Nurse in White (13 page)

“Whose blood?”

“Why, his own, to be sure. Dr. MacGowan did the actual transfusing.”

“I don’t think I like that. Why was his blood used? Surely—”

“Oh, don’t be alarmed,” Ellen told him shortly. “I gave some of mine, too. Speed was needed—there was no time to lose and Dr. Dent and I were both on duty and fortunately typed the same as she. It happens now and then you know, and it’s not always possible to find people in the same social set who are willing to give their—”

“Oh, shut up!” the young man said crossly. “You make me sick.”

Ellen stared in amazement. Who did he think he was that he could tell her to shut up?

“You know darned well I didn’t mean that. No doubt your blood’s quite as good or even better than Vi’s. She’s romantic, you see, and it put her under obligation to him.”

“I don’t know about that,” Ellen contradicted. “She felt not the slightest obligation to me, I assure you.”

Terry Morley laughed again, his eyes knowing. “I do believe you’re sore at Vi. Well, you’re not the first gal she’s—well—overlooked. Vi isn’t so popular with her own sex, but lord, how the boys fall for her! She’s going down to the shore with the family sometime next month, sis wrote, and has expressed a desire to see me again. I have a notion I’ll not be going. Walton’s only six miles from Anthony Ware and things are sort of looking up with me. I’ll see Dent and pass the invitation on to him.”

“No doubt the change will be good for him,” Ellen agreed, and insisted to herself that she hoped he would go.

There was quiet for a few minutes while the young man seemed to ponder many things. At last he turned his head and stared into her eyes raised questioningly to his.

“Why was Dent pestering you?”

Ellen was startled. She must be careful. “Pestering me? Dr. Dent wouldn’t pester anyone. Why, he’s—he’s a member of the staff.”

“So you said; and you also said he was annoyingly persistent. What about?”

“Oh—he wanted my advice about something or other and I haven’t had time to take it up with him.” She decided to put on a good act. “The doctors in this place think we nurses have nothing to do but wait on them. Let him settle his own problems—I have mine and I don’t see anyone giving me any help.”

The young man eyed her for a moment before he said whimsically, “So you and Dent typed the same as Vi and blood from you both is at this moment chasing merrily about in her aristocratic veins. What are you carrying the hatchet for? I think the bloke sort of fancies you, lady. Ever consider that angle? Well, don’t, for I’m going to give him and all the others active competition from this time forward. Understand?”

“Don’t be silly,” Ellen said sharply. “And now for heaven’s sake turn over and go to sleep. It’s four o’clock and soon your breakfast will be coming and if Dr. Braddock finds you worse, I shall be reprimanded.”

“Let me catch anyone reprimanding you, beautiful. You didn’t tell me your name yet, but I can make up plenty that suit,” he went on audaciously.

“My name is Gaylord—Ellen Gaylord.”

“Thanks. Ellen—Nike that, it suits you somehow. No fuss or frills, just plain, honest-to-goodness sweetness and light.” His eyelids drooped. “Good night, Ellen—don’t sneak out on me while I have forty winks, will you?” Then, after a long minute, came a sleepy, “Promise?”

Ellen didn’t promise and crept out when the day nurse relieved her. She liked Terry Morley just as she had liked Mrs. Langham, and as she had at first liked Violet Terrill. However, they were from another world entirely. One she had no desire to enter.

What was on Dr. Dent’s mind that was so important? She dreaded going to his room, but she had promised and of course she would have to go.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Ellen kept her promise
to drop in on Cyrus Dent that afternoon and she knew an unholy satisfaction when, upon entering, she found that Dr. Fielding and Ann Murdock were there and had the air of intending to remain for some little time. They were munching chocolates and Ann had one of the red rosebuds from a huge bouquet that stood on his dresser. Fielding and Ann were ribbing each other as was usual when the two met, and when Ellen entered Cy was gleefully applauding by slapping his knee with his right hand. However, he insisted that Ellen and he had an important subject to discuss and asked them to leave.

Young Fielding groaned a refusal and settled deeper in one of the easy chairs the room afforded, while Ann grinned and winked at Ellen.

