Damsel In Green

Damsel in Green

Betty Neels

www.millsandboon.co.uk

THE CHURCH CLOCK across the street chimed the half hour, and Miss Georgina Rodman, already walking down the corridor leading to Casualty, put on a sudden desperate turn of speed. There was a chance—a faint one—that she might arrive on duty before Staff Nurse Gregg; if she didn’t, it would mean the third time late on duty in a week, and Gregg would probably report her to Sister. It would be of no use making excuses, for Gregg never needed to make excuses for herself, and couldn’t understand why anyone else should either. Nurse Rodman wasted precious breath on a sigh as she ran, for her excuses were good ones—on Monday it had been the ward maid falling downstairs with that large pan of porridge; the porridge hadn’t been hot, but extremely sticky; thinking about it, Georgina couldn’t see how she could have ignored the girl’s cries for help. She had been late on Thursday too, when she had met a rather down-trodden old lady who had been told to attend for a barium meal at seven-thirty in the morning, and didn’t know where to go. It had only taken a very short time to walk with her to X-Ray—just long enough for Staff Nurse to remark triumphantly:

‘Late again, Nurse! You should know better—how can you hope to set a good example to the juniors? And you waiting for the results of your Finals!’

Her tone had implied that Georgina need not expect good news. And now it was Saturday, and she was late again, for she had stopped to ask Payne the head porter how his wife was feeling; the poor soul had been ill for weeks, and Payne had been looking sad. She pulled up outside Cas swing doors and drew a breath. It was a pity that life didn’t allow you time to dawdle a little on the way. She opened the doors, to find Staff Nurse Gregg waiting for her—doing the dispensary, of course, because that was her particular job in the mornings; but she had dragged the basket into the center of the room so that she wouldn’t miss Georgina.

She looked pained. ‘Late again, Nurse Rodman—the third time this week. I shall have to report you to Sister—there might have been a terrific emergency on.’

Georgina said, ‘Yes, Staff’ because it was expected of her, and went to twiddle the knobs of the sterilizers in an expert way and count the packets of dressings and instruments CSD had just sent down. The two junior nurses had already prepared the cubicles for the day. She slipped quietly in and out of them, making sure that everything was just so. The first contained a tired-looking boy, a bare, grubby foot on the stool before him, clutching his shoe and sock.

‘Trodden on a rusty nail?’ asked Georgina in a friendly voice. She was already busy cleaning it up.

‘How did you know?’ asked the boy.

‘We get a great many—it’s a common accident. It’ll be fine in a day or two—you won’t need to stop work, but I’ll have to give you an injection.’ She gave him a nice wide smile and went to find Staff. She wasn’t a trained nurse yet—she couldn’t give ATS without getting permission. Gregg gave it with the air of conferring a great honour.

‘Why didn’t you leave the boy? It’s nothing urgent,’ she wanted to know.

‘He’s on night work, it would be a shame to keep him from his bed.’

Staff frowned. ‘You’ll never make a good nurse,’ she grumbled, ‘you’re so impetuous.’

Georgina gave the injection, wondering why she was impetuous. Surely it was plain common sense to clear the cubicles of the minor cases as quickly as possible, otherwise there would be such a bottleneck later on in the morning. She wrote up the boy’s card, filled in the day book, tidied up neatly and went into the last cubicle. Both nurses were in it, as she had guessed they would be. They grinned cheerfully at her, and the youngest and prettiest said, “Oh, George, isn’t she in a foul mood?’

Georgina grinned back. ‘It’ll be worse if you don’t get a porter to change the oxygen in Two … and there aren’t any dressings in Four.’ There was a hurried movement for the door and she added, ‘I’ve seen to the dressings, but it’ll look better if you report the oxygen.’

They stopped at the door. ‘George,’ said the nurse who had forgotten the dressings, ‘we wish you were staff.’

‘That’s nice of you both, but I expect I’ve failed my State, you know.’

