was a young man standing talking to a nurse near the door. Matilda paused by him. ‘Would you please pay the cabby? I’ll let you have the money as soon as I can leave Cook.’
He looked astonished, paid the man while Matilda offered hasty thanks, then took his place on the other side of Cook.
‘She’s cut off her fingers—two of them—they’re there, inside the towel. Could someone get a doctor?’
‘That’s me. Casualty officer on duty. Let’s have her in here.’
The place was half full, patients on chairs waiting to be seen, nurses going to and fro, several people on trolleys and a fierce-looking sister coming towards them.
‘Well, what’s this?’ she wanted to know and with a surprising gentleness turned back the towel. She lifted Cook’s arm and pressed the bell beside the couch and, when a nurse came, gave her quick instructions and then glanced at the young man.
‘Shall I get her ready for Theatre? Nurse is taking a message—the quicker the better.’
Matilda was holding the other hand and Cook was clinging to it as though she would never let it go. Her skirt and blouse were ruined and her hair was coming down but she didn’t give them a thought. She felt sick.
The shock of seeing Mr Scott-Thurlow in a long white coat over an excellently tailored grey suit dispelled the sickness. He was coming towards them with calm speed and fetched up beside the couch. He gave her a cool nod and she said in a wondering voice, ‘Oh, I’ve been wondering just what you did…’ and blushed scarlet as he gave a faint smile as he bent over Cook. The casualty officer was doing things—a tourniquet?—some kind of pressure so that the bleeding wasn’t so bad any more and Sister was handing swabs and instruments to Mr Scott-Thurlow. Matilda, feeling sick again, looked at the curtains around the couch.
She heard him say, ‘Right, we’ll have her up right away, please, before I start my list. Warn Theatre, will you?’ He bent over Cook. ‘Don’t worry too much, my dear, I’m going to stitch your fingers on again and you can stay here for a few days while they heal. Nurse is going to give you a little injection now to help the pain.’ He patted her shoulder. ‘You’re very brave.’
He spoke to Matilda then. ‘What did she have for breakfast?’ he wanted to know.
‘I don’t know, but she would have had it quite early—about seven o’clock. She was slicing bacon with one of those machines…’
Matilda felt cold and looked green; the thought of the bacon had been too much. ‘I’m going to be…’
Mr Scott-Thurlow handed her a bowl with the manner of someone offering her a hanky she might have dropped or a glass of water she had asked for. He was just in time.
There was someone beside her, a young nurse being sympathetic and helpful, and when Matilda lifted a shamed face everyone had gone.
‘Don’t worry,’ said the nurse, ‘there’s somewhere where you can wait and I’ll get someone to bring you a cup of tea. Mr Scott-Thurlow is going to operate at once so you’ll know what’s happening quite soon. Do you want to phone anybody?’
‘Yes, please, only I haven’t any money.’
She was led away to a rather bare room lined with benches with a kind of canteen at one end and two telephones on the wall. The nurse gave her twenty pence, patted her on the shoulder in a motherly fashion and hurried away.
She phoned Mrs Venables. ‘How could she?’ cried that lady in an outraged voice. ‘When we have the dinner party this evening and absolutely no chance of getting a cook at such short notice. What am I to do? She must have been careless—’
‘She’s cut off two fingers,’ said Matilda. ‘I’ll stay here until I know what is happening to her. She’s been very brave.’
She didn’t wait for Mrs Venables’s reply.
She sat for an hour, revived by a cup of hot strong tea, thinking about Cook and Mr Scott-Thurlow. She shouldn’t have blurted out her silly remark in Casualty—she went hot again just thinking about it—and then to have been sick… She wriggled with humiliation. He had been kind to Cook; she hoped that he would be able to sew the fingers back on—surgeons were clever and she supposed that he was very experienced.
The kind little nurse who had lent her the twenty pence came into the waiting-room and she got up to meet her.
‘She’s going to be all right,’ said the nurse. ‘Mr Scott-Thurlow did a good job, and her fingers will be as good as new—well, almost. He’s a wizard with bones. Sister said will you arrange for Mrs Chubb’s clothes—nighties and washing things and so on—to be brought in? She’s to stay a few days.’
Matilda nodded. ‘Yes, of course. Which ward is she in?’
‘Women’s Orthopaedic, second floor. You’ll be able to see her.’
‘I’ll go and get everything now and come back as soon as I can. Thank you, you’ve all been awfully kind.’
She was back within the hour, Cook’s necessities in a case, with a couple of paperbacks she had stopped to buy and a bunch of flowers, Mrs Venables’s unfeeling, complaining voice still ringing in her ears.
‘The woman will be of no use to me,’ she had said impatiently. ‘Now I shall have to get another cook.’
Matilda had turned a thoughtful green gaze on to her hostess. ‘Has she worked for you for long?’ she asked.
‘Oh, years,’ said Mrs Venables. ‘I must say it is most inconvenient—’
‘I dare say Cook finds it inconvenient too, and very painful.’
She had received a very cold look for that; a good thing they were going home in a few more days.
Cook was in a small ward, sitting up in bed, looking pale. Matilda put everything away in her locker, fetched a vase for the flowers and offered the paperbacks—light romantic reading which she hoped would take Cook’s mind off her problems. She parried the awkward questions she was asked, skimming smoothly over the future, and invented one or two suitable messages from Mrs Venables. ‘I’ll pop in some time tomorrow,’ she finished, ‘just to see if there’s anything you would like.’
‘That’s kind of you, miss. We all said in the kitchen what a kind young lady you were, and so very understanding.’
Matilda said goodbye and found her way out of the hospital, trying not to wish that she might meet Mr Scott-Thurlow. But of course she didn’t.
She got back to the house to find Mrs Venables raging up and down the drawing-room floor while Roseanne sat in a corner looking obstinate. She had intended to spend the morning with Bernard and she had had to put him off. Her mouth was set in a thin line and she looked very like her mother.
Mrs Venables, pacing back to the door, saw Matilda. ‘I’ve telephoned every agency I can think of,’ she declared. ‘There is not a decent cook to be had at a moment’s notice. I am distraught.’ She wrung her hands in a dramatic fashion and glared at Matilda.
‘You will be relieved to know that Mrs Chubb’s operation was successful
