New Doctor at Northmoor

by Anne Durham

Gwenny was staggered. ‘What’s it like, being a nurse? I rather hoped I’d be one when I’m eighteen, but my sister, who is a nurse, seems to think I wouldn’t be much good.’

  ‘Is your sister any good?’ Nurse Cosgrove wanted to know.

  ‘I suppose so. She’s getting through her exams in her hospital in London, and Daddy isn’t extra furious with her, so I suppose she’s good at her job.’

  That made Nurse Cosgrove giggle. ‘Well, keep the idea in mind, because life in hospital can be rather fun. We do loads of things in our spare time. We have a very active entertainments committee really. The R.S.O.’s very keen—have you met Arthur Peake yet, by the way? Big handsome chap, not as big as our new R.M.O. (who is by way of being the most gorgeous brute I’ve ever seen!) but he’s pretty big, and great fun really.’

  ‘Arthur Peake,’ Gwenny repeated. ‘He wouldn’t be the nice man with the square, freckled face and sort of bronze hair, would he?’

  ‘Ginger, to quote himself. Yes, that’s right. He really is very nice,’ said Cosgrove. ‘We’re having a garden party soon. Maybe you’ll be fit enough to get your bed turned round to the window, and you’ll be able to see what’s going on. You’re only on the first floor, and the main lawns and rose gardens are just outside.’

  ‘That will be nice,’ Gwenny sighed, and turned away.

  ‘What’s the matter? Aren’t you feeling too good? Shall I call Sister?’

  ‘No, I’m all right. It’s just that I felt a bit scared. I sometimes think I shan’t ever get well.’

  ‘What a lot of rot,’ Nurse Cosgrove scolded. ‘You’d better not let the new R.M.O. hear you say that. He’s got great hopes of you. Come to think of it, it must be rather marvellous to have him for one’s doctor. Is it true that you knew him before you came in?’

  ‘Sort of,’ Gwenny allowed. ‘By way of trespassing on his new property.’

  Nurse Cosgrove thought that very funny indeed and she tried to persuade Gwenny to gossip further. When Gwenny wouldn’t, she threw out some choice bits of bait.

  ‘He’s got a rather interesting family, you know.’

  Gwenny listened and said nothing. Her heart started to beat a little faster, without quite knowing why. She was sure that this somehow concerned her own family.

  Cosgrove went on, ‘And have you heard of someone called Catherine Allen? She’s a nurse here. She’s absolutely gorgeous to look at, but my, has there been trouble about her love life! I could tell you things that ‘

  Gwenny drew a deep breath to ask how Catherine Allen concerned Mark Bayfield, but she didn’t get a chance, because Sister came in, and then the relieving nurse arrived, and then there was the tiring business of getting Gwenny washed and ready for the next meal, and by that time she didn’t want to think of any nurse who had a complicated love life, even though somehow that love life concerned Mark Bayfield. Gwenny just wanted to sink into that often welcome oblivion that accompanied the jab of the needle.

  Mark Bayfield wasn’t at that moment so very much interested in the beautiful Nurse Catherine Allen, however. He was much more interested in the news that there was a new nurse coming to the hospital from London: Nurse Priscilla Kinglake.

  CHAPTER V

  Priscilla got her transfer rather unexpectedly, and Mark Bayfield wasn’t at all pleased. She arrived at a time when Gwenny, having given promise of doing well enough to have outside visitors, suddenly collapsed.

  The barrier nursing had been dropped after the tests had proved negative, but there was still that distressing weakness. Mark wanted to stay with Gwenny to try to find out if anything had happened, or whether it was going to be a pattern of the disease. He spent a great deal of time over in the path lab. and many hours late at night going over and over Gwenny’s notes. The glimmer of an idea had just occurred to him, when he heard that Priscilla would be at his own hospital now.

  He saw his uncle going out to the Rolls, and stopped to speak to him.

  ‘How’s the Kinglake girl?’ his uncle growled.

  It was a sore point between them. Mention the name ‘Kinglake ‘and Sir Giles grew florid in the face. Now Mark, with the knowledge that Priscilla would be in his life again, scowled and said, ‘She isn’t responding any more.’

