A Nurse's Duty: A 1930s Medical Romance

by Sheila Burns

  ‘Oh, you don’t understand how important it is,’ she kept crying, ‘it must be you. You are the only one that I can trust.’

  Eventually I promised.

  She calmed down and said that she would try to sleep, and I went the round of the patients on that floor to relieve the other nurse. I had to get them ready for the night.

  The girl next door was in a little cheap slip of a room and worried to death that she would not get well again in time to keep her job. I could not help thinking what a contrast she made to Iris Harper, with her masses of flowers and gifts, and this poor little soul who had absolutely nothing at all.

  Further along the corridor was the young Padre with the broken leg. He had suffered a lot very bravely, and was so patient over it all that you felt proud to do any little thing you could for him.

  I tidied him up, and just as I got out into the corridor again they were bringing a new patient up from the theatre. It was a girl, whimpering a little, with the first signs of returning consciousness; as she passed me by, Tenny beckoned to me as she walked at the head of the stretcher.

  ‘Give me a hand at getting her into bed?’ she said.

  I ought to have been going off duty, but instead, I went into the room with Tenny. Screens surrounded the bed, and the lights were subdued. There was the smell of eau-de-Cologne, and by the side of the bed itself hyacinths, fat pink ones in a blue bowl.

  ‘Her boy friend sent them along,’ said Tenny, and she sniffed the air disapprovingly. ‘Once I had a boy friend who sent me hyacinths. Heavens, how I hated them!’

  ‘Hated them?’ I said in surprise.

  ‘Yes, loathed them. He was rather highbrow and was always quoting poetry about them.’

  I nodded, I knew the verses that he had quoted, and gave them to her:

  ‘If thou of fortune be bereft,

  And of thy all but four pence left,

  Buy bread with two, and with the dole

  Buy hyacinths to ease thy soul.’

  She crimsoned. ‘Yes, that was it. Silly, I called it.’

  And I had always thought it rather beautiful. But then, beauty strikes different ones of us in diverse ways. It is something that cannot be analysed, something that cannot be actually placed.

  From the bed there came a little cry, so that we both of us suddenly startled back to reality. ‘Where am I? What’s happened?’

  It was I who turned to her. ‘It is all over and you are safe back in bed again. Nothing to worry about. Lie quite still.’

  Then I had to leave her. There was Iris Harper’s note to be delivered. From the doorway I caught a last glimpse of her, banked up with pillows, and the scent of the eau-de-Cologne and the hyacinths mingling together. I knew she was going to be all right.

  Chapter Two

  As I went down the stairs, I saw the night nurses coming on duty in a batch from below, fresh and white and light-hearted. Soon the bell would ring for our supper, and we would troop down like schoolchildren, and sit around the table headed by Miss Vaughan, who would enquire of each in turn as to what had happened.

  ‘Well, and how’s everybody?’ asked Sister Bird, head night Sister, commonly known as Birdie.

  ‘Grand.’

  ‘And how’s the new case on your floor, Nurse Day?’

  ‘She’s up from the theatre, just coming round, and Tenny has got her in hand.’

  ‘And your appendix?’

  ‘Has a bit of a relapse and running a temperature, flew into a temper and did this for herself,’ said I; ‘but she is better now.’

  ‘Doctor ordered a draught?’

  I shook my head. ‘He wants her to sleep naturally if she can; says if she is still restless at midnight she is to have a medinal.’

  Birdie nodded as she jotted it all down in the case-book. ‘These spoilt darlings,’ said she; ‘everybody gets whatever they want. You would think that it was almost worth while being ill, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I’ll take a last peep at her before I go off,’ I said, and I slipped into her room. I knew that her husband would be in last thing to see how she was, and had had a horrid idea that I might run into him. Somehow I hated running into him. Yet I dare not avoid him. ‘You promise me you’ll try to sleep?’ I asked her.

  ‘Yes, Nurse, I will. Really I will,’ but I did not like the look in her eyes.

