Mayfair Rebel

by Mayfair Rebel (retail) (epub)

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  Lord and Lady Clarence came back to England in the early spring. William had been given a new posting, to a healthier area, and would be able to be more with his wife, so her mother felt it was time to return. But Lady Clarence’s plans for taking her step-daughter more into Society in the coming Season were thwarted by Matron, who transferred May to nights on Elizabeth Ward. Apart from hurried trips to the West End for a second breakfast before going to bed May saw little of her parents, and less of the Season. Ellen was on nights as well, and May often invited her out to breakfast, and was surprised at how much more tolerant Lady Clarence was of Ellen’s directness of speech than she ever had been of her own daughters. India seemed to have mellowed her a little.

  May had been dreading the recurrence of nights, but Ellen being off duty at the same time helped, and May made a resolution to visit the Bath Club twice a week, to encourage sleep in the daytime. The main difference, however, was in the ward. Isaiah had been hard work and unrelentingly gloomy; Elizabeth was sometimes heart-breaking, but never ever gloomy. May became involved with her small patients. She laughed with the lively ones, cuddled the unhappy and played with the restless. Her deep sense of satisfaction was intensified by the fact that she was left in virtual charge at night, since her nominal superior was kept busy on the adjoining Obadaiah Ward.

  Nevertheless, there was a fly in the ointment: House Surgeon O’Halloran. From their very first evening at the hospital, when Matron had implied that association with the medical staff was a crime on a par with the wilful neglect of patients, May had behaved towards the doctors with a circumspection which would have gladdened the heart of Lady Clarence. Not, she had to admit to herself, that this had been difficult, since the rules of conduct for nurses were drawn up with this express end in view. On days, only Sisters, Staff Nurses and Head Nurses ever spoke to the doctors and medical students, and Head Nurses only on sufferance. As Minnie Emms frequently pointed out, by the time you were senior enough to even pass the time of day, you were past it anyway. May had had looks cast in her direction, but frigid non-recognition had been adequate to repel approaches. But nights were rather different – not down in the septic ward, for there was only minimal medical supervision there at night since the best hope for the patients lay in good nursing care and the only regular male visitors there were the porters with the mortuary trolley. On Elizabeth, however, May found a rather different situation. It was accepted unofficially that house surgeons and physicians called out during the night should be fortified with cocoa and a sandwich in a convenient ward kitchen. Night Sister did not approve, but she and her assistants did not go out of their way to detect lurking males behind the door, providing that the ward probationer was clearly on the ward, being chaperoned by her patients. Certain wards were more popular ports of call than others, and Elizabeth was one such. The babies ensured the availability of milk in the kitchen, while the presence of the children made for a more homely, domestic atmosphere, with the firelight glinting through the tall mesh guard and the pleasant gurgles of toddlers asleep.

  The House Physician responsible for Elizabeth was a quiet, soft-spoken Scot. Devoted to the study of medicine and engrossed in his job he held long, whispered discussions with May on the progress of each child, and May looked forward to his visits and questioned him eagerly. He, in his turn, was pleased by her interest, and once told her she should have trained as a doctor – ‘There are a guid few women students at Edinburgh, ye ken.’

  May had swelled with pride, and held her chin very high for the next couple of hours, until young Elsie woke up screaming, and after being sick all down May’s apron refused to go back to sleep until May had nursed her for an hour, as she sat by the fire sewing tiny shrouds with her free hand. Robert MacDougall was a joy to work with, and May felt that his sweet-faced fiancée, whose photograph she was privileged to view one night, would have a devoted husband one day – if he could only spare her some time from his patients.

  No, the drawback was Jack O’Halloran. From what the theatre nurses told her he was a swift and competent surgeon, but the sight of his handsome face and knowing smile as he walked onto the ward at night sent May’s heart down to the very tips of her soft-soled leather shoes. O’Halloran was a big, goodlooking man, and he knew it, and expected others to know it to, especially any young nurse who caught his roving eye. It was clear that May had caught his eye, as he set out to lay siege to her.

