Alice rolled her eyes and shook her head at him. ‘You are incorrigible, Jimmy Rose.’
Head nurse Nell Smith was in the process of shifting a pile of files from her high reception desk to the floor when Alice walked into the department, her thin arms quivering with the effort. ‘If you’ve finally turned up to claim that cup of tea, your timing’s dreadful,’ the nurse huffed. ‘I have six bed baths and a chest drain to organise, and two of my nurses have just come down with diarrhoea.’
Alice grimaced. ‘No, I would like to see Dr Harland, if he is here?’
At that moment, Dr Harland emerged from his office. ‘Miss Hudson, a word.’
If Alice had intended to conceal any dislike she might have harboured towards him after the revelations from Alexander, she most certainly failed. At the sound of his voice, her expression hardened. She gave Nell Smith a look before turning and walking towards him, her gaze fixed somewhere to the right of where he stood.
‘I spoke to my colleague this morning, the one treating that patient of yours,’ the doctor said brusquely as she came to a stop in front of him. The emphasis on the pronoun was heavy with the suggestion that her presence in the hospital was of continuing inconvenience to him. ‘He’s come to the unfortunate conclusion that nothing more can be done for her, and since you’re so heavily involved with the family, we thought it best that you should be the one to break the news.’
Alice’s features crumpled. She had been to visit Hetty at home after her recent mastectomy, and, though in considerable discomfort, she had appeared to be making good progress. The news that her daughter and grandchildren had been boarded out in a cottage home in Harrow through the Waifs and Strays Society had cheered her, especially when Alice told her that the Samaritan Fund had covered the cost of purchasing a wringing machine, so that Tilda could provide for herself by taking in laundry, when she finally came to moving into a place of her own. ‘But –’ the almoner began.
‘The cancer has spread,’ Peter Harland cut in sharply. ‘Nothing more can be done.’
‘I see,’ Alice said, nibbling on her lower lip. ‘I shall go and see the Woods this afternoon.’ The almoner glanced over her shoulder towards reception, where Nell had abandoned all pretence of tidying the files and was watching the pair with undisguised intrigue. When Alice turned back she dipped her head towards the closed door of the doctor’s office and said under her breath: ‘May I have a word with you? In private.’
The doctor closed his eyes briefly then looked up at the ceiling, nostrils flaring. ‘My colleague is a highly skilled physician, Miss Hudson. If he says there’s nothing more to be done, it means that he’s tried everything he can.’
‘It’s not about Mrs Woods,’ Alice said through gritted teeth, her eyes flicking to Nell and quickly back again. She gave him a meaningful look. ‘It’s another matter.’
The doctor’s expression clouded over. ‘I don’t have time to –’
‘If we could just step inside your office,’ Alice interrupted. The doctor shook his head. ‘I really need to speak to you privately,’ the almoner hissed, and then added: ‘about Charlotte.’ She tried to sidestep him but he shifted his weight and folded his arms.
‘I’m not having you in there.’
Alice glared at him. ‘Why ever not?!’
‘Because it’s the only space in the entire hospital that’s free from your woman-ism and I intend to keep it that way.’
She stared at him in disbelief. ‘As you wish,’ she said scornfully, with another quick glance towards Nell. The nurse had turned away and was in the process of delivering a severe dressing down to a young, tearful nurse whose apron had come adrift. ‘I have just received written confirmation of a placement for Charlotte, one where her baby will also be welcome, and so it is imperative for us to register the birth as a matter of urgency. Daisy is six weeks old today.’ She paused and withdrew the letter she’d just received from the pocket of her skirt. With no sign of any change in the doctor’s expression, Alice continued: ‘It is excellent news, is it not?’
Dr Harland looked at her. ‘I don’t believe the young woman is in any fit state to live freely in the community, Miss Hudson. Now, if that’s all?’ He made a move to retreat back into his office, but Alice went after him.
‘No, that is not all at all.’ When he turned back she asked: ‘How would you have any idea of the state Charlotte is in?’
The doctor sighed. ‘I’m basing my assumption on her condition when we last saw her. The girl can’t be allowed to wander at large, for heaven’s sake. She needs specialist help.’
