Vigil in the Night (6 page)

CHAPTER 16

 
The quality of the food in the nurses’ mess hall steadily grew worse. Nora, Anne, and Glennie, with Nurse Dow and Nurse Todd, two hardy spirits who had recently attached themselves to Anne, and a number of other girls who represented the most intelligent nurses in the home met one day to decide upon the most effective way of making a protest.

 
“We’ve got to do something about it,” declared Nurse Dow. “If we don’t, there’s going to be a thundering tragedy.”

 
“But what can we do about it?” demanded Nurse Todd with a hopeless gesture.

 
“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” said Nora with violent emphasis. “We’ll shame them into feeding us. I’ve had the idea in my head for the last few days. Now listen. We’ve got to stop eating their food. And eat our own instead. Tomorrow we’ll eat no lunch, not a scrap, and then at half-past one we’ll walk out to Gibb’s store, buy biscuits and cheese and bananas, and come back and eat them in the yard under Matron’s window. There’s no law against that to my knowledge. And if we do it every day for a week, we’re bound to make the old bruiser sit up and take notice.”

 
Nora’s proposal was received with acclamation. But Anne knew that the scheme had little chance of success. She had a sudden impulse to take the matter to Dr. Prescott. But she told herself that she barely knew him, that he would perhaps resent her approach, and that in any case it was not his place to interfere. She understood well enough, however, that since the fault lay entirely with the system, the only way to effect a genuine and lasting reform was by taking the matter beyond the matron to the highest court of appeal.

 
There were nine of the rebels, all told. The following day at lunchtime, when the meal was placed before them, they simply left it untouched. No one took much notice. Sister Lucas, who was supposed to pay a visit of inspection to the refectory, did not appear.

 
At half-past one, the nine nurses went over to Gibb’s, the small general store situated opposite the main hospital gates, and made their purchases—biscuits, chocolate, and fruit. They returned munching openly, completing their alfresco meal in the courtyard directly beneath the matron’s sitting room. They did not exactly create a sensation. But Nurse Todd remarked:

 
“Anyhow, this is better than we could have done inside.”

 
Nora thoughtfully left a banana skin on the matron’s window sill.

 
Though there was little enough to show for the start of the campaign, they had been observed nonetheless, and the following day’s lunch brought definite results. Sister Lucas was in the refectory at one o’clock sharp, and when the nine refused to touch their portions, she scrutinized them with suspicion and severity.

 
“Why aren’t you eating?” she asked Nora sharply.

 
“I’m not hungry, Sister.”

 
“What nonsense is this?” said the Sister in a tone of outraged authority. “It’s perfectly good food.”

 
“How do you know, Sister?” Glennie interposed drily. “It isn’t on your menu. You Sisters get very different food from this.”

 
Sister Lucas reddened. “No impertinence, please. If you don’t eat your lunches, I’ll report you to Matron.”

 
“Are we breaking any rules by not feeling hungry?” Anne asked innocently.

 
There was secret jubilation among the group as the Sister lost countenance, turned, and walked away. Afterward, when they had foraged for provisions at the little store, Nora left two banana skins on the matron’s window sill.

 
The following day and the day after passed without official intervention, authority plainly hoping the insurrection would die a natural death. But the rebels had sworn never to strike their flag. And so, on Friday, the refectory was startled by the appearance of Matron herself.

 
She came in abruptly, a small dominant figure in her shining purple uniform and flowing, immaculate headdress. Her face was expressionless, her lips pursed, her hands folded before her. She walked slowly down the room in an aura of unnatural silence. The nine trembled, yet held staunchly together as she stopped and surveyed their un-touched plates.

 
There was an even deeper silence, not the clatter of a plate or the chink of a fork in that usually noisy room as the matron turned to Anne.

 
“Don’t you wish any fish?”

 
Anne rose respectfully. “No, Matron.”

 
“Why not?”

 
At the question a preliminary shiver went down the table. To reply rudely, to condemn directly the cooking or the food, would be to invite disaster and probably would mean dismissal.

 
But Anne was suddenly inspired. “Because I enjoy what I buy outside.”

 
It was the perfect answer, and afterward they hugged Anne for it. The matron stood nonplussed. She had been prepared for insolence and had meant to deal with it. This courteous innuendo took the wind completely from her sails, but she did not lose face, as Sister Lucas had done. She gave Anne a long, hard stare, completed her circuit of the table, and silently went out.

 
Most of the group felt that victory was theirs.

 
“We’ve got her on the run,” Nora exclaimed. “She’ll have to do something now.”

 
Anne shook her head significantly, ominously. “I’m afraid she will.”

 
And Anne, alas, was right. Next morning a notice was pasted on the board: “Nurses are prohibited from leaving the hospital grounds between the hours of twelve and two. No foodstuffs are to be brought into the hospital by any nurse without special permit. Elizabeth East.”

 
Nora turned from the board with a crestfallen face.

 
“Well,” she remarked sheepishly to the others, “it looks as though we must die or swallow their vile food.”

 
They swallowed it.

CHAPTER 17

 
Strangely enough, Anne’s weekend of leave was not delayed because of her participation in the short-lived hunger strike. Matron East was not deliberately unjust, but her difficulties at Hepperton were enormous; she was continually being badgered by the committee, and a blustering policy seemed to her the only apt one. Still, she knew the value of a good nurse. For that reason alone she did not want to overpenalize Nurse Lee. And so, toward the beginning of May, a memorandum arrived for Anne, granting her the promised leave.

 
It was a lovely day when she took her seat in the London train, thrilling to the knowledge that she was so soon to see her sister again. Friday afternoon until Monday morning—what a long holiday it seemed!

