The Liverpool Nightingales, page 30
Maud was excited and so happy that she and Harry and Alfred would be travelling all together to America like a decent married couple with a son on board that ship. All together in their own cabin; a proper family.
She had not been prepared, though, for how very sad she would feel on her last day on the ward. She’d gone back to Female Surgical after she qualified, working mainly in theatre, and she really enjoyed the work. Now, as her last day had arrived and she thought about what she was embarking on – a marriage, a sea voyage and starting work across what felt like the other side of the world – she was feeling much more nervous than she thought she would be. If it hadn’t been for Miss Houston coming on to the ward to see her and give her some reassurance, she might even have got herself to a point where she could have cancelled everything and stayed put in Liverpool. But Ada had set her straight. She never really talked about her experience in the Crimea but it was there with her anyway, it was part of who she was, and she seemed to have a different perspective than other people.
Whilst Sister Pritchard had been fretting away every time that Maud told her about her plans, Ada came and made everything seem calm and manageable. She made Maud feel that all she needed to do was take everything in her stride and then it would all fall into place.
But that didn’t take away the sadness that she felt on her last day on the ward, to be leaving the Infirmary and the Nurses’ Home, and most of all to be leaving Alice and Eddy, and baby Victoria, of course.
Now the day had come and she had completed her final shift on the ward, there was nothing left to do but take off her uniform for the final time, pack all of her stuff and then spend one final night in her single bed at the Nurses’ Home. She soon had everything packed. There wasn’t much more in her room than she had brought with her, except the mirror that Eddy had given her, of course, a new dress that she had bought for the wedding, and a couple of new shifts and a chemise for that first night that she would spend with Harry – in a small cabin on board ship, sharing with Alfred and the dog.
Maud tossed and turned in her narrow bed that last night. She kept waking to find the new gown that she’d bought for the wedding, and which she had carefully hung up, looming down over her like some ghost. She was used to seeing the dark shape of her uniform, but the new gown was a very light grey colour and it shone out in the darkness. Every time she opened her eyes it gave her a bit of a fright.
She was awake even earlier than usual the next morning, and she was soon dressed in the new gown, slipping the mirror into her bag and placing the now dog-eared copy of Notes on Nursing carefully on top. Then Maud picked up the white silk flower between finger and thumb before slipping it into a small, drawstring bag. She would only wear the flower at the church, for the ceremony, to please Eddy more than anything.
At last she was all set. She’d already made the bed, neatly folding the corners, and she’d made sure that there wasn’t one speck of dust left behind in her room. So, having picked up her bags and taken one last look around, she made herself go straight out and close the door behind her. Pausing on the gallery, remembering that first morning when Miss Merryweather had called up from the ground floor and Eddy had bounded along to say hello, Maud felt again the sadness of leaving. Even though Eddy was gone now, out in the district to nurse, and she lived on another floor, and Alice of course was long gone from the Nurses’ Home, it still felt as if this was their special place. Maud tried not to look across to what had been Nancy’s room. She still got that unsettled feeling when she looked at that particular door, even though there’d been a new probationer in that room for quite some time. And typically, no one seemed to know anything about what had happened to Nancy after they had all qualified. She had simply disappeared, melting away into the city.
Anyway, it was time to get going so Maud straightened her back, took a firmer grip of her bags and walked down the stone stairs into the space below for the final time. She had promised herself that she would spend a few moments gazing up to the skylight and that’s exactly what she did. As she stood she could almost feel Miss Merryweather beside her, looking up to the light as it streamed through the glass. Maud had already said her goodbyes to the superintendent and her sister, and Miss Mary Merryweather had been thrilled that Maud was venturing out of Liverpool and would be spreading the Nightingale philosophy across the Atlantic. She wanted to know everything about it and made Maud promise to write to her.
Outside the sky was blue, and as Maud opened the door of the Nurses’ Home for the last time and walked steadily down the steps carrying her bags she felt the warm glow of the sun on her skin. As she walked away from the beautiful building that she had grown to love so much, she felt as if it was trying to draw her back. So much so that she had to turn round in the street and look back at it. She could see herself on that first day in her new uniform coming down those steps, thoughtful and unsmiling and completely unprepared for what she would find on the wards. Then she pictured Alice with her pale, worried face walking carefully down after her, and Eddy, tearing out of the door with her hair all over the place and her cap askew. They were all still there together, all three of them, they always would be, following along behind the groups of eager probationers who had gone earlier and leading the way for the new nurses that still had to come.
Maud’s little group would always be part of the Liverpool Royal, and that made her feel glad and more sure of what she was setting out to do now. No matter what happened in her life, her marriage or her work in New York, she knew that this place would always stand firm and remain in her heart alongside the people that she had grown to love like family. And when she was ready she could always come back and walk through that door and stand in her own space and look up to the skylight above.
1
‘There is something not quite right in a woman who shuts up her heart from other women.’
