A Gem of a Girl

CHAPTER TWO

COUSIN MAUD came home two days later, looking tanned and at least ten years younger—not that she was all that old; a woman in her forties was no age at all; Gemma had often heard Doctor Gibbons telling her cousin that, and had thought it to be a friendly platitude, but now, watching him greet her cousin, she wasn’t so sure. She busied herself with welcoming sherry and speculated about that. Doctor Gibbons wasn’t all that old himself—in his mid-fifties and as fit as a fiddle as far as she knew. True, he was a little thin on top and he wore glasses, but he must have been good-looking when he was younger—not, of course, as good-looking as his friend the professor. She nudged the errant thought on one side and concentrated on Cousin Maud and Doctor Gibbons. But even if they wanted to marry there were difficulties. He could hardly be expected to house the six of them as well as Maud. Somehow or other, mused Gemma as she passed the glasses around, they would have to manage on their own—after all, if it could be done for six weeks, it could be done for a lifetime. She shuddered strongly at the very idea and then consoled herself with the certainty that it wouldn’t be a lifetime. Mandy would surely marry, so, in a few years, would Phil. James and John were clever boys, they would get their A levels and go on to university, and that left little George. Quite carried away, she began to weigh the chances of taking paying guests—with only George at home there would be three or four bedrooms empty, or perhaps Doctor Gibbons would offer George a home and she could sell the house, find a job and live at the hospital. The prospect was even worse than the first one. She frowned heavily and the professor said in her ear, very softly: ‘What is it that worries you?’

She hadn’t noticed him cross the room. He loomed beside her, smiling his gentle smile, his pale brows slightly lifted.

‘Nothing,’ she said hastily. His vague ‘Ah’, left her with the impression that he didn’t believe her and she went on quickly before he persisted: ‘Doesn’t Cousin Maud look marvellous?’

He glanced across the room. ‘Indeed, yes. And now presumably you will take a holiday yourself—you have been doing two jobs for the last six weeks, have you not?’

‘Well—the others were marvellous, you know, and it wasn’t easy for them; Mandy’s away all day and so is Phil, and the boys did their bit.’

‘Does Mandy not have holidays?’

She turned a surprised face towards him. ‘Of course she does—four weeks each year, but no one could have expected her to stay home…’

‘Er—the thought did cross my mind—just a week or two, perhaps, so that she could have—er—shared the burden of housekeeping with you.’

‘It wasn’t a burden. I—I liked it.’

He had somehow edged between her and the rest of the room. ‘That is a palpable untruth,’ he observed mildly. ‘Don’t tell me that getting up with the birds in order to do the housework before spending the rest of your day looking after a great many demanding old ladies before coming home to cook the supper, help with the homework and generally play mother, was something you liked doing.’

He sounded so reasonable that she found herself saying: ‘Well, I must admit that it was rather a full day, but I’ll have a holiday soon.’

‘You will go away?’

‘Me? No.’ He was asking a lot of questions. Gemma asked rather coldly: ‘Would you like some more sherry?’

He shook his head and she need not have tried to interrupt him. ‘You will stay here, fighting the washing machine, frying sausages and calling upon Mr Bates at intervals, I suppose?’

She smiled because put like that it sounded very dull. ‘Cousin Maud will be here—she’s marvellous…’

They both turned to look at that lady, deep in conversation with Doctor Gibbons. Perhaps, thought Gemma, it might be a good idea not to pursue this conversation. ‘When do you go home?’ she asked chattily.

‘Earlier than I had intended. Rienieta, my youngest sister, is ill and at the moment there’s no diagnosis, although it sounds to me like brucellosis—her fever is high and she is rather more than my mother can cope with.’

‘I’m sorry, it’s a beastly thing to have—I had several cases of it when I had a medical ward.’

‘So Doctor Gibbons was telling me. You must find the difference between an acute medical ward and your old ladies very great.’

‘Yes, I do—but they need nursing too.’ She added honestly, ‘Though it isn’t a branch of nursing I would choose. It’s convenient, you see, so near home…’

‘You are on duty in the morning?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, but wasn’t I lucky to be able to get a free day so that I could be home to welcome Cousin Maud?’

Her companion let this pass. ‘I’ll take you in the morning,’ he stated. ‘I have something I wish to say to you.’

