by Sheila Burns
I’m being a fool, she thought.
She got herself ready for the evening, putting a final touch to the soft grey-green dress, and drawing a light violet scarf around her shoulders. The colouring reminded her of wild violets in a springtime wood, and as she thought of it she felt the pang again, something that Sister Stevens had aroused when she had spoken of district nursing. I’d love to live in the country, she told herself.
From the window she could see the big square which stood before the hospital, a square with cars parked in it. At this hour of the day the worst problem was over; many of the consultants’ cars had come and gone, for the evening was now approaching. It was almost the hour when the staff changed duty.
She saw Chris’s car, the white Hillman with the silver fittings and the scarlet upholstery. Maybe he was waiting to give her a lift, or perhaps he had gone back to the ward to see the girl and her seven-pound-odd son.
The labour wards would be going strong, for theirs was night and day duty, and babies never waited to come into the world at convenient times, they came when they thought they would, and as she stepped out of her room back into the main hospital again, she heard the shriek of the angry newly born, and knew that some girl’s ordeal was over, and was glad.
Once they had told her that nursing made you hard, but she had never lost her sense of sympathy.
She did not know why for a moment she turned into the small room alongside ‘Stores’. It was really too tiny for any useful purpose, only used occasionally. Perhaps her going into it was a moment when instinct prompted her, and made her do something which ordinarily she would not have done.
Two people stood there; two people who at this instant were so absorbed in each other that they had no idea that she was there. Chris held Lucille in his arms, he kissed her again and again, and her fairish almost grey hair drifted across the darkness of his well-cut jacket. The girl was looking up at him; she had shadowy eyes and thick black lashes, probably dyed, Claire thought, and then was ashamed of herself for it.
She wanted to run away ‒ from fate ‒ right now before worse happened! She wanted to hide herself, to pretend that she had never seen this, had no idea that it had happened, to escape before events caught up with her. Perhaps she had made some sound, for Lucille turned, and the shadowy eyes looked directly at her. She made no sound, she just looked without blinking, and she must have telegraphed her emotion to Chris, for he turned sharply and faced Claire. It was a ghastly moment.
Claire pulled herself together, knowing that she had gone cold all over, quite numb; now she was a puppet, a mere puppet in love with the man who was kissing someone else. She swallowed hard, gasping, and it made a little moaning sound as if she had been physically hurt. She had got to escape, to get away. She prayed that they had been so occupied with each other, and so emotionally carried away, that they had not recognised who she was. Maybe they were both in the halcyon dream which ousts all else.
She turned rapidly. If she was going out with Chris tonight she would have to pretend, she would have to act a part, feigning that she had not seen this, that it had not been herself, and yet already something warned her that it was too late.
She went down the corridor, her shoes sounding like castanets against the polished floor, and round the next bend she collided with Sister Stevens coming off duty.
‘I ‒ I came to see how my patient was,’ Claire said quite lamely, but somehow she knew that Sister’s eyes had gone beyond her, and already she had seen Chris coming out of the little room alongside the store, and standing in the corridor watching both of them. Then Lucille joined him.
Sister knows, Claire thought. Yet she felt that this was one of the most understanding women in the world, and she would be the nicest about it. The thing had happened, and she was bewildered by it.
‘Just coming off duty,’ said Sister Stevens, ‘we’ll go along together.’
They went down the corridor, then down the stone stairs into the wide hall below. The hospital was clearing out its visitors, and the day staff going off as the night staff came on. She felt sick with anxiety, horribly hurt, as though a raw wound had developed within her, yet all the day she had had that ominous sense of anticipation. She had half expected something like this, now it had come. Sister Stevens saw it, and she took her into her office on the ground floor. She had a good office, with comfortable seats, the smugly tidy desk, nothing in hospital was ever ruffled or out of place, but cut to pattern. The big window looked out on to the garden side, for the new matron had done away with the old paved yard, and had had a flower garden made where convalescents could sit and take the air.
