“Then ...?” she asked.
“The words of censure, you mean?”
“Yes.”
He drained his coffee and put down the cup.
“I am not going to inquire why you deceived me into the belief you had no training.”
“I did not deceive you. I simply said I was not a trained nurse.”
“A deceit and you know it, however...” He spread his palms.
Cathy went to rise. “That is all then?”
“It is not. Sit down, Nurse Trent.”
“I am not Nurse Trent.”
“You soon will be.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You are finishing your career here. In fact, you will sit for the forthcoming Australian final examination.”
“I shall do no such thing. It does not appeal to me.” He made a gesture as though to dismiss her statement, but she ignored him. “I am English trained; I do not know Australian methods.”
“They are the same methods. You mentioned you went to St. Cloud.”
“Yes.”
“That is a reciprocal training hospital with the training hospitals here.”
“Dr. Malcolm, you are overstepping your authority. I know what I intend doing with my life.”
His face darkened. He had that American Indian look again.
“You will sit for your finals, Miss Trent, or I shall have a word to say to the board.”
“The possession of a nursing diploma was not required when I joined the staff of Little Families.”
“It has always been required. It is only recently, owing to employment difficulties, that the requirement has been temporarily waived.”
She looked helplessly at him. “Why are you so anxious that I finish my career?”
“Because a woman with a career is less likely to fall, like a ripe peach, into the first willing hands.”
“I don’t understand you.”
He looked steadily back at her, seeing instead of the white kitchen an autumn hill, two figures, fingers that intertwined. “Besides...” he said.
“Yes?”
“You want it yourself. Deep in your heart you know you want it.”
“I don’t.”
“Again you lie. You know you lie. You know you have never stopped regretting that lost diploma. You were keen enough to work through the drudging years, and when the end was in sight you lost hold of the reward. You must have liked your work to have stuck to it. You must be conscious of something short of the fulfillment for which you strove. Be honest with yourself, Trent—if that is possible.”
She ignored the brutality in his voice. She searched her heart. Yes, it was true. She did regret it. Every letter she received from Helen, every letter she wrote to Judith, had that regret somewhere between its lines. To be so near and yet so far away from achievement. As far, really, in bare words, as the rawest probationer, for she, too, was uncertificated.
He was watching her closely. “Well?” he asked.
“I don’t want to leave Redgates.”
“You needn’t.”
“Then how?”
“You can brush up privately, then sit with the nurses at the Northern District Hospital.”
“Is that permitted?”
“Only on occasion. This is an occasion. Leave that part of the business to me.”
“I’d never pass. I’ve gone rusty.”
He raised his brows. “In two ... three months?”
“It’s not the amount of time, it’s the different environment. I haven’t been thinking in terms of nursing.”
“You were tonight.”
“That was an emergency. Anyone would do that.”
“Not anyone.” It was his only commendation, and it was brief and unadorned.
She flushed.
“I couldn’t, Dr. Malcolm,” she said presently. “I haven’t my notes. I have forgotten a terrible lot of things.”
“They’ll return with tutoring.”
“Whose tutoring?”
He paused, then said deliberately, “Mine.”
“Yours?”
“Is there anything so unusual in that? I can instruct on such matters, hard though it might be to believe.”
“I believe you, only...”
“Yes?”
“You wouldn’t have time.”
“I’d make time.”
“I wouldn’t have time.”
“Then you must make time, too. Your children sleep, don’t they? My patients sleep as well. After evening office hours, I suggest, and starting in a week. Christabel will be in hospital then and in good hands. There will be nothing to disturb us.”
“It is an order, Miss Trent.”
“I don’t know why you are bothering like this.”
“I told you. The ripe peach...”
She went a vivid red.
“And the degree less of fulfillment that, to me, seems a mighty waste of time and effort.”
There was a silence.
“I’m waiting,” he said.
Cathy looked at him and shrugged. “It seems futile to answer if you already have everything settled.”
“It is futile. It is settled. But I just thought I’d like some show of approval. What is worrying you, Miss Trent? Not the same worry about the proprieties as before?” His eyes probed, then laughed insolently at her.
She remembered the night of her arrival here. It seemed she would always be reminded of it.
“Because if that is the trouble, I might assure you of Mrs. Williams. She is always present.”
“Mrs. Williams ... You mean we would have the lessons there?”
“At my office, yes. My books are handy. I have to be on call to my patients. Besides...” He looked at her enigmatically.
“Besides?”
“Mrs. Williams is a much more efficient chaperon than a parcel of brats. I know that will appeal strongly to your prudent—or is it prudish—soul?”
“You are a queer man.” Cathy had risen definitely this time.
“I must go up,” she said, “and relieve Elvira.”
He did not try to delay her, and without another word she ran out of the kitchen and up the stairs.
Elvira sat like a statue. “She’s all right,” she whispered.
“Good. Now you trot off.”
“Is doctor relieving you later?”
