"Faith, Sister dear, if you could be on duty all the time we'd have young Wentworth fit and well again in no time at all, for the dear boy fair dotes on the sight of you," Staff told Fay.
Fay frowned a little at the words. She was not on duty all the time and when she was she had twenty-five other patients under her care, all equally demanding of her time.
True, she had a special feeling for Geoffrey Wentworth. Right from the first she had been determined to save him—for Mark's sake. But she had a special feeling for him for his own sake too. She admired the courage with which the young man had faced the future in the knowledge that his splendid physique was gone for ever, that he would no longer be able to take part in all those sports which he loved and at which he had excelled. He would have a permanent limp at the very best, she knew that.
She felt sorry for him too because although in due course he became the "oldest inhabitant" of the word he was never exactly in his element there. Most of the other patients were older men of the artisan type, while Geoffrey was an educated man, more interested in books and music than public house stories or racing results. He got on well enough with the other patients, but it always seemed to Fay that he was lonely. She wished that Mark would offer him friendship, which would have meant a great deal to him, she felt sure. But in this case Mark, although he did everything in his power to aid recovery, showed no inclination to step over the dividing line of the doctor-patient relationship, and when Fay once suggested that the young man's recovery might be speeded up if he were given some therapeutic consideration, he only suggested that he might be transferred to a medical ward. But this suggestion Fay soon disposed of. The medical wards were more full of old chronics and hopeless cases than the surgical and would certainly have a depressing rather than a cheering effect on her young patient.
Geoffrey had his visitors, of course, but not very many
of them. His parents lived in Worcestershire and came down for a weekend once a month, and his reputed "girl-friend," a very attractive but rather cold girl, was in a ballet company and on tour.
He spent a great deal of his time reading, and Fay often recommended books to him, but the hospital library had its limitations.
"Why don't you try writing one yourself?" she suggested one day, more than half in jest.
Geoff, however, took her seriously and looked up with interest. "D'you think I could?" he asked. "I'd like to—more than anything else in the world—but I've never had time."
"Then now's your opportunity," she said enthusiastically, glad at last to have hit on something which would give him a lively interest.
"I should only make a fool of myself," he shook his head lugubriously. "I'd never dare to submit it to a publisher."
"Why not? You may turn out to be very good—and now's the time to find out, anyway. When you get back to your bank job you won't have the time ... I tell you what—" she offered, letting her enthusiasm run away with her, "I'll vet it for you when you've done a few chapters. I used to do a lot of reading for my father, who was a publisher."
"Was he? Would you really? Oh, Sister, you've made my day !" the young man fairly bubbled over. "Where can I get pens and paper—will the trolley have some?"
"If they haven't I'll get you some," she promised, and busily straightened his counterpane before going down the ward to meet Shorty and Mark who had just come in. To her annoyance she felt her cheeks warm as she greeted him, though her "Good morning, Mr. Osborne," was cool enough. But although no word was said, Mark's glance made her feel that she had in some way been guilty of unprofessional conduct in showing an interest in Geoff's affairs.
Mark was still Registrar, although for many weeks he had been doing a consultant's work. As expected after his temporary collapse Mr. Snow had resigned from his appointment, and now another one had been made. Common room gossip had it that the vacant post had been offered to Mark and that he had turned it down. "Must be out of his tiny mind,"
had been Sister Miles' opinion. "He's consultant standard —and he knows it."
"What reason did he give?" Fay asked, since the subject had been broached.
"I don't know. Someone said that he wanted to get his Fellowship first, then maybe he'd consider it. That's daft, of course, because they can't wait that long. Another tale is that he said he didn't want to tie himself to another three years at St. Edith's. And that's funny too," Sister Miles said thoughtfully, "because he's always seemed pretty happy here."
Fay wondered too at Mark's decision and the reason for it. But she did not allow her speculations to go very far. She never did where he was concerned. Their relationship was very much a matter of day-to-day activities, and it had to be that way.
She was not even sure whether she was glad or not that he had refused the consultancy. If he had accepted it would have meant that she would have been working with him in the same community, perhaps seeing him most days, for the next three years. She was not sure whether she wanted that or not, for in the bitter-sweet taste which characterised their relations she was not sure which was the paramount ingredient.
SPRING came and Fay found this, her first English spring, a wholly delightful experience. There was a freshness in the air with the promise of warmth to come in the golden sunshine, and such a feeling of upsurge everywhere that sometimes she came on to the ward feeling that she wanted to dance down it instead of maintaining the dignified gait which her position demanded.
The London parks, to her so small, were like a tapestry woven in bright colours and fragrant with the all-pervading smell of wallflowers and lilac blossom.
The ward, too, was a positive bower of flowers which it was her delight to arrange each morning.
"Sure, Sister dear," Staff Nurse remarked as she watched her for a moment, "it's as lovely as the flowers themselves, so ye are. There's not many Ward Sisters nowadays can spare the time to do the vases, but you make a sight for sore eyes, and your fingers so nimble. Now if I was to take the job over from you it's turning to ramrods all those tulips would be."
"Nonsense, Staff, you'd do them beautifully, I'm sure, and I'm afraid I'm being a bit selfish hogging the job all to myself—you must do them tomorrow."
"No, thank you, Sister—I'll not be showing off me lack of artistic skill. There'd be trouble in the ward from Master Geoff if anybody but Sister arranged his flowers !"
