She left Nellie’s at the end of November. She had been feeling less and less well, and the consultant gynaecologist who was looking after her, and who had agreed to deliver her baby in her own flat with the aid of a midwife from St Mary’s hospital in Paddington, told her firmly that she must stop, and she didn’t argue with him. She had become thinner than she should be and the baby was beginning to show rather more than was comfortable. She wore a girdle at work, and an oversized white coat but was uneasy at the way some of the senior nurses looked at her so quizzically, and also, she was far from happy.
A period of self-assurance that had carried her through the late autumn seemed to be succeeded by a period of great depression and she even wondered for a while if some of it was due to the country’s wedding fever. It seemed that no one around Nellie’s talked of anything but young love and honeymoons, as the Royal Wedding filled the papers day after day until Charlie felt that if anyone else mentioned Princess Elizabeth and her romantic sailor groom she would scream at them.
So she left Nellie’s and settled into her flat, and for a couple of weeks the novelty of arranging furniture and hanging curtains and sorting out where in her small kitchen her dishes should go sustained her, but that was succeeded by the worst time of all.
She had not realized how much she had relied on her work to keep her on an even keel and without it she floundered through the days, tearful and irritable by turns and far from her usual cool and sensible self.
It was Max who helped her through that. He had telephoned her one evening quite unexpectedly, early in January, and asked her to come out to dinner and at the sound of his voice on the phone she had burst into tears and he had made soothing noises and hung up and then, twenty minutes later, had appeared on her doorstep with a package under his arm.
‘I imagine you have a kitchen here,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I’ve brought my own dinner, and a little something for you too. Can’t drain your rations, can we? I have friends in illegal places, fortunately. Where’s the stove?’
She had tried to protest at first and then given up, for he had been cheerfully firm, and had moved purposefully about her shiny new kitchen, which truth to tell she had hardly bothered to use for more than the making of tea and toast, and then set in front of her a piece of grilled fish and mashed potatoes which, she realized, were exactly what she wanted. She had wolfed it and he had said nothing all through their meal and then, pushing aside the dishes, had told her firmly that she was to tell him of all that was worrying her.
And though she had resisted at first, had felt he was treating her as though she were one of his neurotic patients, he had persevered and at last she had let it all out; her rage at both Brin and herself, he for being so selfish and shallow, she for being such a fool as to believe him, and he had listened and said little.
But at the end of it all she had felt amazingly better. They had reached her sitting-room by then, for he had made coffee and brought it to her and when she had said all she could she had fallen asleep, there in the corner of the sofa, and woken stiff and startled in the small hours to find he had covered her with a rug and was himself sleeping in an armchair on the other side of the room.
They had both laughed when she woke him, and she had given him another blanket and settled him on the sofa while she went to her bed, and in the morning she had made breakfast for them both and he had gone away, shaking her hand and telling her that she’d be fine now; and so she had been, to her enormous relief and gratitude.
For the remaining weeks of her pregnancy she became tranquil. She slipped into a pattern of daily living that was comforting in its regularity; a morning walk in the park on the other side of the Bayswater Road among the naked trees and shivering birds and the spikes of early crocus and daffodils pushing their way through the cold dark earth, a light breakfast in her cosy kitchen and then the morning spent over her knitting and sewing, for she had decided to make the baby’s clothes from the things she had found in Counsin Mary’s trunks in the attics. Old silk dresses and cotton chemises were cut up to make rompers and pilches and old cobwebs of knitted woollens were unravelled to be reknitted into matinée coats and shawls and bootees, and slowly she became adept at her making over and as the pile of small garments mounted she was filled with a deep contentment.
Her afternoons were peaceful too, for she dozed them away, her wireless on softly beside her bed as she listened to ‘Music While You Work’ and talks about ornithology and cathedrals and cookery and even ‘Children’s Hour’, and in the evenings there were books to read and more radio - she became an addict of ‘Dick Barton, Special Agent’, and ‘itma’ - and sometimes, quiet outings with Max. They would go to theatres and cinemas and more of their little Soho dinners and, as Max said, she began to bloom as a pregnant woman should.
But in the last two weeks of the pregnancy she became restless again. The sewing and knitting were finished, the small room she had prepared for the baby lay waiting with its old cot repainted and its cupboards filled with the results of her handiwork and all she could do was prowl uneasily around the flat, waiting impatiently and yet fearfully for the time to come; and then her fears were sharpened by two separate events, both of which alarmed her a great deal.
Her midwife called her in the first week in April and told her that she had fallen and broken her ankle.
‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Lucas,’ she said. ‘I thought I’d be in plaster and able at least to look after some of my special patients, but it’s no use. I’ve got to go into the hospital, they’ve just told me, and have an op on it - it’s too silly - I’m so sorry -’
And then the next day, before she’d even had the chance to think about finding another midwife to take care of her at such short notice, the second blow fell.
The secretary of the consultant obstetrician who had been looking after her telephoned to tell her that she was very sorry, Mr Mills-Topham would not after all be able to deal with her confinement, since his wife had to have her appendix out and he had cancelled all his work for the next three weeks in order to take her on a convalescent holiday.
