Hospital Corridors

by Mary Burchell.

  HOSPITAL CORRIDORS

  Mary Burchell

  HE’D NEVER WELCOME HER LOVE

  While on her way over from England to nurse at a respected Montreal hospital, Madeline danced away an evening on shipboard with a handsome stranger. Her partner turned out to be none other than the illustrious Dr. Nat Lanyon—the very man her stepsister, Clarissa, had so recently jilted.

  During her first few weeks at Dominion Hospital Nat became Madeline’s friend and protector. But when he discovered who she was, he turned against her—at a time when Madeline needed him desperately.

  Madeline had to conclude that Nat still wanted Clarissa’s love—and not her own.

  CHAPTER I

  “Well, there it is!” The man standing beside Madeline at the ship’s rail turned his head to look at her and, for a moment, she felt as though his curiously brilliant glance took in every detail of her smooth dark hair and the warm pallor of her oval face. “Quebec—the only walled city in the whole continent of North America.”

  “The only one?” Madeline gazed, fascinated, at the towering cliffs which dwarfed even the great ship that had brought them all those miles across the Atlantic. “Isn’t that rather remarkable?”

  “It must seem so to anyone who comes from the other side,” he agreed. “I suppose in that one sentence you have the explanation of why Canadians and Americans find it so hard to understand the hates and fears which divide Europe.”

  “Ye-es?” She looked a little enquiring.

  “Think of the city walls or gates in the north of England, in the south of England, in France, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Italy—all monuments to a time when people hated and feared each other, with good reason—and imagine that in the whole continent of North America only one city ever thought it necessary to put up semi-permanent fortifications against a possible enemy! And then they were not used,” he added with a laugh. “It’s a different mentality—a different world.”

  She glanced at him a little shyly and wished she could remember her history better. Then she looked back at the cliffs, dark against the late evening sky but edged still with the last faint gold of the sun that had already set.

  “Is that a castle perched on the very top?” she enquired.

  “Not a real castle. It’s the Chateau Frontenac, one of the most famous and certainly one of the most romantically situated hotels in the world.”

  “It doesn’t look as though anyone could ever get up there,” Madeline said.

  “I guess that’s the way it seemed to Wolfe, when he looked up there for the first time, long before either the Chateau or the fortifications were built,” the man replied with a grim little smile.

  Passionate desire for information about this new country then got the better of her.

  “I’m ashamed that I don’t remember more,” she admitted. “It’s something to do with the conquest of Canada in the eighteenth century, isn’t it?”

  He nodded, apparently not minding her ignorance but, rather, liking the chance to tell the story.

  “It was during the Seven Years’ War, when England and France were in conflict, not only in Europe but in their recently established colonies. General Wolfe’s instructions were simply to take Quebec from the French. He landed in that cove over there, below the cliff.” He pointed with a hand which, Madeline noticed even then, was both strong and sensitive. “No one believed that any army could scale the Heights of Abraham, and the French felt so safe that they hardly even kept watch.”

  “Please go on.” Madeline turned to gaze in fascination at the spot where history had been, not written, but lived.

  “Wolfe brought his men up that impossible cliff by night And when morning dawned the British army was drawn up in battle array on the Plains of Abraham. The battle took place and, in the moment of victory, Wolfe was killed. So was Montcalm, the defeated general.” The man paused, then he said quietly, almost gently, “There’s a common monument to them both.”

  “That’s—wonderful,” the girl said softly.

  “It’s—Canada,” the man retorted a little whimsically.

  Then he gave her the slight, almost curt nod which she was beginning to recognize as characteristic, and left her.

  Madeline stood looking after him as he threaded his way among the other people on deck, and she wished she knew who he was. In the very few leisure hours which had been at her disposal during this voyage she had, she supposed, seen more of him than of any other casual contact And yet she had no idea of his identity.

