She smiled at the thought of Millie. Dora was right, it would be fun to see her again. But at the same time Helen didn’t want to leave Casualty. As she’d explained to Dora, her place was there with . . .
Her place was there, helping to look after all the emergencies they were bound to get in once the war started, she amended the thought in her mind.
She had almost reached the doors to the sisters’ home when she heard a voice behind her.
‘Sister Dawson? Helen?’
The voice was so faint that at first Helen wondered if it was the breeze whispering through the plane trees. But the night air was sultry and still, and not a breeze stirred.
‘Who is it?’ She spoke softly, but her voice still sounded loud in the quiet of the evening.
‘It’s me.’
Helen swung round. ‘Nurse Willard? What are you doing lurking here at this time of—’ She stopped talking as Penny Willard stepped out of the shadows. ‘Oh, Willard!’ cried Helen. ‘What have you done to yourself?’
Chapter Fifty-One
HELEN HARDLY RECOGNISED her at first. Bruises bloomed purple, blue and black around the swollen, puffy mess that was Penny’s left eye. Blood trickled like tears down her cheek.
‘Thank God it’s you,’ she stammered. ‘I’ve been waiting for you. I didn’t know where else to go for help.’
‘What happened?’
‘I – I walked into a door.’
Walked into Joe Armstrong’s fist, more like. Helen fought back the comment. ‘I’ll take you to Casualty,’ she said. ‘I know it’s ambulance emergencies only, but I’m sure they mind—’
‘No! I don’t want to go there. The night nurses will be there, and they’ll only talk.’
‘But you need to get this treated.’
‘I just need you to clean it up for me,’ Penny said. ‘I’d do it myself, but I don’t want to go back to the nurses’ home looking like this. Just a bit of gentian violet on it should do. Please?’ she begged.
Helen sighed. ‘Let’s have a look at it.’
She pulled Penny into the lamplight and tilted back her head to examine her injured eye. Close to, it was even worse. The skin around it was shiny and taut over the grotesque swelling, splotched with vivid colour. Inside the narrow slit, the white of her eye swam bright scarlet with blood. As Helen gently touched her cheekbone, Penny hissed with pain and flinched away.
‘It’s badly cut,’ Helen said. ‘I think you might need sutures.’
‘No!’
‘Willard, please. Let me take you to Casualty. You need to get this examined properly.’
‘I can’t.’ Penny jerked out of her grasp. ‘I can’t have them all gossiping about me, I can’t face it.’
‘Then let me take you to the Sick Bay,’ Helen pleaded. ‘Dr McKay can help you.’
‘I don’t want anyone else knowing,’ Penny insisted. ‘I came to you because I trusted you. If you won’t help me, I’ll sort it out for myself.’
She started to walk away. Helen watched her stumbling off into the night. ‘Willard, wait,’ she called out. Penny stopped, but didn’t turn round. ‘I’ll help you,’ Helen said. ‘But we need to go to the Sick Bay.’
Penny shook her head. ‘I told you, I don’t want Dr McKay involved.’
‘We won’t tell him,’ Helen said. ‘I’ll treat you there myself.’
The hospital’s Sick Bay was at the top of the main building, away from the wards. Leading off a short corridor were four rooms, each made up with three hospital beds. At the far end was the consulting room, lined with rows of jars and bottles and furnished with a couch, screens and a desk. This was where the doctors and nurses reported to Dr McKay, the Medical Superintendent, when they were feeling ill. Not that many did, since all the nurses knew only a severed limb or a bad case of TB would ever count as a ‘real’ illness.
Luckily, none of the beds was occupied and the whole floor was in darkness. Helen could hear her heart thudding in her ears as she crept in, Penny following.
‘We’ll have to be careful,’ she whispered. ‘If Night Sister sees a light on up here she’s bound to come and investigate. You pull the curtains, then I’ll switch on the light.’
As Helen stumbled towards the desk in the darkness, Penny touched her arm.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘I know you’re taking a big risk to help me, and I do appreciate it.’
‘I don’t know if I will be able to help you yet,’ Helen reminded her. ‘I can clean you up, but if that injury is really bad you’ll need a doctor to look at it.’