“Yes, Elvira.”
“And you’ll sleep, too?”
“Yes.” Cathy said it, but just then she believed she would never sleep again.
The hours went by. She kept her eyes on the shining orifice that protruded from the bandages.
She started when Dr. Malcolm came in and indicated briefly with a nod of his head that it was his turn.
She went stupidly to her room and flung herself down on the bed. She did not undress. For all her belief that sleep would never come, she closed her heavy eyes and did not open them until the next morning.
CHAPTER TEN
The ensuing weeks crowded in on Cathy. They crowded Elvira and Mrs. Ferguson and Dr. Malcolm as well. They crowded everyone attached to Little Families, even the weekly voluntary helpers. There was much to do, and it had to be done promptly.
The health authorities had insisted on wholesale fumigation, and this meant makeshift dormitories for the children, scratch meals, the heartbreaking task of settling the children in again and getting back to an established routine.
The early part of the week they had had Christabel to contend with as well, but as soon as she had been able to be shifted an ambulance had taken her to hospital, where later they would be allowed to talk to her through a gauzed window a prescribed distance away.
Precautions, precautions ... It seemed to Cathy that all at once her entire life was pivoting around the necessity of playing safe. When Christabel departed she faced the arduous duty of going through the children’s medical records and checking up any of them who might have missed a booster needle before they left England. Unless it was definitel
y stated on the sheet, Dr. Malcolm took no risk and injected again.
When the girls were finished, the boys were tackled. David was in Melbourne now and not aware of the rush of events at Redgates. He wrote regularly, telling Cathy of the different aspects of the different Little Families Homes he had visited, and she wrote hastily back but never mentioned their need of him. After all, she thought, by the time he returned most of the trouble would be over.
One morning she was in the office sorting the records when Dr. Malcolm strode in.
“There’s a doubt about Denise Lane,” she murmured, not looking up.
“There’s a doubt about Catherine Trent, too,” he said quietly.
He took the sheet away from her, pushed aside the pen and blotter and, bending over, took firm hold of her wrist.
She tried to pull away, but with a flick of his own wrist he pulled the reluctant arm back. “Don’t be silly, Trent.”
“I’m all right.”
“That’s for me to say.”
“I should think I’ve outgrown childish ailments.”
“Since when have you been an M.O. as well as a nurse?”
“I am not a nurse.”
“Not yet. We’ll discuss that presently. Meanwhile, have you any significant symptoms? Sore throat, swollen glands, temperature, pulse?”
She nodded toward his encircling hand. “You should know about the pulse.”
“I do. It’s normal. It’s not even beating faster because I am holding it.”
“Should it?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know how you act with men. Does your heart race, for instance, when Kennedy takes your hand?”
“He is not in the habit of taking it.”
“It was you who took his then?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Oh, come now, no more lies. Cast your mind back to the golden days of autumn. A romantic season, autumn—especially on a hilltop hand-in-hand...”
“Dr. Malcolm, I don’t follow you.”
“The forehead of the hill overlooking Redgates—a very public spot, Miss Trent. I would have chosen better.”
Cathy flushed. It was really a flush of annoyance, but the pink suffusing her fair skin made of it more a tender glow than one of indignation. Her eyes, sparkling with anger, appeared shining with memory, her lips, trembling with words she would have liked to fling, seemed soft and vulnerable and ready for kisses. Kennedy’s kisses? That, anyway, was what Dr. Malcolm thought. Abruptly he dropped her wrist.
“We’ll do Denise this afternoon. Now, about your finals...”
“I’ve been thinking it over, Dr. Malcolm. I will not have time.”
“We’ve had all that out before. You’re finding the time.”
“I don’t want to do it.”
“Another lie. You know you want to do it.”
He was right. She did want to qualify. She had not realized how much she wanted it until she had learned that it was still possible. That “something short of fulfillment” he had spoken of was true. Only because she had driven herself relentlessly, not permitted herself to think about it, had she escaped temporarily that, sense of disappointment, futility, inferiority, where there should have been achievement and justifiable pride.
He read her expression. “See,” he triumphed, “lies.”
“It’s not that, Dr. Malcolm, I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”
“It won’t be any trouble.”
“I—I don’t want to be obliged to you.”
At that his face darkened. “Is it all that hard then? Would it be hard to be obliged to him? Kennedy?”
“We were not speaking of David.”
“I was. However, let that pass. Let us consider, instead, your reluctance to be ‘obliged’ to me, as you said. It will be no obligation. I want you to qualify, not for yourself, don’t think it. I am only anxious for the welfare of the home. It was an original stipulation as I told you before, that the housemother be a qualified nurse. Seeing you are so close to your certificate, I believe it is my duty to Little Families to put you through,”
“I could study alone.”
'“You said yourself you were rusty, in need of tutoring.”
“Could you come here?” She knew she was making herself a target for his sarcasm again, but somehow she had to fight him.
