The Liverpool Nightingales, page 27
The whole group tutted and sighed, and Marie put an arm around Laura’s shoulders.
‘Well, Laura here, and all of our women, we all make sure that we keep ourselves clean. It’s a risk of this work – the men spread it around – you have to be very careful, and we are. So, for a start, there’s no grounds for holding Laura in the hospital against her will, and that treatment that they give is damaging. Women have died from it and some women just disappear off the street and are never seen again. Anyway, fortunately I have an acquaintance at the Infirmary. Some of you might know about Ada Houston, my half-sister. Well, I went to see Ada and she was on to it straight away. Although Ada doesn’t have any jurisdiction at the Lock Hospital, for many weeks now she has been working steadily to make various contacts with the nurses there and I can’t really tell you any more except to say that, well, my half-sister is an absolute marvel. She managed to get into the Lock Hospital. She went in there herself and she brought our Laura out with her. I don’t know what she said to them in there but she came marching out with Laura and that’s all that matters to us.’
Maud felt a glow of pride. She had always liked Miss Houston – all the staff did – but to learn that she would get involved with rescuing a woman from the Lock Hospital made her realize just how special the assistant superintendent must be. Alice was looking over to her mouthing, ‘Miss Houston?’ but Maud was not surprised one bit.
‘Three cheers for Ada Houston,’ said Harry, holding up his cup of tea. ‘Hip, hip, hooray …’
‘Hip, hip, hooray,’ shouted the group. Then they all looked over at Alice, still sitting cradling the baby and starting to look a bit tired.
‘Right, you lot,’ said Stella, ‘our lass here is looking like she could do with some rest and although we all feel like we could sit round talking I think we’d best call it a night.’
Maud was the first to stand up. She wanted to make sure that they did the right thing for Alice and she knew that she and Eddy would need to get back before the door to the Nurses’ Home was locked.
‘We’ll sort Alice and the baby out,’ said Stella. ‘No need to worry, we’ll look after both of them. So say your goodbyes, you lot, then out through the door.’
Marie had already moved over to take the baby from Alice so that she could say her goodbyes. Immediately she held her arms open to Maud and Eddy and they both came over to be hugged. There were hardly any more words that Alice could say in her exhausted state but as she hugged Maud tears came to her eyes and she quietly said, ‘Thank you.’
Out in the street Maud felt the exhaustion hit her and she was glad of Eddy linking her arm and helping her along.
‘Come on then, Miss Midwife,’ said Eddy. ‘Let’s get you home, and just to say once again, what a good job you did in there. I would have been worried about taking that one on. With the early ones there’s so much that can go wrong. What you did was perfect, though, Maud. It was nothing short of a miracle.’
Maud just held Eddy’s arm a bit tighter and snuggled up to her as they walked, still feeling the gentle glow of happiness go through her whole body. She couldn’t think of anything to say in reply. She was too exhausted to speak but she knew that she would always remember what had happened in Stella’s kitchen that night.
‘We’ll have to keep a close eye on the baby, though,’ continued Eddy. ‘There’s plenty of full-term babies that die in the first year, never mind a little scrap like that. I’ll be going down there each day and spending as much time as I can. I’ve already left instructions with Alice and the women about keeping the baby warm – tiny ones like that, they soon get cold – and I’ve told her to wash around the cord with warm water and soap once a day. They don’t want to be bathing her, not for some time yet. It would be too much of a shock to the system. And Alice was worrying about the feeding. The baby had a bit of a suckle but not much, so I’ve showed her how to express milk and then they can feed with a teaspoon, only very small amounts at first, but regular. Most of those women in that house want to help with baby Victoria. They said that they’ll take turns with feeding her and make sure she gets a few teaspoons of milk every two hours, and they’ll help Alice put the baby to the breast as well. She couldn’t be in a better place, that baby …’
‘You know so much about all of this already,’ said Maud. ‘You really are very clever, Eddy.’
