It was a spur of the moment decision made on the first evening of his stay in London. The day’s conference disbanded, his dinner at the hotel over, it was not yet eight o’clock on a fine evening and Anthony was bored. He remembered the name of the hospital to which Katharine had been appointed when she had left Brackenbeck, and knowing a hospital doors are never closed he took a hansom cab that very evening to ‘St. Bernadettes’.
Once he had set his mind to it, he was impatient to see her again.
The huge hospital sprawled over several acres of land and the Children’s Department alone was a maze of corridors and wards. The happy atmosphere was immediately apparent, the children’s voices echoing with laughter down the corridors. Only the occasional sobbing of a child in pain or in fear reminded him of the reason they were here. He could understand Katharine’s desire to be part of such an organisation, where such devotion was repaid a thousandfold by the recovery of the small patients.
With some difficulty he found the matron’s office. She was not available and he had to wait over half-an-hour before she was free to speak to him.
‘Dr. Stafford – from Yorkshire,’ she said as she shook hands. She was a thin, spare woman with a capable-looking face and brisk manner, but her eyes were filled with compassion.
‘Matron,’ Anthony murmured. ‘Thank you,’ as she motioned to him to be seated.
She seated herself behind her desk opposite him.
‘And how may I help you?’
‘I’ll not keep you, Matron. I see how busy you are.’
She smiled beneath his charm.
‘I wonder if you can help me to find an old friend, who, I believe, is a doctor with the Children’s Hospital here. Dr. Katharine Harvey. She came about five years ago …’
Matron had raised her eyebrows in surprise.
‘Then you don’t know, Dr. Stafford?’
‘I’m sorry?’ he murmured, puzzled by her words.
‘Obviously not.’ She sighed and spread her hands before her on the desk. She looked down at them as if carefully examining her fingers, but Anthony knew she did not want to look at him.
‘Dr. Stafford, before I tell you about Dr. Harvey, may I ask you a very personal question? Please don’t feel obliged to answer it, but …’
‘Of course, what is it?’ he said, impatient for the solving of this mystery.
‘Is your friendship with Dr. Harvey of the – romantic nature?’
Anthony sighed and smiled ruefully.
‘Not really, though I could wish it on my part.’
The matron relaxed a little.
‘It will still, I fear, be a shock to you, Dr. Stafford. Dr. Harvey is a cripple.’
Anthony stared at her for a few moments, numb with shock. Her words seemed unreal. It was not possible.
‘It seems she was involved in some kind of accident shortly before she took up her appointment with us …’
‘Oh my God,’ Anthony muttered, his usual composure shattered. He covered his face with his hands.
‘You know about it?’ The matron’s voice was gentle.
He nodded.
‘For over a year,’ she continued softly, ‘Dr. Harvey carried out her duties excellently. Then, one day when she was assisting the Resident Surgeon, she collapsed. I might add, that by this time, Dr. Harvey was completely accepted as a very able doctor, though,’ she smiled, ‘I’m afraid some of the men gave her a rough time at the outset. We tried all sorts of treatment and for a time there seemed hope of recovery. Several eminent doctors examined her, but finally, two years after she first took up her appointment here, it was obvious she could no longer carry on as a doctor. She could not, and still cannot walk.’
Anthony groaned. After a pause, his voice trembling slightly, he asked.
‘Where is she now? In hospital?’
‘No, unfortunately, space is not available to keep someone in hospital for whom nothing can be done. I’m afraid she lives in rather harsh circumstances. I’ll let you have the address.’
She moved to a cabinet.
‘And you say nothing can be done,’ he asked.
The matron shook her head.
‘Everything has been tried. But it seems there is some mystery as to the exact nature of the paralysis. They cannot seem to find what can be causing the paralysis. There are no bones broken, no lacerations of the muscles – and for it to happen so long after the accident is a further mystery. The nearest the doctors will diagnose is functional paraplegia, but really,’ she shrugged, ‘it is quite a mystery.’
