A Nurse's Courage

by Maggie Holt

  She closed her eyes, tired by this emotional speech. Mabel sat in stunned silence, unable to think of a response; she was utterly dismayed at the prospect of losing Norah in this way. It meant that she would have to tackle the Pinehurst project alone, without the help and support of her dearest friend.

  But Maud Ling spoke up in unexpected agreement. ‘I can see ye’ve made up yer mind, Norah, gal, an’ I ain’t all that surprised, to tell yer the trufe. Albert always said yer was like a little nun, didn’t ‘e, Mabel? An’ ’e was right, Gawd love ’im.’

  Norah gave her a grateful glance. ‘An’ what about yeself, Maudie? Did ye get a job near to Teddy at – where was it, that film studio place?’

  ‘Twickenham,’ replied Maud with a little self-conscious smile. ‘Yeah, not ’alf! An’ I got meself a part in a film they’re makin’ dahn there – it’s called Downfall of a Nobleman.’

  ‘Go on, Maudie, have yer really?’ Mabel, still dashed by Norah’s news, looked up with interest. ‘Are yer the heroine?’

  ‘Nah! I’m ’er sister, the Lady Blanche, a right schemin’ ’ussy. Lovely costumes we got, must’ve cost a fortune, but this Ralph Jupp who owns the studio reckons it’ll be a big moneymaker – got ’is eye on the American market, Teddy says.’

  Her eyes sparkled, and her two friends caught a glimpse of the old, smart, cheeky Maud they remembered from the days when all three had been in love and full of hope for the future.

  Mabel was delighted. ‘Good on yer, Maudie! I bet ye’ll go on to be a big star one day an’ make us proud o’ yer.’

  ‘Well, yer never know, do yer, gal?’ Maudie gave a modest simper. ‘Me bruvver says there’s one fing abaht films, they can’t ’ear Lady Blanche’s cockney accent, can they?’

  Young Mrs Westhouse stared incredulously at Miss Chalcott, scarcely able to believe what she was hearing. ‘But Gerald and I can offer you the full market price, Aunt Kate – more if you want! How much can the Waifs and Strays scrape up?’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with the Waifs and Strays, Alice,’ replied her aunt levelly. ‘Pinehurst belongs to your sister Mabel and she is allowing the Society to use it as a children’s home with herself in charge.’

  Alice was so astonished that she stood with her mouth open, unable to frame a reply for several moments. ‘You mean you’ve given it to her?’ she said at last.

  ‘That is not your concern, Alice, though I never made any promise to sell Pinehurst to you – or to leave it to you after I’ve gone. Mabel has proved herself to be far more deserving of it and she won’t be using it for herself, but for children in need of a home.’

  ‘It’s your decision, Aunt Kate,’ said Alice, trying to regain her dignity, but still unable to believe that she had lost her cherished dream to be mistress of Pinehurst. ‘Though I must say I think you’ll live to regret it. Imagine that lovely house – your childhood home – overrun by the sort of badly behaved brats that Mabel’s always made such a fuss about, all sticky paws and dirty habits. This is a respectable neighbourhood and there’ll be complaints, mark my words!’

  ‘We managed well enough with war casualties and I’m sure that Mabel will be able to deal with any complaints – with my backing and support,’ retorted Miss Chalcott, looking hard at her niece’s flushed face. ‘You and your husband should look for a smaller property, and if you’ll take my advice, Alice, you’d do well to influence Gerald to cut down on his drinking and get back into his father’s law practice. You can’t live off the Westhouses for ever, you know.’

  Pinehurst Cottage Home for Waifs and Strays was opened in May 1919, with Miss Mabel Court appointed as the Society’s youngest Matron at twenty-five. A full-time cook was engaged, two resident assistants to help with the children, and two housemaids; extra daily help was employed, and between them they cooked and cleaned, washed and ironed. There was also Mr Yarrow, an ex-serviceman who came in daily to be handyman, boilerman and gardener. Six children between the ages of five and ten were introduced to their new home, to be joined by four more by the end of the month.

