A Nurse's Duty

by Maggie Hope

  And in a postscript, Sean had said he was coming down to Essex to see him, to make him see sense, and to speak to the woman if need be.

  ‘I have met her, Patrick,’ he concluded. ‘You are not the first man to be entangled with her, she is a …’

  Patrick’s mind cut off the word Sean had called her there. It wasn’t true, he knew it couldn’t be. Sean was simply trying to make him put her out of his life. But Patrick couldn’t. Rising abruptly, he went back to the bar and ordered another drink and when it came he resumed his seat in the corner. He sipped the whisky and a picture of Karen as she entered the hall of the hospital an hour or so before came into his mind. His thoughts swung away from the guilt he should be feeling to the love he had for her. Repent? Why should he? He loved her, why should he give her up? Surely a love like this could not be wrong, it was as natural as breathing air. And whatever, Karen was not the reason for his lost faith. His eyes had been opened as he worked with the broken minds and bodies of the young soldiers at Greenfields.

  He had already kept an appointment with his bishop. Sean was quite wrong in thinking he could help.

  ‘I am living a lie, my life is a sham,’ Patrick had said. And he had listened dumbly to phrases which were supposed to help. Phrases which meant nothing at all to him, they were only words and hadn’t he mouthed similar phrases himself, to the young men on the wards? ‘Is there something you are not telling me, my son, something, someone, involved in this, drawing you away?’ asked the bishop. Was he used to young priests coming to him like this, ordinary men who had thought they were above ordinary human love and had discovered they were wrong? Or did a priest sometimes panic when he realized that he was human after all and fallible, he could not be Christ, he could not even be Christlike?

  Patrick had not told the bishop about Karen, he could not. He shook his head. ‘You must pray, get down on your knees.’ ‘God knows, I have prayed …’

  ‘You would not use such a term if you did not believe, deep in your heart. You are risking your immortal soul here, man.’ The bishop had sounded irritated, impatient. ‘You must pray, pray unceasingly that God will forgive you.’

  Patrick had left unmoved in his resolution. When he entered the priesthood he had been following a path which was mapped out for him since he was a child. Then he had thought what a grand thing it would be to be a priest. He had listened to his mother and shared in her fervour. Oh, how she had worked and longed for him to become a priest, how she boasted about him to anyone who would listen.

  ‘Patrick is to go to Maynooth,’ she’d said, bringing it into every conversation she had with anybody. And Patrick had listened and desperately wanted it. He worked and prayed that he would succeed. He had a true vocation, he was sure of it. It had been the happiest day of his young life when he entered the seminary. His faith was absolute, his love of God the greatest thing in his life. The beauty of the Mass, the sublime beauty of the Catholic Faith itself … there had been no doubts then, none at all.

  But the war had changed everything. He felt his eyes were well and truly opened now. He drained his glass and rose to his feet. He had come to a decision. In these last weeks he had avoided Karen as he struggled to make up his mind. But tomorrow he would go to her and tell her, ask her to forgive him for the way he had treated her. It was not his love for Karen which had forced his decision, he told himself. It was the senseless suffering and slaughter of this war, the wasted lives such as Private O’Donnel’s, the misery of war. It was a world revealed without God. Patrick bade the barman a short ‘Goodnight’ and left the inn.

  Next morning, though his resolve remained firm, Patrick had to change his plans. In the post there was a letter from Betty, his sister-in-law. His brother James was home from France, having sustained an injury to his left arm in the battle for Passchendaele and he was home on leave recuperating.

  ‘… it’s not serious,’ Betty had written. ‘He would have written himself except that he is left-handed, as you know. Still, we would be pleased to see you if you could manage to get up to London for a few days.’

  ‘Of course you must go, Patrick,’ said Father Brown when told of the letter. ‘You’ve been looking strained yourself these last weeks. A spell away at your brother’s will do you good. Don’t worry about the boys at Greenfields, I’ll see to them. After all, it’s only for a few days. Or perhaps a week. Take a week, Patrick.’