She turned to the tiny mirror on the wall to straighten her cap. She had fine, silky hair, and the cap needed a great many pins to keep it at a dignified angle. It was pretty hair, too, light brown and long, and she screwed it up into a severe plaited knob at the back because it was quick to do and stayed tidy that way. She looked at herself in the little square of glass while she re-planted some pins. The face that looked back at her was a good-looking one; not pretty—the nose was a trifle too large and the chin a thought too square, but the brown eyes were large and clear, like a child’s; their lashes long and curling and thick. The mouth was large too, a generous mouth with corners that turned up and smiled readily. She was neither tall nor short and a little on the plump side and looked considerably younger than her twenty-three years. She gave the bib of her apron a tweak and made for the door—it was time to dish the bowls.

She had just put the last two in their appointed places when Sister appeared in the doorway. She said, ‘Good morning, Nurse,’ in a voice which gave Georgina no clue as to her mood. She returned the greeting and wasn’t at all surprised when Sister went on, ‘Come into the office, will you, Nurse Rodman?’

Georgina put the Cheatle forceps back in their jar and followed Sister across the wide expanse of Casualty to the little office. She shut the door behind her and stood in front of the desk, waiting to be told off.

‘Sit down,’ said Sister surprisingly. She put her hand in her pocket and handed Georgina a letter. ‘I thought you would like to have this as soon as possible,’ she said, and smiled. ‘If you would rather open it alone, I’ll go outside.’

Georgina turned the envelope over and looked at its back; it told her nothing, so she looked at the front again. ‘Please don’t go, Sister,’ she said at last. ‘If I open it quickly it won’t be so bad.’

This piece of female reasoning was obviously one to which Sister could subscribe, for she nodded and said:

‘That’s quite true—the quicker the better.’

Georgina undid the envelope with fingers which shook a little, and read the letter therein, then she folded it tidily and put it back in its envelope. When she spoke it was in a tone of great surprise.

‘I’ve passed,’ she said.

‘Well, of course you have, you silly girl,’ said Sister bracingly. ‘No one expected you to do otherwise.’ She smiled kindly, because it wasn’t all that time ago that she had felt just the same herself. ‘You’d better go to Matron, hadn’t you, Nurse?’

Georgina got to her feet. ‘Yes, Sister, of course. Thank you for letting me come in here to read it.’

She got to the door and had the handle in her hand when she was astonished to hear Sister say, ‘Congratulations, George. You deserve it.’

Everyone called her George; it was inevitable with a name like hers. The housemen probably didn’t know she had another name anyway, and even an occasional consultant had occasionally addressed her so; but no Sister had ever done so before. She flashed a delighted smile across the little room. It was, she realized, a very nice compliment.

She was the last in the queue outside Matron’s office—a gratifyingly long one. There was an excited and subdued hum of voices; everyone had passed; no one had let St Athel’s down. They went in one by one, and came out again in turn, looking pleased and slightly unbelieving. When it was at last her turn, Georgina knocked, entered and stood, as she had stood so many times before, in front of Matron’s desk, only this time she was bidden to take a chair.

Matron congratulated her with just the right mixture of motherliness, authority and friendliness and then asked:

‘Have you any plans, Staff Nurse?’

Georgina gave this careful thought. She hadn’t dared to plan—there was some dim idea at the back of her head that she would like to go abroad—but there was Great-Aunt Polly to think of. She said finally, ‘No, Matron.’

‘Splendid. I feel sure that when you have had a little more experience we shall be able to offer you a Sister’s post.’

Georgina so far forgot herself as to goggle. ‘Me?’ she uttered, regardless of grammar. ‘A Sister? Would I do?’ she asked ingenuously.

Matron smiled benevolently. ‘You will do very well. Think about it—I believe you have a splendid career before you.’

