Nurse Ronnie's Vocation

by Felicity Hayle

  When she got home that evening, tired and dispirited, it was to find that her father had had one of his bad days and in consequence was inclined to be querulous. For his sake she had to bottle up her own troubles and try to cheer him out of his doldrums.

  While she was clearing the dishes and washing up in the tiny kitchen he got out the chessboard and set the, pieces for a game that had remained unfinished since the weekend.

  "I thought we'd finish this tonight, Ronnie," he said when she came back into the sitting room.

  "I ought to be doing some studying," she told him. "I came bottom of our set in the hospital exam." But he looked so despondent that she had to say : "All right, Daddyjust this once. But I really must get down to some bookwork."

  "I thought you had all your classes and things at the hospital," he complained.

  "We can't do it all there—and I'm not very bright," she told him.

  But Toby would not have that. "Stuff and nonsense !" he said, and proceeded to sweep her from the board, for her mind was not on the game.

  When it was finished he surprised her by saying that he thought he would go to bed.

  "Good idea," she commended, though in her heart she was alarmed. Toby had never been one for going to bed early. "Don't forget your pills," she called after him as he pottered towards his room.

  She picked up the bottle off the mantelpiece to give him, but stopped with it in her hand. "These are different pills," she said. "Where did you get them from?"

  "Your friend Conway dropped in today and left them for me—he says they'll do more good than the others. I must say I like him better than most doctors—sensible sort of chap."

  Ronnie's heart raged, but all she asked was : "Did you pay him for them?"

  "No, of course I didn't !" Toby looked puzzled. "You can't offer a chap like Conway a couple of bob."

  "These cost more like twenty-five bob than two," she told her father.

  "Well, it's all the same to him, I expect," Toby turned away uninterestedly. Ronnie sighed, and wished with all her heart that this scheme of Philip Conway's would come off and he would go to Africa and their paths need never cross again.

  Ronnie did not like being bad friends with anyone, and she would gladly have made things up with Flossie. But the latter had her day off the next day, so she could not speak to her. Sister did not blow up, but eyed Ronnie with evident disfavour and gave her all the most distasteful jobs to do. Ronnie was inclined to think that a ticking-off would have been preferable, though she realised, with fundamental honesty, that she might not have kept her temper if Sister had repeated any of the current gossip about herself and Mr. Conway. Her temper flared again inwardly when Alan Pickering came on the ward to see a patient late in the afternoon. She would have liked to tell him just what she thought of him, but had to content herself with completely ignoring him. She was pleased to notice, out of the corner of her eye, that her attitude was not lost on him and that he looked both puzzled and hurt.

  `Serve him right !' she thought crossly to herself. `And as for His Nibs, I'd like to—' but her imagination boggled at anything bad enough to fit his calendar of crimes.

  The next morning, hurrying through the hospital, Ronnie ran full tilt into Flossie.

  "What's the hurry?" the latter demanded.

  Ronnie gave a rueful smile. "Well, I've got enough black marks against me as it is without getting another for being late !"

  "There's heaps of time yet—another ten minutes. I say, Ronnie, I'm sorry about that fuss the other day. I was pretty narked, I suppose, and took it out on you."

  "That's all right." Ronnie felt grateful that their difference was healed, for her friendship with Flossie had come to mean quite a lot to her. "It must have been maddening to be left with the whole b.p. round to do —not to mention collecting up the dropped ones. Gosh, didn't they make a din !"

  Flossie giggled. "The best part of all was that deathly hush after the clatter had died down, and then you telling His Nibs where he got off—"

  "Oh dear, I hope it didn't sound as bad as that," Ronnie said. "But all the same, he hadn't any right to be there—he could see the ward was closed, couldn't he?"

  "You're a funny girl, Forbsie—I can't make you out. If His Nibs even so much as noticed my existence I'd be bucked as anything. But you don't seem to care a rap. Anyone would think you disliked him !"

  "I do," Ronnie snapped.

  "But why? He's gorgeous !" Flossie protested.