“Want her consent, doc?” she asked.

“Clever gal!” Cy was startled, his face flushed and he laughed to cover his confusion.

“Oh, save your blushes, me lad,” Ann jeered, enjoying his embarrassment and Ellen’s bright flare of anger. “I merely meant her consent to you annexing Lady X, lock, stock and strawberry leaves, permanent and
in
1010
.
”

“Some other time, Dr. Dent,” Ellen said coldly, not looking at him; and before he could protest, she had fled, followed by Ann’s malicious laughter. At the moment she detested Ann Murdock, despised jolly young Dr. Fielding—but most of all she hated Cyrus Dent.

Ellen quite expected another midnight visit from Cy but told herself that she was relieved when he did not come. Terry Morley found her rather poor company that night and grumpily decided he might as well get some sleep. He was much improved and Ellen found she liked him better the longer she knew him. He had received a
special delivery letter that morn
ing from his sister, urging him to come home to convalesce. Ellen told him it was a grand idea, especially as the hospital needed his room. So, reluctantly, but assuming Ellen he would see her as soon as he returned, he left at the end of the week. And on the day he left, Ellen received the most expensive box of candy of her life and a huge box of fragrant white lilacs—in March!

“Now there’s a patient in a million,” Marcella Harris cried, helping herself from the box of sweets. “One to restore one’s belief in the innate goodness of man. You were lucky, Ellen. Ball got roses only and the day girls candy.”

“Oh, I suppose it’s because I took care of Lady X,” Ellen explained indifferently. “She’s his cousin, you know.”

“Better hide that candy if you expect to find any left in the mo
rn
ing, darling,” the older nurse advised, reaching for a gilt-wrapped confection.

“Let the girls have it,” Ellen said generously. “They share with me. Here, I’ll leave a note.”

She scribbled a message and tucked it under the ribbon on the box. “Have a good time, girls. You’re quite welcome.”

It was a bitter night in March and Ellen drew her cape closely around her slim body as she ran across the space between the nurses’ home and the hospital. Snow swirled around her and settled on her soft brown hair and on the tiny cap that perched there. She lifted her face to the wind. March! Even with the thermometer at zero and the wind blowing straight from Medicine Hat, she felt spring just around the corner. Ellen was back in her favorite spot—Ward L, and the patients were once more happy. No one else seemed to know instinctively, as Nurse Gaylord did, that a hot-water bottle would feel good on an aching knee or that an extra pillow brought comfort to the small of one’s back. No one had just the right word, grave or gay, as she had. No other nurse greeted them each time they called with the cheery smile that brown-eyed Nightingale did. They picked up the name from Dr. Dent, who had been overheard so to call her. And while they didn’t dare mention it to her, they talked about it among themselves, and wished the young doctor and their favorite nurse would stop this everlasting bickering and get down to business. For anyone with half an eye could see they were just made for each other.

Mary Trent, on duty with her, was cramming for a quiz. On the way up from dinner, Ann had passed Ellen on the stairs. Ellen had not been very cordial. There had been no need for that fresh gibe Ann had made that day in Dent’s room. Ellen felt sure that Dr. Dent had been seriously annoyed, for she had seen nothing of him since. Not that she cared, she assured herself firmly. She was glad of it, but just the same—

Now as she sat opposite Mary at the table in the alcove, she wondered just what Ann had meant by her remark as she passed her. She was carrying a tall glass—probably lime and orange juice—and had given her a crooked smile as she hurried by.

“Beyond my wildest dreams, sweetheart,” she had said softly. “Just keep your fingers crossed a little while longer and I’ll have the whole thing sewed up tighter than a drum.”

The ward was quiet except for an occasional paroxysm of coughing. Ellen’s pen paused and she leaned back in her chair, her thoughts on Ann. It would be like her to do some outlandish, crazy stunt that she would regret all her life. She had been leading up to just such a climax ever since Christmas when Tip Waring had failed her. She thought of Bill Munson as she had last seen him weeks before he came to the hospital. Small, thin and decidedly neurotic—given to long cigarette holders, checked suits, pearl gray spats and a cane. Was it possible that Ann had wangled an offer of marriage out of him? Ellen shuddered. Ann might be crazy and at times quite impossible but she was lovely to look at and charming when she so desired.