‘I believe with some support she is perfectly capable of living in the community. If you would come with me to Banstead and see her for yourself, unless of course … you have already done so.’
The doctor glared at her. ‘Why is it you’re so determined to pull me into other areas of expertise?! First, gynaecology, now psychiatry! I’m in no position to override the opinions of the doctors at Banstead Asylum –’
‘It is not an asylum!’ Alice cut in again. ‘It is a hospital! And come on, you must hold some sway?’
He shook his head. ‘None whatsoever. And anyway,’ he mumbled, glancing away, ‘the infant is progressing satisfactorily where she is. It’s best for everyone if we stick to the status quo.’
Alice’s jaw dropped in disbelief. ‘You can’t possibly mean that?! You want to leave Charlotte’s child with your sister? Permanently?!’
‘She’s better off where she is. Being dragged around the slums of London by an unstable youth isn’t going to improve her life chances, is it?’
‘You cannot do that! Elizabeth is nearing middle age already; I cannot imagine her dealing with the rigours of a toddler, let alone a teenager.’
‘My sister is in perfectly good health as it happens.’
‘But what about when Daisy is of an age to play? She won’t be allowed to move in that museum of a house, just in case she breaks something, or gets a mark on the precious furniture. And I can hardly imagine Elizabeth kneeling on the floor to play – the woman dresses in full-length gowns and pearls to take tea alone. It is a most unsuitable placement for a child long term; most unsuitable.’
The doctor gave her a sardonic smile. ‘I’ll be sure to pass onto my sister your good thoughts and best wishes.’
The almoner stared at him. ‘I press on you most ardently to reconsider. How can it be fair for the poor girl to mourn a part of herself that still lives?’
‘This is not any of your concern. The girl has warmth, shelter and food, and so does her child. Leave things as they are, for pity’s sake!’
Alice continued to stare at him, and then her eyes narrowed. ‘Why would a man with convictions such as yours be so keen for a low-born child to reside within his own family?’
The doctor’s shoulders tensed. Alice continued to stare at him, and then she began to nod slowly. ‘So it was you, wasn’t it?’
‘What madness are you talking about now?’
‘The note. I suspected as much, but now I know. You sent it. You were trying to frighten me off.’
‘You have finally taken leave of your senses, woman,’ he said, turning away.
‘It won’t work, doctor!’ Alice called after him. ‘The harder you push, the deeper I will delve.’
Chapter Nineteen
It can be truly said that [an almoner] is as necessary to the real efficiency of the hospital as the supply of good drugs.
(The Almoners’ Council Report, 1910–11)
Almoners like Alice spent much of their time among people who lived in the most difficult of circumstances. ‘My world is naturally centred in small streets; the huge tenements and the sordid houses,’ the St Thomas’s Hospital almoner, Cherry Morris, was to report in 1936. ‘I wish I could take you to one of our centres … an old public house at the corner of two streets, one inhabited mainly by very low class people (near Waterloo station) and the other a street of small cottages that ought not to exist in civilised soc
iety. There is a large London County Council school near, and the noise of the children, barrel organs [and] street brawls lasting into the night is appalling … a district odour of fried fish pervades.’
In 1895, C. S. Loch suggested to almoners that applications for relief could be categorised into three distinct classes: ‘thrifty and careful men’ to whom relief should always be given; ‘men of different grades of respectability, with a decent home’ whom, Loch suggested, should be judged on a case-by-case basis; and, finally, ‘the idle, loafing class, or those brought low by drink or vice’, for whom relief would only ‘maintain them in their evil habits’.
Attitudes had begun to soften with the arrival of the new century, but the almoners still clung to the fundamental principle that every man was ultimately responsible for his own welfare, and that charity should only be given to those willing to stand on their own feet at the earliest opportunity.
Ted and Hetty Woods’ lodgings lay close to the Royal Victoria Dock, the decrepit three-storey building sandwiched between a coal merchant’s and an abandoned soap factory. It was close to two o’clock when Alice went through the scarred outer door, the distant toot of a ship’s horn a reminder of the goods and trade passing over the waters of the Thames.
