Nurse for the Doctor Page 9

  “Yes—Dr. and Mrs. Duveen. The mother and the son, for of course she is not his wife! He will need a wife, when he has one, to make a great fuss of him, however—otherwise the mother will continue to watch over his interests as if he was her only chick.”

  “Which, as a matter of fact, he is,” Josie said, and then realized that she was discussing her employer. “We will not talk about them,” she finished, rather formally. Luis smiled at her sideways.

  “Certainly we will not talk about them if you do not wish it. There are so many other subjects that are more interesting!” He waved a hand to indicate a spot where the sun was still shining out at sea. “That, for instance—that light that is pure gold in so much darkness! If I were an artist that is the sort of thing I would paint.”

  “But you are not an artist?”

  “No. My interest is horses, and also I farm a little. I have a very small farm away up in the foothills which you must visit one day.”

  “I’d love to,” she said, and because—in spite of the wind, and the roaring in her ears, the sudden sombreness that had followed the disappearance of such a constantly shining sun, and a chill that was making her wish for a warmer coat—travelling in Luis’ car was an exhilarating experience, and wherever she looked there was beauty on either hand, she meant it.

  She had only seen the coast smiling and full of color before. Now, all at once, it didn’t so much lack color, as take on, even while they drove, a series of entirely new sets of hues. There was violent purple where the mountains ran down to meet the sea, and the yellow beach took on a kind of greyness, and the bright red cliffs that looked like splintered rocks became a bleached orange. The sea itself was swirling and indigo, whipped by the wind into a regiment of creamy-crested breakers.

  It was a little like Cornwall, Josie thought—or Devon. A little of Cornwall and a little of Devon, transported, on a grey day, to the Costa Brava.

  They had their tea under a still bravely spread sun umbrella in a little village where visitors were becoming few and far between, and Josie was grateful for it because it warmed her, and she enjoyed the cakes because they were delicious. Then, when they started back, Luis asked her all about her family and her friends, seeming greatly interested in every detail of her life so far, although Inez, from the time they left the Catalan village where their tea had been served to them, started to behave in a fashion that was not evidently true to form, and should have caused him a certain amount of preoccupation. But Josie had already gathered that he was a lighthearted young man—a bachelor who enjoyed running his own little farm—and his attitude to life was that comfortably “manana” attitude of many Spaniards, and if troubles were to descend on him he did not propose to meet them half way. Inez developed a knocking noise inside her bonnet before they had covered a quarter of the return journey, and by the time another eighth of the journey had been covered she was struggling along with difficulty. This might not have mattered so much if the sun had been shining, but it was now completely overcast, and the rain had started to fall in earnest at last. It was then that Josie made the discovery that the car had no hood, and the rain simply came straight at her and soaked her through to the skin.

  The sight of her, shivering and bedraggled on the seat beside him, was the first thing that really upset Luis, and he brought the crawling Inez to a standstill and got out and hunted amongst the spare parts in the boot. And at last he unearthed a depressed-looking camel hair rug which he insisted on draping about her, although she was by that time so wet that she could hardly have got any wetter if she’d tried.

  “Caramba! But that rain came down before I expected it,” he admitted, his own hair plastered to his head as he tried to protect her from the worst of the elements. Josie, shivering as if she would never stop, but trying not to look as if she blamed him for this unhappy adventure, assured him through her clenched teeth, that it really didn’t matter if they could only get home fairly soon. And then it seemed that their real troubles started, for the car refused to start again, and try as he would Luis could not induce even a cough from beneath the bonnet.

  They were at least a couple of miles from a garage, and unless he left her and walked back for assistance even that garage would prove useless to them. So, in the end—although she hardly knew whom she pitied more: him his two-mile walk, or herself for being left behind in the car with the heavens simply opening themselves upon her—Josie watched him walk away through the driving rain, and acknowledged to herself that this first little outing with Don Luis was hardly a success.

  It seemed to her that hours passed before he returned with a mechanic in a jeep, and by that time she was so numb with cold, and so conscious of her clammy, clinging garments that all she felt was a kind of spreading sea of misery barely made endurable by the appearance of the jeep.

  The mechanic got to work on the insides of Inez’s bonnet, but it seemed that the fault was not one that could be rectified easily. Inez, who had never let Luis down, was making up for lost time, and in the end they all three drove up to the villa in the jeep, the mechanic promising to return for Inez and tow her back to his garage.

  Don Luis looked very worried when he half-lifted Josie out of the jeep, and only her insistence that she be allowed to walk prevented him from carrying her across the terrace and into the quiet dimness of the hall.

