by Evie Grace
Hannah couldn’t help wondering what a bath and a day in the sun was going to do for him. No amount of dressing changes was going to alter his fate. When she left his bedside, Peter lay back on the pillow, his face as white as the sheet which covered his skinny frame.
‘Master Swift, you’re the first one on my list!’ Hannah looked up as a middle-aged woman with roughened hands, plump arms and a beaming smile came across to Charlie’s bedside.
‘No, Mrs Merry.’ He sat up and pulled the sheet over his head. ‘I won’t ’ave anuvver bath.’
‘Come on, Charlie. It will do you good.’ Hannah went across and tugged the sheet away, much to his annoyance.
‘The bath is lovely and warm,’ Mrs Merry said.
‘I’ve seen what ’appens to soap when you leave it in water. That’s what Ma says’ll ’appen to me.’
‘That’s a load of old—’ Mrs Merry broke off as Sister Trim stalked towards them.
Charlie shrank back at the ferocity of her stare.
‘Rules is rules. You bathe daily, or you leave the infirmary so that another sickly child can have your place,’ she said.
Charlie looked at Peter whose eyes glazed with sudden tears.
‘It’s all right. I won’t leave you, my friend,’ he said gamely, and he slipped out of the bed, wincing as his legs bore his weight. Anticipating trouble, Mrs Merry picked him up under one arm and carried him off. A few minutes later, Hannah heard his howls of anguish echoing through the corridors.
‘My word, it sounded as if someone was being murdered,’ Charlotte exclaimed when Mrs Merry returned with a dejected Charlie limping along behind her, shivering in his pyjamas.
‘Somebody’ll be murdered if they carry on like that,’ Mrs Merry said gaily, boxing Charlie’s ear. ‘Look at my apron. I’ve almost ’ad a bath myself. Get changed, then you can go and play out on the balcony.’
Hannah helped him – he smelled faintly of seaweed.
‘I ain’t feeling no better,’ he grumbled, ‘and the salt’s got into me cuts and grazes.’
‘It takes time,’ she said, and she sent him out into the sunshine to join Peter, who was already sitting up, watching a steam packet with a long pennant of blue smoke trailing from its funnel, making its way across Westbrook Bay towards the pier.
‘Charlie, can you see them angels dancin’ on the sea?’ she heard Peter say.
‘No,’ Charlie said. ‘Where?’
‘They’re like lights on the tops of the waves. Oh, look at ’em. There’s ’undreds of ’em out there.’
Hannah took a moment to look too, but she couldn’t see anything, apart from the sun’s rays glittering across the surface of the sea. Both boys seemed brighter and more settled, but she couldn’t help wondering if this was simply the calm before the storm.
She wasn’t sure if the infirmary was going to suit her either. She missed Alice and the children’s hospital, having felt perfectly at home there. However, she had no option but to stay on, no matter how much she wished she could take the next boat – even the hoy – back to London, because this was the only way she could see of bringing Ruby to live with her, something which seemed all the more urgent now, thanks to her letter.
Pa was trying to interfere with her correspondence. How long would it be before he had lined up some unsuitable suitor for her? Mr Edison was long gone, refusing to entertain marriage to either of the Bentley sisters after Hannah’s running away from home had shown the young ladies to be flighty and out of control, but there were bound to be others.
Hannah’s dearest wish was for them to be reunited, and she was determined not to let her sister down.
Chapter Four
If in Doubt, Cut it Out
‘I hope you didn’t come to Margate expecting a rest,’ Sister Trim said the following morning, having given Hannah a list of tasks as long as her arm. ‘I checked under the beds for dust last thing – you will sweep and mop through again, thoroughly this time.’
‘Yes, Sister,’ Hannah said.
‘You’ll help Nurse Finch prepare for the ward round first.’
She followed Sister’s gaze towards Peter’s bed where a scuffle had broken out between Charlie and Johnnie.
‘He snores like a fat pig,’ Johnnie shouted as he hobbled towards Charlie, who danced bow-legged, squaring up to him like a boxer.
‘’E can’t ’elp it,’ Charlie yelled. ‘You leave ’im alone, you stuck-up— I’ll give yer a belly-go-fister for teasin’ ’im!’