  The hospital clock striking saved Ronnie the necessity of answering, and set both girls hurrying up the stairs and along the corridors, their heels tapping as fast as they could go without actually breaking into a run.

  "Pray heaven Staff's late, or I'll get that black mark !" Ronnie muttered.

  As it happened she did not. But there was something even more alarming in store for her

  There were notices up that morning notifying a general post amongst the younger nurses. This occurred every few months in order to give the girls experience in the different types of work.

  Flossie was posted to a men's medical ward and was delighted with the prospect. Ronnie read through the list right to the end before she was fully convinced that her name was not on it at all.

  When she turned away it was with a sick feeling inside her, for surely this could mean only one thing. Her results in the examination had been so poor that Matron had decided that it was no good giving her a longer trial.

  The other nurses, seeing her stricken expression, tried to be cheerful.

  "Don't worry, Forbes," Danby told her. "It probably only means that they've got something special lined up for you."

  "Yes—" Flossie expanded. "Probably you're going up to Children's Ward as soon as His Nibs can wangle it—and there isn't a vacancy there at the moment."

  Ronnie was not listening. She was facing a very black future indeed. Would she never find a niche where she could be of some use and earn enough, just enough, to supplement her father's pension and keep the two of them in some sort of comfort?

  She remembered her first sight of Connaught Ward and the warm feeling of 'belonging,' of finding her vocation. She was still convinced that somewhere in this world of medicine there was a place for her—if only she had not to pass examinations to fill it !

  For five days Ronnie's nerves were stretched to the limit, and then the expected summons came.

  "Nurse Forbes, you're wanted in Matron's office," Sister Young told her, and Ronnie thought she detected a gleam of satisfaction in Sister's expression.

  "Yes, Sister." Ronnie's knees were knocking and she would have given anything for a cheery assurance that everything was going to be O.K. But Flossie had already moved to her new ward and there was no one else to wish her luck.

  In response to Matron's 'Come in !' Ronnie presented herself in a hastily-donned clean apron, hoping that her cap was straight.

  "Ah, Nurse Forbes !" After that opening remark Matron silently regarded her for a full and agonising minute.

  "Well, Nurse," she began at last. "You are aware, I suppose, that you made a very poor showing in the internal hospital examination?"

  "Yes, Matron," Ronnie agreed meekly, and then added : "I didn't do so badly in the practical—"

  Matron nodded. "Yes—there's the pity of it. By all accounts you have the making of a good nurse, but you have to be able to satisfy the examiners that you know what you are doing—and why. On your present showing it is unlikely in the extreme that you will get through your preliminary State examination in February— doubtful even if we postponed it until next October. Do you still want to go on with nursing?"

  "Oh yes, Matron, I do !" Ronnie spoke eagerly. "When I first came here I wasn't sure, but since I've been on the wards I—I just know."

  Matron looked at her and sighed. "Very well, Nurse. We shall see. But I think you will have to study a little harder than you have been doing. I would like to take you into the Nurses' Home, but I understand that your circumstances do not perm
it of that, so we must just see how things go for the next six months. But now the Medical Superintendent wants to see you. The welfare of the staff comes under his jurisdiction in certain fields, and he has some suggestions to make which may help you. He is expecting you now, I think, so run along, Nurse."

  The Medical Superintendent's office was next to Matron's. Dr. Viggers, or 'Papa' as he was colloquially known, was a pet, and Ronnie looked forward to a chat with him, though she doubted whether he would be able to help her at all.

  She knocked and opened the door. And then she got a shock.

  Instead of the grey head and bespectacled face, a dark head was bent over the desk, and when the head was raised a pair of mocking grey eyes met hers.

  "Well, come in, Nurse Forbes. Don't stand there gaping with the door open I" Philip Conway instructed her.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SHE closed the door and stood stiffly by it while the man at the desk flicked over a sheaf of papers and made some rapid notes on a pad.

  When at last he looked up enquiringly she said : "I understand Dr. Viggers wants to see me."

  "No," he said. "I do," and then with a brief smile he went on : "Papa is on sick leave and I'm acting as his deputy."

