The New Nurse I.

The letter had said that someone would be waiting for Celia at the station, but when her train arrived, she was the only person who got off and the platform was empty. She walked down the platform to look for the waiting room and found only the gates to the road. The station, it seemed, was too small and unimportant to have one. Nor was there such a useful creature as a porter to make enquiries to, or to help her carry the over-stuffed carpet bag which held all her worldly belongings and bumped against her knees with every step. She hooked it over her elbow and went through the gates and out into the street beyond. There was nobody waiting here either. The street was empty but for a taxi cab standing on the corner, the horse idly flicking its tail, the driver eating a sandwich with grubby fingers. Surely he could not be the man they had sent to meet her?

He swallowed the last three mouthfuls of his sandwich in one, licked the crumbs from his fingers, and doffed his cap at Celia. “Need t’get somewhere, Miss?”

Celia shook her head hurriedly. She did not have the money for a taxi. She hadn’t even ha’pence in her pocket for a bun during the wait at Holbeck Station. Besides, they had said that they would send someone to meet her.

“I don’t suppose,” Celia said in a voice unnaturally high and tight from tiredness and nerves, “that anybody has been waiting in the street? My train… My train I think was a little late.”

The driver shook his head. “Been no ’ne but us the past hour gone. But I can take thee wherever it is tha need.”

“I don’t have any money.”

“Ah well,” the driver said pragmatically, “tha’d best walk then.”

Celia was not prepared to walk. Her bag was heavy, she was very hungry, and she did not know the way. She looked around her. The station lay at the edge of a small, quiet village, and the street in which she stood was nothing more than a row of shabby stone buildings that soon faded into farmland. A sign above the door of one building proclaimed beer, tea, and refreshments. Celia crossed the road, letting her carpet bag slip back down to her hand and bang once more against her knees. Perhaps they were waiting for her in there. When she opened the door, a bell jangled, but no motion came from the room within. It was some time before her eyes adjusted to the dim light and she could make out the shape and form of a woman leaning against the counter of a bar, engrossed in a book.

“Excuse me,” Celia said.

The woman glanced up. “Pint?”

“No, no.” Celia looked around. Now that her eyes had adjusted to the light, she could see that every crooked chair was vacant, every ale-stained table bare. “I… I don’t suppose somebody was waiting here? For, um, for me?”

“Maybe. Who are you?” the woman asked.

“The new nurse for the cottage hospital in Merry.”

“That right? No, there were nobody waiting for a nurse.” The woman looked pointedly at a tray of bilious looking rock cakes sitting beside her on the bar. “Fancy a bun? Cup o’tea?”

Celia shook her head. Even if she had money, nothing could have tempted her to the rock cakes. “I need to find the person who was sent to pick me up.”

“Good luck, love,” the woman said absently and returned her attention to her book.

Celia went back out into the street. It seemed even sleepier than before. Dead leaves rustled in the gutters. A crow cawed from a tree. She wandered down the street until the row of buildings stopped abruptly at a field where two horses slept and then returned to the station. Nobody. Not even the taxi driver, who had disappeared, perhaps in search of a livelier thoroughfare.

Celia’s inner child — that spoiled beast, which she had carried around inside her for twenty years now — welled up with tears and fear. No one was coming to pick her up. She had come to the wrong place. The cottage hospital at Merry did not want her after all.

She quieted that child the same way she always had, by digging the nails of her left hand sharply into the flesh of her right wrist. The tears burned in her eyes but did not fall.

I’ll go back to the station, she told herself. I’ll find the signalman and ask him if he has a telephone or can send a telegram.

A one-platform station in a half-penny town won’t have a telephone, her inner child wailed, but Celia told her to shut up and crossed the road.

As she did so, a motor car came roaring around the corner of the street. Its horn bellowed, and Celia flung herself backwards out of the way. The car swerved then jerked to a stop in a cloud of dust, and a man leaped out.

“Are you mad?” he shouted. “I could’ve killed you!”

Celia trembled on the ground and tried to make sure that she wasn’t really dead. Her wrists hurt from breaking her fall. Her carpet bag had split open and was spilling her ugly, practical worsted stockings into the gutter.

The man strode up to Celia and stooped, one gloved hand raising her chin so he could look her in the eyes. He had searching, pale grey eyes, set under winged, angular black brows.

“What are you doing?” Celia asked.

“Making sure you don’t have a concussion.”

“I don’t.”

“How would you know?”

“Because I didn’t hit my head. I’m a nurse,” she added. “I do know.”

The man drew back. “Oh.” He looked at his car and then back at Celia. “You’re my nurse.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I was sent to pick up the new nurse from the station,” he said. “But we’re late. We’d better go. Unless you’re hurt?”

“I’m alright.” Celia stood and brushed wet leaf litter from her skirt. She did feel alright, now that she knew she was where she was meant to be. “We can go.”

“Where’re your things?” The man looked at the carpet bag on the ground. “Sending them on?”

“I… I don’t have any other things.” Celia hastily bundled her stockings back into her carpet bag and clasped it shut. “This is what I’ve got.”

“Then you can keep it on your feet,” the man said. “Come on. We’ve got a drive ahead of us.”

He turned his back on her and strode to the motor car, pulling the passenger door open on his way. Celia heaved her carpet bag into the car then clambered rather nervously up into the seat. She had never ridden in a motor car before. The man stopped around the front of the car to crank the machine up, and then, when it was purring, ran for the driver’s door and vaulted over it into the seat. It occurred to Celia at that moment that she did not know the man’s name. She opened her mouth to ask, but it was lost in the roar of the engine.

Celia clutched at the side of the car as they ripped down the quiet country lanes. Her hat lifted in the wind so she shoved it between her knees then resumed her hold on the side of the car. They flashed past fields of startled cows and muddy rows where the potatoes had been harvested.

I hope I’ve found the right person, Celia’s inner child said anxiously. I hope this man is taking me to the right place.

As the drive went on and the afternoon darkened around them, Celia grew more anxious. Perhaps it was some other nurse the man had been meant to pick up. Perhaps he was taking her to the wrong hospital — or a mental asylum. There was no opportunity to ask him, for the roar of the car engine prevented any conversation.

And then — quite suddenly — they were in a village and the car was slowing. It was a nice little village, a sort of up-and-coming village, new houses close to the road with very shiny doorbells and shoe scrapers, and a high street all yellow gaslight and blue shadows in the dusk, and then older houses, rich, monied houses scattered on the hills beyond. The car puttered down a cobbled lane running down the backsides of some of those new houses and into a yard between the back of a larger, older house and a grand, new brick building with many windows. Here, a sign planted in the yellow earth proclaimed: Merry Cottage Hospital, Back Entry. Celia was so relieved she let go of her grip on the side of the car, though by now they were moving so slowly there was no danger. She pulled her hat back onto her head, grimacing as she found that the wind had queered and bird-nested her hair.

“That’s the hospital,” the man said, pointing at the brick building. “Go in through the black door then down the corridor to the matron’s office. She’ll set you straight.”

Celia fumbled with the door of the car and found she did not know how to open it. The man impatiently leaned across her and pushed, and the door swung open.

“I’ve got to put her away in the coach house,” he said. “Go on.”

Celia picked up her carpet bag and gingerly climbed down to the ground. Now that the world had stopped moving so fast beneath her, her legs felt wobbly.

“Um,” she said.

“What is it?” the man demanded.

“Who are you?”

His angular black eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Nicholas Fane. Doctor Fane. Didn’t you know?”

“You never told me,” Celia said, but it was lost as the car started up again and Doctor Fane directed it gently towards an old stable.

Celia’s inner child was well-accustomed to being ignored and made no complaint. The adult Celia, however, spared the quiet thought that Doctor Fane was very rude; he was no doubt one of those doctors who thought that he was the only person in the ward who could ever possibly be busy or important.

As the adult Celia never spoke her thoughts, she hooked her carpet bag over her elbow and headed for the hospital.

