by Betty Neels
Eugenia said, ‘Thanks,’ automatically, repeated the whole story and then started giving orders. ‘There’s one empty bed, get the student nurse to open it up. Get Nurse Sims to get Mrs Brown and Miss Phipps out of their beds and settled in chairs—she can strip the beds and make them up, but don’t let her forget to clean them down first. Get the trolleys out, will you? Then pop down to Women’s Medical and see if they’ll take Mrs Brown and Miss Phipps for the night.’ She added thoughtfully: ‘Can we manage with four, Hatty?’
‘You’re off duty, Sister.’
‘Well, I was, but I’m not now. Nip off, Hatty, and do your stuff; I’ll do some phoning.’
Routine calls to the office, the Path Lab., X-ray, the porters, and since she had made them so many times quickly dealt with.
They were ready when they brought the first case in; a youngish woman with all the signs and symptoms of haemothorax, and only semi-conscious. Eugenia, casting a careful eye over her, knew that she would need surgery urgently to evacuate the blood in her chest, endorsed by Harry coming hard on the heels of the stretcher. ‘Mr Grenfell’s on his way,’ he told her. ‘They’re getting Theatre ready now—they’ll have to use the other two theatres as well, but these three are the most urgent.’
Eugenia, busy making out a chart, nodded. ‘Premed?’ she asked.
It was Mr Grenfell who answered her, very correct in a dinner jacket and not looking in the least like a surgeon. Poor Miriam, thought Eugenia, and handed him the chart.
‘Shall we have a look?’ He glanced at Harry. ‘I took a quick look at the others downstairs; I think this one needs surgery at once—then the little girl. I want all three in Intensive Care afterwards; they can be warded as soon as I say so. Sister…’ He issued a string of instructions in his quiet voice, and she answered him just as quietly and then set about carrying them out. She was supervising the admission of the little girl when the phone rang. There was no one to answer it until Mr Grenfell, on his way across the ward, went through to the office.
When he came back he joined her by the child’s bedside. ‘It was for you, Sister. You are, I believe, off duty?’
She had quite forgotten Humphrey. ‘Rubbish,’ she said tartly. ‘How could I possibly go off duty now? We’re short-staffed as it is.’
He grunted softly to himself and bent over his small patient. ‘Not as bad as I’d feared,’ he said at length. ‘Four penetrating wounds, but as far as I can see none of them have pierced anything really vital. I’ll have her up next, please. The haemothorax shouldn’t take too long.’ He looked round. ‘There’s another woman…’
‘Coming in now,’ said Eugenia calmly.
‘Ah yes—the pneumothorax. I’ll have to do an exploration; it’s impossible to assess the damage at the moment.’
He got up and went over to the bed with Harry beside him. ‘A small wound too. She’s very cyanosed and dyspnoea is severe, isn’t it?’ He straightened his great body. ‘Right, Sister, Harry will write up the pre-meds, I’ll have them up in the order in which I saw them, but give them all at the same time. The first one won’t be of much use, but we can’t afford to wait.’ He nodded and went away with Harry at his heels, leaving Eugenia with her hands full. The pre-meds, identification bracelets, gowns to be put on, porters to send for. She sent Harry to Theatre with the first case, and set about preparing the little girl. She had almost finished when Humphrey came into the ward.
He came and stood at the foot of the bed, ignoring Nurse Sims on the other side. ‘You’re off duty,’ he said, and she could hear the anger in his voice. ‘We’re due at the theatre in exactly half an hour.’
‘Don’t bother me now,’ said Eugenia. ‘Can’t you see how busy we are? There’s been a major road accident. I can’t leave.’ She bent to adjust the identity bracelet round the young arm. ‘Why not take your mother?’
She didn’t wait for an answer as she arranged the theatre pack over the girl on the bed. ‘Nurse Sims, you’ll take this case up to Theatre, please. Staff Nurse will relieve you just as soon as I can spare her.’
