‘Come near me and I’ll make you sorry!’ Charlotte cried shrilly. She shrank away, tucking herself at the far end, between the head of the bed and the wall. Her arms tightened around the tangle of blankets and towels housing her small, naked infant, her eyes burning manically. Frizzy tendrils of dark hair had escaped the long braid that hung over her shoulder and were standing out from her head, adding to the appearance of madness.
Doctor Harland draped the scope around the back of his neck and lifted his hands up in an exasperated gesture. He glanced at Alice. She hesitated before opening her mouth, but before she could speak, Frank intervened. ‘Come now, Charlotte,’ he said, easing past the doctor. ‘We need to make sure the infant is well, there’s a good girl.’
‘No!’ Charlotte cried out again, this time with a violent lunge across the filthy mattress. Scrambling back out of reach in the far corner of the room, she began screaming incoherently, all the while clutching her still bloodstained baby to her chest.
Fear and grief masqueraded as madness, so that it appeared that the young mother was wildly out of control and in no fit state to take care of her baby. That she was driven to this because three strangers had descended upon her with the intention of tearing her newborn baby away was equally undeniable.
‘We had all this last year!’ Mrs Redbourne screeched. ‘Her being free with herself. There’s nothing else for it but to get her brains tested.’
Alice frowned. ‘I don’t follow.’
‘She lost it at five or six months gone, thank the Lord,’ the woman continued in explanation. ‘You’d think that’d be enough to stop her, but, oh no, she had to go and do it again, didn’t she?’
‘Perhaps if I spoke to Mr Redbourne?’ Alice ventured. ‘Sometimes, with support, families are able to –’
‘He’s disgusted with her,’ the woman snapped, though a mild flicker crossed her expression. ‘I don’t think there’s no way you’ll talk him round.’
With continuing insistence, Mrs Redbourne acquiesced and asked her husband to come down from his retreat in their bedroom.
‘Ain’t something you expect, is it?’ the porter mumbled grimly when Alice spoke to him in the hall. His dull eyes rested on his wife as he spoke, his fingernails scratching restlessly at the wooden banister. ‘Not from your own.’
Mrs Redbourne nodded along with his every word. ‘Yes, see, I told you.’ She rushed back along the hall towards the parlour, her arm outstretched and beckoning. ‘Come on, then, quick. Let’s get on with it.’
‘Just a moment,’ Alice said, unmoving. Mr Redbourne hovered on the bottom stair, looking troubled. The almoner fixed him with a steady look. ‘There might be some level of support we can put in place, Mr Redbourne, if you were willing to keep Charlotte here. I cannot promise anything, but if you feel differently to your wife, we can perhaps come to some agreement you would both be –’
‘Would you credit it?’ the woman roared. ‘You’re the limit, you really are!’ She charged back up the hall and waved her husband away with a flapping hand. ‘Trying to come between a woman and her husband!’ she said, her hands on her hips. ‘We’re in agreement, and nothing you can say will change his mind.’ Alice’s gaze was still resting on Mr Redbourne. He flicked a regretful glance towards his wife and then turned, trudging back up the stairs.
‘She’s turned into one of those imbeciles you hear about,’ Mrs Redbourne shrieked as she led the way back into the parlour. ‘She’s beyond helping, she’s morally corrupt!’
Dr Harland watched helplessly as Charlotte thrashed around, her lips contorting manically. He was a chest specialist with little experience in the field of psychiatrics, but any doctor was allowed to make a diagnosis and confirm a committal to a mental hospital, whatever their speciality. Tears painted white streaks down Charlotte’s blood-streaked cheeks. Her eyelashes were wet, her pale cheeks suddenly a bloody crimson.
‘Doctor?’ Alice said, her tone suggesting impatience.
Her intervention seemed to snap the doctor out of his indecision. He glanced at Frank, who nodded grimly, then turned back to Charlotte. ‘Miss Redbourne, I have reason to believe you are suffering from an infliction of the mind.’ Charlotte continued to scream and the doctor raised his voice. ‘I fear I must commit you to a hospital for your own safety and that of your child.’
