by Val Wood
He laughed. ‘Really? Who was she?’
She pulled her hands away and gave him a reproving tap. Then she said softly, ‘Do you really want to marry me, Oswald? I’ll still want to be a doctor; can I be a doctor and a wife? That’s the only thing that’s holding me back from saying how much I want to be your wife and mother to our children. Is it too much to ask?’
He was silent for a moment; how hard it must be for women, he thought. They have been alongside men in the most distressing of situations and for many of them, once the war is over, they will have to go back to how things were before and find that for them, nothing has changed.
‘Not too much for me, Lucy. You should know me better than that. Who encouraged you first to speak to your headmistress? Who went with you for your first interview?’
She began to smile. Of course, it was Oswald who did those things; he was the one who had seen her potential. ‘You’ve always seen the best in me, Oswald; you’ve been influential in making me what I am. I could never doubt that you’d always be by my side.’
They were pulling into Leeds railway station and they got to their feet to catch their connection to Hull. Oswald put his arms round her and kissed her gently on the lips. ‘Next stop home, Dr Thornbury. Everyone’s waiting for you. Shall we tell them our news?’
She returned his kiss. ‘I think perhaps we should, Dr Thornbury. Will they be surprised?’
‘Not in the slightest, I shouldn’t think. They’ll guess as soon as we walk through the door.’
It seemed such a long time since she had been at home. Everything looked much the same except that the house was full of flowers brought in especially for her return, and yet there was something different that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. They were all thrilled to see her again and she felt their love enveloping her. Uncle William and Aunt Nora were both emotional and Eleanor, who was now a fashionable young lady with a shorter hair style and shorter skirts, cried when she saw her; and as for Mary, she was quite overcome. Lucy gave her a great hug and said that the house wouldn’t be the same without her.
It was whilst they were eating their supper and Lucy was looking speculatively around the room that she realized what the difference was.
‘You’ve moved the ornaments from the mantelpiece,’ she said. ‘And the mirror and paintings from the wall. Why is that?’
‘Because of the bombing, my dear,’ Nora said. ‘I was so afraid that our precious belongings would be damaged. There was another Zeppelin attack in March this year over east Hull, you know. Fortunately no one was hurt, except of course everyone was very frightened.’
‘I think we tended to forget,’ Lucy murmured, ‘that whilst we were abroad you were also suffering at home.’
Oswald nodded in agreement. ‘An enemy in the skies wasn’t something that anyone had bargained for.’
‘So where have you put everything?’ Lucy asked. ‘Where is a safe place?’
Nora looked rueful. ‘Well, heavy items like the mirror and the paintings in a cupboard under the stairs and the lighter ones in the loft with the other things, which as Pa pointed out wasn’t at all sensible because if a bomb had fallen on the house the roof would have collapsed! But after the effort of putting them up there we decided to leave them.’
Lucy smiled at the irony of it, and asked, ‘What other things in the loft?’
Eleanor and Oswald also looked questioningly at their mother.
‘Why, yours, my dear. Don’t you remember?’ Then Nora seemed taken aback. ‘Oh! No. Of course you wouldn’t.’ She flushed. ‘I was going to bring them down when you were twenty-one, but then what with the war starting – and then after you went away I thought we’d better leave it until it was ended, and before we – well,’ she said, floundering a little and looking at William for support, ‘it’s not something we’ve properly discussed yet.’
‘You mean the possibility that you might move to the house in the park?’ Lucy said quietly, helping her out. ‘Perhaps we could speak of that another day? But what things of mine? I don’t have anything in the loft, do I?’ A vague recollection came back to her of someone packing boxes.
William lifted his hands negatively. He didn’t know.
Nora gazed at Lucy and swallowed. ‘Your parents’ possessions. Silver photograph frames, candlesticks, cut glass bowls and vases. I was so afraid of breaking them; I had never possessed such beautiful things and – it was such a sad and difficult time,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I was coming to live in someone else’s home and was fearful that they’d be a constant reminder to all of us, but to you most of all, dear Lucy, so that you would never get over your parents’ loss.’