The back door led into a narrow corridor, cluttered with rows of coats on hooks and boots lined against the wall. Judging by the smell of stewing cabbage mingled with the smell of hot, acid laundry, the corridor led through the offices of the building. Celia followed it down, around a corner, and up a narrow staircase until she came out into a large, wood-panelled entrance hall. Wide corridors stretched left and right, and distantly Celia could hear the usual hospital noises. A baby crying. Metal basins clanking in a sink. Somebody groaning. It was oddly comforting. A notice board near the front doors gave a list of rooms — Committee Room, Sitting Room, Water Closet, Women’s Ward, Men’s Ward, Matron’s Office — and subsequent arrows. Celia had to turn around to find the Matron’s Office, which was a little way down the left-hand corridor. She peeped through the open door to see a comfortable, wood-panelled study, where a woman sat at a desk so intent in writing in a ledger that she did not seem to have noticed Celia at all. Celia examined her profile for clues to her personality. It was a severe profile, heavy-boned and angular, made no less severe by a crown of black hair sharply streaked with grey. Strict at best, Celia decided, and draconian at worst.

“Excuse me,” said Celia.

The matron looked up. From the front, her features were no less severe. Her mouth was thin and hard, and her brow harshly lined. The lines deepened now in surprise.

“You must be the new nurse at last,” she said. “Celia Barnes, is that right?”

“Yes, Matron.”

“I’m Matron Howard, Millicent Howard.” Matron Howard rang a small bell on her desk. “I’ll have Nurse Devon show you to the dormitory. You can rest this evening. We have supper at eight thirty, and unless you are on night duty, you will be in bed by ten every night. Tomorrow you will begin work under my supervision.”

“Thank you.”

Matron Howard regarded Celia expectantly, and Celia felt like she ought to say something. She was tongue-tied at the best of times, however, and she could think of nothing intelligent to say right now so she said nothing at all.

A rapid, light footstep sounded from the corridor, and a young woman burst into the room. She was remarkably, improperly pretty, the sort of pretty magazine artists liked to imagine nurses to be, with golden hair clouding out from under her severe nursing cap and china-doll blue eyes. Only artists liked to draw nurses looking solemn and virtuous, and this woman’s eyes were dancing with good humour.

“You’re here!” she said. “I’ve been waiting an age to meet you. I’m Zelda Devon. We’re going to be friends. We have to be, because there’s precious little company around here.” Her china-doll-pink lips quirked into a grin. “Well, precious little young company.”

“One day,” Matron said drily, “you, too, will reach the grand old age of forty, Nurse Devon.”

“Not for sixteen years,” Zelda answered pertly. “And by the time I do, I’m sure to be married with a dozen children, and no amount of youth can do any good to anyone with a dozen children anyway.”

Celia bit back a smile, but Matron allowed herself a chuckle. “Alright,” she said. “Go and show Miss Barnes to the dormitory. Help her settle in. I’ll mind the wards for twenty minutes.”

Zelda enthusiastically grabbed Celia’s carpet bag from her arms and hauled it off. Celia scurried after her.

“Is… is Matron nice?” she asked.

“Quite nice as they go,” Zelda said. “But don’t go thinking you can pull one over her. She’s sharp as a tack.”

Celia had never in her life tried to pull one over anyone.

“They’re all pretty good,” Zelda mused as she banged the carpet bag up a staircase. “Mrs Smith — she’s the other nurse, widowed. Sweet as treacle. Thick as it too, though. Doctor Culpepper — lazy and smiling. You’ve got to pick up his slack, but he’ll never make you do it. I quite like him. And Fane…” Zelda stopped to laugh as they reached the first floor landing. “You’ve met him, haven’t you? Matron said he would pick you up from the station.”

“Yes,” Celia said. “He barely spoke a word to me though.”

“Oh, he does that.” Zelda shrugged and led Celia into a large room towards the front of the building. Curtains hanging from the ceiling hid sections of it from view, but they were pulled open around a comfortable white bed standing under a breezy window. Zelda dumped the bag on the bed. “This is yours. We share the sink and the mirror in the corner, and the bathroom is just off the landing. Fane doesn’t talk. It’s a wonder, you know, that he managed to have that affair in London that got him sent down here. Well, some women like the strong, silent type.”

Celia sputtered. “What?”

“Didn’t you hear? It was quite famous for a while. About three years ago now — big scandal.” Zelda sat down at the end of Celia’s bed. “Doctor Fane was an up-and-coming physician in Harley Street at the time. I understand his grandmother was a countess or something, so he had a lot of clients who were sirs and ladies and lords. I wish my grandmother had been a countess. Anyway, it was Lady Hilbert. She was one of his clients. Married woman, of course. They had a love affair, and her husband discovered it. Lady Hilbert committed suicide to escape divorce. It saved our Doctor Fane from being caught up in the trial, but it couldn’t save his career. His practice failed, and he ended up down here when the hospital was founded. Sir William said that they needed somebody brilliant, and Culpepper is anything but. We’re all castoffs, you see. Mrs Smith’s daughters won’t have her in the house. Matron — well, you can ask her yourself. And me, I was thrown out of the London Hospital after my qualifying exam because — apparently — I wouldn’t stop flirting with the patients. It’s not true at all, you know. It’s the doctors I was flirting with.”

Celia tried, and did not quite succeed, to follow this narrative. “I’m sure he didn’t really have an affair.”

“Oh, he did,” Zelda said. “I mean, I only came here four months ago, so I only heard it by rumour, but it’s a rumour that everybody repeats.”

Celia shuddered. “I hope it’s not true. I’d be afraid to work with a man like that.”

“Afraid?” Zelda raised one thin black eyebrow. “I’m not afraid. I’ve decided, you see, that if I can’t marry a baronet or a patent sauce magnate, I’ll marry Doctor Fane.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“You needn’t,” Zelda said. “It’s just that he must be very rich — he has a motor car, you see, though he doesn’t know how to drive it. And I’m determined to marry a rich man.” A hard glint appeared in her blue eyes. “What? Do you plan on slaving away as a nurse for the rest of your life?”

__

A/N: Last weekend, I was feeling the need for a break from the Regency era, so I scribbled down some ideas for an Edwardian story. I don’t quite know where this is going and it’s all still a first draft, so don’t expect frequent updates. This is a play project for me, something just for fun. But hopefully, some of you will enjoy it too.

The New Nurse II.

Doctor Nicholas Fane had a business partner with whom, in addition to working at the cottage hospital, he ran the private practice that served most of the wealthier residents of the valley. His name was Reginald Culpepper, of some forty-five years of age. He was lazy by habit and by design. If a chore could be skipped, Culpepper would skip it. If a duty could ignored, Culpepper would ignore it. Sometimes even if they couldn’t, he would skip or ignore them anyway. It was a rare evening indeed that Culpepper did not leave the office at least half-an-hour earlier than his appointed six o’clock. Despite that, when Fane came in after putting away his car, he was not surprised to see that Doctor Culpepper was still here tonight though he had been meant to leave an hour ago. If there was anything that could rouse Culpepper out of his slothfulness, it was the promise of good gossip. He sprawled in the most comfortable armchair by the fire, dozing over a newly printed medical journal. Fane came very softly closer, careful to dodge the creaking floorboard behind the desk, then picked up the poker and prodded him in the stomach.

Culpepper snorted awake. “Wassat?”

“When you are the only person in the office,” Fane said, “you are supposed to remain conscious.”

“I just nodded off for a moment.”

“It is twenty past seven.”

Culpepper started to his feet, the journal falling off his lap and crashing to the floor. “I’m late for dinner!” But haste was not in his nature and, besides, he had stayed on at the office for a reason. He bent with a grunt to pick up the journal and dropped it lazily on the seat of the armchair. “How’s the new nurse? Pretty?”

“I didn’t notice.”

“That means she is,” Culpepper said. “You wouldn’t say anything of Miss Devon when she came either, though you conceded that Miss Jameson was not handsome, and the first time I laid eyes on her I nearly went blind. If a nurse is pretty, you would never admit it.”

Fane shrugged. “It doesn’t matter to you if she’s pretty or not. You’re married.”

“And I have bowls of hothouse roses in my dining room, but that doesn’t mean I don’t take the time to appreciate the wildflowers blooming in the hedgerow. Though it’s you I’m thinking of. Unless you have eyes for Mrs Smith?”

