Vigil in the Night

by A. J. Cronin

  Eliza Gregg stared incredulously at Anne. Then her eyes filled up and overflowed with tears.

  “I’m sorry, Sister,” she muttered brokenly. “Honestly I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I hate myself for what I did.”

  CHAPTER 44

  All that day Anne’s heart was light, her mind suffused by a sense of relief. Nurse Gregg surpassed herself in willingness. Enthusiasm spread to the other members of the staff. The ward took on a new complexion, and life, for Anne, assumed a different color.

  So immersed was she in the work of rehabilitation that she was brought back, with a start, to the recollection of her evening engagement by finding in her room, when she went off duty after tea, a small gilt package containing a spray of flowers and the simple note: “Restaurant Manon at eight o’clock.”

  Anne gazed at the delicate mauve blossoms with a queer confusion. No one had ever sent her orchids before. She was seized by a strange diffidence, a realization that she had no gown fit to wear with them, a desire, almost, to avoid her obligation to dine with Prescott. A smart restaurant like the Manon was not her milieu; she was a hardworking woman, a nurse, grappling with sickness and disease; she could not turn herself into a butterfly at a moment’s notice. Yet the mood quickly passed. Dr. Prescott, she reflected, knew her, prosaically, for what she was. He would expect no fashion plate.

  Smiling a little at that last thought, she took a bath, did her hair carefully, and put on her newest frock. Then she pinned on the orchid spray. The effect was quite startling. She was nearer the fashion plate than she could have believed. “My heavens,” she thought, in mock dismay, “I mustn’t let young Leslie see me like this or that child will never do a thing for me again.”

  She slipped out of the home, took a taxi, and arrived at the Manon a few moments before the hour.

  It was a pleasant place, a long green room, cushioned wall seats with tables in front of them, and a round buffet in the center, displaying the most delicious cold dishes and fruits. Prescott had already arrived. He stood up as she came in.

  “You are splendidly punctual,” he exclaimed. “I didn’t think it possible for a woman to be on time.”

  “Ah!” she smiled. “That’s part of my training.”

  She felt quite at ease with Prescott, and he devoted himself to entertaining her, exerting himself to talk well, showing that he had more to his personality than the ability to wield a lancet. It was a side to his character that she had never before suspected. He looked extraordinarily boyish in his dinner jacket. She had a sudden sense of comradeship toward him, a wish that he might have all the happiness, all the success, life could bring.

  Following a lull in their conversation, she said, “I have been hoping all evening that you would talk about your clinic. Have you no news for one of your most ardent supporters?”

  He smiled. “A great deal of news,” he replied cheerfully. “I have a friend named Lowe, who has been pushing the matter in inner political circles. This afternoon I had quite a momentous interview. A certain member of the government, who, for all his self-importance, must be nameless, came privately to sound me on the prospects of the scheme. You understand, of course, that this is highly confidential.”

  “You mean there’s a prospect of the government giving you all you want?”

  He nodded. “Basically, it’s just an election device.” He spoke lightly. “But it does look hopeful for me all the same.”

  “That’s marvelous!” She went on to chide him. “Don’t look as though you didn’t care.”

  “I care very much,” he answered. “But there are other things I care about as well.”

  Somehow she could not follow his allusion. She did not sense the subtle change in him, nor feel the plane of their relationship to be other than it had been before.

  They lingered over their coffee. Only the fact that her late pass expired at eleven caused them to break off their conversation and take their leave.

  CHAPTER 45

  And then the dreadful thing occurred. As they stood on the steps of the restaurant waiting for a taxi, a newsboy flashed a late edition in their faces.

  “Suicide of actress,” he shouted. “West End nursing home raided.”

  The poster he carried bore the name of Irene Dallas. Anne stared, fascinated, at the enormous type upon the placard. Prescott was staring at the caption also. He bought a paper, held it up to the bright light of the entrance behind them. Then he gave a sudden exclamation, glanced at her with pained surprise. Even before he spoke, Anne had a foreboding of disaster.

  “It’s the Rolgrave.” He hesitated. “I’m afraid they’re in serious trouble at last.