However, Bill Munson was wealthy and Ann demanded wealth in a husband. She had said Tip and Cyrus Dent were too infantile. Well, the same couldn’t be said for Bill Munson, who was sixty if he was a day, and not an attractive sixty, either.

Ellen picked up her pen and wrote a line or two before she laid it down again. She was very tired. Three months of night duty with the exception of one week on day work. Well, thank goodness, there was to be just one week more and she would have four long days free. She felt that she would sleep the whole time. Yes, she would go to Deacon’s Landing to Aunt Bess. There she would have rest and quiet—that’s all they had there at this time of year.

Determinedly she took up her pen, finished her letter to her mother and sent it down the mail shute. She had written that she would spend her rest period with Aunt Bess. After all, she was a nurse—her duty was to take care of the sick and she must keep well and strong for that work—“to practice my profession faithfully.” Ann and Cy Dent might scoff at that pledge as they would, to Ellen it was still as sacred as the taking of vows would have been if she were of different religious faith. Just why she had hesitated before deciding she didn’t stop to analyze. Nor why she felt that she would like to remain at the nurses’ home.

Certainly there would have been little chance of complete rest and quiet there with girls popping in at all hours.

She had not caught so much as a glimpse of Dr. Dent since that afternoon when she had gone to his room. That he was still confined to the hospital she knew, but he must be up and around now.

She answered a summons to the ward and returned to find Marcella Harris and her midnight lunch coming down the corridor. Marcy was always full of the latest news. Just now she was smiling enigmatically. Mary Trent reached for a sandwich as Marcella put down the tray.

“Well, spill it,” she urged.

“Know what, girls? Dr. Maltby-Tipton from Denver is holding a clinic here in about ten days’ time. And know why? Seventy-seven’s mother has consented to an operation. We all thought that of course Mac would do it if and when she gave in, but it seems money’s no object and the great Maltby-Tipton is the man of the hour. I wouldn’t miss it for a king’s ransom. That lad’s lucky if he only knew it.”

“Is the Fisher boy—Tony Fisher, in the hospital, Marcy?” Ellen asked. This was news to her.

“Sure, he’s here. Came two days ago.”

“So Mrs. Fisher has consented at last,” Ellen said, relief in her voice. “That poor boy has died a thousand deaths in the past six years. I wonder what made her change her mind. She was as immovable as Gibraltar the last I heard.”

Marcella lowered her voice to a mere whisper. “Attempted suicide—and personally, I can’t blame him. Think of being a stone slab for perhaps forty or fifty years! That’s why they brought him here—protection.”

“I’m glad he’s going to have at least a chance,” Ellen murmured sympathetically.

“Do you know him?” Marcella asked curiously.

“Oh, I’ve heard about him—the accident on the football field and his long, heroic fight. Who hasn’t?”

Her mind traveled back to that bitter night several weeks before when Dr. MacGowan had taken her to see Tony Fisher. Both Mac and his colleague. Dr. Martin, were heartsick over the mother’s stubbornness in refusing an operation. It was serious, of course. Neither surgeon belittled the danger; but it was the only answer if Tony ever was to walk again. The boy was twenty—a tall, slender young fellow with a splendid head and a winning smile even in his suffering. Ellen fell in love with him at once. His mother, her lips set in stubborn lines and her eyes alert for possible trickery, watched them every minute of their stay—though what she thought they could do puzzled Ellen.

On the way back to the hospital, Ellen asked about the accident that had made Tony Fisher a cripple.

“Your barbarous game called football,” the doctor told her. “Aye, an’ his mit’nersae proud o’ his valor.”

“Poor thing!” murmured Ellen.

But Dr. MacGowan was bitter in his denunciation of Tony’s mother.

“Selfish creature!” he muttered. “Mitherlove! Bah!”

“Well, isn’t it?” Ellen asked. Surely the devotion Tony’s mother lavished upon him proved it.

