A Ward Door Opens: A touching 1950s hospital romance (The Anniversary Collection Book 7)

by Lucilla Andrews

  Dr. Cameron was standing by an oldish but powerful car. His well-cut suit was the colour of dark granite; from his expression, he might have been carved out of the same granite. I noticed the quick glance Fiona gave him, and recollected her telling me that when he wore that expression it was a sure sign that he was worrying over something.

  He acknowledged my presence with an austere ‘Good afternoon,’ and opened one of the back doors of the car. ‘I expect you will want to talk to your friend, Fiona,’ he said, ignoring me. ‘I’ll just give you a hand in. How’s that? Good.’ He stood aside for me to get in, then dropped a rug over our laps. ‘I’ve got the heater on, but it may be cold.’ He slid into the front seat, smiled at Fiona in the driving mirror, then switched on the engine. He did not exchange more than half a dozen sentences with her during the drive down; he did not say a single word to me.

  We made very good time and arrived a few minutes after four. My mother was at the door to welcome us. ‘Maggie, darling, how lovely to see you. And this is Fiona! How very good it is of you to allow your niece to stay with us, Dr. Cameron, and to bring Maggie down for this little visit. Do come in. My husband has had to go out on a case, but he hopes to be back for tea. Don’t bother about those suit-cases. My son will bring them in.’

  Dave appeared in the front doorway. ‘Hallo, Maggie.’ He patted my head patronisingly. ‘When are you going to grow?’ He did not wait for an answer, but hurried forward to shake hands with Fiona and her uncle.

  Mother was looking anxiously at Fiona’s plastered leg. ‘I’m afraid we have got rather a lot of stairs. My husband said he thought they would not be too much for you, dear, but if they tire you, you must let me know at once. We can easily turn one of the downstairs rooms into a bedroom.’

  Fiona said she was certain she would be able to manage the stairs. ‘I’m only a little stiff after the long drive, Mrs. Blakney. I really can get around very well.’

  Dr. Cameron confirmed this. ‘Please don’t put yourself to any more trouble. I’ll just give Fiona a lift up the stairs this time. She can come down under her own steam,’ he said with a delightful smile, and lifted her off her feet. He carried her up the stairs behind Mother, while Dave drew me back.

  He was the most soft-hearted of all my brothers. ‘She has had a raw deal. I hope she settles down to the rural life and makes herself at home.’

  ‘She’s very shy under that sophisticated manner. Help her if you can, Dave.’

  ‘Of course I will, but I’m off on the farm most days. I don’t imagine she’ll be interested in farming?’

  ‘I doubt she has ever had a chance to be. She’s always lived in cities. She doesn’t seem to care for them. She is hankering for a house, and a garden where she can pick the flowers.’

  ‘Is she, now?’ He looked interested.

  My mother came downstairs then. She slipped her arm through mine. ‘Come into the sitting-room, children. I’ve left them to have a little talk together before tea. It’s all ready in the dining-room, so we can sit in here and listen to all your news, Maggie darling.’

  It was the perfect opening to tell them my bad news, but I could not bring myself to do it. Before I could say a word Mother tilted her head to listen. ‘Open the door, Maggie. They are coming down.’

  A little later Dave came into the kitchen as I was lifting the scone dish from the oven. He closed the door and leant against it. ‘What’s up?’ he asked very quietly. He came nearer and swung himself on to the table. ‘What’s gone wrong?’

  I climbed up beside him and leant my head against his solid tweed shoulder as I had so often done when we were growing up together. ‘Oh, Dave, just about everything. It’s too involved to go into now, there’s no time.’

  ‘Dad’s just come back. We’ve got a bit of time while the introductions are going on. Get cracking.’

  I told him the essential details, and then we heard my father calling, ‘Maggie? Where are you, child?’

  Fiona came up with me when I went to my room to tidy before leaving. ‘I’m not at all stiff now,’ she said. ‘I can manage the stairs wonderfully. Your father agrees with Uncle Jock. They’ll be wonderful exercise.’ She sat on my bed and looked round her. ‘This is just the kind of room I always dreamed of having. I’m going to love it here. Your parents have been so sweet ‒ and your brother, Dave, has promised to show me his pedigree herd.’

