A Nightingale Christmas Wish Read Online Free PDF Page A

of tea, Sister?’ Nurse Willard offered. ‘We usually put the kettle on as soon as we get in.’
    ‘No, thank you.’ Helen looked around her, completely wrong-footed. She had expected to walk into her department and immediately take charge, but instead she felt like a guest at a very jolly tea party. ‘I would rather you showed me around, if you don’t mind?’
    ‘As you wish,’ Nurse Willard said cheerfully, slipping her cloak off her shoulders. ‘I’ll give you a tour while Perkins puts the kettle on, how about that?’
    Nurse Willard talked a great deal faster than she moved, Helen discovered.
    ‘The Outpatients’ clinics start at nine o’clock,’ she said. ‘On Mondays it’s General Medical, Tuesdays is Orthopaedic, Wednesdays is General Surgical, Thursdays is Gynae and Fridays ENT. The consultants are all monsters, of course, apart from Mr Cooper, who looks like Tyrone Power. Mr Prentiss the ENT pundit is the worst. Do you know, he threw a basinful of water at poor little Nurse Kowalski last week, just for putting the wrong antiseptic in it? No wonder no one wants to assist in his clinic. Over there is the Plaster Room, and this is the Accident Treatment Room, where we deal with minor emergencies. The Cleansing Room is through that door there. Excuse me for asking, but you’re Dr Tremayne’s sister, aren’t you?’
    ‘That’s right.’ Helen opened the door to the operating theatre and looked inside. Just seeing the white-tiled walls of the theatre, with its glass-fronted cabinets full of gleaming instruments, made her feel at ease. This was what she was used to, everything shining, clean and orderly.
    ‘I thought so. You look a lot like him. I went out with him once or twice, you know.’
    ‘Really?’ Helen inspected the instruments. Someone had done a good job of cleaning them, although they hadn’t been put away quite as she would have liked.
    ‘That was long before I met my Joe, of course. I mean, my fiancé,’ Penny Willard said. ‘He’s a policeman,’ she added importantly.
    By the time they’d finished the tour of Casualty, Helen knew next to nothing about the running of the department, and everything she could possibly want to know about Penny’s wedding plans, and her personal opinion of all the student nurses.
    Penny spoke rapidly, her words tumbling out faster than Helen’s brain could take them in. By the time they returned to the main Casualty hall, her head was reeling.
    ‘You know, I was so pleased when we found out you were going to be taking over from Sister Percival,’ Penny confided, settling herself comfortably behind the booking-in desk. ‘She was all right in her way, I suppose, but it will be so much more fun to have someone my age running the place.’
    ‘Fun?’ Helen said.
    ‘You know . . . someone I can chat to, have a laugh with. Ah, here’s the tea.’ She beamed as Perkins came in with a tray. ‘I think you’ll like it here, Sister. We’re one big, happy family.’
    Helen thought of the comments she’d overheard, and said nothing.
    She knew she should set Penny Willard straight, make it clear right from the start that she was in charge and not there to have fun. But she was already so disheartened by what the doctor had said, she didn’t want to make another enemy in the department.
    Perhaps he was right, she thought miserably. Perhaps she was too young and inexperienced to take charge?
    ‘Have you got a boyfriend?’ Penny asked.
    Helen stared at her, dumbstruck by the question. ‘I’m a widow,’ she said.
    ‘Oh, gosh, yes, of course. I remember now. That was terribly sad.’ Penny’s lips pursed in the kind of sympathetic grimace Helen had grown to dread over the past two years.
    Fortunately Penny changed the subject back to gossiping about the rest of the department. ‘You won’t have met the doctors yet, will you? There’s Dr McKay – Scottish, terribly clever. And then there’s Dr Adler. He’s a great big bear, utterly adorable . .