Cottage Hospital

by Claire Rayner

  “I love these two,” Matron said happily. “We’ve had ’em three months now – cousins they are, live in the same house. Their mothers are in the San – primary TB’s. But the babies are very happy with us, aren’t they, Nurse Baker? This is Sister Hughes –”

  They continued their tour, covering the same parts of the hospital Barbara had seen on her first visit on the day she had arrived in Sandleas, but this time Matron told her all the duties she would have to do as they went along.

  As Barbara had suspected, she was to be a sort of general factotum. She was to supervise the three little wards, and the two private rooms, take charge of the Casualty Department, and look after the minute operating theatre. “We don’t get much here, I’m afraid. The odd appendix, occasional hernia – you know. Mind you, we’ve had our moments of excitement. We got a Polish sailor last year, with a cerebral abscess – took him off his boat at the Goodwins they did, and couldn’t get him any further than here. So the neuro-surgeon came down from Canterbury, and very nice he was too. The man did very well, and the nurse on the male ward picked up quite a bit of Polish before he went back home – they flew him out, from Dover. And we sometimes get accident cases, of course, especially in the summer – all the holiday people, you know. Very careless they are, silly things.”

  They continued their tour in the hospital kitchens. These seemed hardly to have changed from the old manor house days. The range had been replaced with a modern electric cooker, and there was an incongruous huge white refrigerator, but the floor was still of the old stone flags, and the big centre table was scrubbed whitewood. Matron perched herself on a corner of it, and she and Barbara sipped the cups of coffee provided by the thin harassed-looking woman who was the only cook.

  “You saw upstairs when you were here the other day, of course. It’s a nice little Nurses’ Home, isn’t it? Mind you, nice rooms though they are, it’s a bit of a nuisance living right in the hospital, as it were. Every time I drop something on the floor, I’m afraid of waking the babies underneath! But they seem to be used to it – they never wake up!” and she laughed comfortably and drank her coffee with slightly noisy enjoyment.

  Barbara felt herself warming to this unorthodox hospital and its matron. The people who worked in it were obviously happy to be there. Matron herself, with her warm, overflowing personality, and real shrewdness under her apparent chattering inconsequence, was the sort of person who could become a good friend. Barbara felt her spirits lifting. Even if she was having trouble settling to the idea of living with Mary, work was going to be very pleasant. “And that’s the important thing,” Barbara told herself.

  “I’m sure you’re very lucky to be living in that lovely house of Mrs. Martin’s.” Matron was chattering on again. “It is lovely, isn’t it? One of the nicest in the town, I think. I don’t blame you for not wanting to live in here. Mind you, if ever you want to, there’s a room here for you, you know. Now –” she slid off the table. “We must go and meet Doctor Foreman.” She headed busily for the door. “Thank you for the coffee, Mrs. Newsome. And that lunch smells very good. What was the beef like? I told the butcher what I thought of the last lot –” She turned confidentially to Barbara. “I’m as much a housekeeper as a Matron here,” she said. “All the food, all the stores – I buy the lot. It’s a headache, I can tell you. But you’ll soon learn all the ropes.”

  They found Doctor Foreman in the little Casualty Department, kneeling on the floor beside an old man, who sat with one foot in a bowl of warm water.

  “Hello, m’dear,” Doctor Foreman greeted Matron cheerfully, looking up at her through the tousled hair that fell on to his forehead. “Silly old Joe here got his bandage wet, let it dry on him, and now it’s stuck to his ulcer. Isn’t he daft?”

  He was a very young, newly qualified doctor. Barbara thought, “About twenty-four, I suppose – more than five years younger than I am,” and she smiled a little at the maternal way she looked at the young man on his knees beside his patient.

  “Doctor Foreman’s our only resident, Sister,” Matron said. “And this is Sister Hughes, from the Royal, Doctor, so you’ll have to mind your P’s and Q’s now. No flirting with my little cadets, or sister’ll be after you.”

  He grinned up at Barbara with frank admiration. “I’m more likely to try to flirt with Sister,” he said wickedly, and the old man in the chair chuckled evilly.

  “And put my nose out of joint,” Matron said equably.

  “Ah well, I’m an old woman, I suppose – can’t expect anything else.”

