The Tea Gardens

by Fiona McIntosh

  ‘Why won’t he choose?’ I asked and it was the right question, for my father became eager, tossing out the rest of the crumbs from his bag for our twittering friends so that he could turn and face me properly.

  ‘Because, while he uses the excuse that he is likely the world’s most boring man, who shouldn’t foist himself on a poor female, I suspect the truth to be that his intellect and especially his joy at life are offended by the queue of sociably acceptable but, in his judgement, dull women who fling themselves into his path.’

  ‘Shameful,’ I said with a small grin.

  He returned it. ‘Well, some women are keener than you to be wed and are prepared to be more obvious in their overtones, but he refuses to marry for the sake of it. Has admitted to me he’d rather live alone than make a poor decision.’

  ‘I agree with him,’ I said, meaning it.

  My father nodded with a resigned smile that said he knew he’d walked into that. ‘Nevertheless, I want the two of you to meet up again. He is intrigued by what I’ve told him about that youngster who used to blush in his presence and be sure, my darling, that I’ve mentioned your reluctance to be married off.’

  ‘Papa – I used to make such a fool of myself around him. Why would you suggest this? We’re perfect strangers.’

  ‘No, that’s not true. I have come to a conclusion that you could be perfect marriage companions and you are not strangers. He really hasn’t changed that much – leaner, greyer, wiser, but that boyish joy in simple pleasures has not left him. You’ll recognise the Jove of fifteen or so years ago. Will you meet him?’

  I sighed, standing to tip out my breadcrumbs, but my movement frightened the chirruping sparrows and we were alone again.

  ‘You know I wouldn’t put just anyone in front of you,’ he assured. ‘Jove always was a bit of a rare bird and it’s the quirkiness, his lack of conformism, that I think you may find appealing – I also believe his age and reserve will match your maturity. Please say yes to a meeting. It will be like old friends reconnecting.’

  I didn’t agree. I had been a child and Jove a grown man when we’d last been together. I was playing with a skipping rope while he was lamenting to my father about the price of gold. He didn’t even notice the adoration as I relentlessly skipped nearby. But I could see I had no choice. ‘Yes, I’ll meet him, for old times’ sake, and for you and Mother.’

  ‘Do it for yours, Isla. After I’m gone —’

  ‘Don’t,’ I warned. We both knew his heart was failing. It did not need discussing.

  He nodded. ‘He’s taking you for a drive.’

  ‘So it’s already organised?’ My father gave me a look of tender sympathy rather than apology for the invisible hand pushing at my back. ‘Can’t we just meet in a hotel for afternoon tea or something?’ Now I sounded churlish but I had to show my frustration somehow.

  He shrugged. ‘It was his idea to have a day out . . . away from London.’

  I sighed, resigning myself. It sounded to me as though my father had already made up his mind and this meeting was close to being academic. ‘I’m going to agree to this on one condition.’

  He waited, watching me expectantly.

  ‘If Jove and I find some common ground . . . ’

  My father sat forward, eyes widening.

  ‘If . . . ’ I repeated for effect, ‘then going ahead in any shape or form will be decided by me with Mr Mandeville. It is not for you or my aunt to make any decision on my behalf.’

  ‘I agree!’ He barely considered the careful wording of my proviso.

  I nodded. ‘Then let’s hope he is every bit as interesting as you believe him to be.’

  My father stood, a smile of triumph as he crooked an arm. ‘This deserves celebration. How about a pot of cocoa at Claridge’s? Let me hail a hackney.’

  I glanced at my watch and winced with regret. ‘I would love to but I’ve promised to look in on Mrs Dempsey before I start my rounds.’

  ‘Ah, your lady with rickets? What’s your course?’

  I was glad to be back on safe ground, talking clinician to clinician. ‘It’s so painful for her to carry this child and she’s been brave about it to date but I’m of the opinion that a caesarian section will be prudent: either tomorrow or certainly over this coming weekend.’ I looked up for his approval, despite my confidence in my decision.