Fane sputtered.

“I see,” Culpepper said. “Not. Well, I’m glad she’s pretty.”

“You had rather be glad she’s a good nurse,” Fane said. “If she is.”

“She’s experienced at least.” Culpepper, never one to stand too long, slouched against the back of the armchair. “I read her letter of recommendation while you were out. She was two years at the New Hospital for Women and before that three years at Barnes in Manchester. Probationed at the Manchester Royal Infirmary. I think she also squeezed some domiciliary work in there too.”

Fane had also read Miss Barnes’s letter of recommendation, and two weeks ago, when the hospital board had convened to decide upon the new hire. Despite the glowing terms in which her superintendent had written of her, he could not help but be suspicious of Miss Barnes. Every hospital she had been at had been a step down in reputation from the one preceding it. And a cottage hospital in the middle of the Yorkshire wilderness was less a step down than a plunge. There was no good reason for Miss Barnes to work here, therefore, Fane thought, there had to be a bad one.

He made a non-committal sound. “It sounds like all she really knows is maternity cases.”

“Lucky for all the babies we have born in this village,” Culpepper said cheerfully. “Why do you think she came here, anyway? Bit out of the way for a young woman, aren’t we?”

“I’ve been wondering about that,” Fane said. “There’s nothing out here to appeal to a young woman. There’s not a tea shop or cinema or…” He frowned, trying to recall what did appeal to young women. “…Stocking shop for miles.”

“You can buy stockings at Wilson’s,” Culpepper said. “But we are a bit rusticated out here. Perhaps Miss Barnes has family in this neck of the woods.”

“This morning, Mrs Ribbing asked me if the new nurse has any relatives out here. If Mrs Ribbing doesn’t know of an aunt or a cousin, it’s because the aunt or cousin doesn’t exist.”

“I suppose,” Culpepper said reluctantly. Mrs Ribbing was the owner of the Hare and Hound, one of the two village pubs. She was also the premiere gossip in the village — a crown Culpepper envied. “And we know she wasn’t sent away from the New Hospital either — not with that letter of recommendation. She must have wanted to leave London. Perhaps a love affair gone bad?”

Fane let out a soft, bitter laugh. “That’s what they’ll say, isn’t it? It’s what they always say. Most often, it’s true. But all the same — I don’t think it is this time.”

“Why not?”

He thought back to Miss Barnes, looking sallow and underfed in that threadbare brown coat, clutching her carpet bag in front of her like a shield. Was she pretty? He truly hadn’t noticed. He didn’t think so. “She doesn’t look the type.”

“How did she look?”

Afraid. Fane opened his mouth to say it, then shrugged. “Like she needed a cup of tea and a hot beef sandwich.”

“The feed is very thin at a lot of those London hospitals,” Culpepper said with a sigh. “But I maintain it must be a love affair. What else could it be?”

“For a gossip, you don’t have much of an imagination.”

“Then suggest something.”

Fane frowned. “Tension with the other nurses at the hospital. Or the doctors.”

“It would have been on her letter of recommendation.”

“Perhaps not. There’s a lot that can go on in a big hospital without the superintendents being aware of it. Bullying, or worse.”

“That doesn’t explain why she would move here specifically,” Culpepper said. “She might have moved to any other hospital in London. No. She must have chosen the country, she must want to be here, in the middle of nowhere. That kind of desire only comes from a broken heart.”

“Hearts break for reasons other than love.”

Culpepper shifted on his feet then looked at the clock. “Well. Time for dinner.”

Fane had not meant to hint anything in particular. His heart was not broken. Not anymore, anyway. And it had been for love, partly anyway. But there, for all Culpepper loved to gossip, he never talked about the events that led to Fane coming to Merry, even though Fane knew that he must know them as well as anybody.

Culpepper lumbered towards the door, but paused there, as though on an after thought. “By the way, we’ve a letter from St Helen’s School in Leeds. Girls’ school for the not too well-heeled, I gather. They wish for a nurse to speak to them next week about the rewards and benefits of the job — complaints not welcome. Apparently Sir William recommended us to the school. He’s on the board.”

It did not seem to Fane to be very important, but he had known Culpepper for many years now, and if he brought something up as he was leaving a room, it was surely something that involved exertion he was trying to escape.

“Well?” Fane said. “What does Sir William want you to do?”

Culpepper cleared his throat. “One of us is to take the nurse,” he said. “And since you’ve got the car…”

“Of course I’ll drive you to the station,” Fane replied sweetly. “You don’t even have to ask!”

“I wasn’t asking,” Culpepper said. “I was just thinking—”

“That’s rare.”

“—that since you’ve got the car you might as well make a… day of it. To Leeds. Cross country, fresh air, birds singing. Chance to really give that car of yours a run.”

It was not, as it happened, an unpalatable idea to Doctor Fane, but he fixed Culpepper with a skeptical gaze. “A run to a girls’ school. Dozens of screaming, giggling, adolescent girls.”

“You’ll only be there for a couple of hours or so,” Culpepper pleaded. “And it’s an awfully long journey by train just for that.”

Fane pretended to think it over. “Alright then,” he said. “I’ll do it. But in return, you’ll do the morning and afternoon rounds at the hospital and you’ll stay in the office all day otherwise, excepting calls, and do the month’s accounting.”

“Of course,” Culpepper said. “It’s a deal.”

Fane was rather happy that he had managed to get one over Culpepper. It was rare for Culpepper to bother with the morning round at the hospital, and rarer still for him to exert himself to the accounting.

“It might even be fun,” Fane said. “I’ll take Mrs Smith. Bring her to tea and the cinema while I’m at it. Might cheer her up a bit.”

“Oh.” Culpepper stopped outside the door. “Not Mrs Smith. Didn’t I tell you, Fane? It’s Miss Devon who is to give the speech. Sir William thinks she’ll be most inspiring to the girls, because she’s young and pretty.”

“You didn’t tell me,” Fane said. “I am not driving Miss Devon down to Leeds.”

“You just said you would,” Culpepper said, disappearing into the hall. “You can’t go back on your word now. Night, Fane!”

There came the dull thump of the front door shutting. Fane groaned. Culpepper knew very well that the last person on earth with whom Fane would agree to spend a day with was the flirtatious Zelda Devon.

__

A/N: It is very rare for me to write a story where I have almost no idea where it’s going. But I’m trying to enjoy it.

The New Nurse III.

Doctor Culpepper was not the only person interested in the new nurse. In the largest of the old, big houses in the hills beyond the village, Lady Loretta Nittleton was discussing the matter with her daughter, Desdemona. They had a particular right to be interested, as a matter of fact, because Lord William, Lady Nittleton’s husband, was the founder of the hospital and the chairman of the board. Nothing that went on at the hospital could go on without their censure or approval. As to the new nurse, they were yet undecided in their opinion. They already knew that she was twenty-seven. Sir William had been able to tell them that. They did not know if she was pretty. Sir William had not seen her, and even if he had, he would not have noticed.

“I hope,” Desdemona said anxiously to her mother, “that she is not pretty, for Miss Devon is always distracting the doctors, or any other male creature in the room. We cannot have two such nurses as Miss Devon. One is more than enough.”

“I do not think a creature of such artificial feathers could be considered pretty,” Lady Nittleton replied; she distrusted the brass of Zelda’s hair and did not believe that it could be natural with such dark eyebrows. And perhaps it was not. Under the little nurse’s cap, any dark roots might well be hidden until Zelda’s day off each month. “And I should not think the new nurse will be either. They always have such… strong wrists and stout ankles.”

Desdemona, who was a creature of wilting, orchid slenderness, approved this sentiment. At twenty-nine, past her first bloom of youth and never in possession of the bloom of beauty, she had decided she was going to marry Doctor Fane. It would be a very radical thing, she thought, for a baronet’s daughter to marry a mere doctor — a mere doctor, who, though brilliant, had been expelled from brilliant society for an indiscretion. The presence of another pretty nurse in the hospital might threaten her plans. “Stout ankles,” she repeated. “Strong wrists. And I might add, Miss Devon has very large feet.”