They might have been a comfort to me, Lucy thought, but I was only a child then and they were material things. Aunt Nora did right and yet she did wrong too, because I forgot that they were there. Her own childhood self now recalled saying, ‘Those are Mama’s things.’
She reached across and took Nora’s hand. ‘Don’t be upset,’ she said softly, for she could see that her aunt was distressed. ‘You did what you thought was right. Perhaps tomorrow we could get the ladder and take a look at what’s up there?’
The next morning Nora stood at the bottom of the ladder whilst Lucy and Oswald climbed up into the loft. They took a candle with them as there was no light. Huge cobwebs draped from the joists and there was a strong smell of soot, and the boxes which they easily found were covered in dust.
‘Mater!’ Oswald shouted down. ‘Can you throw up an old duster or cloth? Everything’s filthy.’
Nora sent Mary off to fetch one, not wanting to leave her post at the bottom of the ladder, and Mary was about to climb up to give it to them when William appeared and insisted that he should be the one to go. He climbed halfway up whilst Oswald reached down, and the duster changed hands.
‘I wish I’d known about this space when I was little,’ Oswald observed. ‘I’d have made a den up here.’
‘So would I,’ Lucy said. ‘I suppose we never looked up at the ceiling, and I’d completely forgotten about the packing of ornaments until your mother mentioned it.’ She hesitated, biting her lip. ‘I’m not sure how I’m going to feel about seeing them again. Or maybe I won’t remember them.’
‘You’ll be all right,’ he murmured. ‘Considering what you’ve seen in the last few years, your parents’ possessions can only bring back good memories.’
He opened one of the boxes. ‘This has silverware in it,’ he said, holding out a box of silver cutlery. ‘And this,’ he began to unwrap a picture frame, ‘and this …’ He paused as he looked at the photograph, and handed it to Lucy. ‘Is you getting married to someone else.’
She held up the candle to see it. It was indeed her very image; a dark-haired, very young woman sitting in a chair wearing a wedding gown with a white lace and gauze draped bodice, long full sleeves, and a satin skirt that hung in dark folds to her feet. On her head she wore a simple coronet of flowers and a flowing veil. At her side stood her new husband, smiling and handsome in a morning suit and cravat, and wearing a rose in his buttonhole.
Mama and Papa; she couldn’t even whisper their names. She didn’t know them then, of course, couldn’t recall them dressed in such finery, but she was undoubtedly there, hidden behind the huge bouquet of lilies and roses that her mother carried.
When she regained control of her voice she murmured, ‘What else?’
Without speaking, Oswald handed her another silver photograph frame; the photograph was of her mother and father and baby Lucy draped in a lace christening gown on her mother’s knee.
‘Will you bring them down for me, Oswald?’ she whispered. ‘I’d like to put them back on the mantelpiece.’
She climbed down the ladder and Nora viewed her anxiously. ‘Did you find them?’ Her face crumpled and she faltered. ‘I’m so sorry, Lucy, if I did wrong to put them up there.’
Lucy kissed her. ‘You didn’t do wrong, Aunt, you did what you thought was right. I do understand;
you were coming to a place that wasn’t your home, although I hope that you now feel it is, and I understand too that you were expected to look after a child who wasn’t your own.’
She led her into the sitting room where William was reading the morning newspaper. He looked up as if he was going to tell them the latest news, but he saw his wife’s distressed expression and immediately got up from his chair. ‘My dear!’ he said to her, drawing her to him. Lucy hid a tearful smile; some things never change, she thought, and Pa’s beloved expression that covered all ills clearly hadn’t.
Oswald didn’t come down immediately, and just as Lucy was about to go and look for him he opened the door. ‘I’m a bit dusty,’ he said, and indeed he was, with cobwebs in his hair and soot on his face. He was carrying a long flat box that he placed on the floor.
‘Don’t open it yet until I’ve washed my hands,’ he said, and dashed away.
‘Did you know that he was called the mad boffin whilst he was abroad?’ Lucy said in an attempt to lighten Nora’s mood. ‘He was forever turning up somewhere with his X-ray machine and then disappearing to go elsewhere.’
