Island Hospital (4 page)

The woman laughed. “You’re thinking of the big outfits. We’re only a small one, my husband and his brother, and a couple of Swedes, that’s all. I do the cooking, and you can take it from me, it keeps me busy. If it weren’t for the pot of baked beans I keep going on the back of the stove I’d never fill them up.” She sighed
and glanced at the clock. “I must be getting back. They’ll be shouting for their grub before I’m half ready.” She smiled at Sheila. “Bye for now, and take good care of that red-headed doctor of yours. Mary Harbor needs chaps like him.”

She was gone down the trail before Sheila could protest that she had no share in the red-headed doctor. She closed the book and went back to the ward.

Mrs. Brown was waiting for her. “If you’ll just check these. I’ve put the bottles ready.”

Sheila felt like a very junior probationer as she did what she was told.

Mrs. Brown watched her. “Was that the doctor I heard just now?”

Sheila looked at her. “Yes, he’s just come in.”

Mrs. Brown nodded. “They’ll be operating. Lucky for the poor devil we’ve got a doctor. Makes you think, doesn’t it?”

Sheila found her days slowly falling into a pattern as she began to find her way about. The patients helped her through the first days and she was grateful. She saw Clare from time to time and the girl was helpful or not, according to her mood. Sheila came to know the signs. If the green eyes were cool and far away she saved her questions for another time; if there was warmth she could ask anything she liked. But if there had been the sound of raised voices and she saw a glow in the depths of the green eyes that met hers impatiently, she knew enough to be silent.

She saw little of Matron. There was a question of closing down another hospital farther up the coast and Matron would disappear into her office and write many letters. Sheila noticed the addresses of some as they lay on the desk. They were the familiar names of English hospitals. Sheila remembered the one that had come to her own hospital offering a job to anyone who wanted something different ... where the drama of nursing could be carried out against the backdrop of all the adventure that Canada’s far west could offer.

Alan appeared at meals sometimes. “Done anything useful today? What price bones?”

Sheila was learning to keep her composure and to answer back. “Five bottles of cough mixture and one set of tonsils for you.”

He groaned in mock dismay. “Positively my favorite operation! How did you discover my secret vice?”

She smiled in spite of herself. “By watching your face!”

He looked at her quizzically. “Most psychoanalysts have their patients lie on couches first. You being a woman, I suppose it’s better if you don’t. How are you getting on?”

Sheila became serious. “If I said I hadn’t a clue, I know your reply to that in advance. So I’ll leave it at that.”

A shadow fell across his face. “Clare treating you all right?”

Sheila decided that that was the operative phrase for her this time. “She’s all right,” she said quickly.

Alan relaxed. “Admit any patients this afternoon?”

Sheila laughed. “What! On your half day!”

“So you’ve noticed that, too. What happens?”

Sheila looked at him carefully. “When the bell rings, the door is opened half an inch, and someone says very quickly: ‘It’s the doctor’s half day. Come back in the morning.’ ”

He stared. “Don’t you even ask what’s wrong with the patient? Suppose it was someone bleeding to death?”

Sheila shook her head. “They haven’t asked yet, so I can’t answer that one.”

He lowered his voice. “Who’s they?” He looked towards the door. “Is it
...”

Sheila’s ears were quicker than his. “Sh-sh
...”

Clare came swinging in through the door and looked at them suspiciously. “What’s up?”

Alan rose to his feet with a laugh, and only Sheila saw the uneasiness that flickered briefly in his eyes.

“We were saying that my half day had been a quiet one for the hospital, and Sheila warned me that the gremlins would hear if I didn’t sh-sh.” Alan’s voice was quiet and the very finality of it forestalled any argument.

Clare seemed content to accept it, but Sheila wasn’t quite so happy about it. Alan hadn’t actually lied. He had merely given “they” a protective covering. Sheila knew that she couldn’t do anything about it, but she didn’t like it. She watched Alan’s face and was amazed to see him wink at her. So he was aware of her feelings.

Clare chatted idly for a few minutes, but it was quite obvious that that wasn’t what she had come for. She turned abruptly to Sheila.

“Would you be an angel and stand in for me for the next half hour?” She didn’t even wait for Sheila’s assent but put her arm possessively through Alan’s. “Run me over to the store, Alan. I think there’s a new yacht tied up in the outer harbor.”

Alan lifted his eyebrows at Sheila, and went like a lamb to do Clare’s bidding.

Sheila was left with mixed feelings. She felt like a conspirator when all she had done was keep quiet. She resented Alan’s complacent acceptance of the situation.

