Nurse Trent's Children (19 page)

“After lunch. I have
to supervise Avery’s gargle, or she’ll drink it instead, and the voluntary helpers come this morning.”

“Good, afternoon tea will be lighter on my pocketbook than lunch.”

“Is that a reward for helping you choose the materials? How nice of you David.” She smiled and waved him off.

Avery was “gargled” and put back into the sandpit. Mrs. Latrobe arrived with three others and went into the sewing room to patch.

When Cathy took in the morning teapot she saw M
r
s.
Latrobe’s eager eyes on her. When she took it out to refill it again the woman was close behind her.

Oh, Miss Trent, I got this little letter. It was pushed into my box.”

Cathy opened it.

My darling Mommy, I am being very good. It will not be long now. Your affekshunate daughter Denise.

Oh, dear,
said Cathy to herself.

Mrs. Latrobe was looking at her with worried yet eager eyes.

“I can’t understand it, Miss Trent. Miss Trent, is there anything behind it? I mean, are you
...
could you be
...
would Little Families waive the regulation?”

“Mrs. Latrobe, what can I say to you? Miracles have happened, but not this time. How could they, Mrs. Latrobe? The foundation says clearly that
...
”

“Miracles have happened,” murmured Mrs. Latrobe, seizing the three words like a straw. She left Cathy and went back to the sewing room. Her
step was light. Cathy did not follow her. She gave Elvira the replenished teapot to take in. “I am a coward,” she said.

After lunch Avery “gargled” again and the voluntary helpers were given more useful tasks. Cathy ran upstairs and put on her gray suit. It was a deep charcoal, perfectly tailored, a reminder of the English days when only the best was good enough
because father was always there to help defray the cost. The frothy blouse beneath added the right feminine touch. Because in Australia, Cathy had noticed, more women wore hats, she added her little French beret with the soaring feather worn at a jaunty angle. She knew she looked nice and was glad for David. David deserved it.

He raised
appreciative brows when she came down the stairs. “I’m dazzled. So dazzled I could not possibly take you in Cora.” Cora was the truck. “Do you mind the train instead?”

“I’d like it. I’ve never been in that way.”

They caught the train into Wynyard, Cathy looking eagerly at the flying scenery, pointing out the
Winona
in port again to her companion as they crossed the bridge.

“Only one trip ago,” she told him, “and so much has happened.”

He nodded and seemed about to say something, then changed his mind.

They went straight to the warehouse. Here rolls of material were brought out for their inspection. “We must have this green plaid for Alex,” pounced Cathy. Alex was a bright redhead.

David laughed. “If you’re going to plan every boy’s shirt we’ll be here all night. Wasn’t the first lesson you received at the foundation school the necessity of never ta
k
ing any one child too personally?”

Cathy ignored him. She picked up a red spun with a decided Wild West suasion to its weave. “Ricky,” she said, inspired.

“Definitely not, housemother. With a shirt of that type Richard would demand a holster and gun, and quite possibly they would accompany him to church.”

They squabbled companionably over their choice, finally came to a decision, then emerged into the winter sunlight again.

“Tea,” said David.

It was pleasant in the little restaurant, one ordering sandwiches, the other cakes, and sharing the two. “We used to do that on our afternoons off at St. Cloud,” said Cathy. “It gave us variety.”

“Do you miss those days, Cathy?”

“No, not now.”

“Do you miss England?”

“How can I when England is coming out to me?” She told David about Miss Watts’s visit.

They lingered over their tea, then strolled outside again. They walked along the busy streets, both enjoying the change from quiet Burnley Hills.

They were turning into King Street when Cathy caught David’s arm. He was quick to follow the direction of her eyes. Standing hand in hand and staring in a window were two familiar figures from Redgates, Rita and Andrew.

David drew Cathy into the threshold of a small shop. Under pretense of looking at some antiques he said, "What are we to do, Cathy? Those children are out of bounds. Andrew should be at his trade. It can’t be his lunch hour, it is far too late.”

“Rita has skipped another steno class,” despaired Cathy. “I overlooked it before. I can’t all the time.”

They both stood silent awhile, thinking desperately. David spoke
first.

“I’d sooner pretend I hadn’t
seen Andrew,” he said in a troubled voice. “It would give me time to think out a right course and give Andrew the opportunity not to do it again.”