  But then he had no idea of hers either. Perhaps he did not wish to, she thought, and somehow the possibility piqued her a little. Though what there was for him to know, she admitted to herself the next moment with some humour, was not of overwhelming interest She was just Nurse Madeline Gill, travelling to Montreal to work in the big Dominion Hospital there, and the sole reason for her presence in the first class was that she was in charge of the very rich, very beautiful, very tiresome Mrs. Sanders.

  It had not really been Madeline’s intention that she should burden herself with the care of an exacting patient on this voyage. It was only because Mrs. Sanders was highly nervous of flying that she had been obliged to make the long journey by ship at all. Mrs. Sanders had been one of the bright ideas of her half-sister, Clarissa, and Clarissa’s bright ideas tended to be based on impulse, tinged with self-interest—and paid for by someone other than herself.

  Perfectly well aware of this though she was, in an amused, tolerant way, Madeline was yet fond of her half-sister, who had great personal charm. She was, however, even fonder of her stepmother, for it had been a blessed day when Madeline’s father, left a widower when she herself was less than two years old, had married the charming, rather frivolous-seeming Enid Haldane.

  Most people in Professor Gill’s somewhat academic circle had regarded the marriage with disfavour. But, in point of fact, the second Mrs. Gill concealed beneath a lighthearted exterior a warm heart and infinite resource. She had brought into the confused and dejected household of the widowed Professor not only order, but an atmosphere of sweet-tempered inconsequence in which love and laughter had flourished. Moreover, from the day she entered the house, she had taken Madeline to her heart, and never by word, look or deed had she implied that her stepdaughter was any less dear to her than her own Clarissa, who was born a year later.

  The two girls got on well but never achieved real intimacy of heart and spirit. They differed both in looks and disposition, and when they grew up Clarissa gravitated inevitably to London, where she became secretary to Morton Sanders, who was one of the most successful novelists and playwrights of the day. Madeline meanwhile remained in the Yorkshire town in which she had been born and took her nurse’s training in the big hospital there.

  As she stood now on the deck of the great transatlantic liner, watching the last of the evening light glimmer on the slow-moving waters of the mighty St. Lawrence, Madeline rather thoughtfully reviewed the events which had brought her all these thousands of miles to a new life and a new land.

  First there had been her father’s death and her stepmother’s consequent desire to move away from the town which now held too many sad memories for her.

  “I thought I might move to London,” she said doubtfully to Madeline. “I should be near Clarissa then, and you might transfer to one of the big hospitals there.”

  But Madeline did not care for the plan. She had recently completed her training, and she thought that, if she did make a change, she wanted it to be something more exciting than merely a transfer to another spell of much the same routine, institutional life she had known during the last four or five years.

  It was Clarissa who, at home for her father’s funeral and therefore present at more family d
iscussions than usual, made an entirely unexpected contribution.

  “Why don’t we all emigrate?” she said, when consulted. “We could go to—oh, let’s say—Canada.”

  The other two looked taken aback.

  “Why Canada?” Madeline enquired, knowing that there was usually some personal consideration behind even the wildest of Clarissa’s impulses.

  “Well—” For a moment her half-sister hesitated. Then she apparently made up her mind to be more informative than she usually was about her own affairs. “I haven’t told either of you yet—I haven’t really quite made up my own mind—but I’m probably going to marry a Canadian doctor, and I thought—”

  “Clarissa!” Both Enid and Madeline were astonished, dismayed and delighted, in the way one is when happy news and imminent separation crowd upon one another.

  “Who is he, darling? What’s his name?” Enid looked half fearfully, half tenderly at her lovely child.

  “He’s a surgeon, Mummy—very brilliant, everyone tells me. His name is Nat—Nathaniel Lanyon. He’s been over here for a few months to do some lectures or something, and will be here a few months longer. I met him about six weeks ago.”

  “Oh, darling! Is that time enough to have made up your mind?” her mother exclaimed anxiously.

  “Not quite. But,” Clarissa laughed, “he’s made up his. He’s tremendously attractive in a rather—rather arrogant sort of way. I suppose you’ll think he’s a bit old for me, but—”

  “How old?” Enid asked quickly.

