A Nurse's Duty (22 page)

Patrick rose perfunctorily to his feet and murmured something inarticulate but Annie didn’t seem to notice anything.

‘Haven’t you offered Father Murphy any tea, Karen? Oh, and look at the fire, it’s almost out. What have you been doing?’

They gazed at her in silence, the question hanging in the air. But Annie was on her knees, picking up the tongs and lifting lumps of coal on to the fire, quite unaware of the consternation in the minds of Patrick and Karen. She rose to her feet and dusted her hands together as a small plume of blue smoke rose from the mended fire.

‘There, that’s better. Now, I’ll make a cup of tea, and we can drink it cosily in here. I’m sure I could do with a cup. I bought a packet of fancy biscuits on the market, we’ll have them with it.’

Patrick got to his feet and cleared his throat. ‘Not for me, Mrs Blakey,’ he said, not looking at Karen. ‘I have to get back. Father Brown will be wondering where I am. Good afternoon to you both.’

‘Oh, are you sure?’ asked Annie, but Patrick was already at the door.

‘Yes, I must go, but thank you for the offer,’ he answered, his voice tight. ‘If you’ll excuse me?’

Karen couldn’t bear to let him go like that without another word and she too was on her feet and following him.

‘I’ll see you out,’ she said, more for Annie’s benefit than anything. She didn’t even notice that her friend was suddenly watching them intently, though with some bewilderment.

‘Patrick?’ She hurried after him to the gate, willing him to turn round and speak to her. But when he did stop it was with his back to her and his hand on the latch as though he was ready to take off again any second.

‘Please, Karen, let me go now. It’s over. I’m sorry, I should not have done it, I had no right. God knows how sorry I am.’

‘Sorry? But you love me, Patrick, how can you be sorry? We belong together. We do, we do!’ she cried, forgetting the need to keep her voice low, and he looked anxiously up and down the lane. Luckily it was deserted. No one could have heard her. He turned to face her at last.

‘It’s over, Karen, it should never have happened,’ he repeated tersely, his voice shot through with pain. ‘I am a priest, for God’s sake.’

‘But I love you and you love me. You can’t deny it, Patrick, not now.’ She caught hold of his coat as though she would hold him to her physically but he disengaged her fingers.

‘No, Karen. If you love me you must forget it.’

Karen watched as he strode off down the road. She struggled to regain her composure, refusing to cry, refusing even to give in. Surely he would realize what a mistake he was making? He needed her, she was certain he needed her. All she had to do, she told herself, was hang on, wait for him to realize he needed her. Stubbornly, she refused to think about his church, her rival, so
cruel
and uncompromising. It was wrong, so wrong. Hadn’t she been brought up to believe in the priesthood of all believers? Priests were not a race set apart, they were not. She would win in the end, oh, she would, she vowed to herself. Taking her handkerchief from her dress pocket, she blew her nose. Patrick’s figure disappeared round the bend in the lane and Karen turned back to the house.

She would see him at the hospital, she told herself. She would work something out so that they could have a quiet talk together. She was not giving up, no, she wasn’t, all she had to do was have a proper talk with him.

‘Tea’s made, Karen,’ called Annie from the front door and the prosaic quality of the words amazed Karen. How could she drink tea with Annie when her world was ending?

‘Coming,’ she answered, and went in.

‘What brought Father Murphy here again?’ asked Annie curiously as they drank their tea before the fire.

‘Oh, he was just passing,’ said Karen. (Just passing!) Annie glanced at her and bit her lip but forebore to ask any more. As soon as she decently could, Karen excused herself and went to her room. She lay on her bed with her arms folded across her breast, hugging to herself the memory of him as they had lain on the hearthrug, his head on her shoulder and the whole lean length of him against her. ‘It’s not over,’ she whispered to herself. ‘Oh, no, it’s not over.’ She refused to acknowledge the dark doubts in the back of her mind. She would wait and eventually she would meet him at the hospital. It would be worth the waiting.

Chapter Thirteen

KAREN DID NOT
see Patrick for more than a fortnight. She even considered going to the presbytery to seek him, she felt so desperate. But what if she summoned up the courage to walk past the statue of Mary and the Baby Jesus to the front door, and then had it slammed in her face?

