The Secret Armour

by Lucilla Andrews

  ‘Would you, Busey?’ I said gratefully.

  The girl was staring with that same terrified expression.

  ‘They won’t tell me to stay?’

  I said gently, ‘My dear, I’m not a doctor ‒ only a nurse. I can’t say what the lady doctor will say. But she won’t force you to come in. No one can force anyone to come into hospital. If you don’t feel like it you don’t. It’s as simple as that.’

  Her eyes relaxed a little. ‘Will they ‒ preach?’

  I said, ‘That I can answer ‒ No, that isn’t what we are here for. They’ll just try and help you ‒ that’s all.’

  She let go of my arm, and smiled slightly. ‘Ta, duck. Be seeing you.’ She swayed away after the pro, her thin, worn high heels clicking on the stone floor of the hall.

  I turned to the porter. ‘Bless you, Busey. She had me stumped at first. How on earth did you know? I don’t believe you even heard what she said.’

  He said he didn’t have to hear. ‘I been in Casualty twenty-nine years, Nurse. Seen a tidy lot, I have. There’s not much I don’t spot.’

  A worried young mother pushed forward a beaming small boy. ‘He’s swallowed a threepenny bit, Nurse!’

  Dr Norseman, the Children’s Registrar, came out of Room 28.

  ‘Another for me, Nurse Howard?’

  ‘Yes, Doctor. A threepenny bit.’

  ‘Come along, mother,’ he said cheerfully, ‘bring your boy in here, and don’t look so anxious. I’ve a whole money-box with me, all waiting to be X-rayed.’ He smiled at the child. ‘Your threepence will bring it up to two and nine, son.’

  ‘Go on, Doctor!’ The lines on her forehead relaxed.

  ‘Fact. Three sixpences, one shilling, and now your contribution. Come and see.’

  He stood away from the door, and we saw his grinning quartet of assorted infants, proudly awaiting the daily trip to X-ray. The Money-box March, as we called it.

  ‘Nurse Howard! How marvellous to run into you here!’ David stood beside me. ‘I was so hoping we should meet you. How are you?’

  I said I was fine. ‘How’s the leg?’

  ‘David darling,’ said the girl who was with him, ‘is this the nurse who was so kind to you? She held out her hand. ‘You are Nurse Howard? I’m Clare Martin, David’s fiancée. I can’t tell you how grateful I am for all you did for David.’

  She was probably a couple of years older than myself. We were much the same height and the same build. She was dark too. It was easy to understand, when I saw her, why I had appealed to him, temporarily. He liked our type.

  I said, ‘I didn’t do much, but thank you. I’m so glad he has done so well.’

  I glanced up at David. He was not looking at me, he was looking at her, with the same expression he had worn when he met Rose and ‒ long ago ‒ when he looked at me.

  She said they had been flat-hunting. ‘We’ve decided not to wait any longer. David is bound to be on shore for at least six months.’

  I said I thought they were wise, that I hoped they would find a flat, and be very happy.

  ‘Sorry to bother you, Nurse!’ Busey was at my elbow. ‘Yes, Busey?’

  ‘Ambulance coming along of us now.’

  David said, ‘Are you very busy? We won’t keep you.’

  ‘We are still fairly busy ‒ although it’s nothing like the morning. But I’ll have to go, I’m afraid. Will you excuse me?’

  ‘Of course,’ they said, and he took her arm.

  It was a relief to follow Busey’s shabby jacket out into the yard. The yard was empty.

  ‘Where’s the ambulance, Busey?’

  He pulled at one ear. ‘No offence, Nurse ‒ but I thought you didn’t much care for that couple, like. Seeing as they weren’t patients, I thought you might care for me to break it up.’

  ‘Busey, you fraud!’ I had to smile. ‘How do you guess all these things? You were quite right ‒ of course.’

  He shook his head. ‘Like I told you, Nurse. I been in Casualty a tidy time. A tidy time. I’ve seen a lot.’

  I went back into the Hall, which I had left empty. Two women were sitting on the bench outside 27.

  ‘I’ve twisted me leg, Nurse.’

  George was standing by the desk in 31, his hands deep in the pockets of his white coat.

  ‘Have you finished in there, Mr Hartigan?’ I called across the Hall.

  He came out at once. ‘All clear. Anything I can do?’

