Vigil in the Night (12 page)

 
Anne read the paragraph through. It related briefly and unemotionally that an elderly woman named Robertson had taken her own life by gas asphyxiation in a single apartment in Bayswater. At the end was a short line: “The woman, who was apparently destitute, was stated to have been a nurse.”

 
“She was a nurse,” said Miss Gladstone quietly as Anne glanced up. “And had been for forty years. I knew her. She applied to the Union for help. We did what we could. It wasn’t enough.”

 
“It’s horrible,” said Anne, her eyes wide with distress.

 
“Yes, it’s horrible,” said Miss Gladstone somberly. “And it isn’t as if she were the only one. I’ve got a list here of old nurses who have spent their entire lives conscientiously working in the profession and who haven’t got a penny in the world. Through no fault of their own, mind you. Simply because they’ve never had a living wage. When they’re too old and can’t get work—they’re flung on the scrap-heap.”

 
“It’s not fair,” said Anne. “It’s not an honest deal.”

 
“There are tens of thousands of hardworking women who aren’t getting, and have never had, an honest deal. I could show you letters, written by nurses all over the country, letters of protest and entreaty, plain evidence in black and white, of victimization. It makes my blood boil! We’re not properly organized, Lee. We ought to have a strong trade union.”

 
“We need more than that,” Anne said. “We need public opinion behind us. If only the people of this country could be stirred up, shown the abuses in the nursing profession, we’d get things put right.”

 
Susan Gladstone made a vigorous gesture of approval.

CHAPTER 38

 
Surely the time’s ripe for reform,” Anne went on slowly. “Workers in other jobs are getting better conditions, an eight-hour day, holidays with pay. Why should the poor nurses be left out? Their work is as hard, and far more dangerous, than most jobs. Why shouldn’t they get a decent wage?”

 
“Why not,” echoed Miss Gladstone bitterly. “It’s just superstition, a kind of hoodoo, the Florence Nightingale tradition that has been a ball and chain on us for years. This lady-bountiful, pillow-patting, nursing-for-sweet-charity idea! Let me tell you, most of the sweet-charity stuff I’ve come across has been damned bad nursing.” Miss Gladstone blew her nose loudly. “If only we could start a big campaign, shake up the people. After all, they are the ones who benefit by our work. Damn it all, in this very paper that reports the suicide of poor old Robertson there’s an appeal for nurses to go down to South Wales to help in the epidemic of cerebro-spinal fever that’s just broken out. Oh, blast! I hate to get emotional like this. You’d hardly think it possible after all these years.” She smiled suddenly. “Anyhow, I’m glad you’ve seen me at my worst. I’d like you to come in on this game, Lee. You’re so handy at the Trafalgar, you could put in a lot of work with me in your off time. All voluntary, of course. We haven’t got a bean. But it would give you the chance to shift a few mountains.

 
“That’s why I’m here,” Anne said quietly. “Even if I only move some molehills.”

 
The two women sat talking together a long time in the small, untidy room. Anne felt a strong liking and respect for the militant little secretary. And she sensed that an equal friendship was being offered to her in return. When at last she came to say good-night, she had thrown in her lot unreservedly with Susan Gladstone.

 
Back at the Trafalgar, she felt no need for supper, went directly to her room. Subconsciously, she found herself linking up the news Miss Melville had given her that morning with the decision she had made this evening. She thought of Prescott: “He is working in his way, and I in mine.” That night she slept soundly.

 
Next morning when she went on duty in her ward, she was told by her probationer that the new nurse had arrived.

CHAPTER 39

 
Anne did not proceed immediately to interview the newcomer. She had several matters to attend to in the ward. Perhaps half an hour elapsed before she stepped into the anteroom where the new nurse awaited her. Then, as she seated herself at the table and picked up her pen, the smile of welcome died oddly upon her face. Instead there came a look of recognition and dismay. She saw that the woman before her was Nurse Gregg, from the County Hospital at Shereford.

 
Nurse Gregg knew Anne instantly. She started in sheer surprise, quickly recovered herself, and an odd gleam came into her light-colored eyes.

 
“Good morning, Sister,” she said, brightly, taking the initiative.

 
“Good morning.” Anne’s answer was much less gay. She had not seen a great deal of Nurse Gregg at the County, and she had cared still less for the pale, straw-haired, slightly shrewish girl. It was, to say the least, a painful reminder to be confronted by this figure from the past.

 
“You know me, of course, don’t you, Nurse?” Eliza Gregg went on. “Oh! I’m sure I beg your pardon, I forgot you were a sister now. But really, Sister, it does seem strange seeing you here after the County. I’ve just come from there. I’ve been there ever since—” a sly look sharpened Nurse Gregg’s anemic features—“ever since you left, Sister.”

 
Anne’s pen traveled over the paper. When the record was done, she straightened herself in her chair and faced the other woman.

 
“You start work this morning, Nurse. I hope you will like it here. And I feel sure you will do your best to give every satisfaction.”

 
“Yes, Sister.”

 
Was there a tinge of mockery in the obsequious reply? Anne could not tell. She looked into Nurse Gregg’s pale eyes.

 
“And I hope the fact that we were nurses together—for that matter, I hope that nothing that took place at the County—will prevent you from realizing that I am in charge of this ward and that any order I give must be carried out efficiently.”

 
“Oh, no, Sister.” Nurse Gregg was effusiveness itself. “I think you can trust me to be efficient.”

 
“Very well, Nurse, that will be all.”

 
The door closed noiselessly. Anne’s figure, still seated at the desk, had a stony immobility. Yet behind her quiet brow her thoughts raced desperately. She saw with a terrible distinctness the danger of her position. No matter that she had been innocent at Shereford—she had accepted guilt. And now, in her own ward, was a nurse over whom she must exercise authority, a nurse who knew the apparent facts of her dismissal from the County, and might not scruple to use them. All her courage could not prevent the shiver of foreboding that passed over her as she got up from her desk and walked back slowly to her ward.