  Nothing could change much in a week, he told himself. He thought of leaving a note for Karen, but how could he express in a note what he felt? He could go to see her at Mrs Blakey’s cottage but he knew she would be going to bed for the day just about this time. She might already have gone. And Mrs Blakey might ask awkward questions if he insisted on seeing Karen. Annie had looked sideways at him the last time she had seen him with Karen. In the end, he went off to Hackney, which was where his brother lived, without doing anything to get in touch with Karen at all. She would still be at the hospital when he got back, he reasoned, and in the meanwhile he had more time to consider his best course of action.

  James, Patrick’s brother, was sitting in a comfortable armchair before the fire with his youngest child Alice, who was three years old, on his knee, sleeping. He was a tall, strong man with a red face sporting a thick moustache and a close-cropped head which only showed the black of his hair by the line of slightly longer hair at the top of his brow. He looked to be in the rudest of health were it not for the fact that his left arm was in a sling.

  ‘Ah, it’s you, Patrick,’ he bellowed, whereupon the child in his arms woke up and started to grizzle. ‘Betty! Come and see to Alice, will you? She wants her bed, I’m thinking.’

  ‘I don’t want to go to bed, Daddy,’ cried Alice, her grizzles turning to wails so that Patrick had to raise his voice to be heard over the din.

  ‘Hallo, James. You look well enough I must say. Betty said you had been hurt but there’s not much sign of any injury from here. Are you sure you haven’t been having us on?’

  ‘Shame on you, and you a priest. It’s hard as nails you are,’ said James cheerfully.

  ‘What’s all this racket? For God’s sake, give me little Alice, Jimmy. She may be our third but you haven’t an idea in your head about children. Why you want to go shouting on as though you were on the parade ground, I don’t … Oh, hallo, Patrick. How good of you to come. Take a seat while I see to Alice, I’ll not be long.’

  Betty took the protesting Alice away and Patrick took off his coat and hung it over a chair before sitting down in what was obviously Betty’s chair, an American rocker upholstered in a peculiar shade of lime green. Sitting back and stretching his long legs out to the warmth of the fire, he nodded towards the sling on his brother’s arm.

  ‘How bad is it then?’ he asked. ‘It has to be fairly bad for them to send you home like this.’

  ‘Not so bad, not so bad. I was due some leave soon, it just meant I got back a bit early. It’s just a flesh wound, healing already. Right through my sergeant’s stripes it went, though, and me just having sewn them on. Still, at least it meant I could get Betty to sew them on the new jacket.’

  ‘Sergeant, eh? When did this happen?’

  ‘Ah, well, promotion comes quickly in this war.’

  James’s face saddened for a brief second but then he smiled across at Patrick.

  ‘And how are you getting along now? How do you like it in Essex? Keep you busy do they, the English?’

  ‘Irish, a lot of them,’ said Patrick. He gazed into his brother’s kindly face and was tempted to tell him all his troubles. But this was not the time. Betty would be coming back into the room and no doubt his young nephew and niece would be turning up soon.

  ‘Irish?’

  ‘At Greenfields, it’s a military hospital, a convalescent home really. We get quite a few Irish.’

  A tinge of sadness ran through him as he thought of Private O’Donnel.

  ‘Injured fighting an English war,’ said James, startling Patrick for the same thought
was running through his own head.

  ‘It’s terrible times just now,’ James continued.

  Just then the back door opened and Jimmy and Mary, the older two children, came in. Betty came down from putting Alice to bed and set about preparing a meal. Patrick sat back in his chair and watched his brother’s family, the two children squabbling one minute and laughing together the next, their mother bustling about and every now and then, when the squabbling threatened to turn into an out and out boxing match, scolding them absentmindedly. And James, the father, sitting back in his chair, contentedly puffing on an old briar pipe and letting it all flow over his head. And even though James would inevitably have to go back to France in a week or two, Patrick envied him. Oh, how he envied him. The feeling was a hard, poisonous ball in the pit of his stomach with tentacles reaching into his brain. He smiled at the two children who were sitting under the table out of the way of their mother’s feet, playing a game of five stones and arguing about it.

