by Kate Eastham
‘You know when you found me in the pub?’
Ada nodded.
‘Well, that woman playing the piano in there, that was Stella.’
Ada held her hand up. ‘Don’t tell me any more about that woman just yet.’
‘But she’s a good—’
‘Not yet,’ said Ada. ‘What’s the other thing?’
‘The other thing is … well, on that voyage to Australia I got to know our father, Francis, and … well, he wasn’t the man that I thought he would be.’
Ada looked at Frank, his head down and his shoulders slumped. She put a hand on his arm and he looked at her and then he said, ‘And I never saw him again after he went ashore, and I was glad that he stayed there, that he didn’t come back to Liverpool.’
Ada hooked her arm in his. ‘I’m sorry, Frank,’ she said gently. ‘I’m so sorry that you didn’t find what you were looking for.’
Frank sighed heavily and didn’t seem to want to say anything else.
‘But I’m back in Liverpool now,’ said Ada gently, ‘and you and me, we’ll soon get ourselves sorted out.’
Frank looked up at her again then.
‘You’ll soon find a job on the docks, not unloading ships this time, a better job, and I’ve already got a letter for work as a nurse at the Liverpool Royal Infirmary.’
‘You have?’ said Frank, starting to smile. ‘I always knew you were clever, Ada. I never would have told you, not when we were young, but I always knew.’
‘We’ll be all right, us two,’ said Ada, tightening her hold on Frank’s arm. ‘We’ll be all right. We’re Padraic Houston’s grandchildren, that’s who we are.’
A few days later Ada was tapping on the polished wood door of the superintendent’s office at the Liverpool Royal Infirmary, waiting to be called in. She had only been standing there for a few moments when the door was opened by the woman herself.
‘Come in,’ said the superintendent. ‘You must be Ada Houston. I’ve been expecting you. Sit down, sit down.’
Ada sat herself down on an upholstered chair and the superintendent went around the other side of the desk and leant forward, smiling at Ada.
‘I had a lovely letter about you from Sister Mary Roberts,’ she said. ‘You come very highly recommended and I believe you have a letter from Miss Nightingale as well.’
‘I do, yes,’ said Ada, somewhat taken aback by the welcome she was receiving. She had been expecting a grilling from a stony-faced woman.
‘Well,’ said the woman, ‘given all of your experience out in the Crimea, working with a Nightingale Nurse like Mary Roberts – and with Mrs Seacole too, I believe – after all that experience, there isn’t much we need to say here except we can definitely offer you a position.’
Ada’s mouth dropped open.
‘There is a great deal to do at the Infirmary and we want to move with the times here. We need to have Nightingale Nurses like you on the wards ensuring that our patients are cared for to the right standard. There is so much that needs to be done, but I think with your experience and the grit and determination you have shown out in the Crimea, you are ideally placed to do that work.’
‘Thank you,’ breathed Ada. ‘Thank you so much.’ She was incapable of saying more.
‘So I can offer you a position straight away.’
Ada was still unable to speak. She had expected that the superintendent might be interested in her experience but thought that she would have to volunteer on the wards first and show what she could do. But she had been offered a position straight away!
‘So,’ said the superintendent, standing up from her chair and smiling even more, ‘Nurse Ada Houston, may I welcome you to Liverpool Royal Infirmary?’
When Ada was out of the hospital and on her way back to Mary’s she finally let herself smile – a smile that made her face ache. She still couldn’t believe it: she had been offered a post at the Liverpool Royal! She couldn’t wait to get back to tell Frank.
And then, immediately, the sadness hit her in the pit of the stomach. Because she realized that the person she really wanted to tell, above all others, was dead. He was dead and gone. Why did she keep having to remind herself that he wasn’t there? It had been well over a year since Grandfather had died, but these thoughts still came to her. Would they always come, forever?
