Rich Girl, Poor Girl

by Eileen Ramsay

  ‘A fine family,’ said Lucy wryly. ‘And the girls are in the nursery too. Perhaps a little more help . . . ?’

  Mhairi looked quite shocked. ‘Oh. The master says his own mother raised eight perfectly healthy children with no help at all.’

  Lucy thought rapidly. A five-year gap between the older girls and the next child; that probably meant at least two miscarriages. No wonder Mrs MacDonald was so pale and worn-looking; too many children, one after the other. Before the body had had time to recuperate from the demands of one pregnancy, another child was on the way. How she wished she could do something to regulate that. There were the rather bizarre methods she had heard a little about: vinegar-soaked sponges inserted in the vagina, for one. She could hardly see the fastidious Mrs MacDonald resorting to that. And what of Mr MacDonald’s part in all this? He did not like to hear his twin sons yelling. Their crying disturbed him and he got annoyed. Poor Mr MacDonald!

  Lucy sighed. Such was the way of the world.

  ‘Try to avoid carrying heavy loads, Mhairi. If you must lift the children, bend your knees and don’t bend over from the waist to pick them up. I don’t know why that helps but it does. Tell Mrs MacDonald that hint too. And perhaps . . .’ She stopped, suddenly appallingly aware that she knew absolutely nothing about the minds of small children, of any child. ‘Perhaps you could make getting up and down stairs a game for the twins and Archie. A race to see who is the fastest or perhaps,’ she groped desperately back to her memories of her father in her own nursery, ‘perhaps they could play at being frogs hopping about . . .’

  To her amazement Mhairi’s face lit up. ‘Or tigers, Doctor. The mistress read them a tale about a tiger from foreign parts and they liked it.’

  Lucy stood up. ‘Yes, that’s a good idea. Capture the imagination.’

  ‘Oh, I will, doctor. I feel better already.’

  Lucy sat for a few minutes looking at the door which had closed behind her very first patient, a delighted patient. Would that it would ever be so! She remembered Annie and a friend from her childhood. ‘What a little blether Miss Sarah is,’ Annie used to say wonderingly as they sat at the nursery tea-table.

  Well, Annie. I did a bit of blethering myself just now and I sincerely hope it worked. Sir Ronald Ross may have identified the cause of malaria and that would be a great help were I in India, but I’m not. I wonder how Sir Ronald would deal with nursemaid’s back – my first ailment.

  No patient followed Mhairi through the door. Doctor Graham wrote up case notes. She almost blushed to call it a case but, no, she chided herself, the ailment is very real to poor overworked Mhairi.

  Shall I ever be overworked? she thought as 5 o’clock came and she made her lonely way upstairs to her living quarters. She looked in her pantry and there on the stone shelf, the tried and true method of keeping food cold and fresh, was the piece of beef she had rashly bought for her evening meal. ‘I really don’t know quite what to do with you,’ she told it and reached further along the shelf for the remains of the cheese that she had had for lunch.

  That did not look too appetizing, even with the addition of a lovely piece of crusty bread and a rather tired apple.

  ‘I’ll melt the cheese,’ thought Lucy, ‘if this stupid unobliging, terrifically modern up-to-the-minute range with its reversing damper hasn’t reversed itself again and gone out.’

  The meanest of her patients, had she had any, would have been shocked to see how much cold or undercooked food the wonderful new lady doctor was eating. Doctor Graham was not overburdened with domestic skills.

  ‘Blast!’ There was no warmth at all from the great iron monster that took up so much room. Lucy looked at it. Could she bear to try to light it again? Would it stay lit till the morning and thus make a nice hot cup of tea a possibility?

  She heard the front door-bell and half sighed as she ran upstairs to answer the summons. It might just be a patient? It was not.

  ‘Doctor Graham. Mrs MacDonald sent me. My name’s Isa Murray and I need a job.’

  ‘Come in, won’t you, Miss Murray.’

  ‘It’s Mrs, Doctor, and I hope that won’t make a difference. Mrs MacDonald thought with you it might not.’

  Mrs MacDonald? Why was the woman making so much effort? Was it because, as a loyal wife, she could not straightforwardly apologize for the arrogance of her husband but would do so in other ways.

