Never the Time and the Place
Mrs Prosser said a rude word, but Josephine, inured to the colourful vocabulary of the majority of her patients, took not a bit of notice. She left Mrs Prosser’s door half open and swept back down the ward, distinctly eye catching in her dark blue cotton uniform and frilled cap; other hospitals might dress their nurses in nylon and paper caps, St Michael’s hadn’t changed the material or the cut since they were first designed in the mid-nineteenth century. Perhaps they weren’t as comfortable as the modern overall, but the St Michael’s nurses wore them with pride and spent time getting their caps just so.
With Josephine’s eye here, there and everywhere, the ward gradually assumed the perfection she expected. The ill ladies were attended to, comforted, their hair nicely combed, and set against their pillows, those who were able, got from their beds and were settled in chairs, and the in betweens, not yet quite well enough to do much for themselves, were encouraged to swing their legs out of bed, totter for little walks under the watchful eye of a nurse, and then sit up in their beds, where, feeling pleased with themselves, they read the paper or knitted. And in the meantime Joan Makepeace and a Senior Student Nurse had started the treatments and the dressings. By the time the nurses started going to their coffee the morning was successfully embarked upon its routine.
Mr Bull arrived just as Josephine, having checked that all was going well with her patients, was thinking of her own coffee. He surged into the ward, bringing a wave of good humour with him. He was accompanied by the colleague who was to do his work while he was away; the man in the car, no less. She halted for a moment, on her way down the ward to meet them, and then went on, her colour a little high, but her calm unimpaired.
Mr Bull gave her a jovial greeting. ‘Jo—everything spick and span, I see—I’ve never managed to catch you out yet, have I? I’ve brought Mr Julius van Tacx—he’ll be doing my work for me while I’m away. Julius, meet my favourite Ward Sister, Josephine Dowling. She’s getting married very shortly, more’s the pity.’
Josephine extended a large, well kept hand and had it engulfed in an enormous grip. She said, ‘How d’you do?’ in a rather colourless voice and was taken aback when he replied, carelessly.
‘Oh, we have met already, haven’t we?’
Mr Bull was all ears. ‘Oh, where?’
‘In the middle of a country road in a rainstorm. Miss Dowling took exception to my driving.’
Mr Bull was by no means insensitive to atmosphere. He glanced at Jo’s wooden countenance and then at Mr van Tacx’s amused face and said uneasily, ‘Yes, well—I daresay you’ll work very well together. This is one of the best run wards in the hospital.’
Mr van Tacx bowed his head slightly in what Josephine considered to be a mocking gesture. His, ‘Of course,’ sounded mocking, too.
She said austerely, ‘Naturally I and my nursing staff will do everything to make things as easy as possible for Mr van Tacx.’
‘Oh, I don’t expect things to be easy,’ he told her cheerfully, ‘but I daresay we’ll rub along.’
There was nothing to reply to this. Jo led the way to the first bed and the round began, supported by a posse of students, Joan Makepeace and a Student Nurse clutching a pile of patients’ notes. It took twice as long, of course, Mr van Tacx had to have every sign and symptom explained to him as well as reading the foot of every bed as they came to it. Josephine, longing for her coffee, allowed no vestige of her impatience to show, making suitable replies to the questions fired at her, producing the correct forms seconds before they were asked for, behaving in short, just as a well trained nurse ought. So much so in fact that Mr Bull paused at the end of the ward to enquire what was the matter with her. ‘Swallowed the poker, Jo?’ he asked. ‘You don’t need to be so starchy just because Mr van Tacx is here.’
Jo looked down her beautiful nose. ‘I hope that I shall treat Mr van Tacx exactly as I have always treated you, sir,’ she said sweetly. ‘Would you like to see Mrs Prosser? I’ve put her in the end side ward. She kept everyone awake last night and is convinced that she isn’t well enough to go home. I suggested to her that if she were in a room by herself she might begin to feel better.’
‘Oh, God—must I see her? There’s nothing wrong is there?’
Josephine glanced at her notes. ‘Nothing at all.’
‘Oh, well, in that case…’ He caught her eye. ‘You think I’d better have a word?’
She nodded and led the way to the side ward. Mrs Prosser was sitting up in her bed, waiting for them. She didn’t waste time with any good-mornings, but launched her attack without preamble. They stood listening imperturbably until she stopped for lack of breath.
‘Well, Mrs Prosser,’ said Mr Bull, ‘here is a well-known specialist who has come to examine you. I do feel that if he pronounces you fit you have no option but to take his advice and go home on Saturday.’
