by Sheila Burns
The garden of England, with the cherry orchards, the Weald, the abundance of snowy blossom in spring, and June when the crimson fruit started to drip amongst the leaves, was an attraction. She had visited it for one weekend and had adored it. There would be the hop gardens with the soft warm scent of the hops everywhere, hedges of honeysuckle and wild roses, oast houses, and tiled houses after the Kentish pattern; there would also be escape.
‘I ‒ I’d like it,’ she said, but faintly as though she was still half afraid. Afraid of what? Chris? Hospital chatterboxes? Herself? Maybe herself most of all.
He was going on talking.
‘Everybody has a baby in our neighbourhood, or so it seems! There is a big jam factory behind the hill, you would never believe it but it has been cunningly built, right away so that it does not spoil the Weald. There are hundreds of women employed there, of course, and some accidents. But it would be the village itself that affected you.’
‘It’s very good of you, sir, awfully good of you, and I am most deeply grateful, but …’
He had evidently made up his mind, for he ignored the ‘but’ completely.
‘I believe your day off is Saturday, and that is the day that I can run you down. I could take you in my car, and show you the place. My niece Mavis will feed us but we shall have to return after tea as I have to come back that night, for I am making some ghastly speech somewhere. It should suit you fine.’
She stood there looking at him.
It was the unbelievable situation, and Claire completely failed to say what she wanted to say. Here she stood facing the great surgeon, whose name the whole world knew. They were talking in a way that she had never anticipated. Perhaps she had thought that he had not noticed her, after all hundreds of nurses had served him, but he had noticed her. She knew this now.
‘I …’ she began, but he went on talking.
This was the man who missed nothing, perhaps his big bump of curiosity was what pushed him into observing everything and everybody. She should, of course, be proud that he was suggesting a job, and that it came at this, the very right moment. It would be madness to stay on here after what had happened tonight. But I love him, she thought, and then with courage wiped that away. She needed time to think. Time to assess how much she loved Chris, and wanted him, time to make sure that she made no mistakes.
Sir Charles said, ‘Come down and see it. You can always say no,’ then after a moment, with conviction, ‘but you won’t say no.’
There was one of those long moments when they say that you live through your life again, and she knew that her early life had ended at that moment when she had seen Chris kissing Lucille, long, lingeringly, almost with devotion, and she had been so sure that he was devoted to her! She had thought that his devotion was all her own, and had made a mistake. She said nothing.
Sir Charles spoke again, and it was an order, she knew. ‘Eleven-thirty in the courtyard on Saturday? You know my car?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Everybody knew his car.
He walked out of the room almost as if she had not been there at all. Almost as if she did not matter. He did not say goodbye; he had given her a command, a command which instinctively she knew she would obey. She watched him go, and she was aware of a quivering little pulse beating in her throat, it always did when she was excited. She saw now that half an hour ago she stood on the edge of a chasm; she had been in danger of losing her balance, and Sir Charles had known it. He was the man who had pulled her back to security.
In the last few minutes the whole of her world had changed, and possibly for ever. She was still in love with Chris. Deeply in love, more than the passing passion, but a fever which had eaten right down into her heart. She knew that she had lost him and that it could be for always. The other side of her prayed that he had indulged in one of those infatuations (as passing as they are sudden) which come to some men. If so, he would change again. He would realise what he had done, and want her back.
But she could not bear this again.
Here in hospital she had been taught to understand people and emotions, their reactions and their psychological selves. Common sense warned her that the glimpse of Chris kissing Lucille had been no accident. He would do it again. He was that sort of man, and how hurtful it could be!
Worst of all was the fact that she was not the type of person who could bear a flirtatious husband; it would hurt her too much, it was so entirely the opposite of her own self. She knew that she would find it utterly intolerable. To her, love was a sacred flame which burnt in her own heart like a single lamp in a shrine. She could not love and then flirt, for she herself loved too deeply. And she had to honour the man who evoked that love in her, and she could not tolerate anything which might happen to blight the brilliance of her own emotion.
I can’t go off to Kent, she thought. I’ll have to send Sir Charles a note. I’ll have to get out of it. He is rushing me into something, and I can’t do it.
Perhaps for the moment she was in no mood to choose.
She could not possibly go out to dinner with Chris now, so went to a little cheap restaurant round the corner, it was rather noisy, but scrupulously clean, which was something, and she knew no one there. She had coffee and a poached egg, and wondered how she would ever get it down.
The evening was drawing in when she returned to the great hospital. Tonight she would not go as usual to the Sisters’ lounge, where they sat and talked. She was not in the gossipy mood, and anyway the others would soon guess that something was wrong. It would be dreadful if they suspected the truth.
She wondered if they knew already.
Two nurses were walking ahead of her as she entered a dim corridor on the north side of the hospital. They talked happily as they walked, and evidently were unaware of the proximity of Claire. She could hear what they said.