  ‘I was in service before my marriage, doctor, to Mrs MacDonald’s family. I know how to mind fine furniture and I’m a good plain cook. I’ve even been lady’s maid and can sew small stitches. But I have a husband and won’t be able to stay nights. We have a place near the mill.’

  ‘Your husband is a mill-worker?’

  ‘Was, Doctor. It’s done something to his lungs and he can’t work in the mills no more. We wanted to do farm work up the Carse, but he couldn’t manage like, not full time, and we’d not get a tied cottage. I’ve been doing a bit here and there. I was doing Mrs MacDonald’s silver and she said as there was an advertisement . . . I would stay really late when you were entertaining, Doctor.’

  Lucy had always thought deeply, and would always think very hard before she reached an important decision, but this once she made an immediate decision and it was one she was never to regret.

  ‘Mrs Murray, I need someone in the house very much and I need them right now. The garden needs attention. You can see from the window here, it is not too large and has been well planned. The top floor . . .’ She stopped. The floor was a warren of empty rooms.

  ‘We have our own bits and pieces, doctor,’ put in Mrs Murray eagerly. ‘If that was what you were wanting, like. Donald’s a good man and works hard when the coughing’s not on him.’

  ‘Phthisis,’ thought Lucy. ‘Or perhaps it is the effects of inhaling jute hour after hour, day after day.’

  ‘Has he worked in a garden before, Mrs Murray?’ she asked.

  ‘When he was a lad, like, doctor. He’s from the Carse, raised in the country. He only came in to make a better living from the jute and he was a good worker. He’d do the garden beautiful, but it would have to be in his own time.’

  ‘I’ll show you over the house and then you can go home and discuss it with Mr Murray.’

  *

  To Lucy’s everlasting embarrassment, her new retainers turned up with their possessions on a hand-cart borrowed from a friend who was a carter.

  ‘I should have hired the removal company for you, Mrs Murray.’

  ‘Oh no, doctor, we couldn’t be beholden. The neighbours will see we’re clean and respectable, and that’s what counts, isn’t it? I’m sorry if we’ve disgraced you.’

  ‘Clean and respectable.’ That was what was important. And that they were not beholden. Very well, thought Lucy. Let her grand neighbours think what they liked. ‘Let me give you a hand, Mrs Murray.’

  The rather austere face softened into a smile of singular charm. ‘That wouldn’t be right, doctor. Off you, and I’ll make us all a nice cup of tea when we’re done.’

  There was not much to unload and soon Donald and his friends were setting up the bed and arranging the lovingly polished bits of furniture, while Mrs Murray bustled around in her kitchen, returning again and again to touch the surface of the magnificent but, to Lucy, frightening range.

  ‘Mrs MacDonald had one of these. So easy, and it makes bread beautiful, and heats water and the kitchens.’

  Lucy did not confess that she had not found it easy. ‘We’ll go to Draffens tomorrow, Mrs Murray, and get you a uniform for answering the door. I put some aprons in a drawer in the kitchen. You’ll know which ones are which.’

  ‘Oh yes, doctor, and it’s Isa, doctor. I’d like for you to call me by my name.’

  ‘Very well, Isa, but not in front of patients.’

  Isa smiled again. ‘That’s right and proper, doctor.’

  Lucy went to bed that night after eating the best meal she had yet had in her own new house and the next day, as if Isa’
s coming had been an omen of good, two new patients turned up at morning consulting. They arrived together, but one had been driven in a private cab and the other had walked up from the steam tram stop.

  Isa, in her own old but clean dress and one of Annie’s starched white aprons, showed the elder of the two ladies into the consulting room.

  ‘I think you have been expecting me, Doctor Graham. I am Mrs Dryden.’

  Mrs Dryden was as engaging as her nephew had painted her.

  ‘How do you do, Mrs Dryden. How may I help you?’

  ‘At my age, doctor, there are a dozen things going wrong, but nothing that we need worry about.’

  Lucy was at a loss. Surely this was not a mere social call?

  ‘Perhaps I should find at least one of the ailments, Mrs Dryden, and see if medicine can do anything to alleviate it.’

  Mrs Dryden looked at her measuringly. ‘Well, doctor,’ she said at last, ‘there’s something that has been a bit of a nuisance over the last six months or so, perhaps even since last winter. Sometimes – I hope you don’t think I’m stupid – but sometimes when I walk my right knee gives way.’

