Free Hospital Corridors by Mary Burchell Page B

that respect you are a satisfactory nurse. But though, really, I don’t expect to have to speak like this to any of my senior nurses, your general behaviour while you are on duty is often, to say the least of it, unbecoming. I’m not only referring to the incident this morning—”
    “Truly, Miss Ardingley, that was not my fault,” Madeline interrupted eagerly.
    “Please let me finish. I know Mr. Sanders said something about his being more to blame than you. That may well be so, but, Miss Gill, you must know as well as I do that such things simply do not happen to a well-behaved nurse on duty. I might not think so much of the incident if I didn’t know, from my own observation, that you miss no opportunity of talking to any attractive man who comes into the place—”
    “That simply isn’t true!” exclaimed Madeline indignantly.
    “I’m sorry, Miss Gill, that is the impression you give. And—though this has nothing to do with me, of course, except as confirming my own view—Mrs. Sanders tells me that it was much the same on board ship.”
    “Why, how dare she say such a thing!” Madeline was too angry to think about anyone’s professional status at this moment, and she spoke as one very furious woman to another. “There were only two men on board whom I really spoke to at all. One was Mr. Sanders, whom I could hardly avoid, and the other was Dr. Lanyon who—”
    She had not even heard the light tap on the door, so that she was quite unprepared for the interruption in Nat Lanyon’s faintly drawling voice.
    “Miss Ardingley, I’d like a word with you about Mrs. Curtis—Oh, I’m sorry, I see you’re busy. Perhaps it will do if I see Miss Fearon.”
    “No, no—not at all!” A private talk with Dr. Lanyon was too highly prized to be lightly cast aside. “I had almost finished what I had to say to Miss Gill.” Miss Ardingley turned once more to Madeline. “I hope you will think very seriously over what I’ve said, and that I shall not have any occasion to speak to you like this again.”
    Dr. Lanyon slightly raised his expressive eyebrows and glanced from Miss Ardingley’s curiously triumphant figure to Madeline’s flushed, distressed face. There was a moment’s silence, while Madeline turned to go. Then, as she reached the door, the surgeon who had hardly ever been known even to recognize a nurse in uniform said quietly,
    “Just a moment, Miss Gill.”
    Madeline hesitated, and Dr. Lanyon turned to the head of the Private Pavilion.
    “Miss Ardingley, the last thing I want to do is to interfere in what is strictly your own province. But I happened to hear a few words as I came in, and I have an idea that some misunderstanding has arisen here. May I express an opinion or would you think that impertinent of me?”
    Even Miss Ardingley could not bring herself to reject such an unheard-of overture from the famous surgeon.
    “Why—why, of course, Dr. Lanyon. Please say whatever you want to say.”
    He inclined his head slightly, but very slightly, in acknowledgement of that.
    “I gathered that someone—Mrs. Sanders, I think—had given you to understand that Miss Gill did not behave very well on board ship—”
    “Dr. Lanyon, that’s really no business of mine!”
    “No, I know,” Dr. Lanyon agreed drily. “But, unless the impression were corrected, it might, quite unconsciously, of course, influence your judgment of Miss Gill later. I happened to cross on the same boat. Miss Gill had an extraordinarily dull and busy time with an exacting patient, and I’m sure she had no occasion for even legitimate fun, much less anything else. In fact, I believe the only time she so much as saw the inside of the ballroom was one evening when I took her dancing for half an hour. Isn’t that so, Miss Gill?” He turned suddenly to Madeline, standing motionless near the door.
    “Yes, Dr. Lanyon,” Madeline said softly, controlling a mad desire to fling her arms round him and hug him with