It so happened that that very morning she saw on the notice-board of the library an announcement that the Borough Council wished to engage the services of an experienced maternity nurse, applications to be made to the medical board. Alvina wrote down the directions. Ciccio watched her.
“What is a maternity nurse?” he said.
“An _accoucheuse!_” she said. “The nurse who attends when babies are born.”
“Do you know how to do that?” he said, incredulous, and jeering slightly.
“I was trained to do it,” she said.
He said no more, but walked by her side as she returned to the lodgings. As they drew near the lodgings, he said:
“You don’t want to stop with us any more?”
“I can’t,” she said.
He made a slight, mocking gesture.
“‘I can’t,’“ he repeated. “Why do you always say you can’t?”
“Because I can’t,” she said.
“Pff — !” he went, with a whistling sound of contempt.
But she went indoors to her room. Fortunately, when she had finally cleared her things from Manchester House, she had brought with her her nurse’s certificate, and recommendations from doctors. She wrote out her application, took the tram to the Town Hall and dropped it in the letter-box there. Then she wired home to her doctor for another reference. After which she went to the library and got out a book on her subject. If summoned, she would have to go before the medical board on Monday. She had a week. She read and pondered hard, recalling all her previous experience and knowledge.
She wondered if she ought to appear before the board in uniform. Her nurse’s dresses were packed in her trunk at Mrs. Slaney’s, in Woodhouse. It was now May. The whole business at Woodhouse was finished. Manchester House and all the furniture was sold to some boot-and-shoe people: at least the boot-and-shoe people had the house. They had given four thousand pounds for it — which was above the lawyer’s estimate. On the other hand, the theatre was sold for almost nothing. It all worked out that some thirty-three pounds, which the creditors made up to fifty pounds, remained for Alvina. She insisted on Miss Pinnegar’s having half of this. And so that was all over. Miss Pinnegar was already in Tamworth, and her little shop would be opened next week. She wrote happily and excitedly about it.
Sometimes fate acts swiftly and without a hitch. On Thursday Alvina received her notice that she was to appear before the Board on the following Monday. And yet she could not bring herself to speak of it to Madame till the Saturday evening. When they were all at supper, she said:
“Madame, I applied for a post of maternity nurse, to the Borough of Lancaster.”
Madame raised her eyebrows. Ciccio had said nothing.
“Oh really! You never told me.”
“I thought it would be no use if it all came to nothing. They want me to go and see them on Monday, and then they will decide — ”
“Really! Do they! On Monday? And then if you get this work you will stay here? Yes?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Of course! Of course! Yes! H’m! And if not?”
The two women looked at each other.
“What?” said Alvina.
“If you _don’t_ get it — ! You are not _sure?_”
“No,” said Alvina. “I am not a bit sure.”
“Well then — ! Now! And if you don’t get it — ?”
“What shall I do, you mean?”
“Yes, what shall you do?”
“I don’t know.”
“How! you don’t know! Shall you come back to us, then?”
“I will if you like — ”
“If I like! If I like! Come, it is not a question of if I like. It is what do you want to do yourself.”
“I feel you don’t want me very badly,” said Alvina.
“Why? Why do you feel? Who makes you? Which of us makes you feel so? Tell me.”
“Nobody in particular. But I feel it.”
“Oh we-ell! If nobody makes you, and yet you feel it, it must be in yourself, don’t you see? Eh? Isn’t it so?”
“Perhaps it is,” admitted Alvina.
“We-ell then! We-ell — ” So Madame gave her her congé. “But if you like to come back — if you laike — then — ” Madame shrugged her shoulders — ”you must come, I suppose.”
“Thank you,” said Alvina.
The young men were watching. They seemed indifferent. Ciccio turned aside, with his faint, stupid smile.
In the morning Madame gave Alvina all her belongings, from the little safe she called her bank.
“There is the money — so — and so — and so — that is correct. Please count it once more! — ” Alvina counted it and kept it clutched in her hand. “And there are your rings, and your chain, and your locketsee — all — everything — ! But not the brooch. Where is the brooch? Here! Shall I give it back, hein?”
“I gave it to you,” said Alvina, offended. She looked into Madame’s black eyes. Madame dropped her eyes.
“Yes, you gave it. But I thought, you see, as you have now not much mo-oney, perhaps you would like to take it again — ”
“No, thank you,” said Alvina, and she went away, leaving Madame with the red brooch in her plump hand.
“Thank goodness I’ve given her something valuable,” thought Alvina to herself, as she went trembling to her room.
She had packed her bag. She had to find new rooms. She bade goodbye to the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras. Her face was cold and distant, but she smiled slightly as she bade them good-bye.
“And perhaps,” said Madame, “per-haps you will come to Wigan tomorrow afternoon — or evening? Yes?”
“Thank you,” said Alvina.
She went out and found a little hotel, where she took her room for the night, explaining the cause of her visit to Lancaster. Her heart was hard and burning. A deep, burning, silent anger against everything possessed her, and a profound indifference to mankind.
And therefore, the next day, everything went as if by magic. She had decided that at the least sign of indifference from the medical board people she would walk away, take her bag, and go to Windermere. She had never been to the Lakes. And Windermere was not far off. She would not endure one single hint of contumely from any one else. She would go straight to Windermere, to see the big lake. Why not do as she wished! She could be quite happy by herself among the lakes. And she would be absolutely free, absolutely free. She rather looked forward to leaving the Town Hall, hurrying to take her bag and off to the station and freedom. Hadn’t she still got about a hundred pounds? Why bother for one moment? To be quite alone in the whole world — and quite, quite free, with her hundred pounds — the prospect attracted her sincerely.
