A Nurse's Duty (13 page)

‘Though he’s in the Australian Army,’ she explained. ‘He emigrated in 1910 and now he’s back in Europe with the ANZACs.’

Annie was such a friendly body, Karen thought happily as she took her candle up the stairs to the tiny bedroom which was to be hers for the foreseeable future. She could make a friend of Annie, the first real friend she would have made since coming to Essex.

Sinking into the soft feather bed, she was soon happily anticipating her new job. Previous spells of night duty had taught her to adapt to working at night and sleeping during the day, and she felt she would settle to it in no time. As Greenfields was just opening as a convalescent home, all the staff were in the same position as she was. It would be an interesting experience, starting from scratch.

Karen found herself furiously busy in the next few weeks as wounded and maimed men arrived at the hospital after being patched up elsewhere and pronounced on the mend. The battles were intensifying every day and more and more wounded were coming home, till the hospitals were overflowing.

‘The poor lads are coming here earlier and earlier,’ Karen confided to Annie. ‘I mean, earlier in their treatment than they did at the beginning. We could do with a few more nurses. We’re stretched to our limit.’

Annie sighed sympathetically. ‘I don’t know how you do it,’ she said. ‘It would tear me to bits, young boys hurt badly like that.’

‘You would manage it if you had to,’ Karen replied as she pulled on her cloak for yet another night at Greenfields – one which was to have been her free night.

All the nurses were working longer and longer hours and Karen was no exception, often not leaving the hospital until nine or ten in the morning.

It was almost ten o’clock the following morning and she was giving the night report to Matron when there was a knock at the door. Matron sighed and glanced wryly at Karen. This was the third attempt they had had at getting through the report and each time they had been interrupted by some emergency or other.

‘Come!’ she called, and the door opened to admit Doctor Clarke and another man, a priest or minister of some sort, judging by his collar.

Doctor Clarke, a young houseman seconded from Romford, had been up since two o’clock. He wore an unbuttoned and crumpled white coat and a slightly dishevelled air. Matron stared at him in disapproval.

‘We may be busy, Doctor, but I don’t think that’s a good enough reason to let our standards slip,’ she reprimanded.

He glanced down at his coat and buttoned it hastily.

‘Oh, sorry, Matron. I was just leaving when I met Father Murphy on Ward 2 and thought I’d bring him in to meet you as he’s new to the place.’

The priest stepped forward as Doctor Clarke introduced him to Matron and she bowed her head in stately acknowledgement, a gesture Karen knew to be copied from the Matron of Oldchurch Hospital. The thought made her twinkle with suppressed mirth as she too was introduced to Father Murphy.

‘Father Murphy has recently come to St Michael’s. And this is Sister Knight, our Night Sister, Father.’

‘Hallo. How are you, Sister?’

His accent was musical and touched with a West of Ireland brogue, his handshake firm and cool. His calm grey eyes looked steadily into her brown ones.

Karen was answering him politely when she remembered Robert’s friend whom she had met in Bishop Auckland.

‘Oh,’ she exclaimed, ‘I believe I met a friend of yours last time I was home – a Father Donelly?’

Father Murphy was breaking into a smile and nodding when Matron’s icy tones interrupted them.

‘Sister, this is neither the time nor the place for social chit-chat. I have a busy morning ahead.’

The priest, who fortunately had his back to Matron, pulled a wry face and Karen smiled, looking anything but sorry as she made her apologies to Matron and left the room. As she walked to the front door of the old house Father Murphy was close behind her so that they happened to set off down the drive together.

‘That lady reminds me of Mother Superior at my infants’ school,’ he remarked and laughed, an infectious sound with which Karen found herself joining in.

‘Hospital matrons can be like that,’ she answered.

‘You’re going into the village?’ he asked as they came to the gates.

‘Yes, I’m lodging with Mrs Blakey.’

‘Oh, yes, I know the lady.’

They turned on to the road to the village and walked a little while in silence, but an easy silence, Karen realized with surprise. It was as though they knew each other well. She was still pondering why this was when he spoke again.

‘You were saying you had met my friend Sean – Father Donelly?’

‘Oh, yes, I met him in Auckland, he was with a doctor friend of mine. He mentioned you to me when I told him where I was going to work.’

