Nurse in Love

by Jane Arbor

  She took charge of the trolley, wheeling it down the ward, while he walked beside her under Sister’s watching eye. She stopped when they reached the sterilizer, but he stopped too. Under cover of the hiss of steam he queried: “Well, are you finding your feet at last?” adding with his infectious grin: “That means, of course, have you succeeded in changing ’em for a couple of insensible blocks that can’t feel pain?”

  Sara laughed and, encouraged, he said: “Come, that’s friendly of you! So now what about this off-duty that you’d like me to believe you never get? Are you off to-day, for instance?”

  “Yes. Yes, I am,” replied Sara unguardedly. “But—but I’m engaged.”

  “Ah me—the luck some chaps have!”

  “Who have?” Sara’s blue eyes were wide, puzzled.

  “Why, the ones who forestall chaps like me with girls like you, of course!”

  “But I’m going to see my sister!” protested Sara.

  “You’re not serious?”

  “I am. She is living with a Mr. and Mrs. Thorley, friends of Sister Clare’s, who is a friend of mine. She—Carol—is six, and Mrs. Thorley lets me go and see her whenever I’m free.”

  Simon slapped himself upon his chest. “Six? My favourite age—for people’s sisters! Couldn’t I go along too?”

  Sara hesitated.

  “All right. I see I couldn’t. But couldn’t I collect you, bring you back to hospital? My car ought to have been laid to rest long ago but—”

  He broke off abruptly as Sara started, seeing Sister Bridgeworth bearing down upon them. Sister Bridgeworth began crisply: “Nurse, Nurse, why are you dawdling at the sterilizer? You should be down at the Dispensary now!” And Simon escaped, though not before he had slipped into the office to look at the nurses’ duty-list and to lay his own plans...

  He was not to know, of course, that the weather was going to be on his side, but when he went to a telephone booth that evening to look up and telephone the Thorleys’ number it was pouring with rain, a circumstance which pleased him very much indeed.

  It was Barbara Thorley who answered the telephone, just as Sara, having seen Carol into bed, was about to leave.

  “For you, Sara,” smiled Barbara, handing her the receiver. “It’s a Dr. Glenn—from hospital, I suppose—wanting to knowing if, as it’s raining, he could call for you in his car.”

  “Dr. Glenn? Oh!” Sara blushed deliciously, but made no attempt to answer the message.

  “I’d let him, I think,” advised Barbara, amused. “It is pelting.”

  Simon arrived surprisingly quickly after that. (No one was to know that he had telephoned from only just around the corner!) And almost before Sara knew it she was tucked into the car beside him as it careered away in the darkness.

  “Forgiven?” demanded Simon, not looking at her.

  “I don’t know how you knew where to find me,” admitted Sara.

  “Why, you told me yourself. I only had to look up Thorley in the phone book—and then take my courage in both fists. And if you’re not too angry with me, where shall we go now?”

  “Go? Aren’t you taking me back to hospital?”

  “Eventually, yes. But you aren’t on duty again to-night. I know, because I looked at the duty-list. So what about having dinner with me?”

  “Oh, I can’t. I’m not dressed. And—”

  Simon glanced at her slim figure in its navy coat. “You’re perfectly dressed for where I’ll take you. It’s not far,” he promised.

  Sara gave a little sigh that was not really a protest. After the pleasant comfort of Barbara’s home, going back to hospital supper always seemed rather flat, and she persuaded herself that having just one meal with Simon Glenn could not possibly commit her to anything more.

  Simon, however, thought otherwise. Pleased with to-night’s success, as soon as they were seated in the quiet restaurant he had chosen he began to make plans for the future meetings they would have.

  He beamed at her across the softly lighted table.

  “We’ll go around,” he said. “I’d like to take you to Kew, but we’ll keep that for the spring. Meanwhile we can do some shows and—”

  “But, Dr. Glenn, I can’t! There’s Carol, don’t you see? I—”

  “Well, bring Carol along! There’s always the Zoo, and they say the animals are in pretty good coat just now—”

  He broke off as Sara shook her head despairingly. He watched the fair, fine hair lift and fall again about her cheeks. Then he said gently: “I didn’t mean to rush you—Sara. And incidentally, people manage to call me Simon—off the ward. Let’s talk about something else if you’d rather. Tell me about Carol, won’t you?”

