MURIEL FELT GIDDY as she climbed the stairs to the ward. It had happened to her a few times over the past two days, but somehow she had steadied herself.
Dr Rutledge passed her and glanced over, mildly curious, as Muriel took a few slow, deep breaths before she continued up the stairs.
By mid-afternoon her head was reeling and her throat was sore. She was on duty in the sluice room washing bedpans and jars, a job she detested. By teatime she was hot and flushed and running a temperature. The ward sister was annoyed at her as she was not fit to continue to work.
Muriel had to stay at home for weeks as she had rheumatic fever and all her bones and joints ached and she felt as weak as a kitten. Her summer exams were only a few weeks away and she urgently needed to study, but even lifting her head off the pillow seemed to leave her sweating and exhausted.
‘Are you sure you are fit to return to work?’ Mother worried on the day she finally felt able to get up and was preparing to take the tram into town. ‘Heaven knows what other disease or illness you may pick up from those people you have to look after.’
‘Mother, I am fine,’ she lied.
‘Nurse Gifford, I see that we are blessed with your presence,’ the ward sister commented sarcastically when she went back to the hospital. ‘I hope you are returned to full health.’
‘Yes,’ said Muriel quietly, not wanting to engage in any discussion with her as she returned to the wards.
There was much work to be done, with three patients back from theatre all needing full attention. Blood loss and haemorrhage, shock and sepsis – events for which they must all be on high alert. Muriel watched appalled as the young appendectomy patient in the middle bed began to shake and shiver, his teeth chattering so hard that he could barely breathe. She immediately fetched him a blanket and took his temperature before informing the sister that he needed a doctor.
His parents came that evening, but his breathing was already laboured, his lungs filling with fluid. Two hours later he was dead, and Muriel wiped away her tears as she and her colleague Lucinda were given the task of washing and laying him out.
Most of her day-to-day nursing work was tedious: making beds, emptying and washing bedpans, endlessly scrubbing and cleaning the wards and corridors, and helping to feed and wash patients who needed assistance. She tried to study in the evenings, but often was too tired to read her medical books and notes.
‘Are you all right?’ asked her friend Hannah. ‘You still look peaky.’
‘I’m fine,’ she lied, sitting on the corner of an empty bed.
On the day of the exams Muriel followed her fellow probationers into the exam hall and sat down. She tried to concentrate as she read the exam paper over slowly and began to fill in the answers. Walking out of the hall afterwards, she felt a strange sense of calm. She had written as much as she could and believed she had imparted as much nursing and medical knowledge as she was able.
Over the next ten days they all waited in trepidation for their results. Muriel had been assigned to assist in the crowded outpatient clinic, where people came in with every type of wound, injury or illness, from influenza to dysentery, scabies to lice, abscesses in their mouths and on their bodies, to broken bones and jagged cuts that needed stitching.
One poor soul had dropped a kettle of boiling water on her leg and her screams of pain haunted Muriel as the junior doctor attended to her. She squeezed tightly on Muriel’s hand as he began to examine her burns.
‘Nurse, are you stupid? Run and fetch me more dressings and a bowl with some iodine solution,’ he shouted.
‘I’m afraid my patient needs me,’ she objected, trying not to upset the poor woman.
‘You do what I say, Nurse Gifford,’ he ordered. ‘Let go of her hand.’
The minute she did, the woman began to wail and scream again.
The consultant in charge, Dr Stevenson, heard the commotion and came over, admonishing the young doctor before taking over tending to the patient himself.
‘Nurse Gifford, are you quite recovered from your own recent illness?’ he asked kindly as they worked together, gently dressing the burns. Muriel assured him that she was.
On Tuesday each of the probationers in her group would have an interview with Superintendent Haughton at which they would not only discuss their exam results but also their position and progress. Like everyone else, Muriel was anxious about it.
Lucinda emerged from the superintendent’s office crestfallen. She had, as predicted, failed her exams. Miss Haughton had discussed her leaving the hospital, but she had been given a brief reprieve and would continue her training for another six months and then resit her exams. Failure this time would mean a definite end to her nursing career.
‘I have been given one last chance,’ she confided to her fellow students.
Hannah had passed with honours and would progress in her training.
Muriel was quaking with nerves by the time she was called into the office.
‘Miss Gifford, I am pleased to say that you have passed your exams,’ said Miss Haughton.
‘Oh, that is such a relief!’ she gasped, delighted that despite her fears she had managed to pass her exams.
‘You must be pleased, for I know that you were ill, Miss Gifford. You must have worked very hard.’
‘Yes,’ she nodded, close to tears.
‘Now you must decide on the next stage: whether to continue getting more experience on the wards here, or to accept nursing assignments?’
