The Secret Armour

by Lucilla Andrews

  George was sitting on one of the wooden benches under the breathless plane-trees when I crossed the park on my way off duty that night. He stood up as I came near. He was very sunburnt, and his fair hair accentuated the tan on his face. I noticed for the first time that his eyes were dark brown too. I was in that state of tiredness when you see the things that are close to you very clearly, because you have no energy to spare with which to look beyond. He came up to me, slowly.

  ‘You walk the way I feel, Maggie.’

  I smiled. It took less effort than speech.

  He looked at my feet. ‘Have you hurt them? You’re limping.’

  ‘Limping! My good man, it’s a wonder I can walk at all.’

  He asked me what was wrong. Had I been doing anything special?

  My legs were on fire. A pain shot down each calf, ringed round my ankles, then sent out wicked little tentacles of torture that accumulated in the balls of my feet. I was a second-year nurse now, so I was pretty used to these symptoms. I said, thank you, no, nothing was wrong.

  ‘Busy in Catherine?’

  ‘Fairly. We had a couple of emergencies this evening.’

  He grinned. ‘I heard about one of them. I was doing my round up there when you were in the middle of your routine. How do you manage to have cold hands in this weather, Maggie?’

  I said primly, ‘I have a vocation, Doctor. Now, all I need is to find a fevered brow to lay ’em on. The perfect ministering angel ‒ that’s me. Only for Pete’s sake don’t come too near me, George, or you’ll regret it.’

  ‘I will?’

  ‘You will.’ I wriggled my shoulders. I had been doing that constantly for the last few hours. ‘I’m not certain yet which variety I’ve got. I only know I’m alive.’

  He roared with laughter. ‘My poor Maggie!’

  ‘It’s all very well for you to laugh! But how would you enjoy spending a jolly Saturday night tooth-combing hair like mine? Which is what I’ve got to do.’

  ‘Darling,’ he said, ‘you remind me of nothing so much as an irate Koala bear.’

  ‘That,’ I said, ‘is too much. Good night, George.’ I walked away, leaving him to go back to his bench.

  I went out on to the front roof of our Home after my bath. My hair was nearly dry, and in my pyjamas I was cool for the first time to-day. The sun had long since gone down, and the moon was up ‒ an Ancient Mariner moon, with a golden rim. I was admiring the moon when Rose, wearing a grey silk kimono, appeared at the open window of her room.

  ‘You out there, Maggie? Home Sister’s just rung for you. You are wanted on the inside phone.’

  ‘What have I forgotten in Catherine?’ I asked my room, as I jumped in through my window. I rushed down the corridor to the inter-hospital telephone.

  ‘Nurse Howard speaking,’ I said, mentally checking over my evening’s work.

  ‘Hallo, Nurse Howard,’ said a man’s voice. ‘Remember me?’

  I did. I did not have to hear his name, although the next moment he said it was David Corford speaking.

  David said, ‘It’s grand to hear your voice again.’ He asked what I was doing. I was too amazed to be capable of a lie, so I said I had been washing my hair.

  He laughed. ‘And now I suppose you want to go to bed?’

  ‘I was thinking of it,’ I said slowly. He did not take this up, so I asked what he was doing in the hospital at this hour.

  He laughed again. ‘Think I’ve joined the staff? I haven’t. I’m visiting my brother. I had to come up this morning to see old Vanders at my follow-up clinic. I’ve been hanging around your delightful establishment most of the day. I’ve just dined in state with Alistair ‒ and I thought I should like to speak to you again.’ He thought he would like to speak to me again!

  ‘How nice!’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ he said cheerfully, ‘it is fun, isn’t it? I’m so glad you were in.’

  He asked how I was, whether I was enjoying life, if I had any interesting patients.

  I answered, ‘Fine,’ to everything, and thanked Heaven that your face is your own private concern when you speak over a telephone.

  ‘I was wondering if you would care to have dinner with me to-morrow night, Nurse Howard. I’ve decided to stay up here for the week-end. I should very much like to see you ‒ and talk.’

