No Place for a Woman

by Val Wood

  ‘Lucy?’

  ‘Erm, it’s part of our reading matter, yes,’ she murmured. ‘But I find it a very interesting subject.’

  Oswald turned his gaze down the hill and sighed. Changing the subject, he asked, ‘Do you know if Edie knows where Josh and Stanley are? Have they been sent abroad with their regiment?’

  She noticed a small dark cloud hovering to the west and thought that the atmosphere between them had also changed. ‘She receives letters from them,’ she said. ‘As their mother does, of course. The last I heard was that Stanley was in Serbia but was expected home to help in the recruiting drive. She didn’t mention Josh. I suppose he’ll have been sent abroad. Why do you ask?’

  ‘It’s just that I’ve heard from one or two of the chaps I made friends with at Cambridge.’ He hesitated, and then went on, ‘They tell me that they’re going to join the military, and asked if I would join them.’

  Aghast, she put her hands to her face. ‘And will you? Surely you won’t. Oswald, say that you won’t!’

  ‘It wasn’t part of my plan,’ he pointed out. ‘I’m a pacifist at heart and I won’t enlist voluntarily, but if conscription is brought in then I’ll have to. I’ll play my part, but not as an officer. I’d join the troops.’

  ‘I do hope it doesn’t come to that, Oswald.’ Her voice wavered as she spoke. ‘I’d be so afraid for you, and your mother would be too.’

  ‘All mothers will be afraid,’ he said gently. ‘And wives and sweethearts as well.’

  She nodded. ‘And sisters and cousins too.’

  He gave a wry smile. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Those too.’

  His reason for asking about Joshua and Stanley had been that he’d thought he would write to them and find out which regiment they were in, so that if the worst came to the worst he could try to join them. But there was something else troubling him. He would, he was sure, enjoy his work once he had settled in to something specific, but it seemed to him that there were things happening that he wasn’t privy to; official-looking groups of men were constantly coming and going, being closeted with senior management for hours at a time, and even the researchers who had been there for many years didn’t know, or if they did were not saying, what was going on.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, standing up and taking her arm. ‘Let’s go. It’s looking like rain. Let’s find a café and have a cup of tea before I catch my train back.’

  They walked arm in arm down towards Hampstead village. Neither said much, both busy with uneasy thoughts; there had been a change in atmosphere, a cold wind blowing and rain clouds overhead. Life was going to be different, not only for them but for everyone; no one would escape whatever was coming, not the smiling young couple pushing a baby in a perambulator up the hill towards them, not the young errand lad, whistling as he cycled by, not the man up a ladder painting window frames or the young woman in the café who served them tea from a china teapot. This was to be a time of change and both were anxious and rather afraid.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  In the years since Nora had come to live in Hull, she had felt very much at home there and had become an integral part of a circle of friends. Sarah Walker was her closest friend but there were others too, and Nora had over time asked these friends to tea and then, plucking up courage, and at William’s instigation, invited one couple at a time for dinner.

  Sarah Walker and her husband had been the first, and although William hadn’t approved of all James Walker’s opinions, on the whole they had had a pleasant evening. Next to come was the younger woman Georgina Kemp and her husband Anthony; both lively, well intentioned and informed and with a young family. Georgina had said that she was of a mind to create another women’s group with different ideals and direction from Mrs Warrington’s.

  Interested, Nora had invited the two couples together and Sarah and Nora had agreed that they would like to join her if they could find some more members; this they did, and with the enthusiasm of the women and the support of all the husbands they set up a group of women from all strata of social standing, who wanted to help others whether they were experiencing some temporary difficulty or suffering chronic hardship because of illness or poverty.

  Their membership had increased over time, eventually reaching fifty, at which point they closed the group and set up a waiting list. They invited speakers, including the eminent Dr Mary Murdoch whose talk on the difficulties that women had to overcome in order to undertake medical studies led Nora to a greater understanding of what Lucy must be enduring; another woman came and told them why she supported women’s suffrage, and then Dolly Morris was persuaded by Nora to speak about her early married life with a clutch of small children, a husband who was out of work and no money coming in, and how she had coped with shortage of food and no means of paying the rent; she told them how she had come through this period, and how proud she was now of her six children, two of whom were serving soldiers, one a nurse and one a housekeeper, one an engine driver and the youngest yet to make up his mind. She received the greatest ovation of all, and because she was so elated by her success afterwards asked Nora if she might be permitted to join the group, which was unanimously agreed, as was her election on to the committee as she was so sensible and level-headed.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ Nora said to Sarah Walker one day when they met for coffee. ‘I think we should have a contingency plan in view of the present situation.’

