by Kate Eastham
‘You have beautiful dark hair, Maud, it matches your eyes. I think it will shine with a gloss when it’s dry. You’ll feel like a new woman,’ soothed Marie.
‘I hope so,’ whispered Maud.
Once she was left alone again, Maud began to smile. She never knew that having a bath could make someone so happy, but she felt warm and relaxed. She ran her fingers through her damp hair and pulled it back from her forehead, feeling the delicate drip of the clean water on her shoulders. Giving her hair another good rub with the towel, she clipped it in a loose knot. Then she removed the towel from her body and lay back on the bed for a few moments, feeling clean and free. It didn’t last long; she was instantly worrying about the bed getting damp, so she was quickly up and stepping into her clothes, fastening her buttons, hooks and eyes. But she was still smiling.
Maud was soon sitting by the fire with Victoria on her knee. She unclipped her hair and left it loose so that it would dry, and the baby had both her hands in it, twisting and pulling the locks. ‘Ouch,’ said Maud, laughing and disentangling the baby’s fingers, then reaching for a cloth dog with lopsided button eyes to distract her.
Alfred came through and crouched by Hugo, in front of the fire. He looked up and smiled, the corners of his eyes slightly downturned, giving him a mildly mournful air.
‘When will Harry be back, exactly?’ he asked, reaching out a hand to stroke the cat.
‘Four weeks yesterday,’ replied Maud, matter-of-factly. ‘And by that time you should be settled back at school and I will be on the wards at the Liverpool Royal, feeling like I’ve never been away.’
‘Are you happy that we’ve come back, Maud?’ he asked, still stroking the cat, who was now twitching his tail, impatient to be left alone.
‘Yes,’ said Maud, after a short pause. ‘If it hadn’t been for Miss Fairchild’s illness, I think I would have spent longer in New York, got more experience at the hospital, but I would have come back to Liverpool in the end.’
‘That’s good,’ said Alfred, reeling back as the cat hissed and lashed at him with his claws out. ‘Although it doesn’t feel like Hugo is altogether pleased that we’ve returned!’
Maud laughed. ‘Wait till he’s nose to nose with Harry’s dog, vying for position in front of the fire.’
‘Rita won’t win,’ laughed Alfred. ‘This cat is vicious.’
‘Cah,’ uttered Victoria.
‘Did she just say “cat”?’ marvelled Alfred. Then he repeated, ‘Cat, cat, say “cat”.’
‘I do believe she did. What a clever girl!’ smiled Maud, giving the baby an extra squeeze.
‘Cah,’ beamed Victoria, reaching out to be held by Alfred.
‘I think you’re safer with the baby than the cat,’ laughed Maud, handing Victoria over. ‘Have you got her? Keep tight hold and make sure she’s safe. I’ll just fix my hair and then I’ll go and find Marie, see if I can do something to earn our keep.’
After Maud had carefully positioned a tortoiseshell comb in exactly the right place to keep her hair neat and tightly drawn back, she straightened her collar, smoothed down her skirt, and knew that she was almost back to her old self. She found Marie in the backyard folding clean sheets that she’d just unpegged from the line. Taking one side without being asked, Maud followed Marie’s lead and doubled the sheet, doubled it again and then met hands with her to fold the fresh-smelling sheet into a perfect square. After each one was folded, and Marie had disappeared back to the kitchen, Maud sat for a few moments on the wooden bench against the wall. They would have to be setting off soon to see Miss Fairchild, but Marie had insisted that she take ten minutes.
Maud rested her head against the hard wall, using the time to list in her head what she needed to do before she made her return to work. Almost instantly she heard the click of the back gate and there in front of her, like an apparition, stood a girl with matted pale red hair and a grubby face.
‘Where’s Alice? Is she in?’ asked the girl.
‘Sorry, she’s at work,’ said Maud, noting the instant disappointment in the girl’s big green eyes.
‘That’s all right,’ said the girl, lifting her chin in mild defiance. ‘It’s just … I’ve brought something. Can you give it to her when she comes home?’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Maud. She was intrigued by the unexpected visitor, who she gauged as being a similar age to Alfred, though she was much thinner.
