Victoria Holt - The Secret Woman

April 28th, 1887. Today I came to Castle Crediton. I couldn’t help feeling rather pleased with myself. I had a new patient and I should not be too far from Anna. We should see each other frequently. I was going to make sure of that. The Castle I knew was not a real one. “Fake,” Miss Brett had called it, but that meant little to me. It had all the appearance of a castle and I liked driving under the great archway with the gate house overhead. But I never cared for antiquity. I’ll ask Anna about it all sometime, if I ever think of it. The stone walls of the castle looked as if they had been there for centuries. I wondered what had been done to give them that appearance. Another thing to ask Anna — if I ever think of it. As for myself I couldn’t help thinking how pleasant it must be to own such a place — fake or not. There is an air of opulence about it; and I feel sure that this castle will no doubt be more comfortable to live in than the genuine article. I alighted from the station fly which I had engaged to bring me and my belongings from the Queen’s House. I was in a sort of courtyard and there was an iron studded door with a bell beside it, rather like the one at the Queen’s House. I pulled this bell and a manservant appeared.

“I’m Nurse Loman,” I said.

“Her ladyship is expecting you,” he answered. He was very dignified, the perfect butler. I had an idea that everything would be perfect in Castle Crediton — outwardly at least. I went into the hall which I was sure was the one Anna had once mentioned to me. Yes, there were the tapestries she had talked of, and which she had been examining when she had first met her Captain.

“If you will wait for a moment, Nurse Loman, I will inform her ladyship of your arrival.”

I nodded and looked about me, impressed by it all. I thought I was going to like living in a castle. In a very short time the servant reappeared and took me up the stairs to her “ladyship.” There she was seated in her high-backed chair, a tartar, I thought, if ever I saw one and I was glad that she was not to be my patient. I knew from experience that she would be the very worst possible, but she was in perfect health and would scorn illness, thinking, I was sure that it was due to some mental weakness. I can’t help comparing myself with Anna. She would have made an assessment of the treasures of the house, and while their obvious worth did not escape me I included them in my summing up of “grand” and concerned myself with the people. Nursing gives one a very clear insight into people; when they are sick and to a certain extent at one’s mercy, they betray themselves in a hundred ways. One becomes perceptive, and the study of human beings always seemed more interesting to me than that of inanimate objects. Yet I am inclined to be frivolous — at least when I compare myself with serious Anna.

Lady Crediton was what I call a battleaxe. She looked at me and did not entirely approve of my appearance although I was doing my best to look demure. Her appearance was entirely forbidding — or it would have been to anyone less experienced than I was. I thought to myself: Well, Dr. Elgin has recommended me and I’m here and they want a nurse, so at least they’ll have to give me a chance to prove my worth. (And I was going to prove it for I found Castle Crediton much to my taste.) The place had appealed to me as soon as I heard of it, and when I learned that there was the possibility of working there, I was elated. Besides, I don’t want to be too far from Anna.

“So, Nurse Loman, you have joined our household.” She spoke precisely in a rather gruff masculine voice. I could understand the husband seeking consolation elsewhere. She was clearly a very worthy person, almost always right and taking care that those about her realized it. Creditable, but very uncomfortable to live with.

“Yes, Lady Crediton. Dr. Elgin has given me particulars of my patient.”

Her ladyship’s mouth was a little grim, from which I gathered the patient is no favorite of hers. Or does she despise all patients because they haven’t earned her obvious ruddy health?

“I am glad that he has given you some indication of how we are placed here. Captain and Mrs. Stretton have their own apartments here. The Captain is not in residence at the time, but Mrs. Stretton and her son, with their servants occupy the east wing. But although this is so, Nurse Loman, I myself am … shall we say the Chatelaine of the Castle, and as such what happens in all parts of it is my concern.”

I bowed my head.

“If you have any complaints, any difficulties, anything you wish to be explained — apart from ordinary domestic matters, of course — I must ask you to see me.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Your patient is in a way a foreigner; her ways may not always be like ours. You may find certain difficulties. I shall expect you to report anything unusual to me.”

