His ‘Good morning, Lucy,’ was quietly spoken and uttered with impersonal courtesy before he began giving the ward sister his instructions, and presently Miranda, still snivelling a bit, was given an injection and carried away to Theatre, leaving Lucy free to unpack her bag in the adjoining room and envelop her nicely curved person in the voluminous overall she had been told that she must wear. Her duties, as far as she could make out, were light enough—certainly no worse than they were at the orphanage. The only difference was that they would extend for a much longer period each day, and quite possibly each night too. A small price to pay for seeing the doctor from time to time, and on his own ground too.
She drank the coffee that one of the nurses brought her; the nurse was a nice girl, but faintly condescending. ‘Why don’t you train as a nurse?’ she asked.
‘I’m not clever,’ observed Lucy, ‘but I like children.’ She might have added that she had no need to earn her living, and that her mother and father found it difficult to understand as well as faintly amusing that she should spend her days feeding babies and toddlers and everlastingly clearing up their mess, only it didn’t enter her head to do so.
‘How long will it take?’ she wanted to know, and was treated to a lengthy description of exactly what Dr Thurloe was doing. She didn’t understand half of it, but it was nice to talk about him. ‘I thought he was a physician,’ she ventured.
The nurse gave her an impatient look. ‘Well, of course he is, but he does this kind of surgery too. He’s a paediatrician—that’s a children’s doctor.’
Lucy, who had looked all that up in her father’s study, already knew that, but she expressed suitable gratitude for being told, and when her companion said importantly that she must return to the ward and continue what sounded like a mountain of tasks, she thanked her for her company and settled herself down to wait. It wouldn’t be too long.
Miranda returned ten minutes later, borne in the arms of Theatre Sister and already rousing from the anaesthetic. There was just time for her to be settled in Lucy’s arms before she opened her eyes, and then her small mouth was ready to let out an enraged yell.
‘Hello, love,’ said Lucy in her gentle voice, and Miranda smiled instead.
‘Lucy,’ she mumbled contentedly, and closed her eyes and her mouth too.
Dr Thurloe, standing silently behind her, nodded his handsome head. He had been right to follow his instinctive wish to have Lucy there; it would make things a good deal easier on the ward, and besides, she looked nice sitting there in that oversized overall. He had a sudden jumble of ridiculous thoughts run through his clever head; nurseries, rice pudding, children shouting and laughing, and small figures pattering to and fro …
He frowned. Fiona had told him laughingly only the other day that he saw enough children without needing any of his own. ‘What you need,’ she had told him in her charming way, ‘is a quiet house to come home to, pleasant evenings with friends, and someone to talk to at the end of the day without any interruptions.’ She had made it sound very inviting and, because he had been very tired then, he had more or less agreed with her, but now he realised that that wasn’t what he wanted. He wasn’t sure what he did want, and anyway, it was hardly the time to worry about it now. He went to bend over his small patient, taking no notice of Lucy, then he gave more instructions to his ward sister and went away.
CHAPTER TWO
THE day seemed very long to Lucy. She was relieved for her meals, but Miranda, now fully awake, became restless towards the evening, and the only way to placate her was for Lucy to take her on her lap and murmur the moppet’s favourite nursery rhymes over and over again in her gentle voice. But eventually Miranda slept, and Lucy was able to tuck her into her cot and, with a nurse in her place, go to the canteen for her supper. The nurses there were casually kind, showing her where to get her meal and where she might sit, but beyond a few smiles and hellos she was ignored while they discussed their work on the wards, their boyfriends and their lack of money. She ate her supper quickly and slipped away unnoticed, back to the austere little room where Miranda was. The ward sister was there conning the chart.
Had your supper? Good. Night Sister will be along in about an hour. I think it might be a good idea if you had a bath and got ready for bed while I can spare a nurse to sit here—that will mean that if Miranda wakes up later and is difficult you’ll be available. Go to bed once Sister’s been—but you do know you may have to get up in the night? I don’t think there will be a nurse to spare to attend the child; we’re rather busy …’
She nodded and smiled and went away, and Lucy set about getting ready for bed in her own small room, leaving the door open in case Miranda woke and the nurse couldn’t placate her.
But the child slept on and Lucy bathed in peace, brushed her hair, got into a dressing-gown and padded back to take the nurse’s place.
The nurse yawned. ‘She hasn’t moved,’ she told Lucy. ‘She looks like a cherub, doesn’t she? If it weren’t for that outsized head …’ She glanced at her watch. ‘I’m off duty, thank heaven; it’s been a long day. See you in the morning.’
Lucy sat down. Miranda was sleeping peacefully, and her pulse, which Lucy had been shown how to take and record, was exactly as it should be. Lucy studied the chart and started to read up the notes behind it. The small operation had been written up in red ink in an almost unreadable scrawl and initialled W.T., and she puzzled it out with patience. Dr Thurloe might be an excellent paediatrician, but his writing appeared to be appalling. She smiled, pleased that she knew something about him, and then she sat quietly thinking about him until Night Sister, a small brisk woman, came into the room. She checked the valve, looked at the chart and asked, ‘You know what you’re looking for, Miss Lockitt? Slow pulse, vomiting, headache—not that Miranda will be able to tell you that … But if you’re worried, or even doubtful, ring the bell at once. I’ll be back later on, and if I can’t come then my junior night sister will. I should go to bed if I were you. Her pulse is steady and she’s sleeping, but I depend on you to see to her during the night.’
She went away as quietly as she had come, and Lucy did as she had been told and got into the narrow, cold bed in the adjoining room. She got up again in a few minutes and put on her dressing-gown again, and then tucked her cold feet into its cosy folds and rolled into a tight ball, and dozed off.
It was only a little after an hour later when Miranda’s first restless whimpers woke her. She was out of bed in a flash and bending over the cot. Miranda was awake and cross, but her pulse seemed all right. Lucy picked her up carefully and sat down with her on her lap, gave her a drink and began the one-sided conversation which the toddler seemed to enjoy. Miranda stopped grizzling and presently began a conversation of her own, although when Lucy stopped talking her small face creased into infantile rage again, so that Lucy hurried into the Three Bears, growling gently so that Miranda chuckled. ‘And Father Bear blew on his porridge to cool it,’ said Lucy, and blew, to stop and draw a quick breath because Dr Thurloe had come silently into the room and was watching her. He had someone with him, a pretty, dark girl in sister’s uniform, and it was to her that he spoke. ‘You see, Marian, how well my plan has worked? With Miss Lucy Lockitt’s co-operation we shall have Miranda greatly improved in no time.’
He nodded, smiling faintly at Lucy. ‘Has she been very restless?’
‘No, only for the last twenty minutes or so. She began to cry, but I think she’ll settle down again.’ She went red at his look; she had no business telling a specialist something he must already know for himself.
‘I’ll take a look while I’m here. Can you