‘I know.’ But even though the darkness hid her expression, Helen knew Penny had no intention of seeing a doctor, no matter how bad her injury was.
‘Close those curtains and let’s see what we can do, shall we?’
Penny lay on the couch while Helen tended to her, gently swabbing the wound to cleanse it.
‘How did this really happen?’ he asked. ‘Was it an argument?’
‘I don’t know what you mean. I told you, I walked into a door—’
‘Willard, please. I’m not a fool.’ Helen sighed. ‘I’m taking a risk to help you, the least you can do is be honest with me.’
The fight seemed to go out of Penny.
‘Joe didn’t mean to do it,’ she said. ‘He just lost his temper, that’s all.’ She took a deep, ragged breath. ‘It was a silly thing, some man started talking to me in the pub. I shouldn’t have spoken back to him, I know Joe doesn’t like me talking to other men. But I was only being polite, I couldn’t very well ignore him—’
‘You’re allowed to talk to other people, you know,’ Helen said. ‘Joe doesn’t own you.’
‘He loves me,’ Penny insisted stoutly. ‘I’ve never had a man fight for me like that before. It shows he cares.’
‘It’s a strange way of showing it, to hit someone.’
‘It was just this once.’
‘Penny, I’ve seen the bruises on your arms,’ Helen said wearily. ‘I’ve seen the way you walk sometimes, as if your ribs are cracked. He’s usually more careful than this, isn’t he? He hits you where it won’t show.’
Penny stared up at her, her face full of dismay. ‘Do you – do you think anyone else knows?’ she whispered anxiously. ‘Oh, God, I’d be so ashamed if I thought people were talking about me.’
‘I don’t think anyone else has noticed.’
‘Thank God.’ Penny sighed with relief. ‘I don’t want anyone to think badly of him, you see. I mean, it’s not Joe’s fault. He just gets angry sometimes. But he does love me,’ she said. ‘He wouldn’t bother with me otherwise, would he?’
She looked up, her battered face so full of hope it nearly broke Helen’s heart. Without answering the question she finished cleansing the wound and bent to have a closer look.
‘That cut isn’t too deep, but it’s bad enough,’ she said. ‘I think it’s going to leave a nasty scar.’
‘Let me see.’ Penny struggled to sit upright and took the mirror Helen offered her. ‘Oh, no! It looks awful. People are bound to notice, aren’t they? What can I tell them?’ She looked panic-stricken. ‘I’ll have to put off the wedding,’ she said. ‘I can’t walk down the aisle with a big scar on my face, can I?’
Helen stared at her, appalled. ‘You’re surely not still going to marry him after this?’
A flush crept up Penny’s neck. ‘I told you, he’s not always like this. Most of the time he’s all right. I just have to be careful when he’s in one of his moods, that’s all.’
‘So you’re going to spend the rest of your life tiptoeing around, making sure you don’t upset him?’
‘You don’t understand!’ Penny thrust the mirror back into Helen’s hands and started to get off the couch. ‘Joe’s the most loving person I’ve ever known. Most of the men I’ve gone out with have upped and left me, but not Joe. He really cares about me, wants to spend the rest of his life with me. That says something, doesn’t it?’
‘It says you’re a f
ool if you marry him.’
Penny’s face puckered with anger. ‘I don’t want to end up lonely and on my own,’ she insisted. ‘What will that say about me, if I end up a miserable old maid like Sister Wren or Miss Hanley?’
‘It’s better than being married to the wrong man.’
‘Is it?’
Helen didn’t have time to reply because at that moment the door behind her opened. There was a click and Helen flinched as the room was suddenly filled with blinding light.
Dr McKay stood in the doorway, his arms folded across his chest, his expression icy.
‘Would someone mind telling me what the hell is going on?’ he said.
Chapter Fifty-Two
THERE WAS A moment of horrified silence. Helen glanced at Penny. She was trembling.
‘Well?’ Dr McKay said. ‘I’d like to know why I came back up here to fetch my bag, and I suddenly find two nurses in here without permission?’
