Flowers from the Doctor
Lucilla Andrews
Copyright © The Estate of Lucilla Andrews 2018
This edition first published 2018 by Wyndham Books
(Wyndham Media Ltd)
27, Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX
First published 1963
www.lucillaandrews.com
The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, organisations and events are a product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, organisations and events is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Cover artwork images © Sean Evison / Zarubina Viktoriia (Shutterstock), izusek (istockphoto)
Cover artwork design © Wyndham Media Ltd
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Also by Lucilla Andrews
from Wyndham Books
The Print Petticoat
The Secret Armour
The Quiet Wards
The First Year
A Hospital Summer
My Friend the Professor
Nurse Errant
The Young Doctors Downstairs
The New Sister Theatre
A House for Sister Mary
One Night in London (The Jason Trilogy Book 1)
A Weekend in the Garden (The Jason Trilogy Book 2)
In an Edinburgh Drawing Room (The Jason Trilogy Book 3)
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all of Lucilla Andrews’s novels.
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Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
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Chapter One
ONE HOT SUMMER EVENING
There were giant hollyhocks growing in the park that summer. Richard called them our hollyhocks because we had watched them grow.
It had been such a wonderful summer that by mid-September we had long taken the constant sunshine for granted. The complaints of my fellow night nurses were as constant as breakfast each morning.
‘I thought we were supposed to be living in London, England, not somewhere on the equator.’
‘It must be that last set of bomb tests. Maybe we’re all out of orbit without knowing it.’
‘Why can’t we get back our nice drizzle and grey skies, and then ‒ who knows ‒ we might even be able to get some afternoon sleep.’
It was no weather for day sleeping, yet the heat was my ally. I was in the senior set on nights, and provided we were in bed by 9 a.m. Matron allowed the seniors to get up from 4 p.m. and either rest out on our Home roof or go out for a walk for air.
Richard said this new rule showed Fate was on our side. ‘Even my salamander of a boss has caught on to the fact that his house-surgeons need breathers if they’re not to melt right away after a day in the theatre with the temperature up to three figures.’
From the end of July onwards, while I was on nights in Lister, whenever Richard could get away from the Surgical Unit we spent the two hours between his evening round and my suppertime in the nearest public park.
The hospital had a perfectly good park of its own and a terrace by the river, but Richard preferred getting away from it all.
‘If one stays in someone always nabs one to do some work, and besides, it’s worth a fifteen-minute amble over the bridge to have you to myself, Kirsty. Also I like ducks.’
I liked what he liked. So we were both happy to spend hours on the yellow grass listening to musical Guardsmen practising in the near-by barrack square, lingering on the old wooden bridge over the lake watching the leaves float by, or talking and watching the ducks on our favourite bench at the water’s edge.
Richard had the whole evening off on my free night before the Quincentenary Ball, and we sat on our bench until it grew dark. The sleepy water-fowl settled in the rushes, and a three-quarter moon rose over the water. It was peaceful and cool, and rather strange to sit in the centre of London and hear nothing of the traffic or other sounds of the city around us.
It was peaceful, yet we were not at peace because of that wretched Ball.
‘You should have raised hell to get tomorrow night free,’ grumbled Richard. ‘As it is, I’m off and you’re on, which is a damn-silly idea.’
‘But not mine! You know that. Everyone wants to be off, so Night Sister drew our names out of a hat. Mine just didn’t come up. It wouldn’t have been fair to make a fuss, nor would it have got me anywhere. You must see that.’
He shrugged. ‘I can only see we’re going to have to miss the best party of the year.’
‘You don’t have to miss it. Why not join someone else’s party? You love dancing.’
‘Huh! Hell of a fine party it’ll be without you!’
I was sorry he was annoyed, but naturally very bucked by the fundamental reason for his annoyance. Richard Bartney and I had been friends since we worked in Casualty together last year. At first he had asked me out spasmodically, then, after we worked together again in the general surgical theatre this spring, constantly. We were now regarded as an established hospital pair. My female friends were convinced we were drifting safely towards an engagement and marriage. I hoped they were right, even though he had not yet suggested either to me.
His reticence made sense if you knew him. His parents’ marriage had broken up when he was fourteen, leaving him with strong views on the subject. ‘The parents were a couple of kids when they rushed off and got hitched. Then they grew up and found they did not like each other at all. Marriage is strictly for adults only ‒ and well-heeled adults at that.’
It was probably because of his childhood that he was not given to what he called making a song and dance about his feelings and could not tolerate anything remotely approaching an emotional scene. Consequently, when he occasionally let slip a remark like the one he had just made, it made my day.
It took a little time to talk him out of being annoyed. I managed it before we had to leave or be locked in. We walked back amicably, hand-in-hand. The pavements were still steaming. When we crossed the bridge the heat seemed to have got into the river. The water ran softly like oil, as if, like us, it was in no hurry to reach journey’s end.
