Nurse Trent's Children

by Joyce Dingwell

  “It took you longer than it should, and you don’t throw the patients’ wrists away when you have finished. Would you say I was normal?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “The artery felt round, smooth, firm and elastic. The intervals between the beats were equal in length and force.”

  “In other words, you would not say I was suffering from any emotion?”

  “No, Dr. Malcolm.”

  He looked at her oddly a long moment, then he closed the books and got up from his desk.

  “Strange,” he said.

  She did not question this, but sat silent as he went to the door and called, “Now, please, Mrs. Williams.”

  He came back. “Mrs. Williams is making coffee. Class is over. Please relax.”

  “There is no need for you to give me coffee.”

  “On the contrary, I consider it a duty, as it is a ward nurse’s duty to offer it to the visiting surgeon.”

  She sat ill at ease, and noting it, he said, “You don’t seem happy. Could it be that Mr. Kennedy is waiting outside to take you back? By all means let us have him with us. It is too cold to stand at the gate.”

  He had risen, and she said quickly, “He is not waiting. He said ...” Her voice trailed off.

  “Yes? What did he say, Miss Trent?”

  “That he was only delivering the goods,” she returned unwillingly.

  “And I am to return them? I suppose I must if that is the arrangement.”

  “I can walk.” Her reply was spirited.

  “Of course. You walked over. ” He glanced across at her.

  Then footsteps sounded in the hall, and he called, “Come in, Mrs. Williams. You know our housemother. Put the tray there. Miss Trent will pour.”

  Cathy did and did it badly. Her fingers were trembling, and she had never felt less like displaying social grace.

  “Hands like white moths fluttering over teacups,” murmured Dr. Malcolm. “That’s a favorite cliché of the novelists, isn’t it?”

  “Mine are brown moths,” she said unevenly.

  He put down his cup and took her hand in his and examined it. He saw the short, square-cut, workaday nails, the pricks the needle had made in her index finger because she did not wear a thimble, the little scratches a woman gathers in her daily trivial round. Suddenly he wanted to kiss it. He wanted to lift it to his lips and press a kiss in the rather lined little hollow. Loving, capable, tender little hands, he thought, dedicated to the service of others.

  He raised his eyes and met her startled blue ones. He let the hand go and said gently, “Yes, brown moths. You need some bleaching lotion. You also need a thimble.”

  “I’ve finished my coffee. May I wash the cups?”

  “You are not at Redgates now. You are my guest.”

  “I thought I was your pupil.”

  “I am corrected. Pupil it is. Would you like some more questions, or are you ready for home?”

  “I’m a little tired. I think this is enough for one night.”

  “It is for you to say. If you are weary I gather you would prefer to ride...?”

  “That would put you to trouble.”

  “No more than walking. I’ll get out the car.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I mean, if you’ve garaged it, we’ll walk.”

  “My dear Miss Trent, one is as much trouble as the other. The only trouble is waiting for you to make up your mind.”

  She said coolly, thinking this would be the quicker way to be rid of him, “I’d sooner drive.”

  He shot her an enigmatic look. She could not have guessed what it meant.

  “Drive it is then. Put on your coat and we’ll go out by the office door.”

  It was a clear winter’s night. Overhead the sky was garlanded with stars. Underfoot the earth was crisp and cold. In the morning there would be a frost.

  He insisted on tucking her in, although she protested she would be home in five minutes.

  “That depends on whether we go straight there.”

  “Of course we go straight there.”

  He did not reply. He concentrated on the road, and presently he turned sharply through the familiar cherry gates and drove her right up to the girls’ door.

  “Thank you, Dr. Malcolm.”

  “My pleasure, Miss Trent.”

  As she fumbled with the latch he called softly, “So endeth the first lesson.”

