by Kate Eastham
Nancy dabbed her eyes with a black-edged handkerchief, taking in the handsome specimen with dark hair, greying at the temples, who had just slipped into his chair opposite.
‘I am so sorry for your loss. I didn’t know your father, Arnold, very well but I do know that he tried his very best to keep the business going, even when his health began to fail.’
Nancy felt genuine concern behind her fake tears. What if her father had let things go too far and there wasn’t any money, after all?
‘He did, however, manage to ensure that, although there is no stock and only very little ready cash, he secured the property itself, so you will have a tidy inheritance, Miss Sellers. No vast fortune but a tidy inheritance.’
Nancy tried a sweet, brave smile and Mr Chambers reached across the desk to squeeze her gloved hand, just for a moment, before proceeding with the reading of the will.
As his well-spoken voice delivered the news, Nancy’s mind clicked over the exact figures of her inheritance. That will do nicely, she thought, glad now that the sister who’d been born the year before her hadn’t survived the bout of pneumonia that she’d caught at the age of seven. Given that she was the sole beneficiary, Nancy would have plenty of money. She wouldn’t need to work for some time and, once the property was sold, she could set herself up in a house of her own or run some kind of business. She was done with nursing, at least for the time being, but she still kept up with Millicent Langtry and one or two others at the Infirmary so that she could stay informed about prim little Maud and her silly friend, Alice. She wouldn’t ever let that go, not after they’d seemingly engineered a situation where Harry would have nothing to do with her.
Not that she wanted to see her daughter anyway. Babies were extremely annoying, and hard work. Even though she knew exactly where Harry was living, in that place he’d rented near the hospital, it was no trouble to stay away right now, no trouble at all. But give her a few years and that demanding baby would be a very cute little girl. Nancy smiled to herself as she pictured Flora at three years old – a head full of dark curls, big green eyes – and just ready for dressing up and taking out to show off to the friends that she would, no doubt, have in plenty, once she had some standing in the community.
Across the city, Maud was making her way along the corridor to Male Surgical for her daily review of Mr Langer and another surgical patient who needed specialized dressings. As she walked, her breath was clearly visible in the air. She shivered and pulled her nurse’s cape more tightly around her body. ‘It’s snowing,’ she murmured, as she saw the first flakes falling outside the window.
As Maud entered the ward, the fire at the top end puffed out a gust of smoke and those in the beds nearest started to cough. She could see Nurse Devlin there straight away, wafting away the smoke, reassuring one of the men who’d started to hack with a cough. Maud would have gone to help, but she could see Sister Law in full uniform plus a woollen shawl, gesturing for her to hurry up.
‘Come on, Nurse Linklater, don’t dawdle,’ she huffed. ‘It’s far too cold to dawdle. Now, we have good news, Mr Jones and I checked Mr Langer’s wound this morning and we were able to confirm your view that he is finally ready for discharge. His wife has been informed and he will go home with his family at visiting today.’
‘That’s such good news,’ grinned Maud, and even Sister Law was smiling.
‘Yes, it is, isn’t it? I thought we were going to lose him. I’ve never seen a man make quite the recovery that he did. This new-fangled spraying and sloshing of carbolic acid at every given opportunity must be doing some good. But we’re awash with the stuff, we’ll be bathing in it next!’
Maud giggled, desperately trying to keep a straight face; she knew how Sister Law was regularly exasperated, not by new ideas themselves, but by the often unfounded optimism they brought in their wake. But she could see Sister’s shoulders moving up and down as she tried to suppress a laugh.
Maud cleared her throat. ‘And is our other case, Mr Stein, progressing satisfactorily?’
Sister Law bit back her laughter. ‘Yes, he’s up to the eyes in carbolic acid solution, so all’s well there.’
Maud giggled again, seeing the mischief in Sister Law’s eyes. Then she spotted Mr Langer down the ward, sitting with a thick blanket around his shoulders in the middle of a group huddled around the fire. She called gently to him as she approached. He turned his head. ‘Nurse Linklater. My saviour!’
‘Well, it wasn’t just me,’ she murmured, feeling her cheeks flush pink, as she moved to stand beside him. ‘I was working with Sister Law and Mr Jones, and our Nurse Devlin – she’s the one who’s been doing your daily dressings all these weeks.’
He was nodding, but wouldn’t let it go. ‘It was Nurse Devlin who told me about what happened that day I took a turn for the worse. She said it was your plan to use the antiseptic packs in the wound. And all these weeks when there’ve been murmurs about the wound never healing, you’ve been the one to keep saying give it time, we need more time.’
‘Well, I suppose that is true,’ said Maud, modestly. ‘And there is still more time needed,’ she reminded him. ‘The very top layers aren’t yet fully healed, and the district nurse will be coming to check your dressings.’
‘I know that and I will be very careful. Keep everything clean, no cats or dogs in the house … but at least that means I can be at home with Clara and the children. Little Martha is so excited, she hardly slept at all last night.’
‘Oh dear,’ smiled Maud, ‘poor Mrs Langer.’
