No Place for a Woman

by Val Wood

  He leaned forward. ‘Lucy,’ he’d said on a breath. ‘How wonderful! How absolutely inspiring. Such an aspiration.’

  ‘But can I do it?’ she said, encouraged by his enthusiasm. ‘I’m doing well at school, but can I hope to achieve such an ambition?’

  He jumped to his feet and sat beside her on the sofa. ‘If you work hard of course you can. You’ll probably have to matriculate at university first before being accepted at medical school but you won’t be the first female to apply, if that’s what’s worrying you. This is what you should do. Speak to the school. Make an appointment to speak to the head.’

  ‘I don’t need to do that,’ she said breathlessly. ‘It’s a very progressive modern school. I can just knock on her door.’

  ‘Then you must do that as soon as you start term. Tell her that’s what you want and ask her to suggest what you should do next.’

  Lucy licked her lips. ‘I’m studying maths, art and sciences already. And human biology,’ she added, ‘but I didn’t tell Uncle William in case he didn’t think it a suitable subject.’

  He laughed. ‘He’s no fuddy-duddy, you know.’

  Her cheeks burned pink. ‘I do know really; it’s just that I feel embarrassed that he might be – well, embarrassed.’

  ‘He won’t be,’ he had said quietly. ‘I feel that I know him very well now and I can say unequivocally that he’s the most liberal and understanding man that I’ve ever met. Tell them as you’ve told me.’

  She had done as he suggested and he had been right. Her uncle and aunt had been delighted, as were her teachers, who warned her however of the rigid and exacting course work that was entailed, some of which she would have to study elsewhere in order to matriculate. She had completed her final year in York; then, inspired in some part by the death of Florence Nightingale at the age of ninety, she had taken a first aid and nursing course, volunteered at a local hospital as an orderly, and been accepted at Cheltenham Ladies’ College for one further year of study in mathematics, science, classics and French. She was now awaiting her final exam results and to find out if her application for an interview at the London School of Medicine for Women had been successful.

  At home one morning she kicked her heels, unable to unwind after all the work she had been studying. Oswald, who had celebrated his twenty-first birthday last month, had been given a job as runner at William’s bank as he wanted to earn some money during the summer holidays, so he wasn’t at home, and Aunt Nora had taken Eleanor out to buy some new clothes as she was growing so rapidly. Lucy decided to visit Edie, who was still working in her uncle’s grocery shop.

  She was bored with wearing school clothes of navy skirts and white shirts and pushed these to the back of her wardrobe, bringing out instead a slim fitted cream dress with the skirt cut on a flared bias that kicked out just above her ankles. Next she chose a large blue hat trimmed with a flower and a froth of cream lace. She tried it on this way and that and then took her hairbrush, swept up and pinned her thick hair away from her face and angled the hat firmly over one ear.

  Finally she slipped on a three-quarter loose coat and cream shoes, smiled at her reflection in the mirror and went downstairs. Ada was crossing the hall and looked up.

  ‘You look nice, Miss Lucy,’ she said. ‘Where ’you off to?’

  ‘To see your sister.’

  ‘Our Edie? Oh, say hello to her from me,’ Ada said, ‘and tell her I’ll be popping in to see her and Mam on my next day off.’

  ‘I’ll tell her,’ Lucy said, and thought how different this household was from those of some of her friends. To be friendly with the domestic staff – although Ada was now the housekeeper, with a live-in scullery maid and a daily maid beneath her – and for Ada’s sister to be Lucy’s best friend.

  She and Edie hadn’t seen much of each other whilst Lucy had been away at boarding school and college, although she always visited when she came home. Edie worked full time at the shop, which stayed open until late, and although they sometimes went out together for coffee and a chat after closing time, Edie was often so tired she had to go straight home to bed. ‘My uncle is such a slave-driver,’ she’d grumble. ‘He always reminds me that he was the first to give me a job.’

  She was behind the counter when Lucy called and was serving a woman with a pound of butter that she scooped out of a barrel. She looked rather fed up, Lucy thought, and said so when the customer had gone.

  ‘I am,’ Edie agreed. ‘I’d like to leave and do something else, but my ma seems to think I’d be letting my uncle down.’

