The Print Petticoat

by Lucilla Andrews

  ‘I feel glum.’ I sat down beside her. ‘Damned glum. Not a womanly curve ‒ even in this girlish uniform.’

  Ellen looked me over, secure in her own comfortable curves. ‘You’re a bit of a match-stick; but you’ve got grand legs.’

  ‘That’s something,’ I said dryly.

  ‘Aye,’ she hummed cheerfully to her baby. ‘It is.’

  ‘Where do you get all your knowledge, Nurse Grayson?’

  ‘Well,’ she said over her shoulder ‒ it was her turn to change babies ‒ ‘we’ve a lady or two up North, you know, Nurse.’ At this even I had to laugh. We were still laughing when Sister catapulted into the Nursery.

  ‘That’s settled! The Dursley girl is going to special the eclamptic, and you stay here, Nurse Grayson.’

  Ellen was very bucked. As an outsider among a throng of old Gregorians I think she sometimes felt out of things. It was something to be chosen by Miss Muir in place of one of our own nurses. The fact was she was indisputably the pick of her set. The best pupil invariably got the Nursery job.

  Eclampsia is an unfortunate occasional complication of pregnancy. It requires specialized nursing and medical care. Above all, absolute quiet. Any eclamptics we had were nursed in a private room, in almost complete darkness. A pupil-midwife and a midwifery-clerk shared the specialling.

  Mary Dursley and Marcus Ormorod were the pair put on to special Mrs Grant. Mrs Grant was a woman in her late twenties, who had previously had eclampsia with her first child. She was determined on a family ‒ she knew the risks involved in her particular case ‒ and she was now having her second baby. The baby was born safely during that morning and Mrs Grant developed eclampsia again. For the next two days she was desperately ill, but on the third day it was obvious that she was going to throw it off. To the relief and admiration of the whole staff at Elmhall, Mrs Grant passed from the danger line to that of the normal puerperal mothers.

  The next week-end I was off duty. I spent it, as often before, with Richard’s parents in Wimbledon. Richard was free from Saturday afternoon to Sunday night. We went up to town on Saturday night, and danced in our usual place. On Sunday morning we walked on Wimbledon Common and then sat around with our two feet up for the rest of the day until it was time for him to drive me back to Elmhall. As I was not a Sister I had to be on duty early on Monday morning. This never worried me as the doctor’s week-end off duty at Gregory’s always ended on Sunday night.

  Mrs Everley was as charming as ever. My own parents died years ago, and I was brought up by an aunt of whom I am very fond, but who has a mania for travel. Aunt Monica was one of the long line of English spinsters always to be found in the smaller Continental pensions and hotels in less frontier-conscious days. Somehow, currency restrictions mean nothing to Aunt Monica. She has friends in every other hotel in Europe. Friends from whom she never hesitates to demand hospitality when the mood seizes. The mood was on her at the moment, and Aunt Monica was in Spain sending me picture postcards of Malaga saying she was on her way to visit the second cousin of a school-friend. The cousin lived in Gibraltar. ‘I’ve always disliked her, Joanna dear (the school friend), but it will be such a change, getting back to the Rock. The last outpost of the Empire we haven’t got. I shall feel like an echo of my own past. Also, my dear ‒ it’s sterling, not dollars!’

  Mrs Everley never really approved of my aunt’s goings-on, and in Aunt Monica’s absence felt she, Mrs Everley, should mother me. I was too young when my own mother died to miss what I have never known, so I was sometimes a little overpowered by Mrs Everley’s good-night kisses, breakfasts in bed, and concern over my lack of underclothes. I was always very grateful for her genuine welcome and hospitality. I knew she was nearly as glad to see me on my own as with Richard. It was not that I was vain enough to consider seriously that any mother would prefer a strange young woman to her own son. It was just that, as she so often said, ‘Richard is always so unsettled and dissatisfied when you aren’t here. You keep him happy, my dear Joa, and I love to have you. It will be so nice later to think that we have been such friends.’

  Latterly we had both tended to avoid mentioning the future. It was becoming more and more doubtful that there was any future for me, with Richard. He himself was a clam on the subject.

  Honesty, accentuated by Martin and Allan, forced me to realize that there was nothing to prevent our engagement. Nothing, that is, except Richard.

