by Millie Gray
Kitty shrugged.
Looking at the letter again, Kate decided to read it aloud so that her besotted niece could hear just what a ridiculous prat Dougal was. Slowly articulating every syllable she began.
My Darling Kitty
I am counting not only the days but every minute until we are together again. I am just so in love with you and I wish you to know that I will never, ever love anyone the way I love you.
As to our wedding day, I am afraid I have to tell you that there will have to be a short delay. You see I got rather mixed up with a young lady called Mona. Her father, a bully of a man who is a Chief Superintendent in the Canadian Mounted Police here in Ontario, insisted that I marry his Mona as she had made herself pregnant by me.
What I am trying to convey to you is that I will require to remain married to Mona until after the child is born. Then I will ask her for a divorce. You see her father is insistent that his grandchild is not born illegitimate. I am sure that you will be able to understand that. And, indeed, I would not wish a child that I had possibly fathered to go through life with that stigma.
Back to us, nothing has changed, except that you don’t need to be rushing out to Canada. But for my happiness’ sake you must come. I assure you that as soon as possible I will divorce Mona and then you and I can wed. In the circumstances I think that perhaps we should settle in New Brunswick, where no one will be aware that I have been married before.
Please, please, my darling, write to me and advise me when you intend to arrive in Ontario.
Love you always. Believe me you are the only woman I have every truly loved.
Your devoted and loving,
Dougal
Kate began to scratch her head. Kitty looked so lost and heartbroken that Kate was sure that if Dougal had been standing in the room right now she would have done him physical injury.
Speaking in a hushed voice, Kitty asked, ‘Aunty Kate, what should I do?’
‘Do?’ Kate screeched. ‘Don’t be stupid . . . you are not stupid. So there is no requirement for you to ask me what you should do.’
An uneasy silence fell between aunt and niece. Both were battling to keep their emotions in check.
Kate eventually stated, ‘Right, you have had enough time to think. Now tell me exactly what you propose to do about this.’ She then lifted the letter, and with unconcealed contempt, she threw it over the table towards Kitty.
‘Write to him and say that I am not coming to Canada now or at any time in the future. I will enclose the engagement ring that he gave me in the envelope.’ She now removed the ring from her finger and placed it in the envelope that had brought his letter. ‘In the correspondence I will tell him never, ever to contact me again.’
‘Good. Now, as to what you must do right now. Well, I’m afraid that it will mean you eating a large dollop of humble pie.’ Kitty nodded. She had already worked that one out for herself.
‘So before you go on duty today make a point of having a meeting with Matron and ask her if you may withdraw your resignation.’
‘I know I should, but I just can’t,’ Kitty whispered. ‘Everyone will be laughing at me behind my back. Oh Aunty Kate, I made so much fuss about not serving my first year as a staff nurse in Leith Hospital. Can’t you see . . . it will all be so humiliating?’
‘It will be a seven-day wonder. Everyone has problems.’
Kitty nodded. ‘I know that. And this change of plans has highlighted my other problem in that I don’t have a home.’
‘That’s not true . . . you could always come and stay with Hans and myself.’
‘Aunty Kate, you are not a lady almoner. You have enough on your hands with Amos, Ben and Aliza. And you are not responsible for housing me.’
Kate leaned back in her chair. Tears gathered at the back of her eyes – tears she was determined not to allow to flow. ‘I do have room for you. You see, just before you arrived, Ben’s elder brother David took Ben and Amos away. I think it is his intention to settle them in Israel.’
‘What?’ Kitty exclaimed. ‘Oh Aunty, you have enough to be coping with today. I should not have come here and burdened you further with my problems.’
Sniffing, and taking out a handkerchief that was tucked in under her sleeve, Kate shook her head. ‘My dear Kitty, you are never a bother to me. You couldn’t be. Before I met Hans my life would have been so lonely and meaningless if you had not been in it.’
Lifting her hand to cover her mouth Kate thought, Why on earth do some people think that they have the right to run roughshod over other people? Why do they never stop to think about the effects that their selfish cruel actions will have on others?
