Nurse in White Read online

  NURSE IN WHITE

  Lucy Agnes Hancock

  There was no place in her life for men.

  At least, Ellen Gaylord was quite sure, not for a long, long time. She was beginning her nursing career—the fulfillment of a lifelong ambition—and nothing and no one was going to spoil it, especially handsome young interns.

  Yet in her final year Dr. Cyrus Dent was still pursuing her and Ellen was as determinedly ignoring him. She knew that if she once let down her defenses now, she could be badly hurt.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Ellen Gaylord, tenderly massaging her aching feet, frowned inhospitably as a fellow probationer hobbled into the room they temporarily shared. There were purple smudges beneath Ellen’s brown eyes and her face looked white and tired. Solitude was what she longed for. Privacy in which to weep, wail, wallow in misery, free from sympathetic or amused glances.

  “What a life—what a life!” Ann Murdock groaned loudly as she flung herself down on her cot. “If I had known—if I had but known!” She sat up abruptly at a sudden thought. “Say, Gaylord, if you’ll anoint my feet, I’ll anoint yours.”

  “Anoint? How do you mean, anoint?”

  “Oil ’em, stupid. Oil’s the best thing there is for tired feet. I ought to know—my dad’s a mailman.”

  “No, thanks,” Ellen murmured. “All my feet need is rest and that’s what they’re going to get for the next ten hours. Ouch!”

  Her eyes smarted with sudden, childish tears and she drew her feet up quickly. The rug was prickly and, as Ann was continually pointing out, probably crawling with germs; but of course that was nonsense in a hospital as scrupulously clean as Anthony Ware!

  Now Ann laughed, but quite without mirth. “Think you’ll be able to stick it, babe?” she asked, curiously.

  Ellen blinked rapidly. She knew she was a big baby, but just now she was terribly homesick. Michigan was a long way off. However, she had no intention of letting the other girl know how low she felt and her reply was short.

  “Of course.”

  “No ‘of course’ about it.” Ann spoke as one who knew a great deal about the subject. That was one of the many annoying things about Ann Murdock. “I bet you anew dime that a quarter of the lass drop out when their three months are up, if Forsyth doesn’t beat ’em to it and kick ’em out before. This hospital is noted for its tough training. I didn’t know it when I entered, but—Jerusalem the Golden—how I know it now! Tell me, sweetheart, just why for Pete’s sake you ever decided to become a nurse anyway. With your looks, plus that appealing artlessness, you ought to have been in the movies or married ages ago. I bet you simply mowed them down.”

  “Why did you?” Ellen countered ignoring the last.

  “I asked first; but I don’t mind telling you it was needs must in my case. You see, I happen to have two expensive half-brothers (nasty little brats!); a stepmother who thinks I’m a hussy, which fact I’m not disputing; no aptitude for anything in particular; and am strong as a horse. I had the role of nurse in a play the dramatic guild put on last summer and I simply wowed them. The uniform was the cutest thing—only my innate modesty prevents my stating how vastly becoming it was to my exotic style. Suffice to say—I ran away with the entire show. Oh, that smart white dress and chic little cap! But ugh!” She wrinkled her nose in distaste as she stared down at her blue and white gingham, black cotton stockings and serviceable, low-heeled black oxfords. “Well, to skip the harrowing details, stepmama sent to Anthony Ware for an application blank.” Ann sighed gustily. Her voice became funeral. “Under pressure—here I am. Now, it’s your turn, Gaylord. Tell all.”

  Ann lay sprawled on her narrow cot, her red hair spread fanwise over her flat pillow and her slender legs limp with fatigue. Ellen, still tenderly nursing her swollen, aching feet, eyed the other girl doubtfully. Better not tell her how all her life she had dreamed and hoped and planned on becoming a nurse. How one by one she had overcome the objections of her family, who still held to the old belief that a girl had but one true mission in life—that of wife and mother. How at last with the aid of Aunt Bess, herself a trained nurse and the widow of Dr. John, Ellen’s favorite relative, she had come east for training in Anthony Ware. Better not tell her of the feeling of exaltation she had experienced as she donned her ugly striped uniform for the first time and went down to breakfast with the rest of the staff. Better not tell her that a framed copy of the Florence Nightingale Pledge had hung in her room at home ever since she was ten; that it had been a part of her prayers each night, and now reposed, well hidden, in her trunk. No, Ann Murdock wouldn’t understand what being privileged to wear the badge of service, to belong to that glorious, heroic army known as “trained nurses,” meant to her. Wouldn’t understand that Ellen felt her call to the Work (with a capital W) as direct and as sacred as did any old time preacher of the gospel.

