The First Year

by Lucilla Andrews

  But I was not alone. ‘It’s not only not bad ‒ it’s very good,’ said an amused voice from behind me. ‘You seem to be a girl of parts, Rose. You have a strong talent for repelling boarders, spring a rival effort to the four-minute mile for Martin’s, and then turn out to be a portrait artist in disguise.’ Bill bowed to me. ‘A charming disguise, love. Just a moment! ‒’ And before I grasped what he was about he tore the little drawing off the sheet of doodling paper. ‘You’ve got the boss exactly. I must show this to the chaps. It’s really good.’

  ‘Bill ‒ please.’ Once again I was annoyed with him and myself. ‘It’s not good at all. Tear it up. I was just doodling.’

  He shook his head with maddening calm. ‘Can’t destroy a masterpiece, Rose. Sheer vandalism. And I want you to sign it for me. Who knows ‒ one of these days it may be worth good money. You’ve really got a talent for drawing, love. What ever made you take up nursing?’

  ‘I often wonder,’ I replied drily. I was growing genuinely concerned. I did not want him to guess how important that drawing was to me, but I did not want him to have it to show to the boys. I tried a new approach.

  ‘What are you doing in here? Are you on duty? Do you want Davis? She’s in charge.’

  He flicked at his jacket cuff. ‘Note the tweed suiting. The white coat is in the cupboard. Uncle is off duty for the weekend, and that’s official even if my week-end didn’t start until twenty minutes ago. I came down to congratulate you on sprinting down the road and hurling young Trevor Brown from the Pearly Gates. Davis said you were in here turning out high art, and gave me permission to come in and ask you, as one artist to another, whether you have any views on cottage roofs. I’m O.C. cottage and want red tiles; the chaps say green. What’s your view?’

  ‘I haven’t any strong views; I prefer red as a colour. Look, Bill, if that was all you wanted to see me about you’d better move off. You may be off, but I’m on duty, and Davis won’t like it if you’re in here too long.’

  ‘My love,’ he said, ‘you really must stop being such a dead bore about etiquette. I told you Davis said I could come and talk to you. The door’s open ‒ so relax. And, incidentally, may I remind you that if you were the prim little soul you are trying to make out you would be sitting here turning out penguins and ducks non-stop and not taking time off to draw snappy little pictures of old Jake.’ He took the scrap of paper from his pocket and grinned at it. ‘The chaps’ll be tickled pink. This is exactly Jake in his most S.S.O.-ish mood.’

  I had an inspiration. ‘If you’re so keen to have it hold on a second and you can have the pair. I’ve done the S.M.O. before,’ I lied, ‘so I expect I can do him again.’ I drew quickly and produced a rough caricature of Dr Spence’s face with his hair on end, which was not nearly so good as the one I had done of Jake ‒ not only because of the speed with which I had just drawn the S.M.O., but because I had not watched his face as frequently as I had watched Jake’s and so did not know every line by heart. I tore off the drawing and gave it to Bill. ‘If there’s anything else you want just ask.’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘You sound really peeved with me, Rose. Would you be cross about something? Last night, for instance?’

  ‘I’m not peeved,’ I said evenly. ‘I only get peeved about important occurrences.’

  He smiled. ‘My, but what long words you use! What do they mean, love?’

  I took up my paint-brush. ‘That I think it’s time I got on with my penguins.’

  He said quietly, ‘You are peeved, aren’t you? Don’t you like being kissed?’ He moved a little closer. ‘Or is this no-touch technique part of your let-me-be-a-sister-to-you-boys angle?’

  I glanced up from the flipper I was inking. ‘You talk about my being a dead bore on etiquette. Wouldn’t you be a little obsessional yourself about my reactions to last night? What did you expect me to do? Slap your face in high dudgeon? Or fall into your arms with glad cries? You told me to be my age last night ‒ I forget why; mind if I suggest you do the same? Who on earth,’ I added deliberately, because I felt like irritating him, ‘takes a hit-or-miss peck like that seriously nowadays? I was only put out at the time because of the hospital. This first-year business has got under my skin at last, and I find myself getting worked up about what I’m doing when I really have no need; but I’m only worked up wondering what Sister or Matron will say when they find out. But, as you reminded me, I was a private citizen last night, and, as such, I don’t give odd pecks a second thought.’

