Despite my nervousness, the peace that followed her going was indescribable. I had never been alone in the Wing or a ward, before. I walked softly round all the rooms, bent over the sleeping patients, then lingered for some time in the corridor, listening to the varying rhythms of breathing and feeling a strange, exciting and yet at the same time calming sense of responsibility. I took the diagnosis list from the duty-room, went back to the corridor and tried to work out what unlikely events might happen, and what I should do if they did. I realised that we had twenty semi-convalescent patients, but that it was extremely unlikely that any crisis would arise. I also realised that those twenty people needed me to look after them even though they were asleep.
Perhaps if I had not been standing in the corridor a few feet away from Fiona Mason’s door, I might not have heard that small sob. It was such a tiny sound and she was fast asleep. As I bent over her, she muttered urgently, but unintelligibly, and then began to sob heart-breakingly.
‘It’s all right, love, it’s only a dream. Wake up, a moment. There ‒’
I switched on the light over her bed and sat on the edge, holding both her hands. ‘See? It’s me, Nurse Blakney. You’re just having a bad dream. Nothing to worry about.’
She stared at me, blankly. ‘I was in the car with Mummy and Daddy. Oh, Nurse ‒’ And the tears streamed down her face.
I caught her shoulders instinctively and rested her head against my left shoulder. ‘There, there.’ I stroked her soft hair as she wept uncontrollably. ‘It’s all over. You’re perfectly safe. Here, have my hankie.’
Very slowly her weeping grew less violent. I was there with my back to the door, facing the wall behind her bed, and still holding her in my arms, when I noticed a shadow on the wall that had not been there before. It was a very long shadow. I glanced round. The doorway was empty. But when I looked back at the wall, the shadow had gone.
Fiona dried her eyes and gave a long drawn-out sigh. ‘Nurse, I am so sorry to have been so foolish. I must have been having a nightmare. I have them occasionally. I’ve tried not to disturb anyone before. Was I making an awful noise?’
‘Not at all.’ I helped her back against her pillows. ‘I just happened to be outside your open door.’
‘You must think me so stupid.’ She tried to smile. ‘I do apologise.’
‘Please don’t. You were just having an unhappy dream.’ I switched on her bedside lamp. ‘I’ll leave this on. The dark is always nasty when you’ve had a bad dream. And I’m sure you’d like some sort of hot drink. How about some cocoa?’
‘I really mustn’t give you any more trouble, Nurse.’ Her defences were up once more. She was smiling her usual polite smile. ‘Nurse Standing will be wondering why I’m delaying you.’
‘Nurse won’t be wondering because I am in charge for a little while. Mind you, the situation is not quite so alarming as it might at first appear! Down that corridor is one telephone. Not far away is one switchboard, watched over by Sam, our head night porter. Sam doesn’t only have a host of telephone lines to cope with, he’s got a fine transmitting set. I have only to pick up my telephone to have Night Sister here before I’ve put down the receiver ‒ and Sam has only got to press a button and murmur a few words into his transmitter to summon a whole bevy of Members of the Royal College of Physicians and Fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons, through their walkie-talkies. Now, what will you have? Cocoa? Or chocolate?’
She grinned. ‘Thanks for letting me know I can relax, Nurse. I’d love some cocoa.’
I sailed along to the kitchen, feeling very encouraged by her light-hearted reaction. I glanced into the duty-room as I went by, remembering that shadow on the wall. I was certain my eyes had not been playing tricks and that the shadow belonged to the S.M.O. It had been too long and too broad to belong to anyone else. The duty-room was empty. I had gone past the door when I realised there had been something white on the blotter that had not been there before. I went back and found it was an envelope addressed to me in George Thanet’s hand-writing. I frowned at it, momentarily. Surely George had not been rash enough to deliver it himself? Could that shadow have belonged to him? I thrust the envelope into my apron bib to wait until I had time to open it, and dismissed both thoughts. George had been nearly six years in Jude’s: he knew the rules as well as I did. He probably asked one of the other night girls to deliver it while Standing was at supper. Usually a very pleasant fourth-year called Illingworth came over from Florence Ward to relieve Standing’s meal-hour. She would never object to one of my colleagues leaving a note for me.
