Britannia All at Sea

by Betty Neels

  So Britannia retired to her room and unpacked and repacked a smaller case and went to bed, to lie awake and think of Jake and then force her thoughts to the future.

  The geriatric wards of St Jude’s weren’t in the main hospital but five minutes’ walk away, down a narrow street made gloomy by the blank walls of warehouses. There wasn’t a tree in sight nor yet a blade of grass, and the annexe itself was an old workhouse, red brick and elaborate at that on the outside and a labyrinth of narrow passages, stone staircases and long wards into which the sun never seemed to shine. And yet the best had been made of a bad job; the walls were distempered in pastel colours, the counterpanes were gay patchwork, there were flowers here and there and sensible easy chairs grouped together round little tables so that those who were able could sit and gossip. To most of them, the place had been home for many months and probably would be for the rest of their lives, and Britannia, eyeing the female wards which were to be her especial care, supposed that it was probably a better home than the solitary bedsitter so many of them occupied. True, they hadn’t their independence any more, and most of them set great store by that, but they had regular food, warmth, company and a little money each week which they could spend when the shop lady came round with her trolley, and some of them, though regrettably few, had families who came to see them.

  Britannia took the report from the agency nurse who had been called in to plug the gap and settled down at her desk to read the patients’ notes before she did a round. She had been a little surprised when she arrived at the hospital at lunch time to be asked if she would go on duty immediately, but she hadn’t minded. Having something to do would get through the days and if she had enough work she would be tired enough to sleep. She had been given her old room in the nurses’ home; she didn’t bother to unpack but got straight into uniform, donned her cloak against the cold, and hurried along the miserable little street to the annexe. Sitting at the desk, it seemed to her that she had never been away from the hospital and yet so much had been crowded into those few weeks, and the whole telescoped into the quick journey home again. She thanked heaven silently for understanding parents; a pity she wouldn’t be going home for her days off, but if she saved them up she would be able to leave two days sooner. Eight days, she told herself with false cheerfulness, and buried her pretty head in the pile of notes before her.

  She went to see Joan when she got off duty that evening; a very excited Joan, her head full of plans for her wedding, but she paused presently to ask: ‘Why Geriatrics, ducky? Isn’t the ankle up to the rush and scurry of Men’s Surgical? And I had a letter from Mevrouw Veske saying that you would have some wonderful news for me.’ She paused to look at Britannia’s face. ‘But I can see that she’s wrong. Do you want to talk about it?’

  ‘No, not now, Joan. I’m only on Geriatrics for a week, then I’m leaving.’

  ‘You’re not getting…no, of course not. It’s that professor, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Now tell me more about your wedding…’

  The geriatric wards might have been easy on her ankle, but their occupants made heavy demands on Britannia. They had taken to her at once and most of them saw in her a kind of daughter, there to fulfil their many and several wants; she was also Staff, someone who gave them their pills, saw that they had their treatments and got up in the morning and went to bed in the evening, ate their meals, and twice a day did a round of the wards, stopping to talk to each of them. The nursing was undemanding but heavy and Britannia had a staff of part-time nurses and auxiliaries, but still it was tiring and she was thankful for that; it meant that she slept for a good deal of the night. All the same, the first two days dragged even though she filled her off-duty with Christmas shopping, willing herself not to think of Jake at all. It didn’t work, of course. She thought of him all the time, he was there beside her, behind every door she opened, round every corner, beneath her eyelids when she closed them at night.

  On the third morning she went on duty with a headache and the nasty empty feeling induced by too little sleep and too many meals missed, and when she had taken the night nurse’s report the Senior Nursing Officer telephoned to say that the part-time staff nurse who was to do the evening duty wouldn’t be able to come in, and would Britannia mind very much filling in for her. ‘You can save it up and leave half a day sooner,’ said the voice cheerfully, ‘and you should manage an hour’s quiet this afternoon during visiting.’

  Britannia thought that very unlikely; visitors liked to talk to Sister, the patients who hadn’t anyone to see them tended to make little demands of her because they felt lonely and left out… She said she didn’t mind and heard the Senior Nursing Officer’s relieved sigh as she put down the receiver.