‘Here it is,’ said the girl, fishing in her pocket and then holding out a shiny ring on the palm of her hand. ‘Tell her it’s another special find from Sue Cassidy, just for her.’
‘I will,’ said Maud, taking the ring. She assumed it was nothing more than solid brass. ‘Where did you find it?’
‘Oh, it was outside Lewis’s, this one. I was sitting there for ages, waiting for my mam to come, and it was on the path, between the flags, right next to me.’
‘Well, it’s lovely,’ said Maud, turning it over and seeing some engraving on the inside.
The girl was leaning in now, her head almost touching Maud’s as they scrutinized the ring together. ‘It’s treasure,’ said the girl, ‘and I want Alice to have it, because she helped us when Mam was out of work, before she got her job as a flower seller on the market. She gave us money for food.’
‘But wait,’ said Maud, holding it up to the light and seeing that it was indeed precious, it was almost certainly solid gold. ‘It’s—’
But with one click of the back gate, the girl was gone.
Maud gave the ring a rub on her skirt. She saw the lustre of it now even more strongly. She was sure of her assessment; she’d seen rings like this on the hands of wealthy visitors to the big house when she’d worked as a housemaid. She knew expensive jewellery when she saw it. Peering closely inside what was almost certainly a wedding band, Maud could see the engraving more clearly – the symbols that showed it was gold were there, and then another simple inscription. ‘Love me and leave me not,’ she recited quietly. And yet, the ring had been lost like a sixpence or, worse still, wilfully discarded, outside Lewis’s Department Store. Maud knew straight away that it would be the right thing to go up there to the shop and ask if it had been reported missing by a customer. She would speak to Alice this evening.
Glancing down to her own thin wedding band, Maud felt a pang when she thought of Harry slipping it on her finger. Obviously, her ring was no match for the one she held in the palm of her hand, but she would never swap it. She knew that she would feel sad when she had to remove it each day before going to work. At the Women’s Infirmary in New York, no questions had been asked, but she’d always kept it safe in her pocket before assisting in theatre or performing some of the more unmentionable nursing tasks. No one there really seemed to care if she was married or not, but she knew that that was not the case here, back in Liverpool. It had been decreed by Florence Nightingale herself that there were to be no married nurses in the service.
Maud took a deep breath. She’d never wanted her marriage to feel like a weight around her neck, and she’d never been good at subterfuge. She always told the truth if asked. Alice, Eddy and Miss Houston knew that she was a married woman. But as far as she was aware, no one else did. So now she felt the first inklings of the secret that she would be forced to carry when she was at work. A secret that she hoped would not make her feel too different from the rest of the nurses.
4
‘Variety of form and brilliancy of colour in the objects presented to patients are actual means of recovery.’
Florence Nightingale
Maud felt Alfred hold more tightly to her hand as they rounded the corner into the square, the ox-eye daisies that he held in his other hand bobbing up and down on their long stems as he walked along. Eddy had run in with them, just as they were about to leave. ‘A gift for Miss Fairchild,’ she’d shouted from the kitchen door, catching her breath before she dived back out on her way to the next case. Maud had managed to rescue most of the flowers but some were too battered to make
up a posy. It had made her smile most of the way, thinking about how kind Eddy was.
As they neared the big house, however, she began to feel a little apprehensive. And seeing the white stuccoed buildings, so clean and new, reminded her of the day that she’d first seen Alfred walking this same route, following along behind the chimney sweep, Mr Greer. As senior housemaid she’d been waiting for them to arrive, watching out of the dining-room window. She’d seen Alfred desperately trying to keep up with his master and getting a clip around the ear when he failed to do so. Then she’d been horrified to witness the mindless cruelty that had taken place after Alfred had become wedged in the chimney and Greer had wrenched him down, breaking his arm. If she hadn’t intervened and prevented the sweep from sending him back up the chimney, she dreaded to think what would have happened to her precious boy. Just thinking about it made her shudder.