She wandered through the ward and found the Matron giving Jenny a lesson in baby-handling. Sheila watched quietly, and there was something about the way Joyce Painter handled the small baby that brought a lump into Sheila’s throat. It wasn’t just the gentleness and tenderness with which it was done, but an impression that a baby belonged in the curve of those arms, and that a baby’s head should nestle in the hollow of her shoulder. Matron looked up to meet Sheila’s eyes and there was something unguarded about the smile that softened the line of her mouth.

“Nice baby, isn’t he?” she said briefly. “Now, Jenny, if you remember half of what I’ve told you, you should be able to manage to look after your baby and your job. Luckily young Jamie is sweet-tempered, and provided you get all the rest you can, he’ll stay that way. Write to me as often as you like, but don’t, worry. Got all his clothes?”

The blaze of gratitude as Jenny opened the small shabby suitcase almost took Sheila unaware until she recognized the baby clothes so neatly folded. They belonged to the hospital layettes sent out from England by Women’s Guilds.

“Yes, thank you, Matron. I can’t ever thank you for all you’ve
done
...
” Jenny’s face was pink as she tried to express her feelings.

“Yes, you can, child, by taking good care of yourself and the little chap. The boat will soon be signalled. Jim will run you over to the landing stage.” Matron dropped a kiss on the baby’s small head as she put him back into his mother’s arms.

Jenny departed to a chorus of farewells and best wishes from everyone in the ward.

Joyce Painter walked briskly over to the window where she could watch the small procession going down to the
Queen Mary,
which was bobbing up and down at the float. Sheila, at a gesture, joined her.

“Jenny’s a good girl. She’ll manage provided she keeps her head. She’ll make a good household help for my friends, and unless I miss my guess they’ll be good to her. Maria’s children are grown up, and she’s young enough not to mind a baby’s crying around the house.”

Sheila was silent. Joyce Painter seemed to require no answer, and Sheila was getting used to her ways and no longer offered comments unless asked for them.

Joyce Painter took a look at the tall girl standing beside her. “You would never think that I had had two husbands while that poor child hasn’t even one to bless her with his name. Not that I can see that it would have made any difference to either of us. Men are either fools or scoundrels or both.”

Sheila began to feel that if she kept silent much longer she would burst. “Not all,” she ventured timidly.

The Matron scorched her with a look. “You’ll learn, and judging by that remark, you’ll learn the hard way. Had more arguments with that surgeon of ours?”

Sheila stirred uneasily. “Not yet,” she admitted.

The matron eyed her keenly. “You will,” she promised. “You’re just as stubborn under your quiet manner as he is under that red thatch. Where’s Clare, by the way? I thought you were off.”

Sheila felt herself flushing. “I said I would stand in for half an hour.”

Joyce Painter grew very still “I suppose that means she’s gone off with that Greenwood, eh? You can tell her from me, when she returns, that I expect her to ask me next time.”

There was a droop to her broad shoulders as she turned and went toward her office. Sheila heard a definite slam as the door closed behind her.

Sheila stared out of the window and saw the now-familiar cluster of small boats escort the
Queen of the Isles
to her berth. Was it only a week ago that she had seen it all for the first time? She smiled a little as she recalled how broadened her education had been already. There wasn’t even a twinge of homesickness as she thought about the big hospital she had left behind her. She wondered how her replacement was getting on with Sister James, whose brusque exterior had harbored the traditional heart of gold. Then she heard footsteps beside her.

It was Mrs. Brown. “What do you think of it all now, Miss Griffiths?”

Sheila looked down at the solid figure and the placid face. “I’m glad I came,” she said simply.

The woman nodded. “I’m not surprised. There’s something special about these parts. You either hate it from the minute you come, or it gets under your skin, and you wouldn’t leave it if you could. Me and my husband thought we’d had enough of it one year when things were none too good. We headed from Vancouver and the bright lights, but we were back within six weeks. Too many people, too much noise, and even the air felt different. We’ve had bad times since then, but it doesn’t faze us now. It’s like the crops; you can’t count on a good lot of apples two years running. The kids like it, too. It’s a grand life for them, free as the birds.”

“What about schooling?” Sheila asked.

Mrs. Brown stared at her. “Of course, you wouldn’t know. We have a school now, but it was only opened last year. We were one child short before then.”

Sheila was puzzled. “One child short?”

The woman laughed. “I see where I’ll have to begin at the beginning. The government provides a school and teacher once we have twelve children living in the district. We had to wait until Johnny was old enough. He didn’t count before then.”

Sheila was interested. “But what happens in the meantime?”