  He was rather nice, Sara decided. And when she began to talk to him about Carol she found it easy to go on. When she had finished, Simon knew quite a lot about herself too.

  Simon asked: “Well, will you take me to Mrs. Thorley’s next time you go?”

  “Yes, I’d like to—if you’ll come.”

  “If I’ll come!” glowered Simon. “If I’ll come!”

  For their coffee they moved to the lounge where there were several knots of people having drinks or taking coffee, like themselves.

  Simon said suddenly: “Do you see what I see? In the far corner—the new children’s man, Dr. Brand, with Thelma Carter and—yes, it must be Steven Carter, Thelma’s brother. I heard someone say in the common-room that he was coming back to the Wardrop, though nobody quite believed it.”

  Sara leaned forward to look at Adam Brand, whom she had only seen at a distance, as well as at Steven Carter. In the nurses’ common-room most of the talk was of the personalities of Sisters, consultants and resident medical staff. But Kathryn, who saw more than anybody of Dr. Brand, seemed oddly reluctant to discuss him even with her, Sara. Sara supposed that it was because Kathryn was a Sister and she only a student. But it made her the more curious to see him at close quarters. And Steven Carter—she was curious to see him too.

  Simon said: “Poor Steven!—back to Thelma’s apron-strings, everyone will say.”

  “Steven Carter,” mused Sara. “That’s the doctor who asked Kathryn—Sister Clare—to marry him before he went out to Africa. Oh, but I shouldn’t have said that!” she exclaimed, ashamed of betraying Kathryn’s confidence.

  “Don’t worry. It was common knowledge that he was in love with her and that she turned him down. Your Kathryn is no fool, and she probably knew that anyone who married Steven would be marrying Thelma too—more than any girl would take on.”

  “She would have married him, anyhow—if she’d loved him,” protested Sara indignantly.

  “Meaning that, if she had loved him, she wouldn’t have let any difficulty—Thelma, in her case—stand in her way?”

  “Of course not!”

  Simon’s glance was keen, intent, causing Sara to lower her eyes before his. “I’m glad you feel like that about it,” he said quietly.

  The next moment he was nodding carelessly towards the other group and saying: “Well, if Carter has come back to ask Kathryn again, he may soon be able to offer himself solo. Rumour has it in our common-room that Thelma would like to have a stab at the great Brand himself—”

  “And they claim that men never gossip!” ventured Sara.

  “There’s gossip,” retorted Simon loftily, “and there are ‘matters of public interest’. And the future fate of an important consultant comes into the latter category, I’d have you know!”

  They laughed together, and then Simon looked at his watch. “Come on,” he said. “I’d better return you to prison—with many thanks.”

  “It’s not prison!”

  “Do you really like it, then?”

  “I love it!”

  “Bless you, I believe you do,” said Simon. And his hand brushed briefly and lightly against her cheek as he helped her on with her coat.

  Sara’s way to her room led past the Sisters’ bedrooms, and as she reached Kathryn’s door, Kathryn looked out.

&
nbsp; “Oh, Sara,” she said, “you are much later than usual. You weren’t at supper, nor in your room, so I’d begun to wonder whether there was anything wrong with Carol? Come in for a minute and tell me.”

  “No, Carol is fine.” Sara followed Kathryn into her room, taking a breath of fresh night air with her. “But I haven’t been at the Thorleys’ until now. I—I’ve been having dinner with Dr. Glenn.”

  “With Simon Glenn?” Kathryn stared, then laughed. “He’s houseman on your ward, isn’t he? I didn’t know you knew him so well.”

  “But I don’t,” protested Sara. “It’s just that he’s so persistent and so—unpredictable that I found myself dining with him almost without knowing how I came to be there! He teases me a lot, but he’s kind and considerate on the ward, and he wants to meet Carol so much that he has made me promise to take him to Barbara’s next time I go. Barbara won’t mind, will she?”

