‘Well, I have nursed for Mrs. Garrett Anderson, and she always said it was a mistake for patients to breakfast early.’
If it were pointed out that dinner was over in other wards and had not yet begun in hers, the answer was:
‘When I nursed for Mrs. Garrett Anderson, she always said that patients should not be pressed to eat till they were hungry.’
If asked to put an extra jacket on the man whose bed was near the passage way, the doctor was informed:
‘Mrs. Garrett Anderson did not approve of muffling up patients, and I nursed for her long enough to know.’
Or she would remark crushingly:
‘Well, doctors are not what they were when I nursed for Mrs. Garrett Anderson.’
The medical staff bore itself humbly, for it was already conscious of its inferiority to the great Pioneer; and try as they might, they never succeeded in learning when and where the nurse had had this great experience. Her quaint habits of mind and plainness of speech made her a joy to Mr. Davies. Meeting him one day on the Boulevards, she attacked him for not having emptied her dressing-bin that morning, and drew such a pathetic picture of her plight in consequence of his negligence that she moved herself to tears. Both he and Mr. Fentress were horrified to find themselves and the weeping nurse objects of public interest. They hastily pushed her into the nearest shop, hoping to propitiate her with coffee. But the shop turned out to be a bookshop, and she never read books. It took some time before a suitable offering could be found and friendly relations be re-established.
Nearly every afternoon saw Lady Robert Cecil in the wards. She was always a most welcome visitor. No one knew better than she did how to make the time pass pleasantly. Mrs. Kemp came too, with generous supplies of English bread, which the men regarded as a great treat after the French loaves. And at Christmas time Mrs. Pankhurst was in Paris, and her first visit made an equal sensation among French and British. They would gather round her while she talked to them of their homes and the education of their children, or encouraged them to consider how the heavy daily toil of their wives might be lightened.
‘I would rather have seen that lady than that Queen who came the other day,’ said one, referring to the visit of Queen Amelie of Portugal. And the roughest diamond, a bricklayer, not unaccustomed to beer drinking, delivered himself: