The Summer of Sir Lancelot (6 page)

‘I fear we are getting rather away from the facts-‘ cut in Mr Evans.

‘Marry her?‘ repeated Sir Lancelot. ‘Do I hear aright? Look here, you direct descendant of Sweeney Todd - ‘

‘Sir Lancelot! This will never do!‘ Miss Morgan-Griffiths‘ trifle bobbed excitedly. ‘You must remember you are on the Bench — ‘

‘You‘ve as much chance of marrying that girl as marrying Cleopatra, and she‘s been dead two thousand years.‘

‘Oh, the Press, the Press!‘ cried Mr Evans, blowing a despairing note on his nose.

‘Evans, you must get an antrostomy done on that beastly sinus,‘ snapped Sir Lancelot. ‘Listen to me, you young rake — ‘

‘Save us!‘ added Mr Evans looking heavenwards, this time for the dividend.

‘You can think yourself damn lucky the old-fashioned practice of horsewhipping,‘ Sir Lancelot continued, straining across the desk, ‘which I regard as a perfectly healthy corrective for under-ripe Bluebeards like yourself, has unfortunately dropped from the — Ahhhhhhhh!‘

Heaven obliged its faithful servant. The senior magistrate‘s back had gone again.

I can briefly describe the exits of our principals in this courtroom drama. Constable Rees and the Clerk bore Sir Lancelot to the retiring-room. Miss Morgan-Griffiths dabbed his forehead with her eau-de-Cologne. Mr Evans adjourned the case
sine die.
The reporter from the
Brecknock Bugle
started writing MEDICAL MAGISTRATE HAS SEIZURE ON BENCH. Constables Howells and Jenkins drove the invalid home in his Rolls.

‘Ye gods,‘ was all he could manage to utter on the way, ‘what is the world
coining
to?‘

He screwed down the window as the car halted in his front drive.

‘Euphemia,‘ Sir Lancelot invited, ‘I should like a little word with you.

4

‘Nurse Spratt,‘ announced the Sister in Virtue Ward, ‘Matron wants you immediately.‘

‘Yes, Sister,‘ said Euphemia.

I fear we should hardly recognize the girl sporting gaily by the river bank and dancing barefoot on dew-spangled lawns. Like all young ladies starting at St Swithin‘s, Euphemia had been put through the de-sexing machine they seemed to keep down in the Matron‘s office.

‘You may leave polishing those bedpans till you come back, Nurse.‘

‘Yes, Sister.‘

‘And Nurse James can sort your soiled bed-linen for you.,

‘I have already done it, Sister.‘

‘Oh? Well, make yourself tidy, Nurse. I don‘t want you a disgrace to the ward.‘

‘I hope I should never be that, Sister,‘ asserted Euphemia, dropping her eyes.

Sister Virtue nodded. Not a woman given to generous assessment of her staff- she reduced three or four a week to tears as regularly as she ate her breakfast —she was forced to admit that Nurse Spratt‘s approach to her job like a maniac stakhanovite, combined with the girl‘s demeanour in her own presence of a particularly self-effacing worm, raised her slightly from the level of the pert gadflies they seemed to let into the hospital these days.

‘Very well, Nurse. Don‘t forget not to speak until the Matron addresses you.‘

It was a Thursday morning three weeks later, at the toothsome kernel of the English year w hen the second Test is starting at Lord‘s, Wimbledon waits to ping into life the following Monday, Royal Ascot froths with hats and champagne, the London parks greet you with a fanfare of roses, and strawberries are down to half-a-crown a punnet. Usually, of course, all this is carried on under a monsoon lost on the way to Assam, but that summer the weather was giving a gala performance, and the sun which dappled the contentious surface of Witches‘ Pool pierced the London haze and the dusty plane trees to flood the venerable soot-pickled courtyard of St Swithin‘s Hospital.

That courtyard hasn‘t much changed since I first edged in nervously as a student, with a brand-new stethoscope sticking out of my pocket and a brand-new collar sticking into my neck. In fact, it hasn‘t much changed since Wren stood thoughtfully licking his pencil over the smoking ruins of Old St Paul‘s. The inscription across the main gate announcing SUPPORTED ENTIRELY BY VOLUNTARY CONTRIBUTIONS has at last been chiselled out, the place having been supported for some years by entirely involuntary ones from the taxpayer. The nurses‘ dresses now show another daring inch of calf, and those lady medical students would in my day have caused as much flurry as the Dagenham Girl Pipers marching through the Athenaeum. But the patients sitting quietly under the trees drawing strength from the London sun look exactly the same. Perhaps they are. The complaints of some of them were extremely chronic.

