Vigil in the Night (8 page)

 
It was exquisite to feel the cool wind on her brow. She scarcely heard, could not answer, the questions that were put to her. Someone gave her a chair and a glass of water. The rain had stopped, the sun was shining. In the distance she heard the faint sound of a factory whistle.

 
Weakly, she realized that it was noon.

 
Presently Dr. Prescott came out. He spent a few minutes talking to several newspapermen. He watched the waiting ambulance drive off. Then he came toward her.

 
“I’m going to take you back, Nurse Lee. I’ve no desire to see another casualty added to the list.”

 
He drove slowly, silently. Seated beside him, eyes closed, the flow of air incredibly refreshing to her numb face, Anne was grateful for his consideration. It gave her time to recover before reaching the hospital. She hoped that Matron would not ask her to take duty immediately.

 
But when they entered the city and Anne opened her eyes, she saw they were not heading straight for Hepperton. Even before her quick glance of inquiry reached out to him he read her thought. He said abruptly:

 
“I am taking you to my house. You must rest a little and have some food before returning to the hospital. Besides—there is that wound on your face.”

 
She answered doubtfully, “I was supposed to be in the ward by ten o’clock.”

 
He actually laughed. That laugh showed his strong white teeth, changed the whole complexion of his dark face, making it frank and boyish. But it was gone instantly. He said curtly, as if regretting his condescension, “Don’t be foolish, please!” And turned the car into Royal Terrace.

 
This was a quiet row of tall and sun-bleached dwellings, away from traffic, rich in dignity and tradition. Near the middle of the long Georgian façade he drew up and helped her from her seat. He took his key from his pocket, ran up the steps, and admitted her to his home.

 
“Lie down.” He indicated a couch with a nod. “I’m going to get you a glass of sherry. You look as if you needed it.”

 
He went out of the room and in a moment came back with a decanter and two glasses. Pouring her some wine, he watched her sip it, then filled a glass for himself.

 
“I can do with this, too,” he said, studying the color of the wine. “It was no joke, five hours in that steaming kitchen. But it was worth it. Those cases will pull through now. And otherwise I wouldn’t have given twopence for their chances.” He looked at her fixedly. “I’m profoundly grateful to you, Nurse—in a way you probably don’t realize—for your cooperation—your foresight, skill, and courage.”

 
He paused, as if considering whether or not he should disclose his meaning. Then, taking a sudden decision, he went on. “What we did this morning is going to have tremendous publicity. Possibly you’ll believe me when you see the evening papers. I don’t want you to misunderstand me. But I want that publicity badly. I don’t want it in the cheap personal sense. I want it for my life’s work, for the clinic I’m trying to persuade them to give me. The sensation—if I may use a disagreeable word—of our morning’s work will do more to persuade the people I’ve been hammering at, especially my friend Matt Bowley, than a million ordinary operations in a million ordinary operating theatres.”

 
He rose and began to pace up and down with quick, restless strides. “I ought to tell you, Nurse, that I want a surgical brain clinic, a central unit concentrating upon lesions of the brain and the central nervous system. That’s the objective of all my work. You may not know it, but thousands of lives are thrown away every year because we lack specialized facilities for operative work upon the brain, because certain antiquated dunderheads cling to the belief that intracranial surgery is impossible. Well! I mean to have that clinic if it kills me.”

 
He broke off sharply, stopped his pacing, and pushed back a lock of hair that had fallen across his brow. “I beg your pardon. I don’t often have such a good listener. I forgot it was time for you to have some lunch.”

 
He insisted that she remain where she was, and had his housekeeper bring a small round table. The lunch was placed between them: a hot bouillon, cold chicken, and hearts of lettuce, with a cream soufflé to follow. Anne had not tasted such perfect food for many months. The wine had fortified her, made her realize that she was hungry, that she had eaten nothing since ten o’clock the night before.

 
Strict formality had descended upon him again. He pressed the various dishes on her, anxious that she should eat well of everything, but his manner was stiff and cold.

 
“You probably understand,” he remarked with a certain brusqueness, “that I do not make a point of entertaining the nursing staff of Hepperton. I have the utmost contempt for any doctor who allows himself to become—shall I say—socially involved, using the phrase in its best sense, with any nurse with whom he is called upon to work.”

 
Anne nodded. “A doctor has his job, and a nurse has hers. Why should they have to meet on any other ground?”

 
He crumbled his bread absently. “The circumstances today are exceptional. And we did meet upon professional ground. Your work was truly magnificent.”

 
There was a silence; then, perceiving that she had finished, he declared: “If you feel better now, I might attend to your face. There’s a slight laceration on your temple. If I don’t stitch it, you’ll have a scar.”

 
He rose and fetched a glass tray from his consulting room; cleansed the cut with alcohol, anesthetized it, and, almost without her knowledge, slipped in two delicate sutures.

 
When she had rested a bit, he took her downstairs and gravely wished her good-bye.

 
As she set out for the Hepperton she told herself, without presumption, that she had made a friend.

CHAPTER 24

 
As Dr. Prescott had predicted, the coach disaster and its sequel at Rodney Farm became front-page news in Manchester. Headlines splashed: “Surgeon and Nurse Save Thirty Lives.” Anne was raised, quite against her will, to the pinnacle of a heroic figure. In the more conservative press Dr. Prescott’s name was freely mentioned, coupled with discreet yet persistent references to his scheme for a surgical clinic. It was rumored that Matthew Bowley was favorably disposed toward the project. If the mill owner decided to give it his support, financial and political, the clinic was as good as built. Anne followed these moves with intense interest, and ten days after her return to the hospital she tasted the full sweetness of her first success. She was promoted from Ward C to the post of senior nurse on the outdoor staff.

 
This for many reasons was a much coveted appointment. And, though it came ostensibly from the matron as a reward for her fine work at the accident and for all the glory she had brought the hospital, Anne knew, as did all the nurses’ home, that the hand of Dr. Prescott was behind her promotion.

 
And what a change it brought in the field of her endeavors! As senior visiting nurse it was now her duty, in conjunction with the six nurses under her, to serve the Hepperton district, attending patients in their own homes and giving them there the requisite nursing service. Actually this system was the survival of a voluntary welfare scheme which had once been run by the hospital. It gave the nurses engaged upon it wider and more individual experience, greater freedom, and the occasional opportunity of nursing some rich patient in a fine private house.

 
It appeared to Anne, reviewing her changed circumstances, that nothing but good fortune had come to her from the accident. But for Joe, alas, the event was positive calamity. The loss of the bus was a minor issue. But the claims for damages were likely to be colossal.

 
Anne had met him when he came to Manchester in May to attend the inquiry held by the Ministry of Transport. It was a rushed visit; yet from his demeanor she had guessed that he was seriously worried. It was the matter of insurance which seemed to be in question. Ted Grein looked after this aspect of the business. But apparently this policy had fallen into arrears. Or it possibly was worse. Anne had an uneasy suspicion that the money had been apportioned for the policy and not paid over by the suave, too gentlemanly Ted. Joe would not say. Yet as he hurried off to attend the court, his face spoke more than words.

 
The inquiry was adjourned for a month so that injured passengers, who were necessary witnesses, might appear. Anne did not see Joe before he left for London. She sent a long letter of consolation to Lucy. And then, though deeply disturbed, she was overtaken by the sudden rush of her new duties in the district.

 
Never before had she realized the full scope and usefulness of the nurse’s work. Never before had she come so closely in contact with humanity. She went into poverty-stricken homes where there was not enough to eat, into one-room slums where the furniture consisted of a dirty mattress, a rickety chair, an old iron cooking pot. She went into homes on which the hand of dread disease had laid its paralyzing clasp, homes rich and poor where people walked on tiptoe and anxiously read her face for some slight sign of hope. She came to realize what a password was her name, the magic name of “Nurse.” She discovered how rowdy crowds parted to make way for her, how in the worst localities of the city the sight of her uniform was more protection than a squad of policemen.

CHAPTER 25

 
Three weeks after her promotion Anne received her first important private case, and with it plain indication that she had made influential friends. In the course of her visiting she had done a certain amount of private work, but this, apart from the fact that it necessitated her living out of the hospital, was a case of the first magnitude.

 
She was sent out to nurse the invalid wife of Matthew Bowley.

 
The matron, having summoned Anne to her office, did not fail to impress the facts upon her with due severity. “You are very young, Nurse Lee,” said the Bruiser, drawing her eyebrows down, “for this particular responsibility. But Mr. Bowley wished you to be sent, and Dr. Prescott appears to have confidence in you. See that these good opinions are not misplaced. And remember: While you are in this household, see that your conduct is in every way befitting the traditions of the hospital.”

 
“Yes, Matron.”

 
With a warm sense of elation, a feeling that she was climbing the ladder of her profession, Anne left the office and went to the nurses’ home to collect her things. In a quarter of an hour she was ready, and at ten o’clock sharp the car, as promised, called for her. The car was a glittering blue Rolls-Royce with silvered fittings and a chauffeur in dark gray livery.

 
It was a warm, sunny morning. As Anne drove through those crowded, dusty streets down which she usually hastened on foot carrying her own bag, she sensed already, in the smooth luxury of the Rolls, something of the privileges afforded by enormous wealth. The Bowley home heightened this sensation. An impressive and many-gabled mansion, situated in its own extensive grounds on Dene Hill a few miles out of Manchester, it conveyed, through its rich furnishing, thick carpets, and fine paintings, an almost intimidating sense of affluence. There was an excess of opulence about the house.

 
Nevertheless Anne found her quarters, which were in the south wing next to Mrs. Bowley’s bedroom, charming in the extreme. Her little sitting room was filled with flowers, there were books about, and the windows opened onto a wide stretch of velvety lawn. No sooner had she arrived than a neat maid appeared and asked if she would care to have morning coffee. Anne could not repress a very human thrill of satisfaction: there were, after all, pleasant oases in the arid desert of a nurse’s life. And this, after her days of grim trudging round the Hepperton slums, was surely one of them. Then she had changed into her uniform and hastened in to see her patient.

 
Mrs. Bowley was a dark, sallow woman of about fifty, with a well-nourished body, a high bust, and a worried, rather vulgar face. She lay in a large bed in the middle of the large room, the blinds of which were half-drawn, surrounded by every appurtenance—from her bedside table to her gorgeous array of medicine bottles—of the confirmed valetudinarian. Mrs. Bowley was, in fact, a chronic neurotic. Married to poor young Matt Bowley thirty years ago, she had been an active, energetic girl. But Bowley’s rise had reacted curiously upon her nervous system. Wealth had enabled her to develop those strange idiosyncrasies of temperament, those imaginary ailments, which poverty had denied her. Though still devoted to her husband, she spent most of her time in bed, suffering from repeated “breakdowns,” pathetically traced back to the struggles of her early married life.

 
Now, having made long and anxious observation of Anne, she nodded and remarked: “I think I shall like you, my dear. Dr. Prescott spoke so highly of you. ’Ave they made you comfortable? Fetch me over my Florida water, then come and sit by me. We’ll have a long chat. You can rub my forehead as we’re talkin’.”