Nurse in Waiting by Jane Arbor Read Free Book Online Page A

feel prejudiced against him.
    At breakfast Mrs. Carnehill announced that she must go to Dublin, but that ‘Beltie’ was to be duly invited to lunch if he wanted to stay.
    “He’ll want to,” interposed Shuan.
    “Yes. He usually does,” relied Mrs. Carnehill placidly. “Though I’ve never known, really, how he has the time—”
    “What time may I expect him?” asked Joanna.
    “Oh, say about eleven. Maybe later. Shuan dear, Justin is coming to dinner tonight—did I tell you? I forgot I was going to Dublin, but I dare say I shall be back.”
    “Is René coming too?” inquired Shuan.
    “Well, I didn’t ask him particularly, but if he does, be nice to him, there’s a good girl.” Mrs. Carnehill toned to Joanna. “You’ve met Justin McKiley; René Menden is a young Belgian who is studying farming on the estate,” she explained. “He is living with Mr. McKiley at the Dower House —”
    “ —When he isn’t living here” put in Shuan pertly.
    “Shuan, that’s not fair! He very rarely comes here unless he is asked. And his manners are charm ing.”
    “He goggles so! He clicks his heels when he bows, and he wanted to kiss my hand!” objected Shuan.
    “Well, you can hardly measure his behaviour alongside that of the corner-boys of Tulleen!” was Mrs. Ca rn ehill’s dry comment. “He is a stranger to our country, and it’s for us to try to understand that his ways are different. But you’re not very tolerant, are you, alannah?” she added more indulgently as she saw from the girl’s face that the rebuke had been taken.
    It was a little later, when she was searching — rather hopelessly — through the papers on her desk for some details of Roger’s hospital treatment required by Joanna that Mrs. Carnehill said reflectively:
    “ D ’you know, I think young Menden believes he is in love with Shuan.”
    “In love?” echoed Joanna. “But — she’s only a child!”
    Mrs. Carnehill looked over her shoulder to give her gentle smile. “She is eighteen. And wasn’t I married myself within a year of the selfsame age!”
    “She doesn’t love him?” Joanna put the question while she tried to assimilate this new idea about Shuan. Certainly she found it difficult to associate with her any emotion as mature as — love!
    “No. I’m sure not. And I don’t think it has occurred to her that his ‘goggling,’ as she calls it, is part of his complaint. I can only hope that she won’t hurt him too much, unwittingly.”
    Joanna said carefully: “She is very devoted to Mr. Carnehill, isn’t she?”
    “Why, yes. And I’ve been so grateful for it. For the brother — and — sister relationship between them that made it possible, I mean. Until you came, I don’t know what I’d have done without her. Now you are here. I’m glad she can be relieved of some of the duties which I should have expected her to tire of, long since. But now she ought to get out and about more. I confess I’d like to see her considering the possibilities of René as a companio n—”
    “She doesn’t seem anxious for freedom. She is very single-minded,” murmured Joanna.
    “Single-minded—in her devotion to Roger, you mean? Yes, I know.” Mrs. Carnehill smiled a little sadly. “Why—she sometimes finds it necessary to protect him even from me!”
    “From you? I don’t understand?”
    “Well—you’ve heard for yourself how Roger feels about—about all this?” She waved an expressive hand over the littered desk. “And sometimes Shuan takes sides with him against me. As if she didn’t understand—even if he can’t be expected to!”
    Her bright eyes clouded as they had done yesterday and Joanna, herself ‘unders tan ding’ very little of the cause of the conflict between her patient and his mother, thought it best to make no direct comment. Instead she held out her hand to take the medical notes which her employer had just unearthed, as she said gently:
    “Shuan is very young. And as intolerant as youth