Josephine had to admit that Mr van Tacx handled Mrs Prosser with a masterly touch; he examined her with a thoroughness which impressed even that lady, then treated her to a brief lecture, delivered in his deep faintly accented voice, ending it with a flattering observation on her fortitude and ability to cope with any future difficulties.
Josephine, who had decided that she didn’t like him, was forced to allow admiration for his handling of the difficult old lady. Leaving Mrs Prosser smirking amongst her pillows, she led the way to her office where Mr Bull waved away his retinue. He was in a good mood; coffee would take twice as long as usual, thought Josephine, which meant that she would be all behind with the paperwork. She was a calm tempered girl, and patient; she poured coffee for the three of them and sat down to drink hers at the desk while the two gentlemen disposed themselves—Mr Bull in a canvas chair in one corner of the small room, the Dutchman leaning against a radiator. There was no question of social conversation, of course. They plunged immediately into several knotty problems which had revealed themselves during the round, turning to her from time to time to verify some sticky point. It was when they got up to go at last that Mr van Tacx paused as they were going through the door.
‘I shall be seeing you presently, Sister Dowling, there are one or two points we might discuss. I hope we shall enjoy a pleasant relationship.’
Josephine gave him a thoughtful look. ‘I hope so, too, sir.’ She hadn’t much liked his silken tones. Rather childishly, she made a face at the closed door, said, ‘Pooh to you,’ and then drew a pile of reports towards her, only to be interrupted a moment later by the door being thrust open again to admit Mr van Tacx’s handsome head.
‘Shall we let bygones be bygones?’ he wanted to know, and smiled at her with such charm that just for the moment she liked him very much. Before she could answer him, he had gone again, leaving her with her feelings nicely muddled.
As she might have known, he was thoroughly discussed at midday dinner. Caroline and Mercy both pronounced him dreamy. ‘Such a lovely dark brown voice!’ enthused the latter. ‘And so good looking. Caroline, you’re a lucky devil, you’ll see him four times a week, besides the times he might stroll in for the odd cup of coffee.’
Caroline, a pretty girl with curly blonde hair and big baby blue eyes, smirked. ‘I know. What a bit of luck Jo’s out of the running—I wouldn’t stand a chance, nor would you.’
‘Speak for yourself.’ Mercy turned a gamin little face to Jo. ‘What do you say, Jo?’
‘Why, that he’s a man who knows his job—he’d have to or Mr Bull wouldn’t let him near his patients in the first place.’
‘You don’t like him?’
‘I don’t know him, so how can I tell?’ asked Jo reasonably. ‘Does anyone know anything about him?’
‘Not a thing. He’s Dutch, qualified here as well as in Holland, lives near Leiden, had a flourishing practice and likes lots of sugar in his coffee…’
Josephine turned thoughtful eyes on to her friend’s face. ‘Not bad, considering you only met him for the first time this morning.’
‘You wait a week, Jo. I must find out if he’s married or got a girl. Married, I should think—he’s not all that young, is he? Probably got a pack of children and a wife…’
‘Then why isn’t she with him? I mean, he’s in a service flat, one of those posh ones just behind Harrods, I heard old Chubb’—Chubb was the Senior Porter—‘telling one of the porters to take some luggage there.’
Several pairs of eyes were turned upon Mercy, who had volunteered this interesting information, and she smiled round the table. ‘What’s more, I heard him say that Mr van Tacx has friends in Wiltshire—Tisbury…’ She stopped short. ‘Jo, you live near there…’
Josephine took a mouthful of wholesome steamed pudding before she replied. ‘I’ve met him—when I was home, you know. He passed me in his car, going towards Tisbury, but he could have been making for several villages…’
‘How do you know it was him?’
‘He stopped.’ Jo treated the table to a calm stare. ‘It was very wet,’ she volunteered as though that was sufficient explanation.
‘Lord, what a chance—and it had to be you, Jo, safely settled with your Malcolm.’
It was a pity, mused Josephine on her way back to the ward, that for some reason which she couldn’t explain, she felt neither safe nor settled. It was a very good thing that Malcolm was calling for her that evening; he was a junior partner in a large practice on the fringe of Hampstead and it was his free evening. She hadn’t seen him for more than a week, which was perhaps why she had this strange feeling of uncertainty about the future. Perhaps she had got into a rut, staying on at St Michael’s after she had trained, thoroughly entrenched in her job and unlike some of her friends who had to help with family finances, quite comfortably off. Indeed, Malcolm had laughingly told her that she wouldn’t be able to indulge her taste for expensive clothes once they were married. ‘There’ll be plenty of money,’ he explained, ‘but I don’t believe in wasting it on fripperies—Mother makes a lot of her dresses, I’m sure she’ll give you a hand.’