  ‘Would you look at this lady’s leg, please?’ I turned to the pro who had just returned from Maria Ward. ‘Will you go and chaperon for Mr Hartigan and do the treatment? He’ll explain.’

  George was out of 27 in a few minutes. ‘X-ray and the plates to Mr Mellows, please.’

  ‘Right.’ I explained this to the woman’s friend. ‘It’ll take about half an hour. Why don’t you go and have tea in the canteen while you’re waiting?’

  ‘Ta, Nurse. I don’t mind if I do. Half an hour, you say?’

  ‘Yes. Do you know the way?’

  She smiled. ‘I was born in this hospital, Nurse. But that would be before your time.’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’ I smiled back.

  George said quietly, ‘You’re doing very nicely, Maggie. Thinking of running as a future Sister Casualty?’

  ‘I’d quite like it,’ I said, then I realized his voice had sounded annoyed. I looked at his face, he was frowning. ‘Don’t you think it’s a good idea, George?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Maggie? What was that you said? I’m afraid I wasn’t listening.’

  ‘I only said I thought it might be a good idea if I was Sister Cas. one day, and didn’t you?’

  He said flatly, ‘If that’s what you want.’

  ‘Oh, George. What has that to do with it? Who gets what they want?’

  He did not boost me, as I had expected and hoped.

  ‘I don’t know, Maggie,’ he was still frowning, ‘some do, some don’t. That’s about the sum of it.’ Then he said, ‘That chap Corford just now ‒ he seems one of the lucky ones. Was that the sister with him? I know there is a sister, although I’ve never seen her.’

  I knew suddenly what was wrong with George was what was wrong with me. Alice was right; she had always said George and I had a lot in common. She was more right than she knew.

  George had taken David’s behaviour with Rose, and Rose’s normal gaiety, as seriously as I had done myself.

  I came out of the morass of my own little problems for a few seconds and was desperately sorry for George. Kind, gentle, serious George, who, I was sure, was in love with Rose, and, I knew, was as vulnerable as myself. I was glad that I could cheer him now.

  ‘That wasn’t his sister. It was his fiancée. They’ve been flat-hunting.’

  George said nothing. There was nothing to be learnt from his expression. His eyes were hidden; he was watching the casual swing of his own stethoscope against his leg. Then he folded the rubber tubing and put it in his pocket.

  ‘I had better get back to 31,’ he said absently, and added in the same tone, ‘I hope they find one. It’s still in the needle-in-the-haystack category.’

  Rose floated back from tea. She never walked like a nurse, she walked beautifully. Her black-nyloned ankles flicked and her feet glided over the hard stone floor.

  ‘Hi, Maggie. Hi, George,’ she murmured as she came up to us. ‘The old girl is having another cup of tea, so you have a few minutes’ grace, Sister Howard.’

  George’s expression returned to normal as he looked at Rose, and his mouth turned down at the corners as I had not seen it do for weeks.

  ‘Our Maggie’s doing all right. I must get back to my room or the big white queen will slaughter me if she catches me gossiping with the nursing staff. See you later, Rose.’

  ‘You will,’ said Rose airily. ‘27 for me, Maggie?’

  ‘What? Oh, yes, sorry, Rose.’ It was I who was now absent-minded. I was registering the difference Rose’s appearance had made to George. I was really glad for Geor
ge. Lately I had been too miserable to consider anyone but myself; now I came out of my coma and realized how unlike himself George had been. I thought, poor George, he must have felt wretched. I was quite surprised to find how much I minded his being upset. And then I thought, There is no need to worry about him any longer. George will have Rose, and Rose should be enough for anyone.

  Sister returned from her tea and looked critically round the hall. The benches were clear, the housemen at their desks, the pros racing round with large baskets of dressings, silently stocking and testing. ‘Stocking and testing’ was the thrice daily check up of all the equipment, lotion-bottles, and dressing-tins that were used in Casualty.

  Sister said, ‘I can see you have had a quiet time, Nurse Howard. No unusual occurrence to report, I suppose?’

  I said, ‘No, Sister. Nothing has happened.’

  Four weeks later Rose burst into Room 28 as I was bandaging the very small wrist of the last of the children’s out-patients.

  ‘My dear ‒ guess what?’

  I smiled at the infant in the chair. ‘Nurse wants me to play guessing games. Whoever heard of that in a hospital?’

