Hospital Corridors (12 page)

“Mrs. Sanders, I just looked in to see how you are, and to tell you I saw your son over the weekend.”

“Morton—did you?” Mrs. Sanders’ voice sounded less plaintive than usual, and much less excited than it had that morning.

“Yes. I was up at Bonaventure. I’m afraid Anne was away, so we weren’t able to give her the present you sent.”

“Present?” Something alert and apprehensive quivered in the one word. But Dr. Lanyon’s calm, soothing tones went on,

“Yes. Miss Gill told me how you wanted Anne to have your bracelet, but that—”

“Told you? She had no right to tell you anything! I particularly warned her—” Miss Sanders’ voice stopped suddenly, almost as though someone had clapped a hand over her mouth.

There was a very slight pause. Then Dr. Lanyon went on pleasantly,

“Well, it doesn’t matter now. The bracelet is safe back with you, and no one is really interested in why it left you or how it came back. The whole thing is best forgotten. I’m afraid I must go, Miss Ardingley. I haven’t had my lunch yet.”

There was a decorous murmur of sympathy from Miss Ardingley. Then Dr. Lanyon came out into the corridor and closed the door of Mrs. Sanders’ room behind him.

For a moment, the pale, wide-eyed girl who was standing there actually thought he was going to pass her without a word. She put out her hand, though she did not actually touch him, and all her gratitude and relief and appeal went into the one, almost whispered, “Thank you!”

He stopped then and stood looking down at her for a moment.

“Well,” he said drily, “I hope the weekend was worth the price. I should call it a high one, myself.” And behind the outward chill and the weariness and the slight exasperation, Madeline suddenly recognized a faint glimpse of the humour that had always attracted her to Nat Lanyon.

CHAPTER IX

“The
Case of the Missing Bracelet! Solved by Dr. Lanyon with his customary brilliance. That man is getting a streamlined rescue technique.” And Eileen, who with Ruth had gathered in Madeline’s room in a mood of almost riotous relief, laughed aloud. “I thought you couldn’t possibly ask him to help you, Madeline,” she went on teasingly. “You’d had a quarrel or something. I take! it you’ve made it up?” And her eyes sparkled with mischief and interest.

Madeline laughed and flushed for a moment, but she did not answer that, and Ruth said, almost violently for her,

“I should have liked to see Mrs. Sanders’ face when she realized she’d convicted herself out of her own mouth. She’s a menace, that woman. I shall be glad to see the back of her.”

“And I!” agreed Madeline with a sigh. Though, even then, she reflected that to see the last of Mrs. Sanders in any real sense would mean a break with Morton—and that she was not prepared to contemplate.

“We have hardly had a chance to ask you about your weekend,” Ruth said. “Let’s go out for a meal together and hear about it.”

“Very well. But in half an hour’s time. I’m too exhausted to move at the moment,” declared Madeline, who was lying full length on her bed, and did indeed look pale and tired. “I feel as though I’ve been continually on duty for thirty-six hours.”

The others laughed sympathetically.

“Dr. Lanyon looked pretty washed out when I saw him leaving the Pavilion,” Ruth remarked reflectively. “Had Mrs. Sanders worn him down too?”

“Oh, no! He managed her with one hand, so to speak,” Madeline asserted. “No, he was feeling the reaction of four hours’ operating, I think, and was a good deal worried over one case at least.”

“How do you know?” enquired Eileen curiously. “He hasn’t reached the point of discussing his cases with you, has he?”

“Of course not! But he happened to mention it when I was over in his office.”

Eileen regarded her with wide, reflective eyes.

“I don’t know why you weren’t
petrified
at the idea of going over to worry any of the surgeons, but most of all Dr. Lanyon, with your own affairs, just as he was going to operate.”

“I was petrified,” said Madeline simply. “But I was also completely desperate about the bracelet incident.”

“I feel bound to say you took a great risk,” Ruth told her, with a smile and a shake of her head. “If Flossie had guessed or Miss Onslow had seen you or anyone had reported you, I don’t need to tell you that you’d have been in real trouble.”

