The Runaway

by Audrey Reimann

  ‘That’s enough, Albert,’ Oliver cut in sharply.

  ‘Look, Oliver. Take James in with you. It’s the only way. He’s not going to learn about mills and how to run them when he’s working against you. Bring him in. Let him get his teeth into a job; get the rebellion out of him.’

  ‘I’ll put a stop to this union nonsense first. Have a word with the mill hands, will you? Tell them not to go. Send someone down there tomorrow night to get the names of any of our workers who go to the blasted meeting.’ Oliver’s face was like thunder.

  ‘All right. But it’s a mistake, in my opinion. Where will you be?’

  ‘I’ll be in Southport. Dolly’s ill. Then I’m going to London for a couple of days. I’ll be back the day after that.’

  The hospital was a two-penny tram ride from Lord Street and stood back from the road, facing the sand hills and sea on the high ground above Southport. Oliver was agreeably surprised by its size and the well-kept grounds. It was as big as Suttonford with an entrance that could have graced a palace.

  Four tiled corridors led off from the central waiting room, oak doors with brass hinges and handles gleamed as did the big brassframed bulletin board where Dolly’s name was written near the foot of the list.

  ‘Mrs D. Wainwright. Satisfactory,’ it said.

  A system of hot-water pipes kept the place warm, running the length of the corridors and round the lofty waiting room. The room was deserted so Oliver tapped with his cane against the pipes.

  A nurse came out of one of the rooms, evidently annoyed by his arrogant summons. She was tall and wore a navy blue dress under a stiff white apron, which went down to her ankles. A wide triangle of starched linen was pinned on to her head. It came down low above her eyebrows and jutted out alarmingly in sharp points above her ears. Oliver took an instant dislike to her.

  ‘Where’s Mrs Wainwright?’ he demanded.

  ‘Women’s ward. At the end of the corridor,’ she said as she pointed hesitantly in a northward direction. ‘But you’ll not be allowed in. She is not to have visitors for another three weeks.’

  Oliver would not be told when he could see his own stepmother.

  ‘Out of my way, woman. I pay the bills. I’ll see whoever I like!’ His voice brooked no argument and the nurse retreated as he strode past her to the place she’d indicated.

  The ward was long and dim. Iron bedsteads ranged down either side and a double bank, head to head, was placed down the centre, making two aisles in the airless room. The room smelled of carbolic and had a strong undertone of sickness and unwashed bodies. The tall, narrow windows were tightly closed and the heat and silence oppressive.

  Oliver strode down the rows, peering at the faces on the pillows but could not see Dolly. He reached the door on his second turn around the room and called to her.

  ‘Dolly! Dolly Wainwright! Are you there?’ Footsteps scuttled along the corridor outside. The nurse must have gone for reinforcements, he thought.

  He saw a hand waving weakly from a bed at the far end of the ward and he heard Dolly’s familiar voice. ‘Over here, Oliver.’

  He had a chance to recover from his initial shock as he covered the fifteen yards to her bedside. This couldn’t be Dolly … this thin, white-haired old lady.

  ‘Dolly. What have they done to you? Are you all right? Your hair?’ He tried to lower his voice, not to upset her.

  ‘It went white, Oliver. Overnight.’ She would not let go of his hand and her thin fingers, ringless now, were like the claws of a bird.

  ‘Take me home, love,’ she pleaded. ‘I’ve got to get home. Thank God you’ve come. I’ll never be right here. I spend half me life asleep. I don’t know what they give me but it tastes horrible, bitter!’

  Oliver set his mouth in a grim line. ‘Where are your things? Are your clothes here? In a cupboard? You’re coming home with me. Now.’

  He went, angry, to the head of the ward where more nurses and a doctor waited for him. ‘Bring Mrs Wainwright’s clothes and send for a cab. She’s leaving,’ he ordered.

  ‘She is not fully recovered,’ the young doctor began.

  ‘And she never will be, here,’ Oliver told him. ‘Don’t try to obstruct me. I am removing my stepmother to her own home and I’ll not tolerate any delay. Her clothes. If you please!’