“If you will arrange to give Redgates’s number to all my patients and to all whom misfortune may make emergency patients, the answer is yes, madam.”
She did not reply, and on a note of angry irritation he flung, “What are you worrying about, you little fool? Questions from the nursing manual—or some torrid love scene?”
She knew she had deserved that, but murmured, “You’re hateful...”
“But practical,” he amended. He flung down a sheaf of application papers. “Does that look like the beginnings of a clandestine affair? I had to pull strings to get permission for you to sit, and I’m not going to be laughed at with a failure. You’re going to pass and pass well, and to achieve that here will be no holding of hands, I assure you. Now do you feel safe?”
She nodded dumbly.
“Good. We’ll start on Tuesday night. I’ll come around for you.”
“I’d sooner walk.”
“Determined to be obstinate, aren’t you?”
“It’s not obstinacy, it’s just a plain preference for walking. After coping with children all day a ten-minute stroll along a silent lane can be very soothing. ”
“Also a good setting-up exercise, I should say. A set-up for what lies ahead, eh? Very well, Miss Trent, next Tuesday, and madam will walk.” He turned to go.
“Denise...” she called to him.
“I’ll call before I do my afternoon rounds.”
“Thank you, Dr. Malcolm.”
He swung out of the office, and presently she heard his car gathering speed down the driveway.
Cathy had never felt so grateful for the voluntary helpers as during those two weeks following Christabel’s illness.
When she was overcrowded with work the kindly local women who were interested enough in Little Families to give an afternoon out of their busy lives, took over the time-squandering jobs of buttering bread, sewing on buttons, superintending play period—even occasionally trimming little bobbed heads of hair.
Mrs. Latrobe was one of their most dependable workers. She came twice a week and really got into things.
Once Cathy had said, “Mrs. Latrobe, you work too hard. Much harder than the other volunteers. ”
I want to. I have a debt to pay.”
“A debt?”
“I was a selfish child and still more selfish girl, Miss Trent. I was one of a medium-sized family, and I always saw to it I got out of everything unpleasant and dreary. My mother never forced me because I would sulk and become unbearably sullen. In short, I was an unpleasant individual.”
“Perhaps you imagined you were.”
“Are you imagining Denise is?”
“Oh ... so you have noticed her, too.”
“I couldn’t help it. Miss Trent, I love that little girl.”
Before Cathy could speak, Mrs. Latrobe went on, a little agitatedly.
“I was a Denise once—frustrated, bewildered, starved for an all-encompassing love. I could not bear my parents to caress my other brothers or sisters. I hated them for it, and I hated my brothers and sisters for receiving it. It had to be me—me—all the time. I should have been an adored one-chick, and then, then only, could I have looked around from my security and spread the love that in reality was in me all the time. As it is in Denise, Miss Trent. I feel sure of that.”
Cathy said with discouragement, “I see a lot of Denise and I’m not sure. She is extremely introverted, Mrs. Latrobe. Apart from that she has a hard shell of reserve.”
“Not for me, Miss Trent.”
Cathy looked at the woman sharply. She saw the words that were trembling on her lips and quickly and adroitly changed the
subject. She knew Mrs. Latrobe was childless. She believed she knew what she had in her mind. But it was impossible. All the children were the wards of Little Families. The foundation never adopted them out.
As though too afraid to hear this said in final words, Mrs. Latrobe changed the subject, too. She began to tell Cathy in a breathless manner about a pudding she was sure the children would love. “It’s easy and it goes a long way. It would be just the thing for you, Miss Trent, when Mrs. Ferguson and Elvira are both off.”
“I’ll fetch my little black book,” said Cathy, rather with relief, for she felt she could not cope with another situation just at present. She sat down and copied out the ingredients and the method.
The subject was not closed, however.
Dr. Jerry came as he had promised that afternoon before rounds and gave Denise her “booster.”
It was a blunter needle; he put more in; he went deeper; he was less gentle—according to Denise.
“Darling, doctor is making sure for you,” said Cathy reasonably. “If he put more in and went deeper, you’re the lucky one. You’re doubly protected.”
Denise kept whimpering.
It was then that Mrs. Latrobe came into action. With a reckless glance at Cathy she took the little girl in her arms and rocked her backward and forward and stroked her acorn-brown hair. “There, there, my pet, there, there, my little Denny...”
Denise blinked up at her. “Am I, Mrs. Latrobe? Am I your Denny?”
“You are my Denny.”
“You have no other little girls?”
“Only this little girl.”
“You love me really and truly?”
“Really and truly.”
“Oh,” sighed Denise, and for the first time really, thought Cathy, she lost that starved-puppy look.
She would have liked to debate the subject with someone, but Elvira was apt to be a little terse when the subject was Denise, and she would not willingly approach Dr. Malcolm.
David Kennedy was the only one. David had had dealings of his own with Denise. But David was away and would not be back till the end of the week.
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