‘Nah, I’ve just been in the right place at the—’
‘Hold up a minute,’ shouted a man’s voice, and Eddy didn’t finish her sentence but looked straight at Maud with her eyebrows raised. Despite her exhausted state Maud felt a tightness in the pit of her stomach and her heart beat a bit faster as Harry Donahue caught up with them.
‘Just thought I’d bring the dog to escort you ladies back to the Nurses’ Home,’ he said, looking straight at Maud.
‘Of course,’ said Eddy, ‘of course you can do that.’
‘And I just wanted to tell you, Maud, that I’ve been out looking for your boy. I’m getting to know that woman on the pots and rags stall but she isn’t giving anything away. I’ve seen him as well, that sweep. Shifty-looking bugger; wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him.’
‘Thank you,’ said Maud, turning to him with a grateful smile, hoping that he was going to be able to find Alfred, and soon. She had not been confident that he would take on the search for Alfred so wholeheartedly. But it seemed he was really trying. Maybe, just maybe, she didn’t really know much about the real Harry Donahue after all.
Once they were outside the Nurses’ Home, Eddy made some excuse and dashed straight in, leaving Maud at the bottom of the steps with Harry and the dog.
‘I just wanted to say, it was, well …’ he stumbled on his words. ‘What you did in there with that baby, well, it was just grand.’
Maud looked down at the ground.
‘That’s all I wanted to say. I know I’ve not always come across to you as somebody who you want to spend any time with, but I’m just hoping that you might be able to change your mind. That you might be able to give me a chance.’
Maud smiled and then she looked up to find that Harry was now gazing at the ground and the dog, Rita, was the one looking up at her.
‘I might give you a chance,’ she said softly, and Harry looked up straight away, a huge grin spreading all over his face as he reached out and put an arm around her. She could sense that he wanted to pull her close but she wasn’t having any of that just yet, so she put a hand on his chest, making sure that he kept at a respectable distance.
As she prepared to say her goodbyes, Maud saw a figure pass by to the side of them, and there was no mistaking who it was: Nancy. She stopped in her tracks for just a moment and looked across at them with such a mix of fury and misery on her face that Maud couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for the woman. She knew what Nancy was like, she knew how ruthless she could be, but in that moment, seeing her standing there looking lost and bruised, she couldn’t help but let her heart go out to her just a little, especially since Harry didn’t even look in Nancy’s direction. Maud could sense that he knew she was there, but he just ignored her. Nancy put her head down and moved past them and up the steps into the Nurses’ Home.
Maud knew that she would never like Nancy – not after everything that had happened – but she simply couldn’t rejoice in something that made another person look so lost and miserable, even if that person had seemed to set against her right from the start. It simply wasn’t in her nature.
Then, as Harry smiled down at her, she followed her instinct straight away, something that she rarely did. She turned her face up to him and, still keeping one hand on his chest, she kissed him on the lips. It was just one simple kiss, but she felt it reach down all through her body. She could smell that special musky smell of him mixed with clean sweat and tobacco, and as she drew back she could feel his body tense and the thumping of his heart under the hand that still rested on his chest. It sent a thrill right through her.
She pulled back away from him, saying, ‘I need to go in before they lock the door.’ And she left him there with his dog, watching her climb the steps and disappear inside the building.
It was hard for Maud and Eddy to go back to work on the ward the next day. They just wanted to return to Stella’s place to make sure that Alice and the baby were all right. Stella had said that she would let them know at the hospital immediately if there was anything amiss but, even so, they were desperate to see for themselves. By the time the afternoon came they were both restless. It was a good job that the ward was busy so they had no real chance to stop and think.
Miss Houston had been down to see them on the ward. Somehow she had got to know about Alice’s baby. Maud had, of course, been all set to go at the end of the shift to give her the news, but she already knew. Ada was full of concern, of course, especially for the baby, coming so early, and she brought with her a small knitted hat. She said that her clerk, Emily, had been knitting them for the babies in the workhouse and she’d asked for the smallest one that she had, but it still looked way too big for baby Victoria.
