by Maggie Hope
‘When are we not busy?’ Eliza asked. ‘I don’t know what they did before this hospital was built.’
‘You do,’ said Bertha. ‘They got better or they died.’
Eliza sighed. ‘Yes. Well, I’m away to my bed. Good morning, Bertha.’
‘Sleep well. Mind the bugs don’t bite,’ Bertha replied.
Once in bed, Eliza found herself almost too tired to sleep. Her thoughts roamed restlessly over the last few years. Years of pulling herself up the ladder of the nursing world. She had started off as a nurse’s helper just as Bertha had done but by dint of hard work and determination had managed eventually to be accepted for training. Of course the fact that she had enough money to keep herself for the year’s training had clinched it for her. She would never have been able to do it if she were penniless. Even with enough to fund herself she had been obliged to swear she was a widow with no dependants. No dependants, the phrase was like a knife in her heart. Where was Thomas? Where had Jack taken him?
Sometimes she thought of going back to Alnwick, of making sure that her husband had not taken him to his family. After all, Thomas was Annie’s grandson, she might have changed her mind. But no, he wouldn’t have done that, Annie would not have taken them in. She was too filled with hate for that. Hadn’t she made it plain? No, any time she had off duty was better occupied searching elsewhere for her baby. Though he was not a baby now, she reminded herself. He was seven. Please God, let him be all right, she prayed again as she did ten times a day. And there was the nagging worry about Miley, poor Miley.
Peter Collier had written to her on behalf of her parents. There had been an accident at the pit. A coal tub had come off the wooden rails and pinned Miley to the ground. Miley was a putter by now and his job was to push the tubs to where the seam was large enough for the pit pony.
‘He has some damage to his spine,’ Peter had written. ‘But the doctors think he might recover enough to walk a little. Your mother would be very glad to see you if you can manage to come to Blue House.’
Eliza had the letter on the deal table by the bed and she stretched out a hand and picked it up and read it again. It was short but it conveyed a world of information to her. She had seen many boys maimed by the coal tubs coming off the wooden rails leading to the shaft bottom and also some by them ‘going amain’, out of control on a slight downward incline. She had seen one lad almost sliced in two by such a happening. Even though Miley’s accident had not been so bad as some it was unlikely that he would work again in the pit. And what else was there for him? Well, she told herself, she would see the lad when she went to Blue House on Monday.
It was two o’clock when Eliza came out of the station at Haswell and took the footpath across the moor to Blue House colliery. The place seemed little changed since her last visit, which had been a disaster. Her mother’s hard tones rang in her ears still.
‘It’s your own fault, my lass, you left your man. He had a right to take the lad. By, I didn’t fetch you up to break your marriage vows, I did not!’
Mary Anne would not listen to her daughter’s protests. ‘Go back to Jack,’ she said. ‘Don’t come here crying because you lost your bairn. Jack didn’t whip you, did he? He treated you well. You don’t look as though you’re starving neither.’
Now her mother wanted her back. Eliza was not bitter, she was just glad to come. Oh God, what was she thinking? How could she be glad to come when the reason for her return was so terrible? Poor little Miley; she remembered him being born. He had been a tiny scrap of a baby and the lying-in woman had shaken her head over his chances of living, but Mary Anne had succeeded in raising him. But for what?
‘Good day, Mam,’ said Eliza as she opened the door leading straight into the main room of the house. Mary Anne was kneading bread in a brownstone bowl on the scrubbed table. There was flour on her apron and on her chin, matching the white strands in her hair that were new to Eliza. She gazed anxiously at her mother; she was thinner and her face seemed to have aged twenty years since Eliza saw her last.
‘Oh, Mam!’ she said helplessly and hurried over and put her arms around her. Mary Anne stood stiffly for a moment then returned her embrace.
‘I expected you earlier on,’ Mary Anne said. ‘Mr Collier said you were coming this morning.’ She stepped back and dusted the flour from her hands into the bowl then rubbed them on her pinafore. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’
‘I had to work until eleven,’ said Eliza. ‘I’m off tonight, though. I don’t need to go back until tomorrow afternoon.’
