Nurse in Waiting by Jane Arbor

devotion —”
    “You mean Mrs. Carnehill and—Miss Ferrall?”
    “His mother and Shuan—yes. It was high time we infused some fresh blood into the nursing of him. Hence — you. I look to you, Nurse, to act as a sort of buffer state for him.”
    Joanna glanced down at her hands. “That won’t be easy,” she said.
    Dr. Beltane gave her a shrewd look. “You mean that you’ve already had some difficulty? It’s a personal issue, I know. Maybe you feel you oughtn’t to have to concern yourself with that sort of thing?”
    “It isn’t that,” said Joanna quickly. “In private nursing there are bound to be personal issues of one kind or another. This one is that Mrs. Carnehill’s ward is peculiarly sensitive about my being here. She feels that I’m trying to assert an authority which I haven’t got—except through you, Doctor.”
    His round face crinkled reassuringly. “She was bound to feel like that, the poor gossoon. She’ll get over it in time. And, anyway, she should not be troubling her pretty head about a sickroom and a patient who’ll get well in the end without her. So I leave that with you, Nurse. I know you’ll be as tactful as you can about it?”
    Easier said than done! thought Joanna wryly. But Dr. Beltane went on: “About his mother—that’s more difficult, I admit. Frankly, I don’t understand her treatment of the boy lately. He lies there, pining for news of the estate—how it is going and so forth, market prices and all that—and she pursues a policy of keeping everything from him— ‘ in case he worries’!”
    “That’s not very wise, surely?” suggested Joanna.
    “So I tell her. But the g ood woman is as obstinate as—as a Carnehill. And that’s saying something, for of course she wasn’t born one. She shuts up like an oyster and says she won’t take things to h i m until he’s better — much better. She won’t accept my word that she is slowly starving him of something which was once his whole life’s interest. Perhaps you could watch your chance, Nurse, and say a word about that too?”
    “I ’ ll try,” promised Joanna, though a trifle doubtfully. She wondered whether the doctor knew about that other source of annoyance to Roger — Mrs. Carnehill’s work. But she supposed he did, since he seemed to know the family very well.
    Meanwhile she was glad that she would have his company at luncheon—she hadn’t been looking forward to a meal alone with Shuan!
    When she went in to Roger in the afternoon he said abruptly:
    “McKiley is coming to dinner. If Mother isn’t back, will you see that he comes to me afterwards?”
    There was an imperious arrogance in his tone which made Joanna wonder whether the Carnehills, like many another Irish family, traced its descent from kings.
    After a pause Roger went on: “You’ve met McKiley. What do you think of him?”
    Joanna looked her surprise. “Why — I hardly know. He was very kin d—”
    “M’m. Gallantry becomes him. But surely—your first real contact in this country, and no first impressions?” Again the blue eyes were veiled with amusement.
    Joanna smiled. “Well—nothing particularly lasting, I think. He invited me to go and see the Dower House one day, I remember.”
    “That should be both amusing—and instructive! Didn’t he issue a more specific invitation than ‘one day’?”
    “No,” Joanna’s eyes twinkled. “He suggested that I should go when I felt in need of “light relief’ from my work here”
    Roger frowned. “Damned impertinence! Why didn’t you snub him?”
    An imp of mischief entered Joanna. “Perhaps,” she said carefully, “because I didn’t know then how much in need of ‘light relief’ I might be. Safety first!”
    “Well, do you know now?” He sounded offended, and she realized that her joke had not been too well taken. She said quickly: “I’m sorry. I oughtn’t to have said that. It sounded —”
    “—Coy and unexpectedly cheap, I thought! But I suppose