‘Still no news on the boy, then?’ said Miss Houston, and Maud shook her head. Despite all that had been going on, she still had Alfred very much on her mind and always carried that gnawing anxiety about him in the pit of her stomach. She hoped that Harry would come up with something soon.
‘Well, no news is good news,’ said Miss Houston, but Maud was not sure about that at all. From her fruitless journeys through the city she knew full well that a boy might just disappear and that they might never see or hear anything of him again.
‘Anyway, please let me know how Alice and the baby get on,’ said Miss Houston.
As Maud and Eddy walked together down the corridor at the end of their shift, Maud saw a ragged figure on crutches coming towards her. It was a man with a beard and long hair, someone she thought she recognized but couldn’t quite place at first. As he drew closer she realized exactly who it was. It was the army veteran, that friend of Stella’s, who had been in the next bed to Alfred on the ward all those months ago. It didn’t look like he had taken one scrap of Sister Law’s advice about getting away from Liverpool. If anything, he was thinner and more unkempt than she remembered him, his beard matted and his clothes dirty. As he passed her Maud felt pity for the man. He had fought for Queen and Country out there in the Crimea – he must have been a proud man back then – but looking at him now she got some idea of what that war must have done to him and she didn’t know how he could live out there on the streets.
It looked like he was heading away from the Male Surgical ward; he must have been admitted again, she thought. She could tell by the way that he was walking he had pain, a lot of pain, in that bad leg. She wondered if she should speak to him, if he would remember her, or maybe, she thought wildly, he might even have seen Alfred somewhere out in the city. But as she drew level with him she saw the hostile look that he gave her and thought better of it. I do hope he makes it away from the city this time, she thought. She remembered how Stella had looked at Alfred and told him not to end up like ‘this fella’. Maud had felt at that time that there was absolutely no chance of that happening. But for all she knew the boy could well be living in squalor somewhere, thin and ragged, with no hope of rescue. Maud pushed the thoughts away, she had to. Harry was out looking for Alfred every day and she did the same on her walks through the city.
All Maud could do was get on with her work day by day and try to stay hopeful, but it was hard. It helped her to go to see Alice and the baby, which she did every single day. The baby was still tiny and completely swamped by the knitted hat that Miss Houston had given for her to wear, but she was feeding from the breast now and sleeping in a proper crib that one of the women had brought in. They’d put the sheepskin in there to help keep her warm, not that she spent much time in the crib. There was always somebody who wanted to hold her or rock her to sleep. Alice was happy about that so long as they kept her baby close enough, where she could see her or hear her. But the good thing was Alice had such good support because Victoria was spending a lot of time with all the women at Stella’s place and she seemed to be thriving on it.
Maud was also glad to see how radiant Alice looked. She glowed with something that you couldn’t quite put a finger on. It was so nice to see how settled she was at Stella’s place as well, and they had even started talking about her going back to work when the baby was bigger, with Stella and Marie offering to look after baby Victoria if Alice wanted to complete her nurse training. Alice wasn’t ready for that yet, though, mainly because all the probationers had to live in the Nurses’ Home, but it was definitely something to think about for the future.
The gentle pattern of life continued and Maud saw Harry at Stella’s most evenings. Harry spent most of his free time out in the city with the brown sock in his pocket and the dog trotting by his side, keeping an eye on Market Street and actively searching for Alfred. Harry had more free time now because, since he’d been knocked down that night in the park by the big fella, he’d been far more wary of getting hurt or permanently damaged and so he’d almost given up the bare-knuckle fighting. He said that he remembered seeing Maud’s face that night, then bang, he was out like a light, and he couldn’t remember what had happened afterwards. He hadn’t gone to hospital, though he probably should have done, but somebody had looked after him that time.