  ‘What kind of plan?’ Sarah asked; she was a little hard of hearing.

  ‘Contingency,’ Nora repeated. ‘In case of an emergency. Because of the war. There’ll be women with husbands and sons joining the army and in need of support.’

  ‘That’s true,’ her friend agreed, ‘and we could perhaps knit socks and scarves for soldiers to keep them warm in winter.’

  ‘We could,’ Nora said, ‘but what I was thinking was that we could try to raise money for wives in difficulties if their husbands are away and there are children to be fed and clothed. William has read of groups of country women in Canada who have founded a women’s charitable institution, and there’s talk of setting up something on those lines in Britain. But I was thinking of women in towns and cities with no means of producing their own food, who might need help if this war really does take hold.’ She still didn’t want to think that the war across the water would affect anyone in Britain, except for the military, but was increasingly beginning to accept that this was a false hope.

  By mid-October she knew that her fears were being realized when the women’s suffrage movement announced that they were delaying their militant campaign because of the war. Women were being called to munitions factories and brick factories, and as postal and railway workers, to replace the men who had answered Lord Kitchener’s call to arms.

  Ada knocked on Nora’s sitting room door one afternoon and asked if she could have a word, and Nora half guessed what was coming.

  ‘I’m going to be married, ma’am,’ Ada told her. ‘I’ve dithered about it for long enough, but my Isaac has told me that he’s going to join ’army and if I don’t marry him now he won’t ask me again, so I’ve said yes.’

  She blushed as she spoke. ‘It’s not that I don’t care for him, I do, but I didn’t want ’same kind of life that my ma had when she was first married. I can still remember being cold and hungry when I was just a little bairn.’

  Nora asked her to sit down. ‘It will be different for you. You could still keep on working here,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to live in; you could come in daily.’

  ‘Ah, but Isaac won’t agree to that, you see. You know what men are like; he doesn’t want his wife to keep on working is what he said, but now this war has changed everything and all women’ll have to work if their men are away.’ She hesitated. ‘Well, after we’re wed, I’m sorry but I’ll still be leaving. I’m going to work in one of ’factories or on ’railway as a ticket collector. I haven’t told him yet. He thinks I’ll be living at home twiddling me thumbs, when we find a place that is,
but I won’t,’ she said defiantly. ‘As soon as he’s settled into ’army I’ll get a job and then tell him.’

  ‘Oh, dear!’ Nora said. ‘We’ll miss you, Ada. You’ve been here such a long time,’ and with a start she realized that Ada was no longer a young girl. She was fourteen when she had first arrived at their door.

  ‘I have, ma’am, and I never expected to be here so long.’ She nodded. ‘But I liked it once I’d settled in and it was like running my own house, except better than I could ever afford. But Isaac’s been very patient wi’ me and I don’t want to miss my chance wi’ him.’

  ‘He sounds like a good man,’ Nora said gently. ‘Don’t risk losing him. And,’ she added, ‘if you ever want to come back, you only have to ask.’

  ‘I will, Mrs Thornbury. That I will.’

  Nora recalled when Mary, Ada’s aunt, had married and how thrilled Lucy had been to be invited to the wedding, and she wondered if Ada would ask Eleanor to her wedding, for Ada had looked after her just as Mary had Lucy. But Ada was leaving in just over a fortnight and Eleanor was back at school, and Ada told Nora that only her mother, father and two brothers, if they could get time off from the railway, would attend the hastily arranged ceremony, as Isaac had already volunteered and expected to be called up very soon.

  ‘I’m sorry, ma’am, that it’s all a bit of a rush, and I’m sorry too that Miss Eleanor won’t be there either, but I hope I’ll see her when she’s next home.’

