Nurse Hilary

by Peggy Gaddis

  “So now I’m an old man, possessed of enough of this world’s goods to guarantee me comfort and security for my declining years, but without a soul who cares whether I live or die,” he said slowly. “Don’t let that happen to you, my dear.”

  There were tears in Hilary’s eyes and her smile was tremulous.

  “I won’t, Mr. Hodding,” she promised him gently.

  The dining room was emptying, the waitresses were clearing tables and turning out lights, and Mr. Hodding rose as Hilary did, and looked about him as though surprised at the passage of time.

  “My dear child, I’ve bored you to death, I’m afraid,” he apologized.

  “You haven’t at all—I’ve loved it!” Hilary assured him as they left the dining room. “Please tell me more sometime. I’ll be looking forward to it.”

  “You’re very kind,” said Mr. Hodding, gave her his slight, old-fashioned bow and moved down the corridor toward the wing that housed the men guests of the Club.

  Hilary watched him for a moment before she turned to go to her own room. As she turned a light, a small red twinkling one, in front of one of the doors along the women’s corridor, caught her eye. She hurried towards that silent signal for help, wondering which of the practical nurses was on duty and had failed to see that light.

  She was startled as she realized it was on above the door of 312, to which Mrs. Barton had been assigned. She paused for a moment before she tapped lightly on the door and heard a murmur that she took to be permission to enter.

  She opened the door into a dark, over-warm room and heard a small, whimpering sound that was like a puppy in distress. Her fingers found the light switch, and warm amber light filled the room. The whimpering stopped, and Mrs. Barton turned over in bed and peered at her, tears wet on her cheeks.

  “You said if I pushed the button, you’d come,” she whimpered. “I did—but you didn’t.”

  “I’m terribly sorry, Mrs. Barton. I went off duty at six, but one of the P.N.s should have seen your light and answered it,” Hilary soothed her. “But I’m here now. What’s the matter?”

  “Nobody brought me any supper,” whimpered Mrs. Barton. “And I didn’t eat any lunch—I couldn’t, there was such a lump in my throat. And I’m so hungry...”

  “But, Mrs. Barton honey, why didn’t you come down to the dining room for dinner?” wondered Hilary.

  Mrs. Barton’s tear-dimmed eyes widened.

  “Oh, was I supposed to? I thought trays were brought to the rooms like any other hospital.” Mrs. Barton was dumbfounded.

  “Oh, we serve trays in the rooms to guests who are unable to come to the dining room, but we think it is much better for ambulatory—I mean, for those who feel strong enough—to come to the dining room. It’s so much more cheerful for you to meet the other guests, and often there’s entertainment in the club room, and it’s really lots of fun,” Hilary explained gently.

  Mrs. Barton’s tear-reddened face was downcast.

  “I didn’t know that,” she stammered.

  “Well, it’s our fault; we should have explained,” Hilary comforted her. “But don’t you worry. The kitchen is closed for the night, but I’m sure I can find you something. You just wait right here.”

  “I hate to be a bother ...”

  “Nonsense, you aren’t at all,” Hilary scolded her gently. “Now you just relax and make yourself comfortable, and I’ll get you some supper.”

  She went quickly out of the room and toward the kitchen wing. When she came back along the hall a little later, Dr. Marsden was just entering the lobby, pausing at the switchboard to pick up any messages that might have come in during his absence. He looked up, saw Hilary with the tray, and his eyebrows rose as he came swiftly toward her.

  “Do we have a bed patient, Miss Westbrook? Nobody reported it to me.” He looked swiftly over the tray.

  Hilary explained briefly, and he looked annoyed.

  “You must make it quite plain to her, Miss Westbrook, that she will be expected to have her meals in the dining room with the others hereafter,” he said forcefully. “We can’t have this sort of thing: guests demanding room service, lurking in their own rooms, refusing to mix with the others. If one starts it, the others will follow suit, and the whole discipline of the place will fall apart.”

  “Yes, Doctor,” said Hilary without expression. “But I may give her this food tonight? After all, she’s had nothing to eat since breakfast—and she is tired and upset...”

