by Maggie Hope
‘Why not? You’re intelligent, you’ve proved that this last year, and you have worked very hard. No one would now believe you had no schooling. You have recovered your health and I think you must have a strong constitution. I tell you what I’ll do, I’ll find out all I can for you. How old are you, Ada?’
For the first time Ada was able to say exactly how old she was.
‘I will be seventeen in May, doctor,’ she answered.
‘Hmm. You’ll have to be eighteen to begin training under the Nightingale Fund. But I can have a word with Matron at St Margaret’s and see if she’ll take you on as an undernurse, then, when you’re eighteen, if you work hard and pass your entrance examination, you will begin training.’ He sighed and glanced down at his desk. ‘Now, I suppose I’d better get on with this, if you don’t mind, Ada.’
Ada rose to her feet. ‘Oh, no, doctor,’ she said, ‘and thank you, thank you for everything.’ Then she remembered the other thing she had been going to ask him about. ‘There was something else, though. I thought I might try to trace my mother. She went to London when I was a baby, and I wondered –’
Dr Gray was already shuffling papers and he looked up with a trace of impatience. ‘I’m busy now, Ada.’ As he saw her crestfallen look, he added, ‘Why don’t you write to the Salvation Army in London? They trace people, I think.’
The Salvation Army, of course, Ada thought, she would do it straight away. Going up to her room, she took paper and pen and composed a letter to the Salvation Army, discarding her first two attempts before she was satisfied with what she had written. She hesitated over the address, in the end deciding to simply send it to the Salvation Army, London. She didn’t want to bother the doctor again and she felt sure it would reach its destination.
Next morning Ada slipped out to the pillar box on the corner and posted the letter before she could change her mind.
Two weeks later, Tom and Virginia arrived home for the Christmas holidays. Ada had never known such preparations for Christmas; Cook and Mrs Gray were busy for hours in the kitchen every single day. Puddings had been boiled and put away on the larder shelf in October, the Christmas cake too had been baked for weeks, and now it was brought out to decorate. The smell of spices and cooking haunted the whole house.
Ada went in the trap with Dr Gray to meet Virginia from the train, looking forward to seeing her and talking over with her her decision to go nursing. For Dr Gray had indeed seen Matron for her and she was to start at the hospital in the new year.
Virginia climbed down from the train and eagerly looked up and down the platform. Seeing her father, she ran into his arms, flinging her arms around his neck and kissing him soundly. Ada stood back, feeling a little out of it.
‘Daddy!’ Virginia cried, tucking her arm in his. ‘I’m so glad to see you. Just think, I’ve a whole three weeks at home, isn’t it lovely?’
Dr Gray gently disengaged himself. ‘Hold on, Virginia, I’m glad to see you too, but I have to get your luggage.’ Only then did Virginia notice Ada.
‘Oh, hello, Ada, how nice of you to come and meet me,’ she said, but her eyes held only a faint interest and Ada felt chilled.
‘Hello, Virginia. It’s lovely to see you again,’ she answered, feeling slightly hurt. Anyone would think Virginia had forgotten all about her while she’d been at school, she seemed almost surprised to see her.
Tom was quite different when he saw Ada. He lifted her off her feet and swung her round in an arc, putting the bowl of holly on the hall table in grave danger of being knocked to the floor.
‘Ada!’ he cried. ‘You look lovelier than ever, you’d turn any lad’s head.’
‘Don’t talk daft, Tom,’ she mumbled, flushing a rosy red, and he laughed.
‘But you are, Ada, the loveliest girl in the world.’
‘And what about me?’ Virginia pouted. ‘You always said I was.’
‘That was before,’ Tom said.
‘Before what?’ she demanded.
‘Before you got fat and grew a pimple on your nose,’ Tom answered wickedly.
‘I have not!’ Virginia rushed to the looking glass on the wall and examined her nose anxiously. ‘Tom Gray, you’re a liar. There’s no pimple on my nose and I’m not fat either.’
‘Aren’t you?’ Tom teased and she rushed at him, pummelling him in the chest. ‘All right, all right, I give in!’
