She said they might not be home yet…’
‘They’ll be back before Christmas, though?’
‘Oh, I’m sure they will! It’s still October. Will you get off for the holiday?’
Araminta shook her head. ‘I don’t think so, I’m very junior, but of course I’ll get my days off as near to Christmas Day as possible.’
‘You like it? You’re happy?’
Araminta assured her that she was.
The two days were soon over, but they had given her a respite, and she went back on the ward determined to make the week a better one than her first had been. It was a pity that Sister Spicer was bent on making that as difficult as possible.
Molly had told her that Sister Spicer, if she took a dislike to anyone, would go to great lengths to make life as unpleasant as possible for her. Araminta hadn’t quite believed that, but now she saw that it was true. Nothing she did was quite right; she was too slow, too clumsy, too careless. She tried not to let it worry her and took comfort from the patients, who liked her. Staff Nurse was kind, too, and the two senior student nurses, although the other student nurse who was in the same set as she now was, did nothing to make life easier for her.
Melanie was a small, pretty girl, always ready with the right answers during the lectures they both attended, and, since Sister Spicer liked her, the fact that she sometimes skimped her work and was careless of the patients’ comfort, went unnoticed. She was young, barely nineteen, and made it obvious that Araminta need not expect either her friendship or her help on the ward.
When once she came upon Araminta speaking to one of the house doctors she said spitefully, ‘Don’t you know better than to talk to the housemen? Is that why you’re here? To catch yourself a husband? Just you wait and see what happens to you if Sister Spicer catches you.’
Araminta looked at her in blank astonishment. ‘He was asking me the way to Outpatients; he’s new.’
Melanie giggled. ‘That’s as good an excuse as any, I suppose, but watch out.’
Thank heavens I’ve got days off tomorrow, Araminta thought. Since she was off duty at six o’clock that evening, she would be able to catch a train home. She hadn’t told her cousin, but she would be home by nine o’clock at the latest…
The afternoon was endless, but she went about getting patients in and out of bed, helping them, getting teas, bed pans, filling water jugs, but it was six o’clock at last and she went to the office, thankful that she could at last ask to go off duty.
Sister Spicer barley glanced up from the report she was writing.
‘Have you cleaned and made up the bed in the side ward? And the locker? It may be needed. You should have done it earlier. I told Nurse Jones to tell you. Well, it’s your own fault for not listening, Nurse. Go and do it now and then you may go off duty.’
‘I wasn’t told to do it, Sister,’ Araminta said politely, ‘and I am off duty at six o’clock.’
Sister Spicer did look up then. ‘You’ll do as you are told, Nurse—and how dare you answer back in that fashion? I shall see the Principal Nursing Sister in the morning and I shall recommend that you are entirely unsuitable for training. If I can’t train you, no one else could.’
She bent her head over her desk and Araminta went back into the ward where there was a third-year nurse and Melanie, who had taken such a dislike to her. Neither of them took any notice of her as she went to the side ward and started on the bed. She very much wanted to speak her mind, but that might upset the patients and, worse, she might burst into tears. She would have her days off and when she came back she would go and see the Principal Nursing Officer and ask to be moved to another ward. Unheard of, but worth a try!
It was almost seven o’clock by the time she had finished readying the room and making up the bed. She went down the ward, wishing the patients a cheerful goodnight as she went, ignoring the nurses and ignoring, too, Sister’s office, walking past it, out of the ward and along the corridor, then going down the wide stone staircase to the floor below and then another staircase to the ground floor.
She was trying to make up her mind as to whether it was too late to go home, or should she wait for the morning, but she was boiling with rage and misery. Nothing was turning out as she had hoped, not that that mattered now that she would never see Marcus van der Breugh again. The pain of loving him was almost physical. She swallowed the tears she must hold back until she was in her room.
‘I shall probably be given the sack,’ she said out loud, and jumped the last two steps, straight into the doctor’s waistcoat.
‘Oh,’ said Araminta, as she flung her arms around as much of him as she could reach and burst into tears.
He stood patiently, holding her lightly, and not until her sobs had dwindled into hiccoughs and sniffs did he ask, ‘In trouble?’
‘Yes, oh, yes. You have no idea.’ It seemed the most natural thing in the world to tell him, and, for the moment, the delight of finding him there just when she wanted him so badly had overridden all her good resolutions not to see him again, to forget him…
He said calmly in a voice she wouldn’t have dreamt of disobeying, ‘Come with me,’ and he urged her across the corridor and into a room at its end.
‘I can’t come in here,’ said Araminta. ‘It’s the consultants’ room. I’m not allowed…’
‘I’m a consultant and I’m allowing you. Sit down, Mintie, and tell me why you are so upset.’
He handed her a very white handkerchief. ‘Mop up your face, stop crying and begin at the beginning.’
She stopped crying and mopped her face, but to begin at the beginning was impossible. She told him everything, muddling its sequence, making no excuses. ‘And, of course, I’ll be given the sack,’ she finished. ‘I was so rude to Sister Spicer, and anyway, she said I was no good, that I’d never make a nurse.’
She gave a sniff and blew her nose vigorously. ‘It’s kind of you to listen; I don’t know why I had to behave like that. At least, I do, I had been looking forward to my days off, and I would have been home by now. But it’s all my own fault; I’m just not cut out to be a nurse. But that doesn’t matter,’ she added defiantly. ‘There are any number of careers these days.’
The doctor made no comment. All he said was, ‘Go and wait in the nurses’ sitting room until I send you a message. No, don’t start asking questions. I’ll explain later.’
He led her back, saw her on her way and went without haste to the Principal Nursing Officer’s office. He was there for some time, using his powers of persuasion, cutting ruthlessly through rules and regulations with patience and determination which couldn’t be gainsaid.
Araminta found several of her new friends in the sitting room, and it was Molly who asked, ‘Not gone yet?’ and then, when she saw Araminta’s face, added, ‘Come and sit down. We were just wondering if we’d go down to the corner and get some chips.’
Araminta said carefully, ‘I meant to go home this evening, but I got held up. I—I was rude to Sister Spicer. I expect I’ll be dismissed.’
She didn’t feel like a grown