As Peter looked on, Johnnie lunged towards Charlie, pulling something from behind his back and stabbing it at Charlie’s face.
‘Stop!’ Hannah rushed to intercept him, but the end of the knitting needle made contact.
‘Ow! ’E’s got me in the eye,’ Charlie shrieked. ‘I’m goin’ to get you for that.’
‘No!’ Peter slid stiffly out of bed. ‘Don’t rise to it. ‘E ain’t worth it.’ He glowered at Johnnie who, apparently realising the consequences of what he’d done, backed off into Sister Trim’s clutches. She dug her fingers into the flesh on his shoulders and confiscated his weapon.
‘You! Go and sit in the corner. Over there! I’ll deal with you shortly. Master Herring, go back to bed. Master Swift, show me your eye.’
‘I can’t open it. I can’t see – ’e’s blinded me. Ow,’ he said, as Sister tried to open it for him.
‘The doctors will look at it and decide what’s to be done. They’ll be here shortly.’ Tapping the knitting needle against her palm, she turned to Hannah. ‘Have you any idea how this got here?’
‘No, Sister,’ she said, deciding that she had no way of proving that it had been Doctor Clifton who’d smuggled it on to the ward.
‘I’ll be keeping my eye on you. In the meantime, you’re free to get on with your work.’
The atmosphere was subdued when Hannah went to remove Peter’s dressings. This was a painful business, as the dressings were stuck to his neck, and Hannah apologised for making him cry. She then went round the other patients and checked them thoroughly, reading through the notes left by the night staff and making her own.
‘The difference between Mr Anthony and Doctor Clifton is that the former thinks he’s a god, whereas the latter is one,’ Charlotte whispered, cheering her up a little as the doctors arrived on the ward.
They examined Charlie, pronouncing that his eye was undamaged apart from a little bruising. When he mentioned that Johnnie had attacked him with a knitting needle, Doctor Clifton glanced towards Hannah who quickly averted her gaze.
Hannah was ready to give the doctors a full report on Peter’s condition, but the surgeon was dismissive, saying, ‘I don’t need all this detail. Just give me the salient facts.’
She took a small step back.
‘He ain’t too good this mornin’,’ Charlie contributed. ‘’E was sobbin’ in ’is sleep.’
‘Hush, Charlie,’ Hannah said.
‘It’s quite possible that the tubercular disease in the glands of the neck will spread to the lungs, if they are not removed. I’m of the opinion that surgery is the only option,’ Mr Anthony said. ‘If in doubt, cut it out. I’ll put him on my list for tomorrow morning. You will do well, Master Herring – I have great success with the knife.’
As the doctors moved on, Peter burst into tears.
‘What’s wrong?’ Hannah asked, her heart going out to him.
‘’E’s goin’ to chop my ’ead off,’ he sobbed.
‘No, he isn’t.’ She hugged him, letting him cry into her apron. ‘I’ll be with you when you go to theatre, and I’ll be waiting for you when you come back. I promise.’
When he’d calmed down, she helped him with his breakfast from the maid’s trolley, but all he took was a sip of sweetened tea. Charlie asked if he could have the rest. Hannah didn’t see why not. It would be a shame to waste it.
‘The wittles ’ere are the best I’ve ever ’ad,’ he said, tucking into a second portion of poached eggs on toast.
After
breakfast, Hannah made a start on Sister Trim’s list, but as she fetched the dustpan and brush, mop and bucket from the cupboard beside the sluice, Sister intercepted her.
‘You’ll have to leave that for now. You’ve had a lucky escape for the moment – Matron has asked me to send you to outpatients. They are overly busy and the staff there are struggling to cope, but don’t think for a moment that that’s let you off the hook – the chores will await your return.’
On her way to the outpatients’ department, she found herself lost in the new wing, where the wards – even loftier than the Lettsom, and with walls tiled in pristine white –were named after the princesses: Alexandra, Louise, Victoria and Maud. Having asked for directions, she turned back.
Outpatients was crowded with people, young and old, waiting on the benches to see a physician for a variety of ailments, some self-inflicted, including a pair of sisters with blistered skin from the sun, and a child who had swallowed a thrupenny bit.
‘We’ve tried tipping him upside down, but it won’t come out, even with a good shake,’ Hannah heard his mother say.
