A Mother's Gift

by Maggie Hope

  ‘Let’s go in to lunch, Matthew,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry if I upset you. I meant nothing by it, I assure you.’

  Oh dear, she didn’t want him to be in a temper when the children came home from school at the weekend. It was the mid-term holiday and she had hoped they could be like a real family even if just for a few days. Of course, they weren’t his children, she reminded herself. But if only he acted as though he was, especially to Robert. Her son was growing up, fifteen now and he needed a father to look up to. Why, Matthew didn’t even like her son to bring a friend home, she had had to discourage him when he had asked to do that this weekend.

  But that was the problem really, the boy was her son and not Matthew’s. Sometimes she despaired of ever getting Matthew to really accept him as one of the family.

  Dr Roberts, the Head Physician at the South-East Durham General Hospital, took his stethoscope out of his ears and nodded to Sister.

  ‘Don’t worry, Nurse, you will be fine,’ he said. ‘Sister and I will just have a word.’

  Katie looked at him and quickly down again. This was the first time she had had anything to do with the great man and it wasn’t in connection with a patient but herself. Yet she didn’t care, she didn’t care about anything just at the minute. Sister had administered a bromide to her on Dr Roberts’s orders and Katie was sinking into a cocoon of warm, woolly sleep …

  ‘Well, Sister,’ the doctor said when they were both safely in the office with the door closed firmly. After all, this was the nurses’ sick bay and one never knew if a patient heard and knew what they were talking about. ‘Well, Sister, I don’t know. I question whether the girl is of the right calibre to make a nurse. I know she has suffered a dreadful shock but it was just her grandfather, wasn’t it?’

  Dr Roberts had been an army doctor in the Great War to end all wars and he disapproved of any suggestion of lack of moral fibre. After all, where would they have been in the war if everyone had collapsed when a tragedy happened instead of stiffening their resolve and going on? Sister murmured something that could have been agreement or not depending on what you wanted to see in it.

  ‘Well, we will keep her sedated for a few days and then see how she is. She may pull herself together. I sometimes think we are bringing in girls who are not from the right sort of background, you know?’

  Sister, who was the daughter of a docker but had been lucky enough to get her training in the war when nurses were at a premium, nodded again.

  ‘I must be going now, my ward rounds wait. I can’t spend all my time on one little probationer,’ said Dr Roberts and went out. Sister went back to the four-bedded ward that was the main part of the sick bay and peeked at Katie who was the only bed patient. She looked pale and worried even in sleep. Her brows were knitted above the sweep of her long lashes, her lips parted as she breathed with quick, shallow breaths. Sister pushed back the lock of hair that had fallen over her brow and pulled the covers up over her shoulders.

  It took a great deal of moral fibre or what ever you cared to call it to get from a poverty-stricken pit village in the depths of the great slump to being a probationer in a large hospital, she thought. Moral fibre be blowed. What the hell did high and mighty Dr Roberts know? She went out, softly closing the door behind her. There was a window in her office looking out on to the ward and she would keep an eye on the girl from there.

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘YOU HAVE A visitor, Nurse,’ said Sister.

  Katie looked up in surprise. Only one or two nurses knew she was in the sick bay and no one from outside that she knew of. Nurse Trotter perhaps? She had shown herself to be friendly.

  It wasn’t Nurse Trotter. She heard a man’s voice outside the door of the ward saying something to Sister as she went out and Katie went pale.

  ‘Mr Hamilton,’ she said. She was overcome with embarrassment as scraps of memories from that awful night came back to her. She could feel the heat rising in her face as she flushed. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him. During the first week Katie had been in the sick bay she had scarcely known or cared where she was. She had been plagued with horrible dreams and nightmares and was almost convinced that the scenes she remembered from the night after the funerals were all part of them. The drugs she had taken made everything seem vivid but somehow unreal. This second week the dose of bromide had been cut down and she felt more herself. All she wanted to do was get back to work, to some sort of normality. She wished with all her heart that Mr Hamilton would simply go away so that she need never see him again.