Once St. Julian’s had been part of an old-time workhouse, and although the new wings were extensive and modern, parts of the old buildings were sinister and had retained the cruel look of the old days. The garden was a big improvement. One might have been in the country, and tonight there was a hedge of budding sweet peas on bean-sticks, fading tulips, and tall first irises.
‘A cup of tea?’ said Sister. ‘I always have one when I come off duty, and it helps. I’m getting one for myself anyway,’ and she took it for granted and got it.
Claire felt herself dazed. She had been too much in love herself ever to doubt Chris, she had been so sure of him. Maybe first love infuses one, it is the inescapable emotion which blinds a girl to truth, and leaves part of her naked and exposed to the onslaughts of fate.
Then this had happened.
Surely Chris could not have kissed Lucille like that if he had felt for Claire as she felt for him? That was the cruel truth. She had got to realise that what the hospital had said was true, he was the born flirt who plays with love, and had never even thought how much it would hurt her. She had left him but a few moments, then he had turned to another girl, a pretty girl, already today he had admired her. She must now give herself the chance to recover from this.
‘Take it quietly,’ said Sister Stevens, coming back with the tea, and she spoke with the superb gentleness of the trained nurse who understands.
The tea was refreshing.
Sister kept her own tea-things in the cupboard; real china, with sprigs of primroses on it, and a little yellow tray which made all the difference. Suddenly Claire knew that she was sick to death of the tin trays which the hospital provided, the plastic tea-things, and discoloured spoons. It was a tremendous relief to see something really pretty for a change.
‘Better now?’
‘Lots better.’
‘Good!’
She believed that Sister knew more than she said, that she was aware of what had happened, and the horrible crisis it had brought into Claire’s life. Maybe she had been too sure, maybe first love had possessed her in the way that asked no questions, but just trusted.
‘Once,’ she said suddenly without even being asked, and Claire found herself listening intently, ‘once it happened to me. It was when I first came here, and I remember Sir Charles helped me. He is a very understanding man, and was very kind to me. He wasn’t Sir Charles then, just Mr. Hague, but he was so kind to me.’
Sir Charles was an old man now, nearing retirement. Claire thought of him as being short, little taller than she was, and rather stout. He had a kind face, flushed with time, and grey hair sparse only on the brow. He was a brilliant gynaecologist, a man who even now was never against any new principles. It was surprising that an old man (and automatically Claire found herself thinking of him as being an old man) could be so modern in outlook. He was good to student nurses, considerate, and those who got him as an examiner blessed the day.
‘He’s a nice person,’ she said.
‘Yes.’ Sister spoke quietly herself, ‘he had trouble, and it made a saint of him, few can say that,’ then, as she watched the tea going down, ‘Really better?’
‘Yes,’ and Claire asked the question that she had wanted to ask all the time. ‘How did you guess what had happened?’
‘Because I saw what was going on before you did, when I went alo
ng the corridor myself.’
‘You have been very kind.’
‘Not really. I was sorry.’
‘I ‒ I want to thank you so much. You have been very good to me, and I shall always remember today and the tea. Thank you.’
‘And always remember there are better days ahead.’ Sister spoke kindly and firmly. ‘That is life’s one big comfort. There is always something left to live for. Life offers its own big chances.’
The girl went out into the hospital again, knowing that these few minutes had given her time for a breather. She was able to find herself once more, for life has to go on. As to the chance ahead, perhaps that was not possible really. She walked across the great hall.
Chapter Two
At this hour when the staff was changing over, the visiting hours done, save for those who were on the danger list, or waiting fathers, the hospital grew considerably quieter. In the big hall with the tall pillars, and the uncomfortable benches all along the sides, she saw the Receiving Sister still sitting at her desk, a pile of papers before her. She had an eye on the clock which in five more minutes would give her her freedom.
That was when Claire saw Sir Charles coming towards her.
