Love ... the Surgeon

By Hilda Pressley, ©1961 
Cover illustration by Bern Smith

Badly hurt by an unhappy love affair, Sister Beth Anderson tried to avoid further disaster by adopting an aloof coldness toward men. Would the kindly consultant, Owen Hastings, make her change her mind—or, as she became unwillingly attracted to the philandering R.S.O., Andrew Longford, would history repeat itself?

GRADE: B

BEST QUOTES:
“On duty, you give an impression of being one of those entirely dedicated women whose only use for the opposite sex is for ministering to them, whose nature in general matches the stiff starchiness of the uniform she wears.” 

“Not that I do much to be talked about, but you never know—I might want to some time.”

“I never met a man yet who didn’t know how to wriggle out of something he didn’t really want to do.”

REVIEW:
The start of this book made me a little bit nervous. Nurse Beth Anderson, the head nurse of the Men’s Surgical ward, is a snippy, embittered woman, having been dumped by her fiancé for her best friend. This has left her “headed straight for the category of soured old maid,” as she is a harsh taskmaster of the young nurses on her ward and is cold and aloof with the doctors, especially Dr. Andrew Langford, the new surgeon, who insists on being introduced to every young nurse—and then seems to be dating a good number of them, even if they are literal teenagers (albeit shortly to age out) and he is about twice their age. This nurse heroine type is one that is wearisome because they are generally unsympathetic, so it’s quite hard to like them, or to look forward to spending another 100-plus pages with them. 

Fortunately, Beth starts to evolve quickly. She unbends enough to make friends with one of the surgeons who is recovering from an appendectomy on her floor, mostly because he is kind and calm and almost inhumanly even-tempered. Owen Hastings is the nicest man alive—but really that’s the best she can say about him, that he’s really nice. Their friendship grows slowly, and soon she is befriended by a nurse on another ward, Dorothy Hughes, who is looking for someone to share a flat with. Owen helps them find one—conveniently located nearby his own apartment, so he can always drop by—and soon the two women are hosting dinner parties and having people over for drinks and conversation, even that bounder Andrew. Now Beth is thinking that she might be in love with Owen, though when he is around “she felt no quickening of her heartbeat or any other emotional disturbance.” And after on of their early dates, “she was glad he made no attempt to kiss her. If he had, both the evening and their whole relationship would have been spoiled.”

As much as she disapproves of Andrew, Beth still goes out with him from time to time, and even if they argue a lot, she still seems to be gradually warming to him—and he to her. As their friendship warms, so too does the one between Dorothy and Owen, who seem to whisper together when Beth is out of the room. When Owen has to leave town for two weeks on business, Beth and Andrew spend most of their evenings together, and soon Beth’s heart, which never thumped for Owen, is pounding for Andrew. But when Owen comes home and proposes to Beth, she accepts—and when Andrew snubs her cruelly in the following days, she soon figures out with whom she’s actually in love.

It's a fairly predictable story right from the beginning, but it was actually pleasant to watch it unfold. Owen and Dorothy are the calm, pleasant characters we’re told they are, though Andrew doesn’t have much life to him, and certainly not persuadingly inducing Beth’s tachycardia. Beth’s growth back into a caring human being was believable, even if her reason for having turned into a popsicle wasn’t, and the final disaster that brings everything to rights is a bit much. Still, it was an enjoyable story, and a worthwhile companion for an afternoon.