No Place for a Woman

by Val Wood

  Lucy laughed. ‘Snap! And didn’t you and Josh play chess?’ she asked Henry.

  Henry looked uncomfortable and she wondered why. ‘I think I remember that,’ he murmured. ‘It would be nice if we could get together again. I’m returning to my regiment in a day or two, but perhaps we could arrange something next time I come home on leave. We could do that, couldn’t we, Elizabeth?’

  ‘Of course! Why not,’ his sister responded. ‘There’s nothing much happening until the Season begins. I’m dawdling around at home for the moment. You won’t be out yet, are you, Lucy?’

  ‘I’m not, nor likely to be,’ Lucy said firmly. ‘I have no intention whatsoever of attending London balls and parties.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Mrs Warrington murmured. ‘Do we have a rebel on our hands, Mrs Thornbury?’

  Nora raised her eyebrows. ‘Lucy has had an excellent education and will decide for herself what she would like to do. Her uncle and I know that is what her parents would have approved of.’

  ‘Hear, hear!’ Dr Warrington said approvingly. ‘I quite agree, Mrs Thornbury. Although the parties and balls must be great fun, there are far more important matters to think about.’ He touched his hat to Nora and Lucy and gave a friendly nod to Eleanor. ‘Please forgive us, but we have an appointment in Parliament Street and then I’m on duty at the hospital.’ He turned again to Lucy. ‘If ever there is anything I can do for you, please don’t hesitate to ask.’

  She gave him a wide smile. How fortunate to meet him. ‘I won’t, Dr Warrington. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed.’

  Lucy and her aunt walked in silence to Baker Street, only half listening to Eleanor’s chatter, which didn’t require any response.

  Ada opened the door to them and exclaimed what a spendthrift Eleanor had been, and Eleanor went through a litany of what they’d bought.

  Lucy unpinned her hat and saw a letter waiting on the hall table. It must have come in the afternoon post. She casually walked towards it, picked it up and saw it was for her, and with a sudden quickening in her throat reached for the paper knife to open it.

  ‘I was thinking, Lucy,’ her aunt was saying, ‘about the Season.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry to say that I haven’t the least idea of how that could be achieved, nor do I know anyone who could arrange it. I have never mixed in such circles, but although you said that you wouldn’t be interested in any case I wonder if perhaps I should have made enquiries. But where or to whom I don’t know—’

  She stopped as Lucy turned to her, waving a piece of paper in the air. ‘I’m not going to have time for such frivolous things,’ she laughed, her face one great beam of happiness as she spun round and round in joy. ‘I’ve got an interview. Cross your fingers, Aunt. I just might be going to study to be a doctor!’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ‘Oh, how wonderful!’ Nora clapped her hands. ‘What does it say?’ Her face was flushed with excitement. ‘Oh, my dear Lucy, I’m so proud of you.’

  ‘Well, it’s an interview of course, not a guarantee, but …’ Lucy glanced down at the letter, which she hadn’t yet read in full. ‘Oh, shall we go and sit down and I’ll read it again?’

  She slipped off her coat. Nora did the same and draped them both over the banister. ‘Ada,’ she called after the housekeeper, who was following on Eleanor’s heels carrying the parcels upstairs.

  ‘It’s all right, ma’am,’ Ada called back. ‘Leave ’coats there and I’ll see to them in a minute.’

  Lucy gasped as she took a seat in the small sitting room downstairs and began to read the letter again. ‘Oh, my goodness, I can’t believe it. It seems,’ she murmured, ‘that Miss Benson at Cheltenham highly recommends me, and says that as I have received such high grades in my exams and shown my diligence and commitment, she would wholeheartedly endorse an application for study in medicine! Oh!’ she breathed. ‘How very kind.’

  ‘I’m sure that what she said she most sincerely meant, Lucy,’ her aunt declared. ‘I do believe that you have worked very hard.’

  ‘It’s what I want to do, Aunt, more than anything else.’

  ‘And you wouldn’t want to go to balls and be presented to the queen even if we could find some way of arranging it?’

  Lucy laughed. ‘I’d love to meet Queen Mary, but not attend her ball. I’d liked to have met Queen Victoria,’ she said. ‘Do you remember how I cried when she died?’