  I knew I should have had the pride and common-sense to refuse what was so obviously a stop-gap invitation. I also knew I had neither. I said thank you very much, and I was free next evening. This was true, but if it had not been I would still have said it. I would have been happy to browbeat Sister Catherine, Matron, and even Miss Nightingale herself, to get that particular period off duty.

  ‘That’s grand,’ he said casually. ‘Will seven suit you?’

  I copied his tone. ‘Very well, thanks.’

  I went back on to the roof. I thought the fresh air might help to control the sudden rush of wild hopes with which I was filled. I leant over the solid stone balustrade and tried to concentrate on the view of the hospital. Our Home stood one floor higher than all the other blocks, and I could see clearly all the main buildings and the park spreading below. I could even see the seats in the park in that yellow moonlight that turned the plane-trees to a rusty silver, and the grass, now yellow by day, into a metallic grey carpet.

  David was in the hospital to-night.

  I picked out the Doctors’ House and forgot all the rest.

  Around the hospital I could feel, rather than see, the outline of the city. The sky was alive with the reflections of the thousands of lights, and I could hear the endless mutter of the traffic. But to-night London might be a hundred miles away. I wondered where he would take me to-morrow night? And what he looked like in ordinary clothes?

  I concentrated harder on the hospital; on the patients in Catherine, on George, and the way he had suddenly called me ‘darling’ in the park to-night.

  ‘Darlings’ come easily to most people of my generation, but not, I would have thought, to the George Hartigans of this world. I wondered casually why he had said it. Then, I thought, it was almost certainly the weather. We were all behaving oddly in this heat. David had called me ‘darling’ too. I stopped trying not to think of David. I looked at the moon, and let things go.

  Later, after I had got some cold milk from the kitchen, and as I went back to my own room, Alice called me through her open door. ‘Want some lemonade, Maggie?’

  ‘I’d love some.’

  I went off for my tooth-mug, and when I got back she was mixing the lemonade by moonlight.

  As we drank it she said, ‘Maggie, I think perhaps I ought to tell you something.’

  ‘What?’ I said vaguely. Then I pulled my mind away from David as I realized Alice must be serious about something to start with that approach. ‘What?’ I asked again.

  ‘Well,’ she hesitated, ‘it’s just so that you aren’t taken unawares. I wouldn’t want you to run into him without warning.’

  I knew quite well what she had to tell me, but I said, ‘Run into whom?’

  ‘That femur of yours. David Corford.’

  I thought for a moment, then I said, ‘He’s just rung me. He wants me to have dinner with him to-morrow.’

  Alice had flopped on to her bed again. She jerked upright, and dropped her magazine on the floor. ‘Maggie ‒ you are not going?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I?’ I asked defensively. ‘It’s a free country. He’s not a patient any longer. And I ‒ I want to go. I want to see him again.’

  ‘I know you do, duckie. But is it worth it? It’s going to hurt you so much if it starts all over again.’

  I said, ‘Why should it hurt? And how can I be sure it really is over if I don’t go? He must want to see me, or he wouldn’t have rung. Perhaps, as you said, he hasn’t been well, or he isn’t the writing type, or he didn’t think I was interested, or anything. But if he wants to see me I’m going to give him the chance to explain.’

  Alice collapsed again. ‘You may be right. I don
’t think you are, but, as you are giving him the benefit of the doubt, I may as well give it to you.’

  We were quiet for a few minutes.

  ‘Where did you see him, Alice?’

  ‘On my way off to-night. Just after nine. He was with his revered brother in the main hall. He recognized me and stopped, and we had the usual polite natter about his health. Then he asked after you, and if you were still on nights.’

  ‘But he knew I had come off!’

  Alice said, ‘I expect it was just something to say. He’s a very civil young man. And you know quite well that no patient yet born has ever fathomed how nurses work. They all think, once a night nurse always a night nurse.’

  ‘That’s true.’ I stood up. ‘Thanks for the lemonade, honey.’ I went back to my own room and bed. I did not get to sleep for a long time. I didn’t mind. I was thinking about David.

