less than half an hour—first Beryl with her Freddy, and now Carole with Ken. She didn’t know that she sighed as she got up and went into the ward.
It was a long ward of twenty-eight beds, not yet modernised, so that the beds faced each other in rows against the walls. There were two side rooms too where the very ill were nursed or occasionally a private patient, although they had a wing of their own in the centre block.
Christina went into the first of these now, to greet the old man sitting up in bed, glasses askew on his beak of a nose, reading The Times. He looked up as she went in and without saying good morning began a forceful summing up of what the government should do immediately. Christina listened quietly, her intelligent face very calm while she looked him over. He had been in hospital for more than a week with cardiac asthma and wasn’t improving. It was a pity that he had no family to bother about him; his wife had died years ago and his two sons were both abroad and not in the least interested. She had tried once to get him transferred to the Private Wing, but he had objected so strongly that she had given it up; she supposed she would have him for a very long time, giving extra work to her nurses, wanting things they hadn’t got, demanding attention while he read out long articles from The Times when there were a thousand and one jobs waiting to be done…
‘I expect you’re right,’ she commented. ‘These people can be so exasperating, can’t they? Here are several letters for you, I daresay they’ll make pleasanter reading.’ She added: ‘How do you feel today?’
‘Not bad—couldn’t sleep, though.’
She nodded. ‘I’ll get your pills changed. You shall have a good night tonight, Colonel.’ She smiled and slipped from the room and into the next one. The young man with the headache was there. She saw that he looked ill and strained and when she spoke to him he answered drowsily. Not so good, she decided; the sooner Dr Fisher saw him the better. His pulse was too slow and although he hadn’t been vomiting since his admission less than two days ago, she was prepared to bet her month’s money on a cerebral tumour. He was due for X-ray that morning, but he wasn’t fit to move. He’d been admitted for observation and it had been decided to give him a day’s bed rest before starting on a number of tests, and although she had suggested an X-ray when he was admitted, Dr Fisher, who knew everything, had told her importantly that rest was far more important. Well, he had better think again, she thought as she whipped back into the office and asked the lodge to get him urgently.
He was inclined to be ill-tempered when he turned up ten minutes later. He had been up several times during the night and after a far too brief nap was about to sit down to a hearty breakfast, and instead of that here he was facing a calm-eyed young woman, telling him without heat to do something quickly. ‘And I do mean quickly,’ said Christina, not losing one ounce of her habitual serenity. ‘Dr Robinson will be here at eleven o’clock and if he finds Mr Tate like this heaven knows what he’ll do to you.’ She urged him towards the bed, saying softly: ‘It’s just my guess, but do you suppose it could be a cerebral tumour?’
John Fisher didn’t much like Christina. He respected her judgment, admired her cool which she never seemed to lose, and agreed with everyone else that she was a thoroughly splendid nurse as well as a loyal friend; perhaps it was because of these that he adopted a cocksure attitude towards her and why he said now: ‘I’ve thought that all along. Get him to X-Ray at once, will you, and let me have his notes.’
She did both, forbearing to mention that beyond the bare fact of Mr Tate’s admission there was precious little else written up. When she came back presently from seeing the patient safely to X-Ray, it was to find that Dr Fisher had filled a page with meticulous observations and added a query cerebral tumour at the end.
She finished her round after that before getting down to the task of having the ward ready for Dr Robinson, who had a fiend’s temper concealed behind his urbane appearance. But the round went off very well. Dr Robinson had most of the beds and behaved rather as though he had all of them, making a kind of royal progress down the ward. But nothing could fault his manner towards his patients; he was pleasant, reassuring and listened patiently while they talked. Some of them rambled on at length, telling him things they had told him on the previous round, but he never said so. Christina rather liked him; his temper didn’t worry her very much and since he had discovered that she wasn’t in the least afraid of him, he seldom vented it upon her, and if he sometimes flew into a rage with one of her nurses, then she stood up for her with a cool determination which he had found difficult to dispose of. On the whole, the two of them got on very well. He was on the point of leaving the ward when he turned suddenly and addressed her. ‘I suppose it was you who diagnosed Mr Tate for us, Sister?’
Her grey eyes were very clear. ‘Dr Fisher was concerned about him,’ she told him quietly. ‘He told me when he came to examine him early this morning that he had suspected a cerebral tumour, sir.’
Dr Robinson nodded, swivelling his eyes behind their glasses to look at Dr Fisher, as red as a turkey-cock.
‘That’s what I thought you’d say. Well, he’s got a chance now he’s transferred to the surgical side. Thanks to you,’ he added sotto voce.
The day was uneventful after that. Christina went down to her dinner presently, sharing a table with several of her friends, talking shop interlarded with clothes, boy-friends and holidays. Everyone seemed to be going abroad. She looked round her quite nonplussed when someone asked her where she was going for her winter leave.
She said slowly: ‘Well, I don’t know—I hadn’t given it a thought. I expect George Henry will want to stay at home, and I might go down to Somerset. It’s nice at this time of year, though I’ve no holidays until the beginning of October.’
She thought about it once or twice during the afternoon. It would be fun to go away, abroad, perhaps, even Scotland or Wales. Perhaps she could persuade George Henry to come with her, she was sure he hadn’t made any plans.
She couldn’t have been more mistaken. They had had their supper and for once he had followed her into their small sitting room instead of going to his study and it seemed an opportunity to bring the matter up, but before she could start he said with unusual brusqueness: ‘Chrissy, I want to talk to you… I’ve been meaning to tell you for a week or two, but somehow…I’m going to get married.’
He paused to look at her and was reassured to see that she was looking at him with a serene face. The light was dim, so he couldn’t see how pale she had gone.
‘You know her—Hilary Woods. We’ve had an understanding for some time now and last week we decided to marry as soon as possible. There’s no point in waiting—she’ll give up her job, of course, and live here.’
Christina had the extraordinary feeling that she was having a dream. The room didn’t seem quite real, nor did George Henry, talking away so earnestly about getting married—and to Hilary Woods, a social worker with a puffed-up sense of her own importance. She knew, without her brother saying a word, that she would have to leave before Hilary put a foot over the doorstep. She said in her calm way: ‘George Henry, how super for you! I’m so glad—Hilary will make you a splendid wife and she’ll be so understanding.’
George Henry eyed her carefully. ‘Then you don’t mind? I’ve been worried—you know, wondering if you’d mind—I mean, finding somewhere else to live. Hilary said you’d be able to get a room at St Athud’s without any trouble at all. I daresay you’d like it better— you’d be independent and have a great deal more time for your own amusement.’
Briefly, she wondered what she would do with all the extra time. Perhaps it would be better if she could find a bedsitter or a tiny flat, but there would be lonely meals to eat and no one to talk to. She wasn’t going to feel sorry for herself but facts would have to be faced.
‘Well, of course I can—the Sisters’ rooms are pretty good, you know, and I can take up tennis again and I’ve always wanted to join the Social Club.’ She uttered the thumping lie without blinking and saw George Henry relax. ‘When are you thinking of getting married?’ she asked.
‘Well, actually, in a month’s