Everlasting Love. Кэрол Мортимер

very tiring,’ she invented.

      ‘Of course,’ Natalie agreed sceptically. ‘None of our friends were making nuisances of themselves, were they? I know some of the boys—–’

      ‘No, no, it isn’t that.’ Olivia assured hastily. ‘It really is just tiredness.’

      ‘You seem—upset about something?’ the other girl persisted.

      Was she so transparent? She hadn’t thought she was, had thought she had built up a protective shell these last few days. A few minutes’ conversation with Sally Hamilton, unwilling thoughts of Marcus thrust upon her, and her carefully controlled veneer had been shattered; Natalie sensed it, and now she was forced to acknowledge it to herself too. ‘Tired,’ she insisted firmly, following the other girl out to the car.

      Rick frowned at her in the driving-mirror as they drove back to his home. ‘Are you all right?’

      ‘She’s tired,’ Natalie answered him.

      His brows rose. ‘You seemed to be resting when I looked at you. You were talking to Sally for quite some time.’

      Olivia moistened her dry lips. ‘She didn’t ever come to the house while you were ill, did she?’ she queried in a casual voice—too casual?

      ‘Only once, I think,’ Rick answered thoughtfully. ‘It was probably your day off.’

      ‘Oh, that one,’ Olivia teased.

      ‘Cheeky!’ he grinned at her.

      ‘Well, Olivia’s days away from you haven’t exactly been numerous,’ Natalie reasoned.

      ‘Go on, she’s loved every minute of it.’

      ‘Yes, I have,’ she agreed warmly.

      ‘Don’t tell him that,’ Natalie groaned. ‘He’ll be unbearably conceited about it.’

      ‘And I thought you loved me?’ he groaned.

      ‘I do—sometimes,’ she added coolly.

      ‘Thanks!’

      ‘I think you asked for that one, Rick,’ Olivia laughed.

      ‘Probably,’ he grimaced.

      Oh, she was going to miss this family! That fact was brought home to her even more as she ate a lighthearted meal with them that evening. Clara and Eric had insisted that she ate all her meals with them, treating her like another daughter they had suddenly acquired. Five more days and she would be leaving this happy family group to take care of an elderly lady, and the contrast between the two households would be extreme. But she had chosen her profession, enjoyed it, and if she was sometimes lonely then that was her fault; the offer of boy-friends had been there often over the years. But none of those men had ever measured up to Marcus—–

      Marcus! Couldn’t she get away from thoughts of him today? It would seem not, as she heard Rick mention Sally Hamilton to his father.

      ‘Sally’s back from Switzerland,’ he told him.

      ‘And Marcus?’ Eric enquired.

      ‘I think he’s back too. I know her grandmother is with her,’ Rick remarked casually.

      Sybil—Sybil Carr, Marcus’s mother-in-law. Olivia had met the other woman, had found her reception to be frosty, although in the circumstances that was perhaps understandable. The absent Mr Carr was a wealthy businessman—what else, with Ruth’s air of breeding!—and he had been in America on business during the brief months Oliva had been in Marcus’s life.

      ‘To stay or just to visit?’ Clara asked interestedly.

      ‘To stay, I think,’ her son shrugged.

      ‘Poor Marcus,’ Clara said softly. ‘Still, I don’t suppose there’s much point in Sybil staying in Switzerland now that Gerald is dead.’

      So Sybil Carr was now a widow. Olivia somehow couldn’t envisage the haughtily sophisticated woman as a grieving widow, stricken by her loss. No, that role didn’t suit the other woman at all.

      ‘I’m sorry, Olivia,’ Clara spoke to her in her gentle voice; she was a prettily vague woman who somehow managed to carry on in her own sweet way, never hurting anyone or anything, and her family drew peace from her serenity. Olivia liked the older woman immensely. ‘It’s rude of us to discuss people you don’t know,’ she smiled her apology.

      ‘Olivia met Sally today,’ Natalie put in, spending more time here than in her own home with her parents.

      ‘Did you, dear?’ Clara gave one of her vague smiles. ‘She’s a nice girl, isn’t she?’

      ‘She seemed to be,’ Olivia nodded, then stood up to excuse herself. ‘I have some reading to do before I go on to my next case.’

      ‘Of course, dear,’ Clara nodded understandingly.

      Olivia lingered at Rick’s side. ‘Will you be all right?’

      ‘Why?’ he grinned. ‘Are you offering to come and tuck me up in bed later?’

      ‘She’d better not!’ his girl-friend threatened.

      ‘Why not? She has done for the last three months,’ he mocked.

      Natalie looked up at her appealingly. ‘Olivia—–’

      ‘He’s only teasing you,’ she smiled at the other girl. ‘Most of that time I put him in the bed, not tucked him into it!’

      She left the room to the sound of teasing laughter and mocking comments, all of them directed at Rick. And at least now the subject of Sally and Marcus had been forgotten.

      But not by her. It was all back with a vengeance, all the love, the disillusionment, and finally the pain.

      Being a nurse had seemed so romantically glamorous when she was eighteen, a sort of modern-day Florence Nightingale, soothing a patient’s brow and he or she instantly recovered, and every doctor just longing to fall in love with, and marry, a nurse.

      Reality had been less of an ideal, and after six months’ training, three months of it actually working on a ward, the other three in the classroom, Olivia had been forced to acknowledge that there was little romance attached to the profession, only gruelling hard work, and even the lowliest doctors treated her as being beneath their notice, romantically or otherwise. Oh, she had no doubt that a few of the senior nurses had relationships with some of the doctors, but they rarely, if ever, led to anything permanent.

      Her first ward had been a children’s, and while some of the children there had been very ill, on the whole it had been an enjoyable time, and death had never touched her.

      Her second ward had been something else completely—female medical, a mixture of all ages over twelve, although the younger patients seemed to recover quicker and leave after only short stays with them. Some of the older patients, their healing process not always as healthy, made much longer stays.

      It was in this way that she had become fond of Mrs Bateson, a woman in her seventies. It had become part of Olivia’s daily routine to spend several minutes out of her busy day talking with Mrs Bateson about the olden days, her fifty years of marriage to Bert, her six children, twenty grandchildren, and four greatgrandchildren. Emily Bateson was fascinating to talk to, to listen to, and with the lack of a closeness to her own parents Olivia became very fond of the elderly lady.

      In fact the first time she had ever seen Marcus she had been standing at Mrs Bateson’s bedside talking to her about the expected visit from her frail husband, for the old lady was never happier than when her husband was going to keep her company for a time, most of her day spent in bed because of her illness.

      Emily looked down proudly at the gold band on her wedding finger, worn thin with time. ‘Never been off my finger since the day Bert put it there,’ she glowed.

      Olivia found the love the elderly couple