Victory for Victoria

As it turned out, Victoria went alone to Castle Cornet, for it began to rain after lunch and none of the others liked the idea of getting wet doing something which they could so easily do on a fine day, but Vicky, they all agreed, should certainly go if she had a mind to. After all, it was her holiday, and she, who would have gone whatever her sisters had said, agreed pleasantly to be home in good time because they were all going to the theatre that evening. All parties being satisfied, she set off, sensibly dressed in slacks and a hooded anorak, down the hill and along the Esplanade, deserted now, and along Castle Pier to the castle. Uncle Gardener would be on the battlements, brooding over his spring flowers whatever the weather.

She entered by the visitors’ gateway and waved to the woman sitting idly in the little booth where summer visitors paid their fees, and walked on to the Outer Bailey and so eventually to the ramparts, where sure enough, Uncle Gardener was working. He was at the far end and Victoria made her way unhurriedly towards him, pausing to look down to the rocks below and then out to sea. There was a wind, but it was surprisingly light for the time of year and the sea had been beaten flat by the rain. All the same, it was hardly the weather to take a boat out, she thought, watching a yacht, its white-painted hull and brown sails showing up vividly against the greyness of the sea and sky, coming out of the harbour, running fast before the wind, going south towards Jerbourg Point. She could see the orange-coloured lifejackets of the two people aboard—two men, one at the tiller, the other…there was no reason to be so sure that it was the man she had met on the way to Fermain Bay, only—even at that distance—his size.

Victoria began to run along the path beside the battlements until she reached Uncle Gardener, who looked up and smiled. ‘Uncle,’ she wasted no time in greeting him, ‘have you got your binoculars with you?’ and when he handed them to her without speaking, turned and raced back along the ramparts. It was the same man, and his companion was the man she had seen him with that morning. There was no sign of anyone else on board, but they could be in the cabin, for it was a fair-sized boat—a Sea King—built for a family, although surely he wouldn’t take his family out on a day such as this one was? She watched it pass the castle and alter course out to sea—Jersey, perhaps? She walked slowly back to where the man she had come to visit waited. ‘And what’s all that about?’ he wanted to know.

He was elderly and short and rather stout and her father’s closest friend, and like him, was one of the Jurats of the island, perhaps the highest honour a citizen of Guernsey could aspire to. Victoria had known him all her life; when she had been a small girl and his wife had been alive, they had come frequently to her home, but now he was alone and although they saw him often, he seldom came to see them any more. Nevertheless, she knew that he was always delighted to see them. She looked at him with deep affection and said: ‘Oh, nothing. Just that yacht, it seems such a daft sort of day to sail.’

‘Well, as to that, it’s a matter of who’s sailing it, isn’t it? It seemed to me that the boat was being handled by someone who knew what he was about. Do you know him?’

Victoria perched herself on the end of the wheelbarrow. ‘No—yes, well, we met—just for a little while when I was out walking. I’ve no idea who he is.’ She shrugged her shoulders and added falsely, ‘And I don’t really care.’

Mr Givaude, alias Uncle Gardener, lifted a face which bore strong traces of his Norman ancestors and stared at her rain-wet face. He didn’t answer, only made a grunting sound and said: ‘How about tea? It’s early, but I’ve finished here. Come on up to the house.’

His home was tucked away to one side of the Prisoners’ Walk, and although it was still early, as Mr Givaude had observed, his housekeeper was waiting for them, ready to take Victoria’s wet anorak and then to bring in the tea-tray with the old silver teapot and the cherry cake she made so well. Victoria ate two generous slices while she told Uncle Gardener about hospital and how she hoped to get the ward within a year, and how beastly London was except when she went to the theatre or out to dinner, when it was the greatest possible fun.

‘Want to live there for ever?’ her companion asked.

‘No,’ she sounded positive about it.

‘Then you’d better hurry up and find yourself a husband. After all, you’re the eldest, you should have first pick.’

She grinned at him. ‘And what chance do I have when the others are around?’ she demanded. ‘They’re quite spectacular, you know. I only get noticed when I’m on my own.’

Her companion took a lump of sugar from the pot and scrunched it up.