Georgina found herself out in the corridor again. There was no one in sight, so she felt free to execute a few skips and jumps and relieve the excitement Matron’s words had engendered. Even in these days of the nursing shortage, it was a signal honour to be offered the chance of a Sister’s post within half an hour of becoming State Registered. She paused by one of the tall narrow windows overlooking the busy street outside. Matron had said, ‘A splendid career’. It occurred to Georgina at that moment that she didn’t much care for the idea. At the back of her mind was a nebulous dream of a husband and children—an indistinct group rather like an out-of-focus family portrait hanging on some distant wall; the children indefinable in number and vague in appearance, and the man even more so, for she had no idea for whom she sought. Certainly she had not found him so far, and even if she did, she would have to wait and see if he felt the same way … Her train of thought was brought to an abrupt halt by the sound of the ambulance siren, joined within minutes by a second. Her interesting speculations were wiped from her mind as she sped along the corridor in the direction of Cas. There was still no one about, so she did the last few yards at a frank run, with the uneasy thought that nurses never ran except for fire and haemorrhage; well, there was no fire as far as she knew, but there was very probably haemorrhage. Sister was at the outer double doors, already thrown back and fastened. Georgina checked the trolleys; it was vital to have everything in a state of readiness. Minutes, even seconds, counted with someone badly injured. The ambulances, very close together, their blue flashers on, turned into the bay before the doors.

‘I’ll take the first, Staff. Take the second—Staff Nurse Gregg is off until two, so is Jones; but we’ve got Beamish, and Peck’s on at ten.’ She turned away as the first case was carried in and laid carefully on the first of the trolleys. A man, Georgina saw, before she gave her full attention to the second stretcher—another man, not a very young one either and in bad shape as far as she could see. He looked very blue.

She said, ‘Good morning, Bert—’Morning, Ginger’ to the ambulance men, then, ‘Wait a second.’ She opened the flaccid lips and felt around inside them with a gentle finger, then said comfortably, ‘Let’s have these out of the way’, and put the false teeth on the pillow. The unconscious face lost its blueness; she turned it to one side and said, ‘OK.’ And they wheeled the trolley into the second of the cubicles. ‘RTA?’ she asked.

Bert nodded. ‘Lorry and a car—the other two’s not too bad, I reckon, but these chaps—they’ve copped it. T’other went through the windscreen, this chap’s had the wheel in his chest.’

They were in the cubicle by now, and the two men were already busy easing off the man’s boots while Georgina turned on the oxygen and fixed the catheter in one pale, pinched nostril. She regulated its flow very precisely and then started to cut away the man’s clothing to reveal the bloodstained shirt beneath. The ambulance men had already slipped an emergency dressing pad beneath it—they drew small hissing breaths of sympathy as her scissors snipped through the last few inches of sodden vest and exposed the patient’s chest. Exactly in its center there was an irregular depressed wound, several inches in diameter, still bleeding freely. Georgina began to swab it gently—it was a wonder that the man was still alive. She had almost completed her task when a man’s voice said from behind her:

‘Let’s have a needle and syringe, George, and get him cross-matched for some blood—he’s going to need it. Get some ATS into him too, and let’s have the rest of his clothes off and take a look at the damage.’

The owner of the voice had come to stand beside her and was already feeling with careful fingers. Georgina, quite undisturbed by the spate of orders, handed him a syringe and needle and started to unscrew the lid of the Path Lab bottle. ‘Hallo, Ned,’ she said quietly. She liked the young Casualty Officer; he was keen on his work and clever enough at it not to pretend that he knew everything. He said now:

‘This one will need ICU—if we can patch him up sufficiently to get him there.’

They worked steadily. The ambulance men had gone after an exchange of cheerful goodbyes. They had just got the blood transfusion going, not without difficulty, when the Surgical Registrar joined them. Georgina liked him too; he was resourceful and tireless and quiet. She had often thought that he and Sister were well suited, and had several times suspected that they shared that view themselves. She hoped so. He stood between them now, looking down at the patient. ‘Intensive Care, Ned, and then theatre—there may be something we can do.’ He went on, ‘Congratulations, George. What a way to celebrate!’

She was clearing up the small place with an urgent, methodical speed. She said, ‘Thank you,’ but had no time to say more, for Ned interrupted:

‘George, you’ve passed—wonderful! We knew you would, but it’s nice to see it in writing, isn’t it?’ He laughed over at her, and she spared a moment to smile back. He really was rather a dear.

She turned away to help the porters lift the patient on to the trolley which would take him to the ICU. ‘I’ll go up with him,’ she murmured. ‘That blood will need an eye on it.’

When she got back, the other patient had been warded too, and Ned was dealing with the other two men who had been in the crash. She started to work methodically through the waiting patients.

