Hospital in the Highlands

by Anne Vinton

  “And you told Hamish he was wrong because I was already engaged to be married, didn’t you?” Flo asked interestedly.

  “No, I didna. I said ‘Guid luck to him!’ And I meant it. I like the Strathallan.”

  Flo hugged her swiftly, fiercely, tears trembling on her lashes, the rose-petals crushed and bruised by such heedlessness.

  “You may have been right, darling, at one time, but we know it was an impossible situation, don’t we? After all, Jim does exist and I gave my word to him. Robert Strathallan knows about Jim and it’s all over.”

  “Ay. But does Jim know about Robert?”

  “Not yet. He’s coming home. I’ll tell him then.”

  “If he releases you it’ll be all right, won’t it?”

  “I told you, Pixie, it’s all over, whatever there was, between Robert Strathallan and myself.”

  Pixie’s jaw dropped.

  “You can’t seriously face being a spinster all your life?”

  “Can’t I? There are worse fates, I should think.”

  Obviously Pixie couldn’t agree.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Jim’s letter in reply to her distress signal had been calm to the point of casualness:

  “I have gathered,” he wrote, “that you want to see me about something. Why didn’t you out with it and say so? I don’t associate you, my sweet, straightforward Flo, with disjointed phrases and hysteria. Can it be that we will both see changes in one another which 'time’s passing alone has not wrought? I am due for two weeks’ leave—have wangled it into three and am flying home for an untangling. Mother has not been too well (you should know this) and I am making her my excuse.”

  So now she had to wait and ponder on what was to be.

  She hadn’t known Mrs. Darvie was unwell, and her conscience troubled her on this score, for their correspondence had become cursory to the point of neglect. With Jim so far away she should have visited his widowed mother more often, every month or so, even though it meant a journey of a hundred miles, for Jim was a Lowland Scot who hailed from the Clyde and thought of his countryfolk in the far north as foreigners and pagans.

  Sometimes a thrill of remembered excitement ran through her veins when she thought of Jim’s coming, but she had only to read his letter again to feel immediately damped, for somehow the letter’s phrasing put her in the wrong from start to finish, without hearing the worst of the business, and there was certainly nothing which could be termed exciting about it.

  “I seem to have lost all my self-assurance lately,” Flo fretted. “I’m actually afraid of telling Jim: I’m sure he would never put a foot wrong or look at another girl while he was engaged to me. In fact Jim’s rather a prig, though I only see it now when it’s too late.”

  For Flo it seemed a sad summer. Several of her friends among the long-term patients died, including Annie Lindsay, and it was no use Matron saying that it didn’t do to get fond of anyone in their profession. Of course one grew fond of certain people, because somehow they sensed their need of you, and need ripened easily into affection. You could not graciously refuse affection. It would be like refusing a flower from a child. Young Dennis finally graduated from the Physiotherapy Department of the Hospital on an artificial leg of which he was extremely proud, and went home for a spell before taking up his career as a cub reporter on a Scottish daily, and for a while Flo missed him so much she could scarcely bear to look at his bed, which was now taken over by a naughty old man with a bladder weakness who pinched every nurse who came near him and made the most embarrassing requests for attention right in the middle of morning rounds.

  “Anybody would think that Irish gossoon was your own kin, Sister,” Robert Strathallan said one day, hearing her catch her breath and sigh as the boy’s name was discovered chipped in the paintwork above the corner bed. “I didn’t see him much, but I believe you and he were buddies?”

  “Yes. Yes, sir, we were. I liked Dennis.”

  “I also hear you turned football fan for him?”

  “For one day I did. Yes, sir.”

  “You should be on the psychiatric side, you know, Sister. Maybe you missed your vocation, eh?”

  Was this a sneer?

  She flushed before saying quietly, “In nursing one has to be on the psychiatric side part of the time, if other things have failed, sir. But it didn’t take much psychiatry to understand young Dennis. One needed plenty of patience with him. That’s all.” They passed on to the next bed, and Robert Strathallan glanced at the patient’s notes.

  “You have got patience, Sister, haven’t you? I’ll grant you that.”

  Once again she didn’t know how to reply, so kept silent. “I’m not a patient man,” he told her with an odd, twisted smile. “If I can’t have action I bust. Now, what have we here?”

  Flo felt upset for the next hour without really knowing why. It was as though Robert Strathallan had taken his probe and stirred depths in her she didn’t know existed. What had he been trying to say? That all was over? Well, of course it was over. That was understood.

  She was in her small office across from Matron’s in the main hall of the hospital when a beautiful red-haired female appeared and glancing through the glass panel tapped and said, “Excuse me, but is Mr. Strathallan available yet? He told me to collect him at four and it’s after that now.”

  In a confused moment of jealousy and shock, Flo observed the stranger's flawless creamy complexion, which so happily mates with red hair and green eyes; noted the modulated tones of the exquisitely educated Scottish voice and saw the careless elegance of good clothes casually worn.

  “I shall inform him you are here, Miss—Miss—er?”