She watched as Mary Anne pushed the kettle onto the fire and spooned tea into the pot. The actions were automatic for tea was made for every visitor when there was tea to be had. The kitchen seemed smaller to her than it had when she was last here and the furnishings meaner. The clippie mat on the flagstones before the fire was just a bit grubby and looked as though it should be taken out into the fresh air and given a good shake. There were ashes overflowing from the box under the grate.
Eliza took off her nurse’s cape and cap and hung them behind the door. Her mother had gone back to her bread-making while the kettle came to the boil. Now she shaped the dough into loaves and put them into the greased oven tins, before putting them back on the hearth to rise.
‘I’ll have to get them to the baking oven,’ she said. ‘You’ll stay with the lad? Mrs Sumptor pops in usually.’
‘Of course I will.’ Eliza paused. ‘Where is our Miley?’ she asked. ‘How is he?’
‘Fair to middling,’ said Mary Anne. She appeared too exhausted to say much except for the absolute essentials. After a moment she went on, ‘He’s in the room.’ She nodded towards the middle door that led into the only other room downstairs, the room where she and Tommy normally slept.
‘I’ll go in to him,’ said Eliza.
‘Yes.’
Eliza lifted the sneck on the door and went into the room, pinning a smile on her face as she did so. ‘Now then, our Miley,’ she said. ‘What have you been up to?’ Then she froze. Miley was sitting on a chair with wheels rather than legs. It had obviously been adapted from a wooden chair with a horsehair pad on the seat. The bottom of the chair had been extended with a piece of wood and his legs were stretched out on that. He had a pillow supporting his back. He gazed back at his sister with pain-glazed eyes. He was fourteen years old though he looked no more than ten.
‘Now then, our Eliza,’ he said and closed his eyes. His lips moved but she couldn’t catch what he was saying.
‘Mam! Mam!’
Mary Anne appeared beside her as Eliza called for her.
‘What?’ She looked at Miley and then at her daughter. ‘Don’t shout, the doctor says we must keep him quiet. He’s had a dose of laudanum, he’s just a bit tired, that’s all. Howay, lass, let him be.’
‘But shouldn’t he be lying down? All our spinal cases are on their backs.’
‘Mebbe so, mebbe so. But Miley gets too agitated on his back. The doctor said this was mebbe the best position for him. The carpenter at the pit did the chair and put the wheels on an’ all. By, the manager and the gaffer’s lad have been good to him, they have. Mr Moore gave him half a sovereign an’ all.’
‘Oh, Mam, it’s awful,’ said Eliza and reverted to the local dialect. ‘He’s nobbut a bairn.’
‘Aye well, he could have been dead,’ said Mary Anne stolidly. ‘Now there’s a chance he will walk again. Only it’s hard. He’s a bit big for me to manage. But the lads help me. They’re on a different shift to Tommy now so that they can help me with the lifting. For the time being, any road. Now then, lass, I know it’s a shock but you should know, if anyone does, that it happens all the time in the pits.’ She brewed the tea and poured out three cups and spooned sugar into them.
‘I’ll just drink this then I’ll away to the bread oven,’ she said.
Chapter Seventeen
‘WHAT SHOULD I do, Mam?’ Eliza asked. It was Monday evening and Tommy and the two older boys had returned from the pi
t and were in the back street playing quoits with their friends. Tommy had helped Eliza to lift and bathe Miley and make him comfortable for the night. Then he too had disappeared out of the door, mumbling something about ‘the lads’ and wanting to see them.
Eliza was weary to the point where her brain was barely functioning. She and her mother had been talking about whether she should leave the Infirmary and come home to help with the bairn, as Mary Anne still called him.
‘Nay, lass, I don’t think we could afford to keep you,’ Mary Anne answered. ‘Me and your da will manage. Other folk have to do it. Any road, you’ve done so well, you’ve got on, I’m real proud of you, I am. But Tommy would be on at you all the time to find Jack and go back to him.’ It was true; Tommy had barely spoken to Eliza when he came in, and then only to ask pointedly after ‘her man’.
