Consulting Surgeon (15 page)

But when it came, after a pause that seemed significant, it told her nothing. He said: “Perhaps it is that, lacking the austerities of your uniform, you appear a little more approachable, more vulnerable. That dress...”

She was in love. She had chosen the dress for his eyes alone. But she made her tone as light as she judged his to have been as she replied: “You have seen me out of uniform before.”

“But not by moonlight.”

“Moonlight is notoriously deceptive.” She wondered whether they were upon the edge of a conventionally flirtatious exchange and despised herself for her part in it.

Matthew said gravely: “You are very sure of yourself, aren’t you? I could use other descriptions—untouched, poised, remote—but they add up to assuredness. And that challenges a man. In fact, some women make it their technique.”

“You suggest that it is part of mine?” She was trembling.

He shook his head. “No. With you I judge it to be real—part of your character, in fact. And that has been formed by an evenness of fortune that has never challenged you yet. You could not possibly be so sure if you had ever suffered, known failure, ached with longing, been baffled by frustration, loved, and feared you were not loved in return. You are”—he turned to her and seemed to find in the cream and green of her dress the comparison he sought—“you are like a flower bud that keeps its petals tightly wrapped about its heart, either not ready or not willing to meet the wind of circumstance. I’ve no doubt that spells safety to you, but it is what I mean by the challenge you offer to a man.”

How wrong he was! How utterly, cruelly wrong! She said in a low voice: “Surely in time the bud will open—to the sun? But, of course, the wind of a man’s arrogance can’t wait for that. It must try to tear it apart—for sheer destruction’s sake!”

He turned to her urgently. “No! For—” He broke off as his arms went round her, crushing her to him while his lips sought her mouth, her throat and then more gently her brow.

For a moment the answering passion within her yielded to him and her body curved into his embrace as if she thought, for one mad instant of time, this were really love.

But it was not. It was not! And even now she had not the plea that he had cheated her. He had been at pains to explain beforehand lightly, cynically, that she had done no more than pique his male pride. He loved, he was engaged to marry another woman, yet he must still turn destructive hands upon
her
!

She was still trembling as she tore herself out of his arms. She felt his own hands quiver as they fell reluctantly from her shoulders. But she told herself she could not afford to pity his wounded pride of conquest. Now he must let her go. They had no more to say to each other.

But as, sick at heart, she turned away, he said: “Apologies have never come easily to me.”

Chillingly she replied: “I should not have expected you would find it necessary to apologize for something that, on your own admission, was no more than an interesting experiment.”

“You believe that?”

“Didn’t you take trouble to prepare me to believe it?”

As she left him there was dignity in the carriage of her head, the line of her shoulders, the very whisper of her dress upon the floor.

But in her heart there was the final setting of a hope that should never have dawned.

CHAPTER EIGHT

PERHAPS it was inevitable that after the Centenary everyone should be suffering from a sense of anticlimax. In the common room tempers were short, and on the wards even the bedridden patients, whose interest in the gaieties had been only at secondhand, were depressed and inclined to irritability.

For Ursula, whose very confidence had been destroyed by that cruelly tantalizing moment in Matthew’s arms, the days seemed to offer trials which earlier she could have taken in her stride, but which, she was appalled to notice, now taxed her strength and patience almost beyond endurance.

“I’m not ill, and all this will pass in time,” she assured herself again and again. But every morning she flinched before the reflection in her mirror of the darkened circles beneath her eyes; her duty hours loomed like ordeals to be endured, and her nights became a ceaseless fight for sleep against the churning activity of her mind. Her only consolation was that she had not to face Matthew. For he had mentioned at dinner at Shere Court before the Ball that he was taking some weeks’ vacation, and that his work would be done by Mr. Chaddesleigh while he was away.

The Indian summer which had graced the Centenary celebrations had broken suddenly into the autumn that was already overdue, and Mrs. Craig began to chafe restlessly against remaining any longer at Sheremouth.

“Weather doesn’t matter so much in town,” she declared, shivering. “If it weren’t for Coralie, I wouldn’t have stayed so long. But now, thank goodness, Mr. Denman and Dirk are coming to London too.”

Ursula was sorry to see them go, but she was happy for Coralie, and at their parting responded eagerly to the girl’s ecstatic hug.

“Bear, darling,” declared Coralie with rare generosity, “do you know, I’ve realized that Dirk is really all your doing?”

