Australian Hospital (7 page)

Candace saw now why Claire had said that Jessie Arnold was as weak as water. She fiddled with her spoon, then murmured lamely, “Yes, perhaps you shouldn’t waste time like that, Sister Jamieson. After all, it’s not what you’re here for, you know.”

Eve leaned back, a spot of bright colour on each flawless cheek. She looked triumphant.

A few minutes went by, Candace bravely tackling the Apple Float, then Eve spoke again.

“You didn’t tell me you came out on the same ship as Ash.”

“He was known as Mr. Halliday.”

“But you never mentioned anything.”

“There was nothing to mention.”

“No—I suppose not.” The black eyes went contemptuously up and down the girl opposite. The scrutiny put Candace firmly into her right—so Eve thought—place.

“There
was
someone, though. I learned that from the inevitable grapevine—‘‘ Eve laughed lightly, and exhaled. “Not that it’s worrying me. I know these shipboard romances. Besides, Ash is crazy over me—” She did not seem to care that she spoke before Sister Arnold and the young goggling aide.

“Anything he started would only be a stop-gap until he returned here. I sent for him, you understand. I whistled, and he came.”

She paused to relight her cigarette. For a fleeting moment the face behind the match was sharp and almost vixenish.

“Did you see her?” she asked Candace. “A girl called Rosemary Tilburn?”

“Yes.”

“What is she like?”

“Very pretty.”

“I see. Wealthy?”

“I believe so.”

“It is very satisfactory”—Eve spoke deliberately—“to think that Ash keeps up his high standards, even when they are only stop-gaps.”

She got up with a yawn.

“However,” she drawled, reaching the door, “all that is over now, of course—”

By the afternoon’s mail came a letter from the subject of Eve’s discussion. Rosemary wrote from Bibaringa, her bright personality finding outlet in breezy words.

“... Here we are again in the Bush. I was quite excited at first, but now it’s worn off me. Sheep, how I hate the woolly things. They may represent pounds, shillings and pence, as you once righteously reminded me, but somehow I still can’t raise any enthusiasm.

“... Mummy and I are coming up to shop in a fortnight, so, of course, you must come and stop with us.”

Another page accounting for herself, and then best wishes and Rosemary’s signature.

There was a P.S. It said: “Have you heard from either Stephen or John?”

Candace noticed that Stephen’s name came first. She wondered what Rosemary’s reactions would be when she learned that her friend was working under Doctor Halliday.

Then she recalled Eve, and the suppressed venom in her voice as she inquired, “Did you see her? A girl called Rosemary Tilburn?”

Poor little Rosemary, she thought, what hope would she have against a woman of Eve’s experience and determination?

What hope would she herself, Candace Jamieson, have?

The implication of the thought that had just struck her came to Candace in an engulfing wave.

“I’m mad—mad to think of such a thing. I not only dislike Stephen Halliday, he’s—he’s repulsive to me.”

But he wasn’t. As she sat beside the window, the letter on her lap, looking down on the thicket of camphor, it came strongly, starkly, distastefully but inescapably to Candace that already something had started within her that indubitably would have been better not to have begun.

Three things happened in the fortnight that followed.

Worried about the accounts. Matron paid a flying visit to Manathunka, then returned to the sister with whom she was spending her vacation; Claire Flett became Mrs. Arthur Maclnnes; Rosemary Tilburn and her mother came from Bibaringa, and Candace went out one night and stayed with them.

Matron was the first excitement. She arrived at ten o’clock one morning, and by five-past was sitting at her desk adding up the grocery bill.

“Washing powder risen twopence-halfpenny! Sister Arnold, have you checked this with Mr. Watts?”

Sister said miserably that she had.

Between the electric light account and the bill for the repairs to the furnace, Candace was introduced.

“Welcome to Manathunka, Sister Jamieson. Sister, I see a sign of wear on your left cuff. Perhaps you could put needle and thread to it. I don’t want it to go further than it has to because I don’t know where we’ll get our next.”

“Is Manathunka that poor, Matron?”

“Well—” For a moment Matron was floored.

“When the previous matron handed me over the keys,” she said presently, “she handed me over the books at the same time, and advised, ‘If you keep your bills down to this level, you won’t go far wrong.’ ”

“But Matron, that was in different times. Things were cheaper then.”

“I know, that’s what makes it so hard now.”

Candace looked at her in amazement, then her face softened. She thought that what Claire had said of Matron was probably true. Ostensibly she was stodgy, but her heart would be in the right place if only you could reach it.

She had hoped to bring up the therapy matter with Matron, but with an electric light bill three pounds ten shillings larger than last quarter, she did not think it was the right moment.

She believed that Matron was the right woman in her job, so long as her position only entailed the practical side of the hospital regime. Something told her, too, that Matron would not have minded concentrating only on figures—

Matron waited until the next day for Claire’s wedding, then departed once more.

Sister Arnold was on duty so did not attend. Sister Trisby was not on duty, but also did not attend. Candace knew she had been asked, for Claire had told her so. “I hope she doesn’t come,” she had said, and she got her wish.

Standing in the church, old by Australian standards but young in English estimation, Candace watched these two she had come to love quite dearly in a very short time, united.

She had been surprised to see Stephen Halliday enter the dimmed interior. She wondered whether Eve had known he was coming. Probably not; if she had, she would most likely have come herself.

The ceremony was inspiring. During the address the officiating minister quoted the Manathunka plaque and applied the words to this young couple. They were in the morning of their life together, he said.

“... as the light of the morning when the sun riseth ... as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain...”

Candace happened to be looking in Stephen’s direction. As the words from the Book of Samuel were recited she saw his lips tighten distinctly, and a grave, almost stern look come over his face.