  ‘She’ll be sorry to miss your wedding, Ada, and I think she would have wanted to make your dress; she’s very good, you know, has great flair. She says she’d like to leave school next year and apply to work for Madame Clapham as an apprentice dress designer.’

  ‘Is that – that salon in Kingston Square, ma’am? That lady who designs for royalty?’ Ada took an astonished breath when Nora nodded and said yes, it was, and Madame Clapham was indeed a Court dressmaker.

  ‘Ooh.’ Ada rolled her eyes. ‘How lovely that would be if Miss Eleanor was able to do that. Would you mind? I mean, your daughter working? Mrs Warrington’s daughter has married a toff, so I hear, so she’ll never have to work.’

  ‘I’d like to think that Eleanor will do something that will satisfy her, just as Lucy is doing,’ Nora replied. ‘Life is changing for women, Ada, and we must grasp every opportunity.’

  ‘You’re right. Just look at my ma, speaking at one of your meetings! Mark you, she allus did have ’gift of the gab. Better get on,’ she added. ‘Things to do. I’ll mek sure everything looks nice ’n’ tidy afore I leave.’

  Nora laughed softly when she had left the room. Ada obviously didn’t realize that she had all of her mother’s attributes, including the gift of the gab. She knew how to stick up for herself and Nora remembered how, when Ada first came as a maid, she had successfully persuaded her that she should have more wages than she was offering. If she goes to work in a factory, she thought, amused, she’ll become the forewoman in a matter of weeks.

  Nora received a hurried reply from Eleanor following her letter to tell her about Ada’s leaving to be married.

  Please will you tell Ada that I’m making her a hat, she wrote. The girls who are in my art and design class are submitting designs and I shall choose the one that I can adapt to suit Ada, but will you ask her what colour she’d like? I thought a deep rose colour would look nice on her and in the material cupboard there is a lovely silk moiré that the mistress says I may have. Answer immediately, please, Mama. I’m almost sure of her head size.

  Love and kisses, Eleanor.

  ‘I’m having a designer hat?’ Ada exclaimed, and put her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, how lovely. And can Miss Eleanor mek it in time?’

  ‘Apparently so,’ Nora smiled. ‘So is the colour all right? It sounds beautiful.’

  ‘What does moiré mean?’ Ada asked. ‘It sounds sort of French.’

  ‘It is French,’ Nora told her. ‘It’s sometimes called watered silk, because the pattern looks like water.’

  ‘Oh, how lovely,’ Ada repeated. ‘Rose moiré,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t wait to tell my ma!’

  A hat box arrived three days before Ada was due to leave and as she was gingerly opening it in front of Mrs Thornbury, she said, ‘Do you know, ma’am, when I told my ma and my aunt Mary about the hat, Aunt Mary told me that when she left here to get married Mr Thornbury gave her a sovereign, and she said she’d been very frivolous and spent some of ’money on a wedding hat. She told me that if Miss Eleanor hadn’t said she was making me one she was going to offer me a lend of it.’

  She heaved a breath, as Nora did too, as she unwrapped the tissue paper and drew out a concoction of silk and roses and short spotted veil. ‘But now I have my very own. Oh, it’s beautiful. Will you and Mr Thornbury come to see me in ’church and then write to Miss Eleanor and tell her?’

  ‘Of course we will,’ Nora said, not quite believing her daughter’s talent, and not revealing either that Eleanor had been given leave of absence to attend the wedding where her very first designer hat was being worn.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  At the beginning of November Oswald dropped Lucy a postcard to say he was going home that weekend; was there any chance that she would be going too? She’d replied briefly that she wasn’t as she was busy with practical exam work in one of the hospitals, and added, Give everyone my love and I hope to see you all at Christmas.

  Mmm, he thought dully. So shall I go or not? Yes, perhaps I will, otherwise my mother will think I only go to see them when Lucy is with me, which is generally true, but when I’m alone Mother will keep asking me questions relating to young women and have I met anyone nice, and no I have not, Mother! Well yes, lots, but not anyone I would want to spend my whole life with which is really what she’s asking.

  Besides, he pondered glumly as he packed an overnight bag, the way the troubles of the world and the war are progressing, what kind of life can anyone look forward to?

