The Secret Armour

by Lucilla Andrews

  ‘She’d have killed both of us,’ I said, and went back to my tidying.

  As I stocked and tested I thought it over. I wondered if Rose would get her way. Rose usually got her own way, so there was probably little point in wondering. All the same, George had been so very definite about his plans. ‘That’s what I want to do,’ he had said, ‘among other things.’ Rose was the other thing. If he had Rose would he be prepared to give up his idea of a practice? It would be a wrench, but would it hurt more than giving up Rose?

  I realized I was looking at this from the female angle. I could not begin to guess how men felt about these things. But I felt a pang for George. Why couldn’t he have it both ways? He would make a good G.P. He liked ordinary people, he was an ordinary person himself, and he knew what made them tick.

  I tried to picture him as she wanted him to be. I could do it, and I knew George could do it too. George had the brains, as Rose said. Then I remembered something else; what he had said about people having what they wanted. ‘Some do, some don’t.’

  I saw more clearly than ever why he had looked so unhappy that afternoon when Sister was at tea.

  He came into Casualty about half an hour later and saw me in 28.

  ‘I thought you were off, Maggie. Have you and Rose swapped rooms?’

  ‘She’s normally 27, not 28. Fitzpatrick is off, so Sister said I was to be children’s queen when I came back from lunch.’

  ‘I’m sorry I missed you. I wanted to see you.’

  ‘Rose told me.’ I smiled up at him. ‘George, I can’t tell you how pleased I am about Membership. I think you’re quite wonderful.’

  ‘Do you, Maggie?’ The corners of his mouth turned down. ‘And I never knew you cared!’

  I laughed. ‘My secret love, that’s what! But you really are a crafty soul, to sail through Membership on the quiet as an h.-s.’

  His eyes danced. ‘That’s what I am, eh?’

  ‘How did you manage to do all that work? Apart from your ward routine?’

  ‘It was something to do in the long winter evenings,’ he said mildly. ‘Also I felt rather strongly about it. I wanted to pass the damned thing. And I’ve found that on the whole when you really want something and are prepared to do something about it you get it.’

  I said, ‘Do you?’

  His face was very kind. ‘Something, Maggie, not someone. When the human element is involved it isn’t so simple.’

  ‘Yes.’ For once, I was not thinking of David. I was thinking, as I guessed he was, about Rose. ‘George,’ I went on, ‘I do hope you get everything else the way you want it.’

  He smiled briefly ‘Thank you, my’ ‒ he hesitated ‒ ‘m’dear. That’s nice of you, Maggie.’ His voice was very deep, and I was touched by his sincerity. I was glad to know that George liked me. I was grateful for any gratuitous affection I could lay hands on these days ‒ from the patients, the girls, and now George.

  Rose appeared behind his shoulder. ‘I’ve told her about the party, George. She says it’ll be fine.’

  ‘Suits you, does it, Maggie?’

  ‘Of course it does!’ Rose answered for me. ‘Parties suit every one. A girl needs a spot of fun and games and the bright lights. It’s good for the morale.’

  George raised his eyebrows. ‘You feel that too, Maggie?’ What did it matter how I felt? It was civil of him to pretend. George was civil to every one.

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ I said, ‘that’s how I feel.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  I MISS A PARTY

  Next morning Sister Casualty said Sister Tutor wanted to speak to me. ‘In my office now, Nurse Howard. I’ll keep an eye on your room.’

  Miss Galvaston-Graham said, ‘I won’t keep you long, Nurse Howard. Shut the door, please.’

  I did as she said, and wondered what was coming. It must be something more than routine to make her seek me in Cas.

  Sister Tutor said, ‘I want to ask you a favour, Nurse.’

  ‘Yes, Sister?’ I was still more curious.

  ‘You were expecting to go on night duty as Senior Relief in Matthew and Mark Ward to-morrow night.’

  ‘Yes, Sister?’

  ‘I understand there is some party on to-night, which you had hoped to attend?’

  ‘Yes, Sister.’ I noticed that she used the past tense, and that surprised me. I was not surprised about her knowing we were having a party. Authority at Benedict’s always knew everything about every one. And in this case, it was not only second sight. Rose, Alice, and I had all asked for late leave.

