* * *
Daniel was not to know there was nothing further from Darcey’s mind. She was feeling low and lost, and after a snack followed by a shower Darcey went to bed and until drowsiness took her into sleep, she spent the time listening in vain for the phone to ring.
A fourth day had dawned with no more contact from Alex and as the three young men were staying anywhere they could with friends and relatives until flight time she was wishing she had been more adamant about him keeping in touch. But something new was appearing in her life as well as his. Alex was happy in the choices he was making, so why shouldn’t she be the same?
The opportunity was there that hadn’t been present before for her to experience something new in the form of a freedom of her own after all the years that she had cared so devotedly for her young brother. She had put him first in everything and suddenly that was no more, the need for it was gone.
But she still had to know that all was well with him before even contemplating anything else, and, as if he’d read her mind, just as she was about to go to present herself on the ward, Alex called. He told her that he hoped that she would be happy in her new job and that he would keep in touch when he could. To hear his voice was solace after the hours of anxiety that he had caused her.
* * *
Over recent days the smile with which the new ward sister greeted Daniel and his entourage on their arrival on the ward had been missing, but he saw that today there was a change, not totally but she was more relaxed, less pale and stressed than of late.When he stopped at the first bed in the ward, where its little occupant’s condition was causing concern, Darcey was as clear and confident as she always was when doing the rounds with him and was tuned in immediately to his comments, just the same as while he was examining the young girl who had suffered a spinal injury after falling off a swing the previous day and was in much pain.
At that moment the child was in a fretful doze, unaware that she was the centre of attention. Daniel read the notes clipped to the bottom of the bed and said, ‘Sister, I want this child to have a scan and some blood tests to check if there is some injury that hasn’t shown itself previously and has surfaced during the night.’
‘Yes, Mr Osbourne,’ she said levelly, and immediately sent for a porter to follow his instructions. Then, picking up her desk phone, she rang the parents of the injured child to explain there was a new development regarding their daughter’s accident, which came as a shock as they had been at her bedside until late the previous evening and had only left when she had fallen into a deep sleep that had indicated no cause for alarm.
But the little girl had awakened in a winter dawn feverish and in pain, and as the porter moved swiftly towards the ultrasound unit with the crying child on the trolley Daniel was close behind, having left his second-in-command to do the rest of the rounds in the children’s ward.
* * *
The doctor’s name was Brendan Stokes and Darcey braced herself to spend the next hour or so being patronised by him. He had already asked her for a date and been refused because he was arrogant and pushy, and it annoyed her that on something as important as caring for sick children he was still eyeing her up and down. While Daniel Osbourne was just the opposite, this one was the opportunist of all time, she thought.
But having seen the man on her mind in the corridor with his family the other day, it was easy to understand his contentment. With a wife and children of such a kind he must be totally happy. His interest in her would be merely keeping an eye on a newcomer to Oceans House, and as far as she was concerned looking after Alex all those years had left little time to make any commitments with the opposite sex.
There had been a couple of times in the past that she’d let herself be dated by local Romeos, but always Alexander had been her main concern, which had put a dampener on every occasion.
When Daniel came back, she observed him questioningly and he said with reasonable calm, ‘I was concerned that we might have missed something when the child was brought in, but there is nothing of that nature. It seems that she was in the process of developing a chest infection at the time of the accident and now it is making itself felt and causing her temperature to soar. Our young patient is on her way back to bed and I’ve put her on antibiotics to cope with it. So keep a close watch on her, Sister, and don’t hesitate to send for me if you have any more concerns about her.’
‘Yes, of course,’ she replied, ‘and I’ll make sure that the night staff are fully informed.’
He was looking around him and questioned, ‘Where is Dr Stokes? Has he done the rounds?’
‘Not quite,’ she told him, pointing to a small side ward off the main one.
‘Right,’ he replied. ‘I’ll join him,’ and as he turned to go, ‘Is all well with you?’
‘Ye-es,’ she said hesitatingly, and he glanced at her.
‘Are you sure? I’ve thought that you seemed to have lost some of your zest. The kind of work that the likes of us have to cope with can be wearing sometimes, to say the least.’
His concern was quickening her heartbeat and her colour was rising as she repeated that she was fine. Partly reassured, he left her and went to find his assistant and with his departure Darcey wondered what Daniel Osbourne would have said if she’d told him the reason for the melancholy in her that he had picked up on. He would probably have thought she was crazy to be so upset at the freedom that Alexander’s departure had given her.
When a couple of the nurses said they were going to go for a meal at a nearby restaurant on the promenade when they’d finished for the day and did she want to join them, she said yes, and thought that if Daniel saw her out and about he would have no cause to question her lowness of spirit.
Inevitably his name came up in the conversation during the meal as the three nurses chatted about their working day, and Darcey commented that it was to be hoped that the sailing club he was connected with didn’t meet every night or he wouldn’t have much time to spend with his family if both his days and nights were spoken for all the time.
The comment caused her two companions to observe her in surprise and they wasted no time in informing her that Dr Osbourne wasn’t married, that he was a free agent, and if he ever decided to change that situation there would be no shortage of would-be brides.
‘It would have been his sister and her children that you saw him with,’ they told her, and Darcey listened in amazement. ‘The dishy doctor was married way back, but it didn’t work out, from all accounts, and it seems that since then he has steered clear of matrimony with all its joys and sorrows, and gives all his attention to his sister’s children. You’ll know from seeing him on the wards how good he is with young ones.’
‘Er...yes,’ she agreed weakly, and thanked the unseen fates that had prevented her from saying anything out of turn to him. She’d been crazy to take it for granted that he was a family man that day, that the woman and children were his, and wondered what it was that had been the cause of his marriage break-up.
It was still early evening when Darcey arrived back at the apartment after the meal with the two nurses, and now, thinking back, it seemed a long time since her brief conversation with Daniel Osbourne after they’d done the ward rounds, but short as it had been there had been a oneness about it that had never been present before with any man she’d met.
* * *
The man on her mind had gone straight to the harbour after leaving Oceans House Hospital at the end of the day to enquire what progress the repairers were making with the damaged boat, and had been told by them