Break of Dawn

by Rita Bradshaw

  Patience checked that everything was in order before leaving the room. She intended to break her news during breakfast, and if her mother reacted as she expected, she would have no time to do more than collect her trunk and handbag and leave.

  When she entered the drawing room, Mrs Hogarth and Molly were already standing with their heads bowed, her mother was regally seated on one of the sofas with her eyes closed, and her father was droning on as usual. She was two minutes late. Heresy, as the swift piercing glance her mother gave her confirmed. Patience sat down but she didn’t shut her eyes. Instead she glanced round the room she knew she was seeing for the last time, looking at the old familiar surroundings with a total lack of sentiment.

  She had been happy in this house until the day her mother had whipped Sophy to within an inch of her life, but everything had changed from that point. It wouldn’t be too extreme to say her eyes had been opened and she hadn’t liked what she had seen, nor the person she herself had been then. And going away to school had driven home the fact that she was in grave danger of becoming her mother’s daughter in every sense of the word. She knew she could be bossy and overbearing, ‘a little prig’, one of the girls in her dormitory had called her, but it was the narrowness of her vision which had alarmed her more than anything else. She had been so entrenched in her mother’s way of thinking and doing things that she hadn’t considered it could be wrong.

  It had been a painful awakening. She nodded inwardly to the thought. But necessary. And now she thanked God for it, oh, she did.

  She glanced at her father and not for the first time felt amazement that he could have come from the same parents as Sophy’s mother. She wondered who Sophy’s mother had taken after. The great-grandparents perhaps? Or maybe a free spirit reared its head in every family now and again? One thing was for sure, black sheep were never discussed or acknowledged, and all trace of them was effectively covered over.

  When the prayers finished, Patience realised she hadn’t heard a word of them. Mrs Hogarth and Molly trooped out, and she and her mother and father made their way to the dining room.

  She found it enormously difficult to eat anything but forced down a few mouthfuls of porridge before buttering one of the soft rolls Mrs Hogarth made fresh every morning. Mrs Hogarth’s cooking wasn’t a patch on the meals Kitty had produced, but at least her bread was nice, Patience thought.

  Her parents had started on their eggs and ham when Patience spoke. The meal had been conducted in total silence before then. ‘I have some news.’

  Her father raised his head but her mother continued eating.

  Patience took a deep breath. ‘I have been accepted as a nurse at the Sunderland Infirmary and I begin my training tomorrow. Probationer Nurses are provided with board and lodging and most of their uniform as part of their remuneration so I will be living at the hospital for the next three years until I obtain my nursing certificate. Of course, I can visit you on my half-day off once a week if you wish me to.’

  If she had taken all her clothes off and danced stark-naked on the table she couldn’t have shocked them more. Her father stared at her, his mouth slightly agape as he visibly tried to take in what she had announced, but it was Mary who sprang up, her chair falling backwards, as she cried, ‘Never! I forbid it, do you hear me? Isn’t it enough that your elder brothers have disgraced us without you attempting to do the same?’

  Patience sat very still. ‘John and Matthew are working hard and doing well at their respective jobs,’ she said quietly, ‘and their young ladies are pleasant, respectable girls. I see no reason for disgrace in any of that. As for me, my mind is made up. It has been for some time.’

  ‘This is what comes from allowing her to demean herself working voluntarily at that dreadful Eye Infirmary in Stockton Road.’ Mary had swung round to face her husband, her thin face flushed with temper. ‘I told you no good would come of it, but you wouldn’t have it. You could have been involved in all kinds of good works without coming into contact with sick people,’ she bit out to Patience. ‘It’s not right for a young unmarried girl to see such things. But to get paid for it, to work. I shall never be able to hold up my head again. I won’t have it, Patience. I mean it.’

  ‘And I mean it, Mother. And you’re quite right, the valuable experience I’ve gained at the Eye Infirmary has made up my mind where I see my future. I’m not squeamish and medicine fascinates me, moreover I’ve a natural affinity with the patients – everyone says so.’