“I thought you’d ask that. The Department of Education provides a correspondence course for all those who live too far away to attend school. You pay something for books and special
stuff
...
you know, chemicals and things. You do the lessons, and they have teachers down there that correct the work and send you some more as soon as you’ve come up to scratch. Then, of course, there’s exams just the same as in school, and you get passed up at the end of the year. Why, there are kids living up some of the inlets that have never set foot in a school in their lives. Take my niece, she’s off to university next autumn, wants to be a doctor, of all things. Her parents can’t afford it, of course. But all the families up at the head have chipped in to help. June will get a job in the vacations to help out with fees and books and things.”

Sheila felt very humble. She had taken her schooling for granted and found it difficult to visualize a life where there were none of the usual schools where children sauntered like unwilling snails. “I suppose it means the children do better in the long run because they have to work it out for themselves.”

Mrs. Brown laughed. “It depends on the kiddies. Usually the mothers have to keep one chapter ahead of the kids so that they know what to answer. It can be kind of fun, though. You never bother to remember half of it when you’re young, and it comes along new and fresh, and you find yourself liking school!”

“Who likes school?” Clare came over to them. The curls clustered around her forehead in happy disarray, and there was color in her cheeks.

“Me,” Mrs. Brown said flatly, and began to move away. “Time I fed the nipper.”

Clare stared after her and shrugged her shoulders. “I’d hate to live in this neck of the woods for the rest of my life like some of these people.”

“Mrs. Brown seems to like it,” Sheila observed mildly.

“She can keep it and welcome,” Clare said briefly. “Thanks for standing in. Anything happen?”

Sheila gave her Matron’s message. Anger flared in Clare’s eyes.

“Isn’t that just like her! She hires your services and thinks she owns you.”

Sheila said nothing, and presently Clare continued:

“I suppose you’re wondering why I ever came and why I’m still here. You needn’t try to be polite, honey. I can guess your sentiments. To cut a long story short, I was at a loose end in Vancouver and Joyce was hollering for help. So I came. You can meet a lot of interesting people off the yachts in the summer
...
Hollywood stars and so on. Hence the reason for my staying. The trouble is that it isn’t summer all year around. I usually try to take my holidays in the winter and escape that cut-off-from-civilization feeling. Last year Joyce was ill, so I haven’t had them yet.” She yawned. “Perhaps I can this winter, if you’re still here.”

Sheila stared at her. “Of course I’ll be here. I signed a two-year contract.”

Clare laughed. “From which only marriage, a baby, or death can release you.” There was a trace of scorn in her voice.

Sheila took a chance. “What about you?”

Clare’s eyes narrowed. “That would be telling. Perhaps I won’t take my holidays this winter after all. Life might be more interesting in these parts ... you never know. See you at supper.”

Sheila felt dismissed and went toward her room. She had two hours to spare and the sun was shining so she changed swiftly, ran a comb through her hair and went quietly out through the side door down along the trail through the tall timber where Mrs. Etter had disappeared, homeward bound.

The trail was worn by the passage of many feet, but the carpet of leaves and moss underfoot deadened her footsteps. Sheila looked upward along those tall tree trunks toward the sky. Rays of sunlight caught the uppermost branches but little reached the forest floor. Sheila knew little about trees, but she was aware that those forest giants must have been growing a long time. They had been big trees when Cook and Vancouver and the Spaniards had sailed along these coasts searching for a short route home.

She came to a fork in the trail. Toward the right she could see a curl of smoke and a collection of rough shacks. This must be the small logging camp where Mrs. Etter lived. She hesitated and took the left fork. The path led toward a break in the hills and widened out into a rough road once it was clear of the Douglas firs. She could see bushes that reminded her of the raspberries at home, but when she ventured to taste one it was insipid. Perhaps because it was too far away from the sun.

To her surprise she found a small lake hidden behind the nearest hill. She smiled suddenly as she saw a queer-looking contraption at the outlet of the lake. This must be the water wheel upon whose uncertain whims the hospital depended for its electric light. A small rowboat was tied up, and Sheila had half a mind to row out on to the lake and see what was around the corner. But a quick look showed that it was almost up to the gunwales with water. It could be rain or a leak. Sheila decided to stay on dry ground. She hurried forward. She had to see what lay hidden around the corner before she turned back.

But she stopped in amazement at the bend in the trail. As far as she could see, mountains spread outward like the opening petals of a flower, their tops golden in the sun, their bases already deep in shadow. A chain of small lakes lay like a necklace at their feet, their still waters reflecting the sun-caught snowfields so far above. A breeze ruffled the water at her feet and a duck in the reeds called to its unseen mate. In the distance a raven croaked and its dismal voice muttered among the mountains.