Dreams Can Come True

by Vivienne Dockerty

  “Oh, good. And did yer go next door to the Taylor’s?”

  “I did knock, but no one answered. What does he do, Maggie? Does he work in Chester the same?”

  “No, he works at the bank in the village. He’s the manager. In fact when I’m feeling better I’ll pay him a visit. Let him know who I am.”

  “That’s my girl,” smiled Eddie. “Now can yer manage a little soup? Joan’s got a pan of broth on the go.”

  “Here you are, Mother, a small bowl of broth. Now eat it up. I know you put most of your oatmeal this morning down the sink.”

  “I threw it back, Hannah, that’s why it went down the sink. I’ve got all this phlegm at the back of me throat and down on me chest and that stuff yer give me brought it all up.”

  “Uh, disgusting. I hope Joan didn’t see yer doing it.”

  “I didn’t do it in the kitchen sink, I spat it into the bathroom bowl!”

  “Anyway, Mother. Can I talk to you about something?”

  Hannah drew up another chair and lowered herself into it.

  “You know I told you yesterday that I think I may be expecting again? Well, I am. I went to see Dr. Barnes this morning and he says I’m two months gone.”

  “And is Eddie pleased?” Maggie tried to look pleased herself, but found it an effort to put a smile on her face today.

  “Oh, he just gave me a great big kiss and said, “Well done little mother”, but he went out looking cheerful. He’s gone back to the site to look at some footings; one of the men sent a message for him to come.”

  “So, what do yer want to talk about?”

  “Well, with me expecting I thought you’d like some of my rags. Only there wasn’t any of yours in that basket we share, so I thought you’d perhaps burnt all yours and needed some more.”

  “I’ve been thinking, while I’ve been lying in me bed, that I’m over having monthlies,” Maggie said. “I’m sure I was due two weeks ago and I’ve seen nothing. I put it down to that damned ‘flu or whatever it was that attacked me, but thinking about it, maybe I’m starting the change.”

  “How would you find out, Mother?” asked Hannah, quite awed at the fact that here she was, wanting lots of babies, and that Maggie was at the end of things.

  “I don’t know, I don’t want Dr. Barnes poking around in me private bits. I’ll have to find someone older than I am and ask them.”

  “Joan,” they both said in unison.

  “If nothing happens in a day or two, I’ll ask Joan about it then.”

  “Staff Nurse Tibbs, can you come here a minute?” Sister Gill called to Katie, as she began to put her cloak on, preparing to walk over to her room at the Nurses Home. Katie groaned to herself. What now? She’d been on her feet since seven that morning and was looking forward to her evening meal.

  “I’ve just had a message from the colliery. It seems that a miner fell out of the cage as it was being lowered into the excavation. He’s still alive, as they managed to throw him a rope and haul him back up again, but the doctor is sending him here in case he’s suffering any ill effects from the cold or dirty water.”

  “But the new shift will be here in a minute, Sister. Can’t one of them see to him?”

  “Yes, one of them could, but as you know one of their team is ill and we have limited bed space. I was going to ask you to put him in a side ward and make him comfortable before you leave. He’ll be here in twenty minutes or so. Surely you can do that for your fellow man?”

  “Yes, Sister. I’m sorry, Sister. I’ll get a probationer to make up the bed. Could I perhaps make myself a drink though, to give me a bit of energy to carry on?”

  Katie walked slowly to the kitchen. Sister was always asking for that little bit extra. She had been on Mens’ Ward now for four months and it always seemed that they were short of staff. An extra hour here and another there. Her old hospital seemed like a paradise when Katie compared it to this place.

  “Sister wants you to make up the bed in the side ward,” she said to Winnie, her underling, who was sitting sipping tea. She took the cup of the girl and shooed her on her way.

  “I’ll finish this tea off for you, Win. I’m parched and I’ve got to stay behind again.”

