When Two Paths Meet

by Neels, Betty

  The doors led to a wide corridor with more swing doors at its end and doors on either side. There wasn’t much point in standing there doing nothing, Katherine decided, so she advanced along the corridor, peering in the half open doors as she went. Which brought her to Sister’s office.

  She knocked on the door and went in, and the woman at the desk looked up. She had severe features, scraped-back hair and eyes like dark pebbles, and Katherine knew at once that Sister wasn’t pleased to see her. All the same, she said politely, ‘I was told to come here to work, Sister. Katherine Marsh.’

  Sister put down her pen. ‘The girl Dr Fitzroy recruited. Why I should have you, I don’t know; probably he didn’t want to find you under his feet in his own wards. Have you done any nursing?’

  ‘No, Sister. Just looking after Mr and Mrs Grainger, an elderly couple, and before that I looked after children.’

  ‘Well, at least you’re a pair of hands. You don’t look very strong.’

  Katherine didn’t answer that, but waited for Sister to speak again. ‘You’re quite untrained, Staff Nurse will show you how best you can help in the ward. You are here on a week’s trial, Miss Marsh. It’s up to you to do your best.’

  She bent her head over her desk, and Katherine got herself into the corridor again. Find Staff Nurse? Walk on to the ward? Tear off her apron and run like mad? Her problem was solved for her. A girl, dressed in a similar uniform to her, came bouncing out of one of the doors. She stopped when she saw Katherine.

  ‘You’re the new auxiliary,’ she cried joyfully. ‘Am I glad to see you! What’s your name?’

  ‘Katherine. I don’t know where to go...’

  The girl put out an arm and towed her along at a great rate to the doors at the end of the corridor. ‘Miranda—everyone calls me Andy.’ She beamed widely, and Katherine smiled back. Her companion was a big girl, with a mop of hair upon which her cap perched precariously, and a round, cheerful face. ‘You don’t need to know about nursing, not to start with, but it helps if you can do two things at once, carry trays, and clear out the sluice room!’

  They were through the doors by then, to fetch up beside a small, fairylike creature in a blue dress with a red belt and a silver buckle. She was talking to a nurse, but she paused to say to Andy, ‘Mr Sims hasn’t had his paper again...’ She cast her eyes over Kath-erine and went on, ‘Ah, the new auxiliary. Good. Have you seen Sister?’

  She smiled at Katherine in a friendly way, and Katherine, still feeling that she would like to turn and run for it, smiled back.

  ‘Yes, Staff Nurse, she said that you would show me where to work.’

  ‘Never nursed before? Not squeamish? Will you go with Andy and help with the bottle round? Then strip beds with her. When I’ve got five minutes, I’ll give you an idea of the routine. In the meantime, just cling to Andy.’

  Katherine had no idea of what a bottle round was; Andy explained rapidly as they went down the ward to the sluice room. It was a large ward, its beds filled, and its occupants, those who felt well enough, called out cheerfully as they went.

  Andy threw replies to them in passing, and in the sluice said, ‘They like to pass the time of day, but be careful when Sister’s on the ward, she’s man’s natural enemy.’ Andy handed Katherine something that looked like a milk bottle container. ‘Got a boyfriend?’

  ‘No, I don’t know anybody in Salisbury.’

  ‘Dr Fitzroy knows you, doesn’t he? Weren’t you looking after some private patients of his? He’s a dream, isn’t he? On the medical side, of course, so we hardly ever see him over here.’

  Which perhaps, reflected Katherine soberly, was just as well. The morning was a cataclysm of half-understood work: she made beds, not very well, getting in a fearful muddle with the corners, urged on by the kindly Andy; she helped with the mid-morning drinks, scuttled up and down the ward fetching and carrying various odds and ends for any number of people, had to heave patients out of bed and in again, and always with Andy near at hand to urge her on or breathe encouragement. By lunch time she was tired, but by no means downhearted; if everyone else there could keep on their feet and know what they were about, then so could she. Not that she was always sure what she was about!