It was strange that only a few minutes ago she had talked to Sister about him; he was the grandfather of the hospital, their greatest medical student, today their proudest possession. Sir Charles had grown old with a certain grandeur of his own, for he had that strong sense of humour which never left him, and in itself was a joy. The light-grey eyes twinkled audaciously. He laughed a lot. He had gone into Harley Street before he was thirty, and had become a royal obstetrician. He hated the knife (and said so frankly), but if the knife could challenge death standing on the threshold, then he accepted it to dismiss the unwanted stranger.
He strolled across the big hall, and seeing Claire must have recalled something about her which struck him, for he had a wonderful memory for faces. They had met but a fortnight back over a troublesome patient, and the two of them had faced the difficulties together.
‘Hello!’ he said.
‘Good evening, sir.’
‘Going out somewhere? On the spree?’ He was obviously admiring. ‘It’s a nice dress and a pleasant evening for an outing. One of our housemen is lucky!’ Then, in a more amused voice, for she knew his reputation for absorbing curiosity, ‘Or what about one of the consultants?’
She smiled as they came to the big doors.
‘Are you staying on in maternity?’ he asked her. ‘What are your future plans?’
She had been thinking of this today. She had thought of it when the sudden barb had come, and she knew that the affair with Chris Long was not safe; her first reaction had been to run away, if only to escape him and ease her bruises. She knew that part of her had changed from the shock, and her first wish had been to brush the dust of the hospital off her feet. To stay for ever here like Sister Stevens would be madness.
‘I don’t know that I have got a future,’ she said.
He was standing on the step, playing with the monocle which dangled on a narrow black ribbon round his neck. Nobody had ever seen Sir Charles wear the monocle, yet he never appeared without it. The students said it was his mascot. He fiddled with it. ‘Are you a country girl?’
‘Yes, sir,’ and suddenly the key turned in the lock and opened the door on memory. She confessed to the Cotswold home, in a part of England where you can still walk miles without seeing even a house. There were wild animals, rare birds, and her deep love of flowers. These things had made her adore it.
‘You sound like a country girl,’ he said.
Claire would not have believed that memory could be so alive and so vivid. Suddenly she clung to the thought of the country, recognising in it, perhaps, escape from the man she loved, and could anything be more absurd? To run away from love! Yet this was what she wanted to do. Quite suddenly, and entirely unexpectedly, the hospital where she had trained had become a shackle on her. She owed it much, and now she felt that she owed it nothing, and hated the feeling. The hospital was not responsible for the fact that she had fallen foolishly in love with a flirtatious consultant.
Perhaps she had been a little fool, perhaps she had doubted the people who warned her. Perhaps nothing can hurt more, or stab deeper, than truth which has a two-edged blade!
She stopped talking of home, almost ashamed that she had disclosed so much of herself. Perhaps Sir Charles realised how she felt, for he was a very understanding man. He could always grasp a situation.
This was the great man whose adored wife had died giving birth to their first child, and that a stillborn birth. He had been quite desperately in love, so St. Julian’s said, and like most hospitals it talked. In truth his heart had been broken that day, but he had absorbed himself in gynaecology from then on, to make sure that as far as was possible no other darling girl died. In memory of her loss, and the babe who had never breathed, but who had brought him such tragedy, he had turned to this work.
Other men might have become bitter and hard, but he was far too nice for that.
He had worked gallantly, a tremendously sympathetic man who could inspire every patient with the confidence to see them through. Now he looked at Claire and perhaps he read in her face something that she hoped she could conceal.
‘Something gone wrong?’ he said.
‘Oh no, sir, nothing at all.’
He looked at her again, and somehow she knew that she had not hidden it. He asked, ‘Why not speak the truth? It always pays in the long run.’
‘There ‒ there was nothing.’
‘Oh, come now!’
