Hospital Corridors (6 page)

Then suddenly a voice from the doorway recalled her with shattering precision.

“Miss Gill,” Miss Ardingley said icily, “Madame Loncini is asking for her drink. You’ve kept her waiting long enough already.”

CHAPTER IV

The
look which Miss Ardingley cast at her, even more than the chilling reproof, made Madeline go first scarlet and then white.

“I was just coming, Miss Ardingley,” she said hastily and a little breathlessly, and while she rather unsteadily prepared Madame Loncini’s tray, she wondered desperately if there were anything else she could say or do that would help the situation. It was Morton, however, who attempted conciliation.

“I do apologize. I’m afraid I shouldn’t be here,” he admitted, turning on Miss Ardingley his most disarming smile. “But Miss Gill and I are old friends and—”

“Miss Gill is on duty at the moment,” Miss Ardingley said coldly and pointedly, “and not at the disposal of her old friends.”

“Yes, I do realize that, and that I’ve behaved abominably in coming in here at all.” His handsome face registered a charming degree of contrition. “But, you see, I hadn’t seen her since we left the ship, and while we were on board—”

“I’m afraid I’m not interested in what happened on board,” the head of the Private Pavilion said, so bitterly that Madeline sensed immediately that she was. “Miss Gill is a nurse on duty, so far as I’m concerned, though”—she looked past Morton’s left ear and through Madeline—“she appears to have forgotten the fact. I must ask you to go—and at once.” Most men would have retreated in some disorder at this. Not so Morton Sanders. He turned smilingly to Madeline and promised to telephone her when she was off duty—as though he were taking leave of her at a cocktail party—and, on his way out, he paused beside Miss Ardingley.

Florence Ardingley was a tall woman, but Morton was able to look down at her, which he did with a compelling smile and an air of subtle admiration.

“I know it’s your business to be severe with nurses who behave less than professionally while on duty,” he said. “But please will you take my word for it that I was the active and Miss Gill the passive part of this incident? You can blame me as much as you like, but I cannot believe,” he added, softly and reflectively, “that anyone with those eyes can bring herself to be too severe over such an occasion.”

Miss Ardingley blinked her very fine eyes in a slightly startled way, and a faint colour appeared in her cheeks.

“Mr. Sanders, I think you had better go and talk to your mother for a while,” she said drily, but she smiled a little, and some of the chill went out of her manner. “Your conversation is not at all well adapted for
any
nurse on duty.”

He laughed a good deal at that and, taking leave of her in the most friendly way possible, went away in the direction of his mother’s room.

Madeline picked up her tray, glanced at Miss Ardingley to see if anything more was going to be said, realized that it was not, and, half relieved, half apprehensive, departed with Madame Loncini’s belated drink. She could not imagine that this was the last she would hear of the incident, but at least she was being given a short reprieve in which she might collect her wits.

As she entered the room, Madame Loncini, who was reading a gratifying batch of fan mail, removed her horn-rimmed glasses and looked the handsome creature she was.

“You are late,
cara
,” she said reproachfully, as she sniffed her drink with appreciation.

“Yes, I know. I’m so sorry. There was a slight—crisis,” replied Madeline, which was very unprofessional of her, but she was feeling less than her self-controlled best, and the singer’s air of friendly interest invited confidences.

“Did someone die?” enquired Madame Loncini cheerfully, for like many aggressively healthy people, she always liked to have an opportunity of pitying those who were less fortunate.

“Oh, no!” Madeline thought with a pang of old Mr. Ferguson, and added, “Though I shouldn’t tell you if they had.”

“Well, what did happen?” enquired Madame Loncini, passing over the last observation in good-humoured silence.

“If you must know,” Madeline said, surprised at her own admission, “one of the visitors kissed me in the kitchen and—”

“But how
charming
!” Madame Loncini actually set down her glass to consider this delightful piece of romantic gossip. “Did you want him to?”

“No, of course not!” exclaimed Madeline, with an immediate and fleeting idea that perhaps she had. “At least, not in the ward kitchen.”

