by Kate Eastham
‘Could it not have waited till tomorrow? I need to go back in to Flora soon, and there are any number of things that I need to catch up on.’
‘No, Maud, I need to see you now.’
‘Well, I’m here,’ said Maud, allowing the door to close behind her but not showing any sign of coming down the steps.
Harry was looking at the ground and shaking his head. ‘You are quite something, that’s for sure,’ he murmured, with a glimmer of his old self as he looked back up at her. ‘My wife, Maud Linklater.’
‘I am no longer your wife!’
‘Well, there’s a man of the cloth just down the road there, at that church, who might argue with you over that, Maud. But right now I need to talk to you about something else,’ he said, trying to make his voice light and gesturing for her to come down the steps.
‘I’m not moving from this step,’ she called.
He made a move to come up towards her.
Maud held up a hand. ‘Stay where you are, Harry,’ she warned.
‘All right then, Maud.’ There was more amusement in his eyes now. ‘Nancy came to see me after she’d been here,’ he said. ‘She seemed very shaken up, and she was crying.’
Something snapped inside Maud then. She marched straight down the steps to stand face to face with him, her breath ragged. ‘Very shaken up!’ she shouted. ‘Have you any idea what that woman said and how she behaved when she came to Flora’s room this afternoon? Have you?’
The dog yelped.
Harry took a step back. ‘Steady on there, Maud,’ he was saying, ‘I’m only trying to say—’
‘What exactly are you trying to say, Harry?’ she said, pushing him back with her hand. ‘Hey, what? Go on, spit it out!’ She pushed him again, and he took another step back.
‘Well, she was crying when she came to me and she said she was sorry and that all she wanted was to look after Flora. She wanted me to ask you if you would let her have the baby, now that’s she’s not as poorly.’
‘Oh, she did, did she?’ said Maud, her voice icy cold. ‘Nancy asked you that?’
‘Yes, and I’m not saying that I want her anywhere near Flora, I’m not saying that, Maud. But I was worried about Nancy, she’s been having a very difficult time.’
Maud could only cry out in frustration, she couldn’t form a response in words. She screamed and then she marched away down the footpath, not even knowing where she was going. She just needed to get away from him.
20
‘I don’t agree … that a woman has no reason … for not marrying a good man … I think some have every reason for not marrying, and that for these it is much better to educate the children who are already in the world …’
Florence Nightingale
‘Maud!’ called Harry, trotting after her. ‘Maud?’
‘Leave me alone, Harry,’ she spat over her shoulder. ‘Go back to her, go on!’
‘I don’t want her, I never did!’
‘Well, that’s strange, isn’t it? Given that you ended up having a baby with her!’ called Maud over her shoulder, as she picked up her pace, desperate to leave him behind.
‘Stop, Maud. Please,’ he called, his voice breaking.
But Maud could not stop, all she could do was walk. And now it was spitting big drops of cold rain. She turned her face up to the sky so she could feel it more, wanting it to rain even harder and wash away all her pain.
Harry was still calling out behind her, but she had a buzzing noise in her head and it was starting to pour now. She walked on through the driving rain, heedless of the water stinging her eyes and dripping from her nose. She walked on, even as the water from puddles seeped inches up her skirt, dragging the heavy material against her legs.
Still he was behind, calling her name.
Only when he went quiet, and she felt that he was no longer following her, did she seek shelter in the doorway of an empty building. She leant back against the reassuringly solid stone as the rain began to fall in a curtain outside the doorway. She was sopping wet, saturated, her hair plastered to her head and water running off her skin. She rooted for a handkerchief in her pocket but when she pulled it out, it too was wet through, and she had to wring it out.
Wearily, she wiped a hand around her face and then leant back against the stone again and started to cry, her tears mixing with the rain. She cried with her whole body, like a child, like the orphaned girl she’d once been. The sorrow erupted from her and she couldn’t stop it.
