Nurse with a Dream

by Norrey Ford

  Jacky smoothed the top sheet nervously. “He may have done, Sister. You see, I don’t remember much. Part of it is coming back, but Guy—?” She shook her head helplessly. “Is that—?”

  “My brother, of course. You met him at Timberfold. You were staying there when you—disappeared, and I’m afraid you caused Guy and my stepmother a lot of worry and trouble, Jacqueline. Of course, as soon as Guy knew you’d been taken away in an ambulance, he realised you would be brought here, and telephoned me at once. Later he brought the luggage you’d left at the farm.”

  “Luggage? Oh—Sister, was there a photograph with it? A leather folding case?”

  Deborah Clarke smiled frostily. “Is this it?” She produced the case from her handbag.

  “Thank you.” Clutching the photograph with both hands, Jacqueline looked oddly childish. “It’s the only one in existence, I think. When Daddy and Mummy were in the Resistance we had to destroy all their photos at home, in case they were identified. I hid this one in my doll’s-house. Of course I realise now how dangerous that was, but I’m so thankful to have this.” Looking up, she saw that her cousin was not pleased with her.

  “Oh!” she stammered. “I’m s-sorry I caused all the trouble. I’m sure I didn’t intend to. I mean—I never do intend to.”

  “That’s all right.” The older woman seemed mollified. “Now—about your convalescence. Matron tells me you are to have two weeks’ sick leave, and you told her you had nowhere to go. That’s nonsense, of course. You will go to Timberfold. I’ve written to my stepmother to expect you.”

  “But—it’s very kind of you, but will it be convenient?”

  “Certainly it will be convenient. Where else would you go? I have told Matron, she quite approves—and Guy will fetch you on Wednesday.”

  “W-Wednesday?” Everybody thinks I know Guy, she thought desperately. I’ll have to remember him. I’ll have to.

  “If the doctor is still satisfied with you. You were lucky not to be more seriously injured. People have been killed, doing what you did.”

  “That’s just it.” Jacqueline leaned forward earnestly, anxious to clear up the point which troubled her. “Everybody tells me how lucky I am. Well—why?”

  “Because Black Crag is exceedingly dangerous.”

  “I mean—why was I lucky? Why wasn’t I killed? You see, Sister, I don’t believe I was climbing Black Crag.”

  Deborah Clarke laughed. “Nonsense. You most certainly were.”

  “But just because Mr. Broderick picked me up at the foot of the place—”

  “What!” Deborah’s eyes were piercing and a dull flush deepened the colour in her cheeks. “Mr. Broderick? You’re out of your mind, girl!”

  “No, I’m not. It’s true I’ve forgotten some things, and I certainly don’t remember his picking me up—at least, I don’t think I remember—but Mr. Broderick himself told me, when he came to visit me. And he must know, mustn’t he?”

  “Came to visit you? I wasn’t told about this. Guy said on the telephone that two men had picked you up. He didn’t say Mr. Broderick.” Her tone was coldly furious.

  “Maybe he didn’t know.” Jacqueline felt sure that poor Guy would have to pay for the omission and felt sorry for him. She did not know why Sister Clarke seemed so angry, and found herself wishing that Mr. Broderick had never rescued her at all. It was so plainly a breach of hospital etiquette to have her life saved by its most eminent surgeon! Perhaps if he had known she was a nurse, he’d have left her lying there, and saved himself and everybody else a great deal of unpleasantness!

  No, of course he wouldn’t have left her! He seemed too kind, too sensible for that. It was these women, shut up inside their little world of etiquette and discipline, of pettiness and jealousy and intrigue, who would punish her for something she could not help.

  Deborah gathered up her gloves and bag. “I had your luggage sent to your room. If you take my advice, you won’t go rushing off into the wilds alone in future. It was a stupid thing to do, and I may say Matron is very annoyed about it. As soon as you are well enough, she intends to speak to you. You are young and inexperienced, but you must learn that certain things are just not done. They are bad for the name of the hospital. Be ready on Wednesday. My brother will call for you, and see you don’t keep him waiting.”

  “Yes, Sister.” Jacqueline spoke meekly, but inwardly she was seething.