She didn’t notice Humphrey turn on his heel and go out of the ward. The first case came back and the girl took her place, and an hour later the last case was sent for. The night staff were on by now, carrying on with their usual evening chores, settling patients for the night, taking round drinks, giving out sleeping tablets. The girl wouldn’t be back until the morning; she would spend the night in intensive care, but the first case hadn’t been as bad as they had expected. All the same, she was ill and Eugenia, in conference with the Surgical Night Sister, arranged for a nurse to special her until morning. It was getting on for eleven o’clock by the time the third case came back. It had proved a tricky business dealing with her collapsed lung and exploring the wound, but at least she was out of danger.
The night staff had taken over by now. Eugenia had stayed on, as relations of the patients had arrived; they had to be talked to, listened to with a sympathetic ear and given tea with her reassurances, while they waited to see Mr Grenfell.
He came presently, his hands in his pockets, jingling the loose change there, not a hair out of place. Eugenia, conscious of a shining face and untidy hair, wondered how he did it as she ushered them in turn into the office. Now she could surely go, she decided. Night Sister was back again, the extra nurse had arrived, and there was really nothing more that she could do. She was whispering goodnight to her colleague when she heard Mr Grenfell’s voice, not loud but very clear.
He glanced up as she put her head around the door. ‘I shall want to see you before you go off, Sister—if you’d be so good as to wait.’
Nicely put, as polite as ever, but she was hungry and it was long past bedtime. She murmured, withdrew her head and catching Night Sister’s eye, cast her own beautiful ones up to the ceiling.
The junior nurse was having trouble with Mrs Bragg, a wilful old lady of eighty-odd, who had taken it into her head to get out of bed in search of a meal. Eugenia joined the two ladies, the one so old and the other so young, lifted her patient back into bed and tucked her in carefully. ‘Just you wait a minute, Mrs Bragg,’ she whispered. ‘Nurse will get you a nice cup of tea and a few slices of bread and butter. It’s a bit late for supper and far too early for breakfast.’
She glanced at the nurse, who went silently down the ward to the kitchen, to reappear with commendable speed with a tray. She had added jam to the bread and butter; the girl would go far, thought Eugenia, and nodded approval before going soundlessly back towards her office. Mr Grenfell must surely be ready soon.
He was, in fact, ushering the last of the relatives out of the office and across the landing to the lifts. He glanced at Eugenia as she got near him. ‘Sister, could you spare a nurse for a moment to show Mr and Mrs Weldon to the rest room? They would like to stay the night—’
She went over to the nurse specialling the first case, whispered instructions, and took her place. Another five minutes more or less would make no difference now; it would be a short night. Eugenia thought fleetingly of their spoilt theatre outing; there wouldn’t be another one to take its place, either. Complimentary tickets were rare these days, and Humphrey wouldn’t waste money on them. She sighed, unaware that Mr Grenfell had come to stand just behind her. She started when he said quietly: ‘She’ll do—it’s the girl I’m worried about. Why are you here?’
‘You wanted a nurse to show the Weldons to the rest room; there’s no one to spare.’
He didn’t answer but bent to examine his patient, and presently went away, about to see Night Sister who was checking medicines at the drug cupboard.
The nurse came back and Eugenia stifled a yawn, wished her goodnight and went across the ward. She smiled at her friend, and muttered woodenly: ‘You wanted me, Mr Grenfell.’
His hooded eyes examined her tired, lovely face. ‘Indeed, yes.’ His voice was very quiet and so bland that she wondered what he would have to say next. ‘I’ve asked for some sort of a meal for us both—there’
s no one in the canteen for another half hour; we can go over the cases while we eat—it will save time in the morning.’
She was sure she was too befuddled by sleep to discuss anything, but it didn’t enter her head to protest. They said goodnight to Night Sister and the staff nurse, and Mr Grenfell added his thanks with his usual polished courtesy, then they went down to the floor below and along to the canteen, where Eugenia was astonished to find a table in a corner ready laid for them and someone waiting to bring them soup and then steak and kidney pie and great cups of coffee. They hardly spoke at first; the food was hot and they were hungry, but presently Mr Grenfell said:
‘I’m sorry about your evening, Eugenia. I’ll see Humphrey tomorrow morning and explain. You’ve seen him?’