  “Thirty-two.”

  “That’s young for a brilliant surgeon,” Madeline put in. “Anyway,” Clarissa went on, “I thought Madeline might like to have a year or so nursing in a Canadian hospital. Nat says they have quite a number of English girls who go over there. You do an extra year’s training and then become a Canadian registered nurse, and can stay on or not, as you please. I thought it would be wonderful to have you both there, and then I shouldn’t feel homesick.”

  Even then, Madeline had been hard put to it not to laugh. Clarissa’s naive assumption that everyone would alter their lives to suit her arrangements was quite characteristic. At the same time, there was something a little touching in the fact that she wanted them both with her. Impulsive though the decision had seemed at first, she had evidently given it some thought—at any rate so far as fitting everything into her own plan was concerned.

  “I don’t think I should like to make such a drastic change, darling,” Enid said slowly. “I’m older than both of you and my roots are here.” She sighed for the roots that had already been pulled up. “And though I might come out and visit you later, I should have to think a long while before I decided to emigrate.”

  “Well, if you even came for a long visit that would be wonderful!” Clarissa began to rearrange her plans. “Madeline and I would—”

  “Darling Clarissa, I haven’t said I’m coming either,” Madeline had interrupted with a smile. “I too find the idea of emigration a bit sudden.”

  “But a year in a hospital there isn’t exactly emigration! You might consider that, surely?” exclaimed Clarissa impatiently. “You don’t want to stay at All Souls for the rest of your life, for heaven’s sake!”

  No, she did not, Madeline knew. She had been looking round rather vaguely for some sort of change which would promise new experience, new surroundings, new—adventure, she supposed was the word that came to mind. This proposal of Clarissa’s, crazy though it had sounded at first, did indeed suggest all these.

  “I’ll think about it,” she promised. “There’s no tremendous hurry, I take it?”

  “Well—” Clarissa looked only half satisfied and gave no special reassurance on that head. She liked to decide (and even to act sometimes) in a tremendous hurry.

  During the next few weeks Madeline made her enquiries, studied literature from travel agencies and waited to hear news of Clarissa’s engagement.

  The more she considered this idea of a year in a Canadian hospital, the more she liked it. From all accounts, the conditions were good, and about the thrilling interest of the journey itself there was no question.

  “SEE CANADA!” suggested one of the travel leaflets beguilingly, and Madeline turned the pages on a series of admirable colour photographs. Mountain and lakeland, plain and city were depicted there. And, though it was possible that in real life the blue of an unknown Lake Louise was perhaps not quite so magical, the towering glacier in the background was breathtaking. And if autumn did not really come down with quite such golden glory on the Laurentian Mountains, at least Madeline began to think that she wanted to go and see it for herself.

  Clarissa, who wrote seldom, wrote just then and urged her to start negotiations with one of the hospitals in Montreal, as it was there that she expected to live. And, after some correspondence, and with much fewer complications than she had expected, Madeline arranged to be entered as a student nurse at the Dominion Hospital there.

  Enid was enthusiastic over the new arrangements. She herself had finally decided to live for a while with a favourite bachelor brother somewhere on the south coast, and she was delighted that Madeline, as well as Clarissa, had decided on a future which would not require her to keep her own home going.

  “Not that I shan’t miss you both, darling,” she told Madeline. “But I’m so glad for you to have such wonderful experiences to look forward to. And then, provided my bank balance will allow of it, I shall certainly come out and visit you. If I like it there, we might even—Well, we’ll see.”

  At this point Clarissa wrote to say she had just married the nicest man in the world—who turned out to be, not Nat Lanyon, but a certain Gerald Maine, of whom neither Enid nor Madeline had ever heard.