Ada stood for a few moments with her head bowed, trying to steady herself. She took a few deep breaths, trying to push the thoughts away, but they were too strong. She could see his face and he was smiling. She tried to clear her head but he was still there. She couldn’t shift him; she probably never would. She was comforted by that, knowing that he was there with her, but sometimes it did make her feel a bit jangled, having him in her head, always smiling and trying to give her advice, for goodness’ sake … And then she began to see the funny side of it and she started to smile. Of course he was in her head, because she knew that he would have been proud of her. And he wouldn’t have wanted her to feel sad. He would have said something like, ‘Well, Ada, it won’t be plain sailing, you’ll have to work hard and there’ll be times when you’ll just want to come home … but you can do it, Ada, you can do it. You show ’em.’
‘I will,’ she said to herself softly. ‘I will, Grandfather.’
Then she lifted her head and started to walk steadily towards the house where she knew that Mary would be waiting with the baby and Frank would be lounging in a chair and even Mary’s husband might be pleased for her. As she walked she started to think more about the job and what she might be facing. No, it wouldn’t be easy, and it would be far different from the work at the hospital in Balaklava. But you know what, Ada? she thought. You just remember what the women in the street used to say when things were tough – and they often were very tough. They used to say, ‘Where there’s a will there’s a way.’ Ada smiled as she heard Mrs Regan’s voice in her head: ‘Come on now, Ada, where there’s a will there’s a way … Where there’s a will there’s a way.’ Repeating this in her head like a song, Ada walked back from the Infirmary with her head held high.
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, thanks to my family for their unwavering support and enthusiasm.
Thanks also to my agent, Judith Murdoch, and my editors, Eve Hall, Clare Bowron and Rebecca Hilsdon, and thank you to Eugenie Todd for the copy-edit.
Finally, thanks to the patients and staff I have worked with over many years of nursing, especially my team at St. Catherine’s Hospice.
This book has grown out of a lifetime of work that has been very rewarding. And for that I am grateful.
Prologue
‘… plans for a School and Home for Nurses in Liverpool … appeared to me so well considered & laid out – they appeared to me so much needed, not only in Liverpool but in all the earth.’
Florence Nightingale
Liverpool, 1 May 1863
Ada Houston stood shivering in her light-grey uniform and starched cap. She hadn’t thought to wear a shawl, though she should have known better. She’d lived in this city her whole life and she was aware how quickly the weather could change. Even though it was late spring there was still a cold breeze off the river and she could feel it seeping into her bones. Miss Mary Merry-weather had been wiser, however. She was wearing a bonnet and a thick cloak, and her sister had donned the same, plus a pair of leather gloves. The ward Sisters, too, were all wrapped up warm in their shawls. Only Ada was left shivering. It was her own fault: she’d been trying to get through the mound of paperwork that had been left on her desk and she’d rushed out, afraid of being late. Ada was newly appointed to the role of assistant superintendent and hadn’t quite got the measure of it yet. But she soon would; she would have to.
She looked over to the doctors standing in line to her right in front of the steps leading up to the main entrance of the Nurses’ Home and Training School, the new building that was just about to be officially opened by Mr William Rathbone, patron of the city and the hospital. Next to the doctors, the Mayor of
Liverpool stood to attention as Mr Rathbone stepped forward to say a few words. As he opened his mouth to speak the wind gusted more strongly and the bunting that had been hastily draped above the door came untied at one end and started to flap around him. The man was not deterred by it one bit and he continued with his speech.
Ada was trying not to look too carefully at the people that had gathered before them, a fair crowd standing in front of the building and spreading out on to the street. She knew that her best friend, Mary, was there – she had exchanged a smile with her – and she had also seen her brother, Frank, his eyes shining with pride. But then she’d caught sight of another person, someone that she had only ever seen once or twice but never spoken to, and with whom she definitely did not want to make eye contact. It was the woman who’d turned out to be her half-sister, Stella, standing there as brazen as you like with a bright-yellow ribbon in her hair, her hands on her hips and a shawl loosely wrapped around her shoulders covering a low-cut gown.