  “Chicken soup? A chicken sandwich? Bit of salad? Glass of milk?” Dr. Marsden checked the tray swiftly. “Yes, that’s all right. I only hope that her medical history doesn’t forbid midnight feeding.”

  And before Hilary could remind him that it was barely after nine, he strode away toward his own quarters. And Hilary, feeling that she had never disliked a man so much in her life, set her mouth into a thin line and went on down to 312 with Mrs. Barton’s supper.

  Mrs. Barton’s eyes gleamed with childlike pleasure as Hilary put the tray on a small table and whipped the covering napkin away.

  “There, does that look good? It was the best I could do, with the kitchen closed, and the snack bar all locked up.” Hilary smiled. “I do hope you’ll enjoy it. You will come down to the dining room for breakfast in the morning, won’t you?”

  “Oh, yes, of course.” Mrs. Barton was consuming her soup with the eager appetite of a child. “And I’m terribly sorry I’ve been such a nuisance!”

  “You haven’t been, at all. It was all my fault for not making sure that you understood the rules. And the P.N. on this corridor should have seen your light when you first put it on,” Hilary comforted her.

  “What’s a P.N.?” asked Mrs. Barton curiously, between eager spoonfuls of soup.

  “A practical nurse,” Hilary answered, laughing a little.

  Mrs. Barton nodded, and Hilary saw that she had lost interest in everything but the contents of her tray. So she said good night and left the room, to hunt up the P.N. who should have seen the tiny red light and answered it, and to tell her about the tray that would have to be removed when Mrs. Barton had finished.

  Chapter Eight

  In mid-morning the following day, Ethel the switchboard operator called to her as she was crossing the lobby.

  “Dr. Marsden would like to see you, if you aren’t too busy, Miss Westbrook,” said Ethel, and winked. “You’d better not be! I think he’s in a jam.”

  “Fancy that!” murmured Hilary wickedly, and Ethel chuckled.

  Hilary opened the door into Dr. Marsden’s office and said politely, “You wanted to see me, Doctor?”

  Dr. Marsden ran his fingers through his hair in an almost boyish gesture of harassment.

  “I’d like to ask a favor, Miss ‘Westbrook,” he answered. “My clinic nurse is unable to get here today, and if you aren’t too busy elsewhere, I wondered if you could help me.”

  “I’d love to, Doctor,” Hilary answered with such sincere warmth that Dr. Marsden looked up at her and chuckled.

  “The frou-frou getting you down, Nurse?” he asked, so completely to her surprise that Hilary felt the color rise in her cheeks even as she laughed.

  “Well, taking care of our—guests who really require very little in the way of nursing doesn’t give one much scope, does it?” she asked, walking with him across his office and through the door that led to the clinic.

  “If you’re going to stay on here, Nurse—and I hope you are—you’ll have to take up gerontology,” he said lightly. “A fascinating study, by the way. It begins with the study of apes.”

  Hilary blinked in astonishment, and once more he laughed.

  “They age so much faster than human beings,” he explained. “An ape, at thirteen, is the equivalent of a man at seventy—”

  “The equivalent?” Hilary objected.

  “In the process of aging, I meant, of course,” Dr. Marsden told her, a twinkle in his blue eyes. He held the door into the clinic open for her and followed her through.<
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  The room was already well-filled, despite the raw, cold rain that was falling in a slow, dispiriting drizzle. There were mothers with fretful babies, expectant mothers, awkward-looking men with enormous bandages to indicate injured limbs...

  They all looked up expectantly as Dr. Marsden and Hilary came in.

  “Good morning,” said Dr. Marsden. “This is Miss Westbrook, who’s going to assist me today. Miss Hazelton is not coming in. So you’ll have to give Miss Westbrook your names, and then give her time to find your charts, before she can help you.”

  Hilary sent a warm, friendly smile around the group, as Dr. Marsden went back to his office.

  “Let’s see now,” said Hilary, “who’s first?”

  “I reckon I am miss.” A worn-looking woman in a too-thin coat, a ragged scarf about her head, rose with a baby in her arms, a tiny, waxen-faced thing that twisted Hilary’s heart with pity. “It’s Samuel here’s the patient. Seems like we just can’t get him to eat, and he cries ’bout all the time.”