Florence Nightingale
Liverpool, 1871
Alice Sampson ran to her small room. Throwing herself down on her knees, she pulled out a wooden box from under the bed. Immediately, she was rifling through the contents.
‘Where are you, where are you?’ she muttered, pulling out gloves, handkerchiefs, a hatpin and, at last, a new lace collar. ‘There you are,’ she cried, grabbing the collar, jumping up from the floor, and positioning it as she ran back to the kitchen. ‘Sorry cat,’ she yelled as the creature shot off with a yowl as she trod on its tail. And then, at last, she slowed her pace and came to stand, breathless, by the baby’s crib.
‘Hello my darling,’ she said, smiling down at the baby girl who looked at her with her eyes wide. Alice couldn’t resist, even though she was running late, very late; her heart melted as her daughter reached up with her tiny hands. Alice leant further over the crib, close enough to breathe in the scent of her and feel her soft fingers reaching up to touch her face. Then she gave the palm of each small hand a noisy kiss, and planted tiny kisses on the tip of each finger in turn, thrilled every time her baby gave a squeal of delight.
Glancing up to the clock, Alice knew that they definitely had to start moving. ‘Come on, you scallywag,’ she said, sweeping the baby up and grabbing a paisley pattern shawl from the back of a kitchen chair and wrapping her in it.
There was no one else up and about. All of the downstairs rooms, apart from the kitchen, were usually empty in the morning. A brothel was a quiet place at this time of day.
‘Come on, come on,’ she muttered under her breath, as she balanced the baby on her hip to unlock the front door.
Running from the house, with the baby bouncing up and down on her hip, Alice knew that she had to move fast. Her friend Maud was getting married today. The two of them were as close as any women could be. The trouble was, Maud was going away, today, after her wedding. She was going to America and Alice had no idea when she would ever see her again.
She was running as fast as she could with the baby on her hip, ‘Sorry, my darling,’ she muttered, seeing her daughter’s startled face. ‘We need to go fast, we can’t be late for Maud’s wedding!’
Hearing the baby start to whimper as she continued to jolt her up and down, Alice immediately slowed her pace to a brisk walk and lifted the child on to her shoulder where she could soothe her as she walked along.
‘I told you we were going to the wedding this morning, didn’t I, Victoria? Maud’s marrying Harry Donahue and they’re going on a big boat to New York. And Alfred’s going with them, you know Alfred, the boy who comes to see you and makes you smile? Yes, you love Alfred, don’t you? And you love Maud …’ Alice’s voice faltered as she felt that familiar tightness in her chest every time she thought about her friend leaving Liverpool.
Holding back the tears, she drew the baby even closer to her body and forced herself to keep talking softly to her. ‘But at least we’ve got a roof over our heads, living with Stella and Marie. I know it’s not the sort of place I thought we’d be living, but we’ve got our own room, all warm and snug, tucked away behind the kitchen. And all the women there adore you, don’t they …?’
Now that the baby was settling, Alice gave a sigh. Thank goodness for Victoria, she thought. She couldn’t imagine life without her, not now. But then again, without the baby, she’d have been able to complete her nurse training alongside Maud. She would have been working at the Liverpool Royal Infirmary and living with her friends in the Nurses’ Home.
Alice gave another sigh, and then she started to smile as she looked down at her daughter. ‘Don’t you worry, my darling,’ she murmured. ‘You may have come along at the wrong time, before I was ready to even think about having a baby, but we will find a way to make things work. We have to.’
Two strides out of the alley, Alice saw a group of rough looking men at the corner of the next street and she held Victoria even more tightly. Desperately short of time, she knew that she had no choice but to go in that direction and that she would have to push her way through. These cornermen, as they were called, didn’t usually worry her too much; Alice had three brothers at home and she knew how to stick up for herself, with fists if need be.
‘Alright there, darlin’?’ said one young man, coming in close. Alice felt her heart skip a beat. ‘How much d’you reckon you should pay for bringing a baby through here?’
Alice didn’t look at him and continued on her way.
‘Not so fast now, not so fast,’ said the rough voice as he reached his arm out in front of her, forcing her to take a step back.
Alice was trapped; she couldn’t move, and there was another man next to her. She felt her heart racing and her breath was coming quickly as she pulled Victoria even closer. Coming this way to save time had been a big mistake.
‘That’s a fine shawl you’ve got there, for your little one,’ said the other, his voice barely that of a man.
Still Alice didn’t look at either of them, all the while planning an escape, readying herself to side step, and then run. All that she knew for sure was that if one of them laid a hand on Victoria, she would fight like a tiger to protect her. Any mother would do the same for her child.
The first one leant in towards her and ran a finger down her cheek; she felt the skin of his knuckle, like sandpaper, as he whispered in her ear, ‘Well, lovely lady with the red hair, you could give us a few coins, or maybe we could just take the shawl from that baby of yours or maybe we could …’
The lad didn’t get to finish his words: a hand grabbed him from behind and almost lifted him off his feet and threw him aside. Then the whole group of them scarpered.