  “You’ll do for me, Matron,” the patient said unexpectedly, and put out a gnarled old hand to pinch Matron’s ample bottom.

  “And you’re a naughty old man, Joe.” She slapped his hand and turned to smile at Barbara. “Ten years we’ve been treating this silly old whatsit’s varicose ulcer, and damned if the thing’ll get better. I think he’d miss it if it did, wouldn’t you, Joe?”

  The old man grinned again, and turned back to watch Mike Foreman delicately ease the sodden dressing away from his leg, croaking instructions at him as he worked.

  Oh, decidedly an odd sort of place, Barbara thought as she made her way back to the Martin house that evening after duty. But a very nice one, for all that. And she was surprised to find how little she missed the Royal. “I haven’t thought about the old place since I got here – or about Daniel –” But the thought of Daniel did sting a little, after all, she found, when she remembered him, almost in the way a person with a bad tooth experimentally explores it with his tongue. “It’s horrid to part with old friends on bad terms –” she told herself as she pushed open the door of the house. “That’s why it bothers me –”

  Geoffrey was standing, unexpectedly, in the hall as she came in pulling off her uniform gabardine coat.

  “Geoffrey!” she said, surprise in her voice. “You’re home early?”

  He smiled at her, diffidently. “Well, there’s this party tonight –”

  “Party?” Barbara felt herself stiffen. “What party?”

  “Mary’s usual Monday affair. Didn’t you know?”

  Barbara shook her head, and started across the hall towards the stairs. “No,” she said crisply over her shoulder. “I didn’t. I hope you enjoy it.”

  “Barbara –” He put out a hand to stop her. “I know you were annoyed about that tea party Mary arranged and didn’t tell you about – but she doesn’t mean to upset you, you know – it’s just – well, she’s a bit of a bulldozer. But believe me, she means well –”

  “That’s damning with faint praise, isn’t it?” Barbara said crossly. “And in any case –”

  “Barbara, please – will you come to this party this evening? I usually find them a bit boring, to tell the truth, and I’m sure if you’re there, it won’t be,” Geoffrey interrupted. “Please?”

  She stood irresolutely at the foot of the stairs, looking down into his anxious, tired face, and then she smiled, ashamed of her bad temper. “Thank you – of course I will. And I’m sorry if I get cross with Mary. I know she really doesn’t mean to upset people – and I daresay I’m a bit edgy, one way and another. What time?”

  His face lit up. “Bless you, my dear. The first guests’ll be here in –” he looked at his watch. “Oh, an hour or so. Time for a bath and a change for you, and perhaps a drink for the three of us before the mêlée begins. What say you?”

  “See you in three quarters of an hour then,” Barbara said, and went on her way upstairs. “After all,” she told herself defiantly, as she wallowed in her hot bath, admiring the gleaming tiles and sparkling chrome fittings around her, “a party is a party. And if I know Mary, it will be a beautifully run one. I’m going to enjoy it. I am going to enjoy it!”

  Chapter Four

  The drawing-room looked delightful when Barbara came down. The big french windows were open on to the wide flagged terrace, and bowls of spring flowers starred the low tables. Mary had an eye for colour. All the flowers were yellow ones – daffo
dils and mimosa – and they gleamed against the purple upholstery and pale wood very attractively. Geoffrey was in a corner of the room, manipulating bottles and glasses. He turned and smiled at her as she came in.

  “You look very nice,” he said, a little diffidently. “Clever of you to wear yellow – it’s the best colour for this room. You look like the daffodils.”

  Barbara felt shy suddenly. She was quite mature enough to accept a compliment gracefully, but a compliment from Geoffrey seemed odd, somehow.

  “A rather wilted one, I’m afraid,” she said awkwardly, smoothing her immaculate dark head with a gauche, childish gesture.

  “Not at all! Now, what will you drink? Gin, whisky, sherry?”

  “May I have something long and icy, please? Gin and lemonade perhaps?”

  “A Tom Collins it is, then,” and Geoffrey started to mix her drink with expertise, clinking ice in a tall frosted glass.

