District Nurse on Call

by Donna Douglas

  ‘Honestly,’ Agnes said. ‘It’s been an hour and no one has walked through those doors. I doubt they’ll come now.’

  ‘You never know.’

  Agnes shook her head. ‘You don’t have to spare my feelings. This clinic has been a dismal failure.’ She looked around. ‘We might as well get this lot put away, then you two can get back to Leeds.’

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  They packed away the equipment in silence. Agnes was too heavy-hearted with disappointment to speak.

  Polly did her best to comfort her. ‘Try not to take it to heart,’ she said. ‘It’s early days yet. I’m sure once word gets round they’ll come.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right.’ Agnes tried to smile bravely. But she couldn’t help thinking the doctor was right. The truth was, no matter how hard she tried, the people of Bowden simply didn’t like or trust her. And she had started to think they never would.

  Agnes waved her friends off, standing in the rain until Phil’s car disappeared around the corner at the top of the hill. Then she went back into the hall to put away the chairs. Seeing all the rows set out made her feel utterly foolish. How had she dared to imagine she would fill the hall with mothers and babies? Everyone had tried to warn her the idea was doomed to failure, and as usual she had insisted that she knew best.

  Would she ever learn her lesson? she wondered.

  ‘Am I too late?’

  She swung round. Carrie Shepherd stood in the doorway, her baby in her arms.

  ‘I meant to come earlier, but I had to go and visit my father.’ The baby started to grizzle and she jiggled him in her arms to quieten him.

  The sight of her standing there was too much for Agnes. The pent-up emotion she had been holding in all day finally burst out and tears sprang to her eyes.

  ‘Now then, Nurse. What’s all this about?’ Carrie looked dismayed.

  ‘Oh, nothing. Just me being foolish, that’s all.’ Agnes brushed away her tears and summoned a smile. ‘Thank you for coming, Mrs Shepherd.’

  ‘Aye, well, I said I would, didn’t I? You did me a favour, visiting old Mrs Horsfall, and now I’m repaying it.’ Carrie looked around. ‘But I see I’ve missed it, so I’ll be on my way.’

  ‘Don’t go,’ Agnes begged. She pulled herself together, smoothing down her apron. ‘Since you’re here, we might as well make sure all’s well with the baby, shall we? I’ll start by weighing him. Will you undress him down to his nappy, please?’

  She left Carrie undressing the baby and went to fetch the scales out of the cupboard.

  ‘Have you been busy?’ Carrie asked.

  ‘Not as busy as I would have liked.’ Agnes set the scales down on the table. ‘In fact, you’re my first and last mother!’ She made a brave attempt at a smile.

  Carrie stared at her, appalled. ‘You mean no one else turned up?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. Right, let’s put Henry on the scale, shall we?’

  The sound of women’s laughter rang out from beyond the hall. Carrie lifted her head.

  ‘The soup kitchen,’ Agnes explained, as she made a note of the baby’s weight. ‘They’ve been there since noon.’

  ‘And yet no one could be bothered to come to your clinic?’ Carrie’s mouth tightened.

  ‘I daresay they were busy.’ Agnes looked down at the baby, who gurgled back at her. She didn’t need to check Henry over to see he was in perfect health.

  Carrie frowned. ‘It’s a crying shame folk won’t give you a chance,’ she said.

  ‘I expect they just need time to get used to me.’

  ‘Aye,’ Carrie said. But there was something about her expression that made Agnes wonder.

  ‘Is there something you’re not telling me, Mrs Shepherd?’ she asked.

  Carrie kept her head down, concentrating on dressing her baby. ‘It’s just summat my mother told me, that’s all. She reckons …’ Carrie paused, and Agnes could see her weighing her words carefully. ‘She reckons there are rumours going round about you,’ she said finally.

  Agnes was shocked. ‘What kind of rumours?’

  Carrie was silent for a long time, carefully buttoning her son’s knitted matinee jacket. Finally, she said, ‘Someone’s putting it around that you don’t think the mothers in the village look after their children properly. They reckon that you’re after taking their bairns away from them.’

  Agnes gasped. ‘But that’s not true!’