The pressure that Kitty used to knock on Matron’s door was far from robust. Nonetheless, Matron heard it and immediately called out, ‘Come in.’
When she saw that the caller was Kitty, her face froze. Then in a voice that sank the temperature in the room by ten degrees, she snorted, ‘And what rules,’ she said, rolling the ‘R’, ‘do you wish to be set aside today?’
‘Matron,’ Kitty gulped, ‘it is very difficult for me to ask but I wondered if you could please assist me and allow me to withdraw . . . ?’
‘From all your obligations right now,’ exploded Matron.
‘No, I would like to withdraw my resignation.’
Matron looked perplexed. ‘And why? I mean, only last week you were of the opinion that Canada couldn’t survive without your expertise.’
Kitty flinched. Having Matron grant her wish was going to be more difficult than she thought. This being the case, she decided to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Fishing in her uniform pocket she withdrew Dougal’s letter, which she then pushed over the desk towards Matron.
Matron lifted the letter and began reading from it. Kitty was then quite shocked when she announced, ‘This is the most cynical letter I have ever read.’
Without being granted Matron’s permission Kitty flopped down on the guest chair next to Matron’s desk. ‘What do you mean, Matron?’ she whimpered.
‘Just that this letter is a cruel “Dear John”.’ Matron snorted and huffed before adding, ‘And is nothing more and nothing less than that.’
‘No. He states that I should come over and wait until . . .’
‘And what decent person in their right mind would do as he asks? No. No. Nurse Anderson, this letter has been written in such a way that he wishes to be released from his promise to you. For goodness sake he is now a married man and his wife is pregnant. And as to him being forced to marry the lady, if you are not convinced by what I am saying, find out the exact date of the wedding.’
Kitty felt embarrassed – she knew she looked, because she herself felt – a first-class fool.
Matron, obviously sorry for the predicament that Kitty found herself in, sighed before quietly saying, ‘Now Anderson, I am speaking to you confidentially. You see some who have reached senior ranks within our hospital have been, let’s say, let down rather than jilted, and they have gone on to make a very successful career for themselves and their lives have been more than fulfilled.’
It was the manner in which Matron had uttered the words that led Kitty to correctly guess that she was talking about herself. An admission that somewhere in her very distant past Matron too had been deserted by a lover.
Several minutes ticked by with no words passing between the two women. Kitty could see that the Matron was deep in thought.
When Matron did decide to break the silence Kitty was so surprised that all she could do was stay silent. ‘Now, Nurse Anderson,’ Matron began, although she appeared to be talking to the back wall, ‘it would be very difficult for you to continue to work here as a staff nurse. You have to command respect and Dougal McNeill, for reasons best known to him, has made that impossible for you.’ Kitty almost screamed in protest but she breathed in deeply and prepared herself for the rest of what Matron would say. ‘I will contact my opposite number in the Eastern General Hospital at Sea
field, a very competent lady, but then she was trained here, and it won’t take much persuasion on my part for her to allow you to do your one-year staff nurse training there. On completion of that you can then apply to do six months’ midwifery. After that you will have to decide for yourself what you wish to do with your life. But please do not allow a scoundrel like Dougal McNeill to undermine your confidence.’
Kitty nodded.
‘You have three weeks to work here but how about you go on holiday next week. And when you return you will go straight to the Eastern General Hospital.’
‘Are you sure that you can arrange all that?’
‘Yes. Matron there and I have a good working relationship. You are a very good nurse and she is short right now of excellent nurses, especially in the wards that are dealing with the servicemen who have returned with tropical diseases.’
Kitty was silently crying. This woman who had always seemed to her to be a ferocious dragon had seen how humiliating it would have been for her to admit to the staff of Leith Hospital that Dougal had jilted her – made her a laughing stock and she had gone out of her way to make things as easy as she possibly could for her.
‘Where will you go on holiday?’ was Matron’s last question for Kitty.
‘I think down to visit my friend Laura who now lives in Cornwall. She also has her little nephew with her there.’
