A Nurse's Duty

by Maggie Hope

  ‘Da!’ cried Karen. ‘No, he doesn’t. Don’t question Patrick like –’

  ‘Let the lad answer for himself,’ said Da quietly. ‘I just want to know what sort of a man he is.’

  ‘I don’t drink,’ said Patrick, glancing at Karen’s distressed face. And he thought of the last time he had had a drink. It was with a man from Paddy’s Row, he remembered.

  Da opened his mouth to continue the catechism.

  ‘Thomas,’ said Rachel Knight quietly, ‘leave the lad alone.’

  ‘But he’s a Catholic, born and bred,’ said Da. ‘I have to make sure he won’t force our Karen. And then there’s the bairn, an’ all.’

  ‘I won’t,’ said Patrick. His voice was still reasonable but his eyes had gone hard and Karen felt a twinge of foreboding. ‘I am not a practising Catholic.’

  Da was struck dumb. He sat down at the table, unsure what to make of this.

  ‘We’ll have our tea now,’ said Mam, and Karen brought the food out of the pantry and poured cups of tea in a lengthening silence broken only by her father’s intoning of the Grace.

  Karen took Brian into the front room to feed and change him. All the while she sat on the hard, prickly seat of the horsehair settee and strained her ears to catch any signs of normal conversation from the kitchen. She could hear her mother’s voice, offering Patrick an extra buttered teacake, and his courteous acceptance. But she couldn’t hear her father at all. She thought of how he had questioned Patrick. He hadn’t mentioned anything about his being a priest; the fact that he was a Catholic was more important to him. The baby finished his meal and she buttoned up her dress and put him against her shoulder to bring up the wind. And then the door opened and she looked up eagerly. Kezia’s presence would help, she thought. If she brought in the children everyone would relax.

  But it wasn’t Kezia, it was a man, a tall, dark, sun-tanned man, still in a khaki uniform with a sergeant’s stripes and wearing a bush hat.

  ‘Hello, our Karen,’ he said. ‘I didn’t expect to find you here, I was coming up to see you tomorrow.’

  ‘Joe!’ she cried. ‘Oh, Joe.’ Still holding the baby, she jumped to her feet and rushed to him and he opened his arms to her and hugged her and her baby to him.

  Suddenly the room was filled with family. There was Mam crying over her son and holding on to his arm as though she would never let him go. And Da was patting him on the back and beaming with delight. And Kezia came running in with little Meg in her arms and Tommy and Young Luke by her side, closely followed by her husband, fresh bathed after his night in the pit and with his trousers pulled hastily over his nightshirt. Everyone was laughing and talking and asking how long Joe could stay and no one noticed Patrick at first as he stood in the doorway from the kitchen and watched.

  ‘Howay, lad, don’t be shy. Come on in and meet your brother-in-law. Joe, this is our Karen’s man.’

  It was Da who had been the first to remember Patrick and he had gone to the door and taken hold of his arm and drawn him in to the family group.

  Joe, who had taken Brian from Karen and was holding him easily in his arms, admiring him, looked at Patrick and nodded his head slightly. But he smiled and Karen knew he liked what he saw.

  ‘Hello there,’ he said at last, giving Patrick his free hand. ‘So you’re the fellow who’s taken on our Karen, are you? Aye, well, no doubt you’ll make her a good man and look after this little chap.’

  Karen’s heart swelled. Everything was all right, Patrick was accepted into the family. She smiled gratefully at Joe. It was his coming home which had worked the miracle, she thought. Dear Joe, all her life he had helped her over difficult times, even when he had been all that way away in Australia.

  ‘We sail next Saturday,’ he was saying, his arm around his mother’s shoulders and Kezia’s children gazing up at him with round, wonder-filled eyes.

  ‘So soon?’ said Mam, her smile dimming for an instant.

  He kissed her lightly. ‘I’ll be back though, Mam, don’t fret. I won’t forget you.’

  ‘I should think not indeed,’ said Kezia tartly, and they all laughed.

  Reluctantly, Karen and Patrick prepared to leave. They had to be back to help with the evening chores. The whole family walked with them to the bus stop at the end of the rows, just outside the gates of the pit yard.