  One morning in the middle of May, as the rain lashed down against the conservatory windows, the two ladies of Selwyn Lodge were absorbed in some fashion magazines that Hannah had ordered from a London store. They were both a little bored as the weather had kept them cooped up in the house for days. Hannah longed to walk down to the promenade with little Johnny; Maggie would have liked to visit Chester to see her solicitor. She still hadn’t done anything about Michael’s release from his regiment and it had been preying on her mind. Eddie had taken the carriage, so it meant walking down to the train station. Nowadays, that kind of effort was just too much to bear. Where had all her energy gone? She kept wondering. Even playing with her grandson was too much at times.

  “That would suit you, Mother,” Hannah remarked, pointing to a day dress modelled by a pretty dark-haired girl. “If you made that up in a silk, perhaps a pastel shade for when the summer comes. Blue maybe, you always look good in blue, or try a deep pink this time and I could make up one for myself with a similar cut, though maybe a little fuller across the hips. I know, we could both have a draped effect across the front.”

  “Are you saying I’m fat, Madam?” Maggie asked. She said it lightly, but had to admit to herself that the middle-aged spread that Joan had mentioned seemed to be now applying to herself.

  “Well, you have put a bit of weight on, haven’t you? Even though you’re not finishing up what’s put on your plate.”

  “I’ll easily get thinner by Ladies Day. Once this rain stops and we can get out again, I’ll take long walks with you and the baby. Though, Joan warned me about something she called middle age spread, when I talked to her about women’s changes. I think she was probably looking fer a reason to excuse how fat she is.”

  “Meow. Keep your voice down, Mother, she’ll hear you. You know that in this house our walls have got finely-tuned ears. So, shall I send for the patterns? I’ll order this one for both of us and we should be able to make a start by next weekend.”

  “I suppose so. With me being chosen to carry a banner at the parade this time, I’d better have something new to wear. Though I’m going to feel embarrassed with everyone looking at me.”

  “Mother, you deserve the honour!” Hannah declared stoutly. “Half the charities around here benefit from your largesse; none of them would exist if it wasn’t for your hard work.”

  “I know, but I’ve never really got over the feeling that people look at me with scorn. Look, there’s the great and good Maggie Haines. She was an Irish immigrant, yer know.”

  “Oh, tosh to that! You’ve spent more of your life here than back in Ireland. Not everyone has a memory like you have, except Grandmama or Maddy that is. Anyway, come on, let’s measure each other before the little rascal wakes up and starts crying. Stand tall, stand still. No, put your arms down by your side. That’s it…”

  Suddenly, Hannah stopped what she was doing, leaving her hand dithering somewhere around her stepmother’s waistband. She pulled Maggie gently towards her, so that they were facing each other. Her voice were full of disbelief as she looked intently into innocent eyes.

  “You did meet my father in Liverpool, didn’t you?”

  Maggie’s heart lurched for a moment at the memory of her guilty secret, then wondered why on earth had Hannah decided to bring up the trip now, after all these weeks had passed. And why accuse her of meeting up with Jack? What had happened to make Hannah think that she had had an assignation? Maybe someone had seen her in Liverpool. She answered her stepdaughter indignantly,

  “What are yer talking about, Hannah? Meeting up with yer father, indeed! He made it very clear that it was a different life he wanted. I’ve not seen him since he cleared off over to Wicklow and how long ago was that? Listen to yer, you wouldn’t think that I’m a grown woman
who’s entitled to some private time on her own, the way yer clucking over me!”

  “Then you must be expecting a baby through immaculate conception, if it wasn’t Father.”

  She turned her back on Maggie and slowly walked away.

  “Hannah, come back. Just finish measuring me or you and I are going to fall out.”

  But Maggie’s cross words fell on deaf ears, as Hannah ran up the stairs to the nursery.

  “Are yer all right, Mrs.?”

  Joan, the cook, looked at Maggie with concern in her eyes. She stood uncertainly in the dining room doorway, wondering if she was over stepping the divide between herself and her employer, but surely there had been anguish in the voice she had just heard. Probably a spat that she should keep her nose out of, but the missus had been through the mill recently, what with Mr. Haines clearing off like he had and then her coming down with a nasty dose of ‘flu. Joan watched as Maggie clutched at the mahogany table, then sat down in a chair with a thump.