‘Bah,’ he said roundly, ‘fiddlesticks, I’ll tell you something—I was out with your mother and father a little while ago and do you know what I heard someone say? They were talking about your sisters, and this person said: “Maybe they do make the rest of the girls here look pretty dim, but wait until you’ve seen the eldest of ’em—and the best, a real smasher.” What do you think of that?’

‘Codswallop,’ stated Victoria succinctly. ‘It must have been someone who had never seen me—and anyway, Uncle Gardener, I don’t care overmuch about being pretty.’ She looked at him earnestly. ‘I want to be liked—loved because I’m me, not just because I’m pretty.’

Mr Givaude nodded in agreement. ‘Don’t worry, Vicky,’ he said, ‘you will be.’

She went soon afterwards, mindful that she had to be home in good time, and with the promise that she would return to say goodbye before she went back to London. The rain had stopped and the clouds were parting reluctantly to allow a watery sunshine to filter through, probably it would be a fine day tomorrow. She walked quickly home, wondering what she should do with it—they could take the Mini if their mother didn’t want it and go across the island to Rocquaine Bay; it was still early in the year, but on the western shores of the island it would be warm in the sheltered coves. She turned towards the town when she reached the end of the pier and instead of going along the Esplanade and up Havelet, turned off at the Town Church. At the corner, before she reached the shelter of the little town’s main street she took a backward look at the sea. It was empty; her half-formed idea that the yacht with the brown sails might have turned and sailed back into harbour died almost before she became aware of it. All the same, that evening, sitting in the theatre waiting for the curtain to go up, she looked around her, just in case the stranger might be there too.

They went to Rocquaine Bay the next morning with Victoria driving. She wasn’t a good driver, but she knew the island well, and most of the people on it; it wasn’t like driving on the mainland where there was no one to give her a hand if she reversed down the wrong street or met a bus head-on. It was a grand morning with a wind which was going to strengthen later in the day and a pale sky from which a surprisingly warm sun shone. Victoria stopped the car when they reached Pleinmont Point and they all piled out and walked along the cliff path, past the radio station to the edge of the cliffs to get a view of the lighthouse. The keen air made them hungry and they were glad enough to stop at Portelet and have coffee and buns, arguing briskly among themselves as to whether it was worth leaving the car and walking back along the cliff path for a mile or so. They decided against it at last, although Victoria promised herself that when next she came on holiday she would walk from her home and swim in Venus’s Pool and explore the Creux Mahie—a cave she hadn’t visited for several years. Louise teased her gently about it.

‘Honestly, Vicky,’ she declared, ‘there’s heaps of other things to do. Who wants to poke round an old cave, and the water in the pool is cold until summer. When will you be home again?’

Victoria thought. ‘Well, this is the last week of my holidays for this year—I start again in April. I think I’ll try and get a week in May.’

‘Don’t forget we’re all going to Scotland in September,’ Amabel reminded her. ‘That’ll be two weeks. You’re awfully lucky getting six weeks. Doctors aren’t so lucky.’

There was a sympathetic murmur from her sisters; Amabel and a newly qualified, overworked young doctor at the hospital had taken a fancy to each other. The affair was in its very early stages and the entire family were careful not to mention it unless Amabel brought the subject up.

‘They do better as they get more senior,’ said Victoria soothingly. ‘And once they’ve got a practice…’

Amabel brightened and her sisters smiled at each other; they quarreled fiercely among themselves on occasion, but their affection for each other was just as fierce, and Amabel had the sweetest nature of them all.

‘We’d better go,’ suggested Victoria, and the other three rose at once because she was the eldest and although she couldn’t match them in size she had always led them. It was when they were almost in St Peter Port again that Stephanie remembered that she had promised their mother to buy some fruit in the market, which naturally enough led Amabel to say that in that case she might as well pop into the arcade and see if they had got the belt she’d ordered.

‘I’ll come with you,’ said Louise. She looked at Victoria, ‘You don’t mind, Vicky? We shall only be a minute or two.’

Victoria nodded and pulled into the side of the street, there wasn’t much traffic about and even fewer pedestrians. She switched off the engine and said: ‘Five minutes, and if you’re not back you can jolly well walk home!’