He turned to Charlotte’s mother. ‘Is there insanity or instability elsewhere in the family?’ The Mental Deficiency Act provided local authorities with the power to lock away women deemed defective and, although there are no official figures on the number of unmarried women certified for becoming pregnant – most of those unable to support themselves were sent to the workhouse – some unfortunate victims lost their liberty. A repeat offender like Charlotte could be locked up without an official diagnosis, all on the say-so of one of her parents.
Mrs Redbourne reddened with outrage. ‘Certainly not! It’s nothing to do with us. She’s possessed, I tell you. We were willing to put up with her lashing out, destroying property, we even put last year’s business behind us, but to do it again? That’s just not on. That’s madness!’
Alice winced. Motioning Frank with his eyes, Dr Harland strode forwards and made his way around the end of the bed. Frank pocketed his pipe and followed. At the same time, Charlotte lunged over the other end of the bed and slipped off the side nearest the door. Her foot skidded out. A ghastly gurgle followed as the chamber pot upended and the putrid contents spilled out over the floor.
For a moment everyone froze. The room fell silent, the only sound the relentless drum of rain at the window. It was then that Alice grasped the opportunity to take control. ‘Charlotte,’ she said gently, ‘pass the baby to me, dear. I’ll be very gentle, I promise you.’
The young woman swung her head from side to side, feverishly checking the position of the others. Frank and the doctor remained still for a full minute, Alice speaking soft platitudes all the while.
After weighing up her options, Charlotte seemed to reach a decision. Locking her eyes on Alice’s, she shuffled her feet forwards. There was an oddness to her gait as she rested the infant in the almoner’s arms, though she didn’t let go of her grip.
Alice made a reassuring noise in her throat. ‘There, it’s all right, Charlotte. It will be fine.’
Frank crawled over the bed then. Approaching Charlotte from behind, he rested his hands firmly on her shoulders. ‘That’s it, child, let go.’
Her grip on the infant slackened and she backed away, holding empty hands in front of her. The sodden, meconium-streaked blankets loosened to reveal a tiny baby boy with a painfully thin body and sagging, greyish arms and legs. Alice looked down at him then fixed her gaze on Frank. She pressed her lips together and gave him a sombre, almost imperceptible shake of her head.
Charlotte’s chest heaved. A terrible sound escaped her lips then, a mournful, inhuman howl. She sank shakily down onto the bed, put her head in her hands and wept. Her tears fell onto her gown and mingled with the dark splodges of colostrum staining her front. With an awkward manoeuvre, Alice shrugged off her cape and, discarding the filthy swaddling, wrapped the still infant in its soft wool.
‘We must get Charlotte to hospital,’ Dr Harland said grimly.
The almoners were accustomed to dealing with society’s ills, the cases they became involved in so distressing as to sometimes keep them from sleeping soundly in their beds. Charlotte’s case was different though, because despite their involvement her immediate future still looked bleak.
And so far there had been no indication that the biggest shock of the evening was yet to come.
Chapter Five
Sometimes the almoner is called on to find a suitable home into which young children can be temporarily admitted or find a foster mother for the baby either herself or through an outside agency, and probably raise the funds to pay for this. Her aim, in addition to arranging that the children shall be satisfactorily looked after, is to secure as far as possible mental peace for the p
atient, for worry is a bad bedfellow.
(The Hospital Almoner: A Brief Study of Hospital Social Science in Great Britain, 1910)
At just before 7 o’clock, Peter Harland guided Charlotte down the front step and onto the street. The rain was still hissing down in torrents, as if the sky itself were weeping for the small lifeless body Alice had gently swaddled and left in a drawer in the parlour. Shadows moved behind the closed curtains of the adjoining houses. Rainwater overflowed from their gutters, splashing onto the flagstones below. The young woman’s departure seemed to penetrate Mrs Redbourne’s hardened stance. Watching from the downstairs window, she wept as her daughter shuffled away, a flattened hand clamped over her mouth.
Light spilled onto the pavement as several doors and windows opened along the street, neighbours leaning out to find the source of all the commotion. Once the doctor had settled Charlotte inside the cab he motioned to Alice, who was waiting just inside the hall. Frank held his coat over his colleague as she jogged to the cab, her soiled cape folded over her arm. There was a babble of whispers from the spectators as she climbed hastily inside, Frank’s mackintosh flapping noisily in the wind behind her.