  "You?" she cried before she could stop herself.

  "Well, why not?" he asked mildly. "If I ever get this hospital of mine in Bazualiland I shall have to be head cook and bottle washer, so it's just as well to get in a bit of practice while I can. Medical Superintendent is a job I've never tackled, so it seemed a good opportunity to make good the omission. Don't you agree?"

  Ronnie made no comment.

  With a slight sigh, as at the perverseness of a child, Philip Conway picked up the sheaf of papers. "Well," he said, "let's see if we can sort out your little problem for you."

  "Thank you," Ronnie's voice was ice-cold with anger, "but I have no problem that needs sorting out."

  "No? Well, if you're thinking of going on with nursing you will have. On the strength of this paper you'll be out on your ear before long !" He turned over the pages of what Ronnie now realised where the papers she had written for that wretched exam. "Can't even

  spell—" he made a pencil correction, then clicked his tongue and rapped out : "Spell `Anaesthetic'—"

  Stony silence lay weightily. For the life of her Ronnie could not even have begun to spell the word as it was thrust on her like that. But her face did not give away her inner panic, and looking at its cold, set lines Philip Conway evidently decided that he had gone far enough. Throwing down the papers on the desk, he turned on quite a different tack.

  "How long does it take you to get from your place to the hospital? An hour?"

  She was so taken by surprise that she answered automatically : "About fifty minutes in the morning— a little longer in the evening."

  "So that in order to be on the ward at seven-thirty you have to leave home roughly at six-thirty. You get home again anything up to seven o'clock, cook a meal, clean the flat, play chess with your father till all hours and then get up at about five-thirty in order to cook breakfast for your father before leaving. Am I right?"

  "I suppose so—but what on earth is all this to do with you?"

  "Because, my dear girl, you can't go on at that pace —not if you want to carry on with nursing, for which you need to pass exams. I take it that you do want to nurse?"

  "Yes," Ronnie told him briefly, and her blue eyes met the questioning glance of his grey ones, and for once there was no mockery on his side nor antagonism on hers.

  "You feel you have a vocation?" he persisted gravely.

  Ronnie shied from that word. It was too high-sounding, but her answer was honest. "I like to be able to help people when they're ill. I like my work and I'm interested in finding out the way things work—I mean the way patients respond to treatment. I like to see them get better. I don't think I should like to be a Ward

  Sister, though," she finished thoughtfully. "I should be scared."

  He nodded. "Then you must realise that to be a good nurse you've got to be fair to yourself as well as to your patients. And you're not being fair at the moment. It would ease matters if you lived nearer to the hospital and didn't have to worry about your father all day, wouldn't it?"

  "Yes, but—" Ronnie started to point out that circumstances that could not be altered had to be accepted, but Philip Conway did not heed the interruption.

  "I have a house round the corner, in Adam Square," he went on smoothly. "It was my father's house and is far too large by present-day standards. The upper floor has been turned into a self-contained flat and it's unoccupied at the moment. I have a man by the name of Alfred Withers—my father's old batman—who looks after me when I'm there, and for the rest of the day eats his head off with boredom. D'you see what I'm getting at?" he broke off to ask.

  "No," Ronnie said flatly.

  "Well, the suggestion is that you and your father move into the flat. Withers can look after your father during the day and they'll be company for one another. That will save you a good deal of time, worry and work. Don't you agree?"

  "No, I don't. For one thing we can't afford the sort of rent for a flat in Adam Square, and for another Daddy doesn't want to move again now he's got settled in—"

  "Oh, but he dislikes it intensely where he is, and he's longing to move to Adam Square," he told her with an expressionless face which was only betrayed by a flicker at the corners of his mouth.

  "You mean to say that you've discussed this—this idea with my father?"

  "Yes—and he agrees wholeheartedly."

  "Then it's a waste of time asking me about it, isn't it?"

  "The woman always has the last word—" his eyes were mocking her again now. "You can see the place any time you like and make all arrangements about moving in with Withers. He'll look after you. That's all, thank you, Nurse Forbes."

