The news was stunning. King Louis Philippe had abdicated and the Prime Minister, the hated Monsieur Guizot, had resigned.
‘Then it is all over,’ Jeff said, ‘and the war won without bloodshed.’
‘In two days!’ Will said. ‘Why, we shall be home again within the week.’ It was hardly credible. ‘I suppose the rest of the government will resign too.’
‘We will go out presently,’ Caleb said, ‘and see.’
The streets were still full of people, marching arm in arm with their new allies in the National Guard, drinking and singing, and in high good humour. But it took Will and his friends until early evening, when they met up with some of the Chartists, to discover anyone with any information. The government had gone to ground, Dr Taylor said, and he and several others named the Hotel des Affaires Etrangères as the chosen bolt-hole. The three friends decided to go there and see for themselves as soon as they’d dined.
The Hôtel was surrounded by troops, some standing to attention with their rifles at the ready, some lolling about with their weapons slung across their shoulders. Although they were nominally on guard, they were taking the job lightly, as though there were no real danger, and the crowd that faced them were good humoured too, laughingly taunting that the rats should be allowed to leave their sinking ship. There wasn’t really much to report, and Jeff and Will were on the point of walking off to see if they could find some news elsewhere, when they heard the approaching crunch-crunch-crunch of a running column.
It was a very big demonstration, about six hundred people carrying torches and charging up the Boulevard des Capucines with their arms linked, singing as they ran. There was something peculiarly menacing about them, a heat and passion that made the milling crowd give way and the soldiers take guard with some apprehension. Within seconds they were ranged in front of the Hotel, hard-facing the guards, panting a little from their exertions, but still singing ‘Mourir pour la Patrie’ at the tops of their voices, with a harsh roaring sound somewhere between a shout and a growl. And when the song ended they began to taunt with a vengeance, abusing the soldiers and calling for the deputies to be brought out ‘like the scum they were’ to face ‘the judgement of the people’.
The alarm and excitement they engendered was palpable. But even so nobody was prepared for what was to happen next.
A young man suddenly detached himself from the marchers, and walked coolly across to the officer in command. For a second Will thought he was going to spit or hurl abuse, but instead he took a pistol from his pocket and fired it straight at the officer’s head. Blood and brains sprayed into the air, the crowd roared and groaned, and the officer fell backwards with half his face blown away. It was so quick and so brutal it was almost impossible to take it in.
Retribution was even quicker. Rifles were up and aimed and firing at the crowd even before the people had gathered enough wit to scatter. Will and Jeff hurled themselves away from the line of fire like everyone else, running and shoving at the fusillade cracked among them.
They only stopped when they were completely out of breath, and by then they were at the far end of the Boulevard des Capucines and the marchers had stopped too and were beginning to regroup. Nobody knew how many had been hit, although several had seen bodies on the ground and one man said he’d seen two people fall. And nobody knew what should be done next.
Will and Jeff waited for about a quarter of an hour, afraid and edgy, but staying where they were because they didn’t want to miss anything and they knew that something else was sure to happen given the high feeling that was running.
After a few minutes Caleb Rawson came walking towards them. He knew no more than they did, but he hardly had time to tell them so when they heard the tramp of an approaching crowd, and the song of death, ‘Mourir pour la Patrie’, being chanted in a dreadful low growl. This time the column was slow marching. They were preceded by four men carrying torches, and they were escorting an open cart completely surrounded by torch-bearers. The light was strong and theatrical. Inside the cart there were five dead bodies.
When the head of the column reached the corner of the Rue Lepelletier the song changed to a roar of fury so terrible it made Will’s hair stand on the nape of his neck. ‘Vengeance!’ they screamed. ‘Vengeance!’
‘We’ve a revolution to report now, gentlemen,’ the weaver said. ‘A revolution and no mistake. This is t’ spark that’ll set fire to Europe. We’ll none of us see England much before t’ summer, take my word for it.’
