The Love Knot Read online

  He kissed the top of her head, but left the room, and then the house, driving off in one of his new motor cars with the chauffeur seated beside him instructing him as they went. He did not come back until late that evening, and by that time Mercy had made up her mind never to tell him how she felt ever again. She must be proud. She must be resolute. He must never, ever again see her in such a state of tears and confusion. She had, it was quite plain, disgusted him.

  But first she must apologize to him. She knew that the male pride would expect this, and that unless she did so there might be what her stepmother always called a dreadful pall of silence over the house for weeks, if not months.

  Dear John, I am truly sorry for making such a sorry scene. You are right. It is probably my condition. I hope it is a boy condition! Your ever loving Mercy.

  She was right to write to him, and to leave flowers in his dressing room along with the note, because he came to her the next morning, and of a sudden he seemed to Mercy to be very much the old John. Laughing with her, and teasing her, and altogether behaving as he had done before he left, fatefully, or so it seemed to her now, for his hunting box in Leicestershire.

  ‘Madam is quite her old self again,’ he said, matter-of-factly. ‘And that is good, for now it is Christmas and we have more to do than you would believe possible.’

  It was true. There was the tenants’ and building workers’ carol service in the Great Hall, the decoration of all the rooms, the supervision of all the meals – the family waiting on the servants, by tradition, on Christmas Eve night.

  And all this time, it seemed to Mercy that her old John might have come back to her. Solicitous and kind, even presenting her, on Christmas morning, with a gift of a musical box for her dressing table. It was a beautiful gold box inlaid with enamel, and when you opened the lid it displayed figures that circled to the same waltz that John had first danced with her, on the night of what Mercy liked to refer to fondly as ‘my great rescue from the permanent gilt chair’. But then, of a sudden, it was all over, the ivy, the mistletoe, the jollity, and he was off once more to Leicestershire, and Mercy was left all alone at Brindells.

  The moment something happens you will let me know, my dearest, won’t you? I want you to know that I will always stand by you.

  Mercy stared at that particular line in John’s last letter to her until the words stopped making sense. How would she let him know in time? How would she send for him? She might not be capable, after all – she might die, and he would be in Leicestershire. And why did he find it necessary to tell her he would stand by her? It was such a funny way of putting things. But then he was so much older than her that much of how he phrased things was quite different from the way she would express herself – something which, in the past, had been a subject for joking between them – but not now.

  ‘My dear, I tell you, you do not want your husband near you when you are having a baby,’ her neighbour Mrs Blessington comforted her once more when she heard of Mercy’s worries. ‘Good gracious, far from it, my dear. Believe me. Men are useless, except with calves and foals and such like, when they have the strength to pull where we women can only pluck!’

  Mercy had made fast friends with old, jovial Mrs Blessington over the pre-Christmas festivities when her till then unknown neighbour had suddenly called on her, and left her card, prompting Mercy to return the favour prior to inviting the lonely old widow to join them all at the carol service in the Great Hall. They had liked each other at once, despite, or perhaps because of, their great age gap.

  She now went on, ‘Husbands are always fainting or drinking brandy when babies arrive. Much better just to let him settle into his hunting in Leicestershire, and leave you in peace. Besides, his going away is not proof of his indifference, far from it. It is his way of showing anxiety. Believe me, men are strange in this way. There has only to be a baby on the way for them to start behaving as if they are having the infant and not you.

  ‘When my first was on the way, my husband was on the point of leaving the army to take up farming his father’s estates. And what did he do? Decided to fight a duel, imagine? I think they were illegal, even then, but no, that did not deter him. He still went ahead and was duly shot in the leg.

  ‘I always think he was trying to draw attention to himself, silly fellow. Or put himself into pain at the same time as I was. At least nowadays, thanks to the dear old Queen, your generation do have the wonderful consolation of chloroform, and it is wonderful, I hear.’