Ada watched them, once again feeling slightly envious of their closeness. She would have loved a brother like Tom, she thought. He saw her wistful expression and put an arm around both girls, leading them into the dining room where the huge tree was waiting to be decorated.
‘And what have you been doing while we were away, Ada? Did you miss me?’
Ada took the question seriously. ‘Yes’ – she nodded her head – ‘the house has been quiet without you. But I’ve got some news: I’m going to be a nurse after Christmas.’
‘A nurse! Can you do that?’ Virginia was very surprised. ‘I always thought a good education was needed for a nurse.’
Ada bit her lip. Virginia sounded as though she thought she was aiming too high.
‘Your father says I can do it. Of course, I’ll just be an undernurse at first, but when I’m eighteen I can become a probationer.’
Virginia still looked sceptical but Tom smiled warmly at Ada, squeezing her arm. ‘Well, I think you can do it, Ada,’ he said, frowning at Virginia. ‘Of course you can.’
Virginia shrugged. Now she was back at school she was not so interested in Ada as she had been, the novelty of helping an unfortunate had worn off. ‘Oh, well, I’m sure you’ll make a good undernurse,’ she said.
Ada was determined she wasn’t going to be upset by Virginia’s cavalier attitude. Naturally, she told herself, Virginia was more interested in her own friends. She watched the other girl’s vivacious face as she chatted about them to Tom. It didn’t matter; Virginia would always be dear to her, she would always be grateful for what Virginia had made possible for her.
Christmas 1910 was a magical holiday for Ada. Never before had she had such a good time, not since the one Christmas she could remember before her grannie died. At Auntie Doris’s house, Christmas had gone by almost unremarked, Auntie didn’t believe in wasting money on festivities. Johnny had always gone home for Christmas, so Ada had been miserable until he came back.
As they did every year, the Gray family attended the midnight service in the cathedral on Christmas Eve and Ada was enthralled with it all: the majestic old church, the singing of the choir, everything. Tom couldn’t keep from watching her eager, upturned face; she felt his eyes on her constantly. When she looked up from her hymnal he would catch her eye; when she sought for her wrap at the end of the service, he was there, handing it to her. She saw Tom’s mother and father looking at them and knew they had noticed too. How could anybody not notice? The Grays were a nice couple, they had taken her in when she had nowhere, but would they be pleased if Tom chose her?
To be honest, Ada wasn’t sure about it herself. Of course she was flattered, as any girl would be – Tom was handsome, he had a nice nature, he had prospects. But he wasn’t Johnny. There now, she thought, she had determined she wasn’t going to think about Johnny. She had to forget him, she told herself, Johnny was dead. If Tom asked her, she would have him, for nothing was going to bring Johnny back. But not until she had proved to herself she could make a success of her life on her own.
Ada had puzzled over what to give the Grays for Christmas presents; in the end she saved the box of chocolates given her by Mr Johnson and gave them to Virginia. For Mrs Gray and her husband and Tom she spent hours in her room sewing handkerchiefs from scraps of linen she had bought from a market stall. When the family gathered round the tree after dinner on Christmas Day and handed over presents, she was filled with anxiety. The handkerchiefs which she had laboured over seemed so poor in comparison with what the others were giving.
She got a pretty string of crystal beads from Virginia but wa
s more delighted when Dr and Mrs Gray presented her with a textbook, Nursing, its Theory and Practice by Percy Lewis. Tom had also thought of her future career; he gave her The Nurse’s Pronouncing Dictionary of Medical Terms and Nursing Treatment, by Honor Morten.
‘We thought it would come in handy,’ the doctor said. ‘You’ll find it useful, I’m sure.’
‘Oh yes, thank you, doctor, and you, Mrs Gray. Oh, thank you all, you are so very, very kind to me.’ Ada embraced them all with her smile.
‘Do you think you’ll need them if you’re just an undernurse?’ Virginia put in. ‘I mean,’ she added as her family stared at her in astonishment, ‘Ada might not pass the entrance examination, she might –’
‘Virginia, of course she will,’ Tom said sharply.