“I know, Ruth. But I had to see him myself.”

“But wasn’t
he
angry?” Eileen wanted to know. “Surely he also knew that you should have been on duty?”

“Yes, he was angry,” Madeline admitted briefly. “But—but after I’d explained, he agreed to come.”

“You know, you’ve missed your vocation,” Eileen told her solemnly. “If you can talk round an angry Dr. Lanyon, you ought to be Counsel for the Defence in murder cases. It would be child’s play to you, with your powers of persuasion.”

Madeline laughed—but a little vexedly when she remembered that it had been tears, rather than words, that had finally persuaded Dr. Lanyon. At least, she supposed it had.

“Well, it all seems satisfactorily over now,” Ruth said. “The only remaining hurdle is the difficulty of re-establishing any normal relations with Mrs. Sanders, I suppose.”

But, in this at any rate, Ruth was wrong. Mrs. Sanders, who knew so well how to create a situation, also knew how to extricate herself from it. She simply ignored it, with masterly completeness.

When Madeline, in the normal course of duty, went reluctantly into her room the following day, there were no hysterics nor reproachful charges. Still less was there any apology, Mrs. Sanders spoke as though there had never been any trouble between them. And, after a moment and with some considerable effort, Madeline replied in the same vein.

It dawned on her, after a few minutes, that she was being forgiven for being the injured party. And since at this point her sense of humour came to her rescue, she was able to accept the position gracefully.

With one exception, no one else in the Pavilion made any reference to the bracelet incident again. The one exception was Madame Loncini who, having stayed as long as possible at the Pavilion because she was extremely comfortable there, was at last making her departure.

Having presented Madeline with a remarkably beautiful evening bag, as an unexpected parting gift, she enquired with an air of almost proprietorial interest,

“What is this nonsense about someone having lost a diamond bracelet?”

“It was not actually lost, Madame,” Madeline explained.

“No, no, I realize that. It is an old trick for gaining publicity. I would not stoop to it myself—there are better ways,” Madame Loncini explained with candour. “But who was it, and why did she need publicity?”

“The bracelet belonged to Mrs. Sanders and had nothing to do with publicity.”

“But if she did not want publicity, why did she pretend to lose the bracelet? This is even more foolish than the trick itself,” declared Madame Loncini majestically.

Very patiently Madeline explained that the whole thing had been a mistake. At the end, the singer said,

“I do not understand at all. But then some people act from the most inexplicable motives. If one wants publicity it is one thing. But if not, it is simply a waste of time to lose one’s jewellery.”

Then she rather emotionally kissed Madeline good-bye, and departed on the arm of one of her husbands—Madeline was never quite sure which.

During the next week life flowed with welcome smoothness, and Madeline began to feel recovered from the mental battering she had received. With Morton out of town she went out less, and took the opportunity of writing home at great length about her life and her experiences.

For the first time she wrote in some detail of Dr. Lanyon, having felt before a sort of self-conscious reticence on the subject—though whether on his behalf or her own, she was not sure. Now she told her stepmother of how he had rescued her from more than one dilemma, and the curious thing was that, as she strove to describe him exactly, he seemed to come before her with a clearness and a precision which were almost physical.

“I wish I’d never told him about Clarissa,” she thought (but she did not write this). “It was a nice, whimsical, friendly sort of relationship before. Now, I’m afraid he’s decided to dislike me and avoid me.”

But she remembered how he had looked at her in the passage, outside Mrs. Sanders’ room, and she took heart a little and hoped he might possibly come to see her as herself again, and not just as Clarissa’s sister.

It was the more disconcerting, therefore, when, instead of a reply from her stepmother, she received an unusually long air mail letter from Clarissa.

I was staying with Enid when your letter came [she wrote, in her round, clear handwriting], so of course I read it too. I was immensely amused, and really rather thrilled, to read so much about Nat Does he talk much about me, poor darling? Sometimes I wonder if I were not a bit too impulsive about that whole business.

“What does she mean by that, exactly,” thought Madeline, vaguely alarmed.