  She realised as soon as she went into the first ward that the day had begun badly; for one thing, it was a grey, cold morning, and despite the gay counterpanes and bright walls, the grey had filtered in, making the patients morose and unwilling to stir from their nice warm beds. Britannia set about the patient task of cheering them up, an exercise which took a great deal of the morning. Luckily it was the consultant’s weekly round, one of the highlights in the old ladies’ week, and they had brightened up considerably by the time Doctor Payne and his houseman arrived. He was a good doctor, nearing retirement; Britannia had had her medical lectures from him when she was in training and he had always been pleasant to the nurses, even when those on night duty had fallen asleep under his very nose, or the brighter ones had asked obvious questions in order to show off. He remembered her at once and observed forthrightly: ‘Staff Nurse Smith—I thought you were a surgical girl. Been ill? You look under the weather.’

  ‘I’m fine, Doctor Payne, a bit tired, that’s all. I’m filling in a few days before I leave.’

  ‘Getting married?’ he wanted to know. ‘All the pretty girls get married just as they’re getting useful. Who’s the lucky man?’

  ‘There isn’t one. I—I just wanted a change of scene.’

  Doctor Payne shot her a look, said ‘Um,’ and then: ‘Well, well,’ and coughed. ‘And how are my old ladies?’

  She gave him a brief report and they started off. The round took some time, for although most of the patients had nothing dramatic wrong with them they had a variety of tiresome complaints and aches and pains, all of which had to be discussed and if necessary treated. It was time to serve dinners when Doctor Payne had at last finished and after that there were the old ladies to settle for their afternoon rest and then the medicines to give out. Britannia went to her own dinner rather late and ate tepid beef and potatoes and carrots and remembered all the delicious food she had eaten in Jake’s house, so that she rejected the milk pudding offered her and went with the other staff nurses at her table to drink the cup of tea they always managed to squeeze into their dinner break, however short. The talk was all of Christmas, so that she was able to parry the few questions she was asked about her trip to Holland and trail the red herring of Joan’s approaching wedding across her listeners’ path. They broke up presently to go back on duty and Britannia made her solitary way back to the annexe.

  Her superior’s hopeful suggestion that she should take an hour off during visiting hour came to nothing, of course; there were fewer visitors than usual, which meant that the old ladies made a continuous demand on her and the nurses on duty. It didn’t seem worth going back to the hospital for tea; she had a tray in her office before getting on with the evening’s work, and when it was time to go to supper, she decided not to go to that either; she wasn’t hungry and she could make herself some toast later. The wards were quiet now, with all the patients back in bed, most of them already dozing lightly. Britannia sent her two nurses to supper, finished her report and then went softly round the wards, saying a quiet goodnight to each old lady. It was at the bottom of the second ward, when she was almost through, that she found Mrs Thorn out of bed.

  ‘Now don’t you be vexed,’ said Mrs Thorn in a cheerful whisper. ‘I just took a fancy to sit out f
or a bit longer and I got that nice little nurse to put me back in the chair for half an hour, and don’t go blaming her, because I told her you’d said that I could.’ She laughed gently. ‘I’ll go back now you’re here.’

  Britannia hid a smile. Mrs Thorn was the oldest inhabitant in the Geriatric Unit and was consequently a little spoilt. She said without meaning it: ‘You’re a naughty old thing, aren’t you? But doing something different is fun sometimes, isn’t it?’

  Mrs Thorn was small and fragile and very old, with birdlike bones knotted and twisted by arthritis. Britannia lifted her out of the chair and popped her gently into her bed. It took a little time to get the old lady’s dressing gown off, for Mrs Thorn liked things done just so and she enjoyed a chat too. Britannia was tucking in the patchwork quilt when she became aware that someone was walking down the ward, to stop at the foot of the bed. Jake, elegant and calm and self-assured as always. Mrs Thorn, with the childlike outspokenness of the old, broke a silence which for Britannia seemed to go on for ever and ever.

