The Liverpool Nightingales, page 16
Maud was muttering at Eddy’s side, ‘Flour, cobweb or fur from a beaver hat, flour, cobweb or fur from a beaver hat …’
‘A floured beaver!’ said Eddy in desperation, and the whole room, including Mr Fawcett, broke into laughter.
‘Well, Nurse, I don’t think we’d find many of those in the corridors of the Liverpool Royal, but flour can be used and is a good haemostatic, as is the fur from a beaver hat, or cobweb. Anyway, the important thing is that you keep the leeches away from the more vascular areas unless directed by a doctor and only use the leeches once. Chuck ’em out once they’ve been used; that way we can keep the supply fresh and lively. And another thing: don’t put the blighters in your pocket. We don’t want any more unfortunate incidents, do we now?’ he said, gazing around the room as if they all knew exactly what he was talking about. ‘Any questions?’
There was complete silence in the room as Mr Fawcett continued to stand at the front and stare straight ahead.
‘All right then, today I am going to talk about what we mean by health and introduce you to what sickness can do to the body. Clearly, however, with all your recent experience on the wards you will all have a fairly good idea about that already.
‘So, what is health? Health is the natural condition of the body when it is free from pain and disease. And our job here at the hospital is to restore the body, whenever we can, to a state of health and, if we can, to prevent the body from becoming sick. And I agree with Miss Nightingale on this matter: when we nurse a patient we must nurse the room. Ventilation is a key issue in caring for the sick. It is a key factor in aiding recovery and in preventing diseases such as cholera, typhus and consumption …’
Having read Notes on Nursing so many times already, Maud found her mind drifting to other matters as Mr Fawcett spoke at some length about what Miss Nightingale had written and she only came to when he said emphatically, ‘Nursing is the special province of women. They have a natural tendency for it, and all of you nurses must take heed of the fact that your moral character is very important indeed. Sobriety, honesty, chastity – these have to be upheld. Do not stray from your chosen course.’
Maud glanced to the side to see Alice with her head bowed. What does he know about these things? thought Maud. What does he know about what women have to deal with in their daily lives?
At the end of the lecture Mr Fawcett told them that next time they would be starting on the systems of the body and they would work their way through digestion, the skin, bones and muscles, respiration and the nervous system, and more besides. Then he walked over to a table where he had what appeared to be a row of jars covered by a cloth.
‘And just to give you a taster, and again, a reminder of where the sins of the flesh can lead, I have here some specimens that were removed from the bodies of men and women alike, bodies that bore the marks of syphilis, commonly known as the pox. As you can see,’ he said, removing the cloth, ‘this is where indulgences of that kind can lead.’
Maud felt her stomach heave and there was a gasp from the women in the room as they all stood and tried to leave without looking at the jars but they had all looked at the specimens as they were uncovered – a row of pickled body parts in jars, mainly male anatomy bearing horrible ulcers or twisted out of shape by disease.
Maud saw one girl at the front stand up and then faint, and Mr Fawcett stooped down to attend to her. Maud grabbed hold of Alice’s hand and led her out of the room as she heard Mr Fawcett’s voice saying something about the Contagious Diseases Acts and that’s why the women on the street have to be brought in and treated. At that point Eddy got up from her seat and followed them out without saying anything.
Alice turned to them before running off up the stairs, saying, ‘That’s it, I’m definitely not going near a man ever again. I need to be sick.’
‘Are you coming in for tea?’ said Eddy, heading for the refectory with one other girl as the rest of the group moved in the opposite direction.
‘Give me ten minutes,’ said Maud. ‘I need to check on Alice.’
