by Evie Grace
Mercy cooed and smiled from beneath her white lace bonnet. Hannah stopped to tie the ribbons under her chin, and tuck back a lock of her hair which was growing dark and lustrous like Ruby’s. She was doing well, putting on weight and developing slowly but surely. Hannah and James watched her closely, monitoring every milestone and panicking over every cough and sneeze.
‘It’s marvellous to see a loving mother with her child,’ an elderly gentleman said as he walked by. ‘Good day, young lady.’
‘Good day, sir,’ she said, moving on, pausing now and again to listen to the silver band, and show Mercy the man and his singing dog which her mother had liked so much. ‘Your ma loved you more than you will ever know,’ she went on softly, a lump in her throat.
On returning home to Cecil Square to find that James had been called away on a house visit, she left Nanny to feed Mercy with goat’s milk and pap, while she checked her gown. A frisson of excitement and anticipation drove her grief and weariness away, as she admired the lilac satin and brocade – six yards of it trimmed with black lace, and draped with satin ribbons and flowers, along with a pair of shoes that Ruby would have coveted.
Later, when they were ready to leave, she put on her coat and kissed Mercy goodnight, and James counted the freckles on her little nose, before they set out in the brougham, arriving at the Cliftonville Hotel on Ethelbert Street in good time to meet Doctor and Mrs Hunter for dinner. Hannah and Charlotte left their coats in the ladies’ cloakroom.
‘You’re feeling well now?’ Hannah asked, noting the drapery folded strategically across Charlotte’s stomach. ‘You certainly look well – blooming, in fact.’
‘I’m six months gone. James has confirmed it – Henry already knew, but he wanted a second opinion.’
‘Congratulations …’
‘I’m already the size of an omnibus.’ Charlotte smiled ruefully. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m carrying twins.’
‘Are you sure you should be out dancing?’
Charlotte held out her arm. ‘Of course. I’ve had plenty of practice now – do you remember how you caught me out in the sluice?’
‘I found it hard to be cross with you.’ Hannah giggled at the memory. ‘Let’s go and find our husbands before they send out a search party.’
‘Here are our beautiful wives,’ she heard Henry say as they walked towards them in the reception hall. ‘Look at them.’
Hannah released Charlotte’s arm and walked over to James who stared at her, his eyes raking her figure.
‘You look wonderful, my darling,’ he said. ‘In fact, you take my breath away.’
‘The doctor needs a doctor to revive him,’ Henry jested. ‘Come along, Mrs Hunter. Lead the way to the dining room – I’m famished.’
Hannah followed the Hunters with James at her side, wondering if they would ever reach their table as her husband’s well-wishers, friends and acquaintances crowded in on them to greet him. Even the Osbourne-Coles greeted him cordially, although her father took great pleasure in introducing Miss Osbourne-Cole’s fiancé, the son of a top-hat at a London bank.
‘If I didn’t know better, I’d think you a god, Doctor Clifton,’ Hannah said wickedly as they finally sat down to dine, sharing a table with the Hunters, Mr and Mrs Phillips and the Anthonys.
‘Can I order you some champagne?’ James asked her as she surveyed the food being served: coronation chicken; cold salmon served with cucumber and a horseradish cream; ham glazed with honey. It looked delicious, but she had no appetite. She nibbled a little ham, but she might as well have licked a flat-iron.
‘A little lemonade would be acceptable, thank you,’ she said, and he looked to their waiter to fill her glass as the party made small talk. At least, some of them did. Charlotte and Doctor Hunter discussed the price of madeira with the Anthonys, while Mr Phillips stared at Hannah as if he was trying to recall where he’d met her before.
‘You remember Sister Bentley?’ James asked him.
‘Ah, I thought there was something familiar about her … You’ve married her, then, made a decent woman of her.’
‘You know that, Mr Phillips. I told you beforehand, so you wouldn’t embarrass yourself,’ Mrs Phillips said. ‘It’s lovely to see you so happy, Doctor Clifton. I really do mean that,’ she added, making Hannah wonder if she meant it at all. Dripping with jewels, she was one of the wealthiest, most privileged ladies she knew, yet she was oozing envy from every pore. ‘Your husband is a marvel – I think it’s fair to say that he has saved my life with his new treatment.’
