Part 66 (2/2)
”For the present. It is more exciting, and one sees more character. But there are drawbacks. In hospital everything was settled for you--every hour was full, and there were always orders to follow. And the 'off'
times were no trouble--I never did anything else but walk up and down the Embankment if it was fine, or go to the National Gallery if it was wet.”
”And it was the monotony you liked?”
She made a sign of a.s.sent.
”Strange!” said Hallin, ”who could ever have foreseen it?”
She flushed.
”You might have foreseen it, I think,” she said, not without a little impatience. ”But I didn't like it all at once. I hated a great deal of it. If they had let me alone all the time to scrub and polish and wash--the things they set me to at first--I thought I should have been quite happy. To see my table full of gla.s.ses without a spot, and my bra.s.s-taps s.h.i.+ning, made me as proud as a peac.o.c.k! But then of course I had to learn the real work, and that was very odd at first.”
”How? Morally?”
She nodded, laughing at her own remembrances. ”Yes--it seemed to me all topsy-turvy. I thought the Sister at the head of the ward rather a stupid person. If I had seen her at Mellor I shouldn't have spoken two words to her. And here she was ordering me about--rating me as I had never rated a house-maid--laughing at me for not knowing this or that, and generally making me feel that a raw probationer was one of the things of least account in the whole universe. I knew perfectly well that she had said to herself, 'Now then I must take that proud girl down a peg, or she will be no use to anybody;' and I had somehow to put up with it.”
”Drastic!” said Hallin, laughing; ”did you comfort yourself by reflecting that it was everybody's fate?”
Her lip twitched with amus.e.m.e.nt.
”Not for a long time. I used to have the most absurd ideas!--sometimes looking back I can hardly believe it--perhaps it was partly a queer state of nerves. When I was at school and got in a pa.s.sion I used to try and overawe the girls by shaking my Speaker great-uncle in their faces.
And so in hospital; it would flash across me sometimes in a plaintive sort of way that they _couldn't_ know that I was Miss Boyce of Mellor, and had been mothering and ruling the whole of my father's village--or they wouldn't treat me so. Mercifully I held my tongue. But one day it came to a crisis. I had had to get things ready for an operation, and had done very well. Dr. Marshall had paid me even a little compliment all to myself. But then afterwards the patient was some time in coming to, and there had to be hot-water bottles. I had them ready of course; but they were too hot, and in my zeal and nervousness I burnt the patient's elbow in two places. Oh! the _fuss_, and the scolding, and the humiliation! When I left the ward that evening I thought I would go home next day.”
”But you didn't?”
”If I could have sat down and thought it out, I should probably have gone. But I couldn't think it out--I was too _dead_ tired. That is the chief feature of your first months in hospital--the utter helpless fatigue at night. You go to bed aching and you wake up aching. If you are healthy as I was, it doesn't hurt you; but, when your time comes to sleep, sleep you _must_. Even that miserable night my head was no sooner on the pillow than I was asleep; and next morning there was all the routine as usual, and the dread of being a minute late on duty. Then when I got into the ward the Sister looked at me rather queerly and went out of her way to be kind to me. Oh! I was so grateful to her! I could have brushed her boots or done any other menial service for her with delight. And--then--somehow I pulled through. The enormous interest of the work seized me--I grew ambitious--they pushed me on rapidly--everybody seemed suddenly to become my friend instead of my enemy--and I ended by thinking the hospital the most fascinating and engrossing place in the whole world.”
”A curious experience,” said Hallin. ”I suppose you had never obeyed any one in your life before?”
”Not since I was at school--and then--not much!”
Hallin glanced at her as she lay back in her chair. How richly human the face had grown! It was as forcible as ever in expression and colour, but that look which had often repelled him in his first acquaintance with her, as of a hard speculative eagerness more like the ardent boy than the woman, had very much disappeared. It seemed to him absorbed in something new--something sad and yet benignant, informed with all the pathos and the pain of growth.
”How long have you been at work to-day?” he asked her.
”I went at eleven last night. I came away at four this afternoon.”
Hallin exclaimed, ”You had food?”
”Do you think I should let myself starve with my work to do?” she asked him, with a shade of scorn and her most professional air. ”And don't suppose that such a case occurs often. It is a very rare thing for us to undertake night-nursing at all.”
”Can you tell me what the case was?”
She told him vaguely, describing also in a few words her encounter with Dr. Blank.
”I suppose he will make a fuss,” she said, with a restless look, ”and that I shall be blamed.”
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