by Betty Neels
Augusta’s mouth opened, showing little white teeth; for a moment she looked as though she was going to grind them. Instead she shut her mouth again while she gave him a long, cool glance before saying finally with dignity, ‘I’m glad your fears are groundless,’ and when he opened the door, swept through, her carroty head high. At least a satisfactory exit, she thought, ruffled, and found him beside her in the corridor.
She started to walk away from him, but he put out a hand and caught her lightly by the arm. She didn’t move; she had had enough schoolroom fights with her brother when they were children to know when it was to her advantage to keep still.
‘That’s better—I only want to know something about Lady Belway, and you were so intent on flouncing off before I had a chance to open my mouth.’
She went a little pink, because she hadn’t thought that at all, and he went on, as though he had read her thoughts, ‘Did you think that I was going to make a pass at you? My dear Staff Nurse, I don’t like carroty hair.’
At this outrageous remark the pink turned to scarlet. Goaded, she snapped, ‘I’m not such a desperate old maid that I welcome—or expect—a pass from a man like you!’ Which remark didn’t help in the least, as he laughed with genuine amusement, and then asked in quite a different voice—placid yet authoritative, ‘My godmother—she isn’t very happy here. Oh, I know that she has every attention and kindness, but I wondered if she could be got home soon, if we could find a nurse.’
Augusta fixed her eyes on the fine grey suiting of his jacket. She said stiffly, ‘I can’t tell you that. I’m temporary here and didn’t come until today; in any case, I think you should see Sister Cutts or Mr Weller-Pratt.’ She glanced up and wondered why he smiled as though he was amused at something. ‘He’s the orthopaedic surgeon in charge of Lady Belway’s case,’ she explained carefully. ‘If you care to telephone him or Sister— ’She stopped. The sound of quiet feet on the stairs meant the night staff. Before she could speak, he said easily, ‘Thanks. I won’t keep you—the night staff are coming and you will want to give the report. Goodnight.’
He went back into Lady Belway’s room again, leaving her to hurry to the office. The two night nurses were already there—a junior and a staff nurse, a close friend of Augusta’s who said at once:
‘Gussie, who was that? That handsome giant you were dallying with in the corridor? I hope he stays until I can get on the round.’
Augusta sat down and the other two drew up chairs—something they wouldn’t have dared to do if Sister had been on duty; however…
‘I don’t know who he is,’ said Augusta shortly, ‘and I don’t care.’ She was still smarting under his remark about her hair. ‘He’s visiting Lady Belway and there’s a girl with him—wearing a trouser suit.’ She described it at some length and rather enviously. Trouser suits looked marvellous on elegant beanpoles, which she was not. She sighed and said uselessly, ‘Oh, well!’ and flipped the Kardex open and began. ‘Marlene Jones, T’s and A’s—second day…’
During her complicated walk through the hospital to the Nurses’ Home she wondered briefly how it was that Lady Belway’s visitor had known about her giving the report to the night nurses. In general, visitors hadn’t a clue as to how the hospital kept its wheels turning…either he was a very observant man and had been a frequent visitor, or he knew something about hospitals. She considered this unlikely, his appearance had struck her forcibly as that of a member of the leisured class, and he had the assurance and easy manner of those born with the silver spoon. Her brows drew together in a heavy frown, so that when she joined her closer friends in the sitting room there was a general chorused question as to whether she had had a beastly day. Presently, soothed by strong tea and sympathy, she went away to have a bath, and came back, dressing-gowned and ready for bed, to join the others, similarly attired, in watching a spine-chilling film on TV. It was sufficiently horrific to allow her to forget all about the man who didn’t like carroty hair.
She remembered him the next morning, though, and over a brisk cup of coffee she was bidden to drink with Sister, mentioned him, hoping that she would hear who he was: her hopes were dashed. Sister observed:
‘I’ve never heard of him. If he wishes to see me he has only to come to the office when I am here, or if he prefers, he can make an appointment with Mr Weller-Pratt.’ She dismissed him, to Augusta’s disappointment, in favour of the day’s work. ‘I shall want you to go to Theatre with Miss Toms—she is highly strung and has a low threshold to pain.’