  “You much have a hot bath at once,” he said, “and I think you ought to have a good stiff dose of brandy or something.”

  He looked round rather helplessly, and was relieved to see his cousin advancing towards them from the shadows of his library door. The Marquis de Palheiro had a completely expressionless face, but his eyes peered sharply at Josie, and after one look he started ringing for a servant.

  “Tell Magdalena to prepare a really hot bath for the Senorita Winter straight away,” he said, when the man appeared. And then he took Josie by the arm and led her into the library. He poured something into a glass that took away her breath when she sipped at it, but he ordered her in the same rather stern, but infinitely quiet voice to “go on and drink it all up”, and while Don Luis helped himself and poured forth their story, stood without once removing his eyes from Josie’s pinched and colorless face.

  “It is not the senorita’s fault,” Luis said earnestly, anxious to get her completely excused because they were very late, and it was already almost the hour for dinner. “I persuaded her to let me take her for a drive this afternoon, and it was Inez who broke down.”

  “If you take my advice you will do something decisive about Inez,” the marquis returned, as if the words actually hurt his mouth. “Preferably get rid of her altogether, and replace her with something more worthy to be called a car.”

  He removed Josie’s glass from her cold fingers.

  “I also tried to persuade Senorita Winter to go for a drive this afternoon, but she preferred to be left behind. However, I think I understand that,” and his dark eyes gazed so straight at Josie that, following upon the effects of the neat spirit she had just consumed, she felt that he was deliberately seeking to confuse her for some extraordinary reason. In this he succeeded in so far as everything seemed more than a little blurred as, with the assistance of Magdalena, Josie made her way up to her room.

  But before she left the library Don Luis pleaded: “You will not—how is it you would say it in English?—hold this against me, Senorita Winter? This afternoon was a disaster, but it will not happen again! Next time, if you permit, I will bring you back all in one piece, as you would say.”

  “You did bring me back all in one piece,” she heard herself answering, resisting an absurd inclination to giggle a little lightheadedly at his slightly involved use of her language, “but I would prefer to be a little drier on another occasion.”

  And then the fumes of the brandy caused her to stumble a little, and Magdalena caught hold of her arm.

  Once she was in bed Michael made his appearance in her room. The expression on his face was a curious mixture of surprise
, exasperation and faint amusement as he shook his head at her, and then sat down on the edge of the bed to feel her pulse.

  “Really, Josie—really!” he said, as he continued to shake his dark, handsome head, with the wave of burnished hair dipping down a little towards one eyebrow. “Did you have to distinguish yourself in quite such a manner this afternoon? First you said you didn’t want to go for a drive with the rest of us, and then you went haring off into the blue with Don Luis. There’s inconsistency if you like.”

  “I’m sorry,” Josie murmured, and looked very small and flushed with her fair head nestling in her pillows.

  Michael smiled at her.

  “It’s all right,” he said, “only you might as well know that we were anxious. None of the servants knew anything about your departure, and it was only when one of the gardeners reported that he had seen you in Don Luis car that we began to get a line on you.”

  “Poor Don Luis,” Josie said, hoping he wouldn’t come in for more than his fair share of blame over this. “It really wasn’t his fault. He took me for such a nice drive, and gave me a very nice tea, and then Inez started to play up.”

  “Inez?”

  “The car. It’s a sports model.”

  “Was a sports model,” Michael corrected her. “After today it will almost certainly land up on the scrap-heap. In fact, Carlos has already ordered its confiscation.”

  Josie felt concerned, although she also felt very drowsy after a hot bath and a bowl of hotter soup.

  “But, will Don Luis be able to afford another? I don’t think he’s very rich. He had a farm of his own, and he was fond of the car.”

  “A sentimental fondness,” Duveen assured her. “And, as a matter of fact, he can drive any of Carlos s cars if he wants to There was no real reason why he should take you out in Inez. I think that was what annoyed Carlos so much.”

  “Was he annoyed?”

  “Extremely annoyed. In fact, I’ve never seen him so angry.”

  “Because I didn’t leave word where I was going?”

  “No, because you’d been lured forth in that particular car. Apparently its reputation is well known.”

  Josie sighed.

  “Poor Luis!” she said again. “I don’t want him to get into trouble.”

  Michael flicked a moist curl back from her hot forehead. “A moment ago it was Don Luis,” he said, gazing straight down at her. “Do you prefer to think of him as Luis?”

  She made a little movement with her head.

  “I don’t know ... Does it matter?”

