A Surgical Affair (16 page)

“Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

And never brought to mind?”

“A Happy New Year!” they were all saying. Tony Spring was kissing her on the cheek, Mike Simons thrust a drink into her hand.

“A chance in 100,” Mr. Cole had said.

Laughing, joking, singing. Everyone was happy.

It was going to be a
Happy
New Year, they said.

The next morning, Diana was examining a patient admitted to her ward with severe anemia. She had stepped back from the bed to pick up some notes from the table, when she was suddenly overcome by dizziness.

She felt terribly hot. Distant, unintelligible voices were talking to her. Yellow spots were circling around and around. Diana knew she would faint if she didn’t sit down.

Then she felt a hand under her elbow, an arm around her waist, leading her into the office, helping her into a chair. And suddenly, everything was back to normal; she could hear properly, see everybody.

Diana sighed wearily. “How stupid of me! I’m just tired, I suppose. I was called to the ward twice during the night, so I didn’t have much sleep.”

“And the round with Dr. Barker lasted much longer than usual,”
added the nurse, who was handing her a glass of water. “Here, drink this and you’ll feel better.”

“A good thing Dr. Barker wasn’t there to see me faint.” Diana said ruefully.

“What a way to start the New Year!” she thought, sipping the cool water. “A year of disturbed nights, at the beck and call of my buzzer all day, and Sister’s death—they’ve all caught up on me. I’m weakening.”

Diana knew that unless she was fit, she was no use to her patients or herself. Memories of her illness flooded back—the hot, sleepless nights; constant pain in the chest and coughing; weeks of convalescence at home in Wales to regain the strength to start working. She could not go through all that again. It had been a nightmare.

“I must think about leaving here,” Diana decided. “I’ve been so busy, I’d almost forgotten that I can be ill, the same as anybody else. I always tell the patients to take things easy. Well, that’s what I must do myself. This has been a warning, and the next time it might be too late.”

She stood up. “I’m all right now, Nurse, thank you. It won’t happen again.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“I
n
ever knew Nan to complain about her own misfortunes, she always seemed to be so busy worrying about other people’s.”

Miss Harvey began her tribute to her friend with these words, at the memorial service held in the hospital chapel.

This was a favorite place of Diana’s. She loved its simple oaken pews, the beautiful carved altar, the figure of St. Francis in the stained glass window. She would often go there to find peace and quiet at the end of a busy day.

But now the chapel was full. Patients and staff had come from all over the hospital to remember Sister Baker—everybody from Dan, the chief porter, to Sister Burns, from Men’s Medical; they had all known her kindness, good humor, devotion to her work.

As Mr. Cole read the lesson, “
O
Lord, We beseech thee to comfort those that mourn,” Diana remembered him saying to her, “you must use all your skill, every talent and ounce of energy in your body.” Well, he had done that, he must not blame himself. This operation had failed, but others like it were to follow and they would succeed. This was only the beginning.

The Chairman of the Governors paid tribute to Sister’s work at the hospital. Then he announced that the new private patients’ surgical ward, which she would have been in charge of was to be
named Baker Ward. Diana knew how thrilled Sister would have been to receive this tremendous honor.

The organist was playing “Jesu, joy of man’s desiring,” a favorite tune of Sister’s, as they all filed quietly out of the chapel. As Diana walked by the masses of flowers on the steps leading to the altar, the label attached to a vase of yellow tulips attracted her attention. The writing on it seemed familiar, so she stooped down to read it.

“To Sister Baker, a very dear friend and colleague. Mark Royston.”

Mr. Cole must have written to Mark about Sister’s death, as he said he would. And Diana felt that, in some strange way, the three of them had come together again, that “even in death we are not divided.”

The following evening, as quietly and unobtrusively as she arrived, Diana left Mansion House Hospital.

She took a last look around her sitting room, stripped of her belongings. It would now belong to somebody else, who would answer the telephone and walk her wards. She had a final meal in the diningroom where she had first met Mark. Then she returned her white coats to the Domestic Superintendent and her automatic buzzer to the switchboard girl.

After saying hurried goodbyes, Diana walked out into the dark forecourt, the same forecourt she had crossed a year before with such excitement, such high hopes. What a long way she had come since then. But now she was sadder, older.

She turned around at the gate. The light was shining from the windows of the operating theater, high up on the top floor. Diana wondered what sort of case they were doing, and if she would ever work there again.

But she knew there was no point in trying to recapture the past. Sister Baker was dead and Mark had left. Mansion House Hospital wouldn’t be the same for her again if she came back, although a part of her heart would always belong there.

She would have to start afresh now, find a job; forget about yesterday, think of tomorrow. And somewhere, Richard was waiting for
her
...

But first she must have a holiday.