  They brought a paper sack from the office, containing Dolly’s dressing gown, a shawl and a pair of silver dancing slippers. He saw that they had taken her away in a hurry. They dressed her and wheeled her to the big doors and lifted her into the horse-drawn ambulance.

  She went silent, leaning against him on the journey but she wept when he carried her into her own home again and he held her up as she went, unsteadily, from room to room. ‘To make sure,’ she said.

  He and Nellie brought her bed downstairs to the sitting room where, unseen behind her lace curtains, she could see the street. And Dolly felt better already, she assured them. Nellie and Bertha fussed and coddled her. Her tonic wine was brought to her bedside and Bertha hurried off to steam a ‘nice bit of halibut’ and a custard cream for her tea.

  ‘Eeh, you are good to me!’ she whispered tearfully, a hundred times.

  ‘I can’t remember,’ she said, when Oliver asked her how it came about; her collapse. ‘I seem to think I was having a nice evening with Lizzie. We were sitting in here, talking. The next thing I remember is waking up in hospital. Ooh! It was just horrible in there, Oliver.’

  Oliver stayed overnight and left for London the next day. At the stationmaster’s office he telephoned Florence who sounded out of breath and indistinct over the miles.

  ‘Hello. Hello. Is that you, darling?’ he said.

  ‘Oliver!’ She was shouting now.

  ‘Steady yourself!’ There was a little silence before she began again.

  ‘Lizzie’s run away. She went yesterday. She’s taken all her things. She left a note. Wait a minute. Here it is.’

  ‘“I am going to live in Middlefield. I am going to work at John Partington’s mill. There is a house in Middlefield I can rent. They will apprentice me to their artist. I didn’t want a fuss with Mother ill. Hope you understand. See you on Oliver’s birthday, Lizzie.”’

  Florence was upset. ‘Isn’t it alarming, darling? I’m worried about her. She has been so prickly since she came back.’

  Oliver could scarcely get a word in. ‘I think she’ll be all right, Florence. Though it’s a bit hasty for my liking.’

  ‘Don’t be cross with her, Oliver. You won’t, will you? Be sweet to her when you see her.’ There was a pause, a clicking on the line and Oliver shook the receiver in irritation.

  ‘How is your stepmother, Oliver?’ Florence’s voice came back to him.

  ‘She’s home. Much improved. Tell Lizzie if you see her before I do.’

  On the London train he had time to think. And he was no clearer about what was going wrong with his children by the time the train drew into Euston station.

  He rang the hospital lodge when he reached his Bond Street hotel and left a message for Edward. ‘Tell him that his brother is in London,’ he told the porter, ‘and would like to give him dinner tomorrow evening. There is no need for him to contact me. I’ll be expecting him.’

  The old excitement gripped him. Tonight Celia would be in his bed. He called the head waiter. ‘Champagne and a cold supper. Have it left in the suite. I’m entertaining a guest this evening.’

  They were a more worldly lot in London. Not an eyebrow was raised when, instead of the brother he often invited, a well-known singer spent the night with him. When Celia was in Manchester or Liverpool they had to find a different hotel each time. The discretion of the staff could not be guaranteed in the north.

  Edward awoke early in his dingy little room. He pushed his feet into the slippers at his bedside and went to the sink where he filled a kettle and put it to boil on the gas ring. There might be a letter from Lizzie downstairs. It was late arriving. He shaved at the speckled mirror above the sink and dressed
while his tea brewed. His only suit was a bit shiny but it was dark and he looked good in it, despite his thinness, with the stiff white collar stark against the black jacket.

  Today he was one of the six students chosen to be at the fever wing when Dr Hart did his round. There was no food in his room but his eagerness for the day to start had diminished his appetite. He’d get something to eat at lunchtime. He hastened downstairs to the dark hallway. No letters for him, though the postman had been. It might come by the afternoon post.

  His room was on a long, bleak street and he’d be glad to leave it, if Lizzie would only join him. They’d find a place near the park. It was cold; greatcoat weather really, but he’d soon be indoors. Trams passed the hospital gates every five minutes. He banged his hands together and paced the length of the stops until his tram came.