“Coralie, my pet, I must disclaim all responsibility for the existence of Dirk!” retorted Ursula with spirit.

“But you can’t! How should I ever have met him if you hadn’t known Matthew—outside hospital, I mean—and hadn’t gone with him to Shere Court in the first place?”

“
If you hadn
’
t known Matthew and hadn
’
t gone with him to Shere Court
.” ‘What irony, that a chance fortune which at first flung Coralie into a hopeless infatuation, should now spell happiness for her and only heartbreak for me!’ was Ursula’s swift thought.

But Coralie was worrying: “Now that I couldn’t care less about Matthew for myself, I do wish Averil treated him better—”

“Really, I think you could let Matthew fend for himself, Coralie!” Ursula’s tone was cold.

“How can he, when he’s not here and doesn’t know what’s going on? That Brigadier Dallant has stayed on at the Court and is taking Averil
everywhere.
It’s what I said would happen. When Averil is married to Matthew she will do the same to him as she did to Foster—she’ll break his heart and won’t even care!”

“And there’s still not a thing
you
can do about it, dear,” Ursula assured her wearily. But in her present bitterness she doubted that Averil Damon’s power to hurt could possibly be greater than Matthew’s own.

Ned was the next to go.

Though he had been an ideal patient while he was really ill, convalescence irked him, and as soon as he could hobble a few steps he clamored for discharge.

“It’s the maddening regularity of everything—the meals, the washings, the dressings—all to the tick of the clock,” he complained ruefully to Ursula.

“We couldn’t run a hospital except by the clock, Ned,” she reminded him. But she knew that time was a tyranny to which Ned had never yet yielded, and that even to eat or to sleep by normal people’s habit was beyond his power.

Now she was alone again, as she had been before. And the inexorable routine of Christian Shere ward went on.

Grannie Mottram, offered a variety of covers for her hot-water bottle—the range included plush, crochet and flannel—discarded them as well as the bottle with withering scorn; Miss Calcum lay in bed concocting pinpricks of constant demand upon the nurses—or so it seemed to Ursula’s jangled nerves; and the whole ward, loving little Sarah Caspar and admiring her for her long months of courage, now found itself dismayed and baffled by her present despair.

Ursula exerted every power of persuasion she had to rally her towards hope. “You are getting well at last, Sarah,” she urged. “Mr. Lingard is sure of it; we all know it here on the ward. If you can only be patient for a week or two more Mr. Lingard may get you up and allow you to walk a few steps. Just at first, that is. Then when you have had a little practice you’ll gradually walk more. Imagine how proud we shall be when we meet you striding about the ward!”

Sarah plucked restlessly at her sheet. “Mr. Lingard is only
saying
that,” she muttered.

“Sarah, look at me!” Ursula’s voice was imperative, but the hand that was laid upon the girl’s was infinitely gentle.

Sarah raised reluctant eyes.

“Tell me, have you known Mr. Lingard to break any promise he has made to you? About making a successful operation on your hip? About letting me tell you just what is happening to it while it mends?
Have
you, Sarah?”

“N-no, Sister, I suppose not...”

“Then why can’t you believe that he is telling the truth now, when he promises that in a very little while you will be walking?”

There was a long, pregnant pause. Relentlessly Ursula held the girl’s gaze; wide-eyed, Sarah stared back at her. Then the floodgates of her bewilderment broke. She turned her face into her pillows and burst into a storm of weeping.

Silently Ursula rose and pulled a screen about her bed. Then: “Sarah, what is it?” she asked gently. “Don’t you believe that at least
I
’
d
tell you the truth—always?”

Sarah lifted her ravaged face. “I—I want to, Sister. You’ve been so good to me and I love you so. But
she
says that nothing any of you—the nurses or the doctors—tell us is ever true, and that you just say things to deceive us into thinking we are getting well when we aren’t. She said that Mr. Lingard is just p-playing with me, experimenting, I believe she said—” The tears flowed again, choking the words.

In sheer perplexity Ursula looked down at the bent tragic head.

“ ‘She!” Who on earth could have been so malignant? No nurse, certainly. Who then could have so poisoned the child’s mind?’

“Who told you this, Sarah?” she asked quietly.

“Miss—Miss Calcum. She is always saying it. She says that no one has troubled to cure her, and why should I think that Mr. Lingard cares about curing
me
?”