‘But Auckland? Surely not.’

‘Yes, Bishop Auckland.’ She nodded her head then laughed.
‘Oh
, I see, you thought I meant New Zealand. No, County Durham.’

‘Oh, yes, Sean is in Durham. It’s a while since I heard from him though. Not since he was out in Africa last year.’

‘Well, he says you owe him a letter, I was to tell you if I met you.’

‘And here you are, it’s a small world, as they say.’

He laughed aloud and his laugh was deep and musical. As they reached Annie’s garden gate Karen stopped and looked up at him. His grey eyes were fringed with long, black lashes. Striking eyes, she thought dreamily. He was slim and tall and the black of his clerical garb suited him.

Karen blinked. What on earth was she doing standing here talking to a priest? And worse, allowing herself to feel attracted to him? By, Da would have forty fits if knew about it.

‘And how is Father Donelly?’ the priest was saying but the smile faded from his eyes as he sensed her withdrawal. Karen was opening the gate and backing up the garden path.

‘He’s fine. Well, goodbye, Father.’

The sentence came out in a rush and Karen fairly ran round the side of the house to the kitchen door.

‘Is that you, Karen?’

Annie was bending over a frying pan on the open fire of the range and the room was filled with a strong smell of bacon. She straightened up and looked round, her brow knitting as she saw Karen’s flushed face.

‘Oh, dear, you look a bit tired and upset. Is something wrong?’

Karen shook her head and smiled reassuringly at her. ‘Nothing a good day’s sleep won’t cure, Annie,’ she declared. ‘I’m tired and hungry that’s all. Mind, that bacon smells grand, it does.’

‘Best come and eat it while it’s hot, then,’ advised Annie as she emptied the pan on to a plate and set it on the table. ‘Then up to bed with you. I put a hot bottle in so it’ll be nice and warm.’

Chapter Seven

THERE WAS A
letter from France. It had to be from Joe. Joe, who had travelled halfway across the world with the ANZACs, and escaped unscathed from Gallipoli, thank God.

‘There’s a surprise for you.’ Annie was beaming with pleasure as she saw the effect the letter had on Karen. ‘Oh, aren’t you going to open it?’ she added in surprise as Karen put it by her plate.

‘Later,’ she said and Annie had to be content with that.

Karen ate her pie and drank the hot sweet tea as she listened to the inconsequential chatter of her landlady. Annie was inclined to be garrulous but then, reflected Karen, she had been on her own for a year or so now. The letter was propped before Karen’s plate, a treat to be enjoyed later in the privacy of her room.

The anticipated pleasure of reading the letter kept a half-smile playing around her mouth while the blazing fire in the grate lent colour to her cheeks and glinting highlights to her dark, waving hair, for once hanging loosely on her shoulders without the restrictions of her cap.

Annie had been a little disappointed when she took the letter up to her room in the afternoon and Karen was aware of it but she really wanted to read it in private. She would tell Annie anything interesting in it later. She heard the back door close after the landlady as she went about her evening chores. There were the hens to lock up in case a fox got in and one or two other things to do before she could settle down before the fire for the evening.

Karen flung herself on the bed and slit open the envelope. Eagerly she began reading, then with a muffled exclamation pulled
the
candle on her bedside table closer to make sure she had read aright.

‘Dear Kerry,’ Joe began, and Karen knew straight away that he had good news for her. He was the only one who ever called her Kerry, and then only when he had something good to tell her. Da frowned on the use of pet names. Karen grinned to herself and turned over on to her stomach, propping herself up on her elbows with the letter on the pillow.

I am coming back to England for a spot of leave so by the time you get this I’ll probably already be in London. If you can manage to get the time off to meet me I will be in Liverpool Street Station at six o’clock Saturday the twelth. I
have
to see you. If you can’t make it I will travel down to Greenfields on Sunday morning.

I have very important news!

Don’t be alarmed. I won’t tell you now, though. It will be better when I see you.

What news could be so urgent and yet not urgent enough to tell her in a letter? The question teased her mind all the time she was completing her preparations for going on duty. Donning a clean apron and ‘Sister Dora’ cap, she thought about it. After all, it couldn’t be bad news. Joe was in England and apparently uninjured. He must be all right, else why would he say he was here for a spot of leave? And hadn’t he said it was good news?