  ‘Doesn’t his daughter still work here? Or Max?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘Jenny does.’ She lowered her voice and tossed her head to indicate the back room. ‘She’s just gone home for her dinner, but Max seems to think he’s above serving in the shop and reckons he’s too busy doing the ordering and accounts to serve. I often catch him with his feet up on the desk reading a newspaper.’

  ‘So can you come out for half an hour?’ Lucy began, before Max himself came out of the back room and just as they had when she was a child his good looks and charm made her heart skip a beat.

  ‘Lucy!’ He had long since stopped calling her Miss Lucy. ‘How lovely to see you. You look nice. Are you home for the holidays?’ Although he was wearing a brown cotton grocer’s coat she noticed that beneath it he wore a crisp white shirt and a blue necktie with dark blue trousers.

  ‘Home for good until … well, it depends on my exam results where I’ll go next.’

  He smiled. ‘Good. We shall see more of you then?’

  ‘Lucy just said it depends on her exam results,’ Edie said sharply. ‘She’s got a brain, you know.’

  He nodded, virtually ignoring Edie. ‘I know,’ he said, ‘and I’m sure she’ll put it to good use.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘As long as you don’t join those awful suffragettes who are always on ’rampage.’

  Lucy bridled. ‘Well I just might,’ she said. ‘Someone has to speak up for women.’

  He laughed, rather too heartily she thought. ‘Believe me, all the women in our family know how to speak up for themselves. They don’t need a band of militants to speak for them.’

  ‘It’s not only about the vote,’ she told him. ‘And it’s the suffragists who are prominent in Hull, not the suffragettes, and they are not militant. They speak on behalf of all women who don’t have the same opportunities as men do, or the same wages for doing the same work.’

  ‘That they don’t,’ Edie said cynically.

  ‘My word,’ Max parried, ‘I’d never have put you down as a bluestocking, Lucy. So that’s what boarding school does to such a sweet young lady!’

  ‘That expression went out in the last century, Max,’ she remarked, but didn’t say more as his sister Jenny came in just then and greeted her. She was furious with him none the less, and thought his attitude deplorable.

  ‘Right, I’m off for my dinner.’ Edie took off her long white apron and was round the other side of the counter before either of her cousins could object. ‘Back in half an hour.’

  ‘Goodbye.’ Lucy turned at the door and she could tell by Max’s regretful expression that he knew he had gone too far.

  ‘Come on.’ Edie took Lucy’s arm and steered her towards Market Place. ‘I know a place where we can get a sandwich and a pot of coffee and it won’t cost much. It belongs to a friend of one of my cousins.’

  Lucy laughed. ‘Having a big family must be a great advantage.’

  ‘Not always,’ Edie said. ‘I’m fed up with working for Uncle Sam, I can tell you. He hasn’t given me a raise in wages in two years and I’m doing more hours than I used to.’

  She pushed open a door, setting off a tinkling bell in a café that had gingham tablecloths on the half a dozen or so tables, some occupied, and a counter with delicious-looking cakes covered with muslin.

  ‘Hello, Edie.’ A bright-faced middle-aged woman greeted them. ‘Come to eat?’

  ‘Please, Annie. What are you going to have, Lu
cy? Treat’s on me.’

  ‘Oh, just coffee please. I’ve had something already.’

  Edie ordered a ham sandwich for herself and a pot of coffee for two, calling to Annie to put plenty of mustard on the ham. Then she put her elbows on the table and faced Lucy. ‘Yes, Max was right. You do look nice. Very elegant. So what’s happening? After your exam results, I mean. What are you planning?’

  She was always direct, Lucy thought, pressing her lips together. ‘I haven’t spread the news, but I’ve applied for a place at the London School of Medicine for Women.’ She looked at Edie, whose jaw had dropped. ‘It’s at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, which is just outside London. I’ve been studying really hard because they don’t have many places.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Have you heard of Dr Mary Murdoch?’

  Edie shook her head, listening avidly.

  ‘She became house surgeon at the Hull Victoria Hospital for Sick Children when she graduated,’ Lucy continued, ‘and only last year she was appointed as Hull’s first female general practitioner! She’s inspirational, and she’s also a leading light in the women’s suffrage movement in Hull.’

