A Mother's Gift

by Maggie Hope

  ‘Hello, Robert,’ she said formally. ‘How are you?’ But she wanted to reach out to him, hold him.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he replied. ‘You look well. Blooming in fact. We’ll take my car, shall we? I’ll bring you back in plenty of time.’

  They went to The Eden Arms!at Rushyford. The hotel was quiet; there were only a few people in the dining-room. Robert had booked a secluded corner table in any case.

  ‘What is this all about, Robert?’ she asked after the waiter had taken their order. For surely after all these months he must have a compelling reason for seeking her out. She had hurt him that morning in Four Winds, she knew. And he was a proud man; she didn’t think he would put himself forward only to be rejected again. In fact, she told herself, he probably had a girlfriend already. Probably he was even planning to get married and thought he should tell her. Oh God, was that it? Please don’t let it be that, please, God.

  ‘Let’s eat first, it’s a shame to let the food get cold.’ The waiter had brought lemon sole in a delicious sauce but somehow, for all her busy morning, Kate didn’t feel like eating. Nevertheless, she made herself swallow most of it. Neither of them wanted desert so they went straight on to the coffee.

  ‘I’m sorry to bring this up, I know it’s painful for you,’ he began. Kate’s dread deepened but for some reason she had no inkling of what it was he was going to tell her.

  ‘It’s about the accident.’

  When she looked blankly at him he went on. ‘The accident when Georgina was killed.’

  ‘What? Why are you talking about it now, after all this time?’

  ‘Something has come to light and I think you should know about it.’

  Robert paused for a moment and drew in a long breath. He had gone over in his mind often enough how he was going to tell her but now she was sitting across the table from him and looking at him with her eyes wide he couldn’t remember how he had been going to put it to her.

  ‘New evidence? But it’s been years!’ she said.

  ‘Yes. But I know who the driver of the other car was.’

  He told her about Bertram, of going to see him in Middlesbrough, of the state he was in, everything. And what he had said about the night of the accident.

  ‘He meant to force you off the road, and he managed it,’ he said. Kate said nothing, simply gazed at him, her face white beneath her nurse’s cap.

  ‘I … Nothing will come of it,’ Robert said. ‘Nothing can. Bertram won’t live long, his liver is failing.’

  It was Bertram, she thought. In the back of her mind she had known it. Or suspected it rather and refused to believe it. There had been no accident, it was deliberate. Oh, Georgina, her lovely, lovely Georgina.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  ‘KATE,’ SAID ROBERT. ‘Kate, say something.’

  They had come away from the hotel and out into the bright sunshine. ‘Shall I take you home for a while?’ Robert had asked. ‘I know what a shock this has been to you. I could call Matron and say you were sick. You don’t have to go into work, Kate.’

  Kate had looked at him as though he was mad. ‘I do have to go in,’ she said. ‘Of course I do. There will only be first-and second-year student on the ward if I don’t.’

  Robert looked at his watch. It was only half past two. ‘Well, we can go somewhere else for an hour or so at least. Then I’ll take you back.’

  In the end they decided to walk in the bishop’s park for a while. The gravel crunched beneath their feet as they walked through the arched gateway and along by the side of the castle to the entrance to the park. As Robert held the cattle-catcher gate open for her he made his appeal. She had been silent on the journey and he respected that, she had a lot to think about. His heart ached for her. Perhaps he had not had the right to tell her and open the old wound. What good had he done? None at all, only harm, he thought.

  She was doing so well now. She had achieved her ambition to train as a nurse, and he would bet his last penny she was a damn good one too. But he had to know what she was thinking.

  Kate went through the gate and set off down the path leading to the Gaunless. It was shaded by tall trees and at the bottom the Gaunless tinkled along lazily, low at this time of year. They were halfway down before Kate stopped and turned to him.

  ‘I just don’t know what to say to you, Robert,’ she said and her eyes were full of pain. ‘My poor girl, my poor Georgina, she had her life ahead of her. She never had a chance. She was so clever, so talented. There was so much potential. Oh I’m still working things out in my mind.’ She saw how troubled he looked, how concerned for her and despite her own pain she put a hand on his arm.