  “What is it? Is it them hot flushes? I’ll get yer a cool drink from the larder; that should do the trick.”

  Without Maggie’s agreement, Joan waddled through the kitchen, shooing Olive away as she passed the inquisitive girl.

  “Mrs. Haines’ll be wanting lunch laid out in a minute, Olive. Go and ask her if yer can move all them things from the table and keep yer mouth shut; she’s not very well.”

  Maggie was sitting staring out of the window as her maid crept in. She nodded her head numbly when Olive asked if she could clear the table and put the magazines on the bridge table by the door. She thanked Joan politely as a glass of lemonade was placed before her, then waited with trepidation as Hannah was called down for her lunch from the nursery.

  She hated falling out with her stepdaughter. She could count on the fingers of one hand the amount of times there had been sharp words between them. And that in a house full of women, if you counted Olive and Joan. Surely Hannah couldn’t be right, could she? Accusing her of expecting a baby, of all things. She was forty one, nearly forty two, and in all those years after having Michael there had been no more babies. It was as Joan said. It was the changes that women of her age went through that were causing the extra weight, her lack of monthlies, the loss of appetite and energy. Once the sun started shining she’d feel a whole lot better. Plenty of walks in the fresh air would give her a new lease of life again.

  She smiled tentatively at Hannah as the girl came in carrying little Johnny.

  “Look, we’re having your favourite, Hannah. Braised beef and onions, with delicious garden peas.”

  Chapter 17

  Katie tucked a stray hair beneath her nurse’s bonnet and straightened her apron in the sluice room. Another few minutes, then it was away to the Matron’s office. She and Sister Gill had been summoned to a meeting at ten o’clock. Perhaps there had been word of her proposed promotion or a date to be agreed for another exam’. She knew she could do it. All those hours spent in her little room revising from the “Notes on Nursing” that Sister Gill had given her, while the other girls were slipping out to meet various beaus or attending the dances at the local village hall. Or perhaps it was just an appraisal of what Katie thought was her very hard work. Whatever it was, her mood was very buoyant. It was a lovely day at the beginning of June.

  “Ah, Sister Gill and Staff Nurse Tibbs.”

  Matron Fairhurst smiled over her half-moon spectacles at her nurses kindly and beckoned the pair of them in. She was a tall, thin woman in her fifties, dressed totally in black from head to toe, except for a white, laced, detachable collar around the neckline of her gown and a white, frilly cap pinned firmly in place on her naturally curly, shoulder-length greying hair.

  She stood behind her desk and showed them a telegram that she had received that morning.

  “It’s from the Hospital Board in Chester. We are to be advised that a troop ship will be arriving in Liverpool, within the next forty eight hours from Bengal. The men aboard have various conditions, but we have been assigned the ones that have succumbed to dysentery. The Hospital Board are trying to arrange it that the men can be treated in the area that they come from, so we probably won’t be receiving that many cases. However, to be on the safe side, I’ll be opening the Hinderton Ward, so I would like you, Sister Gill, to arrange for a team of cleaning women to go in and bring the place up to our very high standards. And you, Staff Nurse Tibbs, are to brief the probationers and auxiliaries on what will be expected from them. Plenty of bedpans need to be available at all times, plenty of bowls for the sickness and, depending on how far gone their illness is, plenty of jugs of water at their bedsides. It is possible that some may have delirium, as although they will have had nurses travelling with them, conditions on a troop ship are not like ours at all. Now, are there any questions from either of you? Sister Gill? Staff Nurse Tibbs?”

  “Well, I was wondering how on earth we were going to manage, Matron?” said Sister Gill worriedly. She was voicing Katie’s worries exactly, who didn’t think it was her place to air her fears.

  “Of course you will manage; I’ve every confidence in your team. How many are there in the Thornton Ward now? Three, four? One old man with a broken hip, another with a chest complaint, that miner with the damaged leg and the fellow who came in with the scalded face. Hardly wearing you out, are they? Well, we’ll see how many men are assigned to our care before we make a fuss about it, then I’ll borrow some staff from another ward if I have to. Come back to me, Sister, if there’s a problem.”