  Edie swallowed. ‘Golly,’ she croaked. ‘Lucy! You’re going to be a doctor? I can’t believe it! How – oh, I’m lost for words. I don’t know what to say, except how exciting and wonderful and amazing and oh, I’m so proud of you.’ Her eyes filled with tears and she snuffled. ‘So very proud.’

  ‘I haven’t got in yet,’ Lucy pointed out, though she was very touched by Edie’s support. ‘It will depend on the results.’

  ‘Pooh, you’ll get in easy,’ Edie said airily. ‘Hey, that’s one in the eye for our Max, isn’t it?’

  ‘What was wrong with him?’ Lucy asked. ‘I never thought that Max would be so disparaging.’

  ‘You took a shine to him when you were little, didn’t you?’ Edie smiled. ‘Our Josh always said so. But I’m afraid he’s got a bit above himself lately. He was walking out with someone but then she joined the Women’s Union or suffragettes or something and he took the huff. That’s why he said what he did.’

  ‘That will be the suffrage group I meant,’ Lucy said thoughtfully, and then asked, ‘How are Josh and Stanley and Bob and Charlie?’

  ‘Josh and Stanley are still soldiering. They’re both in ’regular army now so they don’t get home much. Ma misses them and so does Charlie. He’s going to be a boy soldier as soon as they’ll have him. So there’ll be no bairns at home, not even our Bob. He works for ’railway and he’s hardly a bairn any more, since he got married in May.’

  Edie paused and then sighed. ‘I’ve been considering leaving my uncle’s shop. There’s no future in it and I don’t want to wait for someone to snap me up and then live a life like my ma or Aunt Mary. Ada’s seriously courting, did you know?’ she added. ‘Everybody thought she was left on ’shelf, but she’s just very particular. She seems serious about this one. She onny sees him on her days off, though. I don’t think your aunt knows.’

  ‘She doesn’t,’ Lucy said. ‘She would have mentioned it. So, what are you thinking of, Edie? What are you going to do?’

  Edie gave a big grin that lit up her face. ‘Well, you might be very surprised to hear this, and bearing in mind that I’m nowhere near as clever or as brilliant as you, but …’ She leaned back in her chair and waited a few minutes while Annie brought the coffee and a plate of sandwiches before she whispered, ‘I thought I’d train to be a nurse!’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  It was Lucy’s turn to be thrilled. She gave a huge shrug of delight. ‘Wonderful!’ she exclaimed. ‘And you are clever, Edie, Miss Goddard always thought you were, and even though you haven’t had the benefit of my extra education you’re so bright and sharp. You’ll get to be a nurse before I’m a doctor … always supposing I’m accepted,’ she added gloomily. ‘It’s not as difficult to qualify as it once was, but women still can’t get an educational degree like the male students.’

  Edie nodded and bit into her sandwich. ‘I can work and learn.’ She chewed and swallowed. ‘I’ve been reading up about it. If I’m willing to leave home I can apply to the London Hospital in London; that’s a teaching hospital too. But I don’t know if I can afford to go. I’ll write and ask.’

  ‘Oh,’ Lucy breathed. ‘If only we could be in London at the same time – if I get a place,’ she added again.

  ‘And if I do, too,’ Edie answered. Then she gave a huge beaming grin and said passionately, ‘Isn’t it marvellous, Lucy? I’m so excited now that I know what you’re going to do.’ She lifted a clenched fist. ‘I feel – strong, energetic, as if I can do anything!’

  Lucy laughed and clenched her fist too. ‘We can! We most certainly can. What is there to stop us?’

  They talked for a while and then Edie glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘I’m late! Max will have something to say, but do I care?’

  ‘Don’t tell him about me, will you?’ Lucy said. ‘I don’t want to tell anyone until, and if, it happens.’

  ‘I won’t, no fear. But it will happen,’ Edie assured her. ‘Believe in yourself. Got to rush. Let me know, won’t you, the very minute you hear?’

  Lucy promised she would and Edie dashed out of the door only to run back in again. ‘Forgot to pay,’ she laughed.

  ‘I’ll pay, you go. Your turn next time.’ Lucy sat back and, breathing deeply, closed her eyes as Edie left. Then she opened them and poured another cup of coffee.

  ‘That girl!’ Annie came over and collected Edie’s empty cup. ‘She’s so full of energy. I wish she’d come and work for me. I’d pay her more than her miserly uncle does. Can I get you anything else, miss?’