It took a bit longer than ten minutes before Maud and Alice had settled their stomachs but then they were able to go and get something to eat. After tea they sat with Eddy on a few chairs that had been left behind from the lecture. Most of them had been cleared along with the jars of pickled specimens, but there were enough left to form a small group. The evenings were starting to feel cooler and one of the large stoves on the ground floor had been lit. It gave a welcome glow as the girls sat together in happy companionship, not needing to say much to each other, just glad to be at the end of another day and able to spend time together. Maud was glad, but also suspicious, that Nancy never even bothered to make much attempt these days to speak to Alice and she rarely looked in their direction. She had another small group of probationers in her tow. Maud should have been happy that Nancy’s attention had shifted but after what had happened that day on the ward with Mr Clifford she knew that she had been right not to trust her. People like Nancy never forgot, never really moved on, and Maud knew for sure that inevitably Nancy would be back for something else as well.
Anyway, for now they were cosy, and the stove had just been lit so they had the crackling and the spitting of the wood as they watched the flames flaring and licking at the kindling sticks, working their way up to the shovelful of coal that had just gone on. Maud felt a shiver go down her back as the fire began to draw air through the stove and she pulled a wool shawl that she had brought from her room around her shoulders.
‘The nights are definitely drawing in,’ she said to no one in particular, remembering what Cook used to say to them as they all huddled round the kitchen stove in the big house at this time of year. ‘And, of course, I understand the importance of ventilation in any building from all my readings of Miss Nightingale’s Notes on Nursing, but sometimes, don’t you think, we could do without a draught round the back of our necks?’
Alice and Eddy laughed.
‘Well, at least us nurses shouldn’t get the typhus or the cholera or the ’orrible consumption,’ said Eddy in a growly voice.
‘Stop, stop,’ said Alice, still sensitive from the jars of diseased organs on show at Mr Fawcett’s lecture. ‘Let’s talk about something else, not disease, nothing horrible.’
None of them could think of anything to say, and they all laughed again. ‘Looks like we’re stumped if it doesn’t relate to horrible or life-threatening disease,’ said Maud.
Then they fell silent again until Eddy could stand it no longer. ‘What do you all think about when you’re tired like this? When you can’t do anything or think straight, what’s going through your head?’
Alice looked at her and groaned. ‘Eddy, why do you have to start talking about something that nobody else would think of, something strange?’
‘It’s not strange,’ said Eddy, her eyes wide, ‘is it, Maud?’
‘It might be,’ said Maud, ‘but I suppose you could say that it is also interesting.’
‘There you go,’ said Eddy. ‘Maud says it’s interesting … so what do you think about?’
‘Nothing at all,’ said Alice with another groan. ‘I can’t think about anything other than what’s going on inside me, all the fluttering and moving around, and my back is killing me at the end of each day … there’s no room for anything else.’
‘No other thoughts on anything else at all?’ said Eddy.
‘No, not really,’ said Alice.
‘Crikey,’ said Eddy. ‘What about you, Maud, what’s going on in your head?’
Maud didn’t reply straight away. She just gazed into the fire. Eddy was used to her and liked the way that Maud took her time to consider things without rushing in with an answer. At first it had driven her mad – she always wanted an instant response to everything – but by now she knew that Maud would answer eventually.
‘Right now, I was thinking about some music that I heard playing when I worked at the big house. I don’t know what it was called but they had someone in to play the piano and I had never heard anything like it before. It was so beautiful and it stayed in my head for days afterwards, and now it comes and plays in my head whenever it wants. I think it will be with me always. Oh, and I was wondering if I will have the energy to climb those stairs and get into bed.’
‘I’m with you there,’ said Alice, sounding sleepy. ‘I think you two will have to carry me.’
‘What about you, Eddy?’ said Maud. ‘What do you have in your head?’
Eddy didn’t even pause to think before she replied, ‘Well, I’ve always got a tune playing in my head – something from the music hall – and then on top of that I’m thinking about hats and gowns, bright colours, new babies, singing songs and boats on the river, all at the same time.’
‘Why does that not surprise us?’ said Maud, and they all laughed again.
