Eliza's Child

by Maggie Hope

  ‘This is Sister Mitchell-Howe, Mrs Prentis,’ he said gently. ‘You couldn’t put your child into better hands.’

  Mrs Prentis looked up at Eliza. ‘Sister,’ she said, nodding her head courteously. She had large brown eyes, which were red with crying. Her hair was drawn back into a bun at the nape of her neck and she was wearing a lacy cap in the fashion of married ladies of the day.

  ‘Perhaps you should go and have a short rest and perhaps a cup of tea, Mrs Prentis. Just while Sister and I look at Matilda.’

  Mrs Prentis began to shake her head but the doctor was firm as he put a hand under her elbow. ‘I think you should, Mrs Prentis,’ he said gently. ‘We don’t want you ill too, do we?’ Somehow his will prevailed and she found herself being escorted to the door. ‘I will call you if there is any change, dear lady,’ he went on, and closed the door firmly behind her.

  ‘It is so difficult sometimes,’ he remarked to Eliza. ‘Naturally mothers—’ He didn’t finish the sentence, just shrugged expressively and returned to the bedside.

  The room was excessively hot, for heavy curtains were drawn across the windows, leaving only a narrow slit for light to come in, and a large fire burned in the grate. The patient had thrown the bedclothes back and was restlessly moving her head from side to side. Her lips moved as though she was muttering to herself in delirium.

  ‘She is suffering from diarrhoea,’ Dr Gray said. ‘I suspect typhoid though I hope it is not. At any rate, the little spots are not evident.’ He glanced at Eliza, who was by the opposite side of the bed. ‘We need to get her temperature down. But I will have to ask the parents’ permission for a cold sponge-down. The mother is against it but if I talk to the father I’m sure I will be able to show him the necessity for it. Will you wait a moment while I do that?’

  While he was gone, Eliza sponged the child’s face. She picked up the bottle of medicine that stood on the bedside table and saw it was an aconite derivative, which was used as an antipyretic. Oh, she hoped it wasn’t typhoid or any of the other fevers, which could sweep through a district and take so many with it.

  ‘You can go ahead, Sister,’ Dr Gray said as he came into the room. ‘I hope you can stay, at least for a few days. Mr Prentis wants you to stay.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Dr Gray, I cannot,’ Eliza replied. ‘Surely you can get a monthly nurse to do it?’

  ‘Not one like you, Sister. Not trained in the Nightingale methods.’

  ‘Still, I cannot. I have a boy of my own at home to see to.’

  Dr Gray nodded. ‘I understand, of course, but I promised I would ask you. Perhaps you will stay long enough to explain what to do to the woman we get?’

  Eliza was in something of a dilemma. This was a child and she owed it to her to do her best for her. But there was Tot at home. Bertha had always been there for him but things were changing now. Bertha had her own priorities.

  ‘Mr Prentis will send a message to Gilesgate for you,’ the doctor said. He waited for her decision.

  ‘You knew I could only take on day cases,’ said Eliza.

  ‘Yes, but you were the only one I could think of with the skills little Matilda needs.’

  Matilda moaned and moved restlessly almost as though on cue. ‘Well, for the moment I must get on and try to make her as comfortable as possible.’

  ‘Of course.’

  In the end, Eliza agreed to stay until the following morning. A messenger was dispatched to Gilesgate to let Bertha know and a local widow woman who earned her living usually as a monthly nurse was brought in. She was at least clean and had a pleasant face and didn’t appear to mind being told what to do by a newfangled Nightingale nurse who was half her age. Or she didn’t say so to Eliza as so many didn’t hesitate to do. By the next morning Eliza felt confident enough to leave Mrs Dunne, as she was called, in charge.

  Riding home in the tub trap, Eliza reflected on her patient. The girl seemed better this morning. Her temperature was down slightly and she was not delirious.

  ‘I think she stands a good chance of recovery,’ Dr Gray had said to Eliza, ‘and she owes it to you as much as anyone. Of course she will still need careful nursing. You will call back this evening?’

