Nurse Chadwick’s Sorrow

By Diana Douglas
(pseud. Richard Wilkes-Hunter), ©1967 

Ruth Chadwick would never forgive Dr. Barry Kade for a night of insanity that changed her life. She would never return to Dr. Graham Chadwick, her husband. The only thing that still tied her to these two men was a bond of pain and hatred. And now Tracey Norton was involved. Tracey … pretty, talented, very attractive to a man like Dr. Kade. Unable to stop her, Ruth saw Tracey being caught in her own hidden past—in the frightening truth that lay behind Nurse Chadwick’s sorrow.

GRADE: C

BEST QUOTES:
“Frigid type? No, you’re too pretty.”

“A man could be made to forget anything else when the girl he loved kissed him.”

“By Friday she had almost resolved to forget all about Barry Kade and dedicate herself to a lifetime of nursing.”

REVIEW:
Author Richard Wilkes-Hunter is not an author I enjoy. His books are generally sexist, stupid and dull, usually landing C-minus grades. So here we have a little treat—not the cover, of course, which is pretty lame—RWH has given us a book that is only irritating, without the usual over-the-top sexism! Curiously, Nurse Chadwick of the title is only a peripheral character. The book centers on Tracey Norton, who has just been hired as a scrub nurse at Pasadena General. From her very first surgery, when she meets Dr. Barry Kade’s large gray eyes beneath very black brows and long, curling lashes, she has to force herself to concentrate on the operation rather than the handsome young assistant surgeon.

Ruth Chadwick is the OR charge nurse, “still attractive, though she must be 30 or more,” thank you very much, Richard. She is also a strict disciplinarian who hates Dr. Kade with a burning passion, for some mysterious reason, so there will be a lot of floundering around in the plot until the secret is finally revealed two-thirds of the way through the book. In the interim Tracey has coffee with Barry Kade and then a few very pleasant dates, though she risks the ire of Ruth Chadwick in doing so. That risk is made especially problematic since Ruth has invited Tracey to take a room in her apartment. Improbably, Tracey accepts, and then, in the name of being honest, is fairly consistently rude and insulting to Ruth.

In close quarters, Tracey is able to spot the mysteries in Ruth’s life. Ruth acknowledges she has a 3-year-old son named David who obviously does not live with her. Ruth goes away every weekend to some undisclosed location, and is driven home by a man in sports clothes in an open convertible—and then cries herself to sleep in her bedroom. “A woman with a child to live for had no right to abandon herself to such grief,” thinks Tracey with great wisdom and kindness.

One afternoon, after a very tense surgery, Ruth takes it as a mild criticism when Tracey says she is going to the cafeteria for coffee—Ruth usually asks one of the student nurses to make the coffee but had instead sent the student to do more important chores—and Tracey “stared defiantly” and snaps, “I wish you would take that chip off your shoulder, Ruth. Why don’t you save that charge-nurse jazz for the operating room? Outside working hours it neither becomes you nor impresses me!” This sort of hyper-aggressive, snarky remark is, unfortunately, characteristic of many of Tracey’s comments to Ruth, and peculiarly, Ruth responds like a puppy who has been smacked with a rolled-up newspaper and becomes thoughtful, then sad, whimpering, “Am I as bad as that?” and asking if they can still be friends. I liked Ruth better when she was snapping, “Walters! A towel for Dr. Russell!”

Now, as Tracey’s mean-girl ways inexplicably cause Ruth to open up more, we get numerous hints about Ruth’s past. Barry tells her that he has been “nearly four years saving for something that’s very important to me,” and that Ruth’s dislike of him goes back four years. Calculating Tracey thinks, “Nearly four years ago. That would be before Ruth’s child was born.” Ruth’s husband doesn’t help when he when he waylays Tracey as she is walking home from work, creepily offering her a ride with the friendly comment, “I promise not to attempt your seduction.” Tracey immediately volunteers that Ruth cries at night and that she knows he drives her home on Sundays, but when he tells her fiercely that he loves Ruth and wants to make the marriage work, Tracey answers, “It’s really not any of my business. I neither peep nor listen. Nor do I pry into other people’s lives!” It’s a remarkable, completely obvious lie. So when Graham asks her to break her date with Barry and go spy on Ruth and David at a remote beach, of course she does, though Barry turns out to be insecure and all but stops speaking to her. What Tracey finds naturally causes everything to turn out perfectly for everyone, even for her, the one who deserves it least. If the Big Secret everyone is keeping is actually interesting, it’s just way too complicated to be resolved by Tracey showing up at the beach and yelling at Ruth some more, then sending David for  “cutting-edge” surgery (not used today) that is explained in such excruciating detail you might nod off.

Some male writers can pull off nurse novels. Bill Neubauer and Jean Francis Webb, for example, are respectful, gentle authors who can tell a story with real feeling. Others, however, such as Mr. Wilkes-Hunter (and William Daniel Ross, to name another), clearly view women as objects, and not infrequently demonstrate no understanding for how women act or speak, instead making them bros with perky breasts. This is Tracey Norton in a nutshell, who may be the heroine of this book, but she is no hero—neither admirable, charitable or even likeable. “You have the old girl eating out of your hand,” says a fellow nurse to Tracey, as if dominating Ruth is the only option. It’s not, and if Ruth is happy at the end of the book, I still felt sorry about how badly she’d been treated. So unless you enjoy spending time with mean people like Tracey Norton, you’d do a lot better to look for a book by Bill Neubauer.