a teacake and that with a slice of rich fruit cake that she was allowed to enquire about her patient, ‘for’, as she pointed out, ‘Uncle John has told me a great deal about the case, and I know he will be down to see her next week, but of course he hasn’t much idea of the nursing routine.’
Mrs MacFee smiled comfortably. ‘Indeed one would scarcely expect him to, but you’ll find Miss Perch most helpful and your patient very co-operative. She and I are old friends, of course—your uncle will have told you that already. We went to school together—Switzerland, you know and we still see a good deal of each other. She and her husband used to come every year to visit us, usually with their children. She has a family of six…’ Mrs MacFee, who was childless, paused to sigh. ‘After his death she continued to come, but now of course all the children are married, save for the eldest and the youngest.’ She paused for breath, beaming kindly at Sappha, who had conjured up a picture of a desicated spinster wearing glasses following Mother wherever she chose to go…she hoped that she was going to like the Baroness.
It had stopped raining by the time she had convinced the minister and his wife that she was sufficiently rested and refreshed to visit Miss Perch. Mr MacFee went with her to the Manse door and pointed out the way she should go—a not very arduous walk as it turned out, for the district nurse lived in the end cottage in the little street behind the harbour, a bare three minutes’ walk away. Sappha knocked on the stout door, looking around her as she did so. The harbour was indeed small, and the causeway, now that she was near enough to see it properly, was nothing but a crumbling mass of rocks and stone and wood with here and there rough steps connecting its uneven surface—she wondered if it was still used, and as if in answer to her question she glimpsed smoke rising from the muddle of buildings on the island to which it led.
She turned from their contemplation as the door opened and she saw with pleased surprise that Nurse Perch was a girl of her own age, small, blonde and blue-eyed, who grinned engagingly and said ‘Hullo, do come in,’ as she put out a friendly hand which Sappha took with quite obvious signs of relief. ‘I expected you’d be a tough old battleaxe,’ she burst out, ‘but don’t ask me why.’
Miss Perch giggled. ‘And I thought you’d be some high and mighty Ward Sister for ever reminding me of the size and importance of your ward.’ They laughed in unison and as they went inside, Sappha said:
‘My name’s Sappha.’
‘Mine’s Gloria.’
The sitting room was charmingly odd, for it had been furnished largely by the better-off members of the community, but as most of the inhabitants had contributed something, there was a delightful hotch-potch of Victoriana; handsome rugs, two armchairs with rather startling covers, a modern and very efficient-looking desk crammed into one corner, and a variety of cushions of every conceivable size and shape. The walls supported a remarkable collection of pictures, dominated by ‘The Stag at Bay’ over the fireplace, on either side of which were two dim sepia-tinted photographs of elderly ladies in the heavily laden hats of a past era, and they in turn were flanked by ‘When did you last see your Father?’ on the one side and a cross-stitch text framed repulsively in plush and bearing the words ‘Flee from the Wrath to come’ on the other.
Sappha allowed her fascinated gaze to take in these samples of art before turning her attention to the third wall, which held, surprisingly, a delicate watercolour of the harbour and a pair of coloured prints each depicting a gauze-swathed young woman in the act of encouraging—or possibly repelling—the advances of a young man in a tricorne hat. Sappha was still trying to decide which it could be when her hostess spoke. ‘Shattering, isn’t it? The first day I was here I swore I’d have the whole lot down, but this place was furnished by practically everyone who lives here and if I moved a single picture I’d hurt someone’s feelings.’ She made a face and Sappha laughed.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ she admitted, ‘though I love the watercolour.’
Gloria coloured faintly and looked pleased. ‘Oh, do you? Actually I did it myself.’ She grinned cheerfully and went on, ‘Come and sit down and I’ll tell you all about Baroness van Duyren. I’m so glad you’ve come to take over—I mean I’ve got my hands full and after all she is a private patient. Mr Devenish is your uncle, isn’t he? He comes out most weeks, but anything trifling he leaves to me or Doctor MacInroy.’
She said this name in such a way that Sappha was constrained to ask:
‘Is he nice—Dr MacInroy, I mean?’
‘Well, he’s—we’re engaged—that’s why I came here, to be a bit nearer him until we marry, but of course we don’t see a great deal of each other; when I’m free he’s usually up to his neck in measles or something and when he’s got a day off I’m delivering babies.’ She sighed. ‘All the same, it’s nice here, the people are dears and the countryside is heavenly.’ She eyed Sappha’s rather townish clothes with a little doubt not unmixed with envy. ‘Do you like the country?’
Sappha, to whom any part of the world would have been preferable to London at that time, replied that yes, she thought she would love it.
‘It’ll be a bit different from the bright lights of London,’ Gloria warned.
‘Yes,’ Sappha agreed, ‘but I—I wanted a change.’ She frowned. ‘Just for a few months, you know.’
Gloria’s eyes slid discreetly to Sappha’s ringless hands resting on her lap. She said airily: ‘Well, that’s all right, and it’s good fun here too. There’s always something going on here—whist drives and play-readings and dances, and when you can’t think of anything else to do you can always come here, you know. I don’t lock the door, only on my days off, and I’ll show you where I keep the key so’s you can just walk in.’
Sappha thanked her warmly. ‘I’ve got a little car,’ she said. ‘I thought I’d get out and about when I can get off.’
‘Walking’s better,’ said Gloria. ‘Now, shall we go over the notes and charts and so on? I’ve got them ready and a rough routine, though I expect you’ll change that to suit yourself. I don’t know when you’ll get your day off, but I’ll pop up and do the necessary when you do…’
‘Is she nice—the Baroness? She sounded a bit…’ Sappha left the sentence in mid air, but all Gloria said was, ‘Well, I’ll leave you to form your own opinion—she’s Dutch, you knew that, I expect? But her English is as good as yours or mine. She comes to stay with the MacFees at least once a year. She’s fifty-four and has six children—the youngest is sixteen and the eldest thirtyish. Lashings of money, though they’ve had so much for so long that you hardly notice it, if you see what I mean.’
Sappha nodded. ‘It’s a month since she had parathyroid osteodystrophy done, isn’t it? Uncle John was rather pleased with the op—he said it was a nasty tumour. Funny no one found it sooner…’
‘Well, it’s a rare condition, isn’t it? and the signs and symptoms are a bit like rheumatoid arthritis, aren’t they? It was her son—the one who’s a doctor—who suspected a tumour on a gland. He’d been away for several months, though, and she was already over here on holiday when he joined her, and he got your uncle to see her. He caught her just in time I fancy, and as it is, the poor dear has mild renal failure and to crown everything she fell down the first day she was got out of bed after the op and fractured an arm and a leg—the bones were already a bit softened because of the lack of calcium and the tumble did the rest. Still, she’s not the sort to give in and she’s on the mend, we hope, but dreadfully depressed at times, poor dear. You can see why she needs a private nurse.’ She paused and looked at Sappha. ‘Are you sorry you came?’