  His uncle shrugged. ‘Try keeping that damned family away from her and you might get results.’

  It was a thought, but with the sister as a nurse in the hospital, where was the point of precluding the rest of the family? And anyway, Dr. Kinglake was always popping in and out of the hospital, keeping an eye on some of his own patients.

  Mark went back to sit by Gwenny. Beads of perspiration stood out on her forehead, and she was fretfully pleating the edge of the sheet. Nurse Cosgrove was soon to go off duty. Mark relieved her and said he’d stay by the patient for a while.

  Gwenny asked faintly, when they were alone, ‘Why are you doing this?’

  ‘Don’t you like me being here? Does it worry you?’ he asked her.

  She wished she was back on barrier nursing because in his protective clothing he had seemed less alarming. Now, seeing him in his long white coat, his hair uncovered, Gwenny was reminded again of what old Mrs. Yeedon had said about him. ‘That one’s all male, and if I were a girl again I’d go for him.’

  All male, Gwenny repeated, with a little shiver. Yes, that was just what he was. He made her feel young and vulnerable, uncertain of herself, and vaguely yearning. She often asked herself just what she wanted, beyond the obvious thing, a return to full health. And her desire frightened her: the desire to be loved by someone like Mark Bayfield.

  Not that that was anything unusual around here. To judge by the drifts of conversation as the young nurses went past her door, half the nursing staff was in love with him, and age had little to do with it. It was wonderful to see the way Sister softened when she found him in Gwenny’s room.

  All wool and a yard wide: that was another thing that came into Gwenny’s head, when she thought of him. Another of old Mrs. Yeedon’s favourite maxims. Yes, he would be that, too.

  But he was waiting for an answer to his question and he had a trick of sitting looking, waiting for it, until one just had to give an answer. Gwenny said faintly, ‘Yes, I think I do.’

  ‘Good girl. Because I like to be here.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Let’s say because apart from your being my favourite patient, you and I also share a fascination in a property known as Fairmead. Tell me, will you ever forgive me for buying it?’

  She regarded him suspiciously. ‘It really isn’t my business, Dr. Bayfield,’ she said, with a funny prim manner that made him snort with smothered laughter.

  ‘We are agreed on that, but you haven’t answered my question. Will you ever forgive me for buying it?’

  ‘Perhaps I won’t.’

  ‘Will you tell me what you wanted to see done with it? You didn’t really mean it, about the old people’s home, surely?’

  ‘Of course I did.’ She was very indignant.

  ‘Now why? It isn’t suitable for such a thing, to begin with. Can you imagine those dear old parties trying to climb up and dust the cornices? Can you imagine those with the misfortune of having upstairs rooms struggling with the stairs and dark corridors? But for a home for a chap like me, it’s perfect. It will be loved. Isn’t that what you really want, for Fairmead to be loved and cherished?’

  ‘How did you know that?’ she whispered.

  ‘Because I believe I’m learning to know you,’ he told her. ‘Do you remember the inside of Fairmead?’

  Her eyes lit for an instant, then they filled with tears.

  ‘What is it? If I could find out what it is that worries you like this ‘he urged softly.

  She shook her head. He was the enemy, wasn’t he? How could she tell him all her personal thoughts on the subject of Fairmead, for instance, and let him lead her on to tell him other things that were so personal and private? She realized that he was quite a danger to her peace of mind, because he not only h
ad an insidious way of persuading her to do what she didn’t want to, but he also filled her with a new kind of excitement, and miserable wanting—for what? She had no idea what. It worried her, scared her, and made her dread the minute he came into her room, yet at the same time he had such an influence on her, that once he was there she didn’t want him to go.

  He left her far from satisfied that particular day, and as he walked across the gardens behind the hospital, he saw Priscilla coming towards him.

  She stopped, a little uncertain, then went right past him, with heightened colour. He had been about to speak to her, to say that he hoped she would be happy at the hospital. It might just be possible that they could now be on that footing. It was going to be difficult enough in all conscience, having regard to everything, without Priscilla taking that awkward stand, but there it was. She marched right past him, her eyes angry and unhappy. And it seemed to him that she was silently indicting him for all those other things that he was supposed to have done to her family.

