Nurse in White (9 page)

“Just a formality, Nightingale,” Cy said softly. “When a man gets sentimental, he always kisses the nearest girl, you know. I’m sure she would feel defrauded if he didn’t.”

Again Ellen noticeably said nothing.
Sentimental,
she scoffed at herself.
Ye gods! If you’ve been sentimental, Cy Dent, give me MacGowan’s lecture on fractures!

As if he read her thoughts, Cy took her hands. “Whatever you’re thinking at the present moment Nightingale,” he chided, “you’re quite unfair—in fact, you’re dead wrong. Come on, let’s skate.”

Two hours later they parted at the corner, a block from the nurses’ home, without again referring to the subject.

I
suppose he thinks he has only to lift a beckoning finger and every nurse in Anthony Ware will follow. Well, I made it pretty plain to him that
I
didn’t for one moment take his ravings seriously Or did I?

As she took off her heavy clothes, Ellen experienced a feeling of dissatisfaction. Cyrus Dent was everything a girl could possibly want and yet he left her cold. Why was that? Was she, as Ann had intimated on occasion, one of those girls entirely lacking the power to love completely? She had heard of such people and had instinctively shrunk from them as monstrosities. She had read somewhere that only a person who had been touched by a great love or a great sorrow—preferably both—was capable of living a great life—doing a great work. But surely there were exceptions—exceptions that proved the rule. Maybe she, herself, was one of those exceptions. The thought wasn’t exactly comforting.

She told herself that she was fortunate to have escaped falling in love with Cy. All the other girls adored him. No doubt that was the reason for his persistent attention to her—the unattainable. A sudden smile curved her lips for a moment.

Here is one nurse
,
my glamorous Dr. Cyrus Dent
,
whose sleep you will never disturb. You may be a heart throb and high blood pressure to the rest of the female population of the globe
,
but to me you re just a pain in the neck!

She determinedly closed her mind to the whole affair, changed to her uniform and went down to dinner. Ann grinned wisely at her from across the table. Ellen frowned and bit her lip as she felt herself blushing. The girl was positively uncanny.

CHAPTER NINE

For some reason,
Ellen and Dr. Dent did not meet again for two days. Ellen cringed in every nerve each time the elevator door opened. How should she meet him? He was quite impervious to snubs and she was in no mood for banter.

Ann was having trouble with a wisdom tooth and was temporarily off duty. Janet Hoyt, a junior student, was subbing for her. Janet was one of those big, placid girls with not a nerve in her body—the kind who make grand matrons of orphanages and asylums. She looked up from the textbook she was studying and eyed Ellen with an adoring but slightly worried gaze.

“You’re—you’re terribly jumpy tonight, Miss Gaylord,” she stammered. “Don’t you feel well? You’ve been on nights awfully long.”

“I’m all right.” Ellen was surprised and annoyed to find that she spoke sharply. “I am sort of jumpy, as you call it. I don’t know why unless it’s the storm. Just listen to that wind.”

“Don’t you like the wind?” the other girl asked in surprise. “I just love it! I adore being out in a regular gale, especially if there is rain or snow along with it. I love to feel it on my face and to fight it every step of the way—to master it.”

Ellen smiled at her. Once, ages ago, that was the way she had felt. When she was at home, she had gloried in the storm’s buffeting. Why had she changed ? Or had she really changed?

“I like to be out in the wind,” she said, “but somehow, when I’m inside it sort of makes me homesick.”

“Probably that’s it,” the other answered.

Ellen went over to the great window at the end of the corridor and drew back the linen curtains. Clouds scudded across the moon leaving long tatters through which an occasional star twinkled faintly. The bare giant elms sighed and bent and writhed as if in agony. It was all eerie and somehow sinister. Ellen shivered and as she drew back, her glance focused on a darker shadow in the shrubbery near the garage. As if aware of her gaze, it shrank and melted into the background. Ellen pulled the curtains together. How silly and imaginative she was!. The night watchman, of course. Since that advertisement he had been particularly alert.

“It’s a wild night,” she said as she sat down at the table and picked up her own book. “Everyone is restless—there—I knew it,” as two summoning red lights glowed. “I’ll go. You get on with that chapter.”

She supplied the necessary demands of two of L’s patients, gave an inquiring glance at little Angela Dubail, who appeared frailer and more ethereal each time she looked at her, passed on down the ward to the bed of Lady X and paused for a moment. The girl lay in that same deathlike sleep to which she seemed to fall from time to time. Ellen gently touched her forehead. Cool and slightly moist. Her breathing was so light as to be almost imperceptible. If she were indeed dead, she would look just so, Ellen knew. A feeling of futil
it
y overcame her for a moment. In this girl was her own strong, healthy blood—poured into her veins gladly and hopefully. A little flood of warmth crept to her face as she realized that her own blood had been supplemented by Dr. Dent’s. She wondered whimsically if the two bloods mixed well or if they, too, quarreled. It was rather odd that they typed alike—odd and vaguely disturbing when Ellen realized how much she disliked the man.