She nodded her head. ‘Yes, but I really didn’t have time…’
‘Quite. A busy evening.’ He smiled at her so kindly that she asked: ‘You were going out too?’
‘Yes, but Miriam is accustomed to doing without me on occasion—there’s always someone to take my place.’ He spoke without bitterness. ‘Now, this girl—what’s her name? Maureen—fifteen, and luckily strong and healthy and with parents who will take the greatest care of her…’
He went into details about what had been done, and Eugenia, despite her fatigue, listened carefully; he wasn’t a man to repeat instructions needlessly. ‘And that first case—a Miss Brent, isn’t it? I think we may have to send her to a good convalescent home away from the city once she’s fit to move, and Mrs Stone—by some miracle the sliver of steel I got out of her hadn’t touched anything vital—you’ll have to keep a sharp eye on her, though…’
It was after midnight when they got up to go, and the first of the night nurses were trickling in for their meal. Outside the canteen Mr Grenfell paused.
‘Goodnight, Eugenia. Thank you for being my good right hand once again. I’ll see you in the morning.’
She bade him a sleepy goodnight and made for the nurses’ home. She hoped she had taken in all that he had told her; tomorrow when her head felt clear, she would go over it all.
She slept at once, and woke at her usual time. She was a little pale at breakfast, but the day before her was a challenge not to be ignored. She gave the bare outlines of her evening’s work to her companions, received their sympathy in her turn because she had missed an evening at the theatre, and went along to her ward.
Mr Grenfell and Harry were both there. Eugenia paused on her way to the office to wish them good morning and ask if they needed anything.
‘Everything is just as it should be,’ said Mr Grenfell. ‘You’ve got to take the report? Come here afterwards, if you would be so kind.’
The report took them longer than usual, but nothing untoward had happened. Eugenia sent the night staff off duty, made sure that Hatty and her own nurses knew what they had to get on with, and enquired if they had all had supper when they had gone off duty the previous evening. ‘I’ll see you get your overtime made up,’ she promised, ‘but you may have to wait a day or two until things settle down.’
No one minded about that; it had been, in a way, exciting even though they had been run off their feet. Besides, they liked her, and they had already heard via the grapevine that it had been well past midnight by the time she had gone to her own bed.
She went down the ward then, saying good morning to the patients as she went, looking unflustered and capable of dealing with any situation. Mr Grenfell and Harry were still with Miss Brent, conscious now but hardly feeling herself. But Mr Grenfell could assume a most reassuring bedside manner when necessary; she watched the patient reviving under his bland reassurance, and then gently removed her gown so that the dressings might be inspected. ‘Very nice,’ said Mr Grenfell. ‘We’ll have you up and about in no time, Miss Brent. My registrar’—he nodded towards Harry—‘will be visiting the ward twice a day, as well as my house surgeons. They’re fully informed about your case, so you can safely confide in them. And Sister Smith is here too for most of the day; she’s a most experienced nurse and will make sure you have all the attention you require.’
It was quite a long fulsome speech, and Eugenia was surprised. It wasn’t until they had taken a look at Mrs Stone and pronounced her comfortable and had gone back to the office to write up the charts that Mr Grenfell observed: ‘Miss Brent is what’s commonly known as highly strung—a revolting expression and quite inaccurate. However, she’s quite capable of having hysterics, I believe—certainly she’s going to be difficult. I would suggest moving her bed next to the door, Sister, but if you did so I fear she would at once imagine she was about to die.’ He smiled at her and she saw then that he was tired to the bone, even though he was as immaculate as he always was. Not enough sleep, she thought. ‘We’ll move her on as soon as it’s safe to do so. As for Mrs Stone, she’ll do very well, and Maureen has picked up nicely. They’ll be sending her up here in an hour or so—have you enough staff?’
‘I shall want one more nurse to cover the afternoon. I’ll see the Office.’
At the door he said: ‘You slept, Sister?’
‘Very well, thank you, sir.’ Her eyes looked the question she didn’t like to ask.
He smiled. ‘Sometimes it’s pleasant to stay awake when one’s thoughts are happy ones.’
