Nurse in White Read online

  “You poor kid!” Ann repeated and stayed to help until Thompson, a white, shaken and vastly ashamed Thompson, returned.

  Ellen couldn’t forget that side of Ann’s nature and chose to ignore the other side.

  So the months passed. Months of hard work and rigid discipline. Months when nothing but Ellen’s loyalty to her pledge kept her from open rebellion. For, being willing and more than ordinarily docile, some of the nurses took advantage and sometimes shifted their responsibility to her slender and already burdened shoulders. Ann called her an easy mark, but Ellen refused to complain. So Ann deepened the enmity of several of her associates because she told them quite frankly what she thought of them and threatened to take it up with Forsyth or even MacGowan.

  And as Ann lost favor with the girls in Anthony Ware, Ellen gained it. She was so willing—so smilingly happy in her work, that it was impossible to be with her and not feel one’s spirits lift and one’s outlook on life brighten. She was perhaps the most popular girl in training, and the prettiest.

  Ellen’s first year was suddenly completed; her second and part of her senior year. She had changed—grown up. She was still somewhat emotional—still felt keenly the dignity of her calling, but she had developed a firmness, only hinted at before, and a rather quick temper that surprised herself and delighted Ann.

  Another September and a new crop of probationers—-a new crop of interns. MacGowan’s reputation took a sudden spurt after that famous operation on Senator McGill who had fallen from his horse and was thought to be fatally injured. Miracle Man he was called, much to his displeasure. Mac claimed no miraculous power. If he was vouchsafed more than average success in his operations, it was due to his steady nerves, clear brain and perfect coordination—together with the help of God. As a Scot and a strict Presbyterian, he was sure of divine aid in his work simply because he never began an operation without beseeching that aid. Ann called him a simple soul with a one-track mind—surgery; but while the chief-of-staff was a successful surgeon, the knife was always to him the last resort—to be used only when other means failed. If he considered an operation necessary, an operation was performed; but if in his opinion surgery was either useless or unnecessary, no power on earth could make him operate. There were doctors who called him pigheaded; specialists who sneered at what they dubbed his “know-it-all” attitude, urging the advancement of science as paramount to the loss of a few years from a life, of even that life itself; patients who begged him to take a chance, willing to trust to his magic fingers; but he would not be swerved from his course.

  Anthony Ware was proud of him. Other and larger hospitals made him flattering offers, all of which were declined with little or no thanks. When his seven years were up he was going back to Edinburgh to remain two, five, perhaps ten years. He had learned much in America and would take that knowledge back to Scotland.

  October—a crisp, frosty October morning with the sun turning the shabby little chapel into a glowing, colorful jewel. Ellen, who was on night duty, felt the quietness and beauty flow over her like a soothing bath. All too soon it was over and she walked along the lower hall to the side entrance on her way to the nurses’ home. Ann Murdock fell into step.

  “What did you think of the pair of them, Ellen?” she asked. “Not bad, eh what? Tall, blond and mischievous looks—somehow familiar. I’ve been puzzling where I’ve seen him. He looks interesting anyway—not the usual pansy type Anthony Ware has been drawing. The redhead isn’t so impossible, either. I quite enjoyed chapel this morning—usually it’s just one long-drawn-out yam. Guess I’ll have to give them the once-over, angel. Want to date ’em with me? Next week we go on days for a change. Seems to me we get more than our share of night work. You may like it, but it cramps my style. What fun can one have in an afternoon? ‘When twilight draws her mystic curtain, revelry begins for certain.’ Tip used to say it and it’s true, I’ve found. My dear stepmama changed one word in it. She insisted it was deviltry that began with nightfall. Well, sometimes the two words are synonymous, but what of it? Will you come, Angel?”

  Ellen felt suddenly deflated. Was that all Ann got out of chapel service? She felt Ann’s eyes on her and refrained from showing her feelings. Anyway, she ought to know Ann—know her proneness to exaggerate and to depict herself in the character of blasé woman of the world.

  “Absolutely not, my child,” she answered loftily. “I’ve all the troubles I can handle right now without adding to them. Go play with your little friends yourself, darling, but count me out.”

  Ann laughed. “I know,” she jeered. “You’re afraid of being found out. Oh, come on, Stiff-in-the-morals, I’ll see you through.”

