Grasp a Nettle

And hours later, when he came straight from theatre, still in his green smock and trousers, his grey hair hidden by his cap, to find her in Sister’s office, waiting, she was just as sure.

He said without preamble: ‘Your aunt will be all right. She’s very fit for her age and should make a good recovery, although she will have to take reasonable care. Do you want the details?’

‘Please.’

He gave them at some length and then said: ‘Miss Creed should regain consciousness shortly. She will want to see you, will she not? You are prepared to stay?’

‘Of course. They’ve very kindly arranged for the night.’

‘Good. I’ll be around for a while and I shall be in early in the morning. Doctor Toms had to go straight from theatre. He’s quite satisfied.’

She looked at him rather shyly. ‘Thank you, Professor van Draak, I’m very grateful,’ and felt snubbed when he replied coldly: ‘You have no need to be; it is my work.’ He opened the door, preparatory to leaving. ‘Someone will fetch you very shortly.’

He had gone, leaving her feeling that even if he didn’t like her, and it seemed that he didn’t, he might have been a little less terse. But he hadn’t been terse with Aunt Bess, he had been kind and patient and moreover clever enough to see exactly how contrary she was, and deal with it in the only way she would accept. Jenny had seen her aunt make mincemeat of those who crossed her will too many times not to know that she was the last person to listen to cajoling or persuasion. She got to her feet and walked up and down the little room. Well, the man was a professor of surgery; presumably professors had that little extra something that set them above the rest. She stopped in front of a mirror and poked at her hair in an absent-minded fashion. All the same, he was arrogant and much too indifferent in his manner. She wondered if he were married and if so, if he were happy, although it was no business of hers. Only it had been providential that he happened to be staying with Doctor Toms, for Cowpers, excellent though it was was too small to have consultants attached to its staff and it would have meant her aunt travelling miles to Bristol or Poole or Southampton. As it was he had been allowed to make use of the small hospital’s theatre. She had noticed that he was known to the staff there, too. Possibly he had stayed with Doctor Toms before and come to know the staff there—she would have to ask Doctor Toms.

A nurse came to fetch her then and she went along to the back of the hospital, where the three private rooms were. Miss Creed was in the first of these, surrounded by a variety of equipment, looking very shrunken and frail. She opened her eyes as Jenny went in, smiled a little and closed them again, but presently she said in a thread of a voice: ‘All over?’

Jenny sat down by the bed. She had been keeping a tight check on her feelings, for Aunt Bess loathed emotion or tears. Now she could have wept with sheer relief, but she managed a steady: ‘Yes, my dear, and very satisfactory, too,’ aware as she said it that the Professor had come in silently and was standing behind her. He said something low-voiced to the nurse and went to the foot of the bed. Miss Creed opened her eyes again. ‘Pleased with your handiwork?’ she asked in a woolly voice.

‘Yes, I am, Miss Creed, and you will be too in a very short time. Nurse is going to give you an injection and I should like you to go to sleep again.’

His patient submitted an arm. ‘No choice,’ she muttered, and then: ‘Don’t go, Jenny.’

‘No, Aunt Bess, I’ll be here when you wake.’

So she sat in the chair through the night’s long hours, fortified by cups of strong tea the nurses brought her from time to time, trying to keep awake in case Aunt Bess should wake and want her. But her aunt slept on and towards morning Jenny let her heavy lids drop over her tired eyes and dozed herself, to be wakened gently by the Professor’s hand on her shoulder, and his voice, very quiet in her ear. ‘Your aunt’s regaining consciousness.’ And when she sat up, her copper head tousled and no make-up left on her face at all, he whispered, ‘You’re tired. You will go to bed when your aunt has spoken to you; I would send you away now, but of course she won’t remember those few brief moments directly after the operation. You can return later on.’ And when she would have protested: ‘They will let you have a bed here for a few hours.’

It had been worth the long tedious wait. Aunt Bess opened her eyes and spoke in a normal voice. ‘Good girl,’ and then: ‘Where’s that man?’

‘Here,’ answered the Professor quietly. ‘Everything is quite satisfactory, Miss Creed. I want you to sleep as much as you can. Jenny must go to bed now, she has been up all night.’

‘We’re fond of each other,’ said Aunt Bess in a quite strong voice. ‘I’d do the same for her. But send her to bed, by all means.’ Her voice faded a little and then revived. ‘You will anyway, whatever I say.’

