The Silversmith's Daughter

by Annie Murray

  Never have I had to write a more terrible letter than this. My husband has deputed the task to me, since I might address you woman to woman.

  I can hardly bear to write the words, whose meaning, as yet, has still scarcely reached me. This week we heard from his Commanding Officer that our son, Fergus, has died in France. We had clung to the belief that as a member of the Medical Corps, away from the Front, he would be more protected and his life spared in this wicked, terrible war. However, we are told that he died of a form of influenza, endemic in the hospital, which came upon him quickly and, just as expeditiously, ended our dear boy’s life.

  Our darling Fergus had written to us of you with great warmth and told us that the two of you were engaged to be married. Indeed, he sent us a marvellous photograph. I know it has only been the unsparing demands of the war that prevented him from bringing you up here to meet us. We hardly know what to say to you, my dear. We are, and so sadly imagine you soon to be, prostrate with grief at losing the boy who we all held so dear. We send our condolences from hearts that are broken. The future seems now without meaning.

  Should your own work ever grant you leave to visit us, Miss Hanson, as one close to our beloved son, the light and pride of our lives, you can be assured of a heartfelt welcome.

  With regards and deep regret at having to convey such news,

  Isobel Reid

  III

  Thirty-Nine

  April 1917

  ‘But isn’t that an asylum?’ Daisy said, when Mr Gaskin’s assistant directed her to go and run a workshop at Hollymoor hospital, in Northfield.

  ‘Not any more.’ The woman smiled. ‘Didn’t you know? Both the hospitals at Hollymoor and Rubery are war hospitals now.’

  Even so, as she walked between the budding young trees towards the rather grand-looking hospital building, its tall tower pointing up majestically in the middle, she felt shaky with nerves. Teaching young – mostly young – students at the school was one thing. But what was she to be faced with here? Men her age or older, with injured bodies and minds.

  It was shocking enough what had happened to Auntie Annie. They had all heard the terrible news of the death of her fiancé – not even killed exactly by the war, but by influenza in the hospital at Étaples. The next thing they all knew was Annie turning up at the house in a state in which none of them had ever seen her before – nothing like. She looked shrunken, sick, and she couldn’t stop weeping. It was as if she had broken down completely.

  ‘They sent me away,’ she sobbed, as Margaret and Philip looked at each other over her head, in utter shock. ‘They said I wasn’t working properly, that I need to rest. I didn’t want to go back to Father . . .’

  Of course they had taken her in. Annie had lived in the house, never going out, as if in a shell for the past weeks.

  Is that what everyone’s going to be like here? Daisy thought. Then she told herself not to be so stupid and selfish. All she was doing was helping out a little – instructing the men for a few afternoons. She stood tall and walked into the main entrance.

  Soon she was in the care of a kind orderly, an older, bandy-legged little man with crow-black hair, who chatted away trying to put her at her ease.

  ‘Oh, yes – been taking patients in here since July 1915. Course there’s a few beds at Mr George Cadbury’s place as well, not far away. The Beeches it’s called. But this is on a much bigger scale. Right – come this way, please. You’ll be glad to know your package of clay has arrived and is waiting for you, Miss Tallis.’

  ‘Oh, good,’ Daisy said, looking about her. She wondered what had happened to all the mental patients who had been in here before but did not like to ask.

  ‘We’ve got quite a few workshops now – and classes. Got to keep ’em all busy somehow. All sorts, they have. It may surprise you to know that most of the splints and bed frames and that sort of thing which they use in the hospital are made here now. And there’s arithmetic, French lessons, Spanish too, I believe, and bookkeeping. That sort of thing. All helps get into a job somewhere after, see. Right, this way . . .’ He pushed on the door of one of the outbuildings. ‘Your victims are waiting.’

  Daisy tried to smile back, feeling even more as if she wanted to run away.

  Inside, she saw a basic workshop room with several work tables, around which were seated a number of men. There were not too many, she saw with relief, counting quickly. Eight. They all wore the blue uniform of convalescing soldiers and their eyes all swivelled towards her. One man had a black patch over his left eye.

