by A. J. Cronin
I worked on Sim, like one demented, for over an hour. But even before I arrived, he had been dead, quite dead. I stopped, buttoned up the crumpled nightdress, composed that inconsiderable frame which had struggled so hard and endured so much, laid back the head upon the pillow.
Suddenly, as I straightened out the bed, I uncovered, in a fold of the wrinkled sheets, the tracheotomy tube, all choked and foul with membrane. I stared at it stupidly, then I turned towards Sister Peek, who all this time had remained pressed against the door.
“It’s blocked,” I said in a tone of wonder. “He must have coughed it out.”
Then I saw everything, and even before I could accuse her, the expression upon her face told me that my suspicion was correct. Another thought struck me. I walked slowly past her into the ward kitchen. Yes, on the table—that same deal table on which had been fought out the battle for Sim’s life—there stood a tea-pot, a plate of sardine sandwiches, and a cold, half-finished cup of tea. Tempting little repast.
“Oh, Doctor.” She had followed me, wringing her hands. “ I never thought … he was sleeping so comfortable … I only left him for a minute.”
I couldn’t bear it. I thought my heart would burst. I went out of the kitchen, through the ward and into the open. Outside the few stars were fading and the first faint fingers of dawn had erased the darkness from the eastern sky. Beating my forehead with my clenched fists, I reached my sitting-room, where I fell into a chair by the table. It was not that my own slight achievement had been torn from me. What burned and rankled in my breast, and poisoned all my being, was the senseless turning of victory to defeat, the selfish, criminal waste of life. Sunk in a blind stupor, I surrendered to despair.
I must have sat without moving for a long time, for I was still there, in my overcoat and my pyjamas, when Katie appeared at nine o’clock to lay the breakfast table. Unable to bear her solicitous glances, I went through my bedroom to the bathroom, shaved automatically, and dressed. When I came back an extra good breakfast was awaiting me, toast, coffee, bacon and eggs under the metal cover. But although I needed food I could eat nothing, my stomach revolted even at a few sips of coffee. I went to the window and looked out. It was a cold and foggy morning, forerunner of the overcast damp of winter.
A knock on the door. As I turned, slowly Miss Trudgeon came into the room, composed, as usual, but showing in her eyes some signs of strain. Her manner was friendly. She crossed over to the fireplace where a few green sticks were spluttering and throwing out eddies of damp smoke.
“Sister Peek has been to see me.” Her voice, when she did speak, was serious and restrained. “ She is very much upset.”
“I’m not surprised,” I said bitterly.
“I know how you must feel, Doctor. Especially after all your efforts. The whole thing is highly regrettable.” She paused. “For my own part, I regret it exceedingly, for no one could take the interests of this hospital more to heart than I. But these accidents do occur, Doctor, even in the best-regulated institutions. And, in a long experience, I have found that there is only one thing to do about them.”
“And what’s that?” I couldn’t help asking.
“Overlook them.”
I caught my breath sharply.
“You can’t overlook this. It wasn’t an accident. It was a case of gross negligence, which must be punished.”
“Suppose we do as you suggest. What happens? Sister Peek is dismissed, there is a deal of talk and scandal, the hospital gets a bad name, and nobody is a bit the better for it.”
“She’ll have to go,” I answered doggedly. “She’s a bad nurse and she cost that child his life.”
Miss Trudgeon made a soothing gesture.
“I understand your point of view, Doctor. And I sympathize with it. But … in this hospital … there are other considerations of a practical nature to be borne in mind.”
“She can’t be allowed to stay here to do the same thing over again.”
“She won’t,” Matron said quickly. “This will be a lesson she’ll never forget. I’ll guarantee that. I can assure you, Doctor, that Sister Peek has many good points, and it would be altogether unwise, I won’t say unjust, to ruin her career, for that’s what it would amount to, because of this single incident.”
I gazed at her heavily, recollecting how she went out of her way to make a favourite of the night sister. I wondered if a vague sense of privilege did not attach to Effie Peek. I was about to speak when there came a subdued knock upon the door and Katie again presented herself upon the threshold.