  Mabel discovered very early on that looking after sick children in a large institution under supervision was one thing, but dealing alone with a mixed bunch of bewildered and insecure victims of circumstance was a very different kind of challenge. The children were defensive and suspicious, having been pushed from pillar to post in the course of their short lives, and now, faced with what appeared to be a palace and a smiling lady to welcome them and give them regular meals and a bed to sleep in, they were not necessarily ready to trust their luck. Habits of self-preservation died hard, food was grabbed and stored under beds, favourite toys were hidden rather than shared. At the local church school they met round-faced, rosy-cheeked children who stared at them and spoke in a funny way, as unfriendly as it was unfamiliar.

  And day after day there were sheets hung out on the line and tight-lipped faces among the staff because of the bed-wetting that went on and on. Matron Court had to buy rubber sheets to prevent the mattresses from becoming permanently stained.

  ‘Dirty little monkeys,’ the maids would mutter, though Matron Court never said anything but just made sure that they went to the WC or used their chamber-pots before going to bed. Regular offenders were roused at ten o’clock to go again if they could.

  Then there were the head-lice, previously unheard-of at the church school, or so the teachers said, though Matron Court told them without a trace of embarrassment that outbreaks were common in London schools, and that she herself had had lice as a child. Out came the toothcomb and sassafras oil, its lingering odour reminding her of those far-off days when her own mother had done the same for herself. And there were threadworms, for which Dr Forsyth, the local general practitioner, ordered special pills which gave them tummy-aches and led to accidents. ‘Talk about a house o’ smells,’ grumbled the maids, hanging out more washing.

  To Mabel these were mere practical problems which she took in her stride. Far worse were the behavioural difficulties which led to clashes with her staff and a couple of resignations. The hard-working assistants were not used to putting up with bad language, rudeness such as the sticking out of tongues and pulling faces when told to come and listen to a story being read. The naughty ones would far rather bounce up and down on the sofa or crawl underneath tables to do unspeakable things like playing with themselves, an activity that caused much shock and disgust among the well-meaning countrywomen. When one of the helpers dragged a boy to Matron’s sitting-room with the awful accusation that he had been ‘doing it again’, Mabel simply told him to run along, and when he was out of earshot she reprimanded the indignant woman.

  ‘Yer don’t know what that child’s been through, starved o’ love and attention,’ she said. ‘The habit isn’t criminal and it won’t cause blindness, that’s all nonsense, an’ there’s no need to make such a fuss about it.’

  It was generally agreed that Matron Court had some very odd ideas and the assistants whispered among themselves that she was not firm enough with the little terrors. Nobody but herself was allowed to punish a child: all misdemeanours had to be reported to her and she dealt with them in her own way.

  ‘I’m in the place of their mother,’ she said firmly, ‘and what they do is my responsibility and nobody else’s.’

  Which was why only the staff called her Matron. The children called her ‘Mother’ if they wished and the younger ones happily said ‘Mummy’ from the start. Others who remembered their own mothers could choose to call her ‘Aunt Mabel’ or ‘Auntie’, but there were objectors.

  ‘You ain’t me muvver!’ roared a boy when she remonstrated with him for breaking a window. ‘Nor yet me aunt, neiver – ye’re just an ol’ woman!’

  ‘Very well, yer can call me Woman, and I’ll call yer Boy,’ she replied at once. ‘Everybody else’ll have names except us two.’

  And as the weeks went by she gradually began to gain the trust of the children, even the most recalcitrant. Her path was a lonely one, for she fe
lt that she should not make any particular friends among her staff; time and again she longed for Norah McLoughlin’s understanding, someone who would have given her unconditional support. When her sister Daisy wanted to come to live at Pinehurst, Mabel regretfully told her that at fifteen she was too young to cope with difficult children all day long, so she came over at weekends and accompanied them all to church on Sundays; they walked two by two along the lane, with Mabel and Daisy bringing up the rear. Back at the house they all sat down to Sunday dinner, both staff and children, for Matron insisted that they should eat as a family. Cook would bring in the roasted joint – or the mutton stew or the fish pie, depending on what day it was – and Matron would serve everybody according to age and appetite.