Augusta groaned inwardly. Miss Toms’ sensitive feelings would make even the management of a simple operation to remove her appendix a misery for herself as well as the nurses. Presently, obedient to Sister’s wishes, she escorted Miss Toms down to the anaesthetic room and held her frantic, restless hand in a reassuring grip and talked to her in a soft, gentle voice that slowly but surely doused poor Miss Toms’ terror. She was coming back through the theatre wing’s swing door, pinning her cap as she went when she met Lady Belway’s visitor again. His ‘Hullo’ was easy and wholly without surprise. She was trying to think of something to say when he fell into step beside her, remarking, ‘Busy, I see…somehow you don’t strike me as the type to enjoy Private Wing.’
She had started to say ‘I h…’ when she remembered that he was hardly someone in whom she could confide her true feelings regarding Private Wing. She closed her pretty mouth firmly and continued to walk sedately towards the stairs. It was at this moment that she saw Archie coming towards them, and was still deciding if she should stop and speak to him or walk on when he drew level with them and said, as though she were alone:
‘Hullo, Gussie. See you this evening—same place,’ and was on his way again.
Fortunately, they had reached the stairs—Augusta was going up, and she hoped devotedly that her companion was going down. He was, but before he went he said in what she considered to be a hatefully smooth voice:
‘What a relief!’ She had turned on her heel, but with a fatal curiosity, paused to ask why, to be told, ‘I was beginning to think that you didn’t like men. Of course it’s a blow to my ego that you don’t like me, but that is something which can be dealt with later.’
Augusta told herself that she hadn’t the least idea of what he was talking about. She stared at him, her eyes bright green saucers. She said primly, ‘Goodbye’ and flew upstairs two at a time in a whirl of starched skirts, ashamed that instead of thinking about her evening out with Archie she was wholly concerned with the tall stranger. Not, she told herself stoutly, that she found him in the least attractive—indeed, he was rude and arrogant. She told herself this twice, because it didn’t ring quite true. She wondered how he behaved towards someone he liked—that lovely dark girl, for instance. He had a delightful voice—she frowned a little, because now she came to think about it, he had an accent—a very faint accent which tugged, elusive as smoke, at the edge of her senses.
She slipped through the door to PP and forgot him instantly in the hurry and exactitude of her work, and when his image persisted in its invasion of her mind during the rest of the day, she very sensibly ignored it. But that evening, on the way home from the cinema with Archie, she was reminded of him once more by her companion, who wanted to know, without much interest, who he was and what she had been doing with him anyway. She explained, and when Archie remarked that he had got the impression that her companion had appeared a high-handed fellow, agreed with him cheerfully, adding the rider that probably he was married or engaged to the girl he had been with in Lady Belway’s room—or at any rate, very close friends. Strangely, she didn’t fancy the idea, until she remembered how he had said, very plainly indeed, that he didn’t like carroty hair. She said, apropos of nothing at all:
‘What colour would you call my hair, Archie?’
He gave her an astonished look. ‘Good lord, what on earth do you want to know for? I suppose it’s…’ he paused. ‘Coppery?’ he queried cautiously, and was relieved when she smiled.
‘I’m going on holiday in a couple of weeks,’ she remarked, as they waited for the bus to take them back to St Jude’s. ‘You’ll have to find yourself another girl to take out.’ And she was not altogether pleased when he said carelessly, ‘Oh, that’ll be easy enough.’ She wasn’t even faintly in love with him, but she had liked to think that he was at least a little in love with her, even if it was only temporary. Apparently not.
Later, in bed thinking about it, she had to admit that Archie was a dear, but if she were in his shoes, she’d take jolly good care not to fall in love with a nurse when there was still at least two years’ post-graduate course to get through. It was lucky she hadn’t fallen in love with him. She had, like any other girl of twenty-three, fancied herself in love several times, but never to touch her heart, and never for more than a few weeks at a time. To her annoyance, she found herself thinking about the stranger once more, which was stupid and pointless; she would probably never see him again. She went to sleep feeling a little sad because of it.
