A Match for Sister Maggy Read online

  ‘No one. I have good eyesight, and I happened to be looking at the back row.’

  They had reached Mrs Salt’s bed; an old lady with black boot-button eyes and ill-fitting dentures. She had been in hospital for a long time and was regarded by the entire staff as a kind of ward mascot, whose elderly tantrums were to be cheerfully endured. She greeted Matron and Sir Charles in a piping voice and wasted no more time on them. Instead, she turned her gaze on Sister MacFergus.

  ‘Ullo, dearie. Now that’s what I like to see—a well-matched pair. And about time too; a nice girl like you going begging, Sister.’

  Sister MacFergus, with great strength of mind, ignored this awful remark, merely saying in a repressive voice,

  ‘Dr Doelsma would like to ask you a few questions. Mrs Salt.’

  Mrs Salt turned her naughty old face up to his.

  ‘And I’ll answer ’em. Haven’t seen such a ‘andsome face for years. Just the right size for Sister too.’ She grinned, well pleased with herself, and Dr Doelsma chuckled and sat down on the side of her bed and took one of her old hands in his; it felt quite weightless.

  ‘I see that you are a great one for a joke, Mrs Salt.’

  ‘I like a good larf—How come you speak English like us?’ she queried.

  ‘I went to school,’ he answered gravely. ‘And now, Mrs Salt, oblige me by putting out your tongue.’

  She complied promptly, and answered his questions cheerfully enough, and when he had finished he got up, shook hands, and hoped that he would see her again the next time he came.

  ‘Yer’d better ‘urry up, then, Doctor. I’ll be ninety in October.’ She clutched his hand. ‘And I bet it won’t be me yer’ll come to see.’ She nodded and winked and jerked her thumb in the direction of Sister MacFergus, who, beyond going rather pink, and breathing loudly, ignored her. Mrs Salt looked disappointed at this poor response to her sally, and said resignedly,

  ‘Now I suppose you’re going to talk to old sour-face.’ She jerked her head at the next bed, where a dark-haired woman with sallow skin and a sullen expression lay watching them. But Matron, who had looked at her watch, decreed otherwise. If the doctors were to go to their luncheon as arranged, they should leave the ward at once.

  They all walked to the door, where farewells, gracious on Matron’s part, friendly on Sir Charles’ and casual on the part of Dr Doelsma, were said, and the visitors began their descent of the stairs. On the first half-landing, however, Dr Doelsma stopped, and said thoughtfully,

  ‘I remember now, there was something I wished to say to Sister—it quite slipped my mind on the ward. You will forgive me if I go back? I won’t be above a minute or two.’

  He went upstairs again, three steps at a time, to find the landing empty and Sister’s door shut. He knocked without hesitation, and went in. Sister MacFergus was standing by her desk, doing nothing. The nurse who had eyed him in the ward was rattling cups and saucers on a tray. They both looked up, astonished, as he went in. The astonishment on Sister MacFergus’s face, however, quickly turned to a heavy frown which she made no attempt to hide. The doctor, it seemed, was impervious to cross looks, for he merely held the door open, remarking,

  ‘Perhaps Nurse could leave us for a moment? A small matter, purely between ourselves, Sister.’

  The nurse smiled at him, and then looked at Sister MacFergus, who gave a brief nod of assent. As the girl slipped away through the door, she flashed beautiful green eyes at the doctor, and was rewarded by an appreciative stare as he shut the door behind her, and leaned against it with his hands in his pockets. Maggy MacFergus stood where she was, looking at him, her brows still drawn together in a thick line.

  ‘What do you want?’ she asked at length, quite forgetting to say ‘sir’. He took a step into the little room, which brought him within inches of her. There was no space for her to step backwards; she couldn’t very well push him aside. She stayed where she was.

  ‘I want you to remember me.’ He caught her by the shoulders and kissed her squarely on the mouth, and before she could think of anything to say he was at the door again, had opened it, and turned to say ‘Tot ziens, Maggy.’ He sounded as though he was laughing. She went on standing there; her sensible, orderly mind a chaotic whirl of half-formed thoughts, most which she found bewildering and disturbing, especially as she would never see him again. At length she took off her cuffs and slowly rolled up her sleeves, pulled on her frills, and went into the ward to do some work.

