by Mary Hoffman
“Shh, now.” Mother Seacole sat on the bed and put her arms around me. I heard her tell the doctor to come back later when his breath might be sweeter. The doctor reminded her I had no money to pay for my keep and that the hospital in Scutari was the best possible place. Then he slammed out of the door and I gulped down air until I was sick. I would never see the world now.
Mother Seacole mopped my face with her handkerchief. She rubbed my back as if I were a baby.
“You lost your foot. Cry for it all you like, but it is not coming back.”
“I know that,” I said, eventually.
“You still have one, more than some folk round here. And you still have a beating heart in your body.”
“And no way to make a living, save sitting in the road with a sign around my neck and asking for pennies,” I said.
She shrugged. “That is up to you. But you are young. Who knows the future?” She smiled, a quick short smile, and Sally came in with tea. I did not take it straight away.
“The doctor is right.” I looked at Sally and Mother Seacole. “I cannot pay,” I said. “And I know you run a business here, madam.”
“Madam, is it now?” Mother Seacole laughed. “Well, your pockets may be empty, but you cannot go to Scutari neither,” she said.
I thought Sally was about to speak but Mother Seacole flashed her a look and they left me to rest, the poultice cool on my forehead.
Only I could not sleep or rest for worry. I sipped my tea and lay on my back listening to the men and horses heading down the road past the British Hotel towards Sevastopol. Where was Simms? How would I live now? I was no use as a soldier nor in the mill.
I finished the tea, feeling suddenly drowsy, my eyes almost closing, when with a start I realised my uniform was hanging over the end of the bed. I looked at myself; I was wearing some kind of nightshirt. Someone had undressed me. I felt sick and more feverish than ever. My heart thump-thumping away in my chest like the horses trotting away to battle. I tried to sit up, but my body felt leaden and I had to fight to keep my eyes open. My best bet was to get away as soon as I could.
That was the last thing I remembered.
I did not know how long I had slept. Mother Seacole was fussing about when I came round.
“There you are,” she said.
I remembered my uniform. What did she know?
“You will be all right,” she said. “One door shuts and others open.”
“They are all shut for me now.”
“That is not true,” she said. “Look at me! I am an old woman in a ridiculous dress. Upholstered like a chaise in a planter’s—” She stopped, checked herself before going on. “Dressed like a holiday beacon in vain hope the Russians will see me and stay their fire while I see to any injured soldiers. I know what it is like to do whatever it takes.”
I humphed. “You know nothing about me!”
Mrs Seacole leaned back. “I know this,” she said. “I could not let the doctor take you to Scutari.”
I flushed and turned away, my cheeks flaming red.
I stared down the bed again. There was a lump where my right foot steepled the sheet but none where my left foot should have been. I thought of my life in the 47th; I had not only lost my foot but also my friend. The best friend I’d ever had. For surely, even if Simms was still alive, he would not want to know me now. I cried a little but very quietly.
It was two days later that Mother Seacole and Sally had me walking up and down the room with a crutch. My side was still sore, as was my stump, but Mother Seacole said the pain would pass.
The final battle of the siege had begun and the guns boomed for hours on end without stopping. Men, some broken, many worse off than me, passed through heading for the boat to the hospital. Mother Seacole and Sally fed them and helped them and I busied myself unpacking deliveries and winding bandages. I heard them singing marching songs, new songs about this war, and old songs about other wars – ‘Over the Hills and Far Away’, which was always my favourite, and ‘The Lad That Stands Before Ye’.
Sally and me joined in and the sound bounced off the tin roof and made the work go twice as fast. Horses and men poured eastwards towards the city of Sevastopol and there were minutes when I almost forgot the pain in my foot.
I’d just finished rolling up the last of the bandages when Sally came back from the boats and told me she’d found out Simms was alive and well and already laid up in the hospital at Scutari with a shot wound.
At first I felt nothing but joy, overflowing. There were boats to Scutari every day. I could be there in hours. I found my uniform and wriggled into my jacket. I had pulled my cap on when I remembered. I could never go back to the 47th.