“She does indeed.” Lady Nittleton dwelt on the thought for a while. “Unless it merely those dreadful, sensible shoes she wears.”

It cheered Desdemona to think that the new nurse would have to wear the same sensible shoes, so very round in the toe and flat in the heel. “And the new nurse may not be pretty at all,” she said. “Not that I wish her to be very ugly. An ugly nurse can be just as distracting as a pretty one — there were times when I do believe Miss Jameson made the patients sicker.”

Lady Nittleton snorted, coughed to hide it, and then let out the airy tinkle which she used to convey her deepest amusement. “We had best hope that the new nurse is nothing more and nothing less than plain,” she said. “That would be the best of all possible worlds.”

“That is my hope,” Desdemona said. “I did try to talk with Doctor Fane about it, you know. I met him as he was coming back from Mrs Heston’s — she, I think, has only half as many aches and pains as she imagines she does — and he stopped his car—”

“That dreadful machine,” Lady Nittleton murmured.

“Don’t interrupt, Mummy. Doctor Fane stopped his car for me and said hello and I said I was on my quotidian constitutional and he asked me how do I spell that, which I think was a joke. So, there, you have often wondered if Doctor Fane has a sense of humour and now I have proof that he does.” Desdemona smiled to herself at the memory then tucked it away again. “But, anyway, he couldn’t get his car to start again afterwards, so I took advantage of the moment to press him about the new nurse. I said that I hoped we would not get another nurse like Miss Devon. And do you know what he said?”

“If it was not a monosyllable, it will have been something sarcastic,” Lady Nittleton said. “I do not like sarcasm.”

“He is not sarcastic, Mummy. He is dry. But he said, ‘What do you mean? Another competent, hard-working nurse, like Miss Devon is?’ And I said, ‘You know what I mean. She is always flirting with the patients. I do not think it proper.’ I did not mention the way she flirts with him and Doctor Culpepper. And he said that I may hope whatever I want and think improper whatever I please.”

“That was sarcasm,” Lady Nittleton said.

“I would not call it sarcasm. He was merely being dry — that is a bad habit of his. But he did intend to brush me off.”

That she knew he intended it only made him all the more appealing. As a general rule, men ignored Desdemona or toadied to her. For a man to be rude to her was a pleasant and unique friction.

“And I must say,” Desdemona said eagerly, “that as ones who are… almost patrons to the hospital as much as Daddy, I should think, we have the right to set the standards of the nurses’ behaviour. But, there, Doctor Fane does not think her improper! Well, Mummy, how shall we persuade him?”

Lady Nittleton shook her head. “Dessie darling, there is no persuading the man. You had much better apply to your father. He will be able to exert his influence in the matter of Miss Devon — or the new nurse, if she be of the same design.”

“If she is.” Desdemona tossed her head. “I should like to find out. I will visit the hospital tomorrow to see her.”

–

A/N: Short little chapter. As I’ve said, don’t expect regular updates, but this story will crawl along at a snail’s pace.

The New Nurse IV.

Alone in the nurses’ dormitory, Celia unpacked her belongings into the creaky wardrobe next to her bed. Everything is going to be alright now, she told herself. Matron Howard and Zelda both seemed tolerable, Doctor Fane no worse than most doctors, and her surroundings were comfortable. She had certainly stayed in worse over the past eight years. The view through her window showed a charming prospect over the gas-lit village high street and the sloping shadows of the hills beyond. It would be pleasant to wake up to that, having spent the past two years sharing a narrow window which had looked out over chimneys and rooftops and London fog. When she had a little money she might even buy a flower-box for her window. Or she might borrow one from the gardener, and save her pennies. The hospital must have a gardener, for she could see the front of the hospital was set back from the road by a garden of twisty gravel walks and herbaceous borders, all fenced in by iron very new and bright.

When her things were packed away, Celia peeped guiltily behind the other two curtains in the dorm. The furniture was not uniform. The beds were the same sort of plain iron, but the other nurses’ wardrobes and chairs and side tables were of quite random make, though all rather shabby looking. She supposed they were donations, likely from the local villagers. One of the beds was yet unmade, and clothes were draped untidily over the chair next to it. An attempt had been made to hide the shabbiness of the wardrobe by pasting pictures cut from magazines and soap wrappers and paper ribbons over it. Celia supposed this must be the mysterious Mrs Smith’s quarters; she could not imagine Zelda displaying such want of taste. The other cubicle was very tidy, with all the clothes put away and an attractive quilted counterpane over the end of the bed. Two framed cartoons on the wall hinted at a cheeky sense of humour: the first a play on bedside manner, and the second of a nurse and doctor kissing while a patient lay unconscious on the operating table.

Definitely Zelda, Celia thought, drawing the curtain back into place. Her fingers were shaking, perhaps out of nerves, perhaps out of hunger. A cup of tea, and a bit of toast if she could get it, would help with either. And besides — her stomach turned — she had that other matter to see about. First, she went to the mirror and gave herself a general tidy-up. Matron Howard had struck her as the kind of person who put great value on tidiness, and the train journey and car ride afterwards had left Celia feeling grubby and soot-stained. When she went downstairs, Matron Howard was sitting at her desk again, but this time she heard Celia at the door and looked up.

“What is it?”

“I had a few questions, actually. Um…” Celia tried to pluck up her courage. “My…” She failed. “My uniforms?”

“Of course.” Matron Howard got to her feet and crossed the room to a door which she opened and went through. From the room beyond, she called, “We didn’t know what size you’d be, so we didn’t order any new ones in advance. But we’ve got some spares from previous nurses that’ll do you until we can.”

She returned, several folded bundles of grey-blue and white cloth in her arms. “These ought to be about right.”

Celia took the top bundle, unfolded it, and held it against herself. It was a little large, perhaps, but it was clean and not very much worn. “Thank you. I think it will fit.”

Matron passed her the rest of the clothes. “Was that all?”

“Ah, yes.” Celia lumped the clothing up against her chest like a shield. “Well, actually…”

“Out with it, Miss Barnes. I haven’t got all day.”

“Is it possible to get an advance on my salary?” The words came out in a rush, but once they were out, there was no unsaying them. “I, um… I’m… a little—”

“It is not,” Matron said. “You won’t need it. Your meals and uniforms and lodging are provided. You will lack no necessity.”

“Oh.” Celia felt embarrassed for having asked — but she had to ask. She had nothing left to sell and not a penny to her name.

“Now was that it?” Matron asked.

“I… I don’t suppose I could have something to eat?”

“Supper will be in half-an-hour in the upstairs sitting room.”

“A c-cup of t-tea?” Hot tears pricked at Celia’s eyes. “I just want…” And then, to her horror, the tears were rolling down her face. “I’m sorry. I’m just…”

But she was lost. The reserve of strength had got her here from foggy, friendless London was exhausted. She sobbed, and each sob made her sob harder for the fact that she could not stop sobbing.

She was acutely aware of Matron’s impassive bulk in front of her. What must she be thinking? With conscious effort, Celia took in a deep shaking breath, though the tears kept spilling down her cheeks.

“I hope you don’t cry in front of patients,” Matron said distantly.

“I don’t normally…” Celia wiped her eyes, made out the blurry outlines of an armchair, and stumbled into it. “I’m just… haven’t… eaten.”

Matron sighed heavily and went to the door to shut it. Then she put her back against it and regarded Celia while Celia wiped her eyes and tried to regain control of herself.

“Brandy or chocolate?” Matron said.

“What?”

“Which stimulant? Brandy, or chocolate?”

“Ch-chocolate,” Celia whispered.

“Well at least you’re not a drunk,” Matron said drily, going to her desk and opening a drawer. She took out an eight-ounce slab of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk, snapped it two, then ripped the halves apart. One half she put back in the drawer. The other she dropped onto Celia’s lap. “Go on. Eat.”

With trembling fingers, Celia unpeeled the paper from the bar and took a bite. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. When did you last eat?”

“Um.” Celia swallowed and hastily took another bite. “I had supper.”