  It’s all terribly sudden, I know [she wrote]. But when you meet Gerald you will understand. I’m afraid poor Nat has taken my defection badly. But, as I told him, it’s so much better I should find out now, rather than later. It isn’t as though we were absolutely engaged. Anyway, there was no question of anyone else. I’ve known Gerald for quite a time, but it was only in the last weeks that we found out how we felt about each other.

  We’re having a honeymoon in Paris. I’m sorry, darlings, that there was no big and glamorous wedding—but maybe that wouldn’t have done anyway, so soon after Daddy’s funeral. As it was, Gerald had to go to Paris on business, so it seemed absurd not to take the chance of making that our honeymoon. You do understand, don’t you?

  Of course they understood. They were considerably taken aback, they were anxious over the suddenness of her choice, they felt guilty on her behalf so far as the unfortunate Nat Lanyon was concerned. But they understood all right, for this, alas, was the way Clarissa had always managed her own life and those of other people.

  “I feel dreadfully sorry for that other poor boy,” Enid said.

  “He’s not a boy, Enid, which makes it worse,” Madeline pointed out. “He is, if Clarissa’s original description is to be believed, a successful and distinguished man, who’s probably received a bad blow to his pride as well as his affections.”

  “Oh, dear! But people do get over these things,” Enid said hopefully. “And anyway, I can’t help a certain relief to think you won’t either of you be going so far away after all. I was delighted for your sakes before, but if you don’t have to go—”

  “But I am going,” Madeline stated firmly.

  “Without Clarissa—or anyone else?”

  “Certainly. I’ve made all my arrangements, I’ve been looking forward to this trip for weeks, and I’ve no intention of altering my plans now.”

  “But the whole plan was based on the idea of Clarissa being there—with a home of her own,” Enid protested.

  “Really, I can’t help that.” Madeline sounded a little impatient for once. “I want to go to Canada now purely from my own point of view, and I’m certainly not going to arrange and rearrange my life according to Clarissa’s rather unpredictable decisions. I’m sorry she won’t be there, but I
am going.” And so, disregarding the measure of nervousness and anxiety now imparted to the plan, Madeline determinedly went ahead with her arrangements.

  Less than a fortnight before she was due to leave, Clarissa returned from her honeymoon and, accompanied by the husband she had preferred to the distinguished Nat Lanyon, she came north to visit her mother and stepsister.

  Secretly, Madeline had not much liked Gerald Maine, whom she thought altogether too casual, though witty and evidently prepared to make himself charming. But Clarissa seemed very well satisfied with her choice and that, after all, Madeline told herself, was the important thing where Gerald was concerned.

  “I was astonished when you wrote and told me you were going on with your Canadian project,” Clarissa said. “But I suppose it’s a case of almost anything for a change after those dreary years at All Souls.”

  Madeline said drily that was not quite how she had looked at it. That, in fact, she loved her work, that, broadly speaking, she had greatly enjoyed her years at All Souls, but that the Canadian trip, once she had made the decision, seemed to her to promise some wonderful experiences.

  “Yes—well, of course,” agreed Clarissa, who had not attended to much more than the first third of this. “But I was just going to tell you—the most extraordinary piece of luck happened! You’ll never guess what I’ve managed to do for you, darling. I’ve more or less arranged for you to travel first class on the Empress of Dunedin with all your expenses paid.”

  “But,” said Madeline, controlling a desire to scream at Clarissa’s pleasantly arbitrary way of riding roughshod over other people’s affairs, “I have already arranged to fly, and have paid my fare.”

  “Then you can unpay it,” Clarissa assured her. “I mean, it can be refunded, or whatever they do in these cases. There’s no point in spending money unnecessarily. Besides, first class is not to be sneezed at. I went in to see Morton Sanders when I got back from my honeymoon, more or less to see how my successor was getting on. And then I found that he was going to Montreal on family business. He is half Canadian, you know. He and his mother will be travelling on that boat with you, as she has nerve trouble or something and refuses to fly, and she needs a nurse to look after her on the voyage. I thought of you at once. It’s perfect, isn’t it?”