Casualty ward, p.8
Casualty Ward, page 8
She looked at him obviously in some distress. Her eyes were pathetic, but he was a stone wall. Emma had never seen a man so determined and so slow. ‘Wait for me?’ she implored him. ‘Ernest, please wait for me?’
Emma brought a chair along and set it by the table. One mercy was that the student nurse was out of this as she was having some trouble further down the ward, and had not yet finished. Emma prayed that it would keep her some time.
‘Sit down here, sir?’ she suggested, ‘or if you would rather, how about going into my office? We shan’t be very long. The patient is asleep and Mrs. Dukes cannot stay, it might disturb him. She’ll only just see him to satisfy herself that he is all right.’
He looked at the chair. ‘I think your office,’ he said, and without another word went to it.
What an extraordinary situation to have sprung on them out of the blue! And for a moment she did not know what to do.
‘This way, please,’ she said to Mrs. Dukes, and led her up the ward to the far corner where her husband lay. She went quietly and gently drew back the curtain. The patient lay just as they had left him, and she knew that he was still unconscious. ‘Here he is, Mrs. Dukes.’
‘He ‒ he looks dreadful.’
‘He is very white, but that is shock. A night’s sleep will work miracles for him.’
She went closer. ‘He ‒ he looks awful!’
‘Possibly you would if you had cracked two ribs and broken your arm. You must expect him to look ill for now, but we will soon get him right again.’
She stood there uncertainly making no attempt to touch him, just staring down at him, and there were tears in her eyes. ‘It worries me dreadfully,’ she said.
‘He is exceedingly fortunate for he could easily have been killed; he was within an ace of that, and has survived. Now don’t disturb him. He is not likely to move again until about four in the morning, when if he is thirsty he will have a warm drink, then doze off again. I would suggest that you come back first thing in the morning to see him?’
‘Thank you. You’re very kind.’
Inez still stood there staring at the man, then she turned and went back into the ward itself. She was a woman who was exquisitely made, and Emma could understand how Ernest Henderson had fallen in love with her. But what she wondered now was, was he still in love with her? He had changed since she had entered the ward. He was now a man behind a mask, and the mask concealed his features, his impressions, the thoughts that he thought, and maybe the dream which he had once dreamt! It must of course have been a very considerable shock to him to see her again after all these years. She imagined that their marriage would be perhaps fourteen years back. She imagined that he had been desperately in love with her, she was the sort of woman who could inspire love with that radiant beauty of hers, and behind it a compelling personality.
Emma and Mrs. Dukes walked down the ward together, back to her table where the student nurse was entering up some of her notes. She did not look up.
Mrs. Dukes paused. ‘You ‒ you will look after him, Sister, won’t you?’
‘But of course. I will do everything that has to be done for him, but most important of all is that he should sleep. I am sure that you will find him very much more like himself when you come in the morning.’
She gave a faint smile, almost a doubting one. ‘And where do I find Dr. Henderson? I would like to have a word with him, please.’
‘This way.’ She went herself out of the ward with Mrs. Dukes, and into the small room off it, which had windows on to the ward so that she could always keep an eye on it. ‘You will find doctor in there, Mrs. Dukes,’ she said.
She returned a little slowly. Perhaps it was one big comfort that all the time the student nurse had been busy with other patients and therefore could not have a clue about what was going on here. One always kept things from the very young if one could, and Dr. Henderson was a consultant, one would not want half the world to know that the wife who had run away from him had been in the ward tonight, to visit an accident case, the man with whom she had been living for quite a time. Nurses chattered sufficiently without giving them food for their appetites. This was a secret between the three of them. The doctor, Mrs. Dukes and herself. The other two would not talk, nor would she.
They were in her office for some considerable time, probably longer than they realized, and did not come out again until she had done her rounds. She was perturbed by it. It was naturally nothing to do with her, but at the same time the doctor was far too nice a man to have this happen to him.