  CHAPTER TWO

  FOR THE NEXT few days Maggy wasn’t her usual cheerful, hard-working self. She was well aware of this, but took good care not to question herself as to the cause. She did a great deal of unnecessary work on the ward, as if the stacks of charts, laundry lists, off-duty rotas and all the other clutter accumulating on a Ward Sister’s desk would make a pile sufficiently high under which to bury all thoughts of Dr Doelsma. After a time she did indeed manage to cram him into a remote corner of her mind. It was a pity that she had only just succeeded in doing this, when she was accosted by Sir Charles and asked her opinion of his erstwhile pupil. They were halfway round the ward at the time, and she had no chance to evade the question.

  ‘He seemed a very nice wee man.’ She was, idiotically, blushing.

  Sir Charles gave her a look without appearing to do so.

  ‘He’s six foot four inches, Maggy, though being six foot yourself you’d not notice that. Don’t you like him?’

  She studied the path lab form in her hand as though she had never seen one before in her life. ‘Aye. But every nurse in the hospital likes him, Sir Charles. He’s a handsome man.’

  Sir Charles scribbled his signature on an X-ray form before replying.

  ‘Yes, he is. But not conceited with it. I’ve known him since he was a small boy—his parents were great friends of mine; his mother still is. He’s clever, and he’s made a successful career for himself.’ He coughed. ‘He knows exactly what he wants, and gets it too.’ He looked so knowingly at Maggy that she went scarlet; surely Dr Doelsma hadn’t told Sir Charles about the regrettable incident in her office? She realised that she hadn’t forgotten it at all. Her brows drew together in so fierce a frown that Sir Charles allowed his vague manner to become even more vague, and pursued the topic in an even more ruthless fashion.

  ‘Can’t think why he’s not married. Heaven knows the number of young women who have angled for him; still, as I said just now, he knows what he wants, and he has the patience to wait for it. But there, Sister, I mustn’t waste your time boring on about someone you’ve no interest in.’ He blinked rapidly and smiled disarmingly, while his elderly perceptive eye bored into hers. She met his gaze steadily.

  ‘Aye, Sir Charles, I’ve no’ the time to think about a man I’ll not be seeing again.’

  He nodded, and plunged into the highly technical details of the treatment he proposed for the patient whose bed they had reached. Mrs Salt greeted him as an old friend, gave him a colourful and most inaccurate account of her condition and asked what he’d done with the foreign doctor he’d had with him on his last visit.

  ‘Nice, ’e was,’ she reminisced. ‘Now there’s a man any girl could fall for.’ She turned to peer at Maggy. “Ere’s one ’ose just right for ’im, too, eh?’ She cackled with mischievous mirth. ‘Pity ’e ain’t coming again—leastways, not until me birthday—that’s if yer don’t let me slip through yer fingers first.’

  The remark was greeted with the derision she expected, and with a brief appeal from Sister MacFergus to be good, they left her bed, and passed on to her neighbour. This was a Belgian woman, Madame Riveau, she had been admitted ten days or so before with a suspected gastric ulcer. She was a silent morose woman who only answered Maggy’s basic schoolgirl French when it was absolutely necessary. She was visited regularly by her husband and her son, two equally sour and dour men, who demanded at each visit that Madame Riveau should be sent home. So far Maggy had persuaded them to let her stay, but their demands were becoming so persist
ent that she realised that they would soon have their way—after all, no patient could be forced to remain against their wish, although she had noticed that the woman did not seem to share her menfolk’s desire for her discharge—Maggy thought she seemed frightened of them; indeed, they gave her herself an uneasy feeling of menace, which was heightened by their secretiveness when asked even the simplest of questions.

  She stood looking at Madame Riveau now as Sir Charles bent over the bed to examine her. She looked ill, and surely her face was swollen? Maggy waited until Sir Charles had finished and was conferring with his houseman before she asked in her rather halting French,

  ‘Have you got the toothache, Madame Riveau?’

  The result was electrifying. The sallow face on the pillow took on the greenish white of fear; the hate and terror in the dull black eyes sent Maggy back a pace.

  ‘No. no! There’s nothing wrong.’ The woman’s voice was a harsh whisper.