  The first that Gwenny knew about her sister being at the hospital was when she heard Nurse Cosgrove talking about it. The staff nurse had come in and they were studying Gwenny’s chart.

  ‘Wonder what she’ll be like, Staff?’ Cosgrove murmured.

  ‘A pain in the neck, from what I’ve seen of her,’ Staff said crisply.

  ‘Is she like this child?’ Cosgrove asked, looking across at Gwenny.

  ‘Not a bit,’ said Staff. ‘More like the mother in looks, I would say. Have you seen the whole family?’

  ‘Only the doctor,’ Cosgrove murmured. ‘He looks as if he might be rather nice if they’d let him.’

  ‘Well, just thank your stars that our newest addition is over in Men’s Accident,’ Staff said, and rustled out.

  Gwenny opened her eyes a little more. She often found it was easier to look through mere slits than to open her eyes wide. Cosgrove looked closely at her.

  ‘Why, that was naughty of you—you were listening,’ she said, half laughing. ‘Oh, well, now you know what we think of some members of your family, don’t you?’

  ‘I can’t believe it—my sister Priscilla here? She wanted to be here, but I never thought she’d get the chance.’

  ‘Why did she want to be here?’ Cosgrove, ever inquisitive, asked. ‘Don’t tell me she’s batty over the new R.M.O. as well.’

  Gwenny closed up. ‘I’m just a bit tired of hearing about him,’ she said rather stiffly. ‘I really don’t find him all that special,’ and because she had closed her eyes again, she didn’t know that the R.M.O. was standing at the open door and had heard that.

  Cosgrove, catching a movement out of the comer of her eye, turned and saw him as he was backing out. She was in a dreadful state, especially as she didn’t know how long he had been standing there, nor how much he had heard.

  The first time Gwenny saw Priscilla was the day she lost her ‘special ‘nurse. It was strange not seeing someone sitting by her bedside every time she came back to that little room and found she had lost another chunk of a day, and it was queer and lonely, too. So lonely that she was glad to see even Priscilla, the one member of her family that she usually dodged when at home.

  Priscilla looked unfamiliar in the local uniform. It didn’t suit her like the old one had. Northmoor nurses wore a fine brown check that at a distance looked like a light brown with all the colour washed out. Priscilla had echoed her mother’s colouring, cold grey eyes and a waxy skin, and mousy hair. Neither the dress nor the fly-away cap did much for her, and at Northmoor any make-up at all was frowned on, which explained in part, any nurse would tell you, why they were so short-staffed.

  ‘Priscilla reporting,’ Priscilla said, with a quirk of her lips, ‘not, repeat not, Priscilla about to nurse young sister. How are you, kid?’

  ‘Smashing,’ Gwenny smiled. ‘Can’t think why they let me litter the place, I feel so grand.’

  Priscilla came further into the room. ‘Do you know you’re by way of being hot news in this place?’

  Gwenny was alarmed at that. ‘Why? I’m not infectious again, am I?’

  ‘No. But you are creating a stir because of Mark Bayfield. You’re his Number One patient, and if he cures you, his name will go up in lights.’

  ‘If he cures me?’ Gwenny took her up sharply.

  ‘That’s right,’ Priscilla said hardily. She never had believed in being soft with her young sister. ‘It’s an if, because you won’t tell him everything, so he can track the source. I could tell him you go round the smelly holes in the village and probably picked up quite a normal bug from the bad drains, but no one listens to me.’

  Gwenny said nothing. She watched Priscilla with I wary eyes. Had she decided to make a duty visit, was she inquisitive, or did she just want to talk about Mark Bayfield?

  ‘Now you’ve got your way and come here, do you think our Laurence will be able to be transferred too?’ Gwenny ventured.

  ‘Heaven forbid. We don’t want him here,’ Priscilla averred.

  ‘Why not? And why did you want to be here?’

  ‘Because it’s near home, silly. Don’t tell me you’re not pleased to see me.’

  ‘What do the family feel about it?’