  I wanted to irritate him, and from his expression it was obvious that I had succeeded. Not that he frowned or ground his teeth; he just smiled far too brilliantly and showed most of his teeth. ‘So I peck, do I, love? And you don’t give that a second thought? Interesting,’ he remarked mildly. ‘One wonders what one has to do to produce your second thoughts? For instance ‒ this?’ He took hold of my shoulders, spun me round, and kissed me again; not once but several times. And, like last night, he did not peck, as I had untruthfully said, but kissed very well. So well that I had no breath with which to raise the necessary strength to push him away; it was not emotion that left me breathless, but the physical circumstances of the position in which he held me. When a strong, large, young man embraces you tightly the combined pressure on your chest-wall and mouth pretty well cuts off your air intake.

  In an academic fashion which is common to any young woman who gets kissed by a man who leaves her emotionally cool, I was able to think all this out while he was kissing me and to wonder if the added constriction of tight-lacing was the reason why Victorian maidens swooned on such occasions. If I had been wearing a corset, I thought as I began to see sparks and black dots racing round my eyelids, I too would have had a complete blackout.

  Eventually, as he had to breathe too, he let me go.

  I leant against the table. ‘You really are daft, Bill,’ I said breathlessly, ‘in more ways than one. I know you’re in mufti, and I’m only painting birds in the plaster-room, but I am on duty. There’d be hell to pay if anyone had walked in on us.

  ‘There would indeed,’ said a frigid voice from the doorway; ‘so it might have been a good idea had you recollected that you were on duty previously, Nurse Standing.’

  It would have been hard to say who looked the more astonished ‒ Bill, Jake, or myself. Bill’s dark face turned purple; I felt myself going white as I do when really shaken; Jake’s colour was normal, but his expression was more forbidding than I had ever seen it.

  Jake looked Bill up and down. ‘I’ll see you later, Martin,’ he said ominously, then stepped aside from the doorway. His reason for stepping aside was unmistakable. Bill murmured something I did not catch, and walked quickly from the room.

  Jake remained where he was, and for a few seconds that lasted hours said nothing at all. Then he looked at his feet. ‘I came down for my car-keys; I left them in Sister’s office last night. I happened to glance in at the open door of this room as I walked past. I’m not on duty’ ‒ he looked up from the floor now, and a small flame of anger lit his grey eyes ‒ ‘but there are certain things I cannot pass in this hospital. Can you imagine, Nurse, how your behaviour would have appeared to a patient? The fact that there are temporarily no patients about excuses neither of you. You may be very junior, Nurse Standing, but you are not now so new as to claim complete ignorance of the conventions and standards expected of members of this hospital. I am well aware’ ‒ he was looking me over now as he had done Bill ‒ ‘that you take your responsibilities far too lightly. What you do in your own time ‒ outside the hospital ‒ is your own concern. What you do while wearing a Martin’s uniform is the concern of everyone here. Fortunately, to-night I was the only spectator to witness the manner in which you saw fit to disgrace your uniform. And if you think I am being quaintly antiquated, Nurse, may I remind you that to the general public there are only two kinds of nurses. Only two,’ he repeated. ‘The sinners and the saints. Have you not heard that?’

  I had; many times. I said,
‘Yes, Mr Waring.’

  He looked at the floor again. ‘We are proud of our nurses here,’ he said quietly, ‘with reason. And we are jealous of the reputation that a Martin’s badge gives a nurse in any hospital in the world. Just how long do you think that reputation would last if the average Martin’s nurse behaved as you do?’ Without waiting for my answer, he turned his back and walked across the hall towards Eyes and the main corridor.

  My immediate thought was, he’s forgotten his car-keys; he’s gone the wrong way. That thought was a defence, but the mechanism broke down instantly and his words sank in.

