Amy Read Online Free

leant against the wall. Perhaps he was a good surgeon, but she was no longer sure even about that. He was too set in his ways – too resistant to change. He made no secret of his violent opposition to women doctors, especially to women surgeons, but when she was appointed he had been narrowly over-ridden by the Board of Governors. He was clever, though, and ruthless. But even then she hadn’t imagined what he would do.
    The next day her patient had a slight but worrying temperature. She arrived to find that Bulford had asked for the dressing to be taken down.
    ‘Miss Richmond,’ he said. ‘I see that you forgot to put in a drain yesterday. Surely you know how important that is. How else is any fluid or pus to escape?’
    She opened her mouth in shock, but he forestalled her.
    ‘I cannot tolerate this,’ he said. ‘It isn’t the first time. If you are too busy gadding about at night to get your proper rest you shouldn’t be doing surgery.’
    ‘What on earth do you mean?’ she said. ‘You closed up this patient yourself. You made me leave the theatre.’
    He frowned. ‘You really cannot try to make me responsible for your mistakes,’ he said. ‘I have had to put them right too often.’ He walked away from her and into Sister’s office, and she followed him.
    She remembered her helpless fury. ‘That is a complete lie,’ she said. ‘How dare you say that in front of the patient and the nursing staff. You know it isn’t true. All my patients have recovered well – and without your help. As for gadding about! I usually spend my evenings studying – the latest methods, in case you haven’t heard of that.’ She shouldn’t have said that, she knew it now. It could only have made things worse. He was white with anger.
    ‘That’s all, Miss Richmond,’ he said. ‘That is quite enough.’
    As she left the ward she passed Sister. She thought she saw a look of sympathy in Sister’s eyes, before she lowered them hurriedly and looked away.
    She worked through the morning outpatient clinic and then shewalked across the hospital grounds to the nurses’ home. She had been given a room there where she could stay when she was on duty at night. It was raining, and she pulled up the collar of her coat and bent her head, the rain dripping off her hat.
    The nurses’ home was bleak – long corridors with the wall below the dado painted a dark yellowy green. It was nearly lunchtime and the smell of boiled cabbage hung about everywhere.
    Her room was in the section reserved for the senior sisters. It was hardly comfortable. It was sparsely furnished – linoleum on the floor, a bed, a chest of drawers, a small wardrobe and a washbasin in the corner.
    She took off her hat and coat and hung up her coat to dry. She sat down on the bed, staring at the opposite wall. What was she to do? She could leave the hospital and try to get a post somewhere else. That would mean asking Bulford for a reference, and what would he say? With a feeling of sick despair she knew what he would say, or she could guess. His approaches to her were becoming bolder, more frequent. At first she thought it was accidental, an unavoidable aspect of their work – the standing close to her, the innocent seeming touches that no one else would notice. Now his behaviour was unmistakable. On the occasions when they were alone, perhaps in Sister’s office or the theatre office, he would stare at her, looking her up and down, his eyes bulging and lustful, like an animal. Once he had put his hand on her shoulder, his thumb straying to the top of her breast, and she had shrugged him off and backed away. Oh yes, she knew what he would say.
    She got up and took a glass of water and stared out of the window. She could see the nurses walking across the quadrangle, their cloaks huddled round them. Carriages and occasional motor cars arrived at the hospital doors. Ambulances brought patients on stretchers, the porters hurrying out to meet them. This was her