Hannah noticed how James turned quickly to the Anthonys to add his ha’penny-worth on the topic under discussion, which she found odd because he never drank madeira. It wasn’t to his taste.
As Mrs Phillips began to tell her about her previous physician and the one before that, Hannah felt faint. She gave James’s arm a gentle nudge.
‘What is it? Oh, you look like you could do with some fresh air. Allow me.’ He stood up and escorted her outside to the balcony overlooking the gardens. ‘I thought perhaps you were swooning from boredom. Mrs Phillips does rather go on about her ailments. Would you like to sit down?’
‘I’m all right.’ She leaned against the stone balustrade and took a few deep breaths.
‘Something’s been bothering me for the past few days. I knew something wasn’t right, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.’ He lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘Hannah, you’re with child.’
‘Do you think so?’ She touched her flat stomach, delighted and apprehensive at the same time.
‘All the signs are there.’ He took her hand and linked his fingers with hers. ‘You mustn’t worry about a thing. I’ll look after you. Whatever happens, we will get through it together, I promise, and in the fullness of time, this child will become an addition to our family and a playmate for Mercy. I can see them in my mind’s eye, a boy and girl, or two girls – I don’t mind which – paddling and splashing around in the sea on a hot summer’s afternoon.’
She smiled. ‘I like the sound of that.’
‘It will happen. Trust me’ – he grinned suddenly, his teeth gleaming in the evening light – ‘I’m a doctor. Shall we return inside?’
‘Before we go, there’s something I’d like to know – confidentially, of course. How did you cure Mrs Phillips of her ills?’
‘She spoke to one of her friends who suffers from hysteria and diagnosed herself. It’s what I suspected a long time ago but hadn’t been able to confirm to my satisfaction. Who am I to argue with a lay person when I’m merely a physician who’s studied medicine for many years? Anyway, the term covers a multitude of ailments and symptoms, including insomnia, irritability, loss of appetite and a tendency to cause trouble.’
‘She has the latter in spades.’
‘This condition is thought to be linked with the womb.’ He quickly changed the subject, ‘Are you up to dancing?’
‘Of course I am.’
They found their way to the ballroom where James led her on to the floor to dance a quadrille, before Henry requested the next dance, Charlotte having chosen to sit it out. After that, Hannah danced a waltz with her husband, moving in perfect time with him and the music, as they spun their way around the ballroom. Amongst the sparkling gems and colourful gowns, Hannah caught sight of a girl – a young woman – in a scarlet dress, with her dark hair put up and adorned with fresh roses. She was smiling, gazing up into the eyes of an adoring young gentleman, who seemed to carry her around the floor, faster and faster until they blurred into the whirl of dancers and disappeared.
Ruby? she thought, tears springing to her eyes.
‘I thought I saw my sister,’ she said, when the final note of the music died away.
‘Perhaps you did,’ James said softly. ‘The spirits of those whom we’ve lost live on long after in our hearts. Come here, my love.’ She breathed in his scent of cologne and musk, and the tiniest hint of carbolic as he held her close. ‘We will always hold them dear in our memories, and we will go
on, making the most of every day, as they would have wished.’
‘I must look a mess,’ she said, wiping away a tear. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t apologise. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever set eyes on, inside and out, and I still have to pinch myself sometimes to prove that we really are married. I used to see you on the ward, caring for your patients with kindness and grace, and I used to say to myself, how I wish that seaside angel could be mine – and now you are.’
Dear Reader,
When I decided to set Hannah’s story in Margate, I had little idea of the town’s history as a nineteenth century sea bathing resort. The arrival of the railway made it accessible to day trippers from London, some of whom let their hair down in the most brazen manner, shocking Margate’s residents. Although there were horse-drawn bathing machines designed with hoods to protect the modesty of the Victorian ladies, many of the men bathed in view of the beach, forgoing their bathing drawers. Couples would walk hand in hand along the seafront, something they would never have done at home.
