different from the flush of fever.

  “It’s Spanish for Charles, isn’t it?” she asked, in rather a husky whisper.

  “Could be,” he admitted, “but I’m unable to say definitely. But don’t tell me you’re lying there improving your Spanish?”

  The blush increased.

  “Of course not.”

  Michael’s eyes twinkled a little, and then grew rather grave. He placed a hand over one of hers that was lying outside on the covers.

  “Carlos and chiquita—you’ve kept on repeating those two words-at intervals since you’ve been ill,” he told her. “Fortunately I think I’m the only one who has heard you utter them, but to me they were very distinct, and I think I’m going to be very glad when you’re fit enough, and the time arrives for us to go home to England, Josie.”

  “B-but, why?” she stammered.

  His eyes surveyed her, and they were very darkly and gravely blue. Hers were enormous and brown in her wan face.

  “Because I think we’ll be better at home—both of us.”

  “Dona Maria?” she heard herself inquiring, while she stared at him.

  “We’ll talk about Dona Maria another day,” he replied, and then frowned in the way she had sometimes seen him do before, and which suggested that problems that were too great for him were disturbing. “But not today,” he concluded, firmly. “Just now you’re going off to sleep again.”

  Two days later he was again beside her bed, but he told her that she could get up for a little while the following day, if her progress was maintained.

  “You’re looking much more like yourself, and less like the Josie who gave me a scare.” He sat down on the edge of the bed and smiled at her. “You hovered about on the edge of pneumonia for far too long for my personal comfort, and in future you’ve got to be taken a good deal of care of, my dear! No tearing about the countryside—whether here, or at home in England—in unsuitable cars, or imagining you’re stronger than you are! I always thought you were a bit frail for nursing, and now I know you must have been neglecting yourself for some time. Quite possibly you haven’t played enough in your short life, Josie,” possessing himself of one of her hands and gently stroking her fingers, “and that’s why you always look so serious—or you did until the last few weeks. You want fun and gaiety, and nothing very much to bother about—and more than anything else you want someone to look after you.”

  Josie began to look frightened as his words sank in.

  “But I’ve got my living to earn! And, oh, what on earth will your mother think of me?—what must she think of me for causing all this trouble?”

  “Never mind my mother,” he replied soothingly. “She isn’t very good in a sick-room—unless it’s the sick-room of her only son,” with rather an odd little smile, “and that’s why she hasn’t been to visit you. But everyone else has been very much concerned about you, and I—Josie.” The smile left his eyes, while his mouth looked both serious and set. “Perhaps I shouldn’t ask you this today, but will you marry me as soon as you’re fit, Josie?”

  “M-marry you?”

  “Yes.” His eyes lighted for an instant, and his mouth grew a little softer again. “We could wait until we get back to England, if you like, but there are plenty of English clergymen out here, and we could find one to tie the knot.” She thought he looked a little pale, and extraordinarily anxious, and he was holding her hand very tightly—just as a drowning man might cling on to a raft. “Josie, I want to marry you!”

  “Do you?” she asked, and this time she didn’t stammer, only lay very still and looked at him as if she were attempting to solve a mystery.

  He avoided the bewildering clarity of her upward glance.

  “I think you’re adorable, and I know you’re sweet”

  “And—Dona Maria?” she said, very softly.

  He uttered an impatient exclamation, dropped her hand, and then took a turn or two about the room. When he came back to her he was still looking pale, like someone who was determined to renounce something, but he was also looking exceedingly obstinate.

  “Josie, listen to me!” Once more he perched on the side of the bed, with its rich coverlet, and its looped-back silken curtains. “When I first met Dona Maria—ten years ago—I knew there was something about her that attracted me, but I didn’t want to marry her. I still don’t want to marry her—”

  “But you still find her attractive?”

  “Of course.” He frowned. “It wouldn’t work, Josie—she and I are not really in the least alike. She’s possessive, with a Spanish woman’s possessiveness, and marriage to her means making a home and a husband her life. There would never be a loophole—no escape from that possessiveness, and I know I couldn’t stand it! I’ve my own ideas of what marriage should be like, and it isn’t a smothering, cloying thing. One must retain one’s individuality.”

  “So you think you would like to marry me?”

  “I’m sure I would like to marry you!”

  “In order to escape from Dona Maria, who attracts you enough to represent a serious menace to your freedom?”

  The unwavering directness of her brown gaze actually brought a rather uncomfortable dark stain to the healthy bronze of his face.

  “Of course not!” But there was nothing convincing about the way he said it. “I’m not as weak as all that! And there’s something else, Josie ... Something that more vitally concerns you this time.”

  “Yes?” as if she was waiting for further revelations.