“Can you?” said Cathy eagerly. “Can I ignore Rita, too?”

“No. It’s too serious for that. A board member might see them. Undoubtedly Andrew’s employer will be reporting the lad’s nonattendance. I’m afraid it’s something we must tackle straight away.” He turned in the children’s direction.

Cathy caught his arm. “Ice cream,” she said, inspired. “There is nothing like a peach sundae for loosening a taut atmosphere.”

“We’ll try it.” They both approached the boy and girl.

Rita and Andrew were startled. There was no doubt about that. David said genially, “Fancy meeting you two.”

Cathy called, “Let’s have ice cream. That’s something we don’t often have at home.”

They found a soda fountain and settled themselves on tall stools, but the atmosphere did not alter.

Rita and Andrew only poked at the frozen desserts that ordinarily would have brought joy to their still childish hearts. David and Cathy, recently filled up with rich pastries, faced piled dishes with inner shudders of distaste.

The conversation lagged and the ice creams did not diminish. Undoubtedly to Rita and Andrew the treats took the form of a sugar-coated pill.

At last they could linger no more, and David stood up and said quietly, “Coming, Andrew?”

Andrew gulped, “Yes, sir.”

Rita stood sullenly by Cathy’s side and when they parted from the men did not even give Andrew a farewell glance.

The two young women walked up the street. Rita made no attempt to escape from Cathy, and that made it more pathetic still. She seemed hopeless, spiritless. Cathy’s heart rushed out to her in warm sympathy, but it was no use; she was just as helpless as Rita herself.

They stood before a cosmetician’s looking at the tubes of lipstick and the stoppered vials of nail polish.

“Mrs. Dubois called at the business school,” said Rita. “The principal told her it was no use persevering with me, and Mrs. Dubois said she knew so all along. I’m to start at
her
place.”

Cathy longed to call, “You won’t, Rita, I won’t let you, darling.”

Aloud she said coolly, “And Andrew?”

“He hates his trade.”

“He chose it.”

“Sometimes you don’t know what you want. A girl at business school said her brother tried four times, so it’s not just
us
,
not just orphans.”

“Oh, Rita.” There were tears in Cathy’s voice. That “not just us, not just orphans” tore at her heart. What did these children of hers think deep down inside them? Did they think they were different from others? All the consideration she and David and many others gave them—did it ever go even a short way toward making up what they had lost?

On an impulse she caught Rita’s arm and took her into the little salon.

“I want a lipstick.”

“For yourself, madam?”

A glance at the stony little face beside her and Cathy said, “Yes.”

“You’re so beautifully fair. A rose coral, I think. Do you like this?” The attendant unscrewed the cap of a candy-striped enamel container.

Rita was losing her indifference now. She looked longingly at the pretty trinket.

“What do you think, Rita? Would it be the right color?”

“Oh, yes, Aunty Cathy. It’s beautiful.” There was envy in the girl’s voice.

Cathy gathered her courage.

“And one for this young lady. A clear cherry, I thought,”

“I think so, too,” agreed the attendant after a brief scrutiny of Rita’s small eager countenance.

The money was passed over, and Cathy slipped her lipstick into her bag and handed the other to Rita.

Rita stood enraptured. “Oh, Aunty Cathy,” she said.

They emerged in the street again. Cathy suggested walking across the bridge and catching the train back to Burnley from North Sydney station. “It’s such a lovely day, Rita, and frankly I’m so full of ice cream and cake I’d like a walk.”

Rita nodded compliance, clutching the handsome lipstick in her hot possessive fingers. They came to the massive bridge approaches, then walked leisurely across.

Halfway over Cathy indicted the berthed
Winona.

“That is the ship we others sailed in, dear, Janet and the rest of, us latecomers.”

Rita nodded. She seemed unhappy again. Cathy knew that the diversion in the cosmetician’s had worn off.

Suddenly the girl stopped and went to the parapet. A moment of swift alarm stabbed Cathy, but the rail was high and wired and a quick look assured her that Rita had no intention of trying to leap off.

Instead, she looked down on the lipstick, held it tightly a moment, then flung it between the wires to the harbor far below.

“What’s the use?” she said in a piteous little voice, “She wouldn’t let me use it.”