She knew by the very nature of Ernest Henderson that he had been deeply in love with Inez, for he would never have married without love. Probably he had suffered horribly when she had gone, leaving him for the artist Dukes, but why had he not given her a divorce and cut himself free? Obviously he had not done this, which seemed the answer.
Emma thought to herself that there are some men who hate the thought of divorce and think it wrong, and those who are religiously biased, the Catholics for instance. One had to accept this reaction to the difficult point, not question it. She remembered as she sat waiting, the time when she herself had been a student nurse training under Sister Tutor. This woman had told her then, that thousands of questions arise all the time when you fulfil your duties in nursing, and you have to remember that the private lives of those whom you treat, are private, and not there for you to probe into. Nor must you judge your patient by them. If you are asked for advice, avoid the issue, for when ill people get agitated, they exaggerate their troubles. Remember that all this is outside the province of a good nurse and she must remember it. You have to accept people just as you find them, take them into your own world, tolerate them, and ask no more.
Half an hour later, Dr. Henderson came back into the ward for a moment. He said, ‘I’m going now, Sister. Thank you very much for all you did. By the by, I am taking Mrs. Dukes back home in my car, I’m afraid that she is rather upset.’
‘Yes, sir.’ And then, ‘Would you like some brandy for her, perhaps?’
He smiled at her with that schoolboy grin of his. ‘I have got that sort of thing in the car, thanks a lot. I’m well equipped!’ and then again, ‘Goodnight,’ and he had gone.
The student nurse looked up at her. ‘Is he worried about something?’
‘Not that I know. Nothing has gone wrong here, he was talking to the wife of the accident case, that was all.’
‘Oh, I just thought he sounded different, if you know what I mean.’
Almost tartly she heard herself snapping, ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ and was ashamed of herself for doing it.
Then, almost as if providence had taken a hand, she heard the lift doors opening in the outside passage, and knew that another casualty had arrived, possibly another road accident. She was wrong in this, for it was an old man who had suffered a severe stroke. Luckily he knew nothing about it. They got him quietly to bed, and did what they could, not that there was very much that could be done.
All through that night, which seemed to be unending, Emma thought of what had happened, and she was worried. Dr. Henderson had met his wife again, and plainly he was horribly concerned. In the ward lay the man with whom his wife was living. There had surely never been a case like it before, and she had to remember what Sister Tutor had said: she must accept, not query. She must go on stolidly.
Chapter Eight
First thing next morning, when the ward was in a turmoil preparing for the day staff to come on duty, to Emma’s horror Mrs. Dukes appeared again. Somehow Emma had never thought it could be so soon.
‘Not Mrs. Dukes?’ she gasped.
‘Yes, Sister.’ The student nurse was looking worried to death. For anybody else, Emma would have said no, but she thought of Dr. Henderson last night, his anxiety and his obvious upset over it. ‘All right. But she can’t expect me to be with her just now.’
Inez Dukes came in. She wore a cherry-coloured woollen suit with a brilliant diamond brooch in the lapel, and she looked like a film actress. Immaculate. Expensive. So poised and polished in this busy ward where some were going off duty and frantically preparing for others coming on (and there must be no hitches here!). She looked superb.
‘Am I too early? If I am, I’m sorry.’
‘You are rather early,’ Emma said. ‘We have to finish up and go off duty, and I shall have to hand you over to Day Sister. He has had an excellent night, and is not yet awake.’
‘If I could see him, please?’
‘No. It is urgent that he should continue to sleep whatever happens. I cannot have visitors yet. When he wakes, Day Sister will help you, but not now.’
The nurse in her had risen to the occasion. She had to do the best for her patient, and nobody else must be considered in this. If visitors came and sat by the bedside, they got stiff, then they fidgeted, and she would wake him.
‘I’ll come back.’ Inez Dukes was plainly irritated, but she tried to hide it. ‘What time?’