‘And what on earth made him say that?’ wondered Eugenia aloud as she gathered up charts and notes and plunged into her busy day.
The next three or four days were busy too, and although she glimpsed Humphrey and even had a few moments’ talk with him, she wasn’t happy about it. He had been pleasant enough. Yes, he had taken his mother in her place to the theatre and it had been a very good show, it had been a pity that she hadn’t been free. He had added in the tolerant voice she had come to expect and mistrust: ‘Of course I quite understand that you couldn’t leave the ward, Eugenia, but I do feel you should learn to delegate your responsibilities.’
She answered him in a reasonable voice: ‘But I do, Humphrey, but don’t you see, this was an emergency—a question of as many pairs of hands as we could muster.’
He had smiled in a superior way. ‘In that case, other hands would have done just as well, wouldn’t they?’
‘Whose?’ she had asked bluntly. ‘Where would I have conjured up nurses at a moment’s notice?’
‘Now you’re exaggerating,’ he told her with smiling forbearance.
Perhaps, she told herself afterwards, it would be a good idea if she and Humphrey didn’t see each other for a day or two. She had a free evening; she would go home, somewhere where she could air her grievances, real and imaginary, and be sure of an audience.
They were pleased to see her, as they always were. She sat in the easy chair opposite her father with Plum on her knee, and told him all about it. The twins were there too, of course, ostensibly doing their homework while they listened to every word she said.
‘Gerard told us you’d been worth your weight in gold,’ observed Becky.
Eugenia turned her head to frown at her young sister. ‘But when did you see him?’
‘Oh—yesterday, was it? No, the day before. He brought another book for Father. He said he was sorry your evening with Humphrey had been spoilt.’ Becky added: ‘Can’t Humphrey buy some more tickets for another evening?’
‘Well, no. These tickets were complimentary.’ Eugenia ignored the look the twins exchanged. ‘Anyway, he took his mother instead of me, so they weren’t wasted.’
The short companionable silence was broken by Becky. ‘When are you and Humphrey going to get married?’
Eugenia looked at her sister speechlessly. After a moment she said lamely: ‘Well, we’re engaged…’
‘You don’t have to get married just because you’re engaged—you can fall in love and get married,’ Becky flicked her thumb and finger together, ‘in a few days if you really want to.’ She went on with horrid persistence: ‘Did you and Humphrey fall in love at first sight?’
‘Yes—no. I can’t remember, it wa
s so long ago.’ Eugenia looked at Becky helplessly, her usual calm quite shattered. She couldn’t for the life of her remember what she had felt when she had first seen Humphrey. She said finally: ‘You—you get to know each other…’
‘I’d rather fall in love first,’ declared Becky. ‘I mean really in love, so that you didn’t mind if he was cross-eyed or had a moustache. There’s heaps of time to get to know him once you’re married.’
Mr Smith coughed gently. ‘I’d rather you married a young man who was clean-shaven and with normal eyesight,’ he suggested gently—a remark which relieved the tension, so that they were all laughing again.
All the same, Eugenia couldn’t get Becky’s words out of her head. Surely, if she really loved Humphrey, she would remember how she had felt at the beginning? And surely if she loved him enough to marry him, she would be able to cope with his mother and not mind one scrap? She went to bed at last, telling herself she was tired and couldn’t think straight. All the same, it took her a long time to get to sleep.
CHAPTER SEVEN
IT WAS Mr Grenfell’s round in the morning, a little protracted because he made examinations of the three emergencies. ‘Very satisfactory,’ he observed, as she poured coffee in the office afterwards. ‘Sister, I shall be away next week. Harry will deal with the cases which have been booked and take over the rounds. There are a couple of pneumonectomies for the week after—both chesty.’ He turned to Harry. ‘Get them going with the physiotherapist, will you?’
They discussed the patients for a short time, and when he got up to go, Mr Grenfell bade Eugenia a rather aloof goodbye before walking back through the ward with Harry hard on his heels, the house surgeon trailing behind and Eugenia at his side. At the door he paused again. ‘I’m going to the Algarve,’ he told her, and added silkily: ‘Miriam has always wanted to visit it—one of the few places she hasn’t been to.’