Josephine shuddered at the thought; his mother’s clothes, clothing an extra outsize for a start, were as remote from fashion as the moon was from cheese. She was still frowning about it when she reached her office. Joan would be there with a tray of tea which they would share while they planned the rest of the day’s work and discussed the ill patients. Visitors were already waiting impatiently outside the swing doors and during the next hour there was very little to do other than check on the post-op cases. Young Student Nurses had all been given some chores to keep them busy until the bell was rung and they could do teas. Joan would have cast an eye where necessary. She sighed for no reason at all, and opened her office door.
CHAPTER TWO
MR VAN TACX was standing with his back to the door, looking out of the window at the view; the windowless wall bounding the theatre wing, separated from the gyny ward by a strip of grass supporting a plane tree. He turned round as Josephine went in so that his massive person shut out most of the daylight, and leaned against the window frame.
‘Do you ever look out of the window?’ he asked.
‘Only if I have to. Is there something you want, sir?’
‘I should like to go over the notes of the post operation cases…’
He paused as the door opened and Joan came in with the tea tray. She stopped short and said, ‘Oh, sorry, I didn’t know you were here, sir.’
She glanced at Josephine. ‘Shall I get another cup, Sister?’
Josephine ignored his slow smile. ‘Why, yes, Staff, and stay will you? Mr van Tacx wants some notes—Mrs Shaw, Mrs Butterworth, Miss Price and Mrs King.’ She sat down at her desk and picked up some forms lying on it. ‘Mrs Butterworth’s Path Lab report’s back.’ She lifted her eyes to Mr van Tacx’s impassive face. ‘I daresay you took a look at it, sir.’
‘No, I didn’t,’ he said to surprise her. ‘I should dislike it very much if you were to poke around my desk, and I rather fancy you would feel the same way.’ He smiled his charming smile again and she found herself smiling back.
‘Oh, that’s better,’ he said quietly as Joan came back with the tea cup. Josephine, who seldom blushed, found herself doing just that, too. But she poured the tea in her usual calm manner, laid the notes on the desk and offered her chair. He waved that aside, however, and went to sit on the radiator and sip his tea and read through the notes. Presently he held out his hand for the Path Lab report and studied that, too.
‘Radiotherapy, I think, don’t you, Sister? Let us get her on her feet first though, so that she feels she is making good progress. You keep your patients in for that?’
‘Usually, it depends on the patient…’
‘Yes, of course. And these other ladies…’ He passed his cup for more tea and began on the other notes. Josephine drank her own tea and watched him. She had to admit that he was very good looking but she wasn’t sure if she liked his faint air of arrogance. Accustomed to getting his own way, she decided, and probably quite nasty if he didn’t.
He looked up suddenly and returned her look with a long cool one of his own. He said quietly, ‘I think that we must get to know each other, Sister Dowling.’ And then he got up to go.
When they were alone, Joan said, ‘He’s nice, isn’t he? I don’t mean good looking and all that, he’s got every nurse in the place on her toes. I’m not sure what it is but if I were in a tight corner I’d shout for him…’
Josephine gave her Staff Nurse a surprised look. Joan Makepeace was one of the most level headed girls she had ever met, popular with nurses and the students and house-men alike, not particularly pretty but kind and hard working and while not lacking dates, she had made it plain that she had no intention of taking anyone seriously until she had achieved what she had set out to do; have a ward of her own. She admired Josephine. Indeed, her ambition was to be exactly like her, calm and serene and able to cope with any emergency which might arise. She knew that she had a chance of getting Josephine’s job when she left to marry, but genuinely regretted her going. She said carefully, ‘I haven’t thought about him, Joan…’
‘Well, I don’t suppose you would—I mean you’ve got Malcolm.’
Josephine, who hadn’t given Malcolm a thought for the best part of the day, agreed.