  ‘It’s a compliment.’ I watched her through the curtain of hair I was brushing over my face. ‘Dave doesn’t talk cows to everyone!’

  She smiled. ‘He looks so like you, and sounds so like you, despite being so much bigger, that I feel as if I’ve known him for ages.’

  ‘Maggie!’ Dave hammered on the door. ‘Get weaving! Dr. Cameron has to leave right away if he’s to be in London by ten.’

  ‘Just doing my hair. Come on in.’

  He threw open the door, then he came across to me and tugged at the neat bun I had just fixed. ‘What’s the big idea of this horror? It looks grim. Let it fall, Maggie.’

  I wriggled out of his grasp as my hair fell down over my shoulders again. ‘Dave, you wretch! I was just tidy. Go away, boy, and leave me to my hairdressing. I can’t drive back to London looking like Alice-in-Wonderland. Dave, give me my pins!’

  He slipped the hairpins in an inside pocket, stood back and grinned like a schoolboy. ‘Come and get ’em.’

  Fiona’s face was alight with laughter. ‘Are you going to try?’

  ‘And wrestle with him? Not me. I know when I’m beaten.’ I picked up a comb and made for the door. ‘Since discretion is the better part of valour, this is where I retreat smartly and ask Mother if she can lend me some.’

  I had no time to do that because my father came up to fetch us all down. He looked me over. ‘Ah, now you look like yourself again, child. Good.’ He stroked my head. ‘Don’t ever cut it. Now, get your things quickly. Cameron must be off.’

  They all came out to the car and took for granted the fact that I would be returning in the front seat by the driver. My parents shook hands with Dr. Cameron and kissed me. Fiona waved while Dave went to open the front gate. ‘The glass is falling fast, sir,’ he called as we drove past him. ‘Watch out for ice when you cross the Plain.’

  ‘I’ll do that, thanks. I’ve got some chains in the back, if we should need them.’ Dr. Cameron released the brake, drove carefully out of our drive and turned towards the north-east. The large car purred to life and we were on our way, with three hours driving ahead, a brilliant, freezing night around, a sky above sprinkled with thousands of stars. But in the car there was no brilliance; there was only a still, strained silence.

  Dr. Cameron made no attempt to break the silence. For a while, I wondered nervously whether he was considering the right words with which to tell me he had reached a decision about my future; or if he was perturbed about leaving Fiona with my parents because he now disapproved of everyone of the name of Blakney. My thoughts grew blacker and blacker. The powerful car raced over the lonely miles of road. The dashboard light was the one illumination inside. Once my eyes grew accustomed to the dimness, I was able to study his face in profile easily, since he was ignoring my presence at the other end of the long front seat. His expression told me only that he was concentrating on the road ahead. He was a good driver.

  From our speed, he was as anxious to reach the end of the journey as I was.

  The car was well-sprung, the gentle motion soothing. It made me very drowsy. I had only had an hour-and-a-half’s sleep since yesterday and despite my troubled thoughts, I turned slightly away from him, rested my cheek against the high back of the seat, and drifted into that pleasantly vague plane between waking and sleeping, where nothing much seems to matter, so long as you do not have to rouse yourself physically. I seemed to be floating with the car, when I felt him move. I closed my eyes quickly, using sleep as a defence, and was conscious of the car rug being pulled from the rear seat and dropped gently over me. That gesture was so in keeping with all I kn
ew of him that I nearly sat up to thank him. The memory of his forbidding words last night and his austere silence now prevented me.

  Time passed. We seemed to be travelling more slowly. I shifted my position a little as I might have done in sleep, and squinted sideways at the speedometer. The needle had dropped to thirty-five; it fell again as I watched ‒ twenty-five, twenty. He changed down and we were creeping along, at a bare ten miles an hour. Then he stopped the car and switched off the engine.

  I sat up. ‘Is something wrong?’

  He looked round. ‘Sorry to wake you. No, I’ve just stopped to put on my chains. We’re on the Plain. Your brother was right. The road is becoming a sheet of ice.’

  ‘Can I help? I’ve often put on chains.’

  ‘I can manage, thanks. I have a torch in the boot with the chains. It’s too cold for you to stand about. Stay in here. I shan’t be long.’