‘You should count yourself lucky that it wasn’t a crown, Mrs Rice,’ one of the doctors said, as Hannah made her way to find someone who could tell her where she was supposed to be.
She passed the dispensary where the apothecary was pouring physic from a jug, dolling out purgatives, sulphate of magnesia and quassia. One of the dispensing nurses was explaining to a patient how to take his medicine, but when Hannah noticed him a few seconds later, he was sharing the bottle with his companion.
‘Ah, a spare pair of hands at last. Nurse Bentley, come with me.’
‘Doctor Clifton.’ She couldn’t say she was pleased to see him.
‘I’m sorry about the incident with the needle. I shouldn’t have asked you to break the rules on my behalf. You’re new to the house and trying to make a good impression. It was thoughtless and ungentlemanly of me.’
She was grateful and a little surprised at his apology, as he continued, ‘I appreciate your not mentioning my involvement in the matter to Sister Trim.’
‘I would have said, if I could have proved it.’
‘I see.’ She thought she saw a flicker of amusement cross his face as he opened the door to an examination room. ‘Let battle commence. Call the first one in.’
‘Doctor Clifton is ready,’ she called, and not one patient, but a whole family came barging through the crowd with a large pram, shoving everyone aside.
‘Hey, she’s pushing in. There’s a queue here.’
‘We were here first.’
‘Excuse me.’ Hannah stood between the pram and the door. ‘You must see the inquiry officer first.’
‘The babe is sick. We ’ave to see the doctor, I think ’e’s goin’ to die.’ The mother’s wails and sobbing were most terrible to hear, and the other patients backed down, muttering with annoyance rather than openly rebelling.
‘Let them through,’ Doctor Clifton called. ‘Out of compassion, allow me to assess the infant’s condition. It would be shameful to let him fade in the waiting hall, so near yet so far from medical attention. You would be eternally grateful if it was your child.’
‘Listen to the good doctor,’ somebody said. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, step aside.’
Hannah held the door open for them: the man pushing the pram, and the woman with a babe in her arms and another on her hip. The pram contained a boy of about fourteen – not an infant at all – with his limbs folded up and his eyes rolling in their sockets.
The inquiry officer followed, and Hannah pulled the door to a close behind him.
Doctor Clifton helped the father lift the groaning child on to the trolley, while introducing Mr Taylor, the person responsible for interviewing potential patients and deciding who would be seen.
‘Name and profession?’ Mr Taylor asked.
‘Allspice, ropewalker and travellin’ showman, not that it’s any business of yours,’ the man said rudely. ‘This is our son, Alan.’
‘Address?’
‘We ’ave lodgin’s in Ramsgate.’
If she’d seen them on the street, she wouldn’t have looked twice, Hannah thought. Mr Allspice was in his forties, with a greying moustache and side whiskers. He wore tight-fitting fustian breeches and a grubby blue waistcoat over a frilled white shirt, while his wife, with her sallow olive skin, her greasy black hair tied back and wearing a torn bottle-green dress, appeared decidedly downtrodden.
Hannah turned her attention to Doctor Clifton who was talking to the boy.
‘It’s me leg,’ he complained weakly. ‘Ah,’ he gasped when the doctor tried to straighten his right knee and hip.
‘These people are not eligible for assistance,’ Mr Taylor said.
‘For what reason?’ Doctor Clifton seemed a little put out. ‘This young man has scrofula of the hip – he requires treatment.’
‘They’re the kind of people who bring this trouble on themselves,’ Mr Taylor maintained. ‘They have no moral virtue and therefore are not entitled to help.’
‘But the child is innocent.’ Hannah couldn’t hold her tongue. Doctor Clifton and Mr Taylor stared at her in surprise. ‘Who are we to make that decision? What moral virtue can we claim if we abandon him?’ The poor boy couldn’t choose his parents. She thought briefly of her father, and how she’d often wished that someone had walked into her life to tell her that it had all been a mistake and he wasn’t her father at all.
‘We are superior to these people in every way.’ Mr Taylor stared at her. ‘If Mr Allspice took up proper employment and provided a settled abode for his family, then I’d deem his son a suitable patient for admission to this house.’