  ‘At the infirmary? But of course they would, girl. Cheap labour, they’ll butter you up all they can.’

  Patience stood up, white-faced. ‘It was the head doctor who said it and he is not in the habit of “buttering up” anyone, believe me.’

  ‘Is your mind made up?’ Jeremiah entered the exchange. ‘Are you absolutely sure it’s what you want to do, Patience, because it will mean hard, relentless work, day in and day out. There’s nothing romantic about nursing. You will be cleaning bedpans and giving bed-baths and seeing sights that will turn your stomach, and all for a pittance, remember that. It will be nothing like the voluntary work you’ve been doing. Are you prepared for that?’

  ‘Of course she isn’t, the stupid girl.’ Mary was beside herself. ‘Tell her! Tell her it’s ridiculous.’

  ‘Patience?’ Jeremiah spoke over his wife.

  ‘I know what I’m doing, Father. They were very explicit about all that at the interview. A full day’s duty is ten and a half hours, more on occasion when emergencies dictate. On top of that we have to fit study in, and be prepared to work night duty one week in three. The wages are small, I agree, but to some extent I’m not doing it for the money although of course I need to earn enough to live.’

  There was a snort from Mary which Patience, like her father, ignored.

  ‘It was explained that a number of girls leave in the first twelve months, and of those who make it through to the close of the period of training, they must receive the approbation of the Matron as to their general conduct and efficiency. The Matron reports this to the physicians and surgeons, and the certificate is graded accordingly. From what has been explained to us, I understand this can be “fairly satisfactory” or “satisfactory” or “highly satisfactory”, which can make a difference to one’s future prospects. But I won’t leave in the first little while and neither will I be fairly satisfactory or satisfactory. I promise you that.’

  Jeremiah surveyed the daughter he had never particularly liked or understood until the last twelve months when she had amazed him by sticking resolutely to the voluntary work she had undertaken. He knew the Chief Physician at the Eye Infirmary – they were both members of the Gentlemen’s Club – and the man had taken the trouble to seek him out on more than one occasion with glowing reports about Patience. He had once thought Patience to be the image of her mother in character as well as appearance. He had been wrong. At the bottom of him he didn’t like the thought of a daughter of his joining what he considered to be a lowly profession more suited to the working class, but he sensed that if he said that now, he would lose her for good.

  He smiled at her. ‘I look forward to seeing the “highly satisfactory” in three years’ time, my dear.’

  He saw her blink and knew he had surprised her, but then Mary let fly with a tirade worthy of a fishwife, and as Patience slipped out of the room he took the full force of his wife’s fury. Not for the first time – and he doubted it would be the last.

  It was twenty minutes later when Patience left the house, her mother’s last words, ‘From this moment in time I have no daughter,’ ringing in her ears. But it was her father who carried her trunk to the cab waiting on the drive – the horse munching on a carrot the driver had given it – who softened the leave-taking.

  ‘I would like to say your mother will come round in time, but we both know that’s not true.’ Jeremiah helped Patience up into the carriage and when she was seated, pressed some pound notes into her hand. As she made to protest, he closed her finger
s over the money. ‘Please, it will smooth the way,’ he said softly, much as she had said to Sophy eighteen months before. ‘And I would like to see you sometimes on your half-day, if you agree? We could perhaps take tea together or a stroll in the park if the weather’s clement.’

  ‘I would like that, Father.’ Patience hadn’t expected to feel anything but relief as the driver clicked to the horse and they began to move down the drive, but as she leaned out of the window to wave to her father, she felt a moment’s sharp pain in her heart at the sight of him standing alone outside the vicarage. He looked small and lost and suddenly older, much older than his years. And then the horse turned into the lane and the high hedge hid her father and the house from sight, and she settled back in her seat, excitement filling her once more.

  She had done it, she had escaped the soul-destroying boredom which would have been her lot if she had stayed, and she didn’t mind how hard she worked or what she did from now on, but one day she was going to be a fully qualified nurse. All things were possible, if you only believed.

