by Jane Arbor
It is his pride, his self-esteem that is hurt. He does not care for what he did to me at all, thought Kathryn with a flash of insight. She said: “I’m sorry. I thought it could not matter as the break between Steven and me had been complete, and he was not unhappy about it, I believed. I—couldn’t know that he would be coming back.”
“And now that he has come back? He’s still deeply in love with you you know. Did you know?” Adam’s eyes were intent upon his coffee-cup.
“He said so—last night.” (Now, now was the moment in which to add, But I don’t love him and never shall! And if anything you saw last night made you think otherwise you’re wrong, utterly wrong!) But the rehearsed words sounded false and over-dramatic, and before she could choose others Adam was saying: “And if now I should back-pedal and urge you to listen to him, would that be asking too much?”
You, too thought Kathryn bitterly. First Thelma, and now you! She felt sick and betrayed by what she saw as a conspiracy to thrust her upon Steven, whatever her feelings. It became too clear. Thelma and Adam Brand, allied for Steven and using her as no more than the merest pawn—that was what it added up to. She was glad she could feel so resentful, so angry. For, briefly at least, anger could drown despair—the despair of knowing now for certain that in this, as in everything else, Adam and Thelma were one.
Trying to hide her distaste she said evasively: “Steven might think it too much.”
“You mean that he might resent my pleading his cause with you?”
“You are only one of his ambassadors.” (Why did she want to hurt him?) “Thelma asked me the same thing last night.”
“Thelma did?”
His surprise appeared genuine, but she was convinced it must be false. All this could not be chance. She nodded coolly. “Yes. And you know it occurs to me that our affairs—Steven’s and mine—have been overshadowed by both of you for too long.” Again she was puzzled by the flash of pain behind his eyes. So she had touched his pride again!
He said quietly: “You make it very clear that you mean to manage them for yourselves in future. You must forgive me. And after my intrusion of last night I suppose I should have known—”
Kathryn began to pull on her gloves, feigning not to recognise the unspoken question behind his words. She knew that he was seeing again the scene she remembered herself with shame—Steven’s bowed head, her own hands caressingly about it. Yet there had been only pity there, not love, and that, last night, had been the one thing she had intended Adam Brand to know—that there was nothing between herself and Steven.
But last night was different. Last night it had seemed important that he should know the truth. Now it was not important at all. Now she was already launched upon the lie by omission—letting him presume exactly the opposite, allowing him by her silence to go on believing it. But in the acting of the lie—that she and Steven were upon the verge of a new understanding—pride could seek a refuge that would be denied to love.
CHAPTER SIX
From the letter-rack in the common-room Kathryn took down her letters, flicked through them, and as she had time before she was due on the ward, went back to her room to read them.
One was a catalogue from a nurses’ outfitters, another a letter from a nurse, now with the Army in Germany, with whom she had trained, the third a curious document over which she pored with amusement.
In a childish hand (a rather painful tracing of a grown-up’s pencilling) it was inscribed: Sister Kathryn Clare, The Wardrop Hospital, Soham Heights, Brough, Surrey, England, Europe, The World. There was barely room on the envelope for the stamp!
“Well, well,” smiled Kathryn, guessing that it was from Carol, and wondering why she had been thus honoured. She turned it over, and was about to slit it open when there was a knock at her door and Sara peeped in.
“Oh—so you’ve got it!” she laughed. “I promised I’d report the stunning effect upon you if I could.”
“You put her up to it!” accused Kathryn.
“I didn’t, honestly. It seems it’s the fashion in the junior school to write on the covers of your exercise books like that. Didn’t you ever do it too?”
“Now I remember—so we did. Some people got in some extra refinements, like the particular hemisphere and ‘The Universe’ to round matters off!”
“Short of using an outsize envelope, we hadn’t room for any more lines, as you can see,” said Sara. “As it was, Barbara came down firmly on the idea of addressing all the invitations like it. She said it wasn’t fair on the Post Office. The sorters read addresses bottom to top, you know.”
“So it’s an invitation? What to?”
“Carol’s birthday party. You’d better read it. You’ll come, won’t you?”
“I’d love to, if I’m off duty. Oh—it’s for six-thirty. Then I ought to be able to manage that almost any day. Isn’t that rather late for a party for Carol, though?”
“It’s a party for ‘my grown-up friends’. ‘My children friends’—you’d think she was twice their age, wouldn’t you?—are coming in the afternoon. Kathryn, you don’t think it’s odd, do you, that she likes being with grown-ups quite a lot?”