Then they sat for a while longer, with the warm glow of the coal in the stove flickering over their faces. Alice’s eyes were starting to close and even Eddy looked a bit sleepy. They heard someone coming down through the hall and Miss Merryweather walked past them on her way to the dining room.
‘Wonder what she thinks about,’ said Eddy quietly, after she had gone past. Nobody even tried to answer that, and then Eddy pulled a wicked witch face and they all giggled.
‘Stop it,’ said Maud. ‘I really like Miss M. And her sister, the assistant superintendent, is lovely too.’
‘Oooh, Miss M and her sister, me and Miss M and her sister,’ said the other two at the same time before they all got comfortable again and continued to enjoy the fire before the coal was burnt right down. They knew that there wouldn’t be any more fuel going on to keep it in overnight, not at this time of the year.
They were still sitting by the stove and starting to doze when they were roused again by the sound of loud, sharp heels clopping down the stone stairs and then the same heels tap, tapping over the coloured tiles in the hall. They all looked up together and saw Nancy crossing the space in front of them and heading towards the front door. She was wearing a yellow dress with a low-cut front and as she tripped past them with her back very straight and her head held high she left a thick trail of flowery scent.
‘Well, look at her all la-di-da,’ whispered Eddy. ‘That dress makes her look like she might have got the yellow jaundice.’
‘Shush,’ said Maud, feeling anger burn inside her but not wanting the others to know about it. She didn’t want Alice to be worrying or Eddy to come out and say something that would make matters worse. ‘She looks very beautiful, you know she does.’
‘And doesn’t she know it,’ said Alice sleepily.
‘Looks can be deceiving,’ said Eddy. ‘I wonder where she’s heading dressed like that, smothered in lily of the valley scent. Bet she’s going to find a man.’
‘You don’t need to be a genius to work that one out,’ said Alice.
‘Shush, you two,’ said Maud, feeling uncomfortable at the very thought, especially after the lecture they’d had that afternoon. And there was something else that unsettled her, something she couldn’t put a finger on but it was like a bat squeak of a feeling as Nancy had passed by. She was probably just imagining it, but she thought that she knew exactly where Nancy was heading that evening and exactly who she would be seeing.
11
‘I do not expect that love passages will be frequent in her life.’
(F. N.’s mother, writing about Florence in 1838)
After work the next day Maud was sitting up in bed reading her way through Notes on Nursing for the umpteenth time, when there was a light tap on her door.
‘Come in,’ she called, knowing by the pressure exerted in knocking it definitely wasn’t Eddy, and hoping she was right in thinking that it was very unlikely to be Nancy. So it could only really be Alice. And it was Alice, breathless and tearful.
‘Come in,’ said Maud, putting her book aside and swinging her legs over the side of the bed. ‘Are you all right?’
‘No,’ said Alice, and Maud could see that she was holding back a sob.
‘Come and sit down,’ she said, patting the bed next to her and then putting an arm around her friend as soon as she sat down. ‘What’s up then?’
‘Oh, I’ve been worrying,’ Alice said, ‘and I don’t even know if it is something to worry about or not, so that’s making me worry even more. It’s just that I’ve been feeling so tired today on the ward and we are so busy, as you know, and so I had to keep going, but when I got back to my room after tea I started to feel really dizzy and I needed to sit down. Then I realized that I hadn’t felt the baby moving at all today. I don’t think I’ve felt it even once. So I thought: just rest up, Alice, just rest up … and then I needed to use the chamber and when I did I saw some spots of blood on my underclothes, just tiny spots, and then that really worried me. What if I’m going to lose the baby? What if it’s going to come? I don’t know what to do.’
Maud sat for a moment with her arm around Alice’s shoulders before answering, ‘Well, to be honest, Alice, I have no idea but to me, from what you’ve said, it doesn’t sound really bad. I think you should rest, and in the meantime I will go over and see Stella again. She’ll know what’s what.’
‘No, no, don’t be going all that way, not to a brothel at this time of night.’