It made me feel quite romantic and nostalgic [the letter went on], to read your description of Nat handling your Miss Ardingley. I know exactly what you mean by his “thin, charming smile”. Cool and remote, but somehow rather compelling. If only he were not
quite
so dedicated to his work, he’d be a heartbreaker, but it’s difficult for a poor ordinary mortal to live in that rarefied atmosphere!

Is he really as brilliant as they say? Someone once told me that, short of raising one from the dead, there’s almost nothing he can’t do. Did I turn down a rather rare prize, Madeline? I should hate to think so—particularly when I’m feeling fed up with Gerald, which is, if I say the truth, a little too often these days.

Madeline read the rest of the letter without much attention. Then she turned back to the beginning and read again what Clarissa had to say about Nat Lanyon—right down to the disturbing reference to feeling “fed up” with Gerald.

“It’s fortunate that she doesn’t live over here,” Madeline thought grimly. “She would run to Dr. Lanyon for consolation every time she had a tiff with Gerald. And I should probably find myself involved too, I suppose.”

She folded up Clarissa’s letter and put it away. But, though it was out of sight, it did not go out of her mind. A vague unease in connection with it lingered with her and made her feel very self-conscious when next she met Nat Lanyon in the corridor.

Perhaps she would have felt that way in any case. There were enough uncomfortable circumstances between them, in all conscience. But he gave her that cool, level glance and merely said, “Good morning, Miss Gill.” And Madeline passed on, wondering why she was so foolish as to feel disappointed.

So far as the staff of the Dominion was concerned, the red-letter day which now loomed on the horizon was the occasion of the Annual Ball.

“It’s odd to have it in the summer, of course,” Eileen said, when she was explaining about it to Madeline, “but that’s something to do with the date when the hospital was founded. And anyway, as the big hall is air-conditioned, the heat doesn’t matter much, and it certainly is fun to have at least one full-dress ball out of season.”

“Does everyone go?” Madeline enquired.

“Everyone who isn’t on duty. And all the barriers of etiquette, social or medical, are down. The senior surgeon may dance with the most junior first-year nurse. Though in practice, of course, he never does, as the senior surgeon is dear old Dr. Prewett, whose dancing years must be thirty years behind him and who regards even graduate nurses as little more than toddlers.”

“And do any outsiders come?” Madeline wanted to know.

“Why, of course. Doctors bring their wives and sweethearts, and nurses their fiancés and boy-friends. You can get Morton Sanders to bring you, if that’s what you’re thinking about.”

It was what Madeline was thinking about, but she smiled and said, “I’ll see what he is doing that evening.”

She had not yet seen Morton since the weekend visit which had been so full of pleasure and fraught with such dramatic consequences. But he telephoned that evening and wanted to take her out to dinner.

It had been in her mind to tell him all about the incident of the bracelet, if only to warn him that his mother’s jealousy was so easily excited against herself. But everything was now so smooth and pleasant, on the surface at least, and she had, after all, come out of the affair quite well. Somehow it struck her as mean to expose Mrs. Sanders’ disgraceful conduct to the son of whom she was so genuinely fond. And so she held her peace about it.

Instead, as they sat together at a secluded corner table, gay and happy in each other’s company once more, she told him how she had at last admitted to Dr. Lanyon that she was Clarissa’s half-sister.

“You did? And how did he take it?” asked Morton, his laughing, admiring glance telling her that he found her beautiful.

“Not very well,” Madeline sighed. “I’m afraid Clarissa’s defection was such a blow to his pride and affections that he even extends his mortified anger to me.”

“Good,” said Morton.

“Morton! I don’t call that very friendly of you.”

“But I’m not a friend of Nat Lanyon’s.”

“I meant that it wasn’t very friendly to me.”

“Oh—I’m sorry, darling.” He laughed and drew his finger down the curve of her cheek. “Do you need to have a devoted Nat Lanyon in your pocket?”

“Not in my pocket!” Madeline found that the expression, in connection with the celebrated surgeon, actually shocked her a little. “And not specially devoted. But we had a very nice, rather humorous sort of friendship before. And somehow I always had the feeling that if—if I needed anyone very badly, he was there.”