“Yesterday? Why on Earth—” Matron shook her head. “You won’t do such a fool thing here. We have breakfast at seven every morning and supper at eight-thirty. Dinner any time you can take it between ten and three. Unless you have night duty, in which case you’ve breakfast at supper and supper at breakfast and a makeshift dinner whenever you can get it.”

Celia swallowed more chocolate and decided it was not worth it to explain. Her meals at the New Hospital had been attached to her shift: one breakfast, dinner, and supper for every day of work. They had given her supper yesterday after her last shift, but the superintendent had told her she must buy breakfast out. It was a good thing Celia had bought her train ticket first, or she might have been short more than the thruppence that the kind old gentleman waiting behind her in line at the ticket office had made up.

“You’d better finish the chocolate off,” Matron said. “And then eat your supper and get an early night. There will be no tears tomorrow, Miss Barnes. There will be only work.”

“Yes, Matron,” Celia said. “Thank you.”

Matron went back to her desk. “Go now, please. I am working.”

Celia left, taking her new clothes and the rest of the chocolate bar with her. It was not, she thought wearily, a very good first impression but perhaps tomorrow, after she was rested, she would get the chance to make it up.

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A/N: I’ve started to get really into the research for this story, digging into old medical textbooks etc. The more I learn, the more I realize how many mistakes I am likely to make with it. But hopefully I can get a good story out of it anyway.

The New Nurse V.

The next morning, Celia woke early and went for an inquisitive wander about the hospital and grounds. She discovered much to please her and very little of concern. The architect (for the building was new and purpose-built) had done a very neat job of laying things out, with two wings connected by a square central block and overlooking the front garden, though Celia noticed instantly that he had neglected to consider the toll it would take on female bladders when he buried the nurses’ water closet in the offices at the back of the central block. Nor could she quite approve the location of the surgery, in the central block, with the smell of laundry and cooking come up the staircase from the offices below. On the other hand, the surgery itself was beautifully designed with every contraption of electricity and angled windows to flood it with light on even the foggiest of Yorkshire mornings, and the wards, stretching the length of each wing, were perfectly arranged for ventilation with high, pitched ceilings and pairs of tall, cross-facing windows half-open at the top to let in the gorse-scented morning air.

Efforts had been made to lend to the hospital a feeling of homey comfort. There were pictures, prints, rugs, and bowls of flowers everywhere, even in the wards. Of course it did the patients good to have something cheerful to look at, Celia thought, but it also meant a great deal of dusting for someone, and she hoped that someone would not be her.

At a quarter-to-eight, she met Matron Howard in the women’s ward and Matron gave her a brief tour and explained to her the use of some of the various logbooks and cupboards and hospital customs. It turned out that Celia did not have to do the dusting: that fell to the housemaid. There was even a man-of-all-work, Matron explained, Tom the cook’s husband, who assisted with the carrying of patients when needed.

“Now, your patients,” Matron said when Celia was finished looking over the women’s lavatories. “You’ve only two and a baby today. We’ll start with Mrs Pearson in bed three.”

Mrs Pearson was a stout woman of about forty-five, sitting up in bed with no appearance of ill-health about her person except for a disagreeable scowl.

“Ah’m right clemmed,” she said in a Yorkshire accent so broad Celia could hardly decipher the syllables. “Ah getten nowt fer us breatfast.”

“You cannot eat before surgery,” Matron said, apparently with no difficulty in understanding. “But we’ll give you a nice dinner afterwards. Now, this is the new nurse, Miss Barnes. She’s going to look after you today.”

Mrs Pearson pursed her lips. “She’s a spuggy-legged one. Ah don’t suppose she getten owt fer breatfast neither.”

Celia could not translate but sensed it was not a compliment. She tried to sound sympathetic. “You must be dreadfully hungry, Mrs Pearson,” she said, “but if you eat before surgery you’ll be very sick.”

“Ah kna tha,” Mrs Pearson said scornfully. “Ah’m not a claht-’ead.”

Celia gave up on making a friend of her. She took down the clipboard of patient records from the wall above Mrs Pearson’s bed and scanned it. Despite her appearance of good health, Mrs Pearson was suffering from a large tumour and required an ovariotomy to remove it. A square, forward-slanting hand listed the diet and hygiene preparations required for the surgery.

“And I’ll have to give you an enema,” Celia said. “Mrs Pearson, this is going to be a bad day, but at the end of it I promise you will feel much better.” That was a lie Celia might pay for later, if Mrs Pearson wasn’t in too much pain after her surgery to complain about it.

Mrs Pearson let out a gust of air through her nostrils. “It doesn’t ’urt sa bad. Ah’d waga t’unger’s wahr.”

Celia blinked.

Thankfully, Matron understood. “It is the doctor’s wager that matters, Mrs Pearson.”

Celia hung the clipboard back on its nail. “You may have two ounces of water. I will get it in just a moment.”

Mrs Pearson sank grumbling against her pillows. Celia thought she had managed her first patient rather well. Perhaps today she would manage to undo the damage of last night’s tears.

They moved on to the other occupied bed, where a woman of about thirty-five lay with a newborn sleeping in her arms. She glanced up listlessly as they approached.

“I’m your new nurse, Celia Barnes. Good morning, Mrs…” Celia reached for the clipboard above the bed. “…Shaw.” Third child, with the last two breech births and one stillborn, confined in hospital as a precaution, delivered with assistance two nights ago. Mother recovering, infant healthy. Both to be monitored. “How do you feel today?”

“Oh, alright,” Mrs Shaw said, in an accent much lighter than Mrs Pearson’s.

Celia ran her eyes keenly over the pale, tired face. “Feeling the cold this morning?”

Mrs Shaw raised one shoulder in a shrug. “Not so bad.”

“And how’d you find breakfast?” Celia looked for a tray but found it had already been taken away. “Eat well?”

“Et it all,” Mrs Shaw said indifferently.

Perhaps she was only weary. Her baby at the least looked very well, pink-cheeked and pink-lipped and tiny body swelling in and out with deep breaths.

“I’ll be looking in on you again later,” Celia said. “Ring your bell if you need anything.”

Mrs Shaw nodded and slipped deeper into her pillows. Celia and Matron Howard went back to the nurse’s desk. Celia was rather hoping she had impressed, but Matron Howard’s face was impossible to read.

“It’s a large hospital for so small a village and so rural an area,” Celia said. “The facilities are very good.”

Matron did not seem to see the compliment in it. “We’re the only hospital for miles,” she said. “We serve dozens of villages, scores of farmers and their families, even a mine owner and his labourers. The accidents alone would keep us in business. We’ve got two in the men’s ward now. A compound fracture of the tibia and fibula, and a burnt arm. That’s why I gave you the women’s ward today. Start you off with the light work.” Matron pulled out her pocket watch and checked it. “Speaking of, isn’t it time for that enema?”

Mrs Pearson was none too pleased to discover what an enema was. She protested so much that by the time Celia had her back in bed with a draw sheet and mackintosh under her, it was nine o’clock and the doctors had arrived for their rounds. Doctor Fane looked very serious and severe in his white coat. The other doctor with him had a calmer presence. He was middle-aged, rather short and round, and the moment he saw Celia he smiled and offered her his hand.

“Reginald Culpepper,” he said. “Glad to meet you at last. We’ve been short-handed these past weeks.”

“Celia Barnes.” She was pleased to find her voice did not quaver with nerves. “I’ll do my best. We’ve met already, Doctor Fane.”

Doctor Fane grunted and strode past her to Mrs Shaw’s bed. Culpepper raised his eyebrows.

“He’s like that,” he said. “Not much bedside manner.”

Celia’s mind instantly went to the cheeky print above Zelda’s bed and she bit back a smile. “No, really?”

“How are you finding it here? Comfortable? Good? Get on with Matron?”

“It seems a nice hospital. Very new, very clean. Well-designed.”

“It’s not bad. What was the New Hospital like?” Culpepper grinned. “I hear they have women doctors. What’s that like? Are they any good?”

It was too many questions for Celia, and that was a question she did not like. “Excuse me, Doctor. I must see to my patients.”