  I knew him so well. I could see his mind twisting and turning the thought all that week-end. He had qualified. Had a house-job. Passed a high degree. Become a Registrar. There was only the examination for Master of Surgery left for him to take.

  Perhaps he was waiting for that. I don’t know. I don’t think he knew either.

  As we danced on Saturday night, his newly-shaved cheek against mine, his arms tightened.

  ‘I’m never sure if you are the end of the beginning, Joa, or the beginning of the end.’

  That night when he kissed me good-night, he leant back against the door, his hands on my shoulders.

  ‘Darling,’ he said, and my inside turned over. ‘Darling, my heart and my head are having the hell of a fight.’

  ‘Who’s winning?’ I was too excited for pride.

  He kissed me again. ‘Need you ask?’

  Next day he seemed his usual self, but there was the strain of unspoken words between us. The words remained unsaid, and the atmosphere grew worse as the day went on. I found, as we drove back to Elmhall, that I was exhausted. I have never before or since been so glad that a week-end was finishing.

  ‘Shall we stop in Albion for a drink, Joa?’

  I said that I would rather not. That I had a headache. A headache. To Richard, with whom I had always been able to be honest. He knew what I meant and let it pass. In the old days he would have roared, ‘Darling, am I really such a bore?’

  All he said now was that it was too bad and he would ring tomorrow to find out when I was off.

  I was suddenly cold. I had a premonition that this was the end. That I must drop him quickly before, as Martin said, he dropped me. Somehow I got out of the car and kissed him goodbye before I realized what I was doing.

  ‘Hey, Joanna!’ he called after me as I unlatched the gate.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Is everything all right ‒ sure?’

  I smiled. ‘Perfectly. Why not?’

  His relief was obvious. ‘I thought you looked a bit worked-up about something.’

  I shook my head. The evening light was going fast. ‘No ‒ I’m fine.’

  ‘Grand.’ He blew me a kiss, fiddled with the gears. ‘I’ll ring you, and we’ll fix something.’

  ‘Do that,’ I said, and went in.

  Beth was upstairs, sitting on her bed, her face covered in face-cream, a few hundredweight of hair curlers in her hair. She asked if I had enjoyed my week-end and offered me a cigarette and a lukewarm cup of tea.

  ‘Mrs Hicks said she knew Nurse Anthony could always do with a cup, she was sure.’

  I sat down. ‘What’s new?’

  She told me that Baby Peters was clear of any danger of meningitis, that Mrs Garrard and young Martin had been whisked off to Stevenswood by ambulance as the R.S.O. had been over and decided it would be safer to have a theatre handy in case the meningocele broke before it was operated on.

  ‘And you have lost Ellen Grayson after all. She’s gone on nights, and Mary Dursley is taking her place after all.’

  ‘Sister’ll create,’ I said.

  ‘My God, she has,’ said Beth. ‘Elmhall has been shaken to its very roots, only Matron wasn’t having any. I gather she has future plans for Grayson and wants to get her nights over quickly.’

  I thought about what she said.

  ‘My job when our time’s up?’ I guessed.

  ‘I expect so,’ said Beth thoughtfully, ‘although no one has said anything definite. There’s another bit of gossip, Joa,’ she added. ‘I nearly forgot. We have a new romance in our midst. Mary Dursley and
Marcus Ormorod.’

  ‘That’s what comes of putting people in darkened rooms together for forty-eight hours,’ I suggested.

  Beth laughed. ‘Just about. Anyway, thank God you’ve got her from tomorrow. I’ve had her the last two days.’

  ‘What’s wrong with the girl?’ I asked. ‘I know she’s got a hellish reputation, but is she really all that bloody? She’s got lovely eyes,’ I added as an afterthought.

  Beth lowered her face and blinked up at me.

  ‘Lovely eyeth, Nurth Anthony. Weally. Twuley.’

  ‘Not Ws as well as a lisp!’

  ‘God, yes! And worse ‒ she has a nice mind. She says midwives are crude ‒ she’s probably right there ‒ that men shouldn’t deliver babies and that nothing from the waist downward should ever be mentioned, even in a maternity home.’

  I lay back on the bed. ‘Tell me more, Beth,’ I begged.