  ‘Right, you lucky lot,’ the orderly announced. ‘This is Miss Tallis from the art school in Birmingham.’ With a twinkle he added, ‘’Er’s come to do some modelling for yer today.’

  There was laughter and Daisy smiled, feeling herself blush immediately. She knew she was going to have to get the upper hand in this straight away, as in any classroom.

  ‘That’ll be clay modelling,’ she said. ‘In case any of you gentlemen are in the wrong room.’

  The lads all laughed again good-naturedly and one called out, ‘Shame!’

  ‘I’ll leave you all to it then,’ the orderly said, retreating.

  Daisy licked her lips. The eight men – all young except one who must have been in his forties – were looking expectantly at her.

  ‘We’ll get started then,’ she said. Her courage returned and she felt the sense of enjoyment she often had standing in front of a class. ‘Anyone done any of this before?’

  When she finally got back to Handsworth that evening to pick up Hester, some of the other children had already gone. Lizzie had taken little Ann home. Clara was now looking after a varying number of infants of a range of ages on most days. Her own children, still at home for the Easter holiday, were helping out.

  Hester was so caught up in a game with Ella and Gina Watts that she hardly noticed her mother’s arrival. Daisy smiled wistfully, feeling both relieved and slightly wounded at the same time.

  ‘How did it go?’ Clara asked. She had one of the younger children, a stolid-looking little boy, balanced on her hip. ‘There’s tea in the pot if you need it, by the way.’

  ‘Oh, I really could do with a cup,’ Daisy said. She went to the kitchen and brought back cups for herself and Clara. They perched on the sofa.

  ‘It was . . . all right.’ She laughed suddenly. ‘Yes – it really was. They were very happy just to be doing anything, I think. There’re two lads who’ve lost both legs. The one’s quiet, but the other one kept joking all the time, which was almost worse than him being sad . . . Various other injuries but all right with their arms or they wouldn’t have been there. Most of them haven’t a clue, although one was quite good at it – the quiet one, come to think of it. Anyway, tomorrow I’m off to Rubery as well. And next week I believe they’re also adding the First Southern General one of the afternoons – where Auntie Annie works.’

  ‘But I thought you taught at the Jewellery School in the afternoons?’

  ‘They’ve moved them to the evening now, so I can’t hang about long today.’

  ‘Goodness,’ Clara said admiringly. ‘I could never do that sort of thing.’

  ‘I don’t think I could do this.’ Daisy looked round the room. However much she loved Hester, the thought of spending every day surrounded by small children was not her idea of heaven at all. But Clara was doing a wonderful job.

  She had got hold of several little infant desks which were in a row at the back of the room, and a blackboard and stand were folded away against the wall behind. Most of the toys had been tidied in an orderly fashion.

  ‘No, I wouldn’t have thought I could at one time,’ Clara said. ‘As it turns out, I quite like it. I just wish . . .’ She trailed off, her face full of sadness. ‘If I could have done summat like this and still have my Georgie . . .’ She looked round at Daisy and in a concerned voice said, ‘How is Annie?’

  ‘She’s going back to work,’ Daisy said. She was about to say more when Hester finally notic
ed her existence and came running over. ‘Mama!’ She flung herself on to Daisy’s lap and started grizzling, seemingly suddenly exhausted.

  ‘Now now, Hessie,’ Clara said. ‘You’ve been a good girl all day. Don’t start for your mom.’

  Hester raised her head from Daisy’s lap with a toddler’s tired, tragic expression.

  ‘All right,’ Daisy said. ‘Come on, you little monkey. We must get home. By the look of you I’ll have to carry you all the way.’

  Annie stood in the tiny spare room upstairs at the back of twenty-four Chain Street, staring at herself in the glass.

  She saw a face so thin and haggard, the eyes almost too big for the shape of it, that she hardly recognized herself. The girl she saw – for she looked skinny and young, almost like a child – wore her old grey wool dress, which sagged limply on her. Her hair hung loose and dull.

  For the past few weeks she sensed she had been standing outside herself, with a queer, floating, detached feeling. She could barely eat or sleep and now, staring at herself in her sister’s house where she had been staying, she strained to understand that she was the person she could see reflected in the mirror.

