Cottage Hospital

by Claire Rayner

  “Geoffrey!” she said, as he kissed her cheek with a polite brotherly peck. “How kind of you to meet me here. I could have taken the branch line quite easily –”

  He picked up her bags and started urging her gently towards the barrier, part of his attention on her, part of it concentrating on finding a porter.

  “Not at all, my dear,” he said. “Mary would have been most upset to think of you putting up with that dreadful train – and so would I. It’s a bare half-hour’s drive, you know, and nearly three times that by rail – ah, porter!”

  They found Geoffrey’s car across the big station yard, and Barbara settled herself gratefully into its luxurious comfort.

  “How long have you been running a Jaguar?” she asked, as Geoffrey slammed the door on his side and fiddled with the ignition key. “Did you get tired of the Rover?”

  “No – I was quite fond of the old Rover, really.” He sounded a little regretful. “But people seem to expect me to run a fancy job like this, so Mary settled on a Jag. But it’s very comfortable, I must say.”

  As the big car ate the miles, they talked desultorily of London theatres, of Jamie’s progress at school, of Josie and her dancing and riding classes, and gradually Barbara relaxed. This was a life she knew so little about, she thought. In all the years at the Royal, she had lost touch with the comfortable affluent existence her sister enjoyed. Once, she would have been impatient of it, but now, feeling not quite as well as she might, there was a powerful pull in the thought of real comfort, of a warm well run house, of all the extra things that money could provide. Barbara had never really cared much for possessions, but somehow, riding in this silent, richly comfortable car, she felt the insidious attractions of owning such pleasant objects.

  “You’ve changed.” Geoffrey’s voice cut across her musing. “Two years isn’t all that long, really, but you’re different, somehow –”

  Barbara smiled. “I can’t think why,” she said lightly. “I’ve been living the same sort of life for the past two years as I did before. Nothing’s happened to me to make me any different. Just older.”

  He smiled crookedly at her, taking his attention momentarily from the road. “It suits you – the change, I mean. You’re more – serene than I remembered.”

  “My dear Geoffrey! You hardly ever had time to notice me at all!” Barbara said. “Whenever I’ve visited Sandleas you’ve been too busy at the office to see much of me!”

  He laughed shortly, “I don’t spend much time in living, do I? Always work. I feel a bit like Alice sometimes – you know, running like hell to keep in the same place –”

  Barbara looked at him in some surprise. This was a new Geoffrey. “I thought you liked work?”

  “Oh, I do! It’s just that sometimes – oh, well,” he grinned a little crookedly again, and lapsed into silence.

  The car purred on, and Barbara sat wondering a little about the man beside her. She had never paid much attention to him. He was Mary’s husband, and Jamie’s and Josie’s father, and beyond that, seemed to have little personality of his own. Perhaps, she thought, I’ve been unfair to him. I’ve never thought much about him at all, as a person. Or about him as Mary’s husband, if it comes to that. Is theirs a happy marriage? The thought slid into her mind, and she pushed it away. Whether they were happy or not, it was no business of hers. She and her sister, and her sister’s family, had lived at arm’s length from each other for the whole of their lives. This was no time to start getting involved with them on an emotional level, now she was to live with them.

  “It’ll be odd, living in an ordinary household after all those years in a Nurses’ Home,” she said suddenly.

  “I hope you’ll like it,” Geoffrey said. “The children are delighted, you know. They’re awfully proud of you.”

  “Proud of me?” Barbara said wonderingly. “Why on earth -?”

  “Oh, they’re rabid hospital fans. Josie especially. She never misses a hospital programme on TV, and she reads hospital novels till they come out of her ears. She thinks it’s marvellous to have an aunt who’s a trained nurse, and a theatre sister at that.”

  Barbara made a little face. “She’ll be a bit disappointed with my new job, then. As far as I can tell, I’m to be a general dog’s-body.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, the hospital has thirty beds – you know, probably?”

  He shook his head. “Mary knows more about it than I do. She’s on the management committee.”

