The Gentle Surgeon

by Hilda Pressley

“Don’t go for a minute, Staff Nurse. I think Dr. Taylor should be told about this.”

  His brown eyes opened a little wider. “About what, Sister?”

  She picked up the new textbook Christine had given her. “You remember this incident, Dr. Taylor? Well, we’ve just found out who the real culprit is. And it wasn’t Staff Nurse Townsend.”

  John smiled gravely. “I never for a moment believed it was, Sister.” He gave Christine a long look. “So we shall soon be losing you, Nurse? Is that right?”

  “The day after tomorrow, Dr. Taylor.” Then quickly, lest he should ask her any more questions, she made an excuse and went out.

  She was thankful that her last day was a busy one. In the morning the gynecologist was operating. Christine scrubbed up with Sister for a caesarean section. Nurse Larcham was off duty, and Christine was glad that at any rate her last day would be a reasonably happy one.

  Sister was off duty in the afternoon. It seemed ironical to Christine that the last operation she was to scrub for should be one of John’s cases. Being an emergency, it was entirely unexpected, and as was often the case when an immediate operation was necessary, it was a perforated appendix.

  She tried to concentrate on the operation as she handed him instruments, hot packs, sutures and the suction apparatus for the last time,

  But obviously John had been remembering, too. When the operation was over, he thanked her.

  “Well, if I don’t see you before you go—good luck, Nurse.” He left the theater before she could as much as murmur a conventional thank you.

  Sister Kelly came back on duty earlier than usual, armed with some fancy cakes and a farewell present for Christine. It was a most beautiful jewel case—a collective gift from a very large proportion of the nursing and medical staff. Inside the case was a lovely silver bracelet.

  “The bracelet is from Dr. Taylor,” Sister told her.

  Christine was quite unable to prevent the sudden tears that sprang into her eyes. Swiftly, she put the back of her hand to her mouth.

  “Oh, Sister, he shouldn’t have done it.”

  “Nonsense! He’s sorry you’re going—as we all are.”

  Nurse Adcock brought in some tea, and the cakes were passed around. Christine couldn’t help remembering how Sister Kelly had once laid down the strict rule about giving the nurses tea on duty. Like many Sisters who appeared, at first, such martinets, it seemed Sister Kelly was a really nice person at heart.

  Robert was off for the evening, and after Christine had gone around and said all her goodbyes, he took her home.

  She hadn’t seen John since he had said that very brief goodbye. “Sorry to be leaving the old place, darling?” asked Robert as she sat at his side in silence.

  She gave him a little smile. “Naturally. So will you be when your turn comes.”

  “I doubt it,” he said cheerfully.

  For the time being she said nothing about the silver bracelet. She couldn’t trust herself.

  After dinner she and Robert went out for a drive. There was a minor heatwave, and they left the car for a while and walked beside a stream, hand in hand. Presently Robert flung himself down on the bank and sprawled on his back, his hands under his head. Christine sat down beside him feeling as though she had shut one door behind her and was standing at another, which she was unwilling to open.

  After a minute or two Robert pulled her toward him and took her in his arms.

  “It won’t be long now, Chris, will it? Now that you’ve said goodbye to the hospital?”

  “No, Rob, it won’t.”

  “Darling, I love you.”

  With sudden urgency he brought his lips down on hers, holding her close to him, his hands caressing her face, her hair, her neck, as if he scarcely knew what he was doing.

  Christine tried to respond to him. She must love him. She must. But after a while Robert slowly released her.

  He looked at her with sudden seriousness. “It’s no use, is it, Chris?”

  She felt dangerously near to tears. “I—I don’t know what you mean, Rob.”

  “I mean you don’t really love me, do you? You never will now.” He sat up and hugged his knees, his head bent forward. A long sigh escaped from him. Christine didn’t know what to say. She felt sick at heart. She wanted to love him, she wanted to forget John. She bit her lip and turned her head away swiftly as tears filled her eyes.

  Robert put his hand under her chin and turned her face back to his.

  “It’s Taylor, isn’t it? Has been for quite some time.”

  “I shall forget him in time, Rob. I’m sure I shall.”

  His eyes held hers for a moment, then he shook his head and gave a one-sided smile.

  “I know when I’m beaten. Come on, I’m taking you home.”

  He sprang to his feet and pulled her up, and still holding her hand he walked her back to the car. Unusually for him, he drove all the way home in silence. Christine stole a look at him once or twice, wondering what he was thinking. Was it all over between them for good this time?

  He stopped the car a few hundred yards short of the driveway of her home.