  “Tell him Jenny’s playing hell,” the other said cheerfully, snapping open her powder compact and creating a feminine fragrance in all the antiseptic smells around.

  Flo lifted up the house telephone and gave the message in her own disciplined context. No sooner was it received than Robert Strathallan appeared on the double and was obviously not sorry to see Jenny or afraid of the hell that threatened. Just for a moment his eyes met Flo’s and then he bore his companion away, as though anxious to make his escape.

  “He was telling me about her,” Flo decided, wonderingly. “He wanted me to know he had found someone else, that he had to have ‘action,’ in other words.”

  She shook her head but her thoughts refused to clear.

  “He didn’t have to tell me anything about her,” she pondered numbly. “He always has been quite free, and she—she seems to be nice.”

  But while Robert remained free she would always have hoped, that one day some miracle would happen to bring them together again. Now she prayed that she might be spared the agony of being asked to dance at his wedding—to someone else.

  She knew she wasn’t as patient and tolerant as all that.

  Jim’s letter announcing his imminent arrival in Glen Lochallan was written on thick, gray deckle-edged paper, which made it appear strange to her eyes, for she had grown accustomed to the crackle of thin, air mailed sheets.

  There is something of thrift in most Scots, but now Flo found this trait rather irritating.

  Why couldn’t Jim have cabled her when he was leaving Malaya and telephoned as soon as he arrived?

  Surely the occasion merited the expense.

  Flo had to free herself from the hospital for two or three days, and Matron was less than pleased when she heard the formal request for leave of absence from her Sister in Charge.

  “Now, Sister, you’re breaking our golden rule, aren’t you? You know very well we can only consider bereavements or severe illness for special leave. I released you for a fortnight when your father passed away, and before that there was a long weekend for something or other. Is it—er—important, Sister?”

  Flo hadn’t wanted to tell about Jim, for she knew Matron would be ringing wedding bells for her.

  “My—my fiancé has flown home on compassionate leave to see his mother, who is unwell, Matron. N
aturally he hasn’t much time and—and he’s travelling to Glen Lochallan overnight.”

  Miss MacDonald’s countenance relaxed.

  “Naturally you won’t want to come in to work,” she said promptly. “I suppose I’ll have to give in and knock the time off your annual holiday, which you’re taking in October. Will three days be sufficient?”

  “I think so, thank you, Matron. It isn’t as though Jim has come to stay,” Flo insisted, so that her colleague would nurse no mistaken ideas. “We just want to have a good, long, uninterrupted chat.”

  “Stop talking now and then, and behave naturally for your ages,” Matron advised sternly. “You grow too old for such things far too quickly, Sister. I know. Go along now. You’re excused duty until Monday.”

  Flo went and took off her stiff cuffs almost gladly. Matron really was a dear at times. So understanding. She would probably do an extra round herself each day rather than overload the rest of the staff with the S.I.C.’s various duties.

  Flo was waiting on the station at half-past six next morning, looking neat as a pin in a simple gray suit, her hair shining and knotted low on her nape as Jim liked it. She knew he would approve her clothes; he liked women to be tailored; but for the life of her she couldn’t put the old expression back in her eyes. Once, it seemed to her, her eyes had glowed continually: now they were simply two brown orbs; they looked tired, and it was not only owing to lack of sleep, as she well knew.

  At that hour any railway station is a cold, uncharitable place, even in August, but Glen Lochallan stood at over a thousand feet above sea-level, and the morning air was thin with a suggestion of frost. The gray clouds hung low around the mountain peaks, and if they did not lift by mid-morning they would descend as mist and blot out the visibility in the glen for days. Flo knew the weather by now and never went anywhere without her mackintosh over her arm.

  When the train steamed in she stood back and waited, her heart thumping. Two passengers alighted. Flo examined the woman closely first. She was elderly and fussy and dropped paper bags and parcels in a helpless abandon until there was a screech of children swarming on to the platform and the old dear was inundated with youthful cries of “Grandma!” and carried off laughing and breathless and welcome into the bosom of her family.

  Flo gazed up at the tall man who looked. familiar, with his sandy hair, bleached eyebrows and hazel eyes, and yet was a stranger hiding behind an unfamiliar pipe.

  “Jim?” she queried quickly. “Hello!”

  He removed the pipe, bent down and kissed her on the cheek. “Flo,” he said, more nervous than she, “I want a hot drink. I’m frozen.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” she told this stranger hastily. “You’ve come from a hot country. I was forgetting. You must feel the cold here. It’s been a bad summer,” she volunteered. “I believe the corn’s ruined. The hay was.”

  Jim came from farming stock so he should appreciate these items of news. “Now, where can we get a cup of tea this early? There’s no buffet on the station. I believe there’s a cafe the boatmen use. Or shall we go straight home?”

  She was dreading taking him to Rowans and parading her lost world before her sisters’ eyes.

  “We’ll find somewhere,” Jim said confidently and took her arm.

  They walked through deserted streets, occasionally studying each other surreptitiously and looking away when they were discovered.

  “I must have been away longer than I thought,” Jim brooded once. “I don’t seem to remember this place...”