  ‘Yes, please. I’ll have a slice of that lovely chocolate cake, as a treat!’

  After she had finished the cake she wiped her mouth free of crumbs, paid Annie and left the café. In no hurry, she sauntered back towards Whitefriargate and home; there wasn’t anything pressing to do when she got back, no studying or reading for exams, which, she thought, was a very odd sensation. A disturbing thought came to her: if she didn’t gain entry to the school of medicine, then what on earth would she do?

  I could train to be a nurse like Edie and work in a military hospital, that might be an option. I think I’d get in there all right. I’d join the Queen Alexandra nurses but I’m not old enough, and Edie won’t be either.

  She had felt so confident whilst talking with Edie. Her friend’s exuberance had infected her and she had felt she could do anything; now she wasn’t so sure. She glanced in a shop window as she passed and saw her reflection: a smart young woman wearing a lovely hat, but also someone very young, someone just out of school pretending to be grown up and ready to face the world when really she wasn’t.

  Edie was already grown up; she was experienced in life, having worked all these years for her uncle. Any teaching hospital would be pleased to have her; she was a woman, and she’d be able to cope with sick people or soldiers’ injuries.

  She sighed and walked on, lost in thought, and then just ahead of her she saw Aunt Nora and Eleanor, struggling with parcels. She hurried towards them.

  ‘Aunt Nora,’ she called, when she was almost up to them. ‘Can I help with those? Goodness, Eleanor. Did you leave anything for anyone else?’

  Eleanor was excited. ‘I’ve got a new coat, hat and gloves and a new dress,’ she said, ‘and this is as well as the school clothes Mother’s ordered from the outfitters.’

  Eleanor was starting at the same York school that Lucy had attended, and Lucy thought she could have eased her way in had she still been there, but Eleanor was looking forward to it. She wasn’t in the least shy, and besides, she had been several times with her parents when they’d visited Lucy and said she couldn’t wait to be there too.

  ‘Mrs Thornbury!’

  Mrs Warrington was bearing down on them, accompanied by a young woman, a young man in uniform and Dr Warrington wearing a top hat.

  Lucy dipped her knee to Mrs Warrington and then turned to
the young woman. ‘Elizabeth, how are you?’

  Elizabeth nodded graciously to Nora, and then said, ‘Lucy Thornbury! I would never have recognized you. Can this really be you?’

  ‘Well, it’s no one else,’ Lucy said brightly. ‘Have you finished your studies in France?’

  ‘Oh, yes indeed,’ Elizabeth answered airily. ‘What about you? Are you done with school?’

  ‘College. Yes, I have, just,’ Lucy said. ‘I shall miss it.’

  ‘Really?’ Elizabeth seemed astonished. ‘I hated the school in York, so few people one would wish to associate with.’

  Before Lucy could reply, Elizabeth’s father leaned forward. ‘Miss Thornbury,’ he said, his voice quiet, unlike his wife’s or daughter’s. ‘You won’t remember me at all, but I was a good friend of your father’s. We worked together at the Hull Infirmary.’ He smiled. ‘You most definitely have a look of your mother; she was a beautiful, elegant woman. They were a most handsome couple.’

  She was quite taken aback. Apart from Uncle William and Mary, no one had ever really spoken about her parents. Tears sprang to her eyes.

  ‘How very kind of you to say so,’ she said huskily. ‘I wish I could remember them, but I don’t, not in the least. Each time I try to recall what they looked like, I only see a fleeting image and nothing else that I can catch hold of.’

  ‘Perhaps because you suffered an emotional shock,’ he suggested softly. ‘Thinking of them might bring back that distressing day and your memory is blocking it out.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ she murmured. ‘I can remember them holding my hands …’

  ‘Taking care of you,’ he murmured. ‘That’s a good memory to keep.’

  His son came towards her too. He was smartly dressed in army uniform; an officer, she guessed. ‘I don’t suppose you remember me, Miss Thornbury,’ he said. ‘Henry? Elizabeth and I came to a birthday party at your house.’

  ‘I vaguely recall. Was I four?’ She turned to Nora. ‘Aunt?’

  ‘Yes you were, and you played card games,’ Nora reminded her.