She watched them cross the road and turn off in the direction of the arcades and the market. Even in slacks and sweaters and at a distance, they looked striking. When they were out of sight she stared idly around her. Across the street was the man who had been so much in her thoughts. His face was grave and unsmiling, which should have stopped her smiling at him but didn’t. He crossed the street slowly, almost as if he were reluctant to speak to her, but when he reached the car he said politely enough: ‘Good morning. I hope you took no hurt from your wetting the other day?’

He still hadn’t smiled and she found herself wishing that he would.

‘No, thank you.’ She felt curiously shy and was furious with herself for being so and presently when he didn’t reply she added inanely: ‘You’re still here, then.’

The thick black brows were raised very slightly and he smiled suddenly and her heart lost its steady rhythm. She was still searching wildly for something interesting to talk about, something which would keep him there just a little longer, when someone whistled from across the street and he straightened up and looked over his shoulder and said: ‘Ah, I see I’m wanted,’ and added, ‘Perhaps we shall meet again.’

His tone had been so formal that she thought it very unlikely; she watched him regain the opposite pavement and disappear, going up the hill, away from the sea-front, to join the little boy she had seen before, and this time the girl she had seen him with was there too. Victoria looked away. Oh, well, she thought, there must be a great many more men in the world like him, and knew it for cold comfort.

She didn’t see him again for several days, not, in fact, until she was getting out of her father’s car on the White Rock Pier, preparatory to boarding the boat back to Weymouth, on her way back to St Judd’s. He was standing so close to the car that it was impossible to avoid him. She said: ‘Oh, hullo,’ and looked quickly away in case he should think that she might want to talk to him. Which she did very much indeed, but there was no fear of that, for by the time the rest of the Parsons family had got out of the car, he had disappeared, and for a little while at least she forgot about him while she said her goodbyes and went on board. It was the night boat, and although the boat was by no means full her father had insisted that she should have a cabin to herself. She felt grateful for this as she settled herself for a short night’s sleep.

She would have breakfast on the train and get to London in time to go to dinner in the hospital if she wanted to. She hated going back; she always did, but she would be coming again in a couple of months. It was silly at her age to feel even faintly homesick. She switched her thoughts to St Judd’s and kept them there despite an alarming tendency to allow the man she had met and would doubtless never meet again to creep into her head. Besides, she reminded herself firmly, he was married, and she was old-fashioned enough to believe that was sufficient reason to forget him. The highminded thought was tinged with sadness as she closed her eyes and went to sleep.

It was almost light when they docked at Weymouth. Victoria got into the waiting train and went along to breakfast and schooled her thoughts so well that by the time her taxi drew up outside the hospital, she had almost succeeded in forgetting him—but not quite.

CHAPTER TWO

THE brisk, instant routine of St Judd’s was something Victoria almost welcomed, so that she could tell herself as frequently as possible that it was her life, the one she had chosen even though her parents had wanted her to stay at home, busying herself with voluntary work of some sort; indulging her talent for sketching while she waited for, and in due course married, some suitable man. She alone of their four daughters had rebelled against this pleasant tameness even while she suffered acute homesickness each time she returned to work. That she was more fortunate than many of her friends in hospital she freely admitted, for she didn’t need to depend upon her salary; her father was generous so that she could make the long journey to Guernsey whenever she could manage her holiday. All the same she prized her independence, although she knew in her heart that while nursing satisfied her need to do something with her life, she would leave it at a moment’s notice if she met a man she could love.

She went on duty the morning after her return, to find a ward whose inmates had changed very little during her week’s absence. Sister Crow welcomed her back with the mixture of fussy grumbling and gossip to which Victoria had become accustomed. The staff nurse who had replaced Victoria had been most unsatisfactory—she had overslept; she had insisted on having a free evening on the very day Sister Crow hadn’t wanted her to; she was, said Sister Crow crossly, far too modern.

Victoria, pouring out their morning coffee in Sister’s office, said gently: ‘Staff Nurse Morgan’s sweet with the patients, Sister, and so kind.’

Sister Crow bridled. ‘That’s as may be, Staff Nurse Parsons, but I for one am unable to understand the half of what she says—she is not good Ward Sister material.’

