Vigil in the Night by A. J. Cronin Read Free Book Online Page A

sitting room. They did not exactly create a sensation. But Nurse Todd remarked:
      “Anyhow, this is better than we could have done inside.”
      Nora thoughtfully left a banana skin on the matron’s window sill.
      Though there was little enough to show for the start of the campaign, they had been observed nonetheless, and the following day’s lunch brought definite results. Sister Lucas was in the refectory at one o’clock sharp, and when the nine refused to touch their portions, she scrutinized them with suspicion and severity.
      “Why aren’t you eating?” she asked Nora sharply.
      “I’m not hungry, Sister.”
      “What nonsense is this?” said the Sister in a tone of outraged authority. “It’s perfectly good food.”
      “How do you know, Sister?” Glennie interposed drily. “It isn’t on your menu. You Sisters get very different food from this.”
      Sister Lucas reddened. “No impertinence, please. If you don’t eat your lunches, I’ll report you to Matron.”
      “Are we breaking any rules by not feeling hungry?” Anne asked innocently.
      There was secret jubilation among the group as the Sister lost countenance, turned, and walked away. Afterward, when they had foraged for provisions at the little store, Nora left two banana skins on the matron’s window sill.
      The following day and the day after passed without official intervention, authority plainly hoping the insurrection would die a natural death. But the rebels had sworn never to strike their flag. And so, on Friday, the refectory was startled by the appearance of Matron herself.
      She came in abruptly, a small dominant figure in her shining purple uniform and flowing, immaculate headdress. Her face was expressionless, her lips pursed, her hands folded before her. She walked slowly down the room in an aura of unnatural silence. The nine trembled, yet held staunchly together as she stopped and surveyed their un-touched plates.
      There was an even deeper silence, not the clatter of a plate or the chink of a fork in that usually noisy room as the matron turned to Anne.
      “Don’t you wish any fish?”
      Anne rose respectfully. “No, Matron.”
      “Why not?”
      At the question a preliminary shiver went down the table. To reply rudely, to condemn directly the cooking or the food, would be to invite disaster and probably would mean dismissal.
      But Anne was suddenly inspired. “Because I enjoy what I buy outside.”
      It was the perfect answer, and afterward they hugged Anne for it. The matron stood nonplussed. She had been prepared for insolence and had meant to deal with it. This courteous innuendo took the wind completely from her sails, but she did not lose face, as Sister Lucas had done. She gave Anne a long, hard stare, completed her circuit of the table, and silently went out.
      Most of the group felt that victory was theirs.
      “We’ve got her on the run,” Nora exclaimed. “She’ll have to do something now.”
      Anne shook her head significantly, ominously. “I’m afraid she will.”
      And Anne, alas, was right. Next morning a notice was pasted on the board: “Nurses are prohibited from leaving the hospital grounds between the hours of twelve and two. No foodstuffs are to be brought into the hospital by any nurse without special permit. Elizabeth East.”
      Nora turned from the board with a crestfallen face.
      “Well,” she remarked sheepishly to the others, “it looks as though we must die or swallow their vile food.”
      They swallowed it.
     
    CHAPTER 17
      Strangely enough, Anne’s weekend of leave was not delayed because of her participation in the short-lived hunger strike. Matron East was not deliberately unjust, but her difficulties at Hepperton were enormous; she was continually being badgered by the committee, and a blustering policy seemed to her the only apt one. Still, she knew the value of a good nurse. For that reason alone she did not want to overpenalize