  They took their glasses across to the windows, and went out on to the terrace. There was a faint smell of newly cut grass in the air, mixing with the breath of the sea that was always present. Geoffrey sighed sharply, as he leaned on the low brick wall between the terrace and the lawn, and grinned a little ruefully over his shoulder at Barbara.

  “This is the best part of these Monday parties for me,” he said. “Once the guests arrive, the whole thing’s a bore. But this is pleasant and quiet – restful.”

  “Why have parties if you don’t like them?” Barbara came and rested her own arms on the wall beside him.

  “Good policy parties, these,” he said. “I meet clients and make new contacts. Mary’s done a lot to build my practice up to what it is. It’s an unusual Monday when I don’t get at least one new client.”

  “I suppose that matters, of course –”

  “You’re quite right, my dear. It shouldn’t.”

  Barbara flushed. Why wasn’t she able to hide her private thoughts better than this? “I’m sorry – I didn’t mean –”

  Geoffrey smiled. “I know just what you mean. I’ve already got a very good practice. Why break my neck to enlarge it? The more work I do, the more tax I pay, and the net profit is negligible. But Mary’s got into the habit of Monday parties, and it would seem odd if we stopped them now. For most of the locals it’s the highlight of the week. Does that sound – conceited?”

  “No – I don’t think so –” Barbara picked her words carefully. “I can well believe it. This is a lovely house, and you are hospitable people – it’s only natural people should like coming here. But it seems a pity you can’t relax more, doesn’t it? You’ve been working very hard for years, haven’t you? You should be able to spend more time doing what you want to do, instead of having to do what you think you ought to do.”

  Geoffrey looked at her sharply. “That’s odd –”

  “Odd?”

  “You’ve said what I’ve been thinking myself – almost in the same words I’d use, if I ever used words to express a thought so – revolutionary.”

  Barbara stirred impatiently. “I just don’t see it,” she said. “Why shouldn’t you do as you want to do sometimes? What stops you?”

  His eyes slid away. “Oh, I don’t know – the children – Mary – Your glass is empty. Have another drink.” He took her glass from her, almost roughly, and went back to the table in the corner, bending his neat narrow shoulders over it so that his face was hidden from Barbara.

  She watched him, puzzled. Obviously, she had said something that worried him, but quite what she wasn’t sure. She felt obscurely embarrassed for a moment, as though for a brief moment she had glimpsed something she shouldn’t have seen, as though she had walked in on somebody in their bath, and seen them exposed and stripped of the veneer they showed to the world. But when Geoffrey came back with her glass, he was himself again. Quiet, a little vague, rather colourless.

  “This is a stiff one,” he said. “It’ll help you face the élite of Sandleas – and they take some facing, believe me,” and his face crinkled into a smile. “Forgive me if I sounded a little depressed before. It’s been a long day.”

  Barbara didn’t have to answer. Mary swept into the room, looking magnificent in severely-cut black, her eyes separated by the deep line that appeared whenever she was annoyed.

  “That idiot of a Lester woman forgot to put the prawns in the refrigerator, and they’re uneatable now. We’ll have to manage with just the anchovies – really, I sometimes wonder if anyone in this household is capable of doing anything without constant supervision. Geoffrey – did you remember to see Peter Blake about this evening?”

  “Peter Blake?” Geoffrey closed his eyes for a moment. “Who? – oh yes – yes, he’ll be here. Why did you particularly want him tonight? He’s the dreariest man –”

  “You can hardly call a man who owns and administers as much property as he does, dreary,” Mary said tartly. “He’s just – quiet. Lonely people often are.”

  Barbara stiffened. She didn’t need telling that this Peter Blake had been invited for her benefit. Obviously rich and lonely meant, to Mary, unmarried. One of the eligibles, Barbara thought grimly. Mary was like a bulldozer. No matter what Barbara said to her about the subject, she was clearly determined to “get her sister settled”. Barbara swallowed the rest of her drink at one gulp, ignoring the way her head spun a little from the alcohol. “We’ll see,” she thought grimly. “If Mary won’t listen to me, I’ll have to show her.”

  From the hall the sounds of arrival brought Mary’s head up sharply, and with a last glance round the perfect room, she swept out.

