Acting Sister, page 2
Sally admired Barbie enormously, for she herself was a shy girl, slow to come forward, whereas Barbie made friends with all the world and enjoyed doing it. She always had a good reply ready for the more bossy Sisters, and even in modern times some of them could be a bit much. Vicky Adams was the second Sister in command and there were moments when she drove them nearly mad.
Sally was the quiet girl.
Her only love affair, if you could even call it one, had been at home and the hero had been the local vicar’s son, Maurice Repton. Maurice played tennis well, and when she was in her middle teens had felt it to be his duty to try coaching her a little. They had won several local championships together, and one night, when it was getting too dark for play, he had kissed her over the tennis net. Somehow the kiss had not carried her off her feet and she was disappointed.
Maurice was a darling, he would do anything for you, and was the sort of heavy-steady young man in the background, but not the hero with whom every girl at some time falls in love.
‘I’d have liked him as a big brother,’ she once told her mother.
‘That doesn’t sound hopeful to me.’
‘He’s awfully nice. Didn’t you find Daddy nice?’
She turned and looked at Sally. ‘No dear, I never felt like that about him. I thought he was heaven and that nothing else in the world mattered. I’d have died if I had not married him. I wanted him so much.’
‘Maurice would never let me down.’
‘I’m sure he wouldn’t, but that is not the answer.’
‘I don’t think I’m the marrying sort.’
‘You are if you meet the right man. That is where the trouble lies. You’ve got to meet the right man. He always comes into your life quite suddenly. He is always the big surprise.’
Sally hoped that might happen, it was exciting to be waiting for the big surprise. But if she didn’t marry, she wouldn’t worry, she loved her career too much for that one.
The night before she went off on holiday to Wales there was that annual affair known as the Nurses’-and-Housemen’s Ball. It was to be an unusual affair for it was to be the first one since the new Matron had come to the place. Sally went in a little green frock, only to find that Barbie wore one which was almost exactly like it. Neither had any idea that this could happen.
‘Great minds think alike!’ said Barbie gaily, and with that don’t-care manner of hers which was her way of skipping brightly through life. She looked enchantingly pretty and was always the girl whom you could forgive anything. ‘It doesn’t upset you, does it? Same coloured hair, same frock, everything to match.’
‘It doesn’t worry me. I’m off to Wales first thing in the morning, and shall leave early.’
‘Wales ought to be deadly dull.’
‘I want to do a bit of climbing.’
‘Duller and duller,’ and Barbie flung back her head and laughed at the idea.
‘I happen to like it. It’s one of those things which you like or hate, and if you do hate it, it’s just no good.’
‘Like me. I’m no good really,’ and again Barbie laughed.
She was the excitable kind. She found life fascinating and was determined to enjoy every moment of it. She had scraped through her exams, something she had never expected to do, for she had the world’s worst memory, and examiners were the one thing which scared her stiff. They had had one of the great high-ups, the kind known as ‘Harley-Street-delights’. Anyway, she was going to enjoy tonight.
Sally did not enjoy the party.
She saw Ferdie Strong for one moment, and realized that he, like Barbie, intended to make a night of it. She stood about for a short while, with the feeling that somehow she did not fit into the picture. She saw Matron’s entrance, she would not stay very long, realizing perhaps that she would be a damper on any assembly. She talked to some of the consultants, and that was when Sally quietly slipped away. She would get in a good night’s rest whilst she got the chance.
The nurses’ home was quiet as the grave, and usually it could be chatty at this hour; in the distance she could hear the faint throbbing of the band, and she went off to sleep and slept like a top.
She felt quite refreshed when she awoke. This is the day when I slip back to Aunt Glynis and to Wales, she told herself gladly.
She put on her little navy suit, and was just putting her sponge into the suitcase when Barbie came rushing in.
‘Barbie! You look like death!’
‘I feel like death. There’s been the most awful row.’
‘Never!’
‘Oh yes, there has.’