When Alice was settled inside, Frank closed the door discreetly and stepped back onto the pavement, watching as the taxicab turned in an arc and disappeared down the rain-drenched street, back the way it came.
Inside the cab, Alice gave instructions for the driver to head towards the Royal Free Hospital.
On the far side, Charlotte was sitting with her forehead pressed against the fogged window, her coat gaping around her still swollen belly. Drops of rain mingled with perspiration and glistened on her cheeks. The napkins Dr Harland had placed beneath her were rapidly turning bright red as she bled out over them, the air in the cab slowly filling with the salty smell of lochia.
Every so often a small whimpering sound escaped her lips. Dr Harland, who was sitting in the rearward-facing seat opposite, considered her quietly. He frowned. ‘Are you in pain, Charlotte?’ he eventually asked, his habitual gruffness softer than usual. The contents of the chamber pot in the back parlour suggested that the afterbirth had been delivered intact but it had not been confirmed by examination. Alice and the doctor had made several attempts to assess Charlotte – fever, heavy bleeding or even fatal haemorrhaging might occur if part of the placenta remained inside her uterus – but each time she had hissed at them and tried to scratch their arms.
‘You can forget about taking me there,’ Charlotte groaned after a time. ‘I won’t go.’
Alice glanced sideways. The teenager shook her head and shrank further into the corner of her seat, moaning loudly. The driver turned his head sharply. ‘What the devil’s going on back there?’
‘We have everything under control,’ Alice reassured him firmly, though her eyes lingered on Charlotte for several seconds afterwards. The cab continued along empty streets but, with conditions so hazardous, progress was slow. At the next corner the vehicle slid across the wet road and almost mounted the pavement.
The driver cursed and pulled over. ‘I can’t get to the Royal. The roads are too bad. I’m not chancing –’
He stopped at another loud groan from Charlotte. With the cab parked up at the side of the road, Alice knelt in front of Charlotte and pressed a hand on her stomach. She turned to the doctor and looked at him. ‘There’s another baby coming,’ she said slowly. Dr Harland’s eyes grew wide.
‘Well, it’s not ruddy coming in here!’ the driver shouted. ‘I’ll not have no strumpet delivering a bastard in my cab!’
Charlotte’s hands gripped the seat and gasped as a contraction moved through her. ‘They’re coming strong,’ Alice added with urgency. She brushed Charlotte’s dark hair back from her face. ‘It’s all right, Charlotte. We’ll take care of you.’ She looked at the doctor. ‘What are we going to do?’
He touched his fingertips to his forehead and then raked them down over his bristled face. After a moment he turned to the driver. ‘Take us to Fenchurch Street.’
‘No way. I want her out!’
‘For heaven’s sake, man, it’s two minutes away.’
The driver groaned and slammed the cab into gear. ‘My sister, Elizabeth, lives close by,’ the doctor explained. ‘We’ll take her there.’ But within a minute the taxicab had come to a halt. The driver secured the brake. ‘I can’t go no further,’ he said. ‘Look.’ He pointed ahead.
The doctor wiped the misted window with the back of his hand, peering through the palm-sized clearing. The way ahead was impassable, a deep well of water across the road. He groaned. ‘What is it?’ Alice asked.
‘We’ll have to walk.’ He dragged his hands over his face again.
‘But she’s ready to deliver.’
‘I know, I know,’ he said with an impatient wave of his hand, and then he slapped his legs decisively. ‘Right, Charlotte, at the end of the next contraction we’ll help you out of the car, all right?’
Gripped by another pain, Charlotte’s expression clouded. Alice glanced at the doctor over the young woman’s head. They stared at each other for a moment, and then Alice nodded her agreement. Charlotte trembled as the contraction heightened, but she made little noise. Alice took her hand and she gripped the almoner’s fingers tightly. She braced herself as Alice spoke soothingly, her feet pressed against the seat in front of her. As the contraction abated and her body began to relax the doctor grabbed his bag and left the cab. After exchanging brisk words and a few coins with the driver, he returned to the back and reached in to help Charlotte out.