Helen stepped forward. ‘I’m sorry, Dr McKay,’ she said, fighting to sound calm. ‘It was my decision to come here and I take full responsibility for it. Nurse Willard was injured, and she needed urgent treatment.’
‘I see.’ Dr McKay’s brown eyes turned to Penny’s face for a moment. ‘And it didn’t occur to you to call me?’
‘I—’
‘It was my fault, Doctor,’ Penny blurted out. ‘I asked Sister Dawson to help me. She wanted to call you, but I wouldn’t let her.’
I’m for it now, Helen thought, feeling his enquiring gaze on her.
‘How bad is it?’ he said.
She stared at him blankly. ‘I’m sorry, sir?’
‘The injury, Sister. How bad is it? You must have carried out some kind of assessment, surely.’ There was an edge of impatience in his voice.
Helen pulled herself together quickly. ‘The cut isn’t very deep, but I’m not sure if it needs sutures, sir,’ she replied.
‘Let’s have a look, shall we? If you don’t mind, Nurse Willard?’
‘N-no, Doctor.’
Helen caught Penny’s quick, panicked glance as she settled back on the couch.
She watched Dr McKay as he bent over, examining the injury. Helen was still too terrified to allow herself to breathe. But at the same time she felt strangely relieved that he was here. His presence calmed her, made her believe he could make everything right.
He straightened up. ‘Well, you’re right, it is quite bad. But I think we can get away with a collodion dressing to hold it together. Fetch the bottle, will you, Sister?’
Still bewildered by this turn of events, Helen hurried off to find it. Behind her, she was aware of Dr McKay scrubbing his hands under the running tap.
‘Shall I cleanse the wound a second time, Doctor?’ she asked. ‘It’s starting to bleed again.’
‘Yes, please, Sister. It will need to be quite dry to set the dressing.’
They worked closely together, he pinching the edges of the wound together while Helen dabbed away the blood. Then she carefully painted on the dressing.
‘That’s it. Now all we have to do is hold it together until it dries.’ Dr McKay looked up suddenly, his face only inches from Helen’s. His eyes were dark and fathomless and unexpectedly warm, and for a second their gazes held. Then, as if released from a magnet’s pull, they jerked apart.
After Dr McKay had finished dressing the wound, he ordered Helen to make ready one of the Sick Bay beds.
‘I’ll give you something for the pain, and sign you off for a couple of days,’ he told Penny. ‘That should give enough time for the swelling to go down. Although you’ll still have quite a shiner,’ he warned.
‘That’s all right, I can hide it under make-up,’ she said cheerfully. ‘No one will ever know.’ Helen and Dr McKay exchanged looks, but neither of them said anything.
‘Isn’t he wonderful?’ Penny whispered to Helen who was putting her to bed later. ‘I didn’t think he’d be so sweet about it, did you?’
‘No,’ Helen murmured back. Although she had the feeling Dr McKay was still going to take her to task once it was all over.
Sure enough, he was waiting for her in the consulting room when she returned a few minutes later.
‘You really should have called me, you know,’ he said, a note of reproach in his voice. ‘What if she’d cracked her eye socket?’
‘I know – I’m sorry.’ Now the panic was over, Helen realised how foolish she’d been. ‘As I said, I take full responsibility for it.’ She straightened her shoulders. ‘I assume you’ll be reporting me to Matron?’ she said stiffly.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Helen. Is that really what you think of me?’ He gave an exasperated sigh. ‘I meant I could have helped you, that’s all. You can trust me, you know.’
They looked at each other across the room, and something seemed to shift in the air between them.
‘I don’t suppose you’d like a medicinal brandy?’ he offered.
It was nearly midnight. The last place she should have been was drinking in the Sick Bay with a doctor. But it had been an evening of high emotion, and Helen was exhausted.
‘Yes, please,’ she said.
They sat in silence, Helen perched on the couch, Dr McKay behind the desk, sipping their brandy from china cups. But it wasn’t a tense or awkward silence. It was companionable, almost comfortable, each of them lost in their own thoughts.
‘I suppose it’s too much to hope that this might finally make her see the light where her boyfriend is concerned?’ Dr McKay said at last.
