by Marie Joseph
But even Nurse Tomkin, trained not to show her feelings, drew in a sharp breath of dismay when she saw her patient propped up on the pillows, eyes glazed, mouth dry and cracked, rasping from the tortured throat.
‘How far gone is she?’ The short-sighted eyes took in Libby’s swollen stomach, rising like half a barrel beneath the sheets. ‘Near her time?’
‘First week in October.’ Harry stood by the bed, an unprofessional anguish creasing his face into lines. ‘I didn’t want to have her moved to the isolation hospital. I want her nursed here, at home.’ He laid his hand on his wife’s burning forehead, then bent his head closer as Libby muttered feverishly in a high garbled voice, her eyes filled with terror as if she were living out some unbearable nightmare. ‘I couldn’t bear to see her taken away.’
‘Quite right, doctor.’ Nurse Tomkin glanced round the room with approval. ‘It’s understood that there’s no one to come in here but me and you?’
Harry nodded. ‘Anything you want – anything . . .’ He backed towards the door. ‘Just ask.’ He tried to smile. ‘Since this epidemic began they are sleeping two to a bed in the hospital.’
‘You go down to your surgery.’ Nurse Tomkin rolled up her sleeves, baring arms as red and mottled as if she had sat in a hot bath for far too long. ‘What I would like is a camp bed, or even a sofa over there by the wall.’ She dismissed a mahogany tallboy with a wave of her hand. ‘That can go out for a start. I would like to sleep in here. There’s no call for a night nurse, though that was mentioned.’ She bent down and rolled up a rug laid by the side of the bed. ‘I’ll put what I don’t want out on the landing, then I’ll want a tray with my own things. Own cup, own knife and fork. You have help in the kitchen?’
Well, that was a daft question, she muttered to herself as the doctor left the room at last. Of course they would have help in a house like this. She stared round the bedroom at the highly polished furniture, the silver hair brush on the dressing table, the dark green satin eiderdown and the pillows edged with hand-crotcheted lace. Still muttering, she stood with her neat head cocked to one side, mentally making a list of the things she needed. Those china ornaments off the mantlepiece could go, and all that clutter on the dressing table. This room would be as near to a hospital ward as she could get it, or her name wasn’t Nellie Tomkin.
She was picking up a silver-framed photograph when surprise made her hold still for a moment. ‘Now what?’ she asked herself out loud. ‘What was a photograph of old Mrs Batt’s grandson doing here in this room?’
She stared down at the laughing face of a fair-haired boy, squinting into the camera as if the light was too much for him. Well, well . . . She glanced over to the girl in the bed. She had been told that her patient was one of the Peel twins, and yes, the Peel house was where Sarah Batt worked for a Mrs Peel whose husband had been drowned last year.
Nurse Tomkin’s small mouth pursed itself up, as if anticipating a kiss. No wonder Sarah Batt was so devoted to the Peel family when the married daughter kept a photograph of Sarah’s illegitimate son Patrick on her dressing table. She sniffed. The Peels must be an unusually broad-minded family.
Carrying a side table out on to the landing, Nurse Tomkin followed it by the photographs, and a lot of what she called unnecessary clutter. There would be no harbouring of dust whilst she was in charge or she would know the reason why. Then, mentally armed with a list of what she considered was necessary, she went downstairs to worry the life out of the cook in the kitchen.
On the way back upstairs she stopped on the landing long enough to pick up the photograph again. Holding it close to her near-sighted eyes she stroked her chin thoughtfully, her mind ticking over as she worked out dates.
For two days Libby hovered between life and death. Sponged down with vinegar and water, fed from a feeding cup filled with boiled water and sugar, her every breath monitored by the stalwart little figure in the dark blue dress and white starched apron, Libby rambled, tossed, protested feverishly. Now and again she opened her eyes to see a pinched dedicated face leaning over her. At times she suffered the indignity of an ear pressed to her bare stomach, and when at last the fever broke and the sweat poured down her sides, she felt the soothing touch of a sponge washing her all over her hot sticky body. She felt strong arms lifting her against high-piled pillows, and when she protested feebly a voice cajoled her into submission. If she moaned at night, the wrinkled face was there, hands lifting her head to spoon sweetened water into her mouth. If she wanted to pass water, the bedpan, warmed to comfort, was slipped underneath her bottom and left there for just long enough and not a minute longer.