The morning wore on. They snatched their coffee as and when they could get it; indeed, Georgina had barely tasted hers when she was called away to take a toddler to X-Ray; its young, distraught mother insisted on going too, very white-faced and passionately remorseful. She repeated over and over again, ‘Oh, if only I hadn’t left those safety pins on the table!’

Georgina was holding the small boy carefully; they hadn’t been able to discover if the pin had been closed when he had swallowed it—a large one would have stuck, but apparently this one had been very small, small enough to go down a long way before it would begin to do any damage.

‘Try not to worry,’ she said kindly. ‘Children swallow things all day and every day, you know. There’s no reason to suppose he won’t be as right as rain in a day or two. He’ll be quite safe in the children’s ward, and you can stay with him if you like.’

The young woman cast her a look of gratitude out of all proportion to her words—perhaps it was the kindness in Georgina’s voice. When they parted at X-Ray she managed a smile and Georgina found herself promising to go and see how the small boy was doing when she went off duty that evening. She hadn’t really time to do so, she reminded herself ruefully, as she sped back to Cas. It was her day off the next day, and she had a train to catch at seven that evening; but the woman had looked so lost …

She was very late for dinner, but the theatre staff were late too, so that there were half a dozen of them sitting at the table. Two of them had taken their exams with Georgina, and, like her, had passed, but unlike her they were leaving to get married just as soon as they could. Listening to their happy chatter, she felt a small shiver of apprehension; supposing Matron’s ‘splendid career’ was to be her lot in life? She pulled herself together with an effort, aware of a discontent quite alien to her nature. She was a very lucky young woman, and Great-Aunt Polly would be delighted.

Gregg was on duty when she got back, and half an hour later Sister went for her rather tardy half day. Georgina was putting a collar and cuff bandage on a small cyclist who had broken a collar-bone and Ned was washing his hands while she did it. Sister had popped her head round the door as she went and wished them a quiet day, and when she had gone he said in the most casual of voices:

‘They’ll make a wonderful pair.’

‘Who?’ she frowned an enquiry as she tucked in loose ends.

‘Good lord, George, do you go around with your head in a bag? Sister and old Bingham, of course.’

Georgina helped the boy on with his coat and tucked the useless sleeve tidily in the pocket, then sent him outside to the clerk’s desk before she replied, ‘They’re going to be married, you mean? I knew they were friends.’ Although now she thought about it, the Registrar did come very often and sometimes unnecessarily to Cas. She took the towel from Ned and dried her own hands, and said gloomily, ‘I’m glad, they’re both dears, but Gregg will be Sister.’

He gave her a quick look. ‘I shouldn’t be too sure of that, George.’

She had straightened the couch, and now began to refurbish the trolley.

‘You know, Ned, this ought to be a marvelous day, and it isn’t. I feel at least forty, with nothing left to live for.’

He turned at the door, laughing. ‘You need a husband, my girl. Who shall he be? Tall, dark, rich and handsome; clever of course, and ready to buy you all the tea in China.’

She made a face at him. ‘That’ll do splendidly to go on with.’

‘Good. In the meanwhile, talking of tea, I’m going to get some—there’s sure to be a cup going in Men’s Surgical. That’s where I’ll be if I’m needed.’

Georgina nodded understandingly. Ned had a roving eye, which had settled, for the time being at least, on the pretty staff nurse on Men’s Surgical. She hoped that there wouldn’t be anything much in, so that he could get his tea in peace.

She went off duty half an hour late and on the way along the corridor to the Nurses’ Home remembered her promise to the mother of the pin-swallowing baby, and had to turn and fly back again and up two flights of worn stone steps to the children’s ward. As she suspected, he had been operated upon that afternoon in order to preclude perforation. He was lying in his cot, still drowsy from the anaesthetic, and his mother was sitting with him. Georgina spent several minutes listening to her troubled little voice, nothing in her relaxed manner betraying her impatience to be gone.