  ‘You will deliver that note?’ she begged. I had already promised. I don’t know if she thought that I was likely to go back on my word, or what it was, but I just nodded. I’d deliver it all right.

  I went off duty.

  What a relief it always is to feel that the day is over! Night nurses were rustling about in their quiet shoes, settling their patients off with hot drinks and fresh hot water-bottles. Nightcaps were going round, and in the hall a doctor was slipping into his coat and exchanging last remarks with the anaesthetist. There was the faint smell of the anaesthetic still hanging about him like an incense.

  All the while during my supper I was regretting the fact that I had undertaken to deliver that letter for Mrs. Harper.

  ‘You’re very quiet, Nurse Day,’ said Miss Vaughan from the head of the table.

  There was never very much that she missed. She was one of those people who knew what you were feeling almost before you were aware of it yourself, which I suppose accounted for the fact that she had been such a marvellous nurse in her time.

  I made the only excuse that I could think of. ‘Oh, it has been rather a difficult day, and my head is aching a bit.’

  It wasn’t my head at all. The troublesome thing was that I knew quite well that I had had no right to undertake this commission for Iris Harper, but that I had been forced into a corner and had seen no other way of soothing her. He had said ‘Take care of her; you will do this for me, won’t you?’ and he must have known that I would have done anything in the world for him.

  Miss Vaughan said, ‘I’m afraid that you have got a rather difficult patient. Dr. Harper said that she wasn’t easy when he rang up about her coming here, and I am proud that he should have chosen you. If your head aches, take a turn in the air after dinner. I know when I was nursing I always found that a little walk before going to bed made all the difference in the world.’

  It really looked as though Fate were playing into my hand. I had been turning over in my own mind as to whether I could make an excuse to Mrs. Harper and explain that I hadn’t delivered the note because I could not get out. Now Miss Vaughan was making the way clear for me. I glanced down the table. Twelve of us sitting there. Twelve white caps and tired faces above spruce white collars. Miss Vaughan, with her muslin cap and strings, presiding over the whole lot of us. All alike. All orderly. Sometimes being a nurse makes you want to be disorderly, and to stampede, or do something dreadful. It puts ideas into your mind.

  Afterwards, when we had drunk our rather weak coffee, I went up to my room and put on my bonnet and cloak. It was all mad and ridiculous of me, but now I was determined to carry the thing through. I would deliver the letter, and, of course, nothing could happen to me, I told myself. I was just being silly! All the time I was conscious of a faint hammering inside my head. It really was aching now.

  I went out into the street.

  It was a lovely night. There was a moon and stars, and across the park there were the trees thickening already for buds. I don’t know what there is about a starry night, but it has always made me feel dreadfully lonely, and that was how I felt now as I went across the square. It was the longing for somebody to share the evening with me; the longing for companionship. Daylight is never so intensely terribly lonely as is moonlight.

  Dr. Harper would have gone upstairs to see his wife last thing. She was a lucky girl to have won a man like that, and she did not care for him in the way that I could have cared. I doubt if she had ever had it in her to love very deeply, because she was one of the new era of women, the kind that I have always found it rather hard to understand, who want all the gilding that life can offer, and none of
the responsibilities. She was too erotic to stand everyday wear and tear. Marriage did not appeal to her, but love did, and that was why there was the affair with Bill which actually held her because it represented intrigue.

  I found the block of flats easily enough. They were the expensive kind, and lots of the patients at the home had come to us from here. I know that the doctors sometimes said jokingly that the block was a little gold-mine to them.

  I took the lift up.

  ‘Captain Dawson?’ I asked the lift-boy.

  I thought that he looked at me rather doubtfully.

  ‘Yes, miss,’ he said, and then, as the lift was solemnly climbing up the shaft I caught him casting another curious look at me. It made me uneasy. I had never thought of there being something strange about this Bill who was such a friend of Iris Harper’s.

  He ushered me on to a small landing from which there were four flats branching off, and I rang the bell of the one that he indicated, which was marked with a small brass plate stating: Captain Dawson.