Victoria suppressed a strong desire to observe that perhaps Morgan didn’t want to be a Ward Sister anyway; she was pretty and gay, and Victoria happened to know that her life was both full and lively, which probably accounted for her kindness and understanding of the patients under her care. But to say that to the Old Crow was merely to annoy her further and would do no one any good at all. She contented herself by saying:

‘The patients liked her, Sister.’

Sister Crow stirred her coffee and remarked snappishly: ‘They like you too, Staff Nurse, and you are a far better nurse. Much as I regret retiring from this ward I am at least satisfied that you, if given the opportunity, will carry on in a way worthy of the training I have given you.’

To which highminded speech Victoria could think of nothing to say, although the thought, completely unbidden, that perhaps she didn’t want to be a Ward Sister after all did cross her mind, to be rejected as there was a knock on the door and Johnny Dawes, the medical houseman, came in followed by a tallish young man, good-looking and fair.

Johnny said politely: ‘Good morning, Sister Crow, here’s Doctor Blake, you met yesterday, didn’t you?’ He looked at Victoria. ‘But I don’t think that Staff and he have met yet?’ He had half turned his back on the Old Crow as he spoke and gave Victoria a wink, for when that lady wasn’t about he was apt to treat her staff nurse like one of his sisters—an attitude which Victoria found quite natural, but now, as Sister Crow was present, she replied formally: ‘Good morning, Doctor Dawes. No, we haven’t met.’

‘The new RMO,’ said Johnny, ‘Doctor Jeremy Blake— Staff Nurse Parsons.’

She offered a hand and said, How do you do? and gave the new member of the staff a frank, friendly look. He seemed at first glance rather nice and very good-looking, although his mouth was a little too full for her taste and his eyes too pale a blue. Probably, she thought goodhumouredly, he was weighing her up too and finding her not quite to his taste either. She got up and fetched two more cups; Sister Crow poured coffee and settled down to a ten-minute lecture on how to run a ward and, what was more important, how the members of the medical staff should behave on it. Victoria and Johnny had heard it all a great many times before, but Doctor Blake hadn’t; he listened with polite attention and drank his coffee and when she paused for breath, suggested that a ward round might be a good idea. He looked at Victoria as he spoke and added: ‘If you’re busy, Sister, I’m sure Staff Nurse…’

‘Staff Nurse has a great deal to do,’ interrupted Sister Crow. ‘I shall go with you myself, and you,’ she finished, addressing Johnny, ‘may come with me.’

That left Victoria to collect the coffee cups on to the tray, ready for Dora the ward maid, and then go along to the treatment room to make sure that the various injections had been drawn up correctly and then supervise their giving, before disappearing into the linen cupboard to check the clean linen, a task she loathed and considered a fearful waste of time. She preferred to be with the patients, but Sister Crow considered that the ward staff nurse should do all the duller administrative jobs. ‘And that’s something I’ll change,’ Victoria promised herself crossly as she counted sheets. But some of the crossness, although she wouldn’t admit it, was disappointment at not doing a round with the new doctor, even though, upon reflection, she wasn’t quite sure if she was going to like him.

She had a split duty that afternoon because the Old Crow wanted an evening. She hated splits; there was no time to do more than rush out for any necessary shopping, or if the weather was bad, sit for an hour or so in the sitting room, reading or writing letters. Splits weren’t actually allowed, but they were sometimes inevitable and she seemed to collect more than her fair share—another thing she would put right when she had a ward of her own. She sat in front of the electric fire, writing home; she told them all about the new doctor, and all the while she was writing another image, quite a different one from that of Doctor Blake, kept dancing before her eyes. It was a relief when two of her friends came to join her, full of questions as to what she thought of the new RMO and what she had done on her holiday, a topic which naturally enough led to the more interesting one of clothes. They were all deep in this vital conversation when Victoria looked at her watch and exclaimed:

‘Lord, look at the time—I’m on in half an hour! Come up to my room and I’ll make some tea—I brought a cake back with me.’

The three of them repaired up the bare, clean staircase to the floor above where her room was, and being healthy and young and perpetually hungry, they demolished the cake between them.

Doctor Blake came again that evening as Victoria was sitting in the office writing up the Kardex. She looked up with faint surprise and some impatience as he came in, because she had got a little behind with her work and she wouldn’t be ready for the night staff unless she kept at it. He must have seen the look, though, for he said reassuringly:

‘Don’t stop, I only came to read up some notes—it’s the ward round tomorrow, isn’t it, and I want to be quite sure of things.’