  “Well, this is it, Chris,” he said quietly. “We might as well call it a day. No use trying to kid ourselves any longer. I’ve known how you felt about Taylor for some time, but I thought I might be able to help you forget him. I can see now that I never will. Or should I put it the other way. I don’t think you’ll ever love me in quite the same way that you did before he came along. I’ve only myself to blame. I know that. Before, you kept your feelings well in control when I might have—well, taken a chance. But now you’ve no feelings to keep under control. Love should be a burning passion before marriage if it’s to survive. You haven’t any for me, and at this rate, mine will rapidly die down. No,” he said with enforced cheerfulness, patting her knee, “we might as well face it now as later. Give me one last kiss, then I’ll see you home.”

  “But, Rob, I—”

  He kissed her cheek. “But nothing. Now don’t start worrying about me. I shall be all right.”

  He dropped her off in the drive of the house, and without lingering said good night and drove away again.

  So he had known how she had felt about John all along. Christine walked slowly into the house, barely able to believe that Rob himself had actually brought their association to an irrevocable end. She didn’t know whether she was glad or sorry. But he was right, of course. If, after weeks of each other’s company, they couldn’t get back on their former footing, then it was likely they never would. And she had to face the fact that she was no longer in love with Robert.

  She was in love, desperately in love, with John. How long she would feel like this, she didn’t know. Common sense told her that people didn’t stay brokenhearted for ever. Sooner or later, she supposed, she would stop feeling so shattered, might even meet someone else.

  But never, she told herself at this point in her thinking, would she ever meet another man like John. One only met and loved a man like John once in a lifetime. He was unique, he was wonderful. There would never be, could never be, anyone else.

  Her parents took her news very matter-of-factly. Her father gave a sort of grunt.

  “So he finally got around to it. It was sticking out a mile that he’d had it so far as you were concerned. Rob’s a decent enough fellow, but not for you, Chris. John’s more—”

  “Don’t go on so, Ralph,” his wife put in, catching sight of the agonized expression on Christine’s face. “I’m sure Chris doesn’t want a postmortem on it.”

  For a few days Christine hung about at home. She knew that soon she would have to start thinking about another job, and catching sight of an advertisement about the Q.A.s, she began to wonder whether that wouldn’t be a good idea. She decided, however, not to mention it to her parents for the time being. In a few days’ time they would be going away on holiday, and the idea of her leaving home for a long period might upset them a little. As it was, her mother was a little worrie
d about leaving her alone.

  “Are you sure you’ll be all right, dear?” her mother asked anxiously. “You’ll be awfully lonely.”

  Christine smiled slightly. “Don’t worry, Mother. I shall be all right. I’ve got all kinds of things planned. I might learn to drive a car. And I’ve still got to decide where to go to take my midwifery. I might end up on district, then I shall need a car. I think I’ve had enough of hospital life.”

  On Saturday morning, shortly after her mother and father had set off on their holiday, the telephone rang, and to Christine’s surprise it was Robert.

  “I thought you might like to know, Chris. I’ve got that senior registrar’s post I applied for.”

  “I’m glad to hear it, Rob. Congratulations. It was very nice of you to call me.”

  “Not a bit. Are you doing anything tomorrow? Say around three o’clock?”

  “Er—no, I don’t think so. Why?”

  “Thought I might pop along to see you. Okay?”

  “Yes, all right, Rob,” she said wonderingly.

  “Good. See you then,” he said in a most casual voice and hung up. She stopped puzzling and smiled. He was incorrigible. Well, it would be nice to see him. She would welcome a little company.

  After she had tidied up the house on Sunday, she weeded the garden a little. Then she prepared lunch and popped a few little cakes in the oven for tea. These were Rob’s favorites and it gave her pleasure to make them for him.

  She was running a comb through her hair when she heard his car turn into the drive. She gave a tweak to the black patent leather belt she was wearing over a full-skirted white dress, then ran downstairs. She guessed he would come around the back of the house to the veranda, so she went out there.

  She stopped short and her heart contracted violently. It was not Robert who stood there but John. She stared at him, not knowing what to say.

  “Is it all right my coming, Christine?” he asked.

  She struggled to find her voice. “I—yes, of course, John. I—I thought you were Robert. Has anything happened? I mean—he’s all right?”

  He looked at her searchingly. “Yes, he’s all right. He asked me to come in his place.”

  “But why? I don’t understand.”

  “Perhaps I’d better explain. Shall we sit down? I’m not at all sure whether I was right to come, but he and I had a good talk together. He told me that you and he were not getting married, after all. He’s taking this new appointment and, I understand, you’re not going with him.”

  Christine nodded. “That’s right.”

  She sat back in the wicker armchair and looked at him as he gazed out into the garden. Why had he come? Was he going to start being gentle and kind again? Oh, dear God, she wouldn’t be able to stand it.

  “I hope you don’t mind the fact that we’ve been talking about you, but he said you weren’t in love with him. There was somebody else. He said it had really been all over with you two for some time. Is that true, Christine?”