Disappointing Annie even more, Karen called goodbye and slipped out of the house. Wrapping her cloak closely around her, she walked briskly up the lane. Roll on Saturday and the prospect of a lovely reunion with her brother. Tomorrow it was, only one more night to work. It was her night off anyway, she didn’t have to ask for it off. She wondered if she should ask for Sunday, though. It might be possible.

The night air was damp and cold and creeping wisps of fog began to obscure the old house even as she walked up the drive to the front door. She could hear the muffled roar of the river as it flowed by the edge of the steeply sloping lawns in its rush to the sea. It was swollen with recent rain as was often the case.

Thankfully, Karen let herself into the hall which was warmed by a smouldering log fire. Shedding her cloak at the hall stand, she glanced briefly in the mirror hanging over the great stone mantel before going to Matron’s office to take the report.

Matron was sitting at her desk and Karen saw with a sinking heart that she was juggling with the names on the off-duty list. She sat straight in her chair and favoured Karen with a slight smile of greeting.

‘Oh, there you are, Sister. I trust you slept well?’

‘Yes, thank you, Matron,’ Karen replied, deciding to get her request in quickly while her superior was in a good mood. ‘Er … I was wondering, would it be possible for me to have Sunday off besides Saturday? My brother is home from France and –’

‘Impossible, Sister.’

Karen’s hopes of a weekend with her brother were dashed immediately. What was more, the affability with which Matron had greeted her was completely gone. Her tone was frigid now.

‘As it happens, I was going to ask you if you wouldn’t mind working tomorrow night, Sister? You know we are woefully short of staff.’

Karen’s heart dropped even further but she wasn’t going to give in on this, not when Joe was coming to London.

‘I’m afraid I can’t, Matron. I have arranged to meet my brother. After all, I worked through my last off-duty night.’

‘There’s no such word as can’t for a nurse …’ Matron was beginning, but stopped as she looked at Karen’s flushed but determined face and sighed heavily.

‘Oh, very well, Sister, you have the right to take your off duty
of
course.’ Pushing the off-duty list aside she picked up the report book and went through the list of patients with Karen, her voice icily formal.

Later in the evening, Karen was just emerging from Ward 1, the former drawing room of the house, when she met Father Murphy again.

‘Good evening, Sister,’ he said, and again she felt that little spark of attraction. She couldn’t understand it, she thought, as she answered his greeting.

‘I hope you don’t mind, Sister? I mean, my disturbing you at half-past nine at night. But I did promise I would come back to see Private Buckley. Poor man, he’s lost his younger brother. He got the news today.’

‘Of course. But it’s lights out at ten, you understand? I’m sorry, but I have the other men in the ward to consider. Though I was really sorry to hear about Private Buckley’s brother, it was in his report.’

He went into the ward and Karen sat down at the table in the hall and took out the medicine list. Calling Nurse Ellis from the ward to double check the drugs with her, she opened the dangerous drugs cupboard with the key fastened on a chain to her dress pocket.

Karen sat on the train going up to town. She felt rested and happy and was eagerly looking forward to seeing Joe. Gazing at her reflection in the carriage window she saw that excitement had brought roses to her cheeks. She moved closer to the window and realized the dark smudges under her eyes were much fainter than they had been lately. Short tendrils of hair had escaped from under her cap and she put up a hand to anchor them into place before leaning back in the seat and closing her eyes, letting her mind wander.

The night before had been fairly quiet, giving her time to chat a little with the wakeful ones. And there were always wakeful patients, no matter how many sleeping draughts she gave out on orders from the doctor. Father Murphy was good with them, she mused, he didn’t seem to mind how long he sat patiently listening to a wounded soldier. A nice man he was.

After the priest had gone she had sat a short while with Private Buckley, just listening to him, letting him talk about his brother.

‘Tom and me, we had a vegetable barrow before the war,’ he had said. ‘There were just the two of us, you know. Our dad was killed when he was thrown from his cart when the axle broke. And Mum, well, she died in ’07. She had the consumption.’