Letters from Alice

by Petrina Banfield

  Chapter Twenty

  Patients admitted for care, treatment and isolation included upper class domestics and members of the women’s services who were well aware they had fallen short of their own standards, [as well as] young girls … highly painted and verminous … almost totally ignorant of discipline, morals and the amenities of civilized life.

  (The Royal Free Annual Report of 1921–22)

  Alice spent the rest of the week working on tasks passed to her by the Head Almoner, Bess Campbell. On Tuesday, 14 February she trawled the red-light haunts of Whitechapel searching for two working girls who had failed to turn up for their follow-up appointments at the VD clinic.

  The Great War had left many young people with the conviction that life was short, and when opportunities to make a living presented themselves they were seized upon whenever possible. Fearing that reckless abandon, friskiness and licentious behaviour was reaching epidemic proportions, the Committee on Unmarried Mothers chaired by the Archbishop of York in 1915 appointed ‘a skilled lady investigator’, likely an almoner, with hopes of establishing whether the situation was quite as wild and loose as feared.

  The investigator, along with a league of ‘women’s patrols’, travelled around the country and questioned locals on their intimate habits; no doubt one of the more awkward tasks she had carried out in the course of her career. After gathering information from sixty-two towns, she concluded that the rumours were unfounded. It’s difficult to know whether her interviewees were really that chaste, or simply wary of confiding what they got up to on a Saturday night to a stranger, but her findings flew in the face of statistics published in a report by the Royal Commission on Venereal Diseases in 1916, which stated that 10 per cent of the male population had syphilis and many more suffered with gonorrhoea.

  ‘In the female venereal disease department, though many patients still slip away before discharge,’ observed the British Medical Journal in 1923, ‘the almoner carries on educative activities, consoles and sympathises with innocently infected married women when they realise the truth as to the cause of their sufferings, and finds homes or occupations for some of the girls … The girls who have been especially difficult to deal with have nearly all been found to be mentally defective.’

  The almoners and officers from the Salvation Army were often the ones who stepped in to pick up the pieces when the girls came a cropper after plying their trade on London streets.

  The girls protested loudly when Alice located them. Alice managed to persuade them to accompany her back to the Royal Free VD department with the mixture of humour and firmness that had confirmed her appointment as almoner a year earlier.

  The next two days were swallowed up with the almoners’ publicity campaign to encourage more educated women to join their ranks. Alice travelled up to Leeds to speak to prospective applicants, while almoners from St Thomas’s Hospital reached out to locals in Liverpool, Newcastle and Glasgow.

  Leeds General Infirmary had only recently become the first hospital to provide training for almoners outside of London. Authorised by the Institute of Almoners in 1919, the facility opened up opportunities for candidates who had previously been unable to put themselves forward because they couldn’t stretch to the expense that a visit to London would incur.

  It wasn’t until the early part of the following week, on Tuesday, 21 February, that Alice managed to find time in her schedule to visit the chest clinic again. The clock on the wall above reception displayed the time as 4 p.m., and with the nurses in their daily handover meeting, the almoner walked straight to Dr Harland’s office and rapped firmly on the door. There was no answer from within, so after another token tap she let herself in.

  The room was small, the desk positioned in front of the window taking up almost the entire width of the space. Shelves ran the length of the wall on the left-hand side of the room. Thick textbooks, some in Latin, filled the shelves from eye level and below, the ones above lined with glass jars and vials of differing sizes, each sealed with a stopper of cork.

  Alice closed the door behind her and moved towards the shelves. Chin tilted upwards, her gaze ran over the various liniments and potions, stopping every now and then to examine the elaborate black script on each label. A number of the jars contained pickled organs, the body parts having been removed for examination during post-mortem examinations.

  About halfway along the row, Alice stopped dead, her eyes widening. The jar directly above her was filled with formaldehyde, a cream-coloured mass suspended in the pale amber liquid. Alice reached up, gave the jar a quarter turn and then whipped her hands away in shock. A small, perfectly formed foetus was floating weightlessly inside the container, the tiny fingers of one hand and lifeless rosebud lips pressed up against the glass. Alice stared in silence for half a minute then slowly raised a hand again. As her fingertips made contact with the glass, the door swung open behind her.