That evening, Mother Seacole bustled in wearing red tartan with her red-ribboned bonnet. You would have thought to look at the old bird that it was Christmas.
“Your face is long enough to sweep the floor,” she said.
“Simms will think I’m heartless if I never see him again.” I looked away.
She shrugged. “You could always write.”
I flushed, ashamed. “I can write my name, that is all. He might think I’m just a liar.”
“We all lie and that’s the truth of it,” she said. “I can write for you.” She fetched some paper, pen and ink and set them down upon a little table.
“There. Shall we begin? Dear John?”
“Simms,” I said. “He is always and only Simms.”
“Dear Simms.” She made the swooping curling letters unfold upon the paper like a magic trick.
“Truth is, I can’t say whether he can read neither.”
Mother Seacole put the pen down. “Someone will surely read it to him and he will be pleased to know you are alive and well. He will not want to forget you.”
“I cannot tell him everything.”
“Perhaps not.”
“Then write that he was a good and true friend. And that I will not forget him.” I paused. “Tell him I am alive and well, but now I have no foot I will return to England.”
Mother Seacole looked at me. “Sally said you wanted to see the world. Venice, she said.”
“How can I do that now?”
“With difficulty.” She sighed. “But, I am a firm believer that everything is possible. The British Government did not want me here – did you know that? I wanted to help, I’m as good a nurse as any, but they turned me away so many times.”
I shrugged.
“Miss Nightingale did not want me for her hospital in Scutari. Oh no! They saw only one thing about me – the colour of my skin – and they decided they did not like me. But did I listen? Did I let them stop me? No. I came anyway. That is how it is.”
“But you have cash, Mother,” I said. “Money.”
“You think so?” She laughed and she shook like some great brown blancmange. “You do not realise how many fortunes I have made and lost, made and lost again! From Jamaica to Panama to London and to the Black Sea, I have been rich and poor, married and widow.” She sighed again. “If you put your mind to it you can make your own life.” She looked hard at me. “And I think you have already.” She stopped suddenly as Sally put her head round the door.
“Mrs Seacole, you’re wanted!”
And Mother Seacole got up and hurried out after Sally.
I looked at the letter, the black curls and squiggles, and hoped to heaven Simms would remember me. I picked up the pen. I had not held one since the day I joined up. Back then I had written Bayliss, H.
This time I wrote my true name. Harriet.
Why I Chose Mary Seacole
To be honest, I didn’t really choose Mary Seacole – she sort of chose me. I’m mixed race, like Mary, and I knew about her already. In fact, my uncle Curtis Johnson made a bust of Mary that was reproduced on one of Jamaica’s postage stamps. And one of my big ‘things’ is people of colour in Britain in the past – we have been here for ever, you know, or at least since Roman times! When I started, I thought I wanted to wri
te about Mary in London, aged about fifteen or sixteen, on her first visit. She never really talked about this trip and there are only two lines in her book about it. It made me think: A girl from a tiny island in the Caribbean in the biggest city on earth… But I think that story will have to wait for another time.
One other thing – I’ve used the word ‘Negro’ in my story. It’s how an officer in the British Army describes Mrs Seacole; the word was in common use and not thought to be derogatory at the time. In her own writing, Mrs Seacole described herself as ‘Creole’ (meaning ‘one born in Jamaica’) and sometimes simply as ‘brown’.
CATHERINE JOHNSON
Mary Seacole Facts
Mary Seacole was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1805. She travelled widely as a young woman, visiting London, Panama, Haiti and Cuba. She married in 1836, but six years later her husband died. When the Crimean War broke out in 1854, she responded to Florence Nightingale’s call for nurses but was refused. She went to the Crimea under her own steam and set up a hotel. In 1857 she wrote a book about her adventures, The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands, and it was a bestseller. She died in London in 1881 aged 76 and was buried in the cemetery in Kensal Green.