  So she said slowly and simply. “You see, I always wanted to be a doctor, but if not, a nurse anyway. My family tried to discourage me, but—well—here I am!”

  “Thrilling!” mocked Ann and sent a shoe to one corner of the narrow room. “Wouldn’t that make a swell movie, though? Proby realizes a lifelong ambition! Gets blisters on her heels and fallen arches! I perceive, Gaylord, my pet, you’re intensely emotional. Much too emotional. I’d say, to make a really good nurse; but I’ll bet my best nightie you’ll never acknowledge you’re licked. Though they slay you, yet will you be true to your pledge. It’s sure a shame to spoil a swell kid like you, Gay. You know, you’ve got to be hard-boiled as a longshoreman to stand a nurse’s life. Three years from now—if we’re still alive and on speaking terms, I’ll be interested to comment on the transformation, or do we call it metabolism—being now among the elect?” Her other shoe followed its mate and she wriggled her toes experimentally.

  Ellen watched the girl opposite with mixed feelings. She doubted if Ann was as hard as she tried to appear; but just the same, she was a little sorry that they had been assigned to the same room even for a short time. Ann ridiculed everything. Nothing was sacred and she professed to have little if any respect for anyone, be they doctors, supervisors, nurses or patients. She was quick and clever and did her full share of the hard and disagreeable tasks, but she did everything with the air of one making a concession to temporary powers-that-be, not as Ellen felt it should be done—happily, even devoutly, as one privileged to perform a beautiful and sacred duty.

  “I doubt if I shall change much,” she said confidently. “Uncle John was a doctor. He took his profession seriously and was one of the kindest, gentlest, tenderest men I ever knew.”

  “Was? Then he’s dead? They always die,” Ann stated positively. “It doesn’t pay, my child. Sick people are vampires—they’ll sap your strength—suck your lifeblood if you let them. I bet your model uncle died young. Didn’t he? How old was he?”

  “Thirty-seven,” Ellen answered.

  Ann said triumphantly, “There! What did I tell you?”

  “He had a streptococcus,” Ellen explained.

  But Ann wasn’t convinced. “And was too gentle—too tender to throw it out of a system already weakened, no doubt, from giving of his strength and vitality to a whole flock of other parasites—human ones. I tell—”

  “Nonsense!” Ellen interrupted sharply. “It just so happened that he was attending a reunion of his fraternity when he was stricken. The strep germ works fast—he hadn’t a chance.” She eyed her roommate for a moment then said derisively, “I hope if I happen to get sick while I’m here, they won’t assign you to the job of nursing me. I’m afraid you’d spoil me with too much coddling.”

  Ann laughed. “Don’t get me wrong, darling. I’m really a swell nurse—theoretically.”

  “You’re a swell fake, Ann Murdo
ck!” Ellen grinned at the other girl—suddenly understanding. “I suspect you enjoy listening to your own particular brand of hard-boiled philosophy, or whatever you call it. I bet you’re positively maudlin on occasion—given the time, the place and the—er—”

  “Yeah?” jeered Ann, peeling off the offending stockings and tossing them after her shoes. “Especially when Angus rolls his r’s and his eyes—don’t you love his eyes, Gaylord?”

  “Love them?” laughed Ellen. “Why, I’ve never even seen them. He scares the breath out of me when he even glances in my direction. I—I think he’s positively awful—I mean awe-inspiring!”

  “Pooh!” Ann scoffed. “Angus is just a man like other men, only perhaps a trifle more so. I never yet saw the man I’d stand in awe of. And by the way, would you be interested in a scrap of personal gossip, angel? Believe it or not, my dear, I had a date with Bill Burgess last night.”