‘Yes. She shall come back when she has rested; you will feel more like talking then.’

Jenny found herself whisked away to an empty room in the pleasant nurses’ home adjoining the hospital. She wasn’t sure of the time, and she was too tired to care. She had a bath, drank the tea one of the nurses brought her, and fell into bed, asleep the moment her head touched the pillow.

She was wakened by one of the day Sisters. ‘Your aunt is asking for you,’ she was told. ‘I’m sorry to wake you like this, but she’s being a little difficult—you could come?’

Jenny shook the sleep from her head. ‘Yes, of course. Is she worse?’

‘No—just unable to settle and not very operative. Here’s a dressing gown and slippers—you don’t mind? We can go through the passage.’

Jenny wrapped herself in the voluminous garment, several sizes too big for her, and thrust her feet into equally large slippers and allowed herself to be led through the covered way to the hospital. ‘What’s the time?’ she asked, half way there.

‘Not quite midday. If you could persuade your aunt to have an injection… We’ll bring you a light meal and you could go to sleep again. You must be worn out.’

‘I’m fine,’ declared Jenny sturdily, and stifled a yawn as she lifted dark, delicately arched brows at the sound of her aunt’s voice, raised in wrath.

And indeed she was in an ill humour; flushed as well, sitting up against her pillows, her blue eyes brilliant under her bandaged head. ‘There you are!’ she cried imperiously. ‘And where have you been, may I ask—leaving me to these silly girls? And where’s that foreigner? I thought he was here to look after me? Heaven knows I shall be expected to pay him a king’s ransom.’

Jenny perched beside the bed. ‘I was having a nap, Aunt Bess—I sat with you during the night and I was a bit sleepy. And Professor van Draak was here for most of the night too, he must have been tired after operating. What’s worrying you, Aunt?’

Miss Creed moved her head restlessly. ‘I want to go home,’ she stated. ‘I’m sick and tired of these people, all shouting at me to have an injection; I do not want to sleep.’

Jenny sighed soundlessly. ‘Look, dear, you’ve had an operation and of course you don’t feel quite the thing, and until you have a nice long sleep you won’t feel much better. We know you don’t feel sleepy, but the injection will send you off in no time…’

‘And what’s he doing here?’ interrupted Miss Creed, looking past Jenny’s shoulder.

The Professor had loomed up beside Jenny. He said now in his calm way: ‘I’ve come to give you your injection, Miss Creed—your niece has explained why you should have it.’ He nodded to Jenny to hold her Aunt’s arm firmly and slid the needle in without further ado.

‘I’m not accustomed to being treated in this manner,’ his patient began angrily. ‘I like my own way…’

‘And so do I,’ agreed the Professor pleasantly. ‘You will feel much more yourself when you wake up—tired and not inclined to do much, but much more comfortable in your head.’

‘Bah…’ began Aunt Bess, the lids falling over her tired eyes, ‘I don’t believe…’

Jenny heaved a sigh of relief. ‘Poor dear, she must be feeling ghastly,’ she said softly, and went on sitting where she was, overcome by tiredness once more. She yawned hugely, pushed up the sleeves of the ridiculous dressing gown and lifted her arms to sweep back her tide of hair, hanging all over the place. She would have gone to sleep then and there if the Professor hadn’t said in a cold voice, ‘Go back to your bed, Miss Wren. I see that you are still in need of sleep.’ His tone was so very icy that she opened her eyes to take a look at him. His face looked icy too, the brows drawn together in a frown.

‘Fallen down on the job, have I?’ she asked pertly, tiredness forgotten for the moment in a wish to annoy him. He had been up most of the night too, but he didn’t look as though he had; he was probably one of those iron-willed men who didn’t allow himself to feel tired or happy or sad or anything else… She opened her mouth to tell him so, but yawned instead and fell asleep, sitting upright, swaying a little.

The Professor looked more annoyed than ever. ‘Will you open the door, Nurse?’ he asked the student left to sit with Miss Creed, and swept Jenny up into his arms as though she were a tiresome child and carried her back down the covered passage, to put her gently on her bed and pull the blanket over her. Jenny, dead to the world, rolled over. If she had been awake to hear his: ‘Troublesome girl, to plague me so,’ uttered in a cold voice, she would most certainly have answered him with spirit. As it was she gave a delicate snore.

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