  “The town hasn’t changed,” Flo said. “There’s a cafe. It isn’t much. But at least the coffee’s hot.”

  “That’s all I ask of it,” Jim said.

  She noticed that he smelled of tweed, good tobacco and leather. He looked nice, pleasantly masculine, yet she still didn’t know him. It was awful.

  “You smoke a pipe now?” she asked as they sipped their coffee.

  “Yes. One does—out there. It helps keep the flies away.”

  “You’ve seen your mother, of course?”

  “Of course,” he looked almost offended. “I’ve been home for ten days now.”

  “Ten days?”

  “That’s right. Well, she was so glad to see me she wouldn’t let me go. I didn’t want to upset her more than necessary. I—I came as soon as I could.”

  “Ten days—and you came to me as soon as you could?” Flo echoed.

  “Look, Flo, don’t make a scene in here. It’s not like you.”

  “Nothing’s like me, Jim, and nothing’s like you. Why did you bother to come at all? Couldn’t you have written me another letter?”

  “Now you’re being cynical, Flo. I don’t understand you. You ask me to come home and when I come and spend some time with my ailing mother—which is the true reason my boss gave me leave—you object. I really don’t see what you’re objecting to. I don’t fly back until next Wednesday.”

  “Wonderful!” Flo said. “I start work on Monday, so you’ll have a bit more time to spend with your mother.”

  “You see? It’s all working out very conveniently, isn’t it?”

  “Is it?” asked Flo heavily. “I don’t know what is working out exactly, Jim. We seem to be walking round like two dogs about to fly at one another’s throats. Have you something you want to ask me or tell me?”

  “Well—I’d like us to go away together. Somewhere quiet. Not to your place.”

  Her eyes grew round.

  “Are you making immoral suggestions now, Jim Darvie?”

  He smiled faintly.

  “And me a Presbyterian? What’s that wee hotel halfway up the Ben?”

  “The Eagle. Nobody’s seen it for days. It’s been lost in the mist.”

  “Sounds like a place to find fires.”

  “For certain. The food isn’t bad either.”

  “That’s where we’ll go, with your permission. I love your family but I must see you alone, Flo. I must.”

  Looking at him she knew she must see him alone, too, to draw the curtains on the deadest romance in the whole of Scotland.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Meg had progressed in her relationship with old Janet in that she was now allowed access to the kitchen (excepting those occasions when there was a baking and a second party made the old woman so nervous she forgot whether she had added salt or spice to her mixing) and was even allowed sometimes to help with the washing up.

  “Now you sit down, Janet,” Meg said coaxingly on this morning, “and I’ll make you a nice cup of tea. Won’t that be nice?”

  “Land’s sakes!” declared Janet weakly. “What would Ah be daein’ sittin’ doon in the middle of the morn, Mistress Margaret? Ah’ll be gettin’ spoilt.” To emphasise her gratitude for the gesture, however, the old woman indulged in a few tears and brought forth a handkerchief as big and white as a tablecloth.

  “The door!” she suddenly exclaimed. “Noo that’s something ye can dae for me, Mistress Margaret. Answer the door, will ye?”

  Meg smiled and sailed to the front door, still absentmindedly wearing her apron. She noticed this embarrassing fact when the visitor proved to be the Reverend Michael Lammering.

  “Good morning! I was helping Janet,” she said in the same breath as she whipped the apron off and rolled it into a ball. “Flo has gone away for a few days,” she volunteered, for somehow the young man’s gaze was particularly disturbing to her this morning.

  “It was you I came to see, Miss Meg,” he said without preamble. “Is there somewhere we can talk privately, without interruption?”

  Meg stared at him blankly.

  “If you haven’t the time now I would prefer to make an appointment,” the Minister proceeded. “You see, what I have to say cannot be said in five minutes or with the soup boiling over or anything like that. Perhaps midmorning is an unfortunate time to call on a busy housekeeper?”

  Meg began to feel extremely nervous.

  “I haven’t very much housekeeping to do,” she said with
an attempt at nonchalance. “Janet’s a wonder. She’s only happy when she’s busy. I even tried to make her a cup of tea just now and she wouldn’t hear of it. I have half an hour or so,” she added, leading the way into the sitting room, which now had walls and paintwork of cream and turquoise, though the dingy furnishings had not yet been replaced. “Was it about confirmation classes for Pixie?”

  Now it was Michael Lammering’s turn to feel weak and nervous. All the way to Rowans he had rehearsed what was to be said and how he would say it. Now he seized upon his congregational lamb as on a sheet anchor.

  “Confirmation classes will start on the first Thursday after the holidays,” he pronounced, and added severely, though his severity was still a form his nervousness took, “and I think you, should now start calling the child by her proper name. Rebecca.”

  “Oh, but we’ve always called her Pixie,” Meg vouchsafed. “She was quite bald as a baby and her ears were pointed. She wouldn’t recognize herself by any other name.”

  “It is up to her family to persist, Miss Meg. Rebecca is a good, biblical name.”