Chapter Four
There was a moment of complete silence. Mark Jonathan shook the raindrops from his fair hair, smoothed it back neatly, and smiled at Sister. ‘Good evening, Sister. Do you mind if we come in?’
‘Sorry to use your door without permission, Sister,’ Tom Dillon said in his quiet, slow voice. ‘Thing is, we were getting a bit wet outside.’
‘Sister, we do crave your indulgence and forgiveness,’ Mark pleaded. ‘We know we are at fault. Isn’t that so, Tom?’
Tom nodded.
Sister had now come out of her trance-like state of shock. ‘Mr. Jonathan and Mr. Dillon, what kind of behaviour is this? I hope you have a good explanation. You will need one when you come to explain your conduct to the Dean!’
Mark altered his smile for an expression of abject remorse. ‘You are so right, Sister. We have no right to be here at all. We do beg your pardon most humbly. Isn’t that so, Tom?’
Tom nodded, ‘That’s so, Sister.’
Sister opened her mouth, but before she could say another word Mark beat her to it. ‘The problem is, Sister, we’ve got ourselves into a bit of a mess.’
Neither of the two young men so much as glanced my way; they kept their eyes fixed on Sister, as she retorted, icily, ‘I would agree with you, gentlemen.’
I was standing by her feeling utterly shattered. Tom, however, regarded her calmly. ‘The trouble is, Sister,’ he said slowly, ‘we’ve got ourselves involved in a dare.’ And much to my surprise, and to Mark Jonathan’s also, to judge by his startled expression, Tom went steadily on to explain to Sister much of what Mark had already explained to me. He only left out my part in the affair.
Sister said she had never heard such nonsense in her life. ‘I have no interest in the foolish pranks you students get up to! You have no business to involve my ward in your childish games, as I do not doubt the Dean will explain to you in the fullness of time.’
Mark sighed. His sigh showed that he had accepted the fact that they would get nowhere with their apology. I agreed with him. I wished they would go and let me get on with the vast amount of mopping-up I had to do. If only I was quick, I might be able to save the ceiling below.
Tom apparently had other views. He did not move an inch, or look over-anxious. He seemed impervious to Sister Catherine’s displeasure. ‘You’re right, Sister,’ he assured her. ‘We shouldn’t have got ourselves involved in this. But I can promise you we never intended coming in here, and we would have just accepted defeat once we found we could not get into the Path Lab had we not heard your voice in here. We knew you were here or we would not have come in. Right, Mark?’ He nudged his companion.
‘Absolutely right, Sister.’
Tom took up his theme again. ‘We always knew you were a good sport, Sister. My Cousin Mab ‒ that is to say ‒’ he corrected himself deliberately ‒ ‘I ‒ er ‒ was fairly sure you’d understand just this once.’ Mark’s expression was blank with astonishment, but he took the hint and promptly looked knowing as Tom went on, ‘But, of course, if you’d rather we went back into the rain again, we’ll do that. Right now. We can’t get much wetter.’ Now he allowed his gaze to fall to the floor. ‘You seem to be a shade damp in here, too, Sister. Rain coming in?’ he added casually.
I had been fascinated by Sister’s expression. She had continued to look uncompromisingly grim until Tom mentioned her being a good sport, and then I saw her colour rise somewhat, and a faint glint of laughter lit her china-blue eyes. In a very slightly milder tone she said that although she could not approve of their actions, possibly she could overlook the affair on this one occasion, as they had certainly waited for her presence to enter her department. ‘Did you ask whether rain was coming in here, Mr. Dillon?’ Her voice grew cold again. ‘Nothing short of a broken roof and a cloudburst could have caused this chaos. We are suffering from Nurse Fraser’s regrettable carelessness, and now I must ask you two students to leave by my back stairs as soon as possible, so that Nurse may have the corridor clear and start her much-delayed drying operations.’
Tom nodded as if he were about to go. He hesitated, however. ‘Could we lend a hand, Sister?’
Mark stepped forward eagerly. ‘Be glad if we could, Sister. The least we can do after barging in this way is to offer our services.’
Sister hesitated, then made up her mind. ‘This is all most irregular, and really I see no reason why you should both be asked to help clear up this disgraceful mess. However, if you would be good enough to assist Nurse, I must admit she will be most grateful for the assistance.’
