The rest of the evening passed most pleasantly. He seemed to be deliberately setting himself out to be pleasant and entertaining. Jane found herself introduced to all sorts of people, most of them merry-eyed and friendly, all of them obviously known to the doctor. She managed to pick out an odd word here and there which she could connect with the subject under discussion, but it was a great relief to find most of them understood a little English.
“There have been several teams from home here for various commercial reasons, and industrial reasons too,” Jim explained as they began their drive back to the hospital precinct. “Also a lot of the older men served in the war and picked up a smattering of English—or American—en route. There have been several graduates here too, from time to time. Two of them came as teachers, I believe. One came as a private tutor, and another as someone’s secretary, a chappie who was writing some important book, I believe. It all goes to make things easier when it comes to a matter of exchanging information.”
Jane found she had enjoyed herself much more than she could ever have anticipated. They had called in at a more select sort of inn than the Golden Fiddle, and there she had been introduced to Mr. Gamm, one of the minor secretaries, or so he described himself, at the Embassy.
“You must bring Nurse Kelsey to the next Embassy ball, Jim,” he told Dr. Lowth. “That’ll be Easter. You know they make a thing of all religious festivals out here! Jolly good thing to; seems to give them something to hang on to, something to look forward to all the time. I suppose that’s true of everyone everywhere. There has to be a going forward,” he said introspectively.
When she came to know him better Jane was to recognise this as a prelude to a long discourse, no matter about what; John Gamm liked to talk, and above all else he missed in what he thought of as his exile in Dalasalavia, was the sound of many friends’ voices, raised in vigorous discussion, no matter upon what subject.
“There has to be ‘a going forward’ as you put it, for Nurse and myself right now,” Jim Lowth said with an unexpected touch of humour. “We have to be back, or else we shall be asleep when we ought to be in the hospital and on duty! Nurse hasn’t any starry-eyed dreams to keep her awake, neither has she any lost horizons to mourn over. Like myself, or so she says,” he grinned at Jane, but his words, so plainly referring to Ann and to Nurse Wroe, were not what she had expected.
“We’re both here to do a job of work,” he announced, slapping the other man on the shoulder, “and for no other reason, just as you are yourself! I’ll try and bring Nurse to the next Embassy ball, as you so kindly suggest. I expect the usual invitation will come along, and I can think of no reason why Nurse Kelsey should be otherwise engaged, which I believe is the conventional excuse given when a young lady wishes to avoid a certain escort! We’ll see you there, if not before,” he concluded. “Ready, Nurse?”
Jane found she was angry as he steered her towards the doors of the car. She felt he had been rude, and not only that, he had in some way identified herself with him in the almost abrupt dismissal of the obviously lonely and friendly-intentioned man.
“You’re angry, Nurse Kelsey!” Jim accused as he turned into the hospital precinct. “You needn’t be. John Gamm’s used to being cut short like that. He talks too much, and doesn’t do half the work he’s supposed to do, but he’s useful, especially when we require any special equipment flying out in a hurry. That does sometimes happen, you know.”
“I suppose so.” Jane’s voice was toneless. She could not have expressed it in so many words, but somehow the joy had gone from the evening, and yet there was no obvious and concrete reason for that feeling.
Without realising it she began to remember what she had heard of this man who sat beside her, concentrating solely on his driving and on the task in hand. He was said not to care for women; even nurses he regarded as a necessary evil. It was rumoured he had received a disappointment in a love affair some time ago, but she could not imagine any girl in her right senses casting him on one side. She stole a surreptitious glance at him as he sat silently beside her. Personally, she was prepared to admit as much to herself but to no one else, she found him more attractive than she had ever found any man before. There was charm in his manner, when he chose to exert it; there was laughter in his eyes, when they did not carry an expression of stern disapproval. He was well made and physically attractive, and in addition, she admitted to herself but with a certain reluctance, during the evening, right until they had been joined by John Gamm, he had revealed himself as the ideal companion. Amusing without being cruel or facetious; intelligent without being too obviously clever. She had enjoyed his company, and secretly, almost without being aware of it herself, she had been looking forward to the hope that this might well prove to be the first such evening of a possible many in the future which lay ahead.
