Yes, Mama

by Helen Forrester

  Alicia began to cry quietly. Polly quickly closed and locked the front door. There, pettie. There, there. We’ll manage somehow,’ she murmured, as she turned to hold the girl in her arms.

  II

  Polly made a cup of cocoa for each of them and then insisted that Alicia go to bed. ‘I told Fanny to go up, because she has to be up at five to do the fireplaces and make the fires. You go and get rested while you can; tomorrer, this house’ll be like Lime Street station, with all the comings and goings. I’ll sit with your Pa and see he’s warm an’ all. I can nap a bit in a chair by ’im, and find an hour to have a sleep sometime tomorrer.’

  Alicia saw the wisdom of this, since Polly could not deal with the arrival of the family the next day. She told her about the nurses who would also be arriving.

  Over her cocoa cup, Polly made a face. “Strewth!’ she exclaimed. ‘Nurses is the end in a house. Constant trouble, they are. Worse’n havin’ cockroaches or rats.’ She put down her cup and got up to light the bedroom candles and then handed one to Alicia. ‘It’ll be better for you, though. There’s a lot of heavy liftin’ and it’s a messy job lookin’ after somebody paralysed. I seen it before in the court when I were young.’

  Alicia went up to bed and lay crying into her pillow for some time. When she finally knelt down to say her prayers, she asked for strength to do her duty – and then for God to lift the duties from her, if he could, which was almost heresy; women were supposed to bow their heads and accept, she thought hopelessly.

  With a cheerful grin, Fanny called her at seven the next morning. ‘Brought you a cuppa, to get you goin’, like,’ she said kindly. ‘I’ve remade your Pa’s fire, and Polly’s kept puttin’ fresh hotties round ’im all night. And she keeps wettin’ his tongue and his lips. He’s still breathin’.’

  Filled with anxiety, her thoughts tumbling between what might happen to them all if Humphrey died and fear of the intolerable load of nursing if he lived, Alicia gulped down the tea gratefully. ‘Fanny, dear, could you make up Edward’s bedroom for the use of a nurse – there’ll be two of them, one night, one day, but only the day nurse will be likely to sleep here.’

  ‘Oh, aye, that’s what our Polly was tellin’ me,’ Fanny replied philosophically, as she prepared to go downstairs again.

  Alicia scrambled out of bed. ‘To be honest, Fan, I haven’t the foggiest notion how we’re going to manage. Florence, Charles, Uncle Harold – they’re all likely to turn up.’

  Fanny laughed, and responded sarcastically, ‘Oh, aye. And all expectin’ four-course meals, as usual.’ Then she added mischievously, ‘You could send Miss Florence down to the kitchen to cook.’

  This made Alicia giggle, as she poured water from the pitcher on her washstand. ‘Fan, you are naughty! She’s always been too busy to learn to cook, as you know.’

  ‘Do ’er good to learn,’ replied Fanny downrightly, and hurried out, before Alicia could scold her.

  A few minutes later, after she had washed, Alicia arrived at Humphrey’s bedside, to find Polly dozing. Her cap was askew and her face was grey with fatigue. Though she jumped when Alicia laid her hand gently on her shoulder, she got up from the chair slowly, acutely aware that she was no longer young. The night had seemed endless, as she had conscientiously boiled kettles on the fire and refilled the hot water bottles round her patient and kept his mouth and lips moist by sponging them with a wet flannel.

  ‘How is he?’ Alicia asked.

  ‘Well, he hasn’t changed much, ’cept I think he can move just a wee bittie – ’is right hand fingers.’ Her voice was doubtful. Then she said, ‘I couldn’t change ’is sheet by meself, so I waited for you to come. He’s in a bit of a mess. He needs washin’.’ She yawned and stretched.

  ‘Well, we washed him when he had his heart attack. Is the kettle hot? We can use the bowl on the washstand.’

  ‘We’ll need a couple of buckets with cold water to put the sheets in – and all the old sheets we’ve got.’

  ‘I’ll get them, Pol. And afterwards, you should go down-stairs and get some breakfast and then go to bed.’

  When they had everything assembled, they used the sheet the helpless man was lying on, to pull him over to the unsoaked side of the double bed and then tucked his hot water bottles round him again under the blankets, while they dealt with the soiled side.