CHAPTER TWO
SHE SAW HIM the following morning. It was Sister’s day off, so Augusta was to go on duty at eleven and stay on until the night staff came on—a long day, but normal enough. She had rushed out to shop soon after breakfast and they had arrived together at the entrance to the hospital, she on her feet, he at the wheel of a dark grey Silver Shadow convertible. The big car purred past her and stopped without sound, and after one startled look she nodded coolly and flew up the steps and past the porter’s lodge, making for the back of the entrance hall. She wasn’t quite quick enough. She was only half way across the gleaming linoleum floor when he caught up with her.
He said silkily, ‘Are you running away, or—er—discouraging me?’
They had come to the passage running at right angles to the hall. Augusta took the right-hand fork, and found him still beside her.
‘Neither,’ she snapped a little breathlessly. ‘I’ve been out shopping and I’m due on duty in ten minutes.’
She heard him chuckle. ‘And first you must get your breath back,’ he remarked with mock sympathy. They had reached the end of the passage and he opened the door which gave on to the inner courtyard, across which loomed the austere lines of the Nurses’ Home. Augusta fled through it with a muttered ‘Goodbye’, not looking at him at all. She changed with the speed of long practice, and reflected, as she brushed her hair, that it had been a piece of luck that she had been wearing the new jersey dress which matched her eyes. She had bought it barely a week ago, and although being early April, it was possibly a little cool to have worn it, the sun had been shining. Then she had got out the black patent leather handbag her father had given her for her last birthday. It was to find shoes to match this treasured article which had her out so early. She had found its exact match at Raynes, and had had the elegant slingbacks on her feet when they met. The fact somehow compensated for the fact that he drove a Rolls-Royce.
She took the report from another part-time staff nurse, a girl she had known well before she had left to get married a year previously. They had a cup of coffee together once the Kardex was dealt with, and Augusta questioned cautiously, ‘Are there any visitors on the floor?’
‘Mother’s in One.’ This with an expressive lifting of eyebrows. ‘There’s a beautiful creature with Lady Belway—in a white dress, ducky, with one of those tapestry belts that cost the earth. T-strap lizard shoes and handbag to match…’ The two young women stared at each other, wanting the unobtainable for a few unguarded moments, then, ‘There’s someone with the Brig—a downtrodden-looking female of uncertain age.’
They giggled together, but not unkindly. ‘No one else?’ asked Augusta.
‘No one else. And a good thing too, you’ll be able to get the rest of the bits and pieces done before lunch, and then catch up on the paper work during the afternoon.’ Babs got to her feet. ‘Well, I’m off home to clear up and get a meal for James. Thank heaven it’s pay-day, I’ve gone through the housekeeping again.’ She turned to go. ‘How’s Archie?’ she asked over her shoulder. Augusta was aware, a little uncomfortably, that the hospital took Archie and her for granted. She said:
‘We went to the Regent last night, to see that new film…he’s fine.’
She was looked at intently from the door. ‘Love’s young dream wearing a bit thin?’
Augusta gave the bib of her apron a twitch. She said mildly, ‘Well, you know, Babs, it never was love’s young dream—we just get on well together.’ She smiled a little ruefully. ‘Look, if you were a struggling houseman with no money and his way to make, would you fall in love with me?’
‘No, I wouldn’t—but there again, I can quite see that someone might. You’re no beauty, Gussie, but you look different. ‘Bye.’
