CHAPTER ONE

      PHOEBE BROOK, Night Sister on the medical block of St Gideon’s hospital in one of the less salubrious quarters of London, raised a nicely kept hand to her cap, twitched it to a correct uprightness, and very quietly opened the swing doors into the women’s medical ward. Her stealthy approach to the night nurse’s desk might at first glance have seemed to be a desire to catch that young lady doing something she ought not; it was in actual fact, due to a heartfelt desire not to waken any of the patients. She had herself, when a student nurse, done her nights on the ward, and again when she was a staff nurse; she knew only too well that Women’s Medical, once roused during the night hours, could become a hive of activity—cups of Horlicks, bedpans, pillows rearranged, even a whispered chat about Johnny failing his eleven-plus, and what would Sister do if she were his mum—so it wasn’t surprising that the nurse sitting at the desk put down her knitting and got to her feet with equal stealth, at the same time casting a reproachful look at the clock. She was supposed to go to her dinner at midnight, and it was already half past, and that added on to the fact that she had been alone for the last hour, all of which thoughts Sister Brook read with ease and a good deal of sympathy, even though she had small chance of getting a meal herself. She whispered:

      ‘Sorry, Nurse, I got held up on Men’s Medical—a coronary. Come back in an hour.’

      The nurse nodded, instantly sympathetic, thinking at the same time that nothing on earth would induce her to take a Night Sister’s post once she had taken her finals, and why Sister Brook, with a face like hers, hadn’t gone out and got herself a millionaire was beyond her understanding.

      She crept to the door, leaving the subject of her thoughts to hang her cape on the chair and lay the pile of papers she had brought with her on the desk—the bed state, the off-duty rota, the bare bones of the report she would have to hand over to the Night Superintendent in the morning—she looked at them longingly, for it would be nice to get the tiresome things done before she left the ward, then she might have time to snatch a cup of tea and a sandwich. But first she must do a round. She went, soft-footed, past the first three beds, their occupants, recovering from their several ailments, snoring in the most satisfactory manner, but the occupant of the fourth bed was awake. Mrs Tripp was elderly and extremely tiresome at times, but the nursing staff bore with her because, having bullied the doctor into telling her just what was wrong with her, she was fighting the inevitable with so much gusto that Sir John South, the consultant in charge of her case, confided to his registrar that he wouldn’t be at all surprised if she didn’t outlive the lot of them out of sheer determination. Nonsense, of course; Mrs Tripp would never go home again to her ugly little red brick house in a back street near the hospital—she knew it and so did everyone else. The nursing staff indulged her every whim and took no notice when she showed no gratitude, which was why Sister Brook paused now and whispered: ‘Hullo, Mrs Tripp—have you been awake long?’

      ‘All night,’ said Mrs Tripp mendaciously and in far too loud a voice so that Sister Brook was forced to shush her. ‘And now I’m wide awake, ducky, I’ll have a …’

      Sister Brook was already taking off her cuffs, musing as she did so that on the few occasions when she had to relieve a nurse on a ward, she invariably found herself hard at work within a few minutes of taking over. She stole out to the sluice, collecting two more requests on the way, and as all three ladies fancied a hot milk drink to settle them again, it was the best part of twenty minutes before she was able to sit down at the desk.

      She had just begun the bed state, which didn’t tally as usual, when the doors were opened once more, this time by a young man in a white hospital coat, his stethoscope crammed in its pocket. He looked tired and rather untidy, but neither of these things could dim his slightly arrogant good looks. He took a seat on the edge of the desk, right on top of the bed state, and said:

      ‘Hullo, Phoebe—good lord, haven’t you got any nurses about tonight? I’ve been hunting you all over. That coronary, he’s gone up to Intensive Care, so that lightens your burden a bit, doesn’t it?’

      She smiled at him; she was a beautiful girl, and when she smiled she was quite dazzling. Before he had met her, he had always scoffed at descriptions of girls with sapphires in their eyes and corn-coloured hair, but he had been forced to admit that he was wrong, because Phoebe had both, with the added bonus of a small straight nose and a mouth which curved sweetly, and although she wasn’t above middle height, her figure was good if a little on the plump side. She was, he had to own, quite perfect; the one small fact that she was twenty-seven, three years older than himself, he did his best to ignore; he would have preferred it otherwise, but one couldn’t have everything … As soon as he had taken a couple more exams he would ask her to marry him. He hadn’t intended to marry before he was thirty at least, with a fellowship and well up the ladder of success, but if he waited until then she would be thirty herself—a little old, although she would make a splendid wife for an ambitious young doctor, and looking at her now, she didn’t look a day over twenty.