A/N: A one-shot, inspired by this quote from an "interview" with Sister Bernadette in the Call the Midwife Series companion.
"As midwives we often receive little gifts from grateful patients, and not long ago I was given a record of Perry Como singing 'Ave Maria'. We listened to it during recreation and everyone thought it very nice indeed. The next day I came into the parlour and caught Sister Monica Joan dancing to the b-side, which was a rather jaunty song called 'Do You Ever Get That Feeling in the Moonlight?'"
Sister Bernadette shut the door to her cell and slipped quietly down the chilly hallway to the bath, washbag and towels in hand. Finally. There weren't many luxuries afforded to her in the convent, but one could always depend on tea, cake and a hot bath once a week. And though she wouldn't admit it to anyone, she'd been looking forward to this bath since luncheon. All of her home visits had run long today, and clinic had run even longer. It seemed half the women in Poplar were due to give birth in the next two months.
Down the hall, she could hear the faint laughter of the nurses in the sitting room, and the sound of the record player, a little louder than usual. If Sister Evangelina were here, she would bark at them to turn it down, but both she and Sister Julienne were out on calls.
Let them have their fun, she thought. They were young. Sometimes, she'd wished – only once or twice, when her mind wandered to 'what ifs' – that she could join them.
But not tonight. She shut the door to the bath softly behind her, then rolled up her extra towel and stuffed it along the crack at the bottom, as was her custom. She turned on the taps and began to disrobe, avoiding the small mirror above the sink. She could still hear the music faintly as she undressed, but hopefully, they wouldn't be able to hear her sing along.
You are my special angel
Sent from up above
The Lord smiled down on me
And sent an angel to love
She'd heard Chummy humming the song along with the wireless as they tidied up after clinic earlier that day. She was in the kitchen, washing up the remaining teacups while the nurses put away the screens and folding chairs.
"Someone's chipper," she heard Trixie tease. "I take it your night with Peter went well?"
"Quite," she heard Chummy reply, quietly pleased. There was a burst of knowing giggles from the other nurses that faded as they exited the hall, leaving her alone, again.
She turned off the tap and slid into the bath. Why did she always seem to feel that way recently - alone? Separate from the nurses and more full of doubts than her fellow Sisters. She'd never felt this way before, not since she'd joined Nonnatus ten years earlier. Then, she'd been grateful to find a home and a family with the Sisters, as well as a place where she could do good, where she felt useful. Most day, it still felt like home and a place where she was useful - but was it what she was supposed to be doing? Why this restlessness?
The last time she'd felt this way, she'd left Scotland. Perhaps it was time to leave Poplar.
She began to wash, trying to scrub such thoughts out of her head, and her mind drifted to her last patient of the day, Maureen Ramsey. A mother of four with a fifth on the way, she and Dr. Turner had entered the flat to find her on her hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor, despite being eight months pregnant.
"Maureen!" she exclaimed. She and the doctor rushed to help the woman up and onto the sofa in the sitting room.
"Thank you, love," the woman said with breathless sigh, settling back into the cushions. "I bent down to scrub a little spot on the floor and couldn't quite make it back up, so I figured I'd just clean the whole of it!"
"Keeping a tidy house for baby is important, but so is rest," the doctor scolded. "And I don't like the looks of those ankles."
Maureen lifted one swollen ankle and grimaced. "Oh, they always get like that about now. Every baby. Don't they, Sister?" she said, nodding toward her. "Sister Bernadette delivered all four of my babies. Wouldn't have nobody else."
The doctor grinned at her. "A wise choice."
She felt herself blush and looked away, embarrassed. "Any headaches or nausea, Maureen?"
She shook her head. "No, I'm just bloomin' tired all the time, and a little breathless." She let out a long sigh and ran her hands over her expanding belly. "None of the others took it out of me like this."
Sister Bernadette exchanged a worried look with the doctor. "We'd still like to do some tests," he said.
Maureen's eyes filled with fear. "Tests? What kind of tests?"
"Nothing drastic, Maureen," she said quickly to comfort the woman. "We just want to make sure both you and baby are well. Come on, I'll help you to the toilet."
Thankfully, the tests for preeclampsia came back clear and she and the doctor finished up their examination just as Maureen's husband, Joe, came home. He frowned in concern when he saw them there.
"Mo? Everything all right?"
"Fine, love. The doctor and the sister are just here for look in."
Joe looked to Dr. Turner for confirmation. "Doc?"