  ‘It’s away across the city, Doctor. And I have other patients. I will have to visit some today even though it is Sunday. No, I will come back tomorrow if that’s all right. Mrs Dunne is very good, there’s no need for me.’

  ‘Very well, but I may need to send for you. You will come if you’re needed?’

  Eliza had assented; what else could she do? There were always so many people, so many patients who needed help, and not enough trained nurses or doctors either. What was worse, some of those were steeped in the old ways and dismissed the idea that disease was caused by living organisms. They refused to wash even their hands between patients. But the idea of antisepsis was gradually taking root at last. As Miss Nightingale had said, the main weapon she had for saving soldiers’ lives in the Crimea was the scrubbing brush.

  The house was empty when Eliza finally arrived home and put Dolly in her own little stable. The pony trotted in happily, as glad to be home as Eliza was herself. Eliza placed some fresh hay in the manger and, closing the half door after herself, went in by the back door.

  Of course, Bertha would be at chapel and Tot with his friends in Sunday School. Eliza put on the kettle to make herself a cup of tea and sat down to wait for their return.

  ‘What’s this? Sleeping when you should be at your devotions?’

  It was Charlie’s voice that woke her and she sat up, disorientated. The kettle had boiled dry and not even the noise of the embers collapsing in the grate and taking the kettle with them had awakened her. Eliza jumped up and lifted it on to the bar before turning to face him and Bertha, who had walked through from the front door.

  ‘Oh, Charlie,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’ Though why she was apologising to him she couldn’t think. ‘I must have dropped off. I was with a patient all night and got home too late for morning service. Is Tot all right? He got off to Sunday School?’

  She was speaking to Bertha but it was Charlie who answered.

  ‘You should be home to see to the lad yourself, Eliza,’ he said. ‘On a Sunday an’ all. And you missed divine service. The minister gave a very uplifting sermon on Christian duty. You might have found it interesting.’

  ‘Charlie—’ Bertha began but he interrupted her.

  ‘No, Bertha, it has to be said. Today is Sunday and you have a right to have time for yourself. Women who have children should look after them and not expect others to do it for them. Any road, it’s Sunday as I said and the Lord’s command was that Sunday should be kept holy. Six days shalt thou labour—’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Eliza. ‘Just shut up.’

  ‘What? How dare you speak so to me?’ Charlie was becoming very red in the face but Eliza was too tired and too angry to care.

  ‘I have been nursing a sick child, Charlie Carr,’ she snapped. ‘Do you think the Lord would have wanted me to abandon her and leave her to look after herself because it is Sunday?’

  ‘I am not going to argue on the Sabbath,’ Charlie replied loftily if illogically, for that was precisely what he was doing. ‘Bertha and I had other things to do last evening. You sent a message round without so much as asking if Bertha minded seeing to the lad. You demanded it, do you hear? You demanded she do it.’

  ‘Charlie, Eliza and me, we have an arrangement,’ said Bertha. She looked apologetically at Eliza. ‘I don’t mind looking after Tot, I don’t.’

  ‘Aye well then,’ said Charlie, ‘that’s all right, isn’t it? Never you mind if I’m put out. What do I matter? I’m just the man you are going to wed.’ His voice was heavy with sarcasm.

  ‘Charlie—’ said Bertha, but he was not to be pacified.

  ‘I’ll go now,’ he said. ‘Bertha, you must think hard about this. Your first duty is to me as your betrothed, or so I would have thought. When you have thought, perhaps you will realise th
is.’

  He flounced to the door leading to the front of the house, every ounce of him showing his righteous outrage. His exit was spoiled a little by the entrance of Tot, fresh from Sunday School and whistling cheerfully ‘Jesus bids us shine’, only slightly off key. Tot had only recently been able to whistle a proper tune and he did so at every opportunity.

  ‘Mam! Mam!’ he cried when he saw Eliza. ‘Can I go and play quoits with the lads till the dinner’s ready? They’re all going along to the play field.’