She went back to the corridor. No doubt Cyrus Dent had been indulging in his perverted idea of humor when he spouted his hypothetical cases for her benefit. She was glad she had given him no satisfaction. She bit her lip and suddenly felt uncomfortably warm. She wished—how she wished he hadn’t kissed her! She had read somewhere that with every kiss goes a part of one. How silly? Why, oh why couldn’t she put him out of her mind?
Out damned spot,
she mentally ordered, and giggled aloud just as Dr. Dent arrived from Pediatrics up front at the same time Marcella left the elevator with the midnight sandwiches and coffee.

“Anything new?” he asked impersonally as he perched himself on one corner of the table.

“Not a thing.” Ellen was proud of her cool, level voice.

“Mac’s expecting Lady X to come out of her amnesia anytime now. She’s definitely better. See any signs, Gaylord?”

“None at all. I was just looking at her and she appears about as she has for days. To be sure she isn’t quite so waxen and she doesn’t seem so scared, but otherwise she is just the same.”

Dent reached for a sandwich.

“Yours is downstairs, doctor,” Marcella said shortly. “I can’t see why you want to eat other people’s lunches.”

“Can’t you, Harris? Well, I’ll tell you. Ever hear of Omar Khayyam? ‘A loaf of bread, a jug of wine and thou beside me in the wilderness,’ etc., etc. Now, if you could find it in your hard and unfriendly heart to stay and share my meal, lady, it might prove more palatable.”

“The voice is the voice of Dr. Dent, the intern; but the tone and theme are those of Cyrus Dent, eligible bachelor and idol of the country-club crowd,” Marcella said with her usual bluntness.

“You do me wrong, lady.” Ellen saw that he flushed
with annoyance
. “In this profession you know it behooves one to be on friendly terms with the townspeople: It’s good policy and besides, I need the exercise.”

“Umph!” snorted Marcella, and wondered if Ellen had heard that he had been offered a ritzy job in Boston, catering to the neurotic elite.

“Umph me no umphs, Marcella Harris,” the young man went on, his natural nonchalance restored. “There isn’t a girl in that whole crowd to compare with one we have here in Anthony Ware.” He glanced quickly at Ellen and grinned at her quick hot blush. She glared wildly at him and he went on smoothly, an impish quirk on his handsome mouth: “Don’t you people think Lady X is about the loveliest thing you’ve ever seen? I’m
telling
you—that girl is class.”

Later when she thought of it, Ellen could not describe her reactions to that statement. She was suddenly sick. She felt the blood drain from her face, and pinched herself to restore her senses. She could not lift her shamed and angry eyes, but swallowed the food in her mouth with the help of coffee which fortunately had cooled considerably. She was sure she knew why people felt a sudden urge to commit murder.

The smooth, mocking voice went on, “We’re hoping for a break soon. Do any of you girls want to make a bet with me?”

“What odds?” Marcella asked, not that she wanted to know particularly, but he was eating far too many sandwiches—the pig—and she thought to divert his attention. If only he wasn’t so darn good-looking and so sort of appealing! It made her mad.

“A nickel to a dime that Lady X is somebody important. Oh-oh—time for gambling interns to scram. Bye, Nightingales.” The
s
was pronounced and he departed as the elevator discharged its passenger—the night watchman.

Marcella giggled maliciously. “That’s one time the handsome Dent got fooled.” But Ellen had fled to the safety of the ward. There she stayed—smoothing a rumpled coverlet, listening to the irregular breathing of Angela Dubail murmuring a little prayer in her heart as she looked down at the thin face, the quiet, folded hands entwined with her rosary; adjusting a window.

Her eyes searched the shadows near the garage. It must have been the watchman she told herself again, for now there was no one lurking here.

Just what she feared she couldn’t have told. That the wretches who had abused Lady X and left her for dead would never be satisfied to let well enough alone and take their chances at remaining undiscovered, she somehow felt sure. Let Cy Dent laugh at women’s intuition if he wanted to, she knew that MacGowan respected hers. Hadn’t he left Lady X right here in L?

A car drove into the courtyard below, its headlights searching out every nook and cranny. No, there was no one down there now. It must have been the watchman. The car lights went out. Ellen turned and went back to her table in the alcove. Marcella had gone and Janet still nibbled at a sandwich. The service elevator whirred up past their floor. Someone was to have an operation—a major one, evidently. She wished she could be up there if MacGowan was operating.

What a waste for Cy Dent to work under Mac! Catering to a lot of silly women nursing imaginary ailments! He made her sick.

The night wore on. At two o’clock the elevator stopped at the fourth floor and a patient was wheeled down the corridor. Ellen went to meet it.