William smiled. ‘That’s my boy.’ He nudged Nora and she gave a weepy laugh.
Oswald came in again; he’d washed his hands and face, brushed away the cobwebs and combed his hair. He knelt down on the floor by the box and carefully opened it to reveal layers of white paper. ‘I’ve looked already,’ he admitted, ‘so I know what’s inside. Will you all close your eyes for a moment please?’ They did, and heard the rustle of paper. Then Oswald gave the word and they opened their eyes.
Lucy got up from her chair. Oswald was holding up her mother’s wedding gown. The white lace and gauze were flimsy as cobwebs, and the skirt was shiny folds of indigo satin. He came towards her and held it against her; she took it from him and buried her face in it, breathing in its old aromas, images of her mother.
Tears ran down her cheeks, as they did down Nora’s and William’s too, but Oswald took the dress from her and draped it across the back of the sofa. Then he turned to her, and taking her hand he dropped to one knee.
‘Lucy. I’m asking you now, when my very dear parents are present to witness my proposal …’ He gave a deep intake of breath. ‘Will you marry me? Please,’ he added. ‘You already know that I love you and now you have the wedding dress, and inside the box is another little gown waiting for another little Thornbury, so there’s really no need for us to wait for anything except for you to say yes!’
She laughed and cried and put her arms about him, then kissed him and whispered so that only he could hear, ‘Yes.’
CONCLUSION
During the early hours of 5 August 1918 Lucy awoke in her top-floor childhood bedroom, startled by the wailing alarm of the Big Lizzie siren and the pounding of feet on the stairs. Oswald, who was home for a week’s summer holiday, knocked and then opened the door.
‘Get up, Lucy,’ he said urgently. ‘It must be a raid.’
She heard him knocking on Eleanor’s door and then his parents’ as she hurried into her dressing gown and slippers and ran down after him. He was standing at his parents’ door having an urgent conversation, which turned out to be them refusing to get up, assuring him that it was probably a false alarm; there had been so many, and where would they go for safety? They were as safe in their beds as out on the streets. Eleanor went back to bed.
Lucy and Oswald went down to the kitchen and made tea. ‘Perhaps they’re right,’ he said gloomily. ‘I confess I’m the same during a raid on London. We are so unprepared for war at home.’
They had opened the front door and looked out. There was no sound, though there were one or two people outside, looking up at the moonlit sky.
‘I’m angry,’ she said as they sipped their tea. ‘Out on the battlefields soldiers expect to be shot at, but it’s so cowardly to bring the war to innocent people.’
That was the last of the Zeppelin raids on Hull; they discovered later that the aircraft had been caught in the searchlight and beaten a hasty retreat, dropping only a smoke bomb that did no damage.
When the end of the war and declaration of armistice came on 11 November at eleven o’clock it brought the citizens of Britain on to the streets to celebrate.
In Hull, as in the rest of the country, there was no rejoicing for some, like Dolly and her family, her daughter Ada, and Max’s parents, who were left bereft that their men wouldn’t be returning home, that all they had were memories to console them.
Lucy and Oswald married in the spring of 1919 with Lucy wearing her mother’s wedding gown, coronet and veil. William gave her away, and Edie and Eleanor were her attendants, whilst Henry and Josh were joint best men for Oswald. He didn’t believe in convention, he’d said when he’d asked them, and he wouldn’t like to choose between them.
In May of the following year Lucy gave birth to their daughter Alice. Edie, although not a midwife, assisted in the delivery and became Alice’s godmother along with Eleanor; her godfather was Edie’s newly-wed husband Henry.
Lucy’s desire to enjoy her baby daughter replaced the earlier plan of incorporating a surgery in the Baker Street house, using the study as a consulting room, as she and Oswald had previously discussed. Oswald was now working in a research laboratory attached to the Infirmary. They were, though, still talking about future possibilities, and during a walk one cold but sunny day early that winter, with a proud Oswald pushing the bassinet and making cooing noises to a chortling Alice, they noticed a vacant building further down Baker Street with a To Let sign outside. They stopped and peered through the dusty windows into the empty rooms and then turned to look at each other.