  ‘That’s what I said, but you know what gossip is like once it starts to spread.’

  ‘But I don’t understand … Who would say such a thing?’

  Carrie looked away. ‘I couldn’t say,’ she muttered, but her expression told a different story.

  Agnes knew there was no point in pressing her on it. The people of Bowden were very close-mouthed when they wanted to be.

  She remembered what Dr Rutherford had said.

  Their only loyalty is to themselves and each other.

  ‘Well, thank you for telling me what you’ve heard,’ she said.

  There was an awkward silence while Carrie finished dressing Henry.

  ‘You mustn’t take it to heart, you know,’ she said. ‘I know the folk here seem to be unfriendly, but they’re all right once you get to know them.’

  ‘Yes, but how do I get to do that?’ Agnes asked.

  Carrie looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘I’m not sure,’ she admitted at last. ‘I s’pose these things take time.’

  Bess Bradshaw’s wise words came back to Agnes.

  All they needed was time to get used to you, so you could show them what you’re capable of doing. That’s all anyone needs, Miss Sheridan. Time.

  But how much time? Agnes wondered. She had already been in the village for more than four months. Even the hard-bitten residents of Quarry Hill had started to warm to her after that long.

  Carrie had parked the baby’s pram in the passageway outside the hall, propped between the glass trophy cases. It filled the space where Agnes had left her bicycle a couple of hours previously.

  ‘Have you lost summat?’ Carrie looked over her shoulder at Agnes as she placed Henry carefully back in his pram.

  ‘My bicycle.’ Agnes looked around blankly. ‘I could have sworn I left it here.’

  Carrie thought for a moment. ‘I noticed a bicycle here when I arrived. Happen someone’s moved it outside, out of the way? It’ll be round the side, I’m sure.’

  ‘I hope you’re right.’

  Agnes helped Carrie with her pram down the stone steps of the Miners’ Welfare Institute. The murky grey day had given way to watery sunshine, making the cobbles gleam like polished stones. But there was no sign of her bicycle.

  Then Agnes heard a shout behind her. She swung round in time to see her bicycle freewheeling past her down the hill, a dark-haired boy clinging to the handlebars as it bumped over the cobbles, his legs stuck out in front of him, laughing wildly.

  It all happened so suddenly, Agnes couldn’t react at first. By the time she had found her voice to shout after him he was nearly out of sight at the bottom of the hill.

  ‘Come back! Stop, thief!’

  Without thinking, she gave chase down the hill, her stout shoes slipping and sliding on the wet cobbles.

  ‘Give up,’ she heard Carrie calling out behind her. ‘You’ll never catch him.’

  She was right. By the time Agnes reached the bottom of the hill the boy was long gone. She stared down the empty lane, fighting for breath.

  She was still nursing a stitch in her side when Carrie caught up with her a minute later, pushing the pram.

  ‘Any sign?’ she asked. Agnes shook her head. ‘I daresay it was just a lad, messing about. He’ll bring it back when he gets fed up.’

  ‘I’m sure I recognised him from somewhere …’ Agnes thought for a moment, trying to remember where she had heard that wild laughter before. Then it came to her. ‘I know, he let some pit ponies loose in Dr Rutherford’s garden. Now, what did Mrs Bannister call him … Christopher!
Yes, that’s it. Christopher Stanhope.’ The name hadn’t meant anything to her at the time, but now she realised he must be Seth’s son. It didn’t surprise her. ‘You saw him, didn’t you? Was it him?’

  ‘I – I really couldn’t say. It all happened so fast …’ Carrie’s gaze dropped. ‘As I say, I expect he’ll bring it back soon enough.’

  ‘I hope so.’ Agnes bit her lip, determined not to give in to the humiliation and frustration that welled up inside her. ‘That bicycle might not be a thing of beauty, but it means a great deal to me. It was a present from my former patients in Quarry Hill.’

  She remembered the pride in their faces when they presented it to her. She knew how much hard work and effort had gone into fixing the old bicycle up. Old and battered it might be, but it meant the world to her.

  Once again, she felt the sting of hot tears at the back of her eyes, and blinked them away.

