The Nightingale Girls - By Donna Douglas Page 0,38

the meeting as she headed off to do her ward rounds. She knew the nursing staff dreaded her daily visit, but she enjoyed meeting the patients and satisfying herself that they were being cared for properly. She tried not to give the harassed nurses too hard a time. Unlike the former Matron, who she’d heard wasn’t averse to tossing poorly patients out of bed so she could lift the mattress and inspect the bedsprings for dust.

As she headed down the warren of corridors, she could hear a tide of whispering and scurrying feet going before her. She knew each ward would be ringing the others to warn them of her impending arrival. Even so, she usually managed to surprise a couple, and it amused her to see them all fluttering around like startled birds when she appeared in the doorway. Once she had found Sister Wren with her feet up in her sitting room, reading Peg’s Paper.

Matron started with Blake, the Male Orthopaedic ward. It was usually a cheerful place, filled with good-humoured patients who were more bored with being laid up than gravely ill. The sister who ran Blake, Frannie Wallace, was an old friend of hers. They had worked together in Leeds, and it was Frannie who had written encouraging her to apply for the position of Matron at the Nightingale. She was one of the few friendly faces who greeted Kathleen on the wards.

But as she entered Blake today, Frannie was nowhere to be seen. There was no expectant line of nurses either, apart from a solitary pro scurrying up the ward with a bedpan. When she saw Matron she gave a squeak of terror and abruptly fled. Kathleen watched her dive through the screens around one of the beds, then appear a moment later, followed by Frannie and her staff nurse, an Irish girl called Bridget O’Hara.

Frannie smiled when she saw Kathleen. ‘Matron, what a pleasant surprise,’ she said, wiping her hands on her apron. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘I’ve come to do the ward round, Sister Blake.’ Kathleen remembered to address her by her proper name. Sisters always took on the name of the ward they ran. ‘I’m sorry I’m late. I was in a meeting that went on for rather a long time.’

‘But I thought—’ O’Hara blurted, until Frannie silenced her with a look. Kathleen glanced from her to the pro, who stared down at her sensible black shoes and looked as if she might cry.

‘Is something wrong?’ she asked.

‘No, Matron, nothing is wrong,’ Frannie said smoothly. ‘The patients are ready for you, if you’ll come this way?’

But Kathleen had an uneasy feeling as she followed Frannie to the first bed. As she talked to an elderly patient about his painful hip, she was aware of the pro whispering to Staff Nurse O’Hara behind her.

‘But I don’t understand. Miss Hanley—’

‘Shut up!’ O’Hara hissed back. ‘Just get down to bed four and pray to God that enema hasn’t worked yet!’

Kathleen watched her hurry away. ‘Is there something you’re not telling me?’ she hissed to Frannie out of the corner of her mouth as they moved together to the next bed.

‘Miss Hanley came and did your rounds earlier. She said you’d asked her to do it.’ Frannie paused at the foot of the next bed. ‘This is Mr Fletcher, who really should be in bed,’ she announced, giving a mock severe look to the man who sat in the chair beside it, reading his newspaper.

‘But, Sister, I’m much more comfortable here,’ he protested.

‘That’s as may be, but you’re not doing that arthritis any good in the long run.’ Frannie plumped up his pillows, the crisp starched cotton crackling in her hands. ‘Nurse O’Hara, please see that Mr Fletcher gets back into bed. After he’s finished his newspaper,’ she added, with a little smile in his direction.

‘Thanks, Sister,’ Mr Fletcher said gratefully. ‘You’re a sport.’

‘Now, Mr Fletcher. I don’t want nasty rumours like that getting around to the other patients.’ As she walked away from the bed, she said to Kathleen, ‘I don’t blame him. It must be very painful to lie flat in his condition.’

‘Yes, indeed.’ But Kathleen could barely hear what Frannie was saying for the angry buzzing inside her head.

How dare Miss Hanley take it upon herself to do her rounds for her! No wonder the nurses had been so perplexed to see her. Now she was wasting their time forcing them to accompany her around the ward again. Either that or admit