  “Some other time, Ann,” Ellen put her off. “I think it would have to be something more thrilling than a new intern to make me risk losing my cap. Were they in chapel? I didn’t notice.”

  “You wouldn’t!” Ann exclaimed in disgust. “Why do you still stick to that ‘holy orders’ attitude, Ellen? Our job has to deal with bodies—very human, very earthly bodies, not with people’s souls, if any. I can’t for the life of me get any deep religious fervor from rubbing Old Phlebitis up in Male Medic or in listening to the temperamental outpourings of Old Vitriol down in Hades.”

  Ellen smiled good-naturedly. “You’re funny, Ann. You’re gentle as a mother when you massage that same Old Phlebitis and dutifully attentive to Mrs. Vitriol, as you call her, down in the Women’s Surgical. You can’t fool me anymore, Ann Murdock. It’s only your shell that’s hard. Inside you’re as soft as—as putty. And I’m not sanctimonious, Ann. I may have been once but not anymore, and in spite of anything you may say to the contrary, I still think nursing is the noblest profession in the world, except, perhaps, medicine or surgery, and I’m proud I belong.”

  Ann gave her a quick hug. “You’re a grand kid, Ellen, and I’m just a black ewe, but I love you just the same. S’long, precious—see you at dinner—perhaps.”

  Overnight, it seemed, the personnel of Anthony Ware had changed. Cyrus Dent, fresh from a year in Bellevue, tall, athletic, blond as a young god, swaggered—the term was Ellen’s, who suddenly and for no reason she could explain heartily disliked him—through the corridors, turning the heads of the susceptible younger nurses and raising the temperatures of many a female patient. Just as if Fielding, funny, redheaded Bob Fielding, wasn’t menace enough for one season!

  Ann quickly let it be known that the policy of “hands off’ still prevailed. Bob immediately fell under her spell and ever after remained fraternally loyal to his fellow redhead. Cy wasn’t interested for a time and Ann, who refused to acknowledge defeat where any man was concerned, persisted in her subtle wooing. Wasn’t he an old acquaintance? She remembered him now—back when they were both still half-baked. Bets were laid with the odds on Ann. It wasn’t long until the house knew that she was meeting Cy two blocks around the corner, where his car was parked.

  Dr. Dent’s attitude toward Ellen was one of amused condescension and that young lady found herself trembling with rage at the gleam of mirth in his eyes as he paused to watch her gently bathing the face of some crusty old codger or attempting to soothe an irritable harridan. She tried ignoring his presence but he would somehow manage to get in her way. She became coolly polite and formal only to have him laugh mockingly. She even took a leaf from his own and Ann’s book—tried being flippant and answered his jibes in kind.

  “You’re out of character, Nightingale,” he would chide. “You are much better in the title role.”

  And Ellen, fighting tears of rage and humiliation that she had let him know that he could upset her, would flee before his amused chuckles. Then it was that Ellen wished she were more like other girls—less devoted to a cause, less old-fashioned, naive and sincere. She would beat her hands together in impotent rage. If only she could hurt him in some way! If only she had some weapon that would wipe that hateful smirk from his classic mouth and bow that blond head low! She felt powerless to combat him and despised herself for
her lack of self-control, she who had been so aloof—so impervious to everything male.

  Suddenly, he began appearing around midnight when she was on night duty, with uncanny skill choosing a time when she was alone or managing to find an errand for the girl on duty with her so that the meeting had all the appearance of a rendezvous. She could not make a complaint—it was all so trivial and childish. Perhaps he would grow tired of heckling her and turn to someone else. She had only to keep a stiff upper lip and refuse to let him know he annoyed her. The old formula she had used as a child failed her here. Then, she would say over and over again,

  “They can’t hurt me—no one can hurt me—I refuse to be hurt.” Now it had no potency. Cyrus Dent did hurt her—hurt her pride and her dignity.

  She fancied the other girls eyed her with amusement and no little envy and she felt once or twice that even the house physician looked disapprovingly at her. But what could she do? Ann apparently saw nothing amiss, and went on her way as if young Dent were already her abject slave. Perhaps she only imagined it all, Ellen would tell herself miserably. Perhaps she was exaggerating his attention. In that case, the cure should be certain. She had only to refuse to notice him at all.