  Before he could say more, she took the paper from his hand and scanned it hurriedly. Irene Dallas, the film actress, had jumped from an upper window of the Rolgrave. She was presumed to have been under the influence of a narcotic. The police, brought into action at last, had at once raided the home. Mrs. Sullivan, the matron, who was also the proprietress, had been arrested, together with the nurse known to have been in special attendance on the dead woman. The name of that nurse was Lucy Lee.

  Anne could not suppress a cry of horror. Lucy, her sister, arrested, in a police-court cell! Still clutching the paper, she turned her pale, shocked face toward Prescott. l must go to her at once.”

  “Yes, you must go,” Prescott agreed slowly. Then he took the bravest step of his whole life. “I’ll come with you,” he said.

  CHAPTER 46

  The following morning found Prescott in the Inner Temple rooms of Sir John Lowe, K.C. It was early, barely nine o’clock. Seated in a worn leather chair, Prescott kept his eyes on the carpet. Lowe, pacing up and down, was reviewing succinctly the objections he had been putting forward for the past half-hour.

  “You have nothing to gain—and you have everything to lose—trying to help this Lucy Lee. If you mix yourself up in a case of this nature, where mud must and will be flung, some of that mud is bound to stick to you—lily-white though you may be, my dear Robert.” Lowe’s thin, craggy features melted into a friendly yet sardonic smile. “Mark my words, this case won’t finish at the police court. It’s too big for the magistrate, and he knows it. He’ll send it to the Old Bailey. That means even more publicity. And if it gets about that you are interested, as get about it must—you don’t know what a whispering gallery this town is—the government will drop you like a hot brick. All that we hoped for in the direction of a grant for the clinic is certain to fall through.”

  There was a long silence. Prescott fully appreciated the authority behind the argument. Lowe’s position at the bar was pre-eminent. But the fixity of his expression merely grew.

  “Don’t you realize,” Lowe continued, “that if you come into this, you’re certain to be called as a medical witness for the defense? So far as I can gather, this wretched Dallas girl who killed herself had no proper medical attendant. She was a protégée of that notorious Madame Sullivan. Which means that no doctor in his senses will be prepared to testify. And yet you—you, of all people—want to step in and give evidence.”

  Prescott’s jaw was set. “I’m sorry, Lowe. I appreciate everything you say. I wish I could explain. All I can tell you is that I’ve given my word to help this nurse. And help her I must.”

  Lowe sighed and flung his pencil down upon the desk. “Well!” he declared, as if in desperation, “I suppose I’ll have to see you through your lunacy. Against your interest and my judgment, I’ll take the case. Not for Sullivan, mind you. But for this fledgling nurse of yours.”

  Despite the gruffness in Lowe’s tone, the affectionate generosity of his action was evident to Prescott. A somber satisfaction swept over him. Whatever the risk might be to himself, at least he had secured the best counsel in London for Anne’s sister.

  CHAPTER 47

  On the third of July the Rolgrave case came up, as Lowe had predicted, at the Old Bailey. Though it was not yet half-past ten when Prescott reached the court, the place was filled to overflowin
g. He felt a profound relief that Anne was not present. Overruling all her protests, he had insisted that she must not come. Now, confronted by the heat and clamor of this arena, he saw how wise his decision had been. Fighting his way through the crowd, he found a seat close behind the bench occupied by counsel. Lowe, who had just come into court, exchanged a few brief words with him. Then Drewett, counsel for the Crown, a portly figure with beetling eyebrows, made his appearance. He darted an odd look at Prescott, whom he knew quite well, but barely nodded.

  Suddenly there came a louder buzz of excitement, a higher note of tension. The two accused were brought into court. As Mrs. Sullivan, followed by Lucy, entered the dock, necks were craned, every eye was diverted toward them. Prescott, loathing and despising the curiosity of the mob found himself averting his gaze in sheer disgust. But, at last, he turned his head and glanced at Lucy.