‘You can’t judge a book by its cover,’ Hannah said. ‘You can have no idea of this gentleman’s virtues, or otherwise. I’ve seen patients hiring clothes for the day to make themselves look respectable for their visit to the hospital, which makes them appear well off, and able to afford treatment when they can’t. There are others who turn up with their servants and letters of recommendation when they could have paid for themselves.’ She became aware that Doctor Clifton was looking at her, his head slightly to one side.
‘The father is a ruffian who can barely string a sentence together,’ Mr Taylor interjected.
‘Excuse me, sir. My ma – God rest ’er soul – learned me how to speak the Queen’s Hinglish,’ Mr Allspice said, his face turning a shade of beetroot. ‘It’s a cryin’ shame that you don’t consider ropewalkin’ a respectable profession.’ He turned to Doctor Clifton. ‘I ’ave ’undreds and thousands of people lookin’ up to me, like I’m a god, every time I perform.’
‘This isn’t about the family. ‘It’s about a poorly boy. Doctor Clifton, you wouldn’t allow Mr Taylor to turn him away?’ Hannah recalled her training: even when a nurse disagreed with a decision, she should never forget her proper place, interfere with a doctor’s duties or set herself above his directions. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve overstepped the mark. It isn’t my—’
‘I admire you for speaking up when you see suffering and injustice,’ Doctor Clifton said.
‘Nurse, your sentiments are misplaced,’ Mr Taylor said. ‘Doctor Clifton?’
‘Nurse Bentley is right. We should reconsider.’
‘There are at least twenty patients out there, each one requiring treatment,’ Mr Taylor responded, staring over the top of his horn-rimmed spectacles. ‘I hope you understand that you’re putting me in an impossible position.’
‘I need our boy better,’ Mr Allspice said. ‘I can’t afford to keep an invalid.’
‘He should be admitted, but he requires a ticket for that,’ Doctor Clifton decided. ‘I can’t promise anything, Mr Allspice, but if you wait outside, I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Thank you,’ Mrs Allspice cried as her husband folded the boy’s limbs and lifted him back into the pram. ‘People tell me it don’t matter if you lose one child when you’ve got twelve more, but they don’t know what th
ey’re talkin’ about. They’re all precious to me and it would break my ’eart if I lost any of ’em.’
‘Doctor, you’ve been here long enough to know how the system works,’ Mr Taylor complained when the Allspices had left the room. ‘The house has finite resources and the new wards are filled to capacity, therefore there has to be a method of rationing treatment. That family have brought their son’s sickness upon themselves with their dissolute, itinerant way of life.’
‘Sickness – scrofula in particular – has no respect for wealth or status,’ Doctor Clifton said coolly. ‘Mr Taylor, please excuse me – I wish to get on. Nurse, call the next one in.’
For the next two hours, she was kept busy, calling patients to the examination room and running errands for the doctor, and even when the queue had dwindled to nothing, it seemed that they were far from finished.
‘There’s one more asking for you,’ Mr Taylor said stiffly. ‘A Mrs Phillips. I’ve put her in the room next door.’
Doctor Clifton thanked him while Hannah packed away the bandages and cleaned up after their last patient, a little girl who’d cut her foot while playing on the beach. ‘I hope that Sister Trim can spare you for another half an hour.’
He must have seen her face fall, she realised, when he went on.
‘She’s keeping your nose to the grindstone?’
Hannah nodded, thinking of the list of chores she hadn’t started on yet.
‘I don’t like to impose, but I have a favour to ask. Don’t worry – I’m not asking you to break any rules this time. I’m in need of a chaperone. Mrs Phillips has called at my private practice on false pretences three times in the past week. A doctor without a wife is considered fair game by some women, and I’m taking no chances – I’ve had ladies throw themselves into my arms, and others set out to entrap me by suggesting impropriety when there was none.
‘Listening to a lady’s heart and lungs, or examining her ankles, for example, is fraught with potential misunderstanding.’
Hannah blushed furiously as he continued, ‘There are some who say that the cure for her hysteria is for her husband to pay her more attention, but I have to be sure that she isn’t suffering from some other condition that can be more easily treated. She’s a challenging case. This way.’ He held the doors open for her on the way to the adjacent room while she marvelled at his shocking frankness. She wasn’t sure how to take him.