‘I think about eleven o’clock would be a good time, and he’ll love to see you then.’
She was a clever woman, a woman who knew her way about life, and she was likely to succeed. But so far she had not succeeded. She had thrown over one of the most charming men in the world for the artist who lay asleep at the far end of the ward. She had not married him. At any moment her precarious relationship with him might sever, for men change. She was living on a knife edge, and somehow Emma did not think that Inez was the sort of woman who would enjoy it. Possibly she would want everything cut and dried, and made right for her, and her present life was not cut and dried, nor was it particularly safe if it came to that.
She watched her go, took a last look at the ward with everything immaculately straight, and every cover neatly in place and ready for the new day, then she signed up for Day Sister to come on duty.
‘Anything exciting during the night?’ Day Sister asked.
‘A stroke in number seven. He is pretty bad, and so far they have not identified him. He was found in the street. Accident case in number forty-three, Mr. Evan Dukes, he is an artist, and his wife is coming back to see him at eleven o’clock.’
‘I think I saw her outside. In cerise?’
‘That’s it.’
‘She looks rich.’ And Day Sister took on. Emma picked up her handbag and went out of the ward thankful to say goodbye to it for another few hours. She went into the corridor and that was when she saw Inez Dukes waiting. Surely she is not lying wait for me? she thought. Inez came forward.
‘I hate bothering you, and I know I am being a frightful trouble to you, but I have a car outside and wondered if I could take you anywhere?’
‘Nice of you, and thank you, but I live in. I am just going along to the dining-room to get some breakfast, and then to bed.’
‘Is it a good breakfast?’
She answered almost before she stopped to think. ‘No, and it is Friday, which makes it worse. Fish, you know, and it smells the place out.’
Inez said, ‘Look here, you have been very good to Evan and nice to me. I live only just round the corner, do come round and have breakfast with me? I can promise you first-class coffee for I make it myself, and a good omelette. Proper toast, I know the sort you get in institutions, as I worked in one once. Do come? Please, I’ll get you back the moment you want to go to bed, and I’d like to do it.’
Emma would never know why she said ‘yes’, but she did. She went along to the dining-room and told the woman in charge that she was going out to breakfast. She rushed into her room, tidied herself a little, drew a cloak round her, and then went as she was. ‘This is madness’ she told herself, ‘the sort of absurd thing that only I could do, and it is utterly wrong of me.’
The car was a good one. She got into it still almost as if she were in a dream, and not in a real world at all. The house was, as Inez had said, only a very short distance away, even nearer than she would have expected. It was one of those expensively luxurious houses which still linger even in the slummier parts of London. The car stopped before iron lace gates, and inside she could see a paved courtyard with big green tubs full of the last of the purple crocuses, and also the last of the scillas. She saw the house behind it, covered by a leafless creeper, the front door painted sky blue, and on it a snow-white dolphin for a knocker.
Inez went on ahead. She opened the door and instantly they were in a tiny slender hallway papered in gold paper which glistened and gave it the feeling of light which it had not really got. The carpet too was deep gold, and the furniture antique. Inez went through into the room beyond, bigger than Emma would have anticipated, and there was a long table set for breakfast. There was that almost unknown quantity today, a woman to wait on them, in a white coat. She saw big silver coffee pot and milk jug on a silver tray. The air of comfort which was never in the hospital, because it is not institutional. Old furniture, mellow and warm, beautiful pictures (which she would have expected, for after all Evan Dukes was a famous artist), and soft curtains.
‘You have a lovely home,’ she said.
‘Don’t worry about that, what you want now is a really lovely breakfast.’
That was exactly what it was, a really lovely breakfast. It struck Emma that last night she had not had the vaguest idea that Evan Dukes’s home would be like this, the height of comfort and with everything in order. Plainly Inez was living here with him, and doing well for herself.
‘We have been married some time now,’ she said, covering the position, ‘and the sad thing is that we have no children, both of us want them so much.’