“Mr. and Mrs. Duthie waiting to see you, in the reception-room, sir.”
I felt myself turn cold, indeed an involuntary shiver passed through all my limbs. My reply to the matron was frozen upon my lips. I looked dully at the floor for a moment; then, by an effort, forced myself to move towards the door.
As I went out Miss Trudgeon came close to me and urged, in a voice of unmistakable sincerity:
“Be careful, Doctor. In your own interests … and mine.”
My vision was so blurred and uncertain, the corridor seemed full of fog; but as I stumbled into the reception-room I could see clearly enough that Duthie and his wife were smiling as though unable to contain a deep and intimate happiness. In fact, when I entered Alex got up, with a beaming face, and gripped me by the hand.
“I hope we’re not too early for you, lad. But there’s no holding the missus and me this morning. We felt like singing on the way down here.”
“That’s right, Doctor.” Alice Duthie had risen and was standing beside her husband, her simple careworn face quite radiant. “And we owe it all to your skill and cleverness.”
I steadied myself against the table. My legs were failing me, my head seemed stuffed with cotton wool and, worst of all, I felt every second that I was going to break down and cry.
“Eh, lad!” Alex exclaimed. “ Ye’re quite done up. And no wonder either, after losing your sleep on our behalf. We’ll not be bothering you a minute longer. We’ll just gang over and take a look at Sim.”
“Stop …” In a weak and broken manner I brought out the word.
They looked at me, at first amazed, then with concern, finally in sharp anxiety.
“What’s like the matter?” Alex said in an altered voice. Then, after a pause, as though it were dragged from him: “Is our boy bad again?”
I nodded my head, blindly.
“Much worse? Good God, man, don’t stand like that. Tell us how he is.”
I couldn’t look at Alice; the sight of Alex’s face, emptied of its light, turned grey and pitiful, was as much as I could bear.
“God in Heaven,” he said in a low extinguished tone. “It’s not that.”
There was a long silence, how long I don’t know. Time ceased to have any meaning, everything was blurred and blank. But I could see that Alice was weeping and that Duthie had his arm around her. When at last he did speak, his voice was cold and hard.
“Can we go over and see him?”
“Yes,” I muttered. “ Shall I come with you?”
“If you don’t mind, we’ll go alone.”
On his way to the door he turned to me as to a stranger.
“This would have come easier if last night ye hadna let me think ye’d saved our boy. I never want to set eyes on ye again.”
I went back to my room, where I wandered about, without purpose, picking up things and laying them down again.
And then, as I gazed through the window, I saw Alex and Mrs. Duthie come round the corner of the building and proceed slowly down the drive. His figure looked bowed and crushed, his arm was still about his wife’s shoulders, holding her closely and supporting her as she moved forward, blind and helpless with weeping.
Then everything boiled over inside me. I swung round and went down the corridor to the sisters’ sitting-room. As I had guessed, Sister Peek was there alone. She was seated in a comfortable chair before a good fire, her eyes red, but her expression vaguely relieved, as th
ough, having had “a good cry,” she now felt that the worst was over. She had just finished her lunch, that early meal which she took before retiring, and on her plate I made out two chop-bones, picked clean.
A spasm of rage, of wild and senseless fury, choked me.
“You cheap, useless, callous slut! How dare you sit there, swilling and guzzling and warming yourself, after what you’ve done? Don’t you understand that your selfish carelessness cost that poor kid his life? It’s your fault, your cursed rotten fault that he’s lying there, dead, at this minute.”
The look on my face must have frightened her. She slid from the chair and retreated to the corner of the room. I followed her, caught her by the shoulders, and shook her till her teeth rattled.
“Call yourself a nurse. Hell and damnation, it’s enough to make a cat laugh. If you stay on here, I’ll see you get it in the neck. You ought to be hanged for what you’ve done. Think that over the next time you want to slink away from your patient for a cup of tea.”
She did not attempt to answer. As she cringed there, limp and shaken, her green eyes glinted up at me.