  She spun around, the colour draining from her cheeks. Dr Harland stood in the doorway, his face clouding with anger. ‘What are you doing in my office?!’

  The almoner opened her mouth but quickly closed it again. After a pause she said: ‘There’s no need to overreact. As I said before, I need to have a private word with you.’

  ‘And I told you, this is a woman-free zone! There’s nothing for you in here.’

  Recovering, Alice pulled on the cuffs of her blouse and squared her shoulders. ‘Someone is blackmailing me and I intend to find out why. I also intend to find out exactly what your connection is to Charlotte Redbourne, and why you are refusing to do your legal duty to register her daughter’s birth.’

  The doctor walked into the room and slammed the door behind him. ‘There’s always some drama with you, isn’t there?’ he said, moving slowly towards her. ‘There always has to be something.’

  Alice glared at him then snatched a note from her pocket and waved it in front of his face. ‘Look!’ she snapped. ‘It says “I KNOW WHAT YOU DID”.’

  He stopped a couple of feet away from her. ‘So what has that got to do with me?’

  ‘It’s obvious! It means what we did. The concealment of Daisy’s birth. What else would it be?’

  The doctor gave her a look of contempt. ‘I have absolutely no idea, but with the way you carry on, it could be any number of things.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Look, is there a single person in this place you haven’t upset? I mean, come on, I’m imagining all manner of catastrophes. You’ve likely infuriated enough people to fill the beds in these wards three times over since your appointment, Miss Hudson. Now, if you’ll get back to what you’re supposed to be doing, I need you to –’

  ‘I will not leave this office until you agree to tell me the truth.’

  Dr Harland cupped his hand over his forehead. ‘For pity’s sake, woman, will you let it drop?! We have critically ill patients that need our care, and one in particular that you’ll –’

  Alice moved towards him. ‘Why are you so keen to have me abandon my investigation?’

  The doctor gave an abrupt, humourless laugh. ‘Would you listen to yourself?!’ he said, striding back to the door and wrenching it open. Alice followed him into the corridor, and he spun around to face her. ‘Can you not get it into your head that you’re a clerk?! Nothing more. All of this asking around and questioning people is ridiculous! Dangerous even!’

  ‘Oh, dangerous is it? Is that a threat, doctor?’

  ‘For pity’s sake!’ The doctor jabbed at the air menacingly. ‘You’re getting yourself involved in things that are way outside the remit of your job and you know it. Now, for the love of God, woman, will you please keep yourself out of it?’

  ‘So what would you have me do? Stay in my office writing prettily on little pieces of paper and then filing them away? That is all you think a woman is good for, is it not?’ The almoner paused for a beat and then gave him a cold assessing look. ‘How do you know that I have been asking around anyway?’ she said slowly.

&n
bsp; ‘What?’

  ‘I said, how could you possibly know that I have been questioning people? Have you been following me again?’

  The doctor threw his hands up in the air and then rubbed angrily at his forehead. After a moment his hands dropped to his sides. ‘Alright,’ he said, beckoning at the air with his fingers. ‘Let’s hear it. What exactly is it I’m supposed to have done?’

  ‘You are an active promoter of eugenics for a start,’ Alice said, as he folded his arms. ‘That makes you an almighty hypocrite. You claim allegiance to an organisation that prides itself on helping the most vulnerable in society, and yet you believe that anyone less than perfect should be obliterated from all existence!’

  He narrowed his eyes. ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘Never mind who told me. You should not be practising here if you –’

  ‘Even if that were true,’ he cut in, ‘who are you to judge a man for his political ideas? If a belief in eugenics were to bar a man from practising medicine, you’d have to expel most of the doctors here!’ He unfolded his arms and beckoned at the air again. ‘So, come on then, what else do you have on me?’

  Alice faltered for a moment, but then she levelled her gaze again. ‘I know that there’s an association between you and Charlotte Redbourne. And possibly even Molly Rainham as well.’

