Nella Last's Peace

by Patricia Malcolmson

  Mrs Higham called at 2.30, and I was waiting ready, and we parked her car easily, with going early. Everyone was amazed at the beauty of the décor of the Ward and upper passage. It was all a pale luminous turquoise with gay little stencils of fairies in every pose, while on the big blank wall of the Ward, Peter Pan played his pipes to the rabbits and birds around his pedestal. The new up-to-date cots were primrose yellow, and the newly equipped bathroom had primrose-yellow raised baths and wash bowls. The children were all so good and looked happy to see the crowds walk round. The various branches of the WVS were represented. Governors of the hospital, their wives, doctors and Committee and their wives as well as nurses and sisters.

  Tea was served in various rooms on the lower corridor. We – Mrs Higham, Mrs Howson and I – were in one where photos of all the head surgeons since the hospital was built were hung. It’s not a very old hospital – eighty years at most, I think – and I knew by sight all the doctors of the last fifty years or so, some of them grim and stern in their whiskered dignity, but there was a curious resemblance difficult to define. I looked across at old Dr Livingstone, the head now, and he had somewhat the same look – so absent from the younger doctors around. It was a look of purpose and dignity, a look of a calling. I looked cynically at a group of younger doctors boisterously laughing by the door. Two are well known to be ‘too fond of the girls’, two showed unmistakable signs of hard drinking, several had weak faces and rather a nervous manner. I thought suddenly, ‘If I had to rely on a doctor to save my life, I’d choose one of you two’ – a coal-black eye specialist, or a brown Jamaican with the kindest, firmest mouth of the lot. I was quite lost in my thoughts, but Mrs Higham’s were straying the same way as she whispered, ‘What a bunch. I’d sooner trust those two coloured doctors. They seem to radiate strength. They would give me confidence far before, for instance, Drs Moore or Ronald.’ We were interested in the type of nurses too. I’ve spent so much time in hospital and nursing home; Mrs Higham has visited her sister in hospital. Now the bright little nurses look ‘ladies’ as against the rather rough Cumberland and Irish ones who at one time seemed general in our hospital, and who took a lot of training. Perhaps better wages have attracted a rather better type of girl.

  In a speech made by a member of the Committee, she spoke of her admiration of the WVS for all their faithful unpaid work all through the war, and her feeling that ‘service’ couldn’t have been better remembered than in seeing this lovely ward so bright and gay. Mrs Higham and I could have had a silly fit of the giggles. We could see Mrs Waite and Mrs Lord’s face as the WVS were extolled. They had a curious reaction to the very title and refused firmly to wear WVS uniform and lost no chance of malicious and biting remarks. They had run a ‘Queen Mary Sewing Guild’ in the 1914–18 war and ‘There was no daft talk of WVS then and we don’t want it now and for two pins we would sever any connections with it.’ She (Mrs Waite) was ranting once, saying she was ‘not WVS and never would be’, and I quickly said, ‘We, as a committee, acknowledge and belong to the WVS and so it will go on’, and I think her dislike of us as a committee grew from that day. Today they sat with sour, pursed lips, waiting for some separate mention of Hospital Supply – and none came. When Mrs Higham and I spoke politely to them, only Mrs Lord replied. I felt so sorry for their bitterness. They are very alone. Mrs Higham was the last to try to keep contact with Mrs Waite, but rudeness and real insult made her say ‘never again’.

  We felt so happy to renew old acquaintance. Odd how in such a small place as Barrow one can lose touch with one another. It was like a fashion parade with most of the women – such lovely new fur coats, tweeds and coats, shoes and hats – and my sharp eyes recognised new strings of pearls on two old friends and a new diamond ring on another, jewels I knew they didn’t possess a short time ago. Matron asked anxiously about her Xmas dollies. I told her they were all ready and being kept aired well in the top of my airing cupboard. We were shocked to hear in a governor’s speech that the hospital is losing £400 a week. There are several thousands less employed at the Yard, but I felt it was the raised cost of every item, including wages, that was the real cause. I thought of the army of cleaners necessary to keep that rambling old place reasonably clean, and the big increase alone paid to them. We were home by 5.30, feeling that blankness of being transported to another plane and then back to everyday life.