  ‘Try and get down to see us a bit more often, pet,’ said Mam, kissing Karen goodbye. ‘I know it’s not that easy, what with your gran and the farm, but we do love to see you. And give my love to Gran, will you? Maybe this summer I’ll be well enough to get up to see her.’

  ‘I will,’ promised Karen.

  Joe, who had been carrying Brian, handed him over to her as the bus came round the corner with a grinding of gears and Karen and Patrick climbed aboard and sat down. To a chorus of goodbyes from the others and a ‘chin-chin’ from Joe, they were off, the longed for yet dreaded visit over.

  Karen’s eyes met Patrick’s and they smiled at each other in mutual understanding. They had made their peace with Karen’s parents, or at least they were reconciled, and Karen felt as though a cloud was lifted from her mind. The bus wound its way through the pit villages to Bishop Auckland where they would change for Weardale. It was as they descended from it that they met Robert walking along the pavement, his medical bag in his hand.

  ‘Hello, Karen,’ he said quietly, stopping short and politely lifting his hat. She moved the sleeping Brian to a more comfortable position on her arm as she looked up at him. Beside her she could feel the change in Patrick, a tension in him.

  ‘Robert,’ she said. ‘It’s nice to see you.’ Looking up at him she saw there were fine lines around his eyes and mouth, a bleak look in his eyes as he glanced at the sleeping baby and then at Patrick. There was a small silence. She wanted to tell him she was sorry, for him to tell her it didn’t matter, he was getting on with his life, she hadn’t hurt him really. But as he looked gravely down at her, she faltered, there was nothing to say. In the end it was Patrick who took her arm in a proprietorial gesture.

  ‘We have to go, Karen,’ he said, and drew her away.

  ‘There’s influenza in Stanhope. Spanish, they reckon,’ said Jack, and Karen felt a surge of apprehension.

  The postman began to bring daily reports of the folk laid low with the new plague and eventually of the deaths which it brought in its wake. And then, almost inevitably, it made an unwelcome visit to Low Rigg Farm.

  It happened one day when Patrick was out on the fell seeking a lost ewe. It was lambing time and Nick and Karen were busy among the sheep in the pasture. Gran had been persuaded to stay in the warmth of the kitchen to look after Brian and prepare a hot meal, for the weather had taken a turn for the worse as so often happened in April. It was very cold with an east wind promising snow.

  ‘Well, we found her. Or I should say Flossie did,’ Patrick announced as he returned with the ewe and her lamb and turned them into the fold.

  ‘A good strong lamb too,’ Karen answered, and smiled in satisfaction. ‘That’s twenty so far. Not bad if we can manage to keep them all.’

  ‘Are you done?’ Patrick was hungry, it had been a long day. ‘I wonder what there is for supper?’

  ‘You’ll be getting fat,’ laughed Karen as Nick came up behind them. Linking her arm through Patrick’s, they all walked leisurely back to the farmhouse.

  Foreboding struck all three as they turned into the yard. Something was wrong. No smoke curled from the chimney, no delicious cooking smells emanated from the house. They quickened their steps and eventually broke into a run as they heard fretful cries from the kitchen. Brian was awake and obviously nobody was attending to his needs. Karen was the first to burst through the door.

  ‘Gran? Gran?’ she called anxiously, but there was no reply. Going into the kitchen, she gazed anxiously around but couldn’t see her grandmother at first. Quickly she ran over to the cradle and picked up the red-faced, sobbing baby, checking him fearfully. But the only thing wrong
with him seemed to be that he was decidedly damp and chilly. His sobs lessened as he felt his mother’s arms around him and Karen looked about her as Patrick and Nick came in. The fire was out and the air was cold and dank. Where on earth was Gran?

  ‘Gran!’

  Patrick had seen her first, lying on the flagged floor, half-hidden by the dresser. Carefully he picked her up and laid her on the settee, chafing her hands which were blue with cold. She must have been lying on the cold stones for some time, they realized, to get as thoroughly chilled as she had done. Karen handed the baby to Nick who rocked him gently in his one arm to still his protests.

  She felt Gran’s fluctuating pulse and burning brow and immediately took charge, issuing directions to the two men.

  ‘Get some firewood and light the fire, Patrick. And you, Nick, go and get the blankets from her bed.’

  ‘What about the bairn?’ he said, perplexed.

  ‘Oh, give me the baby.’