  “Well, yes, I suppose it is, in a way. When I went back on duty after my ankle was better, everybody took it for granted we were engaged again. I didn’t bother to deny it. Somehow I hadn’t the heart. Then after a while I began to wear his ring again. But it was no use, and Rob realized it in the end.”

  “And this other man you’re in love with?”

  Her cheeks colored. She looked at him, with a mixture of pain and anger.

  “Why are you asking all these things? If you’ve come to hand out sympathy, offer me your shoulder to cry on or give me ‘good advice,’ then I—I wish you’d just go away and leave me alone!”

  His lips tightened and his expression set into severe lines. “Do you really mean that, Christine?” he asked in a very quiet voice.

  She sprang to her feet, her eyes blazing now. “Yes, I do mean it. I’ve had just about enough of your kindness and your gentleness and your ... your...”

  She broke off, almost in tears, and suddenly he seemed to be towering above her, his brown eyes wide with an anger and passion she had never seen before except that day down in the mine when she had been half delirious, half unconscious.

  He took her by the shoulders and almost shook her in his rage. “ You little idiot!” he almost shouted. “Don’t you know I’m in love with you? Don’t you know I’m half crazy for you? What do you think I am?”

  Before she could recover from her astonishment his arms were about her and she was held against him fiercely while his lips pressed down on hers in a kiss that left her breathless. She could feel his heart pounding, and suddenly everything within her responded to him wildly.

  Presently he relaxed his hold and looked at her, his eyes cloudy with the depth of his love.

  “Well? Now what have you got to say?” he murmured, his voice heavy with feeling.

  Her own eyes were misty too. “I take it all back, John,” she whispered. She took his face between her hands and kissed him slowly and deliberately, then, her cheek against his, she breathed softly in his ear: “I love you, John.”

  He held her at arms’ length and looked at her, and Christine knew that never, even in their moments of wildest ecstasy, had she felt this way about Robert.

  “You said you and Rob had a long talk. What else did he tell you about me?” she asked presently.

  “Nothing that I don’t know for myself, or intend spending the rest of my life discovering. Oh, wonderful thought!”

  “What about all these other people who conspired to keep us apart?”

  He laughed. “Oh yes. But what a hope they had. Nurses Larcham and Swenwick had their heads together. That day Robert was supposed to have called you in the middle of an operation, for instance. He didn’t phone at all. Nurse Swenwick made it up. It was she who put the cylinder spanner in the sterilizer, too. And, of course, damaged Sister Kelly’s book. But of course you know about that.”

  “But who told you all these things? Not Rob? If so, how did he know?”

  John shook his head. “All has come to light since you left. Larcham and Swenwick had a ding-dong row in front of Sister Kelly, and each gave the other away.”

  It was then that Christine told him why she had avoided him, about the gossip that had been going around.

  John laughed. “What nonsense! Fancy you falling for that, Nurse Townsend.”

  Christine looked at him slyly. “As a matter of fact, I thought you were quite keen on Larcham at one time. I—er—thought she was your ideal woman.”

  “What?” he shouted. “Now you do deserve a spanking.”

  And before she could raise a whisper of protest he carried out his threat. All her yells and kicks were of no avail.

  “Well? And now what have you to say?” he asked when eventually, rather breathless, she was the right way around again and in his arms.

  She gave a mock grimace. “And I thought you were kind—and gentle!”

  “Oh, you did?” His mood changed again then, and a look of infinite tenderness came into his brown eyes. “Tell me you love me,” he whispered.

  “I love you, John, I love you.”

  She wanted to say it over and over again.

  “Darling,” he said, “we’re going to be so happy, you and I. We’ll show the whole world what a perfectly happy marriage can be like.”

  Much later they had tea. And after tea they talked and loved and talked again.

  “How soon will you marry me, Christine?”

  “Just as soon as you like.”

  “Tomorrow? Next week? I want no long, drawn-out engagement.”

  “Can’t you even wait until Mother and Father come back home?”

  “Perhaps. But no longer, mind. I’m terribly impatient for you.” The shadows lengthened, the sun dipped below the horizon and twilight lingered turning day gently into night.

  “Darling, I’d give anything to stay with you,” sighed John as darkness came. “But I mustn’t. I must go. Now, while I still have the strength of will to leave you. Don’t see me off.
Let me hear you bolt the door after me, and see you switch on your bedroom light. I’ll come and see you again tomorrow and every day until we’re married.”

  He went around the house with her, making sure that all the windows on the ground floor were fastened. She smiled to herself, but let him do it.

  In the hall he took her in his arms once more to say goodnight, and kissed her with a passion and ardor she had never dreamed was in him.

  Then he drew his restraint around him like a cloak and pushing her gently from him went out of the house.