The Hasty Marriage. Бетти Нилс

return to the ward. Their wives came too, hurrying in from their suburban homes, leaving heaven alone knew what chaos behind them, to be sat in Laura’s office, given tea and sympathy and reassured in their turn. Presently, when they had calmed down, she took them along to the visitors’ room where they could sit in some comfort, with magazines to read and coffee and sandwiches served from time to time, although in Laura’s experience the magazines were rarely opened and the sandwiches and coffee were returned untouched.

      And this time it was worse than usual, for one of the men died only a short time after he had been returned to the ward from the Recovery Room; a sudden collapse which all their skills couldn’t cure. Laura, instead of going off duty, stayed with the bereaved wife until relations came to take her home, and then went over to the home, to her own room, so tired that she no longer had any very clear thoughts left in her head. Ann gave her a mug of tea after she had had her bath and she barely gave herself time to drink it before falling into bed and sleeping at once.

      But the rest of the week was better than that. The other three men improved rapidly, the poker players, their stitches out, went home, sheepishly offering her a large bunch of flowers as they went, and Mr Bates, to her great astonishment, gone home a week or more, returned one morning to offer his grudging thanks for the care he had received while he had been in the ward. Laura was so surprised that she could only stare at him and then, realising what an effort it must have been for him to have made such a gesture, she took him into the ward to see one or two of the patients he had known. They weren’t all that pleased to see him, for he had been unpopular with his fellow sufferers, but as one of them pointed out to Laura afterwards, his visit relieved the tedium of the long hospital morning.

      She was on duty that weekend, and towards the end of the week following it she telephoned Joyce and invented a mythical friend who had invited her out, for her sister had telephoned her earlier in the week to tell her that Reilof van Meerum would be coming once more, and made it clear that if Laura were to go home it would spoil their outings together, for he would be sure to invite her along too, out of politeness.

      ‘And I don’t see much of him, darling, do I?’ Joyce’s voice sounded vaguely discontented, and it was then that Laura had determined to make some excuse to stay in London, and on the Friday she telephoned to say that the girl from Physiotherapy who had got married a few months previously had asked her to spend the weekend…

      Joyce wasn’t really interested. ‘Oh, lovely for you,’ she observed carelessly. ‘Reilof’s coming next weekend too—flying over—but of course you won’t be free, will you?’

      Laura said no and what a pity, knowing that Joyce would have been furious if it had been otherwise. ‘But I’m coming home the weekend after that,’ she warned, ‘because I want some summer clothes from my room.’