  Deftly she whipped a nappy which had been airing from the brass line under the mantle shelf and made the child comfortable. Then, despite his protests, she put him back in his cradle, fastening him in with the strap. Brian was getting to the age when he could sit up and maybe climb out.

  Soon the fire was blazing up the chimney and giving off a cheering heat which quickly warmed the kitchen. Karen filled the stone bottles with hot water as soon as the kettle boiled and placed them around Gran, who was flushed and delirious and breathing heavily.

  Meanwhile, Patrick had harnessed Polly to the trap and rushed away for the doctor. But Doctor Oliver was already out on calls and it was not until the early morning that he arrived at Low Rigg Farm, looking grey and exhausted. He shook his head as soon as he saw the old lady, who looked somehow diminished as she lay propped up by the pillows which Karen had arranged behind her in an effort to help her breathing.

  ‘Careful nursing, that’s all you can give her,’ the doctor said to Karen. ‘She is in good hands at least which is more than can be said for some of them. But, you know, Mrs Rain’s a good age now. You must be prepared for the worst.’

  Gran was buried in the little churchyard in the dale the following week. It was pneumonia which had complicated her illness, a particularly virulent type, and the end was swift and inevitable. But still Karen was devastated. With all her experience of nursing she should have been able to save her, she agonized. What had she done wrong?

  ‘Nothing,’ said Patrick. ‘You did all you could for her, Karen.’

  The interment followed a moving service in the Chapel attended by few mourners, for the dale was stricken with the new plague and most people who were still well were attending to their own sick or dying. Karen stood with Patrick’s arm around her as Gran was lowered into the grave, and her shoulders shook with sobs. Keenly, she felt the absence of friends and neighbours. Even the Bainbridges were absent for Mrs Bainbridge was also down with the ’flu. But worst of all there was no one from Morton Main. None of the family could come to the funeral. The plague was taking its toll there also and Mam was one of its first victims. She was gravely ill.

  Patrick and Karen went back to the farm afterwards. He put away the trap and turned Polly out into the pasture and Karen went into the kitchen to start the dinner. For the first time since she could remember there was no proper funeral tea, no one had come back with them to eat and reminisce about the departed. ‘Giving her a good send-off’, as Gran would have said.

  ‘There’s a telegram on the table,’ said Nick, looking at Karen with red-rimmed, anxious eyes and the nervous tic pulsing away in his face. Everything which affected her affected him also, she thought numbly, but there was no comfort left in her to give him.

  When Patrick came in she was sitting holding the sheet of yellow paper in her hand, the telegram which told of the death of her mother from the same plague.

  ‘Nick, take Brian out a while, will you?’ he asked, and Nick picked up the baby without a word and went out into the yard.

  Patrick took the paper from Karen’s hand and read the few stark words then he lifted her up in his arms and held her tight.

  ‘It was too much for her worn-out heart, I should think,’ said Karen, her voice expressionless. ‘Poor Mam, poor Mam. And Da … Patrick, what will Da do now?’

  But he had no answer for her. All he could do was hold her and comfort her.

  Karen and Patrick took Brian and travelled down for the day of her mother’s funeral, leaving Nick in charge of the farm. Karen was quiet and sad throughout the journey, full of wild regrets because she had not made time to take the baby to see Mam again before she died. Patrick too was quiet, his concern for her pain showing in his attentiveness to her.

  Coming into the old village of Morton, he was struck by the difference between it and its newer neighbour of Morton Main. The last time he was here he had been too concerned with meeting Karen’s parents to notice so much. The stone cottages had been built for agricultural labourers long ago, he surmised, they were far from being palaces but each had a front garden bright with flowers in sharp contrast to the mean rows of the pit village. But even here the towering slag heap and winding house could be seen overshadowing everything. He wrinkled his nose at the strong smell coming from the coke works and evident even this far away. He glanced at Karen but she seemed unaware of it. She held the baby to her, a set look on her face, as she started to walk down the road to Morton Main.

  ‘I’ll take Brian,’ Patrick said gently, holding out his arms for the baby.

  ‘No, no. Men don’t carry babies here,’ Karen said, and smiled briefly at him before the closed expression returned to her face. ‘It’s all right, love, I can manage him fine.’