  My knees shook, so I sat down hastily at the drawing-table. No man had ever been so angry with me in my life before; and being spoken to like that by a man shook me quite as much as what he said, even though I knew he was perfectly right in all he said. My father had always left the reprimands I gathered in childhood to my mother; my brothers’ occasional outbursts of rage never touched me; but their outbursts were not comparable to the honest anger I had seen and heard in Jake’s expression and tone. I relaxed against the back of my chair and closed my eyes. What would he do about this? Tell Sister Casualty? I imagined he would have to. And if he reported me she would have to tell Matron. I opened my eyes and looked at the penguins. I wondered if I would ever see them hanging up.

  I was too miserable and worried not to tell the girls. They were kind, sympathetic, and gloomy.

  ‘That wretched Bill Martin!’ groaned Josephine. ‘Why couldn’t he be more careful?’

  ‘Why does he have to go round kissing people?’ I demanded bitterly.

  Angela said she didn’t suppose he meant any harm. ‘He sounds a mad type, Rose. Just like you. I don’t expect he thinks before he acts, either.’

  ‘Well, if it’s any consolation, I’ve acted without thinking for the last time. And Bill’s caught me unawares for the last time. I’m damned if I’ll have anything to do with him again!’ Josephine said she doubted if Bill would risk so much as looking at me again.

  ‘If Jake Waring said all that to you you can bet he’ll say double to Bill. The S.S.O. keeps a firm grip on his boys. Bill won’t get off with a laugh.’

  Angela asked mournfully why we thought there was any chance of my being in a position to have anything more to do with Bill. ‘I’m sorry, Rose, but I’m sure you’ve really overshot the mark now. If Matron gets to hear of it you’re out. No two ways about it with your past history as a junior. If you had been a senior with a row of sterling reports behind you she might have given you the father and mother of all rockets and let it pass ‒ as a first offence. Not for you. Why, why, why, did you have to let it happen?’

  ‘I didn’t. It just happened.’

  They looked at me and then at each other.

  Josephine said, ‘Rose, we know you ‒ so we know that. But it’s no good pretending that anyone else in the hospital is going to believe that you were taken unawares. They’ll all think the S.S.O. walked in on your having a necking session with Bill Martin. No, wait,’ she added as I was about to protest, ‘I haven’t finished. I know you know a lot about brothers and you gave me some good, and very surprising, advice last night. I guess you were speaking instinctively. You must have been, because you’re so green about most things. But even you must know that on the whole no girl gets kissed by a man unless he senses that she wants him to kiss her. Right or wrong ‒ and for my money it’s right ‒ that’s a generally accepted fact. And before you say no girl would be daft enough to have a necking session in Cas. do remember that that sort of thing has been heard of before ‒ even in Martin’s.’

  I said, ‘I didn’t know that. What happened?’

  Josephine shrugged. ‘According to rumour, it happened a couple of years ago. Some girl called Ellsworth.’

  ‘She get chucked out?’

  Josephine nodded. ‘Next day.’

  We sat in an unhappy silence. Angela broke it. ‘I expect the memory of that and the thought that you were the acquiescing type combined to make the S.S.O. so cross. If he had honestly known that Bill had swooped on you out of the blue he wouldn’t have been so annoyed with you. Jake’s a fair man ‒ everyone says that.’

  I said wildly, ‘What does he care if I want to be kissed or not?’

  ‘He doesn’t care at all ‒ off duty. He as good as told you that. What got him was your being on duty. And he’s dead right, Rose. I’m sorry to say it, but he is. He couldn’t look the other way about something like that. Martin’s would be a riot of a place with all the boys and all of us meeting constantly in little empty rooms if authority didn’t clamp down instantly at the mere suspicion of sex rearing its ugly head.’

  ‘The maddening thing, Angie,’ I protested, ‘was that sex didn’t come into it. Bill didn’t want to kiss me ‒ any more than I wanted to be kissed by him! I’m quite sure of that. It was just done, because ‒ oh, I don’t know why ‒ for a laugh or something.’