  The baby twisted in her arms, wailing fretfully, and Hilary’s experienced ears scarcely needed the chart which she located as the woman gave her name to understand that the child’s trouble was chiefly malnutrition. The poor mite was starving to death! She caught her thoughts back, and ushered the woman into Dr. Marsden’s treatment room.

  She worked happily throughout the morning; happily, because here she felt that her nursing skill, her ability, were needed and being turned toward the purpose for which she had worked hard to acquire them.

  She lost track of time. Gradually the group thinned out, until at last she helped Dr. Marsden change the dressing on an arm cruelly gored by a bull. She smiled wearily.

  “And that’s the last one,” she announced.

  “And clinic hours were over an hour ago,” he reminded her, smiling. “You’d better run along and get some lunch. Can you come back from two until four?”

  “Of course,” Hilary assured him. “There’s nothing in the Club that the P.N.s can’t handle, and Middy’s there.”

  “Good!” said Dr. Marsden. “I can’t tell you what a pleasure it’s been to have your assistance. Janie’s a nice child but—well, you’re a nurse!”

  Hilary glowed happily.

  “Aren’t you coming to lunch, Doctor?” she asked, watching him hang up his white coat, slide into his jacket and overcoat, reach for his black bag.

  “No, I have some house calls, and on a day like this I’ll have to step lively to make them and get back in time for the clinic,” he told her.

  “But, Doctor, you can’t go without food.”

  “I have a couple of patients I simply have to see, Nurse. I’m—well, I’m worried about them,” he admitted, and looked a little abashed. “I know it’s considered unprofessional to get personally involved in a patient’s problems, but there it is.”

  “I’ll bring you a tray when you get back, and you can eat while I keep the clinic patients occupied,” she told him firmly.

  He was already at the door opening into the clinic but at the mention of a tray he turned and glanced at her, his blue eyes brimming with abashed laughter.

  “So we’re going to have a tray patient after all, and it’s going to be me?” he mocked lightly, and added quickly, “I want to apologize for last night.”

  “Oh, skip it,” urged Hilary. “You just didn’t understand. I mean, if you knew Mrs. Barton ...”

  “I had that pleasure first thing this morning, and she is really a grand little soul,” said Dr. Marsden firmly, and scowled. “I’m wondering how she is going to adjust to the Club. She seems so frightened and forlorn, like a small bird that’s escaped its cage and wishes it could find the way back inside.”

  He seemed to remember the passing of time, and pulled himself up, lifted his hat in a little salute and went hurrying out.

  Hilary came into the dining room, looked swiftly about for a vacant table, and in a far corner saw Mrs. Barton. Neat, crisply fresh in a pale gray cotton dress with tiny yellow flowers sprinkled over it, Mrs. Barton sat drawn back, looking about her with wide, terrified eyes.

  Hilary went swiftly toward her, and the way Mrs. Barton’s eyes lit up at the sight of her touched Hilary deeply.

  “Oh, I’m so glad to see you, Miss Westbrook,” Mrs. Barton murmured, looking about her uneasily at the other women in their smart, expensive morning dresses. “I feel so lost! I just don’t belong in a place like this!”

  “Nonsense, of course you do,” said Hilary lightly. “It’s just that you haven’t had a chance to get acquainted.”

  Mrs. Barton threw an anxious glance about the room and seemed to shrink into an even smaller space.

  “They—they all look so—so—well, so sure of themselves,” she said huskily. “I just wouldn’t know what to talk about to them. I’m not used to women who wear expensive clothes in the mornings!”

  She tilted her chin defiantly at Hilary as though fearful of being laughed at.

  “All my friends have housework and cleaning and cooking to do, and children to look after and gardening,” she went on in a little rush of words. “These women look as if they’d never had a worry in the world. I’m going to write Jill to come and take me back home. I’ll find somebody to stay with me...” Her voice broke, and she set her teeth hard in her lower lip to control its quivering.

  Hilary waited, not trying to answer her, knowing that it was good for her to talk out her uneasiness.

