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?'
'But, my dear, how was I to know she'd make such a fuss? I was only trying to hold her hand.'
'And you have the effrontery to offer that as an excuse! If I had my way I'd bundle the little baggage out of the house in the next five minutes. It's only that she's kept your brother out of his grave that I tolerate her at all.'
'Let me tell you, my dear, the scene won't be repeated.'
'And let me tell you, my dear, that if it is, I'll break your neck.'
It was quite a consolation to find that Nurse Jones dished it out impartially to all comers.
Thereafter I paid fewer visits to Nutbeam Hall, his Lordship no longer needing my constant attentions, anyway. There wasn't even much excitement for the Percy Nutbeams watching LSD-day approaching, as he quietly became haler and heartier every moment. Under the mellowing influence of the coming largesse the ghastly couple grew quite friendly towards me, and even asked me to a cocktail party with a lot of their friends, who looked as though they'd been delivered in horse-boxes.
At last the twenty-eighth of May dawned, another jolly Elysian summer day. In the afternoon I drove to Nutbeam Hall for my final visit.
I found Percy and his wife standing in the hall, looking as if they'd just checked off the winning line in their penny points.
'Dr Grimsdyke,' Percy said at once, 'we both want to thank you for restoring my dear brother to us.'
'It is a great comfort, Doctor, to have him with us today. And, of course, for many more years to come.'
'If God spares him,' added Percy, looking at the chandelier again.
'To mark our appreciation,' Amanda went on, 'my husband and I would like you to accept this little gift. I hope it will remind you of one of your earliest successful cases.'
Whereupon Percy handed me a gold cigarette case, still in its box from Cartiers.
I stumbled out a few words of thanks, wondering how much it had set them back. Then I suggested I'd better make my
'My brother's out for his afternoon drive at the moment,' Percy told me, 'but of course he's due home any minute.'
'He never likes to be far from Nutbeam Hall,' said Amanda.
'Do wait, Doctor. Perhaps a cup of tea?'
At that moment we heard the Daimler in the drive, and as we opened the front door Lord Nutbeam got out with Nurse Jones. It was then I noticed something about him-possibly the look in his eye, like a chap reaching for his first pint at the end of a tough game of rugger-which made me slip the cigarette case into my pocket and prepare for trouble.
'Percy…Amanda,' began Lord Nutbeam, 'allow me to introduce Lady Nutbeam.'
The two Honourables looked as though they'd been run through the middle by a red-hot cautery.
'That's impossible!' cried Mrs Nutbeam.
'Not impossible at all, my dear Amanda.
Ethel and I were married half an hour ago in Gloucester Registry Office. Two very pleasant young men from the Waterworks Department were our witnesses.'
Percy Nutbeam gasped. 'But the money!'
'I'm afraid there isn't any, Percy. Not for you, anyway. The deed is, of course, annulled by my marrying before the five years are up. You will inherit the title when I eventually perish, unless Ethel and I happen to have children…'
Mrs Nutbeam burst into tears.