There was a crash from the main gate. A hospital dustbin rolled across the courtyard, emitting a mixture of used bandages and uneaten chips. A Rolls-Royce had halted under the red notice demanding SILENCE with its horn baying. A red-faced, bearded, old-fashioned-looking Englishman had his head out of the driver‘s window, addressing a youth pushing a hand-trolley.

‘I don‘t give a damn if you are possessed of some perverted ambition to see inside the orthopaedic wards,‘ he was observing, ‘as long as you don‘t achieve it by denting my highly expensive coachwork.‘

‘You oughter look where you‘re going, you oughter,‘ rounded the youth.

‘Young man — it so happens this is the only place in London where other people are expected to look where
I
am going... Morning, Dicky,‘

Sir Lancelot added amiably through the window in the direction of the Professor of Surgery. ‘Have you heard? England won the toss and Australia are fielding. Turnbull was out first ball.‘

He drove across the courtyard, and parked on the far side in a space labelled CHAIRMAN OF THE GOVERNORS ONLY.

‘Oh no!‘ exclaimed the Professor‘s Registrar, beside his chief. ‘To think we were talking ot that particular devil only this morning.‘

He fingered the latest copy of
The Countess
in the pocket of his white coat.

‘Well, well,‘ murmured the Professor. ‘We must utter a pious hope, I suppose, that the visitation is only a temporary one?‘

He gave a smooth smile. Professor Richard Hindehead was a youngish man with a pale smooth complexion, smooth dark hair, long smooth hands, a voice which smoothed the most unwilling patients into surgery, and shirts which somehow stayed smooth to the end of a whole day‘s emergency duty.

‘But he‘d become such an utter hermit in Wales,‘ protested Paul Ivors-Smith, the Registrar. ‘He‘d cancelled all his medical journals and resigned from the BMA — rather rudely, I gather.‘

‘Yes, the poor fellow was becoming very peculiar towards the end,‘ agreed the Professor, resuming their walk from the lecture theatre towards the surgical block. ‘Good morning, Nurse,‘ he broke off smoothly. ‘Enjoying life on your new ward? I‘m so glad.‘

Paul Ivors-Smith, a tall, fair-haired, droopy young surgeon in his thirties, thoughtfully stroked his chin. He hadn‘t much of it, but it did for the purpose.

‘I would make no secret,‘ Professor Hindehead continued, ‘that Slasher Spratt‘s translation into a Cambrian troglodyte bettered your chance of becoming one of my colleagues instead of one of my staff.‘

‘You mean getting that vacancy as a consultant?‘

The Professor nodded. ‘Exactly. The post must be advertised, of course, but that is merely a formality. You‘ve only one serious rival, Simon Sparrow. Luckily for us, his sponsor Cambridge is utterly useless in committee. He simply sits drawing extraordinary animals on his blotting paper. With Slasher
hors de combat
you can certainly rely on me to swing things in your favour. Good morning, Mr Jeavons,‘ he interrupted himself. ‘Stitches out yesterday? Good. Why, you‘ll be swimming at the seaside in a couple of weeks.‘

Paul anxiously twitched his old school tie. ‘The committee might elect some brilliant outsider,‘ he suggested. ‘From New Zealand or... Manchester, or somewhere.‘

‘My dear boy, we
never
elect outsiders at St Swithin‘s. It tends to make us a race of intellectual Pitcairn Islanders, but at least one knows where one is.‘ The Professor gave a sigh. ‘And brilliant men are so often quite unreliable in matters of dress, eating habits, or political views. Anyway, Paul,‘ he ended more briskly, ‘your work on the new steroid alone deserves the recognition of consultant status.‘

‘Awfully good of you to say so, sir.‘

‘How's Sir John, by the way?‘ the Professor added casually.

‘Father‘s in fine form, thanks. He hopes you‘ll come to dine soon. Oh, and — ‘ Paul shot a glance over his shoulder, ‘he says to sell your holding of Imperial Coppers.‘

The Professor‘s eyebrows quivered.