  On Sunday afternoons the Rector called with his son Cedric – poor Cedric, so handsome and clever, but on crutches because of his lost leg – and Mabel sometimes talked with them about any problems she had with boys, there being no housemaster. Mr Drummond encouraged them to join the local Scout and Cub troops, just as the girls joined the Guides and Brownies, proudly parading in their uniforms. His wife did her duty by inviting selected children to tea at the Rectory, two or three at a time, and in the new post-war world the Pinehurst boys and girls became an accepted part of Belhampton life. As Mabel patiently pointed out to Polly, a particularly defiant girl of seven, ‘No matter what yer do, no matter how badly yer behave, ye’re not goin’ to be sent away again, d’ye hear me? D’ye understand, Poll? This is yer home an’ here yer stay, so there’s no need to go on testin’ yer luck!’ And having made her point clear, she enfolded the unhappy child in a hug.

  Two letters arrived for Matron on a warm June morning and she saved them to read after breakfast, when the children had gone to school. She recognised the handwriting on both, one was from Ruby Swayne and the other from Violet Stoke-Marriner. She opened Ruby’s first, and as she drank a second cup of tea she was thankful to read that Herbert had been released after completing three and a half years of his sentence, so was now reunited with his wife and sons at Deacon’s Walk, and back to being a Captain in the Salvation Army.

  ‘Your friend Mrs Hodges has married again,’ the letter went on, ‘to Mr Clark, the Chairman of the Council. He was a widower much older than her but they seem happy and they say he thinks the world of the three children. She runs a War Widows’ Association to raise funds for poor women bringing up families on their own.’

  Mabel smiled to herself, glad to hear of her friend’s new-found domestic happiness and to know that her children had a good father.

  But then came very different news about another wave of influenza, and Mabel’s hand flew to her mouth as she read that it had claimed the lives of Dr Henry Knowles and his wife: they had died two months ago.

  ‘Oh, Dr Knowles, dear Dr Knowles,’ Mabel whispered, unable to take in that her good old friend had gone. So this was the reason she had not heard from him since Pinehurst had opened. To think she hadn’t known about his death, hadn’t sent a message of sympathy to his son, not that she would have done so anyway, that was something in the past, all over now. But dear Dr Henry Knowles! At least she knew how highly he would approve of the work she was doing now.

  She picked up the other letter and sat reading as if turned to stone.

  ‘I’ve thought very long and hard about sending you this letter, Mabel,’ wrote Violet. ‘I still don’t know whether I’m doing the right thing . . .’

  Mabel’s fingers trembled as she held the single sheet of paper and read on.

  Dr Stephen Knowles’s wife died last week in this third wave of Spanish influenza that has taken so many lives. He has gone to Northampton and we suppose that his little daughter will now be brought up by her grandparents. It is particularly tragic that this should happen now that the war is over, and Dr Knowles also lost both his parents in May from the same cause. I thought I would let you know, Mabel, though it probably makes no difference to you now . . .

  Mabel was still sitting at the table when the maid came in to clear away after breakfast.

  ‘Be y’all right, Matron? ‘Ee gone as white as a sheet,’ remarked the girl.

  ‘What? No, no, it’s all right,’ muttered Mabel. ‘Is there another cup o’ tea in the pot, Mary?’

  ‘Tha’s gone stale now, Matron, but I can soon make ’ee a fresh ’un.’

  ‘No, don’t bother, it’s all right.’ Mabel got up and hurried away to calm herself and collect her thoughts together. Violet was right, the news made no difference now: she had her new life here at Pinehurst, her responsibility to her children who called her Mother.

  And she had a new child arriving today, an eight-year-old boy from London, and there was no time to sit around examining her feelings about something that was over and done with.

  The boy pressed himself into his corner of the compartment and only spoke when the lady asked him a question. He had never been on a train before and it was going ever so fast, taking him to somewhere else. Through the window he could see all sorts of different scenes rushing by, stretches of green and sandy open spaces and tall pine trees, very different from the crowded streets he’d known all his life.