  ‘And who are you?’ she demanded in a piping voice. ‘A handsome, well-set-up man like you shouldn’t be here. You should be out with some pretty girl, or better still by your own fireside with a wife and children to share it.’ She smiled suddenly and caught at Britannia’s hand. ‘Perhaps you’ve come to fetch our dear Staff Nurse away? She’s a lovely young thing and she shouldn’t be here—we’re all so old…’

  The professor was looking at her gravely, without even glancing at Britannia.

  ‘I hope that when Britannia here is your age, my dear, she will be as charming as you, and yes, I have come to fetch her; she’s my girl, you see, and although I haven’t a wife and children I hope she will soon fill that gap for me.’

  He spoke loudly so that several of the old ladies in nearby beds popped up from beneath their blankets, nodding and smiling their approval.

  ‘Oh, hush,’ begged Britannia, quite forgetting unhappiness and misery and tiredness in the delight of seeing him again. ‘Everyone is listening.’

  He looked at her then, his eyes very blue and bright. ‘And I am glad of it, my darling. The more who hear me say that I love you, the better. Perhaps if I repeat it a sufficient number of times and in a loud enough voice before as many people as possible, you will bring yourself to believe that I mean it.’

  Britannia still held Mrs Thorn’s bony little claw in her own capable hand. ‘Oh, Jake…but you must explain—Madeleine told me…’

  The professor sat himself down on the end of Mrs Thorn’s bed and stretched his long legs before him as though he intended to stay a long time. ‘Ah, yes,’ his voice was still much too loud and clear. ‘Well, dearest girl, if you will hold that delightful tongue of yours for ten minutes I will endeavour to do that.’

  ‘Not here, you don’t,’ declared Britannia, aware that old eyes and ears were tuned in all round them, ‘and not now. I’m on duty until eight o’clock and then I should go to supper—I haven’t been yet.’

  She trembled as she said it in case he walked away in a temper because he wasn’t getting his own way, but she wasn’t going to give way easily. There was still Madeleine’s shadow between them; she would have to be explained.

  The professor spoke with such extreme mildness that she cast him a suspicious look which he met with such tenderness that she had to look quickly away again in case she weakened.

  ‘I’ve had no supper myself, perhaps we might have it together.’

  Britannia tucked Mrs Thorn in carefully. ‘Have you been here long?’ she asked. A silly question really, but she had to say something ordinary; her head might be in the clouds, but she had to keep her feet on the ground.

  ‘I landed at Dover three hours ago.’

  She retied the ribbon at the end of Mrs Thorn’s wispy pigtail.

  ‘Oh?…’

  ‘I knew you were here,’ he supplied smoothly, ‘because I telephoned your mother and asked before I left home.’ He got up off the bed. ‘How long will you be, Britannia?’

  ‘Another ten minutes. But I have to go back to the Home and change…’

  ‘I’ll be outside.’ He wished Mrs Thorn and the other eagerly listening ladies a good night and went away. Britannia, watching him go, wondered as she saw the ward doors swing gently after him, if she had had a dream, an idea Mrs Thorn quickly scotched.

  ‘Now that’s what I call an ’andsome man, Staff Nurse. He’ll make you a fine husband.’

  Oh, he would, agreed Britannia silently, but only if he made it very clear about Madeleine. She forced her mind to good sense, wished Mrs Thorn a good night, visited the remaining patients, answering a spate of excited questions as she did so, and went to give the report to the night nurses.

  They were already in the office and the night staff nurse hardly waited for her to reach for the Kardex before she exclaimed: ‘I say, Britannia, there’s a Rolls at the door and the most super man in it.’ She stared hard at Britannia as she said it; she had heard rumours in the hospital. ‘Is he the boyfriend?’