  She was dismissed so abruptly that it was not until she was halfway back to the ward that she remembered that she had not so much as said 'thank you' for what she supposed she ought to think of as a kindness. But she could not think of it that way. She felt—enmeshed, she decided. Yes, that was the word—enmeshed in some strong web from which she could not break free. And she did not like the sensation at all.

  She had to admit, though, that the flat in Adam Square was a distinct improvement on Grantchester Mansions. It had spaciousness, a marvellous view—and Withers.

  He was a small, sharp Cockney with a fund of good humour and a ready reply. But he had too the steady eyes of a man who could be relied upon in an emergency. Withers, Ronnie felt sure, would never be at a loss, whatever happened.

  "I hopes you'll come, miss," Withers confided to Ronnie on the Sunday morning when, all agog, Toby had chartered a taxi from Pimlico to Adam Square. "It'd be a fair treat to 'ave a gentleman to do for again. Like the old days with the Colonel. Not that I'm saying a word against Master Philip, mind. He likes things right, same as 'is father did. But 'e likes to do 'em for hisself - and does 'em as well as I would. And that's a bit dis'eartening to a man, if you knows what I mean, miss."

  Ronnie, knowing that the battle had been won by Toby's obvious and almost childlike delight, still had to

  demur. "I'm not sure, Withers. It's a very nice flat, of course. But even if we did come we wouldn't expect you to wait on Daddy as part of the lease of the flat !"

  Withers gave her a broad wink. "Oh, no, miss. Of course not. Strickly between ourselves, like, I can tell you it'd be a fair treat to look after the old gentleman— see that 'e 'as a good meal midday and a bit o' company if he wants it. Them's Master Philip's instructions, miss —and it'd be a real pleasure to me."

  It was a losing battle, and soon Ronnie gave it up. Within two weeks they were installed in their new home. It made things seem a little better in her eyes that the house was semi-professional, for Philip Conway and a junior partner named Timothy Blake used the ground floor as consulting rooms, with a shared secretary and a part-time married nurse. Phili
p and the attendant Withers lived on the first floor, and Ronnie and her father were tucked away at the top of the house—as private as they wished to be.

  Within a week of moving Ronnie had to confess to herself that so far as she was concerned the move was ideal. She now had the luxury of lying in bed until nearly seven o'clock, and still being on the ward at half-past provided she was quick. There was no need to wake her father for an early breakfast—Withers would see to that at a more reasonable hour when he had his own— and she had hers at the hospital. If she did not feel like cooking when she got home there was no need to do that either, for Withers always liked a cooked lunch and she could be sure that Toby had fed well. It was perhaps the greatest blessing of all, though, to see the added cheerfulness on Toby Forbes' face when she got home and to know that he was not, through sheer loneliness and boredom, resorting to the consumption of alcohol which was far beyond his capacity.

  She had cause to be very grateful indeed to Philip

  Conway, and sometimes she felt guilty that she had never told him so. But then she hardly ever saw him except on the ward.

  She did try to write him a little note of thanks, but after the third attempt she gave it up as a bad job. She did not seem able to strike the right note—everything she wrote seemed to frigid and formal when she read it over.

  `I'll just have to leave it until I run into him some time—it'll be easier to say than to write,' she thought.

  She was, however, quite unprepared with what she should say when one Sunday morning she almost collided with His Nibs at the foot of the stairs. He was seldom at home during weekends, and she had thought that he was away as usual. His sudden appearance at the waiting-room doorway when she was on the bottom stair took her completely by surprise.

  "Good morning," he said pleasantly. "Your weekend off ?"

  She nodded, but before she could speak he went on smoothly : "As a matter of fact, there's something I wanted to speak to you about. I think you and your father can help. I need to get to know the influential people with an interest in Bazualiland. D'you think we could get together and do a bit of entertaining?" He did not wait for her answer, but went on : "Think it over —don't let me detain you now. Make the most of the sunshine and get all the fresh air you can—goodbye !" And before Ronnie could think of anything to say he passed her on his way up the broad staircase.