Surgeon of Distinction

by Mary Burchell

  “My father and my stepmother live abroad, sir. Otherwise, I have no family.”

  “Then you must certainly come and see us.” He tossed aside the towel with a smile and turned to go.”

  “Thank you very much, Mr. Perring,” Alma could not conceal her pleasure and didn’t try to. “I should love to come.”

  “I’ll speak to Geraldine and see it’s arranged,” he promised. Then he nodded to her and went off.

  She was sorry that the arrangements included “speaking to Geraldine”. But she supposed it was not possible to leave her out of this. Indeed, it was presumably partly for her benefit that the suggestion had been made. Though Alma thought Maxwell Perring had not forgotten any detail about her own circumstances, and was perhaps arranging this pleasant social occasion as a slight antidote to the break-up of her love affair.

  The afternoon was a very different matter from the morning. Mr. Colbridge—precise and meticulous but inordinately slow—was a considerable contrast to his younger colleague. However, Alma took time to study his exact methods and wishes, and she appreciated his very courteous acknowledgement of her skill and co-operation at the end of a tiring afternoon.

  A friendly word from Walter Chalmers, the anaesthetist, as he went off, and the willingness with which the theatre staff cleared up under her supervision, gave Alma the final impression of a day well spent and successfully concluded.

  As she went off duty, she could not help reflecting that one’s working hours were so much easier to fill than one’s leisure ones. At least—if one had lost the only person who mattered, that was.

  During the time in the theatre, she had hardly thought of Jeremy. She had been completely absorbed in what was happening under her hand and eyes. Now, as she went up in the lift to her room on the top floor, she suddenly realized that the empty hours of the evening stretched in front of her. And there was nothing to do except rest or read, or perhaps go to a theatre or a film—alone.

  She moved about her room restlessly, noting with only half of her attention that, carefully though she had packed when she left the Chelsea flat, she had left behind one or two things which she would now have liked to have around her. A favorite book—her special needle-case—a scarf which must have been put away in the wrong drawer. It was vexing, but—

  Alma stopped her pacing, her hand against her cheek, and stared thoughtfully out of the window, across the roofs to some mass of tree-tops she had not yet identified.

  There was really no reason at all why she should not go to her own flat that evening. It was hers still. To go and collect some additional possessions would give her a purpose. She could see if there were any letters. Complete anything she had left undone when she had left, with so little preparation.

  Why, it was not only desirable, it was almost imperative that she should go! And if by chance—oh, the merest chance, she were to meet Jeremy on the stairs, then he could not fail to stop and speak to her—to say something about Geraldine, who had become such an odd link between them. He would have to tell her about the engagement. If engagement there were.

  And at this point Alma suddenly realized where her hopes were leading her. Did it have to be true—that statement which Geraldine had thrown off so airily? Or was it not possible that, when speaking of an actual engagement, she had allowed wishful thinking to take her a little beyond actual fact?

  Alma knew—none better—that Jeremy had a charming, careless line of love-making which might well lead one to assume more than was indeed the case. There had been, she supposed, moments in their own relationship when she just might have said to a stranger that she and Jeremy were going to be married. She had thought it in all truth. Perhaps that was exactly how it was with Geraldine Grayce.

  “If I see him and talk to him myself,” she thought, “I shall know. I don’t really even have to rely on a chance meeting on the stairs. I can go and knock on his door, to tell him my news and ask him his. Why not? That was the way things were until—until a few weeks ago.”

  Her confidence faltered for an instant, as she recalled how subtly the situation had changed in those last few weeks. The weeks in which he had come to know Geraldine.

  But it rallied again when she thought—what was there so final about a friendship, even an infatuation, of a few weeks? If no actual engagement were involved—and, now she came to think of it, Geraldine’s nervous anxiety suggested something less than the confidence of the happily engaged girl—there was no reason to regard the affair as finally settled.

  As she changed out of uniform into the black and white silk suit which made her fair skin look even fairer, Alma was aware of an immense lightening of her spirits. And when she came out of her room, the weariness of the day had left her so completely that she ran down the stairs without waiting for the lift.

  At the office she left word that she would not be in to supper, because so ridiculously high were her hopes riding now that it seemed not altogether impossible that Jeremy might suggest she made supper for them both in the black and red kitchen.

  Only a chance, of course. But why not allow for that chance?

  It was a fine evening and she walked part of the way through the Park, partly to enjoy a breath of fresh air after the heat and stuffiness of the theatre, and partly to give Jeremy time to get home if he had been out on afternoon assignment.

  But then she suddenly became anxious lest she had left things too late and he might go out for the evening. So she called a taxi and drove the rest of the way.

  When she let herself into the house, everything seemed very cool and quiet. So quiet that she could actually hear the thumping of her heart as she mounted the stairs to the first floor.

  Here she hesitated, telling herself, in a cowardly moment of irresolution, that Jeremy would not be home yet—that it was too early to knock. She knew it was only an abject failure of nerves which held her undecided, almost literally on the threshold of discovering the truth, but she simply could not summon enough resolution to raise her hand to the attractive little brass knocker which adorned the door to Jeremy’s flat.