R
emorse set in quickly. “Oh, Aunty Cathy, I’m sorry. All the money. And you don’t get so much for looking after us, do you? You’re not rich—like her.”

Cathy fumbled in her bag. “Coral is quite a nice shade. In fact, I think it would suit you as much as the cherry.” She put her own lipstick in the hot small fingers, and together, in silence and unspoken understanding, they crossed the bridge and went home.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The day before Cathy’s exam, E
lvira and Mrs. Ferguson insisted on taking upon themselves the lion’s share of the housemother’s duties. These included answering the telephone, seeing to Avery, interviewing callers, and listening sympathetically to the little woes to which every child is prone one time or another.

Cathy cloistered herself in her room and worked madly. A fortnight ago she had felt prepared for the test, but so many things had happened during the last week that the words of the manual seemed to have retreated far back in her mind, and now she knew doubt and apprehension.

She studied the chapters that Dr. Malcolm had advised until she knew them almost verbatim. She had not heard from the doctor. He had neither phoned nor called. She had expected that having coached her so far, he would relent at the last moment and summon her to the office for a final brush-up. He had not done so, and, hearing the children’s voices in the driveway and realizing with surprise that they were home already from school, Cathy did not think he would do so now. She closed the books wearily and went down the stairs.

Elvira, seeing her, called briskly, “No need for you to come Aunty Cathy, love, Mrs. Fergie and I can manage.”

“Elvie, if I read up another aspiration or venesection I’ll go mad. I’m having broth with my children.” She took a bowl and to the delight of the girls joined the line. “How are things?” she asked Elvira, receiving her portion of vegetable soup.

“Rather quiet. Avery had her hitch, so I patted in calamine.”

“It’s a sore throat day, not itch. Avery’s calendar must be amiss.”

“Aunty Cathy,” said Janet eagerly, “a lot of our girls at school are sitting for their intermediate exams and they’re taking mascots with them to help them pass.”

“What are mascots?” inquired Janet’s juniors, and Janet explained.

“They needn’t be little black cats, either,” she added, “they can be anything. Lucky stone's, lucky buttons, lucky acorns—anything that’s lucky.”

That started it. The girls finished their broth and raced out to find something lucky to make Aunty Cathy pass
her
exam.

Cathy regarded the formidable pile with misgiving. They included a pine needle, a fir cone, a nail from a horseshoe, and a feather found in the poultry run.

“Oh, dear,” said Cathy.

Elvira, who was superstitious, was entranced, “Take the whole lot, Aunty Cathy. You can pack them in your, satchel. Best to be sure of your luck.”

Cathy thought she would sooner be sure of her knowledge, but did not like to disappoint either Elvira or the children. She put them in the already bulging bag, making it bulge to overflowing.

Dr. Malcolm did not ring that night, and Cathy decided on early bed with no books so that she would be fresh tomorrow.

The next morning Mr. Monty sat down to a cup of tea poured laboriously by Leila and, rummaging in his bag, handed over a letter addressed, “Housemother.” Inside was a good
lu
ck card for Cathy’s exam. “Couldn’t leave you out,” chuckled the
m
ailman.

“If I don’t pass it will be entirely my own fault,” smiled Cathy, “I’m sure no one could have had more encouragement.”

Soon after the children’s departure to school she left for the Northern District Hospital, where it had been arranged that she would be examined with the local candidates.

As she traveled the few miles, she remembered the last time she had faced this ordeal. She remembered Miss Watts’s arm on hers as she had been about to enter the room, the surprise on Helen’s and Judith’s faces. After that she had not thought about exams anymore, or if she had it had been only to assure herself that she would never sit again—not after what had happened. Yet
here she was facing the same exam, or at least its Commonwealth equivalent.

She entered the hospital’s grounds and found her way around to the assembly room. She envied the other candidates standing in little groups and comparing notes. For three years they had studied and worked side by side, and now they would sit side by side in companionable concentration to pass the exam for which their duties and sacrifices had been preparing them.

She longed for someone to talk to. She would not admit that she was disappointed that Dr. Malcolm had not made an appearance, but her eyes continually watched the avenue and the cars pulling up on it. Many got out—visitors, examiners, no doubt, but none of them the doctor of Burnley.

“You may come in now, young ladies.”

The door had opened. The throng was moving forward. Cathy went in, feeling very small and unimportant, and found a table and chair.