  ‘Look.’ Carrie nodded past her in the direction the boy had gone. ‘What did I tell you?’

  Agnes looked round sharply, to see a distant figure pushing her bicycle back up the lane. She rushed down to meet him, Carrie following slowly behind.

  ‘I take it this is yours, miss?’

  The young man pushing the bike grinned at her. He was big and well built, with coppery fair hair and a handsome, smiling face.

  ‘Yes, it is. Thank you.’ Agnes looked it over. ‘Did you see the boy who took it?’

  ‘Nay, miss. I found it in a ditch.’

  ‘Are you sure? He must have cycled right past you.’

  ‘As I said, I found it in a ditch, miss.’

  There it was again, that shuttered look she had recently seen on Carrie Shepherd’s face. The people of Bowden knew how to close ranks when they needed to.

  ‘Hello, Carrie,’ the handsome young man said.

  Agnes looked round. She had been so preoccupied with her bicycle she had almost forgotten Carrie Shepherd standing behind her.

  ‘You two know each other?’ she said.

  ‘Oh, aye, we’re old friends. In’t that right, Carrie?’

  She looked dazed.

  ‘I thought you’d gone home to Durham?’ she said.

  ‘I did. But I decided to come back, stay here for a while.’ The young man’s smile broadened. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’

  Carrie didn’t reply. Her mouth was held in a tight line, and Agnes had the feeling there was a torrent of words she was trying to hold in.

  ‘We haven’t been introduced, miss.’ The young man held out his hand. ‘I’m Rob Chadwick.’

  ‘Agnes Sheridan.’

  ‘So you’re t’new nurse?’ His appraising glance travelled slowly from her feet to the top of her head. Agnes felt a treacherous blush spreading up from the starched collar of her dress.

  ‘Are you related to Tom and Ruth Chadwick?’ she asked, for something to say.

  ‘He’s my uncle by marriage. His wife’s my dad’s sister, though he’s now departed. That’s where I’m lodging presently.’

  ‘How long are you planning to stay?’ Carrie blurted out.

  The young man shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘We’ll have to see how things turn out, won’t we? Happen I might decide to stay on permanently.’

  ‘I’m sure the Chadwicks will welcome an extra mouth to feed,’ Carrie said bitterly.

  ‘As a matter of fact they’re glad to have me, since their Archie got wed and moved out. I’m making mysen useful, bringing in some money where I can.’

  ‘And where do you earn that?’ Carrie asked.

  He tapped the side of his nose. ‘That would be telling, wouldn’t it?’

  Agnes looked from one to the other, aware of a strange tension between them that she couldn’t quite understand.

  Rob turned his attention to the baby. ‘Who’s this, then? I heard you’d had a bairn, Carrie. Let’s have a look at him.’

  He made a move towards the pram, but Carrie seized the handle, wheeling it round and away from him. ‘I’d best go,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll walk back up the hill with you,’ Agnes offered, but Carrie was already on her way, pushing the pram rapidly towards the Welfare Institute.

  Rob watched her go, a knowing little smile on his lips. ‘Someone’s in a hurry,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, she is.’

  It suddenly occurred to Agnes that Carrie was going in entirely the wrong direction to reach her house, but she seemed intent on putting as much distance as she could between herself and the handsome stranger.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  It was a late Friday afternoon, and for once Seth was at home. Although he might as well not have been, for all the notice he was taking of anyone around him as he sat in his chair by the empty fireside, mending the children’s boots.

  Hannah watched him as she stood at the kitchen table, skinning the rabbit Seth had trapped that morning for the pot. Now and then she would think of something to say to him, a passing comment on a piece of news she had heard. But apart from the odd nod or grunt of acknowledgement, Seth kept his head down, stitching away at the worn, patched leather.

  Hannah smiled to herself. For all his silence, she would still rather have been here than anywhere else in the world. This was where she could once again indulge in her favourite fantasy: that she was Seth’s wife and this was her home.