  The next morning there was such a lot of traffic that he had to hurry to catch his train and began to run down the platform when he saw the engine was already building up steam. Other passengers were doing the same and he came abreast of a young woman in a nurse’s uniform and cloak also rushing to catch it. A carriage door was swinging open and he grabbed it and turned to the nurse and said, ‘Come on, quick!’

  Then they both laughed. ‘Edie!’ he said.

  ‘Oswald!’ she chuckled. ‘Fancy seeing you.’

  ‘Oh, it’s good to see you, Edie,’ he said, scrambling in behind her. ‘And here I was thinking that it was going to be a long and boring journey home.’

  ‘It still might be,’ she said breathlessly, flopping down on a seat as Oswald took her bag from her and put it with his on the overhead shelf. ‘I’m so exhausted I might fall asleep, but please don’t think it’s because of your conversation.’ She unbuttoned the high neck of her blue-grey cloak but kept it on, as she also did the small white cap perched on her head. ‘I’m so lucky to get this particular weekend off. Have you heard that Ada is getting married on Monday? Although I can’t stay for the wedding, I wanted to see her before she took the final plunge.’

  ‘My mother did mention it,’ he said. ‘But she didn’t say when.’

  ‘Done in a rush seemingly.’ She grinned. ‘And not for ’usual reason you might imagine, but because her fiancé has joined up and he said if she didn’t say yes this time he wouldn’t ever ask her again!’

  ‘What about you?’ he asked, leaning back in his seat and crossing his legs. ‘Is there a man in your life?’

  She shook her head. ‘I’m in ’same situation as Lucy,’ she smiled. ‘Can’t continue in my profession if I marry.’

  ‘Ridiculous, isn’t it? We’re in the twentieth century.’ Oswald glimpsed the short blue-grey shoulder cape half hidden beneath her cloak. He glanced at the other two elderly passengers in the carriage and lowered his voice. ‘Is that a sister’s uniform?’

  She shook her head again. ‘Staff nurse
; the uniform is similar except for the badge. I’m not ready yet to be a sister.’

  ‘Staff Nurse Morris! Well done. I imagine it’s hard work. Have you finished all your training?’

  ‘I have for ’time being, but there’ll be more.’ She too glanced at their travelling companions, and leaning towards him whispered, ‘I’m going abroad in January.’

  ‘France?’ he mouthed and she nodded.

  ‘QAIMNS,’ she said quietly, under the sound of the guard’s piercing whistle and the jolting clanking of the engine as they got under way. Oswald immediately understood what she meant, and also knew that the uninitiated wouldn’t. Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service. Edie was going to war.

  ‘That’s why I’m going home now,’ she continued, still speaking softly. ‘I won’t be able to come for Christmas. I’m going to work in another London hospital for further instruction before embarkation. I’m thrilled to be accepted, but a bit scared too.’

  ‘Scared?’ he said, in a semi-mocking manner. ‘Edie Morris? Scared! I don’t believe that for one minute.’ He looked at her admiringly. ‘I’m proud to know you, Edie. How brave you are.’ She denied it forcibly. ‘Well, we’ll see how brave I am once I’m over there, but as two of my brothers have gone I thought I could do ’same. I always tried to keep up with them when we were little bairns, and …’ She paused, and her expression became anxious. ‘I just thought that – well, if something awful happened to either of them, I’d be there, wouldn’t I? On ’same side of ’water.’

  ‘Oh, Edie!’ He reached over and grasped her hands and the elderly couple looked their way, the woman looking scandalized over the top of her spectacles and the gentleman harrumphing loudly. Oswald disregarded them and said softly, ‘I understand your meaning, but try to be positive.’

  He withdrew his hands and Edie took a deep breath and nodded. ‘I will,’ she whispered. ‘I will.’

  She told him about the hospitals that had been or were soon to be opened for injured soldiers all over the country, including Hull. ‘Reckitt’s are opening one at their factory, to be ready if ’situation worsens,’ she murmured, ‘and ’Red Cross is setting up another, and then there’s a building in Bowlalley Lane that’s looking after Belgian refugees. My mother told me that she’s been helping out there. Folk in Hull are always ready to give a helping hand.’