Love for the Matron by Elizabeth Houghton

up. No doubt Annie would be offended, but she felt the need of some physical action after so much seesaw of emotion. Had Stuart been pulling her leg when he had suggested that William was jealous? And yet there had been that touch of tension and hostility between the two men from the moment William had appeared upon the scene, and one had been as guilty as the other. When she had finished she went back to the sitting room and crossed to the window. The sun was low now and the air that touched her face held all the chill that was early March. There was no wind and the surface of the river reflected the color of the sky line like a mirror: only the swirls of current broke the smoothness of the pattern. She strained her eyes to see the white post on the other bank, but some trick of light blurred the back lines and she couldn ’ t be sure whether the river was higher or not. Had that twisted tree been quite so close to the water ’ s edge when she had looked out earlier with Stuart? She shivered a little as she shut the window and made up the fire before getting ready t o go back on duty.
    St. Genevieve ’ s corridors were quiet as she went towards her office. The visitors would have left an hour ago and the nurses would be busy taking temperatures, rubbing tired backs, straightening ruffled bedclothes, doing treatments, and all the thousand and one things that must be done before they handed on the torch of duty to the night staff. She could hear Margaret Smith ’ s typewriter rattling away as she walked into her own office. The letters that had come by the late post waited on her desk and she felt the gossamer fetters of her job slip around her again. She sighed and sensed that she was safer here from the fret of emotions than she had been in the Matron ’ s house this afternoon. In these calm surroundings it was very difficult to believe there could be anything in Stuart ’ story that her senior physician had shown signs of a jealousy which might ha v e flattered her under different circumstances.
    Elizabeth pushed away all troubling thought and picked up the report summary Miss Selby had left for her before going off on her own half day: six admissions, five discharges, a transfer from Women ’ s Medical to Women ’ s Surgical, an emergency for Theatre, a stillborn baby on Maternity, an old man dying on Men ’ s Medical—a series of brief action sketches that might belong to any hospital anywhere in the country. Behind a desk in each of these hospitals sat a Matron or her deputy, and it was her light guiding touch on the threads linking her with the wards under her care that kept the machinery of administration running smoothly. She might see those wards only once a day, must read the daily reports written by others, consult with her Management Committee once a month, meet her staff in conference from time to time, and from this mass of material she must assemble enough information to deal with any situation at a second ’ s notice. The senior members of her staff might share her responsibility, but hers would have to be any final decision.
    For a moment Elizabeth thought back to her days as a ward sister, as a staff nurse, when her contacts with the patients had been so very personal: now she was as remote from them as royalty and yet their concerns were even closer to her heart. Would they know it, or did they regard her merely as a shadow cast by authority, as impersonal as the brief shadow cast by the noonday sun ?
    Elizabeth heard the sound of her secretary ’ s typewriter come to a halt and picked up her letters guiltily. The girl would be almost ready to go and she would want to know if there was an urgent reply to be sent off tonight. Her eyes skimmed the pages, some typewritten in formal terms, others handwritten, and some of their warmth came wafting towards her like fragrant perfume as the writers expressed stumbling thanks for services received. Elizabeth felt strangely humble as she read the words.