  Matthew gazed at her. The flush, though fading now, had left her cheeks pink and her dark blue eyes were as striking as ever. What was it about her, he wondered, he couldn’t leave her alone though he had had every intention of doing just that. Through his contacts he had found out where she was. When he had made inquiries, under the guise of being her father’s employer simply asking on behalf of her family, he had been shaken when Dr Roberts had told him she was suffering from neurasthenia. And when he looked it up in a medical dictionary he hadn’t come near her for a week. Yet in the end he couldn’t stay away, she must be a witch he reckoned or at least she had bewitched him.

  ‘Hello, Katie,’ he said now, more for the benefit of Sister than Katie, ‘how are you? I’ve brought you some flowers.’

  ‘Oh, aren’t they lovely? What a lucky girl you are, Nurse Benfield,’ Sister enthused. ‘I’ll put them in water, shall I?’ But she looked speculatively from Matthew to Katie and back again.

  Katie looked at the sheaf of carnations in their artistically arranged greenery in disbelief. No one had ever given her flowers before. No one could afford such luxuries in Winton Colliery. In fact the only times she had ever seen flowers from a florist before had been at weddings or funerals. These reminded her forcibly of her grandfather’s funeral and she was filled with unbearable sadness.

  ‘Mr Hamilton, go away,’ she whispered. She couldn’t hide from it any longer, that night had not been a nightmare, it had been real. And this man, this old man had put her through it. Impotent anger rose in her.

  ‘My name is Matthew,’ he said as the door closed behind Sister and the flowers.

  ‘Can’t you call me Matthew? I’m very fond of you, Katie. I want to look after you.’ He sat down by her bed and took her hand in his but she pulled hers away violently.

  She felt so tired, weary to death and her weariness was compounded by the strong sedative she had been given. What did it matter? Her anger began to seep away. Her life was over anyway, she told herself. She felt as though she were fighting to escape from layers of cotton wool and getting nowhere. The feel of her hand in his lingered and it wasn’t unpleasant, it felt strong and dependable. As he was himself a powerful man who knew what he wanted. Oh God, what was she thinking?

  ‘You’re a married man, Mr Hamilton,’ she said and in her own ears the words sounded trite, like something out of a cheap B film. Everything was still so unreal, she thought wildly. In fact she was sure she had said those words in just the tone that Clara Bow had used in a picture she had seen once with Billy—Oh Billy, she had been determined not to think of him and her treacherous thoughts had betrayed her. Misery rose and threatened to overcome her. What did anything matter, now that Billy was dead?

  ‘Not happily, Katie. My wife and I – well, we live separate lives really.’

  Katie suddenly felt even more exhausted. She was still under the effects of the bromide she had been given the night before.

  ‘Dr Roberts said you could come out in a day or two. Have a few days’ sick leave at home. Would you like that Katie?’

  ‘Oh! I thought I could go back on to the wards,’ she said weakly. ‘I don’t want my grandmother to know I’ve been ill. I’m all right now, really I am. It was just the shock, I’m sure it was.’ And even if she wasn’t now, she would be all right, she would.

  ‘Still, better not go back to work, dear.’

  She didn’t notice the endearment, being too wrapped up in
her own thoughts. It meant Gran would have to know she’d been ill and she had had enough worry and sorrow since the accident. But what could she do? And in any case, she was longing to see Gran, find out how she was bearing up.

  ‘I’ll take you, Katie. If you want to go, that is. Or would you rather go somewhere else?’

  ‘No, no, I want to go to Winton.’

  Just at the minute all she wanted to do was sleep, preferably in her own bed with the warm oven shelf wrapped in a towel at her feet. She had woken in the middle of the night and she had been dreaming of Winton. She had been a schoolgirl again and the Means-test man was coming and Billy was calling, ‘I’ll save you, Mrs Benfield, I’ll save you!’ And the Means-test man had gone away and she had been happy. When she had woken up she had still been happy until memory flooded back and with it the desolation.

  ‘Righto, I’ll take you,’ said Matthew. ‘I’ll go now and let you sleep.’ He stood up and bent over her and kissed her gently on the forehead like a father would, like Noah sometimes did and she hadn’t the energy to stop him.