“Absolutely not,” Dr. MacGowan almost shouted. “It’s love of self—it’s egoism. She’s afraid of the pain she will suffer—afraid she will lose him.”

“But, isn’t that the way of most mothers? Can one blame her for that?”

“Yes. One can. I can. Oh, she’s not so much afraid he might die, though perhaps that does enter into it, remotely; but she’s afraid, most of all, that if he recovers he’ll no longer be entirely hers. Now he is, d’ye see? As a normal young man he will no doot—doubt fall in love and wed. She will lose him much more fully then than if death took him from her. If he died she would at least be able to sit beside his grave and enjoy the luxury of weeping. Puir laddie!” he muttered.

Ellen said nothing and he went on bitterly. “The lad’s faither would hae consented I hae na doot. It’s a peety when a lad is left wi’ only a mither—especially a mither who is sic a gowk.” The doctor became very Scottish when excited or upset and now his r’s rolled delightfully. Ellen wished he would go on talking. “Martin’s na fule—he’s working’ wi—with her to have him brought to Anthony Ware. After that—we’ll see.” He turned to smile down at her. “Not an especially pleasant journey this night, eh, Miss Ellen?”

“Oh, but it was—that is, I liked meeting Tony, and I do hope we can help him. After all, Dr. MacGowan, the chances are all in his favor. You have done the operation successfully several times before, haven’t you?”

“Ah, but I’ll not be doing the operating,” he muttered, and Ellen felt sure his voice held deep hurt. “It’s the old story: a prophet is not without honor, save in his ain countra, and I’ve been at Anthony Ware just long enough for Mr
s.
Fisher to feel the contempt of familiarity. An expert, you know, is always a man from out of town. No, my lass, we’ll get Maltby-Tipton from Denver. He’s her choice. But the battle is nae ours yet, lass. We’ll hae t’abide oor time. Martin’s a clever one, though.

They were nearing Brentwood. The doctor gave a deep sigh and straightened at the wheel as if he were sloughing off the worries that were riding him. His smile was charming as he turned his head to look down at her.

“This trip hasn’t accomplished what I hoped it would, Miss Gaylord. I had an idea we should become better acquainted. With your permission we’ll try it again sometime soon, shall we?”

“Thank you,” Ellen murmured, her heart racing. Just what did he mean by that, she wondered. She felt a little shiver of distaste. No, it would never do if, as Ann insisted. Mac was becoming interested in her.

She recalled how gently he
helped her from his car and how solicitous in regard to the warmth of her coat. His hand brushed her cheek lightly as he fitted her key into the lock at the nurses’ home.

“Sleep well, lass. I’m glad you are blessed with health as well as beauty and common sense. Not often does the gude Lord so lavishly endow mortals. Be thankful to Him. Good night, and thank you for accompanying me.”

Ellen had not yet made that second trip, in fact, she had seen little of Dr. MacGowan since the epidemic had been with them. She wondered that Mrs. Fisher had consented to have Tony brought to the hospital during the siege. Probably, though, he would be safer here than at home. Somehow Tony didn’t seem like a boy who would attempt suicide.

“Did you hear what he did?” Ellen asked.

“Took an overdose of some sedative his doctor had left. Laura Coggswell’s his nurse, you know, and she said his mother was frantic and blamed her for negligence. However, both Dr. Martin and Tony defended her, and really, Ellen, I think there’s something kind of phony about that story. Coggswell wasn’t much concerned and neither was Martin. They informed the mother he would no doubt try it again as long as his case remained hopeless—or something of the sort. He’s in seventy-seven—Mrs. Fisher believes the numeral seven brings luck or something. Anyway, she insisted on a room with a seven in it. She’s a nut!”

“Is Coggswell coming with him?” Mary asked.

“She is not. Ma Fisher’s all washed up with her. And of course, Anthony Ware nurses aren’t swanky enough to suit the lady, so Miss Booth and a Miss Nelson are adding luster to our lives and I feel sorry for the kid—they’re both over forty and ugly as sin, but my deahs! Are they ritzy! I suppose Ma Fisher was afraid her darling might fall in love with one of our girls. At that, he might do a whole lot worse.”