P James - Shroud for a Nightingale

Sister Gearing pushed her plate to one side, drew a bowl of plums and custard towards her and began to extract the stones from the fruit as carefully as if it were a surgical operation. She said:

“She wasn’t a bad nurse, though. You could rely on Pearce. And the patients seemed to like her. I suppose they found that holier than thou attitude reassuring.”

Sister Brumfett looked up from her plate and spoke for the first time.

“You’re not in a position to give an opinion on whether she was a good nurse. Nor is Rolfe. You only see the girls in the training school. I see them on the wards.”

“I see them on the wards too. I’m the clinical instructor remember. It’s my job to teach them on the ward.”

Sister Brumfett was unrepentant.

“Any student teaching that’s done on my ward is done by me, as you know very well. Other ward Sisters can welcome the clinical instructor if they like. But on the private ward I do the teaching. And I prefer it that way when I see some of the extraordinary ideas you seem to put into their heads. And, by the way, I happen to know-Pearce told me, as a matter of fact-that you visited my ward when I was off duty on 7th January and conducted a teaching session. In future, please consult me before using my patients as clinical material.”

Sister Gearing flushed. She tried to laugh but her amusement sounded artificial. She glanced across at Sister Rolfe as if enlisting her aid but Sister Rolfe kept her eyes firmly on her plate. Then, belligerently and rather like a child determined to have the last word, she said with apparent irrelevance:

“Something happened to upset Pearce while she was on your ward.”

Sister Brumfett’s sharp little eyes glared up at her.

“On my ward? Nothing upset her on my ward!”

The sturdy assertion conveyed unmistakedly that no nurse worthy of the name could be upset by anything that happened on the private ward; that upsetting things just weren’t permitted when Sister Brumfett was in charge.

Sister Gearing shrugged.

“Well, something upset her. It could have been something totally unconnected with the hospital, I suppose, but one never quite believes that poor Pearce had any real life outside these walls. It was the Wednesday of the week before this block went into school. I visited the chapel just after five o’clock to do the flowers-that’s how I remember which day it was-and she was sitting there alone. Not kneeling or praying, just sitting. Well, I did what I had to do and then went out without speaking to her. After all, the chapel’s open for rest and meditation and if one of the students wants to meditate that’s all right by me. But when I went back nearly three hours later because I’d left my scissors in the sacristy she was still there, sitting perfectly still and in the same seat Well, meditation’s all very well, but four hours is a bit excessive. I don’t think that the kid could have had any supper. She looked pretty pale too, so I went up to her and asked her if she was all right, if there was anything I could do for her. She didn’t even look at me as she replied. She said: ‘No thank you, Sister. There was something troubling me which I had to think over very carefully. I did come here for help but not from you.”“

For the first time during the meal Sister Rolfe sounded amused.

She said: “Caustic little beast! Meaning, I suppose, that she’d come to consult a higher power than the clinical instructor.”

“Meaning mind your own business. So I did.”

Sister Brumfett said, as if feeling that her colleague’s presence at a place of worship needed some explanation:

“Sister Gearing is very good at arranging flowers. That’s why Matron asked her to look after the chapel. She sees to the flowers every Wednesday and Saturday. And she does very charming arrangements for the Annual Sisters’ Dinner.” Sister Gearing stared at her for a second and then laughed.

“Oh, little Mavis isn’t just a pretty face. But thanks for the compliment”

A silence fell. Dalgliesh addressed himself to his braised beef. He wasn’t disconcerted by the lack of conversation and had no intention of helping them out by introducing a fresh subject But Sister Gearing seemed to feel that silence was reprehensible in the presence of a stranger. She said brightly:

“I see from the minutes that the Hospital Management Committee have agreed to introduce the Salmon Committee proposals. Better late than never. I suppose that means that Matron will be head of the nursing services over all the hospitals in the group. Chief Nursing Officer! It’ll be a big thing for her, but I wonder how C.B. will take it If he had his way, Matron would be given less authority not more. She’s a big enough thorn in his flesh as it is.”

Sister Brumfett said: “It’s time something was done to wake up the psychiatric hospital and the geriatric units. But I don’t know why they want to change the title. If Matron was good enough for Florence Nightingale it’s good enough for Mary Taylor. I don’t suppose she particularly wants to be called Chief Nursing Officer. It sounds like an army rank. Ridiculous.”

Sister Rolfe shrugged her thin shoulders.

“Don’t expect me to get enthusiastic about the Salmon Report. I’m beginning to wonder what’s happening to nursing. Every report and recommendation seems to take us further away from the bedside. We have dieticians to see to the feeding, physiotherapists to exercise the patients, medical social workers to listen to their troubles, ward orderlies to make the beds, laboratory technicians to take blood, ward receptionists to arrange the flowers and interview the relatives^ operating theatre technicians to hand the surgeon the instruments. If we’re not careful nursing will become a residual skill, the job which is left when all the technicians have had their turn. And now we have the Salmon Report with all its talk of first second and third tiers of management. Management for what? There’s too much technical jargon. Ask yourself what is the function of the nurse today. What exactly are we trying to teach these girls?”

Sister Brumfett said: ‘To obey orders implicitly and be loyal to their superiors. Obedience and loyalty. Teach the students those and you’ve got a good nurse.“

She sliced a potato in two with such viciousness that the knife rasped the plate. Sister Gearing laughed.

“You’re twenty years out of date, Brumfett That was good enough for our generation, but these kids ask whether the orders are reasonable before they start obeying and what their superiors have done to deserve their respect A good thing too on the whole. How on earth do you expect to attract intelligent girls into nursing if you treat them like morons? We ought to encourage them to question established procedures, even to answer back occasionally.”

Sister Brumfett looked as if she, for one, would willingly dispense with intelligence if its manifestations were so disagreeable.

“Intelligence isn’t the only thing. That’s the trouble nowadays. People think it is.”

Sister Rolfe said: “Give me an intelligent girl and I’ll make a good nurse of her whether she thinks she has a vocation or not You can have the stupid ones. They may minister to your ego but they’ll never make good professional women.” She looked at Sister Brumfett as she spoke and the undertone of contempt was unmistakable. Dalgliesh dropped his eyes to his plate and pretended more interest than he could feel in the careful separation of meat from fat and gristle. Sister Brumfett reacted predictably:

“Professional women! We’re talking about nurses. A good nurse thinks of himself as a nurse first and last Of course she’s a professional woman! I thought we’d all accepted that by now. But there’s too much thinking and talking of status nowadays. The important thing is to get on with the job.”