During the night it had rained leaving the air fresh and sweet. Clutching the virgin white smock tightly about her body, Eve ran down the steps of the ivy clad red brick building designated as the medical residents' quarters, built over two hundred years ago as a country mansion, into which the builder could escape the dirt, smoke and fog of London. It had now matured into a classic Georgian structure so covered in ivy that it was difficult to tell the colour of the bricks for the first two of its four storeys. Inside, it's previously lavish interior of thirty or more bedrooms, three great halls, two ballrooms and half dozen sitting rooms now provided accommodation for the eighteen or so unmarried medical staff of St. Mary's Hospital. The almost derelict house had been commandeered at the beginning of World War II and a military hospital had been built on its accompanying two-hundred acres of land. After the war it had been made part of the British National Health System.

The residential buildings external covering of vines, ivy, roses and honeysuckle provided habitation for a myriad squirrels; birds, of all kinds, and untold numbers of insects, all of which joined in the noisy dawn chorus which welcomed each fine new day and this day was no exception to the rule.

The sun shone out of an almost cloudless sky slowly dissipating the early morning mist which gently clung to the ground, covering it like a soft blanket. Eve felt, as much as heard, the chorus of birds and insects which filled the space around her as the cold freshness of the morning stung her nostrils. That she had hurried down the York stone steps, leading from the old solid oak door of the residency two at a time, meant even to her stunned mind that she was late; late for her first day back at St. Mary's.

The alarm had failed her. Failed her? She queried to herself. Electric clock radios don't malfunction! Her brain screamed back. Avoidance on her part perhaps! But the clock had fulfilled its function; it was she who had tried to ignore its constant scream until she had switched it to its radio function. Why, but why? She continued to argue with herself as she stepped off the broken crazy paving path leading from the residency building onto the immaculately cut, bright green grass of the hospital lawns. After all, it was her choice to return to St. Mary's and nobody had twisted her arm into coming.

The sudden shock of the cold early morning dew struck at the sides of her feet between the thin straps of her high heeled, snake skin sandals.

"Damn!" Eve exclaimed out loud. "I should have known better, and worn the old fashioned standard white shoes that every nurse wears. The ones with good solid crepe soles that cushion one's feet from the hard tiled floors and dampness of the outside pavements," she continued aloud to nobody in particular. A Nurse Wears? Her mind queried. But you're not a nurse anymore, nor will you ever be again.

It had been nearly fourteen years since Eve McAllister, totally English in spite of her very Scottish name, had set off from St. Mary's Hospital, leaving behind her patients and the hospital staff. Oh yes, the staff with their biting sense of humour and often callous and blatant delight in other staff members' problems.

She could still clearly see the green half tiled walls of the hospital corridors and the ever present smell of disinfectant and anesthetics which seemed not only to cling to the wards and corridors, but also to one's clothing and hair. The sight of the large low red and yellow brick, multi-warded buildings, stirred both good and bad memories of what now seemed like her short stay here as a nurse.

The hospital scandalmongers had certainly been a catalyst for Eve to leave the hospital where, as she was at the time, a Sister on the Pediatric Ward. Frustrated with nursing, she left England for Canada to attend McMaster Medical School in Hamilton, Ontario, to train as a physician. She had heard, it was one of the most far sighted medical training facilities in the world; even though it still taught in the now almost old fashioned apprenticeship style, once so common in England, whereby students were introduced to patients on almost their first day and then assigned for a number of weeks training and tuition to a rotation of senior staff, each an expert in his field. The rotations were intense, involving long hours of practice as well as classroom study. Eve wondered just how many of the old staff here, at St Mary's still worked at the same job they had been doing when she left, and how much or little they had changed in her absence. It seemed to her, she was always starting again, but this time she was returning, but returning to what, and why was she returning to St Mary's?

Memories bombarded her as she continued to make her way across the hospital grounds, taking her back to a much earlier first day. She could still smell the scent of fresh meat that greeted her each morning as she had walked through West Smithfield and the heart of one of the world's largest meat markets, where white clad porters, hefting sides of beef, or carcasses of pigs or sheep, scurried in all directions. Further on were the dome and scales of justice of the Central Criminal Court, known as the Old Bailey, always in view and appearing to be passing judgment on all it surveyed, and between the two – Smithfield and the Old Bailey, - stood the ancient buildings of St. Bartholomew's Hospital.

It seemed like yesterday, yet it had been twenty-four years since she as a student nurse, totally awestruck by the hustle and bustle, had first passed under the porticos at the Queen Anne Gate of the teaching hospital and the institution affectionately known to all Londoners as 'Bart's'.

She recalled the story she had been told of how the hospital came into existence. Not only did England and the rest of the common-law world have William the Conqueror and his Norman knights to thank for its legal system but also for many of the churches and associated support systems. It is reported that by 1183, less than 120 years after the 'Conquest', London had a parish church to every three acres or a place to worship for every three hundred of the then forty thousand of its population.

Twenty-four years after that first arrival at St. Bart's, the dampness of the grass at St Mary's so typical of the heavy dew found on the beautifully manicured spring lawns of so many English hospitals, sent a cold chill through Eve's body and brought her back to reality. Swiftly she pulled her new white cotton, standard issue medical coat tightly around her slim, yet shapely figure.

If, as she had told herself, she wanted to arrive on her first day with as little fanfare as possible, she was doing a fairly lousy job of it by arriving both late and with wet feet.

Eve, in her adult form, had never been what you would call inconspicuous. Five feet seven inches tall, she had the sort of long shapely legs that any hosiery manufacturer would be please to use on television, billboards or in magazines to advertise their products. The legs ended in a torso that any size eight outfit would be equally enhanced by and her straight back led to a small delicate head, in which high cheek bones gave emphasis to both her petite, yet perfectly shaped nose and mouth, while, at the same time, taking nothing away from her round deep hazel eyes. Her face was framed by a mass of...