Matron nodded. The audience was over.
Dotty was just about to go on duty when Kitty arrived at the nurses’ home. Immediately Kitty confidentially advised Dotty of all the day’s goings-on.
‘The unfeeling, arrogant swine,’ were Dotty’s first remarks, before saying, ‘You’re going to Cornwall to see Laura?’ Kitty nodded. ‘Then, as I too am on annual leave from tomorrow, I’m coming with you.’
‘Good. And as Laura now has her own guest house there will be plenty of room for both of us.’
It was a very long week for Kate and Hans. They deliberately never spoke of the boys. Aliza, who required quite a bit of reassuring, kept them busy and to help, Connie allowed Rosebud to stay over most nights. The nights that Rosebud did not stay Kate knew that around midnight Aliza would be standing at the side of her and Hans’ bed saying, ‘Mummy, I am frightened without Amos and Ben being here, can I come in and sleep with you and Papa Hans?’
Exactly one week after the boys had gone Kate was sitting staring into space whilst listening to Hans playing the piano. He had so loved playing with Amos, but that joy in his life was now gone forever.
In the recent past, it was their custom not to lock the doors because the boys continually came and went. To Kate, who so felt the loss of their boys, locking the door before they retired for the night would somehow, in her tortured mind, be locking the boys out of her life. Indeed, turning the key early would have been a signal to her that the boys were lost to her forever.
The brilliant sunset of the Saturday evening was flooding into the room and it seemed somehow to meet up with Hans’ haunting music. Mesmerised, Kate turned when she felt a cold blast of air as the door opened. She then pinched herself just to make sure that she was not dreaming because there stood Amos and Ben.
‘Mama Kate,’ was all Ben said whilst Amos went over and placed his hands firmly on Hans’ shoulders before joining him on the extended piano stool.
‘What happened?’ Kate cried, as she got up and took Ben into a tight embrace.
‘Like you, Mama Kate, I just couldn’t do it.’
‘You mean you couldn’t leave Aliza?’
Ben and Amos both nodded before Ben said, ‘Not only Aliza, we just couldn’t leave you and Papa Hans. We are family now. You made us what we are today. Not wholly healed yet but confident enough to be well on our way.’
Amos put his hand over Hans’. ‘Papa,’ he began, ‘I like the peace and quiet that is always around you. I like how you never make me feel that I am a burden to you . . . that I am a poor substitute for your sons.’
Tears flowing, Hans turned around to face Ben full on before mumbling, ‘But Ben, your brother was adamant that you must go with him.’
‘That is so, Papa. So we promised him that when we finish our schooling we will think long and hard about what we wish to do.’
Kate and Hans both smiled. Both knew that by the time their articulate boys finished their schooling they would be making their own decisions. Just like they had done today in coming home – home to where they were loved and cherished.
PART SEVEN
MAY 1949
Kitty was busy packing up her belongings when Dotty literally bounced into the room and exclaimed, ‘I have just gone through a six-hour labour and thank goodness that it is my last one.’ She then held up her right hand to show Kitty some scars where someone had dug their nails into her. ‘Got these souvenirs before I had time to get my gloves on and dish out the gas and air. Packing already?’
‘Yeah, I want to dump most of this at my dad’s house, have a quick visit to Eric in Saughton Prison, then I am on my way to have eight days, eight days do you hear, just lazing about in Carlyon Bay.’
‘Oh, so you’ve decided to give Laura a visit.’ Kitty nodded. ‘Suppose that means you are putting off looking for a job until you get back?’
Kitty pulled a face before saying, ‘And here talking about finding a job . . . you’ll need to find one too so which hospitals are you going to apply to?’ She stopped to inhale deeply before exclaiming with delight, ‘Now that, like me, you are not only a state registered nurse, but also a midwife?’