  Her pale lips smiled. ‘Mr Hartigan ‒ or perhaps I should now say Dr Hartigan ‒ has proved himself a dark horse. I disremember the last occasion when a house-surgeon surprised us all by attaining a higher medical degree. I understand Mr Denver (George’s boss) is both amused and gratified!’ Her large, myopic eyes watched me steadily, ‘Nurse Howard, would you very much mind forgoing your party and coming on duty to-night?’

  It was no sacrifice. For no good reason I had been dreading that party. ‘Not at all. Sister.’

  She said, ‘That’s very good of you, Nurse. I never like interfering with the nurses off duty. I know the store one sets on these social occasions at your age, and at your age it is very right that you should do so. But I am pleased to see you are willing to put your duty to the hospital first.’

  This was ghastly. I could not take credit for what was unimportant.

  ‘Truly, Sister, I don’t mind at all. Are they short-staffed in Matthew and Mark?’

  She inclined her head as she beamed at me. ‘Thank you, Nurse. They are short. Nurse Sims, the Night Senior, has unfortunately contracted mumps ‒ of all things! I have just come from discussing the matter with Matron. Matron feels, and I agree with her, that you are now capable of being in charge on your own. Matron wishes you to move up from Senior Relief to Night Senior permanently on this coming night duty. Do you think you can manage it, Nurse?’

  I hesitated. I had never been in charge before. I had held the fort for a few hours in the wards, or the occasional half-hour in Casualty. But all night, alone? Certainly there was always Night Sister, or her assistants, on whom I could rely in an emergency, but the ordinary hour-by-hour routine would be my problem. Could I do it? Could I refuse? Did I want to refuse?

  Sister Tutor said quietly, ‘That was not a fair question, Nurse, since the issue is already decided. Matron and I consider you are quite capable. But I am glad to see you have some doubts. That is the right attitude. Responsibility calls for thought, much thought; I know you will give your work that thought. Good.’ She stood up.

  Then she went on, ‘Edward Donell shook you considerably, did it not, Nurse?’

  I was too surprised to say anything but the truth. ‘Yes, Sister.’

  ‘I imagined it would. That was why you were moved there before your time. Matron thought, and I agreed with her, that you needed some change in the daily routine to alter your attitude. We are both gratified to see how right we were. Your reports have improved considerably.’

  I said, ‘Thank you, Sister.’

  She nodded calmly. ‘That will be all, Nurse. Good luck in Matthew and Mark, and do not allow the responsibility to worry you unduly. Deal with every matter methodically, as you have been taught. If you make a mistake, which we will hope you will not, remember we have all made mistakes. But, Nurse Howard,’ she shook her head, ‘I see you have learnt to control yourself; when are you going to learn to control your cap?’

  I smiled. ‘I’m afraid I can’t answer that, Sister. Try as I will, it refuses to stay in place.’

  She smiled back, and as she did so I realized for the first time that she was merely an older woman dressed in a sister’s uniform. That did not make me respect her less, but it did mean that she never awed me again.

  As I opened the door for her she said, ‘Matron will be very pleased to hear how willing you were to give up your party.’

  I went back to 31, feeling a complete fraud, and very relieve
d that I had a cast-iron excuse for missing the party. I was quite glad when Sister Casualty barked, ‘So you have decided to come back to duty at last, have you, Nurse Howard? About time!’

  I said, ‘Yes, Sister; sorry, Sister.’ I slid into my place by the desk, collecting the inevitable pile of Cas. cards, and sympathetic smiles from the patients as I did so.

  I had no opportunity to talk to Rose until lunch-time. ‘Maggie, how dreadful! The miserable woman! Why did she have to pick on you when she had our entire set to choose from?’

  ‘Well, I was going to Matthew and Mark in any case, to-morrow.’

  ‘So now you are going to be Senior,’ she said gloomily. ‘I suppose that’s all right as far as it goes, but really, this is going too far! Why didn’t you say you wouldn’t?’

  ‘Rose, don’t be absurd. How could I?’

  ‘Surely you could have done something?’ she asked impatiently. ‘Honestly, Maggie, you are too helpless ‒ you shouldn’t let people push you around!’

