# Nurse — Short Fiction character guide

> Nurse in Short Fiction by Daphne du Maurier.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Nurse, herself

**First appearance:** 0000-terror

## Snapshot

A woman who loves a cruel, careless man with clear eyes and quiet endurance, keeping accounts on paper while he whistles and wounds her on purpose.

## Who they are

She sits pretending to do sums while he rocks on his heels and says the things he knows will cut her, and she wonders, calmly, why she loves him at all. Her armour is a sheet of coldness, but a tear still falls on the blotting-paper, and she gives him one more chance in a voice deliberately stripped of feeling. Her disciplined suffering against his casual cruelty is the emotional engine of the story's central quarrel.

## Relationships

### [The Woman](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_12_se/characters/the_woman)

_professional_

The Nurse attends to The Woman, indicating a caretaker or medical role.

## In the story

### [Terror](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_12_se/chapters/terror)

The nurse who dismisses Bridget's fears and forces her back into bed.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_12_se/characters/nurse
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_12_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_12_se/characters