There was mould on the walls of the Woods’ apartment block, and an overpowering stench of ammonia in the air, overlaid with a faint sooty tang. Two doors led off the hall to the right, the staircase on the left leading to the first floor.
Alice stepped over a small pile of rubble that had been neatly swept to one side and knocked on the wooden door at the end of the hall. Ted answered, his eyes cloudy. After a moment they cleared and he gave her a bright smile of recognition. ‘It’s Miss Alice, love,’ he said over his shoulder, then shuffled back and gestured the almoner in.
The room was small and damp, the air dusty with soot and smoke. There was rush matting on the floor and a table and two chairs against the far wall. There were several broken panes in the window above the table, the holes plugged up with balls of newspaper. Hetty was sitting in the middle of a worn sofa on the left-hand side of the room, her feet resting on a brick that had likely been warmed in the nearby hearth. There was a bed covered with a lumpy mattress and threadbare sheet against the opposite wall. A battered but freshly polished chest of drawers stood next to it, a small pile of neatly folded clothes on top.
Hetty tried to get up when Alice came in. She shuffled to the edge of the sofa, her pale face creasing with the effort. The almoner waved her back. ‘Don’t get up on my account, Hetty,’ she said, removing her cape and crossing the small space.
Hetty leaned back with a chesty wheeze and patted the cushion next to her. ‘Can I get you a drink, Miss Alice?’ Ted asked as the almoner sat beside his wife. The stench of rotting skin no longer hung over Hetty, but there was a faint clinical smell in the air muffled with rose water.
‘Oh no, Ted, thank you. I have come with news, as a matter of fact,’ she added, in response to their curious glances.
‘Is it Tilda?’ Hetty asked, smiling. ‘We went to see her the other day. Beautiful that place is, absolutely beautiful. She’s doing ever so well. We don’t know how to thank you, duck.’
‘That’s wonderful to hear.’ Alice said warmly, then her gaze dropped to her lap. When she looked up again, she rolled her lips in on themselves and reached for Hetty’s hand. She glanced at Ted before she spoke, who seemed to have sensed the gravity of the impending conversation. Forehead crumpled, he shuffled forwards and sat silently on his wife’s other side. ‘I don’t have any further news about Tilda, Hetty,’ Alice said, ‘but I do have some news from your doctor.’
A shadow passed across Hetty’s face. She glanced briefly at her husband then took a deep breath and focussed her eyes back on Alice. ‘Bad then, is it, duck?’ she asked, though there remained a hopeful glint in her eyes.
There was a short pause, and then Alice said softly: ‘Yes. I am afraid so, yes.’
‘But there’s still stuff they can do, I expect, Miss,’ Ted offered. ‘Those doctors work wonders these days, don’t they? Marvellous they were with Hetty when she was in for her operation. Absolutely marvellous, weren’t they, love?’
Hetty nodded, her lower lip beginning to tremble. ‘They were, duck, absolutely marvellous.’
Perhaps moved by the hope in their voices, Alice began to answer but then faltered. She cleared her throat, and then said: ‘We can manage your pain, Hetty, but nothing more can be done to treat the disease. I’m very sorry.’
The couple stared at her in silence. After a few seconds Hetty’s right hand found Ted’s left, and then she closed her eyes. Her husband reached around with his free hand and touched her cheek with the pad of an arthritic thumb. A moment later, they leaned into one another, foreheads touching. Alice stood up and crossed the room; a deliberate kindness. After a few minutes, when they’d pulled apart, she returned. ‘There is plenty we can do to make things a bit easier for you both,’ she said, adopting a business-like tone. She knelt on the rush matting in front of them and produced a notepad from her bag. ‘Firstly, I shall apply for a crisis loan on your behalf. That way we can improve things around here and make them a bit more comfortable for you.’
Hetty pulled a hanky from her sleeve, patted her face with it and gave Alice a grateful look, but Ted shook his head. ‘We’ll not rely on charity, Miss Alice. I know you mean well, but we’ll manage on our own the same as we always have, thanks very much.’
Like many of their neighbours, Ted and Hetty’s finances were delicately balanced. It was a time when the majority of wage earners lived hand-to-mouth, so that even a short period of ill health could have a huge impact on family life, perhaps even tipping them over the edge into destitution.