  Edward was pleased he’d been selected for the fever lectures and visits. He hoped to follow in Dr Hart’s footsteps when he qualified. He had read everything the man had written and tried to go to all his lectures. Dr Hart, full of enthusiasm for his subject, was in the habit of throwing questions at the students without warning, punctuating his lecture with checks on their knowledge.

  They assembled in front of the rostrum in the lecture room and waited for the great man to arrive. He arrived exactly on time. ‘Pull your chairs into a semicircle,’ he ordered and without preamble went straight into the lecture. ‘Our subject is delirium.’

  ‘In a delirious patient accurate diagnosis is vital,’ Dr Hart began. ‘The state of delirium can result from – what, Wainwright?’

  ‘Infection.’

  ‘Yes. Anything else, Wainwright?’ he asked Edward.

  ‘Head injury.’

  ‘Yes. Anything else, Wainwright?’

  ‘Mental derangement.’

  ‘Just so, Wainwright!’ he said.

  The questions were always addressed to him. Edward would love to work for this man. Edward absorbed every word.

  When the lecture was over Dr Hart led the small group of students to the main fever ward. The beds were spaced far apart to keep down the spread of infection. Some of the patients had gone since Edward’s last visit. Some had recovered and been returned to their homes; others had died; and a few had been certified as insane and taken to the asylum.

  They followed from bed to bed, the specialist making his diagnoses only after they had ventured their own. Dr Hart discussed with them the case notes before they moved from one patient to the next. An old lady, breathing with gurgling sounds, was dying from a fever of the lungs. She could not hear them, Dr Hart said, it was only a matter of hours.

  In the next bed a young girl lay, blue-lipped, teeth chattering, under the blankets. They watched a nurse sponge her face. ‘Milk fever. Her baby died at birth. She’ll recover,’ the specialist said.

  A middle-aged woman sat on the next bed, wringing her hands, as if despairing. She had the features of one who had been beautiful in youth, but her hair was lank and had been tied severely back with a piece of tape, the straggling ends lying damp, brown and grey across the woollen shawl that covered her fine-boned shoulders.

  As they grouped themselves around her bed she lifted her head and tried to smile at each in turn, until her eyes met Edward’s and held them. She appeared to recognise him, and she stretched her hands out towards him and had to be restrained by the nurse.

  ‘Oliver! Oliver!’ she cried in a strong North Country accent. ‘You’ve found me.’

  Edward was startled. ‘Do you know Oliver?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes! Oh, Oliver,’ she said, searching his face as if, he thought, she was trying to compare him with someone she knew.

  He leaned across the bed, the better to let her see him. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked. ‘I’ll ask my brother if he knows you.’

  She shook herself free of the nurse’s hold and held on to Edward’s arm. ‘Rosie. Rosie King …’ She was about to say more but the nurse pulled her arm sharply back to her side and the woman called out with the pain. Some of the nurses used force too freely for Edward’s liking but he dared not tell the nurse to stop. That was for Dr Hart to do.

  ‘Mania,’ Dr Hart pronounced. ‘She was found wandering in the streets of the city. Nobody has come to claim her.’ He put his hand on the woman’s arm and bent over her, speaking kindly. ‘We are going to send you away, Mrs King. You are going to another hospital where you will be able to rest and recover in peace.’

  He turned to the nurse. ‘Take Mrs King into a side ward until the magistrate arrives to sign the certificate. Don’t be rough with her. She is not dangerous.’

  They passed on to the remaining patients but Edward could not put from his mind the sight of the poor woman who had spoken Oliver’s name. There was something familiar in the set of her head and her soft brown eyes.

  At lunch he mentioned her to the student who sat beside him. ‘Can you remember the name of the woman who was about to be certified?’ he asked. ‘The one who mistook me for Oliver? I have a brother called Oliver. She may know him. She may not be mad.’

  ‘King, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll make enquiries the next time I’m here,’ Edward said. ‘I could study her for my case history. I’ll ask sister for her notes.’

  He’d ask Oliver when he saw him, if he knew of a Mrs Rosie King.

  He went to the lodge at teatime, to collect a parcel of books. ‘There’s a message for you, Mr Wainwright,’ the lodge porter said, ‘from you brother. I wrote it down.’ He handed the paper to Edward.