‘And is she completely helpless?’
‘Oh no, only her legs are affected and even then, she can stand, but as soon as she tries to walk, her legs give way and she falls. I’m very sorry you’ve had to learn in this way. I was under the impression that Dr. Harvey was quite alone in the world.’
‘Who looks after her?’
‘She is a brave girl, Dr. Stafford. She does a great deal for herself from her bathchair. But a sister with whom she became friendly whilst here, goes regularly to help her.’
Anthony rose.
‘I must see her.’
The matron wrote swiftly on a piece of paper and handed it to him.
‘This is her address. Prepare yourself for the poverty of the neighbourhood, Dr. Stafford.’
Anthony left the hospital in a daze. He had decided to see Katharine on the spur of the moment, and now he had discovered that she was living in poverty, paralysed and alone, all because of her visit to Brackenbeck.
As he left the hospital, noticing that it was now half past nine, Anthony realised that he could not visit Katharine that night. He would have to wait for the morrow. His mind troubled with the knowledge he had so recently acquired, he decided to walk back to his hotel, although it was some three miles. Through the streets of London he strode, hardly noticing the tall houses on either side; the ragged urchins who jostled him shrieking and laughing; the hurrying folk on their way home; the grand carriages sweeping past him, taking richly-dressed ladies and fine gentlemen to grand dinners and balls. The horses’ hooves clip-clopping, the rattling wheels of the carriages were only background noises. He was unaware of them. Only the picture of Katharine, a cripple, was vivid in his eyes.
What of Jim now? He walked on slowly, thoughtfully. What was the right thing for him, Anthony, to do? Was it his duty to remain silent for Katharine’s sake or to tell Jim for his sake? Obviously, Katharine did not wish Jim to know or she would have let him know before this time. Or would her pride prevent her?
Anthony sighed. Here was a pretty mess, indeed! The morrow would decide him when he had seen her.
He spent a restless night and the day’s conference washed over him without him hearing much or taking any part. He was impatient for the evening. He dined quickly and left the hotel immediately, having ordered a cab to be waiting for him. The driver was old and, so it seemed, was the horse, for their pace seemed lethargic to the impatient young man. Presently, they reached a poor area of the city. The cab driver stopped and, leaning down, asked,
‘You sure you got the right haddress, young sir, it don’t seem the right place for the likes o’ you, I’m thinking?’
‘No,’ murmured Anthony, more to himself than to the cab driver. ‘It’s certainly no place for the likes of me, or Katharine.’ He raised his voice. ‘ No, I’m sure this is the right place. Are we to the address I gave you?’
‘Not quite, sir, but ha little further.’
They moved on down the grimy street. Children, thin and ragged, played in the gutter, squealing and shouting at each other, their pinched little faces lined with dirt. Besides these urchins the children of Brackenbeck looked like princes – pictures of health and happiness. The cab reached the tenement house where Katharine now lived. It was a grim street with a grey outlook. Anthony rang the doorbell and waited until a shabbily-dressed woman opened it to him.
‘I’m looking for Dr. Harvey?’
The woman jerked her thumb over
her shoulder.
‘Down thur.’
He stepped into the dark hall. The door slammed behind him.
‘Furst on yer right. ’As to ’ave a bottom floor room, she does. Crippled, she is.’
‘Thank you,’ he said curtly, not wishing to prolong the conversation. He knocked on the door and at the reply entered the room.
He had prepared himself for a change in the girl he knew. He had expected her to look ill – thin and pale perhaps. But he had not expected such a vast change in her appearance, in her attitude. Her skin was white, almost translucent. Her hair, pulled back into an unbecoming bun, lacked the lustrous auburn colour it had had five years before.
But her eyes held the greatest shock for him.
Gone was all the joy of living, gone was all the fight. And in its place was defeatism and bitterness.
Even when she saw him and tried to smile, the smile did not reach her eyes. Her eyes, which had once been so alive and warm and challenging, were now cold and empty.