  ‘I’m all right, really I am,’ she said and turned and walked on. A great oak tree stood near the bottom, over-looking the river.

  ‘Let’s sit a while, shall we?’ she said and they sat on the grass and leaned against the trunk of the tree. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to think of her lovely daughter.

  Robert watched her, her face was still pale but composed, even her voice sounded composed. Yet he knew there was a lot going on behind the closed lids. He looked towards the water, not wanting to intrude on her thoughts. Further along the bank there was a group of children paddling where there had once been a ford and the bottom of the stream was paved. Two mothers sat on the bank watching them and talking together! They could hear the children laughing and playing, happy and excited. The leaves of the tree above them rustled with a slight breeze. It seemed so peaceful, just as Kate’s expression did. Were there traumas in their lives too? Of course there must be to some extent. He looked back at Kate and his heart melted with love for her.

  ‘Kate,’ Robert said suddenly, as though the words were forced out of him. They were, he hadn’t meant to say them, not yet. ‘Kate, I still love you. I know I haven’t the right to say it. I know you have suffered enough from my family. I know—’

  ‘Hush, Robert,’ said Kate. ‘Hush.’ She put up a finger and put it over his mouth, tracing the outline of his lips. ‘None of it was your fault, Robert. None of it, though some of it was mine.’ She sighed. ‘I have tried to get on with my life without you,’ she went on. ‘I was so determined not to get involved again, not with any man. After Matthew—’

  ‘Forget him,’ said Robert, taking hold of her hand. ‘He has nothing to do with us. He can’t rule your life, not now. He’s dead, Kate. Put him out of your mind.’

  ‘I know he’s nothing to me now. But he was Georgina’s father.’

  ‘He’s gone now, Kate,’ Robert reiterated. ‘He took advantage of you at a time when you were vulnerable.’

  ‘I let him do it, though Robert. I think I needed someone as strong as he was at the time.’ Sadly she thought of that long ago sorrow, the deaths of Grandda and Billy. Now overlaid by that of Georgina.

  They sat in silence for a while as the sun dipped behind the tall trees on the bank on the opposite side of the river. Mothers were taking their children from the water and drying them off, putting on socks and shoes and trailing them up the bank to the path out of the park. In the distance a clock chimed. It was four o’clock.

  ‘I must get back,’ she said and he stood and held out a hand to her to pull her up after him. He held on to her hand as they walked up the bank and along the path to the cow-catcher gate and she was content to let it lie. His hand felt firm and strong, and she looked up at him as they got to the gate where they had perforce to go round singly.

  ‘There are so many things against us,’ she said. ‘What will people say? I was your stepfather’s fancy woman and people know that.’

  ‘Who cares? Do you?’

  ‘No.’

  But perhaps in her heart she did. Kate thought of how the gossip in Winton Colliery had hurt her. They were through the gate now and walking to the car.

  ‘But Mary Anne, what about her? She was Matthew’s wife. We are friends now which shows what a big heart she has. But will she not hate it, me marrying her son?’

 
‘She’ll be happy for me, for both of us. You must have realised she never loved Matthew Hamilton. She is fond of you, Kate, you know that. Don’t worry, Kate. Everything will be all right.’ They were silent for a while.

  ‘I’ll have to get back to the ward,’ said Kate. What she really felt she had to do was put off the moment. They walked up the path and along the gravel drive to the entrance and his car beyond.

  He drove up Newgate Street and turned right into Escomb Road, drawing to a halt behind Kate’s car. He didn’t get out straight away, instead he turned to her again.

  ‘Kate?’

  ‘I have to run,’ she said and opened the door. He put a restraining hand on her arm.

  ‘What time do you finish? I’ll wait,’ he said. He felt that if he left her now without resolving the issue they never would.

  ‘Robert, it’s hours yet. Eight o’clock.’

  He’s persistent, I’ll give him that, she thought as she walked up the ramp and pushed open the double doors. The ward looked peaceful in the evening sunlight that streamed in through the high windows. Round a table in the middle, a group of patients in dressing-gowns sat talking quietly.

