by Maggie Hope
‘I’m not keeping a great lass like you and paying a lad to put in the coals,’ he said when she suggested it. So Lottie had to do it, getting the coal in before Mr Green came home from the pit, no matter what else she had to do that day.
Lottie put the kettle on to boil and cut bread and butter for Mrs Green’s breakfast. While she waited, she sat down for a few minutes in the rocking chair by the hearth, the one that had been Mrs Green’s before she became bed-bound. This was her favourite time of the day, when she had a few precious moments before she had to make Mrs Green comfortable against her pillows and then prepare a meal for Mr Green coming in from fore shift or going out on back shift. Then the lads were to get up and feed with great bowls of porridge sweetened with sugar and with fresh milk poured over it.
She was just lifting the heavy iron kettle from the fire when there was a cry from the front room that had been turned into a sick room for Mrs Green. Placing the kettle on the hearth, she ran through to see Mrs Green half out of bed, hanging precariously, with only her legs anchored beneath the bedclothes. She seemed quite incapable of righting herself and was moaning pitifully.
‘Mrs Green, what are you doing?’ asked Lottie in alarm. She hurried around the bed and for all her small stature managed to lift the woman back to the safety of her pillows, where she flopped with her mouth open, her breathing fast and shallow. Lottie grabbed the extra pillow from the chair by the bedside and propped her up a little better so she could catch her breath. Oh, she looked badly, Lottie thought. Mrs Green’s skin was blue around the mouth but her cheeks were flushed and her skin was hot to the touch. She brought the woman a drink of water from the pail in the pantry and held it while she took some. Only a few sips, for even that seemed to exhaust her.
Then she wiped her face and arms with a cold flannel.
‘You’re a good lass,’ said Mrs Green.
‘Where’s my breakfast?’ asked Mr Green from the doorway. ‘Lottie? I don’t pay you to sit about on the wife’s bed.’
Lottie jumped up quickly, dropping the flannel and having to bend down to retrieve it. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ll do it now. Only Mrs Green needed me.’
‘Aye, well, be quick about it,’ said he. ‘A man shouldn’t be coming in after ten hours in the pit to an empty table.’
‘Alfred, the lass is doing her best.’ The voice from the bed was weak and fluttering.
Mr Green regarded his wife, frowning. ‘Mind, you keep out of it, Laura,’ he said, but not roughly or unkindly. If he had a soft spot for anyone, it was his wife.
‘I’ll stay here, Lottie,’ he said, ‘while you get it ready. I picked some mushrooms on the way home; do them with a bit of bacon. Give us a shout when they’re ready.’
Lottie fled to the kitchen and did as she was bid. By the time she was calling the boys down to eat with their father before they went out to the National School, the house was filled with delicious smells. They came down the stairs in a rush: Noah, the eldest, who was nine; Freddie, who was eight; and Mattie, six. Mattie was grizzling again, she saw, his shirt hanging out where his braces met his trousers, his feet still bare.
‘Freddie hit me,’ he said pathetically to his father. ‘I want my mam.’
‘Leave your mam alone,’ Mr Green ordered. ‘Sit down and eat your porridge.’ For the boys and Lottie had porridge for breakfast rather than bacon and mushrooms. But it was good porridge, made with real, fresh milk. The two older boys set to with a will and the only sounds were the occasional slurp and that of Mr Green’s knife against the plate.
When he finished, he sat back in his chair and looked at Lottie. ‘I want you to go and get the doctor when you’ve got the lads away to school,’ he said. ‘Tell him the wife’s badly.’
Lottie looked back at him in some alarm. He must think Mrs Green was very bad if he wanted the doctor to come back. He had only been to see her a few days before and Mr Green grumbled at the expense every time the doctor came.
‘Don’t look so gormless, lass,’ he said. ‘Hurry yourself and get on with it.’
‘Is Mam badly?’ asked Noah. ‘Can I go in to see her?’
‘Leave her alone, lad, she wants some peace. If I hear you bothering her I’ll take the belt to you. Now, away to school with the lot of you.’
Lottie ate the last spoonful of porridge made with the skimmed milk left after taking off the cream for Mrs Green, for the boys had used up all the fresh milk. ‘I’ll go straight away,’ she replied. Grabbing her shawl from the back of the kitchen door, she ran off down the yard, thankful for the chance to get out into the fresh air before starting the clearing and cleaning in the house.
‘I think you should ask the Nightingale nurse to call and see your wife,’ said Dr Gray to Alf Green when he had returned with Lottie and had examined Mrs Green. ‘Sister Mitchell-Howe, her name is. Here, I’ll write it down for you.’
‘How much will that cost?’ Alfred Green asked. ‘I don’t begrudge it mind, but I’ve a lot of expense already what with having to have a lass to keep an eye on the lads as well as the wife. Will she not do? She’s good with Laura, I’ll say that for her.’
Dr Gray looked at the pitman before him and sighed. The fellow was an overman and as such must be earning more than most miners. He was fond of his wife too, he could see that.
‘A trained nurse can see to your wife better than a young girl can,’ he said. ‘In any case, she will keep an eye on her if she visits every day until Mrs Green is over the crisis.’
They were outside in the narrow passage that led from the front door past the room where Mrs Green lay to the kitchen at the back. It was Laura Green’s voice that decided the issue.
‘Lottie,’ she said, her voice too weak to penetrate to the kitchen where Lottie was scouring the porridge pan. ‘Lottie!’
‘Lottie!’ Mr Green shouted and the girl appeared in the passage, looking anxious. She had managed to get the boys off to school before the bell rang and ran to call the doctor and washed and changed Mrs Green before he came and now she was trying to catch up on her work. She was already thinking about the task after the next one and that was to prepare something filling for the lads’ dinner when they arrived back at twelve o’clock.
‘See to her, can you not hear her calling?’
Lottie hurried into the sitting room where the patient, in trying to reach for a drink, had overturned the cup and spilt water on the bed sheet, which was a clean one, having been changed for the doctor’s visit.
When Lottie tried to change her nightgown and sheets, Laura let out an involuntary cry of pain and both men in the passageway heard it.
‘I’ll help you in a minute, Lottie,’ said Mr Green and turned back to the doctor. ‘Why then,’ he said. ‘I reckon we’d best give that newfangled nurse a try. How much do you reckon it will cost me?’
‘You’ll have to ask her that,’ the doctor replied. ‘But I think Sister Mitchell-Howe is reasonable. If you just have her coming in twice a day until your wife is over the worst it will do.’
‘Mitchell-Howe, what sort of a daft name is that? Well, we’ll see what she charges,’ Mr Green muttered as he showed the doctor to the door.
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Copyright © Una Horne writing as Maggie Hope 2003
Extract from Workhouse Child © Una Horne writing as Maggie Hope 2008
Maggie Hope has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
First published as Child of Sorrow by Judy Piatkus (Publishers) Ltd in 2003
This edition published by Ebury Press in 2016
www.eburypublishing.co.uk
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9780091956240