  “I’m afraid you don’t realize how much you gave away while—while you were ill. Those words—Carlos and chiquita ... They told me a great deal.” His voice was very gentle, but the expression in his eyes was a little inexplicable. “Josie, my poor little one, you’ve fallen for our noble marquis, haven’t you? Or, if you haven’t actually fallen, you’re in danger of doing so. And it won’t get you anywhere, Josie ... Adorable though you are, he will never marry unless it suits his family—unless it suits everyone all round! So many women have tried to marry him, and I believe there was someone at the time of his accident with whom he was in love ... But she had enough money to make the thought of a one-armed husband a trifle repellent to her, and she gave him up. When and if, he ever marries now it will probably be to provide himself with an heir, and because the girl has a good background. Maria thinks that Sylvia Petersen—you follow me?”

  “Of course,” Josie whispered, not even bothering to deny what had happened to her.

  “He’s taken her about a lot, and he obviously admires her. Spaniards don’t pay direct attention to a young woman unless they’re serious—not that sort of attention, anyway.”

&nb
sp; Josie was silent.

  “So forget him, darling.” He squeezed her hand. “Forget him and console yourself with me.”

  “And you think you can console yourself with me?” But there was such a bitter little smile on her lips that he felt shocked.

  “In time I feel sure we would be very happy.”

  “In time?” Suddenly she looked so white and disturbed that his professional instincts reasserted themselves, and he ordered her to think no more about it just then. And just as he was turning her pillow for her and looking at her with real concern, a tap came on the door and Magdalena made her appearance.

  “The Senor Marquis’s compliments, senorita,” she said, “and he has heard that it is likely you will be getting up for a short while this afternoon. If that is so, is it permitted that he pay you a short visit?”

  Josie lay almost painfully still for a few moments, and looking upwards she saw that Michael’s eyes were studying her thoughtfully. Then he nodded.

  “Yes, why not?” he said. “There is no reason why you shouldn’t get up for a short while this afternoon, and it will be a change for you to see a fresh face.” She wondered, just for an instant, whether there was a hint of irony in his voice. “Do you feel up to having a few words with our host, Josie?”

  Josie nodded, unable to trust herself to speech, especially when she knew that Magdalena, with her bright, alert Catalan eyes, was standing very close to the bed.

  Michael turned with his charming smile to Magdalena.

  “Tell the Senor Marquis that Miss Winter will be delighted to see him,” he said.

  CHAPTER XI

  JOSIE did not, however, see the marquis that afternoon. When the moment arrived, and she found herself sitting in her dressing-gown beside the open window of her room, her courage—she told Magdalena it was her strength—failed and she requested the maid to convey a message to her host, explaining that she didn’t feel quite up to receiving visitors.

  Magdalena returned with a message to the effect that the marquis understood perfectly, and as soon as she received the message Josie knew what it was she feared. She dreaded coming face to face with the marquis again after that last long look that had passed between them when he had carried her upstairs to her room. She was afraid of giving herself away—hopelessly—because the last few days seemed to have robbed her of the power to keep up the pretence that would be necessary, when every shade and inflection of his voice, and every look he might direct at her from his dark eyes, would have the power to catch her off her guard. Michael had warned her—and Michael was right! To the Marquis de Palheiro she could never be anything other than the little English nurse who had looked after the son of his mother’s close friend; the little English nurse who had absolutely no background, and who had come to Spain and looked wide-eyed on all that she saw—including the marquis...

  She knew now that he had been a revelation to her from the moment they met. So polished, so poised, so full of grave courtesy ... he had made her think of ancient legends, and medieval prints, and the dignified way in which he had accepted his severance from a life he had once known—a life full of excitement and adventure—had aroused her admiration. She had once thought herself on the verge of falling in love with Michael Duveen, but anything she could ever have felt for him would have been like a pale shadow beside the torrent of emotion another man’s voice and look had aroused in her, to such an extent that she babbled his name while she was suffering from a climbing temperature.

  She hoped ardently that only Michael had heard her do that. If Mrs. Duveen—or even Dona Maria—had heard her...

  The second afternoon that she was allowed out of bed the marquis did not receive an intimation that she was not up to seeing him. He came quietly, when she was seated in her chair beside the window wearing a blue house gown that made her look so very fair and English by contrast with the southern women about her, that he stopped dead for a moment in the doorway after she had called to him to come in. She also looked so hollow-cheeked, and her eyes were so large, that a shocked expression came into his eyes, and he moved forward quickly, as if anxious to dispel a certain amount of anxiety.

  “You are better, senorita?”

  “Of course.” She smiled at him, but it was something of an effort because her heart was beating so quickly that it was like something trying to force its way out of her breast. “I’m much better, thank you.”

