Hospital in the Highlands Read Online Free Page A

Your Mr. Maxwell couldn’t be found.”
    “They couldn’t find Mr. Maxwell?” Flo paled under her mask. She forgot all about Rowans and its problems and thought instead of the fevered, delirious child whose temperature hovered at danger point. “He always leaves a movements chitty. They must have contacted him by now?”
    Keith tantalized her for an instant more.
    “No. He’s stranded in the middle of the loch somewhere on his launch with engine trouble. It began to look as though yours truly was going to have to perform. However, they’ve got somebody.”
    “Who?” Flo asked curiously.
    “Someone with one of these unpronounceable Scotch names—”
    “Scottish,” corrected Nurse MacAlister before realizing where she was. A pink spot on each cheek she went on, “Scottish or Scots, if you don’t mind, sir. Scotch is—is whisky.”
    “Bottoms up!” said Keith soulfully, and went to peep in the changing room where there was a sudden bustling. “He has arrived!” he announced importantly, “and he says please can he have a bigger gown. This”—he held up a green garment disparagingly—“only comes to midway. Whatever midway is!” Nurse MacAlister laughed and Keith looked pleased. He liked an audience.
    “There!” snapped Flo, wishing her sister’s ex- fianc é was miles away. She had heard all his quips and jokes before and had ceased to laugh at them years ago. Even while Meg was still enraptured and chuckling at him, Keith Bexley had been a pretty poor fish in Flo’s eyes.
    There was a sudden standing to attention as the Consultant Surgeon entered the small theater and investigated the instrument trolley. It was apparently to his liking, for he said, “Splendid, Sister. I was told I could count on you. I hope we shan’t lose much blood, though I see you’re prepared for a major hemorrhage. Well—better to be safe than sorry.”
    The eyes above the mask were blue with flecks of hazel in them. They were friendly, laughing eyes and she liked them immediately. In a way the tall figure of the man was familiar, but as Rowans was fairly isolated she knew few people around. While she was still investigating those inquiring eyes her heart suddenly seemed to turn over, a most unethical thing for a hospital Sister’s heart to do on duty, and she couldn’t understand why she should suddenly remember Jim and tell herself that was the way he had made her heart feel just before a meeting.
    Jim wasn’t here and her heart had no business to turn over—for anybody else.

 
    CHAPTER FOUR
    “ Peritoneum clear,” the deft young surgeon finally announced. “I’m going to close up now. All swabs and packs accounted for, Sister?”
    “All in order, sir.”
    “Then I’ll go ahead.”
    The wound, when stitched, was infinitesimal, earning the staffs silent admiration.
    “She’ll do,” the surgeon announced as he peeled off his gloves. “I’ve entered her injections on her chart, and I’ll be in to see her tomorrow morning.”
    “Oh.” Somehow this information both pleased and disconcerted Flo. She didn’t quite know whether she was on her head or her heels. “Then she’ll be entered as your patient, sir, and not as Mr. Maxwell’s?”
    Again the stranger smiled and loosened his mask. A strong, pleasant countenance was revealed.
    “I’m afraid you’ll have to put up with me quite a bit from now on, Sister. Your Mr. Maxwell got himself concussed in the middle of the loch just now. His head will be quite a sore point with him for some weeks.”
    “Oh, I’m sorry!” Flo said sincerely. “Then what am I to call you, sir?” He looked at her in surprise, and as she had just removed her own mask he saw her cheeks flood scarlet. “I mean in the report, sir. Mr.—who?”
    “Strathallan,” he told her.
    “Oh!” She looked again. “You—you’re not the Strathallan who...?”
    He bowed slightly.
    “I am. Your neighbor, Miss Lamont, though distant by about fifty good Scottish acres from Rowans.