The next few days seemed to prove him right, for a great deal happened and very rapidly. The next day the revolutionaries published a proclamation in a newspaper called the Commerce. The Chamber of Peers was suppressed and the Chamber of Deputies dissolved. The nation was now a republic and all adult citizens who had attained their majority were electors. It was they who would decide the composition of the next Chamber of Deputies, and the elections would be held on 26 April. The revolution had achieved its ends. Universal male suffrage had arrived.
At the end of the week Jeff Jefferson had to go back to England because he’d written his story and spent his allowance, but Will received a sizeable cheque from Mr Forster, and instructions to take the next train to Vienna. ‘This revolution is spreading and will spread,’ his editor wrote. ‘Proceed to Vienna. Then follow wherever it leads.’
‘I’ve a mind to proceed to Vienna myself,’ Caleb Rawson said. ‘I’ve good friends in that city, and there’s naught for me in England now.’
‘We might travel together,’ Will suggested. The weaver was good company and would be a useful guide.
So the matter was agreed and the three companions went their separate ways, Jeff to the calm of Cambridge and Will and Caleb to follow the revolution.
And back in England Euphemia packed her bags ready for St Bartholomew’s and her first three months as a hospital nurse.
Chapter 24
‘Night duty?’ Caroline said. ‘Oh Pheemy, you can’t work at night. It will make you ill. And besides, we shall never see you.’
‘It is only for four weeks,’ Euphemia said, ‘and four weeks in three months is very little. If I’m to be a nurse I must work in a hospital, and if I work in a hospital I have to take my turn on night duty. You do see that, don’t you?’
‘Oh I see it,’ Caroline agreed, ‘but I don’t like it. Can’t you just work during the day and come back here at night?’ She and Henry were dining at Bedford Square and the four of them were still sitting at table over the brandy.
‘People are ill at night too, you know, Carrie.’
‘Well, yes, I suppose they are. I’m being selfish, I daresay.’
‘The arrangements are all made,’ Nan said weighing in to help Euphemia who was beginning to look beleaguered. ‘No going back now, eh Pheemy?’
‘You’ll be as far away as Will with his wretched revolution,’ Caroline complained. ‘We don’t even know where he is.’
‘His letter said he was going to Vienna first,’ Nan told them, ‘but that don’t mean much the way things are going.’
‘I hope he has the sense to stay well away from gunfire,’ Henry said. Will’s last report from Paris had been very alarming. ‘It all sounds jolly dangerous to me.’
‘Well, of course it’s dangerous,’ Caroline said. ‘That’s why he does it, ain’t it Nan? Danger is exciting.’
‘To you maybe, miss,’ her grandmother said, grinning at her, ‘but not to your brother. You’ve a deal too much daring, always did have, but he’s a cautious crittur. He goes where the work takes him, and if there’s danger to face, he’ll face it, but he don’t court it. He never has.’
‘Thank heaven for that,’ Henry said, teasing Caroline. ‘It’s as well we’ve one sensible member in the family.’
And got pinched by the least sensible.
It had been an excellent meal, a sort of farewell party for Euphemia who was off to St Bartholomew’s Hospital in the morning. It was a sad occasion nonetheless, for it marked such a c
hange, and for once it was a change that Caroline didn’t welcome. Euphemia had lived with her at Richmond for ten months now, ever since young Harry was born. The child doted on her and was never so good as when she was cuddling him and carrying him about on her shoulder. Who would pacify him when she was gone? And especially now when there was so much work to do in the firm. The regional managers had been sending her books by the crateload, and with the March meeting rapidly approaching she soon had to make her mind up which ones to order. It was going to be very difficult.
‘Come now, my workers,’ Nan said. ‘Time we were off to Sadler’s Wells. An evening of laughter, that’s what we need, before we all buckle down again in the morning. ‘Tis my opinion we all work too hard, but that’s in the nature of the Easters I suppose, and there en’t much I can do about that. Howsomever, tonight, is for The Merry Wives of Windsor. Even Mr Brougham has promised to stop poring over that dratted case of his for this production. I have his solemn word he’ll meet us in the foyer. So hassen you up.’
