"Are you quite sure you're ready for this?" Ethel asked a fortnight later, straightening Ada's cap as she did so.
"Are you sure you're quite ready, Acting Sister Bennett?" Ada replicated her colleague's words and gestures.
"Yes!" the two nurses chirped in unison.
"Remember," Ada reminded, "The London expects the unexpected, and gets it!"
"Yes Sister!" Ethel saluted mischievously, "and whatever Nonnatus House expects, God help them!"
Ada flashed Ethel a scowl, before adding, "I am putting a great deal of trust in you Ethel."
"I won't let you down, I promise," Ethel confirmed, though a hint of nerves was tinging her usual confident demeanor.
A bell began to toll from somewhere nearby and the two friend's eyes met once again.
"To your posts ladies," Ethel chimed in her best Miss Luckes impression, causing a herd of nurses and probationers to skuttle past her.
Ada allowed herself a small smile before replying, "and I to mine. I'll see you soon, Sister."
Within the hour, Ada found herself on the doorstep of an imposing red brick building. From the road it resembled neither a hospital nor a nunnery, nor did it really fit in with the rest of the architecture of the tenements that surrounded it. With more than an inkling of apprehension, Ada paced her way up the stairs and rapped her knuckles upon the heavy wooden door. She waited a moment but when her initial knock went unanswered, she repeated the gesture more firmly and more urgently than before.
"Yes, yes, I'm coming" emerged a reply through a crack in the door, "state your purpose!"
Ada stared at the source of the reply, who was now half visible between the door and the upright of the frame. Dressed from head to toe in a dark blue and white habit, she was a good 6 inches taller than Ada, heightened further by her haughty head carriage. The two women were probably within a few years of age, but the pale face of the habited figure bore witness to its possessors struggles and strife. The two women eyed each other suspiciously.
"I'm Sister Russell," Ada replied, "I've been sent from The London and told to report to the Sister in Charge."
"A nursing Sister, judging from your attire," the habited figure sneered, deliberately staring Ada up and down, "who seeks our religious Superior."
"Yes, I do," Ada confirmed, beginning to become frustrated, "she is expecting me, may I be permitted to enter?"
"Sister Monica Joan," boomed a voice from within Nonnatus House, "what is the meaning of this?"
The nun in the doorway whom Ada deduced was Sister Monica Joan jumped in mock surprise before shooting an enormous sly wink in Ada's direction. Ada gasped audibly in shock at the nun's behaviour. At that moment an elder nun appeared behind Sister Monica Joan, grabbed the edge of the door in one hand, her young consoeur's habit in the other, and pulled the two asunder. Sister Monica Joan was almost lifted off her feet as she was forced to fly across the tiled floor.
"Please accept my most sincere apologies on behalf of my Sister," the other nun replied, "I'm Sister Ermengarde, you must be Nursing Sister Russell," she added, her eyes tracing a similar path across Ada's body as Sister Monica Joan's had done.
"Yes," Ada nodded.
"Come inside," Sister Ermengarde insisted, moving herself out of the doorway and gesturing to Ada to come forward, "I'll deal with you later," she shot at Sister Monica Joan, who grinned inanely at Ada as she passed.
Sister Ermengarde began to sweep down the corridor, which Ada took as an indication to follow her. They were just still within earshot when Sister Monica Joan blew a large wet raspberry down the corridor. Seeing the horrified expression on Ada's face, Sister Ermengarde quipped, "she wouldn't last five minutes in hospital nursing would she?"
Ada stared at Sister Ermengarde, momentarily uncharacteristically lost for words. Sister Ermengarde allowed a wry smile to crinkle the corners of her mouth, inviting a response from Ada.
"Not on my ward!" Ada confirmed.
"You will find discipline here somewhat more relaxed than in a hospital setting," Sister Ermengarde continued, "we have enough discipline in the religious life without having to doff our nursing caps to every passerby. But Sister Monica Joan takes a far looser approach to discipline than the rest of us. We try to tell her of course, but to no avail. Though," Sister Ermengarde sighed, "she fought one oppression to get here, she certainly won't allow herself to be forced into another."
Ada's right eyebrow raised fractionally, beckoning Sister Ermengarde to continue, but she remained silent until they had climbed several flights of stairs and Sister Ermengarde had unlocked a heavy wooden door into a small, spartan room.
"This will be your room whilst you are with us," Sister Ermengarde announced, "hot water will be brought for you to wash at 5:30 every morning, the privy is out the back," she added, gesticulating out the window in the direction of a tin-roofed, red-brick hut, "and that," she indicated at a flower-patterned pot to the side of the rickety-looking bed frame, "is for when you're really desperate. I'm afraid we have no other lay staff at the moment, though you are of course welcome to join us at chapel. Lunch is at one, after that I expect you to report for duty."
"Yes Sister," Ada replied.
"I'll leave you to settle in," Sister Ermengarde remarked as she saw herself out of the room.
Ada waited until she could no longer hear the soft pad of Sister Ermengarde's shoes on the long rug which covered the landing floor before slumping onto her bed. The whole thing creaked noisily and the springs were no match even for her delicate frame. Righting herself, she stared around the room, its whitewashed walls bare but for a single wooden crucifix above her bed. As so often these days, she wondered what Ethel would have made of it.
"She'd probably join forces with Sister Monica Joan," Ada admitted to herself, knowing full well the thrill her friend gained from bending every rule in the book.
After lunch Ada assembled in the clinical room with the rest of the nuns; Monica Joan and Ermengarde, and the others whom she had met at lunch; Catherine, Gertrude, Agnes, and Mary. The only member of the Community missing was Sister Hildegarde, the now elderly foundress of Nonnatus House, who had retired to her room after lunch.
"Sister Catherine, I would like you to allow Nursing Sister Russell to shadow you on your postnatal round this afternoon," Sister Ermengarde announced.
"Oh course, Sister," came the sweet reply of motherly Sister Catherine.
"You'll get plenty of work on that round," Sister Monica Joan hissed in Ada's ear, "all of it, in fact."
"Do be quiet!" young, fiery Sister Agnes snapped, "show some respect."
"Come along, Nursing Sister Russell," Sister Catherine announced, taking her bag in one hand and Ada's arm in the other.
Ada snatched up her newly assigned medical bag and trotted obediently out of the clinical room behind Sister Catherine. The unholy cacophony of noise which erupted from the clinical room when they were halfway to the front door could only mean that, once again, Sister Monica Joan was in trouble.