Muriel sat there, unsure.
‘You are quite well again?’ the woman probed. ‘Are you finding the wards too much for you since you returned on duty?’
‘No, I’m fine …’ She trailed off.
‘Physical stamina is very much a requirement of nursing and I worry if you are strong enough. Dr Stevenson said that you looked very drawn the other day and that he was concerned for you.’
Muriel wanted to refute what Miss Haughton was saying, deny it, but she couldn’t. She knew in her heart that she wasn’t as strong as Lucinda or Hannah, or most of the probationers for that matter.
‘You have passed your exams and are a bright, intelligent young woman, Miss Gifford, but there is a doubt in my mind whether you should continue your training as a nurse by getting experience working here at Sir Patrick Dun’s with us.’
Muriel sat silent. She should fight and beg, like Lucinda, for another chance to continue, but she knew somewhere deep inside that she didn’t fit in. She cared deeply for her patients and for nursing them, but she suspected that she wasn’t strong enough or tough enough for the day-to-day routine of nursing. Some of it she hated, no matter how hard she tried.
‘We obviously hope that you will progress your nursing career’, but there is no shame in not continuing,’ said the superintendent gently. ‘Once they have passed their exams, many of my nurses or probationers leave to get married or for family reasons, or because they simply just want to do something else. You have passed your exams and I promise that you will have a good reference as far as I am concerned.’
Muriel did not know what to say or do.
‘Perhaps you can give the matter some consideration, Muriel, and we can discuss it again on Thursday. I will see you at two o’clock.’
Her friends congratulated her on passing her exams and she longed to confide in them about her situation, but she was on duty all week and had to work. She was an adult and it was her decision, one that only she could make.
By Thursday her mind was made up. The superintendent was right, and with great reluctance and a heavy heart Muriel agreed to resign officially from her probationary nurse training. Miss Haughton made it clear that, given the circumstances, there could be no refund of the fees paid by her father.
‘I think that you have made a wise decision, Miss Gifford, and though you may feel rather let down about it all at present, I have no doubt that as an intelligent young woman you will continue to make a worthwhile contribution to society and your fellow man. I wish you luck in the future.’ Superintendent Haughton smiled kindly as she walked her out to the corridor. ‘We thank you for your service to the hospital and our patients.’
By the time she reached home Muriel was utterly dejected and tearful. She confided in Nellie and Grace about what had happened and how it had been her decision.
‘I am just glad that you are home and safe and well.’ Grace hugged her.
‘Muriel, I’ve been so worried about you. For the past few months you’ve looked so drained and exhausted. Some days I wondered if you were even happy with what you were doing,’ said Nellie, who had an uncanny knack of seeing things more clearly than most other people. ‘I know it is upsetting for you, but there are plenty of other things to do in life, I promise you.’
‘What will Mother and Father say? What will I tell them?’
She worried how her parents would take such news. They had been badly upset when Ada had announced out of the blue in February that she was going to live in America and that she and Ernest would sail together on the Celtic to New York. Then Grace’s twin brother, Cecil, had decided that he no longer wanted to work for Father and left for America too. Now they faced another disappointment with the news of her decision to leave Sir Patrick Dun’s.
Muriel made them both sit down as she explained the situation.
‘Oh, what a relief!’ gushed Mother. ‘Thank heaven that you have finally seen good sense and no longer have to work in that awful place. Every time you crossed our door, Muriel, I was waiting for one of us to come down with some terrible contagion or infestation or illness that you had brought from that hospital. My poor father met his death in such a fashion, helping sick parishioners.’
Muriel was surprised by such unexpected support from her mother.
‘I did warn you about the demands of such a career,’ Mother added knowingly. ‘Nursing is not meant for a refined young lady like you.’
Muriel could see Father taking in every word of what she had said. And then he spoke.
‘It is good news that you passed your exams, Muriel dear, and have achieved some nursing qualifications and experience, which I’m sure will stand you in good stead for the rest of your life, but I agree with your mother. I too am relieved to have you home here with us where you belong. I was worried that you might be like your sister or brothers and want to work overseas, nursing in some foreign hospital. I couldn’t bear it.’
‘I am sad about leaving Sir Patrick Dun’s,’ she said, suddenly tearful. ‘I thought that you would both be angry and disappointed in me over what has happened. I feel that I have let everyone down.’
‘How can you think such a thing!’ exclaimed Father. ‘All we want, Muriel, is for you to be happy and well.’
‘Muriel dear, I sometimes wonder if you know us at all.’ Mother sounded puzzled as she returned to her delicate embroidery stitching. ‘Honestly, Frederick, where did we get such daughters?’