She tried to put him out of her mind and even succeeded for short intervals; she was not even thinking of Patrick as she walked up to the hospital one evening, she was thinking of Nick Harvey, feeling a little worried about him. He was still so attached to her and she hoped the military authorities wouldn’t send him home, not for a while at least. She saw the boy every time she went on duty and knew he was not ready to fend for himself. He probably never would be, she thought, sighing.

Patrick was standing in the hall with Doctor Clarke when she opened the front door and both men looked across at her as she entered. Karen was taken completely unawares, the hope and the dread rising instantly within her. Now it had actually happened, it felt almost unreal.

‘Good evening, Sister,’ said Doctor Clarke, and she mumbled a reply. Her composure had deserted her and her face burned so that she turned quickly away from them, using the excuse of hanging up her cloak. Her hands shook and she fumbled with the loop of material which for some reason refused to go over the hook on the hall stand. In her confusion she dropped the cloak and Doctor Clarke looked at her in surprise as she bent to retrieve it.

‘Something’s making you clumsy tonight, Sister,’ he remarked with a smile. ‘Haven’t you been to bed today?’

He glanced at Patrick and his smile faded as he saw the priest was acting strangely too. Without a word of farewell, he was heading for the door.

‘Goodnight, Father,’ the doctor called after him, looking bewildered. They had been in the middle of a very interesting discussion of the Royal Flying Corps, so why was Father Murphy cutting it short?

Karen stood up with the errant cloak in her hands and saw the door closing behind Patrick. If anything, her confusion increased and her cheeks burned more fiercely. Carefully, she hung up the cloak and, without raising her eyes to the doctor, sat down at her desk and gazed sightlessly at the report.

‘Well, I’m going off now, Sister,’ said Doctor Clarke uncomfortably.

‘Yes. Goodnight, Doctor.’

Gradually Karen’s pulse steadied. Nothing had happened that she had not expected. The thing was, she had to keep her head, she had to act normally. Day Sister appeared and they discussed the report. When Day Sister went off duty, Karen did a round of the wards, helping with patients where the ward nurse needed help, checking sleeping draughts and pills, ready for the medicine round. At last it was time for supper.

In the dining room she took a cup of tea but refused any food. She sat alone and allowed herself to think about Patrick. This time, perhaps because it was the middle of the night when spirits are low, she was ready to face the fact that he didn’t want to speak to her.

He wanted nothing to do with her, she could tell that. He was avoiding her, he must be. Before Christmas she had met him two or three times every week as they both went about their work at the hospital. Now she hardly saw him at all.

‘I must get away,’ she whispered desperately. Like an injured animal, she longed for home. She would see Matron in the morning and give in her notice, say that she must go home.

*

Matron was not pleased. She wore that particularly forbidding expression used by all the hospital matrons Karen had known when they wanted to convey their displeasure to a junior nurse. Karen was standing before the desk in Matron’s small sanctum at eight o’clock on a dark, grey morning after a particularly dark, black night and had just tendered her resignation.

‘What do you mean, you wish to resign? Do you not know there’s a war on?’

Matron’s chipped ice eyes stared sternly at the slightly built sister. Karen looked at the iron grey hair pulled back in a bun under her cap, the strings of which were tied in a stiffly starched bow under her chin, the badge of her rank.

‘Do stop fiddling, Sister.’

Karen hastily put her hands behind her back. ‘Please, Matron, it’s my mother, you see. I must go home, she’s ill.’

A sudden inspiration, that, and surely only a small white lie.

‘Well now, Sister, so are all of our patients ill, have you thought of them?’

‘Yes, Matron, of course. But my mother’s heart –’

It was true, Karen told herself, Mam did have heart trouble. Aortic stenosis, a legacy of rheumatic fever. She pushed aside the uncomfortable thought that she hadn’t let her mother’s heart trouble stop her from coming down to Essex to work in the first place.

‘I’ll be able to work in the local hospital, Matron, I just need to be near, to help when I can …’ Her words died away under Matron’s stare.

‘You do seem to be upset and worried. I suppose it’s only natural,’ she allowed. ‘Well, it’s no good trying to keep you here against your will, though you will be missed here. You have proved to be a capable nurse.’

‘Thank you, Matron,’ said Karen, looking humbly down at her shoes.