‘Oh, but he’s always doing it! I feel sorry for Sister Dale, for she adores him.’
‘It was Lucille Gray today, and he’s taken her out to supper somewhere.’
‘Has he? Oh, my goodness! Well, it won’t last ten minutes, of course. Not with him.’
‘It never does with Chris Long, but I am so sorry for Sister Dale.’
‘So am I.’
She dropped further behind them and stepped aside into the shadows so that they would never know that she had been there. It was absurd to be lost in a welter of shame at the thought. The fault did not lie with her. The only fault was that she should have realised earlier that this attractive Chris was made this way, and when it came to it, could not stop himself.
She did not sleep that night.
She was haunted by the thought of a little village in the garden of England, an escape from the hospital, from the chatter, and from her first love affair now broken. The only thing for her to do was to get away. It might look like running away from life, which was the coward’s way out, but there was nothing else that she could do, and Sir Charles had known it.
She knew he’d help her.
She hated the thought which stabbed her and warned her that she still loved Chris, for emotions do not die so quickly. She had got to be brave. She had got to get away.
Chapter Three
Claire came on duty next day with a sinking heart.
She entered the labour room allotted to her, about ten minutes before the doctors would be due, and knew that already she was a shade late. Lucille was there; she was quite composed and calm, one would not have thought that she had done anything. She had prepared everything with skill, perhaps it was maddening that she was a good nurse. Claire had to admit that she had done her work well.
First on the list was a caesarian operation.
Claire was truly thankful that the anaesthetist arrived before she had the opportunity to speak to Lucille. In the night she had told herself that the first few minutes would be the worst. Once she had got through them, it should be easier. She shrank from Lucille, it was not that she hated her, she had the good sense to realise t
hat Chris had started it, but somehow she resented the silverish fairness of that exquisite hair, now hidden under a close operation cap, with her face masked. But the pale vague eyes watched her.
The anaesthetist was young and bright, the sort of man who flatters himself that he has a way with women. He came across to Claire.
‘My patient will be in in a moment. I came along to see everything was fixed,’ and his sharp eyes went to the head of the table. His gaiety never completely covered the fact that he was attentive to detail, and demanding.
‘Yes, sir.’
He was in his irritatingly amiable mood, which always annoyed Claire just before an operation. That was when she saw Chris striding in. The case had not been on his list. She had understood that Dan Powell was to operate (usually they took alternate days), and somehow she was not prepared for this. Instantly she knew that he also had had a difficult night, for she knew him so well that she was able to place his moods on sight. He looked haggard, for he was one of those swarthily dark men who show distress very quickly.
He said nothing to anyone, which was unusual, but went over to the basin to scrub down. She followed with the gown in its sealed bag. She went automatically, this was all part of her job, and last night could not change it. He did not speak to her (she told herself that there was very little that he could say), and the moment she had tied his gown she saw that Lucille had the bowl of gloves ready, and went over to the stretcher which was just being brought in. Little Katie Jones, student nurse, was with the patient.
Claire spoke to the girl, but doubted if she heard a word. She clasped her hand, but there was no responsive grip. They wheeled her to the table and carefully lifted her on to it with no response from her at all. The anaesthetist took his place and there came the sighing sound of a machine in action. The red light had been switched on over the door.
Claire saw Chris approaching her, with his hands dripping, and Lucille bringing his gloves out of the sterile tin with the tongs. He drew them on. For a single moment their eyes met, both over their masks, then quite deliberately she looked away from him.
Within seconds they had started on an operation which has a time limit and must go fast. Chris worked beautifully, he was a born surgeon, but then this particular operation had always been his best. She could hear his heavy breathing, a sign that he was as entirely lost in the operation as was the patient herself. They came to the moment when they approached the birth which was said first to have been given to Julius Caesar. Chris brought the living child into the world, and she took the boy from him.
She always felt a moment of supreme exultation when this happened and the child breathed. He screamed without being forced, which was unusual with a caesarian. The sound of his voice was loud and dominant, and Claire handed him over to Sister Jenkins, who was waiting for him, then she turned back to the young mother.
All of them concentrated their work on the girl who lay on the table. Her son would live, for he was a fine big boy, larger than they had expected by the way he had been lying. Claire gloried in the great moment, his first in this hard world, when she had received him into her own arms. It always seemed a shameful thing that one could be thankful to hear a child screaming, and grateful that he could cry. Maybe there would be a lot of tears in his life, for this is a cruel world, and few of us would ask to be born again if we had the chance.
After yesterday I wouldn’t, she thought, and instantly knew that Chris was asking for gut.
He was sewing-up now, something that he did quite beautifully, and with an amazing accuracy. She stood by him with the threaded needles, everything ready for him, handing them over one after the other, not even requiring to be told which he wanted, for she was so well used to his needs. One half of her rejoiced with him as a doctor, the other half of her mourned him as a man! It was incongruous.