  “Not tonight,” he answered, gently, and smoothed her top sheet. “I’m going to give you something to ensure a quiet night, and you’re not to get up in the morning until I’ve seen you, do you understand?”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Josie returned a little fretfully. “I’m your nurse—you’re not my doctor!”

  “Inez has reversed the positions for us,” he replied with a smile. Then he bent down unexpectedly and kissed her lightly on the forehead. “You look very small in this big bed,” he told her, and added: “Good night, Josie. If you want anything just tug hard on that bell rope.”

  As he lifted his head the marquis, followed by Magdalena, moved almost noiselessly across the carpet from the direction of the open doorway.

  “I understood you were here,” the marquis said, looking in a hard and inscrutable fashion at the doctor, who slid quite nonchalantly from his perch on the side of the bed. “I came to find out what you think of Miss Winter.” Michael looked surprised at the bleak formality of his voice. Then he wondered whether his host had observed that kiss.

  “Oh, I think she’ll do very well,” he answered; “but of course it’s really too early to decide whether she’s caught a chill. At the moment she wants to be left to sleep.”

  “You are giving her something to make her sleep?”

  “Yes.”

  Carlos de Palheiro advanced to the side of the bed. He looked down at Josie with eyes that were suddenly soft and compassionate.

  “Poor little one,” he said, as if she were no more than the child she looked just then. “I’m afraid you took a bad buffeting. It was an unpleasant experience.”

  “I’ll get over it,” she assured him, smiling up at him. And then, because she felt compelled to do so, and it was important that he should understand: “But I’m sorry if I caused anxiety,” she told him, in a small, husky voice. “It wasn’t my intention to do anything of the kind, and I remembered that you approved of Don Luis acting as my escort, as you put it yourself.”

  “Did I do that?” he asked, and she thought he sounded surprised. Then he put out his one good hand and touched hers lightly, but with a cool strength that was oddly comforting. “There is no need for you to apologize,” he said. “There is no need for you to do anything but have a good night, Senorita Josie,” and she felt further surprised because the diminutive of her Christian name slipped out so easily, and somehow so altogether naturally.

  Michael turned firmly away from the bed.

  “Yes, we’ll leave her to get to sleep,” he said, and this time his voice was just a little bleak and disapproving.

  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. I—I’ll make my way back upstairs to my room.”

  But at that moment Carlos de Palheiro, wearing riding breeches and a close-fitting black sweater, came striding in from the patio. He went straight up to Josie, scattering the other two as if they didn’t exist, and, providing her with something to ponder about for many days afterwards, swung her up against him by means of his one arm and bore her, as if her weight were no more than that of a feather, up the beautiful carved staircase to her room. Inside her room he didn’t pause, but carried her straight across to her bed, and deposited her lightly upon it. Then he stood back and looked down at her, his face very grave.

  “It was wrong of you to get up, chiquita,” he chided her.

  She lay looking up at him, and as well as the feverish brightness in her eyes there was a growing look of wonder.

  “It was wonderful of you to carry me up the stairs like that,” she said. “You, with only one arm.”

  For several seconds they gazed at one another, she with her lips a little apart, and scarlet as heart’s blood because of the pounding of her pulses and the mounting of her temperature, he with the fluid darkness of his eyes reaching out to engulf her.

  “One arm can be as useful as two on occasions,” he told her quietly, and then his sister came up behind him, with Michael limping purposefully behind.

  “Magdalena will help me to get her undressed and back into bed,” the Spanish girl said, and she looked meaningly at her brother, as if a little surprised that he stayed so long. “And it is important that she should be got back into bed without delay.”

  “Of course.”

  The marquis took the hint, but before he turned away he looked once more straight at Josie.

  “I will come back and see you again,” he said.

  Then began a queer, muddled period for Josie, during which she knew that Michael dosed her with the drugs that did in the end begin to bring down her temperature, and that he was very patient and kind, and seemed to spend a great deal of his time beside her. Dona Maria, too, sat beside her bed, and kept her forehead as cool as possible with fragrant-smelling cologne, and talked to her soothingly, and Magdalena changed her linen and coaxed her to take the first few mouthfuls of nourishment when she was feeling slightly better. But before that Josie found herself dwelling constantly on two things that were quite unrelated to one another, one of which worried her a little, while the other obsessed her. The thing that worried her was that Mrs. Duveen never once entered her room—unless Josie was too light-headed to recognize her—while the thing that obsessed her was a sentence the Marquis de Palheiro had uttered to her when he had deposited her gently on her bed.