Tread Softly, Nurse Read online

  TREAD SOFTLY, NURSE

  Hilary Neal

  Nurse Fenella Scott enjoyed her work on night duty at Bishopsbury Cottage Hospital. There was a friendly atmosphere that included staff and patients as well. All, that is, except the consultant Sir David Anderson—far too eminent a man for Fenella to be thinking of him as much as she did!

  CHAPTER I

  NIGHT SISTER at Bishopsbury was tall and quiet and remote-looking with the curious glow about her pale beauty that so often redeems the colorlessness of permanent night nurses. When she had shown Fenella round, walking a yard ahead of her, moving like a silent yacht, she stopped in the front hall and folded her long white hands across her silver belt buckle.

  “Well, Nurse Scott? I don’t think you’ll lose yourself here, will you?” Her voice was flat and unprojected, out of night habit. She pointed down the long corridor. “Remember, male wards on the right, female on the left, and private in the middle. And here at the front, children, Casualty and Theatre.”

  Fenella nodded. “Thank you, Sister. Where do the stairs go?”

  “X-ray and Massage, upstairs. You won’t need them at night.” Sister Barclay pulled out one of her little lists from behind her apron and bit her lip over it. “I think Nurse Lewis had better go on looking after the theatre—we get Theatre Sister up, of course, if we need her. And she will do the female side. You take the males, will you? Do the private patients yourself, and keep an eye on the wards with your junior. Then you’ll attend to Casualty too. The juniors do the children between them, but strictly speaking they’re on your side.”

  “Yes, Sister. How many p.p.s. have I tonight?”

  “Only one. Mr. Parsley, in Ward Five. He’s not really ill now. A diverticulosis who’s done very well. We’re keeping him under observation a little longer, because he had quite a nasty haemorrhage, but I don’t think we shall keep him very much longer.” She turned to look in at the open Casualty door. “You should have time to cut some dressings and pack the Casualty drums so that they can go to be sterilised first thing in the morning. We get quite a queue of outpatients.”

  “Very well, Sister. And—do you keep the drug keys?”

  “Not necessarily. It means chasing me for them. But whoever has them must keep them pinned on the front of her apron, so that I can see where they are. Nurse Lewis has them just now—she has some atropine to give.” Her cool, bleak little smile came and went. “You’ll find it very different from your training school, Nurse. Much less red tape. After all, we are only a Cottage Hospital.”

  “But quite a busy one, I’m told, Sister?”

  “Oh, yes. We serve a large area. But you’ll find we take rather more responsibility here than you are accustomed to. We have only one resident—Dr. West—and for the rest we rely on the general practitioners. They call in consultants as they think necessary, of course. And we’re very fortunate in having Sir David so handy.”

  She turned aside to check the injection a junior nurse was hovering with. She held the syringe up to her eye level and squirted the bubble out before she compared it with the case sheet she initialled. Then she nodded a dismissal to Fenella. “Carry on, then, Nurse. You’ll have a cup of tea later—one of the juniors will call you. I should settle Mr. Parsley first, if I were you.” She sailed smoothly away across the hall.

  Fenella took off her cuffs and called in at the kitchen to leave them on the shelf. There was another pair there already, labelled “Mair Lewis.” Straightening her crisp little cap in the steamy mirror, she pushed back the silky ribbon of fair hair that persisted in curving forward to meet her left eyebrow, and wished for the hundredth time that either her dark brows and lashes could be fairer, and her eyes anything but dark brown, or that her hair could be less defiantly blonde. Nobody believed, ever, that she used neither mascara nor bleach, but had merely inherited her Italian mother’s eyes and her English father’s hair.

  Someone bustled in behind her and clattered a cup and saucer into the tea sink. “You needn’t bother to put your face on for Zoroaster,” said the quick musical voice, with its Celtic lilt, and then, as Fenella whipped round to meet the brilliant white smile in Mair Lewis’s dark gipsy face, went on: “I suppose you are Scott?” She held out a thin brown hand. “Am I glad to see you! I’ve coped on my own for two nights—Sister’s weekend, and a couple of dim pros. It was murder.”