  Kathryn noting her friend’s glowing cheeks and bright eyes, was thinking that Simon Glenn, wanting to know Carol, could have found no surer way to Sara’s heart. But she suspected that Sara was attracted to him for his own sake, and she was glad. Simon Glenn, she knew, had a reputation for easy conquests, but beneath his veneer of gay self-confidence she believed he was sincere and good-hearted. He was clever, too, and she knew that he was earmarked for the next registrar’s post that fell vacant at the Wardrop. Somehow, set against her own heartache, this first budding romance of Sara’s seemed so fresh, so unhampered, so real.

  Sara was saying: “Do you know who was at the restaurant we went to? Your Dr. Brand, with Miss Carter and her brother, Dr. Carter—you know? And Simon—I mean Dr. Glenn—says that Dr. Carter is coming back to hospital. Had you heard that?”

  “I had, yes. Dr. Brand told me,” said Kathryn slowly.

  “Did he? Yes, and of course he’d know because he knows Thelma so well, apparently. S—Dr. Glenn—says that their names are being coupled together, that—”

  “Sara, you’ve no right to repeat gossip like that!” The sharp rebuke of Kathryn’s tone was so unusual that Sara started with surprise.

  “I’m sorry,” Kathryn said more quietly. “But common-room gossip is so cheap, somehow, though I know we all indulge in it when we’ve got nothing better to discuss. But when I’m tempted to it I try to think how I should hate to be the subject of it. Though I dare say, when I refused Steven Carter, I was.”

  “Dr. Glenn knew about it, certainly,” admitted Sara rather shamefacedly. “But I’m afraid I did mention it to him before he told me he knew.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Kathryn wearily. “And anyone who didn’t know then will have been told since—by Thelma.”

  “And are you—well, are you going to mind that Dr. Carter has come back, that you’ll have to meet him again? Won’t it be a bit embarrassing for you both?” asked Sara, with shy curiosity.

  “It needn’t be. We parted friends. And Steven wasn’t—bitter.” Kathryn’s tone was now quiet and assured. And when Sara had gone she went on to reflect how little, really, the truth of her former relationship with Steven Carter had to do with her present unhappiness. For that was caused by Adam Brand’s cruel prejudice and by his closeness to Thelma, who was her enemy and his friend—and perhaps even more than that. Left to themselves, she and Steven could have taken up the threads of their friendship where they had been dropped. But Adam Brand’s bitterness and Thelma’s enmity had already spoiled her own chance of being completely natural with Steven. And had she not, in her heart, given the other man a silent pledge that he should have no further quarrel with her on the score of Steven Carter? He had taunted her first with an unwillingness to meet Steven again, then asked that she should not deliberately seek him out. Well, she would not. But she did not really hope that any attitude of hers would find favour in Adam Brand’s eyes.

  Steven was returning to the Wardrop to take up his former post as registrar to one of the women’s wards, and he and Kathryn did not meet until a fortnight or so after he had begun work. And when they did it was not in hospital, but in the town, when Kathryn was off duty and on her way to see Barbara Thorley.

  “Kathryn! How good to see you again!” When she had noticed him approaching she had thought he looked older, his face more drawn, though it had lighted into pleasure at sight of her.

  “It’s good to see you too. Are you much better now?”

  Some of the light went from his eyes. “Better? Yes, I’m all right, I suppose. But don’t let’s talk about that. If you’re not doing anything particular will you come and have some coffee with me?”

  She looked at her watch. “I can’t, Steven. I’m due at Barbara Thorley’s—you remember Barbara, don’t you?”

  “Yes, of course. She lost her baby, didn’t she?”

  “Yes, but she has someone to care for instead now. I could tell you about that as we go, if you’d come along with me.”

  Steven hesitated. “To Mrs. Thorley’s? I really wanted to talk to you, Kathryn.”

  “Afterwards, if you must, Steven. We needn’t stay long.” There was an intensity in his tone which made her nervous and anxious to put off being alone with him.