  ‘They remind me of when we were their age,’ he said to James. ‘Didn’t you always cheat, just like that one?’ He indicated the little girl, Mary, who was blatant in her determination to win the game. James grinned and sucked on his pipe contentedly.

  After supper, the two men decided to go to the Lion, the pub on the corner.

  ‘Go on, out of my way,’ said Betty. ‘It’ll give me a chance to get these two off to bed and put my feet up for an hour.’

  James had obviously been waiting for this for he rose to his feet with alacrity, tapping out his pipe on the bar of the fire and putting it into his pocket.

  ‘Get me the can and I’ll bring you back a pint of stout,’ he said. ‘Coming, Patrick?’

  Once the brothers were settled at a table in the pub with pint pots of porter before them, James took a long swallow of his drink before gazing across at Patrick.

  ‘Now then, out with it. Tell me what it is that’s ailing you.’

  ‘There’s nothing –’ Patrick began a half-hearted denial but James interrupted him.

  ‘Don’t be trying to cod me. I know there’s something and by the look of you it’s something serious. So out with it now.’

  Once Patrick began, he found it hard to stop before he had told James the whole story. He sat gazing at the pot of untouched porter and said it all; his doubts about God, his loss of faith, a loss which was deepened by his feeling of helplessness when he saw the broken minds and bodies of the young boys who came to Greenfields. He even told James of Private O’Donnel, the boy who was blinded in the war and had come to Greenfields to convalesce. He told his brother of how he had tried to comfort Private O’Donnel, the hours he had spent with him, talking to him about God. And how he had failed the young soldier in the end for Private O’Donnel had killed himself. James listened, saying nothing, waiting until Patrick had finished.

  ‘So you see, I failed him,’ Patrick said at last. ‘How could I not fail him when my own faith had gone? I should never have been a priest, James. I’m a sham, pretending to something I have not got. The war just made me realize it sooner than I might have done. I am an ordinary man, I want to have an ordinary life – a life like yours. A wife and a family.’

  He thought about Karen, picturing her doing the things which Betty had done earlier in the evening, making a meal and seeing to children with himself there, looking on. And the thought was unbearably sweet to him.

  James sat silently for a short while. He took a drink of his porter and replaced the pot on the table, his brow creased in thought. Absently, he rubbed the elbow of his injured arm with his good hand.

  ‘I worried about you even before you entered the seminary,’ he said eventually. ‘It was Mam, wasn’t it? She was desperate to have a son a priest. She pushed you too much.’

  ‘It wasn’t all Mam,’ Patrick demurred. ‘I was dazzled by the idea too. I was sure I had a true vocation, persuaded myself into it. But what if I left the priesthood now, James? The shame would kill her.’

  ‘No, no, she would survive, she’s a strong woman. We all have to live our own lives, Patrick, do what we think is the best for ourselves. Can’t you remember how she went on when I told her I wanted to marry Betty, a Protestant and an English woman at that? I would be cast out from the family, she said, she would never speak to me again. Yet once Betty and I were married, she came round. Such a fuss she made over Jimmy and Mary when we took them over to Clare.’

  Patrick smiled, remembering the day in 1914 when James had brought his family over from England to see them. He had been home himself for the weekend and he would never forget his mother’s face as she saw her grandchildren for the first time. Her natural hospitality had forced her to welcome her son’s wife and the only question she had asked was whether the children were being brought up in the true religion, were they baptized Catholics?

  ‘They are indeed, Mother, what else would they be?’ James had answered.

  Patrick’s smile faded as he remembered he had not yet told James about Karen. He hesitated, not at all sure how to bring up the subject.

  ‘You are very happy with Betty,’ he said at last.

  James snorted. ‘I would be, were it not for this blessed war. I’ll be going back to that hell-hole next week, not even knowing if I’ll see her or the children again before the next world. For the love of God, man, how happy can we be under such conditions?’

  Patrick was contrite. ‘I’m sorry, James,’ he hastened to say. ‘Here am I going on about my troubles when you have such terrible ones of your own.’