“Not a bit, I’d say, so long as she mixes with both, as of course she does at school. I think most children go through a phase of it, especially if grown-ups treat them sensibly and don’t ‘talk down’ to them. Anyway, I’m highly honoured to be asked, and I shall take great care with my acceptance, you may be sure. Perhaps some original poetry might meet the case—”
“She’d love it. You see, she will be allowed to stay up for about an hour, so Barbara let her send out the invitations though Barbara thought she would use the occasion for a party, anyway. She says she and Victor owe one. Among other people, whom do you think Carol insisted upon asking? Your Dr. Brand! He goes quite often to see Victor, and he and Carol are fast friends. So if he accepts, Barbara thinks she had better ask Thelma Carter too. She wants to ask Dr. Carter as well, but she was wondering about you. So I told her what you’d said—that you and he could still be friends, that you weren’t a bit embarrassed by each other. And she said she was glad about that, but she’d been doubtful because, although you both went to see her one day, she’d felt there was some constraint somewhere, though she hadn’t been able to put her finger on it.”
“She must have imagined it,” said Kathryn quickly. “Steven and I are good friends, and I’m glad he is to be asked. Who else is going, do you know?”
“Some women friends of Barbara’s and one or two of the Grammar School masters and their wives. Oh—and Dr. Glenn.”
“And whose afterthought—yours or Barbara’s—was he?” asked Kathryn, with a twinkle.
Sara’s blue eyes were wide with innocence. “It’s Carol’s party,” she pointed out demurely, and then escaped, before Kathryn could reply.
How difficult it was not to envy her, Kathryn thought as she remembered Sara’s stout denial that love-affairs weren’t going to figure in her life until she was qualified. What would she say if she were reminded of that now? She had sounded so wise and sure, neither knowing nor admitting that love chafed at all such rules and threatened to outwit the best of plans laid against its coming. Now it was obvious that she was falling in love with Simon Glenn and he with her and, so far as Kathryn could see, there wasn’t any reason in the world why the path of that particular love should not run smooth.
Meanwhile it seemed inevitable that wherever she herself was thrown into Steven’s company, Adam Brand should be there to see. But of course, she reminded herself with a mental jerk, it did not matter now. Quite the opposite, in fact. For hadn’t he and Thelma arranged it to suit their plans for Steven? And wasn’t her own pride finding a perverse satisfaction in meeting those plans half-way?
That was why she had been gentle with Steven when he had telephoned after that disastrous luncheon with Adam Brand. That morning she had set out intending never to be willingly alone with Steven again, but wanting time in which to frame the ha
rshness of having to tell him so. But by the time he did telephone she had begun to see him as just such another pawn as herself. And if there were anything, short of love, that she could give him, he should have it.
That had been the keynote of their talk. Steven had asked, with a kind of desperate humility: “Kathryn, why did you run away last night? Was it because you despised me?”
“No, Steven, of course not—”
“Then I must have frightened you, trying to thrust myself upon you again when you weren’t ready? I ought to have understood that you wouldn’t be, but—”
She had had to take her courage in hand then. As gently as she could she said: “You did take me by surprise, Steven. You see, I thought that—all that—was over between us and that we’d agreed to be friends. I was completely startled when you said you needed me still. Startled and so very sorry. Because I haven’t changed—and I’m afraid I shan’t. But for as much as my help and friendship are worth to you—you have them both. Please believe that, because it’s true.”
He had taken that in a silence which seemed to throb with his struggle against bitterness. Then: “Perhaps I knew that was coming, though I’d hoped against it and had tried to persuade myself that my approach had been wrong, that perhaps you needed sweeping off your feet.” He paused and gave a wry little laugh as he added: “But I’m going to hold you to your promise of friendship. I want it to mean that we can meet sometimes, have a meal or do a show. What was your idea?”
“The same, I think. And perhaps something more—being able to talk to each other about ourselves, about anything that bothers us. I’m offering you that, Steven, for as long as you want it or until there is someone else for you.”
“Bless you. I can’t visualise that there could be. And for you there—isn’t anyone else?”
The breath had caught in Kathryn’s throat. “No one else,” she said.
As she went on to the ward she felt rather depressed as she remembered that it was visiting time, a pleasant enough occasion on the adult wards, but almost always having a difficult aftermath on her own. The bigger children looked forward to it with an overwrought eagerness which did their cases no good; for the smaller ones, whose baby minds could grasp only the present, the bliss of each reunion turned to tragedy at the inevitable parting. Wrenched by that, they could not believe that “Mother” would ever come to them again...
“If only one could explain to them,” mourned Kathryn to her staff nurse afterwards.
“Some hospitals allow mothers to visit tinies every night at bedtime, Sister.”
“I know,” agreed Kathryn. “They’re doing it at a good many hospitals now, with a lot of success, I wish Matron would consider it here.”
“Could you suggest it?”
“I could, I suppose, though I don’t know what she would say. It’s probably a matter for a Board decision, anyway, and would take months to put through. Meanwhile there’s young Christopher going into a fresh paroxysm of rage. I’ll go to him if you’ll do the milks, Nurse, and give Valerie her glucose.”
At Christopher’s cot Kathryn laid a gently restraining hand upon the drumming heels and then lifted the roaring child until he was standing up. She held him by both hands and tried a technique that had worked before.
“Now,” she smiled, “show me Christopher being a Tall Boy.”
Christopher gulped and drew himself to his full two foot-six of height.