  “Burgess? You mean Dr. Burgess?”

  “Absolutely. With the noble intern!”

  “But Ann—it’s against the rules—”

  Ann laughed gleefully and kicked up her heels. “Haven’t you ever heard that rules were made just to be broken, darling? But as it happened, the party wasn’t worth the risk in this instance. We went over to Corinth. A bunch of medical students crashed the party and apparently a good time was had by all but Burgess. One or two of the medicos weren’t half-bad. There was one in particular they called Cy—tall and blond and terribly good-looking and was he bored with the dumb bunny with him! I danced with him just once—he’s a swell dancer—and then the noble Burgess pops up and says he’s got to get back—it’s getting late. Blondie kidded him about being scared of Mac and Burgess had the nerve to blame it on me—said it was on my account. Imagine! As if I cared a hoot. As well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. The deed was done, why worry? But Burgess had to drag me away. What a pansy the great Burgess turned out to be! Take a tip from one who knows, babe, pass up the interns—they’re total losses every time.”

  “I don’t happen to be interested in men,” Ellen rejoined, shortly.

  “No-o? Then what kick do you expect to get out of this slavery, infant? Oh, pardon me, my error!” at the look of distaste in Ellen’s face. “You’re pledged to a life of toil and self-sacrifice. Pledged to emulate the noble life of our patron saint. We-ll—” she yawned widely, turned on her stomach and reached under her cot for mules “—more power to you, Gaylord if—ugh—it’s true, which I reserve the right as an American citizen, free and twenty-two—to doubt.” She strolled over to the door, then turned a face of mock tragedy. “If I do not return in one hour, please call Angus. I shall have gone to sleep in my bath and drowned, and I’m sure no one else could bring me back—that is, to a continuation of life in this bastille—but the strong, silent, masterful old Scotty—Lord love him! Don’t mourn my passing too deeply, sweetheart—it is for the best, and please omit flowers. S’long!”

  Ellen was laughing weakly when the door finally clicked shut. Ann was funny. She yawned and stretched her arms above her head. Anthony Ware wasn’t quite as bad as that. Surprisingly, her feet felt better and her nostalgia less poignant. She must write an amusing and interesting letter to her mother tonight. Must make her see only the beauty and happiness, if any, here at the hospital. Her mother must never guess that at autopsies her girl’s legs still felt like boiled macaroni, that her throat often filled with tears at all the pain and suffering. She must be kept from suspecting that for more nights than she dared count, her youngest had cried herself to sleep from aching back, burning feet and missing them all at home.

  Instead, she would tell her of this morning’s chapel. Miss Forsyth, the soul of punctuality, was a little late but entered unhurriedly, followed by Dr. MacGowan and Dr. Braddock, the house physician. She would try to give her the picture of the great stained-glass window in the east wall. Christ healing the sick. “Freely ye have received—freely give.” Make her feel the stillness that hung like a benediction over the shabby room.

  “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.”

  The slow, precise voice of Miss Forsyth led in the reading of Psalm 121. Clear and strong came the voices of the staff in response:

  “My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.”

  “He that keepeth thee will not slumber.”

  These short chapel services after breakfast each morning were such a help—such perfect preparation for the day’s work or for sleep after a night of labor. This morning she had glanced shyly around the rather bare room—her heart swelling with devotion. This was one of the pictures that would remain indelibly stamped on her memory. The erect, rather handsome, rather austere superintendent in fresh, spotless white, flanked on either side by chief surgeon and house physician, facing the staff—rows of uniformed nurses, interns, orderlies, dietitian, cook and maids—a goodly company.

  How glad she was that despite bitter opposition, this old custom had been retained at Anthony Ware! She had heard that many of the modern hospitals had long since discarded morning chapel as old-fashioned—obsolete. She had studied the faces of her associates, many of them, like herself, tired to the point of exhaustion, but relaxing visibly as the reading went on to Psalm 23:

  “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”

  “... Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”

  A nurse so often was called to stand by while someone went down into that valley—stand by, sometimes, to summon them back to loved ones loath to have them go. “I will fear no evil—’ ” She had murmured those words in her heart as she stood beside the sick. Not aloud, for Anthony Ware was nonsectarian and all classes, all creeds and those without creeds were treated there, and treated with the same care and devotion.