‘But what happened? It wasn’t at the dance last night, surely?’
‘It was at the dance, heaven knows I shall never forget it. Ferdie and I were sitting out, all fair and above board in the sitting-out room. Of course it was half dark, but …’
As Sally thought, if she knew anything about Ferdie Strong, that meant passionate spooning, and he would have contrived to turn out every light that he could. A nasty thought suddenly struck her forcefully.
This was the first dance which had been given for the nurses and housemen since the new Matron came and she had the reputation for being smug. She might easily have been annoyed, for she was the kind who disliked philanderings. The Medical School said that she was ‘a proper old prude’ and vowed that the hospital was back in the days of Florence Nightingale with a vengeance.
‘What happened?’
‘They were playing Love and Marriage.’
‘Were they now!’ Love was Ferdie’s cup of tea, but Sally very much doubted if marriage was.
‘I did not hear anybody coming through the room, and there was Matron! She saw me in Ferdie’s arms!’
‘What did she do?’
‘I’m in front of her this morning. It would be the moment when the shoulder strap of that dress gave. I knew it was a bit weak, but never thought it would just give out on me. It’s the third time that I have been in trouble with Matron this week. I don’t know what’s the matter with Matron, she just can’t let me alone.’
‘I think she had to do that.’
‘Of course she didn’t! Not at the Nurses’-and-Housemen’s ball. She could have come off her perch a bit, and you know it. Last time she said if this went on happening she would have to take severe measures. It sounds awful to me. I want to be Acting Sister ‒ like you. I bet I just stay as Staff Nurse, and that’s hell.’
‘Oh, I shouldn’t think that. Not as it was the Nurses’-and-Housemen’s ball. No, she’ll just tell you off and leave it at that.’
‘You’re not very sympathetic.’
‘I’m trying to get off to Wales.’
‘I know. If it had happened to you, there would never have been the least little bit of a stir. You’ve got the good name which takes you everywhere, something which I could never get. I don’t believe you have ever had a boyfriend in your life, and I’m bursting with them.’ And then, ‘The place was so dark that I hoped Matron didn’t really recognize me, and you and I were dressed alike. I hoped she didn’t know, but the official note came under my door. In her office this morning. I had hoped she might have mistaken me for you.’
‘That was nice of you! I really must go now, Barbie, if I missed my train it would be a crisis.’
‘If I keep my appointment it is going to be a crisis for me! If I don’t keep it, I shall get the sack. Goodness, what a world it is!’
Sally had one eye on the clock.
‘Don’t worry too much. You’ll be out of this by the time I get back, and laughing about it.’ She picked up the two cases and rushed off, for she was already late, and the thought of missing the one good train of the day was a nightmare. This one went right through and threw off a few coaches at Shrewsbury without any trouble at all. The others asked for a change and a long wait. Aunt Glynis always sent a special letter imploring them to be sure and catch this one particular train, for there simply was no other so good. She went along the corridor into the hall and down the steps. The big clock had told her that even now it was later than she had thought. In for a penny, in for a pound, Sally told herself, and hailed a taxi in the courtyard. It had brought an anaesthetist whose car was eternally going wrong.
‘Paddington station, and quickly!’ she said.
He was one of those very bright young men and she was sorry that she had ever said ‘quickly’ to him, for he took her at her word. Off they went, in and out of the traffic, and because money was tight Sally was quite unused to hair-raising taxi rides. They tore into Sussex Gardens at a terrifying speed and even then she got into the station only just in time to run for her train.
She caught the last carriage, thrust her two bags on to the hat rack, and came to only when they got to High Wycombe. Then it was that quite suddenly and apparently for no reason at all, she remembered what Barbie had said. ‘I had hoped she might have mistaken me for you.’
Heavens! she thought now, I pray not. But the new Matron was not like the old one, her head was screwed on tightly, and new to the job, she did not make silly mistakes, surely? Another thought prodded her with a dreadful quickness. I do so hope that Barbie does not do something awful and suggest that it was me to get out of it herself. I do so hope … But of course she would never think of that. She couldn’t do it.