  Chapter Eight

  CHILDREN’S WARDS ARE FUN, UNTIL THEY HURT

  David’s telephone call had sent me rocketing to the heights. The note I found in my pigeon-hole at lunch-time the next day had the reverse effect. He wrote to me:

  I know you’ll understand and forgive me when I explain that I have been offered a lift home by car this evening, and I can’t turn it down. I’m afraid this will mean cancelling ‒ or, may I say, postponing ‒ our dinner-date. The snag is that I am not yet able to drive myself, and travelling by train in this weather is murder! Do please accept my most ardent apologies. My only consolation is that I am sure this alteration upsets me far more than it does you. (If it upsets you at all, which I lack the conceit to believe.)

  He asked me to remember that he was always the most grateful of my ex-patients, David Corford.

  I showed his note to Alice that night. I had to show it to someone. I had to talk.

  ‘Why?’ I demanded. ‘Why? Why? Why did he have to ask me at all? Why did he have to ring up? Why did he have to say anything in the first place? I can’t see any sense, anywhere.’

  ‘I don’t suppose there is any sense anywhere,’ said Alice, ‘and, to be fair, his excuse might be true. In which case he would obviously jump at a lift. That leg must still hurt him a good bit.’

  ‘But even that doesn’t explain why he never wrote. Why he said what he said in Willy B.’

  Alice said, ‘In a way I doubt if he was pretending then. He probably felt all brimful of sentiment and true love at the time. After all ‒ he was ill, he had nothing to do, and you’re a nice gentle little soul, Maggie. Just the type, I should imagine, to appeal to a gay spark like David when he’s out of action. Now he’s up and about again you’ve faded into the general background. And you know, on the whole, whatever they may say, people aren’t over-keen to remember their hospitalization. Too many mixed memories concerned. Then, when he had to return for his clinic, it all came back, and he thought he would like to see the little woman again.’

  ‘Then changed his mind at the last minute. The past is past? Hurrah for the future?’

  ‘Could be. But there is one thing,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘we’ve never allowed for.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘He might be already engaged. That wouldn’t have been in his notes. A fiancée isn’t a next-of-kin. Being on nights, we wouldn’t know about his visitors ‒ and he certainly wouldn’t have told you. I hate to defend the man,’ she grimaced, ‘but I suppose I must be fair to the wretch. He may have said more than he meant to say to you in Willy B., but it may not have been more than he felt. And the reason for the stony silence is that he’s badly involved and doesn’t know what to do about it.’

  ‘So he stood me up to-night to give himself time to think?’

  ‘Not necessarily. Supposing it’s his fiancée who has offered to drive him down? What else could he do?’

  One afternoon a few days later Sister Catherine called me into her duty-room.

  ‘I am afraid we are going to lose you to-morrow, Nurse Howard. Matron’s office have just telephoned to say that you will be transferred to Edward Donell Ward in the morning.’

  I said, ‘Yes, Sister, thank you, Sister.’

  ‘Before you go, Nurse …’

  ‘Yes, Sister?’

  She asked me if I was happy in my work. ‘I have no complaint to make about the actual work you do, Nurse Howard, but I still feel ‒ as I know Sister Tutor told you ‒ that something is lacking.’ She folded her hands in her lap and looked up at me as I stood before her. ‘I would say your heart is missing from your work. You do what is required of you, but you do not really care for your patients. You do not allow yourself to become attached to them. That is the wrong attitude, Nurse Howard.’

  I said, ‘Yes, Sister, I’m sorry, Sister.’

  She said, ‘I think Matron is very wise to send you to Edward Donell at this period in your training.’

  I did not understand what she meant by that, but I said, ‘Yes, Sister,’ again, and she dismissed me.

  Rose was alone at our supper table when I got down for my meal. I told her about my transfer. ‘Are Ed Donell having a crisis, Rose? Why do they want another of our set? Is there an influx of sick kids?’

  Rose said she hadn’t heard it if there was. ‘But you’ll like it there, Maggie. I loved it. Ed Donell is quite my favourite ward so far. Those kids are fun.’

  ‘But why me? And now? I’ve still officially another month to do in Catherine?’

  ‘The ways of Matron’s office, dear Maggie,’ said Rose sententiously ‘are for no nurse in training to question. But you really will enjoy it. And it makes a nice change after an adult ward.’

  ‘Who’s the Sister?’