  He nodded thoughtfully and gazed out across the lawns. ‘The baby will need lots of help if that mother can’t breastfeed successfully and perhaps even if she can,’ he counselled. ‘Even a wet nurse . . . ’ he offered, with a shrug.

  The wisdom was sound but his old-fashioned protection could be circumvented with today’s expedient measures. ‘I was thinking about putting the baby under an ultraviolet lamp immediately. I know it frightens mothers but its effects are marvellous.’

  He smiled. ‘Medicine is going ahead so fast these days, I’m almost glad to be retired. Trust your instincts, Isla. You were talking about man-made vitamins last week.’ He gave a soft sigh that was half dismay, the other half awe. ‘I read up on them. I’m guessing you’ll be planning on some of those too?’

  I smiled. ‘I will be prescribing some synthetic vitamin D; it can’t hurt the child.’

  My father gave a soft whistle. ‘And there was I thinking cod liver oil.’ We both pulled a face of disgust at the thought. He kissed my cheek. ‘We’ll have cocoa another time. Go look after your patients.’

  ‘I might be late tonight. I said I’d do a special round on the ward for a couple of new midwives who’ve arrived at the clinic from India for training. Will you eat without me, Papa?’

  ‘I can go to the club. I’ll ring Mandeville from there.’ He winked.

  I gave him a glance of feigned warning. ‘A meeting is all I’ve agreed to,’ I reminded him as my father lifted his walking cane in mock surrender.

  2

  I wish I could say it was like any other shift at the hospital but Mrs Dempsey, and her imminent child, was only one in a queue of mothers who required my collective skills that day. It was as though I were being tested in my remaining working hours in London as a final precaution to ensure I was ready to head up a hospital department in Calcutta.

  After leaving my father I had wended my way to the hospital via Bloomsbury, lingering in St George’s Gardens, pondering Papa’s new press towards removing my freedom. Oh, he didn’t view it that way, bless him, but while he occupied himself with fulfilling the promise he gave my mother, he didn’t know yet of my intention to keep an equally solemn promise. This was a silent oath I’d made as she had become so frail she couldn’t lift her head from the pillow and her smile had become fleeting, often a grimace as she pushed through her pain. Towards the end even her precious but halting conversation came at a price.

  As a child I wanted to strike back at the disease that was stealing my mother from me in small pieces and hurting her so much. And so I gave my word to the invisible listeners that I would find a way to take revenge. Mostly my wrath was directed at the country that gave her this disease. As I grew, though, I realised the best revenge was helping to eradicate any disease in India; this was what my mother was doing in her work and if I was true to her, I should continue that calling. In that juvenile mind, I couldn’t foresee, as she lay dying, that my specialty would not be tropical diseases but obstetrics – the area of medicine that desperately needed more women doctors and where ultimately my tutors channelled me. Nor could I have imagined that my parents would strongly oppose me in following in my mother’s footsteps, urging me, along with my tutors, into acquiring skills that promoted better health care for mothers and babies. My father’s admission today was another piece of that jigsaw; until this morning I hadn’t realised that my birth via forceps had contributed as much to her demise as the invisible disease.

  ‘Well, if not in tropical diseases, I shall still keep that oath and practise in the tropics, as she did,’ I told a busy blackbird fussing among the leaf litter. But how did I tell my father this pla
n? His heart had taken a long time to repair after losing my mother and here I was setting about breaking it again. If I’d been the doctor in charge of my birth, I could have saved my mother the internal damage of those forceps.

  And now there was Jovian Mandeville. Another obstacle taking shape on that path I wanted to blaze along. His name spoken aloud again brought back so much mixed emotion. This was the first man, other than my father, who claimed an important yet unique place in my heart . . . he was the first love and the one who was the benchmark for all that followed. Any young girl’s awakening into that first explosion of romantic longing is potentially more powerful than at any other time. And I was no different: lovesick for Jove from thirteen until I was nearing fifteen. It had felt like a lifetime of unrequited passion.