Whilst Libby was sick Nurse Tomkin loved her with a fierceness that would have put the most devoted of mothers to shame. It was as simple as that. For a long time now all Nellie Tomkin’s compassion had been lavished on the ailing, the dying, only to be withdrawn when they recovered. And recover they usually did under her round-the-clock ministrations. For the healthy, Nellie Tomkin had very little time. Her acid tongue and biting sarcasm, nurtured on a life embittered by disappointments, meant that in the village where she lived alone in a tiny cottage she was thought by some to be a witch.
So when at the end of September she saw Sarah Batt walking down the lane after attending Mass in the old priory, she planted herself in front of her with her broad feet in their usual ten-to-two position.
‘This your weekend off?’ She stared at Sarah’s red hair, peeping untidily from the ugly cloche hat pulled low down over the narrow forehead. It was said that Sarah Batt had never looked at a man since her downfall of roughly nine years ago, but with her country-fresh complexion and her round blue eyes she was a comely enough lass. This alone was enough to sharpen Nellie’s tongue. ‘It’s a small world, wouldn’t you say, Sarah?’
‘Aye.’ The only way Sarah could have walked on was to have pushed the determined little figure aside, but her eyes narrowed nervously as she waited for what was to come next. Gossipy Nurse Tomkin never so much as passed the time of day with the folks of the village unless she had something unpleasant to impart. Sarah waited with a premonition of dread seeping through her.
‘I’ve been nursing somebody you know very well.’ The eyes glittered behind their thick lenses. ‘One of the Peel twins. The married one, Miss Libby, married to Dr Brandwood.’
Sarah’s expression was now the resigned stonelike passivity of someone waiting for the axe to fall. ‘Oh, yes?’
‘She’s better now, but whether she’ll survive her confinement is another question altogether. It’s a good job she was far on in her pregnancy because they are coming round to thinking that scarlet fever contracted early on can damage the unborn child. They are sending for me again when she’s due. Dr Brandwood was mighty pleased with me. I thought for a while I was going to have two patients to nurse. He’s besotted with that wife of his.’ The uneven teeth showed in the semblance of a smile. ‘But she’ll survive, that lass. Plenty of spunk there. I only had to turn my back during that last week and she was out of bed. Strong as an ox with spirit to match, that one.’
Sarah stared down at the ground, her eyes following the progress of a flurry of red-gold leaves from the trees bordering the lane. Why didn’t the old witch come to what she was determined to say? ‘I must go, Nurse Tomkin.’ Sarah took a step forward, then sighed as the plumply solid little figure stood her ground. ‘My mother is far from well and I’d like to do a batch-bake before I get the train back this evening.’
‘Your mother has a hard life looking after that lad of yours at her age.’ The greying head nodded twice. ‘How old is he now? Nine? Ten?’
‘Patrick will be ten in November.’ Sarah lowered the ugly felt hat, wishing she had the nerve to push the old woman out of the way. ‘I have to go. Excuse me, Nurse Tomkin. Me mother will be wondering where I am I stopped to make my confession, and I’m late already.’
Nellie Tomkin, a lapsed Methodist herself, sniffed her disapproval at such heathen ways. Then she dealt her stoma
ch punch.
‘A funny thing, Sarah. Well, at least it was a bit of an eye-opener to me not knowing the Peels like you do.’ She paused, savouring the moment. ‘I saw a photograph of your Patrick in my patient’s bedroom.’ The eyes, magnified to nightmare intensity by the thick lenses, picked holes in Sarah’s suddenly quivering face.
‘But you couldn’t have. They – the Peels – they’ve never seen Patrick. Never set eyes on him.’ The healthy colour drained from Sarah’s face, leaving the freckles standing out like brown measles. ‘You must have made a mistake.’
‘No mistake, lass, though when I asked Mrs Brandwood who the little ladd was, she said it was her brother Willie who had been killed in the war. Naturally I kept my mouth shut, but it’s a funny do all right. What do you make of it, Sarah?’