  There was something attractive about his very confidence in his own charm, and at first May laughed with him, and half-unwillingly responded to his jokes, delivered in a soft brogue and with immaculate timing. But then she saw the predatory look in his eye, and began to feel uneasy when alone with him in the kitchen, and turned the gas up high to hurry the milk for his cocoa. When she overdid it, and the milk boiled over, he insisted on helping her clean up the mess and trapped her against the heavy cast iron stove, so that she had to thrust him aside. But whereas the men she had known would have apologised, and retreated abashed, O’Halloran seemed to derive pleasure from her anger. He moved towards her with a determined glint in his eye so that May had to leap to the door and run to the ward, where she prodded little Albert Ferris awake. His howls gave her an excuse to refuse to boil up a second panful of milk. She felt guilty about Albert, but he was almost well, and had disturbed her often enough on previous nights, so she considered he owed her his protection now.

  For the next few nights May felt like a mouse with a large cat sitting outside its hole, but she did manage to avoid being alone with Jack O’Halloran. Then, inevitably, he arrived as she was making a hot drink for a fractious child, just after the pro she shared with Obadaiah had left. O’Halloran advanced with a grin on his face. May was brisk.

  ‘I have to attend to a patient.’ She began to edge around the room, but he had positioned himself near the door, and cut off her escape.

  His grin broadened. ‘Ah, sure now, you can spare me a minute, a pretty girl like you!’ He lunged in her direction.

  May threw the mug of milk straight at him and dodged behind the table. He dashed the milk from his face, but her action seemed to have excited rather than angered him.

  Murmuring, ‘I like a girl with spirit,’ he began to advance purposefully again. May wanted to slap his face, hard, but something in his expression made her hesitate. Harry Cussons had been stopped in his tracks by a slap, but Harry, for all his faults, was a gentleman. It was clear that O’Halloran was not, and he was bigger and stronger than her. As these thoughts were passing through her mind May continued to sidestep round the room, keeping the table between her and her assailant. The table! O’Halloran was at the other side, with his back to the stove. May called, ‘Careful, that gas is alight!’ and as he turned, momentarily distracted, she gripped the edge of the table and sent the whole heavy piece of furniture hurtling towards him. There was a loud thud followed by a volley of Irish curses, but May was through the door – and cannoning straight into an astounded Night Sister! May jumped back, pulled her cap straight and waited, speechless.

  ‘Whatever is going on in this kitchen?’

  May had no intention of telling her. She gulped, then managed a reply.

  ‘Dr O’Halloran fell against the table, Sister.’

  Night Sister stared at the heavy table, pinning the furious O’Halloran to the stove, then at May, hot and panting. She turned to the house surgeon.

  ‘Dr O’Halloran, your presence is required on Simeon Ward, please go there at once. I trust you have sustained no permanent damage?’

  O’Halloran, red-faced now, extricated himself, muttered, ‘No, thank you, Sister,’ and limped out of the kitchen without even a glance in May’s direction.

  May waited for the wrath to descend on her hapless shoulders.

  ‘Really, Nurse, how careless of you – you might have broken Dr O’Halloran’s leg! We’re desperately short of house surgeons already, with Dr Simpson off sick.’

  May bent her head. ‘I’m sorry
, Sister.’

  ‘Why on earth did you have to throw the table at him? You’re far too headstrong, Nurse Winton, I’ve noticed it before. A good clout with the large saucepan would have been quite adequate. If that table is damaged Matron will be annoyed, very annoyed.’

  She marched into the ward, and May meekly followed.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  May finished her spell on night duty at the beginning of July. She spent her three days off with her parents, in Town, but since she was making up her arrears of sleep there was only time for one social occasion: a small family dinner party on the day before her return to St Katharine’s. The party was in honour of Louise Dumer. Bertie had finally brought himself to the sticking point and proposed and Louise’s mother had accepted him with indecent haste. As Archie put it, a future Marquis in the hand was worth any number of Dukes in the bush. Besides, Duke’s heirs were in short supply that Season.