  She stood very still, her arms stiffly by her sides, her rigid head giving her a dazed and doll-like quality. She seemed to have shrunk within herself, as though fear had completely numbed her, dried the well of her emotions. Not so Mrs. Sullivan. The owner of the Rolgrave, brazenly at home beneath the high glare of publicity, took blatant advantage of its spotlight.

  At that moment there was a call for silence and the court stood up. Impressively, his robes flowing, wig well set, the judge made his entrance. Quickly the jury was sworn. The case commenced.

  An officer rose to read the charge: that the accused were, on June 10, at the Rolgrave Home, W. 1, in the possession of drugs, to wit, morphine sulphate, heroin, and cocaine hydrochloride, not being so duly authorized, and that on the same date they had caused one Irene Dallas to take a stupefying drug, in consequence of which she had jumped from a window and so committed suicide.

  The two women formally pleaded not guilty. Then the case for the prosecution began. Prescott settled down to listen as witnesses were called to establish the nature of the drugs. Next, Dr. Bury of the Home Office testified to the discovery of one of the drugs, heroin, in the analysis of the organs of the deceased, Irene Dallas. At the conclusion of the evidence Lowe immediately got up.

  “Dr. Bury, did the analysis reveal a lethal quantity of heroin?”

  “No, sir. It was not a lethal quantity.”

  Detective-Sergeant Roberts then took the stand and testified that he had visited the Rolgrave Home and taken Sullivan into custody, together with the nurse in attendance on Miss Dallas. The climax brought illumination. When arrested, Sullivan had refused to make a statement, but the nurse, Lucy Lee, had said: “I gave the hypodermic of heroin. It was the normal dose. I was only doing what I had been told to do.”

  CHAPTER 48

  It was precisely the opportunity for which Lowe had been waiting. As the sergeant left the box, he jumped to his feet.

  “My lord,” he said, addressing the judge. “I have the honor to submit to you that there is no case whatsoever against Nurse Lee. If your lordship will allow me, I propose to call medical evidence of the highest character to prove that any nurse, in circumstances such as the prosecution has described, would be morally and even legally obliged to carry out instructions given her by the sister or superior of the home.”

  There was an immediate sensation in the courtroom. Prescott was caught by the general excitement. He saw the brilliance of Lowe’s sudden stroke, realized that if it succeeded, the case against Lucy might be summarily dismissed.

  Others had drawn the inference, also. Drewett, as befitted the prosecutor, was already on his feet, with a loud and emphatic objection. Mr. Coles, counsel for Sullivan, joined the fray. There was a long and technical argument, at the end of which the judge raised his hand for silence. He bent forward to Lowe.

  “Very well, Sir John. We will hear your evidence.”

  Lowe again inclined his head in deferential acquiescence. Smoothing his gown calmly, he indicated that he would call Dr. Robert Prescott.

  Prescott started at the sound of his own name. With an inward tremor, though his outward appearance was impassive, he rose and entered the box. As he did so he had a sudden, swift impression of the rapid scribbling of the pressmen beneath him, and the battery of eyes bent upon him from the gallery. He realized for an instant the notoriety that must be his.

  After establishing Prescott’s identity, Lowe put his next question with impressive slowness. “Tell me this, Dr. Prescott. If you, as a doctor, gave a nurse an order, would you expect her to carry it out?”

  “Most unquestionably. It is the one essential, the very foundation, on which medical treatment rests.”

  “Exactly. And if a sister, or other person equally in authority, gives a nurse an order, she would be expected to carry it out—just as if a doctor had given it?”

  “She would,” Prescott answered without the slightest hesitation.

  “If she did not carry it out, she would be failing in her duty? She would, moreover, be liable for dismissal and even for punishment?”

  “Yes.”

  “Dr. Prescott, in your professional career have you ever instructed a nurse to inject a drug—that drug, in fact, which the prosecution has been pleased to call a stupefying drug?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you known a sister or person equally in authority to order the injection of such a drug?”

  “I have.”

  “And the nurse who was given such an order would be expected, under penalty and without question, to make the injection?”

  “She would.”

  Lowe smiled gently and made a quite deliberate pause. Then he said, “Thank you, Dr. Prescott.”