  ‘Do you fall?’

  ‘Stumble would be a better word. In fact I’ve taken to holding on to the banisters as I walk downstairs.’

  Lucy nodded. ‘Is the knee painful . . . or any other joints?’

  ‘Are thumbs joints, doctor? Sometimes my thumbs ache so much I can’t hold a pen. I noticed it when I was writing to my daughter. She lives in Edinburgh,’ she added as if that had some relevance. ‘But sometimes a pain shoots right up my arm when I lift my heavy silver teapot. I’ve even spilled tea, once on my best linen cloth.’

  Lucy smiled. Ruining the cloth was the tragedy. She held out her hands. ‘May I look at your thumbs and then your knee?’

  The thumbs were very slightly misshapen and the knee was slightly swollen.

  Arthritis: a word that meant simply inflammation of the joints, one of the most common ailments known to man.

  ‘I’m sure it’s just normal ageing, doctor. My mother was just the same and that was what her physician said.’

  ‘Ah, but medical science is rushing breathlessly into a new century, Mrs Dryden. We can make what is natural rather more comfortable. As yet we don’t know what causes the various arthritic conditions,’ she said, as she felt sure that Mrs Dryden would appreciate complete honesty. ‘It may be a bacteria, or some disruption of the body chemistry. Tell me, do you feel more pain when the house is cold and perhaps even damp?’

  Mrs Dryden agreed that this was in fact the case.

  ‘You must strive to maintain a uniform body heat. Don’t allow your shoulders to be caught in draughts.’

  ‘Draughts. My dear girl. Have you not yet experienced the winds that blow across the Tay?’

  ‘Uniform body heat, Mrs Dryden, twenty-four hours a day, and I should like you to pay attention to your diet.’

  Mrs Dryden looked down at her solid, well-fed body in its tight casing of corsets. ‘I have the best of everything, I assure you, doctor.’

  ‘There is some . . . speculation . . . that the best of everything may not be good for us. I have read some interesting studies. Would you, perhaps, agree to monitoring your diet with particular reference to what and how much you eat and drink on days when your aches and pains are particularly severe?’

  Mrs Dryden looked sceptical.

  ‘I have heard that potatoes cause distress in some patients, while watercress and even parsley alleviate the condition.’

  Mrs Dryden pulled on her gloves and rose to her dignified feet. ‘I am to be a medical experiment then, doctor?’

  Lucy felt flustered. Should she just have prescribed some drugs which would certainly ease the pain? ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Dryden . . .’ she began.

  ‘Not at all, my dear. I am flattered and will send my coachman for a ruled notebook this very instant. Before the month is out, every matron with an aching back will be competing with me to find what triggers our pain.’ The old eyes twinkled. ‘I should be most unhappy if I should find that my dinner glass of claret affects me adversely.’

  Lucy would not be drawn. Medical science might speculate that gout was caused by over-indulgence, but she would not insult this delightful old lady by comparing gout and arthritis, which surely were unconnected in any way.

  ‘Well, Colin was right,’ said Mrs Dryden. ‘You are going to do very well in Dundee, Doctor Graham. I hope you will join us for luncheon some Sunday? My husband’s nephew comes to us on Sundays. He’s like my own son, and he admires you very greatly.’

  To her dismay, Lucy found herself blushing. She had had dinner twice with Mrs Dryden’s nephew and had found him a pleasant companion, no more.

  ‘I’ll see you out, Mrs Dryden,’ she said, ‘and I will come to luncheon one Sunday soon.’ She rang the bell and Isa appeared. ‘Show Mrs Dryden out, Mrs Murray.’

  Isa opened the door for Mrs Dryden and returned a few minutes later with the second caller.

  ‘Miss Bell, Doctor.’

  Miss Bell was a tall, slim woman who looked as if she might be forty years of age. In fact, she was not quite thirty.

  ‘I’m just that tired, doctor,’ she said in answer to Lucy’s first question. ‘Perhaps you know of some new tonic?’

  ‘I might, but first I have to find out why you are so tired, Miss Bell.’