Alice was startled. For a split second, she couldn’t move. Then her instinct to run kicked in and she was off, with the baby held fast in her arms.
Hearing Victoria start to whimper again, she slowed her pace, and after a few strides glanced back, trying to make sense of what had just happened. And that’s when she saw him: a broad-shouldered man in a thigh-length black coat, walking away from her. Something about his measured stride made her certain that he was the man who’d saved her from the cornermen.
She didn’t have time to ponder on the issue and she certainly didn’t want to linger on the street, so she turned back and picked up her pace again, grateful to the man who had stepped in to help her, whoever he was. She’d always been able to fend for herself, but being stopped by the cornermen when she was with Victoria had been a whole different experience. She wouldn’t risk that again, ever.
Alice had to force herself to stop and take her time crossing Lime Street. It was always so busy outside the railway station, and so easy to be caught by a horse or a carriage wheel.
At last she saw her chance and ran for it, dodging around horse muck as she went. In recent weeks she’d started to feel stronger and quicker. For so long she’d been recovering from childbirth or exhausted from lack of sleep, but now she felt like she could conquer the world. She felt like she could even have walked beyond Liverpool and all the way to the small town in the north where her family lived. Especially now, after what had just happened on the street of her adopted city. Except, they didn’t know at home; they had no idea that she had a baby. As far as they were concerned, she had completed her training alongside her fellow probationers and she was now working as a nurse at the hospital.
She was desperate to be at the church for Maud but found herself forced to slow her pace as she manoeuvred between pedestrians. So many people: all moving too slowly or in her way. Stuck solidly behind a large woman carrying a basket on each arm, she felt her heart racing again.
‘Let me by, let me by,’ she muttered under her breath, engaged in some kind of dance to try to get past. When she was forced to stop for a moment with no way through, she took a deep breath to collect herself before setting her sights on the landmark building that was Saint George’s Hall.
Alice was soon there and, as always, dizzied by the sheer height of its walls. Instinctively, she shifted her arm to shield the baby, almost fearful that the huge stone pillars that graced the front of the building would fall and crush them both. She had been in awe of the building since the day she’d arrived in Liverpool. It had been the first thing she’d seen as she emerged from the railway station with her freshly scrubbed face and her small bag of belongings.
The forlorn cry of the gulls overhead made her move past even faster, that is until she saw one land on the head of Prince Albert as he sat on his horse, immortalized in stone, at the front of the building. She couldn’t help but laugh to herself when she saw the great man with a seagull on his head. ‘Just look at that big bird on the head of Queen Victoria’s husband,’ she whispered to the baby, who was sleeping soundly.
By some miracle the streets were less crowded now and Alice could easily pick up her pace. She was soon at the church. But only just in time: the door was closing, and as she entered she felt the silence of the church encircle her like a blanket. On seeing Maud and her groom standing at the altar, Alice feared she was too late after all, but she breathed with relief as she caught sight of the large hat with a red silk flower, which belonged to her other close friend from nurse training. It was Eddy, turning her head to smile at Alice as she walked quietly down the aisle and slipped into the pew beside her.
Eddy immediately leant over to give the sleeping baby a gentle kiss on the cheek. ‘Hello, my beautiful,’ she said, stroking her cheek. Then lifting her head, ‘Sorry, Alice … hello to you as well.’
Alice gave a wry smile, ‘Oh it’s alright, I’m used to it now – it’s like I don’t really exist anymore. And now that she’s laughing and starting to really pay attention, well, I don’t stand a chance; I’m completely bewitched by her.’
‘That’s just how it should be, isn’t it, Victoria?’ said Eddy, giving the baby another soft kiss on the cheek, dislodging her own hat on Alice’s head as she did so.
Looking up whilst Eddy fixed her hat, Alice saw the relieved faces of Stella and her mother, Marie, further along the pew. They’d left ahead of her to make sure they were on time.
Directly in front, Alice could see the straight back of a woman, with her grey hair piled high. Miss Fairchild, the housekeeper from where Maud used to work before she decided to train as a nurse, thought Alice. And, of course, the small blond head of Alfred, the boy that Maud and Harry were adopting and taking with them to New York.
In the next moment, the Reverend was glancing around the small congregation and clearing his throat, as he began the opening words to the marriage ceremony.
As the words were said, and Alice heard Maud and Harry start to give their responses, she finally knew for certain that this was indeed happening. Maud was marrying and she was going away to New York. Alice felt an emptiness opening in the pit of her stomach, and she knew that she would have to fight even harder now to hold back the tears.
As Maud said, ‘I will,’ her voice quiet but clear, Alice felt a lump in her throat and the tears started to well in her eyes. The baby must have sensed her disquiet because she was starting to scrunch her face and move her head from side to side, and then she was whimpering. So Alice stood quietly and stepped to the side of the church, turning her back on the couple at the altar and continuing to rock the baby.