What Sarah made of it caused the ground to come up and hit her smack between her eyes. As the blood left her head, she crumpled at the knees, the grey sky with its scudding clouds dipping and wheeling around her.
And now the face bending over her, slapping her cheeks, loosening the top button of her coat, was filled with compassion, the evil glint in the eyes quite gone. With Sarah Batt’s sudden and unexpected metamorphosis into a patient, Nurse Tomkin was all solicitude.
‘It was only a little faint, lass. Come on now! Up’s-a-daisy!’
Trembling and sick, Sarah felt the small woman pull her to a standing position, with arms as strong as steel ropes.
‘Shock does that sometimes. Drains the blood from the brain. See, I’ll walk home with you lass.’
Nurse Tomkin was all sympathy now, but Sarah’s refusal was immediate. ‘Thank you. But I am all right.’ She forced a wan smile. ‘I don’t know what came over me. It was likely going to Mass without a bite of breakfast.’
Pulling her hat down even further over her face, she walked away without another word. She could not have thought of anything to say if she had tried.
When she got back to the cottage her mother was sitting in her chair by the fire, her head back and her eyes closed. Seeing her like that, defenceless, with the yellow tinge to her skin and so thin that her clothes hung loose, Sarah made up her mind. Now that Nurse Tomkin had guessed the secret so carefully guarded all these years, Westerley was as out of bounds as if it were a hundred miles away. Because when Miss Libby’s baby came and Nurse Tomkin was in charge, the interfering busybody wouldn’t be able to keep her mouth shut. Sarah knew it in her very bones, and she moaned despairingly. Because when Nurse Tomkin remarked on the uncanny likeness between Patrick and the dead Willie, then Miss Libby would know straight away. Miss Libby hadn’t been in the back row when brains were dished out, and she would know . . . oh, dear sweet Mother of Jesus, she would know all right. She would remember Sarah’s reluctance ever to speak about her son; she would remember the panic whenever she had tried to probe; she would ask that nice Doctor Harry to describe Patrick. And, worst of all, she would tell Mrs Peel.
When the dinner was over and Patrick had gone scrumping with his pals in the fields beyond the village, Sarah unburdened herself to her mother. ‘I know Miss Libby, and when her suspicions get warmed up she’ll ask the doctor to drive her out here to see for herself.’ Sarah’s broad face crumpled. ‘Oh, Mam, when they see Patrick there won’t be no turning back. Mrs Peel has never really cottoned on to the fact that her Willie is dead. She even prays that Libby will have a boy to take his place, never dreaming that her grandson is here, growing up so like his father that it is him born again.’ Her mouth tightened. ‘Oh, why couldn’t Patrick have had red hair? Or black? Why couldn’t he have looked like you or me dad? Why did he have to be the dead spittin’ image?’
‘They can’t take him from us.’ Mrs Batt winced and without thinking laid a hand over the pain in her back. ‘There’s no law. Is there?’
Sarah found she was having to look away from the suffering on her mother’s face. It was time she came home to stay. Nurse Tomkin had been right. Bringing up a rough, highly strung boy was no task for an ailing, elderly woman. Sarah felt the tears spring to her eyes and blinked them quickly away. She knew what was wrong with her mother. Grandma Batt had gone the same way, wasting to the size of a little bird, with her skin that strange pale yellow colour. And her mother knew it too.
‘Why don’t you have the doctor, Mam?’ Carefully she tried to keep her voice light. ‘He could perhaps give you a rubbing bottle for your back . . . or something.’
‘There’s nowt wrong with me that a rubbing bottle can cure.’ Mrs Batt straightened up in her chair, but the pain lay like a dark shadow on her face even as she tried to smile. ‘You mustn’t let nobody take that lad from you, Sarah. We’ve fetched him up and he’s ours. And Miss Williams at the school says he will likely pass the scholarship to the grammar school.’ The faded eyes shone with pride as she got up and pushed the kettle over the flames. ‘I keep thinking how proud your dad would have been of him. He would have been so chuffed with a grandson at a grammar school.’