"Everything is just as it should be, Mr. Ramsey. Your wife just needs rest, so no more scrubbing floors," he said sternly.
"Maureen, were you scrubbing them floors again?" He came over to the sofa and rested his hands on her shoulders, kneading the sore muscles there. "I told you, love, there's no need for that. We can get one of the girls to do it."
"I can't sit all day, Joe." She let out a little moan of pleasure. "Oh, but I will sit right now. That feels lovely - a little lower though."
Joe grinned at the doctor and Sister Bernadette. "This is why she keeps me around. Magic hands, she says."
"Oh, stop it," Maureen said, laughing, turning bright red. "Not in front of the Sister."
Even now, the image of Joe Ramsey gently caring for his wife stayed with her in a different way than it had before. There was such love in that house, in the way Jo and Maureen looked at each other, in their concern for one another and for their children. She admired it, and yet watching them, that she could feel that familiar feeling of restlessness surfacing again. She was glad to leave the flat.
"Sister? Are you all right?" The doctor gazed down at her, his weathered face creased in concern. His tie was askew and she felt a sudden itch to straighten it.
"Perfectly well," she said curtly, clenching her fingers at her side. "Thank you again, doctor, for coming." She hopped back on her bike and pedaled away, taking unusual care not to look back. Looking back wouldn't help the feeling that she was out of place.
She just needed a rest, she thought now, slipping further down into the warm water, feeling it ease her aching back and shoulders. A brief respite at the Mother House, to reflect and pray and remember why she was here. Then the longing for...something she couldn't place would fade.
There was silence as the record changed and then the bright sound of violins. Sister Bernadette chuckled, her quiet laugh echoing slightly off the tile. The Sisters had been given this Perry Como record by mistake. One side had a beautiful rendition of Ave Maria, sweet and gentle. Even Sister Evangelina enjoyed it every now and again.
But Sister Monica Joan preferred the jauntier B-side song. Sister Bernadette had found her dancing to it once in the sitting room. She hadn't even stopped when she'd spotted her but instead beckoned her to join in.
"No," she'd refused quietly. "I'm not much for dancing."
The elder nun scoffed at her. "Let them praise His name with dancing, making melody to Him with tambourine and lyre!"
She giggled now to think of the elder nun twirling along with the nurses to the music, and hummed along, her wriggling toes sending ripples through the warm water.
Did you ever get that feeling in the moonlight?
The wonderful feeling that you want to be kissed.
You're strolling through the park, the stars so bright above
You'd love to love somebody, but there's nobody there to love
Did you ever get that longing on a June night?
That wonderful longing you can never resist?
Did you ever get that feeling in the moonlight?
That feeling that says you want to be kissed?
She could feel the tension leeching out of her muscles and exhaustion creeping in. She closed her eyes, letting the water and the music wash over her, freeing her mind to wander.
What was that feeling in the moonlight? Was it the way she felt, looking at Joe and Maureen Ramsey? How did it feel, to love someone like that? There was love in the convent, of course, but also silence, sometimes, and distance.
Did you ever get that longing on a June night?
That wonderful longing you can never resist?
She craved touch and something of her own.
Did you ever get that feeling in the moonlight?
Hands - his hands, examining every patient, helping Mrs. Ramsey to the sofa, passing instruments back and forth, twitching nervously at his side, fiddling with his tie. Always in motion, but always so careful.
That feeling that says you want to be...
He worked so hard all the time and wore his cares so heavily. But sometimes he smiled. When he talked about his son. When he looked at her. She had to fight not to stare sometimes. If only she could reach out and -
...kissed?
Her eyes shot open and she sat up quickly, splashing water over the sides of the tub. The cold shocked her skin into goosebumps, and she wrapped her arms around herself, ashamed.
To be thinking of the doctor, an esteemed colleague, in that way would be bad enough if she were just a nurse. But she was one of the Sisters of Saint Raymond Nonnatus. She shouldn't be thinking about anyone that way. If anyone ever knew - if he ever knew.
She felt herself flush again and climbed out of the bath. She was tired, she thought as she wrapped a towel around her middle, and let her mind wander too far; that was all. Horlicks, a good night's rest, and prayer - then she would know her way.
She dried herself off quickly, threw on her robe and twisted her hair up in a towel; she'd dress in her room. She scurried down the hall, the jaunty music making her head pound.
"Please turn the music down, Nurse Franklin," she snapped as she passed the sitting room. "The Great Silence will begin soon."