  They laid an oilcloth tablecloth culled from the kitchen over the damp patch on the mattress and covered it with several layers of old sheets. Their most difficult task, after washing and changing him, was to get him back to the original side of the bed; he was very heavy and they were both panting by the time they had inched him on to the layer of old sheets. Alicia began to realize why nurses, trained in such matters, had been recommended by Dr Willis.

  ‘You’ll have to get a real macintosh sheet to protect the bed, Allie,’ Polly said.

  ‘The nurses are sure to want all kinds of things. I do hope Uncle Harold comes soon – he’ll be able to arrange the funds.’ The two women spoke over the head of Humphrey, completely ignoring the fact that he might, to a degree, be able to understand them and be distressed at being left out of the conversation.

  They washed him as best they could, and Alicia wiped the distorted face. Then, taking a clean handkerchief, she dabbed cool water round his lips and over the lolling tongue. As she did it, she spoke gently to him, but he made no response.

  They had barely finished when Fanny brought a tall, thin woman up to the bedroom. She wore a navy blue uniform and heavy black shoes. A woven basket trunk was carried up for her by a small street urchin, who stared round the bedroom landing with little bright eyes like a cock robin. She dismissed him at the bedroom door with a penny tip and Fanny took him back downstairs. She turned to Polly and Alicia and announced herself as Nurse Trill. As she divested herself of her jacket, she made it clear that she would do no cooking, laundering or tending of fires. She was entitled to three meals a day plus a tea tray and she had not yet had her breakfast.

  Polly took one look at her and cast her eyes heavenward, as if asking for Divine help. War, to the last teaspoon, was instantly declared.

  Alicia took her quickly away to Edward’s bedroom, which she slowly surveyed. It was apparent to Alicia that it did not please her, but neither said anything, and Nurse Trill took off her bonnet and laid it carefully on top of the tallboy. She then opened her straw trunk and took out an elaborately pleated, starched white confection, which she pinned on top of her head and then tied its strings in a huge bow under her chin. She put on an apron so starched that it crackled when she moved, and then turned to Alicia and, with a queenly nod, indicated that they should return to the sickroom. As they crossed the passageway, she said to Alicia, ‘See that my breakfast tray is brought up immediately.’

  Inwardly quailing, Alicia promised that she would attend to it as soon as nurse had seen the patient.

  Nurse Trill looked at Humphrey with jaundiced eyes. She screwed up her mouth in a grimace which clearly said that, in her opinion, he did not stand much chance. Then she said, ‘Dr Willis felt he might be able to take a little water or milk this morning. Please let me have these.’

  She was surprised to learn that Humphrey had already been washed and changed, and she looked Polly and Alicia up and down. Polly put her nose in the air and said primly, ‘I’m a widow, and I done it for ’im before, when he had an ’eart attack.’

  Nurse Trill grunted.

  Alicia glanced at Humphrey and was astonished to see him watching them with one eye. The lid of the other eye still drooped.

  She went to him and spoke softly to him, explaining that Nurse Trill had come to look after him. She was not sure that he understood. He closed his eye again.

  That day, it seemed to Alicia that she and the two maids never stopped running up and down stairs. Fanny answered the door, hauled coal and water, and carried trays to the sick room, in between keeping Elizabeth to her usual routine, as far as possible. Alicia helped her mother wash and dress and
took her down to the morning-room, where she took up her embroidery quite happily, having obviously forgotten the events of the previous evening.

  About eleven o’clock, Polly was preparing lunch for them all and for the expected invasion of anxious relations, when she suddenly swayed and had to sit down. She called out to Alicia, who was in the cellar stirring the dirty bed linen in the copper. Alicia put down her wooden paddle and ran upstairs. Seeing her nanny lying back in old Mrs Tibbs’ easy chair, she ran to her.

  ‘Get me some water, luv. I feel faint.’

  Alicia got the water for her and upbraided herself angrily. ‘I should have sent you to bed long since. Away you go this minute. I’ll watch the lunch.’

  Polly temporized and then agreed to go up for a nap. Alicia insisted on escorting her up the long flights of stairs.

  III

  Dr Willis had earlier been to inspect his patient and confer with Nurse Trill. He was very pleased to see definite movement of the right eyelid and some suggestion of movement down the whole of Humphrey’s right side. He spent a considerable time massaging Humphrey, to show the nurse how to do it. She told him indignantly that she knew very well what was required.

  Afterwards, he went with Alicia to pay his respects to Elizabeth, who had forgotten who he was but received him most graciously. As he left her, he sighed helplessly.

  IV

  Alerted by a telegram from Dr Willis, Charles arrived from Cambridge, having been able to pick up a fast train for Liverpool at Birmingham. He ate a hearty lunch, sat with his father for ten minutes, spent about the same time with his mother, who was most surprised to see him, and then left again to visit his friends in Liverpool University.

  Florence did not come and Alicia began to feel aggrieved; surely she should come – her father loved her.

  ‘Send her a telegram,’ advised Polly, when she woke up from her nap, about four o’clock in the afternoon.

  ‘It seems that one of us has to go down to the telegraph office. And I must talk to Uncle Harold if he comes – and you must do the dinner – and Fanny’s nearly crazy answering the nurse’s bell all the time.’

  ‘Well, if she don’t come by tomorrer mornin’ and we’re still stuck, you could run next door and ask Colonel Milfort, if his valet could go down to the Telegraph for yez. Proper nice, they are.’

  ‘Father doesn’t think they’re nice at all. He won’t even bow to either the Colonel or his friend who lives with him – nor will Mama.’

  Polly grinned knowingly. ‘It takes all kinds to make a world, luv. You take my word for it, you’ll be safer goin’ into that house than any house I know. Remember to give the valet a bit for himself for goin’ for yez.’

  ‘Would you go, Polly? I feel shy.’

  ‘Nay. You’ll get more respect than me.’

  Early the next morning, Colonel Milfort found the faded young daughter from next door sitting nervously on the edge of one of his leather easy chairs in the front room. An ex-hussar with a pronounced limp from an old wound, he still looked to Alicia a very handsome elderly man.

  ‘Good morning, madam,’ he addressed her politely, as he limped slowly across the room towards her. ‘What can I do for you?’

  Alicia blushed and jumped up from her chair. She apologized for troubling him so early and then explained the need to send a telegram to Florence to tell her that her father had been taken seriously ill.

  ‘Of course, I’ll send my man immediately,’ he promised. Then he inquired how Humphrey was progressing and wished him an early recovery.

  As a gentleman, he could not sit down until she did and his leg was aching intolerably, so he pushed a straight chair under her and begged her to be seated. She complied, and he thankfully sank into a chair himself.

  From her small clasp purse, she took a slip of paper with the message for Florence scribbled on it, and handed it to him with a half-crown. ‘The change will be a little thank you for your man,’ she told him shyly.

  The Colonel was amused and pressed the silver coin back into her gloved hand. ‘It’s my pleasure,’ he assured her, as he looked at Florence’s address. ‘In fact, if you will permit me, it would be much quicker to send Francis to your sister’s house on his bicycle.’

  The tired young face before him lit up. Would you?’ she asked eagerly. ‘I’d be so grateful. You see, Mama is also not herself – and I badly need Flo’s help.’

  He nodded understandingly and rose from his chair, to indicate dismissal; he was afraid she might stay half the morning, telling him her woes. They shook hands and he himself saw her out of the front door. He watched her until she was safely inside her own house; then he slowly closed the door. It was the first visit he had had from a neighbour since the local widows had realized that neither he nor the quiet friend who lived with him were interested in women. Behind hands and fans, the word had gone round the district that the two army officers in the house with brown curtains were you-know-whats. Not nice at all.

  Alicia told Polly that the Colonel had been an absolute dear.

  Florence arrived on her own bicycle in just over an hour. In her haste, she had lost half her hairpins en route and had got bicycle oil on the hem of her grey tweed skirt. She burst into the kitchen, raging. ‘When I told Clarence about the Colonel’s message, he produced a note from Dr Willis which he had been carrying around in his pocket and had forgotten to give me. He had not opened it because it was addressed only to me, the stupid man.’ She pulled the hatpins quickly out of her felt hat. ‘How is Father?’ Without waiting for an answer, she went on, ‘The Reverend Browning does not like eating alone, but I told him he simply must manage, at least for lunch.’ With an exasperated air, she flung her hat on a chair and followed it with her jacket. ‘I’ll go up.’