‘Then it’s all settled.’ Sarah got two pots down from the dresser. ‘I have to go back after tea, but I’m going to tell them that after next week I’m coming back. For good. I’ll tell them a lie,’ she said, keeping her back turned. ‘I’ll say that you aren’t well enough to look after Patrick no more.’
‘And no more I am.’
When Sarah turned and saw the resigned dulled expression on her mother’s face she felt terror grip her tight, as if a hand had suddenly squeezed her heart. And when she left to catch the train back to Westerley in the late afternoon she knew she was making the journey for the very last time.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘BUT IT’S RIDICULOUS, Mother! Two of us living in a house this size. Eight bedrooms and only three of them slept in. Mrs Edwards has the whole of the top floor to herself, and now that Libby has gone, and Sarah . . .’ Carrie’s voice tailed away as she saw the ready tears spring to Ettie’s eyes at the mention of Sarah’s name.
‘All these years,’ Eddie mourned. ‘After us taking her back when she had disgraced herself, then her leaving just when it suited her. Young girls don’t know the meaning of the word loyalty these days.’
‘But Sarah’s first loyalty was to her own mother, and her son.’ Carrie knew she was wasting her time, but went on just the same. ‘And besides, Sarah wasn’t exactly a young girl. She was twenty-seven, Mother. It was time she tried to make a life of her own.’
‘But she doesn’t seem to want even to remember us.’ Ettie touched her eyes with her handkerchief. ‘All these weeks and never a line.’
‘Sarah never was much of a scholar,’ Carrie reminded her. I doubt whether she could put a letter together. And she was proud. You know that. Anyway, what has Sarah leaving got to do with us staying on here?’ Her normally serene expression was clouded with concern. ‘If we lived in a smaller house I might be able to find another teaching position. At least I could try.’
She was still young, Carrie reminded herself. She could feel herself daily settling deeper into the role of unmarried daughter, fetching her mother’s reading spectacles, going into town to change her mother’s library books from Boots. Not bothering to wear her skirts at the fashionable length; playing the piano in the evenings, and getting on with her self-imposed task of covering the dining chairs with tapestry seats. Nothing ever seemed to happen, and yet, when she lay in bed, staring up into the darkness, it was as though she was holding herself still, expecting something to happen. Some exciting turn of events that would fill her days with more than the humdrum everyday running of a house. Not for the first time she wished she were more like Libby. What Libby wanted, Libby got. Not a vestige of martyrdom lingered in Libby’s bones. Carrie frowned at the delicate stitching stretched over the frame on her lap. Was that what she was becoming? A martyr, sacrificing herself on the altar of her mother’s possessiveness?
In a louder voice than she had intended she said, ‘Well, I think we should look around for a smaller house. Perhaps one of the detached hou
ses by the park. Nearer to town so that you could walk to the shops.’
Ettie held up a hand, a surprisingly strong hand as Carrie had so often realized when, helping her mother up to bed, the grip had tightened on her arm.
‘The Peels have lived here for well over a hundred years. Westerley is part of your heritage, Carrie, and some day you will marry,’ Ettie added vaguely, ‘and your son will go on living here. When I’m gone’, she finished sadly.
‘To have a son I need a man first.’ Carrie ignored the wounded expression on her mother’s face. ‘I am nearly twenty-four, Mother. All my friends are married, with homes of their own. I’m the odd one out, Mother. My life is passing me by. I won’t go on spending my days keeping this place going. It’s too much.’
When Ettie’s lower lip began its customary trembling, Carrie forced herself to look away, but she accepted the fact that for the time being anyway the question of the house must be shelved. There was something about the small quivering figure sitting opposite her that made her insides melt with love. Oliver Peel had made his wife what she was, and it was too late to change her now. Carrie turned her head as the telephone rang in the hall.
‘That will be Libby,’ she said. ‘Are you coming to speak to her?’ As she turned with a hand on the brass doorknob, she saw the way her mother was already levering herself up from her chair, an anticipatory expression in her dulled eyes. ‘Oh, God help us,’ Carrie whispered as she took the receiver from its hook, ‘When a telephone call makes our day.’