Only when the rain eased, and her body began to shiver, did she start to take back some control. There were one or two pedestrians creeping back on to the street now, and a child was splashing through a puddle. It felt like the world was starting to resume. She needed to get back to the hospital, it would be almost time for Eddy to leave.
She glanced out of the doorway, hugging herself, trying to keep warm. She needed to move.
As soon as she stepped out and started to walk in the direction of the hospital, even with her sodden skirt dragging around her legs and her hair plastered to her head, she felt some life coming back into her. And then she saw him, standing, facing her, in the middle of the path ahead. He must have taken shelter before she did; his hair was wet but he wasn’t soaked through to the bone. She decided to keep walking straight towards him. Why should he make her cross the road?
As she got closer she saw his face, pleading. Her heart tightened and, almost involuntarily, she started to slow her pace and then she was standing still, shivering violently. He was striding towards her now. She could hear his breath coming faster. He didn’t say a word, but as he took his final stride he opened up his jacket and pulled it around her, enveloping her against his warm body.
It was warm and dry inside the jacket, and she could feel his heart thumping in his chest as she rested her head against him, breathing in the musky smell of his body. It was the only thing she felt capable of doing in that moment.
‘Oh, Harry,’ she sighed at last. ‘Whatever are we going to do about all of this?’
‘I want to be with you, Maud. There’s no one else for me,’ he murmured, his voice husky. ‘Nancy never meant anything. And I was so drunk that night, I don’t even remember anything about it. She never told me a thing about the baby, not till I got back. And Maud, I’m just not right without you. If it hadn’t been for the baby, I might have taken meself down to the docks and …’
Maud could feel the heaving of his chest now. He was sobbing.
She reached up a hand to stroke his face, and he leant in to try and kiss her. But she turned her face, his cheek brushing hers for an instant. She pulled back from him, she could still feel the tingle on her skin where his rough cheek had scratched her, it sent a ripple through her body.
‘I don’t know what to say to you, Harry. I can’t forget all that you’ve done, and I don’t feel able to forgive you … but I think we can at least be friends. And you need to listen to me when I tell you that Nancy should not be allowed near her daughter. She is a bad person. A manipulative person. And I think the only reason she came to try and take Flora today was that she’d heard that she was with me. She’s always borne a grudge against me, and she bullied Alice terribly when we were probationers. Don’t believe her, Harry. Don’t believe a word that she says.’
Harry was nodding now. ‘I’ll take your word for it, Maud,’ he said. ‘I know you always tell the truth.’
Maud was stepping away from him now and keeping a decent distance between them as they started to walk back towards the hospital, holding up her sodden skirt with both hands to stop it sticking to her legs.
‘Have you any ideas about how you will be able to care for Flora when she comes home?’ she asked as she walked.
‘Well, I know any number of women who have their own children and would be willing to mind her for a bit of extra money. I was wondering if I should rent somewhere nearer to the hospital, so it’s easy for you to visit? And then, when Alfred has time away from school, he can come there a
s well. And my work is what you might call flexible – I’ve got some good business contacts now in New York and they’re going to ship goods over, that kind of thing. I can look after her for part of the day.’
‘Sounds like a plan,’ said Maud, matter-of-factly. ‘There is one thing, though. Like I’ve told you before, I won’t tolerate any drunkenness around Flora or Alfred. So you can’t be spending much time in the pub.’
Harry nodded. ‘I’ll do my best. Oh, and I went up to see Alfred today, after I left you in the Nurses’ Home. I told him everything.’
Maud stopped in her tracks.
‘No, don’t worry, he was fine. He just sat there and listened, and I didn’t really know what he was thinking, but in the end he just wanted me to promise that everything would be all right between me and you. I mean, I didn’t really know if it would be or not, but I had enough trust in you to know that we can probably find some way of …’
Maud was frowning now, as she started to walk away from him.
He jogged a couple of paces to catch her up. ‘So, I said that we would. And then he said something like, “Well, that’s all right, then,” and he pulled a hard, dried-up piece of ham out of his pocket and fed it to Rita.’