  A day’s outing was set for the following week, and this prospect alarmed Nella’s husband, whose distress annoyed her. ‘I’m only going away for the day on Wednesday,’ she wrote on 3 November, ‘and I’ll leave everything planned for his lunch and tea and bank a fire that he can see to at lunchtime. Times like these I understand every revolt, strike, assault – yes, and even murder!’

  Wednesday, 5 November. It was such a lovely morning – more like September than November. I rose blithe and gay. I do love a day out. I felt I could have sang over my breakfast! We were down in town by nine o’clock, and the journey to Preston was wonderful in the early morning, with the sun shining on the autumn colours of trees and fells. We were there by twelve o’clock and had lunch first. The luxury of Preston shops and our really good meals added to the enjoyment of the day …

  The shops were a delight – such luxury things displayed – and hats we never see at comparatively reasonable prices to ours. I’ve such a love of luxury in me somewhere. I coveted a night blue silk velvet gown, with severe classic cut, only draperies round the hip caught by a sparkling diamond clasp, before falling in folds to the ground. We all picked luxury shoes, furs, hats, feeling there was wide choice for our assorted sizes and shapes, losing ourselves in ‘buying’ happily, like children in our make believe, not really covetous – they seemed so utterly outside our ken or possession.

  The County Hall was a delight in its solid, worthwhile furnishing of real wood in profusion and its real leather seating. I smiled to myself at one thing we all had in common – a ‘those were the days’ as we admired work and craft made to endure, to wear better with polishing, etc. Preston has such splendid stained windows and the double windows of the Council Chamber with the sunlight through their glowing colours, touching the lovely gold and coloured tooled leather on the backs of the row of chairs where the Mayor sat, seemed to give another note of difference to us all.

  Lady Reading [founder of the WVS] spoke well as usual, but even she could not hide the fact she thought the future prospects a bit dim. She spoke of the ideals of WVS, our oath to serve in however humble way, how by example we could teach the simple homely things, be kind and help wherever we could, not waiting for the ‘big chance to serve’ which only came to the few. Her talk had more uplift and influence than most sermons. I glanced round the curve of seats, feeling she had given a message. Saying WVS had earned respect and admiration, she begged us to keep our standard high, shun black-market and spiv† dealings, and help others to do the same. Barrow is not as affected by real black-market as much as fiddling. We talked to a woman WVS from Bolton and she said it was rife in that area, accepted often as the only way to obtain logs, paraffin, etc. – simple necessities of life. Lady Reading fears the whole world is slipping in its spiritualand moral values, and believes in each and all doing all they can in their own corner, and handing on true values to children as they grow …

  Dusk fell quickly. We set off at 5.30 and as if to make our luxury day still more unreal, we drove through bonfires and firework displays all the way home. I’d never seen the like. Most of the fires must have been branches and brushwood and their clear red and gold fires burned a hole in the blackness of the night, which made such a perfect firework night. Star shells and rockets streaked in grand display. As soon as one fire and happy group was passed, another came into view anywhere where there were houses, and in the country districts several times we feared ricks were on fire. We all said quite sincerely we never remembered such a day out. There was only one rather unpleasant woman in the coach, who, to hear her talk, had done more than three times her share of w
ar work, but when we snubbed her by silence, and refused to take up her challenge when she averred she ‘should have had the OBE – everyone said so’, she piped down. Anyway, poor thing, she was a devastatingly plain-faced woman, with horrible jumbled teeth, unmarried and getting fat. She had not got much out of life. Times like that I believe in any kind of a marriage where a home is made or there are children.