  ‘Yes, Ma’am,’ Polly replied, without looking up from the potatoes she was peeling, and when she had heard the green baize door swing softly shut, she muttered disparagingly, ‘Listen to her with the gob! A fat lot of help she’ll be.’

  V

  Florence wept for an hour by her father’s bed, while Nurse Trill sat unperturbed by the fire, knitting a grey scarf.

  Alicia had hoped that Florence would stay for a few days, but she was bent on returning to her overbearing husband as soon as possible. ‘Dear Clarence gets so upset,’ she confided to Alicia, as she pushed hatpins into her hat. ‘And I’ve the Women’s Bible Study group this evening. I’m sorry that I have to go; I’ll come again soon.’

  Afterwards, Polly comforted Alicia by reminding her that the night nurse would be coming, and if they all got a proper night’s rest, they could manage.

  The night nurse proved to be an Irish woman in early middle-age and Polly took to her immediately. In order to save Fanny carrying up a tray, she cheerfully ate her late supper at the kitchen table before going on duty. Then she ran upstairs to relieve Nurse Trill, who was standing in the middle of the bedroom, her knitting neatly bundled up under her arm, waiting, watch in hand, to retire to Edward’s bedroom.

  Uncle Harold had arrived that same afternoon, very concerned about his acerbic brother’s illness. He conferred with Dr Willis, when the doctor made his evening call. Afterwards, he sat down with Elizabeth and Alicia to discuss the situation.

  He soon found that Elizabeth could not recall remarks he had made a couple of minutes before, and he was horrified. Humphrey had, during visits to Manchester, complained that his wife was very forgetful, but it was now clear to Harold that the poor woman’s mind was fading completely. He looked at Alicia and she gave a tiny shrug, so he said he would like to rest and took his leave of Elizabeth.

  Five minutes later, he and Alicia had a heart-warming conversation in the library and his first question was whether she could manage, with the aid of the nurses, to care for his brother. Dr Willis had suggested a nursing home or even the Royal Infirmary, but was certain that Humphrey would be much more likely to get better if he were in his accustomed surroundings. Alicia had drawn her ideas of hospitals from Polly�
�s lurid tales of certain death if you ever found yourself in one, so she agreed, without hesitation, that he should be nursed at home. ‘I’d never be able to face my own conscience, if he died in hospital,’ she said honestly.

  Uncle Harold was very relieved at her decision and he undertook to see Mr Bowring, Humphrey’s clerk, on the following day and to discuss a Power-of-Attorney with Humphrey’s lawyer. ‘Meanwhile, I’ll open a small banking account for you from my own funds, so that you can pay the nurses and the staff,’ he told her.

  In the days that followed, Alicia discovered that Harold Woodman’s idea of a small banking account was quite generous, and, when she wrote her first cheque under the careful direction of a rotund, solicitous Bank Manager, she felt a new pride in being trusted with so much money.

  Harold had been quite shocked to learn from Mr Bowring that Humphrey’s main bank was the Manchester and Liverpool District Bank.

  ‘A radical bank!’ he had exclaimed.

  ‘Yes, sir. Very good bank, if I may say so.’

  ‘I always thought my brother was a Tory.’

  ‘Oh, he is, sir, he is. But the Manchester and Liverpool is very forward-looking. Backed many of Mr Humphrey’s investments in times past. And, of course, now Mr Humphrey is doing so well, he is a very prized customer.’

  Harold was surprised to hear that Humphrey was doing well. Not too long back, his brother had complained that nothing that he touched seemed to be coming to fruition, and Alicia had said that her father was very hard up.

  Mr Bowring begged Mr Harold to be discreet and then brought out Humphrey’s account books, which confirmed that Humphrey was reaping quite a fortune.

  VI

  Once it was apparent to him that his father was not likely to die from his stroke, Charles was thankful to leave everything to Uncle Harold and Alicia. He was busy paying his addresses to a Miss Veronica Anderton, the daughter of a Cambridge don. Since his application for a post at Liverpool University had been successful, he felt, now, that it would be wise to marry the lady before she realized that she might be called upon to help to nurse his two invalid parents. As long as Alicia lived, of course, he comforted himself, he did not have to worry. Still, life could be very uncertain, so he took the first possible train back to Cambridge.