  Rose looked at me and sighed patiently. ‘Dearie ‒ don’t you know anything about Benedict’s? And you working in Catherine? Really, Maggie, you go about with your eyes shut!’

  ‘I don’t!’ I said indignantly, then I laughed. ‘Perhaps I do. But where’s the connexion between Catherine and Ed Donnell?’

  ‘Sister Catherine and Sister Ed Donell are sisters.’ As she spoke her eyes moved from my face and she looked across the room. ‘Maggie, your blond houseman is smiling at you.’

  I saw George nod as he sat down at the houseman’s table.

  I smiled back, then turned to Rose. I was going to say something about Sister Ed Donell, but the look on Rose’s face made me forget what I had in mind. Rose was always beautiful, and I had grown used to the perfection of her features. I had never seen her look as lovely as she did now. The effect the sight of George appeared to have on her was quite staggering. I felt both amused and reassured to see that Rose, for all her poise, was apparently as vulnerable as I was.

  I said quietly, ‘He’s rather your type, Rose.’

  Her large violet-blue eyes watched me carefully. ‘Don’t you mind, Maggie?’

  ‘My good girl, what is there to mind? You’re dark ‒ and you like fair men.’

  ’ You’re dark too.’

  I smiled. ‘There are degrees of colouring, as there are of faces.’

  She said, ‘He doesn’t interest you? Funny, I should have said he was interesting. I should also have said he was interested in you. How wrong can a girl be?’

  ‘How wrong, indeed? And as for George being interested in me ‒ well, we’ve been out that once ‒ at my instigation. That’s all. We smile and chat of this and that when we meet. Nothing more. We are good friends, as they say.’

  ‘Then it wouldn’t worry you if he extended his friendships?’

  ‘Not at all,’ I said honestly, ‘and I’m sure George would be delighted.’

  She did not answer directly. Instead she stood up. ‘I’ll get our coffee, Maggie.’

  I watched her walk across the hall to the hatch beyond the houseman’s table. I saw by the back of her neck that she was blushing again.

  Edward Donell was a medium-sized children’s ward. It had twenty cots. On my first morning all the cots were full, and most of the children had strong lungs. They sang, they shouted, they bellowed encouragemen
t at each other, and us. It took me a few days to get used to them, and a couple of weeks to get used to the noise. After that I never noticed the noise at all.

  Their courage was astonishing, their patience inexhaustible and often heart-rending, their gratitude greater than anything I had previously met in the adult wards. They had an absolute trust and faith in all doctors and nurses, and no matter what was done to them, how painful a dressing, or difficult an injection, once the moment was passed the memory was passed, and their smiles returned. They knew we were there to help them, and so, whatever we did, was all right as far as they were concerned. Since they were normal children, as well as sick children, at times they could be fiends.

  One afternoon I redressed Billy, a four-year-old convalescent pneumonia, for the fifth time. On each of the preceding occasions, as soon as I had finished him he had systematically removed his pyjamas and bedclothes and dropped them carefully on to the floor beside his cot.

  I was temporarily in charge of the ward at that moment. Sister was off ‒ it was her half-day ‒ and the Staff Nurse was at tea. I left Rosemary, a small girl of six who had rheumatic fever, covered with her light blanket, and crossed the ward sternly.

  ‘Billy Smith,’ I said, ‘I love you more than life itself. But if you throw your clothes off on to the floor again I shall probably throw you after them.’

  Billy beamed, and bounced for joy. ‘Goody! Goody! Goody!’ He leapt at me as I bent over his cot to dress him again, and hung round my neck. I gave in, and hugged him. Billy promptly reached up and pulled my cap off. I heard someone laugh behind me. I turned to find George smiling down at us, the inevitable sheaf of notes under his arm.

  ‘Come, come, Nurse Howard! Is this the way for a Benedict’s nurse to talk to a poor little sick che-ild?’

  ‘You come and dress him, Doctor,’ I said. ‘I’ve done it five times already. Maybe he’ll keep them on if you do it.’

  I did not expect to be taken seriously, but I was. ‘Now, see here young Billy,’ said George when he had finished. ‘I’ve buttoned you nicely and buttoned you stay. And you do what the lady tells you next time.’