Her eyes flew to his face, but it was devoid of any clue. ‘Oh—what about?’ She paused, remembering that he had taken Mandy in and out of Salisbury several times during the last few days, and besides that, she had come across them deep in conversation at least twice. Perhaps he had fallen in love with her? He was a lot older, of course, but age didn’t really matter; perhaps he just wanted to discover what she thought of it. She said matter-of-factly: ‘I leave at ten to eight on the bike.’

‘A quarter to the hour, then. That will give us time to talk.’ He moved a little and Phil came over to join them, and presently Gemma slipped away to the kitchen to see how the supper was coming along.

It was pouring with rain the next morning when she left the house, so that she had wrapped herself in a rather elderly mac and tied a scarf over her head, which was a pity, for her hair, although it didn’t curl like Mandy’s or Phil’s, was long and fine and a pretty brown. But now, with most of it tucked out of sight, her unremarkable features looked even more unassuming than usual, not that she was thinking about her appearance; she was still puzzling out a reason for the professor’s wish to speak to her—a reason important enough to get him out of his bed and go to all the trouble of driving her to the hospital. Well, she would know soon enough now. His car, an Aston Martin convertible, was outside the gate and he was at the wheel.

She wished him good morning in a cheerful voice, wholeheartedly admired the car and got in beside him and sat quietly; the drive would take five minutes, and presumably he would start talking at once.

He did. ‘I shall be going home in a week’s time,’ he told her without preamble. ‘I should like you to return with me and look after my sister for a week or so—they have confirmed that she has brucellosis and she is in a good deal of pain and her fever is high. My mother assures me that she can manage for the time being, but Rienieta is sometimes very difficult—she refuses to have a nurse, too, but I thought that if you would come with me and we—er—took her unawares, as it were, it might solve that problem. She’s a handful,’ he added judiciously.

‘Well!’ declared Gemma, her eyes round with surprise while she hurriedly adjusted her ideas. ‘I didn’t expect…that is, I had no idea…’ She perceived that she would get no further like that. ‘I can’t just leave Millbury House at a moment’s notice, you know,’ she pointed out at length.

‘I had a word with Doctor Gibbons,’ said her companion smoothly. ‘He seems to think that something might be arranged for a few weeks—unpaid leave is what he called it.’

‘Why me?’

‘Because you are the eldest of a large family, I suppose, and know just how to deal with the young.’

She felt like Methuselah’s wife and said with a touch of peevishness: ‘I’m twenty-five, Professor.’

The amused glint in his eyes belied his placid expression. ‘I beg your pardon, I wasn’t thinking of you in terms of age, only experience.’ He slowed down to turn the car into the hospital drive. ‘Of course, if you dislike the idea, we’ll say no more about it.’

She didn’t dislike it at all, in fact she felt a rising excitement. She held it in check, though. ‘It doesn’t seem fair on Cousin Maud.’

‘She hasn’t the least objection. Doctor Gibbons happened to mention it to her yesterday.’ He drew up outside the side door. ‘Think it over,’ he said with maddening placidity, ‘and let me know. We’re bound to see each other during the next day or so.’

His goodbye was so nonchalant that Gemma told herself crossly that nothing, absolutely nothing, would make her agree to his request even if it were possible to grant it, which seemed to her very unlikely. Moreover, she would keep out of his way, he really had a nerve…she shook off her ill humour as she walked on to the ward; it would never do to upset the old ladies. All the same, she was a little distrait, so that old Mrs Craddock, who had been there for ever and knew everyone and everything, exclaimed in the ringing tones of the deaf: ‘And what is wrong with our dear Sister today? If I didn’t know her for a sensible girl, I would say she’d been crossed in love—her mind isn’t on her work.’

It was a good thing that her companions were either deaf too or just not listening. Gemma laughed, told Mrs Craddock that she was a naughty old thing and went to see about dinners. Mrs Craddock liked her food; her mind was instantly diverted by the mention of it. Gemma gave her two helpings and the rest of the day passed without any more observations from the old lady.

It was towards the end of the afternoon that she remembered that she hadn’t got her bike with her and the professor had said nothing about fetching her home; the nagging thought was luckily dispelled by the appearance of Doctor Gibbons, who arrived to see a patient very shortly before she was due to go off duty and offered her a lift. ‘Ross told me he had brought you over here this morning, so I said that as I was coming this afternoon, I should bring you back—that’ll leave him free to go into Salisbury and pick up Mandy.’