Maud knew exactly who had looked after Harry after that fight but she didn’t say. She knew by the way that Nancy kept looking daggers at her every time their paths crossed that Harry had no interest whatsoever in Nancy now.
Maud was feeling increasingly drawn to Harry. She couldn’t help herself, seeing him at Stella’s, watching him making a fuss over the baby, seeing a different side to him, and doing his best to help her with Alfred. He had asked her to give him a chance and she was doing more than that now. She was walking out with him through the city on a regular basis, backwards and forwards to the Nurses’ Home and then on their trips to look for Alfred. She was happy to take Harry’s arm and feel him lean against her and then she would let him in closer as he embraced her, and the kissing, the kissing was going very well indeed.
Harry was very hard to resist and one night when they found themselves alone, sheltering from the cold Liverpool rain in the doorway of a grand stone building, he pulled her to his body and all she could smell was his damp hair, clean sweat and tobacco. He felt so warm against her and she snuggled in even further and then she gasped and instantly drew back.
Harry cracked up laughing and she scowled at him and tried to stop her face from flushing red.
‘Ooh, what’s that?’ he teased.
‘I know exactly what that is,’ said Maud, taking another step back from him. ‘I have seen a man’s penis before, you know,’ she said, a shade too forcefully.
He laughed loudly again and then said, ‘I don’t even know what that is. If it’s what I think it is then round here we don’t usually call it a pee nis.’
Then he grabbed her again and she couldn’t help but smile. ‘Look, you may have seen one in the hospital but I bet you’ve never seen one like this …’
‘Harry Donahue!’ Maud almost shouted, instantly drawing back, breathless and flustered.
‘Look, Maud, round here we celebrate this kind of thing, we follow our hearts. Just think about it … no, don’t think about it. Look … no, don’t look, just come here … just relax and be glad of what we have right now, between the two of us.’
But Maud shook her head, stepping back even further before grabbing his arm and pulling him determinedly out into the rain. She knew exactly how far she would go and, even though she was sorely tempted, she was determined that there would be no improper conduct between them. Maud knew full well that if she took one step in that direction she would be lost. Knowing what had happened to Alice after just one night with Jamie, she didn’t want anything like that to happen and risk not finishing her training at the hospital. She had been spending more time in theatre, she knew what she was doing, she wanted to qualify as a nurse and then get some more experience. She couldn’t let it all go to waste, not now.
20
‘A superintendent over all her nurses, should be able to tell, at all times, where her charges are …’
Florence Nightingale (from a letter to William Rathbone, 1860)
One day, whilst Maud was busy on the ward, a small figure approached the hospital. It was a boy with bare feet, just walking along beside a man and his dog, reaching over every now and then to pat the dog as they walked, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
At the door of the hospital, the man, who was wearing a dark-green jacket, bade farewell to the boy and gave him a pat on the head and then he watched carefully to make sure that the boy knew exactly where he was going and he was moving safely inside the building.
‘What you doin’, young man?’ said Michael Delaney at the head of a stretcher as they carried a patient to the Male Surgical ward.
‘Don’t we know you?’ said Stephen Walker, at the foot.
‘I think we do,’ said Mr Delaney, and the boy smiled at them.
‘What you doin’ back ’ere? You best watch out. Sister on this ward will be after you with a cat-o’-nine-tails,’ he said as they all went as one through the door of the Male Surgical ward.
‘What’s that?’ said Sister Law, scowling at the orderly as he came through the door. ‘What was that you were saying about Sister?’
Michael Delaney couldn’t speak. He was, as always, momentarily struck dumb by the sight of Sister Law, her feet planted square, her chest puffed out and the white starched cap knotted firmly under her chin.
‘Where do you want this patient, Sister?’ said Stephen, taking the lead for once.
‘Over there,’ she pointed. ‘And look sharp about it.’ Then her expression softened, completely softened, as she caught sight of the boy who had walked in by the side of the stretcher.