  She dismissed the women with an encouraging smile. They didn’t know they were born, she thought. Let them try and cope with what she had had to in the Crimea. At least there were bedpans here and decent mattresses for the patients to lie on. The soldiers she had tended to in Sevastopol had nothing, other than a few thin blankets and a kind word from the nurses that had volunteered to go out there.

  Matron let her mind wander back to that incredibly cold winter back in 1854, when the snow lay so deep around their encampment that nothing could move in or out for days on end. They prayed constantly for a ship to arrive at the nearby port, at least to rescue those that had not succumbed to disease or hunger and to bring equipment, food and medical supplies. At last their prayers had been answered, when the steam ship, Cambria,had managed to cut a swathe through the ice of the Black Sea and sent a party of brave young men to seek them out. She had travelled back to Liverpool with the sick and the wounded, along with the body of General Adams, then helped to restore good health to some of the men.

  The woman shuddered as she remembered it all.

  “That’s what I like about Matron,” Sister Gill said, as she and Katie walked along the stony path back to Thornton Ward. “She knows what she’s talking about, though she should do after being a nurse for thirty odd years. Did you know she trained under Florence Nightingale? Well, she was at Crimea anyway; whether she ever met the woman, I’m not sure. Matron keeps herself to herself, as you will have noticed, but she knows her job all right. Knows exactly how many patients are on each ward and what’s wrong with all of them; knows that we’re overstaffed at the moment with summer being here. Not so many accidents and illnesses once the sun starts shining and I’ve noticed how little there is to be done, once the ward work is finished each morning. I think I’ll take over the Hinderton Ward myself and leave you to run our ward with the help of Win and Mrs. Mottram, the auxiliary. I’ll take Janey, the new probationer and I’ll make do with Mrs. Kane. Though I’ll not be far away, so you will have my support if necessary and it goes without saying if we cannot cope with the new influx, you’ll have to help me out in there.”

  “Yes, Sister, thank you, Sister,” replied Katie happily.

  To be left in charge of a ward was such a great honour, her heart soared at the thought of it. So what if she only had four patients to care for? She’d be an Acting Sister, wouldn’t she? The committee of the Hospital Board would be impressed as well.

  Johnny stood on the brid
ge of the steamer, Irish Maiden, watching as his partner, Dermot Ryan, steered the vessel deftly into port. So this was it then, he thought to himself sadly. The end of an era, the closing of a chapter, exchanging it all for a life on shore. Minutes from now it would all be over, except for saying goodbye to the present crew. He had resisted the calls of a farewell bevy; something that normally he would have been glad to do. But he needed a clear head for the following morning, when he was to take over as owner of the ship’s chandlers; here on the very harbour, that he had sailed out from for some years now. This business with Maggie had given him the shove that he had needed; a kick up the backside to make changes in his life.

  He had lain for days in his room all those weeks ago, drifting in and out of delirium, not really wanting to live if he couldn’t have Maggie by his side. He’d be dead now if it wasn’t for Dermot, who had come to “dig the bugger out” after Johnny had missed two sailings across to Liverpool. He’d been a good mate, calling on a doctor, who had the sick man transferred to the City Hospital. There had been plenty of time since then to dwell on his near-death experience and realise that he was lucky to have another crack at his life.

  “Penny for them, Johnny,” Dermot broke into his thoughts, before the ship lunged uncontrollably against the solid wall of the berth, sending the pair of them flying.

  “Bloody old tub, you’d think she’d know how far we were off that wall by now, wouldn’t yer? Let down the gangplank, somebody,” he roared, as the wheel righted itself once more and the ship settled down with a sigh.

  “What was I saying? Oh, yes. If it doesn’t work out, yer know you can always come back and work fer me – this time scrubbing decks though. You’ll have spent all me buy out money on that bloody business, by then I suppose.”

  He held out his hand and murmured softly.

  “Don’t let her get to yer, Johnny. There’s plenty other mermaids in the sea.”