  “Cat!” Bridget hissed as soon as the door was safely closed behind Sister Clarke’s straight back. “Double treble cat. I know she’s your relation, but cat all the same. Know why she went sour on you like that? She’s dead keen on Broderick. Everybody knows it, and he even took her out a couple of times. It came to nothing, and we all thought it was because she was too eager—all teeth and eyes. It puts a man off. To catch a man like our Alan, you’ve got to bait the trap with something more than a plushy body and a pair of come-hither eyes.”

  Jacqueline thumped her clenched fists on her knees. “I wish I’d never seen this hospital or anybody in it. I hate nursing and I hate nurses—except you and Liz. It wasn’t my fault Mr. Broderick rescued me, and it isn’t my fault Sister Clarke is my cousin—but both those stupid facts will hang round my neck like a millstone all the rest of my time here.”

  “Well, I can’t say they won’t, for a bit. All the seniors will be specially down on you in case they are accused of favouritism, and all the juniors will suspect that you are favoured and be jealous. But it won’t last, acushla! In a week or a month, some other thing will crop up and your business will be forgotten. I’ve been here long enough to know that. Your luck may be out just now, but it won’t stay out.”

  “At the present moment, that is hard to believe. I feel low enough to walk under a dachshund. I wish I were out of this dump.”

  “We all swear to give up nursing at least twice a month, but I dunno—it grips you, Jacky. You see, beyond the pettiness and the aching feet and chapped hands, there’s a purpose. Wait till you’ve helped to bring your first baby into the world, or saved a mother who would have died but for you, or seen a child walk who might have been a cripple. I can type and I know I could get a job as a typist to-morrow, with more money and less work and responsibility—but I’d hate it after a week. It would be such an aimless existence, working for nothing but a pay-packet.”

  “But, Bridget—you’re always grumbling, always saying you want to get out of hospital.”

  “We all do. It’s a bad habit, and catching, too. You’re doing it now, and you’ll do it again. But don’t you notice that, in fact, we don’t leave, though there’s nothing to stop us. That’s because, just when things become too much for us, we suddenly get a reward so worth-while that it carries us over the next dull stretch.”

  “Y-Yes, I see that. But the seniors—and the Sisters! Need they be so awful to us?”

  “Perhaps not. Authority is inclined to go to the head, and some are worse than others. You haven’t experienced Fanny Cartwright on Men’s Surgical? She’s an old martinet if ever there was one. But they’re darned fine nurses, young Clarke. Don’t make any mistake about that. If they yell at you it’s because they can’t stand your fumbling and general idiocy. If they demand obedience in petty things, it’s to get you into the habit of obedience—slackness or carelessness is more important here than probably anywhere else. It may cost a life. We’re taught to be scrupulously exact in little unimportant things because one day we’ll have to be scrupulously exact in a little important thing—a dose or an injection. Scissors to trim an old girl’s toe-nails may be a silly thing to raise Cain about—but one day we’ll be responsible for sterilised instruments in the theatre. See, kid?”

  “Bridget—I never thought I’d hear you sticking up for the system so eloquently. You sound like Sister Tutor giving a pep talk.”

  “Gosh, so I do. Sorry, I’ll shut up.”

  “No, you needn’t. I guess I needed a bit of stiffening. Suddenly it all seemed too awful to put up with a minute longer. I suppose all
this discipline is like starch in our aprons. After all, we needn’t have them starched. They’d be just as clean without it. It gives them than touch of stiffening which makes all the difference. A starched apron makes you look like a nurse, and so you have to behave like a nurse, even if behind the starched apron there’s only a frightened girl.”

  “That’s about it. I say, what are we going to do about those lilies? Derek will be showing the whites of his eyes long before he actually gets in here. Most men hate hospitals and the idea of illness, I’ve noticed. If he sees those, he’ll think he is in a funeral-parlour and bolt.”

  When Liz came with the lunches, Jacqueline begged her to take the lilies outside until after Derek’s visit.

  “Superstitious, are you? Myself, I’m funny about red and white flowers—a lot of nurses are. But the lilies are a bit much. If the old ducks had asked one of us to buy them for you, this wouldn’t have happened, but they asked that ward-maid who sings hymns, the one we call ‘O Be Joyful’. Mrs. Henn is her auntie.”

  Jacqueline had no visitors, but Derek came, rather shame-faced and clutching a box of chocolates. He was rather like a clothes-peg with spots and a square of sticking plaster at the back of his neck obviously sheltering an unromantic and painful boil. His Adam’s apple ran up and down his scrawny throat like a rat behind the arras, and Jacqueline thought he was not nearly good enough for Bridget.