  Her handclasp was like a steel trap. “Hello,” Fenella said. “By Zoroaster, do you mean Mr. Parsley, by any chance? Is he...?”

  “You’ll find out.” Nurse Lewis reached up for the Benger’s tin on top of the cupboard. She was so small that she had to stand on tiptoe to touch it. “We only believe his predictions when they are good—when they’re bad we tell him he’s a fake.”

  A door clicked in the corridor, and footsteps went past the kitchen wall. Mair Lewis poked her neat head out to look, and Casualty light shone on her sleek black hair. “Casualty, I think,” she told Fenella. “Your pigeon, dearie. Jump to it. Tell me if you can’t find things.”

  But when Fenella went across to the pint-sized Casualty Department there was nobody there except a perfectly healthy-looking man in a raincoat. He perched familiarly on the examination couch and held out a parcel. “Care to take delivery of some new syringes?” His keen eyes sized her up.

  She frowned. “Thank you. Do I sign for them?” She looked pointedly at the couch. “And would you mind not sitting on that clean sheet, please?” Really, it was too bad. She would have to change it now, before any patient came in.

  He slid to his feet, and he was very tall. “Sorry, Nurse.” His grey eyes were bright, and the little lines beneath them were deepened with amusement, but his mouth barely twitched. “Well, you can sign for them if you want to, yes.” He opened the parcel and fished out an invoice. “Sign at the bottom there, then, will you?”

  She looked inside the box first, as he held it out for her, and noted that the three syringes—two 20 c.c. and one 10 c.c.—were complete, and their barrels not cracked, before she scribbled “F. Scott” where he indicated with his little finger.

  He read the signature attentively. “ F for...?” He slanted her a slow, appraising glance. “Ah, well. Don’t tell me—if it were something quite unsuitable I might be disillusioned.” He tucked the paper into his inside breast pocket, and went on looking at her.

  Fenella tugged down her apron, and made the most of her five feet five inches. She put her hand out for the box. “Thank you,” she said primly. “Is there anything else? I must get on.”

  The tall man slicked back his dark springing hair with a lazy hand and shook his head. “That’s all—for now.” He went out into the corridor with long silent strides, and pulled out a cigarette case as he went.

  She was at his elbow. “Not until you get outside,” she warned him. “And that isn’t the way out—you turn left here.”

  “But I wasn’t...” He looked down at her and hesitated. “Oh. Very well,” he said easily, in his deep voice. “We shall meet again, no doubt.” He swivelled on his heel and turned left for the patient’s exit.

  At last Fenella reached Ward 5 and Mr. Bernard Parsley. He sat up in bed, round and pink, and beamed at her over his reading glasses. “Good evening, Nurse. I’ll have plain milk tonight, I think.”

  “Biscuits, too?” She began to collect the papers and magazines that were sliding from his bed to the floor.

  “Just one, please.” He took off his glasses and blinked up at her as he settled back on his pillows. “You’ll be Nurse Scott? I’ve heard all about you from little Nurse Dennis.”

  Who was Nurse Dennis? One of the juniors, she supposed. The grapevine evidently operated here as efficiently as it did at Birmingham General. “Have you, indeed? Nothing discreditabl
e, I hope,” she said automatically, as she folded his bedspread and hung it over the bottom bedrail. “I’ll do your drawsheet after you’ve had your biscuit, shall I, in case it’s a crumbly kind?”

  The little man fixed her with his clear blue eyes. “Yes, I know where you trained, and that you won the All Round Medal, and ... But never mind that. Now that I’ve seen you, I know something else too.”

  “Do you? What is it?” She looked back from the doorway.

  “That you’re an extremely pretty young lady. And warm-hearted. Brown eyes and fair hair, you know.” He bounced upright again, resting his weight on his short pudgy fingers behind him on the mattress. “When were you born, Nurse Scott?” he demanded suddenly. He put his head on one side, and smiled disarmingly.

  “But why?” And then she remembered what Mair Lewis had said about Mr. Parsley’s predictions. “In February,” she humoured him, “the nineteenth.”

  He nodded several times. “Yes, oh, yes. On the cusp. You’ll be an in-between, of course. All the Aquarian humanitarian idealism, and the quick response of Pisces. A most attractive combination, most attractive! But...”