CHAPTER TWENTY

“
Staying Mayflower hotel Brighton one week
STOP WILL LET YOU KNOW MY PLANS STOP DIANA.” She sent her parents this telegram from Victoria Station and arrived in Brighton an hour later. She needed the fresh air, the feel of the wind on her cheeks. The seaside always exhilarated her.
Here she could rest and decide about her future, alone and undisturbed.

The small, comfortable hotel was high on the cliffs outside the town, overlooking the gray, forbidding Channel. Each morning Diana went across the downs, walking briskly until she was tired and hungry for lunch. She read or slept in the afternoon, and then took another walk; this time along the undercliff path or the beach to Rottingdean. The evening was usually spent playing bridge with guests at the hotel, and by ten-thirty she was in bed.

After a few days, the weariness had left her body. “Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care,” had done its work. She was ready to face her problems, to start looking for a job.

It was impossible not to think about Mark; Diana was so used to being with him. She found it hard to laugh or to cry, and there was a dull ache in her heart. A loneliness ... only time could take away had engulfed her.

A gale was blowing as Diana strode along the beach one day after tea, dressed in her slacks and a thick sweater. The seagulls circled around the cliffs crying for their food; the clouds overhead were gray and menacing.

Diana decided to walk to the next breakwater and then turn back, because it looked as if it would start to rain pretty soon. She thought she heard somebody shouting, but it must have been the seagulls.

There it was again. She stopped and turned around. In the distance a man was running toward her, hands in the pockets of his coat, head bent down against the wind. There was nobody else in sight.

Diana stood still, watching the running figure. As he came closer she thought she recognized him, but she waited and watched, afraid she might be mistaken, not daring to hope. Then through the wind, which was beating mercilessly around her came a faint cry, “Diana!” He had raised his arm and was waving.

She knew who it was, but she did not move. She waited for him to reach her. Then Mark was standing in front of her, so near that she could have put out a hand and touched his coat. He was smiling at her, his short hair was being tossed by the wind like a field of corn, his brown eyes were looking into her own, and she couldn’t find anything to say.

“I phoned the hospital when I arrived back from Austria,” he shouted above the wind. “They gave me your parents’ telephone number, and your mother told me you were here.”

She laughed excitedly. “On this beach?”

“I spotted you from the hotel. Nobody else is out in this storm.” Diana suddenly felt alive and warm again; the cold sadness that had filled her body for the last few days had gone.

Mark came closer. “I couldn’t stand being away from you, Diana, not for a minute longer. I tried hard, but it was no good. I wanted you with me all the time. I couldn’t sleep for thinking about you, and I usually sleep like a log.”

She did not answer, she just wanted him to go on talking. “Diana, I love you. Will you marry me, come home with me? I’ve been a fool. I was afraid of marriage, afraid that it wouldn’t work out and you’d be hurt.”

There were tears of happiness in her eyes, as she cried, “I love you, Mark, you know that.”

He sighed with relief, his tanned face relaxed and happy. “I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d changed your mind about me.”

“I’ll never do that. I know we’re right for each other.”

Mark gripped her arms, as if he was afraid to let her go again. “We’ll settle down, no more roaming around for me. Where shall we live?”

“I’m happy anywhere, if the sun’s shining!”

He grinned. “That’ll be easy to fix.
”

“And we’ll have children.”

“Of course! Six! We’ll make them all surgeons!”

They were laughing, and she was in his arms and he was kissing her as the raindrops began falling on the beach.

“I’ve been reading quite a lot about Australia, since we met,”
Diana told him excitedly, as they walked quickly back to the hotel, hand in hand, the wind pushing them along.

“What sort of things? Koala bears and kangaroos?”

“More than that. About the scenery, the way the people spend their time, life in the different towns. I know about Wagga-Wagga and Alice Springs and Broken Hill. Wonderful names for places, aren’t they?”

Mark laughed. “What about Toowoomba, Tibooburra and Torrawangee!”

She looked at him thoughtfully, wondering if he was joking. “Do they exist?” she asked.

“Of course! See, you’ve got a lot to learn yet.”

Then Mark stopped suddenly and drew her tenderly toward him, and Diana smiled, as she thought how unexpectedly her walk on the beach that day had ended.

“Mark, I want to do something really well in life. I might make a fairly good surgeon, but I know one thing. I want to be your wife more than anything else; I want to do that well.”

They had changed into dry clothes and enjoyed a delicious dinner. Now they were sitting holding hands on the sofa by the log fire in the hotel lounge. Mark was looking more contented and happy than he had been for months. He gripped her hand. “I can’t believe that somebody like you, Diana, beautiful and kind, and yet such fun to be with, will now be a part of my life, that there will be no more loneliness.”

Then he told her about Denise.

“I heard from Alec Neal when I was in Austria. He’s got himself engaged.”

“I’m glad. Although I’ve never met him, you’ve told me all about him.”