Though Ursula found herself aghast at what she heard, she realized that her first duty lay in the reassurance of the child who had at last given up her rankling, hope-destroying secret. With both Sarah’s hands in hers she set herself to the task, first asking her to recall some of the many cases they had both seen brought in to Christian Shere—some of them broken, despairing people who had gone out again weeks or months later, facing their futures with new hope. Then she demanded whether Sarah supposed that
they
had not had to trust their surgeons and their nurses and to try to believe of them what they said.

Gradually, by a mental effort of her own that was exhausting, she knew herself to have gained ground on the girl’s doubts. And when she left Sarah at last she believed that she had at least laid the foundations of new confidence in Sarah’s heart.

When, later, she sought out Miss Calcum, she reflected that it was as well that she had waited for her anger to cool. Now she thought that she could act with justice, though she meant ruthlessly to destroy any chance that the malice could be repeated.

The day was raw but still, and Miss Calcum had demanded that her bed should be wheeled out on to the balcony, saying she was “stifled” in the ward. Once settled out there, she claimed she was cold and wished to be brought back. But Ursula, knowing she had been put in a sheltered corner, instructed the probationers to leave her there as she wished to speak to her alone.

Crisply and concisely Ursula dealt with the matter of Sarah’s fears—despairs that had been fostered by the work of a cruel, malicious tongue.

Miss Calcum bridled and flushed. “I only speak as I find, Sister. Even by
your
countless rules and regulations, one may have one’s opinions, I suppose?”

“Certainly. But they shouldn’t be passed on to the destruction of another person’s hope. Sometimes, Miss Calcum, enduring hope and the will to recover are the only qualities doctors and nurses have to work upon. Sarah had plenty of both until you saw fit to destroy them.”

“She has
needed
plenty of both, surely? Months, the child has been here—”

“She will be here for months yet. But every day will take her so many hours nearer to full recovery, if
you
let her alone, which I must ask you to do.”

“Are you forbidding me, Sister Craig, to speak to another patient who happens to be in the same ward as myself?”

“I am not forbidding you, Miss Calcum. I am asking you merely not to discuss Sarah’s case with her. Won’t you agree to that?”

Miss Calcum blustered: “You shall not issue orders to me when not one of you—doctors, surgeons, nurses alike—has ever attempted to understand my case or what I go through—”

“I think we can claim to have tried.”

“Then you have succeeded singularly badly. Never have I had less attention, less consideration, more interference with my wishes—!”

But at that point, Ursula, fearing to be betrayed into a blameworthy retort, bowed before the storm of words and returned to the ward.

How difficult it was to keep any such matter private was something which experience of hospital had already taught her. In the sluice-room, in the ward kitchen, even in the general dining room she could sense the eager, gossiping talk which it caused.

At any other time, she told herself, she would have risen above it—would have jokingly parted the chattering probationers, conveyed lightly to outsiders that a minor crisis on Christian Shere ward was no concern of theirs. But the depression that weighed her down magnified the incident out of all proportion until, by the time its sequel was complete, she had taken the blame entirely to herself.

She was returning to duty the following day when she was met by Nurse Freedom, full of the drama of the morning’s happenings. “Sister, what do you think? Miss Calcum has gone!”

“Miss Calcum—left hospital? What are you talking about, Staff? She hasn’t had her discharge from Mr. Chaddesleigh.”

“Well, believe it or not, her bed is empty now. She insisted on discharging herself this morning. Demanded that a pro. should help her to pack her things, called a taxi and went—just like that.”

“But you tried to dissuade her? You did
something,
surely? Of course, you reported it?”

“Of course, Sister. I rang Matron’s office; she wasn’t on duty, but Senior Sister came over and talked to Miss Calcum, tried to insist that she should at least wait to see Mr. Chaddesleigh. But Milady wouldn’t listen to a word, and took herself off.”

“But she wasn’t ready for discharge! Mr. Lingard—”

“She said she was going to an excellent doctor she knew—a man who was being kept out of practice by nothing but the malice of the B.M.A.,” put in Nurse Freedom, not without a faint malice of her own.

“Oh, dear, that means a quack.” Ursula drew out a chair and sat down, pressing a hand to her brow. After a moment or two she looked up to ask: “Where do you suppose we could have failed so completely with her, Freedom?”