  ‘I don’t mind the old G.-G. pushing me around,’ I said, ‘not now. I’ve got used to it.’

  She said that was all very well, but what was I going to tell George?

  ‘The truth, of course. He’s used enough to hospitals. He knows how these things happen.’

  Rose was really put out. I was quite amused to see how much. I had never seen her seriously annoyed in all the years I had known her. She never appeared to take things sufficiently seriously to warrant getting worked up. And what did one party matter? Even had I wanted to attend? It was interesting to see how much a party did matter to Rose. I wondered again about her and George.

  George accepted the change as I had expected.

  ‘Too bad,’ he said, when I met him in the corridor and explained. ‘Pity. I would have liked you to come,’ he added politely, ‘but of course there’s nothing you can do.’

  ‘I would like to have come. It’s Just One Of Those Things.’

  ‘How right you are, Maggie!’

  Matthew and Mark was a combined men’s medical word. There were twenty beds in each half of the ward; the halves lay directly opposite each other, being divided by a small corridor. At night this corridor was turned into a duty-room. The kitchen table was lifted out into the corridor; the kitchen and linen-room doors were hidden by screens; a third screen hid the lift-shaft and the stair-well in front. From my seat at the table I could see clearly into both Matthew and Mark.

  The first half of the night passed in a flash. Sister Matthew and Mark gave us a full report, and after my junior had vanished to the kitchen and the milk round, Sister introduced me to all the patients.

  After she had gone I had to get them all straight in my own mind before the influx of the medical housemen, and the nightly rounds of Night Sister, Dr Allingham, the Senior Medical Officer, and Dr Player, the Medical Registrar.

  I had no time at all in which to remember David, Rose, George, or the party until I sat over my own solitary supper in the dining-room at one o’clock.

  Matthew and Mark lay under Luke Ward; that medical block was one of the most distant from the dining-room. I walked back slowly, along the outside ramp. It was very cold, and the night was clear to the stars. The moonlight had frosted the park with silver icing. I shivered and hugged my cape more firmly. I saw two figures move away from the Doctor’s House and cross the park arm in arm. I recognized Rose’s walk at once; a few seconds later I heard her laugh carry over the silent park. The man’s head was bent over hers. They stopped under the frozen branches of a plane-tree, they kissed, and then walked on leisurely again. The moonlight was all around them, it touched the man’s fair head and turned his hair to silver.

  And that, I thought, is that. Nice for George; nice for Rose. Rose needed a steady, reliable soul like George ‒ someone who never said much, but always meant what he said.

  And then I thought, Who doesn’t need someone like that? Like George?

  I shivered again. I found I was very cold. I walked the rest of the way quickly. When I got in I found my junior waiting for me with hot coffee. I went round Matthew and Mark ‒ the men were all sleeping. I returned to the table in the corridor and sipped my coffee. I discovered that I had never in my life felt so lonely.

  I was in my second month on nights, when one of the three-monthly general changes in the entire junior medical staff of the hospital took place.

  Johnny Hurst, the tall dark dresser in Room 31, had qualified and blossomed out in short white coat as a medical houseman. Another of the new h.-p.s was Nigel Anstey, a fair boy who had been in Casualty at the same time as Johnny, but since he had been mostly in Rose’s room, 27, I knew him only slightly. He was Mr Anstey and I was Nurse Howard. With Johnny for weeks past I had been ‘Maggie’.

  One other thing that occurred in this general post was that George, with his M.R.C.P., achieved the improbable and switched from the surgical to the medical side. He became Dr Hartigan, Junior Medical Registrar.

  Alice came into my room and sat on the end of my bed on the morning of the change-over.

  ‘George is going up in the world with a bang,’ she said, then she laughed. ‘Come to think of it, Maggie, we’re all doing that. You the big girl in Matthew and Mark, me in Ed Donell! And have you heard about Rose?’

  ‘What about Rose?’ I brushed my hair languidly. I guessed that she was going to tell me Rose and George were engaged. I was always waiting for someone to tell me that, these days. Instead she said, ‘I’ve just seen your old pal, Mallinson.’