  They walked in silence for a while until they turned into the rows. The windows of Chapel Row all had their curtains drawn as a mark of respect for the dead woman in their midst. An all-pervading dust permeated the air, but the windows and doorsteps were shining clean, obviously scrubbed that morning. The street was quiet, the children all at school and most of the men on shift at the pit, the rest in bed after night shift.

  Kezia opened the door to them, nodding coolly to Patrick and kissing Karen briefly on the cheek.

  ‘She’s in here.’ Kezia nodded towards the coffin in the front room and led them over to it ceremoniously. ‘I’ll be in the kitchen,’ she went on, and slipped away.

  Karen gazed down at her mother, tears welling in her eyes.

  ‘Come away now,’ said Patrick quietly. ‘Come away into the kitchen. A cup of tea is what you need just now.’

  He led her away into the warm kitchen where Da was sitting in his hard chair by the fire. He seemed dazed, overwhelmed by his loss, Karen saw, and she kissed him and murmured softly, her own grief submerged in his.

  After a moment or two she showed him the baby.

  ‘Here’s Brian, Da, look how he’s grown.’

  But he was taking little notice of anything, he didn’t look at Brian.

  Karen glanced at Kezia who was busy making sandwiches and tea, and Kezia caught her glance and gave her a direct stare in return.

  ‘Pity you didn’t bring the baby to see them more often before this happened,’ she said. Kezia was bitter, Karen realized.

  ‘Well, the weather. And Gran …’ she began lamely.

  Kezia’s expression showed she thought the faltering words poor excuse but she simply tossed her head and held her tongue.

  ‘I’ll help you with that,’ said Karen. She gave the baby to Patrick and, picking up a knife, started to butter bread. The sisters stood side by side at the table working on the sandwiches and eventually Kezia spoke.

  ‘I’m sorry, Karen, real sorry. I know you had Gran an’ all. I felt terrible when we couldn’t get up to the funeral, but what with Mam and young Meg both having the ’flu, well …’

  ‘I know,’ said Karen. ‘How’s Meg now, then?’

  ‘Better, thank God,’ sighed Kezia, pausing and closing her eyes for a second. ‘She’s awful poor-looking,
though.’

  The door opened and both sisters paused and looked up, knives poised in the air.

  ‘Jemima!’

  Everyone turned to look at the thin, middle-aged woman who stood in the doorway.

  ‘Yes, it’s me,’ she said. ‘Did you think I wouldn’t come to my own mother’s funeral?’

  Jemima walked up to her father and kissed his cheek and he half-rose from his chair to greet her, his face crumpling.

  ‘Jemima, oh, Jemima,’ he breathed, and hugged her to him.

  ‘Are you on your own?’ asked Kezia, glancing through the middle door which led from the front room.

  ‘I am,’ said Jemima, offering no further explanation.

  Karen and Kezia looked at each other, Kezia raising her eyebrows.

  ‘I sent her a telegram,’ she whispered to Karen, ‘but I didn’t even know if she was still at the same address. She’s not been back for years.’

  But any questions they had for Jemima had to wait as neighbours and friends began to file into the little house to pay their respects to the family before the funeral and there was no chance of further private conversation.

  Everyone but for the men on shift followed the coffin to the Chapel on the end of the row. Mr Richardson, a Supernumary Minister now, his hair sparse and white and his figure frail, led them into the Chapel intoning the words of the funeral service in a high, quavering voice: ‘Man born of woman has but a short time to live.’ The family filed in and took the front pew, Karen sitting between Patrick and Kezia.

  ‘We are here to celebrate the life and mourn the death of Rachel, a much loved member of our Society and a faithful handmaiden of the Lord,’ said Mr Richardson. Amen to that, thought Karen, oh yes.

  They sang ‘Abide With Me’, the sound swelling in the packed Chapel, and ‘The Lord’s My Shepherd’, to the tune so loved by Durham miners, Crimond. The old Minister gave a glowing account of Mam’s life, her fortitude in the face of ill-health, her love for her God and her family. And Karen, looking across at Da, saw how he was comforted by the words, and made proud. And then the service was over and they were thanking the Minister by the door of the Chapel, and for the first time, Karen noticed that Robert was there, standing by his father, offering words of comfort to Da and Jemima and Kezia. And then he was holding his hand out for hers and taking it in his cool, firm grip.