Gemma smiled with false brightness. The professor might appear to be a placid, good-natured man without a devious thought in his head, but she was beginning to think otherwise; he had had it all nicely planned. Well, if he thought he could coax her to ramble over half Europe he was mistaken. Her sensible little head told her that she was grossly exaggerating, but she cast sense out. Holland or Hungary or Timbuktoo, they were all one and the same, and all he was doing was to make a convenience of her. Her charming bosom swelled with indignation while she attended to Doctor Gibbons’ simple wants with a severe professionalism which caused him to eye her with some astonishment.

Cousin Maud had tea waiting for her, which was nice. Everyone was out in the garden, picking the first gooseberries, and the professor was there too, although long before Gemma had finished her tea he had strolled away. To collect Mandy, Cousin Maud explained with a smile, so that Gemma, on the point of asking her advice about the professor’s request, thought better of it. She wasn’t really interested in going to Holland, she told herself, she wasn’t interested, for that matter, in seeing him again. She could not in fact care less. She looked so cross that her companion wanted to know if she had a headache.

Gemma was upstairs when the professor returned with Mandy. He didn’t stay long, though, and she didn’t go downstairs until she had seen him get back into his car and shoot out of their gate and into Doctor Gibbons’ drive. She could see him clearly from her bedroom window; indeed, she was hanging out of it, watching him saunter into the house next door, when he turned round suddenly and looked at her. She withdrew her head so smartly that she banged it on the low ceiling.

For the time being, she didn’t want to see him. Let him come again and ask her if he was so keen for her to nurse his sister, and it was really rather absurd that she should leave her old ladies just to satisfy his whim. She tidied her already tidy hair and sighed deeply. Probably she would be at Millbury House for ever and ever—well, not quite that, but certainly for years. She went slowly downstairs, the rest of the evening hers in which to do whatever she wished, and she was free until noon the next day, too. She wouldn’t see her old ladies until then.

She saw them a good deal sooner than that, though. Several hours later she was wakened by the insistent ringing of the telephone. She had been the last to go to bed and had only been asleep for a short time, and it was only a little after midnight. The house was quiet as she trod silently across the landing and down the stairs, not waiting to put on dressing gown or slippers. Doctor Gibbons’ voice sounded loud in her ear because of the stillness around her. ‘Gemma? Good. There’s a fire at Millbury House—they’ve just telephoned. Matron’s pretty frantic because the fire brigade’s out at another fire and they’ll have to come from further afield. Can you be ready in five minutes? Wait at your gate.’

He hung up before she could so much as draw breath.

She was at the gate, in slacks and a sweater pulled over her nightie and good stout shoes on her feet, with a minute to spare. The house behind her was quite still and the village street was dark with not a glimmer of light to be seen excepting in the doctor’s house, and that went out as she looked. Seconds later she heard the soft purr of the Aston Martin as it was backing out of the drive and halted by her. The professor was at the wheel; he didn’t speak at all but held the door open just long enough for her to get in before he shot away. It was left to Doctor Gibbons, sitting beside him, to tell her: ‘The fire’s in the main building, the first floor day room. It’ll be a question of getting everyone out before it spreads to one or either wing.’ He turned to look at her in the dark of the car. ‘The fire people will be along, of course, but if all the patients have to be got out…’ He paused significantly and Gemma said at once: ‘There’s Night Sister, and a staff nurse on each ward and three nursing aides between them—and Matron, of course, as well as the kitchen staff, but I don’t think they all sleep in.’ She drew a sharp breath and said: ‘Oh, lord, look at it!’

The night sky glowed ahead of them, faded a little and glowed again, and now, as the professor took the right-hand turn into the drive without decreasing his speed at all, they could hear the fire as well as see it and smell it. They could hear other sounds too, urgent voices and elderly cries.

The professor had barely stopped the car at a safe distance from the burning building than Gemma was out of it. ‘It’s my ward,’ she cried, ‘the wind’s blowing that way. Oh, my dear old ladies!’ She leapt forward and was brought up short by a large hand catching at the back of her sweater.

‘Before you rush in and get yourself fried to a crisp, tell me where the fire escape is?’