  ‘I do.’ Nora smiled. ‘But maybe one day you’ll meet the queen, and King George too.’

  ‘Who knows?’ Lucy said, clasping her hands together. ‘But I don’t want to be part of any Season. Oh, I’m so excited, but maybe I won’t tell anyone else just yet in case they don’t accept me. Although I’d like to tell Edie. She’s got a secret too.’

  ‘Has she? But you’ll tell your uncle William and Oswald about the letter, won’t you?’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course. I meant I wouldn’t tell the Warringtons. I feel that Elizabeth might be rather scornful.’ She paused. ‘Her father was very nice and he did say if ever he could help me …’ Her voice trailed away. ‘Perhaps I could ask him what kind of questions I might be asked at the interview.’

  ‘I think that’s an excellent idea, Lucy,’ her aunt agreed. ‘Perhaps you could write to him and make an appointment to discuss a private matter; then he won’t mention it at home.’

  ‘Yes!’ Lucy said fervently. ‘I think I will.’

  Her uncle William was delighted to hear her news when he arrived home that evening, and so was Oswald when he came in an hour later. He whooped enthusiastically, and said, ‘That’s marvellous, Lucy. When? When is the interview?’

  ‘Oh, erm,’ Lucy looked again at the letter, ‘oh! Next week! Goodness.’ She gazed round at everyone. ‘So soon.’

  ‘Shall I come with you?’ Oswald asked. ‘I don’t mean to the interview, but to London? I remember how nervous I was when I went to Cambridge the first time.’ He glanced at William. ‘I know you offered to come with me, Pa, but I was so sure I could manage on my own. Then on catching the train home again I was desperate to talk to someone and tell them all about it.’

  ‘Yes, please, Oswald,’ Lucy said. ‘I wish you would. It will be so busy in London so soon after the coronation; you could come with me to the interview too, because I’m sure I’ll never be able to find the right corridor or interview room on my own.’

  ‘You will,’ he said. ‘But I’ll sit outside and wait to pick you up when you fall over in your excitement at being accepted.’

  ‘Well, that’s settled then,’ William said. ‘Otherwise I’d have taken time away from the bank to come with you myself. Do you have to reply immediately?’

  She glanced again at the letter. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’d better do it now.’

  ‘Write it now and I’ll put it in the bank mail sack in the morning,’ her uncle said. ‘Then it will be there by the afternoon.’ He gave a broad smile. ‘Such exciting times. We’re very proud of you, Lucy.’ He looked at Oswald. ‘Of both of you.’

  Lucy slipped a letter addressed to Dr Warrington into his home letter box that evening and was pleased and surprised to receive one in return the next afternoon to ask if she would like to call at the Infirmary at about five o’clock that day, as he had an hour free.

  The hospital was an imposing building with stone columns on either side of the double doors, and as she entered the great hall in front of her she was overtaken by a sensation of having been there before, although she couldn’t recall ever having done so. Unless, she thought, I came here with my father?

  A porter directed her up the curved staircase and at the top she enquired of a nurse in a plain grey dress with white cuffs, a pristine starched apron and a white headdress that looked like a crown where she might find Dr Warrington.

  ‘Do you have an appointment, miss?’

  ‘I do,’ she said. ‘Dr Warrington is expecting me.’

  She found the door and knocked. Dr Warrington came to open it and invited her to take a seat. />
  ‘It’s very good of you to see me, Dr Warrington,’ she began, but her thanks were brushed away.

  ‘I gather this is a private matter and not a medical one,’ he said, leaning over his desk towards her. ‘How can I help you, Miss Thornbury?’

  ‘It’s Lucy,’ she said, smiling. ‘And I wanted to tell you something in confidence and ask your advice, if I may. I have an interview next week at the London School of Medicine for Women,’ she took a breath, ‘to see whether I might be suitable to train as a doctor.’

  She couldn’t help but expand her smile even wider as she said it. It was still amazing to her that she was to be interviewed, but it was the astonished expression on Dr Warrington’s face that made her want to laugh outright.

  ‘My word,’ he said. ‘What excellent news. Your father would have been so thrilled, he really would; and your mother too, of course.’

  ‘Would he? Would they really?’ She suddenly felt emotional.

  He got up from his desk and came to where she was sitting and took both of her hands in his. ‘Indeed yes. Yes indeed!’ and he gave her hands a little shake.

