The Two Saplings. Mazo de la Roche

      COPYRIGHT

      FOR

      GRIZEL HARTLEY

      REMEMBERING HAPPY HOURS

       SPENT IN HER HOUSE IN ETON COLLEGE

      CHAPTER I

      MISS HOLT’S nursing home was in a dignified street in the West End of London. Till the day when she took it over, it had been a private residence. In the time of the Regency it had been the scene of many entertainments, extravagances and absurdities, but it had become more and more decorous till, at last, its end was this. It was rather a dingy but an expensive nursing home, to which some of the best-known doctors and surgeons sent their patients.

      Miss Holt did not much like obstetrical cases, but an occasional baby was brought into the world beneath her roof and, on this November morning, there were two in the nursery. Both were two days old. Both had been born on Armistice Day, 1925. Nurse Jennings was busy washing and dressing them when Miss Nairn, the elderly but vigorous and upright Sister-in-charge, came in. She liked to have a peep at the babies when there were any in the house. They were so new and fresh, a happy contrast to the sufferers under her care. One naked baby was across Nurse Jenning’s knee, his pinkish bald head looking too large for his body, his buttocks white from a dusting of talcum powder. Miss Nairn bent over and kissed the back of his neck, the snowy streamers on her starched cap falling over her shoulders.

      “Dear little mite,” she murmured. “Which is he—the Englishman or the American?”

      “The American,” Miss Jennings murmured absently, for her mind was busy with her own affairs. She deftly turned the baby over and began powdering his front. His eyes were tight shut and he wore an expression of ancient endurance.

      “Odd, isn’t it, the way he happened to be born over here?”

      “Yes, Sister. I mean, I hadn’t heard.”

      “Well, his parents were to have sailed for home two months ago, but they were in a motor accident and the father—Mr. Wylde his name is—was badly hurt. By the time he was well enough for the journey it was too late for Mrs. Wylde and they had to stay in London for the birth.”

      “That was a bit of bad luck,” said Nurse Jennings, still in a haze.

      “Do you think,” asked the Sister, “that maybe he has wind? He’s making a face and drawing up his legs.”

      Nurse Jennings was thinking,—“Get along, you old busybody,” but she answered:

      “Oh, no, Sister. He has no wind. He couldn’t be better. Nor the other one either.”

      “Bless their hearts!” said Miss Nairn. She went to the cot where the other infant lay wrapped in a warm little blanket and bent over him. “Mm,” she murmured. “Whose wee precious is he? Have you finished with him, Nurse?”

      “Yes, Sister.” She added to herself,—“And I’d get along better if you’d stay out of the way.”

      “They’re named already,” said Miss Nairn.

      “Are they really, Sister?”

      “Yes. This one is Mark and that one is Palmer. Palmer Wylde. I quite like it.”

      “So do I, Sister.” She kept thinking: “Why don’t you go, you old busybody!” Her mind revolved around her quarrel with her fiancé.

      Miss Nairn had taken the baby up from his cot. She exclaimed:

      “I don’t like the way you have these cot coverings. How often have I explained how I want them! I’ve no patience with such stupidity.”

      She laid the baby on a pillow on the table and attacked the two cots, deftly rearranging the coverings as she liked them to be. Nurse Jennings watched her meekly but she felt as though her nerves would crack. This was her half-day off and if she got no word from Edgar . . .

      “Now, do you see?” said Miss Nairn. “Come and take a good look.”

      Nurse Jennings bundled the baby in his blanket and came to her side.

      “Yes, Sister,” she answered, in a daze.

      A complaining cry came from the bundle in her arms.

      “Is he hungry?” asked the Sister. “Is it time to take him to his mother?”

      “Almost time, Sister.”

      A young nurse appeared in the doorway.

      “The new patient has arrived, Sister,” she said. “And would you please come?”

      Miss Nairn bustled off, her cap-strings flying in a way that suggested wings.

      Nurse Jennings gave a gasp of relief.

      “My God,” she said aloud. “What an old nuisance!”

      She laid the baby she was holding on the table beside the other. She heard the hum of the lift, then the opening of its door, a murmur of voices. She must speak to Jimmy, the lift-man. She glided to the door and peeped out. Figures were disappearing down the passage. The lift was about to descend. She flew out to it and caught Jimmy’s arm.

      “I say,” she gasped, “has the postman been?”

      “Yes, Miss.”

      “Is there a letter for me?”

      It was strictly against the rules to rush out to the lift-man about one’s letters but she couldn’t help that. If she didn’t hear from Edgar it meant that all was over between them. The immaculate bosom of her uniform vibrated with the beating of her heart.

      “No,” he answered, “there weren’t a letter for you—not that I saw. But Thomas ’e sorted the mail. Perhaps your letter went to your own quarters. That’s where it ought to go, isn’t it?” There was a slight rebuke in his tone. He closed the door of the lift and moved the lever. It began to descend.

      She hurried back to the nursery. Everything there looked unreal to her. Everything would look unreal till she had heard from Edgar. God, she hadn’t known she loved him so! If he didn’t write to her she’d just have to put her pride in her pocket and send him a beseeching letter. She couldn’t go on like this. She’d soon make a mess of her work and get into trouble. She looked at the babies’ charts. It was time for the American baby to go to his mother to be nursed. The two babies lay side by side on the table, one red-faced and disinterested and the other red-faced and preparing to squall. She’d pop them in their cots to be ready when wanted.

      The young nurse who before had been at the door, reappeared. She said:

      “Mr. Wylde has sent the loveliest flowers for her. Pink roses and carnations. You ought to see them.”

      “Look here, Carter,” said Nurse Jennings, “I want you to do me a favour.