‘You know the difficulties we have in getting decent staff, even for a small place like Greenfields,’ Matron went on. She sat back in her chair and sighed. ‘Oh, very well, Sister. I’ll just have to try to replace you. I suppose you will be willing to work the usual month’s notice?’

‘Oh, yes, Matron, of course, Matron. Thank you very much for being so understanding.’

Karen backed out of the room, hearing herself gabbling. But now she had given in her notice she felt calmer as she walked down the drive and out on to the lane which led to the village.

Oh, she wanted to go home, she did, she burned to go home. No, you don’t, one part of her mind put in. If you leave you might never see Patrick again. The thought was unbearable. Beneath her cloak she fumbled in her dress pocket for her handkerchief as the tears sprang to her eyes.

Patrick is married to his church, he doesn’t want me, she told herself. The very best thing she could do for him would be to get away from him as quickly as possible. Blowing her nose, she decided to put all thoughts of him out of her mind and concentrate on her work. Surely, if she threw herself into it, she would get through the month somehow? Pulling her cloak closely around her against the bitter wind from the coastal marshes, she hurried on down the lane to Annie’s cottage.

‘Morning, dearie,’ Annie greeted her, in her usual bright and cheery manner. ‘You’re a little late this morning, aren’t you? Never mind, I’ve kept your breakfast hot by the fire. I’m sure you must be ready for it in this nasty weather. The wind is enough to cut you in two.’

‘Oh, yes, I am late. Sorry, Annie. I went to see Matron this morning.’

‘Nothing wrong, is there?’

‘No, nothing wrong.’

Karen picked up her knife and fork and contemplated the food on her plate. She felt slightly nauseous, a feeling which the bright yellow of the egg yolk seemed to accentuate. Carefully, she put her cutlery down again and looked up at Annie. She had to tell her she was leaving.

‘I have to go home, Annie,’ she said, without any preamble. ‘I gave in my notice this morning.’

Annie sat down at the table with a thump, dismay showing on her face.

‘But why, Karen? Is there something the matter? At home, I mean? Oh, dear, I will be sorry to see you go. We’ve been such good friends, haven’t we?’

‘I know, Annie, I know. But I must go home, please understand.’ She gazed at Annie, dark eyes beseeching her to understand.

‘I must go home.’ She repeated it almost to herself. It was true, she had to go. She felt an almost physical need.

Annie watched her, a question in her eyes.

‘Karen, what has happened? Is it a man? One of the doctors maybe, has he let you down? I know you haven’t mentioned anyone and you’re not a secretive person, but there must be something.’

Karen reddened and looked away and Annie was contrite. She put an arm round her lodger’s shoulders.

‘I’m sorry, Karen, I should mind my own business. You don’t have to tell me anything. Anyway, I know what it’s like to long for your own family about you.’ She glanced briefly at the silver-framed photograph of the two soldiers which stood on the mantelpiece and sighed.

‘Come on, Karen, what you need is a good sleep. Eat your breakfast, do, and then you go on up to bed. But remember, if ever you need a friend to talk to …’

Wildly, her thoughts touched on what Annie might think if she
knew
the truth. Would she despise her, throw her out? But maybe not. Annie was a moral woman but she was also very human.

‘Thanks, Annie. I’m not hungry, I’m afraid. I think I’ll just go up now.’

Karen smiled wanly and rose to her feet. ‘As you say, a good sleep is what I need.’

The wintry sunshine was filtering through the bedroom windows as she readied herself for bed. She drew the curtains against it and climbed under the blankets, closing her eyes tightly, willing herself to sleep.

During the next couple of days, Karen threw herself tirelessly into her work. Feeling guilty about her imminent departure on top of everything else, she tried to be available whenever the wakeful needed comforting during the long nights. She helped out on the wards, often forgoing her rest periods to instruct the VADs.

‘I’m glad it’s you tonight, Sister,’ one man said as she pushed the dressing trolley up to his bed. ‘A nice, cool touch you’ve got with dressings. Better than that Nurse Jennings, I can tell you.’ The men in the neighbouring beds murmured their agreement.

‘Now then, you mustn’t say that,’ Karen reproved him. ‘I’m sure she does her best.’ She turned to Nick who, as usual, was following her around, anxious to help. ‘Draw the screens, will you?’