Australian Hospital (8 page)

“And issue nylon in place,” grinned Brenda. “Wouldn’t Matron rage!”

The following week something happened to cause Candace’s cheeks to bum hotly for many humiliating days.

Every month the local Manathunka supporters organised a dance in the home’s Welfare Hall. The large room was decorated with streamers and balloons, a small band engaged, and two and sixpence entrance charged for the night’s entertainment. The ladies brought along supper.

Although they could never join in anything like this, the patients enjoyed the preparations, listened until sleep caught up with them in their beds to the strains of the band, and asked with interest the next day who had won the spot waltz.

Some of the abler men were allowed to issue the tickets and collect the entrance money. Candace wheeled one of them, John, to one side of the door and gave him a roll of passes, then another, Reg, to the other side and handed him a box to hold the gains.

Reg’s fingers were gnarled and crippled, but he was careful, even miserly, over change, and every now and then he would gleefully tally up the profits.

“We’re doing well; it’s a bumper night, Sister,” he beamed during the intervals that Candace, who was on duty, found time to peep round to see how her “boys” were behaving.

The band struck up, and the laughter rang from Welfare. Candace finished her work at eleven, estimated that it was too late to join the fun, and decided, instead, on bed.

She took off her white veil and put it in the laundry chute, intending to wear a fresh one in the morning. She had, however, not taken off her uniform when one of the aides, Hilda, who was still on duty, came running up the steps.

“Are you in bed, Sister?”

“Not yet.”

“Oh, good! Can you come to Bobby? He’s having a nightmare.”

Candace wasted no time. She ran out behind Hilda, only stopping as she reached the door of Bobby’s ward.

“Oh, Aide,” she said, “my veil.”

“It won’t matter, will it, Sister? No one will see.”

“Bobby will see. Whenever he sees any of us we are either in veils or caps. It might alarm him even more, and start him off afresh.”

Hilda was a quick thinker. She had her neat, plain little cap off in a flash.

“If you don’t object, Sister—” she offered shyly.

“You’re a smart girl,” commended Candace. She patted on the cap and went in to the moaning Bobby.

To-night Bobby was not the hero who released Jonah or came to the rescue of the lion-tamer. The whale,
it seemed
, was pursuing Bobby, and the lion’s jaws were ready to snap on a small, scared boy.

Candace wakened him gently but definitely.

“There, there,” she soothed, and nodded to Hilda to go to the dispensary for a sedative.

After Bobby had taken it, she held him in her arms until he dropped off to sleep again. There was no whale this time, no roaring lions. A soft pink suffused his little cheeks. “Bless you,” said Candace tenderly. She dropped a kiss on his rumpled brown hair.

Hilda had disappeared, probably to one of the patients.

While she waited for her, Candace walked round to Welfare and peeped in at the revellers.

A Barn Dance was in progress, and everybody seemed to be up. A young man without a partner was standing at the doorway. When he saw Candace approach, his face brightened. “Come on, Aide,” he invited, and before Candace could protest she was on the floor.

She hoped to escape at the change of partners, but once again found herself prisoner in a man’s arms. Round and round she went, quite helpless. The wardsman whirled her, the gardener whirled her, several neighbours living near Manathunka with whom she had become acquainted whirled her, Toby Ferry who was here with Barbara whirled her—and Stephen Halliday.

There was no opportunity for escape and no time for explanation. For ten minutes all she did was fling madly around—and then the music was stopping, and the dancers clapping, but Candace was running breathlessly to her room, laughing gaily over the unexpected interlude.

She was still laughing to herself as she lay in bed and listened to the dance break up five minutes before midnight.

A few minutes later, however, she was not so gleeful. There was a sharp, peremptory knock on her’ door.

Candace got up and pulled on her dressing-gown—the same faded blue in which Stephen had seen her at Aden, when he had wanted suddenly and tenderly to protect her because she looked so much like a little girl.

The knock was repeated, more loudly. Candace crossed the room. “Not Bobby again,” she was hoping as she opened the door.

The visitor was Eve Trisby.

CHAPTER VI

Eve stood a yard away, and stopped there. Her expression, never cordial, was now very remote and cold.

“Well, Sister?”

“I beg your pardon?” Candace was plainly puzzled at the visit.

“I am waiting for an explanation for your extraordinary behaviour just now. I have never witnessed such a vulgar exhibition in all my months at Manathunka.”

“But, really—” Candace was stupefied at her words.

“You knew you were on duty.”

“I wasn’t. I had gone off.”

“Then why were you there and not in your room?”

Candace told Eve briefly of Bobby, but Eve was obviously not interested.

“Explain the irregularity of your uniform,” she demanded icily.

Candace told her how she had thought the sudden absence of an accustomed cap or veil might have alarmed a child just out of a nightmare.

“I don’t believe you. It’s too tall a story. You made an exhibition of yourself—and of the home—simply to attract attention. I really cannot let such a thing pass unnoticed, Sister Jamieson. You can report to Arnold in the morning to be disciplined.”