She spoke then in one of those terrific rushes of confidence which come when one is faced with a difficult moment. ‘Yes, sir, I know, and you are right. It was only that I thought I could trust him, though others did warn me. I was silly and did not believe them. You don’t know when you are in love, and it makes it all the worse now, when I know I was wrong.’
He did not ask her more. Somehow Claire half knew that he associated her with Chris Long, for most of St. Julian’s chattered hard, and there were no secrets in this community. But he was more understanding than the young, and probably much more shrewd.
He paused, then he opened the door into the waiting-room on the left, quite empty. ‘Come in here for a minute,’ he said.
The room was used for small conferences, books lined it, it had no trimmings and little atmosphere, and he closed the door as she went in.
He said, ‘Isn’t your time here coming to an end?’
He looked at her with his bland grey eyes which the hospital said could read one’s thoughts. He had that searching look, and with it the first faint frailty of the years, lingering like autumn mist above withering summer trees. Claire did not know why she noticed it so much at the moment. ‘Yes, sir,’ she said.
He knew everything. St. Julian’s always said that he knew the lot, and a bit more for luck, yet was never nosy. He was a charming and kindly man, not a ‘buttinski’.
‘What are you going to do? Continue with gynaecology? Stay on? What?’
An hour back she would have said without hesitation, ‘Of course I’m staying on!’ An hour back she had been dedicated to the job, happy to be with them for ever, and remembering that if one did this, one too often died in harness as a Sister, and went no further. It was easy enough to become a Sister, anyway the pay was refreshing; not so easy to go past that into a wider channel still. Now she paused.
‘Well?’ he asked.
Haltingly she said, ‘I don’t quite know. I suppose that my duty is to stay on, but of course it is a bit of a dead end. I know that. It offers nothing ahead, and I think that possibly ‒ quite possibly now ‒ I shall not stay.’
He was watching her with those far-seeing eyes which missed nothing at all. Again his shortness impressed her, he was not much taller than herself, and she was not tall, yet he had the quality of appearing quite tremendous. Whenever he went into a room, he was the man who i
mmediately became the centrepiece of that room, the hub on which the wheels went round, because he was a predominant personality. He was gifted with extraordinary foresight, he always helped lame dogs over stiles, and suddenly it dawned on her that somehow ‒ and she could not think how it was ‒ he had some idea of what had happened to her tonight.
He said, ‘God forbid that I should interfere, but last week I was down at my home. I live in Kent, the garden of England. My people’s home was there, it has been pulled down now, too big, but I have had the stables made into a cottage where I live. My niece keeps house for me.’
She said, ‘That’s nice,’ just for something to say. No more.
‘Naturally I am very interested in the village of Charnworth, we’ve lived there so long, and I am on boards and committees and things. Recently the dear amiable old body who has been district nurse there had an accident. She is carrying on, but she should be in hospital. We share with the nurse at Kidley, but that is seven miles off, and we need someone in Charnworth for six months and they are not easy to get. It is midwifery mostly, with a few accidents thrown in for luck.’
It was odd that earlier in the evening Sister Stevens had spoken of being a district nurse. Claire felt a faint thrill. ‘You want a district nurse?’
‘Well, yes. She must be a good midwife, which you are.’
She did not know why she asked it, but it was the first question that occurred to her. ‘But surely you want someone considerably older than I am?’ She had always been told that villages demanded the years.
‘No, not necessarily. We have had older women, of course, but times change, and these are the young years. Midwifery is a different matter today, as we all know. It’s nice at Charnworth, and we could look after you. A pleasant cottage with a garden, and Kent is the garden of England, though I says it as shouldn’t.’
She did not know why the words thrilled her. They came at the moment when she needed the complete change. Suddenly she knew that she wanted to get away. She did not want to stay on here meeting Chris almost every day across an operating table. She wanted to escape the tittle-tattle of St. Julian’s where she was sure everybody would know what had happened. One cannot evade the chatter, and by now she could be sure that Lucille had talked, and she cringed before it.