  The doctor, who had been blowing out some air, stopped. Alice stared at him. ‘Well?’

  He rolled his eyes, but a pulse throbbed in his temple. ‘Will you just leave be what doesn’t concern you?!’

  ‘But Charlotte’s welfare does concern me and, somehow or other, I’m going to find out what your involvement was.’

  The doctor let out a loud groan. ‘There you go again! You just can’t help yourself, can you?’ He leaned closer and said through gritted teeth: ‘Stop meddling in other people’s lives!’

  ‘Will you please stop shouting at me?! You are one of the most ungentlemanly men I have ever had the misfortune to meet, and with the people I come across day to day in the community, that is really saying something!’

  He gave her a long look. ‘A gentleman is only a gentleman if a lady remembers to be a lady.’ Alice glared back at him, her cheeks growing increasingly puce. ‘And while you’re working yourself up into a frenzy, perhaps I should take advantage of the moment of blessed silence to relay some news. Hetty Woods has just been admitted to the ward with pneumonia.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just what I say. While you’ve been gallivanting around playing Mrs Hercule Poirot, an elderly woman has fallen critically ill. I thought perhaps, if you have the time between your investigations that is, you might be good enough to relay the news to her daughter.’

  Alice arranged for a telegram to be sent to the cottage in Harrow, and Tilda arrived at the hospital less than two hours after receiving the news. It was just before half past six. ‘Is she on the gate?’ she asked, as soon as she arrived at the almoners’ office. She was still wearing her white apron, her housekeeping cap poking out of the pocket of her coat.

  Alice steered her towards the stairs. ‘Yes, I’m afraid so. Come, I’ll walk you up to the ward.’

  ‘On the gate’ was a term that lingered on well into the twentieth century, its origin from the days when the names of all critically ill patients were displayed on the gates of the porter’s lodge, to ensure that relatives were permitted a quick entry to the hospital, even outside of visiting hours. Casualty staff were also often referred to as ‘the gate team’.

  Sister Nell Smith got to her feet as soon as they appeared at the chest department reception. ‘She’s in a side room, my dear,’ the nurse said gently, guiding the heavily pregnant woman across the corridor with a hand on her arm.

  Tilda stopped outside the door to the room and turned tearfully to Alice. ‘Will you come in with me, Miss Hudson?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Alice slipped her arm around the trembling woman’s shoulders and walked with her into the room. Nell followed close behind. Ted rose from a deep chair beside the bed as soon as he saw them, and held his arms out to Tilda. She ran to him and the pair fell into a tearful embrace. When they pulled apart, Ted swapped places with his daughter so that she could take the chair he had just vacated.

  ‘Don’t leave me, Mum,’ Tilda sobbed miserably, taking hold of her unconscious mother’s hand. She looked up at her father, tears streaming down her face. ‘She can’t go, Dad. There’s so much I need to say! I need to tell her how very grateful I am to have her as my mum. I need to tell her how much I love her. I want to say sorry for the last few months. I never meant to –’

  ‘She’s not gone yet, pet,’ Nell said, moving closer. ‘You can tell her all you want to say. There’s still time.’

  As Tilda leaned close to her mother’s grey face and murmured in choked sobs, Sister Smith returned to Alice’s side. ‘She told me when they brought her in that she’s been seeing people standing at the foot of her bed over the last few days,’ she told the almoner in hushed tones, ‘so I think she knew what to expect.’

  Having nursed soldiers through their final hours, Alice nodded sombrely. Deathbed visitations, the common and unexplained phenomenon of patients who were close to death reporting strikingly similar stories of people standing at the end of their bed, sometimes beckoning, sometimes watching silently, are reasoned away by modern medicine as a series of small strokes, or delusions as the result of strong pain-relieving medication. Known among nursing circles as the gathering of spirits, those caring for the dying were well used to hearing about the welcoming committees of long-dead relatives, who made an appearance in their final days to take their loved ones ‘home’.

  ‘We’re here, Hetty,’ Ted said gently, taking up a position on the opposite side of the bed. He gripped his wife’s lifeless hand in his own. ‘We’re not leaving you, love.’ Tilda looked over at him then rested her head in the crook of her mother’s arm and sobbed.