I made the cocoa and when I returned to Fiona with it she was combing her hair. She gave me a rather brittle smile. ‘I do feel so absurd, Nurse. Weeping at my age!’
‘There’s nothing absurd about honest tears.’ I drew up her bed table. ‘And plenty of tears get shed in hospital by people of all ages, and sexes, awake and asleep.’
‘Really?’ Her eyes widened. ‘Men, too?’
‘Sometimes. When they’re weak and ill.’
‘You mean other people have wept on your shoulder? As I did? And you don’t mind?’
‘Mind isn’t quite the right word. The sight of someone in tears always makes me want to weep with them. I think I really would weep, if I felt my patients wanted to hide their tears from me and didn’t care to borrow my shoulder once in a while.’
‘Do you feel that because you are you? Or because you’re a nurse?’
‘Bit of both. If you take up nursing,’ I continued reflectively, ‘you must like people.’
‘Uncle Jock says that diagnosing and treating someone’s specific ailment is only half of his job. He says the other half consists roughly of lending an ear, a hand, and giving advice if he can.’ She looked up at me. ‘Perhaps you should have taken up medicine, not nursing? You seem to feel as he does.’
‘Not me.’ I smiled. ‘I haven’t the brains ‒ and I genuinely prefer my own angle. I like fussing round my patients and having long heart-to-hearts. I like having time to get to know people well.’
She seemed really interested and had forgotten her bad dream, which was what I had been aiming for. She began to talk about her previous hospital experience, telling me how that famous American hospital differed from Jude’s in minor details, and yet fundamentally was very alike.
‘Was your uncle working on the staff there when you were admitted?’ I asked.
Her eyes grew wary. She paused for a little while, as if making up her mind about something. Then she said very quietly, ‘No. He flew over at once, when my parents were killed in the car accident in which I was hurt. Daddy worked for a British firm in Baltimore. Uncle Jock decided he’d better stay on the spot until I was fit to leave hospital. He had to throw up his S.M.O.’s job here ‒’ her voice softened still more ‒ ‘and what seemed to be his whole future. You know better than I what happens if you turn your back on your teaching hospital, no matter how good your reason. There are always dozens of other keen and clever men waiting for an opening.’
I sat down on her locker seat. ‘That’s true. I am so glad your uncle has been able to come back.’
She gave me a quick smile. ‘I’m simply thrilled. I know he is, too, although he’d never let on. He never said a word about what he had given up for me in the past. It’s only recently that I’ve discovered how much it meant to him. That was when he got the news that his name had been put on the short-list for Dr. Frinton’s place on the teaching staff. He suddenly seemed about ten years younger.’ She smiled again. ‘I know he must seem fearfully quiet and stern to you all, but underneath he’s tremendous fun and terribly kind.’
She fell silent. I did not say a word. I knew she would go on when she was ready.
‘When he first arrived in the States he hadn’t a job because all the formalities take time. He used to come and visit me every day and sit holding my hand and often say nothing at all for hours. I felt, then, as if the sky had fallen in on me. Mummy and Daddy were so sweet and we all ha
d such fun together ‒ and then it was all over and there was only me. I didn’t even know Uncle Jock very well in those days. He was Mummy’s brother and always busy working. He wasn’t used to children either, except to his child patients.
But he sensed that I needed someone to hold on to, and he hung on to my hand even when I was asleep. The nurses said they thought he pulled me back to life, physically as well as mentally. Later, when I was well and he had that job out there, I found I was having fun again. And laughing. We had an apartment when I was in High School. Neither of us knew anything about housekeeping, and at first Uncle Jock kept using the English terms for things like cookies and crackers and we never got what we expected from the grocery store. You see, Daddy had only been three months with the Baltimore branch of the firm, when the accident happened, so I didn’t have much time to get used to things like that.’
The shadow was lurking in her eyes again. I asked quickly, ‘How have you managed to come away without an American accent?’
