Tread Softly, Nurse

by Hilary Neal

  “Of course not.” She sat down where she was, against a grassy bank, with her feet in the ling, and he joined her, his long arms circling his drawn-up knees.

  “Well, F. Scott?” He glanced at her, and then turned his eyes away.

  “It sounds like a—a jockey, or something.”

  “It’s what you signed for the syringes, isn’t it?”

  One hand went towards his inside breast pocket, and then he drew it back and began to pick grass stalks and twist them into a cord.

  She smiled. “You could call me Nurse.”

  “I could,” he said reasonably. “But I don’t propose to. Not out here.” He nibbled one of the grass stalks he was holding, and said slowly: “My name, of course, you know.”

  “Yes.”

  “I see. You’d rather I went on being ‘sir’, would you?” He looked disappointed, and threw the grass away.

  “No. I wouldn’t. But...”

  “But?” When she didn’t answer, he rolled over on his stomach and put his head down on his folded arms. And then he said: “You and your roses!” He laughed shortly. “I could have thrown them out of the window. And you after them.”

  “Please—let me explain. They weren’t for him, they were for Gilda Seymour. You must get your facts right. He asked me to get them to send through to her. He was writing a note—”

  “I see.” He lifted his head to peep at her over his shoulder. “And will she be pleased with them, do you imagine?”

  “Probably. She wanted to see him, last night.”

  “She did?” His head jerked up. “Then why the blazes didn’t she tell me? I would have—”

  Fenella shook her head at him. “I don’t think you would.” She smiled faintly. “Would you?”

  He looked down again, his fingers prowling in the purple and green, caressing the little plants. “Fenella...” He bit his lip. “D’you mind? You left your cuffs in the theatre. Neatly labelled. Fenella—you don’t really know very much about me, do you?”

  “No, I don’t know why you do things, if that’s what you mean. You’re—unpredictable. It isn’t easy.”

  “There is a pattern, underneath.”

  She drew into herself, enclosing herself in a woundproof skin of indifference as best she could. “Yes. But it’s no concern of mine, you see.”

  “Is that a final assessment?”

  When she could find no answer, he went on: “I’d like to tell you about Gilda Seymour.”

  Her heart contracted, and for a moment she felt as though she had stopped breathing. Then she lay down beside him, but a yard or more away against the bank, and turned her face to the wide Common. “Yes?”

  “It was on the way back—from Burma. I thumbed a plane to Colombo, and picked up a boat there. She was on it—on her way here from Australia. She was the first decent white girl I’d seen for a long time. She was ... lovely.”

  Fenella didn’t say anything. She went on chasing, with her forefinger, the green iridescent beetle she had been watching foraging among the fine pinwire grass. She felt David looking at her and turned to face him. “Go on.”

  He pulled out his cigarette case and offered it to her. “Will you smoke?”

  “Not now. I don’t, very often. But if you want to...”

  Absently he put a cigarette between his lips and lit it. When he had blown out a long stream of lavender smoke, he went on: “She was just sixteen.”

  “Were you—fond of her?”

  “Oh, Fenella! How do you think a boy of twenty feels about anyone so young and perfect—so clean—after what we’d been through? I worshipped her. Naturally. But to her, just a schoolgirl, I was old. Old. I suppose I looked it, too. At any rate, she was more interested in the Third Officer. He was gay, you see. I wasn’t. Only I never forgot her. And later, I went to see her dance. We wrote to one another...” He sat upright suddenly. “That’s all it’s been.”

  He had finished. He stubbed out his cigarette violently, and made a business of burying it under the turf.

  What was she supposed to say? She insulated herself against him. “Thank you for telling me,” she said politely.

  “I wanted you to know.” He stood up and held out both hands. “Come along. Bedtime.”