He did not attend the reception afterwards, but Toby Ferry was there, and with him Manathunka’s erstwhile occupational therapist, Barbara Breen.

Candace recalled what the little aide Brenda had said of Barbara. Brenda was right. The therapist was lovely and vivacious. As lovely in her rich sunflower colouring as was Eve, the ice-maiden. No wonder, Candace decided, Eve does not want her at Manathunka, then instantly she chided herself for such an uncharitable and childish idea. “No one could be that cruel; sufficiently cruel to deprive helpless people through sheer personal jealousy,” she thought.

By Claire’s request Bobby Grenfell had been pushed in his wheel-chair to the ceremony. He was now consuming lemonade and cakes with gusto.

“Was it a man or a lady?” he kept asking of Candace.

He was speaking of the minister. In Manathunka’s Welfare Hall, where church services were held, the visiting clergy only wore their ordinary outdoor dress, not vestments, and Bobby was plainly puzzled.

Toby Ferry brought Barbara along to meet Candace.

“Claire told me all about you. She said you were the
right
sort.”

“When are you coming back to Manathunka, Miss Breen?” acknowledged Candace.

“I’m supposed to be on leave, but I’m really being reconsidered. One thing, they can’t dismiss me until they’ve thrashed it out at the Board Meeting. That’s one of the time-honoured rules. Sister Jamieson, you will fight for me, won’t you?”

“I certainly shall,” promised Candace stoutly, adding humorously, “If it’s only for the salvation of Miss Walsh.”

“It’s Miss Walsh that makes me want to get back and get my teeth into things. I can do something for that woman. I
know
I can. It’s only a matter of sorting her out, if you can understand. There must be something she’s interested in.”

Arthur and Claire left on their honeymoon, and Candace pushed a rapturous Bobby home to Manathunka, where Sister Arnold dubiously expressed the hope that all the goodies he had consumed would not cause his dreams to become nightmares.

The next Wednesday was her day off, and as the Tilburns were stopping at their city flat during their shopping sojourn, Candace accepted an invitation to spend the night with them.

She was a little disconcerted upon her arrival to find that Stephen Halliday had also been invited.

“This is just like on board ship,” beamed Mrs. Tilburn.

“Yes, we only want John, don’t we, Candace?” said Rosemary.

Candace felt Stephen looking at her, and to her annoyance she flushed.

Rosemary noticed it, too. She was silent for a while.

Stephen departed about ten. Candace went at ten the next morning. She spent from eight until that hour over the breakfast table, describing Manathunka and its inmates to Mrs. Tilburn, who was very interested, and who kept on pressing for more and more details.

Rosemary came with her to the bus. “You are a dear, and I admire you tremendously. Candace—”

“Yes?”

“Were you speaking the truth when you wrote that John had not been in touch?”

“Of course.”

Rosemary shrugged. “I don’t know whether to be pleased or not,” were her final words. “After all, even
you
hearing would be better than not hearing at all.”

Candace puzzled this out on her way home to Manathunka. Here she was pleased to find that Barbara had ensconced herself once more.

“My vacation is up, and they can’t put me off without its being passed by the Board. Besides, I’m indispensable now that the Fete is in sight.”

“When is it, Barbara?” The therapist had insisted on Christian names.

“It comes in November. The spring will be on the wane, and summer coming in. Brownley will have the gardens a riot of colour. Oh, it’s tremendously exciting, and the patients simply adore it.”

Mrs. Jenkins, who was making a baby’s matinee coat for raffling, announced that this year a “new lady” was opening the bazaar.

“She’s a baroness. Baroness Lexforde.”

Candace looked up at the name, her face brightening. “It couldn’t be,” she said, “not here in Sydney. And yet it
must
be. There is only one Baroness Lexforde.”

“Her husband is in the Diplomatic Service,” informed Barbara. “Do you know her?”

Eve Trisby was on the fringe of the group, and for a moment she stopped to listen.

“Very well,” beamed Candace happily. “She presented me with my certificate at Lady Charlotte, and she recognized me from Fairhill Home. She used to come often and visit Fairhill with her mother, the old baroness. She inherited the title when her mother died, which was soon after she married Mr. George Westing—it’s one of those very rare ones that go in the female line. I do remember now that her husband was in the Diplomatic Service. Anne is quite young. Not so much older than I.”

Eve’s lip curled. “I’m sure the Baroness will be delighted to renew the friendship and talk about old
Fairhill
days, Sister, but I wouldn’t bank on it too much if I were you.”

“Why not?” returned Candace, incensed. “Anne—she used to ask us to call her that—was never proud. She is a lovely person in every way.”

“Perhaps. And perhaps she would like to see you. You, however, might find yourself rostered for duty and confined to one of the wards. We can’t all flutter around the Fete chatting with baronesses, remember.”

Eve moved on, and Candace asked of Barbara: “How is the rostering done?”

“The way it is now. If you look up the calendar you should know whether you’re on or off.”

Candace did so at once, and let out an exclamation of pleasure “I’m off. I’ll be able to see Anne.” There was joy in her voice. She looked forward to meeting again the young woman who had been her childhood idol.

Barbara had great plans for the patients’ stalls. “I want baskets, dolls, rabbits, book-marks, papier-mâché vases—everything that you’ve been taught to make!”

“Count me out,” said Miss Walsh. “The things are absurd. It’s a wonder to me, Miss Breen, you don’t start us on cutting out toe-covers in felt. You’ve done everything else.”

“Now, that’s an idea,” beamed the therapist, undaunted. “Another scheme of mine is to call in all the aides’ black stockings for golliwogs.”