A few days later when the lists came out there were moans or rejoicings on all sides. Flip was one of the lucky ones and had got her transfer to Stanhope Ward.
Among the batch of girls who came on to the children's ward there were a number of raw recruits coming on to the wards for the first time, but to balance their lack of experience there was one other of the rank of staff nurse. But she too was new to children's work, and for a week or ten days Fay was not sure whether she was on her head or her heels, trying to keep the ward running and instruct the younger nurses at the same time as correcting the many mistakes they made in the records.
When she got a call to Matron's office one morning she thought it was because of a report she had made on Sister Browning's account of the first showing of some of the new nurses; she was prepared to substantiate the remarks she had made, although they implied
criticism of the establishment
in the arrangements of the girls' duties.
When she presented herself Matron looked her up and down before telling her to sit down. But it seemed that Matron had not called her in to talk about the report, but about herself.
"Well, Nurse," she began, "how are you liking work in pediatrics?"
"Oh, very much indeed, Matron," said Fay enthusiastically. "I'm very happy."
"Sister Browning thinks very highly of your work, too," there was a slight pause, then Matron went on rather with the air of a conjuror producing a rabbit out of a hat, "So it may come as a surprise to you to hear that I am moving you. Not an unpleasant surprise, I hope," she went on, smiling graciously. "I am short of Sisters. Sister Neames is on six months' compassionate leave. Sister Graham is on sick leave,
and now Sister Rainbow has to have an urgent operation and will be away at least three months. Now you have had experience as a Sister, so I am appointing you as temporary Ward Sister in place of Sister Rainbow. That is to say from Monday next you will be in charge of Men's Surgical, Stanhope Ward."
IT did not take long via the grapevine for the news of Fay's appointment to permeate the hospital.
There had of course been no question as to her acceptance. Certainly Matron had no doubts on the subject and though for one wild panic-stricken moment Fay had nearly cried out "Oh no Not Stanhope !" the challenge to her professional pride won an easy victory.
In her inmost heart she had known that this was inevitable right from the beginning. It was not possible even in the seclusion of the "Seminary" that in so enclosed a community she and Mark should not one day come face to face. When she had assimilated the idea she could even see that it was better that their meetings should be frequent and in the clear hard light of the ward with Shorty and nurses and patients all part of the picture. Better by far that their meeting should be on an entirely professional basis.
It was not easy to reach that state of mind, however. When Fay emerged from Matron's office her mind and her heart were in a turmoil and she did not tell anyone on the ward what had been the purport of her summons. Sister Browning would be officially informed soon enough, and as for the rest of the staff, their curiosity went unheeded so far as Fay was concerned—not for any reason of unfriendliness on her part, but simply because she could not yet trust her; self to speak dispassionately on the subject.
When she went down to supper that evening it certainly did not occur to her either that the news of her promotion
could yet be known, or that it could be responsible for the unmistakable "atmosphere" among her table companions.
There was an unnatural silence in which everyone seemed passionately interested in a most unappetising dish which went by the name of shepherd's pie. Flip was actually reading, or pretending to read, when Fay sat down opposite her.
It was not, however, in Flip's nature to be silent for long. She looked up from her book and demanded of
Fay
truculently, "You got friends in high places, or something?"
"What on earth do you mean? Of course I haven't," Fay denied with a puzzled frown.
"Well, all I can say is that it looks like it," Flip went on, and then it all poured out. "Lena Banks has done staff for more than three years and she was promised the next Ward Sister's job that came vacant, and now you're appointed to Stanhope and you've not done three months yet, hardly. If that isn't favouritism I don't know what is !"
Inspiration must have come to Fay's rescue then and put the soft answer into her mouth even before she could work it out for herself.
"But it's such a temporary appointment—Sister Rainbow is only expected to be away for about three months. I expect that's why they didn't appoint Banks. It wouldn't have been fair to put her on Sister's duties for a month or two and then reduce her to staff again. But with me it didn't matter because I had already agreed with Matron that I was prepared to work as a staff nurse."
Flip stared at her with a doubtful air. Plainly she wanted to stick up for the rights of Banks, but plainly too belligerence was not in her line at all.
"Could be, I s'pose," she agreed. "Anyway, you didn't ask for a transfer, did you?"
"I most certainly didn't!" Fay told her with such emphasis that Flip's remaining doubts were removed.
"Oh well, they'll just have to put that in their pipes and smoke it, won't they! I believe you—and I say it'll be jolly good working with you again, as a matter of fact. You won't turn all starch and strychnine when you put on your Sister's uniform, will you?"
"I hope not," Fay told her with a smile as she saw the
last trace of animosity fade from Flip's insouciantly expressive face.
She did not linger long over her supper that night, however, but went up to her own room. She needed to be alone to get to grips with this new situation before she dared follow it to any sort of conclusion.
Flip had referred to "friends in high places." Surely, Fay thought, surely Mark could not have asked for her to be transferred to one of his wards? That sort of thing might just conceivably happen in some of the smaller hospitals back home where medical and nursing staff were on very familiar terms, but not here in a London hospital. Besides, why should he? Fay asked as the cold touch of logic descended upon her. If anything, Mark would be more anxious not to meet her again than she was not to meet him. After all, he had kissed her first. "I hope he won't be embarrassed," she thought—and that was not so much for his sake as because she knew that if he did show embarrassment it would be the surest way to shake her own equilibrium.