Gemma wriggled in a fury of impatience, but he merely gathered more sweater into his hand. As Doctor Gibbons joined them, she said urgently: ‘At the back, where my wing joins the extension behind—there’s a side door with a small staircase which leads to the landing outside my ward…’

‘The way we came the other day, from the centre door—that will be impossible now; the wind’s blowing strongly from the centre towards your wing… Is there a fire chute?’

‘Yes—I know where it’s kept.’

‘Good.’ He turned to Doctor Gibbons. ‘Shall we try the side door, get into the ward and get the chute going from a window at this end? The fire escape is a good way away, I doubt if they can move the old ladies fast enough—if the dividing wall should go…’

They were already running towards the house. In a moment they were inside, to find the staircase intact. ‘Get between us,’ said the professor shortly, and took the stairs two at a time, with Gemma hard on his heels and Doctor Gibbons keeping up gamely. The landing, when they reached it, was full of smoke, but although the fire could be heard crackling and roaring close by, the thick wall was still holding it back. The professor opened the ward door on to pandemonium; Gemma had a quick glimpse of the night staff nurse tearing down the ward propelling a wheelchair with old Mrs Draper wedged into it; it looked for all the world like a macabre parody of an Easter pram race. There wasn’t much smoke; just a few lazy puffs curling round the door frame.

Gemma didn’t wait to see more but turned and ran upstairs to the next floor where the escape chute was, stored in one of the poky, disused attics which in former days would have been used by some over-worked servant. The door was locked—she should have thought of that. She raced downstairs again, took the key from her office and tore back. The chute was heavy and cumbersome, but she managed to drag it out of the room and push and pull it along the passage to the head of the stairs where she gave it a shove strong enough to send it lumbering down to the landing below. But now she would need help; she ran to the ward door and opened it cautiously. The professor was quite near, lifting Mrs Thomas out of her bed and settling her in the wheelchair a nursing aide was holding steady. He glanced up, said something to the nurse, who sped away towards the distant fire escape, and came to the door.

‘I can’t manage the chute,’ said Gemma urgently. ‘It’s on the landing.’

He nodded, swept her on one side and went past her, shutting the door, leaving her in the ward. The beds, she noticed, had been pulled away from the inner wall and ranged close to the windows, and there were only six patients left. She sighed with relief as the professor came back with the chute and she went to give him a helping hand.

There was still only a little smoke in the ward, although the roar of the fire sounded frighteningly near. Gemma shut her mind to the sound and began the difficult task of getting Miss Bird, hopelessly crippled with arthritis, out of her bed, wrapped and tied into a blanket ready to go down the chute. The nursing aide had come back; she could hear the professor telling her to go down first so that she could catch the patients as they arrived at the bottom. The nurse gave him a scared look.

‘I’ve never done it before,’ she told him in a small scared voice.

The professor eyed her sturdy figure. ‘Then have a go,’ he said persuasively, and actually laughed. ‘I’ve thrown a mattress down. Don’t try to catch the ladies, just ease them out and get help, any help, if you can. And be quick, my dear, for the inner wall isn’t going to hold out much longer.’

Gemma glanced over her shoulder. He was right; the smoke was thickening with every moment and there was a nasty crackling sound. She left Miss Bird to be picked up by the professor and hurried to the next bed—Mrs Trump, fragile, heaven knew, but very clear in the head, which helped a lot. She saw Nurse Drew plunge down the chute out of the corner of her eye, and a minute later, Miss Bird, protesting vigorously, followed her. She was ready with Mrs Trump by now and wheeled her bed nearer the chute and then wasted a few precious seconds dragging empty beds out of the way so that they had more room.

The professor already had a patient in his arms and she was tackling the third old lady when the wall at the other end of the ward caved in with a loud rumble, an enormous amount of dust and smoke and great flames of fire. Gemma, tying her patient into her blanket, found that her hands were shaking so much that she could hardly tie the knots. The professor was going twice as fast now, getting the next old lady into her blanket; she finished what she was doing and went to the last occupied bed—Mrs Craddock, apparently unworried by the appalling situation, blissfully unable to hear the noise around her. As Gemma rolled her into the blanket she shouted cheerfully: ‘A nasty fire, Sister dear. I hope there’ll be a nice cup of tea when you’ve put it out!’

Gemma gabbled reassurances as she worried away at the knots. The flames were licking down the wall that was left at a great rate now, and she could have done with a nice cup of tea herself. She was so frightened that her mind had become a blank. All that registered was that Mrs Craddock must be got down the chute at all costs.