Left to herself, Augusta wasted a few minutes looking at her reflection in the tiny mirror which was all Sister Cutts allowed herself. Babs was right, she was no beauty. She sighed, and went to see what everyone was doing. The work was going smoothly, at least for the nurses, but the ward maid had a great deal to say about the orderly pinching her newest duster when she hadn’t been looking—a trivial matter which took a few minutes to unravel and smooth over by the simple expedient of getting another duster from the cupboard and awarding it to the maid. Augusta was aware that upon Sister’s return she would have to account for its absence from the neat pile so jealously guarded under lock and key. She had learned long ago that Ward Sisters tended to regard their stock of floor polish, Vim, scrubbing brushes, soap and the like as if they were priceless treasures to be kept in safe custody for ever and ever. She thought it possible that they suffered real pain when asked to part with a single one of these items. She shrugged aside the small matter of the duster; doubtless before Sister got back, she would have to raid the cupboard again. Then she began her round of the patients, but she had barely opened Marlene’s door when Matron arrived. She was a small woman, and pretty, with curly hair and blue eyes, and could have been any age between forty and fifty. She looked attractive in uniform and the frilly cap she affected—and at the hospital dances she was positively glamorous. She smiled now and said, ‘Ah, Staff Nurse,’ and Augusta, replying suitably, marvelled that anyone so soft and feminine could be so intimidating, and, when it was required of her, inflexible too—as she had been over the question of Augusta staffing on PP.
‘Just a quick round, Staff Nurse Brown—I’m sure you’re busy.’ And Augusta once more opened the door of Number One, hoping the while that the student nurses hadn’t popped into the sluice for a natter. Matron was wonderful; she cut through the grumbling and complaining about the wrong kind of tea and eggs that were too hard-boiled, and all the other small grievances uttered, with the precise skill of a sharp pair of scissors cutting silk; but to the slightest whim of the really ill she lent an attentive ear, listening with kindness and sympathy and suggesting remedies, conveying to the patient as she did so her complete confidence in Staff Nurse Brown to bring about any change for the good of those she was looking after. The Brigadier was very difficult. Augusta supposed that the depressing-looking female with him was his daughter—it seemed strange that such a vigorous, short-tempered man could be the father of someone so spiritless, but perhaps he had made her so. As they entered he was talking to her in a subdued roar, which changed to a jovial boom when he saw them.
‘Good morning, dear lady.’ This to Matron, and then as his eye fell upon Augusta, ‘And you too, young woman.’ He fixed Matron with a still alert and gallant eye. ‘Of all the nurses here, she’s the only one who knows how to carry on a conversation—understands cricket, too, and makes a good job of my damn foot.’
There was a tiny pause, for everyone in the room knew that on the following morning the Brigadier and his damn foot were to part company for ever in the operating theatre.
Augusta spoke quickly, almost stammering in her sympathy. The Brig was bad-tempered and irascible, but he had the courage of a lion in his eighty-year-old body. She asked inanely, �
�What do you think of the change in the Test team, Brigadier?’ and saw Matron’s glance; perhaps she was making a fool of herself, but could imagine how the old man felt under the façade of ill-humour. He clutched the lifeline of conversation she had offered, and they embarked on five minutes of cricket. Outside the door once more, Matron remarked, ‘Nursing is hard sometimes, is it not, Nurse Brown?’ and smiled rather nicely. Augusta knew what she meant; it wasn’t long hours and tired feet or hurried meals to which she referred, but the hardness of not being able to help.
Lady Belway still had a visitor. Augusta, under cover of Matron’s polite conversation, verified that the shoes really were lizard; she also looked to see if there was an engagement ring, to be thwarted by the fact that there was a ring on every finger.
Of the owner of the Rolls-Royce there was no sign. He must have been earlier and gone again. Augusta experienced a sense of disappointment out of all proportion to the occasion while she listened with half an ear to Lady Belway crossing swords with Matron over the vexed question of the lack of pepper in the cucumber sandwiches she had been offered for the previous day’s tea.
The day passed quickly, divided as it was into segments, each of which was stuffed to capacity with a variety of jobs to be done—and done properly whatever the setbacks and interruptions; and there were many. The girl, after spending most of the morning with Lady Belway, went away just before lunch, and Augusta, helping the old lady back to bed, hoped that she might talk about her visitors, but she was too occupied in complaining about the books which had arrived from Mudies.