  ‘She asked Sandy at lunch today if the plums were weally properly thugared ath she loveth thweeth. I thought Sandy was going to have a stroke.’

  ‘I can’t wait to see Muir and her together in the Nursery.’

  ‘Nor can she. She thinks, God help her, that she’s thimply going to love the babeth and Nurth Anthony hath thuch a gentle face.’

  I began pulling the pins from my hair.

  ‘Gentle, that’s me.’ I turned round to Beth. ‘And she’s bowled over enormous Ormorod. Funny. I should have thought he would have seen through that line.’

  ‘That’s just it,’ said Beth, ‘he’s too old to see through her. He’s intrigued. The average midder-clerk, having just left school himself, remembers her type from his kindergarten days and runs a mile. Marcus Ormorod, being older, has forgotten and thinks she’s rather sweet and girlish. Anyway it’s a big thing. You will find Nurse Dursley drifting round the Nursery tomorrow with the love-light in her eyes and Marcus by her side.’

  Beth was quite right. I did. Three babies were born on the following morning, two of them at the same time. Marcus Ormorod and his partner Noel Barnes were the clerks on call for that morning.

  Nurse Dursley spent every available moment nipping between the Nursery and the Labour Ward.

  I changed, fed, changed and fed, countless babies. I tried without any success to get some assistance instead of actual hindrance out of our new pupil, while Miss Muir boiled up from a normally good-natured young woman to an irate Gregory’s Sister. She finally exploded when Marcus Ormorod burst triumphantly into the Nursery carrying a baby-basket under each arm and followed by Noel Barnes with only one basket, at the sacred hour when she and I were feeding the premature babies. Noel Barnes nearly dropped his baby in surprise. Marcus put his couple down gingerly, smiled at his young woman, said they were very sorry, Sister, and when would it be convenient for them to come back and do the first bathing?

  ‘God!’ gasped Sister. ‘Don’t you students know anything? Haven’t you the sense to realize it’s dangerous to carry newborn babies along draughty corridors, quite apart from throwing open the Nursery door when we’ve got it all warmed up for the prems?’ Miss Muir swung round to the new girl. ‘As for you, Nurse Dursley, Sister Tutor most certainly has told you. You’ve been at Elmhall four weeks! You ought to be ashamed of yourself! A first-year probationer would have more sense!’

  Sister swept out of the Nursery, and when she had closed the door quietly behind her, we heard her footsteps hurry along to the Labour Ward to complain to Sister Labour Ward and Beth.

  The two men looked at me solemnly for a moment. Then Marcus began to laugh.

  Mary Dursley was shaking, I thought with tears. It was nothing of the kind. She was furious. ‘How dare she!’ she spluttered, forgetting me ‒ the stooge ‒ feeding prems in the corner. ‘And that language. I hate blasphemy!’

  Noel Barnes carefully put down his baby before he spoke. ‘Don’t get upset, Nurse Dursley,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t really blasphemy. Merely a case of mistaken identity.’

  Miss Muir arrived back from the Labour Ward and told the clerks to come back at lunch-time and she would tell them then when they could do their baths, as at the moment she could not fix anything as there was no room to move in her own Nursery, and was the place Casualty Hall?

  Casualty Hall was the name given to the main entrance hall in St Gregory’s, London. It was capable of holding over a thousand people, and frequently did on Monday mornings.

  Having dealt with the men, she sent Mary Dursley down to the basement laundry.

  ‘There are two buckets of dirty nappies waiting to be sluiced, Nurse. Make haste, or Elsie won’t have them washed in time.’

  The door closed leaving Miss Muir and myself alone with our prems.

  ‘I hate to say it, Anthony,’ she came round to the cot where I sat still feeding, ‘I hate to say it,’ she said again, ‘but when you have finished with Piglet you had better go after that wretched young woman and see that she mops the naps properly. She’s perfectly capable of dropping them dirty into the boiler and then Elsie will give notice. Face the Nursery with that girl and no laundress I cannot!’

  Piglet was three weeks old. In age he counted as a grown up baby but in actual fact he was not yet due to be born. He had arrived suddenly one spring morning, the half of a twin. His other half was not expected for another two weeks. His mother, Mrs Pigge, was our oldest, and certainly our most valued, inhabitant; she held a fascinated court on visiting days.

