Jan and Her Job Part 19

"I love children and they usually like me. If you take me to look after Tony and little Fay, I'll do it thoroughly, I can promise you. I won't teach them, mind, not a thing--I'll make them happy and well-mannered; and, Jan, listen, do you suppose there's anybody, even the most superior of elderly nurses, who would take the trouble for Fay's children that I should? If you let me come you won't regret it, I promise you."

Meg's eyes, those curious eyes with the large pupil and blue iris flecked with brown, were very bright, her voice was earnest, and when it ceased it left a sense of tension in the very air.

Jan put out her hand across the table, and Meg, releasing her sharp little chin, clasped it with hers.

"So that's settled," Meg announced triumphantly.

"No." Jan's voice was husky but firm. "It's not settled. I don't think you're strong enough; but, even so, if I could pay you the salary you ought to have, I'd jump at you ... but, my dear, I can't at present. I haven't the least idea what it will all cost, but the fares and things have made such a hole in this year's money I'll need to be awfully careful."

"That's exactly why I want to come; you've no idea of being careful and doing things in a small way. I've done it all my life. You'll be far more economical with me than without me."

"Don't tempt me," Jan besought her. "I see all that, but why should I be comfortable at your expense? I want you more than I can say. Fay wanted it too--she said so."

"Did Fay actually say so? Did she?"

"Yes, she did--not that you should be their nurse, we neither of us ever thought of that; but she did want you to be there to help me with the children. We used to talk about it."

"Then I'm coming. I must. Don't you see how it is, Jan? Don't you realise that nearly all the happiness in my life--_all_ the happiness since the boys left--has come to me through Mr. Ross and Fay and you?

And now when there's a chance for me to do perhaps a little something in return ... If you don't let me, it's you who are mean and grudging. I shall be perfectly strong, if I haven't got to teach--mind, I won't do that, not so much as A.B.C."

"I know it's wrong," Jan sighed, "just because it would be so heavenly to have you."

Meg loosed the hand she held and stood up. She lifted her thin arms above her head, as though invoking some invisible power, stretched herself, and ran round the table to kiss Jan.

"And do you never think, you dear, slow-witted thing, that it will be rather lovely for _me_ to be with you? To be with somebody who is kind without being patronising, who treats one as a human being and not a machine, who sees the funny side of things and isn't condescending or improving if she doesn't happen to be cross?"

"I'm often cross," Jan said.

"Well, and what if you are? Can't I be cross back? I'm not afraid of your crossness. You never hit below the belt. Now, promise me you'll give me a trial. Promise!"

Meg's arms were round her neck, Meg's absurd cropped head was rubbing against hers. Jan was very lonely and hungry for affection just then, timid and anxious about the future. Even in that moment of time it flashed upon her what a tower of strength this small, determined creature would be, and how infinitely hard it was to turn Meg from any course she had determined on.

"For a little while, then," so Jan salved her conscience. "Just till we all shake down ... and your hair begins to grow."

Meg stood up very straight and shook her finger at Jan. "Remember, I'm to be a real, proper nurse with authority, and a clinical thermometer ... and a uniform."

"If you like, and it's a pretty uniform."

Meg danced gleefully round the table.

"It will be lovely, it is lovely. I've got it all ready; green linen frocks, big _well_-fitting ap.r.o.ns, and such beautiful caps."

"Not caps, Meg!" Jan expostulated. "Please not caps."

"Certainly caps. How otherwise am I to cover up my head? I can't wear hats all the time. And how could I ever inspire those children with respect with a head like this? When I get into my uniform you'll see what a very superior nurse I look."

"You'll look much more like musical comedy than sober service."

"You mistake the situation altogether," Meg said loftily. "I take my position very seriously."

"But you can't go about Wren's End in caps. Everybody knows you down there."

"They'll find out they don't know me as well as they thought, that's all."

"Meg, tell me, what did Hannah say when she saw your poor shorn head?"

"Hannah, as usual, referred to my Maker, and said that had He intended me to have short hair He would either have caused it not to grow or afflicted me with some disease which necessitated shearing; and she added that such havers are just flying in the face of Providence."

"So they are."

"All the more reason to cover them up, and I wish to impress the children."

"Those children will be sadly browbeaten, I can see, and as for their poor aunt, she won't be able to call her soul her own."

"That," Meg said, triumphantly, "is precisely why I'm so eager to come.

When you've been an underling all your life you can't imagine what a joy it is to be top dog occasionally."

"In that respect," Jan said firmly, "it must be turn and turn about. I won't let you come unless you promise--swear, here and now--that when I consider you are looking f.a.gged--'a wispy wraith,' as Daddie used to say--if I command you to take a day in bed, in bed you will stay till I give you leave to get up. Unless you promise me this, the contract is off."

"I'll promise anything you like. The idea of being _pressed_ to remain in bed strikes me as merely comic. You have evidently no notion how persons in a subordinate position ought to be treated. Bed, indeed!"

"I think you might have waited till I got back before you parted with your hair." Jan's tone was decidedly huffy.

"Now don't nag. That subject is closed. What about _your_ hair. Do you know it is almost white?"

"And what more suitable for a maiden aunt? As that is to be my _role_ for the future I may as well look the part."

"But you don't--that's what I complain of. The whiter your hair grows the younger your face gets. You're a contradiction, a paradox, you provoke conjecture, you're indecently noticeable. Mr. Ross would have loved to paint you."

Jan shook her head. "No, Daddie never wanted to paint anything about me except my arms."

"He'd want to paint you now," Meg insisted obstinately. "_I_ know the sort of person he liked to paint."

"He never would paint people unless he _did_ like them," Jan said, smiling as at some recollection. "Do you remember how he utterly refused to paint that rich Mr. With.e.l.ls down at Amber Guiting?"

"I remember," and Meg laughed. "He said Mr. With.e.l.ls was puffy and stippled."

Tony had been cold ever since he reached the Gulf of Lyons, and he wondered what could be the matter with him, for he never remembered to have felt like this before. He wondered miserably what could be the reason why he felt so torpid and s.h.i.+very, disinclined to move, and yet so uncomfortable when he sat still.

After his bath, on that first night in London, tucked into a little bed with a nice warm eiderdown over him, he still felt that horrid little trickle of ice-cold water down his spine and could not sleep.

His cot was in Auntie Jan's room with a tall screen round it. The rooms in the flat were small, tiny they seemed to Tony, after the lofty s.p.a.ciousness of the bungalow in Bombay, but that didn't seem to make it any warmer, because Auntie Jan's window was wide open as it would go--top and bottom--and chilly gusts seemed to blow round his head in spite of the screen. Ayah and little Fay were in the nursery across the pa.s.sage, where there was a fire. There was no fire in this wind-swept chamber of Auntie Jan's.

Tony dozed and woke and woke and dozed, getting colder and more forlorn and miserable with each change of position. The sheets seemed made of ice, so slippery were they, so unkind and unyielding and unembracing.

Presently he saw a dim light. Auntie Jan had come to bed, carrying a candle. He heard her say good night to the little mem who had met them at the station, and the door was shut.