As soon as they drew closer to the house, Alfred glanced up and gave her a cheeky smile. ‘Go on, then,’ she said, laughing to herself as she watched him run full pelt down the alley at the side of the house, the one that led to the tradesmen’s entrance. When she caught up with him, he was still knocking on the door. ‘Alfred!’ shouted the kitchen maid, taking his arm and dragging him in off the step.
‘And Maud!’ called the cook, Mrs Watson, from the other side of the kitchen where she stood, red-faced and resolute, in front of the range full of copper pans bubbling away.
After the greetings and the fuss were done, Mrs Watson took Maud’s hand and leant in to speak quietly. ‘Before you go in to see Miss Fairchild, I want you to be prepared. You will find her somewhat changed – the weight’s dropped off her, she’s very out of breath and very melancholy at times …’
Maud could see that the cook was almost in tears, and she took her hand. ‘I’m sorry about all of this, Mrs Watson, she seemed to be in such good health when I went away last year.’
‘Yes, she did to me as well, but you know what she’s like. She’d been having the vapours at times and not telling anybody. All of it leading up to that day when she collapsed, here in the kitchen, right in front of me. I knew it was her heart right away. So I called for the footmen and they carried her to hospital in a cane chair. I didn’t even think we had time to prepare the horse and carriage.’
Mrs Watson took a hankie out of her pocket and gave her eyes a wipe. ‘Thank goodness for your friend, Alice. She was on duty that day and she did a fine job of looking after her. But would Miss Fairchild write and let you know what had happened to her? Would she hell as like! Sorry, Maud, ’scuse the language. And she sorely tried my patience with her stubbornness. Well, I knew I had to do it in the end without telling her – and I didn’t feel good about writing that letter behind her back – but it was for the best, you and Alfred had to know …’
‘You did absolutely the right thing, Mrs Watson,’ soothed Maud. ‘And thank you for all that you’ve been doing here. I know that you’ll have been trying to feed her up, and you’re probably helping out with the nursing as well.’
‘Hmph,’ grumbled the cook. ‘Well, I had to with that first private nurse the mistress brought in. She was useless, couldn’t have nursed a small child with a runny nose, never mind a fine lady like Constance … erm, Miss Fairchild. But the new one, Nurse Ashworth, she’s a bit straight-laced but she does seem to be doing a reasonable job. Anyway, you go through to Miss Fairchild, see what you think. She still has the two rooms adjoining, where she always was. But we had to move her desk out and give it to the new housekeeper.’
As they walked the familiar route to Miss Fairchild’s room Maud’s chest started to feel tight with the expectation of how she might find her old friend. To steady herself she glanced down at Alfred as he trotted by her side, the heads of the daisies still bobbing up and down. Knocking gently on the door, they both stood and listened. Not able to hear any response, Maud knocked again, more firmly.
‘Come in,’ called a muffled voice.
Maud felt a lump in her throat as she opened the door. It was a good job that Mrs Watson had warned her. It was a real shock to see her old friend sitting straight-backed in the chair with her starched cap perched on top of her grey hair but looking so thin and much altered. And for a moment Maud didn’t think that her old friend had even registered who they were. Then her face broke into a watery smile, and she was reaching her arms out for Alfred.
Maud followed along behind as Alfred ran to Miss Fairchild with his posy of ox-eye daisies. ‘Give the flowers to me,’ she said quietly, so that Miss Fairchild could hug him and kiss him and cry happy tears at the sight of him. As Maud stood by the chair she noted her friend’s bluish lips and fingertips, the laboured rise and fall of her breathing and the sallowness of her skin, stretched like parchment across her clearly defined cheekbones. And most of all her eyes, which had once been so full of life; her eyes were dulled and now seemed full of pain.
‘Take your time,’ soothed Maud, as Miss Fairchild broke away from Alfred, leaning back in the chair with her hand pressed over her heart. ‘Just breathe,’ said Maud, her voice perfectly calm although her own heart was beating like a drum in her chest. When Miss Fairchild was sufficiently recovered, Maud took her hand and leant in to give her a kiss on the cheek, the familiar smell of her lavender water scent somehow affirming the housekeeper’s continuing hold on life.