  ‘You’ll love it at Pinehurst,’ the lady said brightly. ‘You’ll have other boys and girls to play with and a big garden. The Matron’s called Miss Court and I’ve heard she’s very nice.’

  The boy curled himself up with his knees under his chin and his arms wrapped round his legs. He didn’t want to meet other boys if they were like Rob and he hoped that Miss Court, whoever she was, wouldn’t shout and holler like Ma Grigson who ladled out bowls of soup and slices of bread every day to the four children boarded out with her. She lived in a narrow-fronted house with two nearly grown-up girls and Rob, who took the children to and from school and never lost an opportunity to make their lives a misery. The house had a small backyard, where a half-starved dog was tied up all day to warn off intruders, and the stink of the adjoining tannery hung over the whole neighbourhood. At night the boy slept in a small bed with an older lad who cried out in his sleep and wet the bed, for which they both got cuffed by Ma Grigson who in her turn was bawled at by a big red-faced man who turned up from time to time and threatened her, shoving his fist in her face while she shrank back and glowered helplessly.

  But it was Rob whose constant tormenting had been the worst of all. He’d said, ‘Ye’re a little bastard, ain’t yer,’ and held him up by his ankles until the boy gasped out, ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Yeah what?’

  ‘I’m a little bastard.’

  That wasn’t half as bad as the other thing, the thing he couldn’t even bear to think about.

  ‘Listen, bastard, I’ll chuck yer out o’ the winder if yer don’t stay still an’ shut yer gob.’

  So he closed his eyes tightly, gritted his teeth and bunched his fists while Rob did that horrible rude thing to him. It hurt and made him feel as bad as Rob, and that’s why he’d run away and hidden in alleys and doorways around Waterloo Station. Passers-by had thrown him their spare coppers, and he’d found a warm spot to sleep behind a chop-house until one night a policeman had picked him up and taken him to a place where they’d given him sweet tea and asked a lot of questions. He’d begged them not to send him back to Ma Grigson’s, and they’d taken him to a house where there were some other children and an office where he first heard the words, ‘waifs and strays’. He wondered which he was, a waif or a stray. Then somebody had said ‘Pinehurst’ and now he was on a train with a lady he didn’t know, heading for a destination he knew nothing about.

  From his earliest recollections the boy had always been surrounded by lots of other children, more or less the same age as himself. They’d had to sit on potties and push down until they did poo-poos, and it had given him an aching, dragging feeling in his bottom that still hurt him down there sometimes, especially when Rob – ugh! he recoiled from the thought. When he’d left that first babies’ place he’d been sent to a big, noisy, crowded building full of chi
ldren of all ages, where he’d slept in a long dormitory with twenty other boys in two rows of narrow beds. He had made a few friends there, but when he was seven he’d been boarded out with Ma Grigson, along with two girls and the other boy. And that was where he had learned the meaning of fear.

  But the boy had a secret. Deep in his heart he cherished a memory, a dream that had really happened and which he had never shared with anybody else. At some point near the end of his time at the babies’ home he had been very ill with a dreadful pain in his ear: his whole head had buzzed and quivered and blazed with the agony of it, and he had screamed and screamed. One day he woke up and found himself in a big room where there were lots of old ladies lying in beds. The pain had been cured; in fact, he scarcely remembered now how bad it had been. What he did remember was that Somebody had looked after him then, Somebody warm and cuddly and safe, who had comforted him, hugged and kissed him and called him her good boy. She had coaxed and cajoled him to eat and drink, she had come to him when he cried, she had taught him the meaning of love. In his dreams she still returned to him, though when he woke up she was gone again. But he clung to her memory; he would never forget her.

  The train drew up at a funny little station, and the lady picked up the bag with his few clothes in it and said they had arrived. Out in the station yard was a man with a trim little pony trap to take them up to the house. He said his name was Yarrow and smiled at the boy in a friendly way, saying that he looked as if he needed feeding up.

  When the fine big house came into view, the boy felt very nervous, and when the lady rang the front doorbell he wanted to run away and hide from more strange faces.