Maude loathed Edda, always the ring-leader in opposition to her plans for her girls, especially Kitty. Not that Edda cared. By the time she was ten years old she was taller than her stepmother, and, when fully grown, towered over Maude in a way that complacent lady found as uncomfortable as menacing. The pale eyes stared like a white wolf’s, and on the rare occasions when Maude suffered a nightmare, her dream tormentor was always Edda. It had given Maude great pleasure to talk the Rector out of making the monetary sacrifices that would have let Edda do Medicine, and she counted it her most satisfying triumph; every time she thought of denying Edda her life’s ambition, inside herself she purred. Had Edda only known who exactly had cast the deciding vote in her parents’ debate on her medical career, things would have gone harder for Maude, but Edda didn’t know. Caught between the irresistibly iron pressures of a wife and his own conviction that, in denying Edda, he was sparing her a life of pain, Thomas Latimer never breathed a word to anyone. As far as Edda knew, there simply had not been the money.
Edda and Grace, Tufts and Kitty, all four packed the single suitcase she was allowed to take with her into this hospital world, and at the beginning of April 1926 reported for duty at the Corunda Base Hospital.
“Typical!” said Grace mournfully. “It’s April Fools’ Day.”
3
The Shire & City of Corunda was a kinder and richer rural area than most in Australia, sitting as it did on the southern tablelands three hours by express train from Sydney. It produced fat lambs, potatoes, cherries and pigeon’s blood rubies, though the Treadby rubies, found on cave floors and the like, had run out, leaving the Burdum deposits without rival world-wide.
At this altitude Summer gathered her bounty and departed for other climes at the end of March; April was the beginning of a rather English-flavoured autumn, complete with imported deciduous shrubs and trees as well as a passion for gardening in all styles from Anne Hathaway to Capability Brown. So April Fools’ Day saw the first nip in the air, and the leaves of the native evergreens had that tired, dusty look beseeching rain. The Rector dropped his daughters off outside the main entrance of Corunda Base Hospital and let them carry their suitcases inside unaided, his grey eyes full of tears. How empty the Rectory would be!
Though the Latimer sisters were not to know it, Matron Gertrude Newdigate had only been in her job for a week when they arrived, and she was not amused. When she took the Corunda post there had been no mention of new-style nursing trainees, a big reason why she had decided in Corunda’s favour. Now — ! Sydney had been in turmoil over the radical change in nursing, and Matron Newdigate wanted no part of it. Now — !
A glacial figure in white from head to toes, she sat behind her office desk looking at the four young women standing to face her. Expensively and fashionably dressed, all wearing Clara Bow lipstick, powder and mascara, their hair bobbed short, pure silk stockings, kid shoes, purses and gloves, an English inflection in their voices that spoke of a private school…
“I have no suitable accommodation for you,” Matron said coldly, the starch in her uniform so dense that it creaked when she breathed deeply, “so you will have to go into the disused sisters’ cottage the Superintendent, Dr. Campbell, has been forced to refurbish at considerable cost. Your chaperone will be Sister Marjorie Bainbridge, who will live with you but in some degree of privacy.”
Her head, encased in a starched white organdie veil that stood out like an Egyptian headdress, moved just enough to cause the silver-and-enamel badge pinned at her uniform throat to flash: the insignia saying Miss Gertrude Newdigate was a fully registered nurse in the State of New South Wales. Could the girls have identified them, they would have noted that other badges said she was a registered midwife, a registered children’s nurse, and a graduate of the School of Nursing at the world’s second-oldest hospital, St. Bartholomew’s in London. Corunda Base had got itself a very prestigious nurse.
“Officially registered nurses,” Matron said, “are called sisters. The title has nothing to do with nuns, though it came into being centuries ago when nuns did nurse. However, with the dissolution of the monastic and conventual orders under Henry VIII, nursing was relegated to a very different kind of woman — the prostitute. Miss Florence Nightingale and her companions had to surmount incredible obstacles to gain our modern profession its due, and we must never forget that we are her heirs. For three and more centuries nursing lay in disrepute, the province of criminals and prostitutes, and there are still men in authority who think of nurses that way. It is far cheaper to employ a prostitute than it is a lady.” The pale blue eyes shot icy rays of terror. “As Matron of this hospital, I am your ultimate superior, and I give you warning that I will not tolerate any misbehaviour of any kind. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Matron,” they chorused in awed whispers, even Edda.
“Blood relationship and names,” the voice went on, growing crisper. “I have decided that you will keep your blood ties among yourselves. Your nursing companions in this hospital have neither your money nor your privileges nor your education. One of the things I personally detest most about you is your upper-class appearance and accent. Your — er — air of superiority. I do suggest you tone it down. Names… As hospitals cannot permit confusion, you will all nurse under different surnames. Miss Edda Latimer, you will become Nurse Latimer. Miss Grace Latimer, you will become Nurse Faulding, your mother’s maiden name. Miss Heather Latimer, you will become Nurse Scobie, your mother’s first married name. Miss Katherine Latimer, you will become Nurse Treadby, your mother’s maiden name.”
The starch creaked as Matron drew a long breath. “Formal instruction in the sciences and theories of nursing will not commence until July, which means you will have three months to grow accustomed to the duties and routines of nursing before you open a textbook. Sister Bainbridge is your immediate superior, responsible for your day-to-day tuition.”
A light knock sounded on the door; in bounced a cheerful-looking woman in her late thirties whose face was devoid of lipstick or powder; she looked at Matron like a half-starved, fawning dog.
“Ah, in good time!” said Matron. “Sister Bainbridge, please meet your charges — Nurse Latimer, Nurse Faulding, Nurse Scobie and Nurse Treadby. Kindly go with Sister, girls.”
Given no opportunity to get their breath back, the four girls followed Sister Bainbridge out.
Sister Marjorie Bainbridge wore the same stiffly starched Egyptian headdress veil of white organdie as Matron did, but thereafter bore no likeness. Her uniform was a long-sleeved dress done high to the throat with detachable celluloid cuffs and collar; her ample waist was encircled by a rubberised dark green belt that sprouted lengths of white tape ending inside her pockets; to these, they would learn in time, were attached her bandage scissors, a mouth gag in case of epileptic fits, and a tiny tool kit inside a change purse. Her starched uniform was of narrow green-and-white stripes, her beige stockings were thick lisle, and her shoes black lace-ups with two-inch block heels. An outfit that added no charms to her square figure, or made the sight of her huge bottom any smaller as it moved like a soldier’s on parade, up-left, down-right, up-right, down-left, not the slightest suggestion of femininity about it. In time the girls would grow so used to the look of a disciplined nurse’s bottom that they acquired it themselves, but on that brisk, chilly April morning it was a novelty.