‘Anthony!’
‘Katie, my dear girl,’ he could not keep the smile fixed on his own face. It faded as he went towards her bathchair.
‘Katie, why ever didn’t you let me know?’
‘How are you, Anthony?’ she said, deliberately avoiding his question. ‘You’re looking well.’
So not all the fight had gone, he thought, or had it been replaced by an unnecessary pride? A pride which had prevented her from telling him, or Jim. Suddenly he realised he must not mention Jim’s name to her. If he did, she would probably bind him to secrecy. And that he did not want, he knew now.
He took in the bareness of the room. He was relieved to see that it could have been a lot worse. Its sparseness of comfort tore at his heart, but at least it was clean. Katharine, seated near the window, although it looked out upon the narrow grimy street, was at least able to feel not quite so shut away.
‘Kate, how do you manage? I mean …’ he faltered, embarrassed.
‘I make out. I have a small annuity left to me by my father and occasionally I write for a medical journal and a medical column in a daily paper.’ She paused and the hopeless look flooded her eyes. ‘They wouldn’t let me stay at the hospital, Anthony. They said I couldn’t do my work from a chair. They said I was – no use.’
Anthony took her hand as he sat beside her. What could he say? The only course of action open to him he could not discuss with her.
‘We’ll see what can be done, Kate.’
They talked a little longer about trivial matters. But there was an undercurrent of embarrassment between them and soon Anthony made an excuse to leave. He walked the streets back to the hotel again, instead of taking a cab.
There were two days of the conference left and Anthony must stay, impatient though he was to get back to Yorkshire. He tried hard to concentrate on his work, but it was impossible. His thoughts kept returning to Katharine, alone in her dingy room, and to Jim, alone in Kendrick House.
Of course, he must tell Jim. But what would come of it? Would Jim still want her now? Anthony believed he would. But would Katharine marry him? He thought not. Anthony sighed. But that was for Jim to solve, not him. All he could do was to put the matter into Jim’s hands now.
The train back to Yorkshire was painfully slow, and never before had Anthony covered the distance between the small station and the dale with such swift strides. He took the same path which Katharine had taken on that first day coming to Brackenbeck, and, like her, he branched off the road leading down to the valley itself and up the lane leading to Kendrick House.
But now the house was no longer deserted. The lane leading to it had been cleared of undergrowth and gave evidence of constant use. As he neared the walls surrounding the house, Anthony could see through the wrought-iron gates the lights from the long windows of the house. True, it was no longer uninhabited, but still there was an air of loneliness about the place, as if it were waiting for something or someone.
Anthony paused at the gate, standing for a moment not only to gain his breath after his long, brisk walk, but also to collect his thoughts and to try and think how best to break the news to his friend. He walked slowly up the curving driveway and stood before the door. The heavy knocker fell against the door with a dull thud and Anthony waited, looking across the darkened lawn, for it was now late in the evening, and beyond the low walls of the grounds to the soft lights of the villagers’ cottages.
Jim answered the door himself.
‘Come away in,’ he said when he saw who was knocking at his door. ‘And how was the big, bad city?’ he continued, attempting humour, though Anthony knew his joviality was limited and had been for five years.
‘Jim,’ Anthony said, pacing up and down the small room Jim called his study, after refusing to sit down.
‘I’ve got some news for you, bad news.’
Jim poked the fire in the huge grate and the sparks flew, casting grotesque shadows about the room. He waited in silence for Anthony to continue.
‘I suddenly took it into my head to look up Katharine,’ Anthony said, and he turned to look at Jim.
He saw the look of pain flit across his friend’s face, the tightening of his lips, the eyes become wary, defensive.
Still Jim said nothing.
‘I went to the hospital where she took up that appointment when she left here.’ He paused and the silence deepened. ‘She’s no longer there.’
He waited for some comment from Jim, some sign of interest.
Jim shrugged.
