A Nurse's Duty

by Maggie Hope

  ‘I am so sorry, Karen,’ he said, his own eyes reflecting her pain. ‘I did my best for her, but you know the condition of her heart.’

  Of course, thought Karen, Kezia had told her Robert was the panel doctor now, looking after the miners and their families. He was a good man, he could have had a high flying career as a surgeon. ‘Thank you, I’m sure you did,’ she answered, and then they were following the coffin to the churchyard in Morton village where Mam was to be buried, and afterwards they returned to the cottage for the obligatory funeral tea.

  Patrick was very quiet and stayed near Karen, watchful. People cast curious glances at him, the stranger among them, but he was oblivious to them, his eyes only for her unhappiness. But it was her own folk Karen needed this day.

  ‘We can’t stay long, we must get back to the farm,’ she said to Kezia as they met in the little off-shoot pantry to fetch cakes and biscuits. Jemima, of course, took no part in serving the meal. She was sitting by Da and eating heartily.

  ‘No, of course not.’ Kezia was still a little formal with her as she bustled back out with laden plates. Karen watched her for a moment, troubled. She felt guilty herself because she had not made the time to visit her parents more. Kezia was right, she thought miserably. She should have found the time somehow.

  ‘We have to go, Da.’ Laying her hand on his shoulder, Karen kissed his cheek but he only nodded dumbly and looked back at Jemima. Karen was reminded of the parable of the prodigal son, or in this case, daughter. Sighing she looked at Patrick, unable to think of what to say, what comfort she could give.

  ‘Yes, yes, that’s it. The journey that is.’ Patrick came to her aid with quick concern, finding her coat and hat, helping her on with them.

  ‘You’re going already?’ said Jemima. ‘I thought we would have a talk.’

  ‘Sorry, I must. The animals, you know.’

  Jemima sniffed and turned away. Karen gazed at her back. Jemima never changed, she thought. Kezia went with them to the door.

  ‘I’m sorry if I was sharp with you, our Karen,’ she said. ‘I know it wasn’t easy for you to get down. And look at Jemima, she hasn’t been here for years.’

  ‘I’ll be back a bit sooner than that,’ promised Karen, and hugged Kezia.

  They did not linger, for indeed it was true that they couldn’t leave Nick for too long even though he was good with the stock despite his handicap. Sadly they walked up to the bus stop to await the bus to Old Morton village.

  On the train back to Stanhope they were silent, each of them lost in thought. Karen gazed at the sleeping baby, symbol of the future. She looked out of the window at the fields which were bright with the green grass of early summer. This was the time for a fresh start, she told herself firmly. But her mind was full of scenes of her childhood and an aching regret for things she should have said to her mother, or perhaps have left unsaid.

  Patrick held on to his own thoughts. He was remembering the rickets he had seen in the children of the mining village, the worn faces of the adults. He felt ill from the smell of the coke works and had been unable to eat anything at the funeral tea. His own childhood had been poor but at least the air had been fit to breathe. Thank God they were living on the moor, breathing clean, fresh air, no matter how hard the life, he thought. Seeing Karen among her family at such a time had made him look at her with new eyes, giving him renewed respect for her strength of purpose in getting away from the mining community, making her own way and yet still maintaining close bonds with her family. And he thought again of his own parents. He would write to them before it was too late, he had put it off long enough. And surely, after all this time, his mother would have forgiven him?

  ‘Here we are.’ Karen broke into his thoughts as the train drew into Stanhope. She was wrapping the shawl closely round Brian against the cold wind which was blowing down from the tops and sweeping through the valley.

  He watched the curve of her cheek as she bent over the baby. Mother and child seemed vulnerable somehow tonight. He felt a surge of protectiveness sweep over him. Tenderly he helped her down from the train. They were both shivering in the strong wind.

  ‘Soon be home,’ he said, and realized the farm really did feel more like home to him after the pit village.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  LIFE ON THE farm without Gran seemed strange to Karen and the feeling lasted for month after month. She would come into the kitchen and look around for the familiar figure, and each time the feeling of loss which overcame her as she remembered was just as strong. They had applied to the Church Commissioners for the tenancy to pass to them and one morning, Patrick came into the kitchen with the letter in his hand.