“Now a Determined Boy—”
Both feet trampled sturdily among the bedclothes, but the whimpers were still coming.
“Now a Determined-To-Be-Brave boy!”
The small shoulders were squared and a lot of rapid blinking kept back the rest of the tears.
“Bravo!” praised Kathryn warmly. “And now what do you think there is for supper?”
She had been so engrossed that she did not notice Adam until he came to stand at the foot of the cot. Man to man, he and Christopher stared at each other until, with grave amusement, Adam remarked:“That amounts to bribery and corruption, Sister!”
Kathryn nodded rueful agreement. It was strange, she thought, how completely natural she could be with him on the ward. “I’m afraid I’m not above resorting to both on occasions like these,” she told him smilingly.
“Why, what’s wrong?”
“Visiting time. They’re always so forlorn after it.” Kathryn had laid Christopher down and was tucking him in while Adam stood thoughtfully watching. When she had done he turned from the bed with her, saying: “You’ve put your finger on a point I wanted to discuss with you. Do you agree with mothers being allowed to settle their own children down every night?”
“I do indeed. I think it would prove a real kindness to the children and to the mothers—”
“What about yourselves? It could upset your evening routine, you know. Or isn’t that so hidebound that it couldn’t stand a bit of elasticity?”
“It certainly isn’t. We should soon get used to it,” declared Kathryn stoutly.
With a surprisingly impulsive gesture he held out his hand to her. “Congratulations,” he said. “I didn’t know you held your own views so strongly, though I guessed you’d be willing to try it. Matron, I may say, wasn’t so sure.”
“Matron wasn’t?” Kathryn had laid her fingers briefly in his grasp, and they were still tingling from the pressure.
“No. She said that you had a very strong sense of discipline on your ward, and mightn’t welcome an upsetting innovation of this sort.”
“Oh, but—” began Kathryn, dismayed.
Adam smiled down at her, warming her heart. “It’s all right. From my knowledge of you I was able to reassure her that your—humanity, shall we say—was at least equal to your sense of discipline. I’ve just come from her now, and I’d rather like to take you back to her with me. In my opinion it’s a reform that’s long overdue, and if we support each other, I believe we can put it over.”
They went together down the main staircase. Kathryn asked: “Wouldn’t the Board of Management have to sanction it?”
“I suppose so nominally. But I daresay it can go into train before that. Matron’s agreement to try it is all I want,” said Adam in reply.
They were approaching the end of a blind T-corridor, one arm of which led to Matron’s room, the other to the Social Worker’s office. Still deep in their subject, their heads turned to each other as they talked, they took the right-hand arm, and neither noticed Thelma emerging from the Social Worker’s office at the far end of the other one.
For Sara the day had begun badly. She had waked very early, and had reached at once for the musing textbook, which, now that the first part of her examinations was only a week or two distant, she always kept at hand. Feverishly she had searched through it, dismayed to find how little she knew and trying to decide what she ought to concentrate upon. The bones, with their fantastically difficult names? Or the incubation periods of the infectious diseases? Or the treatment of burns? Or the nature of germicides and antiseptics? There was so much to learn, and the examiners might well pick on anything!
Kathryn tried to laugh her out of her fears, saying that the exams, at the end of your first six months were not at all terrible affairs. But Sara, panic-stricken at the thought of failing, could not resist the temptation to “cram” for all she was worth. Hence the textbook at her bedside, and hence also an irritable nerviness which she had sometimes to fight to control.
She had gone to breakfast thinking drearily that she knew less now than she had done before. And on the ward matters had gone from bad to worse.
At last Sister Bridgeworth (perhaps at some further promptings by Kathryn!) had decided that Sara was fit to take on some responsibility of her own, and after admonishments of: “Now, Nurse, you understand that you are only on trial,” had allowed her to see to the checking and replenishing of the drug-cupboard, making a daily list of the ward’s requirements and fetching them from the Dispensary.
Sara, greatly impressed, had ta
ken her job very seriously, and made it a matter of pride that the ward ran short of nothing. She was, therefore, completely unprepared for Sister’s crisp accusation of negligence as soon as she went on duty.
“The biniodide of mercury solution, Nurse—why have we none?”
“There is some, Sister.”
“May I ask where? The bottle is empty.”
Sara’s eyes, guiltily scanning the shelves, had already noted that it was, though she couldn’t understand it. “I’m sorry, Sister. It was full yesterday.”
“If it had been, the most lavish use of it could hardly have emptied it by this morning, Nurse. As soon as the Dispensary opens, kindly fetch some more. I cannot have such displays of irresponsibility in future. The ward simply cannot afford it—” And Sister had swept away, leaving Sara full of hurt pride and seething with a sense of injustice.
Matters, moreover, were not improved when, upon her return from the Dispensary, her fellow student-nurse admitted in the sluice-room that she had upset a bottle of the antiseptic solution last night and had not reported it.
“You might have said something about it!” protested Sara.
“I tell you I forgot. Don’t be so ratty. I’ll confess to Sister now, if you like.”