  Had she dreamed that night? Had she imagined him in bed with her when she had thought it was Billy? Maybe she had. She was so confused. Maybe he was just a kind man. Katie fell into a light doze. If only she could think straight …

  ‘By all means, take her home,’ said Dr Roberts. ‘It will do her good, I’m sure.’ He looked across his desk at the ironmaster, wondering what his interest was in the probationer nurse. Was he a philanthropist then? Somehow he didn’t think so. But then, he was a man of the world himself, he wouldn’t ask questions. The hospital depended on the large donations given by the ironmasters. He couldn’t afford to jeopardise that. Rich and powerful this man was reputed to be.

  ‘Are you sure she will be able to return to her duties here? In time, I mean. Or perhaps not …’ Matthew let his voice trail into silence.

  Dr Roberts leaned forward on the desk and put on a confidential air. ‘I do have my doubts, Mr Hamilton,’ he said carefully for he was feeling his way, trying to decide what Matthew wanted him to say. ‘It may be that she is simply not strong enough.’

  Matthew nodded, satisfied. ‘Well, then, I’ll take her to her grandmother tomorrow morning. I have to go over to Winton on business. Is that suitable?’

  ‘Yes, of course. I’m sure that she will recover in familiar surroundings,’ Dr Roberts said heartily. He rose to his feet in the same instance as Matthew and they shook hands in perfect understanding.

  ‘I have brought you a warm coat to travel in, we don’t want you catching cold, Katie.’

  Katie looked at the coat that Matthew was holding open for her to put on. It was a deep blue, almost the colour of her eyes and a warm soft, expensive wool. She hesitated.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, Mr Hamilton, I shouldn’t take such an expensive gift,’ she said. Gran would go mad if she took such a present from a man.

  ‘Nonsense,’ Matthew said briskly. ‘You need a warm coat, you’ve been ill. Come along now, put it on, I want to be back in Bishop Auckland by twelve.’ He shook the coat slightly, imperiously and Katie was silenced. It wouldn’t hurt to try it on.

  She shrugged her arms into the sleeves, stood as he turned her round and fastened the big buttons. It had a large fur collar and a low, draped waist and narrowed around the hips to the hemline just on the knees. Oh, it was a lovely coat. She buried her face in the high fur collar; it was soft and silky and the most beautiful thing she had ever had in her life. She could always take it off before they reached Winton Colliery.

  ‘Whoever would have thought it of her,’ Sister said aloud to no one in particular as she watched them leave, Matthew holding on to Katie’s arm. ‘Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.’ Staff Nurse said nothing, just went ahead with stripping Katie’s bed. But she would lay odds they wouldn’t see that one back here working as a probationer nurse even though she did look as innocent as a baby. No, Nurse Benfield had found herself a sugar daddy.

  Matthew was driving himself again. ‘You may have the day off today,’ he had said to Lawson.

  ‘Thank you very much, sir,’ Lawson had replied but it was just as well that Matthew did not see the ironic gleam in his eye. The gaffer didn’t want his chauffeur to see what he was up to. And Lawson was pretty sure what that was. Still a day off was a day off.

  ‘I will drop you at the end of the rows,’ said Matthew as they approached Winton. They had got there in record time for Matthew, unused to driving himself these last few years, had rediscovered his liking for speed and was indulging it to the full.

  Katie hardly noticed how he drove until they swerved round the corner into Winton, still in third gear and there was a group of little girls, strung across the road and playing a skipping game. She was jolted into awareness as Matthew swerved again, brakes screaming, up on to the pavement and away from the children but almost into a boy who was leaning against a low wall on the opposite side of the road, hands in pockets and legs crossed nonchalantly. They were so close that the boy jumped and fell over the wall on to the rough ground beyond.

  Katie had the door open and was out of the car in an instant. She vaulted the wall herself and bent over the boy.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ she cried. She felt his limbs and the back of his head, there was no blood thank goodness. He looked up at her, winded, and then shrugged her off.

  ‘Leave off, will you, Katie Benfield,’ he shouted. ‘There’s nowt the matter with me.’ He got to his feet and dusted scraps of dead grass from his jacket. ‘It’s that fella there, he’s blooming mad he is, driving like that. He oughter be in Sedgefield!’