‘He didn’t tell me to get out, though, did he? He would get used to it,’ said Eliza. ‘And besides, haven’t I spent all the hours God sends looking for Jack and my little Thomas?’
All the hours she wasn’t working, she thought, and even then she had scrutinised the face of every little boy who came into the Infirmary, just in case.
Mary Anne sighed. ‘By, lass, I thought you were doing well to marry out of the pits but I was wrong. Any man that would take a little lad from his mother has no heart, no heart at all.’
‘I have to go to bed, I’m dead on my feet,’ said Eliza. ‘We’ll talk about it the morn.’
‘Aye, lass, good night. I’ve strung a blanket on a line to separate your bed from the lads. Now, up the ladder with you. I’ll have a rest by the fire. The lads will be in soon.’
For all her weariness, Eliza lay awake for a while. The twilight still lingered and the room was not completely dark. She lay on her back and gazed up at the rafters. After a while she said her usual prayer for Thomas and turned over onto her side. Perhaps she could spare a few shillings a month to pay for a woman to come in and help her mother with Miley? She tried to work out in her head how much exactly but her brain couldn’t. Abruptly, she fell asleep.
In the end, that was the arrangement. Eliza was now a senior night sister and she managed to take three shillings every month to Blue House. Miley’s back was proving slow to heal and it meant that she had little time to search for Thomas. One day, when she got the chance, she would go up into Northumberland again if only to satisfy herself that he was not there. One day when Miley was better and her commitments were less. Meanwhile Eliza immersed herself in her work on the ward.
‘Can I speak to you for a minute, Nurse?’ Bertha asked respectfully one morning when Eliza entered the dining room. Though they had been friends for so many years they were still expected to maintain a distance between them when at work. Nurses were not supposed to treat the domestic staff as equals; they had to be aware of their place and the domestic staff also.
Eliza glanced about the dining room; there was no one near her, the room was almost empty. ‘Morning, Bertha,’ she said and smiled at the earnest little woman. Bertha was wrapped in a voluminous overall and wore a cap that came down almost to her eyebrows and showed only a few strands of hair at the sides and back. Her plain face was made attractive by her expressive dark eyes and mobile features.
‘What is it?’
Bertha did not sit down in case anyone of authority came in. Instead she leaned over the table and lifted Eliza’s used plate and cutlery.
‘I was up at Alnwick on my day off. Went to see my friend from the workhouse, Maria. I haven’t seen her for years but now, since I can write, I sent her a letter.’ Bertha blushed and her eyes shone; it was a great achievement for her to do such a thing. Eliza smiled and nodded in understanding.
‘She wrote back to you?’
‘Aye, she did and asked me to go up and see her. She’s got five bairns now; she married the under-gamekeeper on the Castle estate. They’re bonny bairns, oh they are an’ all. But while I was up there I saw something.’ Bertha paused and glanced round before continuing. ‘I saw the Missus, you know, Mrs John Henry. She was in the butcher’s. By, she’s looking her age an’ all. Well, she came out of there and climbed into a trap and a little lad with her. A lad about seven, I’d say.’
Eliza’s heart began to race. ‘Seven? A lad about seven? Are you sure?’
‘Oh aye, I’m sure. I went up to them and nodded. “Do you remember me?” I asked the Missus. I got a good look at the lad.’
‘What did she say?’
‘Nay, she didn’t say much, just mumbled and shook her head like. Then she whipped up the pony and went on her way. Not up to the house, though, another way altogether.’
Eliza’s mind raced. As far as she knew Henry had no children and certainly not a seven-year-old lad.
‘Mind, it doesn’t mean it’s Thomas,’ she said.
‘No, I thought that. But I had a good look at him and he had lovely dark blue eyes and long lashes such as are wasted on a lad. Eyes just like yours.’
‘Oh, Bertha do you think it is?’
‘Well now, I’d lay a bet on it if I wasn’t chapel,’ Bertha replied then straightened up hurriedly as Cook called from the kitchen door.
‘How long does it take to clear the covers, Bertha?’