Now, abruptly, and perhaps without his being aware of having done so, she felt he had put her in her place as one of his staff, new to the country and the people, and as such he had performed a duty in introducing her to some aspects of life as it must be lived during her stay in Seonyata. The thought was suddenly chilling in the extreme, and she too remained silent until he stopped at the door of her block of flats and handed her out.
“I’ll come up with you,” he announced, not waiting for her acceptance or refusal. “You’ll soon pick up enough of the language to say ‘good evening’ and ‘good morning’ to the caretaker, and that’s all you need bother about for a time.”
He said nothing more until they stood before her door and Jane had produced her key, opening the flat. Suddenly self-conscious, although she could not think why, she invited him in for a cup of tea.
“Not tonight, thank you, Nurse,” he said briefly, a faint, quick smile touching his lips for a moment. “Some other time, perhaps. As it is I have some notes to write up, a round to make and it’s late! I should not wish your first evening seeing the sights, such as they are, to be the cause of your being late on duty in the morning. Goodnight.”
Jane thoughtfully made her own preparations for bed. She was suddenly face to face with an idea which had shaken her more than she would have admitted to anyone, except, perhaps, her mother or twin.
Jim Lowth was the one man in the world she knew she could love with all her heart, her mind and her body, from now to the end of time. He was all she admired in any man, and more than that, he possessed that indefinable something which singled him out in her eyes. Yet she was compelled to admit that he behaved beautifully, but with every impression that he was merely performing a not too pleasant duty and should she do anything—anything at all—of which he did not approve, he would not hesitate to let her know, no matter how much she was hurt.
“He seems to resent women—not just the ones in the hospital but all women, in some way,” she told herself as she slid into bed. “In some way he seems to resent me, even though he needed someone to replace Ann, and quickly! I don’t know how I’m going to do it,” she thought as she fell asleep, “but somehow or other I’m just as determined to make him at least like me, and to be glad I came to St. George’s.”
It was on that thought sleep overcame her, and when she slept it was to dream—as she had hoped and expected—of Jim Lowth, a Jim Lowth who was the demanding, adoring lover she knew instinctively he could well become.
CHAPTER 4
JANE’S really genuine admiration for Jim Lowth increased by leaps and bounds the next day. Physician and surgeon to the hospital, he ought to have had more assistance, she felt, but he seemed cheerfully resigned to the hard demands his position placed upon him, and coped capably and resolutely with everything as it came along.
“That wasn’t precisely true,” she reflected as she drank her mid-morning “cuppa,” thoughtfully presented to her by a smiling, chubby-faced kitchen maid. “Nothing did come along, except the emergency appendix. All the rest had been worked out, planned for, well in advance. But there’s no wonder he’s tired!”
It had been a revelat
ion to her to discover how well organised was St. George’s. The organisation was, she knew, entirely Dr. Lowth’s doing, and the staff, what there was of it, supported him to the best of their ability, yet it was far from sufficient for the needs of the large area which the hospital served.
The morning had been spent in the theatre, with Dr. Dean acting as anaesthetist once more, and Jane, to her delight, as theatre nurse. It was only after a long spell of operations of varying kinds that she had realised Dr. Lowth had previously done a round of the medical wards, made a trip to the newly opened Out-patients, an intervention of his own, since so many people required after-care when once discharged, and as yet there was no adequate preparation made for accommodation or for staff..
According to the time table she had just been studying, Dr. Lowth would make a round of the surgical wards this afternoon, and also he somehow or other managed to fit in time for what would have been classed at Rawbridge General as a casualty service.
“No wonder he looks so tired,” she thought as she was about to return her cup, Ann having made it clear that at St. George’s one must help oneself as much as possible. The shortage of all staff made it quite impossible to carry on at all, otherwise.
“Hello, Nurse! I’ll take that back; I’m just going for one myself.”