  She was sent to first dinner with Andy, and told by Sister that she was to go off duty at five o’clock. ‘You will work for a week with Miss Snell,’ said Sister, indicating Andy, ‘and after that you will work alternate duties with her. Come to the office when you report off duty, and I will tell you your duties for the week.’

  ‘Do we always work like this?’ asked Katherine, trotting along beside Andy on their way to the canteen. ‘I mean, on the go the whole time?’

  Andy laughed. ‘This is a quiet week—next week’s take-in. You should just see us then.’ She was still explaining take-in when they reached the canteen.

  ‘Take a tray—it’s boiled beef and dumplings—I know one of the cooks. Have you got some money?’

  Katherine nodded and watched her plate being piled high. Very good value for money, she reflected when she received it.

  ‘Don’t bother with a pudding,’ advised Andy. ‘Get a cup of tea.’

  They found places at a table which was already well filled. Katherine was introduced to the half-dozen girls already there, and smiled a little shyly at them. They were a friendly bunch, full of helpful advice and hospital gossip as they gobbled their meal. ‘A pity that you’re with that old tyrant,’ commented one of them. ‘Sister Beecham is a tartar—talk about throwing you in at the deep end...’

  There wasn’t time to answer all their questions, much less ask any of her own; she found herself setting off again at Andy’s heels, back to the ward. Afterwards, Sister went to second dinner and the ward wore a relaxed air in consequence.

  Staff Nurse, busy with the medicine round, nodded cheerfully as they reported back on duty. ‘There’s some tea in the pot if you want a cup,’ she told them. ‘Only look sharp about it. Andy, take Mr Crouch down to X-ray as soon as you’ve had it; take Katherine with you so that she’ll know where to go, and then make up the two end beds.’ She turned back to her trolley and the student nurse with her, and Andy and Katherine hurried out to the kitchen where the teapot stood warming on the stove.

  ‘We don’t do this when Sister’s on duty,’ explained Andy quite unnecessarily.

  X-ray was miles away, or so it seemed to Kather-ine, whose feet were aching madly, but once there she found it quite interesting. The patient was to have an operation for a duodenal ulcer, and needed a barium meal to confirm the surgeon’s diagnosis. He was a cross old man, who contradicted everyone and found fault with each of them in turn. Half-way through the examination, Andy was sent for, leaving Katherine to stay with him. Presently, when the business was over, she was told to escort the trolley and porters back to the ward.

  They were in the long corridor leading to the lifts when she saw Dr Fitzroy, accompanied by two young doctors in white coats, coming towards her.

  He looked different—older and serious, very elegant in his dark, beautifully cut suit, his head slightly bent as he listened to his two companions’ earnest talk. But he looked up as Katherine’s little procession reached them, and gave her a brief, friendly smile. She wanted to smile too, but she thought she had better not. One of the nurses at dinner had been talking about him—he was important, a senior consultant, and he would be a professor in no time at all. ‘And some lucky girl will get him,’ the nurse had observed with ill-concealed envy. Katherine hadn’t heard the rest of it. Crammed in the lift with the trolley, the patient and the porters, she reflected that the lucky girl was to be Dodie.

  Five o’clock came at last, and with feet like hot coals she went to Sister’s office. Staff Nurse was there too, and gave her a friendly little nod, but Sister merely looked up, studied Katherine for a moment and said, ‘You seem to be a good worker—time will show, however. Now, Miss Marsh, you’re off duty...’

  They were already near the end of the week, so she
wouldn’t get any days off until the following week— Thursday and Friday. In the meantime, she would have the same working hours as Andy: two days from noon until eight o’clock, two eight in the morning until five o’clock in the afternoon and, on the day before her days off, from eight o’clock until four in the afternoon. She would be paid on Thursday morning of the following week, and if she wished she could go to the office to collect her wages between the hours of ten and twelve o’clock.

  She would get up early, thought Katherine happily, collect all that money and do her household shopping, join the local library, do some window shopping...

  ‘I hope you are attending, Miss Marsh? It may be necessary from time to time to change your duty times. You must be prepared for that.’