  Mercy looked up from her sewing. She was making a beautiful coat for the baby with embroidered sleeves and a silk dress to go under. Her tiny, delicate, silk stitches, as beautiful as the material, were a constant source of admiration to Mrs Blessington.

  ‘So, would you think it would be better if I say nothing to John until the baby is safely arrived? That I write to him as if it is the most natural thing in the world for him to be off hunting while I wait, would you think that would be better?’

  ‘Much better, my dear. The person to inform when your new arrival is on the way is the doctor, not the husband. All those things that we understand about babies are understood by women, not men. Men only understand hunting and shooting – everything else is alien to them. Of course that does not mean they do not feel fondly for us, or their babies, when they arrive. But you see, my dear, they do not understand them. It is not given to them. It is just a fact, like the sun coming up in the morning.’

  ‘I only hope I can give John the boy he wants. Nothing else will do, I know. I keep pleading with my petit quelque chose, be a boy, be a boy, be a boy!’

  ‘Well, and I am sure he will be, but in my experience men become just as proud of their daughters as they do of their sons. Believe me, once a girl is presented to them, no other man will do for her but her father!’

  Mrs Blessington’s ample form shook with laughter and her hat, large, veiled and old fashioned, tilted forward a little so that the firelight caught the diamonds around the mourning brooch she wore to one side of it.

  ‘I must admit, I am afraid, despite the idea of the chloroform.’

  They were standing up now, because the light was fading and it was time for Mrs Blessington to leave. Mercy had put aside her sewing, and Mrs Blessington took her hand in one of her gloved ones and looked into her eyes, holding her gaze with her own calm, humorous one.

  ‘I have had six children, my dear, and I was always afraid. The way each child arrives is always, always, so different. There are no two births the same, whether they are the first or the last.’

  They both knew that this was really very forthright talk for the drawing room, but since Mercy had dismissed the servants for the afternoon, leaving only a maid to serve them tea and then go back down to the kitchen fire, they were quite secure with each other.

  ‘I will remember everything you have said, Mrs Blessington,’ Mercy remarked thoughtfully, as she rang for the maid to call her carriage round to the front steps. ‘And I am so very grateful to you for coming to see me, and for being so truthful with me.’

  ‘My dear, when it comes to it, and afterwards, you will hardly remember a thing for the joy you will experience. I sometimes think that these are the best moments of our lives, for our sex, the arrival of babies, the joy that they bring.’

  Mercy stood waving to her as the carriage set off. The Blessington estate, comprising a large manor house and farm set about with its own church, adjoined the Brancasters’, but even so, given the size of all of both their estates, the house was a good quarter of an hour’s drive away.

  She turned to go up the steps to the house. The servants would be back from their afternoon off at about six, and then she would at least have the sensation of feeling that there were other people about the place, but until then there was only the maid, and Twissy.

  As soon as she saw the poor quivering puppy, Mercy had insisted on bringing her inside, bathing her, feeding her, and keeping her. So now Twissy lived with Mercy, even to the point of coming up to
her chintz bedroom with its four-poster bed, which John’s dogs were never allowed to do when he was home. Being an optimist, Mercy told herself that John would be sure to love Twissy as much as she did, within a very few hours of arriving home.

  * * *

  There was nothing that Mrs Dodd looked forward to more than the moment when she heard Leonie’s light tread coming down from her bedroom, and to see her coming into the drawing room with her hair freshly brushed and put up, her Chinese gown, of which she was so proud, drawn about her, and the small, gold slippers on her feet catching the light of the drawing room lamps as she moved easily between the many pieces of furniture that were set about Mrs Dodd’s through reception room with its dark wallpaper and brocade curtains, and its brass lamps placed low at some points and high at others so that Mrs Dodd could embroider by them when she so wished.

  ‘So how did he do today?’

  Leonie knew that her nursing of such a famous roué as Lord Freddie Melsetter was fast coming to resemble a serial in a periodical for her warm-hearted patroness. It was not just that Lord Freddie was not making quite the progress that had been hoped, so that Mrs Dodd was genuinely concerned for his well-being, but also that, by chance, Leonie had become particularly close to him.