  The next few days were bewildering, frightening, demoralising and exhausting. Patience discovered her father had been right when he had intimated that a Probationary Nurse at the Sunderland Infirmary was treated quite differently to a volunteer at the Eye Infirmary. But every time she wondered if she had bitten off more than she could chew, she reread Sophy’s letter, telling herself it had been no coincidence that it had arrived on the very day she had left the vicarage for good. Sophy had taken the bull by the horns and made a new life for herself, and she could do it too. And however difficult it was, Patience knew this was the right path.

  The Probationer Nurses had been given a list of the lectures they had to attend in the next three months, a list of their day and night duties, a list of the papers they had to submit at the end of each three-month period, a list detailing all the wards and rooms at the hospital along with a plan of the building, and a list spelling out the timetable they were required to follow, set out as follows:

  Rise Prompt at 6 a.m. No second call will be given.

  Breakfast 6.30 a.m. in the Nurses’ Dining Room.

  Wards 7.00 a.m.

  Lunch 10.00 a.m. Half-an-hour allowed from wards.

  Dinner 2.00 p.m. ” ” ”

  Tea 4.30 p.m. Off duty until 6.30 p.m. Study time.

  Wards 6.30 p.m.

  Supper 8.30 p.m.

  Prayers 9.30 p.m.

  Bedrooms 10.00 p.m.

  Lights out 10.30 p.m.

  There was yet another list for night duty, where it was noticed by several of the girls that they missed a meal:

  Rise 8.00 p.m.

  Breakfast 8.30 p.m.

  Wards 8.55 p.m.

  Off-duty 8.15 a.m.

  Dinner 9.00 a.m. followed by two hours study.

  Lunch 11.30 a.m.

  Bedrooms 12.30 p.m.

  ‘So we’re expected to work longer and eat less on night duty?’ Olive Tollett, Patience’s room-mate, a big Wearside lass with arms as beefy as any docker, stared at Patience in horror. They were sitting on the narrow iron beds the small room held at the beginning of their second week at the Infirmary, having just got ready for bed. ‘Why didn’t I notice that before?’

  Patience smiled. She had been a little unsure if she and Olive would get on when she’d first known she was sharing with the down-to-earth steelworker’s daughter, but she needn’t have worried. Whether it was a case of opposites attract, she didn’t know, but the two of them had hit it off from the word go. ‘Probably because you haven’t had time to work it out?’

  ‘Ee, you’re right there, lass. Me feet haven’t known what me head’s doing and me backside has barely touched solid matter for more than ten minutes. They say they give us half-an-hour or so for meals, but by the time you’ve got to the dining room and sat down, ten minutes have gone, and then you’ve got to get back to the ward again most times. Still, the grub’s not bad, is it, and they’re not chary with the portions.’

  Patience thought the food was verging on horrible but didn’t say so. She was realising more and more just how privileged her life to date had been. Olive came from a family of fifteen children, five of whom hadn’t survived past their first year. Their home was in the decaying slums of the East End in the heart of the community in Long Bank. Olive had invited her to go home with her on their first half-day off, and it had been a baptism of what true squalor entailed. Not that Olive’s parents’ two-up, two-down terrace had been dirty or smelly like some of the houses she had passed, their front doors open in view of the hot weather and the stink enough to knock you backwards. On the contrary, Olive’s home had been as clean and tidy as plenty of carbolic soap and elbow grease could make it, but the filth and excrement in the streets outside in which barefoot children, their backsides hanging out of their ragged clothes and their faces covered in running sores, were playing, had filled her with pity mixed with revulsion. They had passed countless gin shops and bars on the way to Long Bank, and Patience had to admit she was glad of Olive’s stoic bulk at the side of her as thin, rat-faced individuals observed the two girls with dead eyes.

  Nevertheless, it was an introduction into the fact that poverty is not necessarily synonymous with squalor. Olive’s three younger sisters were dressed in white starched aprons and their hair was lice-free, and her brothers were polite and cheery. Olive’s mother had presented them with a cup of tea and a shive of fruit loaf, and had been genuinely pleased to see her daughter, and Patience had left the crowded little house feeling envious of her new friend.