“But surely, Sister Trisby, you’re not serious—”

Eve had never been more serious in her life. She had seen the look in Ash’s eyes as he had whirled around that glowing-eyed girl in the primrose
sister’s
uniform but an
aide’s
quaint little peaked cap. The sight had infuriated and sickened her. It was all she could do to keep as much temper as she now had left in leash.

“In the morning,” she flung out, and wheeling round left Candace almost gaping at her.

“A little thing like that—” the girl thought incredulously, hardly believing the pantomime that had just taken place.

It had happened, though. She awoke next morning to the realisation that she must interview Sister Arnold—interview her about something that must surely be the most trivial of storms in the tiniest tea-cup that anyone, even Gulliver, had ever encountered.

Candace had not reckoned on Eve, though. Earlier that morning, Sister Trisby had sought an interview with Sister Arnold, and now the deputy sat, suitably prepared, in Matron’s office.

“Really, Sister Jamieson, I am very surprised at what I hear. It wasn’t only your untoward actions, either, you made a travesty of the Manathunka uniform. A uniform is not just a piece of material fashioned together, it is a symbol. You can do as you like when you wear your own clothes, which, in a way, are
your
symbol, but when you wear a uniform of Manathunka you take upon yourself a certain responsibility. I am disappointed in you. I really don’t know what I should do. I feel that such serious misbehaviour as Sister Trisby has reported is beyond my jurisdiction. Matron is absent, so I am going to make you account to a member of the Board.”

Candace stood petrified at the proportions her innocent escapade had attained.

Then her blood froze at Jessie Arnold’s next words.

“Doctor Halliday confers here at eleven. Report to him in the Honoraries’ Office and tell him you have been sent for discipline.”

Candace’s knees seemed to buckle under her.

“Oh, Sister, please, not Doctor Halliday. Sister,
please.
”

Jessie Arnold felt rather proud of herself. It seemed she had hit on the right medicine. “You heard what I said. Now, if you don’t mind, I have some accounts to be checked—”

Candace went slowly out, her indignation against Eve completely forgotten. All she could think of was Stephen. Andrew Stephen Halliday—Ash—sitting in the Honoraries’ Room in judgment.

She went about her work as usual, hoping the hours would drag. Yet, in a way, she wanted them to hurry. She wanted the wretched business over.

Morning tea came at ten-thirty, and punctual as ever, at eleven, Stephen Halliday’s big green car pulled up on the camphor drive.

From eleven to half-past the doctor went round the hospital.

At a quarter to twelve he retired into Honoraries.

Candace approached the room feeling sore, sick, and sorry. She knocked timidly and the well-known voice called, “Come in,” but it was not until Doctor Halliday had called a second time, very impatiently, that Candace found the courage to push the door, and enter.

Stephen Halliday looked surprised at his caller, which made it seem much worse to Candace. Now she would have to tell all the miserable particulars from beginning to end. She felt she would have preferred Eve’s exaggerations to the humiliation of confessing her own story.

“This is an unexpected pleasure,” said Stephen.

He had been sitting at the head of the long conference table consulting some papers, and he pulled a chair up now to his side and waved Candace into it.

Candace did not obey immediately. “Doctor Halliday—”

“Sit down, child, sit down.”

“But Doctor—”

“Sister Jamieson, are you ever going to learn obedience? I said, sit down.”

It would be unwise to antagonise him before she even got started, thought Candace. She sat on the very edge of the chair.

“Relax, girl.”

Candace leaned back an inch.

The doctor regarded her quizzically.

“You seem very nervous this morning. Not sickening for something, are you?” He shot out an expert hand and captured Candace’s wrist.

“Heart-beat normal,” he said presently, “except for a slight palpitation.” He let her wrist drop.

“What is it, Sister Jamieson?” he asked briskly. “Manathunka getting you down?”

“Oh, no, I love it.”

His thick dark brows met in one line. “Am I to take it then that this visit is purely social?”

“Oh, no, sir—”

“Then what, Sister?”

A silence fell on the room. Candace could have jumped up and run away, but where, she thought miserably, would that take her? Only back to Sister Arnold still insisting she report to Doctor Halliday. No, it had to be got over with, and it had to be now.

“Doctor, I was sent by Sister Arnold—”

“Yes?”

“She said I was to tell you—to tell you—”

He waited.

“That—”

“Yes, Sister Jamieson?”

“That—that I had been sent for—discipline.”

It was out. She had spoken it at last. But in some perverse way the words seemed to hang there. Although they had been uttered, they did not vanish. They echoed from every corner of the long Honoraries’ Office.

Candace’s eyes were down. Her long lashes tented them. Had she looked up she would have surprised the
pure laughter
in Stephen’s vivid blue gaze. The corner of his mouth quirked. He seemed to have difficulty with his throat. Before he spoke he took time to blow his nose.

“And the charge, Sister?” He managed it at last.

“Improper behaviour. I showed a lack of decorum last night.”

“Oh, yes, last night—” Again there was that frog in Stephen’s throat. He had to cough several times before he could go on.

“Sister Jamieson,’’ he said at length, “I am in entire agreement with Sister Arnold. Such uninhibited high spirits as were displayed by you in Welfare cannot go unpunished. Are you on duty to-night?”