  She let him pull her to her feet. He had said nothing about Stephen Ames, or his angry interview with him; nor about his calmer talk in Ward 4 this morning. Even so, he had said far too much; put more into her hands than she wanted to hold. Why had he brought her here, and talked to her, at all? She was at once melted by his nearness, and by the warm grasp of his fingers on her wrists, and deeply fearful because he was so obviously enchanted by Gilda Seymour, and all his tender feelings had clearly been awakened by her illness.

  They drove back without speaking. Back at the hospital he swung into the side lane before he stopped, and leaned over to open her door. She got out quickly. “Goodbye.”

  “Good night. That’s what I say to a night nurse, isn’t it? Good night, Fenella.”

  “Good night.”

  He lifted an eyebrow, and his rare smile transformed his face. “Well—at least you didn’t say ‘sir’, did you?”

  When she crossed behind the car he drove away quickly. She could see his face in the driving mirror until he turned the corner, brown and watchful. She wondered if he could see her, too, and she was embarrassed by the thought and ran in and up to her room without stopping.

  In the evening, when she went down to her breakfast, one of the day juniors stopped her in the hall, “Matron’s wanting to see you, Staff. Before you go on duty, she said.”

  “Thank you Nurse. Is she in her office now?”

  “I think she’s in her sitting room, Staff. Next to the office. Just knock and walk in.”

  She turned back and went along to Matron’s door. As always, when summoned by Authority, she quaked a little. What was wrong? And then she scolded herself for this old failing. Nothing had to be wrong. Sometimes, surely, people were sent for without trouble being the reason. This was not a training school, after all, and there were no rules—despite the traditional feeling among the senior staff—about nurses not mixing with medical staff. In any case, David was not on the staff. Or could she have been seen in the wards in mufti? To deliver a few roses—not such a crime, really. Yet her palms were damp when Matron said: “Come in,” in her deep, mannish voice.

  Matron was sitting in an armchair beside the flower-filled hearth—and she had changed from her grey silk uniform dress with its tiny lace collar into a soft brown afternoon frock, with a bright chiffon scarf at the throat. She had lost, in the change, all her professional significance, and her capless head was plain and ordinary with its soft bobbed mousecolored hair. Only her bright blue eyes remained authoritative.

  “You sent for me, Matron?”

  “Ah, Nurse Scott. Yes.” She reached over and dragged the other armchair to face her own. “Sit down, will you?”

  Fenella sat down, her hands folded in her starched lap, and waited.

  Matron finished the tea she was drinking, and put the empty cup and saucer up on the mantelpiece beside her presentation clock with the brass plate on the front. “Nurse, Sister Barclay is off sick. I gather she went off duty last night with what appeared to be migraine?”

  “Yes, Matron.”

  “Well, this morning she had a very severe increase of pain—and Sir David Anderson saw her.”

  At the mention of his name Fenella’s fingers tightened on one another involuntarily. She wondered if her eyes had given her away, but Matron was bending down, breathing heavily, to rearrange the vase of scabious in the fireplace.

  “Yes,” she went on, “and I’m extremely sorry to say that he feels there’s possibly an arachnoid condition here, or subarachnoid anyhow.”

  “An aneurysm?”

  Matron nodded soberly. “We think it may have been a sudden enlargement—it was a classic picture, really, with the pain being so violent—but we’re not warding her here, she’s gone to the
Queen Elizabeth. We hope Sir David may be wrong, of course.”

  “Yes, Matron. I suppose it could be a thrombosis that’s clearing?”

  “Possibly. But the question is, who is to take charge on night duty?” Matron looked at her keenly. “Strictly speaking, Nurse, you are senior to Nurse Lewis. You were State Registered before she was, and so on. But in the circumstances—as she knows the hospital so much better than you do—I wonder if you feel you could accept her authority if I put her in charge for the time being?”

  Fenella had no hesitation. “Of course, Matron. I would expect to.”