She turned away and crossed the ward to where Doctor Fane was just leaving Mrs Shaw’s bedside.

“These are your patients as well as mine,” he said. “You must attend my rounds with me.”

“I apologize,” Celia said. There was no point saying that Doctor Fane had moved away without speaking a word to her, nor that Culpepper had engaged her. She trotted after him as he strode towards Mrs Pearson. “Um. Earlier, Mrs Shaw seemed listless. I thought of the possibility of puerperal fever. It is the third day after birth. This is about when it shows.”

Doctor Fane stopped and turned to pin her down with a cold glare. “It is not your job to think, Nurse Barnes.”

Celia had faced that attitude before. “Of course, Doctor.”

“Mrs Shaw is often listless,” Doctor Fane continued in a low voice. “A history of melancholia.”

“It was not on her record.”

“Nor is the hammertoe for which I treated her last year. Would you like to know her the story of her life, Nurse Barnes, or would you like to know your instructions?”

Celia hated sarcasm. She would rather blunt cruelty than intimation. Doubt cut her deep. She shook her head. “I’m sorry. Instructions, Doctor.”

“The infant presents no concerns. Mrs Shaw is still uncomfortable and in pain from the birth. She may have no morphia but a little aspirin powder dissolved in warm water if she wishes. No stimulants. I do not anticipate puerperal fever, but check and record her temperature every four hours. Keep her dressings clean and dry.”

Celia did not need to be told to keep dressings clean and dry. “Of course, Doctor. Mrs Pearson, then?”

Some doctors liked to smile at their patients, but evidently Fane did not. He said a curt good morning to Mrs Pearson and glanced at her notes.

“Tha’ chuffy lass put milk up us bottom,” Mrs Pearson complained. “Quite t’wrong place fer it, Doc. Ah’d lief ’ave drunk it.”

“You cannot drink milk,” Fane said. “If you have anything but water, there can be no surgery. And no more than four ounces of water an hour.”

“I kna’ tha’.” Mrs Pearson looked disgusted. “I were jus’ chelpin’.”

Fane hung the notes back on the wall and turned to Celia. “Alright, she’s set for surgery at twelve-thirty. As you are new here, you will observe our procedures and Matron Howard will assist. The hygienic preparations, however, are your responsibility. Immediately pre-surgery, you will take her to relieve herself, give her a quick hot bath and a brandy flush.”

“I already gave her an enema.”

“And you’ll give her a brandy flush too.” Fane narrowed his grey eyes at Celia. “I take every precaution in my surgery. Ten percent of ovariotomies result in fatality. If you’re lucky, it’s haemorrhage. If you’re not — and most people aren’t — it’s peritonitis. That’s a slow, painful way to die. Have you ever nursed a patient with peritonitis? Yes, I see by your expression you have. Now you know why you will flush Mrs Pearson with brandy.”

Last night, Celia had charitably assumed that Doctor Fane had made a bad first impression. Now she saw he had in fact made a much better impression than he was entitled to. She bit back the indignation that rose over her; he was not the first obnoxious doctor she had had to work with. “I will do exactly as you say, Doctor.”

Fane walked away. “I’ll see you in surgery, Mrs Pearson.”

Mrs Pearson was white-faced and wide-eyed. “Aye, Doctor.”

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A/N: In recent months, I’ve been thinking about where this story is going, and I’ve got some idea of it now. It’s probably going to be somewhat episodic, and more historical fiction than historical romance (though there will be romance of course). The reason is, I keep discovering little things in my research that I want to write about. In fact, 90% of the editing I did with this chapter was pruning back the historical information to let the story shine through. I’m guessing readers don’t actually need to know how the roofing arrangement of a two-storey hospital affects the plumbing of the toilets… But I know.

The New Nurse VI.

Knowing she wouldn’t have much time to eat after the surgery, Celia sent down to the kitchens at eleven-thirty for an early dinner. The food, she had discovered, was rather good, plain but fresh and generously portioned. Though, as always in a hospital ward, finishing a meal in peace was unlikely. She was halfway through a plate of spiced beef and buttered bread and cucumber slices when Mrs Shaw rang her bell and asked for something to help with the pain. After ascertaining that it was not an unusual pain, Celia discovered that no one had told her where the aspirin was kept and had to go to Matron’s office to ask about it. That meant a tour of the dispensary room and a lecture on the protocols thereof. It was all very instructive to Celia, who had never had the charge of a dispensary before, but the length of the lecture meant that Mrs Shaw had to wait fifteen minutes for her aspirin and that Celia did not have time to finish her dinner before preparing Mrs Pearson for surgery. While Mrs Pearson was in the lavatory, Celia went to her desk to snatch another bite of spiced beef, only to discover to her annoyance that the housemaid had already taken the tray away. She drank some water to fill her stomach then went to get the brandy and carbolic acid to perform the hygienic preparations on Mrs Pearson.

At twelve thirty, Mrs Pearson was sitting up on the operating table in the surgery, smelling of carbolic and brandy, and looking rather nervous. Doctor Fane and Doctor Culpepper had changed into white surgical gowns, and Matron Howard had put an apron over her dress.

“Ye look like butchers like that,” Mrs Pearson complained. “An’ ah feel like t’pig.”

“Now, now,” Culpepper said. “You won’t feel a thing. You’ll take some deep breaths through this cloth then you’ll just go to sleep and wake up with everything over. Like a dream.”

Mrs Pearson eyed the chloroform mask warily. “There’s good dreams an’ bad dreams, Doc.”

“It is, in fact, a dreamless sleep,” Fane said, dousing the mask with chloroform. “Lie back, Mrs Pearson.”

“‘Old on.” Mrs Pearson put a hand over her mouth. “Jus’ give us a minute.”

“Please lie back, Mrs Pearson.”

“Jus’ a…” Mrs Pearson opened her mouth wide and let out a meaty belch. “…Sorry. Tea gives us guff.”

Fane froze with the chloroform mask in his hands. “You’ve been drinking tea?” He turned to Celia. “Has she been drinking?”

“I didn’t give her anything.”

Fane set the chloroform mask carefully back down on the surgical tray. “Mrs Pearson, when did you drink tea?”

“Oh, ’bout ’alf-an-’our ago, Doc. Ah needed summat ta wash down t’beef. It were rare dry.”

Fane’s long, delicate fingers tensed into open claws. He turned to Celia, who felt the shadow of doom falling over her. “You gave her food and drink?”

“I did not, sir. She must—”

But Fane had turned back to Mrs Pearson. “I am afraid we will have to postpone your surgery.”

Mrs Pearson licked her lips. “Oh, if tha say sa, Doc. If it mun be.”

“Matron Howard, if you will take the patient back upstairs, I will speak to Nurse Barnes.”

Matron Howard gave Celia an unimpressed glance and helped Mrs Pearson from the operating table. Celia braced herself. Fane had spoken without heat, but there was something quite terrifying about the coolness of his tone. Culpepper’s round face was grave.

Fane waited until Matron Howard and Mrs Pearson disappeared into the passage. “Well, Nurse Barnes?”

“I’m very sorry, sir.”

“And that makes it all better, doesn’t it?” Fane’s voice rose. “An apology makes up for all the lost time. For us having to come back here tomorrow when we’ve other appointments. For the extra day that Mrs Pearson will have a life-threatening tumour lodged inside her.”

Celia felt tears pricking at her eyes and bowed her head to hide them. “It is not entirely my fault. She must have stolen my dinner tray while I was out of the ward.”

“And why on earth did you leave the ward? You are a nurse. Your job is to take care of the ward.”

“Mrs Shaw required aspirin.”

“And why did you not have the aspirin ready?”

“It was in the dispensary.”

“And why didn’t you get it from the dispensary when I told you she would need it?”

“No one told me—”

“Oh, no one told you. So I see, I must tell you every little thing you are ever to do here. What is the point of even hiring you then?”

Celia darted a pleading glance at Culpepper, who was intently examining his fingernails. “I… Doctor Fane, I…”

She did not know what to say. He would see any defence as an excuse, no matter how true it was.

“You can’t dismiss her, Doctor Fane!” someone cried from the door. “She has only just come!”