‘Indeed? As an academic clinician one does so dislike becoming involved in commerce, but... I‘ll phone my broker straight away.‘

‘Perhaps Sir Lancelot won‘t choose to stay long in the hospital,‘ added Paul more hopefully as they neared the steps of the surgical block, ‘with the students making a pin-up of him chucking himself from a window.‘

‘Oh, that picture? Collapse of stout surgical party, eh?‘ The Professor laughed. ‘We shall see the back of him in a day or two, mark my words. You understand, Paul, he means nothing here any more. Nothing at all. The day of the surgical mastodon is over.‘

All the same, as the Professor watched Sir Lancelot with gay step reenter those rubber-floored disinfected corridors of power, he wished that window had been rather higher up.

‘Good morning, Nurse. Good morning, Sister,‘ beamed Sir Lancelot, making his way briskly down the main surgical corridor in his country tweeds. ‘Good morning, Harry. Anything good for the Gold Cup this afternoon? Oystercatcher? I‘ll risk a pony.‘

Through a door at the end he strode into the Nurses‘ Home, and tapped on the door marked MATRON.

‘Good morning, Matron. Good morning, my dear,‘ he greeted his niece, who was standing with clasped hands in the corner. ‘You‘re looking well on it, anyway. Enjoying the work?‘

‘I find it very rewarding, thank you, Uncle,‘ replied Euphemia, with an air that made a Jane Austen heroine look like one of James Bond‘s girl friends.

‘Splendid. Studying hard in the evenings, I hope?‘

‘Yes, Uncle. I have just finished the kidney.‘

‘It was very good of you to take Miss Spratt a month early,‘ he added to the Matron. ‘I fear she was becoming rather — er, bored in the country. I am sorry I could not bring her personally, but I have been totally incapacitated for some weeks with my back.‘

‘Really, Sir Lancelot? I‘m so sorry.‘

The Matron, a large, pink, well-starched lady resembling those polished blocks of pink granite in the geological museums, handed him a cup of the greyish liquid laughingly passed off in nurses‘ homes as coffee.

‘I do hope you are quite recovered?‘

She gave him a glance of tender concern. Sir Lancelot and the Matron hit it off rather well together. Everyone in the hospital always wondered why.

‘Completely, thank you. No late passes for this young lady?‘ Sir Lancelot continued, stirring his cup. ‘No weekend leave? Lights out by ten?‘

‘Naturally, I followed your suggestions, Sir Lancelot.‘

The surgeon nodded. He had decided that the Nurses‘ Home for Euphemia would make a nunnery look like the Establishment of Madame Tellier.

‘It‘s all for your own good, my dear,‘ he added in Euphemia‘s direction. ‘You must remember you are at a very impressionable age.‘

‘Of course, Uncle.‘

Though I expect you will want to stand her a treat or two while you are in London, Sir Lancelot?‘ smiled the Matron. ‘By her ward reports, I think she deserves it.‘

‘Alas, I have no intention of staying in the Great Wen longer than twenty-four hours. Not while the fish at home are biting like famished alligators. I wouldn‘t have come at all, were it not for a few tedious errands - some solicitors to see about my property in Wales, an agency to visit for a new chauffeur. I had to let Millichap go, you know. The poor fellow was getting very rocky on his pins recently. I also want to buy a new fishing-rod and get an X-ray of my back.‘ He put down his cup. ‘I don‘t suppose anyone happens to know the latest score?‘

‘England fifteen for one, Uncle,‘ put in Euphemia quietly. ‘Turnbull, lbw, bowled Duffy, nought, Trevor-Drake eight, the Reverend Chambers six, one extra. I thought you might like to know, so I looked specially at the ward television.‘

They were simple words, but they buried her past. Sir Lancelot shot an approving glance at the little figure with the mauve dress reaching towards her ankles and the starched cap turning up behind like a dove‘s tail. Now she was cured of her bout of bucolic insanity she was taking interest in the right things of life. After all, she came from damn good stock.

‘You and I will take a little stroll round the courtyard in the sunshine, Euphemia,‘ he announced. ‘With Matron‘s permission.‘

‘But of course, Sir Lancelot... ‘

‘Got anything on the Gold Cup, Matron? I have been given Oystercatcher.‘

‘Oh, Sir Lancelot!‘ She fluttered as much as a block of pink granite can flutter. ‘You
are
a naughty man!‘