It was difficult now to divide the doctor from the lover, who had so easily turned to other lips. She ought not to be thinking of it, and she tried to check herself as she saw the last bandage in place and the red light going off.
It meant that the stretcher party was ready to wheel the patient back to her ward. It would be some little time before she would be conscious again, and there would be pain. The caesarian operation was never painless, as some people thought it would be, blaming the doctors afterwards. The baby had already gone to the nursery where he would be comforted and quietened. She herself went to the door with the patient, and for the first time saw her face; it was particularly lovely, the face of a dark girl profoundly pale, but she looked like a flower.
When she returned to the theatre Chris had already left it, and Mr. Powell had taken over. She had never known a surgeon in such a hurry as Chris had been. The anaesthetist was going out of the door. He had another job from the St. Faith ward, a rush job, he said. Just as he went, Chris returned. He said that he had left his cuff links behind him.
‘I’ll get them,’ Claire told him.
She found them beside the wash basin, scooped them up into her hand, and brought them to him. They were alone in the doorway, the others round the table. Their eyes met.
‘Are we speaking to each other?’ he asked.
It was absurd that the mere question could arouse such a thrill in her. ‘We are on duty,’ she reminded him.
‘You always were sticky on these points. Too sticky. Of course we are on duty, but there is a lot more to it than that.’
She said nothing, for she knew that this was not the time, and he saw her uncertainty.
‘One moment,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to explain.’ He dropped his voice lest the others in the middle of the room heard what it was he said. ‘You made a mistake last night. You’ve got to let me explain.’
‘Please …?’
He spoke very quickly. ‘I went out last night, I did not try to find you, for I was so angry about the way that you took it.’
‘What did you expect?’
‘A chance to explain.’ She knew that he was very angry with her, for he shook. ‘Don’t be so bigoted, don’t spoil our happiness like this, but give me the chance.’
For a single moment she seemed to pause, not knowing what to do or what to say, then very slowly she said, ‘This is hardly the moment to talk.’
She had always known that he had a horrible temper when roused, and she saw that darkness coming into his face, the set mouth, and the obstinacy in his eyes. Possibly his extreme darkness (and the Spanish ancestor some generations behind him) made him worse-tempered than a fair-haired man would have been. She wanted to forgive him. She wanted the whole thing to be a mistake, something that could be wiped out and forgotten, something that she could throw aside from her, and be happy again.
‘Please, Chris.’
‘That’s better!’
She went from him, back to the table in the middle of the room where her help was wanted. The work of the hospital predominated every situation no matter what her own feelings were, no matter how much she loved this man. She could hear the sound of a trolley, of a patient in the early stages, and she went to the patient’s side. ‘I know it’s bad. Don’t worry too much, for soon it will all be over and you’ll have the nicest baby in all the world. It won’t be as bad as you think, I can promise you that. Mr. Powell will help you.’
When she looked round again the door had shut, and Chris had gone. She did not know what he had thought, and, immersed in work, she did not even have the time to care.
The work went on, it was one of those hard days when all the babies come at once. It tired her more than it had done before, or could it be that she was already exhausted from the bad night, before she started? The crisis with Chris had taken too much out of her, and it was not over yet. She was thankful when working hours were done, and the last baby was labelled and dispatched to the nursery (known as ‘The Early Birds’). Chris had come back for a special op at five o’clock, zero hour for them all. It had been a hard op but it had gone well. The student nurse looked at her.
&
nbsp; ‘You’re tired, Sister.’
‘Yes, I am tired today.’
‘So am I.’
‘Five more minutes and both of us are off duty and the night staff will be coming on,’ she said.
She counted the dressings as she brought them out of the cupboard. Five more minutes, she thought, and would not have believed that they could be such an eternity of time. She was wondering what Chris would do when he turned again from the basin, dried his hands, and she advanced with his coat. That was the second when he changed from surgeon to self. That was the second when he became the man whom she loved, the man she was half afraid of, yet still wanted so desperately to love. Perhaps all women were mad in their feelings for their men!
Tonight he was in a hurry, much more so than usual, and although earlier in the day he had seemed kindly, now he did not notice her. He had a funny little way of always fishing out his car key when he got his coat, and playing with it for a second before he went off to the courtyard. Tonight he did not even take the key out. He turned away and moved to the door, and Claire saw that his face was ashen. He was very tired.
‘Good night,’ he said.
He had gone then, and she knew that this was the first time that he had classified her with all the others. She had felt that she was a special person in his life, that she mattered to him, but somehow tonight she had not mattered at all. She had never thought that it could hurt her quite so much.
‘Untrustworthy’ was what Sister Stevens had said, and at the time she had resented it, but now there was the awful moment when she wondered if the older woman had not been right. She finished up.
‘Well, that’s that for another day,’ she told the student nurse, and said good night to her.