  Rose squatted down beside me and picked up the little girl’s other hand. ‘I know heaps of games. Do you know this one? Round and round the garden, like a Teddy Bear; one step, two step, tickly under there!’

  The child squealed with delight, and I knotted the bandage.

  ‘Do it again, please, Nurse. Do it again.’ Then she grew solemn and stared into Rose’s face. ‘My,’ she said, ‘aren’t you a pretty lady.’

  Rose blushed faintly. ‘Thank you. And aren’t you a pretty little girl yourself.’

  I handed the child back to her waiting mother. ‘She’s been so good, she never murmured. Will you bring her back in two days’ time so that the doctor can have another look at that wrist?’

  ‘Mum’ ‒ she tugged at her mother’s coat ‒ ‘Mum, when I come again, can I have the pretty lady?’

  ‘Get on with you, Janet,’ said her mother.

  Rose and I laughed. I said, ‘Our aim is always to give satisfaction! I’ll speak to Sister Casualty about it!’

  Sister Casualty was off for a half-day, and there was an air of holiday in the Hall.

  ‘Rose,’ I said, as I went back to tidy the room, ‘tell me all.’

  ‘We’ve been moved. Nights in two days’ time. You are going to Matthew and Mark, and I to Robert Fraser. Alice is staying behind on days in Ed Donell. Acting Staff Nurse.’

  ‘Matron must have her eye on Alice as a future Sister Ed Donell,’ I said. ‘That’s a nice job. Lucky Alice.’

  Rose said queerly, ‘Do you really think so? Would you like to be Sister, Maggie?’

  I said, ‘Why not? One must do something. And it’s the logical conclusion to training.’

  Rose said she supposed so. ‘But I love those kids, and yet they unsettle me.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ I was washing instruments at the sink, and spoke over my shoulder.

  ‘They remind me too much of how I’d love to have some of my own.’

  I turned round. ‘Honey, surely you don’t have to worry about that? And there’s a good deal of time ahead. Or are you all that keen to settle down?’

  ‘Maggie, not yet! Have a heart! No ‒ but they do unsettle me. I think I unsettle quite easily.’ She sighed. ‘I don’t know what’s come over me lately. I don’t really know what I want. Only what I don’t want. And that is not to end my days in splendid isolation as a Benedict’s Sister.’ She was on her way out when she turned back quickly. ‘I nearly forgot. There’s something else I must tell you. About old George ‒ strong, silent Hartigan! What do you think he’s done?’

  Proposed, I wondered? All I said was, ‘I’m not very bright to-day. Guessing is out. What?’

  ‘Gone and got himself made a Member of the Royal College of Physicians. Our George, the Big Doctor. Isn’t that splendid!’

  ‘Rose, how wonderful! I’m so glad. How do you know? Where is he?’

  ‘He’s in the theatre now. He nipped into 31 for a few seconds and told me.’

  I decided I was super-sensitive these days. Why else should I have felt hurt because George had told Rose and not me. Of course Rose would be the first person to know. I felt ashamed that I had so completely forgotten George’s plans in my own spate of unhappiness.

  Rose said, ‘He wants to celebrate. He wants to have a party. I’ve told him we’re going on nights, so it’ll have to be to-morrow, or wait until we coincide on our nights off, which may mean waiting ages, now we are Seniors.’

  ‘Does he want us both?’

  ‘Maggie, don’t be dumb. He wants a party! You and me and Alice, Dickie Peters, Johnny Hurst, and a couple of others. He said he would ask you himself later when he had a moment.’

  ‘That’ll be fun.’ For some reason I was certain it would be anything but that.

  ‘Wonderful,’ said Rose happily. ‘It’s time we had another party. We’ve been far too serious these past few months. We are getting in a rut. You and I, Alice and her children, George and his exam. Now at least George will be free to play. He won’t have to sit over those miserable books in the evening the way he’s done lately. I couldn’t think what had come over him. Time was when I thought George Hartigan was a gay soul ‒ in a quiet way ‒ if you see what I mean. Lately he’s just been quiet. I expect it was that wretched exam.’

  ‘Look, Rose’ ‒ if I wasn’t much good at my own affairs, at least I could help her with hers ‒ ‘I don’t think it was so much that exam. I think he’s been worried over,’ I hesitated, ‘over things.’