“A new guest for you, Gaylord,” Dr. Dent said as he stood aside for the orderly to wheel the stretcher through the door of L. “Emergency appendectomy and just in time. Fortunately, nothing happened—scarcely an inch incision. She’ll be all right. Out in ten days. Right here, Joe. Okay?” He turned to Ellen and grinned boyishly. “I still get a big kick out of being on my own.”

He walked away and Burns, who was on call that week, said when he was out of hearing, “Mac couldn’t beat that job, Gaylord. Swift and sure and perfectly calm—that’s Dent. Too bad he’ll throw it all away for a passel of
white-livered blue bloods—I mean, his knack of using a knife. Her name is Levin—from down by the tracks somewhere.”

Burns departed and Ellen went in to look at Mrs. Levin. So Cy was a good surgeon! She thought he would be from his hands. He had the hands of a surgeon. Boston! He’d get mighty little chance to perform any operations in Boston. He would be working with people’s minds, if any. He’d be asking about their dreams and digging inquisitively into their past lives. Oh, what a waste! Cy Dent made her absolutely sick!

Fanny Brown drew Ellen aside as she scanned the mystery girl’s chart a few minutes after she came on duty the next day. Still no change.

“Our mystery patient has had a caller.”

Ellen looked up sharply. “A caller? What sort of a caller?”

“She said she was Nancy Langham—Mrs. Peter Langham from Boston. She insists Lady X is Violet Terrill—her English cousin or second cousin. But although extremely attractive, young, beautiful and smartly gowned, our mystery girl never batted an eye when she saw her. It certainly took the wind out of the lady’s sails, but she continued to insist the girl is her cousin. Forsyth was with her and was the old girl oily! What a snob Agatha is!”

Ellen ignored the last. “Is she staying here—in town, I mean? Will she come again?”

“Sure. She’s coining tonight. That’s why I wanted to see you. Forsyth told her you had sort of taken charge of Lady X and that you might be able to give her some information. I don’t know what information you have to give. Lady X is still the same enigma she was when she landed here as far as I can see. I know you and Mac and Dent have been sort of holding prayer meetings over her—”

“Don’t be silly. It’s an unusual case. Of course we have been, and still are, interested in her,” Ellen interrupted.

“Well, so are the rest of us, but not to the same extent. After all, Gaylord, you don’t actually know anything about her. She may not tum out to be the angelic visitant you three think she is. What was she doing with that gang in the first place? You know molls sometimes come from pretty decent families.”

“So I’ve heard, but Lady X is no moll, Brown,” Ellen assured her.

“No? Well, here’s wishing you luck!”

Ellen went to the end of the long ward where Lady X lay staring at the ceiling, a frown of perplexity and concentration making her brows a straight, dark line above her big violet eyes.

“So you had a visitor?” Ellen smiled down at the sober face on the pillow.

“Yes.” Only that.

“And she didn’t mean anything to you? You don’t remember ever seeing her before?”

“No.”

“Well,” Ellen tried to make her voice reassuring, “don’t worry about it. It will all come back—soon.”

“Oh, I hope so!” It was a wail of despair.

A tall slender young woman in her middle twenties paused just inside the door. Dent was with her, his manner admiring and solicitous. Ellen went to them.

“This is Nurse Gaylord, Mrs. Langham,” he said, professional suavity so thick it nauseated Ellen. “Miss Gaylord has been much interested in your cousin, and perhaps better than anyone here, is able to give you particulars regarding her.” He left then and walked over to the mystery patient’s bed. Ellen saw the girl’s eyes brighten at his approach and noted the smile with which she greeted him.

“You are sure she is your cousin, Mrs. Langham?” Ellen asked. She had been right, Lady X was someone of importance. Mrs. Langham exuded wealth and social position from every pore.

“Oh, absolutely sure. I haven’t seen her in six years—not since I visited her grandfather on my honeymoon. To be sure, she was only a child of fifteen or so, but she hasn’t changed a great deal except that she is painfully thin. I think she is even prettier, if anything.” Mrs. Langham’s eyes, violet, too, clouded with pity.

“How did you know about—where she was?” Ellen wanted to know.

“It was the strangest thing! You see, she wrote me when her grandfather died—oh, two months ago, I think it was. It seems she had been quite ill and was only just convalescing. I wrote immediately urging her to come to me for a long visit and she accepted and set December first as the date of her sailing. My brother and she were—shall we say, tentatively engaged for a year or more—at least there had been a sort of understanding between them and something happened last spring—I don’t know what, but it was suddenly all off and instead of going to England as planned, he went to South America. But about Vi—on shipboard, she met a girl she had known in boarding school in France—Vivian Townsend—yes, my dear,” at Ellen’s look of familiarity with the name, “
the
Vivian Townsend, and they renewed their friendship. Vivian urged Vi to spend the holidays, or at least some time with her in New York before coming on to Boston. Vi wired me to that effect, saying she was not sure when she would arrive in Boston but was sending on part of her luggage. I was relieved, because the twins came down with measles the next day.