  She got out the box of thermometers and the temperature book and went round the beds, tafing temperatures. There was nothing to be alarmed about. Mrs Hall, the woman who had been to theatre that morning, needed her drip changed.

  ‘Can I have something for the pain, Staff?’ Mrs James in the second bed asked. She was waiting to hear the verdict of the cancer specialist who was going to look in this evening and talk to her.

  ‘I’ll ring the doctor, see if you can have something stronger,’ Kate promised and went to the telephone immediately.

  She helped the students to serve the evening meal then went into the office to write the report for the night staff during the visiting hours. She gave out the medicines while the students turned down the counterpanes ready for the night.

  The thought of Robert was at the back of her mind all evening though she was too good a nurse to let it take over while she was in charge of patients. At eight o’clock she handed the report over to Night Sister and her responsibility ended.

  In the cloakroom she gazed at her reflection in the mirror as she pulled on her outdoor cap. If she agreed to marry him, would he regret the fact that she was older than he was in the years to come? If she didn’t, what then? Could she do without him? She was so confused, all her previous convictions were going for nothing in the face of her love for Robert. There was Georgina but Georgina would want her to be happy. She tried to think rationally but somehow it was impossible. She fastened her coat and picked up her bag. It might all be for nothing, she thought in sudden panic. He might, just might have changed his mind and gone while he had the chance.

  Kate turned for the door almost bumping into Sister as she went past to the sluice.

  ‘Still here, Staff?’ Sister raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Just going, Sister,’ she replied. ‘Goodnight, then.’

  Coming through the gate on to Escomb Road she saw him immediately. Again he was half-sitting on the car bonnet, looking towards her, his expression unreadable.

  ‘I would want to continue nursing,’ she said as she reached him. She looked up at him anxiously.

  ‘There are hospitals in the east of the county,’ he answered. He returned her gaze and what he wanted to see in her eyes and relaxed tangibly. His smile bathed her in warmth and love.

  ‘Well then, that’s all right,’ said Kate and he took her in his arms and kissed her.

  A group of porters walked past, going off duty and they grinned and whistled; long low wolf whistles. ‘Go on, there, Staff!’ one of them called to her but she hardly heard, aware of nobody but him.

  Robert had been sitting in the Wear Valley Hotel, watching the clock. The evening had been interminable for him but it had been worth it.

  ‘Are you sure, Kate?’ he asked. He couldn’t bear it if she was not.

  ‘I’m sure,’ said Kate. She looked up into his face and smiled and his arms tightened round her.

  ‘Good evening, Staff Nurse Benfield.’ The voice sounded disapproving and she started but Robert still held her close.

  ‘I will see you in the morning, Staff Nurse,’ Matron continued. ‘Perhaps now you should be on your way?’

  ‘Come on,’ Kate whispered in Robert’s ear. ‘Let me go. As it is I’ll be hauled on to the carpet tomorrow morning. Acting in an indecorous way so as to bring the hospital into disrepute, it’s called.’ She giggled.

  ‘Staff Nurse!’

  ‘Yes Matron. Sorry Matron,’ said Kate and pulled out of Robert’s arms.

  ‘Good evening, Matron,’ said Robert with his most charming smile. ‘I’m glad to say you are the first to know. Nurse Benfield and I are engaged to be married.’

  ‘Emm,’ Matron stuttered and for the first time in her life Kate saw Matron lost for words. She soon recovered, however.

  ‘Congratulations to you both,’ she said then looked to Kate. ‘I hope this doesn’t mean you will neglect your career, Staff Nurse. We will expect you to give your full attention to your work.’

  ‘Of course, Matron,’ said Kate. And Matron nodded and walked on along the road.

  ‘Let’s go back to Four Winds,’ said Kate.

  Turn the page to read an extract from

  A WARTIME NURSE

  also available from Ebury Press

  Chapter One

  ‘DON’T GO, JOSS – please don’t go. I don’t want you to.’

  Joss Wearmouth gazed solemnly at his sister, his eyes hopeless. ‘I know, I don’t want to go neither.’