  “Tell me when I bring your milk, will you, Mr. Parsley?” Fenella interrupted. “If you don’t mind?”

  “Of course.” He bobbed his bald head accommodatingly.

  She made her escape and put his milk on to heat in the kitchen, and then slipped into the male surgical ward. The lights were dimmed, and the sixteen men lay quietly, already tucked up and settled. Next door, in the medical ward, the lights were still full on, and the junior was collecting empty beakers. She came over to the door when she saw Fenella.

  “Good evening, Staff. My name’s Dennis. Did you want me? I’ve nearly finished—only a few backs to do in here.”

  “No. I wondered if you wanted me, Nurse. Any heavies you can’t lift?”

  Nurse Dennis rubbed the back of her head thoughtfully, tipping her cap forward over her red curls, and looked back over her shoulder down the ward. “I don’t think so. I had one, but Minner—my oppo—gave me a hand before you came, thanks, Staff.”

  “I’m sorry. I expect I was tied up in Five.”

  The junior grinned. “I haven’t heard the worst yet, tonight. Last night he told me I was going to meet a fair woman. But then we all knew you were coming. That was too easy.”

  “What is he, then—a fortune-teller?”

  “Hush, Staff! Don’t let him hear you say that—he’s a top-flight astrologer. Does it for a living, I believe.”

  “Oh. Well, I’ll take him his milk in a minute, and hear my fate. If you can manage in here.”

  She went back to the kitchen. On the way she met Mair Lewis, carrying a hypodermic tray, and stopped her. “That reminds me—a man brought some new syringes. I signed for them. Ought I to have got Sister?”

  “Shouldn’t think so. She’s gone to her breakfast. She wouldn’t thank you. What man?”

  “Just a man. From the chemist’s, I suppose.”

  “Not at this time of night. What was he like?”

  Fenella thought. “Tall. Dark. In a raincoat. What does it matter? He was just a man.”

  Mair Lewis was smiling a small secret smile. “I only ask,” she explained, “because we were promised some new syringes by Sir David, and...”

  “Sir David?” Fenella remembered then that Night Sister had said something about being fortunate to have Sir David so handy.

  Mair was looking at her curiously. “You never heard of Sir David Anderson?” She clicked her tongue. “Surely?”

  “Anderson. Oh—no!” Fenella’s cheeks were burning. “Of course—David Anderson. I’d forgotten he’s been knighted over that radiation research. He never came to the General, so I hadn’t seen him before. But at the Queen Elizabeth they think he’s the tops for surgery.”

  “I’ll say. And here, too.” Mair showed her small white teeth. “I hope you were nice to him?”

  “You don’t really think ... He wouldn’t bring them himself, would he?”

  “I do. Look—he lives right across the road. This place is his baby. He’s spent thousands on it. If he thinks we need anything, he’s as likely to pop in with it as not.”

  Fenella put the cool backs of her hands on her hot cheeks and tried to remember what she had said to the man with the syringes. “I ordered him off the couch ... and I told him not to smoke in the corridor, and pushed him out the back way. Oh dear!”

  “Don’t flap. It wouldn’t worry him—he’s really quite a lamb. Very quiet, very efficient, but not the kind to tell tales out of school. Only one thing he can’t stand—people being noisy or clumsy. That does bring out the worst in him.” She looked at her watch. “He’ll be over again soon, I expect. He’s going to cut down for a fresh transfusion on one of my women.” She nodded briskly and went on her way.

  Fenella collected Mr. Parsley’s milk and took it along to him with a digestive biscuit in the saucer. She stayed with him while he drank it, and finished tidying up the papers on his locker.

  “February nineteenth,” he recalled. “Tell me, Nurse Scott, was it by any chance twenty-eight years ago that you were born? About midday?”

  “How did you know that?” She watched him scribbling on a pad with one hand as he held his milk in the other, and waited.

  “Ah, it was just an idea I had. Now I know a great deal more about you. I don’t think you’ll stay here very long, you know.”

  “No? What shall I do, then? Marry someone tall, dark and handsome? Or what?” she smiled and took the empty glass away from him. “Now, let me pull that drawsheet through. And look at your pillows, they’re a disgrace!”