  Young Piglet ‒ he was too small to be a Pigge ‒ weighed two pounds and two ounces at birth. From his first wild dash into the world he had got what he wanted. Red-faced, skinny, wrapped in cotton-wool, feeding happily from a pipette (the newspapers’ favourite ‘fountain-pen filler’) he was fed every two hours on breast milk and drops of brandy. He smelt of olive oil and alcohol. He lay in his super-heated, oxygen-tented cot in the most sheltered corner of the Nursery and ruled the place. We had other premature babies, none at the moment smaller than Piglet, although we had raised tinier babies previously. The present set all suffered in comparison. They lacked his personality. When the prems’ feeds were due, Piglet’s firm little croak outcried them all. When Martin Herrith brought visiting paediatricians round the Nursery, Piglet took all the attention. If that baby lacked anything he turned blue. It was as simple as that.

  We were quite pleased that he was a twin. Although Sister and I were secretly very proud of the way he had come on, we felt he would shortly be completely spoilt and out of hand. It would be good for his immortal soul to share his limelight.

  ‘Another few weeks, my lad,’ said Miss Muir, ‘and you’ll stop being an old man and turn into a baby. Won’t you hate it?’

  I took off the overall and extra mask I wore, hung them in the prems’ cupboard and went down to the laundry. I found Mary Dursley distastefully dabbing at the dirty napkins with running hot water, while Elsie, the laundress, stood by, arms on hips, watching her with equal distaste on her own face.

  ‘All right, Nurse Dursley?’ I asked. I noticed she was using hot water.

  ‘You’ll find it much easier if you use cold.’

  ‘Oh no, Nurth Anthony! Hot’ll take it off better.’

  ‘No.’ I climbed on to the duck-board beside her, switched the cold tap on and the hot off. ‘Look.’ Elsie looked up behind me.

  ‘Aye ‒ I told her, Nurse Anthony, but she wouldn’t listen. And tell her not to put them things dirty into the boiler ‒ or you’ll have to find yourself a new laundress.’

  If I had been alone I would have asked Elsie if she was off to better herself again. Elsie and I were buddies, but she was always difficult with the new pupils. When I had first been at Elmhall, Elsie had been suffering from one of her annual attacks of discontent with her life. When this happened she finally got very very drunk one night, arrived late in the laundry next day to find four hundred nappies ‒ the day’s approximate quota at Elmhall ‒ waiting unwashed. She promptly switched off her boiler, left the water-heater unstocked, advanced on Matron, and demanded her cards. Sh
e would then take a temporary job in some cafe, for preference in the buffet at Albion Station. Elsie fancied herself as a waitress and greeted us on our trips to town with cries of welcome and large, much-sugared cups of tea.

  One morning as I waited for the London train I asked Elsie why she did it.

  ‘Got to better meself, Nurse ‒ that’s what. Got to better meself.’

  She poured herself a cup of tea. She drank as she reflected.

  ‘And,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘I think it’s time I got me a man.’

  A smooth-faced National Serviceman, who was waiting patiently for a cup of coffee, looked hard at Elsie, then rushed quickly out of the buffet on to the platform.

  Between each bout ‒ there had been five since Miss Muir came to Elmhall ‒ Elsie returned, unbettered and single to the laundry. She was a large, fair woman, terrifyingly tough. She walked fearless and alone, despite the nearness to Elmhall of a large military camp. By this I mean no disrespect to the British Army, simply that Elsie was unique. She was also a very good, if temperamental, laundress.

  We finished the nappies. I picked up one of the empty buckets and led the way back to the Nursery. Mary Dursley, like a good many young women, was far less affected when there were no men about. She asked me if I liked midwifery.

  ‘Depends which part of midder you mean,’ I said. ‘I don’t like delivering babies. I like the babies themselves very much.’

  We had reached the head of the stairs. A small teaching round was backing out of the Labour Ward. Martin Herrith and four students stood in the doorway examining an X-ray plate.

  ‘But don’t you think it wonderful,’ her voice rose with emotion. ‘Don’t you think it wonderful to bwing a new life into the world?’

  ‘I never had much time to think of it that way. All my babies were born during the night, generally in mid-winter. Also,’ I added truthfully, ‘I wasn’t particularly good as a midwife; in fact, I was damned awful.’