And she was right of course. The evening did them good, lifting Frederick from his preoccupation with a difficult case, Henry from his irritation at Caroline’s continuing passion for work, Caroline from her sadness at losing Euphemia’s company, and Euphemia herself from the secret apprehension that had been disturbing her dreams ever since she agreed to be a nursing assistant at St Bartholomew’s. Not that she had any doubts about her ambition. It was just that tomorrow she would be walking into the unknown, out of the cosy certainties of domestic life into another world where she would be learning and entirely on her own.
* * *
Next morning she drove off to the hospital in a state of inner turmoil.
St Bartholomew’s stood on the east side of the rough open space of Smithfield. It was a well-proportioned building of three classically graded storeys, surmounted by a balustraded parapet and topped by a tiled roof on which chimneys smoked in obedient ranks. Its principal front opened onto a quadrangle that faced the chaos of the market but since it was a building that knew how to impress and how to keep its distance, neither the drovers nor their terrified beasts, nor the eager butchers who awaited them ever dared to encroach upon its premises, venturing inside the building only when an accident or their own knives had turned them bloody. In short, it was a daunting place and just the sight of it made Euphemia’s heart leap in her bosom.
She took her travelling bag, thanked the coachman and walked into the hospital, keeping her face calm even though her hands were trembling.
The entrance hall was an enclosed oaken space dominated by a magnificent staircase that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a palace. The ceiling above it was ornately decorated and the stairwell consisted of two huge murals in which classical figures struck bronzed attitudes or languished palely, according to their sex.
There were several doors leading out of the hall, and although they were all shut they were helpfully labelled, ‘Counting House’, ‘Committee Rooms’, ‘Admission’, ‘Examination’, ‘Discharges’, so she was able to walk around them until she found the one she wanted: ‘Matron’ in stern black letters.
Matron turned out to be a stout woman in her forties, with a florid face and rough hands and a strong smell of onions on her breath. Her dress was a sober blue wool but she wore no apron and no cuffs and her cap, far from being the neat covering that Miss Nightingale advocated and Euphemia fully intended to wear, was a luxury of lace-edged frills.
‘Miss Callbeck?’ she said disapprovingly. ‘Well, I suppose I must welcome you to the hospital, since that is my function, or one of my functions, but pray allow me to tell you, my dear, you are making a great mistake. A hospital is no place for a lady. Unless you’re an actress or some such. You ain’t an actress by any chance?’
Euphemia admitted that she wasn’t.
‘No,’ the Matron said. ‘I thought not. Ah well. You’ll learn, I daresay. Follow me.’ And she set off at a brisk pace out of the hall.
The oddity of the welcome cheered Euphemia as nothing else could have done. To be met with such disapproval was an encouraging sign, clear evidence that Miss Nightingale was right, that there was a battle ahead of any woman who wanted to change the system, and most important of all that the system was ripe for change. She followed the Matron’s blue gown into her very first ward, squaring her shoulders for what lay ahead.
It was a dismal place, as far away from the grandeur of the hall as Saffron Hill was from Buckingham Palace. There were twenty narrow beds ranged on each side of the long room, about half of them occupied. The floorboards were poorly cleaned and there was a slatternly woman slumped in a chair in the middle of the room with her cap over her eyes, fast asleep. She woke with a start when the Matron kicked her shins in passing, but it took her a long time to get her eyes into focus and even longer to struggle to her feet.
‘Where is Mrs Rumbold?’ the Matron asked her sternly.
‘If you please, mum, in the office, mum,’ the woman said.
She was swaying where she stood and, as Euphemia noted with distaste, she smelled strongly of spirits. But that was only one unpleasant smell among several very much worse. Plainly slops weren’t emptied often enough, and patients weren’t properly washed. Many were lying most uncomfortably without any bed linen apart from a dirty blanket. Yes, Euphemia thought as she followed the Matron to the office at the end of the room, ‘you will see what ought not to be done’ right enough.
They found a tall woman arranging kidney dishes in the office. She was introduced as Mrs Rumbold, and it appeared that she was in charge of the ward.