Celia turned to the new voice. A tall, thin woman stood in the doorway carrying a basket of hothouse flowers. She wore a black hat about the size and shape of a Pomeranian puppy, and between the hat and flowers her face was an insignificant white blotch. Doctor Fane stared at her too.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Miss Nittleton!” Culpepper said warmly. “How do you do?”

“Very well thank you.” Miss Nittleton swept into the surgery and ran a narrow gaze over every inch of Celia. “You must be the new nurse. I won’t let that cruel Doctor Fane dismiss you.” A serene smile hovered about her small, pale mouth. “I have my influence upon him.”

“You can no more prevent it than I can effect it,” Fane growled. “The board controls all such decisions.”

“I won’t let them dismiss her either.” Miss Nittleton deposited her flowers on the operating table, revealing herself to be dressed in a sport suit of the very latest cut. “Now that we’ve finally got a new nurse — and you seem like such a good one, I’ve an eye for a woman’s character — we can’t possibly let her leave again.”

“There is no talk of Nurse Barnes leaving,” Fane said, picking up Miss Nittleton’s flowers and pushing them into her arms. “Only you.”

Miss Nittleton’s small hazel eyes opened to their widest extent. “Why me?”

“Because this is my surgery. Get out!”

“Goodness.” Miss Nittleton swayed leisurely towards the door, her slender hips making the movement more snakelike than seductive. “You are in a temper today, Doctor Fane. But never mind. I shall tell Daddy that we have done very well in the new nurse. I am quite satisfied with her.” She turned back at the door and gave Celia a tinkling wave of her fingertips. “Ta-ta, I hope we shall be friends.”

When she was gone, Fane scowled at Celia. “I’ve lost my train of thought now.”

“You were asking me what the point of hiring me was,” she said politely. The intermission with Miss Nittleton had given her courage. Miss Nittleton was ridiculous, but she had made Fane appear ridiculous too, and Celia suspected Fane knew it.

“It was rhetorical. We need a nurse, and you’re the one we’ve got.” The cold fire had gone out of Fane’s voice. He sounded merely irritated now. “Don’t make this mistake again. When I tell you a patient is not to eat, you will not let her eat. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Doctor. I apologize, Doctor.”

“Save your apologies. All I require from you is good work.”

He left the room, his surgical apron flapping against his knees. Culpepper gave Celia a sympathetic glance.

“No harm was done,” he said. “And it’s not all your fault anyway. Annie Pearson knew better.”

It must have been quite deliberate, Celia thought, to have stolen her entire tray, but at least Culpepper wasn’t yelling at her or being sarcastic. “I had to get the aspirin.”

“I know you did.” Culpepper hesitated. “Fane’s got a high temper, but it blows over quickly. And he never lets it interfere with his work.”

Celia busied herself putting away the surgical instruments so that she could avoid meeting Culpepper’s eye. As Fane’s assisting nurse, she was part of his work, and a high temper interfered with her. Displays of anger made her nervous and distracted. But it would only make her look weak to explain that to Culpepper, who would probably not agree anyway. It was best just to suffer the doctors in silence. At the very least, Culpepper seemed gentle enough, even if he was a little obtuse. And she could deal with Fane; he was not the first impatient doctor she had known and he would not be the last. Patience was a virtue only for nurses. Doctors did not bother with such time-wasting nonsense.

“I’m very sorry about my mistake, Doctor Culpepper,” Celia said. “I will make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

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A/N 2021-05-25: It may surprise you to learn that Doctor Fane is, in fact, the eventual romantic interest of this story. Emphasis on eventual: he has some way to go as a man before he’s worthy of women thinking of him as one.

I’m going to be doing some first round edits to this story soon. I think I’ll change the name of the village (it’s going to be delightfully twee) as well as some of the physical details of the setting now that I’ve done some more research into what the countryside is actually like in Yorkshire. Oh, and the chapter titles will change too.

The New Nurse VII.

The postponement of the surgery meant that both doctors had an hour or more of free time before their afternoon calls. Doctor Culpepper, who never wasted the opportunity to do nothing, changed out of his surgical gown and crossed the hospital yard to Doctor Fane’s cottage, of which two rooms on the ground floor were reserved for the offices of the practice they shared. He was settled in an armchair drinking tea and eating a biscuit when Fane clattered into the office with a scowl. Fane ignored Culpepper — which Culpepper expected, as after three years he was well accustomed to his partner’s moods — and went to the desk where he took out the appointment book and flipped through it. His movements were rapid and noisy, and they unsettled Culpepper, who preferred life to move adagio. He could see that Fane was struggling, as he sometimes did, to contain his temper. Culpepper knew that it was doubt and fear more than anger that drove it, but he was in no mood to be sympathetic now. Miss Barnes had charmed him. She was, he thought, a nice, quiet, prettyish woman, and he had not liked to see the terrified expression in her eyes when Fane had yelled at her.

“We’ll have to do the ovariotomy on Friday,” Fane said. “You’ll have to cancel your eleven o’clock appointment with Mr Bowers.”

Culpepper grunted and wondered if he could bothered getting up for another biscuit.

“I’ve two appointments I’ll have to put off,” Fane added. “This has upset everything.”

Culpepper decided the biscuit was not worth it. He was very well settled into the armchair, and the fire was at the perfect heat. Besides, lately Mrs Culpepper had been asking him to watch his weight.

“I just wish we could find reliable nurses,” Fane said. “We scrape the bottom of the barrel every time — and even the bottom of the barrel doesn’t want to stay.”

Culpepper snorted.

Fane looked up. “What?”

“Well, you don’t exactly try to make them welcome.”

“What do you mean?

“You yelled at her.”

“I was firm and forthright.”

“I saw tears in her eyes.”

“I hope she’s not another weeper.”

That was a reference to Miss Jameson, the last nurse, who had a habit of hiding herself away in the linen room and weeping whenever the burdens of nursing had become too much for her. It had been a relief for everyone when she quit, but Culpepper had not failed to notice how often those burdens had been nothing more than Fane’s hard words. “You made Miss Jameson leave, you know. You frightened her away.”

“She went to live with an elderly aunt!”

“Because it was that or work with you.” Culpepper set his teacup aside to show that he was serious. “Look, Fane, we can’t afford to go through nurses like draw sheets. And I know Miss Barnes made a mistake, but there was no need to make her miserable about it.”

“She had to be taken to task.”

“You didn’t have to humiliate her.”

Fane stared at Culpepper, one hand frozen in the act of writing in the appointment book. Culpepper wondered if he had chosen the wrong moment to confront him. He was a little afraid of his younger partner. Not being a man given to high emotions, he did not quite know how to handle the unhappy passions he could see so often simmering below Fane’s cold, curt manner. There had been times when he had said the wrong thing at the wrong moment and those passions had boiled over into a peculiar, hopeless fury. In the aftermath, Fane would be silent for days, saying nothing except what he absolutely must to perform his duties and taking long, aimless midnight drives across the country.

To his relief, Fane relaxed and set the pen down. “I lost my temper with her. If we had proceeded with the surgery…”

“We did not. We caught the mistake in time. No harm was done.”

Fane nodded and dropped into a chair. “I won’t yell at her again.”

Culpepper raised an eyebrow.

“I’ll try not to.”

“You won’t succeed. Not for long.”

Fane gave a heavy sigh. “I’ll… I’ll apologize to her. I’ll make it right.”

“Thank you,” said Culpepper. “I like her.” He picked up his teacup again, then paused. “Don’t suppose you’d mind fetching me another biscuit?”

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A/N 2021-05-28: Really short this time. Culpepper stands up for Celia.

The New Nurse VIII

Doctor Fane did not hurry to apologize. He decided to put the matter off until the afternoon hospital rounds at six and got started on the usual business of the private practice. At six, he was forestalled in his intentions by the presence of Matron Howard, who followed them around the ward and prevented any private conversation with Nurse Barnes. To apologize in front of others, Fane thought, was quite impossible. Thwarted in his good intentions, he put them off and retreated to the sanctity of his office where he engaged himself in the soothing hobby of reading autopsy reports from decades-old murder cases. At seven, his housekeeper served him an indifferent offering of trout and greens. Afterwards, Fane whiled away the time with a cup of coffee, telling himself that he would go to apologize in five minutes, go soon, go before bed, go tomorrow.