As they left High Wycombe behind them and raced off for Birmingham, she knew that she had had second thoughts about it, those awful second thoughts which are for ever said to be wiser. The horrible point now was that she was quite sure that Barbie could do it.
Chapter Two
Wales was always adorable.
Sally got there at the very best time of the year, for spring comes into its own in this part of the world. The Welsh poppies were everywhere, with their sweet lemon perfume, and she thought fondly of them as being the loveliest flowers. There were high banks of rhododendrons, mauvely pink with here and there the flash of the darker cerise kind, or the snow-white ones.
She was tired when they neared the station.
She got her two suitcases and waited by the door as the train came into the small town with its slate roofs and dark grey walls, but behind it the mountains rising, so calmly peaceful with the afternoon, so radiantly beautiful and so supreme.
Aunt Glynis met her at the station.
She wasn’t a beauty but she was a darling, and maybe that is the more important of the two. She always wore navy blue, a habit of ladies leaving middle age behind them and unaware that it needs the eternal brushing and cleaning, and somehow even at its fancy best never looks truly smart. Mummy had once said that when Aunt Glynis chose herself a new hat she always selected one which she felt would go well with playing the harmonium in church on Sundays, and she had got something there.
Serviceable, strict in some ways, unbelievably lavish in others, she was a charmer, and you could not help but love her. She came along in the old Ford car which stood too high, and looked quite dreadful and was in itself a museum piece, but all part of Aunt Glynis’ entourage.
‘Here you are, darling, and welcome,’ she called eagerly.
They kissed with gusto, and the handsome hat was knocked to one side, because Aunt Glynis was ever boisterous. She got the only porter to handle the suitcases, and clinging together in the ebullience of first meeting after a long time they went outside to the waiting car. It had enormous brass horns on its wings and looked much like the sort of things you meet when touring the Greek islands, but don’t expect to see in England.
‘Now you are going to have a lovely rest, darling,’ she said joyfully, ‘after nursing all those awful old women, yowling for this and that all the time.’
‘I’ve been in a male ward, Auntie.’
‘Well, I don’t suppose that men are much better when it comes to it, perhaps worse, for probably they set the bed-clothes on fire when they think you are not looking at them. I could not stand that.’
‘Women do that, too.’
She got into the car. ‘So disgusting. I hate smoking, it’s unfeminine. They look horrid when they do it, and they smell horrid, and I’m almost glad when they do catch fire. Get in, dear, it’s comfier than it looks, and we’ll be there in a jiffy!’
She had almost forgotten that Aunt Glynis always talked enthusiastically of jiffies! She bounded with buoyant health and although she and Mummy were sisters, one would never for a moment have believed it when meeting them. Mummy always said that she herself had gone away from home to a strict boarding school and on to Paris, but Aunt Glynis had been spoilt; she had gone to and fro to the local school only when she thought she would. It had been a typical small-town school, with a sporting headmistress who talked about ‘her girls’, as though they were a little army of their own. Aunt Glynis had never outgrown the sixth form.
‘Now you are going to have a lovely rest, darling,’ she said as they settled into the car.
‘Nonsense! I’m not ill. I can do odd jobs, and give a hand.’
‘Nonsense to you! We’ve got Jennie.’ (Jennie was handed round the family rather like some piece of furniture, and had given her life to them.) ‘Jennie would be most dreadfully upset if you tried to do her job for her. Don’t you upset Jennie, for that would be the end. I shall never get another one.’
‘I want to do some climbing.’
‘Yes, of course, and it will do you good, there is nothing like climbing to get a girl somewhere, but you’ll have to go carefully at first; you’re coming back to it, you know, not going on where you left off. Everybody has to be careful for a while.’