  Charlie bristled even more. ‘Quoits!’ he said grimly. ‘And on a Sunday. By, this is a godless household, it is indeed.’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  ‘I’M THAT SORRY, Eliza,’ said Bertha. ‘Charlie had no right to speak to you like that.’ It was later in the day and Charlie had been gone about two hours. At first Bertha had thought he would come back but of course he did not. Men expected their women to be obedient, Eliza thought, as she looked at Bertha’s woeful expression. The problem was that most women didn’t so much as question the assumption.

  ‘We’ve lived too long without a man telling us what to do, Bertha,’ she said. Bertha didn’t reply to that. She was staring out of the sitting-room window at the play field over the road. Tot was playing quoits out there with a crowd of lads. Their calls and shouts could be heard for it was a hot day for the back end of August; a time when autumn was usually beginning to set in. The road was quiet, for people were enjoying their Sunday rest. The trouble was, she knew that in a way Charlie was right, at least looking at things from his point of view. Eliza did rely on Bertha a lot to see to Tot and make meals and do other household chores. But Eliza had given her a home and looked after her too.

  ‘The lad shouldn’t be playing out, Eliza, not on a Sunday. The minister says it isn’t right.’

  ‘There’s no harm in it,’ Eliza replied. In reality she knew it was frowned upon by the chapel folk, but she wasn’t going to let Charlie Carr tell her what to do, indeed she was not. On the other hand, she didn’t like to see Bertha looking so unhappy.

  ‘Bertha, I’m sorry. If you like I’ll tell Charlie I won’t put on you any more. Only I had no choice; there was little Matilda Prentis bad with a fever and what could I do? But I know I’ll have to make other arrangements now. I can’t spoil your happiness, Bertha.’

  Not that she could see Bertha being too happy with that sour-faced Charlie Carr, she thought to herself. But Bertha wanted him and she was very fond of Bertha.

  ‘Never mind me, Bertha. I’m tired, I need a good night’s sleep. Go on up to the farm if you want to.’

  Bertha hesitated. ‘I don’t know. He should not have spoken to you like that, but Charlie’s a good man, really. And if I don’t take him I might not get another chance.’ She bit her lip. ‘That’s not a good reason for getting wed, I know that an’ all, you don’t have to say it.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to,’ Eliza said gently.

  Bertha gazed down at the floor. Ever since her days in the workhouse she had understood that the good things in life were not for her. She would always be looking in from the outside. She knew she wasn’t a good-looking lass, not like Eliza. She was well aware too that Charlie wanted a wife for a few reasons but one of them was not that he had fallen madly in love with her. How could he? She caught sight of her reflection in the glass front of the press, which stood by the wall, and studied it for a short while. No, she decided, she would be very lucky indeed to get another chance to have children of her own. She had to follow Charlie.

  ‘I think I’ll have to go, Eliza. But think on, if you really need me you just have to let me know and I’ll come. Whatever Charlie says, I’ll come.’

  ‘I know.’ Eliza put her arns round the smaller woman and hugged her. ‘You’ve been a good friend, Bertha, a grand lass you are.’ The two of them were almost in tears.

  ‘I’d best be away now,’ said Bertha shakily. ‘I don’t want Charlie to get really angry.’

  ‘Go on then, Bertha. You make your peace with Charlie. I’ll just have a rest until Tot comes home.’ The two women embraced again, something they rarely did. Eliza saw that there were tears in Bertha’s eyes ready to spill and her own filled in response After all, they had been together through thick and thin for many years now, she told herself shakily.

  When she was on her own, Eliza sat down again by the fire. The afternoon had almost passed and it was becoming cooler in the small, dark kitchen. She laid her head against the wooden headrest of the chair and wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron. Now she had to come to a decision, one way or the other. In the meanwhile she had to cut down on the number of her patients. Tot was old enough to be in the house alone now, of course he was. Many lads of his age were doing a full-time job in the pits or at least on the coal screens. Still, she would be there to give him his meals and during the night, no matter what happened.

  ‘The hand is all right now, Nurse, see for yourself,’ said Billy. ‘I cannot thank you enough.’ He extended a brawny arm and showed his hand. The swelling was completely gone and there was new, pink skin on the palm where there had been a hard, red patch with lines running from it.

  ‘Well, I’m very pleased to see it,’ Eliza replied. ‘Now you be careful and try to keep it clean. And if it happens again, come to me first, will you?’