At a quarter past eight, the telephone rang.

Fane jumped out of his seat. The telephone in the office had been installed a year ago at his insistence. There were twin machines in Culpepper’s house and the matron’s office in the hospital. Fane had thought it a wonderful idea for anyone in the district to be able to speak to him or Culpepper or Matron in an emergency. The flaw in his plan had soon been realized: no one else in the district had a telephone. The machine had lain silent since its installation.

He took up the receiver and spoke warily into the mouthpiece. “Hello?”

“Can you hear me, Fane?” Culpepper shouted.

Fane winced and moved the receiver further away from his ear. “For God’s sake, don’t shout. I can hear you.”

“Have you apologized to Nurse Barnes yet?” Culpepper’s voice was still too loud.

Fane scowled. “I’m going to do it.”

“It’s past eight. She’ll be off duty now. You’d better go before she starts preparing for bed.”

“She’ll be at supper.”

The line crackled and popped as Culpepper breathed into the mouthpiece. Eventually he said, “I told you, Fane. I like this one. I will be very disappointed if I go in for my rounds tomorrow and find she’s taken the first train back to London.”

“If she does, she’s not the nurse we need here.”

“We need any nurse here,” Culpepper retorted. “Nurse Devon and Nurse Smith have been worked off their feet since Miss Jameson left. We cannot afford to lose Miss Barnes.”

Fane stared glumly at the telephone box. “I’ll do it now.”

“Thank you.” There was a click, and the line went dead.

Fane put the receiver back and reluctantly crossed the yard to the hospital. As he had expected, Miss Barnes and Miss Devon were sitting down to their supper in the nurses’ sitting room on the first floor. Miss Devon greeted him with a warm smile, but Miss Barnes barely managed to stammer out a good evening.

“If you’ve a moment, Miss Barnes, I would like a word with you,” said Fane.

Miss Barnes looked wistfully at her plate, loaded high with potatoes. “Oh. Alright, doctor.”

Miss Devon wiggled her eyebrows. “I’ve all the time in the world for you, Doctor Fane.”

Fane pretended he had not heard her. Miss Barnes got up from her chair and came to the doorway. Miss Devon leaned forward, clearly listening. Fane leaned past Miss Barnes and pulled the door to.

“I, uh, I lost my temper with you earlier today, Miss Barnes,” he said in a low voice. “For that, I must apologize.”

Her eyes remained wary. “It is no matter, doctor.”

“I mean, as your superior, it is my job to correct your mistakes.”

“I quite understand.” Her tone was cool.

“And we all make mistakes sometimes,” he continued, feeling somehow that his apology had not been good enough and not knowing how to make it better. “And patients can be stubborn. Or ignorant. Sometimes half the job is deciphering what they really mean when they use completely the wrong words to describe the problem.”

“Oh, yes,” Miss Barnes said. “I agree.”

“Even doctors don’t always get it right, you know.”

A corner of her mouth lifted and then was swiftly repressed. She said nothing. Fane had the sudden suspicion that her demurely lowered lashes concealed not humility but laughter. He was acutely embarrassed by the thought.

“Anyway, we’ve got the surgery on Friday,” he finished lamely.

“I shall be very careful of Mrs Pearson on Friday,” Miss Barnes said, still not meeting his gaze. “She shall not have the chance to sneak food.”

“Very good then.” Fane felt as though he had lost a game he had not known he was playing. He had intended to shake Miss Barnes’s hand and wish her the best for her future at the cottage hospital. Instead, he shoved his hands in his pockets and scowled at her. Women were much easier to deal with when they told you exactly what they thought, rather than hide it behind coy expressions and false words, as though he hadn’t the eyes or wit to see it. “Tomorrow then, Miss Barnes.

“Tomorrow.”

He turned and left without saying goodnight. As he was just starting down the stairs, he heard peals of laughter erupt from the nurses’ sitting room and had the instant — and not unfounded — suspicion that the women were laughing at him.

When he reached the foot of the stairs, Matron Howard called his name, and he turned to see her standing in the doorway of her office.

“I hoped it was me you were coming to visit,” she said with a smile. “Come in, why don’t you? I’ve just boiled coffee.”

It was a habit of theirs to share an evening cup of coffee once or twice a week and discuss the hospital affairs. Fane swivelled and crossed the hall.

“It was Nurse Barnes,” he said, shutting the door of her office behind him. “Doctor Culpepper thought I should apologize to her for losing my temper today. He thinks I was in danger of scaring her off.”

“Hpmh!” Matron Howard set two cups and saucers on a tray.

“What’s that mean?”

“I’m not sure that girl has the spirit for the job.” Matron Howard brought the tray over to the little table by the window and set it down. Coffee was just settling down from a roil in the glass bulb at the top of the spirit percolator she had had sent from London in her first week as matron here. “She’s such a mildew-mannered thing. I wouldn’t blame it on you if she did leave.”

“He blames Miss Jameson leaving on me.”

“That dithering creature!” Matron Howard poured his coffee and passed it to him. “But at least Miss Jameson never cried in front of me. She saved that for when she was alone.”

“She would hide in the lin… you mean Miss Barnes did cry?”

“Like a baby. No, it wasn’t you that did it. It was last night. She came to ask me for an advance on her pay.” Matron snorted. “That was some gumption.”

“And she cried? Over that?”

Matron shrugged. “She said she hadn’t eaten all day. That’s hardly an excuse. What kind of fool doesn’t eat?”

Fane sipped his coffee thoughtfully. It seemed then that Miss Barnes was weak, a fatal flaw in a nurse. “They all have flaws, of course,” he said, half to himself. “Mrs Smith is lazy, and Miss Devon flirts. And Miss Jameson was…” One word alone could not sum up the hapless Miss Jameson’s faults. Fane shrugged and left the sentence unfinished.

“I doubt she will stay here long,” Matron Howard said. “She’s moved from one position to another since she started. What does that tell you but that she can’t see things through?”

“I don’t know. She must have had a reason for leaving London altogether. Culpepper thinks she had a love affair gone wrong, but I can’t see it. She’s not the type.”

“What is the type?” Matron asked curiously.

“Miss Devon, naturally.”

Matron laughed. “No, no. Miss Devon has love affairs behind her, plenty, I am sure. That’s why she’s not the type. When they go wrong, she shakes it off. When a love affair goes wrong with a shy type like Miss Barnes, it cuts deep. But all the same, I don’t think it was one. I think she’s just a flake.”

“You might be right.” He took a sip of his coffee. “Culpepper likes her anyway.”

“Which means that you don’t. Well, you rarely like anyone, so I can’t say I’m surprised.”

“I like you,” Fane protested. “I like Mrs Smith. I even like Culpepper.”

“I ought to be more specific. You rarely like young, pretty women. Which is no compliment to myself, but I’m beyond any age to expect flattery and far too honest to claim I ever was pretty.”

Fane laughed softly. “It’s no compliment to me either, thank you. And I don’t think it’s true. In any case, my reservations about Miss Barnes have nothing to do with her looks. She answered me back this morning, made a stupid mistake this afternoon, and this evening…”

“What did she do?”

Fane finished his coffee silently.

“Doctor?”

“If you must know, she laughed at me.”

Matron looked amused. “How dreadful of her. It’s there’s one behaviour quite unforgivable in a woman, it’s that she dares laugh at a man.”

“Don’t rub salt in the wound,” Fane grumbled. “I don’t like being laughed at.”

“It’s a bitter medicine,” Matron said consolingly, “but I do believe it’s good for you.”

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A/N 2021-06-04: Matron Howard is the kind of person who is really mean to people she doesn’t like and really nice to those she does.

 I said before that this story is going to be somewhat episodic in nature. This is the end of the first sort of episode, which deals with Celia’s arrival at the hospital. The next one is going to deal with Desdemona trying to get something she wants and Mrs Pearson’s surgery.