  Matthew was there by now, as were half the residents of the rows, all brought out by the sound of the car and the shouting.

  ‘You’re all right boy, aren’t you?’ he asked. ‘Shall I take you to your mother?’

  ‘No! What do you think I am, a baby?’ The question enraged the boy even more. Matthew groped in his pocket and came out with a couple of florins and two sixpences. ‘Here you are then, this will make you feel better.’

  Magically, the boy’s temper disappeared, he grinned and pocketed the money. ‘Eeh thanks, mister,’ he said. He’d never had so much at one time in his life before. But there were mutterings among the onlookers.

  ‘Nearly kills the lad and then tries to buy him off!’ Katie heard the woman’s voice plainly and an answering man’s growl.

  ‘I am perfectly willing to take the boy to a doctor to be looked over. Lady Eden’s Hospital in Auckland if you like,’ he said. He looked over the crowd, challenging them to make more of it but most of them dropped their eyes, some turned away, those who remembered who this man was from the day of the pit disaster. They wanted no trouble with a boss, they were still too close to the hard years of slump and dreaded their return. All except one, that is. Kitty Benfield had come out of her yard to see what the commotion was all about and when she got to the end of the alley, all she could see was that Katie was there with that flash man who had come to her door on the night of the funeral. And Katie was dressed up fit to kill.

  ‘Katie! You come here, this minute, do you hear me? Get in the house!’

  Katie remembered she was still wearing the coat and blushed fiercely as the neighbours began to notice her too.

  ‘Thank you for the lift,’ she said to Matthew and fled into the house with her grandmother, away from the avid curiosity in their eyes. The crowd was dispersing as mothers took their children away, smacking heads and uttering dire warnings about playing on the road. He got into his car and drove away. After all, he knew where she was, and he could come back when the incident with the boy was forgotten.

  ‘What’s that you have on your back?’ Kitty asked as soon as they were in the house and the door firmly closed.

  ‘Gran, you know what it is. I needed a new coat, you know I did and it was so cold and I’ve been badly.’ Katie unbuttoned the coat and took it off, laying it over the back of a kitchen chair.

  ‘Are you telli
ng me you bought it yourself? ’Cause if you are you’re a bloody liar, our Katie and that’s swearing!’

  ‘No I didn’t,’ Katie admitted. ‘Mr Hamilton bought it for me.’ Suddenly Katie was overcome by weakness. She sank into a chair, and began to shiver.

  ‘What’s the matter with you? Any road, what are you doing here when you’re supposed to working at that hospital?’ Kitty looked properly at her granddaughter’s face for the first time and was shocked to see that it was as white as marble. ‘Have you not been looking after yourself? Here sit in your grandda’s rocking chair by the fire and get warm. You look as though you’ve got consumption! Hey, you haven’t have you?’

  As Katie shook her head, Kitty’s anger returned, fuelled with relief. ‘By our Katie, I don’t know, you’re nothing but a worry to me.’ Kitty glared at her granddaughter. Even discounting consumption, she could see that Katie was definitely ill and it looked as though it was serious.

  ‘I’m all right. But the doctor thinks I should have a few days off work,’ said Katie. Her grandmother was bustling about now, sticking the long steel poker through the bars of the grate to stir the fire into life; settling the black kettle on the top when she had finished and reaching for the teapot and caddy; generally causing a great deal of banging and thumping in her anxiety. She put out mugs and brought stotty cake and a boiled ham shank out of the bread bin in the pantry.

  ‘Have you been eating properly? You’ve not been missing meals have you, our Katie? I don’t know, you’re not fit to look after yourself, you’re not fit to be let out—’

  ‘Gran, I’ve told you, I live in a Nurses’ Home, and we get three meals a day and a bit of supper.’

  ‘Well, what’s the matter then?’ Kitty’s voice was harsh in her anxiety.

  Katie gazed at her grandmother and her eyes filled with tears of weakness. The old woman stood there, her arms folded across her thin bosom, and her mouth set in an angry line. But behind the anger there were other emotions; in her eyes there was a lost look like a wounded animal. Katie held out her arms and took Gran into them and held her and after a minute the stiffness went out of her and she relaxed as they cried on each other’s shoulders for what they had lost.