  And then he’d disappeared from our lives and I’d grown up and put his memory into a different place. Boyfriends had breezed into my life and moved on, a couple of suitors had mattered for a while and then my intensive study, training and now work had probably worn them down and we’d parted, one sadly, but we remain distant friends. I’d had one or two lovers that were never serious and those affairs had erupted and felt fiery and fun and then burned themselves out as quickly as they’d ignited. I was happy in myself, not looking for anything romantically meaningful since I’d hatched my plan for India, so the notion of seeing Jove again was unsettling. I didn’t want anything, especially not romance, disrupting my course.

  I thought about how my life would take shape if I hadn’t secretly applied to that call-out for doctors to travel to India from Britain’s medical journal The Lancet. I would probably be sucked into the range of worthy fundraising causes that would inevitably end up as gatherings for wealthy women gossiping and critiquing other people’s tastes or choices. The notion of a life of unfulfilment terrified me; at least through this role abroad I could have an adventure that would deliver memories to recall over a lifetime, and India, well, from all accounts it was about the most challenging destination for any clinician. I wanted to be tested, stretched, put under pressure and prove I was as good at my work as any male doctor.

  I glanced at the time and that made me hurry on into Hunter Street. The familiar four-storeyed red-brick building loomed to my right – my working home for the past few years. The clinic for the poor that I helped to run here could turn alarmingly busy as winter set in and so did most of the health problems, but I suspected the challenges in London could never fully prepare me for what I would find in India. I was grateful to the local women’s charitable groups that continued to raise funds that kept us going – whether it was through recitals or garden parties – but I just didn’t want to become one of those women.

  Today was rare as I would be the most senior doctor on the mothers and babies part of the clinic, so I needed to clear my head of India and Jove. Normally Dr Dooley or Dr Hampton would be in charge but both were away at a special conference in the Midlands. My moment to shine.

  I pushed through the door and my colleague and friend Ellen, a senior midwife, who was Anglo-Indian and on a special training visit from Bombay, was walking down the corridor to meet me. She was as slender as a sapling and moved lightly across the linoleum floor despite her struggles to master the lace-up boots she now wore and the chilblains that plagued her since moving to England.

  ‘Last week or two, Isla! How do you feel?’ she said, beaming.

  ‘Excited, nervous . . . and weary for not sleeping due to its still being a secret.’ I pulled off my gloves and scarf.

  ‘You still haven’t told your father?’ Her disbelief was tempered by the resignation that followed. ‘Why am I not surprised? Isla, how —’

  ‘I’ll find a way. I still have three weeks.’

  I followed her into our clinic’s back room and pulled off my coat and peered through the small porthole in the door. ‘Already so busy in the general rooms,’ I remarked, not genuinely surprised. I knew from experience that the waiting room would remain full all day, especially listening to the rumbling coughs and sniffles, and the wails of children who needed help in this coldest of seasons.

  ‘Isla,’ she said, pressing her hand, the colour of rich tea, against my pale skin, ‘I’m a bit worried about Mrs Hill.’

  I ran the names of the patients through my mind. ‘She’s due next month, isn’t she? Is she here?’

  She nodded. ‘Came in yesterday afternoon looking terrified. Her husband is recovering from a work accident so he’s not much help at home.’

  ‘And?’

  She gave an expression that told me she was feeling awkward. ‘I think she’s in early stages of labour. But Dr Dooley believes it’s phantom contractions of the first-time mother and told me to send her on her way. I’m not sure he sets much store by my opinion but as he’s not here and she was too scared to leave, I thought I’d keep her overnight and wait for you to take charge.’

  ‘Well, let’s make Sarah Hill our first stop, shall we? What else is happening?’

  ‘Mrs Jones began labouring yesterday afternoon.’

  I blew on my hands to warm them. ‘And all through the night,’ I said with a frown. ‘How far gone?’

  ‘Only a couple of inches, I’m afraid.’

  ‘How’s baby doing?’

  ‘Had been stoutly holding his or her own but —’ she shook her head ‘— just a few minutes ago we listened and counted a slight drop in heart rate.’