Ada looked down at the books in her hand; perhaps Virginia was right and she didn’t have it in her to succeed. For a moment self-doubt clouded her thoughts.
‘Come on, Ada, let’s go for a walk before tea, we’ll walk off the effects of that enormous meal.’ Tom jumped to his feet and pulled Ada with him, Virginia following as a matter of course.
‘Oh, Virginia –’ Mrs Gray stopped her – ‘I want you to come with me, I promised to look in on Alice.’ Alice was a friend of Mrs Gray’s who had been recently widowed. Virginia looked mutinous for a moment but a quelling glance from her mother, who supposed Tom wanted Ada to himself on the walk, caused her to subside.
‘Oh, all right,’ she muttered.
‘And I’m going to have a nap, just in case I get called out later,’ said her father. ‘Someone always overeats on Christmas Day.’
Tom and Ada walked along the riverbank under the shadow of the castle and cathedral. There were few people about, the city was taking its Christmas afternoon’s rest. Frost sparkled on the grass, a freezing fog obscured the battlements above them and the river was dull and lifeless. On the water’s edge a jackdaw pecked at something unmentionable, then flew off with a melancholy ‘chack, chack, chack’, low over the water to the other side.
In contrast, Ada and Tom were well wrapped up and warm, and Tom in particular was in good spirits. He was telling her of the exploits he and his fellow students got up to in rag week. Ada laughed in delight as he told her of dressing up as a nurse and wheeling his friend Christopher round the streets of Newcastle in a pram.
‘All for charity, of course,’ he added.
‘Bye, I’d have loved to see you!’ Ada cried, and then he said it.
‘Ada, my love, you are my love, really you are.’
Ada stopped walking and turned a suddenly solemn face to him. ‘What?’
‘I want you to marry me, Ada, say you will, please say you will.’
‘But how can we? I mean, I’ve not even started my nurse’s training, and you, you’ve not finished your training either.’
‘No, no, that’s true, I don’t mean now, this minute, though I would dearly love that; no, I mean later – we can look forward to it. Say you will, Ada.’
‘I don’t know, Tom.’ Ada had known this was coming, but somehow, hearing the words was very different from expecting them. ‘Are you sure, Tom? Are you really sure, have you thought it all out? I’m not good enough for you, you want someone of your own class, someone with an education who can help you in your work. You don’t really want me, a penniless working girl.’ All the pitfalls such a marriage could bring were becoming apparent to Ada.
‘It’s you I want. Please say yes, Ada, I can’t live without you!’ Tom pleaded. Taking hold of her arms, he brought her closer to him, and she could see the entreaty in his eyes.
‘Are you sure your parents won’t mind? They have been good to me, I don’t want them to think I repay them by stealing their son. Tom, think about it, I was a washerwoman, before that I was a kitchen skivvy.’
‘Oh, Ada, that’s rubbish. Father doesn’t believe in class differences, he’s a socialist, they both are. And they like you, Ada, they do. And if you train as a nurse, you will be able to help me in my work, won’t you?’ He caught hold of her hand and pressed it to his lips.
Fleetingly the image of Johnny came into her mind, but Johnny was gone now, along with her childhood dreams. For that was all they had been – Johnny had thought of her as a little sister, not a lover. It was best to try and forget him. She was fond enough of Tom and she knew he loved her. Surely it was the sensible thing for a girl in her position to do? She would be secure for life. Ada dismissed this last consideration from her thoughts, Tom deserved more than that.
‘Well … If you think …’ she faltered.
Tom clasped her in his arms, shouting in triumph so that a duck which had been pecking about at the bank of the river swam hurriedly off, quacking loudly. A few flakes of snow fell onto his upturned face, heralding the storm the dark clouds in the sky promised.
That Christmas was very different to the ones he had known for Johnny, too. On Christmas Eve, as Johnny returned to his office from the shop floor where he had been overlooking a rather tricky order, he met Stephen at the door. He smiled at the youthful businessman, Stephen was really taking his position seriously, donning a slightly pompous air as he did so. Johnny’s smile disappeared fairly fast at his nephew’s tone.