“No, sir.”

“Then you will report to me at the hospital gates at seven. Seven sharp, you understand. Do not wait for your supper.”

“Yes, sir.”

Candace rose, head still averted, but before she could escape, Doctor Halliday had several more injunctions to impart.

“You seem to wear a variety of uniforms, Sister—a lilac one day, a yellow the next, last night—well, perhaps we had better not speak of last night.”

“No, sir.”

“What I am trying to tell you is not to try out any rash experiments when you report to me this evening. There was a grey thing you wore on the ship—a soft arrangement, like mist—the colour of your eyes.” For a moment Stephen Halliday’s voice lost its arrogant ring.

“That is my best dress.” Why had she said such a silly, childish thing, thought Candace. It sounded as though she was still a little inmate of the girls’ block in Fairhill Home, not an adult female.

“Have you still got it?” Had Candace been listening closely she would have caught the suddenly tender note in his voice.

Had she still got it? It was the only good dress she possessed. She nodded wordlessly.

“Then grey dress, seven o’clock, no supper. Good morning, Sister Jamieson.”

Candace said, “Good morning, Doctor,” and hurried out into the hall.

The rest of the day went too quickly. It seemed that every time that Candace looked at the clock that the little hand had changed places with the big.

She was glad Eve had not come to question her as to what form Sister Arnold’s discipline had taken. It was bad enough to suffer Stephen Halliday’s derision without Eve’s as well. Then there was the possibility that Eve might
not
be derisive. Candace did not know how Eve would react to the punishment that she had been set—particularly when Stephen himself was a party to its accomplishment.

At six o’clock she went off duty, and by a quarter to seven she was waiting at the hospital gates. The evening was a little chilly, so she had pulled a woollen stole round her shoulders. It was a pretty coral shade, and Gwenda had knitted it for her as her last year’s Christmas present.

She did not have to wait long. Presently the big car came to a halt at the gates, and Stephen Halliday leapt out. He regarded her a full moment, then opening the passenger door he bowed and bade her enter.

“At first,” he remarked, as the car moved smoothly forward, “I thought you had disobeyed again, and worn a different frock to the one I ordered.”

“This is only a stole. Gwenda knitted it.”

“Oh, the French Perfume girl?”

“Yes.”

“Finished that bottle yet—?”

“No.”

“Let me smell.”

His dark head was inclining towards her. She, in her turn, smelled the fresh man-fragrance of him. In her confusion she half lifted her hand as though to ward him off.

Stephen returned to his driving, which he did capably but quickly, and did not speak again at all until they were nearing the city.

Then he took his eyes off the traffic a moment to make a suggestion.

“I’m taking you to a restaurant which I regard very favourably. The lighting is good, the music soft, the food superb. Just for a little while, Candace Jamieson, let’s pretend we’re different people. You’re not you. I’m not me We’re friends, see? The evening is young. It lies before us. Don’t let us spoil it. Well, will you agree?”

Candace nodded a solemn head. “I promise.”

“No need to be so serious about it. But never mind, I’ll soon fix that. Ever tasted pink champagne?”

“I’ve—I’ve heard of it.”

“After to-night you will have tasted it. No, no protests. I’m the manager this evening.”

A little quirk came to Candace’s mouth. “Aren’t you always?”

“Good girl to learn so quickly. This, I think, will do for the car. Are you ready—my dear?”

Candace looked up at that “my dear,” but Stephen was quick with a reminder.

“We’re not ourselves for a few hours, remember. We’re somebody else.”

“Very well. Yes, I’m ready.”

“What else?”

“What do you mean, what else?”

“Doesn’t anything come after ‘Yes, I’m ready’?”

Candace flushed, but set her lips stubbornly. “No—no, I’m afraid it doesn’t.”

“Not even when we’re not us?”

“Not—not even then.”

“So!”

It seemed a long time since she had heard him say that. She looked up inquiringly. He grinned crookedly back and tucked her arm in his.

“We’ll see what the pink champagne can do about it, Candace,” he whispered in her ear.

He led her through the opulent doors of a large and lavish restaurant, down through a palm court into a splendid ballroom, with seats encircling it. The waiter caught his eye, nodded, and they were ushered to a corner table for two.

Stephen did the ordering. He asked Candace if there was anything special she desired, and when she shook her head, he conferred with the waiter and chose the meal with meticulous care.

The results were very pleasing. So was the pink champagne that came out of its silver bucket of ice to dance in a million sparkling bubbles in Candace’s wide crystal glass.

Once Stephen asked Candace to dance.

She shook her head.

“Memories of last night too recent?” he teased.

“It’s lovely just listening and watching.”

“Yes, you’re right, it’s lovely to watch.” His eyes, however, we’re not on the floor and the dancers.

Later he got up, came round behind her and slipped over her shoulders the coral-pink stole.

“A pity to break up this happy party, but I think you’ll equally enjoy what comes next.”

“What does come next?”

“Don’t be a greedy child. All in good time. Do you like ballet?”