Free Cherry Ames 21 Island Nurse by Helen Wells

you.” Cherry stepped to Sir Ian’s side, and putting her hand on his elbow, propelled him fi rmly but gently toward the foot of the wharf where the chauffeur stood beside the open door of the Barclays’ not-very-new Rolls-Royce.
    “Sir Ian has had an exhausting trip,” she said crisply to McGuire and those gathered around. “He must go home and get some rest at once.”
    Dr. Mackenzie, Sir Ian, Cherry, Lloyd, and Meg walked to the car. The chauffeur started the motor.
    They drove off up High Street that led from the waterfront, through the village, climbing up and up to Barclay House on the cliffs.

    c h a p t e r v i i
    Island Nurse
    it was the middle of the afternoon when cherry fi nally went downstairs to lunch. Sir Ian was in an agi-tated state and refused point-blank to go to bed and rest. Dr. Mackenzie, or Dr. Mac as everyone called him on Balfour, was friendly but fi rm, shooed everyone away but Cherry, and got Sir Ian into bed. By that time Sir Ian was glad to go, for he had too much pain to stir about.
    Dr. Mac gave him medication to relieve any acid condition in his stomach. Cherry gave him a feeding of milk and cream to which he reacted well.
    Between little twitches of pain, Sir Ian complained and grumbled. He had come back, he said, to look after his mines and how was he going to do it if some young whippersnapper of a doctor and a mere lass of a nurse kept him in bed? Couldn’t they see that everything was at sixes and sevens on the island?
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    AMES,
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    NURSE
    Dr. Mac listened gravely, nodding in agreement to everything the mine owner said.
    “Weel, why don’t you say something, Mackenzie?” Sir Ian burst out at last in exasperation.
    The doctor grinned, his face wrinkling in amusement.
    “Why, sir, you didn’t give me a chance,” he replied.
    “Weel, then, why didn’t you stop me?” demanded Sir Ian irascibly. “No, you sat bobbing your head like a silly nuthatch pecking open a nut. And you, Cherry, what was the matter with you?”
    “I agreed with Dr. Mac’s unvoiced opinion,” Cherry said primly. “It was better to let you get it off your chest.
    Perhaps now you’ll settle down and get some rest.”
    “Ye are a red-cheeked tyrant,” Sir Ian accused her.
    “Ye wait. When I get well, I’ll show ye who’s boss.”
    “Unless you quit upsetting yourself over things you can do nothing about,” said Dr. Mac, “you are going to lie there and be a milksop. Isn’t that correct, Miss Ames?”
    “Absolutely, Doctor,” Cherry agreed with vigor.
    “Ought never to get sick,” grumbled Sir Ian, turning his head aside and closing his eyes. “Lose your inde-pendence. Have to do as you’re bid.” Sir Ian pretended to sleep for a while. When the pain left, he began to doze. The trip had tired him.
    “Call me at the hospital,” Dr. Mac told Cherry on leaving, “if you need me for anything. But I’ll be back later, anyway, to see how he is.”
    Cherry sat alone with Sir Ian for a while longer, then Meg peeked in to say that she would relieve her.

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    NURSE
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    “You must have lunch, Cherry,” Meg told her. “Lloyd and I had ours ages ago, then he went down to the mines. I’ll stay with father. I had Higgins lay a place in the dining room and keep the chops warm. If you don’t like lamb chops, just tell Higgins and he’ll have Tess—
    that’s the cook—fi x you something you do like.” Robert Higgins was the family’s butler.
    “Thank you, Meg. A lamb chop will do nicely,” Cherry assured her. “I’ll not take long.”
    Cherry left, going into her own room across the hall for a moment to freshen up. The family’s bedrooms and the guest rooms were all on the second fl oor. Cherry’s room was on the northeast corner of the house, overlooking the cliffs above a great cave, called Rogues’
    Cave, in the cliffside.
    From the east windows, Cherry had a magnifi cent view of the cliffs and the sea. On the north, the windows looked out over the island and