‘I’ve missed you, Maud,’ she said, her eyes shining with tears. ‘I’ve missed you but I never wanted you to drop everything and come back to Liverpool …’
‘I know that,’ said Maud. ‘But we wanted to come back, once we heard the news, we wanted to come and see you.’
‘But what about your work at the Women’s Infirmary, all the exciting new ideas, the stuff you put in your letters?’
‘I’ve brought them all back with me, up here,’ said Maud, tapping her forehead.
‘And what about Harry? Where is he?’
‘Well, he had to stay a little longer. He was in the middle of some business deals that he needed to see through, but he’ll be back next month.’
Miss Fairchild still didn’t look convinced that their premature return was a satisfactory arrangement but she held on to Maud’s hand and then put an arm around Alfred. ‘Now, young man,’ she said quietly, ‘I was wondering if you would be able to read to me for a little while. I keep nodding off every time I open a book, and I’m so missing my favourite novel. Look over there, on the side, you’ll see a Jane Austen. Yes, that’s the one. Now come and sit beside me here, on the footstool.
‘Read on,’ ordered Miss Fairchild, once she could see that the boy was settled with the book on his knee.
‘Chapter one. Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy dis-po—’
‘Disposition,’ smiled Miss Fairchild.
‘Disposition,’ repeated Alfred and then, continuing without further hesitation, ‘seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence …’
Maud quietly excused herself from the room, making her way to the kitchen to find a vase for the flowers. And as she walked along the familiar corridor, she began to feel sad. Even though, in her work as a nurse, she’d got used to seeing people altered by disease, it only went part way towards preparing her for witnessing an old friend struggling so much. She felt shocked by the change in Miss Fairchild, more so because with her nursing experience she could predict the sad, inevitable course that her condition would take.
‘Sit down,’ said Mrs Watson, ‘I’ll get you a glass of port wine.’
For once, Maud didn’t object.
In the warmth of the kitchen, with Mrs Watson fussing over her, Maud felt once more like that thirteen-year-old girl who’d been sent to train as a maid all those years ago. Fresh from losing her grandmother, she’d sat here at the kitchen table for the first time, an orphan. And like the orphan that she’d been back then, she now started to cry.
‘There, there,’ soothed Mrs Watson, ‘that’s it, just let it out … now let me find y
ou a piece of cake.’
‘No cake, thank you,’ sniffed Maud, taking a lace handkerchief from her sleeve and wiping her eyes. Then, straightening her back, she made a physical effort to blink back the tears and cleared her throat. ‘Please can you find me a vase for the flowers, Mrs Watson … and is there anything else that you think I can do to make Miss Fairchild more comfortable?’
‘Well, that’s easy,’ smiled the cook, placing a large hand on Maud’s shoulder, ‘now that you and Alfred are home, all you need to do is come here and see her occasionally. It will make a world of difference to her. She’s done nothing but talk about you two since the day you left for New York … and she’s been sending out orders left, right and centre for new clothes and books and pens for Alfred to take up to the Blue Coat School. She probably hasn’t shown you yet, but she’s got a whole trunk of stuff ready and waiting.’
Maud started to well up again, and then she patted Mrs Watson’s hand where it still rested on her shoulder. ‘I’m so glad that we came back from New York. It was absolutely the right thing to do.’
She was even more sure of that when she ventured back to the housekeeper’s room. As she opened the door Miss Fairchild lifted her head, her eyes shining with pleasure. In that moment Maud glimpsed all the grace and dignity of the woman she had known, someone with a bit of fight left in her. Alfred was still reading and Maud moved as quietly as she could.
‘Where do you want the vase?’ she whispered, not wanting to interrupt the reading.
‘You might as well put it over there, on the sewing machine,’ said Miss Fairchild, pointing to the corner of the room and then taking Alfred’s hand so that he paused at the end of the next sentence.