  “So that’s why Matron was so pleased about having Mrs. Geoffrey Martin’s sister on the staff!”

  “I daresay she is. Mary’s quite a VIP in Sandleas nowadays – she feels it’s good for my practice if she’s on all the local committees and what-have-you. But what about the job? Why are you so dreary about it?”

  “I don’t mean to sound dreary,” Barbara said hastily. “It’s just so different from anything I’m used to. Apparently there’s Matron, and a second Sister – that’s me – who does everything from running the wards to ordering the stores and coping with the whole hospital when Matron’s off duty, a couple of staff nurses, and a collection of very young pretraining cadets and part-time assistant nurses. So it isn’t very glamorous, I’m afraid, even from Josie’s point of view.”

  “She’ll find it glamorous enough, don’t worry. Jamie too. He’s decided to do medicine, by the way. Did you know?”

  “Really? I supposed I’d assumed he’d follow you.”

  “Mary would have liked him to, I think – actually, she wanted him to read for the Bar. But he’s a determined boy, in some ways. He’ll do what he wants to do, not what other people think he should. More like Mary than me.”

  “I wonder why he chose medicine?”

  Geoffrey chuckled a little wickedly. “Because his mother fancied law, I suspect.” He turned the car into the wide gates that fronted the house. “Here we are. I’ll dump your bags for you, but forgive me if I don’t come in with you, Barbara. I’ve got a client coming to see me at the office in ten minutes. I’ll see you again at dinner – and I shall look forward to that. It’s good to have you with us.”

  “Thank you, Geoffrey,” Barbara said warmly. “It’s sweet of you to make me feel so welcome.”

  “I mean every word of it.” He looked at her for a moment, his tired face lightening with a smile. “Every word of it.”

  He put her cases down on the polished red tiles of the broad doorstep, and with a brief wave he was gone, the big car turning smoothly on the gravel drive.

  Barbara smiled at the woman in the print overall who was waiting by the door she had opened in response to the sound of the car. “Hello, Mrs. Lester,” she said. “Remember me? I saw you last time I was here.”

  “Indeed I do, Miss.” The woman picked up the cases. “Nice to see you again. Mrs. Martin’s upstairs. I’ll tell her you’re here.”

  Barbara stood in the wide hallway, slowly pulling off her gloves, and looked around her. The white paintwork gleamed in the morning sunlight, and the red carpet was thick under her feet. There was a huge bowl of beautifully arranged daffodils and hyacinths on the low table in the centre, and the flowers were reflected in the high polish of the surface. She could smell coffee, and the faint redolence of polish, and a hint of the sea that was so near. The house felt warm, and rich, and comfortable, and Barbara sighed with real pleasure.

  “Barbara!” Mary’s voice floated down the wide stairs. “I’m up here, my dear. Come up!”

  “Coming!” Barbara climbed the stairs, stopping for a moment at the window half-way up to bury her nose in another bowl of flowers. The door of Mary’s room was half open, and Barbara went in, her feet sinking into the pale Indian carpet that covered the floor.

  Mary was sitting at her dressing table, almost dressed, the jacket of her suit lying ready on the peach silk counterpane of her bed. She was carefully painting her mouth as Barbara came in, and she smiled stiffly at Barbara through the mirror.

  “Just let me
finish this –” she spoke through stretched lips as she plied her lipstick. “Then let me look at you –”

  Barbara sank into the armchair at the side of the dressing table and looked at her sister. She had the same thick dark hair that Barbara had, except that it was streaked, here and there, with white, and the same dark brown eyes. But where Barbara’s face was clear cut, with the skin stretched tightly across the cheekbones, Mary’s face was blurred a little with fat, the clean lines of her bones hidden with flesh. There were deep lines between her eyes, and each side of the nose and mouth, but her skin was good, showing clearly the expensive care that was lavished on it.

  After a moment, she swung round in her chair and smiled at Barbara.

  “Well, my dear! And how are you! Feeling better?”