He saved it, all that time, thought Maud, all the time … waiting for Harry to visit.
‘I’ll leave you here,’ she said, stopping abruptly just before they reached the Nurses’ Home. ‘I look enough of a fright, soaking wet through, without being seen by the night superintendent with some man. I won’t see you when you visit. But the way things are going for Flora, she might even be ready for you to take her home tomorrow, so you need to get on and make your arrangements.’
‘I will,’ he said, reaching out a hand and almost brushing her sleeve as she began to back away from him. Then he started speaking rapidly, clearly playing for time as he desperately tried to keep her attention. ‘And like I was saying earlier, about the women who might look after Flora, one of them is the wife of the big fella, the man who I used to fight, you know, the fella who ended up in the hospital bed next to me. Well, his wife, Daphne, she’s just had another baby and she’s one of them that’s been saying that she’d take little Flora as well. And she thinks she’d be able to wet-nurse her. She’s done it before, for any number of babies. I think they need the money, that’s seven children they’ve got now.’
Maud was nodding and had stopped backing away from him. ‘Good idea. And when you start to look for another room, find somewhere clean and dry – with good ventilation. Oh, and it must have a good fire, not some smoky old dust machine. You need one that will give a good blaze and take a steam kettle, in case Flora starts again with a bad chest. And you won’t be able to smoke in the room when she’s there, she’ll need pure air. That child is the most important business of your life. So you need to take this seriously, make a profession of it.’
‘Yes, Sister,’ smiled Harry, taking a step in her direction.
‘I need to go now. I need to get back to Flora,’ she said, holding up a hand to stop him moving any closer. Then she turned on her heel, picking up the sodden, dusty remains of her skirt and walking towards the Nurses’ Home as elegantly as she could, with her hair plastered to her head and her feet squelching with rainwater.
Maud woke early, as usual, the next morning, but she was so exhausted that she couldn’t get up out of bed. She rolled on to her side so that she could see her uniform. Thank goodness she’d changed out of it yesterday. It was fully dry now, unlike the gown she’d worn to walk out into the city – that still hung, black and heavy, sodden with rainwater.
She smiled to herself, thinking of how she’d struggled to get out of the wet clothing and change into her nightdress and shawl to go back and relieve Eddy. She’d felt so light, and almost giddy, as she’d tripped along the corridor in her ‘next to nothings’. And Eddy had laughed her head off, seeing her in her nightie, listening open-mouthed as Maud told her about the walk through the city, pursued by Harry.
‘I told you, Maud, I’ve seen the way he looks at you. He’s overflowing with feelings. A woman could wait her whole life for something like that to come her way.’
Maud had dismissed Eddy’s comment on the spot and found all kinds of reasons why Harry wasn’t the right man for her: she could never trust him; he could be unreliable … But she’d known then, even as she recited her list, that there was something about her bond with him that couldn’t be explained in words. It was a feeling so strong that, at times, it felt like a real thing sitting under her ribs. It made her heart beat faster and her breath come quickly.
She gave a small groan and rolled on to her back. She didn’t want this now, not again – at least the anger that she’d felt after he’d walked away with Nancy had been clean and uncomplicated.
‘Come on, Maud,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Get up, get dressed, you need to get moving.’
As soon as she was ready – apart from her starched cap, which she’d have to replace – she went along to Flora’s room, as she now thought of it. Ada Houston was sitting by the fire, resting back in the chair. As Maud came through the door, she sat up and smiled, her whole face lighting up with it.
‘Good morning, Maud,’ she said, brushing back some stray curls of dark hair that had loosened overnight. ‘You will be pleased to know that our charge is much improved. She’s still coughing but not choking with it now, and I’ve even been using a feeding bottle to give the milk.’
Maud went straight to the crib, her eyes perusing every inch of Flora’s sleeping face. She looked so much better, and it was very satisfying to stand and listen to the now quiet breath moving in and out of her tiny body.