With Alice and the doctor either side of her, Charlotte stumbled through the rain a few feet at a time, stopping now and again to press her hand to the small of her back. She cried out when they reached Elizabeth’s house, doubling over with a deep rumbling moan. ‘I can’t,’ she sobbed. ‘I can’t do this no more.’
‘It’s all right, Charlotte, we’re here now.’ With his bag dangling from his wrist, the doctor hammered on the door with the side of his fist. Lightning forked jaggedly across the sky above, a loud rumble of thunder following a second or two later. A seagull cried in the distance, closely followed by the clatter of horses’ hooves.
Within seconds came the sound of a bolt being released, the door opened by a prim-looking woman in her mid-forties, a shoulder-length wavy bob framing her sharply angled face. Dressed in a figure-hugging gown and intricately woven shawl, she stepped back from the door with slow, restricted movements, her eyes widening in surprise as she took in the unusual party on her doorstep. ‘She’s close to delivering,’ the doctor said in an urgent tone.
The woman’s eyes ran over her visitors. There was a pause in which everyone stilled, but then she stood aside. Her eyes dropped to the floor as Alice and the doctor half-guided, half-lifted Charlotte up the front step and into the hall. Her lips curled in distaste at the pool of water appearing beneath the three sets of feet.
‘What?’ the doctor barked.
Elizabeth dipped her head towards the rug covering the floor. ‘Shoes, if you wouldn’t mind.’
An agonising moan escaped from deep down in Charlotte’s throat. Peter Harland gave his sister a look of disbelief. She rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, very well. Go straight through.’ She bustled off upstairs as quickly as her gown would allow, returning to the living room with an armful of linen just as her visitors reached her sofa.
‘Wait!’ she cried, diving between them and the furniture and covering her expensive-looking cushions with several layers of padding.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ Peter Harland muttered, his forehead glistening with sweat as Charlotte sagged between himself and Alice. As soon as his sister moved away, he dropped his bag onto a sidetable then lifted the girl carefully in his arms and laid her on top of the coverings.
Elizabeth’s eyes dropped once more to her visitors’ feet. She linked hands in front of her middle and opened her mouth to speak, but another deep groan from Charlotte sent her scurrying from the room. When she re
turned a minute later, the doctor was standing by the window and Alice was kneeling on the floor at the opposite end of the sofa, its elevation too low for her to attend to Charlotte in a standing position. Her gloves, hat and soiled cape lay on the floor beside her, her reddened and scarred left hand resting on top of Charlotte’s splayed knee.
‘Would you mind,’ Elizabeth said, passing Alice some newspaper and more towels. The almoner gave her a look and then layered the newspapers beneath Charlotte’s back, setting a double layer of towels over the top to form a barrier between her and the ornate sofa. In stark contrast to the Redbournes’ home, the room was richly decorated, with curtains of thick brocade and a mahogany Victorian dresser.
‘Right, I’ll be outside if you need me,’ Peter Harland said with a brisk rub of his hands. He turned on his heel and headed for the door.
Alice turned sharply. ‘Are you not going to deliver the baby?’
He stopped at the threshold and stared at her in mute surprise. When he found his voice he said weakly, ‘I’m a chest specialist.’
Alice glared at him. He closed his eyes, let out a breath and sidled back, looking sheepish. Alice lifted Charlotte’s shift, removed the long bloomers she had recently helped her into and parted her legs, her face a picture of absorbed concentration. The doctor rummaged around in his pockets, as if he might find some helpful instrument lurking there. ‘The head is already crowning,’ Alice said, beads of sweat appearing on her forehead. ‘Well done, Charlotte, well done!’
The news seemed to have a rallying effect on the doctor. Decided on a course of action, he removed his jacket and rolled back his shirtsleeves. Alice gestured for him to help and together they turned Charlotte onto her side. ‘Now, bear down with the next pain, my love,’ Alice said, supporting one of Charlotte’s legs with her forearm. Peter Harland shifted position so that he was standing behind the sofa. From there he took over the support of Charlotte’s leg from Alice, holding it in the crook of one arm. Within seconds Charlotte’s stomach tightened with another contraction. With a soft grunt of effort, she began to push. ‘Good girl,’ Alice said encouragingly at the appearance of a mass of dark hair. ‘There, Charlotte. You’ve done it. The head is born.’
Letters from Alice Page 6