‘Poor everyone in the house,’ laughed Wilhelm. ‘We have two lodgers, and they are also at her beck and call, she is a little demon!’
Maud laughed. ‘Anyway, Sister Law has checked your wound this morning and she is satisfied, so it seems you’re all set to go home.’
‘Yes, with the help of those,’ he said, pointing to a new pair of crutches propped by the fireplace. ‘Mr Jones has told me that the leg will always be twisted and shorter than the other, but I’m hoping to graduate to a stick in due course so that I can get back to work.’
Maud pressed her lips into a firm line.
‘No, Nurse Linklater, don’t worry, I work as a sugar boiler. It is skilled work and they want me, at first, to train up two bright young men who have come up through the ranks. So I would just be directing them.’
‘All right,’ nodded Maud. ‘But make sure to support your lower leg with the splint and the bandage – you have to do that each and every day.’
‘Yes, of course. Don’t you worry, Clara has already been fully instructed by “she who must be obeyed”.’ He smiled, gesturing over his shoulder to Sister Law at the top of the ward.
‘All right, then, it seems like everything is in order. I’m just going to see another patient, and then I’ll be going back to Female Surgical. So I’ll say my goodbyes.’
Mr Langer nodded, and when he looked up Maud could see that his eyes had filled with tears. She put a hand on his shoulder, tears welling in her own eyes.
‘Thank you, Nurse Linklater,’ he croaked at last, taking her hand and kissing it. ‘I will never forget what you did for me, not till the end of my days.’
Maud took a deep breath. ‘You take good care, Mr Langer, and come back to us if you ever have any concerns about the leg.’ And then she patted him on the shoulder and willed herself to move away.
She noticed that the patient next to him put an arm around his shoulders and gave him a gentle shake. ‘Well done, Wilhelm,’ he was saying, ‘Well done. You’re ready to get out of this place.’
Maud left him sitting with his friends around the fire. And as she walked back up the ward, she slipped a hand in her pocket, quickly removing her handkerchief and dabbing at her eyes before anyone could see.
‘Ah, Mr Stein,’ she called, a little too loudly, as she reached the bed of her next patient. ‘How are you today?’
Maud and Alice came out of the hospital at the end of their shift to find a good covering of sno
w over the footpath.
‘Whoa,’ said Maud, feeling her feet slide.
But Alice had already picked up her uniform skirt and was sliding along, cackling with laughter as Maud walked very carefully behind her.
‘Whoa,’ called Maud once more, almost slipping again when she was hit in the chest by a snowball. ‘What?’ she cried, as another hit her and knocked her cap askew. And then she could see Alice being pelted as well and she could hear outrageous laughter from the steps of the Nurses’ Home.
It could only be Eddy. And sure enough, there she was, crouched down trying to hide herself.
‘Right, let’s get her,’ called Alice over her shoulder, scooping up an armful of snow.
Maud did the same, slipping a number of times as she tried to run up the path after Alice. They both piled on top of Eddy and covered her with snow, rubbing it into her face and filling her hat with it. All three of them were sprawled on the steps, holding their ribs with laughter, barely able to breathe.
And then the door clicked open and who should appear on the top step but Miss Merryweather herself. She sniffed the air, ‘Mmmm, it’s been snowing, has it? I see.’
Maud held her breath as all three of them gazed up at the superintendent, all expecting a ‘telling off’. But to their astonishment, Miss Merryweather giggled like a child, before stooping down, picking up a good handful of snow and throwing it at Eddy.
‘You are no doubt the instigator of all this, Nurse Pacey,’ she grinned, as she walked by them and then stepped spryly along the path towards the hospital, without a single slip, her shoulders heaving with laughter as she went.
Maud, Alice and Eddy fell back on the steps with a sigh, giggling again.
‘Come on,’ urged Maud, looking up at the sky. ‘It’s starting to snow again. We need to move, or they’ll find us here later tonight like frozen blocks of ice.’
She managed to stand, but when she tried to help Alice up she nearly slipped again and Eddy had to grab them both. All three of them were laughing again now as Eddy dragged them inside, full of snow, and dripping wet over the pristine tiles of the entrance hall. As the heavy wooden door clicked shut behind them, any passer-by would have been able to hear the sound of raucous laughter from inside the building as the heart and soul of the Liverpool Royal Infirmary made itself heard.
THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING
Find us online and join the conversation
Follow us on Twitter twitter.com/penguinukbooks
Like us on Facebook facebook.com/penguinbooks
Share the love on Instagram instagram.com/penguinukbooks
Watch our authors on YouTube youtube.com/penguinbooks
Pin Penguin books to your Pinterest pinterest.com/penguinukbooks
Listen to audiobook clips at soundcloud.com/penguin-books
Find out more about the author and discover
your next read at penguin.co.uk
PENGUIN BOOKS
UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia
India | New Zealand | South Africa
Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
First published 2020
Copyright © Kate Eastham, 2020
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Cover photos Nurse: © Colin Thomas, Boy: © Krasimira Petrova Shishkova/Trevillion Images
Background: © Alamy, © Getty and © Shutterstock
ISBN: 978-0-241-37127-5
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
