Hospital Corridors

by Mary Burchell.

  “Of course. But it’s a bit tricky,” Eileen explained. “To begin with, she’s the sister of the Chairman of the Hospital Board—”

  “Oh, oh!”

  “Exactly. And then she was appointed to that post before Miss Onslow’s time. There’s the politest of aimed truces between them, but Miss Onslow is too good an organizer not to know that Flossie is miscast, so to speak. But it’s easier to make an appointment than to break it, and I guess Miss Onslow will have to bide her time for some while yet before she can make any change in that direction.”

  “I see. Is there anything else you’re going to tell me about the staff and personnel?” Madeline enquired with a smile.

  “Oh, my dear! That’s a chapter in itself,” Eileen declared cheerfully. “Ask me about anyone who particularly interests you in a week’s time and I’ll do my best. But you’d better see first how you get on and where you’re going to be assigned.” “I expect you’re right.”

  “But”—Eileen added, with a sudden, flashing smile—“shall I tell you who’s the very nicest of all the surgeons?”

  “Please do,” Madeline said, suddenly remembering Nat Lanyon and experiencing a little thrill of amused anticipation.

  “My uncle,” stated Eileen. “Dr. George Edney. He’s quite old, really. Sixty at least. But I adore him, and so does everyone else.”

  “Why, how very nice!” In some way, Madeline was touched by the other girl’s family pride and enthusiasm. “It must be lovely to have a member of your family in the same hospital.”

  “It doesn’t make any difference to my own status, of course. But it’s nice to meet a familiar and well-loved figure occasionally. Particularly in your first year!”

  “It must have been,” Madeline agreed fervently, remembering the loneliness and anxieties of her own first few months in hospital. And then, since her companion’s flood of information appeared to be ebbing, she said carelessly,

  “Funnily enough, one of the Dominion surgeons was on board my ship when I was coming over. A Dr. Lanyon.” Eileen turned and regarded her with round, astonished eyes.

  “A Dr. Lanyon? My dear girl, do you mean the Dr. Lanyon—Nat Lanyon? You must, because there isn’t any other.”

  “Yes, that was his name.”

  “How thrilling! I wonder what he was doing on a boat? Did you see him at all?”

  “I danced with him,” Madeline said.

  “You—” Eileen laughed suddenly. “Does he dance?”

  “Rather well, as a matter of fact.”

  “I never supposed he thought of anything but cutting people up in the neatest and most miraculous way possible. I was assistant theatre nurse under him for three months,” Eileen said reminiscently, “and I can’t recall that he made one chatty or personal observation to anyone during that time. But boy, could he operate!”

  Madeline laughed in her turn and looked interested.

  “Is he so good?”

  “He’s fantastic. My uncle says he’s the finest anatomist in the country, which makes him very quick, and yet everything is done with the imagination and intuition of an artist.”

  Madeline thought of those strong, sensitive hands which had interested her from the first. Too strong for an artist’s hands, too sensitive for the hands of a man of action only. “Yes,” she said, “I think I know what your uncle means.”

  “Did you get on well with him?” Eileen was still amused and interested.

  “He was very pleasant.”

  “Did he know you were coming to nurse at the Dominion?”

  “No. We met and danced without exchanging names. It was only afterwards that I found out who he was.”

  “O-oh.” Eileen seemed faintly disappointed. “He probably won’t recognize you again, then. He never notices any of us, in or out of uniform. It’s mortifying, but it’s a fact. We’re just good or average instruments, as the case may be. Anyone who is less than average never works for him again.”

  “What do they do?” Madeline asked curiously.

  “Go away and die quietly,” Eileen said with relish.

  At this point there was a sound of doors opening and shutting, and the voices and footsteps of many girls. Eileen glanced at her watch.

  “Six o’clock. It’s supper time for all of us off duty. Are you coming? We can go out later, if you prefer—or if you feel odd without a uniform—but on the other hand, this is a good opportunity to meet some of the others.”

  “Of course. I’ll come right away.”