  “They brought me here because they had made all sorts of inquiries and people said this was the finest old people’s home in the South, and they thought I’d be happy here,” Mrs. Barton went on after a moment. “They said I’d find people of my generation that I could be friends with. They can’t really afford to keep me here, I know. Oh, Jill claims Elliott’s making money hand over fist and Juddy’s doing real well, too; but it’s not right for them to have to pay out so much money for me to stay here. I’d be much happier at home, with a companion. Maybe I could rent a room—or fix up an apartment—and then I’d have my garden.”

  Hilary listened, her heart twisting.

  Mrs. Barton drew a long, hard breath and looked across the small table at Hilary.

  “I don’t want to be a nuisance, Miss Westbrook,” she pleaded. “But I’m so homesick I could just about die!”

  Hilary glanced about the room, wishing she knew the women in it better, so that she could select someone who would be congenial as a friend for Mrs. Barton. And then she saw Mr. Hodding just entering the room, which was well-filled now.

  “Excuse me,” she said hurriedly to Mrs. Barton and went quickly to Mr. Hodding, who greeted her with a pleased smile. “Mr. Hodding, will you do me a favor?”

  Mr. Hodding beamed at her.

  “Why, my dear, it would be a privilege,” he assured her warmly.

  Hilary slipped her hand through his arm and murmured swiftly, “We have a new guest who just arrived last night, and she’s terribly homesick and lonely. Please come and have lunch at her table and cheer her up.”

  “I’m flattered,” said Mr. Hodding wryly, “that you think I can. Cheer her up, I mean.”

  They were at the table now, and there was no time for Hilary to answer.

  “Mrs. Barton,” she addressed the old woman, who lifted shy, frightened eyes to Mr. Hodding’s pleasant old face, “may I present Mr. Hodding? He’s been here several months, and I’m sure he can tell you a lot of nice things. We do want our guests to be happy.”

  “Mrs. Barton, it’s a great pleasure,” said Mr. Hodding, reading with swift understanding the fear and panic in the woman’s tear-dimmed eyes, and holding out his hand into which hers slipped shyly, hesitantly. “Have you finished your lunch? May I join you?”

  Mrs. Barton looked up at Hilary, who smiled reassuringly. “I have to run along, so you take my chair, Mr. Hodding,” she said pleasantly. “I’m helping Dr. Marsden in the clinic. Be sure you tell her all about the entertainment program and show her the library and—oh,
everything you think will make her feel at home, won’t you, Mr. Hodding?”

  “I shall be very happy to,” said Mr. Hodding, smiling.

  Mrs. Barton flashed him a shy glance, and then looked up at Hilary and managed a faint smile. And to Hilary’s delighted surprise, there was an ever so faint hint of almost forgotten coquetry in Mrs. Barton’s eyes as she transferred her smile to Mr. Hodding.

  Chapter Nine

  He came in a little before two, looking tired and cold and harassed. But when his eyes fell on the appetizing tray Hilary had brought in for him, he looked at her with warm appreciation.

  “It hadn’t occurred to me that I was hungry,” he admitted, smiling. “But now I find that I’m ravenous.”

  “I thought you would be,” Hilary assured him lightly. “Please eat it while the soup is hot. And you can give me notes on your house calls, and I’ll put them on the chart after we’ve finished clinic hours.”

  He nodded, and began giving her the details, which she jotted down swiftly and competently. And when the tray was empty and the notes were in order, he heaved a deep sigh as he lit a cigarette and poured the last cup of coffee from the small thermos.

  “Thad Carter should be in a hospital where he can be properly cared for.” He obviously was speaking his thoughts aloud; his brows were drawn together in a scowl. “But the county hospital is overcrowded, and he’s not eligible for Grady Memorial, in Atlanta.”

  He struck his clenched fist unexpectedly on his desk, and his eyes were cold and hard.

  “And when I think of these two empty wards here, all fitted up and equipped and empty—”

  Hilary’s eyes widened.

  “We have two empty wards here, and you can’t bring a patient like this Mr. Carter here where you can take care of him?” she protested, amazed.

  Dr. Marsden’s smile was tight-lipped and grim, his eyes stormy.

  “Mr. Ramsey feels it would ‘lower the tone’ of the Town and Country Retirement Club if it was known that we have charity patients in the wards,” he said dryly. “And Mr. Ramsey sets great store by the ‘tone’ of the T. & C.”