  I obeyed him, reluctantly. A three-quarter moon rose slowly from behind a solitary fringe of pines on the horizon. It was a glorious night, apart from the cold. The sky was cloudless, the air transparent. The car was parked on one of the straight stretches of road the Romans must have built. I could see ahead and back for miles. The road was empty. Nothing stirred on the Plain. We seemed the only two people in a beautiful, frozen, moonlit world.

  I opened my window carefully and peered out to see how he was getting on. He was crouched by the rear near-side wheel. He had propped the torch against the car but, because of the glassy surface of the road, one end of the torch kept slipping. I watched this happen twice, then jumped out and picked it up. ‘Wouldn’t it be easier if I held it for you?’

  He buckled one chain before he looked up. ‘What are you doing out here? I thought I told you to stay in the car?’

  ‘I’m quite warm, and I’m sure it will help you do this more quickly if I shine the light on your hands,’ I said nervously, feeling far more chilled by his tone than the temperature.

  He hesitated. ‘Perhaps you’re right. We don’t want to waste unnecessary time.’ When he had fixed both near-side wheels, he took off the overcoat he had put on for the return journey. ‘It gets in the way on such a fiddling job.’ He threw it into the front seat, we moved to the rear off-side wheel, and then to the final, unchained, front wheel.

  I shivered involuntarily and the torchlight flickered. He glanced up. ‘Very cold? Sorry. I won’t be long now. Go round to the front and lean on the radiator. The heat from the engine should provide some warmth. If you hold the torch down over that mudguard, I’ll be able to see what I’m doing once I’ve got this ice off.’ He was kneeling in the road to knock away the accumulation of mud and ice from underneath the mudguard, in order to have room to get his hand round the wheel. He had had to do the same on the other three, but this time the ice was much thicker. He twisted, attempted to snap it, hammered with his fist, but it refused to give. He sat back on his heels. ‘I could do with a chisel. I think I’ve got one in my toolbox. Go and sit in the car, until I get this clear. The moon is giving me enough light.’

  He crouched down, holding a large steel chisel poised and began to chip the ice. I could not see if any was coming away, but by the sound, he was using increasing strength. He looked my way once. ‘What I really need is a sledge-hammer,’ he announced drily. ‘Failing that, I’ll have to use brute force.’ He gave the ice such a blow that the car shuddered. ‘Sorry! But that’s more like it! It’s shifting ‒’

  He had been chipping and striking for perhaps another couple of minutes, aiming with his right hand and steadying with the left, when he suddenly lunged forward. The car shook as the last of the frozen mud fell away; I heard the chisel clatter to the iced road. He was still bending forward on his knees, I could see only the back of his shoulders and lowered head. I guessed he was fitting on the chain. I fingered the torch in my lap, wondering if I dared get out of the car again when he had not called for my assistance. Then I opened the driving window, switched on the torch and called timidly, ‘Is the light any ‒’ My voice faded abruptly when the torchlight exposed the vivid stain on the white road.

  I was out of that car more quickly than I had ever moved in my life.

  He was kneeling by the front wheel as before, bending over as he grasped his left wrist with his right hand.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said as I bent over him, ‘I was just a wee bit ham-handed. The chisel slipped. I seem to have shoved it into my artery.’ His voice was very calm.

  I was barely listening. I might be only in my second year, but no Jude’s nurse was allowed to leave the P.T.S. until she knew backwards the signs and first-aid treatment of the most serious of all medical emergencies, an arterial haemorrhage. I was not wearing a convenient scarf; my handkerchief was too small. I pulled the clean handkerchief from his top pocket quite instinctively, swung it into an improvised tourniquet and tied it over his wrist a little above the grasp of his right hand. I used all my strength to get the knot firm, but could see it was not enough.

  ‘Can I take your pen?’ I asked, taking it as I spoke. I slipped it through the knot and began to twist, slowly.

  He moved his right hand. ‘Let me try.’ He twisted the pen, tightening the bandage ruthlessly. ‘That’s done it. So long as the pen doesn’t snap. It’s not all that strong.’

  I held his arm high above his head. ‘I was thinking about that.’ I switched on the torch to look at his wound. ‘Have you any other handkerchiefs?’

  He handed me two. ‘I’ll keep my arm up while you cope. And give me that torch. You haven’t got three hands.’