The papers were handed around. Cathy looked at hers eagerly. Around her she could hear gasps of horror and grunts of satisfaction. For her she found it only average. She was confident she could pass, but not brilliantly, as she would have liked if only to show Dr. Malcolm. If she had been like these other candidates with only her work to absorb her and not the eternal internal inferno as to
what
to do about Denise and
how
to manage Rita she could have tackled the rather difficult paper with gusto. She knew that. Now, with a past history of study too lavishly embellished with private worries, she could only give it the energy not already exhausted on her two problem girls.

An hour went by; another.

The examiner told them how long they had left, and pens flew.

Cathy left question five till last. It was chapter seventeen, to which Malcolm had directed her attention. She knew it off by heart and put the last triumphant full stop as the order came, “Pens down.”

The papers were fastened and collected, and the hall gradually emptied.

A nurse came up to Cathy and said, “Miss Trent? This way, please,” and Cathy was taken up the passage and ushered into a room.

An elderly man regarded her through thick spectacles. “Sit down, Miss Trent. You have finished your paper?”

“Yes, sir.” The man looked like a “sir”, thought Cathy deferentially. She had not noticed the lettering on the door, but he appeared important.

“An unusual instance, yours. We welcome English nurses, don’t be in any doubt about that, but we like to train them in our own way before we pass them.”

Cathy thought ruefully that perhaps she wouldn’t be passing, but aloud she said, “
I
was given to understand that Australian training and the training we received at St. Cloud are equivalent, that the finished product would be acceptable to either Australia
or
England.”

“By all means. But
practical
,
Miss Trent, how do I know your standard in practical work?”

“I am a housemother. I shall not be taking up the position of nurse.”

“So
you
say. Graduates also tell me that they will not be leaving, after we have gone to the expense of training them, to be married, and then what happens?” The man shrugged his shoulders.

Cathy sat waiting.

“It is, as I remarked, an exceptional case. If Dr. Malcolm had not personally guaranteed you we would have insisted that you undergo at least a year of practical training. As it is, we feel we should satisfy ourselves. You understand that, of course.”

“Of course,” murmured Cathy.

“Then you will go with the nursing instructor.” He rang a bell. “She will report back to me later. She won’t take l
o
ng to sum you up.” The old eyes glinted in a way Cathy did not enjoy. “However, she is not all dragon,” he cheered instantly. “Good luck, my dear.”

“Am I to call back here after I’m finished?”

“No, you can go home. You’ll hear the results in due course.”

“Yes, sir.” Cathy got up unhappily. She had believed it was all over, now it seemed, she faced the worst ordeal of all.

The nursing instructor was small, thin, starchy and efficient. Obviously she liked girls trained her own way and did not approve of this fledgling thrust upon her from another hospital nest.

“Follow me,” she said bleakly, leading Cathy down a labyrinth of corridors.

She turned a corner in the labyrinth, and Cathy darted after her, for the instructor was quick of movement, and if she lost sight of her she felt sure she would never find her way.

At the second corner catastrophe overtook her. As she turned the corner to find the instructor already turning the next one,

Cathy’s bulging bag gave up the effort of holding a manual, six textbooks, her handbag, a fir cone, a pine needle, thirty assorted pieces of good luck in all shapes and sizes, and spilled noisily and untidily on the bare floor.

The fir cone rolled under a trolley, the feather settled on a sterilizer, the buttons, twigs, empty cotton reels arrayed themselves over the immaculate polish.

Cathy grabbed the manual, books and handbag and stuffed them back.

“Come along, nurse,” snapped the instructor at the other end of the corridor. “My word, you’ll have to step faster here at Northern District, mark my word.”

Cathy ran like the coward she was.

She only hoped that a nursing assistant, and not a trainee, would receive the blame for the mess. Nursing-assistant positions in Australia were so plentiful the women could go at will, but trainees were trainees the world over, and discipline remained the formidable same.

They came into a limb ward. The instructor indicated an apron to Cathy and told her to apply a surgical dressing on the patient in the third bed.

She stood and watched her as she did, and Cathy worked nervously but fairly efficiently, considerably helped by the patient’s understanding wink.

“Humph,” said the instructor, “this way, nurse.”

More labyrinths—had her lucky mascots been discovered yet—and a female ward this time and an alkaline poultice to be applied.