Mark was grinning. “You’ll meet him at his wedding. He’s asked me to be best man. But there’s more to the story.”

Diana looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to go on. “The bride. Guess who?” He winked. “It’s Denise!”

She was puzzled. “Denise? But I thought—it was you—?”

“I know, I was amazed. But they were friends long before I met her at Alec’s apartment.”

“I’m very pleased, for her sake.” Diana smiled.

“I reckon Alec had his eye on her all along. As soon as I was out of the way, he lost no time.”

“You said she’d soon stop pining for you. You were right!” They both laughed. “Did you tell my mother your name when you spoke to her on the phone?” Diana asked.

“No, I just said I was a friend. If I’d told her I was an Australian tracking down her daughter to propose marriage, she wouldn’t have let me know your address.”

Diana sighed. “Poor Mother. She’s in for a surprise. But I know she’ll like you.”

Mark said he hoped Diana was right. Mrs. Field was not going to welcome the idea of her only daughter going off to live in an alien land, where she was bound to have moments of disappointment, of loneliness—with only himself for her to turn to.

“She can come out and see us when we’re settled; your father, too.” Then Mark frowned. “Your hair’s still a bit wet. Don’t catch cold.”

She smiled. “I remember you said that once before, on the night of the car accident.”

He nodded slowly. “Mansion House Hospital seems very far away now, doesn’t it? Getting out of bed at three in the morning to go up to the theater, old Evans grabbing all the food before everyone else—”

“And Sister Baker,” put in Diana quietly.

Mark gazed thoughtfully into the fire. “Poor Sister. I think her death made me realize how much I wanted to be with you. Cole wrote to me about it; he said you’d taken it pretty badly, that you weren’t looking too well.”

“It was such a shock. It made everything seem so hopeless. You’d gone, there was nobody to talk to.”

He looked keenly at her. “Whenever a patient of ours died, you
always worried for days afterward. I knew that when it happened to Sister, you’d be in a terrible state. Putting that graft in, Diana, was a risk we had to take.”

“If we hadn’t put it in, she might have died sooner.”

“Exactly.”

“I’ll always be glad I knew her, Mark. She was a good, kind person, and interesting to be with as well. We had a beautiful service for her. I wish you’d been able to come ... although in a way, I felt you were there with us.”

“I always got on well with Sister. You know she tried to marry us off, very early on?” he asked, smiling.

Diana nodded. “Yes. She was always telling me how nice you were, how clever.”

“She said the same to me—about you.”

They laughed.

“Those were good days,” Mark said dreamily. “Interesting work, friends—”

“But we’ve a wonderful new life ahead of us,” Diana reminded him eagerly. “A love like ours doesn’t come to many people, Mark. It didn’t come to Sister. We mustn’t throw it away.”

He smiled. “And what about your career? Can we both be surgeons?”

She frowned. “I don’t know. Without you, my career was everything. I even made my work an excuse not to marry Richard; the real reason was that I didn’t love him. He presented me with an ultimatum, you see, marriage or career.”

“I’m not doing that, Diana. There are no conditions or strings attached. I want you to be my wife, and we love each other, that’s all that matters. As to your career, we’ll work something out together.”

She rested her head on his shoulder and sighed happily. “You’re not afraid to love me any more.”

“In Austria I used to go skiing alone before breakfast—”

“Where did you learn to ski?”

“In the States.”

“I want to know everything about you.”

“On top of a mountain, the silence, the complete peace, made life seem so easy and uncomplicated. Problems solved themselves. Perhaps the fresh air up there acted like a stimulant.” He shrugged. “But I used to say to myself, ‘It’s all quite simple. Marry Diana, go home, and forget the past.’ Then I’d ski down, feeling wonderful—but when I’d eaten breakfast with the others, the spell was broken. All the doubts came back.”

She smiled. “I suppose that’s how the expression ‘coming down to earth’ first started. When did you decide to come to England and find me?”

“I spent a whole day in the mountains. I took food with me and skied until it was dark and my legs were nearly dropping off. I was determined not to let that feeling of confidence escape. So immediately I reached the hotel I paid my bill and booked a plane ticket to London.”

Diana sighed contentedly. She still couldn’t believe that Mark coming back to her wasn’t all a dream. “I’m very glad you did!”

“And now I know I was right. I’ll never let you out of my sight again. Darling, darling Diana!”

Mark looked around the room. They were alone. There was only the sound of the angry sea, of crackling logs, and an occasional hiss as a raindrop came down the chimney.

Then he took her in his arms and kissed her, with tenderness at first, and then passionately, with all the love and longing and desire he had for her.

Her trust in him was complete, and she knew there could have been no other ending to their story. There would be no more struggle and conflict. In his arms she was safe, she had come home to stay.

And afterwards, as he whispered of his love, Diana ran her fingers through the soft black hair, a deep peace and contentment filling her body, such as she had never known.