  I look like a madwoman, she thought. It can’t go on like this.

  There came a tap on the door. Annie did not turn or answer.

  ‘Annie?’ Margaret spoke cautiously, easing her way into the room as if there might be something about to jump on her.

  It’s not as if I’ve ever done anything like that, Anne thought tetchily. Since she had broken down at the hospital a month ago, since Sister had ordered her to take time off to rest, she had been here, being a cause of concern. She could see the strain on her sister’s face. She was torn between two businesses, between too many cares. What with Aunt Hatt and me, Annie thought, Margaret is caring for the walking wounded herself.

  She made herself walk calmly to the bed, sit down with her hands folded in her lap and look up at Margaret.

  ‘I’ve come to a decision.’

  ‘What, dear?’ Margaret came and sat beside her. Her worried tone grated on Annie as well. She was not used to being the one who had to be looked after.

  ‘I am going back to the hospital.’

  Without even looking at Margaret, she could sense that her sister was torn between relief and concern at this announcement. She kept having to explain to John and Lily – Lily especially, who adored Annie and thought having her to stay a great treat – that their aunt was not herself, and why. Lily was touchingly loving to her, would come in to her room and say things sympathetic beyond her years.

  ‘I know you have had a terrible shock, Auntie,’ she said soon after Annie arrived. ‘And when you’ve had a shock you need lots of sweet tea and rest. I know there’s a shortage of sugar so you can have all my sugar in your tea.’

  Annie, at that time hardly able to think or say anything without tears dropping from her eyes, was soon wet-cheeked at this and Lily came and sat down, putting her arms around her and leaning on her like a devoted little dog.

  Lily was a marvellous child, she thought. But she couldn’t just go on like this.

  ‘I don’t think you’re ready,’ Margaret said. ‘Your . . . What happened to Fergus has knocked you for six, on top of all the other strains of the hospital.’

  For six. She could not put into words the strange darkness that had possessed her mind since she received the letter from Isobel Reid, Fergus’s mother. There were dreams, not about Fergus, but which seemed to flood her mind night after night: noxious shadows, images of putrefaction. The butchering and derangement she had seen in so many of the men she had nursed flooded the night, as if it had all been stored up waiting there to overcome her when she was at her weakest. One night all she dreamt of was the torso of a man, with no arms, no legs, no head, which was screaming at her.

  She had not confided these images to Margaret or to anyone else.

  ‘I just think,’ she said, struggling to remain calm, ‘that I spend too much time alone and that it’s not good for me. I feel so useless.’

  ‘Not everything has to have a use – not all the time,’ Margaret said.

  ‘“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful,”’ Annie quoted. ‘Wasn’t that what William Morris said? I’ve been sitting uselessly about in your house for nearly a month now. And I’m certainly not adding any ornament to it.’

  ‘Yes – but Morris meant things, not people. And whatever else, Annie, you are beautiful.’

  ‘Oh, nonsense. But . . .’ She watched the scuffed toe of her boot, sliding it back and forth along the floor. ‘I think that if I were to return to my work, to the care of others, it would help to take me out of myself.’

  Margaret leaned round then, giving her a direct, searching look.

  ‘My dear, you have been very unwell. It has been terrible to see you in such a low state.’

  ‘I know.’ Annie looked down, fighting the tears which swelled in her. She mustn’t weep, not again. ‘I have hardly known myself. He . . .’ She could not stop her grief any longer and the sobs racked her body.

  Margaret, saying, ‘Oh, my poor, dear little sister!’ wrapped her arm round Annie’s shoulders.

  ‘He opened me – in some way I never knew before. I don’t feel the same. But . . .’ She dragged her hands across her eyes and looked back at Margaret. ‘I have to go on somehow. Like Aunt Hatt has to. Like Clara. We all do. I want to carry on our work – his and mine.’