 
As the train pounded through the sunshine she felt it good to be alive. She had made many friends in these last weeks, and despite the exactions and hardships of Hepperton she was conscious that she was making progress in her work. For the past two weeks she had been deputizing in Dr. Prescott’s operating theatre. It was always a stimulus, a great incentive to watch his marvelous technique, especially when he dealt with those cases that were his specialty, lesions of the central nervous system and the brain. Often she would find herself thinking of him, recollecting some particularly delicate touch, the swift, deft wielding of an instrument as he traced the infinitesimal line between life and death.

 
Lucy did not meet Anne at Euston, but Anne found the correct bus and was soon in Elthreda Avenue, Muswell Hill. Her heart was beating quickly as she raced up the front steps of Number 7. She rang the bell, then gave a joyful cry as Lucy appeared behind the smart maid who opened the door. The next instant the two sisters were in each other’s arms.

 
Anne felt as though she could never again let Lucy go, but at last she forced herself to sit down, to talk calmly, and to listen. Lucy certainly had much to tell her. She was perhaps a little plumper than before, and she looked very smart. She was proud of her new house, her new shiny furniture, her new frilly-aproned maid, and naturally she was anxious to display them.

CHAPTER 18

 
Ensconced in her little drawing room behind the tray which was immediately brought in, she gave Anne tea, using her best china. She talked of her new neighbors—“really nice people”—of the new plays and pictures she had seen. But she could not rest till she had taken her sister round, made her examine everything from the quality of the bed linen to the cut of her latest evening gown. Anne might have smiled if she had not loved Lucy so much. Lucy seemed bent on proudly exhibiting how much matrimony had done for her.

 
“It’s all very wonderful, my dear,” Anne finally declared, slipping her arm round her sister’s waist. “I’m so terribly, terribly glad you’re happy. Joe must be doing famously to give you such a lovely home.”

 
Lucy nodded knowingly. “We’re in on a pretty good thing, Anne. Transport, Limited—I think I told you about it. Joe’s gone in with Ted Grein—Ted’s such a gentleman—in a real big motor-bus company—you know, long-distance road travel between London and Bristol and Cardiff and Manchester. There’s an idea now!” She paused dramatically at the mention of the northern city. “I’ll send you back to Manchester in one of our coaches. No need to use the grubby old railway with Transport, Limited on the map. It’s the coming concern. Ted’s had it going a couple of years. It was such a chance for Joe to put his money in it. There’s wads and wads to be made, Anne. Your little sister’s going to be rich.”

 
They were interrupted by the arrival of Joe himself. Back from business, he came in with his old, awkward air, greeted Anne with a diffident yet spontaneous warmth. Seeing him thus, Anne was a little startled at the change in him. Perhaps it was his dark business clothes; yet he seemed pale and high strung, with a furrow between his brows which had not been there before.

 
“You’re bringing us a real breath of the north, Anne.” He laughed shortly. “I don’t mind telling you I could do with a spot of that air myself.”

 
“What nonsense, Joe!” Lucy said rather impatiently.

 
Joe answered: “Nonsense or not, lass, that’s how I feel. I’d give a pound note to be out on the Harbor Road—just for five minutes, in my overalls, getting in the front seat of my old sedan.”

 
Lucy flushed and said sharply, “Do you want to be a mechanic all your life?”

 
“I am a mechanic,” Joe answered with a sudden moodiness in his voice. “And a darned good one, if you want to know.”

 
It seemed as if a quarrel were about to break. But Lucy with an effort suppressed her temper.

 
“Well, anyhow, run upstairs and change, Joe. We’ve got to be ready before seven.”

 
He stared at her restively. “What!” he expostulated. “Are we going out again?”

 
“Yes, we’re going to the theatre.” Lucy’s lips drew together. “We must give Anne a good time.”

 
Again that note of friction was in the air. It caused Anne a queer discomfort. She said quickly:

 
“But honestly, I’d far rather stay in and have a real long talk with you both. That’s what I came for.”

 
“We’re going to the theatre,” Lucy said with unmistakable emphasis. And the look in her eye told Joe that he had better drop the argument and hurry up and change.

 
It was a silly musical comedy that they saw. Anne hated it, and Lucy was too busy pointing out celebrities to give it much attention. Paradoxically, Joe enjoyed it. He offset his tiredness by frequent visits to the bar, and by the end of the evening was incoherently hilarious.

 
Next morning, Saturday, Lucy relentlessly pursued her program, dragging Anne around the shops, through the hustle and bustle of Oxford Street. It seemed to Anne that marriage had made Lucy harder, vaguely feverish in her activities. The thought depressed her. That night they went to dinner at the Vladimir, a restaurant in Regent Street, Mr. Grein, Joe’s partner, honoring them by making the party four.

CHAPTER 19

 
From the beginning, from his first engaging remark—”You nurses see a bit of life, I’ll bet”—Anne hated Grein with a silent yet lively hatred. Dark, suave, and stoutish, Ted Grein wore his double-breasted dinner jacket with conscious elegance. His manners were effusive, his “my dears” frequent, his smiling eye evasive. Though he was Joe’s guest, he ordered the dinner and the wine. As Lucy admiringly declared: “Ted knows his way about. Ted would be the life and soul of any party.” Much liquor was drunk by Joe and Ted, and though Ted retained his air of polished breeding, Joe, when he paid the bill, was almost fit to be put to bed.

 
Sunday was a better day. Lucy was too exhausted to stir and made no complaint when Joe, slightly puffy-eyed, appeared in shirtsleeves. Soon they were all three talking of the old days in Shereford. Lucy’s laugh rang out spontaneously.