She caught the train by the skin of her teeth. Great-Aunt Polly lived in a small village in Essex, some miles from Thaxted. It had been Georgina’s home, since she had gone to live with Aunt Polly; that had been when she had been a little girl of nine. Her father, a schoolmaster, had died suddenly and unexpectedly from ‘flu, and her mother had died a week or two after him, leaving a bewildered little daughter, as frightened as she was unhappy. Great-Aunt Polly had carried her off to live with her in her small timbered cottage, and had been father and mother to her ever since. Georgina sat in the train, looking out of the window at the dreary London suburbs, thinking about the old lady. She would be able to repay her now with a hundred and one small comforts … She lost herself in a daydream which lasted until the train slowed down at Thaxted. She picked up her case and jumped out, an attractive girl in her well-fitting corduroy coat and high boots.

The small, rather ramshackle local bus from Thaxted, the last from that town for the day, took her to within a stone’s throw of the cottage. The cottage stood a little way down a narrow lane leading off the village street. There was an ancient hornbeam on the corner, and on the opposite side the apple trees at the end of her aunt’s garden, even on a dark November evening, combined to make a lovely picture in the cold moonlight. She unlatched the little gate and walked, a great deal faster now, up the brick path and beat a tattoo on the Georgian brass door-knocker before opening the door and going in. The passage was brick too, a little worn in places and covered with an Afghan rug, also worn, but still splendid. The back door faced her and each wall held two doors, from one of which a plump elderly woman bustled.

‘Miss Georgina! It’s nice to see you, that it is. Miss Rodman’s had her supper and I’ve kept yours hot … put that bag down, and go and see her. Did you pass?’ She peered at Georgina anxiously and was swept into a violent hug.

‘Yes, Moggy, I did. Isn’t it wonderful? I’ll tell Aunt Polly.’

She opened another door and went into the sitting-room where her aunt was waiting. She sat, as she always did, in a stiff-backed chair, her almost useless legs on a little Victorian footstool, her sticks on either side of her, so that she need not ask for help if she should want to get up. She hated to ask for help—Georgina had been almost sixteen when Great-Aunt Polly had been stricken with polio, and could still remember very clearly the look on the old lady’s face when her doctor had told her that it was not very likely that she would walk again. She belonged to a generation who didn’t discuss their ailments; she hadn’t discussed them then, but over the following years she had progressed from wheelchair to crutches, and finally, to sticks. Georgina and Mrs Mogg, who had been with them for as long as she could remember, had watched her struggles and said nothing, knowing that that was what she would wish, but the day Aunt Polly took her first awkward steps with her two sticks Georgina had gone down to the Three Bells in the village, and come back with a bottle of hock under one arm, because she wasn’t sure what to buy anyway, but quite obviously the occasion called for celebration. She crossed the little room now and slid on to her knees beside her aunt’s chair and hugged her, just as she had hugged Moggy, only with a little less vigour because Aunt Polly was a small dainty person despite her will of iron.

‘I’ve passed,’ said Georgina, knowing that that was what her aunt wanted to hear.

Aunt Polly smiled. ‘Yes, dear. I knew you would, of course, but congratulations all the same—I’m very proud of you.’

Mrs Mogg had come in with a tray on which was Georgina’s supper—steak and kidney pudding and a nice assortment of vegetables and a little baked custard for afters. Georgina got up and took the tray from her, put it on the floor and sat down beside it, and Miss Rodman said:

‘Mrs Mogg, will you get the glasses and the Madeira? We must drink to Miss Georgina’s health—and you eat up your supper, child, you must be hungry.’

Georgina fell to. She had an appetite and enjoyed good food. Mrs Mogg came back with the wine, and they sat, the three of them, drinking it from very old, beautiful glasses which she fetched from the corner cupboard. Presently, when she had disposed of the steak and kidney, Georgina told them what Matron had said and Aunt Polly nodded and looked happy, then glanced at her sharply and said, ‘But is that what you want, dear?’

Georgina polished off the last of the custard. ‘Yes, of course, Aunt Polly,’ she said stoutly, and remembered rather clearly that Ned had said that what she wanted was a husband. She turned her back on the thought. ‘Ned told me that sister and old Bingham are going to get married,’ she went on, anxious to talk about something else. ‘That means that Gregg will get Cas, I suppose. I expect I shall get a Junior Night Sister’s post to start with anyway, and that won’t be for quite while yet, I shall hate working with Gregg.’