  ‘I don’t want you, I want my own special little nightingale,’ he would demand from behind his bandages, between bouts of unconsciousness, thereby giving offence to the other nurses, and causing Leonie to feel both flattered and embarrassed.

  This particular evening Leonie had to admit that Lord Freddie had done no better as far as his physical state was concerned. There had been no improvement, alas, from the day before.

  ‘But when he was conscious he was more talkative than usual. And he told me such stories! All to do with hunting and that sort of thing, but such funny stories. About when he was a boy and laid a trail of aniseed across his father’s lawn so that the pack flew off in a different direction and he could save the cubs from being eaten by hounds. And how he rode his best hunter up the steps of the house and tied it to the dining room doors when the Queen was having dinner with his parents, and he was exiled from England for his pains until the scandal blew over. But you have to hear him for yourself, it is the way he tells you. He has obviously been so naughty, and yet although his family, it seems, gave up on him years ago, everyone at the nursing home loves him.’

  ‘Everyone loves a charming rogue, dear, it is just a fact. The charm always outweighs the roguery, if there is such a word. Besides, I dare say you have all given him your heart, and nothing to be done.’

  Leonie blushed. It was true they all had, even Miss Scott. But Leonie sensed that she was special to him, and in consequence hardly liked to leave him to attend to anyone else, so much did she feel that she was needed by him.

  ‘Your interest in him will bring him back from the brink, I am sure of it, dear,’ Mrs Dodd said, suddenly sounding over-firm, because she felt for Leonie, seeing how much she had put into nursing Lord Freddie.

  ‘I hope you are right.’ Leonie smiled. ‘I am going back to the nursing home after dinner, if you don’t mind. I feel I must be there at the moment. He needs me a lot at this time. Just being with someone can give our patients strength. I believe some of our healthy strength really does pass into them.’

  ‘Don’t tire yourself too much though, even on his account, dear. Remember you do have other patients.’

  But she had barely finished her sentence when the realization came to Mrs Dodd that just at that moment, for Leonie, there really was only one patient who truly mattered.

  The following morning Leonie was summoned to Lady Angela’s office. Quickly splashing her face with water to give herself a less tired look, she hurried to see her and found the principal standing staring at something outside the window. Leonie was not sure what it was, but she knew that it must be something very interesting for Lady Angela went on staring at it long after Leonie had entered the room in answer to her ‘Come in’. So much so that Leonie finally started to feel uneasy.

  ‘Miss Lynch.’ Lady Angela turned finally towards her junior nurse. ‘You have been here some months.’

  Leonie felt her unease turning to fully fledged fear as she suddenly became quite sure that she was going to be dismissed, summarily, without a chance to speak for herself.

  Her mind raced through the possible misdemeanours she could have committed during her time at the nursing home. Would it be that she had not rolled enough bandages? Had her hygiene around the patients been at fault? Had she been seen talking too long to another nurse? The starched surface of her apron under her hands began to feel limp as her hands grew warm with anxiety and the heat from Lady Angela’s office fire.

  ‘Yes, Lady Angela, I have been here for some few months.’

  Leonie decided to speak in a strong, firm voice, and to look her employer firmly in the eyes as she replied. She must look unafraid, as she had often had to do growing up in Eastgate Street, when old men tried to accost her when she went to the shop that sold much prized and very precious tea for Sundays. Or boys threw stones when she and her schoolmates walked in a crocodile to Church from the little convent.

  ‘And during all these months, Miss Lynch, I have to say, I can not criticize your work in the least way. Your nursing, your attitude, your whole demeanour can not be faulted. Our profession has changed indeed. Gone are the days when nurses were considered to be the lowest of the low. Thanks to Florence Nightingale those days are over.’

  The relief that came to Leonie on hearing those words was extreme, but she was careful not to show it. She knew, she was too wise for her years not to know, that there was still something to be said, or why would she be there?