  ‘Oh aye, I will,’ said Billy. ‘But I doubt it will come back. You don’t think it will, do you, Nurse?’

  ‘Not if you’re careful,’ said Eliza.

  ‘How much do we owe you, Nurse?’ his wife asked. In these pit communities it was the woman who had control of the money, if she managed to get it from the man on the fortnightly pay day before he had drunk it all away. She held a worn leather purse in her hand. It didn’t look too fat, Eliza noted, but then it wouldn’t, would it? Not with Billy being off work this last week and more.

  ‘It will be two shillings,’ she replied. ‘But if you’re pressed, I’ll take a shilling now and the rest when Billy gets his next pay.’

  ‘Nay, I can give you sixpence now, it’s all I can spare,’ said Betsy, looking worriedly at the few coppers in her purse.

  ‘All right then,’ Eliza said. ‘I’ll call in a fortnight for the rest.’ Not that she expected to get any more and she wouldn’t press for it. At least there were a few people like the Greens and Prentises or she would be working for next to nothing most of the time.

  Jonathan Moore was again waiting for Eliza when she got home that evening. He was sitting in a trap at the end of the street, watching the children playing in the play field opposite. As she turned Dolly into the road he descended from the trap and walked over to the fence and waved, and a moment later Tot came over to speak to him.

  Eliza couldn’t believe what she saw. Tot was talking and laughing with Jonathan as with an old friend. As she got closer she heard him telling Jonathan how he had scored a goal. ‘You should have seen it, Mr Moore,’ he was saying excitedly. ‘I kicked it right past the goalie, it went whoosh into the corner of the net!’

  ‘What net’s that, Tot?’ Jonathan asked, laughing. ‘I can only see coats marking out the goal posts.’

  ‘Aye, but see, if there had been a proper net it would have, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Tot, get your coat and go into the house,’ his mother said firmly as she crossed the road.

  ‘Aw, but—’ Tot began.

  ‘Now,’ said Eliza.

  Reluctantly, the boy picked up one of the coats, to groans from his team mates. He climbed over the fence, muttering to himself, and walked slowly down the street. Eliza watched as he disappeared into the house before turning to Jonathan Moore.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked him.

  ‘Oh, I often come here and watch the lads playing,’ he replied.

  ‘What, make a special journey for that? All the way from Haswell?’

  ‘Sometimes I’m in the city, Eliza,’ he said. ‘I’m on my way home.’

  ‘Going home round the houses, are you?’ E
liza was seething inside though she was trying hard to maintain a calm exterior. ‘Are you trying to get at me through my lad?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Jonathan smiled as though the very idea was ludicrous. ‘I like the lad, that’s all.’

  ‘If you don’t leave me and my son alone I’ll call the polis,’ said Eliza.

  ‘And tell them I did something – what exactly?’

  ‘Please go away, Mr Moore, leave us alone.’

  ‘Oh, Eliza, Eliza, how can I leave you alone? I think of you all the time.’ Jonathan had changed from a light bantering tone to a serious one. He looked at her appealingly. ‘Call me Jonathan. I would like to hear you say my name.’

  Eliza regarded him for a long moment. His usually arrogant expression had disappeared and he seemed suddenly vulnerable. He was a good-looking man, she thought; why did he chase her when he could have his pick of a few women?

  ‘I have to go in,’ she said. ‘I have things to do.’

  ‘You could invite me in,’ he suggested.

  ‘Why should I do that? Bertha will be back soon and I have to get Tot’s dinner ready.’ She began to walk away but found he was walking with her.

  ‘Grand night, Sister.’ The remark came from a woman walking by, one of her neighbours. Her eyes were alive with curiosity as she glanced at Jonathan and back at Eliza.

  ‘It is,’ Eliza replied shortly. Dolly was waiting, tossing her head in impatience, for she was so near her stable and home. She whinnied softly as Eliza took hold of her noseband and led her round the houses, loosed her from the trap and let her into the stable.

  ‘You are very quiet,’ said Jonathan from where he was watching her by the door.