“Ah—the scene was ill-chosen,” Madame Loncini agreed. “So was the time,” Madeline said drily. “Miss Ardingley came in at that moment.”

“
Jesu Maria
!” exclaimed Madame Loncini, whose ejaculations were drawn from a variety of operas, irrespective of language. “What happened then?”

“She was very angry, of course.”

“Of course, of course,” agreed the singer. “Was he handsome, this man who kissed you?”

“Very. But that didn’t make it any better for me. She—”

“No, no, naturally not. Worse. That was what I was thinking. She would wish even more to be in your place.”

“Oh, really, Madame!” Madeline had not been following this line of thought at all. “I don’t think so. She had never seen him before.”

“Dear child!” Loncini looked at her indulgently, as at one who prattles in a cradle. “You do not really suppose that would make any difference, do you? What she needs is a man—any man—that poor Ardingley, with her good features and her chilly manner. Believe me; if she had been seduced at eighteen, she would be quite a different person.”

“I am sure she would,” agreed Madeline, somewhat startled at this prescription for humanizing Miss Ardingley.

“A much nicer person, I mean. She reminds me so much of a colleague I once had. One of those large, cold lyric sopranos who imagine they are dramatic sopranos,” Loncini went on reminiscently. “She wanted to sing Leonora in
Trovatore
, which is ridiculous in a lyric and impertinent in a cold lyric. Now I love my art and also I like always to do the best for my colleagues. So I sent for my first husband, with whom I have always remained on friendly terms. He is what you call a glamorous creature. I suggested he should make love to the poor woman. This he was always ready to do, fortunately.”

She paused to sip her drink with appreciation.

“And it worked?” enquired Madeline, amused and intrigued.

“Oh, it worked,” agreed Loncini.

“You mean she—she became warm and romantic enough to sing Leonora?”

“Certainly not. She ran away with my first husband just before the dress rehearsal, and
I
sang Leonora, which was as it should be, for I am a dramatic soprano and also not at all cold in temperament.”

Madeline laughed so much at this that she felt better about the dreadful scene in the kitchen.

“Madame Loncini, if I didn’t like you so much, I should wish you to have complications and stay here for
weeks
,” she declared. “It makes me feel gay just to hear you talk.”

And Madeline went off to her other duties, leaving the singer faintly puzzled but undoubtedly gratified by this tribute.

Once or twice during the rest of her spell of duty Madeline caught a glimpse of Miss Ardingley, but nothing further was said about the incident in the kitchen, so that she even began to hope that she had heard the last of it. Perhaps this might have been so, if unfortunately Dr. Lanyon had not chosen this particular morning to look in and see his patient.

This time Madeline was alone when she met him in the corridor, and he stopped immediately, apparently having no difficulty whatsoever in recognizing her in uniform on this occasion.

“Hello,” he said. “How’s life at the Dominion? Are you settling down well?”

“Thank you, yes,” Madeline assured him. “I like the work, and I think I’m going to be very happy here.”

“Good.” He looked at her with a sort of amused speculation. “You know, I don’t even know your name,” he said suddenly, as though the thought had just struck him.

She hesitated an instant.

“It’s Gill—Madeline Gill.”

Knowing what she did, she could not doubt that the name gave him an uncomfortable jar. But he said quite casually, “Is that so?” And then, more deliberately—almost, Madeline thought, as though he made himself say the words, “I used to know someone else of that name.”

Madeline felt herself begin to colour. She would have given almost anything to take his attention off her at that moment. Almost anything but what did happen. Miss Ardingley came out of one of the nearby rooms.

“My unlucky day!” thought Madeline with an inward groan. “She’ll think I do nothing but stand about talking to attractive men!”

This was obviously what Miss Ardingley did think, though the casual little nod of dismissal which Dr. Lanyon immediately gave Madeline might have been from any doctor to any nurse after a few words about a case.

He then turned to speak to Miss Ardingley in his most professional manner, and Madeline went away, feeling as though she trod on eggshells.