  ‘Everyone has troubles, especially in wartime. I’m sorry too, sorry I let loose like that. Come on, drink your porter and I’ll get another in before we go back.’

  When James came back from the bar with the pots in his hand, he had obviously been mulling over what had been said for he glanced shrewdly at his brother.

  ‘What made you ask if Betty and I were happy just now?’

  Patrick shrugged. ‘Oh, I don’t know.’

  ‘Come on now, there’s something else, some girl, is it?’ James nodded as Patrick looked up in surprise. ‘I thought so. Well, tell me about her then.’

  Patrick began, slowly at first, but then his voice took on the unmistakable tone of love and enthusiasm as he talked to his brother about Karen, how lovely she was, what a good nurse, how good and sympathetic with the young men at Greenfields. He told James of how he talked to her during the small hours, how good she was to talk to, how she seemed to understand him.

  ‘I love her, James. I want to marry her and settle down and have a family by her.’

  James pursed his lips and Patrick watched him anxiously, waiting for the words of condemnation he was sure would come. But when James spoke he simply asked about Karen’s name.

  ‘Karen? That’s a funny name, isn’t it?’

  ‘From the Bible – Karen-happuch, daughter of Job,’ said Patrick. ‘Her father is a Methodist local preacher.’

  James whistled between his teeth. ‘Is he, by God? Well, would you think of that now?’ He looked up at the clock above the bar which showed ten o’clock. ‘We’d best be getting back now, I’ll just get Betty her stout,’ he said, picking up the can he’d brought with him and going to the bar.

  Patrick stared at his back, his feelings in turmoil. It had felt good telling his story to James; his brother had listened so sympathetically to it all. Yet his attitude seemed to change when Patrick told him about Karen. Had James turned against him?

  In this Patrick was mistaken. As they went out into the dark, foggy night, Patrick carrying the can of stout for Betty, James turned to his brother.

  ‘Listen, Patrick. If there is one thing I have learned in this blasted war it is that you have to seize every chance of happiness you can get so long as you’re not causing harm to anyone else by doing so. You have your own life to live and you must live it. If you want this girl, if you love her, then you must leave the church and marry her, and to hell with everything else.’

  It was a week l
ater when Patrick took the train down to Littlemarsh. Though he had been anxious to get back to Karen, he knew James was enjoying his company. In any case, he himself was enjoying being in the centre of a family again, could feel his spirits lightening as the week went by.

  He walked briskly out of the station and turned on to the road which led to Greenfields village. His mind was made up. He would drop his bag off at the presbytery, get Daisy and the trap, and go straight on to the hospital to see Karen.

  Father Brown came out of the study as he entered the hallway.

  ‘You’re back then, Father. How did you find your brother?’

  ‘Yes, I’m back.’ Patrick paused, anxious to be off again. ‘James is fine, Father. It was a minor wound in his arm, it’s almost healed.’ He hesitated. ‘Look, Father, I must go now, I have an urgent appointment. I’ll see you when I get back and we’ll have a long talk.’

  Father Brown sounded huffy. ‘Very well, very well, if you must go, you must. Though where you have to go in such a rush is a mystery to me, you haven’t even read your messages yet. You had a visitor, too.’

  But Patrick had gone. He was racing round to the stable behind the house and didn’t hear the last few words. Soon he was driving through the village and on up the lane to Greenfields Hospital. Arriving at last at the front door of the old house, he jumped down from the trap and hurried into the hall, only to be told Karen had left the hospital.

  And now he was opening the gate of Annie’s cottage and knocking at her door. Please still be here, Karen, he murmured as the front door opened and Annie stood there, a lamp held high in her hand.

  ‘Father Murphy!’ she exclaimed. ‘What on earth are you doing here at this time of night? Come in, come in, do. Is there something wrong?’

  Chapter Seventeen

  ‘I’M SORRY, YOU’LL just have to find somewhere else to live. I simply can’t do with it, man. There’s all that racket during the night disturbing my lodgers an’ all, not to mention the washing.’