Even the Percy Nutbeams didn't object to the new regime, partly because his Lordship was every day in every way getting better and better, and partly because of the way Nurse Jones handled the missus. Nurses are charming girls, though unfortunately inclined to be bossy, doubtless the effect of spending their formative years telling old men to get back into bed. But Nurse Jones was as sweet and gentle as Gee's Linctus, and always took care to address Mrs Nutbeam like an Edwardian housemaid straight out of the orphanage.
'The nurse at least knows her place,' Amanda admitted to me one afternoon. 'Which is a very welcome discovery in anyone these days. Though, of course, she could hardly expect to mix with people of our class. Not only was she trained at some extremely obscure hospital, but her father, I believe, is an engine driver.'
'You mean in _loco parentis?'_ I suggested.
But Amanda Nutbeam definitely had no sense of humour, either.
'All the same, I'm glad Sir Lancelot Spratt recommended her. She seems to be doing his Lordship the world of good.'
She was doing me the world of good, too. After passing the day sticking penicillin into rural posteriors, you can't imagine how you look forward to half an hour with a civilized popsie in the evening.
'Good evening, Nurse Jones,' I would greet her at the bedroom door. 'And how is his Lordship this evening?'
'Very well, thank you, Doctor. He has taken his vitaminized milk and played _Clair de Lune_ twice on the piano.'
'And how are
'Very well, thank you, Doctor.'
'Perhaps one afternoon you would like a spot of fresh air and a view of the beauty spots, Nurse Jones?'
'Perhaps one afternoon, Doctor.'
After a week or two, I felt the time had come to put our acquaintance on a rather jollier footing.
Old Nutbeam had hobbled out of the room somewhere, and Nurse Jones had been listening very respectfully while I held forth on the osteopathology of uniting fractures, so I put my arm round her waist and kissed her.
The result was rather unexpected. I'd imagined that she'd drop her eyes and dissolve into grateful sobs on my waistcoat.
Instead, she caught me a neat uppercut on the left ramus of the mandible.
I don't know if many people have been clocked by nurses, but quite a lot of power they pack, after all those years shifting patients about with their bare hands. She hit me clean off my balance, right into the remains of his Lordship's dinner. But I was even more startled at the appearance of little Nurse Jones herself. She looked as though she'd been charged with a powerful current of electricity. She was all eyes and teeth and fingernails.
'You despicable young man!' she hissed.
'Do you take me for one of your hospital pick-ups? Keep your hands to yourself and your manners to the saloon bar.'
'I say, I'm most terribly sorry.' I brushed off the remains of a fruit salad. 'It was all meant in a perfectly friendly spirit. Like at Christmas.'
'Oh, I know you young doctors!' She looked as though she wanted to spit out something nasty. 'Do you imagine I put up with five years' hard labour in a hospital like a workhouse just for people like you to maul me about? Huh! I want more out of life than that. It's bad enough drudging away night and day, without having to defend yourself against ham-fisted Romeos as soon as you're left alone in the same room. You make me absolutely nauseated.'
Strong words, of course. But the Grimsdykes, I trust, are ever gentlemen, and sensitive to the first hint that their attentions might be unwelcome.
'A thousand apologies,' I told her, rather stiffly. 'It's all this hot weather we're having. I can assure you, Nurse Jones, that the incident will not occur again.'
'I can assure you, too,' she said.
At that moment old Nutbeam pottered back, and she became her usual demure self once more.
For the next few days I didn't know whether I was more confused than disappointed. After all, every houseman's tried a bit of slap-and-tickle in the sluice-room, and the worst response is usually a few remarks about not being that sort of a girl and Sister might come back in a minute, anyway. But Nurse Jones could look as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth while comfortably able to digest red-hot nails. It was puzzling, and rather a shame. I'd been particularly looking forward to those beauty spots.
Arriving at Nutbeam Hall a few evenings later, I thought at first that Nurse Jones was in form again. Then I recognized the voices behind the drawing-room door.
'For a man in your position behaving like that with one of the servants,' Mrs Nutbeam was declaring, 'is absolutely disgusting.'
'My dear!' bleated Percy. 'She's hardly a servant-'
'Of course she's a servant. I've had lady's maids in the past who were twice as good as she is.'
'But my dear-'
'And in our own home, with your own brother lying ill in the next room. Really, Percy!'
'My dear-'
'You've always treated me atrociously, but this is too much. Far too much. Haven't I enough on my mind at this moment?'