  Much as she enjoyed pretending she had a family and children of her own, she preferred the fantasy where it was just the two of them. Then she could imagine him sweeping her up in his arms and carrying her off to his bedroom in the front parlour, and laying her down gently on the big feather bed …

  Heat rose in her face and she looked up sharply to make sure no one was watching her. But Seth was still busy with his mending, both boys were out – Billy playing a noisy game in the lane, while Christopher was long gone, up to heaven knows what. Only Elsie sat at the other end of the kitchen table, laboriously copying neat rows of letters on to an old scrap of newspaper she had found.

  For some reason the sight of the girl, her tongue poking out in concentration as she carefully inscribed the letters with the stub of a pencil, irked Hannah.

  ‘If you’ve nowt better to do, you can help me with this stew,’ she said.

  Elsie looked up at her with those serious grey eyes so like her father’s. ‘But Miss Warren said we were to practise.’

  ‘Miss Warren in’t got a family to feed, has she? Come on, lass, I’ve only got one pair of hands.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Help your aunt, Elsie,’ Seth spoke up, his deep voice filling the room.

  Elsie knew better than to argue with her father. Setting down her pencil with a sigh, she came round to the other side of the table, next to where Hannah stood.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘You can start by peeling those potatoes. If it in’t too much trouble?’ Hannah added with heavy sarcasm.

  Elsie fetched a battered old knife from the dresser drawer and set about doing as she was told, although the longing looks she kept casting towards her writing made Hannah realise she was doing it with very bad grace.

  ‘Honestly!’ Hannah mocked her. ‘I don’t know why you’re so set on learning your letters. It in’t as if you know anyone outside the village to write to, is it?’

  ‘That in’t the point. Miss Warren says it’s important to know how to read and write.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Hannah glanced at Seth, who didn’t respond. ‘Well, you can tell your Miss Warren that I in’t never learned to read nor write, and it in’t done me any harm.’

  ‘Yes, but I want to get on in the world,’ Elsie said.

  Hannah stood back, her hands planted on her hips. ‘What a little madam you are! I reckon you could do with learning some manners, never mind reading and writing!’

  She stared hard at the girl, until finally Elsie’s gaze slid away. ‘I’m sorry, Aunt,’ she mumbled.

  ‘I should think so, too. And mind how you’re peeling those potatoes. You’re throwing half o
f them away with the peel.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  Hannah finished skinning the rabbit and started to hack it into joints. Once she’d chopped through the muscle and sinew, the little bones snapped easily in her strong hands. And all the while she kept her stern gaze fixed on Elsie.

  She had never warmed to the little girl the way she had to the boys. Billy and Christopher could be wild when they wanted to be, but they were simple lads who wore their hearts on their sleeve.

  But Elsie was different: more thoughtful, more secretive. She had hidden depths, like her mother.

  Hannah had never been able to understand Sarah, either. She was always too quick for her. Hannah had certainly never noticed how her sister was moving in on Seth, not until she had stolen him right away from under Hannah’s nose.

  As if he was ever yours, a voice inside her head mocked her. It was just another fantasy, like the ones she spun now to cheer up her miserable life.

  The knock on the door startled them all. Seth looked up, frowning.

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘I’ll go and see.’ Hannah laid down her knife and went to the door, wiping her bloody hands on her apron.

  She had thought it might be someone from the village needing her help. The last person she expected to see was Agnes Sheridan.

  ‘Yes?’ Hannah folded her arms and looked the nurse up and down. She seemed so proper in her navy blue coat, in spite of the warm June day, her little cap perched at a perfect angle on her shiny chestnut hair. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I’m looking for Mr Stanhope. Is he in?’

  Before Hannah could reply, Seth called out from inside, ‘Who is it, Hannah?’

  ‘It’s t’nurse.’ She kept her dark gaze fixed on Miss Sheridan. ‘Wants to have a word with you.’

  A moment later Seth came to the door, and Hannah was gratified to see the frown on his face. ‘Oh, aye?’ he addressed the nurse. ‘What do you want now?’

  To her credit, Agnes didn’t seem fazed by Seth’s surliness. ‘It’s about your son,’ she said.

  Hannah rolled her eyes. ‘If this is about our Billy’s rash—’

  ‘No, not Billy.’ Miss Sheridan kept her cool gaze fixed on Seth. ‘Your eldest – Christopher, is it?’