‘I expect it was because I had Uncle Jock to talk to and that counteracted the conversation at school.’ She was smiling again. ‘Also they loved what they called my British accent at school, and I got more and more conscious of it until one day Uncle Jock teased me about his not being able to understand it himself! I tried not to sound too affected after that, but the trouble is that I slip into it, when I’m nervous or shy.’
We sat in silence. Neither of us moved until we heard Standing’s quick soft steps coming up the corridor. I jumped up, smoothed my apron and Fiona handed me her empty cup. ‘Thank you very much, Nurse,’ she was saying as Standing came in. ‘I feel nice and sleepy after that cocoa.’ She smiled her old polite social smile. ‘Good night.’
Standing went round the other patients, then came into the kitchen. I was cutting the breakfast bread. ‘Nurse Blakney, did the S.M.O. come up while I was at supper?’
I put down the bread knife. ‘I didn’t see him, Nurse.’
She said she had met the Assistant Night Sister on her return from supper. ‘She said she saw the S.M.O. coming down the Wing stairs about half an hour ago. I wondered if he wanted to see me about something. Of course he may just have used the corridor as a short cut.’
‘I expect so, Nurse,’ I said truthfully. I knew it would be useless to mention that shadow to Standing. She would either say I was being over-imaginative, or lecture me for being seen sitting on a patient’s bed.
The first grey fingers of dawn were creeping round the kitchen blinds when I remembered George Thanet’s letter. I pulled up the blinds, opened the windows and leant against the draining-board enjoying the sweet fresh unused air blowing up from the river as I read the letter. As I had expected, it concerned the pantomime.
‘We’ve got to get cracking, as there isn’t all that much time,’ he ended. ‘Avis Gavin thinks you should be having nights off next Tuesday and Wednesday. Can you join Bill and me in the MS. Library at six-thirty on Tuesday? You’ve got to come. I’ve asked the Dean for the usual permit and we can have it to ourselves for a couple of hours.’
At last I walked wearily but happily down the Wing stairs towards the dining-room. I felt really pleased with the night behind me. I had made a new friend and been in charge for the first time.
‘Hey, Maggie! You look on top of the world this morning.’ George Thanet came up the stairs two at a time. ‘I’ve been waiting to see you. I hope my news isn’t going to take that smile off your face, but I’m afraid it may.’
I stopped. ‘What do you mean?’
George was fairly tall, very square, and he stood very straight. He had an attractive face, light brown hair and very dark brown eyes. ‘Let’s go on down and I’ll tell you as we go. I had to see you, but daren’t be caught twice attempting to do so. Once was more than enough for yours truly.’
‘Once, George? What’s behind that?’
He grimaced ruefully. ‘I feel a complete heel, Maggie. I don’t mind putting myself in a spot ‒ I do mind doing the same to you. I’m much afraid that’s what I’ve done. I was up in the Wing last night.’
‘George, no! You know it’s forbidden.’
He nodded gloomily. ‘I know. But when Jo said you were on your own and suggested I should deliver my letter myself, I thought, why not? I didn’t think there’d be any danger as it was so late and all the rounds were over. So I walked in and came face to face with the S.M.O.’
So Dr. Cameron had been there, I thought. ‘What did he say?’ I asked.
‘Naturally he pointed out that I’m a senior student and well-acquainted with the rules of the hospital. The only thing to do seemed to me to stick to the truth. I told him I wanted to deliver a note to one of the Wing night staff. He told me to leave it on the desk and make myself scarce. Which I did! Unfortunately, your name was on the envelope. There’s just one bright spot ‒ if I had to meet anyone I’d as soon that person was the S.M.O.’
‘Why?’ I asked curiously.
‘A chap knows where he is with someone like the S.M.O. He may take you apart ‒ he did that to me last night ‒ but that’s the end of it. He won’t hold it against me unless I do it again. I only hope he won’t hold it against you. Or mention it to his girl friend. He gave your name such a frigid look that it’s a wonder the miserable letter didn’t ice up there and then.’