On the far bank the pubs were still open, their wide doorways crowded with men in shirt-sleeves. They nodded at us matily. ‘Lovely night, Doctor!’
&nbs
p; Down a side-street near the hospital a little circle of women were sitting in deck-chairs on the pavement. ‘Evening, Nurse!’, ‘Evening, Doctor!’
We did not know either the shirt-sleeved men or the ladies in the deck-chairs. We were in ordinary clothes. They just recognized us as belonging to St Simeon’s ‒ ‘their hospital’. Simeon’s had belonged to the people living in that crowded corner of East London for the last five hundred years.
Richard came from the North. He said, ‘When I first came down here I thought I would never feel at home. Now I’ll never feel at home anywhere else. Simeon’s has got me.’
‘I know.’ We had turned the last corner. The hospital towered above us, the blocks stretching over half a mile down the road, the tiers of ward lights glistening like the decorations on a wedding-cake. ‘Sister Tutor once told us that if we lasted out the training we would find we had given a part of our heart to the hospital. With four months left to go, I would say I’ve lost that bit for good.’
He smiled, absently, only half listening. ‘Soon as this weather breaks I must get down to some solid reading. I want to get Primary, then go all out for Fellowship as soon as possible.’
‘Very ambitious, Mr Bartney. You’ll make it.’
‘I will. A man has to know where he’s going, sweetie. I do.’ His hand gripped mine harder. ‘You do understand?’
‘Sure.’ My heart was behaving quite absurdly. He had never looked at me like that before. ‘I’ll be rootin’ for you.’
‘Bless you, Kirsty.’ He kissed my hand quickly, then let it go as we walked through the main gates. ‘It’s nowhere near eleven, so you can come along to our sitting-room. We may find some tea going.’
We went in through one of the side-doors to Casualty. The great hall was empty. Only two of the many small examination-and dressing-rooms of the hall were lit up. One was used as a night duty-room; the other was a medical room. The Senior Medical Officer’s prematurely thinning dark hair was visible above the screen across the door.
I looked round. ‘Medical side busy, but not a surgeon in sight. I’ve never seen Cas so quiet. Where are all the customers?’
He smiled. ‘Johnny Druro always was a fast worker. He must have cured them all.’
‘Johnny? Johnny Druro?’ I echoed. ‘No! Don’t tell me he’s back from the annexe. I thought he was Senior Surgical Registrar down there.’
‘Relax, sweetie.’ He was very amused. ‘Old Johnny’s only up from the country for the weekend. You’ll have to see him in Lister tomorrow night as he’s standing in for the S.S.O., because Mrs S.S.O. is bringing a large party to the Ball. He leaves us Sunday afternoon in time to catch his night round at the annexe.’
‘Thank God for that! I know you like our Mr Jonathan Druro, F.R.C.S. and heaven knows what else! I’ll admit he’s a good surgeon with no equal at collecting gold medals. But if there’s one man in this hospital who makes me want to start throwing things within five seconds of being with him, it’s Johnny Druro. This heat,’ I added sternly, ‘I can take. This heat and dear Johnny ‒ no!’
He laughed. ‘I remember you two in the theatre. You even managed to exude disapproval when disguised in a turban, gown, and yashmak.’
‘Do you wonder? When that so-and-so has openly disapproved of me ever since he walked into Cas on my first day there, asked reams of questions I couldn’t answer, being so new, then swept out without giving me a chance to explain? He still treats me as the most gormless moron let loose in a nurse’s uniform on the unsuspecting British public.’
‘My poor darling, you do look sweet when you’re on that soapbox, but get off it. Come along with Uncle and have a nice refreshing cup of tea.’
The junior residents’ sitting-room on the ground floor of the Doctors’ Block was a comfortable, masculine room. The leather-covered armchairs were solid and well-sprung. The table and every available shelf were littered with books and medical periodicals. There were stacks of tennis-racquets in one corner. No flowers. The ashtrays were empty. The silent grate was strewn with ash.
On a sofa by the open French window leading out to the terrace two housemen were sharing a tea-tray with a very pretty dark-haired girl in an elegant flame linen dress. She waved at me languidly.
‘Kirsty Francis! I thought you were on nights?’
‘I am. Just off for one.’ We walked over. ‘Nice to see you again, Sonia. How’s the annexe?’
Sonia Dinsford was a year my senior. She was now working as staff nurse in Mark Ward at our country branch. Mark was acute male surgical, and the official opposite number to my own ward, Lister.
She wrinkled her nose attractively.
‘The annexe is fine ‒ if you’re an outdoor type. Me ‒ I’m a big-city girl.’
‘Of course, your home’s in London.’ I glanced at Richard. ‘You two do know each other? No? Sorry.’ And I introduced them.