  ‘So, Miss Lynch, I am sure you will understand very well what I am about to say.’ She paused. ‘You are a good nurse, and hard working. Your conduct has been exemplary – until now. Recently I have realized that your devotion to Lord Freddie Melsetter has become excessive, and I must ask you not to continue to nurse him.’

  Lady Angela raised her hand as if to fend off any emotional rejoinders with which Leonie might be preparing to defend herself. At the same time she smiled at her with a sudden warmth and understanding, as if she knew just how she felt, but was still not going to allow her to speak up for herself.

  ‘You see, Miss Lynch, as nurses we can, and often do, get trapped by our patients’ charm and personalities. You have, I am afraid, by all accounts, been trapped by the engaging Lord Freddie.’

  Of a sudden Leonie was short of the usual words that would normally have sprung to her mind, and for a good reason. It was true. She had been ‘trapped’, as Lady Angela put it, by Lord Freddie’s charm. And also by his courage. He had suffered so much.

  ‘Lord Freddie is a great character, Miss Lynch. It is perfectly understandable to be trapped by his charm, I do assure you. But I must ask you, whatever happens, whether God wills that he is gathered or not, to allow the other nurses to attend to him at night. I am afraid you may have allowed emotion to come between you and your patient, and, as you know, that will never make for good nursing. We cannot allow ourselves to feel as we imagine our patients might be feeling. We can only allow ourselves to feel with them. You have become, as Florence Nightingale would put it, not just the bandage but also the wound. You feel what he feels, and that is not only bad for him, it is bad for you. And the other patients, of course, for they should have just as much of a claim on your nursing skills as Lord Freddie, despite the fact that they do not, alas, have his golden charm.’

  Leonie nodded. She could see the reason, the truth and the logic in everything Lady Angela had said, and as a result there really was nothing for her to say. Much as it broke her heart not to try to alleviate Lord Freddie’s loneliness and pain, and much as it struck her as being hard, she could see, from every point of view, that she might indeed have become too close to him.

  Lady Angela must have guessed, or sensed, her conflict of feelings, understanding perhaps just how much
Leonie’s heart had become involved with Lord Freddie’s recovery, despite the fact that he was really a very old man. She laughed suddenly.

  ‘My dear, can I tell you something that I have learned here? Men, and women, never lose their appeal, no matter what their age. I have nursed one man who was even a centenarian, yet every nurse with whom he came into contact would have cheerfully run off with him, such was his attraction. You see, they wanted to be with him because of his personality. He made life exciting and gay for them. Shocking though it is, it is also true.’

  The sudden kindness of the woman, the sweetness of the expression in her eyes, made Leonie feel dreadfully sentimental. If good old Eastgate Street had not made her a great deal tougher than most of the people who worked at the nursing home, even the men, she might have cried if only from relief. The truth was that Leonie knew what it was to go without, not just of a Monday, but of a Tuesday too. She had seen her foster mother weeping into her apron from the anxiety of losing a sixpence in the street. It had not made her hard, it had made her used to life. After all, there was no point in not being used to life, not if it had to be lived. She felt strangely bereft at the thought of not nursing Lord Freddie, but it had to be accepted.

  ‘It has always been a fault in my character to become too involved with patients, I do realize that.’ She paused, remembering the young mannequin, and Harry Montgomery too. ‘And I have become too involved with Lord Freddie, more than a nurse should, I can see that. I will remember from now on never to become the wound, only the bandage.’

  She dropped a curtsy to Lady Angela, who smiled and nodded not patronizingly but because they had, the two of them, reached a rich understanding. The kind of understanding that few can reach who do not share the same commitment.

  Or, Lady Angela thought with sudden irony, as she watched the slender young figure hurrying off, the same ancestry, for if Lady Angela returned to what her aunts always called the begat book and looked at their mutual ancestral lines she thought that Leonie Lynch would most likely prove to be a third cousin once removed, or some such nonsense, not that it really mattered.