The office door was firmly closed when she reached it and when she knocked she was bidden to enter at once the outer room, guarded by two office Sisters, immersed in paper work, one of whom paused long enough to wave Mary Jane to a chair before burying herself in the litter of papers on her desk. Mary Jane perched on the edge of a stool, watching her two companions, feeling sorry for them; they must have started out with a desire to nurse the sick, and look where they were now—stuck behind desks all day, separated from the patients by piles of statistics and forms, something she would avoid at all costs, she told herself, and was interrupted in her thoughts by the buzzer sounding its summons.
The Chief Nursing Officer was quite young, barely forty, with a twinkling pair of eyes, a nice-looking face and beautifully arranged hair under her muslin cap. She smiled at Mary Jane as she went in.
‘Sit down, Staff Nurse,’ she invited. ‘There’s something I have to tell you.’
‘Oh lord, the sack!’ thought Mary Jane. ‘Old Thompson’s been complaining…’ She was deep in speculation as to what she had done wrong when she was recalled to her surroundings by her companion’s pleasant voice.
‘It concerns your grandfather, Nurse Pettigrew. His housekeeper telephoned a short time ago. He isn’t very well and has asked for you to go to his home in order to look after him. Naturally you will wish to do so, although I’ve been asked to stress the fact that there’s no’—she paused—‘no cause for alarm, at least for the moment. I believe your grandfather is an old man?’
Mary Jane nodded. ‘Eighty-two,’ she said in her rather soft voice, ‘but he’s very tough. May I go at once, please?’
‘As soon as you wish. I’ll telephone Sister Thompson so that there’s no need for you to go back to the ward. Perhaps when you get to your grandfather’s, you’ll let me know how things are.’
She was dismissed. She made her way rapidly to the Nurses’ Home, thankful that she wouldn’t have to face Sister Thompson, her mind already busy with the details of her journey. It was full autumn, it would be cold in Cumbria, so she would take warm clothes but as few as possible—she could pack a case in a few minutes. She was busy doing that when her bedroom door was flung open and her dearest friend, Janet Moore, came in. ‘There’s a rumour,’ she began, ‘someone overheard that you’d been sent to the Office.’ Her eyes lighted on the little pile of clothes on the bed. ‘Mary Jane, you’ve never been…no, of course not, you’ve never done anything really wicked in your life. What’s up?’
Mary Jane told her as she squeezed the last sweater into her case, shut the lid and started to tear off her uniform. She was in slacks and a heavy woolly by the time she had finished, and without bothering to do more than smooth her hair, tied a bright scarf over it, pushed impatient feet into sensible shoes, caught up her handbag and the case and made for the door, begging her friend to see to her laundry for her as she went. ‘See you,’ she said briefly, and Janet called after her:
‘You’re not going now—this very minute? It’s miles away—it’ll be dark…’
‘It’s ten o’clock,’ Mary Jane informed her as she made off down the corridor, ‘and it’s two hundred and ninety miles—besides, I know the way.’
It seemed to take a long time to get out of London, but once she was clear of the suburbs and had got on to the A1, she put a small, determined foot down on the accelerator, keeping the little car going at a steady fifty-five, and when the opportunity occurred, going a good deal faster than that.
Just south of Newark she stopped for coffee and a sandwich and then again when she turned off the A1 at Leeming to cross the Yorkshire fells to Kendal. The road was a lonely one, but she knew it well, and although the short autumn afternoon was already dimming around her, she welcomed its solitude after the rush and bustle of London. At Kendal she stopped briefly before taking the road which ran through Ambleside and on to Keswick. The day was closing in on her now, the mountains around blotting out the last of a watery sun, but she hardly noticed them. At any other time she would have stopped to admire the view, but now she scarcely noticed them, for her thoughts were wholly of her grandfather. The last few miles of the long journey seemed endless, and she heaved a sigh of relief as she wove the car through Keswick’s narrow streets and out again on to the road climbing to Cockermouth. Keswick was quickly left behind; she was back in open country again and once she had gone through Thronthwaite she slowed the car. She was almost there, for now the road ran alongside the lake with the mountains crowding down to it on one side, tree-covered and dark, shutting out the last of the light, and there was only an odd cottage or two now and scattered along the faint gleam of the water, larger houses, well away from each other. The road curved away from the lake and then returned and there, between it and the water, was her grandfather’s house.
It stood on a spit of land running out into the lake, its garden merging into the grass alongside the quiet water. It was of a comfortable size, built of grey stone and in a style much favoured at the beginning of the nineteenth century, its arched windows fitted with leaded panes, its wrought-iron work a little too elaborate and a turret or two ornamenting its many-gabled roof. All the same it presented a pleasing enough picture to Mary Jane as she turned the car carefully into the short drive and stopped outside the front porch. Its door stood open and the woman standing there came to meet her with obvious relief.
‘Mrs Body, how lovely to see you! I came as quickly as I could—how’s Grandfather?’
Mrs Body was pleasant and middle-aged and housekeeper to the old Colonel for the last twenty years or more. She took Mary Jane’s hand and said kindly, ‘There, Miss Mary Jane, if it isn’t good to see you, I must say. Your grandfather’s not too bad—a heart attack, as you know, but the doctor’s coming this evening and he’ll tell you all about it. But now come in and have tea, for you’ll be famished, I’ll be bound.’
She led the way indoors as she spoke, into the dim, roomy hall. ‘You go up and see the Colonel, he’s that anxious for you to get here—and I’ll get the tea on the table.’
Mary Jane nodded and smiled and ran swiftly up the uncarpeted staircase, past the portraits of her ancestors and on to the landing, to tap on a door in its centre. The room she was bidden to enter was large and rather over-full of ponderous furniture, but cheerful enough by reason of the bright fire burning in the grate and the lamps on either side of the bed.
The Colonel lay propped up with pillows, an old man with a rugged face which, to Mary Jane’s discerning eye, had become very thin. He said now in a thin thread of a voice, ‘Hullo, child—how long did it take you this time?’ and she smiled as she bent to kiss him; ever since he had given her the car, he had made the same joke about the time it took her to drive up from London. She told him now, her head a little on one side as she studied him. She loved him very much and he was an ill old man, but none of her thoughts showed on her calm, unremarkable features. She sat down close to the bed and talked for a little while in her pretty voice, then got up to go to her tea, telling him that she would be back later.
‘Yes, my dear, do that. I daresay Morris will be here by then, he knows all about me.’ He added wistfully, ‘You’ll stay, Mary Jane?’
She retraced her steps to his bed. ‘Of course, Grandfather. I’ve no intention of going back until you’re well again—I’ve got unlimited leave from Pope’s,’ she grinned engagingly at him, ‘and you know how much I love being here in the autumn.’
Tea was a substantial meal; a huge plate of bacon and eggs, scones, home-made bread