It took us about four hours to get to Hassanieh, which, to my surprise, was quite a big place. Very pretty it looked, too, before we got there from the other side of the river—standing up quite white and fairy-like with minarets. It was a bit different, though, when one had crossed the bridge and come right into it. Such a smell and everything ramshackle and tumble-down, and mud and mess everywhere.
Mr Coleman took me to Dr Reilly’s house, where, he said, the doctor was expecting me to lunch.
Dr Reilly was just as nice as ever, and his house was nice too, with a bathroom and everything spick and span. I had a nice bath, and by the time I got back into my uniform and came down I was feeling fine.
Lunch was just ready and we went in, the doctor apologizing for his daughter, who he said was always late. We’d just had a very good dish of eggs in sauce when she came in and Dr Reilly said, ‘Nurse, this is my daughter Sheila.’
She shook hands, hoped I’d had a good journey, tossed off her hat, gave a cool nod to Mr Coleman and sat down.
‘Well, Bill,’ she said. ‘How’s everything?’
He began to talk to her about some party or other that was to come off at the club, and I took stock of her.
I can’t say I took to her much. A thought too cool for my liking. An off-hand sort of girl, though good-looking. Black hair and blue eyes—a pale sort of face and the usual lipsticked mouth. She’d a cool, sarcastic way of talking that rather annoyed me. I had a probationer like her under me once—a girl who worked well, I’ll admit, but whose manner always riled me.
It looked to me rather as though Mr Coleman was gone on her. He stammered a bit, and his conversation became slightly more idiotic than it was before, if that was possible! He reminded me of a large stupid dog wagging its tail and trying to please.
After lunch Dr Reilly went off to the hospital, and Mr Coleman had some things to get in the town, and Miss Reilly asked me whether I’d like to see round the town a bit or whether I’d rather stop in the house. Mr Coleman, she said, would be back to fetch me in about an hour.
‘Is there anything to see?’ I asked.
‘There are some picturesque corners,’ said Miss Reilly. ‘But I don’t know that you’d care for them. They’re extremely dirty.’
The way she said it rather nettled me. I’ve never been able to see that picturesqueness excuses dirt.
In the end she took me to the club, which was pleasant enough, overlooking the river, and there were English papers and magazines there.
When we got back to the house Mr Coleman wasn’t there yet, so we sat down and talked a bit. It wasn’t easy somehow.
She asked me if I’d met Mrs Leidner yet.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Only her husband.’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I wonder what you’ll think of her?’
I didn’t say anything to that. And she went on: ‘I like Dr Leidner very much. Everybody likes him.’
That’s as good as saying, I thought, that you don’t like his wife.
I still didn’t say anything and presently she asked abruptly: ‘What’s the matter with her? Did Dr Leidner tell you?’
I wasn’t going to start gossiping about a patient before I got there even, so I said evasively: ‘I understand she’s a bit rundown and wants looking after.’
She laughed—a nasty sort of laugh—hard and abrupt.
‘Good God,’ she said. ‘Aren’t nine people looking after her already enough?’
‘I suppose they’ve all got their work to do,’ I said.
‘Work to do? Of course they’ve got work to do. But Louise comes first—she sees to that all right.’
‘No,’ I said to myself. ‘You don’t like her.’
‘All the same,’ went on Miss Reilly, ‘I don’t see what she wants with a professional hospital nurse. I should have thought amateur assistance was more in her line; not someone who’ll jam a thermometer in her mouth, and count her pulse and bring everything down to hard facts.’