"DISTRICT NURSE"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 January 1939, Page 10

"DISTRICT NURSE"

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. COPYRIGHT.

BY

FAITH BALDWIN.

CHAPTER XTTT.—Continued.

“I’ll tell her. Mother, stop shaking, dearest. Everything's going to be all right.” But there were a hundred questions Mrs Adams had to ask. How Coral had looked, what she said. A hundred Questions, none of them too difficult to answer. And then, practically, “We must get things ready for her here. She can sleep with me.” “No, darling, that would be bad for both of you. I’ll sleep on the davenport. It will be all right, see if it isn’t. And tomorrow I’ll bring her home.” She thought, one of us must go out and buy things for her. There’d been nothing in the gas-filled apartment but the clothes, on her back, and some torn, clean underwear’ in the battered suitcase. Nothing else. In the hospital she was wearing the coarse hospital nightgown. Ellen knew where her vacation money would go. For Coral. Nightgowns and chemises, bed jackets and negligees, dresses . . . When she heard Nancy stir she rose and went to the kitchen to put on coffee and cut bread and butter and make sandwiches. Then she went into the bedroom and told Nancy all she had said. “That’s the story,” she told her, “you’ll remember it?” There were tears when Nancy came out of the bedroom, the weak tears of happiness. “To keep it from pre all day,” her mother said, reproachful. “Blame it on Ellen,” Nancy told her. She wanted to tell you herself. She was afraid you’d be too upset.” “Upset?” said Mrs Adams. “I've never felt so well, no, not in years. Pete found her, you say?” She paled. “Then she was in—” She halted.

“Yes. But you see, no one knew who she was. Naturally she was taken to the hospital,” said Ellen hastily, “to that hospital. And it was some days before Pete happened to see her.” “Pete,” murmured her mother, remembering.

Nancy finished her supper. Ellen said. “You must be tired, mother, you must get right into bed. And to sleep. For tomorrow's another day, and I’ll have Coral home before you know it. You —you must try to be courageous,” she told her mother gently, “remember, she’s been very ill, we must be careful of her.”

Nancy was going after her mother was in bed. Before she went she drew Ellen to the door with her and held her in a quick hard 'unusual embrace. “You’re pretty darned marvelous,” said Nancy.

Left alone, Ellen sat down at the little desk in the living room to write to Frank. He would, he’d said, call her tomorrow. She’d better write. Tomorrow, everything would be different. She wrote quite simply. “My sister," she said, “has come home after so many years. Everything's pretty much in a whirl. I’m writing to explain. I’m bringing her from the hospital tomorrow. She’d been very ill. I’d rather you didn’t phone for a day or two. I know you’ll understand,” she wrote and slipped out to mail it, special delivery, at the corner box.

She thought, returning to her own room, the room which would be made fresh for Coral the next day, how will we arrange things? . . . oh, this place is so dreadfully small now. She planned standing in the middle of the room, a finger at her lips. Daytimes, Coral could be in the living room, or in her mother’s bedroom. Nights, in the other bedroom. And Ellen could sleep on the davenport. It was comfortable enough. When Coral was better, stronger, things would work out more ilyShe thought she would never sleep. Yet she slept as soon as her head touched the pillow. And suddenly it was morning. Nancy came in showing nc signs of the lack of sleep on the daj before. Mrs Adams was up early “When are you going for her?” she de manded.

“Soon, but not too soon. They’d throw me out,” said Ellen laughing. She herself went out early, and uptown to the shops. A plain little sill' dress, a thin coat, a small quilled lam Powder and rouge and lipstick. Underwear, nightgowns, slippers. A tailored robe, a robe of silk. Stockings. Shoos She guessed at Coral’s size, vaguely but as it happened correctly. Enough to go on with. A suitcase, new. She unwrapped the things in the women’s rest room and packed them in the case. Coral must come home equipped. Nothing that she had worn would come home with her.

She took a taxi to the hospital and telephoned from there for a private, comfortable car. Her vacation money, not much would be left. But she had certain savings; she could carry on and keep up her share of the apartment. Only Coral must come home head high, eyes steady, not creep home with the broken suitcase, the poor clothes. She took tite new things up to the ward with her and displayed them. “There,” she said, smiling to see the faint colour in Coral's face and lips, and her rested eyes, "there, that's enough to go with, isn’t it?” Coral said. “You’re, so good. Why arc you so good, Ellen? She caught her sister's hands. “Little Ellen . . .” she said.

She tried to laugh as Ellen drew the stockings up over her lovely too slender legs. “Ellen, you didn't tell me what you were made up for. yesterday." “Oh. the uniform?” Ellen explained briefly. “I'm a district nurse." she said. You know what that is, don't you?"

“Sweetness and light?” inquired Coral. She’d always been pert. She still was. "Not exactly.” Ellen told her. smiling. “And Nancy ?"

“Works nights.” Ellen elucidated fully. Coral’s blue eyes widened. “Dad . . doesn’t he kick? Ellen, will he take me back 1 '”

CHAPTER XTV. Ellen looked around. They were alone, the curtains drawn. She said swiftly, steadily, “You've got to know, darling. Dad’s —been gone —six years

The faint colour faded. Coral said after a moment, "Funny. I can’t cry. I’ve cried so much, I suppose. Ellen, it wasn’t worrying over me, was it?” Her eyes pleaded and implored. "It was pneumonia,” said Ellen. "He —did he forgive me?” asked Coral, quietly. “Of course,” Ellen answered. She lied. She had to lie. "And me not there. Ellen, if I’d known,. But I was afraid, afraid to write, afraid to come back.” “Let’s not talk about that now,” said Ellen.