I nodded unhappily at my thoughts. ‘He has his reasons, George. I won’t go into them now. Never mind. What’s done is done. Tell me about your plans ‒ but first, tell me about Standing. Is she really his girl friend? I know she likes him.’
‘You should know the answer better than we do. All we know is that there’s some attraction in the Wing because ‒’ He stopped speaking as we turned from the stairs into the corridor and the tall figure of the S.M.O. loomed a few yards from us. George murmured. ‘’Morning, sir.’
My mouth felt rather dry. ‘Good morning, Dr. Cameron.’
The S.M.O. glanced from George to me. ‘’Morning,’ he replied briskly and walked on and up the stairs.
‘I wonder if we are on to something about him and Standing?’ I murmured to George. ‘He’s not wanted in the Wing at the moment. It’s all quiet. So why is he going up there?’
He looked at me. ‘You don’t seem to fancy the notion of his popping up to see Standing. I agree. He’s a decent if toughish bloke. No one wants to wish Rowena Standing on the poor chap. It’s because of her that I’ve been growing grey all night. If he mentions that her junior has been receiving nocturnal billets-doux, your life in the Wing won’t be worth living.’
I could not understand how my friend Jo could have suggested that George should come up to see me. She was so sensible. She always looked before she leapt. But I said nothing about this to George. All the same, I was very puzzled. If I had not known Jo better, I might even have thought that she was trying to get me into trouble. If George had been seen by anyone but the S.M.O., I realised slowly, I might have found myself taking a trip to Matron’s office this morning.
Jo was not at breakfast next morning. She had rushed off to keep an early hairdressing appointment. I was in bed and half-asleep when she returned.
She came into my room to borrow some cold-cream. ‘Did you hold the fort successfully?’ she asked, after I had admired her hair.
‘Yes and no,’ I said, and explained. I felt she had a right to explain things, too.
She was smitten with remorse. ‘Maggie, how awful! I never meant George to take me seriously. Was the S.M.O. furious?’
‘George said he took him apart, but he thinks it will end there.’
She looked very worried. ‘I wish I could be sure of that. It’s obviously the sort of thing an S.M.O. has to clamp down on. Wait until I see George! I could shake him for doing this to you.’
‘You mustn’t do that. Poor boy, he’s upset enough, as it is.’
She sighed. ‘The S.M.O. is bound to say something to Standing. He may even go higher. Oh, Maggie, I shan’t sleep a wink today!’
I co
uld not let her distress herself like this, so I had to ignore Avis’s previous warning about keeping one’s own secrets, and told her I was reasonably sure, on past showing, that Dr. Cameron would not report me to anyone. I made her understand that my story of the tea-pot and the urn was true. Her eyes widened with incredulity.
‘He really was very nice,’ I assured her. ‘I’m afraid he may not be so nice to me after this ‒ but he was. And there’s another thing.’ I told her about Fiona’s nightmare and that shadow on the wall. ‘I’m sure it was Dr. Cameron. I think it was so tactful of him not to come in.’
She nodded. ‘It was. Very.’ Her voice sounded a little odd, possibly because she was slapping cold-cream on her face. ‘All the same, I hate to worry you, but I wouldn’t bet on being in his good books, after last night. Remember, entertaining a student on duty ranks with falling in love with a patient as one of the two major crimes a nurse can commit. That’s what makes me feel so dreadful.’
‘Don’t feel like that, please.’
‘My dear, I can’t help it. And the worst is ‒’ she studied her reflection in the dressing-table mirror ‒ ‘if for some ghastly reason you should get shifted from the Wing, I’ll probably be the wretch who takes your place.’
I raised myself on one elbow. ‘Why so? Because you’re next to me alphabetically, in our set?’
‘I suppose so. Night Sister told me last night that I’d be relieving your nights off. I meant to tell you at midnight, but forgot.’
I lay back and grinned at her reflection. ‘You really must be in love with Bill! You never forget things as a general rule.’
A Ward Door Opens: A touching 1950s hospital romance (The Anniversary Collection Book 7) Page 4
