Read Online Kit Cavendish-Private Nurse by Margaret Malcolm - Free Book Online Page A

copy with him? He could easily have said he hadn’t one with him, but would send it on, and then not do so.”
    “I can answer that one,” Noel told her promptly. “Wrinch is hand in glove with Ruth. But he doesn’t have her nerve. And besides, he has an inborn liking for running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. He wasn’t taking any chances. If father insisted on seeing the wretched thing, Wrinch was quite prepared to sell Ruth down the river because nominally, at any rate, father is still the boss. So, to cover himself, he brought the report but said nothing to Ruth. When father blew his top, Wrinch lost his head. Well, he had his reward—Ruth ratted on him. But that’s ancient history. What I want to know now is what are you going to do about it?”
    “Nothing,” Kit told him firmly. “For one thing, I’m not convinced that you’re right. And for another, my job is to look after your father. I do wish you’d all remember that and not try to involve me in family squabbles that aren’t my affair.”
    “Well, I suppose I can’t blame you for feeling like that,” Noel admitted. “It’s a sordid enough business, goodness knows. Still, talking to you has at least helped me to see things more clearly. I realize that it’s my job—” he pondered momentarily, then went on with a certain satisfaction “—and though I don’t see any solution yet, I’m pretty certain I’ve got something up my sleeve that might help. And now I suppose I’d better take you back.”
    “Oh, my goodness, yes!” Kit exclaimed, glancing at her watch. “Unless you can do it in ten minutes, I’m going to be terribly late.”
    Noel laughed.
    “Much as I like a bit of speed, I’m afraid I can’t do that. But I’ll do my best. Hold onto your hat!”
    But Kit was almost half an hour late when, breathlessly, she apologized to Nurse Stoke who came out onto the landing to meet her.
    “That’s all right, my dear. I saw who brought you home!” Nurse Stoke said with a coy significance that, to Kit’s annoyance, made her blush. “A proper charmer, that young man!”
    “But, Nurse Stoke, you mustn’t imagine... ” Kit protested earnestly.
    Nurse Stoke laughed.
    “Now, you mustn’t mind me teasing! It’s true I’m old enough to be your mother, but I’m no spoilsport. After all, you’re only young once. Besides, I got on nicely with my knitting—practically finished the second sleeve.”
    It was on the tip of Kit’s tongue to ask her if she had said anything to Mr. Baylis about Noel bringing her home, but she decided that the less said the better. She went into Mr. Baylis’s room. He greeted her with a smile and asked if she had enjoyed her outing.
    “I had tea with an old friend—Miss Catchpole,” Kit explained, evading a direct question. “Do you want anything?”
    “Not at the moment.” He looked at her thoughtfully. “I suppose you have a lot of friends around here.”
    “Not as many as I once had,” Kit told him. “You see, a lot of my friends left when they grew up, just as I did.”
    “Yes, there couldn’t have been much around here for youngsters to do five or six years ago,” he commented. “Different now.”
    “Very different,” Kit agreed with an unconscious sigh.
    “You don’t like the change?” he asked with interest.
    “I think one always feels a bit sentimental about the place where one lived as a child,” Kit replied, anxious not to criticize the development in which he had played a part. “And perhaps one rather takes it for granted it’s always going to look the same.”
    “I know what you mean,” Mr. Baylis said as he put down his glasses. “Sometimes I feel guilty about the part I played in having the new town built here. I mean, when one thinks of all that growing land locked up under steel and concrete, it makes you wonder... ” he shook his head.
    “But you’ve provided work for hundreds and hundreds of people,” Kit reminded him.
    “That’s what my wife