  ‘You’re telling me he’s been worried,’ she said firmly. ‘He hasn’t been with us for weeks. In fact he’s been reminding me of you. You’ve both been drifting round the hospital in a civil, unhappy coma.’ My expression must have changed, because she said quickly, ‘Sorry, dearie, I didn’t mean to hit a raw spot.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘It is raw, but it’ll heal one of these fine days.’

  ‘Maggie,’ she said gently, ‘I’d like to help. Can I? I’ve known something was wrong ‒ but I didn’t like to rush in.’

  I shook my head. ‘Thanks, Rose, I know you would. There’s nothing to it. I had an idea about something; it turned out to be the wrong idea. I’ll just have to grow out of it.’

  ‘Poor Maggie. I’m sorry I teased you about your coma.’

  I said, ‘It may be a good thing that you did. Because maybe I can explain George’s coma.’

  ‘How come?’ There was an expression I had never seen before in her eyes as she looked at me. As I had started I went on. I told her about that night in the Resident’s sitting-room.

  ‘You think he was worried about me and that what’s-his-name Corford? You aren’t serious, Maggie?’

  ‘I am. And I’m sure of it.’

  She said slowly, ‘Do you think George is in love with me, Maggie?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Forgive my saying it, dearie, but you aren’t very good at gauging other people’s feelings. You really believe that?’

  ‘I’m not madly bright about the world in general, I’ll grant you, but I do know George. And he’s in love all right.’

  Rose sank down on to one of the wheel-chairs. ‘Out of the mouths of the babes and sucklings,’ she murmured. ‘I wonder?’ She looked across at me. ‘Did you know he was taking Membership?’

  ‘I knew he had it in mind. I didn’t know the date.’

  She nodded, and her fingers traced a pattern on the polished handle of one wheel. ‘He didn’t tell me.’ Then she said, ‘Do you know what he intends doing next? After he’s been a Registrar ‒ if he gets the job, which he probably will. I take it he’s going to specialize, so the next step will be S.M.O. What then? On the staff? The steady climb up the ladder to Harley Street?’

  ‘I’m not sure that he’s all that keen on the neat pin-stripe suiting and the big money. I rather gathered that he had his eye on G.P.-ing
somewhere.’

  ‘Oh, no, Maggie! Not George a G.P.! Think what a waste. That man’s a bright lad for all that he’s so silent. There’s no limit to where he couldn’t climb ‒ perhaps with a little pushing.’

  I looked at her smooth, lovely face, and her smooth black hair.

  ‘You’re the girl to do the pushing, honey,’ I said.

  She coloured slightly. ‘I wonder if you are right, Maggie?’ She sounded curiously uncertain; she had momentarily stepped out of character. She propped her chin on one hand, and frowned. ‘What kind of a practice does he want? Town or country? Not that it really matters ‒ they’ll be equally ghastly.’

  ‘He didn’t tell me.’

  She said, ‘Can you see me as a G.P.’s wife, Maggie? In some miserable industrial town ‒ it’d be like setting up house in Cas.’

  ‘But you like Cas.?’

  ‘I like it, but I wouldn’t want to live in it!’

  ‘Well, he might want a quieter spot. A market town. Something like that.’

  Rose shuddered. ‘Don’t say it, Maggie. Don’t tell me about your beloved marshes! I’d almost prefer to follow Alice up the hospital ladder. At least there’s always fun going on in hospital. What would I do in the wilds?’

  I thought suddenly of mud. The mud that invaded my mother’s daily scrubbed kitchen from October to April. And I remembered the wind that went on for weeks and made the wearing of anything but a beret or a head-scarf impossible. Rose’s hats were famous in Benedict’s; her shoes only took second place.

  Our local doctor’s wife at home was a cheerful, weather-worn woman in her early thirties, with two small children and an elderly father to look after, as well as run the house, take messages, help in the surgery when her husband was hard-pressed, which was roughly daily. She wore shapeless tweeds and boots all winter, and equally shapeless slacks in the few summer months.

  ‘Not all country places are as far off the beaten track as we are, Rose.’

  ‘Rubbish, dearie. You only live in Kent. That’s next door.’

  I smiled. ‘Then you’ll just have to make George a specialist and stay in London. I expect you can persuade him.’

  ‘I wonder?’ She was still puzzled. ‘I wonder if that’s really what I want to do?’ She got out of her chair. ‘I had better get back to 31. I left Johnny Hurst coping, but there may be a rush on. Thank goodness the old girl is off. She’d have killed me for being in here all this time.’