A Nurse's Duty (59 page)

‘Sorry we disturbed you,’ he said. But Karen had regained her senses. She couldn’t believe she had almost kissed Robert, couldn’t believe how she had felt as he’d held her. Now she felt only shocked and confused. Gathering her wits together, she brushed past them all and went into the kitchen. She hardly heard as Robert said his goodbyes.

‘Goodbye, Robert,’ she said coolly, gazing at a point somewhere over his shoulder.

‘You’ll think about it?’ he asked.

‘I will, but I’m afraid the answer will be no. I’m sorry.’

Joe looked on, mystified, as Robert went out. He waited until the sound of Robert’s car died away in the distance before turning to Karen, his eyes full of questions.

‘Let it be, Joe, let it be,’ she said quickly with a warning glance at the children, and he subsided. But later, when the children were in bed, he would not be put off.

‘What’s it all about, Sis?’

Karen gazed at him, her little brother Joe. When they had been children they had always told each other everything. ‘You know about Patrick?’

He nodded. ‘I know he has deserted you. But that doesn’t mean your life is over, Karen. Now Robert –’

‘I can’t love anyone else, I can’t even think of it, Joe! I’ll never marry again, I won’t.’

‘Well, that wasn’t the impression I got when I barged in on you and Robert earlier.’

Karen looked down at her hands and slowly the tears came and increased to a torrent. With them the story poured out too, the
whole
story, nothing held back, not even the final horror, the death of Dave and how, incredibly, she had found the strength to put him down the mineshaft. Gradually the tears stopped and she gazed at Joe anxiously. Would he be horrified and shocked, would he think he should go to the police?

Joe got to his feet and strode to the window, looking out at the dark of the yard and the outline of the rowan tree, black against the paler sky. He was silent for a while and she desperately wanted to know what he was thinking but was afraid to ask.

‘Karen, I’m so sorry, pet,’ he said. ‘It was me told you Dave was dead, wasn’t it? Mind, what that rotten sod has to answer for, may he rot in hell!’

‘Joe!’ Even in her emotional state, Karen was shocked to hear him swear.

‘Well, I’m right, aren’t I? And the priest, how could he do that to you?’

‘Patrick is a good man,’ she said sharply.

‘Oh, yes, I’m sure. So good that he deserted –’

‘He did what he thought was right.’

‘Yes, of course. How many times has that been used as an excuse for ruining people’s lives, I wonder? Oh, Karen, why could you not have had Robert? Years ago I knew he loved you. He’s a good honest man who still loves you too, you know he does.’

It was her turn to rise to her feet in agitation. ‘I can’t marry Robert, I’ll only ruin his life, can’t you see that, Joe? Now come on, let’s forget about it all. Here you are, home from the other side of the world, we only have a short time together and you haven’t said a word about how you are getting on.’

‘I’m doing fine, never better. And we’re not going to forget about it, I’m going to sort you out if it’s the last thing I do! Good Lord, Karen, you’re not going to let the past rule your life, are you? Anyone with half an eye could see how Robert feels about you, and after what I saw tonight, I believe you feel the
same
way about him. Put the rest behind you, woman, show some sense!’

She gazed at him. All this time she had carried her woes around with her, a black burden deep inside of her. Ever since Patrick left, or before even. Grief had become a companion, a friend almost: she allowed her mind to probe for it, but it was different now. Oh, perhaps it would never leave her altogether but it had faded as her love for Patrick had faded, she realized. Joe was right and he had forced her to see it. And now there was a dawning hope, a feeling of release.

There was a footstep in the yard and the door opened. Luke came in and Karen watched as he greeted his uncle. She saw he was almost as tall as Joe and equally as strong. She had no reason to worry about the farm either, she thought. Luke was running it now, he had a right to it. He would bring Elsie here one day and the old holding would flourish again with a new family.

‘I’ll run you back to Morton Main tomorrow, Joe,’ she said. ‘I have to go anyway, I have to see a man about a job.’

‘You mean –’ he began, and grinned all over his face. ‘There now, our Karen, now you’re talking a bit of sense!’

The spring morning was crisp and fresh as Karen drove out of the yard and into the lane. Stopping the car, she got out and closed the gate for there were a couple of young pigs rooting about by the barn and a pet lamb cropping grass under the hedge. Karen stood for a moment, looking at the old farmstead. She was doing the right thing, oh yes, she was. It was better by far to move away from the place, time for a new start.

