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Giles took no notice at all of this remark but got out of the car and went round to open Samantha’s door. Halfway up the steps, his hand tucked under her elbow, he stopped to raise an arm in greeting to the house owner, Mr. Cockburn, who was still at his window, at such a late hour. “Does he count you as you come in?” Giles asked with interest.
Samantha, nicely aglow from the excellent claret they had had with their dinner, chuckled. “Don’t be absurd, he’s only keeping a fatherly eye on us. Anyway, he’s interested in the comings and goings. Nothing very exciting happens to him, you see.”
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She was awakened by Sue Blane bearing a mug of tea and the news that supper would be ready in half an hour, and although her first involuntary thought was of the man who had come to the ward that morning, she swept it aside impatiently, gulped down her tea, dressed, pinned up her hair, added a modicum of make-up because it was a waste on night duty, anyway, and joined her fellow tenants round the supper table. Sue worked on Women’s Medical, the other two, Joan and Pam, slaved away their lives, as they informed everyone, in the Children’s Unit under a martinet of a Sister who had the manner and visage of an updated Miss Betsy Trotwood, only instead of disliking donkeys, she disliked young nurses. Samantha ate her stew and laughed at her friends’ latest backslidings, and forgot all about her early morning visitor.
And there was no time to think of anything else but work when she reached the ward—there were the operation cases to settle after she had taken the report from Sister, they needed comforting and reassurance and lifting gently into the right position in which to sleep, and calm brief explanations—already given several times during the day—as to why they weren’t quite themselves. It was amazing, Samantha thought, as she explained a drip to a peevish elderly lady who had taken exception to it, how dreamlike life appeared to the various ladies who had visited the operating theatre that day; a merciful state of affairs which she took care to prolong with the almost unnoticed jab in each patient’s arm as they were settled for the night, so that they relaxed and slept.
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