  The second lesson came and went, the third, fourth and fifth. She was accustomed to him as a teacher now. He was a hard but thorough teacher. She knew she was receiving a sound training. She was becoming confident of her knowledge. Instantly, as though sensing her feeling of superiority, he undermined her self-satisfaction by shooting new questions obviously designed to confuse and bewilder her.

  “That’s not in the manual.”

  “Neither is a patient in a manual. You can’t do everything by the book, Trent. Use your common sense. Think.”

  He had an uncomplaining Mrs. Williams in, and Cathy had to arrange her in given postures.

  “Fowler’s position, nurse.”

  “Semiprone, Aunty Cathy.”

  “How would you place Mrs. Williams if I ordered left lateral, Miss Trent?”

  As she obeyed him he made sarcastic comments on behalf of the “patient.”

  “The pillow is supposed to go under her head, not suffocate her.”

  “What do you intend doing with this right arm? Amputate it for a neater presentation to the operating surgeon?”

  “Good Lord, Trent, you can’t leave a leg swinging like that.”

  He was a believer in complete transcription of a difficult text to impress the contents on the mind.

  One evening he set Cathy to copy out in tedious longhand, “Skin tests used in the diagnosis of disease” while he took a flying visit to Gullybank to check up on a pneumonia patient.

  The room was warm, the fire bright; from Mrs. Williams’s quarters the sweet refrain of a Strauss waltz came dreamily over the radio.

  “Procedure,” wrote Cathy. “The ampule is swabbed with spirits, allowed to dry, the dressing towel is arrayed under the forearm...” She looked into the fire.

  It has been a particularly busy day. There had been a board meeting. It had not been one of those board meetings when you went three times over everything in case of dust, when you helped Mrs. Ferguson to make special cakes (in short, Mrs. Dubois had phoned that she would not attend), but it had been a tiring time for all that. Miss Marriott had brought a sample camphor bag and had stood discussing it until Cathy had felt as limp as the little sample bag herself.

  Then later there had been trouble with Rita. Old Mr. Jeffreys was on holiday, and his grandson had taken over. Cathy did not mind Rita talking to young Jim. She believed in encouraging it. But Rita followed him, stopped him from his digging, thrust herself upon him. She even walked to the gate with him when it was his time to leave work. When she returned the family was at dinner, and though Cathy would have postponed any comments of her own until they had more privacy, the girls were not so discreet.

  “Here comes Mrs. Jeffreys, Mrs. Jim Jeffreys.”

  “When are you getting married, Rita?”

  “Isn’t love grand!”

  Rita, who; had sat down, rose, her cheeks flaming. “I hate you all, you horrible prying little beasts.”

  “Rita, dear...” protested Cathy.

  “You, too. I know what you’re thinking.”

  “Sit down and eat your meal, Rita.”

  “I won’t. I’m not hungry. I’m going to bed.”

  Cathy let her go, indicating to the children with a shake of her head that there must be no more comments.

  As soon as the meal was finished she ran upstairs.

  “Rita!” she called at the door of the dormitory for the bigger girls.

  Rita did not answer.

  “Rita, honey!”

  Rita breathed deeply and evenly, too deeply and evenly. She was pretending sleep.


  With a sigh Cathy left her. Perhaps night would bridge what words could not. Anyway, she had no time for suasion now. She had to leave for her lesson.

  The fire gleamed red. Cathy’s eyes blurred. She saw Miss Marriott, camphor bags, Jim and Rita all mixed up together. Her pencil dropped. Her head drooped. Unlike Rita, there was no pretense. She slept.

  When she awoke she was on the couch and there was a blanket over her. She glanced at the clock. It was almost midnight. She gasped.

  Immediately the man sitting by the fire got up.

  “It’s late,” she said, appalled.

  “Not all that late.”

  “I must have fallen asleep.”

  “You did.”

  “How ... how did I get here?”

  “I carried you, of course. A desk is not the most comfortable place for a rest.”

  “I’m terribly sorry. I don’t know what must have come over me. What did you think?”