Kevin Dean’s cheerfully smiling face loomed over her as he took the cup from her unresisting fingers.
“How are you enjoying your first day?” he demanded, adding before she could speak: “I’ll bring you another cup. Our James won’t be around for a little while, and you deserve it! We all do, but as you’re in a position of responsibility,” he made the words sound ridiculously mocking and Jane felt a momentary flash of indignation, “you deserve it more than most of the folks round here.”
The words, mocking though they might have been, were accompanied by a smile of such charm that Jane’s indignation melted as though it had never been. She didn’t really want another cup of tea, but it seemed churlish to refuse, so she nodded agreement and perched herself on the arm of the chair she had just vacated as he entered.
“I mustn’t be long,” she warned. “There’s a lot to be done, or so it seems!”
“There’s always a lot to be done, or if there isn’t it’s all too easy to invent something,” Kevin said crisply. “Hang on and relax if you can! It’s the only chance you’ll have till your break this afternoon. Even meal times can be interrupted around here, and usually are! Gomes of not being large enough to be a sort of regular joint! I’ll not be a mo’,” he announced, and went off, whistling, to the kitchen.
Greatly as she disapproved of Kevin’s light-hearted and amusing words on the subject of St George’s, Dr. Lowth and the administration in general, Jane could not resist an inward smile. Perhaps, she thought blankly, that was the one way to accept all this, all the restrictions, all the inconveniences which, so far, she was prepared to set down solely against “experience”. Perhaps to view the whole thing in a slightly more lighthearted frame of mind would, after all, be best. She roused herself, conscious of being far more tired than she normally was half-way through a morning, and sat upright as Kevin returned, carrying two steaming cups of tea and a thick slice of what Jane inwardly thought of as revoltingly stodgy-looking cake.
“Slip into the chair for a few minutes,” Kevin advised, looking at her a shade too critically. “You’ll be feeling the effects of working for the first time in such a badly planned outfit. I bet you never had to walk so far from one ward to another, from one department to another, throughout your nursing career! What on earth made you elect to come to this out-of-the-way establishment, anyhow?” he queried, cocking one interrogative eye in her direction.
“To begin with,” Jane laughed suddenly, it was so difficult and yet so easy at one and the same time to explain, “I didn’t know the first thing about either the country, the people or the hospital. I wanted a change. Not from nursing, never from that! I wanted to use my training to help people, particularly those who hadn’t the various advantages we enjoy back home.”
“You could have gone almost anywhere else,” Kevin observed. “I have a friend 'who’s doctoring on board ship.” He sounded suddenly envious. “He grumbles, naturally, doesn’t everyone? Yet he has some grand times, and gets around. He’s been all over the world by now, seen lots of new places, new faces, and performed an excellent and interesting job at the same time. Didn’t you think of shipboard nursing?”
“I’d really given up thinking about any particular kind of change,” Jane confessed. “I did think of W.H.O. and that sort of thing, then my sister married and went to live in New Zealand. Mother didn’t say anything, but I knew she missed Betty dreadfully, and it didn’t seem enough my being home on my off-days and alternate weekends. Besides,” she added in a sudden burst of inexplicable honesty, “I must admit I’d been bored ever since I’d left the General.”
“Where were you working when you came to know of St. George’s, and how did you come to know?” Kevin persisted. “I heard some story about Nurse Palmer writing to a friend who’d trained with her, but,” again that merry, cheeky grin, “it’s evident that was a bit before your day, by about three years, I’d say.”
“A little more,” Jane informed him, smiling. “It’s true she did write to her friend. It so happens I was working in the nursing home her friend had recently helped establish and where she was Matron. She knew how anxious I was to see more of the world, to work in other and strange places, and she kindly gave me this opportunity.”
“It’s as well you can think of it as such,” Kevin laughed. “I came because when Dr. Jim was ending his first term as S.S.O. I had a bad case of adoration where he was concerned. I haven’t lost it,” he added hastily, “don’t think that! He’s a grand bloke, and there isn’t anyone worked harder or achieved more since he got his Fellowship and Membership. But he’s one apart. He works himself to a frazzle and expects everyone else to do the same. It’s all very well if there’s compensation, but,” his voice rose aggrievedly, “what little fun there is to be found in Dalasalavia is forbidden on one ground or another!”