  Madeline put on one of her useful white overalls, which made her feel a little less conspicuous, and, in company with her able and friendly guide, went down to her first supper at the Dominion.

  The room was bigger and brighter than the dining-room at All Souls, there were perhaps rather more nurses gathered together, but the general atmosphere—the conversation, the grumbles, the jokes—were all incredibly familiar, and almost immediately Madeline felt at home.

  Eileen and she sat at a round table with half a dozen other nurses to whom she was introduced, and by whom she was accepted with the minimum of fuss and no very marked interest There were a few desultory questions about her journey, a few speculations about her probable ultimate destination at the Dominion, and then the girls talked of their own affairs, and Madeline was free to look round and make her own observations.

  Towards the end of the meal she saw Miss Onslow come in, in company with a tall, fair, good-looking nurse, considerably older than most of the girls around her.

  “That’s Flossie,” muttered Eileen under her breath, and, at the same time, one of the girls at their table said,

  “Flossie’s in a bit of a flap, I guess. She’s lost two of her girls today. Gardiner has gone sick and Upjohn was called home because her father died. Life can’t have been all jam and honey in the P.P.P. today.”

  Madeline glanced over curiously at the discussed Miss Ardingley and, as she did so. Miss Onslow caught her eye and beckoned to her with a smile.

  Madeline got up immediately and went over to where the two senior women were standing.

  “Miss Gill, this is Miss Ardingley, the head of the Private Patients’ Pavilion. I’ve been telling her about you, and I’m wondering whether it’s going to be rather too bad to rush you on duty tomorrow morning. I did intend to let you find your feet during the next day or two and attend to the details of your outfit and so on. But we’re short-handed all round, and now an emergency has cropped up in Miss Ardingley’s section. We should be able to fit you up out of stock for the time being, so that wouldn’t present a real difficulty. It’s just a question of how you feel, having only arrived a few hours ago.”

  There was little time for further talk with Eileen after that. The one thing she feared was confirmed; that she was to start work in the Private Patients’ Pavilion the next morning, under Miss Ardingley. And, once the details of her uniform had been attended to, she was escorted by Miss Ardingley herself over to the P.P.P., as it was known to everyone, so that she might see the place where she would first go on duty, and not come to her work as a complete stranger at seven o’clock the following morning.

  Already in uniform, Madeline walked beside Miss Ardingley, wondering whether it would be considered unfriendly not to break the silence between them, or presumptuous to do so. With anyone else among the friendly people she had met she felt she would have known instinctively what to do. But there was something about the good-looking woman beside her which suggested that whatever one did would be wrong.

  She had got no further than a preparatory clearing of her throat when, as they passed through swing doors leading to the Pavilion, she suddenly saw, coming along the passage towards them, a rather slight, purposeful, familiar figure. Dr. Lanyon, it seemed, had found it necessary or desirable to visit his hospital only a few hours after arriving.

  Madeline’s heart missed a beat, for that she should have to meet him now—without any explanation ready and with the last person she would have chosen for witness of t
he scene—agitated her as much as if she had really been guilty of some indiscretion.

  Then she remembered what Eileen had said about his never noticing the nurses, and, keeping well to the other side of Miss Ardingley, she hoped to slip by undetected, the more so that there could be few circumstances in which he would be less likely to expect to find her.

  But she had reckoned without Miss Ardingley’s reaction. As she recognized the famous surgeon, her colour heightened slightly and her pace slackened, so that when he came abreast of her he had to stop.

  “Why, Dr. Lanyon,” she said, and her voice was quite different from the cool, flat tones that Madeline had heard from her so far, “I had no idea you were back!”

  “Good evening, Miss Ardingley.” He shook hands, with that brief smile which Madeline felt she knew very well. “I arrived this afternoon, and as I understood—”

  He stopped suddenly, and his attention, which had been most superficially fixed on Miss Ardingley, was suddenly riveted on Madeline.