‘So? She’s moved on, no doubt, to promotion.’ He jabbed viciously at a piece of wood with the poker.
Anthony shook his head slowly.
‘That’s just where you’re wrong, Jim. She can’t move on. She – can’t move at all.’
Jim’s head jerked up and his eyes sought Anthony’s face anxiously.
‘What are thee telling me, man?’
‘Katharine’s crippled. A helpless cripple in a bathchair in a godforsaken dump of a room.’
‘My – God,’ Jim breathed hoarsely. The poker slipped from his fingers and fell to the hearth with a clatter. Coal fell and sparks flew, but the two men paid no heed. They continued to stare at each other.
‘The quarry accident, was that the cause?’ Jim’s voice was but a whisper.
Anthony shrugged.
‘Indirectly, I suppose – yes. But her doctors have diagnosed something similar to functional paraplegia.’
‘What on earth is that?’
‘Paralysis, but not caused by physical disease, rather of the emotional kind. It usually follows suddenly on some fright or shock, or an injury even though the injury itself is slight.’
‘But you’re saying there’s no reason for her paralysis. That it’s all in her mind? Katharine’s too strong a character to allow such a thing to happen.’
‘Nothing of the kind. She is powerless against it as surely as if she’d broken her spine. There’s no telling what may be the full explanation – eminent doctors in London have admitted themselves baffled and I would not presume to try to improve upon their diagnosis, but – knowing the full circumstances, which I am sure they do not – I would hazard a guess that the quarry accident, followed by an emotional involvement with you, has caused the trouble.’
‘She wasn’t emotionally involved with me,’ Jim said bitterly.
‘I think you’re wrong there. She has fought against nature in smothering her emotions and Nature will not allow herself to be so thwarted.’
‘Is there any possibility of recovery?’
‘Oh yes, and it often happens quite suddenly and without warning and she would be able to return to her normal life. Then again, she has been like it now for almost four years, so …’ he shrugged and left the words unsaid. Being a doctor he did not like to be pessimistic about recovery.
‘Why,’ Jim said softly more to himself than to Anthony. ‘ Why did she not let us know?’ He shook his head sadly. ‘ She could have let me know.’
<
br /> ‘Our Kate’s got courage and a lot of pride, Jim.’
‘It’s my fault. We parted – in – in such – with such mis- understanding. She’ll think – God knows what she must think of me.’
He swept his hand through his springy hair.
‘I must go to her. I must go now.’
‘Wait until the morning, Jim,’ Anthony said as Jim made as if to leave that very moment.
‘Of course,’ he sank back into his chair. ‘She’ll be asleep by the time I reach the city. What time’s the first train?’
‘Early, very early – about four, I think.’
‘I’ll be on it,’ was Jim’s only reply.
Chapter Six
The August morning was strangely dank and cold when Katharine awoke to face yet another day the same as the last. Her restricted view from the window of the street was dull, with little to interest an active mind. If it had not been for the writing of her medical articles, she undoubtedly would have been cast into utter despair. But her common sense still reigned supreme even though she had lost much of her natural gaiety. It was difficult to be bright and smiling when the days were lonely and full of frustration. It would take a saint, and Katharine knew herself to be unworthy of any halo.
The difficulty of dressing herself and preparing her breakfast took some time so that she rose early to be finished her meal by the time her landlady came to wash the dishes for her. The woman was a coarse individual. She coughed and wheezed her way about the house, complaining miserably the whole time.
The doorbell clanged as the woman finished the washing-up.
‘Now, ’oo can that be this early?’
She shuffled away. Katharine heard muted voices in the hall and was surprised to hear the woman return to her door.
‘You’m got a visitor, Miss Harvey, a gentleman.’
‘Come in, Anthony. I thought you were leaving last …’
She stopped in amazement, the words dying on her lips as Jim’s huge frame filled the doorway. Dimly she heard the landlady’s mutterings as she closed the door. But Katharine’s eyes were fixed upon Jim’s face.
Brackenbeck Page 9