The car tootled in C sharp minor like a 1910 product, and they solemnly moved out of the station yard and away from the town with the slate roofs. It had been market day. There were cabbage leaves in the gutters and men tidying and packing up their little stalls. Some of the old-type country carts were there, too, which Sally knew that she associated with this place, and would most certainly never see anywhere else.
They came out of the town into the lanes which lay beyond, the flowery lanes, and beyond them the mountains themselves rising pale blue and soft mauve to the sky. There was the faint smell of the sea, and Sally remembered that it was close at hand.
‘Aunt Glynis, how beautiful it all looks!’
‘I know, darling, there really is no place like Wales, it is quite wonderful and I wouldn’t live anywhere else for all the world. And how is hospital life? How are all the boyfriends?’
‘I don’t have boyfriends,’ and even as she said it Sally recalled Barbie this morning telling her about Ferdie Strong and last night at the dance. Ferdie was a very handsome young man, the Medical School always seemed to keep one of these on the premises, the sort of young man who never missed a second glance at the ankles of an attractive student nurse. But dangerous! Conscience pricked Sally hard. This sort of young man was always dangerous, and quite possibly Barbie’s interview with Matron had been far more unpleasant than she had ever expected it could be.
‘So there is a boyfriend!’ said Aunt Glynis, and she startled to chuckle. She believed in love, and she had entirely misread Sally’s thoughts.
‘No, there is no boyfriend in my life, and I mean this. There was the Nurses’-and-Housemen’s Ball last night. I left early, of course, I wanted to be ready for today, and …’
‘You met a handsome stranger?’
‘No, most certainly I didn’t. But my friend Barbie did. She is one of those girls who adore boyfriends, always has a new one. She was sitting out with him and the room was only half lit, you know how it is. Matron caught her. The awful part is that our frocks were awfully alike, and she has the same colour hair as I have. I saw her a moment this morning, and she hinted that … that if there was any real trouble, she might say that it was me.’
Aunt Glynis went on chuckling.
‘Life doesn’t change with the generations, does it? When I was a girl the same thing happened, and I walked off with my friend’s boy, and married him. Don’t worry. All these troubles sort themselves out in the wash, I can promise you that. Is he good-looking?’
‘Very.’
‘Ah, that’s what counts, and it always did. I never did like plain men. I couldn’t stand spots, they call them acne today, ginger hair and white eyelashes! I liked a man to be tall and dark and entrancing.’ She must have seen that Sally was hardly listening, for she changed the subject. ‘I’ve got roast duck tonight, I thought it would be a treat and a change from those awful hospital meals, and the biggest meringues you have ever seen. So don’t tell me that you are dieting!’
After the meals in the nurses’ home it sounded like heaven. ‘You are a pet, Aunt Glynis!’
They came down the lane which she had half forgotten. A little stream ran by the side of it, and there were all those tender ferns, like shepherd’s crooks, and the hart’s-tongues and the little frail curly ones that she had always liked best. The house stood on the side of the mountain which rose high in front of them in light amethyst and azure against the sky. The air was beautiful. They turned in at the gate with the burbling spring beside it, and the burst of rose-coloured rhododendrons, and a laburnum in a huge parasol of pure gold fluttering in the wind. The Welsh poppies were everywhere. Oh, I’m so glad I’ve come here! Sally thought in a sudden spate of enthusiasm.
She went upstairs and changed in the remembered room, with the window on to the mountain itself. The site for the house had been cut into the lower part of it, and it seemed that the mountain came right up the stairs with you. She put on a creamy cotton dress with a pastel sash. Suddenly it
seemed that she had thrown the hospital away from her, right away, and that it was a dream, not something which was really standing in the background of her life. Only Wales was real. I’m going to love this, every minute of it, she told herself.
The supper was glorious, for Jennie could cook, and they had it served on the veranda, which had glass shutters if there was a wind and was always pleasantly warm. There was no hurrying. No one eye on the clock and the other on what one had to do. No one to order her about, no duty