They took off their jackets while she was still speaking and rolled up their shirtsleeves. Tom hung both jackets on the door latch, then leant against the wall, raising one foot and unlacing his shoe. Sister opened her mouth as if to protest, but once again Mark Jonathan was too quick for her. ‘With your permission, Sister, I’ll do likewise.’ He took off his own shoes and socks. ‘Much simpler to swab the decks in style.’ He rolled up his trouser legs neatly and risked his first glance at me: ‘If Nurse ‒ er ‒ I’m afraid I don’t know your name, Nurse ‒ could perhaps let us have a couple of mops and buckets and so on, we could get cracking.’
Sister spun round. ‘What are you waiting for, Nurse? Can you not see that these two young men are very kindly going to help you? Very kindly indeed.’
Tom stared unhappily at the wall as she added that; Mark Jonathan, being a better actor, assumed a suspiciously angelic expression. ‘Don’t mention it, Sister. Only too glad to help out any time. You know us.’
Sister said, thoughtfully, ‘Yes, Mr. Jonathan, I do.’
I was afraid he had gone too far, so I raced off for mopping utensils and hoped to avoid a fresh explosion.
Sister was talking to Nurse Dexter at the desk when I walked back through the ward. Sister did not deign to look at me, but Dexter’s grave expression as she watched my progress showed that Sister had already told her what had happened. Chalmers was presiding behind a medicine trolley a few feet from the desk. She was smiling to herself as she measured out a dose; she looked the only contented person on the Catherine staff at that moment.
The two men were already at work when I reached the annexe. They were illicitly but efficiently using bath towels as floor cloths and wringing them out in one of the baths. Mark draped his towel over the side of the bath and seized one of my buckets. ‘Now we can really get cracking.’
Tom took the largest broom from beneath my arm. ‘This will be more use. Shift that mat and open the fire-escape door, Mark.’
Mark obeyed him quickly. ‘This is a bright scheme, Tom. Let’s have that other broom, Nurse. Then you can follow behind us with the mop. We can shove most of the water in the corridor overboard in this way.’
‘What about the people down below? If you push the water over, someone may get wet,’ I said.
Tom nodded. ‘They might,’ and swept towards the open door.
‘But it might be someone like Matron or the Dean! They’ll be furious. I don’t want to upset anyone else.’
He paused momentarily. ‘You know, you do waste time in silly remarks,’ he said. ‘Of course anyone below will get wet. It’s raining. We’ll only make ’em a spot wetter. But if we don’t get this weight of water off the floor quickly, it’ll go through for certain. Lesser of two evils, that’s all.’ He hurled a great wave of water in my direction. ‘Better shift ‒ unless you want wet feet.’
‘Wet feet! Look at them!’ My pent-up anxiety exploded in speech. ‘My tights are soaked to the knee! And it’s all your wretched fault!’ I scolded unfairly since they could not have known I had turned on the four baths when Mark called to me. ‘If you hadn’t delayed me nattering about your idiotic bet, none of this would have happened.’
His hazel eyes met mine steadily and sympathetically. ‘We know that. We’re very sorry. That’s why we’re here.’ He thrust a second wave in my direction. ‘Do get out of the light. Please!’
Mark reached out a hand and hauled me
not ungently from Tom’s path. ‘Dear Nurse, we are both contrite. We’d be on our knees if it weren’t for all this water.’
Tom was sweeping efficiently at the water still remaining. ‘Get a move on, Mark, or we’ll be at this all night.’
Mark obeyed enthusiastically, but far less efficiently than his larger friend. ‘It’s never any good crying over spilt milk, or spilt bath-water,’ he said as he worked. ‘Tears only add to the score, and goodness knows we don’t want to add to this. I feel exactly like Noah. Built any good arks lately?’
Tom ignored this idle chatter. ‘How many baths went west?’
‘Four,’ I answered shortly, bringing up the rear with my mop.
He nodded as if to say that he had expected worse.
Mark did say it. ‘Cheer up, Nurse. All is not yet lost. You’ve got seven baths up here, and if you had had the lot going full on ‒’ he hurled more water through the open door and into the night ‒ ‘you might then have had something to weep over. Mind you, I never thought we’d be able to talk Sister Catherine into letting us join the party,’ he continued cheerfully.