  ‘We’ve got it then,’ he commented.

  Karen looked around her in satisfaction. She had always loved this place but since she and Patrick had come to live here she loved it more. They could work for a better future now, she thought. He had found work in the kilns in May. It was hard labouring and poorly paid, but it was work. He helped fill the small wagons with coke and limestone which then ran on the railed wagon-way to the kiln where they were tipped. It took two full days to load it up to the top, another two days to burn through. Only then could the lime be shovelled out at the bottom.

  Karen worried about him. She worried about him all the time, even now as he sat down to his breakfast before going to work. It was morning, he hadn’t even started yet, and he still looked tired.

  He had come in white from the lime the night before and had, as usual, to sluice himself down in the scullery. His clothes were thick with the dust and Karen dashed them against the wall in the yard to get rid of it, just as she had dashed her father’s clothes when she had lived in Morton Main, to get rid of the coal dust. Oh, yes, she worried about him. She was aware that he found the work hard, not being raised to it. Even when the lime was washed off, he looked white and strained. He did not complain, though almost every night he fell asleep in his chair the moment he sat down.

  Nevertheless, Karen was happy and content with her life. Sometimes love for Patrick and their baby would bubble up in her and she would think, it can’t last, with a little pang of foreboding. But she pushed it away, the thought. Of course it would last, why shouldn’t it? The feel of Patrick’s hand on her breast was still enough to make her pulse leap in ecstasy, just as it had in the beginning, and she felt his need for her was still as intense as it had ever been.

  She rushed to the door and picked up Brian who was climbing over the step in search of his beloved Nick.

  ‘Howay, my lad, you stay here and eat your breakfast,’ she said as she put him in his high chair. Brian’s mouth turned down and he prepared to wail for Nick.

  ‘Nick’s coming, he’s coming now,’ Patrick put in swiftly. Karen looked at him, wondering if he was jealous of Brian’s affection for Nick, but he was smiling indulgently at the boy.

  ‘Aren’t you a big strong lad, then?’ he said, picking Brian up and swinging him in the air, and Brian’s pout turned to a delighted grin.

  He was growing strong and healthy, Karen thought happily. Now he could walk, he would toddle after Nick on his sturdy little legs whenever he got the chance. He was devoted to Nick and Nick was devoted to him. Brian showed no fear of the animals in the yard, waving his arms imperiously at them if they were in his way or chattering to them unintelligibly. Consequently they were friendly towards him, even the gander and his harem, now grown to six.

  Karen went out to the gate to call Nick in from the pasture. It was one of those days when she could see clearly over to the far horizon, the sweep of the fells around her filled with the bleating of sheep. A blossom from the rowan tree above her drifted down and landed on her shoe. She looked idly at it. The tree had been covered with blossom this year, there would be a good crop of rowan berries.

  ‘Rowan tree and red thread, Put the witches to their speed.’ Idly she quoted the old Weardale saying. Leaning against the trunk, she called to Nick who was busy at the other end of the
pasture, checking Polly’s hooves. He lifted his head and called back, and she waved and straightened up and walked slowly back to the kitchen. For the first time since the deaths of her mother and grandmother, Karen felt a lightening of the sadness within her.

  ‘Mammy, Mammy,’ cried Brian from his high chair by the table, his chubby face smeared with honey. Patrick looked up from his breakfast and smiled and somehow he didn’t look so tired and strained, just happy. And Karen felt her own love for them welling up in her and filling her world.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  KAREN WALKED ALONG the lane to meet Patrick, Brian trotting solemnly by her side. At two and three-quarters he was the quiet one of her two children. Eighteen-month-old Jennie clung to her skirts, stumbling a little but independent, insisting on walking herself.

  Patrick was bring home the two little pigs which would be fattened throughout the year. It was the spring of 1921, fine and dry, the birds were singing, fresh grass pushing strongly through the ground. Karen was completely absorbed in her family, exulting in the warmth of the day and the sun on her back. She even gave a little skip as she walked along.

