Free Nurse Kelsey Abroad by Marjorie Norrell Page A

but not, she affirmed to herself, the sole reason, “because I wanted to do something really well worth while in my nursing life. This seems to be as good an ans wer as W.H.O. would have been.”
    “It is,” Ann agreed seriously, then as somewhere in the distance a clock chimed the hours, she took Jane by the elbow. “C ome along!” she urged, although Jane required no urging. “We’re about five minutes late in going to Dr. Jim’s office, and that isn’t a good idea, but I wanted you to look round the wards first, then when you come from his office I’ll show you the theatre and the lab. Right now here we are. Tell him I wanted to go and chat with Mrs. Petrobraun before I left and as I knew he’d be operating later I wanted to go and see her before her pre-med. See you later!” and leaving Jane a prey to sudden nerves she hurried off in the direction of the women’s medical ward.
    As Ann vanished from her side Jane knocked tentatively on the door where Ann had left her. There was no distinguishing sign on its surface, merely a small brass plate at the side which gave Dr. Lowth’s name and qualifications in both medicine and surgery. She was rewarded immediately after her knock by an abrupt shout of “Come in!” and entered to find him seated behind a small, scrubbed table, piles of papers and notes on either side of him as he sat with his head propped up on his hands, staring down at a report which lay before him.
    “Put it down there, please!” he said, without lifting his head.
    Jane was in a quandary. Obviously she was being mistaken for someone else, and equally obviously he had forgotten she had an appointment with him, now almost five minutes late. After a moment of hesitation she cleared her throat, and instantly he looked up so that she was startled by the intent regard of his piercing glance from those widely spaced hazel eyes.
    “Staff Nurse Kelsey?” He made it sound like a question, although the fact that he had clearly remembered her name and also that she was the only staff nurse there made the questioning tone out of place. “You’re late!” he said briefly, glancing at his watch. “Any other time I shouldn’t have waited, as it was,” he gesticulated towards the report he had been studying, “this required my attention and I became somewhat immersed in its contents. Have you been round the hospital?” he shot at her abruptly.
    “Yes, thank you. I haven’t seen the theatre as yet, or the laboratory, but Nurse Palmer said she would take me round when she’d chatted with Mrs. Petrobraun ... ”
    “That’s where she is now?”
    “Yes. At least, that’s where she said she was going, before the lady had her pre-med.”
    “And you accept all you have seen?” was his next question.
    “I have to, haven’t I?” A small smile played for a moment round Jane’s lips and appeared to annoy him, for immediately he frowned and said sharply :
    “If you mean by that remark that it’s impossible to run out and take the next tube or bus home, then I agree with you.”
    “But I didn’t mean that!” She was horrified that he should even imagine such a thing, and yet, when it came to the actual moment of putting what she did mean into words, she could not, for a moment, think of what to say.
    “What did you mean, then?” Dr. Lowth prompted mercilessly. “That you know it’s there, and if you’d known it was like this then you wouldn’t have accepted the position? Is that it?”
    “ Not in the least.” Suddenly, and for no reason at all or from where, she knew not, but abruptly Jane had the words to answer him.
    “I wanted to come,” she said quietly, “for two reasons. One of them,” she thought of Dudley, “was a purely personal matter and of no interest to anyone save myself. The other was that for some time I’d had the idea of using my nursing training in a wider field. I’d thought of W.H.O., of missionary work, of Oxfam, of tropical nursing—lots of things—but when