 
The weather turned very severe; damp frosts and yellow fogs choked the city air. And the Bolingbroke Ward was filled by the season’s harsh inclemency.

 
Anne had her hands full with a rush of broncho-pneumonias. These cases were critical, demanded the most specialized attention, and could recuperate only in a ward functioning with smooth efficiency. Normally Anne would have reveled in this demand for high, sustained endeavor. But now she worried and lost weight in a great and growing anxiety.

 
Her ward was not working as it should. Small things were going wrong, charts were not accurately marked, sputum flasks not sterilized. And more than once she came upon a major deficiency. Dr. Verney, her chief, was especially keen about the serum treatment of pneumonia. He used the Rockefeller serum, the success of which depended largely upon the accurate timing of its administration. Upon three successive occasions Anne found that the serum had not been given at the hour prescribed.

CHAPTER 40

 
There was no evading it: the cause and origin of the trouble was Nurse Gregg. It was not that Eliza Gregg was responsible for every mistake. She made many, for she was not a good nurse and lately she had become noticeably careless and slipshod. But in some insidious manner she began to affect the efficiency of the other two nurses on Anne’s staff. Nurse Scott, a sedate and unobtrusive character, was perhaps not so much affected; but Probationer Leslie, a bright little person and hitherto Anne’s devoted slave, caught this contaminating slackness badly. Anne heard her laughing loudly in the kitchen at a time when two patients were screened, dangerously ill. She developed an impertinent tilt to her pretty nose. And one afternoon she approached Anne, her forehead puckered in an affectation of perplexity.

 
“Sister,” she exclaimed, in a pert tone, “Nurse Gregg just said a most extraordinary thing. She said I was to ask you about it.”

 
Anne experienced a cold shock of apprehension. But she gazed serenely at Leslie. “What did Nurse Gregg say?”

 
“She said that you didn’t like diphtheria cases.”

 
“I like all cases,” Anne answered immediately. “And you must like them, too, if you want to please me. Now take Number 15’s temperature. And stop being a silly child.”

 
“Yes, Sister,” murmured the probationer, abashed. And she returned to her work.

 
But Anne’s anxiety was intensified by the incident. She spoke severely to Nurse Gregg. As before, Nurse Gregg answered her with that same obsequious yet meaning glance. Anne sensed that the climax was approaching. True enough, at the beginning of March it came upon her. And Anne, though sick at heart, almost welcomed it, so exhausted was she by Nurse Gregg’s spiritual blackmail.

 
One morning she entered the test room, a small laboratory used for carrying out certain tests. She saw to her annoyance that the room had not been cleaned—a duty specially delegated to Nurse Gregg. Dirty test tubes stood in the rack, the reagents had not been replenished in the bottles, a pipette lay on the soiled bench, stained with Fehling’s Solution. It was an unpardonable mess.

 
For Anne it was the last straw. Flushed with anger, she took a resolute breath and sent for Nurse Gregg.

 
Nurse Gregg was not in any great haste to answer Anne’s summons. And when she did appear, her manner was more casual than it had ever been before. “Yes, Sister,” she remarked blandly. “Anything wrong?”

 
“This room is wrong.” Anne could scarcely speak for indignation.

 
Nurse Gregg darted a look at Anne. She felt sure of her ground. She had been working up to this for a long time. She said coolly, “Then why don’t you clean it up?”

 
Anne paled at the insolence of the reply. Then a hot tide of color rushed again into her cheeks. “How dare you speak to me like that! I am in charge of this ward. It is your duty to carry out my instructions.”

 
“Is that so?”

 
“You know it is so. You are the nurse here, and I am the sister.”

 
“A fine kind of sister.”

 
Anne clenched her hands tightly, striving for restraint, for the calm light of reason. She made one final effort to save the situation.

 
“What exactly is your grudge against me, Nurse Gregg? I have been very patient with you since you came here. You haven’t been doing your job well. You know you haven’t. And it’s important that you should do it well. We’ve got serious cases to deal with here, cases hanging in the balance between life and death.”

 
“You didn’t think so much of this life-and-death business when you were at the County. At least, not if we’re to judge by the way you were kicked out.”

 
Nurse Gregg’s cards were on the table at last, and she showed them with a vindictive sneer. Yet if she expected them to bring her victory, she was sadly disillusioned.

 
A harder light burned in Anne’s eyes. “We won’t take this discussion any further. I ask you again to tidy up this room. If it is not done when I come on duty tomorrow morning, I shall report you for disobedience to the matron.”

 
Nurse Gregg’s face took on a yellowish tinge. Disconcerted that Anne had thus dared to force her hand, she flung all her stored-up malice into her reply. “I’ll come with you to the matron. I’ve got something to tell her as well as you. If you want a showdown, you can have it. We’ll see who comes out best.”

CHAPTER 41

 
Anne gave no heed to the remark. With a cold, hard face she walked past the nurse and out the door. As it was time for her to go off duty, she left the ward and went immediately to her room.

 
Here, seated on her bed, she pressed her hand against her throbbing brow. Despite her pretense of calm, her heart was beating painfully. Worn out by the culmination of weeks of worry, she felt like giving way to a flood of despairing tears. But in a few moments she had mastered her emotion. Whatever happened, she was resolved to fight to the bitter end. Rapidly she reviewed the possibilities open to her. If she waited until Nurse Gregg horrified Matron with the story of her dismissal from Shereford, she would certainly be lost. However sympathetic Miss Melville had been to her, this would mean that she must once again pack up and go. And what of Dr. Prescott’s testimonial? How would he regard this retrospective light on her career?