  “I’m relieved to hear you say that,” he told her, standing within a bare couple of feet of her and looking down at her earnestly. “Because you appear to me so pale and wan that”—he, too, smiled slightly—”it struck me you might not be altogether of this world.”

  Her soft lips curved a little more naturally at that. “Believe me, senor, I have been so well looked after that it would be most ungrateful of me if I was not very much of this world at the moment!” She waved a hand to indicate the flowers and the fruit around her. From one enormous vase cascaded scarlet roses, but she had not been told who sent them. Another contained white roses from Don Luis. “You have been so kind—all of you! I have to thank you for—for suffering an invalid in your house with so much understanding and sympathy!”

  “Do not please talk nonsense, Miss Winter.” He seemed to be staring at the scarlet roses as if they interested him. “I shall never be able to express my infinite regret that I did not insist upon you accompanying us the other afternoon,” and as he turned back to her she could see that his expression was genuinely perturbed. “But for the foolhardiness of my cousin, Luis, and the risk he took with you by permitting you to travel in that decrepit car of his, you would not have had to suffer as you have suffered.”

  “Please, that’s rubbish,” she said softly, more at ease now because he so obviously was not at ease. He seemed actually afflicted by remorse. “Poor Don Luis was merely being kind, and the rain might have held off until we got back, or the car might not have broken down as it did. In any case, it is over, and the only one who has suffered inconvenience is Dr. Duveen, because instead of having a nurse to look after him, he has had to look after the nurse.” The marquis made no response to this, and she said shyly: “Won’t you sit down?”

  He sat down facing her, in a tall chair covered in rich rose-red brocade, that acted as a frame for his dark head, and the unusual, pale ivory of his face. When she had seen him last, she reflected, he had been wearing a black sweater and riding breeches—he had been riding! And although at the time she had scarcely been in a condition to take in details, or receive impressions, she nevertheless had received an impression of lithe muscular vigor, and a strength that had been later demonstrated when he bore her so swiftly up the stairs. Today he was impeccable in a dove-grey suit, his linen as snowy as the caps of the Pyrenees, his tie the severe black tie affected by so many Spaniards; indeed that brief indication of splendid physical fitness was inclined to be erased by the sheer elegance of his appearance. But as she watched his one hand grasping at the ebony arm of his chair, strength was in the long, sinuous shape of his fingers, which seemed to be clasping the wood unnecessarily tightly.

  “I am sure that Dr. Duveen was happy to look after you,” he remarked suddenly, as if he had been thinking over what she had said.

  She looked down at her own hands, folded in her lap. “I was lucky to have him to look after me. He is quite brilliant, you know!”

  “As a doctor, you mean?”

  “Yes.” She went on studying her hands. “At Chessington House, where I nurse, he is looked upon as one of the up and coming consultants.”

  “Really?” But was there just a shade of boredom in his cultured voice? Suddenly he leaned towards her. “That evening when I found you wandering in the garden—that first evening when you declined to join us at dinner—was it because of Duveen?” As she caught her breath in amazement, he went on, looking straight into the startled eyes that were upraised to him: “The other afternoon when you would not accompany us to Montserrat—was that also because of Duveen?”

>   Josie was so ridiculously weak that surprise took her breath away. She put a hand to her side, as if her heart was beating a little uncomfortably.

  “I—I don’t understand, senor...”

  “Don’t you?” His voice was like a pistol shot. “But you understand that my sister Maria is interested in your Michael Duveen?—that much she has made plain for all to see!” with a kind of ringing contempt in the words. “You know that Mrs. Duveen has lived with the idea of their marrying one of these days, and to you that has been like iron entering into your soul. You are unhappy—you were unhappy that first night, when I came upon you in the garden, and you were desperately unhappy the other afternoon. That is why I could not forget you, and why, when on top of that this should happen to you—”

  His hand clenched more tightly on the arm of his chair, and she found herself staring at the knuckles, because they were showing white.

  “Yes, senor?” she whispered, in amazement.

  He got up and started to stride about the room, rather like a caged tiger rebelling against its confinement.

  “This is not the time to say these things to you, or revive painful thoughts which perhaps have lain dormant while you were ill. But the fact that you are so much in the company of Duveen—that he sees so much of you because, as a doctor, he has a right—forces me not to neglect the opportunity to do so.” His face, as he turned on her, was mask-like, the lips thin and compressed. “Miss Winter, I warn you that you are only storing up for yourself unhappiness if you—if you allow yourself to continue in this madness of singling out Michael Duveen as the man to whom you would give all your heart! Believe me, with all his charm—all his brilliance,” with a harsh grating of sarcasm, “all those so attractive English looks of his, even if he fell in love with you he would not make you happy! Such men do not give—they take! And Maria, my sister, is the type who can give all without expecting, or even requiring, very much in return!”