  ‘Do you reckon we’ll be able to stick it, lass?’ Olive surveyed her with mild brown eyes. ‘Me da was all for me starting at the kipper curing-house just down from us. It was better money, and heaven knows they need every penny at home.’ Olive was the eldest child and although two of her brothers were now working alongside of their father at the steelworks, money was still tight. ‘But me mam pushed for me to try for this when I got the heave-ho from Newtons.’ For years Olive had been employed by one of the fishmongers in the East End, beginning when she was just a child of eight or nine after school and then continuing full-time once she had finished her limited education. According to Olive, Mr Newton and his wife had been kind to her, but when he had reached seventy he had sold up and the new fishmonger had two strapping daughters to help him in the shop so Olive’s services were no longer required. ‘Me mam says anyone can work with the kippers but I’ve got a bit more about me.’ This was said with doubt. Olive, in spite of her bulk and cheery manner, wasn’t the most confident of people.

  ‘I agree with your mother.’ Patience was speaking the truth. She’d observed her friend dealing with the patients a couple of times over the last days, and the big northern lass had a way with her that calmed the most agitated soul. ‘You’ll do just fine – I won’t let you fail, I promise. We’ll help each other through, all right? Bargain?’ She held out her hand.

  ‘I think you’ve got the worst of this bargain, lass, but aye, all right.’ Olive shook her hand and they grinned at each other.

  The bell sounded for lights out within moments and once the girls had settled down, Patience, in spite of being exhausted, lay staring into the blackness as Olive began to snore in her bed across the room. The nurses’ rooms were small but clean, each holding two beds, one wardrobe and two tiny tables which served as desks with a hardbacked chair tucked under each. A series of shelves had been fixed to one wall on which books and papers and personal items could be stored, but the bare floorboards, walls painted a dingy green and paper blind at the window made the accommodation utilitarian at best. At least to Patience. For Olive, used to sharing a bed with her sisters, with a curtain separating their space from the boys’ bed, it was the height of luxury. Likewise the Infirmary’s flock mattress was as comfortable as the softest feather bed to Olive, who had been used to a sparse straw mattress all her life, but for Patience it felt as lumpy as lying on pebbles.

  Patience tried to relax
and let sleep take over her mind and body, but her thoughts went back over the day and especially to one of the patients on her ward. Gideon was a young man about Matthew’s age, married with two small children, and after his leg had become tuberculous as the result of an accident four years previously and had to be removed, his wife had gone to pieces. She had sat with the woman for some time that afternoon, trying to instil into her that this wasn’t the end of the world and the important thing was that Gideon’s life had been saved, but the young wife had expressed revulsion at the thought of even seeing her husband, and had told Patience she intended to take the children and go back to her mother’s house. She’d had a hard job not to shake the silly woman and had ended up being quite sharp with her, which unfortunately Sister had overheard, resulting in a lecture on the standards of propriety when dealing with patients’ family.

  She’d only been at the hospital a matter of days and had a black mark against her. Patience wrinkled her nose. And she suspected she’d already found what was going to be her Achilles heel to getting on in her career, because she couldn’t in all honesty say she would do any differently if the same circumstances presented themselves. Well, apart from making sure Sister wasn’t in earshot. She smiled wryly to herself. She had all the time in the world for those family members who were bereft or anxious about their loved ones, but that silly, selfish woman needed a good slap.

  Sister had tried to excuse Gideon’s wife by saying the woman had been gently brought up, being a landowner’s daughter with a privileged background, but that didn’t cut the mustard with her either, Patience told herself. Florence Nightingale had been a gentlewoman of the upper classes – and look what she had accomplished, working in the worst of conditions in military hospitals in the Crimean War and transforming the most appalling state of affairs. Women weren’t the empty-headed, weak creatures society – or perhaps she should say men – made them out to be, with lesser intelligence and fortitude than the male sex.