businesslike journalism? I’d say to you, Joanna — Don’t exhaust yourself with personalities — these people, with their idiotic jealousies and general haphazard behaviors, have merely bought your skill and when you’ve got your patient well they’ll let you go without even remembering your name six months afterwards. You’ll have become ‘that nurse we had for Roger’ — no more than that!
“I don’t know why I’m telling you this, because you must know it, and you usually preserve the most correct of detached attitudes to your cases! But in this one you seem to have got involved ... I don’t quite know how far. When I wrote ‘involved’ I nearly added ‘emotionally’. But it isn’t that, i s it, Joanna? I think you’d have told me if it had been. You would, wouldn’t you?”
Dale’s letter had stopped abruptly there and Joanna sat staring at it, her head propped in her hands while her fingers thrust deeply into the loosened falls of her hair a t each side of her face. Suddenly she did not want to smile at the tone of the letter any more. Dale didn’t often write like that—her own letter must have said more than she meant to convey, and Dale seemed really disturbed.
At what? What could she have said or hinted at to be taken up so seriously? She could not tell. Tomorrow she must write to him again, be really facetious this time or else ignore altogether the subject of the Carnehills and their complicated affairs. And yet—mightn’t that puzzle Dale even more? It would be better to write assuring him that, indeed, she was as “detached” as usual, intent only on doing her work well, finishing it at last and being quite content to become ultimately “that nurse we had for Roger.”
Slowly she began to fold Dale’s letter, knowing that if she were completely truthful she would not be content to become for the Carnehills a mere forgotten name. But why should it happen like that? Colonel Kimstone had remembered her—That — surely—was the least she could a sk of Carrieghmere when she had left it behind her. But was it the most she wanted to ask of it —was it?
She started at the sound of a knock upon her door. Her thoughts immediately flew to her patient — someone had come to call her, and she would have to dress and go to him.
But when the door opened it was Shuan Ferrall w ho stood upon the threshold. And Shuan was mindful of nobody’s urgencies but her own.
She said breathlessly: “Can I come in? I—I want to talk to you. I’ve got to get awa y from Carrieghmere!”
CHAPTER SIX
The two girls looked at each other for a long minute. Then Joanna said gently:
“Yes, come in. Come and sit down.”
“You were just going to bed.” It was the nearest approach to an apology for her intrusion which Shuan could be expected to attempt.
Joanna smiled. “Getting on that way. But I’m afraid I’m a dreadful “potterer’. I wasn’t quite ready for bed.” She paused, then looked directly at the girl to challenge: “ Why must you get away from home?”
“I want to. I — Oh, it’s no good my staying here! But I haven’t said a word to Mums. I came to you because of what you said about—about antique shops or something. You said I ought to get a job in one—”
“And you said it was impossible!” Joanna reminded her with a smile.
“Yes, well—I’ve changed my mind. I thought I’d go to Dublin.”
Joanna reflected swiftly: How careful one ought to be! On the strength of this child’s smattering of knowledge about good glass I seem to have taken it upon myself to point her career!
Shuan went on blandly: “Mums wouldn’t let me stay there, of course. I should have to go in every day. But there’s a train from Tulleen that’d get me there between ten and eleven in the morning —”
Joanna took a deep breath. This was where these vague blossomings of an artistic ambition had, regretfully, to be nipped in the bud! As gently as she could, she said:
“I don’t
“I don’t know why I’m telling you this, because you must know it, and you usually preserve the most correct of detached attitudes to your cases! But in this one you seem to have got involved ... I don’t quite know how far. When I wrote ‘involved’ I nearly added ‘emotionally’. But it isn’t that, i s it, Joanna? I think you’d have told me if it had been. You would, wouldn’t you?”
Dale’s letter had stopped abruptly there and Joanna sat staring at it, her head propped in her hands while her fingers thrust deeply into the loosened falls of her hair a t each side of her face. Suddenly she did not want to smile at the tone of the letter any more. Dale didn’t often write like that—her own letter must have said more than she meant to convey, and Dale seemed really disturbed.
At what? What could she have said or hinted at to be taken up so seriously? She could not tell. Tomorrow she must write to him again, be really facetious this time or else ignore altogether the subject of the Carnehills and their complicated affairs. And yet—mightn’t that puzzle Dale even more? It would be better to write assuring him that, indeed, she was as “detached” as usual, intent only on doing her work well, finishing it at last and being quite content to become ultimately “that nurse we had for Roger.”
Slowly she began to fold Dale’s letter, knowing that if she were completely truthful she would not be content to become for the Carnehills a mere forgotten name. But why should it happen like that? Colonel Kimstone had remembered her—That — surely—was the least she could a sk of Carrieghmere when she had left it behind her. But was it the most she wanted to ask of it —was it?
She started at the sound of a knock upon her door. Her thoughts immediately flew to her patient — someone had come to call her, and she would have to dress and go to him.
But when the door opened it was Shuan Ferrall w ho stood upon the threshold. And Shuan was mindful of nobody’s urgencies but her own.
She said breathlessly: “Can I come in? I—I want to talk to you. I’ve got to get awa y from Carrieghmere!”
CHAPTER SIX
The two girls looked at each other for a long minute. Then Joanna said gently:
“Yes, come in. Come and sit down.”
“You were just going to bed.” It was the nearest approach to an apology for her intrusion which Shuan could be expected to attempt.
Joanna smiled. “Getting on that way. But I’m afraid I’m a dreadful “potterer’. I wasn’t quite ready for bed.” She paused, then looked directly at the girl to challenge: “ Why must you get away from home?”
“I want to. I — Oh, it’s no good my staying here! But I haven’t said a word to Mums. I came to you because of what you said about—about antique shops or something. You said I ought to get a job in one—”
“And you said it was impossible!” Joanna reminded her with a smile.
“Yes, well—I’ve changed my mind. I thought I’d go to Dublin.”
Joanna reflected swiftly: How careful one ought to be! On the strength of this child’s smattering of knowledge about good glass I seem to have taken it upon myself to point her career!
Shuan went on blandly: “Mums wouldn’t let me stay there, of course. I should have to go in every day. But there’s a train from Tulleen that’d get me there between ten and eleven in the morning —”
Joanna took a deep breath. This was where these vague blossomings of an artistic ambition had, regretfully, to be nipped in the bud! As gently as she could, she said:
“I don’t
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