  “Thank you, Nurse.” Matron’s smile was relieved. Fenella wondered whether she had anticipated some resistance. “I am grateful to you. I can’t put you both in joint charge—some one person must be responsible, otherwise nobody is—and I can’t spare one of the day sisters. You’ll manage amicably, then? Do you get on well with Nurse Lewis?”

  “Very well, thank you, Matron.”

  “Good. Well now, I can send you an assistant nurse—I’m putting Nurse Greatrex on nights. She can take charge of the female side—with one exception.” She smiled. “Where Miss Seymour is concerned, Sir David would prefer that you attended to her, when Nurse Lewis is not available to do so. She’s rather a special patient, you see.”

  “I see, Matron.” She was thinking back to her morning’s talk with David. Was this why he had talked about Gilda? So that she would take good care of her? For him? She got to her feet, and pushed the chair back. “Is that all, Matron?”

  Matron nodded. “That’s all, thank you, Nurse.” And then as Fenella’s hand was on the door knob she added: “How do you get on with Sir David, Nurse?”

  Fenella hesitated. Then she said: “I haven’t seen very much of him yet, Matron. I’ve heard a good deal about his work, of course.”

  “Yes, he’s a brilliant man. And we all try to please him here, Nurse, although he has no official standing. Remember that. He has been a good friend to this little hospital. We are most fortunate in having his interest. He has just one weakness...”

  “Yes, Matron?”

  “He cannot stand sudden noises. Avoid them, as far as you can. He had a bad time in the Army, I believe. It dates from then. He doesn’t talk about it, and we don’t ask. But—go carefully.”

  “I will.”

  Fenella went slowly through to the dining room. “Go carefully,” Matron had said. And Mair had warned her: “Tread softly.” And Mr. Parsley had talked about velvet gloves. Yet out on the Common David had seemed—just a man. He had not needed any wariness from her. A man to be respected—but not feared. And he himself had said last night: “Never be afraid of me.” Yet she wondered at the same time whether, without the prick of half-fear, she would be able to look up to him as she did. If he met her on equal terms, on her own level, would he become ordinary and unexciting? She shook her shoulders, and staved off the thought of him as she sat down opposite Mair, and nodded to the other three. “Hello—Night Sister!”

  Mair’s small white teeth flashed in a mischievous smile. “Good evening, slave.” She pretended to roll up her sleeves. “I’ll run you round tonight!” she threatened. “See if I don’t. You’ve been to Matron, then?”

  “Just.” Fenella helped herself to bacon and egg from the covered dish. “I wondered what I’d done, to be sent for.”

  “You don’t mind, do you? She feels I know the run of the place, you see.” Mair’s dark eyes opened anxiously.

  “Of course I don’t, you idiot! What else can she do? I’m not a seniority fusspot. Did you think I was?”

  Mair relaxed and leaned back. “No, of course not. Mick said you weren’t, anyway. I saw him in the hall just now. He said: ‘Fenny won’t care. She’s no hair-splitter.’ ”

  “Nice of him,” Fenella smiled. “I’m not. Where does it get you?”

  “Nowhere, my dear. But there are those who’d kick up. You’ve met ’em. Haven’t we all?” She looked down the table. “Nurse Greatrex...”

  The big country-bonny girl in the green dress of an S.E.A.N. looked up and blinked. “Yes, Staff?”

  “You know you’re to do the females, don’t you? Except for Ward Two—Nurse Scott will do Miss Seymour for you.”

  “When you aren’t available,” Fenella mentioned. “That was what Matron said.”

  “You can take it I shan’t be. Not tonight, at all events. There’s a medical pyloric in the children’s ward, and I shall have quite enough to do fiddling with his feeds, and his atropine, and his stomach washouts, and all the rest of it, thanks. Two-and-a-half-hourly feeds right through the night—you know what a performance it is.”

  “All right. I’ll look after her.”