  24 Chain Street

  Birmingham

  April 15th 1917

  Dear Dr and Mrs Reid,

  My apologies for taking so long in sending a reply to your kind letter. In reply I wish to be truthful and the truth is that since I heard of Fergus’s death, I have been unwell. I have not been myself, and have taken a brief time away from the hospital, staying with my sister. However, I am now on the point of returning to my duties at the First Southern General.

  Your letter meant a great deal to me. I have read it many times and will treasure both the letter and the deep trust you show in your beloved son in treating with such kindness a fiancée whom you have never met.

  I would like very much one day to come to Scotland to meet you both, once this is possible. At present I do not feel able, but I am sure I shall soon feel stronger.

  In the meantime, all I can do is to send my condolences – a word so dreadfully inadequate – for the loss of a person we all loved so very much.

  Yours more sincerely than words convey,

  Annie Hanson

  Forty

  Before long, Daisy found herself travelling about the city on three afternoons each week to different hospitals. At first she was at Hollymoor and Rubery hospitals – both sprawling institutions in large, isolated grounds at the very edge of the city, which had been asylums and were now converted to use as hospitals for the wounded and convalescent, who were brought in by train through Rubery station. Rubery was now known as the First Birmingham War Hospital and Hollymoor as the Second.

  Soon, another hospital was added to her list, not, as it turned out, the First Southern General, but Highbury Hall. This was the gracious home of the Chamberlain family, set in beautiful parkland in Kings Heath and which was being used as a specialist hospital for orthopaedics.

  ‘I feel as if I spend half my life on a tram now,’ Daisy grumbled to Clara, during her first week of running sessions in all three hospitals. She had just reached Handsworth on yet another tram to pick up Hester.

  ‘You look all right on it to me,’ Clara said as the two of them gathered Hester’s things together. ‘There are roses in your cheeks.’

  ‘Are there?’ Daisy smiled, surprised to find that she was, indeed, enjoying life. ‘I don’t know why – I seem to be rushing from pillar to post all the time. I have just enough time to get home, get Hester to bed and throw a meal down me and off out for the evening classes!’

  ‘Well, it’s good to be busy.’ Clara slipped Hester’s little coat on t
o her and bent to kiss her cheek. ‘Bye-bye, lovie – see you in the morning.’

  ‘Goodbye, Clara – thank you,’ Daisy said. ‘It makes all the difference in the world knowing she’s here with you. And by the way, you’re not looking so bad yourself.’

  Clara’s freckly face broke into a smile. ‘It helps, doing this. I’m loving it, to tell you the truth. If there was anything could bring my Georgie back, that’s all I’d want, like a shot.’ She glanced over at one of the photographs of Georgie on the mantelpiece. ‘But nothing’s going to turn the clock back so that things can be as they were. At least I had him for as long as I did – I have my children. Not like poor Annie . . .’ She looked at Daisy as if to include her in this, but said nothing. ‘I’m just trying to make the best of it.’

  At first, Daisy had found facing each new class nerve-racking. As well as having to walk into a room where a group of strange men would be waiting, the thought of their injuries and disfigurements made her feel queasy. But shocking as some of those were – the missing legs in particular – very quickly most of the men she met became individuals whose talents and weaknesses in the work she could address, whose injuries were only a part of them along with their smiles, their voices, their sense of humour.

  She soon got to know them: the jokey Canadian called Gilbert, face partly burned, body twisted; Tommy recovering from bullet wounds, who wanted to model nothing but aeroplanes; the tall one with the dark curls and long scar down his left cheek, whose legs ended at the knees, whose long fingers showed skill and sensitivity and who, it took a while to find out, was called Stephen.

  Very few were not memorable in some way, though one or two were here today and discharged tomorrow. Most seemed happy to be there though one, a thin, austere man called Francis, was always quiet, seemingly sunk in bitterness. He came to the class as if forced into it. One of the other lads whispered to her, ‘His guts are in a terrible state, miss.’

  Several of them she knew would stay in her mind because they were gifted. She would set them to work the clay into a particular shape – a bird, an animal. She would show them the tools and explain that the best approach to modelling, to form a strong structure, was to cut away from the central body of the clay. She talked about the underlying anatomy, the bone and muscle informing the shape.