Cover illustration
by Victor Kalin
When lovely young
Shirley Davidson ran away from her tyrannical father, fate (and the kindness of
Matron Anna Marsden) fulfilled her lifelong dream—she became a student nurse.
Then, as if she weren’t already bursting with happiness, she fell in love. But there
were complications (and heartbreak) ahead. For handsome Dr. Gerald Trent,
though irresistibly drawn to Shirley, was already engage to Anna Marsden. And
Shirley would rather die than do anything to hurt the woman she worshiped, who
had given her her first chance for a decent life.
GRADE: B+
BEST QUOTES:
“I’ve
an idea that the only sensible thing is to be crazy.”
“One
needs to have one’s heart in one’s job, otherwise it’s impossible to make a
real success of it.”
“Luckily
one’s best beloved never saw one at the hairdresser’s. At least, not if one had
any sense.”
“In
all lives there are times when one has just to sit tight and wait until one
feels better.”
REVIEW:
Anna
Marsden is the 35-year-old matron of the Gresham Nursing Home, one of London’s
most prestigious hospitals. She’s had this job for two years—won it after a
lengthy battle within the hospital board, in which trustee Howard Bleston
prevailed—and feels a great deal of dedication to her job and to Howard for
awarding it to her. Her fiance, though, Dr. Gerald Trent, hates her job and
wants her to chuck it and marry him. She knows that “she needed some form of
self-expression other than running a house and ordering meals and being
decorative at her husband’s dinner table. She too wanted a career and the
knowledge that she was doing something useful in the world. Gerald had said
lightly and a little reproachfully that looking after him was something
useful.” Why she continues to see him is a bit of a mystery.
He’s
to leave for a prestigious fellowship in New York, and has asked her to quit
her job and come with him as his bride. She’s all set to do it when Howard’s
wife, the horrible Hilary Bleston, arrives to recover, again, from drug
addiction, which will take at least three months. Given her loyalty to the
husband, Anna feels she must see the wife through this crisis, and tells Dr.
Trent that she can’t go with him. His ardor noticeably cools.
Enter
Shirley Davidson, at 17 about half Dr. Trent’s age. She has arrived at the
hospital by jumping into Anna’s car at a traffic light and urging her to drive
on, because she’s running away from a life of crime forced upon her by her ogre
of a father. Anna takes Shirley in and gives her a job as a nursing student,
and Shirley is hopelessly star-struck with her devotion to Anna for her
kindness. But upon clapping eyes on Dr. Gerald Trent, she’s hopelessly
star-struck with her infatuation with the man. Since his engagement to Anna is
a secret—and Gerald helpfully never mentions it to Shirley—she gratefully
accepts his dates and kisses. It’s just a matter of time, however, before she
finds out that Gerald belongs to Anna, and then she calls it off in an utter panic.
It’s just a matter of more time, then, until Anna finds out that Shirley is in
love with Gerald. Shirley quits the hospital and disappears into London’s seedy underbelly so as to clear the field for
Anna, but that great lady decides—after some indecision that leaves the reader
a little nervous for a second—that she’s through with Gerald.
Everything
ends well for everyone, of course, and in a wholly predictable way, but that’s
not always a bad thing, especially not here, because the writing is very fine.
The characters and their motivations and anguish are drawn quite beautifully,
in a way that is particularly unique to VNRNs from the 1940s, as this one is.
If Shirley’s character is given to flightiness and exaggeration of emotion, she
is, after all, only 17, and can reasonably be expected to be both. Hilary
Bleston, a nasty shrew, is fun to watch, especially as she overhears her
friends gossiping about her at the beauty shop. Student Nurse is a slow book, perhaps overly so at 223 pages, and
this really is its biggest flaw, but it’s not a fatal one. As long as you’re
not in a hurry, this book will be a pleasant diversion.
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