Hospital Corridors Read Online Free PDF Page B

everything you want to know about the life here.”
    Miss Onslow then picked up the white telephone at her elbow and asked for Miss Edney to come down to her office. While they waited, she handed Madeline some typewritten sheets, saying,
    “You can read those at your leisure. They are the hospital rules, and look much more complicated and fearsome than they really are in practice. As you’ll find, they are based on the necessity for smooth running in a community of this sort, and on the convenience of all. Ah, here is Miss Edney.”
    A slight tap on the door had heralded the entry of Eileen Edney, whom Madeline knew on sight she was going to like. She was small, she was red-haired and white-skinned, and she had the gayest and frankest smile Madeline had ever seen.
    Miss Onslow made the introduction and then, having told Madeline to report to her office at ten the next morning, she dismissed the two girls.
    “Come on—your luggage has already been taken up,” the red-haired girl said, catching Madeline by the hand in a friendly way. “This is the lift. We’re on the top floor, thank goodness. It gives one a view and it’s quieter.”
    In the lift there were several other girls in uniform, and, even as they rose eight floors to the top of the building, Eileen Edney contrived to effect a few introductions, adding each time she presented Madeline, “She’s come all the way from England,” as though she were a little proud of her exhibit.
    As they got out and walked along a polished airy corridor with doors on either side, Madeline said,
    “I notice no one addresses anyone else as ‘Nurse’ here. Don’t you use the term?”
    “Hardly at all.” The other girl shook her head. “Some of the older doctors still say ‘Nurse’ or ‘Sister’—and of course the patients do when they don’t know one’s name. But otherwise we’re ‘Miss So-and-so’. The same as the surgeons here are ‘Doctor’ like the physicians. Back in England you call them ‘Mister’, don’t you?”
    “Yes,” said Madeline, nearly adding, “of course”, but remembering in time that in a new country one must learn new customs. Then her companion opened a door at the end of the corridor and stood aside for Madeline to enter.
    But Madeline remained in the doorway, catching her breath on an exclamation of sheer delighted surprise.
    At All Souls she had had a rather ugly little room, to which she had become resigned and of which, in the end, she had been almost fond. It had never occurred to her that in this hospital she would have anything different from the standard high white bed and the utilitarian furniture which seemed to her all part of hospital life. Certainly she had never expected what she now saw—the kind of pretty bed-sitting room which any girl would be charmed to have for her own.
    “But it’s enchanting !” she cried, slowly taking in the attractions of the chintz-covered divan bed, piled with cushions, the fitted bookcase, the built-in furniture which left so much space, and, above all, the wide, shining window which gave one a superb view of the city, clear away to what Madeline already recognized as the harbour bridge.
    “It’s nice, isn’t it?” The other girl seemed gratified by Madeline’s delight. “We reckon we have the best nurses’ quarters in the whole of the city.”
    “It just couldn’t be lovelier!” Madeline said earnestly, and sat down on the divan, to look around her and enjoy to the full her new, unexpected possessions.
    Eileen opened a door and said,
    “This is our bathroom. My room is just beyond it. We share the bathroom between us.”
    “Just the two of us?”
    “Yes. Just the two of us.”
    Madeline laughed incredulously, and the other girl glanced at her curiously.
    “Back in England nursing is treated in a rather Cinderella-ish sort of way, isn’t it?” she said.
    National and local pride immediately impelled Madeline to make some defence of the situation.
    “No, I wouldn’t