Free A Mother's Gift by Maggie Hope Page B

gazing at the green-painted wall of the corridor.
    ‘Come along then man,’ he snapped. But Sister was not going to allow that at least. ‘Nurse Benfield,’ she called. ‘Come and push Mr Hamilton in to see his wife.’
    Hurriedly, Staff Nurse had covered the trolley and was pushing it out of the side ward. Katie went out to the corridor before the two god-like surgeons, for that was the impression she had got of surgeons, they were gods, almost, and pushed the man in to the side ward where Mary Anne was lying with her eyes closed. Not that she was really asleep but she hoped Matthew would think so. Sister came and stood just inside the door, watching suspiciously and Matthew turned to her.
    ‘You can go now,’ he said. ‘I’ll call you—’ He stopped, having just noticed Katie behind him. Katie turned to go.
    ‘Not you, girl,’ he said. ‘You Sister, I mean you.’
    Both Katie and Sister gasped and the older woman turned crimson beneath her stiff white cap with the frill at the edge and the ribbons tied in a bow under the chin. But she could do nothing, she had perforce to back out into the corridor where the two surgeons were standing, talking lightly now.
    ‘What’s your name, girl?’
    ‘Nurse Benfield, sir,’ Katie managed to say.
    So it was the same girl. Benfield, that was what Thompson had called her grandfather, why, it must be five years ago. Momentarily diverted from his intention of talking to Mary Anne, he studied Katie openly and she lifted her chin and gazed back at him. He looked somehow familiar, had she seen him before? He was a big man though not so big as her grandfather and he sat uneasily in the chair, dressed in a satin dressing-gown. One leg stuck out in front of the chair covered by a plaster cast from toes to mid-calf. He caught her gaze and smiled.
    ‘Aren’t you from Winton?’ Matthew asked.
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘I thought so,’ said Matthew. He continued looking at her and she stood simply, waiting for him to stop. She had been striking as a young girl, he thought, now she was grown, she was beautiful, even in the ugly nurse’s uniform with the mid-calf-length apron and striped dress, the black lisle stockings and sensible shoes. If she took off the silly cap that was tilted slightly to the right, she would be even more striking, he thought.
    ‘Matthew?’
    Though it had only been a minute Mary Anne had got tired of pretending to sleep and had opened her eyes and seen that her husband was in a wheelchair.
    ‘What on earth happened?’ she cried in alarm. He turned back to the bed and his wife. She’d failed him again, he thought, what a bloody Christmas this had been.
    ‘Wait outside,’ he said over his shoulder and Katie went out though inwardly she was seething. Who the heck did he think he was, coming in here and behaving like he owned the whole hospital?

Chapter Eight
     
    ‘IT’S NOTHING, A slight accident at the works. I have a broken ankle and a few bruises, that’s all,’ Matthew said to Mary Anne. He didn’t mention that Jackson, the works manager, had head injuries and hadn’t come round yet. Mary Anne wouldn’t know whom he was talking about anyway.
    ‘What happened with you, madam? I thought you were going to carry this one. I suppose you’ve been lifting that great girl of yours, you never learn.’
    Mary Anne laid still, the lethargy induced by the pre-medication drug creeping back over her now that the shock of seeing Matthew in a wheelchair was fading. Though she still felt the depressing ache of failure, she could read correctly the contempt in Matthew’s expression.
    ‘I didn’t,’ she said. ‘It just happened. Sometimes it does, Matthew. It’s not my fault.’
    ‘Then whose—’ Matthew began to ask then saw the tear that slid down Mary Anne’s pink-tipped nose. He wasn’t entirely free of compassion, it was simply that he was so disappointed in her. He hadn’t only married her for the prospect of gaining her father’s works; he