Ada came to join her. ‘She’s a real beauty, isn’t she? She’s the spit of her father … and I suppose that makes it easier and harder for you, all at the same time.’
Maud nodded, still gazing at the baby.
Ada linked Maud’s arm. ‘Life can be hard for us women, can’t it? Inevitably, there are difficult decisions to be made, and we are never really sure if we’ve chosen the right path or not. But in the end, we have to make a choice and stand by it.’
When Maud looked at Ada, she could see tears shining in her eyes. She held her breath, not wanting to disturb the moment, knowing instinctively that whatever was coming was personal and important.
When Ada spoke, her voice was hesitant at first. ‘I told Alice about my situation when she was going through her own troubles with Victoria’s father, and I have to ask you not to repeat what I’m about to tell you. But I had a baby once and she looked so much like Flora when she was just weeks old that sitting here, night after night, has been a very strange experience for me …’
‘Oh, Ada,’ cried Maud, her breath catching on a sob.
Ada gave Maud’s arm a squeeze with her own, before continuing. ‘I chose to give Leah up. Not completely, I see a great deal of her, and she is well cared for by a friend of mine who she thinks of as her mother. She is almost four years old now and we are very close. Aunty Ada, she calls me, and as soon as I come through the door she runs to me with something to show me, or wanting to play … and I adore her. But that means I have to bear the pain of missing her as well. I’m not there at night when she wakes and calls out. I’m not there to pick her up when she falls. I willingly gave her to my best friend – who is, without doubt, a better mother than I could ever be – and Leah is the happiest little girl in the world. But sometimes, I struggle with the sorrow of it all.’
Maud squeezed Ada’s arm with her own. ‘Thank you for telling me,’ she said quietly. ‘It helps to know that other people have had to make difficult choices. And don’t worry, I won’t mention this to a soul – except Alice, of course. There is one thing, though, and I know this might sound strange, but somehow I feel I can say it to you. The thing is, even though I didn’t give birth to Flora, I somehow feel like she’s mine.’
What had been said hung between the two women for a moment. And then Ada spoke, her voice gentle
.
‘There are much stranger things. And, knowing what I now know about Nurse Sellers, it seems that this little one is going to have the best possible start without her birth mother.’
‘It does worry me, though. I mean, despite everything, Flora is still Nancy’s child.’
‘Mmmm, you’re right,’ said Ada. ‘And if she comes back in a reasonable way and puts her case then it is only fair to give her some consideration. But somehow, Maud, I don’t think that Nancy is going to do that.’
‘You’re probably right,’ murmured Maud.
‘And in Flora’s case,’ Ada continued, ‘perversely, we have to be grateful to laws made by men for men, which deem a baby to be the property of the father!’
‘Strange, isn’t it?’ mused Maud, quietly stroking the back of Flora’s hand. ‘It’s a terrible law and affects women so badly. Yet I’m delighted that, in our case, we’re on the right side of it.’
‘Well, that’s only because your Harry has turned out to be a good man.’
‘I suppose,’ murmured Maud. ‘But I’m not sure that he’s good all of the time, if you know what I mean.’
‘Oh, I do,’ smiled Ada. ‘I know exactly what you mean.’
‘What about Leah’s father?’
‘We exchange letters very regularly and he visits every few years. He’s a doctor, always very busy with his work, and he travels widely … but he knows nothing about his daughter and, rightly or wrongly, I want it to stay that way. I don’t want Leah’s happy little life unsettling.’
Maud tried to probe further, but the moment of intimacy had clearly passed.
Ada was already moving away. ‘I need to get going, go down to the wards and then hand over to Miss Merryweather, before she comes up here to relieve you.’
‘Yes, all right,’ mumbled Maud, still feeling a little thrown by Ada’s revelation.
‘Thank you, Maud,’ called Ada from the door. ‘I’ll ask Dr McKendrick to come and check Flora over, but from what I can see she should be ready to go back to her father. It might be best if you accompany Harry, though, and help make sure that our little patient is properly settled.’