  ‘Clap your hands for Daddy coming down the waggon way, a pocket full of money and a cartload of hay,’ she sang to Jennie, and caught her up in her arms and swung her over her head. The little girl crowed with delight. She sang along merrily, completely out of tune and making up the words as she went along.

  ‘But he’s bringing piggies, not hay, Mammy.’ Brian had stopped to face her. ‘And this is the lane, not the waggon way.’ He had a literal frame of mind, and knew the waggon way was up by the kiln.

  ‘Oh, Brian, it’s a nursery rhyme,’ Karen laughed helplessly as she stooped and gathered him into her arms with Jennie, hugging them both. He wriggled to be free.

  ‘Don’t, Mammy, don’t! Let me down. I’m a big boy now,’ he cried.

  ‘Oh, yes, I forgot,’ she answered, and put him back on to his feet.

  ‘Daddy! Daddy!’ Jennie had caught sight of Patrick as he came out of the dip in the lane. Amid great excitement and exclamations over the piglets, even Brian broke into little hops and skips while grinning from ear to ear.

  ‘Let me hold one,’ he begged. ‘I can hold one.’

  ‘Me, me!’ cried Jennie.

  ‘Not now,’ decreed their father. ‘Later, when they’ve settle down.

  ‘Please, Daddy?’ pleaded Brian, but Patrick shook his head and reluctantly they made their way back to the farm.

  ‘Nick, Nick.’

  The little girl struggled from Karen’s arms and ran to him, her excitement bubbling as she stumbled to him on fat little legs. Nick caught her up with his good arm, pleasure shining from him.

  ‘What is it, flower?’ he laughed at her. ‘Piggies, is it?’

  ‘Piglets. It’s piglets.’ This was Brian who had given up baby talk.

  ‘Let’s see then.’ Nick turned to Patrick, becoming businesslike, holding the child easily on one hip. He cast a critical look over the squealing animals as they were turned into the pen. He still did not trust Patrick’s judgement entirely, not in farming matters, though Patrick protested he had been born and raised on a farm.

  ‘It was not a dales farm, though, not like these round here, was it?’ Nick had pointed out.

  ‘Not much different,’ Patrick had argued, but Nick had been disbelieving about that. After all, the farm where Patrick had been born was in a different country altogether, wasn’t it?

  In this case, however, he could find no fault with the piglets.

  ‘Not bad little ’uns,’ he pronounced, and Patrick grinned at Karen. She smiled back at him, remembering the little outbursts of jealousy he had once shown towards Nick. Now at least the two men seemed friendly enough.

  ‘Tea then, eh?’

  Karen’s smile embraced them all as she went into the kitchen and put on the kettle. It was baking day and the loaves were spread on the steel fender to rise. The room was warm from the fire needed to heat the warm air oven, and the stotty cake, a flat bread cake baked on the bottom shelf of the oven, was now ready to come out to eat with the tea. It smelt heavenly. Taking the oven cloth from the brass line, Karen deftly slid the cake out on to the table to cool while she waited for the kettle to boil. Testing the oven with her hand, she filled it with the waiting loaves.

  ‘Don’t touch,’ she said as she looked round and saw Brian reaching for the cake. ‘It’s hot. I’ll give you some in a minute.’ She smiled fondly at his blush. Brian hated to be scolded. Patrick and Nick came in with Jennie and they sat around the table eating great chunks of the hot bread smothered in butter and treacle.

  ‘We might do well with them,’ observed Nick, meaning the piglets.

  ‘Aye, we might,’ drawled Patrick, imitating Nick’s accent and winking at Karen.

  These had been good years for them since the war, she reflected. They were making a modest living and the children were growing up strong and healthy. Nick still helped out on the farm, rarely leaving it. She glanced at him, wondering whether to broach the subject of wages with him once again. She no longer took board money from him but he refused any payment for his work, saying his small pension was enough for him. After a moment’s thought, she decided to wait. She would ask Patrick to try.

