Calvary Alley
Copyright© 2024 by Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice
Chapter 29: In Training
One sultry July night four years later Dr. Isaac Lavinski, now an arrogant member of the staff at the Adair Hospital, paused on his last round of the wards and cocked an inquiring ear above the steps that led to the basement. Something that sounded very much like suppressed laughter came up to him, and in order to confirm his suspicions, he tiptoed down to the landing and, making an undignified syphon of himself, peered down into the rear passage. In a circle on the floor, four nurses in their nightgowns softly beat time, while a fifth, arrayed in pink pajamas, with her hair flying, gave a song and dance with an abandon that ignored the fact that the big thermometer in the entry registered ninety-nine.
The giggles that had so disturbed Dr. Lavinski’s peace of mind increased in volume, as the dancer executed a particularly daring passeul and, turning a double somersault, landed deftly on her bare toes.
“Go on, do it again!” “Show us how Sheeny Ike dances the tango.” “Sing
Barney McKane,” came in an enthusiastic chorus.
But before the encore could be responded to, a familiar sound in the court without, sent the girls scampering to their respective rooms.
Dr. Isaac, reluctantly relinquishing his chance for administering prompt and dramatic chastisement, came down the stairs and out to the entry.
An ambulance had just arrived, and behind it was a big private car, and behind that Dr. Adair’s own neat runabout.
Dr. Adair met Dr. Isaac at the door.
“It’s an emergency case,” he explained hastily. “I may have to operate to-night. Prepare number sixteen, and see if Miss Molloy is off duty.”
“She is, sir,” said Isaac, grimly, “and the sooner she’s put on a case the better.”
“Tell her to report at once. And send an orderly down to lend a hand with the stretcher.”
Five minutes later an immaculate nurse, every button fastened, every fold in place, presented herself on the third floor for duty. You would have had to look twice to make certain that that slim, trim figure in its white uniform was actually Nance Molloy. To be sure her eyes sparkled with the old fire under her becoming cap, and her chin was still carried at an angle that hinted the possession of a secret gold mine, but she had changed amazingly for all that. Life had evidently been busy chiseling away her rough edges, and from a certain poise of body and a professional control of voice and gesture, it was apparent that Nance had done a little chiseling on her own account.
As she stood in the dim corridor awaiting orders, she could not help overhearing a conversation between Dr. Adair and the agitated lady who stood with her hand on the door-knob of number sixteen.
“My dear madam,” the doctor was saying in a tone that betokened the limit of patience, “you really must leave the matter to my judgment, if we operate—”
“But you won’t unless it’s the last resort?” pleaded the lady. “You know how frightfully sensitive to pain he is. But if you find out that you must, then I want you to promise me not to let him suffer afterward. You must keep him under the influence of opiates, and you will wait until his father can get here, won’t you?”
“But that’s the trouble. You’ve waited too long already. Appendicitis is not a thing to take liberties with.”
“You don’t mean it’s too late? You don’t think—”
“We don’t think anything at present. We hope everything.” Then spying Nance, he turned toward her with relief. “This is the nurse who will take charge of the case.”
The perturbed lady uncovered one eye.
“You are sure she is one of your very best?”
“One of our best,” said the doctor, as he and Nance exchanged a quizzical smile.
“Let her go in to him now. I can’t bear for him to be alone a second. As
I was telling you—”
Nance passed into the darkened room and closed the door softly. The patient was evidently asleep; so she tiptoed over to the window and slipped into a chair. On each side of the open space without stretched the vine-clad wings of the hospital, gray now under the starlight. Nance’s eyes traveled reminiscently from floor to floor, from window to window. How many memories the old building held for her! Memories of heartaches and happiness, of bad times and good times, of bitter defeats and dearly won triumphs.
It had been no easy task for a girl of her limited education and undisciplined nature to take the training course. But she had gallantly stood to her guns and out of seeming defeat, won a victory. For the first time in her diversified career she had worked in a congenial environment toward a fixed goal, and in a few weeks now she would be launching her own little boat on the professional main.
Her eyes grew tender as she thought of leaving these protecting gray walls that had sheltered her for four long years; yet the adventure of the future was already calling. Where would her first case lead her?
A cough from the bed brought her sharply back to the present. She went forward and stooped to adjust a pillow, and the patient opened his eyes, stared at her in bewilderment, then pulled himself up on his elbow.
“Nance!” he cried incredulously. “Nance Molloy!”
She started back in dismay.
“Why, it’s Mr. Mac! I didn’t know! I thought I’d seen the lady before—no, please! Stop, they’re coming! Please, Mr. Mac!”
For the patient, heretofore too absorbed in his own affliction to note anything, was covering her imprisoned hands with kisses and calling on Heaven to witness that he was willing to undergo any number of operations if she would nurse him through them.
Nance escaped from the room as Mrs. Clarke entered. With burning cheeks she rushed to Dr. Adair’s office.
“You’ll have to get somebody else on that case, Doctor,” she declared impulsively. “I used to work for Mr. Clarke up at the bottle factory, and—and there are reasons why I don’t want to take it.”
Dr. Adair looked at her over his glasses and frowned.
“It is a nurse’s duty,” he said sternly, “to take the cases as they come, irrespective of likes or dislikes. Mr. Clarke is an old friend of mine, a man I admire and respect.”
“Yes, sir, I know, but if you’ll just excuse me this once—”
“Is Miss Rand off duty?”
“No, sir. She’s in number seven.”
“Miss Foster?”
“No, sir.”
“Then I shall have to insist upon your taking the case. I must have somebody I can depend upon to look after young Clarke for the next twenty-four hours. It’s not only the complication with his appendix; it’s his lungs.”
“You mean he’s tubercular?”
“Yes.”
Nance’s eyes widened.
“Does he know it?”
“No. I shall wait and tell his father. I wouldn’t undertake to break the news to that mother of his for a house and lot! You take the case to-night, and I’ll operate in the morning—”
“No, no, please, Doctor! Mr. Clarke wouldn’t want me.”
“Mr. Clarke will be satisfied with whatever arrangement I see fit to make. Besides another nurse will be in charge by the time he arrives.”
“But, Doctor—”
A stern glance silenced her, and she went out, closing the door as hard as she dared behind her. During her four years at the hospital the memory of Mac Clarke had grown fainter and fainter like the perfume of a fading flower. But the memory of Dan was like a thorn in her flesh, buried deep, but never forgotten.
To herself, her fellow-nurses, the young internes who invariably fell in love with her, she declared gaily that she was “through with men forever.” The subject that excited her fiercest scorn was matrimony, and she ridiculed sentiment with the superior attitude of one who has weighed it in the balance and found it wanting.
Nevertheless something vaguely disturbing woke in her that night when she watched with Mrs. Clarke at Mac’s bedside. Despite the havoc five years had wrought in him, there was the old appealing charm in his voice and manner, the old audacity in his whispered words when she bent over him, the old eager want in his eyes as they followed her about the room.
Toward morning he dropped into a restless sleep, and Mrs. Clarke, who had been watching his every breath, tiptoed over to the table and sat down by Nance.
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