So he knew what Joe Armstrong was like, too. Helen wasn’t surprised Dr McKay had seen right through him. ‘I’m afraid not,’ she said. ‘She was more worried about whether her face would be scarred for the wedding.’
‘Good God.’ David McKay shook his head. ‘Silly girl. What does she see in him, I wonder?’
‘I don’t think it’s him particularly. It could be anyone who shows her attention. She just doesn’t want to be alone.’
‘I can understand that,’ he said.
Helen regarded him in surprise. ‘I didn’t realise you were in the same position,’ she said.
‘Oh, I’m not talking about myself,’ he dismissed this. ‘My father married again, shortly after my mother died, for the same reason. He was terrified at the prospect of being on his own, so he married the first woman who came along.’
‘What happened?’ Helen asked.
He sighed. ‘Unfortunately, like Nurse Willard’s fiancé, she turned out to be a thoroughly unpleasant piece of work. Led him a dog’s life, and bullied my sister and me. My father spent the rest of his life trying to please her, until she finally sent him to an early grave. It taught me a lesson, I can tell you. As far as I’m concerned, it’s far better to be lonely than with the wrong person.’
‘Then you’ve obviously never been lonely.’ Helen hadn’t meant to say it out loud, didn’t even realise she’d said the words until she looked up and caught Dr McKay watching her closely over the rim of his cup.
‘Oh, I’ve been lonely,’ he said softly. ‘I hadn’t realised just how lonely I was until someone special came into my life.’
Helen thought of the glamorous dark-haired woman waiting for him in reception, and the way he’d greeted her, and felt a strange pang. ‘I’m happy for you,’ she said quietly.
‘The wretched thing is, she’s with someone else.’
Helen looked up sharply to find him staring straight back at her. She felt a jolt, a shock of recognition. She suddenly realised that this was inevitable, that everything she had known and experienced had led her to this moment.
The realisation that, without a single shadow of a doubt, she loved him.
And he loved her, too. She could see it in the kindling warmth of his brown eyes.
‘Helen?’ He murmured her name softly. Too softly. It sounded dangerously like a caress.
She put down her cup with a clatter and jumped up. ‘I – I have to go.’
‘Helen, wait—’ But sh
e was already gone, putting as much space as she could between herself and a situation which she knew would be her certain fate, and her undoing.
Chapter Fifty-Three
THEY LOST ANOTHER two patients on Female Chronics during the warm August night.
‘That’s five just in the week we’ve been here,’ Effie said to Jess after they had finished performing last offices on poor Aggie Harman. It was always a sad job, and Sister Hyde insisted on its being done in absolute silence out of respect for the patient. ‘It’s almost as if they know something’s happening, isn’t it?’
‘Don’t be silly. They’re just old, that’s all,’ Jess, ever practical, said as she loaded the washing things on to the trolley. ‘Death is to be expected on a ward like this. Sister Hyde said so.’
‘You’re right, I suppose. Besides, most of them are too doolally to know what’s going on.’
‘Shhh!’ Jess glanced around guiltily. ‘Don’t let Sister hear you say that. You know she’s most particular about the way we treat the patients.’
‘“Nurses, you must go about your duties diligently and remember to smile and remain cheerful at all times,”’ Effie quoted back to her in Sister Hyde’s gravelly, upper-crust tones. They heard the same thing every morning when the ward sister was handing out the work lists. ‘She’s continually telling us to smile, but I’ve never seen her do it. She always looks boot-faced to me.’
‘I suppose it must be hard for her at the moment, knowing she’s got to send all the patients away,’ Jess said. ‘Staff was saying she’s nursed some of them for years. They must be like family to her.’
Some family, Effie thought. She couldn’t see why Sister was so worried about a bunch of dribbling, rambling women who had to sleep in cots to stop them wandering off or falling out of bed. Most of them couldn’t even ask for a bedpan, either. After a week of constantly stripping and remaking beds, scrubbing mackintoshes and soaking sheets, she’d had enough to last her a lifetime. She certainly didn’t think she would ever become attached to these patients.
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