Read Nurse Lang for Free Online Page B

must leave it to you.”
    “You’ve seen Madeira,” he mused, “but Grand Canary is quite different. It is a Spanish island, for one thing, gayer, more lighthearted, and it holds greater variety in its scenery. They call it a continent in miniature, but Las Palmas itself is just another big town. When one strips it of glamour of palm trees and luxurious tropical flowers, it’s Funchal or Santa Cruz over again. It’s the country beyond the town I would like you to see, the real home of the people who live here.”
    There was no pretence about Moira. She was ready to embrace life, to widen her horizon, and she was frankly grateful to him for giving her this opportunity of seeing an island which she might only have dreamed about. Bareheaded, she sat beside him in the open carriage, gazing about her at the busy, sun-scorched streets, her hands clasped rapturously tight in her lap, her eyes everywhere, but the man beside her made little sign that he had reacted to her mood.
    Now and then Moira exclaimed aloud at the beauty of wonder, and he smiled as he might have smiled at a child, indulgently. When their carriage slowed down in the main street and a Spanish woman proffered flowers, he bought her an armful.
    “Nothing like this has ever happened to me before!” she told him, starry-eyed. “I’ve never had so many flowers all at once!”
    “They don't last long in this climate,” he said. “They’ll be withered before the day is out, but there's such a profusion of them that we can always buy more.”
    As they neared a small village Grant signed to the driver and the man pulled up with an encouraging smile. The hamlet he explained in halting English, was making holiday. It was the day of the local fiesta and the people had been celebrating since early morning when the figure of the saint had been carried in procession down the steep main street from the chapel on the hill, but now that the religious part of the ceremonies was over there was plenty to eat and drink and the dancing would soon begin. They would, he said, be able to get some lunch in the small local hostelry across the square there.
    He pointed out a white, colonnaded building at the edge of the plaza, with wrought-iron windows overlooking a palm-fringed courtyard where little iron tables were set in the shade and the music of guitars drifted in from the street beyond.
    Grant helped Moira down from the carriage on to a pavement strewn with flowers. Gardenias and pale cream roses and geraniums as vivid as any she had ever seen were mixed with the flamboyant bougainvillea which festooned every balcony and doorway, and garlanded flowers hung above the open windows of the houses in long, brilliant chains. The figure of the saint had been carried that way and some of the intricate pattern of the flower carpet over which the priests had walked still remained, a mosaic of living blossom lovingly contrived for this special day.
    “It seems a shame to tread on it!” she said as Grant followed her through the cool archway into the hostelry. “It’s so wonderfully done.”
    “I’d like you to have seen it before it was disturbed,” he said, “but that would have meant getting here very early in the morning, when the dew was still on the flowers. No woven carpet could ever compare with it for beauty and depth of color, and the patterns are amazing.”
    “You’ve been here before?” she suggested.
    He nodded.
    “I operated on a Spaniard once who appeared to be everlastingly grateful” he explained. “He insisted that I should spend a holiday with his family on the island, and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed my stay. These old Spanish grandees certainly know how to entertain.”
    It seemed that he had learned much from his former visit, and they were soon installed at a table where they overlooked the scene of the festivities in the square below. A typical Spanish meal was set before them with its individual dishes of strange vegetables and richly cooked