My grandparents took me to Margate when I was about seven years old – rather longer ago than I care to remember! I recall a sleepy seaside town with amusement arcades, fish and chip shops, and ice cream parlours. I paddled in the sea and built sandcastles, but the highlight of my day was a ride on a donkey, hanging on to the hoop on the saddle and marvelling at the big grey furry ears in front of me.
There are no donkeys on Margate Beach now, but there are other attractions, including Dreamland, home to the oldest rollercoaster in Britain. Dreamland was built on the site of the Hall by the Sea, the Victorian pleasure ground that plays a part in The Seaside Angel. The Royal Sea Bathing Infirmary where Hannah works as a children’s nurse, treating her patients with sunshine, fresh air and sea bathing, has been converted into luxury apartments.
I hope you enjoy getting to know Victorian Margate as much as I did
The Penny Lick: A Dangerous Treat
While I was researching Margate’s history for The Seaside Angel, I discovered that Hannah would have seen hokey-pokey men selling ice cream on the seafront, and probably have been tempted to buy a penny lick now and again. A little more digging on my part revealed a horrifying link between this Victorian treat and Hannah’s work as a nurse at the Royal Sea Bathing Infirmary.
The ice cream sellers came from Italy and the name ‘hokey-pokey’ is thought to have come from a corruption of ‘O che poco!’ meaning ‘try a little’. A hokey-pokey man would keep his ice cream cold with ice from Norway and salt from Cheshire, a good start when it came to food hygiene.
When Hannah paid her penny, he would take a glass from his stall, dip a wooden paddle into the ice cream container and take out a lump which he would press into the top of the glass, a small glass with a wide base and conical opening, designed to give the optical illusion of there being more ice-cream inside than there actually was.
Hannah would lick the ice-cream from the glass and hand it back. The hokey pokey man would wipe it with a grubby cloth and put it back on the stall for the next person without washing it, thus encouraging the spread of germs between complete strangers.
To be fair, the Victorians didn’t understand the role of germs and hygiene at this time, and it wouldn’t have occurred to Hannah that by treating herself to a penny lick, she was putting herself at risk of catching the very same disease that her patients were suffering from on the wards of the infirmary.
Margate’s Royal Sea Bathing Infirmary had been set up to treat cases of scrofula, a form of tuberculosis, in which the patient would develop fevers and swellings of the glands in the neck. It was thought to be a hereditary disease because tuberculosis would often strike down whole families, the Bronte siblings being just one example. Consumption was another form of tuberculosis, affecting the lungs and causing the patient to cough up blood and waste away. Both scrofula and consumption were generally fatal in Victorian times, there being no treatment apart from surgery, but some cases were improved by the sunshine, fresh air and sea bathing treatments recommended by the doctors at the infirmary.
It wasn’t until 1882 that the German bacteriologist, Heinrich Robert Koch identified the infectious agent, the tubercle bacillus. It took time for the medical establishment to accept that tuberculosis was spread from person to person through microscopic droplets released into the air by coughing and spitting, or through direct contact with an infected person’s saliva. It took even longer before effective drugs were developed to treat it.
Hannah’s role as a nurse would include making sure her patients spent as much time as possible outside, rain or shine, that they bathed daily in seawater, and ate a plentiful diet. She would have been involved in cleaning the ward, changing dressings and monitoring her patients after surgery. Although the surgeons would have used carbolic acid, surgical wounds would usually become infected or colonised by maggots, resulting in a poor outcome for the patient.
It wasn’t only tuberculosis that could be spread by the penny lick. In 1879, a medical report blamed an outbreak of cholera on dirty glassware and the penny lick was eventually banned and replaced by edible cones, an innovation I’m very thankful for today!
I hope you enjoyed reading Hannah’s story and come to admire the dedicated staff of the infirmary as much as I did.
If you enjoyed The Seaside Angel and you’re looking for a new book to read, why not try my novel A Thimbleful of Hope?
Turn the page to read an extract…
Dover, 1864
Dusk was creeping in when they arrived outside the venue in Snargate Street which was chock-a-block with carriages: cabriolets, britzkas and even a clarence. Pa, who was wearing his black dress coat and trousers, waistcoat and patent leather boots, helped Ottilie and Mama down from the cab.