  ‘There must be something wrong.’ Maggy spoke gently; the woman was so obviously terrified—of the dentist perhaps? ‘Supposing we get you X-rayed just to make sure before you go home?’

  She was rewarded by another look of venom. ‘I refuse. My teeth are sound.’

  Maggy ignored the look. ‘I’ll talk to your husband when he comes this evening; perhaps he can persuade you.’

  Sir Charles had moved on, but stopped and listened to what Maggy had to say. When she had finished he nodded, and said,

  ‘Dr Payne can sign an X-ray form, Sister. Probably she’ll be better without her teeth—she’s an unhealthy woman and I should suppose she’ll need surgical treatment for that ulcer…’

  They became immersed in the diabetic coma in the next bed, and in the ensuing calculations of insulin units, blood sugar tests, urine tests and a great many instructions concerning the intravenous drip, Madame Riveau’s strange behaviour was forgotten, and when much later Maggy remembered it, she decided she must have imagined the woman’s fear and anger.

  She was due off duty at six o’clock. She gave the report to Staff Nurse and then waited for the visitors to arrive. She had two days off, and she wanted to see Monsieur Riveau, and get the question of his wife’s teeth settled. She felt the usual thrill of distaste as she approached the bed. The two men were seated on either side of it; neither got up as she approached, but watched her with thinly veiled hostility. She wasted no time, but explained her errand and stood waiting for a reply. The men looked at her without speaking, their faces expressionless, and yet she had a prickle of fear so real that she put her hand up to the back of her neck to brush it away. At length the elder man said, ‘No X-ray, no dentist for my wife. She refuses.’

  ‘There’s no pain involved,’ Maggy replied doggedly. ‘Her jaws are swollen; her teeth may be infected and it may make the ulcer worse.’ He said ‘No’ in an ugly voice, and she damped down her temper and persevered in a reasonable way, struggling with her French.

  ‘The teeth are probably decayed; she will be better without them.’ She managed to smile at the unfriendly faces. ‘It’s very likely that in time they will make her condition worse.’

  Their silence was worse than speech—chilling and unfriendly and completely uncooperative. She could feel their dislike of her pressing against her like a tangible thing. She gave herself a mental shake, asked them to reconsider their decision, and said goodnight. Her words fell into silence like stones, and as she walked away, she could feel their eyes on her back; it was a most unpleasant sensation.

  Maggy spent her two days off with a former nurse who had trained with her and then left to get married. She came back to St Ethelburga’s refreshed in mind if not in body, and with a strong desire to get married and have a husband and children of her own. She thought this unlikely. She had never met a man she wished to marry; but as if to give the lie to these thoughts, a picture of Dr Doelsma, very clear and accurate down to the last detail, came into her mind’s eye. She shook her head, reducing his image to fragments and said something in the Gaelic tongue with such force that Sister Beecham, sitting opposite her in the sitting room, put down her knitting and looked at her.

  ‘I don’t know what it meant, Maggy MacFergus, but it sounded as though it was a good thing I didn’t, and if you are going to make the tea—I’ll not have milk; I’m dieting.’

  Maggy got up obediently. Sister Beecham had been at St Ethelburga’s for so long that her word was law to any Sister under forty, and Maggy was only twenty-four.

  As she crossed the landing the next morning, she sensed an air of suppressed excitement, although there was no one to be seen. Staff was waiting for her in her office, standing by the well-polished desk, adorned by a vase of flowers. Funeral flowers, delivered at regular intervals to the wards and hailed as a mixed blessing by the unfortunate junior nurse whose lot it was to disentangle them from their wire supports and turn the anchors and wreaths into vases of normal-looking flowers. Maggy noted with relief that Nurse had achieved a very normal-looking bunch. She detested them, but had never had the heart to say so; she guessed that some nurse had taken a lot of trouble to please her. She exchanged good mornings with Staff Nurse Williams, and thought for the hundredth time what a pretty creature she was—small and blonde and blue-eyed—everything Maggy was not and wished to be. She had discovered long ago that there were few advantages in being six feet tall. It was, for a start, impossible to be fragile or clinging; it was taken for granted that she would undertake tasks that smaller women could be helpless about, and there was always the problem of dancing partners.

