Cobweb Morning. Betty Neels
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could stand up for herself. Her mother, watching her lovely little daughter climbing trees, swimming like a fish and giving as good as she got when it came to holding her own against her brothers, had at times worried that she might grow up a tomboy, but Alexandra hadn’t; she had become a charming girl with nice manners, a willingness to help at church bazaars and other rural events, a pleasant way with children, and an endless patience with the elderly and their foibles. The perfect wife, Mrs Dobbs had told herself, well satisfied, and had spent the next eight or nine years wondering why Alexandra didn’t get married. Instead the dear girl had carved a career for herself in the nursing profession and had shown no signs of wanting to marry at all, although just lately Mrs Dobbs had been more hopeful; Alexandra had mentioned, more and more frequently, Anthony Ferris. Mrs Dobbs, an incurable romantic, allowed herself to plan a wedding outfit, but took great care to keep her hopes to herself.
The short afternoon slid into dusk and then dark. Sister Baxter went to her tea, taking the meek little Lucy Pim with her, and Alexandra, due off duty when they returned, set about making a final check before she left. She still had to see the Senior Nursing Officer, but that wouldn’t take long—she would pack that evening, she told herself contentedly, and catch an early morning train back to London.
The other two had returned, and she was on the point of leaving them when there was the sound of a car, driven hard and braking to a halt outside the hospital entrance. It was followed, after the shortest possible interval, by the sound of footsteps coming down the corridor towards them, and an imperative voice issuing instructions. Alexandra, hearing it, felt a pang of sympathy for the elderly porter on duty—he liked to do things in his own time and it was obvious that just for once, he wasn’t being given that chance.
The owner of the voice appeared seconds later, an immensely tall man and powerfully built, making light of the burden he was carrying—an unconscious girl. He paused momentarily as he entered and asked without preamble: ‘Who’s in charge here?’
Sister Baxter, bristling with authority, answered him. ‘I am, but this isn’t the Casualty Department; there isn’t one at this hospital, you must go to…’
She wasn’t given the chance to finish; the man had laid the girl down gently on a couch and was bending over her. ‘I know, I know,’ he said impatiently, ‘but this girl’s been in a car crash and she needs to go on to a ventilator at once. I’ve no intention of travelling another five or six miles to have the Casualty Officer tell me that she will have to be brought back here for treatment. Kindly summon the officer on duty and give me a hand.’ He added as an afterthought: ‘I’m a doctor.’
He lifted his head and looked at Sister Baxter with scarcely concealed impatience, his blue eyes passing from her to Sister Pim and thence to Alexandra. He was a handsome man, in his thirties, with a straight nose and a mobile mouth. His hair, now grizzled, must have been very fair when he was younger. Alexandra noted these things as she stepped forward; it wasn’t her department and she wasn’t in charge, but Sister Baxter was being tiresome and little Lucy Pim was, for the moment, unable to cope. She said calmly: ‘Would you prefer the Cape? The Bird’s is here if it’s only for a short time—is she very bad?’ She turned her head and spoke to Lucy, ignoring Sister Baxter’s outraged face. ‘Will you get Mr Collins? He’s on duty, I believe.’
She was competent at her work; she and the strange doctor had the Cape ventilator going by the time Mr Collins and Sister Pim arrived, and within a few minutes, after they had prepared the girl for examination, the two men set to work. Alexandra had been surprised that Mr Collins had raised no objection to the strange doctor’s obvious assumption that he should take charge of the case, it was really quite unethical, but he had murmured something with a good deal of respect when the stranger had introduced himself, so briefly and softly that she, to her annoyance, had been unable to hear a word of it. But there was no time to speculate about anyone else but the patient for the moment, for she was in a bad way.
She was young—eighteen or nineteen, perhaps, and very pretty, although the prettiness was marred now by her ashen face and blood-matted hair. A fractured base of skull, probably, and they would have to work hard to pull her round, although the ventilator was proving its worth already, virtually breathing for her until such time as she would—it was to be hoped—take over for herself once more.
The two men muttered together, making their slow, careful examination, and Alexandra, with a moment to spare, took a look around her. Sister Baxter was glowering from behind one of the emergency trolleys, later on, when everything had settled down once more there would probably be a dust-up. Alexandra tried a smile and got a lowering look in return. Lucy Pim, over the first shock of finding herself actually working the various apparatus Alexandra had been so painstakingly teaching her for the last day or so, was proving herself very useful; she would be all right, after all.
Alexandra heaved a sigh of relief and then swallowed it as her eye lighted on the seventh person in the department; a thin, angular lady, no longer young, with a sharp, pointed nose and iron grey hair drawn back into a small bun under what Alexandra could only describe to herself as a lady’s hat. Its wearer, moreover, was clad in a sensible tweed suit, and her feet were shod with equally sensible lace-up shoes. A hint of pearls at the lady’s throat and the gloves and handbag, leather but a little shabby, gave her a possible clue. Someone’s aunt; the very counterpart of aunts of her own, and probably thousands more. The girl’s? She would have to be asked presently, but in the meantime she was behaving with commendable calm and not getting in the way even though she shouldn’t be there in the first place. She caught her eye and they exchanged smiles as she handed the strange doctor an X-ray form just a second before he could open his mouth to ask for one.
Sister Pim had sped away with it, with instructions to bring back the porters with her when he turned his eyes, very cool, on Alexandra. ‘And what are you doing here?’ he wanted to know. ‘Isn’t that a St Job’s cap—’
She eyed him with a similar coolness, not liking his tone. ‘I’m here to get this unit started,’ she told him briefly. He wasn’t English; he spoke it perfectly, but there was something in his deep voice…she would find out later, meanwhile: ‘The lady by the door,’ she prompted him. ‘Is she the mother? If so, she shouldn’t be here—if you would speak to her, I’ll take her along to the waiting room.’
His smile was so unexpected that she caught her breath. ‘My aunt,’ he said, ‘Miss Euphemia Thrums, a formidable lady and of great help to me when this accident occurred. She insisted upon coming with me and I didn’t care to leave her alone.’ His voice was blandly authoritative.
‘Oh,’ said Alexandra, rather at a loss, and then: ‘Were there any relations or friends…the police…?’
‘Are already dealing with it,’ he told her smoothly. ‘The girl was driving herself—presumably there would be papers in her handbag or the car.’
It was time for Alexandra to take her observations again; she bent to her task and was just finished when the porters arrived with the portable X-ray machine, which left her with nothing much to do for a few minutes; Sister Pim was managing very nicely, so Alexandra drifted quietly back to where Sister Baxter was still standing and encountered a look from that lady which would have reduced anyone of a less sturdy nature than hers to pulp.
‘This is highly irregular,’ began Sister Baxter. ‘If anything is said, I shall hold you personally responsible.’ She nodded towards the lady by the door. ‘And who is she, I should like to know, and this man, ordering us about…’
‘He’s a doctor,’ Alexandra pointed out, ‘they do order people about when it’s necessary, you know. After all, they’re the ones who know.’
‘Yes, but who is he?’
Alexandra studied the man. He had an air of authority, but his clothes, though well cut, were a little shabby; there was nothing about him to denote the successful physician or famous surgeon. Her speculations were interrupted by the entry of the hospital’s senior anaesthetist, Doctor White, who added to the mystery by greeting the stranger as an old friend and shaking hands. What was more, he crossed the room to shake hands with Miss Thrums too, although he didn’t