  She would feel better after that decision and for a time it would seem to work. She would grin to herself as she saw the young man bite his lip and frown in perplexity when she failed to hear him when he spoke to her. She’d show him! Handsome men had always irked her and she yearned to put Dr. Cyrus Dent in his place—definitely and finally. Let him keep on haunting her locality if he wished and much good would it do him!

  CHAPTER THREE

  The clock on the bank building had just struck twelve strident notes. Midnight, and Anthony Ware Hospital, sprawling on top of Main Street Hill, blinked sleepily. Three hours before it had been wide awake, its five shabby stories ablaze with light, dominating the town that dozed at its feet. In the receiving room opening off the concrete court in the rear, light streamed from the long uncurtained windows. Inside, slim young nurse Gaylord and plump, not so young Dr. Braddock worked over a disreputable man who claimed to have been the victim of a hit-and-run driver. The name and address he gave were unquestionably fictitious. Not for a moment did either member of the staff believe him, but they had grown used to such things and his record was completed as if he were indeed the John Smith he claimed to be. Just another heel getting free treatment. That was the worst of an endowed hospital. Every chiseler in the vicinity felt it his right to get all he could for as little as possible.

  However, John Smith’s injuries were carefully treated and he shrugged into his coat muttering his surly thanks into a week’s growth of beard. He had nearly reached the door before he asked grudgingly, “How much doc?” He turned and his uninjured hand went into the torn pocket of his shabby trousers. He nodded to Ellen. “A neat job, miss. Well, how much?”

  “Why—why—” stammered Braddock surprised. “Can—do you want to pay? You know—”

  “Sure I want to pay,” John Smith growled with wholly unexpected and indignant pride. “I ain’t no charity case. I pays fer what I gets see? How much?”

  “Mmm—mmm shall we say three dollars? That’s about what your family doctor would charge.”

  “Okay.” John Smith peeled three soiled bills from a small roll and handed them to the doctor. “Thanks,” he muttered again surlily, and shuffled out into the night.

  “Well!” Dr. Braddock grinned. “One never can tell an honest man from his exterior, can one?” His blue eyes twinkled. “Let that be a lesson to you, Gaylord.”

  Ellen, who had been cleaning up, suddenly stopped. She began searching along the floor and amid the paraphernalia on the long table. In the next room she could hear Mary Trent moving about replacing the instruments used in the last emergency case—a messy one. She was splashing a good deal of water and humming softly as she swished. Ellen went to the door and asked a question, then returned to continue her search.

  “Lost something?” the doctor asked, busy scrubbing his hands.

  “Only a clinical thermometer and a pair of expensive scissors. Three dollars—umph! He got them cheap.” Her brown eyes met the startled blue ones of the fat little house physician and the two went into a paroxysm of helpless laughter. “And let that be a lesson to you, Dr. Braddock,” Ellen gasped.

  “I thought there was something fishy about that guy—he had all the earmarks of a heel,” the doctor said. “Well, I wasn’t mistaken—that’s something.”

  “Better make sure the three dollar bills aren’t phony, too,” Ellen reminded him skeptically.

  “I’ll soon find out. I owe Mac five bucks—this three’ll pay part of it. Trust a Scotsman to know if they’re counterfeit or not. I wouldn’t have Anthony Ware lose out, Gaylord—not for a moment.”

  Cyrus Dent wasn’t coming tonight, thank goodness! Mary Trent was a long time cleaning up. Ellen wondered if he was deliberately keeping out of the way, but called herself a self-conscious idiot for dreaming such a thing. If the idea she wanted none of him had at last penetrated his thick skull, it was something. Ellen sighed with what she felt sure was relief.

  “Poor Anthony Ware always loses, doctor,” she said, resolutely putting the young intern out of her mind. “It can’t win. And how about the thermometer and scissors?”

  “We-ll, there’s always a certain amount charged to profit and loss each year. In a concern of this kind there’s bound to be.” The little man eyed the pretty nurse with concern. “You’re not really worried about it are you, Gaylord?”

  “Worried?” shrugged Ellen. “Why should I worry? It isn’t my money; but it burns me up to be taken in—that I ever allowed such a stupid thing to happen. How could it have, doctor? How could he have taken them with both of us right here?”