“Poor thing!” Jane teased. “Yet you don’t look too disgruntled. I should have said that, on the whole, life treated you very well.”
“I manage!” Kevin laughed. “There are ways of making the best of a bad job, once you’ve been here long enough to get to know a few people. Tell you what, why not let me take you out tonight and show you what little fun there is to be found in Seonyata? Can you be ready about eight? I’ll pick you up. At least I’m allowed a vehicle of my own, such as it is, and don’t have to depend on those ancient bone-shakers the two Branslav brothers call hire cars!”
“I’m very sorry,” Jane said with more assumed regret than with absolute truth, “but I saw on the notes Dr. Lowth left for me that he expects me to accompany him on his rounds tonight, and there are two patients who’ll have to be specialled. He seems doubtful about the diabetic...”
Her voice trailed off as Kevin, looking totally disbelieving, laughed openly.
“And you were told not to go with naughty Dr. Dean to any of the many forbidden places, or to mix with any of the people who are not following blindly the dictates of the government!” he announced. “Don’t apologise, Jane ... it is Jane, isn’t it? You’ll be glad to accompany me one evening, from sheer boredom if for no other reason, and you, according to report, with no fiancé waiting at home for a weekly report of how you’ve amused yourself all week, no one wanting a detailed account of how you’ve spent your evenings! In short, I understand you’re neither hiding the shattered remains of a broken heart, nor do you spend the little spare time you have in repining for the might-have-been! Wise girl, if I may say so! Now, here in Seonyata...”
“I said,” Jane repeated more firmly than she had expected to be able to do, “I shall be on duty this evening. You noticed yourself that I’m tired, and I don’t in the least mind admitting that the length of the passageways has a g
reat deal to do with that! I’m sorry, Dr. Dean,” she smiled up at him and rose to her feet at the same time, “but I really must say no, for this evening, at any rate. Perhaps some other time...?”
“Have you encountered the amorous Karl as yet?” Kevin interrupted suddenly, and noting her glance of sheer surprise added quickly: “Karl Brotnovitch, the local Chief of Police? You’ll be able to join in with all the gay ones and earn nothing more from him than a reprimand or two, nothing Dr. Lowth can’t sort out, given notice! Our Karl is a ladies’ man in any language, but he’s especially fond of the few fair-haired females he’s met in his life. You’ll be the end where he’s concerned. I’m surprised he hasn’t sought you out already. He doesn’t miss anything or anyone, so he’s sure to know all about you, why you came here, what you look like, what foods you prefer ... everything. He’s a very thorough-going policeman, is our Karl,” the mocking note was back in his voice. “I often think he’d be an asset in a much more civilised place than this! He’s a born policeman, and there aren’t too many like that anywhere.”
“He was on the station when I arrived,” Jane said slowly, her mind immediately picturing the scene. She saw again the soldiers, the tall, broad-shouldered figure of the Chief of Police with the cold, penetrating gaze. She saw the pathetic figure of the man in the shabby fur coat being hustled into the black police car, and although none of it had anything at all to do with herself, she shuddered inwardly and quite without reason.
“Quite,” Kevin said, watching her. She had the strangest feeling that he had sensed her inner shudder and knew the reason for it. “He’s no friend of mine, I know, but so far all he’s been able to nail on me is going to some of the meetings at the New Thought Club. Thank heaven he’s too much sense to ban their meetings! He knows that if he did he’d merely drive them underground, and then it wouldn’t be quite so easy to have them all together and to break the meetings up whenever he felt like it. I’ve been in the military research station with two of them more than once,” he boasted suddenly. “If he knew that he’d have me deported, even though most of what I saw went quite over my head. It’ll be a different story when they take me round the government research laboratory, though. I’m on safer ground there. It’s much more up my street.”
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