‘Was that why you two came in?’ I added curiously.
‘Yes. It was Tom’s idea. I must admit when he first suggested it, I thought he had gone clean nuts. I thought our appearance would only add oil to the flames. We were on the fire escape by then, with our shell-like ears pressed to the door. Then before I had time to think over a suitable scheme, Tom just said, “We’d better break this up,” and pitched us both in at the deep end, so to speak!’
I looked at Tom. He had wandered up the far end of the corridor now with a bucket and cloth, and was working on the remaining damp patches. ‘I can’t think what you said to swing Sister over. She suddenly changed.’
Mark smiled at me. ‘Much as I enjoy hogging all credits on all occasions, I have to draw the line at this one. I was as much in the dark as you about this “good sport” business. But then I haven’t got an Aunty Mabel.’
Tom had not appeared to be listening, but he corrected his friend instantly. ‘Cousin.’
‘What difference does that make? Just what did Cousin Mabel tell you about Sister Catherine? What’s this dark secret in her past? Did she climb fire-escapes, too?’
Tom looked up and grinned. ‘She did.’ He bent over the floor again.
‘Where does Cousin Mabel come into this?’
‘She was a Ward Sister before she went to the Home.’
Mark, knowing his friend better than I did, read a great deal from that one sentence. ‘Sister Catherine was one of her juniors, eh? The mad, merry type who nipped up every available fire-escape and had the hospital by the ears many a time before she acquired a blue dress and a bow under her chin?’
‘Yes,’ Tom said.
‘And all you had to do was to blow the dust off her memory and rattle a couple of friendly skeletons?’
‘That’s right.’
Mark beamed at me. ‘Didn’t I tell you Tom was crafty!’
Tom had had enough of this conversation. He strolled off with bucket and cloth towards one of the bathrooms. I looked after him, then turned to Mark. ‘I just can’t believe Sister Catherine ever did anything wrong. She won a medal!’
Mark said the people who won medals were often the types who kicked over the traces in their youth. ‘It’ll be true enough if Tom says so.’ He considered the corridor gravely. ‘You know, I think we’ve got this in time. I don’t think any of it will have got through, but I’ll just nip down to be on the safe side.’
Sister came into the annexe before he returned with the all-important verdict. She walked round inspecting our work, thanked Tom, frowned upon me again and warned me to take extra pains with the bath that had been used as a bucket by the men. ‘It’s very dirty, Nurse Fraser. Mind you get it spotless.’
I was struggling with the rim that I could not get anything but pale grey, when Tom looked in at the door. He watched me for a few moments, then came in. ‘Let’s have that cloth.’
I handed it to him meekly. My back was aching and I felt tired and despondent and quite oblivious to the bedraggled state of my apron and dress skirt
I watched him energetically remove the grey rim and he worked on the bath till it looked as good as new.
‘Thank you. I really am grateful to you and Mr. Jonathan. I’m sorry I snapped your head off just now. I know it wasn’t your fault. How could you know I had turned the taps on?’
His face lit in one of his rare smiles. ‘We might have guessed.’
‘How?’ I coloured. ‘Because I am always doing something stupid?’
He said calmly, ‘Well, aren’t you?’
‘I suppose so.’ I felt too dejected about life to have any fighting spirit left in me. ‘Still, I don’t suppose I’ll have any more chances to do wrong things here. After I’ve seen Matron I expect I’ll be on my way.’
He said very kindly, ‘If the Path Lab ceiling is all right, you won’t have to see Matron. Sister Catherine won’t report you unless she has to.’
I looked up at him. His calm, good-humoured face was reassuring. ‘Are you sure?’
He nodded. ‘Sister Catherine is a good Ward Sister. Good Ward Sisters don’t go running to Matron with their troubles. They deal with them themselves, unless something crops up that is clean out of their hands. If that ceiling is down, then that’s different. If it isn’t, then I’d say she’ll give you another rouser about this when you report off tonight, and that’s the last you’ll hear of it from her. Sister Catherine isn’t the type to keep raking up old injuries, but she won’t be able to forget it overnight, so if you don’t mind my saying this, I think you’ll need to be rather careful in the immediate future.’ He looked at the fast-drying floor. ‘Something like this takes a fair amount of living down.’