Victoria made a small sympathetic sound. ‘Of course—behind you on the shelf, they’re in alphabetical order,’ and bent her bright head over her writing. She had turned over perhaps three cards when she became aware that he was staring at her. She finished writing ‘Paracetamol’ because it was a word she had to concentrate upon to get the spelling right and looked up.

‘What’s the matter?’ she asked, ‘Do you want something, or is my cap crooked?’

He smiled, his eyes like colourless glass. ‘I can’t help staring,’ he said, ‘you’re so utterly lovely.’

She had been called lovely before by various young men; usually she accepted the compliment gracefully and without conceit, for it would have been foolish to pretend she wasn’t pretty when she so obviously was. She had learnt at an early age to take her good looks as a matter of course—nice to have, but not vital to her happiness. But now for some reason she felt embarrassed and annoyed as well. He was almost a stranger and she hadn’t liked the way he had said it; as though he had expected her to be pleased and flattered at his admiration. She said with a composure which quite hid her distaste:

‘Thank you. Perhaps you would like to take the notes away with you? I have quite a lot of work to do still, and I daresay you have too.’

The annoyance on his face was so fleeting that she wasn’t sure if she had imagined it. It was replaced at once by a smile. ‘I’ve annoyed you, I’m sorry.’ He got up and put the notes away. ‘I’ll come back later if I may.’ His smile became apologetic. ‘Don’t hold it against me, will you?’

Victoria smiled too. Perhaps she had been too hasty in her judgement of him. ‘No, of course not. Goodnight.’

Sir Keith Plummer’s bi-weekly ward rounds were always a sore trial to Victoria, and she knew, the moment she set foot on the ward the next morning, that that day’s was to prove no exception to the rule. Not only had one of the diabetics thrown away a valuable specimen and been unable to produce another in the short time left to him before the great man appeared, but Mr Bates, that most docile of patients, had decided to feel sick, so that instead of lying neatly in his bed he was sitting up apprehensively over a basin, and to add to all these trials two sets of notes had disappeared into thin air. Victoria had sent two of the nurses to look for them and dared them to return without these vital papers. ‘Try Physio,’ she whispered urgently so that Sister Crow shouldn’t hear, ‘and OPD; the Appointments Office, X-ray, anywhere—and for mercy’s sake, be quick!’

They sidled in, a few yards ahead of Sir Keith and his retinue, and behind Sister Crow’s back, shook their heads and rolled their eyes heavenwards, then melted away into the sluice as the ward doors opened and Sir Keith walked in. Victoria, from her station by bed number one, watched a routine which she knew by heart. Sir Keith stopped short just inside the doors and Sister Crow, who had been lurking in wait for him, advanced to his side so that they could exchange civil greetings before forming the procession which would presently wend its way up one side of the ward and down the other. It was a pity, thought Victoria, that the Old Crow had been trained so long ago that she regarded all consultants as gods and had made no move to change her views and treat them like anyone else. Victoria watched her standing with her head reverently bowed, listening to Sir Keith’s pleasant voice rambling on, but the head came up with a jerk as the wretched student nurse Black, whose shoes squeaked, came out of the sluice, to retreat immediately under Sister Crow’s threatening gaze. The same gaze hovered over Mr Payne, who had bronchitis, and Mr Church, who had asthma, daring either of them to allow a cough to disturb the utter quiet of the ward, and both gentlemen, anxious to please, lay rigid, their slowly empurpling faces bearing testimony to this fact. When at last human nature could stand no more, they coughed in such good earnest that Victoria was forced to leave her position with the exalted group around the consultant and fly to their aid. She had only just succeeded in quieting them both when there was a fresh disturbance, this time at the ward doors, and obedient to the indignant jerk of Sister Crow’s head, Victoria sped silently down the ward. Some poor soul who had mistaken the visiting hours, she supposed, and saw at once how wrong she was. He looked different, of course, for he had exchanged his guernsey for a suit of clerical grey; her eyes took in its well-cut elegance and the exquisiteness of his tie as he advanced, with no sign of unease, to meet her.