  “What did I think?” He stood looking down on her, his eyes unrevealing.

  “I’m afraid I did very little of the transcription ... You see, it was board meeting today ... Then Rita was difficult ... and...”

  Suddenly she saw he was not listening. He took a step forward and lifted her bodily in his arms. “Come, little one,” he said.

  With infinite gentleness he carried her out to the car. He put her carefully in. Then he went around to the driver’s seat, started the engine and was soon speeding expertly and smoothly to the other side of Burnley Hills.

  When they reached the door of Redgates he was out in a flash and catching her up again.

  Quietly he lifted the latch and quietly he bore her upstairs.

  He put her down on the threshold of her room. “Good night,” he said softly.

  Cathy said good-night but still stood there. Perhaps it was her drowsiness that held her waiting, as Christabel might have waited, for his kiss.

  He glanced sharply down, took in the drowsy childish expectancy, and said a little thickly, “You’re asleep,” and gave her a gentle push inside. Then he left.

  But sleep had left her now. She stood in her room wide awake and wondering.

  Wondering what that strange expression on his face had meant when he had put her on her feet and she had looked up, childishly expectant.

  Wondering why she was standing here now, a little deflated, oddly disappointed.

  She knew she would not sleep for hours. She took the transcription. “Procedure. The ampule is swabbed with spirits...”

  She worked into the small hours, trying to forget those dark unrevealing eyes, that proud head, those arms that lifted and bore so easily...

  It was late when she fell into bed.

  Dr. Malcolm telephoned her on the afternoon of her next lesson.

  “Come early,” he ordered peremptorily.

  “I shall if I can make it.”

  He had hung up. That was typical of him, she thought with a grimace. He pulled the strings and the puppet obeyed. “Whistle and I’ll come to you, my lad,” was the only tune he would have her sing. Nonetheless, she complied. She knew she had to.

  When she arrived at the office, her transcription imprinted on both her exercise book and her memory, Dr. Malcolm was awaiting her.

  “Don’t open your satchel. Leave it on the table and we’ll pick it up when we come home.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There are no patients tonight. I thought we would take the opportunity of visiting Christabel.”

  Cathy had already gone several times with David. The child was happily ensconced in the hospital, but that was typical of Christabel. She would have settled herself anywhere.

  On her previous visits Cathy had been greeted noisily, asked many questions about Avery and whether she was digging in her end of the sandpit, finally farewelled with a few wistful tears.

  Tonight there was only a casual greeting and no tears at all. A younger girl than Christabel had been admitted. Irene was small and plump and only just three, and not at all averse to being “mothered.”

  “Darling, look who has come to see you—Dr. Jerry.”

  “ ’Lo, Jerry. This is my own baby. Its name is Rene.”

  Avery sends her love. She is not digging in your end of the pit,”

  “Let me tuck you in, Rene. There, darling. There, my pet.”

  They lingered for a while, Christabel eventually forgetting them entirely. A nurse said, “I don’t know what will happen if Irene is sent home. Christabel is devoted to that baby. She’s a real little mother.”

  “What about our baby?” asked Cathy. “When is she coming home?”

  “Quite soon, I should think. Look at her neck. Scarcely a mark. The tracheotomy has left hardly any scar.”

  They wandered away from the wide veranda from which they had talked to Christabel through antiseptic gauze and made their way back to the car.

  The hospital lay on a headland overlooking the sea. The ceaseless pattern of the Pacific Ocean came clearly to their ear, crash of breaker, swirl of wave, withdrawal of water, then the rhythm all over again. There was a pleasant tang of salt and seaweed.

  “She did not even notice us going,” smiled Cathy.

  “No.” Malcolm’s voice was short.

  Presently he said, “It’s almost uncanny...”

  “What is?”

  “That kid’s likeness to ... to Susan. Susan was a tomboy, just like Christabel, but she was a little mother as well. ”

  A silence fell between them. The doctor broke it.