Return to
Victoria
A story of Emily Davison
(1872–1913)
BY CELIA REES
THE LADY LOOKED NERVOUS. Lizzy smiled at her from the seat opposite, but she didn’t smile back. The carriage filled up, everyone excited because they were going to the races, but the lady didn’t look at anyone or engage in the general chatter. She stared out of the window or down at her gloved fingers plaiting and unplaiting themselves on her lap.
Lizzy had first noticed her in the booking hall at Victoria Station.
“Single or return?” the man in the ticket office had enquired out of habit. No one asked for a single on Derby Day. Why else would anyone be going to Epsom? The only thing there was the racecourse. Even so, the lady seemed to hesitate. Behind her, the queue grew. Lizzy shifted from foot to foot, the coins for her fare sticky in her hand.
“Single or return?” he squawked again.
“A return,” she said at last, as if the idea of it had only just occurred to her. “Of course.”
“And what do you want, young lady?” It was Lizzy’s turn to be squawked at. His small head shot forward on his thin neck and his sandy hair stuck out like feathers. He looked like a balding Rhode Island Red hen.
“Return to Epsom, please.”
Lizzy had been supposed to meet her father at Victoria.
“Under the clock, Libs. Don’t be late.”
When the great clock clicked past the allotted time, Lizzy bought her own ticket. He’d given her money and instructions.
“If I’m not at there, I’ll meet you by the grandstand. Far corner. Left-hand side. You can’t miss it.”
Lizzy showed her ticket to the man at the barrier and put it in her pocket. Once she’d found a seat on the train, she thought that it would be safer in her purse with her few coppers, a threepence, a sixpence and her mother’s little cameo brooch. She opened the small satchel she carried. The purse was next to Angelina, the rag doll her mother had made for her. Aunty Mollie had questioned the inclusion of Angelina.
“Aren’t you a bit old for dolls?” she’d asked, as she put a packet of jam sandwiches and a carefully stoppered bottle of cold tea into Lizzy’s satchel.
Too old for dolls, but too young to go to the races.
“Are you barmy, Charlie?” Aunt Mollie had said to Lizzy’s dad. “She’s far too young to go on her own.”
“She won’t be on her own, I’ll be with her. She’ll love it. Won’t you, my poppet?” He’d smiled his famous smile, the one that made people call him a ‘real charmer’. “It’s the greatest day in the racing calendar.”
Except he wasn’t, was he?
Aunty Mollie had given him a look that said just that. Lizzy hated it when she was right. Still, Lizzy said to herself as she gave Angelina a hug, I know where to meet him and he’ll be there. He’d absolutely promised.
“Promise, Libs. I swear.’ He’d licked his finger and held it up. “Blackswhite and swelpmegawd.”
He’d laughed then and she’d laughed back. He’d swept her up into his arms and whirled her around until she was giddy. When he was like that, he really was the best daddy in the world, even if he didn’t always keep his promises.
“It’s all very well coming here when you feel like it, sweet talking your way around her,” Aunty Mollie had said. “You don’t have to cope with the tears when you go away again.”
Which wasn’t fair. Lizzy rarely cried when he left. She saved her tears for later, when everyone was asleep.
“Don’t start on at me, Moll!” He’d frowned then, the sulky younger brother. “You know I can’t look after her! Since Bonnie went…”
“How many years ago was that, Simon? Six? Seven?”
Her mother had died when Lizzy was four. Fell Asleep 1907, it said on her tombstone in Kensal Green Cemetery. Except she hadn’t. People who fall asleep wake up. Lizzy’s mother died of diphtheria. She never woke up.
“And what have you been doing?” her aunt had gone on. “Going racing. Racketing about on the town with your fancy women. Going to the dogs in more ways than one. If it wasn’t for me, she’d be in an orphanage.”
Lizzy had felt fear leap, deep down inside her. That’s what cousin Rex said when she wouldn’t do what he wanted: “You’ll end up in the orphanage, you will. And good riddance!”