  Katherine said, ‘Yes, Sister,’ in her gentle voice, and smiled because she was, for the moment, happy. Sister very nearly smiled back. She stopped herself just in time; really, the girl wasn’t at all the usual type—she hoped she would settle down and learn to do her work well.

  ‘You may go, Miss Marsh,’ she said austerely.

  Katherine let herself in with the key Mrs Potts had given her, and went up to her room, kicked off her shoes, lit the gas fire and, resisting a strong desire to get into bed and sleep for ever, undressed and went down to the bathroom. The water was hot and plentiful; she lay in it blissfully, making mental lists of all the things she would buy. Only the cooling water got her out finally.

  At supper, Mrs Potts wanted to know how she had got on.

  ‘I enjoyed it,’ said Katherine, and meant it. ‘My feet ached, but I’ll get used to that in a day or two.’ She didn’t say more than that, because Miss Fish and Mrs Dunster chorused a genteel objection to the discussion of one’s work at the supper table. Shirley Kendall gave a loud laugh at that, and remarked rudely that honest workers had a right to do what they liked in their free time, and if they wanted to talk about their day’s work, they should do so. ‘At least some of us earn an honest living,’ she remarked loudly.

  The elderly ladies bridled at that, and Mrs Potts firmly put a stop to what might have been turned into an argument by offering second helpings.

  Katherine went back to her room when the meal was finished, eased her feet into slippers and drew the elderly easy chair close to the fire. Half an hour’s reading of the newspaper one of the patients had offered her would be very pleasant before bedtime. She yawned widely, and remembered with pleasure that she wasn’t on duty until noon the next day. She would go to the shops and add to her small stock of groceries and have a look at the table lamps—not to buy of course, that would have to be the following week. She made another list, this time of things she needed to make her room a home, but she didn’t quite finish it because she allowed her thoughts to wander. Where, she wondered wistfully, did Dr Fitzroy live, and in what kind of house? One day, when she knew Mrs Potts better, she would ask. On second thoughts, she decided against this; it was intruding into his private life.

  She was up early, tidied her room, ate her frugal breakfast and took herself to the shops. Her few household needs were quickly dealt with; it would have been nice to have had a cup of coffee but, with an eye on her almost empty purse and two days off to allow for, she contented herself with window shopping.

  She was peering into Jaeger’s shop window, taking in all the stylish details of their winter coats and wondering if she would ever possess one, when she became aware of someone beside her. Dodie, looking as usual like a model in one of the glossier magazines. She also looked extremely cross.

  She wasted no words in greeting. ‘You ungrateful girl!’ she said in an angry whisper. ‘The trouble I took to phone those people at Stockbridge, and you didn’t even bother to go for an interview.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t need to,’ Katherine pointed out reasonably. ‘I’ve got a job here. And I did tell you not to bother.’

  ‘What sort of a job? Here? In Salisbury?’

  It seemed that Katherine might be wiser not to say. She said calmly, ‘Yes, here—looking after people.’

  ‘All you’re fit for,’ observed Dodie unforgivably.

  ‘Probably that’s true,’ agreed Katherine equably. ‘Have you heard from Mr and Mrs Grainger?’

  ‘Oh, they’re all right. They won’t stay with Tom, of course.’ Her lovely blue eyes narrowed. ‘But don’t imagine that you’ll get back your job with them, I’ve already arranged for a woman to be their companion when they return.’

  ‘Why did you want me to go?’ asked Katherine. She sounded politely interested, although her heart was thumping with rage.

  ‘Jason—Dr Fitzroy was a fool to employ you in the first place—acted on the spur of the moment, out of pity, I suppose. He was only too glad when I fixed things so that you had to leave; saved him the embarrassment of getting rid of you.’ She laughed nastily. T can’t think why I’m bothering to tell you this.’

  ‘Well, you’re enjoying it, aren’t you?’ Katherine turned on her heel and dived into Country Casuals next door; there was a door at the other end of the shop which brought her into a shopping arcade where she could lose herself in the crowds. She didn’t believe Dodie’s spiteful remarks, but they had left a tiny doubt in her mind, none the less. Dr Fitzroy had made no effort to object when the Graingers had broached their plans, although he had found her another job. She looked at a few more shops, but her pleasure had gone; besides, it was time for her to go back to her attic with her shopping.