  He waited until Prescott had left the box and regained his seat. Then, still smiling faintly, he turned toward the judge. “Your lordship”—now he spoke with measured logic—“in the light of the evidence we have just heard, I submit that the prosecution has no case whatsoever against my client. At the moment when she was apprehended Nurse Lee herself remarked that she was doing only what she believed to be her duty. The onus or responsibility rests entirely with the owner of the home.” Here there was a sharp protest from Sullivan’s counsel, which the judge ruled out of order.

  An interjection came also from Mr. Drewett, K.C., to which Lowe calmly countered: “My learned friend suggests that the Rolgrave Home was not a place likely to be favored by an honest nurse. I would remind him that, in the present parlous state of the profession, poor nurses are not in a position to pick and choose. They have to take their work where they can find it. With that, your lordship, since I have no wish to waste your lordship’s valuable time by embellishing the simple truth, I respectfully ask that the case against my client be terminated.”

  CHAPTER 49

  Prescott held his breath as the judge began to speak. Everything hung on these next momentous words. Coldly and concisely the old man summed up the evidence, or lack of it. Gravely he warned Lucy against the dangers of bad associations. Then, in a tone of quiet decision, he announced: “The case against Nurse Lee is dismissed.”

  Prescott’s first thought was of Anne; his first action, to get the news to her at once. He left his seat swiftly and, elbowing a passage through the crowded corridors, reached a public telephone booth ahead of the crowd. He waited, and then her voice came, sounding near to him, holding all the strain, the agonizing suspense, of that long afternoon of waiting.

  “It’s all right,” he said quickly. “Everything’s all right.” He heard her suppressed cry. “I’m taking her from the court at once. I’ll give her tea, somewhere near. And then I’ll send her to you at six o’clock. She’ll be outside the hospital whenever you come off duty.”

  “Thank you. Thank you with all my heart.” Her words came haltingly. “I shall never forget what you have done for Lucy, and for me, today.”

  A great happiness took possession of him. It was worth all his efforts to have earned such heartfelt gratitude from her.

  Back at the side entrance of the court, he entered an anteroom, and there, awaiting him, was Lucy. She had washed her f
ace and now looked a little better. Something of her dazed rigidity was gone. But the marks of her ordeal were still evident in her red-rimmed eyes, in her subdued and pitiful demeanor. She stood up and clasped his hand in both of hers. She could not speak. In spite of himself he had a sudden pang of compassion for her.

  Taking her by the arm, he hurried her out of the building, hailed a taxi, and drove a few blocks down to a quiet cafe. It was impossible for him to be harsh with her. No matter what she had done, no matter what she had cost him, she was Anne’s sister. He found himself saying, “Please don’t upset yourself. It’s all over now.”

  “I can’t help it,” she sobbed. She pressed her sodden handkerchief against her swollen eyes. “What you said when you gave evidence—that I only did as I was told—was true. But I’ve been a bad nurse. That’s the thought I can’t get out of my head. A terrible thing happened at Shereford, where I started.” A sob rose unexpectedly in her throat, almost choking her. “Then this on top of it, this awful disgrace, which might have put me in prison if it hadn’t been for you. I should never have gone to the Rolgrave. I knew that it wasn’t all right. But I was stupid and selfish. I wanted a good time.”

  “Why don’t you make a fresh start?”

  She gazed at him dumbly, then her head drooped. “Who would take me now?”

  “I have an idea.” He kept his tone even. “A suggestion which might be worth thinking about.”

  She raised her head slowly and looked at him again. A faint hope glimmered in her eyes. “Oh,” she cried passionately, “I know I could make a good nurse if I tried. When I started out as a probationer with Anne, I really was good. I loved my work. And then I lost my way.”

  “I can show you how to find it again,” he said. “There’s an epidemic of cerebro-spinal fever in the South Wales valleys, a little town named Bryngower. It isn’t a pretty place, and it isn’t a pretty disease. But they want nurses, and they want them badly. They have a poor organization, and it’s breaking down under the strain. They’d have you there. I can arrange it for you. The only question is, do you really wish to go?”