  Her voice drifted back from the hall. “My dear! So nice to see you! How are the children? – Ah, Mr. Luton – so glad you could come –”

  People began to drift into the room. Smooth, well dressed, elegant, the women looking as though they had been turned out of a beauty salon a few moments before, the men black-suited, red-faced, heads varnished to a smooth uniformity. Barbara murmured polite responses to Mary’s introductions, shaking hands automatically, nodding politely at one face after another.

  Within half an hour the room was full. The women’s voices rose in a shrill cacophony of sound, the men rumbled an obbligato in the bass, and snatches of the conversation beat against Barbara’s ears like waves on a beach. Mary moved sleekly from one person to another, breaking up groups that had been together for more than a few minutes, moving people from one part of the room to another as though they were chessmen on a board. Barbara, reckless, took another drink from the tray a white-aproned Mrs. Lester brought to her, and nibbled a sandwich a little guiltily. She ought to remember her ulcer –

  “Barbara darling!” Mary’s voice behind her pulled her round. “May I present a very old friend of mine? Peter Blake, my sister, Barbara Hughes.”

  He was a short man – a little shorter than Barbara, with sparse reddish hair pulled across a balding head. His eyes were a little bulbous – like a fish, Barbara thought with a giggle rising to her lips.

  “Ah – yes – ah, how de do? Good party, what? Marvellous hostess, your sister –”

  “Marvellous!” Barbara cried, watching Mary drift back across the room. “Isn’t she just? Everything so well organised – single people carefully introduced to each other – so tidy, isn’t it?”

  He blushed a brick red, then laughed uncertainly.

  “Oh – yes – very funny – Ha ha! Yes – good joke that –” He threw back his head and laughed loudly, displaying his teeth. “Nothing like a sense of humour, is there? Keeps the old wheels turning –”

  Barbara felt a little sick. To have been so abominably rude and then to be treated as though she had produced a gem of wit was dreadful. Across the room, Mary looked approvingly at her, obviously delighted to see her quiet spinster sister making such a hit. Barbara turned away, and saw Geoffrey behind her, being talked at by a fat man with a broad expanse of waistcoat winking with a gold chain.

  Almost without thinking, she linked her arm into his, and smiled brilliantly
at him. “Geoffrey darling,” she said, her voice high and unnatural. “Mr. Blake thinks I have a sense of humour. Do you agree?” The fat man, at the sound of the word humour, clearly thought he should laugh, and did so, and Peter Blake, his green eyes blinking a little worriedly, dutifully followed suit. Barbara looked at Geoffrey again, and at the sight of his puzzled face, burst into a trill of laughter herself. And there they stood, laughing helplessly, even Geoffrey joining in, none of them having the least idea of what they were supposed to be laughing at.

  Whether it was the drink, or the over-heated atmosphere, or her own reckless mood, Barbara was never quite sure, but for the next hour, she sparkled and scintillated like an accomplished society wit. More of Mary’s guests joined the four people in the corner, and they became the focal point of the room. And all the time, even as she told them somewhat apocryphal stories of hospital happenings, all of them hilariously funny, some of them rather dubious, Barbara directed most of her sparkle at Geoffrey. She never let go of his arm, pointedly ignoring the pathetic Peter Blake, who seemed lost and bewildered as most of her jokes went over his head. She positively flirted with her brother-in-law.

  The absurd thing, part of Barbara’s mind noticed bleakly, was that her manoeuvres were having the diametrically opposite effect to the one she wanted. Peter Blake, instead of disappearing, disgusted by her behaviour, remained glued to her side, his mouth a little open, his eyes, admiring and glistening, never leaving her face. Mary, instead of being angry, didn’t even notice that Barbara was flirting with her husband. She just preened and smiled constantly, patently delighted by what she considered her sister’s good sense, by her “success”. And Geoffrey – Geoffrey blossomed. He talked more than Barbara had ever heard him talk in a crowd, making wry acid comments that Barbara, in her heightened state of elation, found exquisitely funny. And each time she laughed at one of his sallies, Geoffrey seemed to open out more, to relax and become a stronger, more vivid person. Barbara drank no more, and as the effect of the three drinks she had taken began to wear off, she noticed, almost with alarm, that Geoffrey was drinking almost constantly.