‘Look, I will be fine, Alice, don’t worry. And it isn’t all that late yet.’
Alice looked at her gratefully. ‘If you’re sure, Maud. Only if you’re sure …’
‘I’ll be fine,’ said Maud, already standing up from the bed and getting herself ready to leave. ‘You just go and lie down, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Try not to worry.’
Alice nodded. ‘So long as you’re sure, Maud. But do you know the way? Eddy isn’t in; she can’t go with you.’
‘I know the way,’ said Maud, ‘and even if I get lost I know how to find Stella and Marie’s from Lime Street Station, and everybody in Liverpool knows where Lime Street is.’
‘That’s true,’ said Alice, ‘but you be careful. The later it gets, the more people of all types you see out on the street.’
‘I’ll be careful. Now stop worrying, go back to your room and lie down.’
As soon as Maud set out she started to wonder almost straight away whether walking through the city at this hour was a good idea after all. Alice was right: there were all kinds of people out – it was even busier than during the day – and more of them were drunk. And there was a sense of something in the air, a tension, as if a fight could break out at any minute. Always able to rely on her common sense and usually able to stay calm, Maud put her head down and walked, telling herself just to keep walking and imagine that she was following the red flower on Eddy’s hat just a little way ahead.
She was at Lime Street Station much sooner than she expected, and again she could hear the buzz of the passengers as they moved through the station or waited on the platforms. This time steam was rising up into the air above and out of the front of the building as a train prepared to leave. For a moment she was enveloped in it and she felt a moment of panic as she lost her bearings and found herself bumping up against some rough-looking men. If it hadn’t been for her excellent sense of direction she would have been sent completely off track, but as the mist started to clear she was able to make out where her route lay and she marched ahead with her heart pounding unusually fast.
Relieved at first to be in the alley and approaching the house, she was in for a shock. This was not the same quiet place next to the station that she had found last time with Eddy and Alice. This was a whole different place, full of shadows and people talking loudly in small groups bunched against walls. Maud averted her gaze instantly as she saw the shape of a woman with her back against a wall and a man … She walked past as quickly as she could but just as she turned into the second, narrower alley a man’s hand grabbed her arm and a voice said, ‘How much?’
‘Let go of me,’ Maud almost shouted, pulling the man’s hand off her. Then she almost ran to the house with the blue door, which seemed to her in that moment like some kind of sanctuary. She could still hear the drunken laughter of the man who had accosted her in the alley as she knocked, out of breath and with her heart pounding, feeling at any moment that someone might grab her from behind. After what felt like an age the door opened and a man lurched out, or maybe he was pushed from inside – it was difficult to tell. He knocked into Maud, who had to grab the door frame to steady herself, and then he fell flat on his face in the alley. Maud watched as he pulled himself up from the ground and then walked away unsteadily, weaving along, using anything he could find – the wall of a building or a lamppost – to steady himself. Turning back to the open doorway, Maud found herself looking into the stony face of the woman with the dark-grey hair, Stella’s mother, Marie.
The woman didn’t say a word, she just stood waiting and then made to close the door in Maud’s face.
‘I’m here to see Stella,’ said Maud just in time.
‘Thought so,’ said the woman.
‘Is she in?’ said Maud, when the woman didn’t say anything else.
‘What do you want ’er for?’
‘I just need to ask her something,’ said Maud. ‘It won’t take long.’
Marie looked her up and down and then sighed. ‘Well, she did say that you and the others were all right, so I suppose …’
‘Is she in?’ said Maud, beginning to feel impatient despite herself.
‘No, she isn’t,’ said the woman.
Maud frowned, trying to stop herself from losing her temper.
‘But you can see her if you want.’
Maud’s frown deepened as she wondered how that would be possible.
‘She’s in the pub,’ said the woman abruptly and then started to close the door again.
‘What pub?’ said Maud, blocking the door just long enough for Marie to tell her that it was the public house directly opposite the station.