“Well, if you need anyone very badly, I am there!”

“Not in the hospital,” Madeline said, and smiled as she remembered that first incident in the kitchen when he had been anything but a help to her.

“No, that’s true. Sometimes it irks me very much that most of your waking hours are spent in a place where I’m only admitted on sufferance and under strict surveillance.”

“Poor Morton!” Her glance rested on him, with a hint of tenderness of which she was unaware. “Well, your chance is coming. Apparently we have a Ball on Thursday of next week. Would you like to come?”

“As your partner?”

“Well, of course.”

“Then, equally—of course. But you must promise not to slip off and dance half the dances with Lanyon.”

“Morton, I shouldn’t think of such a thing! Nor, incidentally, would he. He’s not feeling at all pleased with me just now, and I’m afraid I’ve really had the final brush-off—except in a case of dire need.”

“What do you mean by a case of dire need?” Morton wanted to know.

“Well—” She could only think of the case when she had needed him so badly and he had, eventually, come. “Well, I suppose if I were in real trouble and he could help me, he would. But more in order to see abstract justice done than because of any friendly feeling.”

To her annoyance, Morton seemed to find this funny, and laughed a good deal, declaring that the idea of rescuing a pretty girl in the name of abstract justice had a flavour that was “pure Lanyon”.

Finding that both the amusement and the comment irritated her unduly, Madeline changed the subject. But before he left her that evening he made it plain that he expected to partner her at the Annual Ball.

Madeline now found herself looking forward to this event with as much eager anticipation as all the others. She would wear her grey chiffon dress, and the dramatic red stole. And the evening bag which Madame Loncini had given her would complete the picture.

It was to be hoped that Mrs. Sanders would not think of asking who was to be her partner for the occasion. But, even if she did find out that Madeline was going with Morton, she would be hard put to it to make any more mischief, after the fiasco of her last effort.

Then, three days before the Ball, Madeline was called to Miss Onslow’s office, and told of an almost sensational change in her duties.

“As you know, your appointment to the Pavilion was an emergency one, Miss Gill,” Miss Onslow said, “but I left you there as long as possible so that you could feel more settled. I hope to send you back there eventually. But for the next few weeks I am putting you on theatre work. It will give you a variety of experience, and one of our theatre nurses has gone sick. You’ll go on duty in Theatre No. 2 tomorrow. I think”—she reached for a chart—“Dr. Lanyon will be operating there tomorrow. Yes. You know him already, don’t you? And also Miss Dennis, who is the senior nurse in charge.”

“Yes, Miss Onslow,” was all Madeline produced in answer to all this information. But inwardly she was a good deal excited at the idea of seeing the fabulous Dr. Lanyon actually operating.

“I shall be sorry to lose you,” Ruth said, when she heard of the new arrangement. “But you’ll have an interesting time. Dr. Lanyon does most of his operating in Theatre No. 2, and that means a great variety of work. Are you used to theatre work?”

Madeline nodded.

“I had a great deal of it in my last year at All Souls, and, to tell the truth, I much prefer it to ward work.”

And so, the following day, Madeline went on duty in the block that she had visited only once before—and then in circumstances that precluded much cool observation. Now Miss Dennis, a quiet, pleasant, indescribably efficient Scotswoman, took her round and made her thoroughly acquainted with the scene of her new duties.

“No. 2 is the smallest, but the best equipped of our theatres,” she explained. “Make yourself familiar with everything here and in the scrubbing-up room next door. I don’t imagine there are many differences between this and a well-equipped theatre at home, and there will always be someone to ask, except when operating is actually in progress. But you know as well as I do that complete familiarity with everything is essential. Emergencies and split-second decisions occur here more often than in ward duty.”

She was obviously pleased to hear that Madeline was used to and liked theatre work, and, in her turn, she promised her an interesting time.

“I’m too old for hero-worshipping,” she said with a smile. “But sometimes when I watch Dr. Lanyon I feel like applauding. You’ll see.”

And during the rest of that morning Madeline saw.