And then she remembered that he might well be just as much in the dark about her connection with St. Edith's as she had been about his position there. True, he did know her name, but she doubted if Toni had ever thought to mention that she had helped her to a post in his hospital, and even if he had heard of the new appointment to Stanhope Ward he might not associate it with her.
Her final conclusion was that Mark might very well show not only embarrassment but also shock at the sight of her, and she schooled herself to meet it.
As things turned out, she need not have worried. Nothing could have been more ordinary than their meeting.
She had been on duty with Sister Rainbow over the weekend in order to get into the swing of things in Stanhope Ward, but it seemed that Mr. Osborne had not been on duty over the weekend. She knew, however, that he could not fail to do a round on Monday and steeled herself to meet him with whatever degree of recognition that he afforded her.
He came before she expected him and she was at the far end of the ward dealing with a rather difficult patient who was refusing to co-operate with the more junior nurses.
Flip came down the ward with the rapid sliding gait which was just not running and said with a little gasp, "Mr. Osborne, Sister," and with a heavenward turn of her eyes expressed very dramatically her own feelings for the "dishy" Mr. Osborne.
Fay, with a final cautionary word to the patient, walked to the other end of the ward where Mark and Shorty were standing just inside the door waiting for her. Never did the distance seem so long or the floor so slippery.
Mark's face was impassive. "Good morning, Sister," he said pleasantly "You are taking over from Sister Rainbow, I understand?"
"Yes—just temporarily," she told him.
He looked at her with a long searching glance which Fay could not quite fathom and then nodded briefly and said, "Let's take a look at the patients, shall we?"
The round proceeded on strictly professional lines—at least as far as Sister and Registrar were concerned, but Shorty nearly disgraced himself by trying repeatedly to fix a date with Fay by soundless lip-talking. Each time before he could get the message across to Fay, who only greeted it with a frown, Mark recalled him to the patient's notes or condition abruptly, although from all the signs he could not have been aware of Shorty's efforts.
At the end of the round, just before the two doctors passed through the swing doors, he turned to Fay with a smile and said, "I must congratulate you, Sister, on the way you've done your homework. I hope you'll be very happy here—Sister Gabriel." And with that he was gone.
After the round was over and Fay was straightening the files on her desk she suddenly threw back her head and laughed. What had she been afraid of? Just because the whole atmosphere of Beechcroft had been so utterly beyond her ken she had built up all her experiences there into gigantic, dramatic proportions. It suddenly seemed to her absurd that she should have been so troubled by a kiss under the mistletoe. Even for a married man there was no harm in that. And that was all it had been—just a kiss under the mistletoe at a Christmas party.
But even in the clinical atmosphere of her office Fay had
to admit that the experience had left a scar on her. No need for her to feel degraded, though, for Mark had obviously been quite unaware that on her side she had given her love with the kiss. She stood for a moment, remembering—and a little shiver went through her. She was remembering not Beechcroft, but the way Mark had spoken her name that morning. "Sister Gabriel" he had said, but he had spoken it as though it had been her christian name and spelt differently. Like Toni spoke it when she was confused as to whether that was her name and not Fay. It told her nothing, promised nothing, but left her with the tantalising certainty that Mark did not intend that in their new relationship the old could be entirely left out.
Perhaps by reason of the constantly changing stream of patients who pass through a ward, some of them for quite serious operations, the life of a Ward Sister seems to pass more quickly than it actually does, and after only a week on Stanhope Ward it seemed to Fay as though she had been there all her life. And she was loving it. Men patients were of course notoriously easier to handle than women, and in Stanhope they all revelled in a pretty young Sister who was at the same time one hundred per cent efficient.
Fay was lucky too in her nurses. They were all happy to be on a surgical ward, and a men's ward at that, and they co-operated to the full. Fay had just wondered if there would be any difficulties with Flip, for while they had both been on Anderson ward they had been friends almost as equals. Fortunately, however, Flip had the loyalty and the good sense not to presume on that friendship during working hours, and proved herself a most able ally.
Her staff nurse, Kate Moore, might have presented a bit of a problem too, for she was almost twice Fay's age. But she made her position clear from the very first.
"Now don't you be put off, Sister dear, because I'm old enough to be your mother. I ought to have been a Sister myself years ago, and it's my own choice that I'm not. By nature you see I'm a bit of a coward—and so I'm happy to be taking me orders from a chit of a girl like yourself and wondering how you have the guts to be shouldering the burdens the way ye are. And that's the truth of it."
"I shall be very glad of your experience, Staff," Fay told her, smiling up at the homely Irish face as she sat at her desk.
"Aye, I've plenty of that," the other agreed, "and if there's anything about St. Edith's you'll be wanting to know, why Kate Moore's the girl to tell you! I started my nursing days here and it's here I'll be hoping to end them."
"Then St. Edith's should count itself very fortunate," Fay told her, and she was not just being polite or matching charm with charm, for such a record was unusual and she already knew Staff Nurse Moore's reputation in the hospital. "First of all then, Staff, tell me something about our consultants. What sort of men are they—have they any particular likes or dislikes?"
"The two we have at present on this ward are fine fellows —proper gentlemen both. Mr. Snow—he's the senior. Getting on in his sixties now, and a little conservative, some say—never operates until he's quite sure there's no other way out of it. Not so popular with some of the younger patients who want to get it over. They want to be up and about again in the shortest possible time. They don't realise that the good Lord didn't give them all their bits and pieces for no good reason at all. He's particularly down on younger women wanting a hysterectomy for any but the best reasons."
"I'm with him there," Fay said grimly, having had experience of that type of woman in the Commemoration Hospital.