  ‘May I use the phone?’ Edward asked, when he’d read the note. ‘I can’t see my brother tomorrow evening. If he’s in town already I’ll have supper with him tonight, instead.’

  The operator put him through quickly and he spoke to the lady clerk.

  ‘Is Mr Oliver Wainwright at the hotel tonight?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ the clerk answered. ‘He’s booked the suite for two nights.’

  ‘This is Mr Edward Wainwright,’ he said. ‘My brother has invited me to join him for dinner tomorrow. Will you tell him that I’ll see him tonight instead as I have an appointment tomorrow.’

  He heard the lady clerk speaking to the manager. ‘That was a call from Mr Wainwright. His brother is going to join him for dinner in the suite tonight.’

  ‘That’s all right. Mr Wainwright told me he was inviting a guest. I’ll see that everything is ordered.’

  If there was no word from Oliver, telling him not to go, then he’d go to the hotel straight from the hospital, Edward decided. He’d be lucky to be there before eight o’clock. He had a lot to ask Oliver too. He would insist on his brother telling what he knew about his and Lizzie’s birth.

  Chapter Thirty

  Oliver bathed and shaved and, satisfied with his appearance and with excitement growing like a pain in him, set off for the theatre. He had his usual seat on the second row and he waited impatiently for her performance, applauding the other acts only feebly. She saw him as soon as she stepped on to the stage and when she sang, she sang to him, giving him their secret looks, making him long to have her to himself.

  At last the final curtain fell and he made his way backstage. Her popularity was growing and he had to push through a crush of people in her dressing room, but as soon as he reached her side she took his hand and held it against her cheek while she chattered excitedly with the admirers who clamoured around her.

  ‘Have you ordered supper,’ she asked as soon as the others had left them, ‘or shall we go somewhere?’

  ‘We’ll dine in my suite. I can’t waste time in a restaurant,’ he said.

  She let him watch her as she changed into a dress of black lace, pinned up her hair and slipped her arms into the coat of Russian sable that he had bought for her. She would not allow him to touch her in the theatre, but she tantalised him with glimpses of her body until he could barely contain his ardour. He called a cab and they went speedily to the hotel.

  The lift took them up to Oliver’s
rooms and he opened the doors into the little hallway. The hall was unlit and he held her with her back to the door, hungrily seeking her mouth, unable to wait. Alone at last. ‘Oh, Celia. It’s been so long. I’ve needed you so often, love,’ he said urgently.

  But Celia’s eyes were wide and frightened, looking over his shoulder and not holding his own. Oliver whirled round and found himself looking into the shocked, disbelieving face of Edward.

  ‘I’m sorry!’ Edward tried to hide his embarrassment. He had never imagined … had never suspected that Oliver and Celia were lovers. He must leave, as quickly as possible. He felt sick. ‘I thought the supper table was set for us. I’m so sorry. I’m afraid I helped myself to your food.’

  Oliver appeared to be regaining his composure. ‘Will you stay and have supper with us, Edward? You’ve met Celia Bellman before, haven’t you?’

  ‘You were a guest of my mother’s, weren’t you?’ Edward found that an edge of reproof was coming into his voice. He felt embarrassed, foolish and unwanted. He had to get out. ‘I’ll not stay. Thank you,’ he stammered, wondering, even as he spoke the words, why on earth he was thanking them.

  ‘You’ll be here tomorrow night, will you Edward?’ Oliver said. ‘There’s a lot to talk about.’

  ‘I’m sure there is. Don’t worry. You needn’t tell me anything. It’s all quite clear.’

  Edward left the suite and made swiftly for the stairs, wanting the relief of the open street, not able to stand or face others in the lift.

  The streets were wet. Rain fell steadily as he made his way back to his room. What an idiot he’d been! Why had he been outraged, like a silly girl, at Oliver’s bringing that music-hall woman back to the hotel? Was it because she had been there before? ‘It’s been so long,’ Oliver had said. How long? A year? Two? And how many more women were there?

  It happens, he tried to tell himself. It has happened to me. But if I had Lizzie I’d never want another woman. Did Lizzie know about it? Could she befriend Florence if she knew? What went on at Suttonford?