He banged the door on her as though the very sight annoyed him, but she forgot that at once in her efforts to keep Billy and Sally happy once the ambulance was on the move.
They turned off the road after a very few minutes, to go through heathland and woods, cross beneath two main roads after a mile or so, and enter a small, pleasant town. The hospital was situated some way back from its main street, a fairly modern building at the end of a cul-de-sac lined with small old houses. Its courtyard was a hive of activity and from what Arabella could see from the ambulance windows, there was no lack of helpers. Several people detached themselves now and came hurrying to undo the ambulance doors and convey the children inside; Arabella was swept inside too, with a kindly nurse’s hand firmly under her elbow. She had time to glimpse the silver-grey of the Bentley parked on one side of the small forecourt before she was borne through the doors into what was apparently the entrance hall. But they didn’t stay here. The trolleys bearing the children were already turning down a short passage leading away from the hall, and Arabella, urged on with gentle insistence by her companion, trotted obediently after them. Casualty, she saw at once, quite a nice one too, but just now filled to capacity with spastic children… She barely had time to glimpse Sister Brewster lying back with her eyes closed, when the doctor appeared from nowhere beside her.
‘Keep with these two,’ he counselled her. ‘X-Ray first, and then probably the plaster room—they’ll feel better about the whole thing if they see you around.’
She nodded, and then remembered to voice a doubt at the back of her mind. ‘Mr Burns—his people in England, and Wickham’s—should someone do something?’
‘It’s being done now. Off to X-Ray—I must go and have another chat with Sister Brewster.’
Arabella perceived that for the moment at any rate she was a nurse, not a young woman who had had a nasty fright and needed, above all things, a nice cup of tea and a good cry. She said quietly: ‘Yes, very well, Doctor,’ and was brought to a halt by his: ‘She has brown hair, and speaks soft like a woman.’
‘The Merry Wives of Windsor,’ she stated automatically, and wondered if he had sustained an injury to his head while he was in the bus. It seemed not.
‘The sight of you called it to mind,’ he explained, and walked away, leaving her to accompany Billy and Sally to X-Ray.
It took a long time to get everyone sorted out, especially as Sister Brewster, instead of being helpful and efficient, lay back and declared that she was far too poorly to be bothered with a lot of questions and plans. Arabella, freed for a short time from Billy and Sally while they were anaesthetized while their legs were put in plaster, drank the cup of coffee someone put into her hand and then helped get the remaining children into their beds.
The hospital had risen nobly to the occasion; extra beds were being put up, more staff had been called back on duty, there was a supply of night garments and a trolley of warm drinks and soup. Arabella, almost dropping with tiredness, her appearance more deplorable than ever and starving for food, toiled on. The children had rallied amazingly. They had all been examined by now; two house doctors and the doctor who had come to their help in the first place had checked each one of them carefully. There was nothing, they declared, that could not be put right by a good night’s sleep and a day or two’s rest before being sent home. Excepting for Sally and Billy, of course, who would have to stay for a week or two.
Sister Brewster had retired to bed in the Nurses’ Home, tearfully contradicting herself with every breath and far more worried about a bruise on her arm than anything else. Arabella, called away from the children to speak to her superior, was put out to find that Sister Brewster didn’t much care what happened to anybody but herself; she made no enquiries as to Arabella’s state of mind or body, declared peevishly that Mr Burns should never have been sent on the journey without a medical examination, and even implied that it was all his fault, which annoyed Arabella so much that she would have liked to have answered back, only she had a sudden urge to cry, and that would never have done. She wished Sister Brewster a cold good night instead and went back to the children, to help them eat their suppers and then go from bed to bed, tucking them in and kissing them in a motherly fashion.
She was on her way down to the hospital dining room with a friendly group of nurses, intent on her comfort, when a voice over the intercom requested, in good English, that the nurse who had accompanied the children should present herself at Doctor van der Vorst’s office. ‘The younger of the two nurses,’ added the voice.
‘Who’s he?’ demanded Arabella of those around her, a little cross because her thoughts were bent on supper and bed. She neither knew nor cared for the moment what arrangements had been made nor who was making them. Presumably someone would sort everything out and they would all be sent home, but now all that she wanted was food and a good sleep so that she could forget Mr Burns, dying with such awful suddenness, and the children’s terrified little faces—she had been terrified herself.
No one had taken any notice of her question, perhaps they hadn’t understood, but she had been led down a short passage and stood before a door upon which several helpful knuckles rapped before opening it and pushing her gently inside.
Doctor van der Vorst looked quite different, sitting at a large desk piled most untidily with a variety of papers, but the look he gave her was the same calm, friendly one which had cheered her when she had peered up in that awful bus and seen him staring down at her. He got up as she took a few steps into the room and said: ‘Hullo—I do apologise for taking up your time, you have been working for two since you got here, so I’m told, you must be asleep on your feet. But I must have some particulars, and unfortunately Sister Brewster doesn’t feel able to help.’
He paused, waiting for her comment, no doubt, but Arabella, much as she disliked old Brewster, was loyal. ‘She’s very shocked,’ she offered in her pleasant voice, a little roughened because she was so tired, and took the chair he offered her, facing him across the desk. The door behind her opened and a homely body, very clean and starched, came in with a tray.
‘Coffee?’ enquired the doctor. ‘It will keep you going until you can get to your supper.’
The coffee was hot and milky and sweet, and there were little sandwiches besides. Arabella gobbled delicately and when she had drunk her coffee and her cup had been filled again, the doctor spoke.
‘I’ve done what I could,’ he began in his slow, pleasant voice. ‘I’ve telephoned your hospital, who are dealing with notifying relatives and so forth, attended to the matter of Mr Burns and made a preliminary list of children’s names, but not yours…’ He paused, his eyebrows raised in enquiry and Arabella, whisking the last delicious crumb into her mouth with a pink tongue, made haste to tell him: ‘Arabella Birch.’
He scribbled. ‘You are a nurse at Wickham’s Hospital?’
She nodded. ‘I’ve still a year’s training to do before I take my Finals, but I’m children’s trained.’ And because he still looked enquiring, she went on: ‘I’m twenty-two and I live with my aunt and uncle when I’m not in hospital. Mr and Mrs Birch at Little Dean House, Little Sampford, Essex.’
‘There is a telephone number?’
She gave that too and he picked up the receiver beside him and spoke into it, then turned to the papers before him. ‘Will you check these names with me?’ He hardly glanced at her, but began to read down the list in front of him, a slow business, for she had to correct him several times, give the children’s ages and the extent of their disability and any other details she could remember. They were almost at the end when the telephone rang once more. ‘They are getting your home,’ he told her, ‘and will ring back. I expect you would like to speak to your family.’
‘Oh, yes—you’re very k-kind. I’m sure Wickham’s w-will have t-telephoned, but that’s not the s-same…’ she added suddenly. ‘P-poor Mr Burns!’
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