  On their way they talked hospital “shop”, and Kathryn was able to give him some items of news he had not yet heard. She knew that he was sure of a welcome from Barbara, for Barbara and Victor Thorley’s house possessed a rare air of extending welcome at any hour of the day or night. Kathryn had often declared laughingly that it would be impossible to arrive on Barbara’s doorstep without doing so to the tune of Barbara’s cheerful: “Come right in!”

  To-day, however, she added with a twinkle: “Well, well—the Wardrop calls en bloc! Are you sure Matron isn’t following on, or that you didn’t pass the Board of Management on the way up?”

  Puzzled, but laughing with her, they followed her into the sitting-room, where, to Kathryn’s surprise and complete dismay, Adam Brand was sitting by the fire.

  Carol was leaning confidently against the arm of his chair and on his knees lay Edward on his back, staring with button-eyed indifference at the ceiling.

  Carol was saying earnestly: “And you don’t think an operation would be a good thing, Dr. Brand?”

  “I’d advise against it at the moment.” Adam’s tone was equally grave. “I grant you that the abdomen is distended”—he poked an exploring forefinger at Edward’s stuffing—“but bed-rest and diet might improve the condition, and perhaps we ought to try that first—”

  “Thank you, Doctor.” Carol reached solicitously for the teddy-bear and cuddled him to her at the same moment as Adam noticed the newcomers and stood up to greet them.

  He bowed to Kathryn and nodded to Steven. Nothing, seemingly could have been less strained than their manner of meeting. But Kathryn was acutely aware of an unspoken question, almost an accusation in his brief glance into her eyes, and even Barbara sensed a tension which, as a clever hostess, she sought at once to dispel.

  But, supposing that it arose from an awkwardness between Kathryn and Steven, she introduced Steven and Carol to each other. And then of course Steven had to make the acquaintance of Edward, which left Kathryn and Adam inevitably together.

  After a moment Adam said in a low voice: “You haven’t found it easy to do what I asked of you?”

  “I met Dr. Carter in the town,” returned Kathryn distantly. “He knows Barbara and Victor well, and it wouldn’t have been courteous not to bring him to see Barbara as I was coming myself.”

  “Please don’t think you have to explain yourself to me,” he protested quickly.

  “You seem to assume I ought to.” Stung to the challenge, she hated herself for making it when her heart was stabbed through with the pain of loving him as she did.

  “Then I’m sorry. Though I must say I’d hoped you’d be wise—and considerate enough of Steven to keep away from him, if you can’t encourage him sincerely,” he said quietly, making Kathryn wish with all her heart for the power to snatch back the retort which had sounde
d like a hot resentment of his interference in her affairs. But it was already too late. He had turned to Barbara to ask when she expected Victor home, saying that if he might he would wait to see him.

  Victor had not come by the time Kathryn and Steven took their leave. She had been aware for some time that he was anxious to go, and as they left the house he apologised: “I don’t know what’s the matter with me. Nerves, I suppose. But I don’t seem to be able to settle to anything—even as pleasant a half-hour as that—for long.”

  “It’s an aftermath of your illness, I daresay. You can’t expect to feel fit all at once, especially when you’ve had a complete change of climate to cope with too.”

  “I suppose not.” He did not sound convinced. Their way led past the playing-fields of Victor’s school, where a game of Rugby was in progress. The ground was bordered by a wall with a parapet at elbow-level, and as if by mutual consent they stood to rest their arms on it, watching the game.

  They watched in silence for some time. Then Kathryn said slowly: “Steven—there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you, if it doesn’t seem like too much of a probe into your private feelings.”

  “You know you can ask me anything.”

  “Well—you weren’t too—too sad or embittered over my refusing to marry you?”

  He kept his eyes upon the racing, tumbling boys as he said: “You know how much I cared.”

  “Yes, I do. But you did accept that it would have been wrong of me to say Yes if I felt I didn’t love you enough?”

  His mouth twisted a little. “I had to accept it, didn’t I?”