is a list of rules. You are expected to keep them while you live here. When you have completed your first year you will be allowed to live out if you wish. No smoking or drinking, no men visitors unless they visit for some good reason.’
She drew a form from a pile on the desk. ‘I’ll check your particulars. You are twenty-three? A good deal older than the other students. Unmarried? Parents living? British by birth?’ She was ticking off the items as she read them. ‘Is that your case? We will go to your room.’
They climbed the stairs, and then another flight to the floor above, and the woman opened a door halfway down a long corridor. ‘You’ll have your own key, of course. You will make your bed and keep your room tidy.’
The room was small and rather dark, since its window overlooked a wing of the hospital, but it was furnished nicely and the curtains and bedcover were pretty. There was a washbasin in one corner and a built-in wardrobe.
Araminta was handed a key. She asked, ‘What should I call you? You are a sister?’
‘I am the warden—Miss Jeff.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Come back to my office in ten minutes and I’ll take you for your interview.’
Left alone, Araminta turned her back on the view from the window, took off her jacket and tidied her hair. She hoped she looked suitably dressed; her skirt was too long for fashion, but her blouse was crisply ironed and her shoes were well polished. She went out of the room, locked the door, put the key in her shoulder bag and found her way to Miss Jeff.
The Principal Nursing Officer’s office was large, with big windows draped with velvet curtains, a carpet underfoot and a rather splendid desk. She herself was just as elegant. She was a tall woman, still good-looking, dressed in a beautifully tailored suit. She shook Araminta’s hand, and told her crisply that she was fortunate that there had been an unexpected vacancy.
‘Which I could have filled a dozen times, but Dr van der Breugh is an old friend and very highly thought of here in the hospital. He assured me that you had given up your place in order to cope with an emergency in his family.’ She smiled. ‘You are a lucky young woman to have such an important sponsor.’ She studied Araminta’s face. ‘I hope that you will be happy here. I see no reason why you shouldn’t be. You will work hard, of course, but you will make friends. You are older than the other student nurses, but I don’t suppose that will make any difference.’
She nodded a friendly dismissal and Araminta went back to her room, where she unpacked and took a look at the uniform laid out on the bed. It was cotton, in blue and white stripes with a stiff belt, and there was a little badge she was to wear pinned on her chest with her name on it.
The warden had told her to go down to the canteen for her tea at four o’clock. She made her way back down the stairs and into the hospital, down more stairs into the basement. The canteen was large, with a long counter and a great many tables—most of them occupied. Araminta went to the counter, took a tray, loaded it with a plate of bread and butter and a little pot of jam, collected her tea and then stood uncertainly for a moment, not sure where she should sit. There was a variety of uniforms, so she looked for someone wearing blue and white stripes.
Someone gave her a little shove from behind. ‘New, are you?’
The speaker was a big girl, wearing, to Araminta’s relief, blue and white stripes, and when she nodded, she said, ‘Come with me, we have to sit with our own set—the dark blue are sisters, the light blue are staff nurses. Don’t go sitting with them.’
She led the way to the far end of the room to where several girls were sitting round a table. ‘Here’s our new girl,’ she told them. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Araminta Pomfrey.’
Several of the girls smiled, and one of them said, ‘What a mouthful. Sister Tutor isn’t going to like that.’
‘Everyone calls me Mintie.’
‘That’s more like it. Sit down and have your tea. Any idea which ward you are to go to in the morning?’
‘No. Whom do I ask?’
‘No one. It’ll be on the board outside this place; you can look presently. Have you unpacked? Supper’s at eight o’clock if you’re off duty. What room number are you? I’ll fetch you.’
‘Thank you.’
The big girl grinned. ‘My name’s Molly Beckett.’ She waved a hand. ‘And this is Jean, and that’s Sue in the corner…’ She named the girls one by one.
‘We’re all on different wards, but not all day, we have lectures and demonstrations. You’ll be run off your feet on the ward, and heaven help you if Sister doesn’t like you.’ She got up. ‘We’re all on duty now, but I’m off at six o’clock; I’ll see you then. Come with us and we’ll look at the board.’
There was a dismayed murmur as they crowded round to look for Araminta’s name.
‘Baxter’s,’ said Molly. ‘That’s Sister Spicer. I don’t want to frighten you, but look out for her, Mintie. She’s got a tongue like a razor and if she takes a dislike to you you might as well leave.’
Araminta went back to her room, put her family photos on the dressing table, arranged her few books on the little shelf by the bed and sat down to think. She had very little idea of what hospital life would be like and she had to admit that Sister Spicer didn’t sound very promising. But she was a sensible girl and it was no use thinking about it too much until she had found her feet.
The other girls seemed very friendly, and she would be free for a few hours each day, and she could go home each week. She allowed her thoughts to wander. What was the doctor doing? she wondered. Had he missed her at all? She thought it unlikely. I must forget him, she told herself firmly. Something which should be easy, for she would have more than enough to think about.
Molly came presently and, since it wasn’t time for supper, took her on a tour of the home, explaining where the different wards were and explaining the off duty. ‘You’ll get a couple of evenings off each week. Trouble is, you’re too tired to do much. Otherwise it’s a couple of hours in the morning or in the afternoon. Days off are a question of luck. We come bottom of the list, though if you’ve got a decent sister she’ll listen if you want special days.’
The canteen was full and very noisy at suppertime. Araminta ate her corned beef and salad and the stewed apple and custard which followed it, drank a cup of strong tea and presently went to the sitting room for the more junior nursing staff. Molly had gone out for the rest of her free evening and she couldn’t see any of the other girls she had met at tea. She slipped away and went to her room, had a bath and got into bed.
She told herself that it would be all right in the morning, that it was just the sudden drastic change in her lifestyle which was making her feel unhappy. She lay thinking about the doctor, telling herself that once she started her training she wouldn’t let herself think of him again.
Marcus van der Breugh, dining with friends, bent an apparently attentive ear to his dinner companion while he wondered what Mintie was doing. He had told her that he didn’t think she would make a good nurse and he very much feared that he was right. Possibly it was this opinion which caused his thoughts to return to her far too frequently.
LYING in bed at the end of her first day at St Jules’, Araminta tried not to remember all the things which had gone wrong and reminded herself that this was the career she had wished for. Now that she had started upon it, nothing was going to deter her from completing it.
Of course, she had started off on the wrong foot. The hospital was large, and had been built in the days when long corridors and unexpected staircases were the norm. Presumably the nurses then had found nothing unusual in traipsing their length, but to Araminta, who had never encountered