  ‘What’s Mallinson got to do with it?’ Nurse Mallinson was now Assistant Night Sister. I had enjoyed meeting her again; I had never forgotten how kind and helpful she had been to me in the old days in Willy B.

  ‘Mallinson’s got to go home for a spell. Her father’s ill. And who are they sending to the office as acting-unpaid-Assistant Night Sister? Our Rose.’ Alice hugged her knees and ruined her apron starch as she did so. ‘Three smart girls, that’s what we are, ducks!’

  I did not feel at all smart, so I let that pass. Alice, I knew, was different. Alice always had been different. She had known from the start of her training what she wanted to do. She had wanted to be a Sister, to make the hospital her life. The fact that Matron had marked her out for Ed Donell, the most popular ward in the hospital, proved the success of her efforts.

  I looked at her calm, gentle round face, her comfortable curves; the contentment she felt was in her eyes. How wonderful, I thought, to be so sure of yourself.

  ‘Our beauteous Rose will have to behave herself in the office,’ she said not unkindly.

  ‘Why? Doesn’t she always? Rose is a darn good nurse, Alice.’

  Alice settled herself more comfortably on my feet. ‘Of course she is,’ she grinned; ‘our little friend is nobody’s fool. What I meant was that she’ll have to behave herself with the boys now she’s an official person ‒ even if acting and unpaid.’

  ‘You both spend your lives telling me I’m dumb,’ I said, ‘so I’ll buy it. I don’t understand you, Alice.’

  ‘Maggie ‒ I know you love Rose dearly ‒ so do I if it comes to that ‒ but you must see the havoc she creates.’

  I frowned. ‘She can’t help her face; nor that fantastic figure. I think you’ve got her wrong, Alice. Rose is really a simple soul, with her heart set on her one-true-love and raising half a dozen kids.’

  Alice said, ‘You’ve known her all this time and you really believe that? Maggie, I despair! Won’t you ever understand anything? Rose,’ she went on seriously, ‘is the female equivalent of your grateful late patient David Corford. How do you suppose she spotted his line so quickly? It was like recognizing like. It always happens that way. Take you and George.’

  ‘Which is why George is in love with her,’ I said unthinkingly.

  ‘What’s that?’ Alice spoke sharply for her.

  ‘I was just waffling. I’ve got night nurses’ paralysis of the brain.’

  ‘You’ve got nothing of the sort, ducks. S
ay that again.’

  I yawned. ‘All right.’ I repeated myself.

  ‘That’s what you think?’

  ‘Listen here.’ I sat up in bed. ‘This is one thing I do know. I’ve watched them both. I’ve been really crafty. Rose has been nuts about George for ages, and now George is that way about Rose. So don’t you dare tell me again that I go about with my eyes shut. I thought you had come to tell me they were engaged just now.’

  She stared at me blankly for a few seconds; then she lay back on my bed and shook with laughter.

  ‘Maggie, you are the prize goon at Benedict’s!’ Then she jerked upright. ‘Or are you?’ She stopped laughing. ‘George has been mighty odd lately ‒ I wonder. Have you hit the nail on the head after all?’

  ‘I have,’ I said wearily. ‘Alice, don’t think me rude, but I’m dead. I’ll have to go to sleep.’

  ‘I’ll go in a minute.’ She watched me with a peculiar expression on her face. ‘But first we’ve got to get things straight.’

  ‘I wouldn’t bother. I’ve done nothing but get things straight for the past few months. First there was David. Then Rose. Then there wasn’t David. Much the same thing has happened with George. It’s all quite simple ‒ and quite straight.’

  I expected her to laugh again, but she did not.

  ‘Does it worry you about George? Honestly?’

  If I had not been a night nurse I would probably never have admitted it. I was tired and my resistance was down.

  ‘It did not bother me at all at first. In fact I was quite pleased for George; and I was far too busy and happy about David to want anything more. Then afterwards, when David was all over, and I saw a good deal of George ‒ in Cas. ‒ it began to hurt. Only a little at the start, and I thought it was just part of my general misery without David.’ I smiled faintly. ‘I realize I’m being dog-in-a-manger-ish and irrational, but what would you?’

  She said, ‘When did you find out what it was all about?’