  Mrs Dumer looked radiant, Louise rather dazed. May seized a few moments alone with her after dinner, and after wishing her well, murmured reassuringly that Bertie would be a very easygoing husband. Louise brightened slightly and agreed. Then she glanced round, lowered her voice and spoke confidentially.

  ‘There was this awful French Comte. Mamma said he was of a very old family,’ she shuddered. ‘He used to look at me as if he despised me, and there were rumours – boys, you know.’ May didn’t know and couldn’t imagine, but she tried to look comprehending. ‘He was quite broke, so I heard, and he approached Mamma… I was so relieved when Bertie proposed, you can’t imagine, May. Mamma said I’d had quite long enough, and if I didn’t bring it off this Season I’d just got to take the Comte. She’s so determined, and it is her money. Oh, I am grateful to Bertie!’

  When May congratulated her cousin later, he shrugged.

  ‘Louise is a decent sort, you know. She won’t interfere with a chap too much, too relieved to get away from that awful mother of hers. We can have central heating at Stemhalton now; it was so cold last winter, but Father wouldn’t hear of it, spends all the money on the estate. We’re getting married next month, as soon as the lawyers have done their stuff – no point hanging about, is there?’

  May agreed that there was not. She felt saddened by the exchanges – yet were Bertie’s and Louise’s chances of happiness any worse than most? At least neither was under any illusions about the other’s motives.

  The next day May reported for duty in the Receiving Room. The enormous hall, with its high arched roof, seemed very alien after the warm cosiness of Elizabeth Ward, and it was odd to deal with patients in their outdoor clothes. Men and women were huddled on the hard wooden benches all day, waiting their turn. The endless procession of strange faces in and out of the treatment rooms was confusing and difficult to cope with after the wards, and it was sometimes hard for May to remember that she was dealing with individual human beings, rather than just numbers. But after a week or so a pattern began to emerge for her, and she tried to recognise, if not people, at least emotions, and so be able to respond.

  Between the regular bouts of black eyes, crushed fingers and swallowed farthings there were the sudden, dramatic entrances of serious accidents. Sometimes the clattering hooves of a hard-driven ambulance gave warning, or a panting stevedore announced the imminent appearance of the creaking wheeled stretcher from the docks; but when the accident was nearby then shouting would be heard in the street, and May, sent to the doorway, would see the small crowd with the loaded shutter in their midst, the overhanging parts of the victim’s anatomy supported by those around while an escort of excited boys raced ahead or climbed railings to get a glimpse of the horrible spectacle. It was May’s job to separate the shutter bearers from the hangers-on and take them into an empty dressing room, where the full extent of the damage could be revealed. As soon as the reddened ends of bones poking through torn trousers appeared, or Sister uncovered the greasy, mangled flesh of an arm caught in a machine, then the medical students and nurses sprang into action, while a hovering policeman waited for the full story of what had happened.

  On other days distraught mothers rushed in clutching scalded babies, whose skin came off as their wounds were dressed. Or two burly policemen would bring in a drunk who had fallen and laid his scalp open, and who now slumped between them, head dangling and legs dragging along the pavement, often laughing or singing, still impervious to pain.

  The nurses had to think quickly and act fast; the rigid daily routine of the wards had no place here. At first May was exhausted when she came off-duty at the end of the day, but the constant variety began to exert its own fascination over her, and she was quite sorry when her time there came to an end in mid-September. Still, her holiday was due, and the thought of leaving dirty, stifling London for two full weeks was very attractive.

  She spent the holiday period quietly at Allingham, feeling as though a lifetime had passed since she had been at her home before, rather than a mere two years. May and her step-mother had to share the rather clumsy services of one of the housemaids, since Lady Clarence had allowed Fenton time off to look after the children of her sister during the latter’s confinement, but May found that she scarcely knew how to make use of a maid these days.