The period of quiet was over, there was still ten minutes to go before visiting time was over; Josephine went into the ward, cast a quick eye over the four operation cases, agreed to talk to their visitors presently and made her way slowly round the ward, to be stopped every few yards by relatives and friends. Some of their questions she couldn’t answer, they were better dealt with by one of the surgeons; she would have to get Mr Bull’s registrar, Matt Cummings to come up to the ward. But all the other questions she answered patiently and helpfully, knowing that to the people concerned they were important. Back in her office she phoned Matt and then, one by one, invited the anxious mothers and sisters and daughters to come and talk. There were never any husbands in the afternoon, they came in the evening, clutching flowers and things in paper bags and sometimes they rather shyly offered her a gift. Chocolates mostly, sometimes a bag of oranges or a melon and as Christmas approached, nuts. She accepted them with gratitude because it was nice that in the middle of what was to most men a domestic upheaval, they remembered the nurses.
Malcolm was waiting for her; she had got off duty rather later than usual and had hurried to change and make her way to the front entrance. He was standing by the entrance, reading an evening paper, and she paused, unseen as yet, to look at him. Not over tall, stoutly built, nice looking in a smug kind of way. It struck her forcibly that she couldn’t possibly marry him. In ten years time he would be satisfied with his life, following in his father’s footsteps, content to take over from him and probably when his father died, having his mother to live with them… He had never been keen on an evening out, she suspected. No, she knew now that once they were married, she would be expected to stay at home or at best visit his family. The enormity of it all shook her; she felt guilty and mean, but surely it was better to cry off now rather than go through with an unhappy marriage? And why, she asked herself miserably, should she suddenly be aware of these things? True she had had doubts from time to time but she had supposed that was natural enough in an engaged woman, but now it wasn’t doubts, it was dreadful certainty.
She walked on again and he looked up and saw her. His, ‘Hullo old girl,’ did nothing to reassure her, nor did the perfunctory kiss he dropped on her cheek, but she struggled to respond to it, feeling guiltier than ever so that she responded rather more warmly than usual and he drew back with a ‘Hey—what’s got into you, Jo?’ And when she just shook her head, ‘Had a busy day, no doubt—well, we’ll go to a cafe and have a meal. That’ll set you on your feet again.’
She longed to tell him that a cafe wouldn’t help in the least; champagne and an exotic dinner at some fashionable restaurant might have helped, but she doubted that even. She said urgently, ‘Malcolm, could we go somewhere quiet where we can talk?’
‘Quiet? Why do we want to be quiet?’ He was ushering her into his car as he spoke. He added rather irritably, ‘I’m not made of money, you know…’
A rather unfair remark, she decided, sitting silent beside him.
The restaurant was fairly full and noisy. They found a table for two and he said as they sat down, ‘Steak for you?’ And when she said that no she would have a poached egg on toast, he observed shortly, ‘Whatever is the matter with you, Jo? I always order a steak for you…’
She said lamely, ‘I’m not hungry, Malcolm,’ and then trying hard to recapture something she knew was lost for ever, ‘Have you had a busy day?’
‘Oh, God, yes. I’ll be glad to be shot of the Hampstead practice, there’ll be just enough to keep me busy with Father, there’s nothing like a country practice—one knows everyone in the district, a settled routine…’
‘Is that what you want, Malcolm? Don’t you want to—to stretch your wings? Use your knowledge?’
He laughed. ‘Jo, you’re not yourself this evening, what on earth’s got into you. Why should I want to wear myself out when I can drop into a comfortable country practice with my father?’
She abandoned the egg on toast. She was appalled to hear herself say, ‘Malcolm, I don’t want to get married.’
He finished his mouthful before he replied. ‘Rubbish, Jo. You’re just tired—you don’t know what you are saying.’
She said doggedly, ‘But I do. I—I’ve felt uncertain for a week or two but I thought—well, I thought I’d get over it, but I haven’t, Malcolm. I’d make you a bad wife—there are all sorts of reasons—living so far away and being so near your parents. Your mother doesn’t like me much, you know that; she thinks I’m too keen on clothes and don’t know enough about keeping house, and I want to do more than just be a housewife—and I’m not sure that I love you enough, Malcolm.’ She paused and went on bravely. ‘I’m not even sure if you love me enough. You see, I think, perhaps you’re mistaken in me—I don’t like being told what to do and being taken for granted. Why do I have to eat steak when we go out just because you think I want to? Can’t you see that if you expect me to eat steak because you order it for me, you’ll expect me to do everything else you think is good for me.’
Malcolm gave an indulgent laugh, which infuriated her. ‘You are just being silly, Jo. Good Lord, we’re to be married in a couple of months, you can’t break everything off now.’