Richard said he also felt homesick when away from pavements and carbon-monoxide fumes. ‘If I can’t have my Manchester I’ll settle for London.’
‘Are you from Manchester?’ Sonia looked him over. ‘There must be something besides rain about Manchester. Guthrie ‒ my fiancé ‒ hails from there.’
That reminded me I had seen the announcement of her engagement in the newspaper a few weeks back. It had rated a paragraph in the gossip column as well, as Sonia’s father was a manufacturer whose appliances were a household name and she was his only child.
‘Isn’t your Guthrie an architect?’ I asked, after congratulating her.
One of the housemen answered for her. ‘A complete outsider, Kirsty. And she drinks our tea! Splendid chaps architects, no doubt, but what’s wrong with Simeon’s men, eh?’
Sonia’s smile included Richard. ‘Darling, you know I adore all Simeon’s men.’
Richard went for more cups. We settled down to discuss the Ball in general. Sonia brought it back to the particular by insisting we must all be absolute darlings to her darling Guthrie, who was going to feel so lost among all the doctors. ‘Promise you’ll be nice to him, won’t you, Kirsty?’
‘That’s out for a start,’ put in Richard. ‘Kirsty’s not coming. She’s stood me up.’
‘Indeed, I have not!’ I smiled and explained.
Sonia was very sympathetic. ‘Kirsty, you poor darling! And poor Richard! How miserable for you both! Will you have to go alone?’ She looked from one attendant houseman to the other. ‘Darlings, we must do something about this.’
Richard caught my eye. ‘Let’s fill that cup for you, Kirsty.’ Then, returning the cup, he murmured, ‘Why doesn’t she just declare the bazaar open and have done?’
I smiled again, but could not answer with anything but a nod, as I was sitting facing Sonia. Her proprietary attitude to Richard as well as the housemen did not bother me at all. She was only acting as she always had when there were men around. She was very attractive, had exceedingly wealthy and indulgent parents, so it was scarcely surprising that she was rather spoilt. She had had a series of heavy-breathing young men in tow throughout her training, got herself engaged roughly once a year to my certain knowledge, but it might have been more than an annual occurrence, since being in different years we had different friends. Simeon’s was so large that, apart from the country annexe, it was possible to work in the same building for years and never in the same ward. Watching her flourish her very expensive-looking new ring, I was only surprised that no one had got round to marrying her.
Richard asked where she worked in the annexe.
She grimaced. ‘Mark, alas!’
‘And how do you get along with Sister Mark? Or does that “alas” tell me?’
Sister Mark’s formidable reputation had made her a hospital legend in her own lifetime.
‘Darling,’ said Sonia, ‘no one can get along with Sister Mark. Aren’t I right, Kirsty?’
‘She scared the living daylights out of me when I was in Mark as a junior,’ I agreed.
Richard and I had our backs to the open window. She
suddenly smiled enchantingly at someone behind us. ‘Johnny darling, do come in and have some tea, and then I can thank you again for giving me that lift up. Wasn’t I too stupid to miss my train?’
I stiffened automatically. Richard removed my cup and saucer from my hands pointedly. ‘Another exile returned.’ He stood up. ‘I’ll get another cup.’
‘Don’t bother, thanks, Richard. Just had some in Cas.’ That dark-brown clipped voice was directly over my head, but I refused to turn round. ‘The place gets more like a co-ed campus every time I get back. Doesn’t anyone do any work here? You on holiday too, Nurse Francis?’
I had to acknowledge that. ‘A night off from Lister, Mr Druro.’
‘Lister? A heavy ward in my day.’
‘Still is.’
‘What are you? Night relief?’
I coloured ‒ and was furious with myself for doing so. But the wretched man knew quite well I was a fourth year. ‘Night senior.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Time goes fast. Congratulations.’ His tone was polite, his smile derisive. ‘Matron,’ his smile implied, ‘must be dead short of staff to trust Lister to you.’
He was just under six feet tall, four inches shorter than Richard. Yet even when, as now, they were standing together Johnny Druro managed to give the impression of being the bigger man. This was partly due to his powerful shoulders, partly his carriage. He was the one resident in Simeon’s who did not stand or walk with the typical medical bent head and hunched shoulders. He stood like a Guardsman, walked the corridors and wards as if about to take them by storm, and yet he walked very lightly. Richard had told me this last ability had helped as much as Johnny’s muscle-power to make him inter-hospital heavyweight boxing champion. ‘The chap should have been a professional fighter. He could dodge over the canvas like a flyweight. Too bad he’s had to give it up for the sake of his hands.’
Johnny’s hands were the only things about him not on a large scale. They were remarkably small, square, neat-fingered hands, and in the theatre moved with a delicacy that was particularly noticeable in such a powerful man.
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