  It was then that Hetty, who had lapsed into a coma an hour earlier, made a croaky sound and opened her eyes. Tilda’s head shot up. ‘Mum?!’ she cried, smiling through a round of fresh tears. Seemingly oblivious to her daughter, Hetty, in a moment of terminal lucidity, stared over Tilda’s shoulder at a spot across the room. Perhaps tapping into the mysteriousness that’s only present outside of the range of the fully conscious, her face lit up in a radiant smile.

  ‘Someone has come for her,’ Nell said to Alice out of the corner of her mouth. She leaned close to the almoner. ‘It won’t be long now.’

  The unseeing haze over Hetty’s eyes seemed to clear at the nurse’s words. She blinked several times, and then her gaze settled on her daughter. ‘Tilda,’ she said, her voice bubbly from the liquid on her chest, but full of affection. There was a look of utter peace in her expression as she stroked her daughter’s face. ‘My Tilda.’

  ‘Mum!’ Tilda managed to gasp, tears rolling down her cheeks. She planted gentle kisses on her mother’s forehead then cupped her face in her hands, grasping hold of the last opportunity to say goodbye. ‘I’m so sorry, Mum. I love you so much.’

  Ted watched quietly from the other side of the bed as his wife wiped away their daughter’s tears, his own eyes red and glassy. After a few moments Hetty turned her head on the pillow and smiled through cracked lips. She lifted her hand to stroke Ted’s damp face, then glanced around the room. ‘Oh, hello, duck,’ she said breathlessly, when she saw Alice. ‘It’s – so – good of you to come.’

  Alice moved forward and patted Hetty’s arm. ‘Hello, dear Hetty,’ she smiled, her own eyes moist. ‘They are taking good care of you, I hope?’

  Hetty nodded and gave her a listless smile. She closed her eyes then blinked, opening them again with effort.

  Dr Harland entered the room at that moment. Ted immediately got to his feet and dipped his head respectfully. Alice and Nell took a step back, the almoner’s expression hardening. Tilda scraped her chair away from the bed. ‘Are you comfortable, Mrs Woods?’ the doctor asked gently as he l
istened to the woman’s chest.

  ‘Yes, lovely – thank you, doctor,’ she wheezed falteringly.

  ‘How’s the pain?’

  ‘Oh, not too bad, thank you,’ she whispered, her eyelids fluttering to a close again.

  He touched her shoulder. ‘I want to know the second it isn’t, do you hear?’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll stay close by.’ She gave him a grateful nod, her eyes still closed. The doctor turned towards the door without a glance in Alice’s direction, but Nell stopped him halfway across the space with a hand on his arm.

  ‘You should get some rest,’ she hissed. ‘Your shift ended hours ago.’

  ‘I don’t need reminding of my working hours, thank you, Sister,’ he snapped. Nell rolled her eyes and shook her head at him, but she gave him an affectionate pat on the back before he left. Alice gave the nurse a questioning glance.

  ‘He’ll not leave his patient,’ she explained in a whisper. ‘He might be a miserable sod, but there’s a heart buried in there somewhere.’

  Across the room, Hetty heaved a shuddering breath. Tilda turned, hair wild and dishevelled, and gave Nell a panicked, questioning glance. The nurse moved briskly to the bed, wrapped a cuff around Hetty’s upper arm and measured her blood pressure. ‘I’m afraid it’s dropping quite rapidly,’ she said softly, folding the sphygmomanometer back in its long silver box.

  She and Alice backed into the shadows of the small room, waiting in silence as Tilda and Ted patted Hetty’s hands and stroked the hair back from her face. As her mother’s breathing slowed and the colour drained from her skin, Tilda climbed awkwardly onto the bed and lay as close to Hetty as her swollen belly would allow, nestling her face into Hetty’s shoulder and clasping her arm.

  ‘She’s gone,’ Sister Smith said, a few minutes later. She touched a gentle hand onto Tilda’s shoulder and looked at Ted, whose bottom lip was trembling. ‘I’m very sorry.’