  “Why, hello,” he said, in quite a different tone, and there was a flicker of amusement in his light, penetrating eyes. “You do have a talent for appearing in unexpected places, don’t you? I had no idea you were attached to the Dominion.”

  CHAPTER III

  There are some silences which can convey unutterable things. Such was the silence which fell upon Miss Ardingley at these words from Dr. Lanyon. Dr. Lanyon! who had never been known to take notice of a nurse before, and who had been stopped only with difficulty to speak to herself.

  Madeline knew that, so far as she herself was concerned, a disaster had occurred. She blushed to the roots of her dark hair. Dismayedly she heard herself laugh nervously and say rather helplessly,

  “I didn’t know that you were attached to the Dominion either, Dr. Lanyon.”

  “Dr. Lanyon is probably the most distinguished member of the staff,” Miss Ardingley said in a cold, contemptuous tone, and she looked at Madeline as though she had no right to be alive, much less voicing such nonsense.

  “You’re too flattering, Miss Ardingley,” Nat Lanyon said in a faintly bored tone. But he looked at Madeline, who stumbled into further explanation.

  “I meant that I—I didn’t even know who you were when I danced with you. It was later—”

  But at these quite incredible words Miss Ardingley seemed to think the conversation should end. She drew herself up, gave Dr. Lanyon a cold, rather strained “Good evening” and swept on, inevitably—and irresistibly—taking Madeline with her.

  Madeline did not venture to glance back, but she had the distinct impression that Nat Lanyon stood for a moment looking after them, though whether in amusement or reflection she could not have said.

  Glancing at Miss Ardingley’s slightly grim profile, she had an overwhelming desire to explain—even, for some reason, to excuse—herself. She started to say, as naturally as possible,

  “Dr. Lanyon was on my boat coming over—” But Miss Ardingley interrupted her.

  “You mustn’t expect everyone to be interested in your personal affairs,” she said, still with that air of faint contempt “You are not the only nurse who has come over from England, you know. I daresay it seems to you to give you some sort of importance, but for us it’s almost an everyday occurrence. If I may give you some advice, it’s not to suppose you’re in any way different from any other nurse here, and certainly of no more importance.”

  “But,” Madeline exclaimed indignantly, “I don’t think so! It’s the last—”

  “Very well. I just thought I would warn you, as you seemed to think you could adopt a very free and easy manner. Here the nurses don’t giggle when a doctor speaks to them, nor do they seize every opportunity to talk coyly about their outside activities.”

  “I think you misunderstood me,” Madeline said, cold with rage. But all her instincts warned her that to argue further would be to make of this woman who already disliked her an extremely dangerous enemy.

  So she contented herself with the one firm but polite retort, and somehow contained her anger and dismay sufficiently to pay at least outward attention to the brief tour they now made of the pleasant block of private apartments known as the Pavilion.

  Having (as she obviously considered it) put Madeline thoroughly in her place, Miss Ardingley made all her explanations briefly, unemotionally and clearly. As she showed Madeline ward kitchens and private rooms and treatment rooms, and even paused to introduce her to one or two of the nurses at present on duty, there was nothing in her manner to suggest that she had any feelings about her new member of staff, one way or the other. But Madeline knew perfectly well that the older woman had been mortally affronted by the encounter in the corridor, when Dr. Lanyon had had only a brief word for herself, but a friendly, amused greeting for the insignificant newcomer.

  And yet it had been so nice to see him, and to be greeted almost indulgently!

  The tour of inspection and explanation was over at last, and Madeline could only hope that she had grasped enough to acquit herself creditably the next morning. Miss Ardingley accompanied her to the swing doors once more and then dismissed her with a brief, not very convincingly expressed hope that she would settle down satisfactorily in her new surroundings.

  Madeline returned to her own room, thoughtful and a little depressed, and she was delighted when, almost immediately, there was a knock on her door and Eileen put her head in.

  “Tea or cocoa?” she enquired hospitably. “We’re just making hot drinks in the kitchen along the passage.”

  “Tea, please. Can I come and help?”