‘And since your baby is due before he comes back, he feels it would be better to transfer your care to his colleague, Mr Harris,’ the woman said smoothly. ‘Mr Mills-Topham regrets any inconvenience but he’s sure you’ll understand -’
‘But I don’t know Mr Harris,’ Charlie had said blankly, standing with the phone held so tightly in her hand that her knuckles shone white, and the baby leapt in her belly in seeming sympathy with her anxiety. ‘I can’t be looked after by someone I don’t even know!’
‘Well, I’m afraid that is how it has to be,’ the secretary said sharply. ‘I’ll give you Mr Harris’s telephone number and if you call him as soon as you go into labour he’ll come and see you. And of course you have your midwife, haven’t you?’
She did the first thing that came into her head, which was to phone Max. He listened to her account of her dilemma and said at once that it was absurd to try to find new people to come to her confinement in Lancaster Gate, that she would be much better off coming into Nellie’s to have her baby.
‘I wasn’t best pleased with your plan to stay in the flat anyway,’ he said. ‘I know most women do have their babies at home, but you - it’s different for you -’
‘No husband?’ she said bitterly.
‘It’s nothing to do with that. It’s everything to do with your health and your age -’
‘My age? What do you mean?’
‘How old are you?’
‘Thirty - last month -’
‘An elderly primagravida,’ he said and then laughed at her intake of breath. ‘My dear, you know I’m right. For a first baby, it is a bit older than it might be, isn’t it? You’ll be better off here. Safer. So will he-she.’
‘But to see everyone - people will know.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘People will know. They know you and they’ll be interested in you. Dr Forester will see you and be interested in you. So w
ill Mr Croxley. So will we all. We look after everyone at Nellie’s but especially we look after our own. You’re one of ours, aren’t you? And you told me, once, that you weren’t going to do what Dr Forester had suggested and buy a wedding ring and tell lies about yourself, weren’t going to pretend to be married or widowed or any of those other - what was your phrase? - shabby little subterfuges. Was that promise only for other people? Not for Nellie’s people?’
She stood silent, the phone against her ear, hearing him breathe and trying to think and within her the baby shifted and heaved and her belly hardened against the pressure and she felt the tension in her back, a dull aching, and thought - not long now. Soon, soon - and then, sharply, nodded her head.
And though she hadn’t said a word he took a deep breath that was clearly audible through the phone and said, ‘You will then? Come here?’
‘I will,’ she said. ‘As soon as I start. Will - will you arrange it all? I don’t think I want to try to -’
‘I’ll see to it that they expect you in Maternity,’ he said reassuringly and then, suddenly, ‘I’ll be fifty this year, you know.’
‘What?’
‘My next birthday. It’ll be my fiftieth.’
‘Oh.’ She didn’t know quite how to respond and said the first thing that came into her head. ‘So what? I mean, how nice -’
‘That’s all right then,’ he said obscurely and hung up and she stared at the buzzing phone for a moment, puzzled. It was very unlike Max to be so inconsequential.
Whether it was the anxiety that she now felt about having to go to Nellie’s to have her baby, or whether it was because the time had arrived in the natural order of things, she was never to know, but twenty-four hours later, at three in the morning, she knew she could wait alone in her flat no longer.
Methodically she collected the last few items she might need to add to her prepared bag and put on her coat and then phoned the taxi rank at Paddington station. There were always taxis there at any time of night, and when she told the man who answered hoarsely that she had to be taken at once to Nellie’s, he said cheerfully, ‘Right, ducks. On me way -’
And when he arrived fifteen minutes later he took one look at her and immediately began to fuss over her like the most excited of mother hens. His anxiety and his pride in his task amused her so much that when she arrived at Nellie’s she was feeling far less anxious than she had been when she had first phoned there and told the midwife on duty of the progress of her early labour and been told to come in at once. As the taxi driver almost carried her into the main hall, the very prince of solicitude in every way, she laughed and thanked him and protested as he refused to take his fare and watched him go, her mind far less preoccupied with her state than it might have been.
But she was brought back to the present with a sharp reminder as another contraction began and she sat there on the bench where the night porter had left her while he went to find the midwife on duty who would admit her to the maternity ward, and tried to relax. What was happening to her was normal, a normal, natural physiological process. There was no need to panic, no need to fight it, her doctor’s mind instructed her woman’s mind just as it had been used to; simply relax, it said, let it roll over you, it has a vital function; it is making a pathway open for him-her -
But it was a big and painful contraction, the biggest so far, a deeply creaking sensation and she felt the sweat running down her face as she sat with her back held in an arch and her chin up, breathing deeply through her nose as through the mists of sweat in her eyes she could see the tall bronze figure of the Founder’s statue, and needing something to help her cope, seeking a focus on which to fix her concentration as the contraction tightened and hardened till she thought it would break her in half, she found it in the small plaque at the statue’s foot.
‘Abel Lackland, Founder and Benefactor of this, Queen Eleanor’s Hospital for the Sick and Needy and Old and Young and Especially for the Mothers of Covent Garden and its Environs. Blessed be his Name.’