  Barbara stretched a little. “I’m not ill,” she said defensively, feeling some of the old hostility rise, the hostility she always found Mary could make her feel. “Just in need of a change.”

  “I’ve known that for years,” Mary said briskly. “But you wouldn’t listen. But now you’re here, we must see you get plenty of rest. I’m very pleased you’re staying with us, Barbara.”

  “There’s no need for me to impose on you, Mary,” Barbara said. “I could easily live at the hospital –”

  “My dear, do stop talking like that. I wouldn’t dream of it. That poky little Nurses’ Home! We have plenty of room here, and there’s not the least need for you to live anywhere else. And it’s no imposition, because we’ve plenty of help. Mrs. Lester comes every day, and I pay her quite enough for her to look after another person. So that’s that.” She stood up, and started to put her jacket on. “Look, my dear. I’m sorry to have to leave you alone on your first morning, but I have a wretched meeting to go to – The Pageant of the Women’s Institute is next month, and if I don’t chase them up, nothing gets done. I’ll be back for lunch, so you unpack, and take things easy till then. The children are out, too, so you’ll be left in peace.” She kissed Barbara briefly, and made for the door.

  “You have the same room as the last time you were here – and you can share the children’s bathroom – do you mind?”

  Barbara followed her out on to the wide upper landing.

  “Not in the least. I’m used to sharing a bathroom with far more than two people, you know.” She smiled. “And from what I remember of the children, they don’t exactly haunt the bathroom!”

  Mary frowned fleetingly. “Well, they aren’t children any more, not in that sense,” she said. “But even so, you should manage. Mrs. Lester!” She stood in the downstairs hall, pulling on her gloves. “Mrs. Lester – ah, there you are! Take Miss Hughes’ bags up, will you, and make her some coffee? And don’t forget – we need three loaves from the baker, and ’phone the butcher for me. All right, Barbara? See you at one.” And she was gone. Barbara stood at the door for a moment, watching her sister drive her own small car out of the drive.

  “She drives as she is,” she thought, smiling a little to herself. “Efficient – quick – thorough,” and then she turned to look at the hall again.

  Mrs. Lester padded upstairs with her cases, and Barbara followed her, enjoying the sense of peace and comfort the house wrapped around her.

  Her room was a big one. As Barbara looked round at it she said, “It looks different –”

  Mrs. Lester nodded. “Mmm. Mrs. Martin, she had the decorators in, and one of those designer people from London. Turned everything upside down, she did. But it’s very nice, I daresay.”

  It was. The room was in shades of blue, from the deep midnight of the carpet, through the lighter blue of the flowered curtains and counterpane, to the pale walls.

  “Even the sheets and blankets is blue,” said Mrs. Lester, following Barbara’s gaze round the room. “Very modern and all that. Mind you, I couldn’t fancy anything but white sheets myself. Seems unnatural to me, coloured sheets.” She bustled about the room, opening drawers and wardrobe ready for Barbara to unpack. “But I daresay it’s all what you’re used to. Mrs. Martin – her sheets and blankets are peach, and Josie’s – hers are a yellow, like primrose.” She chuckled. “Jamie though – he had a right row about his. His mother fancied green for him, but he wasn’t having any. He said if he couldn’t have white, he’d have khaki, so that was that. He’s a terror, that boy.”

  Barbara smiled a little uncomfortably. “Boys often are –” she said vaguely, opening the first of her cases. She didn’t like the way Mrs. Lester lingered at the door, looking for a chance to gossip. “This won’t take me long,” she went on, trying to avoid seeming unfriendly. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

  “All right, Miss.” Mrs. Lester started to go. “I’d better get on, I daresay. There’s a lot of people for tea this afternoon – to meet you – and I’ve got some baking to do. I’ll have your coffee ready soon.”

  Barbara was aware of a faint sense of annoyance as she put her neatly folded clothes away in the prepared drawers. Mary might have asked her if she wanted a tea party, she thought crossly. How like her not to mention it.

  Her unpacking took very little time, and she washed in the cool white bathroom between her own room and Josie’s before going downstairs.