  “If you like.”

  So Madeline joined the two or three nurses who were making hot drinks and sharing biscuits and gossip in the small, well-equipped kitchen at the other end of the passage. More introductions took place, and then Eileen said,

  “How did you get on?”

  “Not too well,” Madeline confessed. At which the other girls looked sympathetic and Eileen explained in rapid parenthesis,

  “Flossie took her for a conducted tour of P.P.P. She’s to go on tomorrow, to help replace Gardiner and Upjohn.”

  “What happened then?” one of the other girls asked, as she whipped some very appetizing-looking cocoa to a froth. “Not much could go wrong, surely, if you weren’t even on duty.”

  “We met Dr. Lanyon—”

  “Is he back?” enquired one or two voices.

  “Yes. He crossed on the same boat as I did, and we spoke once or twice, though I didn’t know until later who he was.”

  “Go on, go on!” exclaimed Eileen impatiently. “What happened when you met him with Flossie? Don’t tell me he recognized you.”

  “Yes, he did. Though I doubt if he would have if she hadn’t stopped him.”

  “How does one stop Dr. Lanyon if he doesn’t wish to notice one?” enquired the girl who was making cocoa.

  “Oh, she slowed up rather and gave him a smile, you know. He stopped and shook hands. But he’d hardly said a dozen words before he noticed me. And as he had no idea I was coming to the Dominion, of course he was so surprised that he stopped whatever he was saying to her—”

  “Oh, la, la!” exclaimed Eileen, rolling her eyes comically.

  “—and spoke to me instead.”

  “But what did he say?” Eileen wanted to know.

  Madeline made an effort to remember the exact words.

  “He said, ‘Hello! You do have a talent for appearing in unexpected places, don’t you?’ ”

  An extraordinary little silence fell on the other girls in the kitchen, and the cocoa-maker suspended operations altogether.

  “Are you sure that was what he said?” Eileen enquired at last

  “I—yes, I think so. Why not?”

  “It doesn’t sound in the least like Dr. Lanyon.”

  “Something has happened to him while he was in Europe,” suggested a mischievous-looking girl with slanting dark eyes.

  “Oh, Ruth! You mean he may have got married
?” Eileen said.

  “Or fallen in love. It would have a humanizing effect.”

  “Did he seem married or attached to anyone special when you met him on board?” Eileen enquired of Madeline.

  “I’m sure he wasn’t married,” Madeline said, and felt extremely uncomfortable. It seemed almost an intrusion on his privacy to know about him and Clarissa.

  “Perhaps,” said the girl called Ruth, “it was you who had the humanizing influence on him.”

  But Madeline said, “Oh, no!” so quickly and so emphatically that the others all laughed.

  “Well, no one has had a humanizing influence on Flossie,” Eileen said drolly. “I suppose she was furious at being given the brush-off for a newcomer?”

  “She seemed to think I’d put myself forward quite unpardonably,” Madeline confessed ruefully. “It was all very unfortunate.”

  “But rather gratifying to be greeted that way by Dr. Lanyon, surely?” Ruth said. “I should reckon that worth a few acid drops from Flossie.”

  Madeline laughed and flushed a little.

  “I suppose that’s true. But if I’m to work under FI—Miss Ardingley during my first weeks, I’d rather not be in her bad books right from the beginning.”

  “You could hardly help being so, you know,” Ruth said composedly. “Try not to mind too much, but I’m afraid you are exactly the type she doesn’t like.”

  “Oh, Ruth!” protested Eileen.

  “It’s true. She has poise and good looks, and Flossie likes to think she has the monopoly of both of those.”

  Madeline looked rather dashed at this, for though the compliment was pleasant, the confident prediction that she would have trouble with her immediate superior was very much the reverse.

  “Don’t worry about it.” Ruth seemed to regard life very philosophically herself. “Just mind your step, and remember that there’s no logical answer to a jealous woman. If you do have trouble, don’t try to argue. Silence is safer—and simply maddening for the other person.”