  ‘Have I been here before?’ she asked. ‘In the Infirmary?’

  He frowned a little and then straightening up ran a hand over his dark beard. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘You might have been. When we go out we’ll ask the porter. He’s been here for many years and has a most prodigious memory.’

  He went back to his chair, and asked, ‘So what would you like to know?’

  She asked him what kind of questions she might expect so that she could prepare herself, and he reassured her that they wouldn’t ask her anything about medicine as that would be what she would be taught if she were accepted, and then he said, ‘If you are accepted you should speak to Dr Mary Murdoch. Have you heard of her?’

  She said that she had, but didn’t know her.

  ‘I’ll write you a letter of introduction,’ he said. ‘She’ll be able to tell you more than I can about women in medicine. She’s a grand woman, a first class doctor and rather a firebrand.’

  Lucy nodded. ‘I had heard that,’ she said. She bit her lip. ‘I’ll make an appointment to see her if – if – when I come back from London, I mean.’

  ‘Believe in yourself,’ he said. ‘Tell them that your father was a doctor and they’ll understand that you are very serious about it and know what it will entail.’

  She shook her head. ‘But I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t know anything at all.’

  ‘You will,’ he said kindly. ‘Eventually. You’ll make your family very proud. I wish …’ He hesitated. ‘I wish one of my offspring would have followed me into the profession, but Henry has always had his heart set on the army and I’m afraid that Elizabeth …’ He smiled rather ruefully. ‘Well, I’m afraid she’s only interested in the latest fashion and catching a rich suitor.’

  Lucy vaguely recalled that Josh had offered to fight Henry during her birthday party, and Henry had refused because he said he was going to be an officer. Both young men were soldiers now and she wondered whether their paths had ever crossed. She thought too that Dr Warrington was right about Elizabeth; she had always seemed intent on making a good marriage.

  The doctor walked with her down the wide staircase and once again she felt the sensation of having been there before; nurses and other staff were crossing the hall and the porter she had spoken to on her arrival was still there, directing someone towards a corridor.

  ‘Isaac,’ Dr Warrington called to him. ‘Can you spare a minute?’

  ‘Certainly can, doctor.’ The porter came across to them.

  ‘This is Miss Lucy Thornbury,’ the doctor said. ‘Dr Thornbury’s daughter.’

  The man’s eyes opened wide. ‘Not that bonny little bairn? Nay, it can’t be, it’s not that long since …’ His voice trailed away. ‘Well,’ he murmured. ‘How ’years do pass and here you are a beautiful young woman. I remember when—’

  ‘You carried me down the stairs,’ Lucy said, with a catch in her voice.

  ‘Aye, I did. It was that last weekend afore – afore you all went off to London to visit some relatives. Dr Thornbury had brought you in with him, to show you off I expect, and I carried you down cos he was piled high with paperwork.’

  Lucy’s eyes streamed with tears. She didn’t recall why the porter had carried her down but she remembered the dark shaggy eyebrows he had wiggled at her and his wispy moustache that was now grey.

  ‘Thank you so much, Isaac,’ she whispered. ‘For unlocking that memory,’ and she turned and looked back up at the staircase and saw now, as she had done those fifteen years ago, looking over Isaac’s shoulder, her father laughing at her as he followed them down the stairs.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Lucy was tense during train travel and on the journey to London she jumped each time the haunting whistle blew, or the huffing and puffing of the engine turned into a hissing clanking racket of brakes or screeching wheels on the line; several times she cringed back into her seat as great clouds of steam rushed past the windows or they were plunged into the darkness of a tunnel.

  Oswald took hold of her hand and tucked her arm under his. ‘You’re quite safe, Lucy,’ he murmured.

  She nodded gratefully. ‘There is a buried fear,’ she said. ‘Perhaps one day I’ll conquer it.’

  William had booked them rooms in a hotel on Gray’s Inn Road and they arrived in the late afternoon on the day before the interview.

  ‘The training will be at the Royal Free Hospital,’ Lucy told Oswald as they waited at the reception desk in the small hotel. ‘But they’re conducting interviews at the Gray’s Inn hospital as the teaching hospital is being renovated.’

  ‘Getting ready for your arrival,’ he joked. ‘Making sure it’s spick and span.’