  All in all things were working out well, thought Karen as she looked round the table. Patrick, though brought up in the country, was not what anyone would call a handyman. His mind was often on other things, he didn’t seem to notice when small repairs needed doing around the place. Nick, despite his handicap, was more practical; he would suggest repairs and improvements when he saw the need for them.

  Karen counted her blessings, thinking of the news from Morton Main, contained in her last letter from Kezia a few weeks before. That had been a very different story. The post-war boom in coal production was waning, the outlook was unsure. Young Luke would soon reach his thirteenth birthday and would leave school to join his father at the pit.

  Kezia’s tone had been defensive as she wrote this last. The extra money was needed at home and Luke would reach the standard and pass the examination so he could leave school, Karen thought about it with sadness. Luke was a bright boy. In another world he would have gone to university perhaps but here he would sit the exam which would allow him to leave school, the one which showed he could read and write and do arithmetic and didn’t need any more schooling.

  ‘Something wrong?’ Patrick said softly as he noticed the faraway expression on her face.

  ‘No, no.’ Karen smiled intimately at him, her brown eyes tender. ‘I was just thinking how lucky we are.’

  For a moment they shared the precious communion of minds while the children laughed and talked to Nick in the background. They were brought rudely back to the present by a loud knocking on the door. They hadn’t heard a cart or trap coming into the yard. Who could it be?

  ‘I’ll go.’ Brian jumped up, excitement lighting his eyes. He loved visitors, they were usually people of the dale and he knew them all.

  Karen rose too, pleasantly anticipating a chat with a neighbour and laughing at the boy as he rushed through to the scullery. She followed him leisurely, glad that there was new baking to offer whoever it was. Brian stood on tiptoe to reach the latch and she let him stretch to do it himself. But when the door swung open at last his excited words of greeting were cut short. These visitors were strangers. Brian backed away shyly to his mother’s skirts and stood there, peeping round her. Karen stared in sudden shock. Unable to speak for a moment, she held on to the door with one hand while with the other she pulled Brian close in to her protectively.

  ‘Is Patrick Murphy at home?’

  The question was bald, unaccompanied by a greeting. The speaker was the priest who had come to the farm a couple of years earlier, the friend of Robert Richardson’s. Sean, that was his name. He was with another priest, a stranger to Karen, but she had not forgotten Sean. She gazed past him at a man and woman in their early sixties, an ordinary
enough looking couple but it was the man’s face which filled Karen with foreboding. She knew this was Patrick’s father. It could be no one else, the likeness was so striking. Though shorter than Patrick and careworn, he had the same black-fringed grey eyes, the same build and bone structure.

  Mother and child stared at the visitors, unmoving. Brian, ever sensitive to his mother’s feelings, stood up as straight as he could and reached for her hand to comfort her. He looked up at her for guidance on what to do.

  The woman looked hard at the boy out of blue eyes which registered no sort of greeting.

  ‘Mother.’

  Patrick loomed in the doorway behind Karen, his eyes on the woman. He came past his wife and embraced the plump little woman who promptly burst into tears and threw her arms around him. And Karen started forward as though to hold him and then stopped herself.

  ‘Patrick. Oh, Patrick,’ said the woman, her voice fraught with emotion.

  ‘Come away in now, Mother,’ he said gently. His arm was still around her but his eyes were on his father. He led the way into the kitchen and Sean and the other priest followed without a glance at Karen or the boy. She wanted to shout at them to stop. No, they couldn’t come into her house, her life …

  Jennie was sitting on Nick’s knee, giggling as she tried to stuff bread and treacle into his mouth. Treacle was smeared over her face and hands and all down her pinafore and Nick’s chin. He glanced up, laughing, but one look at the visitors made him hurriedly stand up.

  ‘Here’s the bairn, Karen,’ he muttered, and handed the child to her mother, backing away out of the door, murmuring something about getting back to work.

  ‘Karen, these are my parents. And Father Donelly you know of course,’ Patrick said stiffly while Jennie set up a screaming protest at the departure of her beloved Nick.