‘You look beautiful, my dear daughter,’ he said, his eyes filling with pride as he offered Violet his arm.
‘And you look very smart,’ she said, reserving judgement on his mutton chop side whiskers and moustache, the style he’d adopted from Prince Albert.
He steered her around a steaming pile of horse manure that the street-sweeper hadn’t yet had a chance to clear up, and returned to his wife’s side.
Ottilie took Violet’s hand, and they stepped through the double doors of the theatre into a grand hall lit up by chandeliers, their cut-glass teardrops seeming to drip with opulence.
‘Are you wearing the devil’s trickery on your faces?’ Mama said, catching up with them. ‘Violet, you have freckles – what have I said about wearing your bonnets when out in the sun?’
‘We never leave the house without them,’ Violet said, giving her sister a warning glance on their way to the ladies’ dressing room. It was the truth – they just didn’t always have them on their heads.
Pa was waiting for them in the reception area.
‘How long does it take you ladies to get ready?’ he chuckled. ‘I have your ball cards and look, both of you have your cards marked for the first three dances.’
Violet’s heart leapt. Someone had requested her company, but who was it?
Pa handed her her card. The first dance was taken by Mr Brooke, and she was to dance the second quadrille with Mr John Chittenden, and the third with Uncle Edward. She didn’t like the idea of dancing with Uncle Edward – he was old and married, and occasionally over-affectionate in his attentions towards her.
‘There are other young men eager to dance,’ Pa said as Mr Noble entered the room and acknowledged Mr Rayfield with a nod of his head. His cousin followed behind him.
‘Gentlemen, congratulations on your success – your winning the challenge cup is the talk of the town. Allow me to introduce you to my daughters, Miss Rayfield and Miss Violet Rayfield.’ He turned to them. ‘Mr Noble is the son of the master of the Dover Belle and is apprenticed at the Packet Yard, while Mr Lane is in the building trade,’ Pa went on, making it clear that Violet and Ottilie were not to consider them as potential suitors.
The young
men bowed and Mr Noble flushed as he caught Violet’s eye, but to her disappointment, they didn’t have a chance to mark their cards because Pa quickly dismissed them, having caught sight of the friends they were meeting for dinner. ‘Ah, here they are.’ He nodded towards a bust of the Iron Duke, alongside which stood the Cltittendens, including Uncle Edward with his dangling side whiskers, salt and pepper beard and drooping moustache that might have looked well on a young dandy, but made a man of his mature years look like a bearer at a funeral. ‘Come with me, ladies.’
Mama took Pa’s arm, and Violet took Ottilie’s and they walked across to greet Mr and Mrs Cltittenden, and their son John, a handsome, yet reserved young man a couple of years older than Ottilie.
‘What a wonderful evening this is turning out to be. It’s your first ever ball, Violet, is it not?’ Uncle Edward said.
‘Yes, and it’s a pleasure to be here,’ Violet said stiffly.
‘I told your father that you wouldn’t want to dance with me, but he insisted that I mark your card even before he’d introduced us.’
‘Well, we don’t want any wallflowers,’ Pa said affably.
‘Mr Rayfield!’ A man – not a gentleman, Violet surmised – pushed into their circle. ‘I am looking forward to joining you and the rest of your party for dinner.’
Violet noticed how Mama rolled her eyes in Mrs Chittenden’s direction and how Mrs Chittenden smiled ruefully. She was about the same age as Mrs Rayfield, but she cut a far less elegant figure in a deep blue dress with gold stripes which made her look shorter than she really was.
‘This is Mr Brooke,’ Pa said, shaking his hand. ‘Allow me to introduce you to our party. Mr and Mrs Chittenden and their son, John.’
Mr Brooke offered a bow.
‘Good evening, sir,’ John said. He looked sophisticated in an immaculate black dancing coat and trousers cut from the finest cloth, but Violet couldn’t help remembering him as a naughty, smelly little boy who picked up slugs and snails from the park.