I turned and went out. Although I didn’t regret it, I was painfully aware that my outburst had been mistaken and stupid. But I didn’t realize how stupid until later.
Chapter Ten
Three weeks later, while we sat drinking our coffee after lunch, Miss Trudgeon, with a companionable air, produced a letter. That night of the tracheotomy had marked the end of our strife. She no longer put my back up, I was prepared to swear by her honesty and dependability. Indeed, I had almost begun to feel that she was, reluctantly, taking a liking to me.
“We’ll be having our annual visit from the management committee this afternoon.”
I studied the typewritten notice which she handed me.
“I’d better put on a clean collar in honour of the event.”
“It might be advisable.” Her small eyes twinkled. “ There are only three members … Masters, Hone, and Gloag. But they’re quite particular. They’re earlier than usual this year.”
“What’s the procedure?”
“We feed them—that’s half the battle—then take them round.” She glanced at me wryly. “You don’t have to worry. I’m the one who gets rapped on the knuckles.”
I did not give much heed to the impending visitation. I was still oppressed and suffering from reaction, and only recently had begun to pick up the thread of my research. No word at all had come from Jean, and two letters which I wrote her had been sent back, redirected in a strange hand. Vaguely, throughout the afternoon, I was conscious of an air of preparation, of sweepings and scurryings in the corridors, of a final polish being laid upon floors and walls already spotless. Also, in my room, a tantalus of spirits arrived upon the sideboard, while extra leaves were put in the table, which was then ornamented with a centre-piece of flowers and set for a massive repast.
At half-past four, a closed car drove up to the front door and, after a few minutes of conversation and laughter in the hall, Matron appeared, all smiles, in her best uniform, bringing into the room the members of the committee.
“Dr. Shannon … this is Mr. Ben Masters … Mr. Hone … and Mr. Gloag.”
She introduced me with a genial sparkle in her eye, almost coyly, as though we had never been anything but the best of friends and had always lived together in perfect harmony, then immediately proceeded to pour out for the newcomers large tumblers of whisky which, with an air of dignity and responsibility, they accepted as their due.
The leader of the party, Mr. Masters, was a tall, spare, rough-looking man of about fifty, with hard, weather-beaten features, deepset eyes, and the loud, harsh voice of one accustomed to shouting orders in the open air. He looked to me like a gang foreman and was, I afterwards discovered, a jobbing builder and contractor in the nearby town of Prenton. As he drank his whisky, listening without comment to the matron’s stream of small talk, I felt him gazing at me speculatively over the rim of his glass.
Meanwhile, I had been buttonholed by the second member of the committee, Mr. Hone, a plump, natty figure with a waxed moustache, a tight blue suit, and spats. He seemed fussy and loquacious, yet his manner, though commercial, was agreeable.
“You know, Doctor,” he confided in me, “nothing fits a man better than to serve his fellow creatures on a hospital committee. It takes time, mind you, and time’s money these days, especially when you have your own business—I’m in the drapery and upholstery line myself—but look at the good you accomplish.… Thank you, Matron, I don’t mind if I do. The labourer is worthy of his hire. Very fair whisky this. I wonder what it costs us.… And the interest, Doctor, you’ve no idea the things I’ve learned about medicine. Only the other day the wife showed me a rash on our youngest—a bonny baby, though I say it as shouldn’t—and when I told her not to worry—it was only from the blood, you understand—why, Albert, she says, I have to compliment you, even though you are my husband, you know all the fevers, you’re as good as a doctor any day! I’ll leave this card with you!” Producing a trade card from his top waistcoat pocket he pressed it confidentially into my hand. “As you observe, I do a little undertaking on the side. In case any bereaved relatives of your better-off patients should require my assistance it’s nice to be prepared. We do everything very dignified, Doctor. And reasonable.”
So far, Mr. Gloag, the last member of the party, a small, sharp-eyed man of middle age, had remained dumb; nevertheless, he had a way of cocking his head towards the conversation as though determined to let nothing go past him, and from time to time, as a sign of his agreement with his colleagues, he emitted a half-grudging exclamation of assent.