‘I think we should have a talk, Uncle John. Will you step into my office?’
Nonplussed, Johnny followed Stephen into what had been Fred’s office, where his nephew took the chair behind the desk and gestured Johnny to sit down facing him.
‘What is this all about, Stephen? There’s things I have to do before we close for Christmas this afternoon –’
‘Don’t worry about that, Uncle John,’ Stephen said smoothly. ‘What I wanted to know is, what you intend to do now?’
‘Do now? What do you mean exactly?’
‘Well, now that Father has gone and I am head of the family firm, I really think you can no longer expect us to keep you and provide you with a position in the business. After all, my father was good to you, you were his brother and he gave you everything, but it is different now.’
‘Stephen, listen to me.’ Johnny was getting nettled at the young man’s tone but he strove to keep his temper. ‘I worked hard for this business, I earned every penny I got.’
‘Come now.’ Stephen took a cigar out of the box on the desk and cut the end before going on. Distractedly Johnny wondered if Dinah knew her son had started smoking.
‘Let’s not argue about it, Uncle John. I simply believe it would be best for us all if the break was made now. It couldn’t go on, you know, you are just an employee. This is my firm and I will run it. I am perfectly capable of it.’
‘You are very young, Stephen.’
‘But I need no help from you,’ Stephen answered in a voice which brooked no argument.
The young pup! Johnny thought, as they faced one another across the desk in silence. The ticking of the marble clock on the mantelpiece sounded loud and inexorable – ticking away the seconds of my life, he mused bitterly.
‘What does your mother think of this? Does she agree?’ Surely Dinah had not turned against him too?
‘My mother is not to be bothered with business matters.’ Stephen rose and moved around the desk. ‘Now, I consider the matter closed. You will, of course, receive three months’ salary in lieu of notice in which to make other arrangements, but I would thank you not to trouble my mother about it.’ He paused and turned back to the desk. ‘By the way, I found this note among my father’s correspondence. I think it must be for you.’ His nod of dismissal was a parody of his father’s attitude to troublesome employees.
A little dazed, Johnny took the note and walked out. He was beginning to realise that Stephen must have resented him for a long time. Why, Johnny was at a loss to understand. Was he jealous of his parents’ affection for him? But Fred had given his own boys a much better education than his brother. Not for them the rigours of starting from the bottom, whereas Johnny had had to make his own way up ever since he was a young boy.
&nbs
p; Well, he thought, as he emptied his desk, he would show Stephen that he was not simply a dead weight in the business. He was good at his job, Johnny told himself, he knew he was, he would get on in the world of steelmaking. There were other opportunities. He stared at the note he had put down on his desk without really seeing it for a moment, then, shrugging, he picked it up and opened it.
Ada! It was from Ada, there was the signature at the bottom of the letter: ‘from your ever loving friend, Ada (Lorinda) Leigh.’ Dear little Ada! His heart warmed at the memory of her, his friend from so long ago. She at least was steadfast in her affections. She had got out of the clutches of the Parkers and managed to stay out, then. And she had written the letter herself, she must have worked hard. But he always knew she was a determined little thing, and if she wanted something badly enough she would strive for it.
I’m so glad for her, he said to himself. She seems happier now than she ever was in Auckland. I’ll go to see her, I will, there’s nothing to stop me now. He sighed. First it was imperative for him to secure a position, either at home or abroad, he didn’t care which, not now.
The next few weeks he spent all his time investigating the prospects of a suitable position, so when he finally got round to planning a visit to Durham to see Ada he was considering an offer from Canada. The opportunities were boundless there, or so he was assured.
Chapter Fifteen
Ada was a little apprehensive when they faced Dr Gray that evening, but Dr Gray reacted exactly as Tom had said he would, giving his consent to the match without hesitation.
‘I’m very happy for you both,’ he said, stepping forward and kissing Ada on the forehead. ‘However, I’m sure you are both sensible enough to know it is a betrothal only for a while. Long engagements are a good thing at any time, they give the young couple a proper chance to get to know each other, and in this case Tom has to qualify and be in a position to support a wife and family if need be.’