  She could hear the radio in the kitchen, blaring away as Mrs. Lester hurried round her baking, so Barbara went into the big drawing-room that overlooked the wide garden at the back of the house. This room, too, showed the hand of “designer people from London”. It was wide, and long, and the chintz and dark mahogany furniture Barbara remembered had given way to modern square couches and chairs, and bleached wood, with the same kind of one-colour scheme Barbara’s bedroom had. She looked round at the purple carpet, the amethyst curtains, the deep lilac walls, the pale lavender cushions, and sighed a little. “It’s like a furniture shop window,” she thought with amusement. “Too perfect for words.”

  But the chairs were comfortable, and the room felt restful. On an impulse, she wandered across the hall to the dining-room, to see what the designers had done there. Here, there was red and mahogany, rich and warm, redolent of good food and wines. But, when Barbara put her head round the door of the little room overlooking the drive, which Mary called the library, she was even more amused. This was Geoffrey’s special room, she knew, and here it seemed Geoffrey had unexpectedly displayed some of his son’s will. The room hadn’t changed at all. There was still the big, rather battered desk, the brown carpet, the green upholstered chairs Barbara remembered from previous visits. A room with quiet character of its own – “Not in the least like a shop window,” Barbara told herself, smiling a little.

  It was the telephone on the desk that made her think, for a moment. Then she went across to it, and looked up the hospital ’phone number in the big directory.

  She dialled the number with a quizzical expression on her smooth face. “As Mary hasn’t told me about the tea party,” she thought, a little wickedly, as she waited for the hospital to answer, “she can’t expect me to be here –”. She heard an answering voice on the line. “May I speak to Matron, please? – Matron? Good morning. This is Barbara Hughes. I know I’m not starting duty till next Monday, but I thought perhaps I’d come and introduce myself in advance – This afternoon, perhaps? – fine. About three, then. Why, yes, thank you. I’d love to have tea – good-bye till then.”

  As she hung up, she felt a twinge of guilt. Mary, after all, meant well, she thought. Perhaps it was wrong of her to make an alternative arrangement. But then her face hardened. “Mary isn’t going to run my life, even if I am living in her house,” she told herself firmly. “And if I don’t start on the right foot, I won’t have a hope in hell.”

  Lunch was a fairly pleasant meal. The children came home from school for it, and greeted her joyously. Josie, in particular, hung on to her aunt’s hand, looking up into Barbara’s face adoringly, her pale blue eyes, so like her father’s, full of heroine-worship. Jamie had greeted her gruffly, but with real pleasure under his sixteen-year-old gaucheness. Mary
was gracious and talked smoothly of her morning with the committee, of the pageant that was to come, of the stupidity of the various members of the committee, stopping occasionally to tell Josie to take her elbows from the table, or to tell Jamie to eat more slowly.

  Jamie, after one of these remonstrances, winked briefly at his aunt, his brown eyes merry and glinting a little with wickedness. Mary affected not to notice this, or to notice the way he then ate with exaggerated slowness, even though it meant that he kept them all waiting for their pudding while he meticulously finished his cutlet.

  Barbara found herself watching her niece and nephew as Mary’s conversation ran smoothly on. Josie, her fair hair cut into a long swinging bob, was quiet, a little withdrawn, watching her mother’s face anxiously after she had been told to take her elbows from the table. “Like me, a little,” Barbara thought, warming to the frail little body. “Hates to be in any sort of trouble – I was like that.” Jamie, on the other hand, for all his adolescent awkwardness, had an air of strength about him that Barbara hadn’t noticed before when he was younger. His hands and wrists stuck bonily out of his sleeves, with a promise of power that would develop, in time. But it was his personality that was strongest of all. He said little, but when he looked at his mother at one point, after she had said something rather scathing about one of her fellow committee members, with something very like scorn in his deep-set eyes, Barbara shivered a little, involuntarily. “I’d hate to be in his bad books,” she thought, a little surprised at her reaction to him. “He could be a bad enemy.”