  Heather Bell – her parents had thought that a romantic name – was a dressmaker at Draffens, the big department store on the High Street. She lived with her elderly parents who were able to do very little for themselves. After working a full day in the shop she went home to cook and clean and nurse the old people and, if there was any spare time, she earned a little extra by taking sewing home with her. No wonder she was tired.

  ‘My father had the tuberculosis, doctor, and he was in the fever hospital.’

  ‘King’s Cross?’

  ‘Yes, but he’s cured, doctor. We thought them as went into King’s Cross never came out, and I’m sure it was the worry of that that brought my mother down so low. Her mind’s gone, doctor, but Father is fine, well as fine as anybody can be who’s had the tuberculosis. Wonderful doctors there, and nurses too, most of them, that is.’

  ‘They do sterling work, Miss Bell, and . . .’ Lucy had a feeling that Miss Bell herself was terrified that she too would be sent one day to the fever hospital, and set herself to ease the woman’s mind. ‘You know that all nurses who work in hospitals have to be properly trained now. The standard in Dundee is first class. But I think, before we do anything else, that I should examine you, and perhaps do a blood test.’

  ‘I can’t be ill, doctor, else who would look efter meh fowk.’ The broad Dundee dialect fell out by mistake and Miss Bell pushed it back soundly, thinking wrongly that this fine doctor with the high-faluting accent could not possibly understand her. ‘Just a tonic, doctor, if you’ll be so good.’

  ‘Let’s have a look first,’ suggested Lucy and showed her patient to the screen behind which she could modestly shed her outer garments.

  Without blood tests she could not be sure, but she was almost positive that exhaustion and worry were her patient’s ailments. Worry she could not do much about. Exhaustion? Rest should cure that, if she could persuade Heather Bell to rest.

  ‘Have you any other relatives who would help you with the care of your parents, Miss Bell, if I was able to arrange a little rest for you?’

  ‘A rest?’

  ‘There is a new hospital for women in Dundee. It has just opened and I might be able to get you . . .’

  Heather Bell had jumped from the chair in alarm. ‘You dinnae understand, Doctor. I need tae work and I need tae look after the old folk. There’s nobody. I have a sister, but she’s tied down with six bairns and forbye she lives up the Hilltown – and my brithers, they’re dead.’

  In the years to follow Lucy was to hear that terrible story again and again: a surviving unmarried daughter, or son, bravely
caring for elderly parents in the face of appalling poverty and want. Even Mhairi Johnston, with her several small charges to care for twenty-four hours a day, had good food and a warm bed and surely a little rest when the children slept.

  ‘I’ll mix you up a tonic, Miss Bell, but I will approach the hospital authorities to see if there is a chance for even a week’s rest for you.’

  ‘I couldnae stop the weekend, doctor. I’ll take the tonic and I’ll thank you for your concern, but I couldnae leave them. Mither wanders if you’re no watching her, and if he’s worrit he sterts coughing.’

  Lucy rang her bell.

  ‘Mrs Murray, will you give Miss Bell a cup of tea in the kitchen while I make her up some medicine?’

  Later, when the woman clutching her bottle of medicine had gone off to wait for a tram, Lucy stared into the garden and went over and over her day’s work. One woman who could afford everything that would help her deal effectively with her medical condition, and one who could not and who would probably drop dead from exhaustion. A welfare service that would help the poor was necessary. But was that something for the politicians? Anyway, she would try to help both women. She would go to the Women’s Hospital to see if there was a bed for poor, tired, undernourished Heather Bell. She could not, however, force her to get into it. What to do with the aged parents was the problem.

  Doctor Graham, however, had miscalculated the strength of comradeship among the poor.

  Two nights later Lucy was discussing with Donald Murray the future, if there was indeed to be a future, of several venerable apple trees along the back wall of her property.

  ‘I wouldnae like tae mislead you, doctor, but I dinnae really know onything about fruit. My gut tells me never tae take doon a tree though. I think there’s probably some pruning and maybe even some mulching as would help it. I seem to mind on my faither steeping sheep’s dung in water and pitting that on his fruit trees. Gin it’s right wi’ you, I’ll cut the affected bits off these trees and see what happens and, in the meantime, I’ll ask them as kens more.’

  ‘Good idea, Donald,’ agreed Lucy, who was a great believer in asking information of those who knew more.