It was not that Ada had any objection to Stella’s line of work, she simply had no interest in getting to know someone who had been part of her father’s other family. She had never met her father, Francis, and she vowed that she never would. All she knew was that he had never shown any care for her or Frank, even after their mother died giving birth to her. Not until her brother was a grown man himself, and willing to be led astray, did his father make any contact with him and that had turned out to be a disaster. Ada wanted nothing to do with Francis or his wife, Marie, and although Frank kept telling her that Stella just wanted to be friends she wanted nothing to do with her either.
Mr Rathbone continued to speak as the bunting lashed around him. He was expressing a debt of gratitude to Florence Nightingale for her abundant advice with regard to the design and the dimensions of the building, even, apparently down to the floor tiles, the special cement, the number of windows and the type of stove. There was no denying that the woman was a genius and it was sad that her health had been so poor since she’d returned from the Crimea that it was out of the question for her to travel to Liverpool for the opening. Ada would never forget the two times – first in Scutari and then at the hospital in Balaklava – that she had met Miss Nightingale. The intensity of her gaze and the intelligence of the woman had left a lasting impression. Alongside Mary Seacole, Miss Nightingale had been Ada’s inspiration for continuing her own work after the Crimean War ended. She still found it hard to believe that it was almost eight years since she had started nursing, having set out alone from Liverpool, a young woman searching for her brother. That same young woman who was now standing here amongst the great and the good of the city, cold and shivering, at the opening of a new building.
The wind was now billowing the skirts of the nurses and trying to remove Mr Rathbone’s hat as he continued to thank Mr Horner, the architect of the building, for his fine work in making Miss Nightingale’s ideas a reality. Ada could smell the varnish that was barely dry on the solid front door and she knew that she was already in love with the building: the galleried landings, the stone stairs that led up to two floors, and the skylight in the roof. It was light and airy in there, somewhere to find inspiration and also respite from the busy work of the hospital. She knew already that generations of nurses would live and learn and play out their own dramas within those walls.
Ada was really shivering now and fighting against the wind to keep her starched cap on her head but she continued to stand resolute with the rest of the nurses. She did hope, however, that Mr Rathbone would bring his speech to a close soon. Even Miss Mary Merry-weather, in her thick cloak, was beginning to look cold, and the sky had just turned slate grey. There would be rain soon, a heavy downpour by the look of it.
Just as Ada thought it, the first big spots of rain fell. Mr Rathbone speeded up a bit and then he was thanking the people of Liverpool for attending the opening, but just as he was suggesting that the staff and patrons reconvene inside the building, the heavens opened and rain came at them almost horizontally. The dignitaries and the doctors ran up the stone steps and into the building with their jackets flapping around them, closely followed by the nurses holding on to their starched caps with one hand and trying to restrain their billowing skirts with the other. Who knew what had happened to the people outside, including Ada’s family? She could only hope they would quickly find shelter.
Once inside the building Ada felt a moment of pure giddiness overtake her as she stood dripping wet over Miss Nightingale’s Minton floor tiles with the rest of the group. She had to work hard to stop herself from laughing out loud when she saw Mr Rathbone and the Mayor drying their bewhiskered faces with large handkerchiefs, and Miss Elizabeth Merryweather seemed completely unaware that she had a large dewdrop at the end of her nose. In the end, just to get back some control, Ada had to suggest that she give a guided tour of the school to anyone who hadn’t already seen the wonders of the building. She was very proud indeed to show people around and to be able to tell them that it was the second Nightingale school to be built in the whole of the land. The first was, of course, at St Thomas’s in London, which had been sponsored by the Nightingale Fund. This new building, planned so meticulously and built with such care, had been funded by William Rathbone and other Liverpool patrons and it belonged to their city. It was the Royal Infirmary’s own Nurses’ Home and Training School.
THE BEGINNING
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PENGUIN BOOKS
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First published in Great Britain by Michael Joseph 2018
Copyright © Kate Eastham, 2018
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Cover photos © Colin Thomas, © Getty and © Shutterstock
ISBN: 978-1-405-93590-6