‘I suppose every woman wants children,’ Emma said quietly, ‘it is something born in one, and for some of us they come, and for others they don’t.’
‘Yes, I know. Evan had thought of adopting a boy, he is very keen on that idea, but I have feelings against it, maybe I’m wrong. I wouldn’t know.’
‘When he is better, talk to him about it,’ Emma suggested.
‘That might be an idea. He ‒ he will get better?’
‘Of course. You don’t think that he is on the danger list, or anything like that, do you? The poor old man they brought in with the stroke was on the danger list, but truly there is no need to worry about your husband. It is merely the matter of a day or two before it gets right, and he feels himself again.’
She said, ‘Thank you,’ in a low voice.
There was a lot that Emma liked about Inez, though possibly she was a strangely contradictory personality. In one way warm and generous, it had been sweet of her to think of this breakfast together in the quiet of a private home, bringing her here in the car and making it easy for her. At the same time one was aware of something behind it all, something that one could not analyse so easily, and which made one half afraid.
They talked casually of different things together, not of themselves, for perhaps both of them inwardly knew this was a dangerous subject. Inez was worried about the broken arm for Evan Dukes, and whether it might not affect his work in the future. He was at the moment working hard trying to complete a picture for an exhibition, and already time was against him. Delay could be disastrous, and this agitated her.
Emma tried to be helpful. A Colles fracture was not a serious damage at any time, and it would mend fairly well, and quickly. The surgeon would have an X-ray in a day or two to see whether it was okay, for this type of fracture could slip whilst in plaster, and one always had to be sure about it. They gave a Colles no chance of misbehaving. The rest might help him, and give him renewed energy when he had got over the shock.
‘You’re kind,’ said Inez.
Afterwards she showed Emma the studio which had been built on to the back of the house, and which was lit by a quite glorious northern light. There was something attractive about it, with the empty throne at one end, and by it a chair with a vivid emerald satin cloak flung over it. The pictures on the walls were beautiful, undoubtedly this man painted extraordinarily well. She looked at the easel which was shrouded by a sheet, and Inez did not suggest lifting it. This was the work which would worry him most, lest he could not get it completed in time for the exhibition.
A clock chimed in the hall, giving the Westminster chimes, which reminded Emma that she had to get back.
‘I’ve got to get my sleep, you see.’
‘Yes, of course. I’ll take you round in the car, that saves a bit of time.’
‘Please don’t worry, because I can walk quite easily, and the air will do me good. It’s only a few minutes, it won’t take long.’
‘No, certainly not.’ Inez rose with determination. ‘I said I’d take you, and I will.’ She put an arm round her, ‘And then perhaps I can get a peep at Evan sooner than I thought.’
‘No, please don’t try to do that. Let him sleep as long as ever he can. If you go, you will only upset the day staff and make things more tricky for him. Leave him until eleven.’
‘All right.’
But the result of this was that they drove back in silence, and Emma realized that this had offended Inez. Had the whole plan of breakfast in pleasant surroundings and the car to and from been part of a coercion to get into the hospital again to her lover before she should? Emma was dropped at the door of the Nurses’ Home, and as she stepped out of the car, she realized that the feeling of intense lethargy had come to her, and that tiredness which is always part of the morning after night duty. The longing for sleep had caught up with her.
She went along the corridor to her own room and was glad to undress. She got her bath next, for that always restored her, and she needed it, then she turned into bed and was asleep in a twinkling. She did not wake until three o’clock in the afternoon, one of those radiantly lovely spring afternoons with the sun out and the promise of another warm spell just as yesterday had been. She changed into plain clothes and went out, for she needed air. Today she wanted to forget that she was a nurse, forget that she had been up all night, and that by now possibly the poor old man who had had a stroke, was dead. She walked down the corridor and the change out of uniform seemed suddenly to refresh her. She had noticed this before about clothes, one changed one’s personality with them.