  ‘I’ll use one of those handkerchiefs as a pad, the other as a bandage. Have you another pen?’

  ‘Pencil. It’s silver and should stand the strain better than the pen. It’s somewhere ‒ here. Are you going to twist it, too?’

  I looked down at him anxiously. His voice sounded odd. ‘I think I had better. I’m sorry ‒ this may hurt.’

  ‘Go ahead. And thanks.’

  I did not answer. I twisted the slim silver pencil in the second bandage; it tightened cruelly, and I felt as if I was twisting my heart. ‘I’m awfully sorry. But the bleeding has stopped.’

  ‘That’s great. Thank you.’ He slid from his knees, sat in the road and edged himself round to lean against the car.

  ‘You’ve made a neat job of it,’ he said faintly.

  Chapter Eight

  I bent down and took the torch from Dr. Cameron’s hand, before he realised what I was doing. I flicked it momentarily on his face, and was shocked by his colour and the extent of the stain on his jacket and shirt. I should not really have been shocked; I had learnt long ago in the P.T.S. to expect what I now saw. I could not have said how long it took to control his injury. Maybe one minute; maybe less. He closed his eyes as I knelt beside him, and then opened them when he felt my fingers on his good wrist. ‘I’m all right, Nurse. Just getting my breath.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ I switched on the torch and tucked it under my arm. I tilted my wrist-watch to catch the ray and took his pulse. It was not good.

  ‘I’m only suffering from a wee degree of shock. I’ll be fine in a minute,’ he said as if I had told him my fears. ‘There’s nothing for you to worry about.’

  ‘I’m sorry this has happened. It’s wretched luck.’ I unbuttoned my coat as I spoke, remembering how cold his wrist had felt. I slipped it off and dropped it over him, then jumped up. ‘I’ll get your coat and the rug.’

  ‘Put that back on, at once! At once!’

  I knew the argument was useless and bad for him; but the effect of shock, which I suspected had not yet fully set in, would be much worse. I said quietly, ‘I will ‒ in a minute.’ I laid my coat back over him, and dashed to the car for the other things. I noticed an old mackintosh lying in a corner of the back seat and seized it gratefully. ‘This will do as a temporary ground sheet,’ I said, returning to him. ‘Do you think you can edge on to it, if I hold your arm steady?’

  ‘Nurse Blakney,’ he said softly, �
��do you ever do what you are told?’ He held up my coat. ‘Please.’ He smiled. ‘Then we’ll deal with the patient.’

  My heart felt as if it had turned over. He had never smiled at me like that before, not even that night in the theatre. I knew it was only because we were together in this emergency that had jolted everything else from our minds. But it was a smile I would remember always. ‘Can I help you on with your coat and get the rug round you first?’ I said. ‘I’ll put my own coat on then. I promise.’

  He said no more and leaned forward to let me get the coat behind his shoulders. ‘I think maybe my arm can come down now. I’ll do a Napoleon and fix it in my jacket.’

  ‘Haven’t we anything we could use as a sling?’ I helped him lower his injured arm. ‘I wish I had a scarf.’

  ‘It would be handy. Wait, Rowena left hers the other evening.’ He seemed to be speaking to himself. ‘Look in the right front door-pocket, will you? There’s a scarf there I’ve been meaning to give back to Nurse Standing. She won’t object to my using it. Could you get it?’

  The scarf was of strong silk, a square, the ideal size for folding into a comfortable sling.

  ‘That’s fine, Nurse. Thank you.’

  I checked the improvised tourniquets and dressing before buttoning his coat over the sling. The dressing was intact; his hand colder than the ice under my feet. ‘Is it hurting very much?’

  ‘I can feel it, that’s all. I’m sorry to have landed you in for all this.’

  ‘I’m glad I was here. It might have been rather tricky if you had been alone.’

  The moon was so bright now that we could see each other’s face clearly without the torch. He caught my eye and grinned. ‘It certainly might have been.’ He looked round the silent Plain and grew serious. ‘What is worrying me is the fact that I’m not going to be able to drive you back to London tonight.’

  I had been thinking of this, too. It was important to get him to the nearest hospital. I knew roughly just where we were, and had calculated that the County Hospital in the small market town fourteen miles on was the place to aim for, just as soon as I could get him into the car.