  My little cats rushed to meet me as if I’d been away for a week. Mrs Newall and I sat in a corner to have our tea and I hastily slipped the bit of chicken skin and a wee bone into an envelope when no one was looking, wishing I’d the courage to offer to buy a few kitchen scraps for my little friends. Their delight was comical to see, though Shan We plainly showed me how ‘moreish’ he considered his tit bit! I was in by 8.15. There was a good fire and my husband forgot my fault in going off and only showed his satisfaction I was back. Times I get so impatient, realising I wasnever beautiful, never flighty. Men have always liked but never pursued me, and the only time I was ‘insulted’ was when I was living in the New Forest and a very odd Channel Island captain of a ship – married with a lovely blonde Devonshire wife and adorable little girl – told me calmly I was the kind of woman he had always dreamed about and asked me to let him take Arthur and I away, and presumably we were to sail about together all over the world for the rest of our time! Beyond that – and my husband wasn’t told for years after – there has never been the least cause for my husband’s wildly possessive attitude. I sat down opposite to him tonight, my cats on my lap, and looked across at his tired face. Suddenly I felt a sincere prayer in my heart that I could outlive him, could always look after him – after all, it’s my job, and I like a job well done and finished off. He would be a desolate lost man on his own.

  Thursday, 6 November. It’s my going out alone that makes my husband so moody. He clings like a frightened child. If I’m irritated I think it’s because I spoil him, looking after every comfort, and make his meals and home as attractive as I can. Any ‘sex’ has long died and I aver to myself it’s because he hates any discomforts, even like waiting for the tea being brewed, and he thinks lunch or a cooked tea can be served easily, half an hour late – or early – just the same. But when I’m not cranky at his attitude, I feel such a deep pity, wondering just what caused his fear of life or change.

  Life was still difficult. Scarcity continued to be a nagging worry; manufactured goods were more and more costly; and there was at least one power cut. ‘People do seem gloomy and depressed,’ Nella wrote on 8 December, ‘and I’ve noticed those who rely on pictures or whist drives for their pleasure get far more so than anyone who sews or reads.’ On Saturday, 29November she made a rare reference to football – Nella was no sports fan. ‘Barrow won, so all those thousands of Carlisle supporters – 2,000 alone came in coaches from the surrounding district of Carlisle, and then there were the long line of cars and the trains – had their long journey to see their side win in vain, and they drop out of the Cup final.’ Babies were much mentioned: Norah had a baby girl in mid November (Nella saw a lot of both of them); Aunt Eliza was to have another great-grandchild in the spring; two new neighbours, both reckoned to be in their thirties, were expecting (late by standards then); and Edith announced that she was again pregnant. Nella was a great admirer of babies, and quickly became attached to Norah’s ‘adorable’ infant. She sometimes thought back to her own babies, though rarely spoke of the one who did not survive: ‘I buried my first baby on a Boxing Day,’ she recalled on 7 December (and said no more).

  Sunday, 30 November. At 7.30 we sat quiet to listen to Cavalcade, which I feel, like Journey’s End, will never date or die. I felt a great sadness when I heard some of the high hopes, the certainties war was finished. I contrasted that hope with the feelings we all have today in some degree – France trembling on the brink of civil war, wild unrest in Pakistan, a blaze of religious war ready to sweep the East, when Palestine is divided. There’s no place – unless it’s little pockets of peace like the quiet hills – where we could point and say, ‘There is peace.’ Unrest is in every mind and heart, and until it passes there will be visible discord. The old ones who wrote, ‘And renew a right spirit within us’ wrote for all time. Only right thinking and a sense of responsibility and personal endeavour can lift us all out of the mess.

  Wednesday, 10 December. I didn’t feel like going over Walney. It was a cold, raw day, but Mrs Whittam has had an ingrowing toe nail off this week and I couldn’t disappoint her. I felt so very sorry for her. She seems to have suddenly turned into an old worried woman. Olga and Ena are still on bad terms and go their way, not trying to make up, and it worries Mrs Whittam till she is really ill. There’s an odd bitter streak in the family. Mrs Whittam and her only sister once disagreed over a trifle, and never spoke again, though they lived in the same road. The old mother lived at Mrs Whittam’s home – a holy terror who lived to ninety-seven – and when the sister visited her, even if Mrs Whittam sat for hours in the same room, they never addressed a remark direct, and any business that couldn’t be directed by a third member of the family was done through their lawyer!

