Nurse in Love by Jane Arbor Read Free Book Online Page A

Clare,” she said remorsefully, “I do mean to let them get on with it, but when the work is there to be done, I simply can’t !”
    “You’re unique,” Kathryn consoled her. “But you are a bit of a menace, all the same. For instance, you’ve got young Sara Spender fairly aching to feel her wings, and you just don’t give her a chance. And what do you suppose your methods do for the rest of us when your students are transferred and they’ve been so spoon-fed by you that they can’t do anything for themselves? I say, you don’t mind my bearding you about this, do you?”
    “Of course not. I know it’s a major fault of mine, and I suppose it could rile a youngster who thinks she knows all the answers. I ought to be gagged and bound,” concluded Sister Bridgeworth gloomily.
    “And that, nobody could achieve without your telling them how it should be done and even taking a hand in the process yourself!” teased Kathryn slyly.
    And the discussion closed to the sound of Sister Bridgeworth’s rueful laughter.
    On the children’s ward the afternoon promised to be a quiet one, and Kathryn found that she herself had time to spend with the group of laughing, convalescent youngsters who were playing on the balcony in the autumn sunshine.
    But at about half-past five a call came through from the Casualty Ward. An urgent case of scalding—a little girl of two had dragged a kettle of boiling water over herself—was being sent to the operating theatre immediately and would be sent to the children’s ward after treatment. The house physician on duty should be called and also Dr . Brand. Casualty was sending a nurse with the case to Theatre, but would Sister Clare kindly arrange for one of her own nurses to collect it?
    Swiftly and smoothly the skilled machinery went into action ... Kathryn telephoned for the ward’s houseman, asking him to call Dr . Brand; ordered an operation bed to be prepared, superintended the laying - up of an instrument trolley. A nurse was despatched to the operating theatre, and Kathryn went to offer some guarded reassurance and comfort to the quivering-lipped woman who was shown into the waiting - room on the corridor.
    Time passed. The house physician came to wait with Kathryn, and shortly before seven o’clock Adam arrived. Kathryn was ready to give him such details as she knew, but he cut her short. He had checked with Theatre before coming up to the ward, he said. Then he glanced at his watch and went to the telephone.
    Above the bustle of the arrival of the awaited trolley in the corridor, Kathryn was vaguely aware that she could not help overhearing the brief message—“I shall have to be late for our appointment ... I’m sorry ... No, I can’t say how long I may be ...” He rang off abruptly, and by the time the trolley reached the bed made ready for the patient he was at Kathryn’s side.
    His face was very grave as he looked down at the scrap of humanity, swaddled by bandages into a pitiful misshapen bundle. He took a pulse, noted the respirations, spoke to the younger doctor and demanded of Kathryn: “The parents—are they here?”
    “The mother is.”
    “Well, ask her to wait for the time being. See that she’s comfortable until I say she may be called.” In answer to Kathryn’s look of enquiry he added: “I shall stay myself. An hour more or less should tell what hope we have—or if there’s none. Meanwhile, when do you go off, Sister?”
    “I was due off at seven. But I shall not go,” said Kathryn quietly. And when she had sent for screens for the bed she went to the child’s mother. She felt heartsick and frustrated, longing to be doing all the busy, curative things of which the doing might already be too late. But if Adam Brand, with all his skill, could stand by and merely wait, she supposed that she must too.
    Afterwards, when hope and mere waiting had been rewarded by a steadying pulse and a sleep that was natural and no longer a shocked coma, she went back