‘Blessed be his name, blessed be his name,’ she murmured, concentrating on it, staring fixedly at the plaque, and then slowly the wave of the contraction began to ease and slide away and she let her back slump, and lifted one shaky hand to wipe her face. Blessed be his name, I’m through that one, she thought and peered at her watch. She’d better note how often now; that had been fifteen minutes since the last, wasn’t it? Yes, fifteen minutes - and then the midwife arrived with the porter and in a wave of carbolic scented kindness took her on her way to the maternity department on the third floor, rattling up in the noisy old lift in the sleeping hospital, and chattering cheerfully of banalities all the way.
But Charlie kept the phrase that had helped her through that big contraction in her mind and when the next one came, as she sat on the edge of the bed to which the midwife had taken her she used it again, closing her eyes to recreate behind her lids the image of the big blank-eyed statue. ‘Blessed be his name, blessed be his name -’ she murmured rhythmically and it helped amazingly, making the pain seem so right and natural that it ceased to be a pain and became a powerful and exciting sensation instead.
For the rest of the night, as the pains came more often, first at ten-minute intervals and then at five and at three-minute intervals, she used the same technique. The midwives fussed over her, and so did Mr Croxley when he arrived and she smiled vaguely at them and nodded and did as they told her, but thought all the time of the silent figure down in the main hall, so secure and stolid, so comforting in its stillness, and murmured that absurd phrase in its absurd rhythm inside her head.
At nine o’clock, as the day got under its busy way at Nellie’s, with the first of the people arriving for their outpatient clinic appointments and the consultants’ big cars decanting them at the front steps, as nurses and physiotherapists and cleaners and radiographers and engineers and cooks and porters and the ever-demanding patients slid into the business of their day, Charlie’s baby at last emerged with one last vast push from her weary body, her chin tucked so hard into her chest and her face so distorted with the effort that she looked like a tortoise, and immediately bawled very loudly indeed at the indignation of being swung up in the air by the feet. Charlie gasped and laughed and cried and said, ‘Blessed be his name -’ - which the Irish midwife took as a prayer and greatly approved of - and stared at the streaked and bloody object with the furious face that screamed at her and at his new-found world with a sort of amazement. Had she made that? Had she really made that?
‘Ah, ’tis a fine boy - will you look at his great bits and pieces then?’ the midwife said. ‘A bonny, bonny boy, and all complete in every respect. Well done to you, Dr Lucas, well done indeed -’ And she wrapped him in a sheet and gave him to Charlie who stared at him in even greater amazement as they bustled themselves at her other end, no longer aware of anything but him.
She’d done it. She, Charlotte Hankin Lucas, had done it, and virtually on her own - and she held the baby to her face, not caring that he was thick with the yellowish wax in which his skin had been covered in her womb, not caring for the blood that matted his hair, and crooned odd little noises at him which meant everything and nothing and which he understood perfectly. For at last he stopped bawling and closed his newly opened eyes and slept.
‘I’d forgotten they come this small,’ Max said, leaning over the crib and staring at him. ‘And so neat - what will you call him, Charlie?’
‘Mmm?’ She turned her head back to look at him, for she had been staring dreamily out of the window at the new leaves that were appearing on the plane tree just outside. ‘I hadn’t thought about names. Isn’t that ridiculous? But I have now.’
She smiled and stretched. ‘It seems so right, somehow. I’m calling him after Nellie’s.’
Max lifted his head and looked at her, and said carefully, ‘After Nellie’s? Don’t you think a chap might find life a little difficult with such a name?’
‘Ass,’ she said and chuckled. ‘I�
�m calling him after the man who founded Nellie’s. Abel Lackland. He’s entitled to be called Lackland, after all.’ She looked out of the window again for a moment, and then back at Max and grinned, a slightly sideways little grimace that had some pain in it, but an insouciant one all the same. ‘Abel Lackland Lucas. Sounds good?’
‘Very good,’ Max said and looked at the baby again. ‘And you never know. One of these days he might be even more of a Lackland.’ But he didn’t look at her as he said it.
All round them Nellie’s went on as it had for the past hundred years and more, providing and caring and trying its best for the people who lived and worked in the tangle of narrow London streets that surrounded it.
Soon it would no longer be the Nellie’s everyone had known it as for so long. It would be just a part of the shiny new National Health Service in a shiny new post-war England where the want and the inequality and misery that had been so much a part of Covent Garden and Seven Dials and Hungerford and Clare Market and all the other London warrens of long ago would seem like long-forgotten bad dreams.
No more disease, no more misery, promised the new order. No more Nellie’s dependent on the goodwill and the effort of the people who had built it and run it and fretted over it. Just a Government department it would be now, not one family’s domain.
But there would still be Lacklands and Lucases, because they always went on. No matter what happens to institutions and systems, people go on and on. So the statue of the old Founder down in the main hall stood there stolidly as above his head the newest of his clan and of his once much-loved and long-forgotten Lilith’s clan started out to make the world his own.
Table of Contents
Cover
Other Books By This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Seven Dials Page 31