  ‘Caesarian section?’

  She shrugged but it looked like she thought it would likely need to be. ‘She’s wearying . . . ’

  ‘All right. Go on.’

  ‘Mrs Dickson has a nasty case of milk fever and she’s refusing to feed this morning. She didn’t feed through the night either. Her son is distressed because he’s famished.’

  ‘Right. Mrs Dickson first – that child needs his milk – then I’ll

  see Mrs Hill, call in on Mrs Jones and explain what we think might be best for her, given the situation, and then we’ll do the normal rounds with the team. Mrs Dempsey?’

  ‘Doing well, resigned to the caesarean. Pot’s brewed. Might catch it before it stews.’

  ‘I wish you were coming with me, Ellen,’ I said in a moment of weakness as I swiftly made myself a warming cuppa. ‘I like the way we work together.’

  She cut me a glance and hurried me on. ‘I’ve only just got myself familiar with how to catch a bus in London! Besides, I’m learning plenty and need to keep learning so when I do get home I can make a difference and help a new crop of midwives.’

  I nodded. ‘And you will.’

  ‘So will you. They’re going to be queuing to be on your ward.’

  ‘I’ll make time for all of them.’

  Her dark eyes were large, and if not for the white coat, the various shades of brown she wore would have made Ellen look like she’d stepped out of a sepia photograph. ‘I’m trying to find the right word that describes what you’re going to face.’ She searched, shaking her head.

  I frowned, smiling, and stirred in some sugar.

  ‘It’s not like here, Isla.’

  I blew steam off the top of the mug and we pushed through the door to enter the ward’s corridor. ‘I know.’

  She shook her head more defiantly now. ‘No, you don’t. Death is commonplace and people accept it. Children die, even as they’re being born, and while you hide it well, you don’t conceal from me just how emotional you can be.’

  ‘Are you a palm reader in your spare time?’ I said, trying to shake off her serious glare.

  ‘All I know is that you are going to be confronted by sights and matters that upset you. What you must remember is that it’s not your world. You will only be there for a short time so don’t try to change anything; just make a small difference to a few while you’re there. Don’t let it become personal.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I mean, come home without being damaged.’

  ‘I’ll do my best not to get emotionally involved,’ I said obe
diently, to which she gave a soft glare. ‘Come on, we have crying babies and scared mothers to help.’

  _________

  I gave the woman a sympathetic nod. ‘I know you’re feverish, Mrs Dickson, but I want to assure you that you will not pass anything but goodness on to your baby. You must continue feeding him at your breast, no matter how ill you feel.’ I stroked the infant’s tiny head. He was only a few days old and loudly cranky that his mother was withholding food. ‘Listen to that wail and let your milk down.’

  ‘It hurts, Dr Fenwick.’

  ‘I understand. It will pass soon and the fastest way to do that is to drain your breasts often. He’ll do that for you if you’ll let him. Have you named him yet?’

  ‘It’s Charlie, er . . . Charles.’

  ‘My father’s name.’ I grinned. ‘A good choice,’ I said. ‘He’s so hungry and so tiny. Come on, promise me you’ll grit your teeth and get through it. Start with the sore breast and put him in a position so the milk can flow easily down to him. I’ll ask the nurses to give you some extra pillows. And you know, Mrs Dickson, if you have to go on all fours to feed because it means less pain, do it. No one’s going to care and we can pull the curtain around you. Massage the area like this as you feed.’ I showed her. ‘You’re encouraging the blockage to dissipate. It may take a few days of still feeling quite rotten but I promise it will pass quicker if you trust me.’

  She nodded wearily. ‘I’ll feed him now.’

  ‘Perfect. I’ll look in before I go.’ I turned to Ellen. ‘Mrs Dickson will need cold flannels to the affected breast after feeding and do warm ones only sparingly, a few minutes before each feed. It will promote let-down. Make sure the nursing team ensures that Charlie fattened up quicker – more regular feeds will help both of them.’