  The little man obligingly clutched his pulley and lifted himself off the sheet while she moved it to a fresh piece, and then sat forward while she pummelled his pillows and made them into an armchair for him. “I don’t know what he will look like,” he said. “But he’ll have to be a very stable character. Choose carefully, now.”

  “I’ll see that I do,” she promised as she tucked his blankets in. “Don’t worry. I’m not planning anything like that at the moment. Are you comfortable, now, Mr. Parsley?”

  “Quite, thank you. Good night, Nurse.”

  “Good night. Sleep well.” She turned the dimmer switch until the light was a mere red glow in the dark room, and hung his bell switch where he could reach it.

  Both the male wards were silent, and the two juniors were quietly going round the children’s ward with their tray. Sister was in there, too, taking the pulses of the four tonsil children near the door, her slim fingers touching their temples gently as they slept.

  Fenella went into Casualty and put the light on to find the stock cupboard. Only the piles of gauze were high enough to pack a fresh dressing drum, and she spread a clean towel on the marble slab above the cupboards and began to cut up cottonwool. It was a peaceful and hypnotic task, and it was a long time since she had had time to indulge in it without hurrying.

  Then the front door opened, and was banged shut again, and someone hurried down the corridor. The footsteps stopped outside Casualty and then came inside.

  “Fenny! I don’t believe it!” She found herself in a bear hug. The big young man with fair, rumpled curls above his heavy brown spectacle frames lifted her off her feet in his delight, and then set her down again and planted a brotherly kiss on the end of her nose. “Nobody tells me anything. How very nice!”

  With his hands still holding her by the waist she straightened her cap and got her breath back. “Oh, Micky, I am pleased to see you! Sister did say Dr. West was the resident—but I didn’t connect at the time. How idiotic of me. It must be a year since I saw you at the General. I had no idea this was where you’d got to.”

  “It’s more than a year.” He nodded. “Never expected to see you here—I thought you liked the rough and tumble.” He squeezed her small waist between his large, capable hands. “You’ll get fat here, Fenny.” Involuntarily she cried out, and gasped.

  “If yo
u’re not too busy just now, West, I’d like to get that blood fixed up.” The syringe man stood in the doorway. He wasn’t wearing a raincoat—he looked broader in his tweed jacket and his chin had an arrogant upward lift. He wasn’t smiling either. “Perhaps you can spare the time to give me a hand?”

  Michael West released Fenella, and turned round at once. “Sorry, Sir David. I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “Obviously,” said the dark man coldly. He looked down at the terrazzo floor. “You’ve dropped your scissors, Nurse Scott.”

  She picked them up, glad to bend down and hide her flushed cheeks. “Do you need me, sir?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “No, thank you. Nurse Lewis will be ready for me. And then he had gone, striding up the corridor with Michael on his heels.

  Sister came across from the children’s ward. “Was that Sir David I heard?”

  “Yes, Sister' He’s gone along to the female ward, I think.”

  “I hope Nurse Lewis has the tray ready. He doesn’t like to be kept waiting. It’s very good of him to come across at all. Not many consultants would be as helpful as he is.”

  “He brought some syringes in earlier, Sister. I put them in the instrument cupboard.”

  “Oh, yes. He promised Casualty Sister she should have some more.” Sister Barclay went over and took the box down. “Hm! Very nice ones, too. He spoils us.”

  “I suppose he can afford it, Sister.”

  “Oh, yes. His father was a very wealthy man, and Sir David always enjoys helping the hospital, as his father did when he was on the old Board of Governors. It’s like having a rather grand R.S.O. with him over the road. Most convenient for us, of course.” Sister began to rinse the syringes under the tap before she put them in the spirit jar. She smiled faintly. “I can’t help wondering whether it would be the same if he were married.”

  So he was single? Fenella had taken it for granted that a rich, successful surgeon, who must be at least in his late thirties, would automatically be married. Absurdly, she found herself reacting positively to the information, almost being glad. And then she shook herself a little, and was angry simultaneously with him, with herself and with Michael West, because he had caught her at a disadvantage, and because she had told him not to sit on the clean sheet, and warned him not to smoke in the corridors.