Biting her lip, Dotty cast her eyes downward. ‘Kitty, with our exams and whatnot over, and as we were on our last few days here . . . I didn’t tell you but my mum is terminally ill. I am therefore duty-bound to go back to Ireland to nurse her.’ She hesitated before brightly adding, ‘But with the qualifications I have now, I’ll have no trouble finding a job there. The problem is, if there is a need for me to stay, I might never ever get back here where I have learned so much, been so happy. Met this idiot of a girl who I could confide anything to, only problem with her is that when I first met her she didn’t like older men courting her and now she has become a . . . man hater.’
‘Rubbish. I love my dad, my brothers, my nephews, even Eric.’
Dotty got up and began brushing her hair. As she looked in the mirror, she also saw Kitty’s reflection. Five years, she thought, have passed since I first met you at the door of the nurses’ home in Leith Hospital. She smiled as she remembered that they had just been naive nineteen going on twenty-year-olds, thrilled to be taking up a career in nursing. Today they, at twenty-four, going on twenty-five, were fully qualified nurses and the time had come for them to go their separate ways.
‘Please, Kitty,’ Dotty pleaded, as she stopped grooming her hair, ‘don’t let a weasel like Dougal McNeill have you die an old maid. He’s dross but believe me there’s plenty of gold out there.’
The honking of a taxi cab put an end to the girls’ banter. Neither wished to leave the other so as they quickly and tightly embraced Kitty said, ‘You know where my dad’s house is and you know Connie, so if ever you need to get in touch with me urgently, go there, and my family will help you and they will know where I am, and I will come running.’
‘Nurse, Nurse,’ dotty said in a voice imitating Sister Tutor, ‘there are only two reasons that should cause you to run, one is fire and the other is haemorrhage!’
Reaching her destination and paying off the taxi driver, Kitty was surprised that Connie did not come to the door to meet her. Thankfully, the taxi driver, who liked pretty young women, helped her inside with her several suitcases, books, pictures, cushions, etc.
After dumping all her earthly belongings down on the hall floor, Kitty advanced into the kitchen. On seeing Connie, she gasped and then had to swallow her fist to keep herself from laughing out loud. ‘In the name of all that is holy, what have you done to your bonnie hair?’
‘Don’t laugh, Kitty, you see I gave myself a Toni home perm last night and I d
on’t think I got it quite right.’
Still stifling her giggles, Kitty chuckled. ‘Didn’t get it quite right? You can say that again. Oh Connie, you look as if you have had your fingers in an electric socket. What my dad will say when he comes home on Friday, I just don’t know.’
Connie slumped down on a chair. ‘Wish he was coming on Friday. Only comes home every second week now . . . Oh Kitty, ever since he got that long-legged secretary-type lassie . . . well I miss him and I need him now.’ Listening to Connie’s heartbreaking story quickly wiped the smile off Kitty’s face. ‘Trying to make myself look good for him was all I was trying to do. Made a mess of that too, haven’t I?’
It didn’t take Kitty long to decide that she would have to do something about what had gone wrong in her father’s household. ‘Connie,’ she began gently but firmly, ‘feeling sorrow for yourself and not getting to . . .’ Kitty looked about the kitchen, which was clean enough but a jumbled mess, ‘grips with the housework isn’t going to help. And you have two children to look after and okay Rosebud is nine going on ninety now so she just needs fed and a little supervision, but Jackie, your very own child, is just four and the wee soul won’t be at school until August.’
‘Nursery.’
‘Doesn’t matter if it is school or nursery, she is still young, and with Daddy out of her life five days a week . . .’ Connie was about to protest and point out that he was only home two days in fourteen of late but Kitty put up her hand. ‘So I am asking you to give yourself a shake because, believe me, I know my father and I also know that he will be home this Friday. These weekends he has not been here in Edinburgh that will be . . .’ Kitty stopped to think what she should say next. ‘That will be because of some urgent House of Commons business or something else . . . like that but it will be all over now.’ Kitty then started to put on a show of being light-hearted and as she nudged Connie, she simpered, ‘So to make sure that you all have a good weekend together start getting the house ready for the master’s return.’ Connie nodded. ‘Sorry I can’t roll up my sleeves and help you. This afternoon I just have to visit Eric.’