  “And you’d better. Our David will notice if her bandage is half a thou out, I can tell you. Sooner you than me—I’m in no mood for any of his temperament tonight.” She grinned. “Not that he isn’t perfect, just the same. Or hadn’t you noticed?” She got up and collected her case from the side-table. “Coming?”

  They walked down to the wards together, with the juniors grouped behind them. While Mair went into the office to check on the reports, Fenella went straight through to Ward 2, after she had left her cuffs on the kitchen shelf.

  There was faint color in Gilda’s cheeks, and she had touched her mouth with cherry-red lipstick.

  “That’s a good sign,” Fenella told her. “The moment we see lipstick, we know you’re on the mend. It’s infallible.”

  “Really? I just feel naked without it.”

  “You don’t use any other make-up, do you?”

  She shook her head. “Only on stage. I don’t need it—I never shine, and I feel that stage make-up is so bad for the skin that I ought to let my face rest when I’m off duty.”

  Fenella shook up her pillows, and looked down at the creamy oval face. “You’ve a lovely skin. It would be a pity to hide it. What would you like to drink tonight? Malted milk, I’d suggest.”

  “Fattening. But I can’t resist it. Yes, please. And Nurse, Da—Sir David has told me I can see Stephen!” Her eyes were bright.

  “That’s right,” Fenella told her.

  “Oh—I’m so glad! When?”

  “I don’t know. He’s arranging for him to come. Tell me...” Her voice trailed off, and her long lashes came down over her eyes.

  “Yes?”

  “Are you sure he isn’t angry with me?” Stephen, I mean.”

  “Angry? No. Only worried about you. He feels responsible. Naturally. And—didn’t you have your roses?”

  “Yes. They were beautiful. Nurse took them out.” Gilda sighed deeply. “What’s to become of me?” she asked in a small, childish voice. “What am I, if I’m not a dancer? There isn’t anything else of me.” Her lips trembled. “I’m just a cipher.”

  Fenella took a chance. “Stephen doesn’t think so. He didn’t want to marry you just because you were a dancer. So he wouldn’t give you up because you weren’t, if it came to that. That’s logic, isn’t it?”

  “It sounds like a bit of John Donne’s reasoning, to me. Nurse Scott—when will they know about my leg?”

  Fenella patted her hand. “You’ve been so good try to be patient just a little longer.” She went out to fetch Gilda’s drink from the kitchen, and reached down saucepans and milk and jars and spoons unseeingly. Her vision was focused mentally on David’s strong fingers, plaiting and replaiting a wisp of grass; she was aware of the hard edge of his deep voice, distant, yet intimate, like the ocean-echo of a cold shell pressed to her ear, as he had talked about Gilda Seymour.

  The ward indicator in the corridor flashed “4” as she went back, and when she had left the cup and saucer on Gilda’s bed-table she went across to Stephen’s room.

  “Did you want me, Steve?”

  He nodded. “I’m terribly sorry about the roses. I didn’t want you to tell him just then that they were for Gilda—for all I know it might have been a red rag to a bull, after the way he chewed me up last night.” />
  “It’s all right. But I’m afraid he knows, anyway, because...”

  “I’ll say he knows! He took them to her.”

  Fenella was startled. “When?”

  “Well—when you came in he was just beginning to be quite decent. Said he lost his temper, and he was sorry, and all that. And said I hadn’t cracked my skull after all, but I’ve got to rest a bit longer. And then when you bolted he cleared off all in a hurry—I thought maybe he was after you. But he came back later, and said: ‘Nurse Scott has excellent taste in roses.’ So I explained, as he seemed in a good mood—and he took them through to her.”

  She reflected that David must have returned shortly after dropping her in the side lane. Possibly he had simply driven round the block back to the car-park. “He was in a good mood, you say?” She could not resist the question.

  Stephen nodded. “He certainly was. Came in as though he hadn’t a care in the world. He looks quite different when he smiles. Younger.”

  “I’m glad”. She pulled herself together. “What will you drink, Steve?” She bent over her list.