  It seemed to be a long time before anyone came in reply, and eventually a man-servant answered, and seemed both sheepish and surprised to see me.

  I gave him the note.

  ‘I was to wait for an answer,’ I said. It had been the answer which had worried my patient so much; she was crazy to get it, and all that I hoped was that it would be the answer she wanted when she did get it, or I would not be responsible for the consequences.

  He surveyed it doubtfully and then admitted me inside the hall. I could see that he was suspicious and did not like having me inside the place at all.

  ‘If you will wait there for a moment,’ he said, and went off down a passage, leaving me standing where I was.

  I don’t think that I had ever been inside a bachelor’s flat before. I sat down on a settle and stared about me. The place was done up in pseudo-Chinese style. It was mostly scarlet lacquer. There were dragons on the ceiling, and the cabinets had strange devices on them. In the tiny window there was a niche with an incense burner, from which there issued a dull smoke. The whole place seemed to be unreal and I was not impressed by it. But then that was hardly my affair, and anyway I had not liked my mission, and was possibly prepared to crab anything that I saw.

  I sat down and started thinking about life in the home. Was I going on like this working for ever? A nurse’s life is one of entire self-sacrifice; it means giving of herself, and in the end when she is too old for work, what happens to her? Walking between prim beds in hospital. Helping little new lives into the world, and old, tired lives out of it. I thought of the patients in the home, of the rooms that were like mirrors with eternal new reflections in them, new personalities passing through them. At one time an old lady, austere and dominating, who perhaps did not approve of flowers. Then a girl like Iris herself, spoilt and pampered, exquisite silk nighties, cobwebs of dressing-gowns, a long queue of adoring visitors. A man, too, who would perhaps not admit suffering and would be terribly brave. A child, frightened, yet sweet. All these passed through our rooms at the home, in a long string, and left impressions behind them.

  That is the life of a nurse. Just a string of impressions, no more. And I wanted it to be more, I wanted the things that every girl hungers for, the love of a man to sustain you through life, a home, children of my own, something worth living for.

  Suddenly the giver, whom I knew to be Bill, who had sent the golden basket of mimosa, appeared. He was tall and broad, in his twenties. His eyes were blue, with that cold, clear, steely blue which I always feel means cruelty. This may be a silly fancy of mine, but there is a hard blue like pebbles which seems to cut right through you. He was florid and fair. I suppose that most people looking at him would have said that he was a handsome man, but I am a nurse, and I read things into people’s faces, things to which others may be blind.

  I knew at once that he lived life hard. I thought that he drank too much ‒ by that I don’t mean that he was a drunkard, but that he was fond of good wine ‒ and he was the kind of man who would have no idea of stinting himself. I disliked him intensely. I knew also by the way that he looked at me that he thought of me as a woman, never as a nurse, and that it was horrible.

  He came forward.

  ‘So you are Iris’s nurse?’ he said.

  I tried to remain calm, but there was a feeling inside me that was anything but calm. I didn’t like my errand, and I had no wish to be here at all. It was a place with an atmosphere; probably it was caused by the scarlet lacquer on the walls, and the queer smell of incense from the niche. Probably it was because I had a guilty feeling that neither Miss Vaughan nor Dr. Harper would have supported me in what I was doing.

  ‘I am nursing Mrs. Harper,’ I said, and I hoped very much that it sounded as cold as I meant it to sound.

  ‘I see. When my man said that a nurse was here, I did not think for a moment that she would be so charming. Won’t you come in and have a drink?’

  ‘I don’t drink.’

  I felt irritated that he should look at me like that, in a way that made me feel cheap. And at the same moment I had a horrid idea that the very simplicity of my dress attracted him. He was used to women who dressed like Iris Harper, in cloth of gold, and lamé, in velvets and lovely shimmering satins. I had just my bonnet and cloak and the white apron over the mauve print frock under that cloak.

  ‘I have been terribly inhospitable,’ he said, ‘very unkind. Won’t you show me that you forgive me by accepting my hospitality now?’