Pete was not in evidence as they went down the corridor. When they were in the rented car Coral, said, “Mother? I mean, I would have thought that after Dad went she couldn’t go on.”

“She has gone on. She’s not awfully well. It’s not serious,” added Ellen hastily, “but ” She explained as best she could. Coral nodded. “I’ll be careful of her. too,” she said. “Ellen, what have you told her?” “That you were coming home to us. That you were taken sick on the train,” Ellen replied. She went on coaching Coral in the poor little story. “It’s only,” said Coral afterwards, “a half lie, isn’t it?”

She spoke of Pete . . . He was awfully good to me. But I couldn’t bear the sight of him. I knew he hated me.” He doesn’t hate you,” said Ellen. “He knows?” asked Coral in a whisper.

“He had to know, dear; when you were brought in.” She thought, we mustn’t ever tell her that he was on that ambulance. Never.

“Pete, a doctor. That’s funny, somehow. It’s not funny you’re being a nurse. You always liked that sort of thing, I remember when you were very little,” said Coral from her two year’s seniority. Now her eyes widened. The car had turned a corner, and’ was entering a familiar street. “The same house?” she said.

“But the neighbourhood's changed. So changed. Is Joe still cobbling shoes? He is? And is Jim still your heavy suitor? No, things haven’t changed so much.”

The car stopped. She clung to Ellen, a minute. She said, low, “I’m frightened. I can’t face her. What shall ' tell her, Ellen? What shall I tell her?” "Tell her nothing,” answered Ellen clearly, “that would hurt you or her.”

And now the apartment door had opened . . . “Home ...” said Coral, very low, and stumbled across the threshold, ignoring Ellen's swift outstretched hand, going- straight into the frail arms, suddenly strong, that were held out to her. Home...

And so time passed and the nine-day wonder of her home-coming faded. She was gradually becoming herself again under Ellen’s watchful care. It was Ellen who saw she had nourishing food and drinks, Ellen who took her walking in the sunlight, Ellen who defended her from the neighbourhood. As a whole, however, the neighbours were kind.

Jim came, hearing the news by that underground circuit of his. Coral stared at him, laughter on his lips. “All grown up.” she mocked him, “big business man now, Jimmy . . .”

And presently Frank came, too. Frank whose flowers had arrived the very day Coral had come home. “For Ellen’s sister,” the card read. Coral liked him at once. She told Ellen so. “J. like the new beau,” she said. “He’s regular. I can tell. Ellen, what’s come over Jim? He’s different from what he used to be.”

“No, he's the same,” said Ellen laughing, “he hasn't changed a bit.” Coral’s eyes were puzzled.

“Yes, he has. Ellen, are you going to marry him, or the new applicant? “I’m not going to marry anybody for a long, long time,” Ellen evaded the question gaily. “Sez you,” said Coral in her old slangy way. She wanted to work, she said. When she was strong, she’d find some work. No. not the stage. Never that. She told Ellen, alone with her one day. “I never made good. Ellen, you don't know . . .”

She was silent, sombre. Remembering. Cheap third-string road companies .. . heat and cold, odours, quarrels, dingy costumes, stale tunes . . No, she had never made-good. That man. He'd disappeared. Then the drifting away, the one night stands, the company that had gone to Australia, the company that had gone broke there. Ellen said, when now and then she would stammer something

“There's nothing you need to tell me unless you want to, understand." She'd thought herself so in love. After that, no other men. She remembered that with a curious hard, pathetic pride. Many hungry days, hunger drawing your stomach into a hard tight' knot, making you sick and defiant . . . Not always the stage, the third-rate shows. A waitress in a western town. A shop girl up north. Once, as a servant. A very bad servant, she said and looked at her little hands. "I dropped things. And there was a son. Not my fault, said Coral, "but his mother fired me. Toute de suite.” "Dearest, if it helps to talk, tell me—everything. But if it doesn't—forget it, if you can. Can you?" “I’ll try . . .”

Eight crowded years. Draughty dressing rooms, kitchens, smelling of heavy food, another woman’s sedate house, the son slinking in and out, “How about going to the movies with me. Cora?” The movies, too; she tried that, landing, at the end of her rope

in Hollywood. Waiting at casting offices for extra work. Getting it, for a day or two. “Not casting today,” they told her. Weary months . , . She told her mother only the funny tilings, the things which had been so comic when they happened. Iler mother said, never tired of touching her, of looking at her, "But you could have written. Coral." "I was a fool," she told her mother simply. "I wanted to come back to this man's town in a blaze of glory. I didn’t. 1 never was much of an actress, not even a fair chorus girl. I should have known better, quit, early in the game. But you don't, you know. You grit your teeth and say, next season . . next season, I'll knock ’em into the aisles. Just pride," she said, "that was all."

"Funny," mused Mrs Adams once. “Pete doesn't come to ask how you are.”

Coral said, through stiff lips. “Why should he? He’s busy, isn’t he? He’s going to practice for himself pretty soon. Ellen met Doc Travers and he said he was taking Pete on as his assistant now that Mel’s settled out of town.”

(To be Continued.)