Nurse Trent's Children by Joyce Dingwell Page B

the flowers down and go out and speak to whoever had come in.
    She set down the vase carefully, but as she stood up a voice accosted her. It was deliberate and cold voice, and the words had a sharp edge to them.
    “Have I interrupted something, housemother? Some message of the flowers or the like? Blue for true love, isn’t it? These, surely are very blue.”
    He had crossed to the vase and was touching the petals with his lean sensitive fingers. Before he turned to her, Jeremy Malcolm regarded every detail of the room with narrowed eyes. “Everything to your liking, Aunty Cathy? It must be, mustn’t it? Uncle David arrives tomorrow.”
    It was then that Cathy realized she had opened the door of the housefather’s room. In disgust at his interpretation of her gesture she made some small rejoinder and hurried down the stairs.
    To her annoyance she found the doctor beside her as she crossed to the girls’ building. When they came to the big doors he stepped in front, opened one and allowed Cathy to enter first. He then closed the door behind them and followed her down the hall.
    Elvira looked up from her sewing, and her face instantly creased into a smile. “Dr. Jerry, I didn’t know you were here.”
    Cathy waited for the reply she felt sure he would make. He would explain coolly that he had seen the light in the boys’ section and crossed to investigate, only to find Miss Trent decorating Mr. Kennedy’s room with flowers.
    There was a moment’s deliberation; then Dr. Malcolm answered, “ I came to warn you that a special board meeting has been scheduled for tomorrow, Elvira. I thought you should be prepared.”
    Elvira looked blank. “It’s not down on the date list.”
    “It’s a special, as I just said. With Redgates’s two houses filled to capacity, we thought it wise to hold a roundtable conference at once. Everybody will be here.”
    “Oh.” This time Elvira did not look blank—she looked cross. The doctor could not help but notice it.
    “Come, now, Elvie, it’s not that bad.”
    “Then it’s not good. Everything will have to be gone through in the morning, extra cakes made, and the children dressed up and not allowed to move a finger.”
    “Elvira, you exaggerate.” Malcolm’s voice was teasing.
    The little woman, however, was not to be bantered back to a smile, so the doctor said, “It won’t do the children harm to be on dress parade for once, or the house, either, for that matter. It happens in the army when the colonel pays a visit and in the navy when the admiral comes on board.”
    “I suppose next you’ll be expecting me to teach them all to salute or say aye, aye, sir.”
    “Just have Miss Trent here teach them the hornpipe,” laughed Dr. Malcolm. “She tells me she is interested in including dancing in their w eekly activities.”
    Elvira remained stony , and Cathy hurriedly intervened with a question about Avery’s sheet-nibbling habit and Gwenda’s restlessness. He promised to look them over one day.
    He declined Elvira’s rather apologetic offer of tea and left soon afterward.
    Cathy heard the door close and turned and looked questioningly at Elvira.
    “An extra meeting with all present means she’ll be here,” said Elvira gloomily. “She never misses a special, not her. Everything will have to be perfect, from Mrs. Ferguson’s afternoon tea to Christabel’s behavior. The children hate all the formality.”
    “Need they be present?”
    “They form a guard of honor.”
    “Oh.” Cathy stood irresolute a while.
    “And who,” she asked at length, “is the formidable ‘she,’ Elvira?”
    You know.”
    “Do I?”
    “Fayette Dubois, of course,”
    “Mrs. Dubois—then I can ask her about Rita’s lipstick.” Cathy’s voice was eager.
    Elvira made a last desperate appeal. “Can’t you let Rita have it without any asking?”
    “Elvie, we had that out before.”
    “I suppose so.” Elvira slumped her plump shoulders.
    “I’m off to bed, Aunty Cathy,” she