  Angela looked exasperated. ‘Rose, for goodness’ sake grow up! Stop talking like an idiotic two-year-old. Don’t tell me Hector hasn’t told you something to cover this?’

  I calmed down. ‘Yes, he has.’ Yet, although I accepted that she was talking sense, I could not accept the idea that Bill had feeling at all for me. That was what made all this so hard to take. If I was going to be a slaughtered lamb, at least, it would be some consolation to feel that that stupid embrace had been enjoyed by one of us. I was certain he had been as cold as I and merely kissing me with apparent passion to prove what he could do. Why he wanted to prove that I was not clear; but now, at last remembering my own boys, I realized how when you goad any young man you are asking for trouble. I had certainly got it. And the worst thought of all was the one I had to suppress from the girls, which was that Jake’s opinion of me, always pretty low, must now have sunk beyond recovery.

  I asked for their verdict. ‘Think it’ll get to Matron?’

  Angela did not answer; her expression told me more than enough.

  Josephine surprised us both by saying that now she really thought it over she was not so sure. ‘I don’t think the S.S.O.’s the type to get someone chucked out. I should think there is a hope that he’ll prefer to deal with you both himself. And Christmas is round the corner. That may make a difference. And he had just been to a party. The sherry may have mellowed him.’

  ‘He didn’t look or act mellow. I don’t believe either Christmas or the party’ll affect him at all.’

  I slept badly that night; and when I slept I dreamt that I was back in the plaster-room, and my dreams changed into nightmares in which I kept knocking things over, breaking china, drawing enormous penguins who all had fair hair and Jake’s face. I was really relieved when the getting-up bell rang. I got up and dressed slowly, as, for once, I had plenty of time.

  Casualty was moderately busy for Sunday, but the morning dragged by. Sister did not come on until nine, as it was Sunday, and from the moment she arrived I expected a summons to her office and then her voice to tell me to come in and close the door, please, Nurse. Then, as the time passed and eleven came, my hopes began to rise; perhaps Josephine was right. He was going to leave things in his own hands.

  At 11.15 Astor called me from my glove-mending.

  ‘Standing, Sister wants to see you now.’

  I straightened my cap, smoothed my apron and knocked at Sister’s office door.

  She did not tell me to come in and shut the door, please, Nurse.

  She looked me over and said instead, ‘Nurse, I think you had better go and get another apron if that is your clean one.’

  My mouth felt dry. ‘Yes, Sister. I changed into this one at nine.’

  She nodded. ‘Go now, and then will you go straight to Matron’s office? She has just telephoned to say she wishes to see you herself.’

  ‘Yes, Sister.’

  ‘Before you go, Nurse,’ Sister Casualty added soberly, ‘I should like you to know that I am very sorry that this has had to happen.’

  Chapter Elevenr />
  SISTER MARGARET IS NOT PLEASED

  Matron said, ‘Come in, Nurse Standing, and close the door, please.’

  My hand was wet and the door-knob slipped under my fingers. But when I turned round to face Matron my knees nearly gave way beneath my weight. My knees had had a bad shock. Matron was smiling at me.

  ‘I do not,’ she told me, ‘normally interview my junior nurses before sending them on night-duty; but normally I try to avoid removing any nurse from her ward or department immediately before Christmas. Sister Casualty has told me that you have been enthusiastic in the help you have given with her preparations for her party, and I do assure you that I am most reluctant to have to transfer you to-day. Unfortunately, I have no option. I must have another junior on night-duty to-night, and I do not want to move any ward nurse, since if I did so it would mean that the patients in her particular ward would lose a nurse to whom they have grown accustomed, and that might mar their own enjoyment of Christmas. Patients,’ she added, ‘do so dislike changes of staff. The only possible alternative to yourself is Nurse Grey, the day junior in Margaret ward. However, as Nurse Grey has already spent three months in Margaret ward, when she is placed on night-duty she should have a change of experience. So I want you to go on duty as night junior in Margaret ward to-night, Nurse Standing.’