  And then, as she stood there, she heard the front door below open again and two people came in and crossed the hall to the stairway. One of them—she would have recognized his voice anywhere—was Jeremy. And, at this realization, Alma fled ignominiously up the next flight of stairs. For to be found loitering aimlessly outside his door was simply not to be thought of.

  But not to know who was with him was almost not to be thought of, and, from the safety of the upper landing, Alma peered over cautiously into the well of the staircase.

  It was not a surprise to her really. Only the most indescribably chilling and bitter realization. The smooth dark head of the girl who was mounting the stairs beside him was quite unmistakable. Jeremy’s companion was Geraldine Grayce.

  Afterwards, Alma was certain she had not made the slightest sound or movement as she gazed down upon the two of them. But something—perhaps it was the sheer intensity of Alma’s gaze—made the other girl look up, and for a moment their glances met in a clash that was almost physical.

  On the instant, Alma stepped back, trembling with the shock and humiliation of being discovered in such an invidious position, and she leaned against the wall, with her eyes shut, waiting to hear Geraldine’s clear tone proclaiming her presence.

  Not a word was said, however. Only Jeremy’s gay voice went on relating some apparently amusing incident, until the sound of his door closing cut him off in the middle of a sentence.

  Alma relaxed, with a slight gasp, and then slowly dragged herself up the last flight of stairs to her own place.

  It was the most mortifying thing that had ever happened to her. In its way, as painful as the realization that Jeremy and that girl were laughing and talking together in the flat below.

  If only she had had the sense to carry it off lightly!—to pretend that she had heard familiar voices as she mounted the stairs to her flat, and had understandably looked over to identify and
greet the two below.

  But she had just backed guiltily, sealing forever in Geraldine’s mind the impression that she had been watching—almost spying upon—them, in an anything but friendly way.

  Presently, since she had left her own door open, she heard them come out of Jeremy’s flat again and run downstairs. They could not, she supposed, looking dully at her watch, have stayed more than ten minutes. Evidently they had only come to fetch something or for him to show Geraldine something. At least she was not going to make supper for them both in the black and scarlet kitchen.

  But there was poor comfort in that. And long after the front door had slammed behind them again, Alma sat there, sunk in unhappy thought, caring little enough whether or not she collected the few things she had come to fetch.

  Finally, however, she roused herself, gathered together what she wanted and packed the things in a conveniently small case. She would have to go and have some sort of meal somewhere, she supposed, since she had told them at the nursing home that she would not be back for supper.

  And at that point, when she thought of the foolish hopes she had entertained as she had made that arrangement, she very nearly broke down and cried. But, she told herself sternly, she had done enough silly things for one evening. Now she had better pull herself together and display some common sense and dignity.

  So she had a solitary meal, in a small place in the King’s Road, and tried not to dwell on the times she had been here with Jeremy. Then she walked most of the way back to the nursing home, in an effort to tire herself out, so that she should not like awake that night, dwelling too much on that searing moment when Geraldine had looked up and seen her on the stairs.

  “But why didn’t she say anything?” Alma thought, unable as yet to escape from the memory. “Was she too startled? She didn’t look as though she were. Or didn’t she want Jeremy to know I was there, even in discreditable circumstances?”

  Was that it? And, if so, what was the exact significance of Geraldine’s reaction?

  But here Alma checked herself, lest she should start indulging once more in the kind of wishful thinking that had brought her quite enough mortification already that evening. Instead, she took a book, and although it was difficult to keep more than half her attention on it, she forced herself to read until she was almost sleepy.

  Then, just as she had decided to go to bed, and had got as far as beginning to undress, she heard the lift stop at the end of the corridor and hurrying footsteps came almost running to her door.

  “Sister”—the rather breathless voice of the very junior Nurse Spurling sounded outside her door—“Sister, are you awake? Can you please get up and come down to the theatre? There’s been an accident, and Mr. Perring’s going to do an emergency.”

  “Mr. Perring?” Alma snatched open her door and Nurse Spurling, very pink and important, bounced in. “But I thought he went home hours ago.” She was hurrying into her uniform as she spoke. “Do you mean he’s been specially sent for?”

  “Oh, no. He came back to have a look at old Mrs.—Mrs.—you know, the one in Room Six, who had a blood transfusion this evening.—Oh, no, of course, you weren’t there. Sister Mellor was in charge. But, anyway, he—Mr. Perring, I mean—came back to see the case for himself, and he was just going when this accident happened.”

  “Where? What sort of accident?” Alma was tying the strings of her cap with steady fingers, for it took more than an emergency to flutter her professional calm.

  “Outside in the street. Just in front of—”

  “A street accident?” Alma paused in astonishment. “But that isn’t really our responsibility. We’re supposed to phone for an ambulance and send the case to the nearest casualty ward.”