“Well, gentlemen,” Miss Trudgeon remarked, in her most dulcet tones, “ I hope you’ve brought good appetites. Shall we sit in?”
Our guests showed little hesitation in accepting the invitation. They had undoubtedly come prepared to do justice to this annual, free repast, and although occasionally Mr. Masters, at the head of the table, threw out a rough witticism, for most of the meal nothing was heard but the clink of knives and forks, the steady grinding of jaws.
Yet, at last, despite Miss Trudgeon’s hospitable pressings, the efforts of the committee flagged and failed. After a pause, Mr. Masters pushed back his chair and rose to his feet, dusting the crumbs from his waistcoat, with a businesslike air.
“Now, Matron, if convenient we’d like to go round with you. And the doctor.”
His official manner set the general tone as they began their tour of inspection, and I soon perceived, from the matron’s air of tension and slightly heightened colour, that this was rather more of a trial than she had been prepared to admit to me.
In the administrative building the visiting members systematically viewed the office, the laundry, and the kitchen, where Mr. Gloag, in particular, showed a remarkable talent for prying into cupboards, sniffing in dark corners, and lifting the lids of pots and pans, to sample the flavour of the staff’s supper.
Next our party passed to the wards, where, facing their main task, the committee-men began a slow and almost royal progress. Determined to miss nothing, Gloag went everywhere, even peering under the beds in his efforts to find illicit dust. Once we lost him in the lavatory of Ward B, but he reappeared with an expression of defeat, having found everything in working order. Masters was equally thorough, interrogating the patients, inquiring of each in hoarse whispers, which could be heard all over the place, if there were any cause for complaints. Hone, meantime, made it his duty to sound out the members of the staff, especially the younger nurses, inquiring with unctuous familiarity into their health and habits. Once he paused and, pointing to a well-marked case of measles, remarked to me over his shoulder, in a stage whisper, with the air of a connoisseur:
“Beautiful rash, Doctor. Chicken pox, eh? I could tell it a mile away.”
I did not contradict him. In fact, I effaced myself as much as possible. This was obviously the matron’s responsibility and, while I co
uldn’t but sympathize with her, I had no wish to draw the enemy’s fire upon myself.
Perhaps I was prejudiced, and the committee was carrying out its task from the highest motives, yet I couldn’t suppress the thought that these three were uninformed and ill-mannered busybodies, each in his own way a small-town politician of the type which pushes forward in public affairs to secure some personal advantage and, invested with a petty authority, takes good care to exercise it to the full.
At last it was over; we emerged from the end ward into the crisp November air and, with a sense of relief, I was preparing to see our unwelcome guests depart, when suddenly, in a tone of purpose, Masters exclaimed:
“Now we’ll take a look at Pavilion E.”
For an instant I was puzzled and, indeed, a general air of surprise fell upon the party; then, with a start, I observed the direction of his gaze.
“You mean the old smallpox ward?” Matron asked in a doubtful tone.
“What else?” Masters replied testily. “It’s part of the hospital buildings. I want to see it like the rest.” He hesitated for a moment. “I’m thinking we might reconstruct it.”
“Of course”—Matron spoke without moving—“it hasn’t been used for some time.”
“Yes, indeed,” I broke in hastily. “It’s quite derelict.”
“We’ll be the judge of that. Let’s get a move on.”
I allowed myself to be swept forward with the others, at a loss as to how this had been sprung upon me. From her ill-concealed surprise and annoyance, I was perfectly convinced that Matron had no hand in it. Masters was at the door now, turning the handle, thrusting with his shoulder against the panel. As this held fast, I took a completely wrong decision.
“It’s probably nailed up. We’ll never get in.”
There was an odd sort of silence. Then Hone remarked softly:
“Don’t you want us to get in, Doctor?”
Meanwhile Masters had struck a wax vesta and, bent down, was fiddling at the keyhole. In a tone of discovery he exclaimed:
