Australian Hospital (6 page)

Candace smiled good-night and went upstairs.

There was a light on in Eve Trisby’s room, but the door was closed.

Candace unpacked and distributed her belongings, took a hot bath, and slipped into bed.

The smell of the camphors, which Claire had described as wet sticks and drenched violets, drifted through the window in a new, strange, yet very sweet wave.

Candace found herself drifting too.

When she opened her eyes it was bright daylight.

She faced her first day on duty at Manathunka Home.

CHAPTER V

When
she had dressed herself in the lilac uniform, Candace went down to breakfast.

A sudden idea assailed her, and she turned left again, as she had last night.

She put her head round the door and called mischievously, “I just wanted to tell you girls that I am not making a mistake a second time.”

There was a halt in the clatter and chatter, then someone laughed appreciatively, and the others took it up.

“You’re welcome, Sister,” called the same pert young voice that had remarked “Among the elite” last night, and the girl sounded sincere.

“Thank you,” returned Candace. “Good morning.”

She went out and across to her own breakfast.

She had it alone. Sister Arnold, so the aide whose turn it was to wait on table said, had eaten, and Sister Trisby, who was not coming on duty until the afternoon, was spending the morning in bed.

Candace finished the meal, pinned her white veil more securely, then crossed the lawn to the main building.

She went into the first room, a small ward of eight patients, and noted that an aide was collecting the used breakfast dishes. She put them on a trolley, pushed them into the kitchen, then came back and started on the flowers.

Candace offered to help her.

“Oh, thank you, Sister. Sister Flett often did, too. It saves us a lot of time. Manathunka always has oodles of flowers.”

As they worked together, Candace asked the girl many questions. It appeared that her name was Brenda Carl, and her parents lived in Westfield, and she was sixteen.

“I expect you are just practising here until you can start serious training at a general hospital?”

“Oh, no, I used to think that once, but not now.”

“Why, Brenda?”

“It’d drive me mad. I’d hate it. Dishes, pans, flowers, dusting, polishing, scrubbing. I’d sooner be in a factory.”

Candace recalled her own probationer days, and how she, too, had found these things monotonous, but how there was always the prospect of something interesting and important once the menial tasks were put behind one. She said this to Brenda, but the girl seemed unimpressed.

“Aren’t you ever taught anything?” persisted Candace.

“How do you mean, Sister?”

“Taking temperature, for instance. Applying a poultice.”

“No, Sister, though Sister Flett did speak about showing us once. It didn’t come to anything.”

“Come, and I’ll show you now.”

Candace decided to take Mrs. Jenkins’ temperature. She demonstrated how the mercury was shaken below normal, the thermometer placed beneath the tongue, and the lips closed.

Sister Arnold looked in during the lesson, nodded affably and went out.

Brenda’s eyes were wide and excited. Candace knew she would have plenty to say at the next communal meal with the other aides.

She made her way round the ward, Brenda by her
side. Some
of the patients were reading; some sewing, though with difficulty; quite a number were just lying listlessly, eyes on the ceiling.

This was wrong, thought Candace. It was very wrong.

“Brenda,” she asked quietly but definitely, “hasn’t Manathunka an occupational therapist?”

“It did have. Perhaps Miss Breen’s coming back again. I don’t know.”

“Why did she leave?”

“Sister Trisby reported that her stuff made a mess. Miss Breen asked for a special room, but funds being what they were, it was postponed. I really couldn’t say whether she’s returning, or not. She wants to. She likes it here, or”—a sly look—“she likes Doctor Ferry. She’s nice, though, and awfully pretty. As pretty as Sister Trisby, really, and besides that she can smile.”

Candace left Brenda polishing, and made a round of the men’s wards.

A few of the patients had been in the first war, and asked her of places they remembered in England.

Bobby told her about his latest dream. The lion-tamer in the circus had suddenly lost his nerve, and, barehanded, Bobby had run to his rescue and pulled him free.

“There,” said Candace, “didn’t Sister Flett tell you to eat your greens?”

“Yes, but I wish spinach was a different colour.”

Over morning tea Candace met Toby Ferry, and liked him instantly. He was Westfield’s local medico, young, smiling, making up in earnest endeavour what he lacked in experience. She felt he would go a long way.

“Barbara not back yet?” he asked, a little wistfully.

“Barbara?”

“Miss Breen, the therapist.”

“Oh—I wanted to ask you about that. Brenda—one of the aides—seemed to think she might not return; that the home would do without a therapist.” Candace’s eyes met Ferry’s.

He looked back at her a long moment, then shrugged.

“You know as much as I know, Sister.”

Candace had been about to comment rather strongly when she was made aware of an excited buzz around her.

Through the window she saw that a large, olive-green car had swung round the camphor drive, and was now pulling up at the main entrance.

There were flying steps from the sisters’ quarters, and the next moment Eve Trisby emerged in a flurry of beautifully-flared skirts.

She fairly raced to the car, and was there by the time its driver stepped out of it.

Toby, meanwhile, had steered Candace outside, and towards the car, also muttering quite excitedly as he did so, “... must meet Ash ... good old Ash ... you’ll like him ... everything will be better now Ash is back—”

Eve was crying, “Ash, you darling wretch, you might have come before.”

She flung her arms around the man, and for a brief moment his eyes met Candace’s above the perfect platinum head.

“Candace—” His lips scarcely framed it.

Candace said, “Stephen—” She stood quite still.

Doctor Ferry was smiling from ear to ear. “This is our new nightingale, Sister Jamieson. This, Sister, is the famous Doctor Ash.”

“The correct name,” said Stephen, “is Halliday. My Christian names are Andrew Stephen, hence Ash.”

He spoke as coolly as ever. He did not attempt to acknowledge any former meeting.

Candace bowed, murmured something about taking a temperature, and crossed back to one of the wards.

It was an hour later, and she was replacing a hot-water bottle for old Mrs. Jenkins, who insisted she was chilly although the unacclimatized extremely mild for early spring, when Doctor Halliday walked suddenly into the room. An immediate fanfare was set up. Even Claire’s “dependable thorn,” thin, discontented Miss Walsh, flushed an excited pink and waved her misshapen hand.

Candace alone stood remote and unworshipping. Her grave, grey gaze met his vivid, blue, rather mocking glance across the cots.

He went from bed to bed, saying the right thing, bringing a glow to pale cheeks, a shine into tired eyes.

His personality seemed unlimited. The patients obviously adored him. Candace thought of another encounter with this man, and, to her dismay, went a similar deep pink.

He must have noticed it, and, perhaps, guessed what caused it, for he raised inquiring brows, and his blue eyes mocked more than ever.

“You may conduct me round the other wards, Sister.”

“I am busy here.”

The brows rose again, but this time not in laughing inquiry.

“I was not
asking,
Sister,” said Stephen Halliday, “I was issuing an order.”

Silently, she took her place by his side, eyes downcast, keeping the distance between them as wide as possible.

“You knew you were coming to Manathunka?” he asked presently.

“Yes, Doctor.”

“That explains it.” They negotiated another corridor.

“What does it explain?”

“Your delay in clinching matters with young Buckland. Obviously you had heard of Manathunka’s reputation. Among hospitals here in Sydney, it is known as the Matrimonial Bureau. Sisters last no time, and the aides, I am told, are snapped up like hot cakes.”

If ever Candace needed her Charlotte discipline, it was now. She clenched her fists as if her temper were a solid thing held in her hands, raised her chin proudly, and remarked: “We have a new patient, Doctor. New since you were here last. A seven-year-old girl, Jean Mason. Jeanie dear, this is Doctor Halliday.”

The little girl looked up shyly.

“Hullo, Doctor Holiday.”

“
Halliday,
Jeanie,” said Candace.

Stephen turned on her sharply. “Let her use her own name. A pleasant misnomer from a child is more valuable to me than
your
correction, Sister. It always puzzles me that in all your years of training, you nurses never manage to absorb any human understanding.”

This time Candace did not flush, she went very white. Doctor Halliday resumed his rounds, and perforce she went with him.

“This is your first day here?”

“Obviously, seeing I only disembarked yester—”

Candace remembered herself in time.

“Yes, Doctor,” she corrected docilely.

A flicker of a smile lifted the corner of Stephen Halliday’s mouth.

He was grave, however, as he asked, “And your reactions?”

“Good.”

“You don’t sound wholehearted.”

“I’m not, entirely.”

“What have you found wanting?”

“It is not my prerogative to say.”

“Sister Jamieson”—his tone was irascible—“I have asked you a question.”

She felt rather like an erring schoolgirl standing there before him, and she blurted out her answers almost in the same manner as if she was standing beside a master’s desk “The aides—they are not properly trained.”

“Manathunka does not profess to be a training college.”

“No, but they would be more contented, a happier group of girls, if they were being instructed in something worth while. It seems to me such a waste letting them simply fill in time like this.”

“Waste—that sounds rather like our worthy Matron.”

“But she is concerned over rice and eggs, not girls.”

“Oh, so you have discovered that, too.”

“Sister Arnold told me how meticulous Matron is about the household accounts.”

“I see Any more complaints, Sister?”

“Doctor Halliday, I feel it is not my place—”

“You heard me before, I presume. I am not
inviting
your opinion, I am
ordering
it.”

“Very well. It is outrageous that there is no therapist. These people are crying out for occupation. There should be a special room put aside, and every facility made available for its betterment. There should be a permanent therapist who would in time, perhaps, even find something to suit Miss Walsh. It is only a matter of patience, application, and elimination.”

Candace stopped abruptly, rather shocked at her own daring. She had only been here one morning, and already she had put into words what Claire Flett had not found courage to in quite a few years.

She had uttered them, too, to the great Doctor Halliday, esteemed visiting honorary, member of the Board.

She stood waiting his censure, then as he remained silent, she ventured a timid: “I hear our dinner bell. May I please be excused, sir?”

“Certainly, Sister. I recall your robust appetite on board. You and I were the only hardy ones in the saloon during the bad weather.”

“And John—” Why had she added that, she wondered instantly.

At once Stephen Halliday’s brows met in a hard uncompromising line.

“You’re excused, Sister.”

Candace turned and went sedately across to the dining room.

In her chastened mood, she felt she would have preferred to run.

Some minutes later Candace heard the car departing.

A few minutes later again Eve Trisby came into the dining-room and sat down.

She was not in a good mood. She snapped at the aide for some trifling fault in the service. She forked at the food, said, “This stuff gets lousier every day,” then pushed aside her plate and lit a cigarette.

She was regarding Candace with spiteful eyes. Something seemed to have gone amiss with her scheming. She had allotted Jamieson that dismal mauve, but what had happened? The girl looked like a sprig of lilac—that’s what Ash had said. He had stood beside her on the lawn gazing through the window at Jamieson working in the ward, and he had said softly, “A sprig of lilac.”

“... Sister,” she spoke abruptly, “you will wear the yellow overall to-morrow.”

Candace looked up, surprised, but before she could comment Eve started off on another avenue.

“What’s this I hear about you showing one of the aides how to use a thermometer?”

“I showed Brenda Carl. She seemed eager to learn.”

“Then see to it it’s her last lesson. You’re not here as Sister Tutor.”

“But Sister Trisby, Sister Arnold saw me and she did not object.”

“Is this true, Sister?” Eve had turned her cold beautiful eyes on the older woman.