  Whatever he had thought, she consoled herself, he had helped her to get a job and somewhere to live.

  The days passed quickly. She had got the hang of the work within the week and, although she found it hard, she enjoyed it. Her feet ached and she was too tired to do much by the time she went off duty, but that was something Andy assured her would improve with time. Her keenly anticipated days off came at last, and with them pay day. She spent a lovely morning choosing a pretty lamp, having coffee and planning her days. She was still rather short of money. She had paid Mrs Potts the rent and laid out a carefully calculated sum on food, a hot-water bottle and dull things like tights; the rest she was going to save for an eiderdown for her bed and a thick sweater and skirt. She had seen exactly what she wanted. She bore the lamp back, made the tea, and opened a tin of beans and had her lunch by the gas fire.

  It was a cold day but dry; she put on the new coat presently and went out again. A good walk would be very pleasant, right round the close perhaps, and then back for tea, and tomorrow she would go to the cathedral again and explore the Chapter House thoroughly.

  Her way took her past the Graingers’ house and along the narrow street towards the King’s House.

  Dr Fitzroy, standing at the window of his drawing-room, staring into the street, saw her, head down against the wind, her small, lonely figure the only thing moving there. He went to his front door and stood in the porch, and when she was near enough crossed the street.

  Katherine stopped short as he fetched up in front of her. She didn’t speak, only stared up at him in surprise. He said kindly, ‘Hello, Katherine. Enjoying days off?’

  A little colour had come into her cheeks. ‘Yes.’ She would have to say more than that, she thought. ‘It’s just the day for a good walk.’ Her motherly instinct overcame her awkwardness. ‘You ought not to stand here in the cold...You’ve got no coat on.’

  He smiled again then. ‘Then I’ll go indoors again, but you must come with me—’

  Her ‘No, thank you, sir,’ was rather sharper than she had intended, but he didn’t appear to notice that. ‘Then I’ll come with you, if I may. The dogs need a run.’

  He took her arm, went back to the house and ushered her inside. ‘Go into the sitting-room,’ he suggested, and opened a door in the wide hall. ‘I’ll only be a moment.’ Katherine waited, trying to overcome her surprise at finding he lived in the very house she had always admired.

  He was as good as his word. A moment later he was back again, this time in a thick jacket and accompanied b
y two golden labradors. There hadn’t been enough time to examine the room properly, but she had an impression of warmth and comfort and well-polished furniture.

  ‘Charlie—and this is Flo, and if you find their names peculiar I must explain that one of my small nieces named them.’ They went into the hall and he opened the street door. ‘Which way were you going?’ He glanced at her sensible shoes. ‘I usually go past the King’s House and then cross into the open ground—the dogs like that.’

  She hadn’t been that way; even on a gloomy winter’s afternoon it was a pleasant walk, and the doctor laid himself out to entertain her. Dodie’s spiteful words faded before his friendly, casual talk. She found that she was completely at ease with him and, skilfully led on by his careless questions, told him a good deal more about her life with Henry than she realised.

  It was already dusk as they turned back, and almost dark when they reached the house. Katherine bent to pat the dogs. ‘I enjoyed our walk, Dr Fitzroy.’ Some of the ease she had been feeling had gone, and she was bent on going quickly. ‘I...’

  She wasn’t given the chance to go. ‘So did I. Will you share my tea?’

  He took her arm and marched her into his house, and an elderly woman came from the back of the hall. She was undoubtedly Mrs Potts’ sister, but without the briskness.

  ‘There you are, sir. Tea’s in the drawing-room. I’ll wipe those dirty paws before they muddy my floors.’ She beamed at Katherine. ‘I’ll have that coat, miss. There’s a cloakroom here...’ She bustled Katherine across the hall and into a small room, fitted, as far as Katherine could see, with everything a woman could possibly want if she needed to improve her appearance.