  Staff’s eyes were sparkling; she appeared to be labouring under some emotion. Maggy sat down, saying nothing. Whatever it was could come after the report. It took fifteen minutes or so, each patient discussed treatment checked, notes made. She came to the end of the page in the report book, and, she thought, the end of the report, but Staff said in a voice of suppressed excitement, ‘There’s another patient, Sister. Over the page—She’s a Private; in Sep.’

  Maggy turned the page and the name leapt out at her. Mevrouw Van Beijen Doelsma: Coronary thrombosis. Her heart gave a lurch, but she turned no more than a faintly interested face to Williams.

  ‘Sister, it’s Dr Doelsma’s mother—she’s over here on holiday with Sir Charles.’ Maggy nodded, remembering her conversation with him a few days ago. ‘And he’s been over to see her. He flew over…’

  Maggy interrupted her firmly. ‘When did the patient come in? Is she being specialled?’

  ‘During the first night of your days off, Sister, and she’s being specialled, though they’re very short of nurses. Dr Doelsma…’

  ‘How bad?’ asked Maggy, forestalling what she felt sure was going to be a rhapsody with Dr Doelsma as the main theme.

  Williams returned obediently to her report.

  ‘Not too bad, Sister, and beginning to improve.’ She went on to give a detailed account of treatment, drugs and nursing care, for she was devoted to Sister MacFergus, who was strict, kind, fair to the nurses, and had never been known to shirk the day’s work; indeed, she could, if called upon, work for two—something she in fact frequently did. Williams finished her report; she had given it exactly as Sister liked it, and she hoped she was going to be asked about Dr Doelsma.

  Maggy waved a capable well-kept hand at the chair. ‘Sit down, Staff. Spare me two minutes and tell me all about it.’

  Williams drew a long breath. ‘Oh, Sister, he’s smashing! He came ever so early, about eight o’clock—he flew over and stayed all day, and Sir Charles was here, of course, and they were in there hours, I was with them. He’s got a gorgeous smile, and he’s so tall. He went back last night. What a pity you missed him, Sister.’

  Maggy smiled. ‘It sounds to me, Staff, as if he had all the help and attention he needed, I suppose you’re the most envied girl in the hospital?’

  Williams nodded with satisfaction. ‘Yes, everyone’s green with envy.’ She gazed out of the window. ‘He wore the loveliest waistcoat,’ she said.
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br />   Maggy got up, telling herself that she had not the least desire to discuss the doctor’s waistcoats. ‘Williams, what about your faithful Jim?’

  The other girl sighed. ‘I know, Sister, but Dr Doelsma’s like someone out of a dream—the sort of man you always want to meet, and never do. If he comes again, Sister, you’ll see what I mean.’

  Maggy saw exactly what she meant. ‘I’m going to do my round,’ she said firmly. She went to Sep last. Mevrouw Doelsma looked very small lying there in bed. Despite her grey pallor, Maggy could see that she was a most attractive woman, with white hair, excellently cut. Her eyes were closed, and Maggy stood with the charts, studying them, and listening to the nurse’s report. Everything looked satisfactory. She sent the nurse to go and get her coffee, and turned back to the bed. Her patient’s eyes were open and upon her. She smiled, but before she could say anything, Mevrouw Doelsma spoke.

  ‘Maggy? I’m so glad. Charles said you would get me well.’

  ‘Yes, of course, Mevrouw Doelsma, we’ll have you well again very soon.’

  The little lady smiled. ‘Paul was cross because you weren’t here. He had to go back.’

  A faint colour stole into Maggy’s cheeks at the mention of his name, but she told herself that he was probably annoyed because the Ward Sister wasn’t on duty night and day. There were quite a few doctors who regarded nurses as machines who could work twenty-four hours a day. The door opened and Sir Charles Warren came in. He nodded in the direction of the bed and said. ‘Hullo, Henrietta.’ Then he turned to Maggy. ‘There you are. Pity you weren’t here when Mevrouw Doelsma came in. Nice little staff nurse you’ve got; you’ve trained her well, but she’s not a patch on you. Still, you’re here now. I’ll have a look at the patient and we’ll do an ECG and then we can have a chat.’

  Half an hour later he followed Maggy into her office, accepted a cup of coffee, drank it scalding hot and demanded another. Maggy poured it out and put in his usual four lumps of sugar.