The sun shone on the rowan tree, lighting up the new blossom, and she reached up and picked a spray and stuck it in her buttonhole before walking back to the car. ‘You’re not changing your mind, Sis?’ asked Joe, and she shook her head as she slipped the car into gear and set off on the journey to Morton Main and
Robert
. Dropping Joe off at Kezia’s front door, she went on to the surgery, her heart beating painfully as she entered the waiting room.

Fool! she told herself sternly, halting for a moment before knocking on Robert’s door. After all, it was a job she was seeing him about today, that was all. She wasn’t committing her whole life to him, was she? No, it was just a matter of her career, that was all. Perhaps he had changed his mind, perhaps he didn’t want her any more. Perhaps – oh God, what was the matter with her? Resolutely she lifted her hand and tapped on the door and opened it without waiting for his ‘Come in’.

Robert lifted his head from the case notes he was studying, smiling professionally as he did so. In that split second she saw how careworn he looked, the tiny lines between his brows and under his eyes. And then he saw it was Karen and his smile opened up into such a radiant welcome all her doubts were dissolved.

‘Karen,’ he said. ‘It’s you.’ Rising to his feet he came round the desk and took her hands in his. And it was enough. It was true, she thought, there was plenty of time, there was all the time in the world for them.

Epilogue

THE ITEM WAS
tucked away in the middle pages of the
Northern Echo
. Doctor Brian Richardson would have missed it altogether if the name Low Rigg Farm had not caught his eye as he glanced through the paper over breakfast.

‘Skeleton found in old mineshaft’, he read. ‘Farmer Luke Nesbitt found more than he bargained for when he set out to search for his lost dog, a border terrier named Gyp. Somehow Gyp had survived a fall into the old shaft, a relic of lead-mining days, quite close to Mr Nesbitt’s farm. The dog had fallen on what looked like a heap of old clothes but when Mr Nesbitt climbed down the shaft to bring up Gyp, he found a motor bike and the skeleton of a man. There was no indication of how the body got into the shaft. Police think he had been dead for forty years or more.’

Brian scratched his head, trying to think back forty years. They had been living on the farm then; it was before his mother had moved to work in Morton Main. He could only have been six or seven at the time. But he could remember some things though his memories were scrappy. He remembered Nick, how he and Jennie had loved him, dead now these twenty years. And he remembered a man who came on a motor bike, oh, he did, he had had nightmares about him. Even after the man stopped coming, every time he heard a motor bike he had been filled with fear for he knew his mother was afraid of that man. In fact, he remembered him better than he did his own father.

Rising to his feet, Brian moved over to the bay window of his house and looked out over the miners’ rows of Morton Main. He tried to remember what his father had looked like but though he
could
picture him sitting in the rocking chair by the fire, he couldn’t picture his face. He hadn’t even thought about his father for years. The last time had been when he visited a patient in Weston and the powerful smell of whiskey on the man’s breath brought back a dim image of Patrick Murphy.

‘Morning.’

Brian turned from the window and smiled at his father, his true father, the man he had looked up to all his life. The man who, after he had married Brian’s mother in 1930, had adopted Brian and his sister Jennie. The man who had helped him through Medical School and taken him into his practice afterwards, the man he would always love and revere.

‘Good morning, Father,’ he said. ‘Come on in, there’s fresh tea in the pot if you want a cup?’

‘Thanks, I could use one,’ said Robert. ‘I’ve been for a walk. Just up to the cemetery, you know, and there’s a chill wind up there. Winter’s coming on, I suppose.’

Brian poured tea into the cup which was ready and waiting on the table. Robert dropped in most mornings since Karen had died last year. He was lonely since he’d retired and Jennie had married and gone to live in Yorkshire. And besides, he liked to discuss the practice with Brian, liked to keep abreast of what was happening in medicine today.

‘Any news in the
Echo?
asked the older man as he sipped his tea.

‘Nothing much,’ said Brian. ‘Now, Father, I’ve been meaning to have a word with you about John Fletcher’s emphysema. It’s not responding as it should and I’d like your opinion …’

The two doctors were soon in an animated discussion which went on until Helen, Brian’s wife, came back from driving the children to school and reminded him it was time for surgery.

‘You’re coming tonight for dinner, don’t forget,’ said Brian as he rose from the table. Absently he picked up the paper and folded
it
and tucked it under his arm as he went out. Best not to upset the old man with a news item which might only bring back unhappy memories.

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First published as ‘Under A Rowan Tree’ by Piatkus Books
This edition published in 2012 by Ebury Press, an imprint of Ebury Publishing
A Random House Group Company

Copyright © 1995 Una Horne writing as Maggie Hope

Maggie Hope has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental

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