A few more tests, the final taking of a temperature, and the instructor said, to Cathy’s complete surprise, “You’ll do, though I knew it, of course. I was at St. Cloud myself five years ago.”

“You were?”

“I was visiting England and made it a busman’s holiday. Is Superintendent Watts still there?”

Cathy told her she was soon to visit Australia. “You must come down and see her.”

“I certainly shall. Edith and
I
got on very well. That will do, nurse.”

“Thank you, miss.”

Cathy turned to go.

“One thing more, nurse...
”

Cathy waited.

“You might retrace your steps and retrieve that odd assortment of bolts and twigs and buttons. They might do at St. Cloud, but here at Northern District they are regarded as foreign bodies.”

All at once she laughed, and Cathy laughed, too.

“They don’t call me Hawkeye for nothing,” were the instructor’s last succinct words.

Cathy returned to Redgates, considerably cheered. “The exam was a bit of an ordeal,” she reported to Elvira, “but I believe I’ll pass, and I believe, too, I can be sure of the practical.”

“We’ve had an ordeal as well,” informed Elvira gloomily.

“Mrs. Dubois?”

“Who else. A preface to the board meeting on Friday.”

“Is there one on Friday? I’d forgotten.”

“Fayette hasn’t forgotten. She wasn’t so bad today, however. Only questioned the patent breakfast foods and asked Fergie wouldn’t bread and milk be cheaper, the bread first liberally moistened with hot water to save on the milk. That woman ought to compose an economical cookbook,” and Elvira sniffed.

“No other complaints?”

“No. I believe it was housemother she was after. I think—” and Elvira pretended to shoot with her doubled fist and pointed first finger in the way of the small Redgates boys did “—she’s gunning for you.”

“You’ve been in the company of Ricky Harris,” accused Cathy, laughing. “Wait till Ricky gets his new plaid shirt.”

“There’s a letter in the afternoon mail. It has a Bayville postmark.”

Bayville was the suburb in which the infectious diseases hospital was situated. There must be word of Christabel. Cathy ran into the office and slit open the envelope.

There were weird symbols on the sheet consisting of circles, crosses, wriggling lines and snakelike coils. This must be Christabel’s work. Underneath an understanding nurse had translated: “I am ready to come home on Thursday, and doctor says I can. Please fetch me. Love and kisses, Christabel.”

“Elvira, Fergie,” shouted Cathy joyously, “our baby is coming home.”

The late afternoon brought another excitement—a cable from England.

“Only other time Redgates got a cable was when Doctor Jerry wired Happy Birthday to Betty Willard. Must have cost him a bundle, and she was only turning nine.”

“This is from Miss Watts. Remember, Elvie, I told you about her. She arrives at Mascot the day after tomorrow. Oh, Elvira, I must meet her.”

“Of course, Aunty Cathy, love. Why not?”

“There’s Christabel to be collected, too. Her letter says Thursday.”

“I can collect Christabel.” A shadow had fallen over the doorway, but Cathy had not noticed it. A car must have pulled up on the drive, too, and been unheard.

Jeremy Malcolm advanced into the room.

“How was the exam?” he asked coolly.

She answered equally coolly, “Fairly satisfactory. There was Chapter Seventeen, as you anticipated.”

“Feel confident?”

She hesitated, "
I
don’t think I’ll set the Thames—I mean Sydney Harbour—on fire.”

“I never thought at any time you would set it afire,” he said noncommittally, then, “What’s this about being unable to collect Christabel?”

She told him briefly of Miss Watts and how her arrival coincided with Christabel’s dismissal from hospital. “Christabel is coming home. Did you know?”

“Yes, the hospital called me. Appears she’s a hundred percent now. Even the scar is fading. She wants to leave, too. Small Irene has been signed out, so Christabel has decided to turn her mothering to Redgates, In short, she is asking for her teddy bear again.”

“The darling. We must have a joint welcome, both for her and Miss Watts.”

“Will Miss Watts relish bread and cakes?” asked Dr. Malcolm. He promised he would pick up Christabel on Thursday to leave Cathy free to meet the Skyro
v
er at Mascot, then, murmuring something about a
c
heckup on one of the boys, he departed for the other block.

Presently they heard his car pulling out again.

Cathy stood on the pavement
in front of the airport office. She watched the great plane taxi down the strip.