  “Yes, I know. That’s what Matron said, more or less. I heard her say to Mr. Perring, ‘It’s most irregular, sir,’ and he said, in that rather grand way of his, you know, ‘It’s more irregular to let him die for lack of emergency treatment’.”

  “Well, that’s true.” Alma smiled faintly as she visualized the scene. “I’m ready.”

  “It’s some sort of skull fracture,” little Nurse Spurling explained, as she strolled along beside Alma to the lift. “Depressed or compressed or something”—poor Nurse Spurling was not too clear about some of her terms yet—“at any rate, some sort of pressure that has to be relieved immediately. And he’s hurt his leg too, poor fellow.”

  Alma made some suitably sympathetic sound at this. But she was not really paying much attention to this somewhat amateurish, if well-meaning, stream of information. She would find out for herself when she reached the theatre.

  So quick had she been that hardly more than six minutes had elapsed between Nurse Spurling’s arrival with the news, and Alma’s calm and apparently unhurried entrance into the theatre.

  “Oh, Sister, I’m glad you’re here.” The staff nurse who had worked with her that morning looked up from the instrument trolley in a relieved sort of way. “I thought you might be out, and Sister Mellor would have had to take over, and she always—I mean, somehow, she saps one’s confidence and makes it difficult to do one’s best.”

  “Well, I’ll try not to do that.” Alma smiled, touched by the discovery that she had apparently won approval on the strength of only one day’s work. “You do your best now. We’re going to need it, I understand.”

  Without any fuss, but with remarkable rapidity and thoroughness, everything was made ready. And when Maxwell Perring came in, the scene looked as though it had been set and waiting ever since he had left the theatre that morning.

  “Everything set?” He gave Alma a brief smile as she helped him into his overalls and adjusted his mask for him.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good girl.” He nodded to the anaesthetist—not Walter Chalmers, but a stranger to Alma—and signed to have the patient brought in.

  The folding doors at the end of the theatre opened and the trolley was wheeled in, bearing its very still burden. It was a tense moment. It always was, in Alma’s experience, but particularly so when time was a vital factor.

  The orderlies lifted the unconscious figure on to the operating table, and Alma leaned forward slightly to see that all was as it should be. As she did so, she caught her breath in a barely audible gasp.

  For she found that she was looking down into the pale, still, unconscious face of Jeremy.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Never before had Alma been more desperately glad of the discipline imposed upon her in the days of her early training. Only the most rigid self-control kept her calm and collected as she watched Maxwell Perring begin that delicate operation on Jeremy.

  She had long ago conquered any general operation qualms, of course, and although the patient was always a very real person to her and she had never allowed her attitude to degenerate into one of academic indifference, she had at least achieved a degree of sympathetic composure in which emotional sentiment had no part.

  But now, with the man she loved on the operating table, she had to strain every nerve, call on every bit of self-control, in order to maintain the degree of calm efficiency which was all that could help him at this moment.

  His life was in Maxwell Perring’s hands. That she knew quite well. And, looking at those beautiful, skilful fingers, she recalled, with a sort of forlorn eagerness, the woman who had said to her,

  “I looked at his hands and I thought, ’if I have to put my life in anyone’s hands, those are the ones for me.

  She would willingly have put her own life in Maxwell Perring’s hands, if the necessity had arisen. There was no one in whom she had more confidence. But—Jeremy’s life! That was something more precious still. And she had to stand by and watch the struggle—almost, she realized, the gamble—for that beloved life.

  Quite often in the theatre she lost her exact sense of time. The concentration on one’s work was too intense for clock-watching. But now it seemed to her that for hours and hours she had been standing there, her neck and shoulders ach
ing with the tense effort of keeping alert and efficient, ready to anticipate the surgeon’s every need.

  Once she noticed a curious and ominous change in the color of Jeremy’s face. Until then she had thought of it as absolutely colorless. But now a sort of leaden tinge was creeping into its pallor and, glancing at the anaesthetist, she knew that he too was anxious.

  “We’re running it close, sir,” he said quietly, by which she knew he meant there was a risk in trying to keep the patient under much longer.

  “I know.” Maxwell Perring’s reply was so quiet and apparently tranquil that she wanted to cry, “How can you be so indifferent? Do you know whose life you’re risking?”

  But she said nothing of the sort, of course. She stood at his side, contributing what she could in skill and devoted service to the task of bringing Jeremy back from the edge of death. And, at last, she heard a deep, satisfied, “Ah ” from the surgeon, and an almost perceptible wave of relief and relaxation swept through the theatre. It was difficult to say in what it consisted. In the shifting of a tensely held position, perhaps, the expelling of a long-held breath, the quiet clearing of a throat that had gone dry.

  A few minutes more and the incision had been closed, and Maxwell Perring stood back, his task completed.

  “All right, Sister. He’ll do.”

  She wanted to break out into thanks and incoherent praise and congratulation—to tell him he was wonderful and that she could never be sufficiently grateful to him. But she remembered in time that she was not a relative or friend of the patient. She was just the Theatre Sister who had taken her part in a delicate job well done.