The almoners had no reluctance in helping a couple like Ted and Hetty, who had worked hard throughout their lives. The only barrier to help came, perhaps, from their own sense of pride.
Alice looked between them and then settled her gaze on Ted. ‘It is not charity so much as one group of people helping another. Would you not do the same for your neighbours? For your friends?’ Hetty turned to her husband, but Ted kept his eyes fixed stubbornly ahead at a point above Alice’s shoulder, his expression set. The almoner reached for his knobbly hand and grasped it. ‘The way I see it, it is your turn now. Let us wrap our arms around you in your time of need, Mr Woods.’
Hetty squeezed his other hand. When he finally turned to her, she gave him a beseeching look. His shoulders sagged. ‘Alright, Miss,’ he said with a conceding nod. ‘If it’ll help make Hetty more comfortable, we’ll accept.’
Alice nodded briskly and scribbled something in her notebook. It wasn’t unusual for the almoners to make enquiries in the community in search of a neighbour who might, for a few shillings, act as a temporary home help. When Alice looked back at the couple she asked: ‘Would you like me to tell Tilda the news?’
‘Not yet, duck,’ Hetty said quickly. ‘She’s just sorting herself out. Let her make the most of a little bit of happiness first. We’ll give her as long as we can.’
It was almost five by the clock on the wall of the basement when Alice arrived back in the office. After only the briefest of glances in the almoner’s direction, Winnie hurried over to the boiler and rustled up two cups of strong, sweet tea. She listened in silence as Alice relayed the afternoon’s events, then took the almoner by surprise with a disclosure of her own: the loss of her son just a few months into the war. ‘I know my melancholy humours can be burdensome, dear, but it’s difficult to force cheer sometimes when the memory of it is still so raw.’
‘And you shouldn’t have to, Winnie,’ Alice said with feeling. ‘You shouldn’t have to.’ She grasped Winnie’s hand. ‘I’m so sorry. For the way I’ve been and – I shouldn’t be burdening you with all of this.’
‘Oh no, please don’t apologise,’ Winnie said, clamping her other hand over Alice’s own. ‘When I hear about someone else’s struggles, suddenly there’s
a reason for hope, a purpose to the day. It takes me out of myself, if you know what I mean?’
Alice looked at her and nodded.
The typist smiled sadly, but her expression changed suddenly at the sound of a creak on the stairs on the other side of the door. There was a pause, and then she leaned close to Alice and said: ‘I must speak with you about another matter.’
‘What is it?’
Winnie’s eyes skittered to the door. She waited, head cocked, and then turned her attention back to Alice. ‘It’s Frank.’ She took a breath. ‘Something’s not right. Sometimes –’ She stopped abruptly at the sound of a loud clatter, the metal clamp of Alexander’s mouse trap slamming down on the small body of a rodent.
Alice winced, her shoulders tensing. When she looked back at Winnie, the typist was staring at her intently. ‘Sometimes I wonder whether he’s a man to be trusted, Alice.’
‘Frank? Why would you say that?’
Winnie leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘Well, you know Eileen Cook from the book club?’ Alice shook her head. ‘Yes, you do. She helped out last week at the zoo. White hair. Pencilled-in eyebrows sharp enough to kill?’
Alice shook her head again. Winnie flapped her hand. ‘No matter. Anyway, her husband knows several board members on the COS, and one of them told him, in confidence, mind, that Frank was offered a position on the board on the strength of his experience as a man of business, and yet it’s becoming obvious to all of them that he hasn’t a clue about business, or their work.’
Alice’s lips twisted, as if unconvinced. ‘And I didn’t like to say anything about it before now,’ Winnie continued, ‘but a week or so ago, I caught him rummaging through your desk.’
The almoner’s gaze sharpened. ‘Frank was looking through my things?’
Winnie nodded. ‘I asked if there was anything I could help him with and he glossed over it with one of his silly jokes. Make of it what you will, but, personally, I’m not sure I trust the man. As I said, dear, there’s something not quite right.’
Letters from Alice Page 18