It was, she thought, time that she looked in to speak to Mrs. Sanders, for it would never do to add an affronted Mrs. Sanders to her other troubles. So she went into the end room, which was one of the most charming in the block, and found her erstwhile patient leaning back against artistically frilled pillows and looking very beautiful in a languid way.

She was undoubtedly pleased to see Madeline and greeted her almost as an old friend.

“My dear, are you actually working on this floor?” she said, taking Madeline’s hand in her cool, delicate fingers. “What a
comfort
for me.”

“Why, yes. Didn’t Mr. Sanders tell you?”

“Morton?” The cordial manner underwent a subtle change, and the sweet, plaintive voice was several degrees colder as it said, “No. How did he know?”

“He—I ran into him,” Madeline explained hastily. “I daresay he forgot to mention it to you.” She tried to make that sound as though she were less than nothing in Morton Sanders’ gay life. “Do tell me how you’re feeling and if you’re comfortable here.”

Mrs. Sanders told her, at some length.

“But I think I’m going to like it,” she ended, with cautious approval. “You have a charming woman in charge, I notice.”

Madeline cleared her throat slightly and said,

“Miss Ardingley, you mean?”

“Yes. Good-looking, capable and,” Mrs. Sanders added with some satisfaction, “a lady.”

“Of course,” agreed Madeline gravely. And then the lady herself came in, giving poor Madeline the impression that fate was stalking her.

“How are you feeling now, Mrs. Sanders?” Miss Ardingley’s charming air of interest was exquisitely tempered to the new patient, whom she had obviously summed up at once as one who liked to be asked that question a dozen times a day.

“Tired, but very comfortable,” Mrs. Sanders declared, with a sweet, brave smile.

Madeline prepared to slip away, but Miss Ardingley fixed her with a cold glance.

“Oh, Miss Gill, I want to see you before you go off duty.” “Yes, Miss Ardingley,” Madeline said, and her heart dropped into her neat white ward shoes.

“It’s very nice to see Miss Gill again,” Mrs. Sanders put in graciously. “We’re almost old friends, you know.”

The unfortunate repetition of the phrase made Madeline bite her lip. Miss Ardingley evidently recalled it too, for she replied more drily than she usually spoke to a special patient, “So Mr. Sanders said, and so I gathered from the way he greeted Miss Gill.”

“From my
son’s
greeting?” Mrs. Sanders’ faintly complacent air of happy invalidism deserted her and her languid voice sharpened slightly.

“All right, Miss Gill, you can go.” Miss Ardingley dismissed Madeline firmly—at the very point when she would have wished to linger and prevent misunderstandings. “Wait for me in my room when you’re finished.”

Madeline went. There was nothing else she could do. But when she got outside she actually leant against the wall for a moment and shut her eyes. It was too much—it was too much!—that Mrs. Sanders and Frightful Flossie should actually get together to discuss her misdemeanours.

She had forgotten that the rubber flooring deadened all sound of footsteps, so that she jumped violently when Dr. Lanyon, his professional visit presumably completed, said almost beside her,

“What’s the matter? Are you feeling faint?”

“Oh, no!” She opened her eyes quickly and straightened up. And so terrified was she lest Miss Ardingley should come out of Mrs. Sanders’ room and find her apparently chatting once more with Dr. Lanyon, that she actually added—to her own immediate horror and confusion, “And please do go away quickly.”

“But why?” He looked both amused and astonished, as well he might.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” She had refocused him now, as the distinguished surgeon of the Dominion and not just the man who had been nice to her on board. “That must sound frightfully rude. But every time someone has spoken to me today Miss Ardingley has come along, and I’m sure she thinks I do nothing but hang about talking to attrac—talking to people. I’m in for a ghastly row, as it is.”

“I’m so sorry,” he said, and passed on immediately. But whether this was because he thought her an impossible young woman or because he understood the position completely, Madeline could not have said.

She was shaken by the scene and by what she now felt was her own ridiculous mishandling of it, but it really seemed hardly more than the final phase in a truly disastrous day. Indeed, Madeline felt she would not be specially surprised if, after all this, she were firmly and regretfully asked to leave the Dominion.