‘A clinic!’ Lucy said. ‘Research laboratory!’ Oswald returned.
They both laughed and Alice squealed a toothy grin back at them. ‘Yes, my darling Alice,’ Oswald leaned over his daughter and gently squeezed her dimpled cheek. ‘A mini hospital,’ he told her, and she blew bubbles at him. ‘Where minor injuries can be attended to—’
‘With a physical therapy section, run by Henry,’ Lucy added. ‘And a senior nurse – two nurses,’ she said, thinking of Milly. ‘Shall we ask for an appointment and take a look? On the other hand, how will we pay for it? My inheritance?’
‘Or a bank loan,’ Oswald suggested. ‘Set against my salary.’ He grinned. ‘I know a friendly bank manager.’
By the summer of 1923 they had obtained grants and the clinic was up and running with a waiting list of patients. Edie was the senior nurse with Milly her second in command; Henry had finished his training as a physical therapist and would join them shortly when a room had been fitted out to his requirements; his father had agreed to give one day a fortnight as a senior consultant. Lucy had written to Rose, who had set up her own London practice with Olive, who had decided to keep her new name as there was still some anti-German vilification, and asked her if she could recommend a qualified junior doctor who would be willing to work in Hull.
A reply came immediately; Olive Spence’s niece was newly qualified and looking for a position.
‘Perfect,’ Lucy said after interviewing her and offering her the post. ‘Now I can spend more time at home.’
Oswald wagged a finger at her. ‘I should think so too.’
She was now occasionally using the home consulting room for people who wished only to see her. Several of them were men from the Hull Pals whom she had treated in Flanders and France. She didn’t always remember them – there had been so many, after all – but there was one she did remember. He rang the doorbell one September morning and Alice had run to get there before Mary, who came early every morning and went home after lunch, after giving the young maid, Dora, one of her many great-nieces, her instructions.
‘Would you like to see Dr Mama Thornbury or Dr Papa Thornbury?’ was Alice’s usual mantra to a stranger at the door.
This man had given her a big grin as he bent down and said, ‘Dr Mama please.’
Lucy was hurrying down the stairs as
Mary crossed the hall. There was the chortling cry of a young baby from the upper floor.
‘I fink this gentleman needs a new arm, Mama,’ Alice said in a loud whisper. ‘Shall I ask him to come in?’
‘No thank you, darling,’ Lucy said. ‘I’ll do it. You go with Mary.’
She ushered the man into the consulting room, which was now fully shelved and filled with medical books, a desk with her chair behind it and two chairs in front.
‘Please take a seat,’ she said, but noted that he waited for her to be seated first. ‘How can I help you?’
‘You won’t remember me, Dr Lucy,’ he began as many of them did, and she raised her eyebrows. A former soldier then. A Hull Pal. He lifted his empty sleeve. ‘You took my arm off during ’war …’
‘I’m sorry,’ she began, but he broke in, ‘and saved my life.’
There was a glimmer of recognition. ‘Were you the carpenter?’
‘I was!’ he said, as if astonished that she’d remember. ‘And I’ve only just discovered that you’ve opened a surgery here in Hull. I keep in touch wi’ some of ’Hull Pals, those that are left, and one of ’em told me about this young woman doctor who’d served in ’war. I couldn’t believe that it might be you. We all called you Dr Lucy, you know,’ he continued, and his voice cracked. ‘And we all fell in love with you, and said that out there was no place for someone like you. But,’ he went on, ‘we’re all glad that you were.’
He took out a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his moist eyes and blew his nose. ‘Really glad.’ He took a breath, and said, ‘Can you put me and my family down on your panel, please? I don’t want anybody else looking after us but you.’
It was only a few weeks later and Lucy had put baby Joseph down for his afternoon sleep when the doorbell rang and she heard Alice’s voice calling to Dora that she would go. She loved to answer the door and would run to be first and turn the key to open it, but Lucy never wanted her to. There could be anybody there who might take advantage of the child, or someone who had had an injury that she shouldn’t see and she vowed to remind Oswald again to have a chain put on the door that Alice couldn’t reach.