  I said that I was sorry and that I must get back. Could I have the note for which my patient was waiting, and I would return at once.

  Then he looked at me and laughed.

  He put out a hand and touched my cuff gently, and there was something about that touch which made me go a little cold. I do not mind what a man says to me ‒ as a nurse I am used to plain facts ‒ nor do I mind how he looks at me, but I have a fetish about being touched. I hate it. I kept telling myself that he was a bad lot, and that I had known it at once, perhaps from the very beginning, when Iris had talked about him. He had all the diabolical fascination of the bad man over the silly, erotic type of woman. But it was a fascination which was non-existent for me.

  I brushed his hand aside and pulled myself up.

  ‘Will you please give me the reply to the message?’ I asked.

  ‘Dear, dear. I’m sorry if I have offended you. Believe me, I did not intend that as anything but a compliment,’ and he stood there, still looking at me.

  I realized then that something would have to be done to end the interview.

  ‘The note,’ I repeated.

  ‘Oh, yes, Mrs. Harper wants me to visit her at the home.’

  That made me start. I had never expected this, because surely both of them must realize how dreadfully unfair such a visit would be to Ray Harper. He would be almost bound to hear of it, even if he did not come in and surprise them both. It was absurd to contemplate such a piece of folly. The doctor came in and out as he thought he would, sometimes quite early in the morning, sometimes quite late at night; it just depended when he was operating. He might so easily walk into the room and see them together, when he believed that Mrs. Harper had given Bill up. Surely no girl with a wonderful husband like Iris’s could be long in love with anybody else, especially when the somebody else was like Bill.

  ‘I think it would be very difficult for you if you tried to see Mrs. Harper in the home,’ I said, and hoped he would take the hint.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘It would be most unwise,’ I urged again, but he laughed at that.

  ‘It might not be wise, but it would be very nice. I had thought myself that it would not be diplomatic, and I told her so. That was what she didn’t like. But now, having met you, I have formed a different opinion of the home.’

  Again there was that flicker in the blue eyes that were so hard, and the hand was stretched out involuntarily as though he would touch me again.

  ‘Will you please give me
the reply to that message?’ I asked him. ‘Otherwise I shall have to go without it, and it will upset my patient very much. It is not good for her to be distressed while the stitches are still in.’

  ‘You are very hard on a fellow.’

  I fired up at that.

  ‘I came here entirely against my own wishes, because Mrs. Harper had a crying attack, and she would have done herself serious harm. I promised the doctor that I would see after her, and coming to you personally was the only way to stop her.’

  ‘Oh, yes, her husband. He is too strict with her. I don’t wonder that she has crying attacks,’ and he laughed. ‘I suppose just because he is a doctor and has got some big reputation for himself as a surgeon, you think he is bound to be a hero? Nurses are like that.’

  I wished he had not said it, because it was true. All of us at the home did think of him as being a hero. However, I wouldn’t be drawn.

  That was when he produced the letter. I suppose he saw that I did not intend waiting for it much longer.

  ‘Thank you,’ and I took it from him.

  ‘Tell her that after I had written it I … I had reason to change my mind, and that I may be round to the home to see her. The day I intend calling I shall send her some white violets in the morning, then she will know. Letters are sometimes dangerous, aren’t they?’

  He twinkled. ‘I dare say you have found that out already.’

  White violets!

  It sounded just like a schoolgirlish intrigue, and all the while she had a husband like Ray. I put the letter into my pocket, and drew my cloak closer about me. Bill was hateful. I was very glad to think that in a moment I could shut the door on him and go away, never to return to his flat. In future Iris Harper could manage her own affairs, and if she cried herself sick and made herself thoroughly ill over them, then that was her affair and not mine.

  ‘That will be all, I suppose?’ I said.

  ‘You’ll be seeing her to-night?’

  ‘No, not to-night, her other nurse is with her now, and I do not go on duty again until seven-thirty in the morning.’