“
We
failed with
her?
Why, Sister, we’ve done everything! You, especially—”

“Everything, seemingly, but the right thing. Everything but what Mr. Lingard said she needed most—reassurance of her own importance, making her feel of interest to somebody, letting her know that we really cared that she should get well.”

“Well, we did—if only for the prospect of seeing the last of her one day. And I thought I was a nurse on a surgical ward—not a trick-cyclist.” There was a stout hint of rebellion in Nurse Freedom’s voice, and Ursula managed an answering smile.

“A robust attitude to the job which I can’t help envying, Freedom,” she said ruefully.

“As if you needed to envy anyone’s qualities on
this
job, Sister!” was the loyal reply. But Nurse Freedom, fetching her cloak and going off duty remained puzzled by a dejection which she had never seen Sister give way to before.

“It’s just not like her to be unable to cope,” she confided to Nurse Bates, her bosom crony from Miller ward, when they met at lunch.

“Could be she has quarrelled with her boy friend,” offered Nurse Bates laconically. “Eats into the system, that does.”

“Could be! It could
not!
Sister Craig isn’t interested in men!” The withering glance which accompanied the words ended the discussion forthwith.

On the ward Ursula went mechanically about her duties, driving herself to attend meticulously to every possible detail, lest neglect of a single one should betray Matthew’s trust still further.

For that was the self-reproach that beat relentlessly in her thoughts. In allowing Miss Calcum to leave hospital she had failed Matthew. Nowhere but in her work had he appreciated her. But there he had trusted and believed in her implicitly. And in that, her only value to him, she had failed.

This was visiting today, and though that meant comparative ease for the junior nurses, for the sister of any ward it always brought a continual busyness. Ursula dealt with one visitor after another. Some came to her office shyly to ask questions; others brought a string of complaints; others again came anxious to the ward and left it completely reassured.

She did not know—though she would have been infinitely grateful if she had—that the majority verdict of the visitors to Christian Shere ward was always: “That Sister Craig—is so nice. Never minds listening to what you have to tell her. Tells you all she can too. Somehow makes you feel she really
wants
to understand...”

When the last visitor had gone there were the patients’ teas to be seen to; the probationers dealt with these, but then there were the dressings which took her right through until seven, when the night staff took over.

Back in her own room in the nurses’ quarter she was irresolute whether to go to the dining room as usual or to go for a walk instead.

The night—inclined to fogginess after the still day—was uninviting, but her throat felt tight, and she doubted her ability either to eat or talk. She would content herself with the optional cocoa and biscuits at ten and she would go out now. She would not bother to change. She would take off her apron and throw her cloak over her uniform.

She took the Downs road that climbed past Shere Court. Another half mile or so beyond the house the road dwindled to little more than a track, but, confident that she knew the way she meant to take, she trudged along in the wreathing fog, her thoughts intent only upon the self-accusation that drummed continually at the forefront of her mind.

What else could she have done to keep Miss Calcum’s confidence? If she had been wise enough or had chosen her words better, could she have been less direct about Sarah Caspar, but yet have ensured that the child was in future to be safe from the soured, bitter tongue?

Or had the damage been done further back still? Had she ever really understood—as, strangely, Matthew had seemed to do almost at once—that deep, fundamental need of the lonely woman to be loved, to be wanted, to
belong
?

Tomorrow, at latest, there would be a “carpet”—the hospital equivalent of a court martial. Matron would want to know every detail of why and how Miss Calcum had discharged herself without her acting surgeon’s consent. There would be questions and explanations, but because she knew herself sure of justice, Ursula hardly feared the prospect. It was Matthew who had believed her equal to the task he had set her; Matthew whom she had failed; Matthew who would eventually judge her by the rare standard of perfection which he set himself and expected of her.

Suddenly she checked, realizing too late how swiftly the fog had thickened about her, and that she did not now know in which direction she faced.

South towards the sea? Northward over the Downs? Had she turned in her tracks—once, twice or at all? The impenetrable grey curtain gave no clue.

She drew her cloak more closely about her, stood still and tried to lay a calming hold upon her raw nerves.

It was said that people lost in fog tended to walk in circles. Well, there should still be some clue to direction. Somewhere the fog must surely be lightened by the night glare from the town. It was there, wasn’t it? No, over there. But her eyes smarted with staring, and she listened for the dull boom of the sea instead.