me.’ He caught her by the shoulders and kissed her squarely on the mouth, and before she could think of anything to say he was at the door again, had opened it, and turned to say ‘Tot ziens, Maggy.’ He sounded as though he was laughing. She went on standing there; her sensible, orderly mind a chaotic whirl of half-formed thoughts, most which she found bewildering and disturbing, especially as she would never see him again. At length she took off her cuffs and slowly rolled up her sleeves, pulled on her frills, and went into the ward to do some work.
CHAPTER TWO
FOR THE NEXT few days Maggy wasn’t her usual cheerful, hard-working self. She was well aware of this, but took good care not to question herself as to the cause. She did a great deal of unnecessary work on the ward, as if the stacks of charts, laundry lists, off-duty rotas and all the other clutter accumulating on a Ward Sister’s desk would make a pile sufficiently high under which to bury all thoughts of Dr Doelsma. After a time she did indeed manage to cram him into a remote corner of her mind. It was a pity that she had only just succeeded in doing this, when she was accosted by Sir Charles and asked her opinion of his erstwhile pupil. They were halfway round the ward at the time, and she had no chance to evade the question.
‘He seemed a very nice wee man.’ She was, idiotically, blushing.
Sir Charles gave her a look without appearing to do so.
‘He’s six foot four inches, Maggy, though being six foot yourself you’d not notice that. Don’t you like him?’
She studied the path lab form in her hand as though she had never seen one before in her life. ‘Aye. But every nurse in the hospital likes him, Sir Charles. He’s a handsome man.’
Sir Charles scribbled his signature on an X-ray form before replying.
‘Yes, he is. But not conceited with it. I’ve known him since he was a small boy—his parents were great friends of mine; his mother still is. He’s clever, and he’s made a successful career for himself.’ He coughed. ‘He knows exactly what he wants, and gets it too.’ He looked so knowingly at Maggy that she went scarlet; surely Dr Doelsma hadn’t told Sir Charles about the regrettable incident in her office? She realised that she hadn’t forgotten it at all. Her brows drew together in so fierce a frown that Sir Charles allowed his vague manner to become even more vague, and pursued the topic in an even more ruthless fashion.
‘Can’t think why he’s not married. Heaven knows the number of young women who have angled for him; still, as I said just now, he knows what he wants, and he has the patience to wait for it. But there, Sister, I mustn’t waste your time boring on about someone you’ve no interest in.’ He blinked rapidly and smiled disarmingly, while his elderly perceptive eye bored into hers. She met his gaze steadily.
‘Aye, Sir Charles, I’ve no’ the time to think about a man I’ll not be seeing again.’
He nodded, and plunged into the highly technical details of the treatment he proposed for the patient whose bed they had reached. Mrs Salt greeted him as an old friend, gave him a colourful and most inaccurate account of her condition and asked what he’d done with the foreign doctor he’d had with him on his last visit.
‘Nice, ’e was,’ she reminisced. ‘Now there’s a man any girl could fall for.’ She turned to peer at Maggy. “Ere’s one ’ose just right for ’im, too, eh?’ She cackled with mischievous mirth. ‘Pity ’e ain’t coming again—leastways, not until me birthday—that’s if yer don’t let me slip through yer fingers first.’
The remark was greeted with the derision she expected, and with a brief appeal from Sister MacFergus to be good, they left her bed, and passed on to her neighbour. This was a Belgian woman, Madame Riveau, she had been admitted ten days or so before with a suspected gastric ulcer. She was a silent morose woman who only answered Maggy’s basic schoolgirl French when it was absolutely necessary. She was visited regularly by her husband and her son, two equally sour and dour men, who demanded at each visit that Madame Riveau should be sent home. So far Maggy had persuaded them to let her stay, but their demands were becoming so persistent that she realised that they would soon have their way—after all, no patient could be forced to remain against their wish, although she had noticed that the woman did not seem to share her menfolk’s desire for her discharge—Maggy thought she seemed frightened of them; indeed, they gave her herself an uneasy feeling of menace, which was heightened by their secretiveness when asked even the simplest of questions.
She stood looking at Madame Riveau now as Sir Charles bent over the bed to examine her. She looked ill, and surely her face was swollen? Maggy waited until Sir Charles had finished and was conferring with his houseman before she asked in her rather halting French,
‘Have you got the toothache, Madame Riveau?’
The result was electrifying. The sallow face on the pillow took on the greenish white of fear; the hate and terror in the dull black eyes sent Maggy back a pace.
‘No. no! There’s nothing wrong.’ The woman’s voice was a harsh whisper.
‘There must be something wrong.’ Maggy spoke gently; the woman was so obviously terrified—of the dentist perhaps? ‘Supposing we get you X-rayed just to make sure before you go home?’
She was rewarded by another look of venom. ‘I refuse. My teeth are sound.’
Maggy ignored the look. ‘I’ll talk to your husband when he comes this evening; perhaps he can persuade you.’
Sir Charles had moved on, but stopped and listened to what Maggy had to say. When she had finished he nodded, and said,
‘Dr Payne can sign an X-ray form, Sister. Probably she’ll be better without her teeth—she’s an unhealthy woman and I should suppose she’ll need surgical treatment for that ulcer…’
They became immersed in the diabetic coma in the next bed, and in the ensuing calculations of insulin units, blood sugar tests, urine tests and a great many instructions concerning the intravenous drip, Madame Riveau’s strange behaviour was forgotten, and when much later Maggy remembered it, she decided she must have imagined the woman’s fear and anger.
She was due off duty at six o’clock. She gave the report to Staff Nurse and then waited for the visitors to arrive. She had two days off, and she wanted to see Monsieur Riveau, and get the question of his wife’s teeth settled. She felt the usual thrill of distaste as she approached the bed. The two men were seated on either side of it; neither got up as she approached, but watched her with thinly veiled hostility. She wasted no time, but explained her errand and stood waiting for a reply. The men looked at her without speaking, their faces expressionless, and yet she had a prickle of fear so real that she put her hand up to the back of her neck to brush it away. At length the elder man said, ‘No X-ray, no dentist for my wife. She refuses.’
‘There’s no pain involved,’ Maggy replied doggedly. ‘Her jaws are swollen; her teeth may be infected and it may make the ulcer worse.’ He said ‘No’ in an ugly voice, and she damped down her temper and persevered in a reasonable way, struggling with her French.
‘The teeth are probably decayed; she will be better without them.’ She managed to smile at the unfriendly faces. ‘It’s very likely that in time they will make her condition worse.’
Their silence was worse than speech—chilling and unfriendly and completely uncooperative. She could feel their dislike of her pressing against her like a tangible thing. She gave herself a mental shake, asked them to reconsider their decision, and said goodnight. Her words fell