It was becoming rather mysterious and I must have looked puzzled for she said: “Dr. Elgin tells me that you are extremely efficient.”

“That was kind of him.”

“You have been nursing at the Queen’s House and were involved in that unfortunate occurrence. I met Miss Brett once when I allowed her to have an escritoire for which I had no use. She gave me the impression that she was a very precise and efficient woman.”

“She was,” I said.

“It seems very odd, that affair.”

“She changed a great deal when she became crippled; she suffered much pain.”

Lady Crediton nodded. “It was most unfortunate, Nurse Loman, and I will tell you frankly that I did consider whether I should be wise to employ someone who had been involved in such an unsavory affair.”

She was one of those women who would call her own outspokenness frankness and that of other people rudeness. I knew the type. Rich old women very often who had had too much of their own way for too long.

I decided to be affronted. I rose and said: “I have no wish to discountenance you, Lady Crediton. If you feel that having nursed Miss Brett you would rather I did not nurse your … your patient, I would not wish to remain.”

“You’re hasty,” she said. “Not a good quality for a nurse.”

“I must beg to contradict you. I spoke with no haste. However much I considered your remarks I should still say that if you would prefer me to go I should prefer to do so.”

“If I had not preferred that you stay I should not have asked you to come here in the first place.”

I bowed my head again. First round to me, I thought.

“I merely want to tell you that I deplore the unpleasantness of what happened to Miss Brett and it is impossible to be involved in such unpleasantness without being connected with it.”

“If one is involved one must necessarily be connected, Lady Crediton.”

Oh yes, I was scoring fast; but I sensed I was only doing so because she was trying to tell me something and did not know how to. She need not have worried. I understood. She did not like “the patient”; there was something strange about “the patient.” Something wild perhaps which might involve her in some “unpleasantness.” This was growing interesting.

I went on boldly: “One of the qualifications of a person in my position is discretion. I do not think Dr. Elgin would have recommended me to this case if he had not believed I possessed that quality.”

“You may find Mrs. Stretton a little … hysterical. Dr. Elgin will have told you what is wrong with her.”

“He mentioned some lung complaint with asthma.”

She nodded. And I realized that she accepted me. I thought she liked someone to stand up to her and I had done exactly that. I had her approval as the patient’s nurse.

“I daresay,” she said, “that you would wish to see your patient.”

I said I thought that would be desirable.

“Your bags …”

“Were brought into the hall.”

“They will be taken to your room. Ring the bell please, Nurse Loman.”

I did so and we waited in silence for the call to be answered. “Baines,” she said when it was, “pray take Nurse Loman to Mrs. Stretton. Unless you would prefer to go first to your room, Nurse?”

“I think I should like to see my patient first,” I said.

She inclined her head and we went out; I could feel her eyes following me.

We went through a maze of corridors and up little flights of circular stairs — stone some of them and worn in the middle — fake I thought. Stone doesn’t wear away in the space of fifty years. But I found it fascinating. A house pretending to be what it was not. That made it very human to my mind.

Then we went into the Stretton apartments, high up in one of the towers, I guessed.

“Mrs. Stretton will be resting,” said the manservant hesitantly.

I said, “Take me to her.”

He knocked at a door; a muffled sulky voice said: “Who’s there?”

“It’s Nurse Loman who’s come, madam,” said the servant.

There was no answer so he opened the door and I went in. In my profession we take the initiative. I said to him: “That’s all right. Leave me with my patient.”

There were Venetian blinds at the windows and the slats had been set to let in the minimum of light. She was lying on the bed, thick dark hair hanging loose, in a purple robe with scarlet trimming. She looked like a tropical bird.

“Mrs. Stretton?” I said.

“You are the nurse,” she said, speaking slowly. I thought: What nationality? I hazarded some sort of half-caste. Perhaps Polynesian, Creole.

“Yes, come to look after you. How dark it is in here. We’ll have a little light.” I went to the nearest window and drew up the blind.