‘I’m just coming, Cook,’ she said and gathered the pots quickly and sped away.
‘I’ll meet you outside, over in the wood,’ said Eliza before she went. ‘When?’
‘An hour,’ Bertha replied. ‘I’ll be able to get ten minutes.’
Eliza was waiting on the outskirts of the wood within half an hour. She couldn’t rest; she was filled with hope and dread alternately and in equal measures. She was beginning to despair of Bertha managing to get away when the sound of the church clock striking ten came across the fields. And then at last she saw Bertha coming along the path. Eliza backed into the cover of the trees and waited anxiously.
‘Are you sure, Bertha, are you really sure?’ she asked as soon as the girl drew nearer.
‘I am,’ she said. ‘I think the old besom has your lad. I followed the trap, it was easy enough. I kept to the side and the pony wasn’t one you’d put in Blaydon Races. It was a Galloway; it took its own sweet pace. Any road, it was there by the last house on the edge of Alnwick. A lad was just leading him round to the back.’
‘But the little lad? Where was he?’
‘Loitering by the door. He was talking to the stable lad.’ Bertha leaned forward and went on. ‘He was talking and the lad was laughing and the old woman came to the door and shouted. She said “Come away in, Tot, I told you once! Do you want the belt? That’s what you’ll get if you don’t come this very minute!”’
‘She called him Tot? Are you sure?’
Bertha sighed. ‘I wish you wouldn’t keep asking me if I’m sure. I was there, I heard the woman and that’s what she said. The bairn ran in looking a bit scared, I will say. I don’t know, a little lad shouldn’t be scared of the belt, that’s what I think any road. Look you, I’ll have to go back or Cook will be spitting feathers.’
‘All right, go on. Thanks, Bertha.’
Eliza watched as Bertha sped back through the fields. She hugged her arms around her and tried to think. Would Annie call Thomas Tot? Maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe it was another lad altogether. Oh, it was hard to know, it was. She walked up and down, her weariness following the long night’s work forgotten, and tried to marshal her thoughts. Whether it was Thomas or not, she had to go and find out. But her next night off duty wasn’t for a fortnight and then she had to take the money for Miley to Blue House. No, she had to get time off before that. She would go mad if she worked at the Infirmary for two weeks before she went.
‘Please, Matron, I need leave of absence,’ she said, and even in her present state of mind she quailed at the unblinking stare directed at her.
‘You need leave of absence? Explain yourself, Sister.’
Eliza looked at Matron, feeling as intimidated as she did when she first started her training five years
before.
‘I am afraid so, Matron,’ she said.
‘And may I ask why, Sister Mitchell-Howe?’
Eliza normally used the name Mitchell except in her hospital life. She had given the double-barrelled name Mitchell-Howe on her application form and she knew it had helped in securing her training. Hadn’t Miss Nightingale said that nurses should be of good family? A double-barrelled name usually meant a good family. Together with various other characteristics. These raced through her mind as she tried to think of an answer. Sober, honest truthful, trustworthy, punctual, quiet, orderly, cleanly patient, kindly – a nurse had to be all of these.
‘For family reasons, please, Matron,’
‘This hospital is your family, Sister.’ Matron sat back in her chair and gazed at Eliza. She herself was from Hertfordshire and had trained in the great Florence Nightingale’s school in London. She tried to follow her mentor in everything, but it was hard here in the north of England where nurses were different from those in the south. It was hard to put a finger on the reason why or how this was so. Oh, they were hard-working and dedicated, especially the one before her now, but they were different.
‘Am I permitted to know why you need the time off?’ Matron asked.
Eliza hesitated for just a moment but Matron did not miss it.
‘Well, Sister?’ she demanded.
‘My little brother has injured his back, Matron.’ She realised Matron wanted more. ‘He was pushing a wagon and it fell on him,’ she elaborated. She was not going to mention the pit if she could help it. Matron would not like to think she was a pitman’s daughter.
Matron sighed. She looked down at the rota she had been busy drawing up when Eliza requested an interview. It would have to be adjusted.
‘How long do you need, Sister?’
‘One week, Matron. Please.’