  Britannia said deliberately: ‘Mrs Tweedy, bed one… He’s the man I’m going to marry.’ She hadn’t really meant to say that, but as she did she knew without a doubt that was just what she intended doing, even if she never got to the bottom of the riddle of Madeleine. Before anyone could say a word, she went on: ‘A good day, Mist. Mag. Tri. given TDS. She’s to have physiotherapy by order of Doctor Payne. Mrs Scott, bed two…’

  The report didn’t take very long. She handed over the keys, wished the nurses goodnight and went down to the entrance, her cloak over her arm, the bits and pieces she had found necessary to have with her during the day in a tote bag. She had quite forgotten to do anything to her face or her hair, but it didn’t matter. She was so happy that a shiny nose and hair all anyhow went unnoticed.

  The professor was in the hall, a bleak dark brown place no one had had sufficient money to modernise. It had a centre light, a grim white glass globe which did nothing for the complexions for those beneath its cold rays. Britannia didn’t notice it; she came to a halt before Jake and said a little shyly, ‘I have to go to the main hospital and change.’

  He took her bag from her and fastened the cloak carefully. ‘No, there’s no need. We’ll go to Ned’s Café, where we first met. I suspect, dear heart, that I have a romantic nature.’

  ‘It’ll be full…’

  ‘No matter, the more people there the better. If necessary I shall go down on my knees.’

  Britannia choked on a laugh. ‘You can’t—you simply can’t…’

  ‘I simply can.’ He swooped suddenly and kissed her. ‘That’s better—let’s go.’

  The Rolls looked a little out of place parked outside Ned’s place, and one or two people turned to stare at them as they went inside. There was an empty table in the middle of the room and the professor led the way to it, wishing those around him a courteous good evening as he went, and when Ned came over with a pleased: ‘Well, I never, Staff—I ’aven’t seen you for weeks, nor you neither, sir. What’s it to be?’ He ordered bacon sandwiches and toasted cheese and a pot of tea, and when Ned had gone again: ‘You’re pale, my darling, and there are shadows under your eyes…’

  ‘Well, of course there are! I’ve been… Jake, you must explain.’

  ‘Of course. Here is our tea.’

  Ned lingered for a few minutes and Britannia’s hand shook a little with impatience as she poured the strong brew. But Jake didn’t seem impatient at all; indeed, he entered into quite a conversation about the hospital rugger team so that when Ned at last took himself off, Britannia said quite fiercely: ‘I want to know…and all you can do is talk about rugger!’

  ‘My darling, I was a rugger player myself—besides, I have a soft spot for Ned. He is, as it were, our fairy godfather.’

  The bacon sandwiches arrived then and a moment later the cheese and then Ned went away to serve a party of six who had just come in. The professor passed the sandwiches and only after Britannia had eaten alm
ost a whole one did he say: ‘Before I say anything, I want you to read this.’ He took a folded letter from his pocket and handed it across the table to her.

  She saw what it was immediately. ‘But why should I? I mean, it was written to Madeleine.’

  He gave her a quizzical look. ‘Was it? My dear Britannia, all at sea, aren’t you? Read it.’

  She read it silently, pausing once to look at him. He was sitting back watching her with a tender smile. She finished it and then read it for a second time, more slowly.

  ‘It was for me,’ she whispered. ‘She found it… Marinus didn’t take it.’

  ‘Yes, love.’

  ‘But the envelope—she showed it to me…’

  ‘And if you had looked carefully you would have seen that it was in Madeleine’s own hand. You see, my darling, you expected to see my writing on the envelope, didn’t you, and so you did.’

  She folded the letter carefully and held it in her hand. ‘What a fool,’ she said, ‘but you could have told me,’ she began, and then: ‘No, of course you wouldn’t have done that—you thought that I didn’t believe you.’

  ‘I see that you have a tremendous insight into my failings, dearest, so useful in a wife.’

  She poured more strong tea for them both and the professor asked quietly: ‘Will you marry me, Britannia?’

  She put her cup down. ‘Oh, Jake, yes—you know I will!’

  ‘I have a special licence with me, we can marry tomorrow at your home.’

  For a moment Britannia had no words. The thought that there could be nothing nicer than to get up from the rickety little table and just go home without more ado and marry Jake in the morning lingered for a few seconds in her head before she said: ‘But I can’t, Jake. I’ve another four days—I should have to pack and…’