  “Smashing kid, isn’t he?” Bridget asked complacently as the hum and clatter of visiting-day had died away and the hospital noises had resumed their sway. “I’d better get this Heart’s Desire off my nails before Matron comes round. I don’t like it too much, but it’s all I had, and Derek had to have a bit of allure to make it worth-while his coming.”

  When Matron did her rounds, she paused by Jacqueline.

  “Oh—Nurse, Sister Clarke tells me she has arranged for you to visit her home. That is kind of her and most convenient. I hope you are pleased.”

  “Yes, Matron. Thank you, Matron.” The more she thought about the visit, the less pleased she was, but Jacqueline knew better than to tell Matron so. “I—I hope it will be convenient to—to the people at the farm, Matron. I don’t want to be any trouble.”

  “Sister would not have made the arrangement if it were not convenient. It seems an excellent idea to me—you are a cousin, it seems—and where better could you go than to your own family?”

  “No, Matron.”

  “It is arranged for you to go on Wednesday. Before you leave, come and see me in my office.”

  “Yes, Matron.”

  Bridget had gone for another X-ray, so Jacqueline brooded alone on Matron’s rather ominous words until her fellow-sufferer returned, cheerful in a scarlet dressing-gown and making the most of her opportunity to be wheeled about the hospital in a chair by Jimmy Tummey, who had a tea-coloured moustache and was known as the eggshell blond owing to having a completely bald and well-polished head.

  “Whoa! Tummey!” Bridget shouted in high spirits. “Jacky, we did the corridor from X-Ray to the lift in one minute five seconds flat. We’d have done it in less only Tummey would steady down coming through Out-patients. It’s packed this afternoon—trade has improved since they put the tea-bar in. We got mixed up with an old chap who smelt as if he had a bath every Beltane’s Eve—he called me luv and offered me a cup of tea before Tummey got us clear.”

  “Beltane? When’s that?” said Tummey scornfully. “I know old Sam Chandler. He’s a rag-and-boner, and I’ll bet you sixpence he’s never been washed since the midwife bathed him. Come on, Nurse, hop out. I’ve work to do, if you haven’t.”

  “Don’t rush me,” said Bridget, putting on a duchess air. “I’ll probably never have another chance to ride in one of these things.” Nevertheless, she climbed back into bed, and as Sam turned the chair he noticed Jacqueline’s lilies.

  “By lad! Them’s a bit of all right, Nurse. Real pretty—just like artificial.”

  “Would you like them, Sam?”

  “Nay, luv, I’ll none rob thee.”

  “As a matter of fact,” Jacqueline told him confidentially, “I’m allergic to lilies, but they were a present from the ladies on Lister Ward, so you must keep quiet about it.”

  “My boy’s allergic to eggs,” Sam told them proudly. “Bring him out in red stripes, they do. I always say it shows he supports the home team, any road. Ee, we do laugh sometimes.” He produced a newspaper, folded incredibly small, from his pocket and wrapped the flowers in it, winkling heavily at Jacqueline. “Mum’s the word, Nurse. Mrs. T. will like these. Fond of flowers, is Mrs. T. You ought to work in a nosspital, I tell her, that ’ud cure you.”

  “You’re telling me,” said Bridget with feeling. “I used to imagine myself smoothing pillows and arranging lovely vases of glorious flowers. Now I’ll scream if anybody gives me a daff or a chrysanth after I get out of here.”

  “How was the X-ray?” Jacqueline inquired.

  “Filthy! Those girls down there are a stuck-up lot. Whose stomach is it, anyway? Theirs or mine? However, acushla mine! I had a romance. It didn’t come to much as I was stuck in the gadget like a letter about to be postmarked, but he was perfectly sweet and talked to me just as if I were a proper patient. He has red hair and freckles, and when Dr. Anstay’s back was turned he winked at me.” “Dr. Anstay did?”

  “No, you ass. This boy. Well, man, I mean, because after all he is a doctor, but only just, I’d say. I mean you could still see bits of eggshell and fluff on him. Gregory, his name is.”

  “Is he nicer than Derek?”

  “Derek? Derek’s only a stop-gap till I get something better; though, mind you, this Gregory didn’t really see me at my best.” She sighed ecstatically. “I’ll be lie’s looking at my inside right this minute. I hope it’s pretty.”