‘Yes, that I can believe.’ I was too occupied with what he had said to wonder that the silent Thomas should have said it at all, or to notice that now we were alone together he seemed to be not at all taciturn. ‘How do you know all this? Because of Home Sister?’
‘Not only that.’ The smile I had come to look for lightened his whole face. ‘I’ve got three sisters. Two of them trained here and overlapped with my first five years in the medical school. They told me a good bit about the nursing angle, and the rest I picked up for myself.’
‘I see. No wonder you’re quite at home here.’
He did not answer that. Instead he asked, ‘Do you still feel a new girl?’ His expression was extraordinarily kind.
‘A complete fish out of ‒’ I stopped short and managed to smile, too. ‘I refuse to mention water! Yes, I do feel very, very new most of the time.’ And because I did not want to dwell mentally on this, I asked about his third sister. ‘Is she going to nurse, too?’
He shook his head. ‘She had the intention, but she got side-tracked. She’s doing the next best thing and marrying a Joe’s man. A chap I was at school with, who lives near our home. He qualified last year.’
A tiny, uncertain ray of sunshine suddenly appeared in the grey clouds looming in my mind. ‘That sounds a pleasant arrangement. Are they marrying soon?’
‘Very soon. End of next week.’ He pushed his hand through his hair. ‘Going to be a terrible business. My mother and my sister are planning a big wedding. A mammoth affair.’
‘You don’t sound as if you approve?’
‘I don’t. I get cold feet, and I’m only the best man. Poor old Gordon ‒ he’s the groom ‒ is sunk in nerves. The poor chap’s pretty diffident by nature. If it was my wedding I think I would do my best to persuade Angela to elope.’
The sun was shining now, and for the moment I could not even worry about the Path Lab ceiling. There was just one thing I had to have quite clear; I did not want to be worried by any more misunderstandings. ‘I suppose Angela is your third sister?’
‘That’s right.’
Mark came up the stairs just then. He was whistling softly to himself. As soon as he reached the corridor h
e called down, ‘All serene. Not so much as a single patch. Nothing could have got through.’
His news coming on top of my conversation with Tom sent my morale soaring. I rushed out into the corridor. ‘Oh, how wonderful! Thank you so much. You’ve both been absolute angels, and I can’t think how to thank you.’
Mark told me to think nothing of it, but to go and break the good news to Sister Catherine. ‘Tom and I had better make ourselves scarce.’ As Tom wandered off to-collect his jacket, shoes and socks, Mark lowered his voice. ‘If you really want to do something to thank me, dear Nurse, I have a hunch that you may be able to do it There’s a leading question I have been wanting to ask you for some days, but not being what you might call acquainted, I couldn’t get around to it. But now we are all buddies and have been, if not through fire, at least through water together, would you consider continuing this conversation over a cup of coffee sometime?’
‘Of course. I’d love to.’ I could not think what he wanted to ask me, but that mattered not at all. All that mattered was that Tom was not getting married shortly, as I thought, and that the Path Lab ceiling was intact. I was so happy in my double relief that I would have promised to answer any question, anywhere.
‘Splendid! Then we have a date, you and I.’ Tom had joined us now. He raised an eyebrow. Mark beamed at him. ‘You can put that eyebrow down. Nurse Fraser and I are taking a leaf from your book and not talking. Isn’t that so, Nurse Fraser?’
I laughed outright and copied Tom’s brief way of talking. ‘That’s so, Mr. Jonathan.’
Mark was highly amused. ‘I see that you and I understand each other, Nurse. It bodes well for the future.’
Tom was gazing reflectively at the closed door at the end of the corridor that led into the ward. Then before Mark or I had time to realise what he was doing, he seized Mark by the shoulder and pushed him down the corridor away from the ward door. They vanished round the bend that led to the staircase just as the ward door opened admitting Sister. She glanced along the empty corridor. ‘Have those two students gone, Nurse?’
The Fair Wind: A moving 1950s hospital romance (The Anniversary Collection Book 6) Page 6