Geoffrey Wentworth loved flowers and it was he who had sent Fay to Kew when the daffodils were in bloom, and later to see the bluebells there. He had said, "Kew at these times
is a must for me. I've always loved it, you see, and it has always been a kind of pilgrimage. I'll have to miss it this year, but I should like you to see it. Will you go and see it for me?"
It had been a simple request and one which it gave her great joy to fulfil. She even took in her stride his rather strange condition that she should go alone. And when she recounted her visit to him, in short interrupted snippets when she was doing her ward round, his face lighted up.
"I knew you would love it," he said. "I was there with you." But it still looked like being a very long time before Geoff Wentworth would be able to go to Kew for himself.
"How's the book coming on?" she asked, moving his writing things in order to straighten his bed.
"Slowly—very slowly," he sighed. "You see you never give us any peace here for two minutes together. I know it seems as though we lie here all day with nothing to do. It seems like that until you've really got something to concentrate on, and then you realise just how many interruptions there are in a day. Washing, feeding, dressings, injections, library trolley, doctor's round, patients' chatter—"
"And you want to do the thing properly and have a nice quiet study for the great man's muse to get to work—with a whacking great DO NOT DISTURB on the door," Fay teased him, picking up the pad at the same time.
Years of practice in reading MSS had made her a quick reader and assessor of style. She liked the few paragraphs she read under the title "Life's Beginning."
"Is this going to be your own life story?" she asked.
"No, not altogether—" Geoff's eyes searched her face. "It won't be biographical—a bit is me and a bit fiction."
Fay scanned a page or two and then gave a professional reaction. "Don't write in the first person. Publishers have a slight prejudice against it unless it's the autobiography of a well-known person. And besides, it restricts you to your own factual knowledge—and you can only present your characters from recorded observations of them or from things they say and do in your hearing. As an author, on the other hand, you can be omniscient, and what's even better, you can make
your characters behave as you want them to behave. Have you got far?"
She looked at her patient to find that he was staring at her as though he had just had a great illumination. Before he spoke he suddenly seized the looseleaf pad he had been using and ripped off the top pages.
"No, not far. And now I know why I couldn't get on—I couldn't see how I was going to achieve the conclusion I wanted. But you've shown me where I was going wrong. Thanks a lot, Sister—I'll be able to go right ahead now—though I might need a few injections of inspiration from time to time."
She laughed and turned away from the bed, and nearly cannoned into Mark Osborne who had come up silently behind her. "I've arranged for Mr. Wentworth to have some ultra-violet treatment in the physiotherapy department to see if it will induce that leg wound to heal," he said. "Will you arrange his routine to fit in with them, please?"
"Of course sir." Fay was at her most professional—perhaps in order to counteract the feeling she had that in the Registrar's eyes she was being unprofessional in her chat with Geoff. She did not know why he made her feel like this unless it was perhaps his persistent use of the formal "Mr. Wentworth" when everyone else called him Geoff.
"Will you have a look at Mr. Lambert while you're here? His breathing still seems very difficult and he complains of pain in his chest."
This patient had had his gall bladder removed, and having been a very heavy smoker for upwards of fifty years he had not taken kindly to the anaesthetic it had been necessary to give him.
"Can't seem to get enough air into me, doc," he complained. "Reckon if I was allowed to have a good pull at me old pipe, that'd clear the chubes a bit."
"Worst thing you could do," Mark told the old man with a smile when he had finished sounding his chest. "Now I'll get Sister to give you a nice draught of good clean air from time to time—that'll help you." And he gave Fay the necessary instructions to keep a cylinder of oxygen by the man's
bedside and to give him a spell under the tent when his breathing became particularly difficult.
Unfortunately, however, old Mr. Lambert was not always alert enough to tell the duty nurses when he was getting short of breath, so that many of the nearby patients often gave the warning for him. One period, however, when he was almost sure to need a spell under the oxygen tent was after visiting time when he had been talking more than usual. Flip went down the ward to him almost automatically one Wednesday after the visitors had just left and switched on the cylinder, fixed him up under the tent, and then went back to the kitchen to start serving teas. For a moment or two the ward was left unattended, though there were two nurses in the kitchen and Fay was in her office talking to Mark Osborne about a case who was due for operation the following morning.
Suddenly an urgent cry of "Sister !" went up from the ward. In an instant Fay was out of the office-and through the ward door. There was a confused babble of cries, but the first thing Fay saw amiss was Geoff out of his bed and apparently attempting to make his way down the ward, but half collapsing in the attempt.
She and Mark both went to help him, but gasping with the pain he had caused himself by his attempt to use his game leg he panted, "No—no—not me—Lambert ! He's got a pipe under the bedclothes !"
It did not take an instant for the danger to register with Fay, although it seemed to her as though she had turned to stone. With the oxygen pouring out of the cylinder in the confined space under the tent there could be an explosion any second.
She felt as though her limbs had become suddenly as heavy as lead. The distance to Lambert's bed seemed endless miles. She had to get to that cylinder and turn the key—she had to—
Suddenly she found herself flung to the opposite side of the ward—not by the impact of the expected explosion but by a pair of strong hands as Mark thrust himself between her and the cylinder, nearly flinging her to the floor with his urgency.
It was all over in an instant. The danger was past and there was no harm done. Old Mr. Lambert, whose visitors, thinking to give him a treat, had filled and lighted his pipe for him, had concealed it under the bedclothes when Flip came to put him under the tent. He had learned his lesson, though, and there was no need for Mark to read him the obvious lecture—he had been too badly scared.
They turned their attention to Geoff, but on the whole he was rather pleased with himself. The emergency had proved to him that he could walk after a fashion—even though it was pretty painful.