  They booked in and were shown up to their rooms and Oswald suggested they went out to dinner somewhere. ‘We can catch an omnibus or a tram,’ he told her. ‘We don’t have to stay around here. We can go somewhere more central.’

  ‘Do you know where to go?’

  ‘More or less,’ he said. ‘I’ve been to London a few times with some of the chaps at weekends. But I don’t want to tire you out by walking miles. I know; why don’t we hop on a tram and look out for a nice restaurant nearby and then after we have eaten we can walk back to the hotel and you can have an early night.’

  ‘All right,’ she agreed. ‘I am rather tired, or maybe it’s because I’m nervous, and it’s so noisy in London, isn’t it? And so busy.’

  They only rode a few stops before Oswald saw an Italian restaurant on a street corner. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s try this one.’

  Lucy laughed and took his arm as they walked back towards it. ‘This is so exciting, so different from Hull or York.’

  Over the restaurant door was the name Ristorante Francesco. It was small and nicely appointed in the Italian style, with candles on the tables and a buzz of Italian voices coming from the kitchen. There was a table free by the window where they could look out at the road. Oswald ordered a glass of wine for them both whilst they studied the menu.

  ‘I wonder if I’ll ever get used to it,’ Lucy commented. ‘The clamour of people, the traffic, and so on. If I get in, of course,’ she added.

  ‘Oh, Lucy. Don’t be negative,’ he admonished her, pushing his glasses up his nose and looking at her. ‘They wouldn’t have asked you to come if they weren’t ninety-nine per cent sure already.’

  ‘Well, you’re the one studying mathematics, but I have to say it.’ She laughed. ‘It’s rather like crossing fingers for luck. What?’ She touched her face as she noticed his scrutiny. ‘Have I got soot on my nose?’

  He shook his head and smiled. ‘No. No, you haven’t.’ He turned to the menu. ‘What are you going to have?’

  A waiter sidled up to them. He was decidedly Italian with his dark hair and dark eyes. ‘Have you decided, signore? Signora?’

  ‘I think so,’ Oswald said, with a q
uestioning glance at Lucy, who nodded.

  Lucy chose salad with pecorino cheese and thin slices of prosciutto drizzled with olive oil for a starter and as she pondered over her main course, Oswald chose tomato and bread soup, adding, ‘and Tuscan pork liver with fennel on bruschetta for my main course.’

  ‘And for your beautiful wife?’ The waiter stood poised with notebook and pencil.

  They both stared at him and then laughed. ‘Sister!’ Oswald said. ‘Cousin!’ Lucy said simultaneously, and they both laughed again whilst the waiter stood with incredulous eyebrows, then put his finger to his lips and murmured, ‘I won’t tell.’

  Lucy, still smiling, ordered ravioli stuffed with spinach and ricotta for her main course. She leaned back in her chair after the waiter had left and commented, ‘We can’t possibly put a name to our relationship.’

  ‘Because we haven’t got one,’ Oswald agreed. ‘Our only link is through Eleanor and that’s not a bloodline. Step-something or other?’ His grey eyes twinkled behind his glasses and she was reminded of something Jane – or was it Primrose? – had said about his lovely eyes.

  ‘Do you remember when I was little and you came to live in Hull?’ she asked.

  Oswald nodded and took a sip of wine. ‘I was an awful brat, wasn’t I?’

  ‘I didn’t think you liked me; you wouldn’t play games.’

  ‘I didn’t like anybody,’ he murmured. ‘I wasn’t much more than a baby, two and a bit or something, when Mother married William – Pa; and yet I can remember that I didn’t like him. I thought he was taking her away from me. There’d only been the two of us until then.’

  ‘And then I turned up a few years later and made it worse.’

  ‘I was jealous, I think, because Mother had to look after you. She told me you’d been ill, but I didn’t believe her. It wasn’t just you, though,’ he admitted. ‘I didn’t like any of the boys at my London school, or the teachers, and I was always in trouble for not knowing my lessons.’ He paused. ‘My mother hadn’t had much of a life, you know, until she met and married Pa. I wasn’t aware of it, of course, not then, I was too young; but I think she’d always been anxious and that must have rubbed off on me. It wasn’t until we came to Hull that things gradually began to change for the better.’