  “Don’t get big ideas. Your inside can’t be very pretty.” “To a doctor,” Bridget said knowledgeably, “the most remarkable things are pretty. I’ll bet he’s saying ‘that’s the neatest little stomach I’ve ever seen—what’s her name?’ ”

  Liz Hannon interrupted, tearing in with two bars of chocolate under her apron. “Sister’s giving everybody bell-tinker; you know how she hates visiting-day—it upsets the patients and untidies the wards. Two husbands gave me choc., and I’m slimming—at least, I’m dieting, but honestly I haven’t lost an ounce. Here you are, children.”

  “Am I allowed chocolate?” Bridget wondered.

  “I doubt it. Shall I ask for you?”

  “Good lor, no, not till I’ve eaten it. Thanks a lot.”

  “I’ve been sent to see if you’re all right, so you’d better be. How are you really, Bridie?”

  “Tell Sister I’m dead. That’ll shake her.”

  “I will. Oh—Jacky, your luggage came back, so I unpacked for you. I hope you don’t mind, but I thought your things would get awfully creased in that rucksack. I found this pinned in your dress, so I thought you’d like to keep it.” She laid a tiny sprig of white heather on Jacky’s bed. “White heather! It didn’t bring you much luck, did it?”

  Jacqueline laid the sprig on her palm, studied it curiously, frowning. “White heather! Timberfold? Surely the two go together, somewhere. White—”

  “Look out, Nurse,” warned Bridget sharply in her professional voice.

  Liz grabbed Jacky as she sagged, white-faced. “She’s fainted, Bridie.”

  “No, I haven’t,” said a muffled voice. “I’ve remembered.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  On Sunday Guy came, laden with fruit and flowers and a box of chocolates. He tiptoed across the polished floor, watching Jacqueline nervously as if she were a time-bomb. She held out both hands, feeling warmly kin to him, an entirely unexpected feeling of belonging.

  “Guy! How pleased I am to see you! The only bit of family I possess this side of the Channel.”

  He smiled wryly. “Is that the only reason you’re pleased to see me? Because you’re homesick?”

  “I—no, of course not. Do sit d
own and stop looking nervous. And let me introduce you to my fellow-sufferer, Bridget O’Hara.”

  Guy breathed more freely. “I expected to find you all bandaged up. And Deborah said you didn’t remember me.”

  “I’m promoted to a neat dressing now, and I do remember you—and Gypsy and everything. How is Aunt Connie?” She was excited. She was talking too much and knew it. But she had not, until this moment, realised how truly homesick she was. Ill amongst strangers—friendly strangers, but not the same as someone of one’s own. And here was Guy, part and parcel of the Timberfold legend in which she’d grown up; part—in a way—of home.

  Liz came in and there were more introductions. Jacqueline was proud of her visitor. Quite obviously, neither girl could take her eyes off him. Just before the end of visiting hour, Jimmy Tummey arrived with a message from Matron, asking Mr. Clarke to see her in her room.

  ‘To be vetted,” said Liz. “Bet she doesn’t let you go when she see how young and good-looking he is.”

  “I don’t really want to go.”

  Bridget exploded with laughter. “You were all over him, girl. His eyes were sticking out like chapel hat-pegs by the time you’d finished hugging him.”

  “But that wasn’t because of him. Not personally, I mean. It was because he sort of represented by family—and I suddenly knew I was homesick.”

  “He doesn’t think so. He’s obviously smitten and thinks you are, too. Trust little Bridie to know the signs. Too bad he’s your cousin, you can’t marry him.”

  “Half-cousin,” Liz corrected. “And she can. I looked in the prayer-book during morning prayers.”

  Jacqueline sighed. “Don’t you two think of anything but marriage?”

  Liz grinned. “Hardly ever. A man is a meal ticket for life.”

  Even Guy’s visit could not dispel the gloom which overtook Jacqueline when she thought of spending two weeks at Timberfold. She remembered all too clearly Connie Clarke’s dour manner and grudging welcome. More than that, she remembered the brooding atmosphere, as if the house itself resented her. But she did not see how she could get out of the visit. Matron seemed pleased with the idea, so did Sister Clarke who had arranged it, and Home Sister had been scandalised when Jacqueline timidly suggested to her that she did not want to go.