She was, of course, quite used to the impersonal appearance of all surgeons on these occasions—the white coat, cap and mask which reduced them in most cases to a common denominator. But she thought she would have known Dr. Lanyon anywhere, by his light, keen eyes, and his hands. Though never once did she let her attention wander from her own immediate duties, she was fascinated by the speed and precision and delicacy of every movement. As though he had eyes in the tips of those strong, beautiful fingers, he worked calmly and confidently. She thought she had never seen so much done with so little fuss, and she found herself wondering if sheer cold impersonality were what enabled him to work at such high pressure.

But later, when it fell to her lot to help him unrobe in the outer room, she saw, as he took off his mask, that he was grey with fatigue and strain, and that there was really no impersonality about it.

“Hello!” he said, at that moment, suddenly recognizing her apparently. “I didn’t realize you were on duty in the theatre. Were you there all morning?”

“Yes, Dr. Lanyon.”

“It was an interesting case, that last one.” He spoke over his shoulder to her as he stood at the basin washing his hands. “Did you realize what made it different from all other cases of its kind?”

“No.” She smiled and shook her head, though her heart was warm at the realization that he was speaking to her as he used to do before he knew about Clarissa.

“Well—” he began. Then suddenly he frowned and seemed to remember that he was not on good terms with her. “All right, I don’t need you any more,” he said rather disagreeably, and he jerked down his shirt sleeves and seemed to be busy fastening his cuffs.

“You were saying about the last case?” She spoke almost pleadingly.

“No, I wasn’t,” he said irritably. “I don’t discuss my cases with any nurse who happens to be handy.” And he went out of the room, leaving Madeline to clear up, and to realize that she had been put rather sharply in her place.

But, all the same, nothing could spoil her pleasure in the new and interesting phase of her work which had opened out before her. With her duty hours packed with interest and her free time dominated by the approaching Ball and the preparations for it, Madeline felt that life at the Dominion was offering all, and more than all, that one could hope for.

The disappointment was therefore all the more shattering when Morton telephoned on the Wednesday evening to say that he would be unable, after all, to escort her to the Annual Ball.

“I’m terribly sorry, darling,” he said, a shade too casually, “but I promise I’ll take you to the gayest night-club in town one evening instead. We can dance there as long as you like.”

“But that isn’t the same thing at all!” She simply could not keep the quiver of disappointment out of her voice. “This is
the
Ball. Absolutely everyone is going—unless they’re on duty. It’s the evening of the year, so far as the Dominion is concerned.”

“Oh, that’s just what the girls tell you.” He laughed easily. “All these hospital hops are much the same.”

“They’re nothing of the sort! And even if they were, this is the special Dominion one—and I wanted to go.”

“I couldn’t be more sorry, my sweet. But this is a business matter that I simply can’t avoid. Can’t you get someone else to take you?”

He must know there would be no one else at this late hour, but she checked herself on the brink of a humiliating argument, somehow swallowed down her disappointment and said she would see what she could do. But she knew, as she came away from the telephone, that so far as she was concerned the Ball was out.

Her own immediate friends were all for her coming in any case.

“We can easily divide out our brothers and boy friends among you,” was how Eileen put it. “This is sheer bad luck that could happen to any of us. Come anyway, Madeline.”

They all pressed her so warmly and with such obvious good feeling that she said at last that she “would see”. But it was one thing to go to the Ball escorted by the handsome and presentable Morton Sanders, and it was quite another thing to go as the odd girl out in even the friendliest group.

Besides, she could not rid herself of the idea that Morton had been rather cavalier about it all. Perhaps he really could not help the fact that he was no longer available, but he might at least have shown some anxiety and distress about it. He was sorry and they would do something else sometime—that was all. For the first time, Madeline felt a twinge of resentment towards him.

To wake up on Thursday morning to the knowledge that she probably was not going to the Ball at all—or at any rate only in very makeshift circumstances—was almost more than she could bear. She had looked forward so much to this evening and the chance of seeing the Dominion magnificently off duty. But early morning at any hospital is not a time to indulge in self-pity, and so Madeline dressed and went on duty as usual with as cheerful an air as she could manage.