  “Wherever she is now, I know she is still all mother. I can see her with her children around her, just as vivacious as I remember her, yet still with that unerring mother instinct and that capacity for love.”

  Wherever she is now ... Cathy glanced quickly at him. She thought of that little God’s Acre and the grave with the brief inscription. So he still did not know; he still wondered and did not dare try to discover. It was a pity really. Until he learned what had become of his sister he would carry with him that streak of hardness, that disbelief.

  She said quickly, “Where do you think she could be?”

  “I don’t think.”

  “Perhaps you believe she was transferred to another home.”

  “I tell you I don’t think.”

  “Isn’t that a mistake?”

  “My mistake is recalling her at all. My mistake is imagining sometimes, her children around her—my nieces, my nephews, part, in a way, of my blood.”

  She saw suddenly the loneliness in him, the yearning for someone who belonged.

  Gently, she reminded him, “There will be your own children one day.”

  He looked down on her, the eyes unrevealing again. “Let’s get back,” he said.

  They drove silently through the night, and when they reached Burnley she suggested, “Perhaps I’d better go straight home. It’s too late for lessons tonight.”

  “You have to pick up your satchel.”

  “The children could do that tomorrow.”

  “It won’t take long.”

  When they reached the office she came in with him because she had forgotten where she had put the briefcase.

  “You must be chilled. I’ll put on some coffee. Mrs. Williams is out, but it won’t take long.”

  “Don’t bother.”

  “I want it myself.”

  “Then let me.”

  “I told you before, this is the doctor’s prerogative. Just wait by the empty hearth and pretend the fire is lit.”

  When he went out she crossed and stood by the cold grate. She looked around the room, the white walls, the severe masculine furniture, she saw the trees outside whispering against the panes of the window. Then she turned to the hearth.

  The clock on the mantelpiece was ticking steadily. The ticks seemed to become louder and louder ... They even drowned the man’s steps as he returned to the room with the tray. He put it down and crossed to her side.

  Together they stared at the empty
fireplace, and then it happened—a spell so strong that Cathy could have sworn that flames burned high and that they came from logs that he had cut and piled, that tea and toast she had made were keeping hot, that there were two chairs drawn up awaiting them—that they were familiar chairs.

  She turned slightly, then feeling his eyes upon her, looked up.

  In that moment she was no longer rootless. In that moment she knew that there were just the two of them and nobody else in the world. The reason was not clear, but she had the feeling that it had been there all the time, waiting to be discovered...

  Jeremy had felt the enchantment, too. He had sensed the burning logs, the toast, the familiar chairs—and he had looked down on the girl. He felt an almost suffocating largeness in his heart, a wonder possessed him.

  Slowly, quietly, they drew together. The spell that was on them affected the quality of their first kiss. It had no greed, no desire to possess, but it was deep and satisfying; it was a fulfillment that needed no declaration.

  When they drew apart again they still had said no words.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The mail delivery to Redgates always coincided with the children’s breakfast. It had become an established custom for the mailman to sit down with them to a cup of tea and a piece of toast. Cathy did not know how the authorities would have looked on this, but the girls considered it good fun, for they took it in turn to make his toast and pour him his tea.

  Often Cathy shuddered inwardly over the burnt offering and the milky, slopped-over beverage, but the mailman made each child feel that never had there been such food for the gods, and as he supped and sipped they stood beside him beaming their approval.

  He was a generous old fellow with an immense love for children, especially the Little Families children. He had the dates of their birthdays down in a book, and never did he forget to fetch out a card with the mail. A mailed card, too. That made it really exciting. Elvira had told Cathy that at Christmastime the whole house had received cards.

  Today Mr. Monty put down the mail with a flourish. “Anyone here by the name of Miss Jeanie Glasson?”

  “Me, me...” gasped Jeanie.

  “That’s funny, there’s an envelope here with your name on it. Couldn’t be you, of course, but you’d better open it and see.”