Australian Hospital (9 page)

Candace hesitated. It would have been nice to have answered, “Oh, very much, particularly
Giselle
.” Or to have drawled, “Yes, I saw Shearer in
Coppelia.
She was superb.”

Stephen was looking down on her, that teasing smile again quirking his lips.

Somehow, she could not pretend.

“I’ve never been,” she almost whispered.

“Well, why so apologetic about it? I’m enjoying this. It’s like giving a baby her first sweetmeat. Come along, Candace.”

Les Sylphides
was the curtain-raiser. Stephen was highly satisfied over that.

“Everyone should start their ballet experiences with
Sylphides.
They must have known this was your first stick of candy, child.”

The haunting loveliness of Chopin’s music, the breathtaking exquisiteness of movement of the wistful girls, remained with Candace long after the intricacies of
Igor
and the lightheartedness of
Aurora’s Wedding
had ceased She came out into the night dazed with beauty, and Stephen put her gently into the big car.

“You liked it?”

“Oh, Stephen—”

They drove in silence back to Manathunka, but Stephen Halliday drew the car up under the thicket of camphors and not in front of the big house.

“A pity,” he stated, more to himself.

“What is a pity?” She came reluctantly out of the daze.

“To have to finish a perfect evening on another note, but after all there is that
other
matter to be attended to, isn’t there?”

“What matter?” She was still a little drowned in beauty, and could not follow his trend.

“That little matter of discipline, Sister Jamieson. I’m afraid this is it.”

As he spoke he was drawing her closer to him. It would have been useless for her to struggle, for his clasp was iron, and his arms around her bands of steel.

He held her there a moment, looking deliberately, searchingly, down on her. Then his lips clamped forward in a hard, ruthless kiss.

Even when it was finished he did not release her. He spoke in a voice as hard as his embrace had been.

“Discipline is generally accepted to be something distasteful. I searched my mind for suitable punishment, and could not think of anything that would be more distasteful to you than this. Tell me, Jamieson, was I right?”

His arms had slackened slightly, and Candace grabbed her opportunity. In a moment she was out of the car, and slamming the door behind her.

“Yes, you were right,” she flung back in a choking voice. “I have had my discipline.
Goodnight,
Doctor Halliday.” Turning, she ran the rest of the distance to the quarters. She was climbing the stairs as she heard the car move on. She had to put out her hand to the banisters, for though the lamp on the landing above was alight as usual, she could not see her way.

Her eyes were blind with tears.

CHAPTER VII

To
Candace’s
relief, Eve Trisby never asked any more about her punishment. Candace had no doubt that Eve believed she had been put to sheet-patching, or reorganising the cupboards, or had had some of her leave cancelled. She would never have dreamed of the form the discipline
had
taken—Often Candace wished
she
could stop dreaming of it.

The memory of those hard lips against hers making a travesty of the most precious of all human emotions went through her again and again in a hot, hurtling wave.

Why had Stephen been so cruel? She knew now that he had been feeding himself on her humiliation, and she dreaded the next meeting.

Then she heard that she would not be seeing him for a while, and that, in its way, was even worse.

How perverse were women, she thought drearily, that they said one thing with their minds and meant another in their hearts.

Barbara Breen, who was always abreast of things, informed Candace that Doctor Halliday had gone to Bibaringa to visit the Tilburns.

“Anything doing there, do you think? I know they have a charming daughter.”

“I couldn’t say, Barbara, but it’s true that she’s charming.”

“Well, it certainly looks like it. Bibaringa is three hundred miles west, and I hardly think that Ash would be going all that distance just to look at sheep. I wonder how our Sister Trisby will take it.”

Eve took it badly. Her temper, always sharp, became razor-edged. She vented her anger on the aides, who went in fear and trembling every time she came on duty.

Candace was seeing more of the secretary, Mr. Laurence, who was out quite often now to confer about the approaching Fete.

He would wave cheerily to her, then disappear into Matron’s office. Matron was back now, and waging fresh battle on the grocery accounts.

The Fete was the only topic of conversation among the patients. “Fete-fever,” Barbara called it, but she was the worst offender.

“I want to make the stalls a bigger success than ever before,” she declared. “I want to ram down the throats of those doddering disbelievers that therapists are not hocus-pocuses, but essential people doing an essential job.”

Both the women and the men patients threw themselves into the spirit of the Fete with enthusiasm. Half-completed baskets, trays, dolls, felt animals met Candace at every turn. Eve complained acidly, but the Fete was something that even she could not compete against, and the preparations went blithely on.

Only Miss Walsh remained aloof. “Silly nonsense. I won’t sew a stitch for it.”

“We’re putting you on the Lucky Dip so you won’t have to, dear,” assured Barbara.

“I won’t go there, either.”

“Doctor Ash is your offsider.”

Miss Walsh was silenced for once.

“Well,” she conceded presently, “if I have to go, I suppose it might as well be there.”

Brownley had the gardens looking beautiful. Flowers that grew back home in England in high summer were in full bloom here by spring. As the Fete was in November, which held the first fair days of the crown of the year, the plots were at their best, ranunculi vying with scented stock, ice-clad poppies blowing in abandon.

Candace was amazed at the amount of preparation.

“Oh, it’s quite a big affair,” nodded Barbara. “We don’t lose financially even if it rains, for the Board always insures heavily, but, of course, it is so much nicer if the weather is kind.”

During the preceding week kind weather did not seem at all likely; then on the Friday the sun came out of the clouds, and Candace, watching the giant marquees being erected on the lawn, thought of “clear shining after rain,” and how well the Biblical words suited the bright, freshly-washed morning.

The tempo of the Fete increased once the marquees were up.

Armies of helpers arrived, both to decorate and to erect their own subsidiary stalls.

The handwork was a revelation. Candace resolved to draw substantially on her private bank and secure some of the lovely pieces.

The second marquee was the tea-tent. Busy Mrs. Allenwood informed Candace that this was her fifteenth effort, and that last year five hundred tea tickets had been sold.

The strawberry and cream counter could boast even higher figures, and the lemonade and ice-cream stall had only one fear, that they would run out of supplies.

All the aides had been well-briefed, from the meeting of visitors and the conducting of officials, to their general behaviour when backs were turned and they were free to patronise the hoop-la or fish hopefully in the Magic Well.

An amateur fortune-teller arrived to see if her tent was sufficiently secret. A radio electrician made weird noises through a microphone to make sure the sound would not be impaired. A band-leader arrived to choose the best position for his players.

And all the time someone was coming or going, and the mood of the Fete hung heavily and pleasantly on the air.

Candace was as excited as the rest. Perhaps she was more excited, for to-morrow she would meet Anne again, and that meeting alone would make the bazaar an event.

She took out her uniforms that night, and decided, in spite of the frayed cuff, to wear the yellow. It would match the weather, she thought, and it would complement the festive day. Matron had particularly requested that both sisters and aides should come in uniform, whether they were on duty or off.

She lay out the outfit in readiness—the sunny, simply-styled cotton, the snowy white veil. “I’m like Jeanie and Bobby,” she thought childishly, “I just can’t wait.”

Breakfast was a hurried affair the next morning, for although the Fete was not officially opened until noon, parties arrived hours before that, and the lawns would soon be dotted, rather like biscuits with hundreds and thousands, with the gay frocks of the feminine visitors.

Candace was just leaving the dining-room when Eve Trisby entered. Her black eyes went up and down briefly, then she said, “All brushed up, Jamieson?”

“I’m wearing my usual uniform.”

“I suppose so, but it looks as though you’ve taken extra pains. Not much use when you’re stuck up in Room 9, is it?”

“Room 9?”

“Miss Beresford has a chill. Someone must be in attendance.”

“But I’m not on duty, Sister.”

“Indeed you are.”

“But I looked at the roster weeks ago—”

“Then you must have looked wrong. I looked only last night and I assure you that you
are
on duty.”

Candace did not answer. She went out to the vestibule where the roster was hung and looked up eagerly.

One glance told her that Eve was right. She was on duty. Weeks ago she had checked and found that she wasn’t. There appeared to be no alteration, but Candace
knew
that her eyes had not deceived her that day with Barbara Breen.

She was sick with disappointment. It was not the Fete and the fun she would miss that she minded so much; it was missing Anne.

Room 9 was at the corner of the house, on the top floor, and only commanding a very limited view of the proceedings.

She went drearily up, to find Miss Beresford a very irritable patient. She, too, was bitterly disappointed, and could only see her disappointment from her own point of view. She had no thought for the unfortunate Sister who had to nurse her, and be similarly deprived of a long-awaited pleasure.

The day went on laggard feet.

Candace heard the official car arrive, but only saw the brim of an expensive hat passing into the vestibule.

The band struck up. Whistles and clap-traps and bursting balloons smote the air, but in Room 9 the minutes went like hours, and Miss Beresford fretted and scolded, and Sister Jamieson soothed and kept blinking away her disappointed tears.

At last the official party left, and this time the baroness had to walk to the other side of the drive to her car.

It
was
Anne—Anne Westing, Baroness Lexforde, who had come to Fairhill Home with her mother as a girl, and later distributed certificates at Charlotte as a grown, and elegant, and very beautiful woman.

“Anne—” Candace lent perilously out to wave.

The gracious lady on the gravelled drive looked up and waved back. But there was no recognition. How could there be? To Baroness Lexforde, Candace Jamieson was still in England. That was just a pleasant, in some way vaguely familiar, young sister. She smiled and waved again, and got in the car.

The car moved down the drive and a futile tear fell on the window-sill of Room 9.

At tucking-in time that evening, Mrs. Jenkins said to Candace, “It was marvellous, Sister. A pity you missed it.”

“It was, and I was disappointed, but things happen that way.”

From the corner cot, the cot of Miss Walsh, came an indistinct voice. “By rights it shouldn’t have happened.”

Candace could hardly believe her ears. Miss Walsh defending her! The Thorn backing her up! The blurred words came almost like music.

Suddenly, her disappointment disappeared like dew in the sun. She felt inside her the same as the grass must have felt yesterday after the week’s deluge—a “clear shining after rain.”

Soon after the Fete a meeting was convened to assess the returns of the annual effort, discuss the best means of putting the new money to work, and, among other things, to debate the subject of the future employment of Barbara Breen.

“You’ll go, won’t you, Jam, to put in a good word for me? “

Candace smiled at the bright girl who always reminded her of an extravagant and flamboyant sunflower. No wonder Eve did not want the continued presence of anyone so vivid and lovely.

“Toby, of course, will attend,” went on Barbara. “So will Claire’s helpmate. That’ll be three for me, anyway, and then, of course, there is Ash.”

“How do you feel about him?”

“My dear Jam, Manathunka is life itself to Ash. Anything to Manathunka’s benefit must instantly become Doc Halliday’s only goal and sole ideal. Oh, yes, I can count on Andrew Stephen.”

“Will there be voting?”

“No, I shouldn’t think so. I’ll merely be mentioned among the miscellaneous, but don’t let that fool you. The rush will be later on.”

“At the Annual Meeting?”

“Yes. In the New Year. But I would like you to go and put a spoke in the wheel at this gathering, Jam. It might influence some of the swinging votes.”

Candace went.

The meeting was held in the long Honoraries’ Office.

It had been in this room that she had been sent to Doctor Halliday for discipline.

If he was remembering, as she was, he gave no signal. He sat stern and implacable at the head of the table, taking the chair in a capable and obviously accustomed manner.

The Fete profits were announced.

Matron apologetically, even sorrowfully, asked for an increase in the housekeeping allowance.

Jessie Arnold spoke anxiously about one of the wheelchairs that had a tendency to veer to the left.

Then Stephen Halliday brought up the subject of occupational therapy.

Toby Ferry rose. He spoke as a medico. He spoke wisely and earnestly, urging that the therapist’s post should be established as a permanency. There were several hear-hears, but several
only,
Candace noted.

Arthur spoke. He had not much data. All he could repeat was the wisdom of the old adage of busy hands, and he stated it in as many ways as he could think of.

Candace got up. She said what she had to say briefly and clearly. Behinds her words was Miss Hilary Fielding, putting a felt elephant together and laughing when one tusk coincided with a tail. She tried to put the success that that laugh had meant into what she said now.

While she spoke Stephen Halliday never looked up from the pink blotter on the table before him.

Mr. Laurence nodded his head, meanwhile, in bird-like wisdom. He got up after Candace had finished and pointed out that with the increased profits from the Fete this year, the home should be in a financial position to retain its therapist.

“Sister Trisby.” Stephen was now looking across to the opposite side of the table.

Eve had risen.

She delivered her words extremely well. She was cool, impartial, even leaning slightly, and cleverly, to the other point of view, but what she said was very clear-cut and inescapably logical.

The listeners were informed how much Miss Breen actually cost Manathunka apart from her own salary. There was the therapy material, the extra work for the aides who had to wheel the patients into the corner of the veranda that had been set aside for Miss Breen’s activities. This makeshift therapy centre was, of course, totally inadequate. If Manathunka intended to keep on this work, a new room was essential. Eve paused to let her listeners mentally add on the cost of a new room.

Then, she pointed out, still in her soft, impartial voice, where were the gains?

She took out a small notebook, looked up and smiled briefly, sweetly and apologetically, then read out some of the adverse comments regarding the therapy that the patients had made.

Every comment she read,
recognised Candace,
had been made by Miss Walsh.

“Sister Jamieson?” It was Stephen Halliday speaking in his cool, clipped way.

Candace rose.

“Do you agree with Sister Trisby over these extracts?”