iii
when nurse hopkins, pleasantly stimulated by tea and romantic speculation, finally left the house,mary gerrard ran out of the door to overtake her.
“oh, nurse, may i walk down to the village with you?”
“of course you can, mary, my dear.”
mary gerrard said breathlessly:
“i must talk to you. i’m so worried about everything.”
the older woman looked at her kindly.
at twenty-one, mary gerrard was a lovely creature with a kind of wild-rose unreality about her:
a long delicate neck, pale golden hair lying close to her exquisitely shaped head in soft naturalwaves, and eyes of a deep vivid blue.
nurse hopkins said:
“what’s the trouble?”
“the trouble is that the time is going on and on and i’m not doing anything!”
nurse hopkins said drily:
“time enough for that.”
“no, but it is so—so unsettling. mrs. welman has been wonderfully kind, giving me all thatexpensive schooling. i do feel now that i ought to be starting to earn my own living. i ought to betraining for something.”
nurse hopkins nodded sympathetically.
“it’s such a waste of everything if i don’t. i’ve tried to—to explain what i feel to mrs. welman,but—it’s difficult—she doesn’t seem to understand. she keeps saying there’s plenty of time.”
nurse hopkins said:
“she’s a sick woman, remember.”
mary flushed a contrite flush.
“oh, i know. i suppose i oughtn’t to bother her. but it is worrying—and father’s so—so beastlyabout it! keeps jibing at me for being a fine lady! but indeed i don’t want to sit about doingnothing!”
“i know you don’t.”
“the trouble is that training of any kind is nearly always expensive. i know german pretty wellnow, and i might do something with that. but i think really i want to be a hospital nurse. i do likenursing and sick people.”
nurse hopkins said unromantically:
“you’ve got to be as strong as a horse, remember!”
“i am strong! and i really do like nursing. mother’s sister, the one in new zealand, was anurse. so it’s in my blood, you see.”
“what about massage?” suggested nurse hopkins. “or norland? you’re fond of children.
there’s good money to be made in massage.”
mary said doubtfully:
“it’s expensive to train for it, isn’t it? i hoped—but of course that’s very greedy of me—she’sdone so much for me already.”
“mrs. welman, you mean? nonsense. in my opinion, she owes you that. she’s given you a slap-up education, but not the kind that leads to anything much. you don’t want to teach?”
“i’m not clever enough.”
nurse hopkins said:
“there’s brains and brains! if you take my advice, mary, you’ll be patient for the present. in myopinion, as i said, mrs. welman owes it to you to help you get a start at making your living. andi’ve no doubt she means to do it. but the truth of the matter is, she’s got fond of you, and shedoesn’t want to lose you.”
mary said:
“oh!” she drew in her breath with a little gasp. “do you really think that’s it?”
“i haven’t the least doubt of it! there she is, poor old lady, more or less helpless, paralysed oneside and nothing and nobody much to amuse her. it means a lot to her to have a fresh, pretty youngthing like you about the house. you’ve a very nice way with you in a sickroom.”
mary said softly:
“if you really think so—that makes me feel better… dear mrs. welman, i’m very, very fond ofher! she’s been so good to me always. i’d do anything for her!”
nurse hopkins said drily:
“then the best thing you can do is to stay where you are and stop worrying! it won’t be forlong.”
mary said, “do you mean—?”
her eyes looked wide and frightened.
the district nurse nodded.
“she’s rallied wonderfully, but it won’t be for long. there will be a second stroke and then athird. i know the way of it only too well. you be patient, my dear. if you keep the old lady’s lastdays happy and occupied, that’s a better deed than many. the time for the other will come.”
mary said:
“you’re very kind.”
nurse hopkins said:
“here’s your father coming out from the lodge—and not to pass the time of day pleasantly, ishould say!”
they were just nearing the big iron gates. on the steps of the lodge an elderly man with a bentback was painfully hobbling down the two steps.
nurse hopkins said cheerfully:
“good morning, mr. gerrard.”
ephraim gerrard said crustily:
“ah!”
“very nice weather,” said nurse hopkins.
old gerrard said crossly:
“may be for you. ’tisn’t for me. my lumbago’s been at me something cruel.”
nurse hopkins said cheerfully:
“that was the wet spell last week, i expect. this hot dry weather will soon clear that away.”
her brisk professional manner appeared to annoy the old man.
he said disagreeably:
“nurses—nurses, you’m all the same. full of cheerfulness over other people’s troubles. littleyou care! and there’s mary talks about being a nurse, too. should have thought she’d want to besomething better than that, with her french and her german and her piano playing and all thethings she’s learned at her grand school and her travels abroad.”
mary said sharply:
“being a hospital nurse would be quite good enough for me!”
“yes, and you’d sooner do nothing at all, wouldn’t you? strutting about with your airs and yourgraces and your fine-lady-do-nothing ways. laziness, that’s what you like, my girl!”
mary protested, tears springing to her eyes:
“it isn’t true, dad. you’ve no right to say that!”
nurse hopkins intervened with a heavy, determinedly humorous air.
“just a bit under the weather, aren’t we, this morning? you don’t really mean what you say,gerrard. mary’s a good girl and a good daughter to you.”
gerrard looked at his daughter with an air of almost active malevolence.
“she’s no daughter of mine—nowadays—with her french and her history and her mincing talk.
pah!”
he turned and went into the lodge again.
mary said, the tears still standing in her eyes:
“you do see, nurse, don’t you, how difficult it is? he’s so unreasonable. he’s never really likedme even when i was a little girl. mum was always standing up for me.”
nurse hopkins said kindly:
“there, there, don’t worry. these things are sent to try us! goodness, i must hurry. such around as i’ve got this morning.”
and as she stood watching the brisk retreating figure, mary gerrard thought forlornly thatnobody was any real good or could really help you. nurse hopkins, for all her kindness, was quitecontent to bring out a little stock of platitudes and offer them with an air of novelty.
mary thought disconsolately:
“what shall i do?”