  “What’s up, doc? You look concerned. Don’t tell me that Gaylord’s been saucy to you, too!”

  Oh, that hateful chuckle! Ellen felt the blood rush to her cheeks and she shut her eyes tightly to hide the rage she knew burned in them. Oh, dear! Now she was in for another trying time and it upset her so!

  Dr. Braddock frowned. Sometimes he felt this good-looking youngster was a bit brash. It wasn’t seemly in a young intern and he wondered if Mac had noticed it.

  “Miss Gaylord is never saucy, Dr. Dent,” he said with dignity and stalked from the room.

  “Just like a bantam cock,” grinned Dent, hooking a white-clad knee over a corner of the long table where he could watch the color ebb and flow beneath Ellen’s clear skin. “Jove!” he said to himself, “the girl is lovely!”

  “But he’s such a peach!” Ellen defended him loyally. “We’re all crazy about him.”

  Cy slid along the table and laid his hand over hers. “Why waste your affection on old Braddock—a fat little benedict, Gaylord?” he whispered. “Don’t—” he began softly, then drew back hastily as the door opened.

  “Hmm, er, your lunch, Gaylord.” Marcella Harris set down her tray with a thump and marched from the room—head high and eyes straight ahead.

  “O—oh!” whispered Ellen in a stricken voice. “How could you!”

  “O—oh!” the young intern mimicked and laughed. “Surely you don’t mind a good, harmless little soul like Harris seeing me, er, well, sort of making friendly advances toward you, do you?” he chided. “Now if it were Agatha Forsyth, my child, or even mild Hattie Williams—now there’s a gal! Knows her place—the cozy nook off Hades. Does she ever go the rounds? I hope not, but in either case it would be something else again, or if, perhaps, I should happen to be caught doing what I really want to do. But what possible objection can anyone have to our spending a minute or two in each other’s company? I ask you. Don’t be so straitlaced, Nightingale. We’re only young once and—”

  Ellen’s heart hammered in her breast and she knew from Cy’s twinkling eyes that he knew it. She drew away and clasped her hands tightly behind her back to still their trembling. How she hated this smiling, assured young doctor!

/>   “I happen to be on duty, Dr. Dent,” she managed, coldly, “and I certainly do not like—”

  “So am I on duty but I do like,” the young man laughed. “Be your age and generation, gal! Stolen fruit is always sweetest—I like it best.”

  “Well,” said Ellen sturdily, “I don’t. And I don’t like feeling guilty.”

  Cyrus Dent chuckled again and Ellen bit her lip in annoyance at the slip.

  “But why should you feel guilty, darling?” the young man drawled in that hateful mocking voice—and Ellen suddenly saw red.

  “Because you have no business here, and,” she went on blindly, “disliking you as I do, I have no wish to have your presence misunderstood. Please go.”

  “Ah—ah—be careful, Nightingale,” he teased, quite unoffended. Then insinuatingly. “Sure you don’t like me—mm? Even a little bit, darling? Not even a little smitch?”

  Ellen’s brown eyes blazed into his blue ones for a moment and she choked—“I—I hate you!”

  But Dr. Dent cried involuntarily, “Jove, you’re lovely, Nightingale!”

  A car shrieked to a stop just outside and Ellen, thankful for the interruption, flew to the door. Dr. Dent followed. Braddock, who appeared almost at once, betrayed no knowledge of the rendezvous and although he disliked Dent’s methods and his exposing Ellen to a possible reprimand, he would never report what he knew of the affair. He liked Ellen Gaylord and didn’t want to see her hurt, and if he knew anything about men, he feared that Cy Dent was a philanderer.

  The man they brought in was badly battered, a leg broken in two places and a deep laceration over one eye. Ellen was surprised at the change in young Dent—at the speed and efficiency with which he worked—almost like Dr. MacGowan, she thought. But of course this was nothing—simple compared with things the surgeon did. The man was taken to the service elevator and shot up to a private room on the third floor. Ellen, Mary and the two doctors scrubbed themselves amicably and for once Cyrus Dent forbore his teasing manner. Dr. Dent departed on his midnight round of special cases and Dr. Braddock went into his own small laboratory off Emergency. Ellen and Mary Trent sat down to cold coffee and sandwiches. Mary ate with her eyes on her textbook, Ellen drank cold coffee and let her mind wander.