  ‘Now, Gwenny, pet, when did our family ever evince any interest in anyone else, unless there was someone within its ranks in disgrace?’ Priscilla pointed out. ‘At the moment, everyone’s loathing everyone else because of Mark Bayfield, as if you didn’t know.’

  ‘I suppose it isn’t any good me asking you just how he upset you, is it?’ Gwenny asked wistfully.

  ‘Ask if you like, but I don’t guarantee to tell you,’ her sister said. Then diving into her pocket, she pulled out a package. ‘Here—present, from me, to you. And stop being a muggins and get well quickly. You always were a pest, but I hate to see you ill,’ and Priscilla went out.

  Gwenny felt, for some silly reason, as if she could have cried her eyes out. Gifts and rough kindness from Priscilla were very precious because of their scarcity. She opened the parcel and found it contained a very nice powder compact (brand-new, not just one of Priscilla’s throw-outs) and a brand-new lipstick, in a pale shade, that Gwenny felt might just about suit her. There were manicure tools, too, which was chastening as well as; kind, because Gwenny rarely had any fit to be seen, even if she had thought to ask anyone to fetch them for her. And there was a small diary, also brand-new.

  The diary specially interested Gwenny. It had bits of poetry for each day, and wise sayings. She wondered,) with real interest, whether this had been chosen by chance or design. She didn’t really think her sister could I have guessed how much Gwenny had wanted this sort of thing.

  She propped it on the locker beside her, open at the quotation: To be weak is miserable, doing or suffering.

  On the next page was also one she liked: Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!

  A page-a-day diary was a delightful thing. She wrote in it for that day: Only lost a morning. As she put the diary back, she wondered if she ought to try and remember how many parts of the preceding days she had lost since she had come into the hospital. Finally she decided that as she couldn’t hope to remember with any accuracy, she would just write in the day on which she had been admitted: the day on which Mark Bayfield had moved into Fairmead. It seemed rather a long time ago. She felt queer and shaky as she realized how long she had been in bed. She wriggled her toes and wondered if her legs would feel peculiar when she tried to walk again—if she ever did. That scared her, so she concentrated on putting the diary back carefully on the locker, and as she did so, a folded paper fell out of it.

  It fell just beyond her reach, so she spent some minutes amusing herself by blowing it gently so that it fell, again and again, a little further towards her. Sister came in before that interesting game could reach fulfilment, and automatically moved the paper on to the locker, and straightened the bed, to give Gwenny her injection.

  ‘Just a routine one, and the R.M.O. is busy and said you cou
ld trust me with it,’ Sister twinkled. They all liked Gwenny.

  She forgot about the folded piece of paper, because she lost several more hours. When she did remember it, she found that it had been put back in the diary, marking the last day it had been opened. She told herself comfortably that she would read it some time—probably Priscilla had put a very brief note inside.

  Yet another new nurse, this time not a visitor but on her own ward, put it out of Gwenny’s mind. This new nurse was really worth looking at. The plain, rather dreary uniform dress of Northmoor moulded itself to her curvaceous figure and she walked with a pronounced wiggle of the hips. Gwenny, on the precarious edge of adulthood, was very much interested in how some girls achieved that special ‘look ‘that made young men give the second glance. This girl had it: Priscilla hadn’t got it.

  Gwenny studied the girl, as she settled a jug of water on the locker, and flicked an ineffectual duster around. She smiled easily at Gwenny, easily at the houseman who came in to take Gwenny’s B.P., equally easily at the window cleaner up on the ladder outside who energetically cleaned Gwenny’s windows. A smile for everyone, an easy, all-embracing smile that slipped on and off her face without effort. She was gloriously auburn, too, with dark (or darkened) lashes and brows, and that wonderful pink and white skin that sometimes goes with that coloured hair.

  ‘Hello,’ she had breathed at Gwenny when she first came in, and she breathed an easy salutation at the houseman, too.

  That girl popped in and out all day, and she never did a job without making two for someone else, yet always, permanently, it seemed, amiability cuddled her like a cloak. No scolding could ruffle her. Nothing could send packing that easy smile.