  In the second week of her holiday May decided to make the journey to see Bella, now living with her young husband on an estate some twenty miles away. When her former maid opened the door May was shocked at her appearance. Bella’s once pretty face was drawn and haggard, and her body already swollen with her second pregnancy.

  ‘Miss May – how nice to see you!’ Then her face fell. ‘But I’m all at sixes and sevens – and the baby just won’t stop crying.’ May, seeing her lips quivering and her eyes filling, acted quickly. She took Bella’s elbow, steered her inside, sat her down in a chair and, improvising a footstool, lifted the girl’s feet onto it, noticing the swollen ankles as she did so.

  ‘You should be resting, Bella. Stay there, I’ll see to the baby and make us both a cup of tea.’

  It was like being back on Elizabeth Ward as she picked up the squalling infant, changed and fed him and gently rubbed his painful gums until he hiccupped into silence with a look of surprise on his damp red face. Dirty dishes were piled in the stone sink in the scullery, and May dealt with them while waiting for the tea to draw. She laid the tray with a plate of the delicate almond biscuits sent by the Allingham cook and carried it through into the kitchen.

  ‘You must eat something, Bella, your face is far too thin. You’ll need to keep your strength up.’

  Bella looked almost stunned, but she ate and drank obediently while May attended to the range. Then the baby began to make ominous noises so May lifted him out again and nursed him into contentment while she sipped her own tea. A little of Bella’s colour returned as she drank, and she began to tell May about her husband, and her bossy mother-in-law who lived in the village, becoming more like her old self. Then she suddenly broke off, and exclaimed:

  ‘Miss May, you have changed – you’ve changed so much!’

  May smiled. ‘Well, I’m afraid living in London does dull the complexion.’

  Bella shook her head. ‘No, Miss May, you look as well as ever, that’s not what I meant. When I maided you, you wouldn’t have known one end of a baby from the other, leave alone what to do with it – or make tea, or wash up, or anything.’

  May had to laugh at Bella’s astonishment. ‘Matron would soon give me my marching orders if I hadn’t learnt something in two years. Anyway, I never complain about being bored, these days.’

  May sent the Coachmen down to the village pub for their lunch and stayed the rest of the day. She enjoyed her gossip with Bella, who shed tears for Emily’s loss, and hugged her own son tightly as she did so. Even Harry Cussons came up for discussion, and it was clear that Bella had known all about his liaison with Della Hindlesham. It had been common gossip in the Servants’ Hall, where feelings had run high on Lord Hindlesham’s behalf. ‘That kind of thing is common enough among t
he gentry, we all know that, but it’s usually six of one and half a dozen of the other; but her husband, he wasn’t like that – so it didn’t seem fair, somehow.’ But May suspected the real reason for the partisanship was that George Hindlesham was a considerate and generous employer, while Della had been arrogant and thoughtless, except when restrained by her husband.

  Bella continued, ‘I’m glad you didn’t marry that Mr Cussons, Miss May. We knew he had an eye for you, but Lady Hindlesham wasn’t the only one, not by a long chalk. It serves him right, it really does.’

  All in all, May felt she had learnt more about the goings-on in Society that day than she had ever known when she was involved herself. She wished Bella had told her more at the time – but young ladies had to be blinkered, especially when they were the daughters of Lady Clarence Winton.

  Before she left Bella, May extracted a promise that she would sink her pride and call upon her mother-in-law for help. ‘You must look after yourself, or the new baby will suffer.’ When it became clear that Bella’s worries extended beyond the next child May, blushing but determined, imparted Sister Dorcas’ advice on sponges and vinegar, and felt her embarrassment well worth it when she saw the dawning relief in Bella’s eyes.

  The following day Lady Clarence was stricken with one of her sick headaches, and May found her hot and uncomfortable under the awkward ministrations of the young housemaid. Again May mentally reached for her cap and apron, and drew the curtains, remade the bed, produced cold compresses and administered medicines, until her step-mother relaxed against the pillows and fell asleep. Lady Clarence had recovered by the evening, but there was a subtle change in her manner towards May; May recognised it for what it was, respect.

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