“Don’t you think I don’t know that?” Her father twisted the ends of his moustache. “I’ve tried my best for her. I pay for her keep, don’t I? Here!”
He laid notes on the table.
“Did you make these yourself?” Mollie had held one up to the light and pretended to look for signs of forgery before folding the money carefully and tucking it into her apron pocket. “Or did a horse come in?”
“Something like that.” He had grinned then. “You know me too well, Sis.” He’d given her a peck on the cheek. “Must be off.” He’d kissed Lizzy on the top of the head. “Got to see a man about a dog.”
That’s what he always said. Lizzy had been holding out hopes for a cairn terrier but so far, no dog.
The guard gave a long blast on his whistle. The train moved slowly at first, then faster, the engine giving out great billowing puffs of smoke and steam. Soon the station was behind them. The wide expanse of the Thames glittered in the June sunshine as they crossed over the bridge and then they were moving past sooty buildings, warehouses and factories, the backs of houses, little gardens, tumbledown sheds, outhouses and washing lines. Lizzy sat forward in her seat; she liked the glimpses the train gave of other people’s lives.
She was so far forward and so intent on looking out that when the train lurched suddenly, Lizzy nearly ended up in the lady’s lap.
“Oh, I’m awfully sorry,” she said as she scrambled back into her seat.
“That’s quite all right. No harm done.” The lady gave the faintest flicker of a smile and carried on staring out of the window.
“I like seeing everything going past,” Lizzy said, thinking that the lady must, too, so intent was her gaze.
“Do you?”
“It’s interesting, isn’t it?”
The lady didn’t reply to that. Her eyes were fixed. Her hands worked in her lap. Perhaps she wasn’t seeing anything outside at all, just something only she could see inside her own head. Lizzy studied her. She looked very serious. Not cruel, or haughty, or sour; her eyes were kind, but as though she wasn’t given very much to smiling, as if there was some sadness in her life.
She certainly stood out from the racegoers. She was well dressed, but in a sober sort of way, in a dark costume and white blouse. More suitable for a funeral than Epsom on Derby Day. Her hat was black straw.
The lady looked back sharply, as if suddenly aware of Lizzy’s eyes on her.
“I was ju
st admiring your brooch,” Lizzy managed, knowing that it was ill mannered to stare. “I like brooches. I have one that belonged to my mother. It’s in my purse because I don’t want to lose it. She’s dead now.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.” The lady glanced down at the pin on her lapel. It looked like a little bunch of violets that had been turned into crystal. “Amethyst, pearl and peridot.”
“It’s very pretty,” Lizzy ventured.
“It’s not meant to be just pretty.” The lady looked severe again. She held the brooch out so that Lizzy could get a clearer look. “It has another meaning. Or at least, the colours do. Green. White. Violet. Initial letters standing for ‘Give Women Votes’.” She emphasised each word. “Do you know about the suffragettes?”
Lizzy had been with Aunt Mollie on an omnibus delayed by one of the suffragettes’ demonstrations. Women dressed in white with green and purple sashes, marching along, chanting, singing, carrying placards.
“Get back to your husbands!” Aunt Mollie had shouted, joining in with the jeering bystanders. “Get back to your children! Get back to your homes!” Then she’d turned to Lizzy. “I don’t hold with it,” she’d said. “Votes for women? Stuff and nonsense.”
Lizzy didn’t tell the lady any of that. She just nodded.
“We want the vote so that girls like you will be able to have a say in how this country is run. Without it, wealth and education count for nothing and we will never have equality with men. When you are old enough, you must join us.” The lady was clasping the brooch now. “It is every woman’s duty to fight for what should be theirs by right. Remember that.”
Lizzy nodded. She could see the sense of it. She looked round at the men in the compartment. Why should they be allowed to vote when the ladies couldn’t? It did not seem fair. And what about Rex, her odious cousin? When they both grew up, he’d be able to vote and she wouldn’t, even though she was miles cleverer and kinder and nicer, as were her girl cousins, for that matter. No, that was all wrong.