|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 18
At the end she played the Minuet, with a sort of flaming look in
her eyes that puzzled Twenty-two. He could not know that she was
playing it to Johnny Fraser, lying with closed eyes in the ward
upstairs. He did not realise that there was a passion of sacrifice
throbbing behind the dignity of the music.
Doctor Willie had stayed over for the concert. He sat, beaming
benevolently, in the front row, and toward the end he got up and
told some stories. After all, it was Doctor Willie who was the real
hit of the evening. The convalescents rocked with joy in their
roller chairs. Crutches came down in loud applause. When he sat down
he slipped a big hand over Jane Brown's and gave hers a hearty
squeeze.
"How d'you like me as a parlour entertainer, Nellie?" he whispered.
She put her other hand over his. Somehow she could not speak.
The First Assistant called to the Probationer that night as she went
past her door. Lights were out, so the First Assistant had a candle,
and she was rubbing her feet with witch hazel.
"Come in," she called. "I have been looking for you. I have some
news for you."
The exaltation of the concert had died away. Jane Brown, in the
candle light, looked small and tired and very, very young.
"We have watched you carefully," said the First Assistant, who had
her night garments on but had forgotten to take off her cap.
"Although you are young, you have shown ability, and--you are to be
accepted."
"Thank you, very much," replied Jane Brown, in a strangled tone.
"At first," said the First Assistant, "we were not sure. You were
very young, and you had such odd ideas. You know that yourself now."
She leaned down and pressed a sore little toe with her forefinger.
Then she sighed. The mention of Jane Brown's youth had hurt her,
because she was no longer very young. And there were times when she
was tired, when it seemed to her that only youth counted. She felt
that way to-night.
When Jane Brown had gone on, she blew out her candle and went to
bed, still in her cap.
Hospitals do not really sleep at night. The elevator man dozes in
his cage, and the night watchman may nap in the engineer's room in
the basement. But the night nurses are always making their sleepless
rounds, and in the wards, dark and quiet, restless figures turn and
sigh.
Before she went to bed that night, Jane Brown, by devious ways,
slipped back to her ward. It looked strange to her, this cavernous
place, filled with the unlovely noises of sleeping men. By the one
low light near the doorway she went back to Johnny's bed, and sat
down beside him. She felt that this was the place to think things
out. In her room other things pressed in on her; the necessity of
making good for the sake of those at home, her love of the work, and
cowardice. But here she saw things right.
The night nurse found her there some time later, asleep, her
hunting-case watch open on Johnny's bed and her fingers still on his
quiet wrist. She made no report of it.
Twenty-two had another sleepless night written in on his record that
night. He sat up and worried. He worried about the way the Senior
Surgical Interne had sung to Jane Brown that night. And he worried
about things he had done and shouldn't have, and things he should
have done and hadn't. Mostly the first. At five in the morning he
wrote a letter to his family telling them where he was, and that he
had been vaccinated and that the letter would be fumigated. He also
wrote a check for an artificial leg for the boy in the children's
ward, and then went to bed and put himself to sleep by reciting the
"Rosary" over and over. His last conscious thought was that the
hours he had spent with a certain person would not make much of a
string of pearls.
The Probationer went to Doctor Willie the next day. Some of the
exuberance of the concert still bubbled in him, although he shook
his head over Johnny's record.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|