  It seemed to her that every heart lifted as the staff took up the response:

  “For thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me—”

  They had filed from the room, each to his own appointed task, and she had gone down the hall to the elevator that was to take her to Male Medical, rested and eager for the day’s work. All the misery and sorrow that had weighed so heavily on her heart such a short time ago, had fled.

  Her mother would be interested to know that Miss Forsyth had smiled at her and asked her how things were going, when they met in the corridor one morning. That Dr. Angus MacGowan was tall and lank and ugly, a woman hater and a worker of miracles. That the two interns were smart-alecky, just as she had known they would be. That Ann Murdock was always amusing but inclined to be fresh and more than a little meddlesome, although Ellen liked her a lot. That the nurses were all grand but that Marcella Harris, a graduate nurse who had been at Anthony Ware for years, had been particularly sweet to her.

  Oh, there were heaps of interesting and pleasant things to write home about.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Ann Murdock had been right in her prediction, for fully one-third of the September class of probationers failed to meet the hospital’s strict requirements and departed forthwith. Ellen and Ann Murdock stayed on—both high in their class.

  The gingham uniforms and black shoes and stockings, bête noire of all probationers, were thankfully discarded in favor of white. On that first day, Ann did a gay little fandango before Ellen’s mirror and cocked a roguish, mocking eye at Ellen whose glowing face proclaimed to all the world; “Now I am truly a nurse—a student to be sure, but still a nurse!”

  As a queen wears her crown, sign of royalty, so Ellen donned the bit of snowy organdy—symbol of, to her, a far nobler calling, and though Ann jeered at Ellen’s pride in her pert little cap, Ellen saw that she held her red head a little higher because of it.

  The two no longer roomed together but across the hall from each other and Ann continued on her arrogant, self-willed way, making few friends among her associates because of her highhanded, hard-boiled manner, yet standing well in her classes and with the faculty in general
.

  Each new intern became her immediate prey, for a brief space, to be promptly dropped after a stolen date or two. The girls in the house soon ceased to remonstrate and to warn. Ann apparently possessed a charmed life. She was never found out and, oddly enough, the men whom she disparagingly dubbed “pansies” were far more loyal to her than she was to them.

  No one could understand Ellen’s friendship for her. The two were so dissimilar. And yet as the months passed there was formed a strong and very real bond of deep affection between them. Sometimes to be sure, Ann’s attitude of guardian—of self-appointed mentor, irked; but for the most part Ellen submitted to the older girl’s rather dictatorial manner with amused tolerance. Ann meant well. Ann was city born and bred and had all the urbanite’s mistaken ideas of a country girl’s inability to take care of herself. And it was Ann who stood close to Ellen during that first day in the operating room when, as the gleaming knife in the hands of the senior surgeon’s magic fingers cut cleanly through the pink flesh of a small boy, Ellen saw Dr. MacGowan rise and fall in the most fantastic manner and felt wave after wave of deathly nausea assail her. It was Ann who pinched her arm and kept her upright throughout the ordeal.

  It was Ann who broke rules to come to her on that first Christmas Eve when small Eloise Baker slipped out of her scarred and tortured body and Thompson, the nurse in charge, became hysterical and fled. Thompson had grown to love that tiny, pain-racked baby and couldn’t watch her die. It was Ellen’s first experience with death and somehow, Ann, up in Male Surgical had heard of the Thompson debacle and thought of Ellen—alone. She found her quietly bathing the little body while tears streamed down her face.

  “You poor kid!” Ann whispered huskily.

  “I—I’m not crying because I was left here alone, Ann,” Ellen told her, “or because I’m afraid. I’m crying because I’m glad—glad that now Eloise won’t have to suffer anymore. Think of it, Ann—it’s Christmas Eve and she’s—she’s got a brand-new body!”