‘You mean to tell me that you think we should go ahead with the wedding even when I know in my heart that I don’t want to marry you?’
He shrugged. ‘You’ll feel differently in the morning. Besides, what will everyone say…’
‘They’d say a lot more if I ran away after we were married.’
‘You don’t mean that. Why do women have to exaggerate so?’
She saw that she wasn’t going to get through his smugness. She said soberly, ‘I’m not exaggerating, Malcolm, I mean every word.’ And she took the ring off her finger and pushed it across the table towards him. ‘Please will you take me back to St Michael’s.’
He picked up the ring and put it in his pocket. ‘If that’s how you feel, the quicker we part company the better. You’re not the girl I thought you were.’
She agreed sadly, ‘You’ll meet some girl who’ll make you happy, Malcolm. I’m very sorry, but it’s far better to part than to be unhappy for the rest of our lives.’
He muttered something, and because she was a kindhearted girl and blamed herself she was honest and said so, to be brought up short by his, ‘Oh save that, I’m beginning to think that once I’ve got over the awkwardness of it all, it’ll be a good thing.’
He paid the bill and they went out to the car and got in without speaking. They still hadn’t said a word when he drew up at the Hospital entrance.
Josephine opened her door. ‘Well, goodbye, Malcolm— I’m sorry…’
He presented an unmoved profile to her. ‘I doubt that,’ he told her, and caught the door and slammed it shut and drove away without another word.
She stood for a moment watching the tail lights receding and then pushed the glass swing doors open. Mr van Tacx was standing just inside, barring her path.
‘Hullo,’ he observed ‘had a tiff?’
It was a bit too much; Josephine lifted a pale face to his, blinking back tears. ‘What do you know about tiffs?’ she asked him bitterly and sped past him, intent on getting to her room so that she could have a really good cry.
It was a good thing that most of her friends were out for the evening or had retired to their beds. She lay in a very hot bath, crying her eyes out, and then as red as a lobster and quite worn out, got into her bed. She had expected to stay awake all night, but she fell asleep at once and didn’t wake until she was called in the morning. Nothing could disguise her swollen eyelids or her still pink nose; she did the best she could with make-up and was grateful when her friends said nothing at breakfast even though they cast covert glances at her.
It was perhaps a good thing that her day turned out to be so busy that she had no time to spare for herself; there was no sign of Mr van Tacx, which considering his nasty remark on the previous evening, was a good thing, but Matt did a round, pronounced himself satisfied, declared himself delighted that Mrs Prosser would be leaving them in the morning and had a cup of coffee before he went away again. But not before he had stopped on his way out of the ward to speak to Joan. Josephine, coming out of her office behind him, saw Joan’s pink face and her smile; whatever the girl said, she couldn’t hide the pleasure at whatever Matt was saying. Bereft of her own romance, Josephine was delighted to see another blossoming under her nose. Matt was quiet and solid and nothing much to look at, but he was a clever surgeon; Joan would suit him admirably. Josephine went on down the ward, already busy with plans to arrange the off duty so that Joan would be free when Matt had his half days.
The next day they admitted three patients for operations on the morrow; Mrs Prior, a timid little lady with an over-bearing husband who button-holed Josephine and demanded to know just exactly what was to be done to his wife. She asked him mildly if his own doctor hadn’t already explained it to him.
‘’Corse ’e ’as. But ’oo’s ter believe ’im, eh? The missus ain’t all that ill, and ’oo’s ter look after me?’
‘You?’ said Josephine gently. ‘Most husbands manage very well. I’ll get one of the surgeons to see you if you like. Your wife will have her operation in the morning and you can phone about one o’clock and come round in the evening and talk to someone about her.’
She was glad to see him go and she suspected that his wife, meek though she was, was just as glad. The other two ladies were easier to deal with; both married and middle aged with worried husbands anxious to do the right thing. She put their minds at rest and when they had gone went along to have a little chat with the three women. Mr Bull had fallen into the habit of letting her describe their operations to his patients; most of them wanted to know exactly what would be done and more importantly, if it was going to hurt. Josephine reassured them, gave them a clear idea of what the surgeon intended doing and suggested that they should get themselves unpacked, bathed and into bed, ready for the House Surgeon to examine them. He was new to the team, enthusiastic about his work and tended to frighten the patients by his sheer earnestness. Josephine took care to be with him so that she could tone down some of his more frank remarks. Frankness, she felt, should be left to the registrar, or better still, the consultant gynaecologist.