  I felt a sick sadness for that joyous, gypsy, carefree life that has flown, never to return, but to me there was always a streak or touch of unreality, even distortion, in their ‘ecumenical’ way of life, when children, food, work and every interest seemed to be shared and discussed, by the two sisters and their children. I often wondered how the husbands reacted, or if in the evenings and weekends, when they were home, things were different. I feel that unconsciously there must have been little resentments which have accumulated and boiled up like milk in a boiling saucepan, and that the trivial quarrel was an effect and not a cause. If it had been my boys, I’d have been able to talk or reason – I couldn’t imagine such a situation with them anyway – but Whittams are so uncontrolled, living in their passing emotions. There doesn’t seem ‘depths’ to draw upon. I felt the tears roll down my cheeks as Mrs Whittam talked – pity for her distress, a deeper grief for the happiness and gaiety I felt had gone for ever, and nothing to take its place. The mists and fogs of the Channel, the mud of the receding tide, and my aching bones, all seemed part of the so dismal day as I came home – and misery in the form of Aunt Eliza waited on the step. She hates this weather and it makes her unhappy.

  Tuesday, 16 December. Such a mild day – I’d really like winter if it was no colder. I dusted round and left a little beef casserole on lowest heat with a deep soup plate with soup in and the pan lid over it, on top of the pan, a well-banked little fire with the kettle by the side, and caught the eleven o’clock bus to Ulverston from the corner. Farmers were busy all along the roads to Spark Bridge. More pastures are being ploughed, dung carted and spread, hedges and ditches trimmed and drained, making the most of this grand spell before winter breaks. Snow ploughs and their blades are at their posts. Thin threads of smoke from pockets of common land show gypsies have settled in their winter quarters. I had three-quarters of an hour to wait at Ulverston, for the Coniston bus, and wandered round. I like Ulverston best on working or market days. I feel so at home with the country people, who shop. Many I recognise, and still more know by sight. I got half a dozen nice little boned Finny haddocks. With it being cold weather, Aunt Sarah and Joe could keep them a day or two till eaten.

  I travelled in the bus with an old retired doctor. He must be even older than Aunt Sarah. He spoke to me as if I was too young to remember some of the things he talked about, as he chatted of Gran and a horse she used to lend him, when his own went lame, called ‘Bouncer’. He seemed one with the blessed peace that seems to cling round Greenodd and the quiet villages round the sleepy slow river. I looked at his quiet face and recalled he had had two marriages, one happy, one a tragedy, where a dipsomaniac had trapped him into marrying her by spending the night, unknown to him, in the bedroom next to his, which had a door between. Her story was that she had been taken ill – too ill to call the young maid before she left, or make the old deaf houseke
eper hear – but ‘she was ruined for life when her people knew – she dare not go home’, etc. etc. He only knew her slightly and doctors of those days were even more marked men. Only loyalty of patients and friends kept him sane for years. He met a sweet frail woman, daughter of a retired colonel, and for thirty years to my knowledge they were the closest friends. By the time they could have married, she was a hopeless invalid from a kind of arthritis. He lost his only son in the 1914 war, and a grandson in this last war, yet his old age was serene. I wondered if God gives forgetfulness of hurt and grief, and only leaves tiny grains of memory of happiness, like grains of gold. We spoke of wood smoke and the smell of baking bread which always greets you in the little valley village of Spark Bridge, and which seems to cling to cats’ fur and dogs’ coats. He likes the motors off the road – hopes we will all start horse riding if our feet won’t carry us! When he shook hand and wished me ‘All the compliments of the Season’, it sounded – and felt – like the blessing of a priest.