‘Miss Callbeck will be with us for three months,’ the Matron said. ‘She wishes to learn how to be a nurse.’ And her expression showed how little she thought of that for an ambition.
Mrs Rumbold was surprised by it too. ‘Are you sure that is what you want, my dear?’ she asked when the Matron had gone.
‘Yes,’ Euphemia said firmly. ‘It is. What would you like me to do?’
‘There is not much needs doing this morning,’ Mrs Rumbold said, returning to the kidney dishes. ‘They’ve had their breakfast, those who could eat it. We don’t do much till the doctor’s been. The other nurses have gone off to have theirs. They’ll be back presently.’
‘I could talk to them, perhaps.’
‘I feel I should warn you, my dear, you will learn very little from such women.’
‘Then perhaps I could wash some of the patients.’
‘Ah!’ Mrs Rumbold said. ‘If only you would.’
So Euphemia took herself off to the office and unpacked her white apron and her neat starched cap, and put them on as well as she could without a mirror. Then she went off to meet her first patients. She was most upset by what she found.
The beds were allotted to children with fevers, mostly measles and scarlet fever which she could recognize, although some had rashes she’d never seen before, and two looked suspiciously like typhus. According to the books she’d studied, fever cases should be sponged down at least twice every day, and once an hour when the fever was at its worse. But most of these poor children hadn’t seen soap and water since they arrived. They’d been left to sweat and suffer on their own and they were consequently very uncomfortable and very dirty, tossing about on their narrow beds and groaning in their sleep.
To make matters worse, there was no water in the ewers, and the slatternly woman was fast asleep again.
Very well, she said to herself, the porter shall get some.
But the porter wasn’t prepared to do any such thing and was most affronted to be asked. ‘That ain’t my line a’ country,’ he said. ‘Not water ain’t. Whatcher want wiv water anyways?’
While he was protesting, the other four nurses sauntered back from their breakfast. They were a motley crew, an elderly woman with uncombed grey hair escaping untidily from beneath her cap, two younger women, equally poorly dressed and dishevelled, one dark and surly and the other fair and vacant, and a skinny girl who could
n’t have been more than fourteen and looked woefully undernourished. But at least she was friendlier than her three companions and when Euphemia explained why she wanted the water, she offered to lead her down to the courtyard and help her carry it back.
They each found two pails and set off on their errand.
The child said her name was Taffy Biggs, ‘daft, innit, when I’m so little’, and that she ‘come out the orph’nidge’. But for all her lack of weight and inches she was extremely helpful, struggling back to the ward with her two full pails, and showing Euphemia where the flannels were kept and even finding two bowls, while the rest of the nurses sat about the table in the middle of the ward playing cards with the slatternly woman.
It took Euphemia and Taffy the rest of the morning to wash just five of their patients, and at twelve o’clock they had to stop what they were doing because Mrs Rumbold suddenly came out of the office looking brisk and efficient to announce that it was doctors’ rounds.
And after the doctors had walked solemnly from bed to bed prescribing leeches and aperients as they went, it was time to serve the children their mid-day meal, which was a very watery stew containing shreds of vegetable and the occasional lump of rather gristly meat. After which the nurses retired to their office to eat a bowl of the concoction themselves. It was every bit as unappetizing as it looked.
Never mind, Euphemia comforted herself, as she ate what she could of it, when we’ve finished here I can clean up that poor little mite in the next bed. But unfortunately for the poor little mite, Matron had other ideas. As Taffy was filling the bowl with fresh water, a porter arrived with ‘a message for Miss Callbeck’. She was wanted in ‘Admissions’, so he said, and would she please to follow him down.
‘Admissions’ was a long, chill, empty space more like a corridor than a room, and as sparsely furnished as the ward. It contained a wash stand on which there was a rather dirty bowl and a ewer full of cold water, a wall cupboard where cotton wool and dressings were kept, and a row of cane chairs ranged against the wall for the patients, two of whom were slumped upon them, waiting for her.
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