  They were sitting on a grassy bank speckled with wild strawberries and the tiny red fruit sparkled in the sun. A small, much-battered wicker basket which Theda had had as a child lay beside them, half-filled with strawberries. But now she had forgotten about the fruit altogether, for Joss had come down the garden path and out on to the bank beside the old waggon way and told her that he was ‘surplus to requirements’ at the pit.

  ‘Well, don’t go, you don’t have to. You’ll find a job here if you look hard enough, surely you will. There’s the Railway Waggon Works at Shildon and there’s Bishop … now there’s bound to be something at Bishop Auckland.’

  Earnestly she looked up at him, her Joss, the one who always looked after her and never talked down to her the way the elder brothers of other girls did.

  Joss picked a blade of grass and rubbed it between his fingers, staring into the distance over the old waggon way and grassed-over mound which was an old pit heap really. Over to the ruined buildings of Old Pit, their harshness softened by distance and sunlight.

  ‘You know we talked it all out yesterday, Theda. There is no other work,’ he said at last. ‘I’ll get no dole, not when I’m living at home – not when Da’s working anyroad. We should be thanking God his name didn’t come out of the hat again like it did at Wheatley Hill. At least he’s working.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘It’s no good, Theda. There’s you and Frank and Chuck and Clara to feed. You’re only fourteen, but you know how it is. No, I’m sixteen, big enough to fend for meself. I said I’d go in the army and that’s what I’m going to do.’

  ‘I could leave school, I’m nearly fifteen,’ she said. ‘I can, I don’t have to go till I’m sixteen just because it’s the Grammar School. Everybody else leaves school when they’re fourteen.’

  Joss got to his feet and she scrambled up after him, looking into his face, her own so woebegone that he grinned and put an arm around her shoulders. ‘What, and waste that scholarship we’re all so proud of?’

  ‘You could have had a scholarship, Joss. If you had, you’d have had a posh job in an office by now,’ Theda countered. But she knew that Joss couldn’t have taken up a scholarship, not when it fell in the year the family had had to move to Winton Colliery. He was the eldest and when he was old enough to go down the pit his money was needed, that was how it always worked. A
nd, anyway, Joss had wanted to go down the pit; that was what men did.

  ‘Aw, howay,’ he said now. ‘I’ll help you fill that doll’s basket and we’ll take it in to Mam and then go swimming in the reservoir. How’s that sound?’

  ‘I don’t know about the reservoir,’ said Theda doubt-fully, thinking about the amount of frogspawn there had been in the reservoir at Old Pit that spring. Not to mention what else might be lurking in the weeds that grew out ever further into the water from the bank!. ‘Can we not go down the wood and paddle in the Gaunless?’

  Joss laughed. ‘Howay then.’

  In the end, Frank and Chuck and little Clara trailed behind them down to the wood and the place where the bed of the Gaunless river was paved with large stones that didn’t hurt their feet when they paddled, and just along from the paving a deeper pool where Joss could swim. They had pop bottles of water and slices of bread and fish paste and some wild strawberries for after.

  ‘Keep an eye on the young ones, our Joss, and you an’ all, Theda,’ Mam had said. ‘I don’t know whether you should take them anyroad …’ But there were howls of protest and in the end they all went. Mam watched them go from the gate of the back yard and Theda could see that her eyes and nose were red as though she had been crying.

  ‘Are you sad, Mam?’ Theda had asked. ‘I wish Joss wasn’t going, don’t you? It’s not fair, you know – I bet the gaffer cheated when he drew Joss’s name out of the hat.’

  ‘No, pet, Tucker Cornish wouldn’t do that,’ said Mam. ‘No, I’m not sad, the army’ll be the making of Joss. I’m just getting a summer cold, I think.’

  Mam needn’t have worried about the little ’uns. They never went near the deep pool, not even Frank. He was more interested in roaming through the wood than paddling in the stream anyway. So he wasn’t there when Joss suddenly disappeared under the water. Theda, her woollen knitted costume hanging from her skinny body, was treading water when it happened. She blinked and rubbed her eyes with one hand – where had he gone? Panic rose in her.