And therefore, everything went charmingly at the Town Hall. The medical board were charming to her — charming. There was no hesitation at all. From the first moment she was engaged. And she was given a pleasant room in a hospital in a garden, and the matron was charming to her, and the doctors most courteous.
When could she undertake to commence her duties? When did they want her? The very moment she could come. She could begin tomorrow — but she had no uniform. Oh, the matron would lend her uniform and aprons, till her box arrived.
So there she was — by afternoon installed in her pleasant little room looking on the garden, and dressed in a nurse’s uniform. It was all sudden like magic. She had wired to Madame, she had wired for her box. She was another person.
Needless to say, she was glad. Needless to say that, in the morning, when she had thoroughly bathed, and dressed in clean clothes, and put on the white dress, the white apron, and the white cap, she felt another person. So clean, she felt, so thankful! Her skin seemed caressed and live with cleanliness and whiteness, luminous she felt. It was so different from being with the Natchas.
In the garden the snowballs, guelder-roses, swayed softly among green foliage, there was pink may-blossom, and single scarlet may-blossom, and underneath the young green of t
he trees, irises rearing purple and moth-white. A young gardener was working — and a convalescent slowly trailed a few paces.
Having ten minutes still, Alvina sat down and wrote to Ciccio: “I am glad I have got this post as nurse here. Every one is most kind, and I feel at home already. I feel quite happy here. I shall think of my days with the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras, and of you, who were such a stranger to me. Good-bye. — A. H.”
This she addressed and posted. No doubt Madame would find occasion to read it. But let her.
Alvina now settled down to her new work. There was of course a great deal to do, for she had work both in the hospital and out in the town, though chiefly out in the town. She went rapidly from case to case, as she was summoned. And she was summoned at all hours. So that it was tiring work, which left her no time to herself, except just in snatches.
She had no serious acquaintance with anybody, she was too busy. The matron and sisters and doctors and patients were all part of her day’s work, and she regarded them as such. The men she chiefly ignored: she felt much more friendly with the matron. She had many a cup of tea and many a chat in the matron’s room, in the quiet, sunny afternoons when the work was not pressing. Alvina took her quiet moments when she could: for she never knew when she would be rung up by one or other of the doctors in the town.
And so, from the matron, she learned to crochet. It was work she had never taken to. But now she had her ball of cotton and her hook, and she worked away as she chatted. She was in good health, and she was getting fatter again. With the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras, she had improved a good deal, her colour and her strength had returned. But undoubtedly the nursing life, arduous as it was, suited her best. She became a handsome, reposeful woman, jolly with the other nurses, really happy with her friend the matron, who was well-bred and wise, and never over-intimate.
The doctor with whom Alvina had most to do was a Dr. Mitchell, a Scotchman. He had a large practice among the poor, and was an energetic man. He was about fifty-four years old, tall, largely-built, with a good figure, but with extraordinarily large feet and hands. His face was red and clean-shaven, his eyes blue, his teeth very good. He laughed and talked rather mouthingly. Alvina, who knew what the nurses told her, knew that he had come as a poor boy and bottle-washer to Dr. Robertson, a fellow-Scotchman, and that he had made his way up gradually till he became a doctor himself, and had an independent practice. Now he was quite rich — and a bachelor. But the nurses did not set their bonnets at him very much, because he was rather mouthy and overbearing.
In the houses of the poor he was a great autocrat.
“What is that stuff you’ve got there!” he inquired largely, seeing a bottle of somebody’s Soothing Syrup by a poor woman’s bedside. “Take it and throw it down the sink, and the next time you want a soothing syrup put a little boot-blacking in hot water. It’ll do you just as much good.”
Imagine the slow, pompous, large-mouthed way in which the red-faced, handsomely-built man pronounced these words, and you realize why the poor set such store by him.
He was eagle-eyed. Wherever he went, there was a scuffle directly his foot was heard on the stairs. And he knew they were hiding something. He sniffed the air: he glanced round with a sharp eye: and during the course of his visit picked up a blue mug which was pushed behind the looking-glass. He peered inside — and smelled it.
“Stout?” he said, in a tone of indignant inquiry: God-Almighty would presumably take on just such a tone, finding the core of an apple flung away among the dead-nettle of paradise: “Stout! Have you been drinking stout?” This as he gazed down on the wan mother in the bed.
“They gave me a drop, doctor. I felt that low.”
The doctor marched out of the room, still holding the mug in his hand. The sick woman watched him with haunted eyes. The attendant women threw up their hands and looked at one another. Was he going for ever? There came a sudden smash. The doctor had flung the blue mug downstairs. He returned with a solemn stride.
“There!” he said. “And the next person that gives you stout will be thrown down along with the mug.”
“Oh doctor, the bit o’ comfort!” wailed the sick woman. “It ud never do me no harm.”
“Harm! Harm! With a stomach as weak as yours! Harm! Do you know better than I do? What have I come here for? To be told by you what will do you harm and what won’t? It appears to me you need no doctor here, you know everything already — ”
“Oh no, doctor. It’s not like that. But when you feel as if you’d sink through the bed, an’ you don’t know what to do with yourself — ”
“Take a little beef-tea, or a little rice pudding. Take nourishment, don’t take that muck. Do you hear — ” charging upon the attendant women, who shrank against the wall — ”she’s to have nothing alcoholic at all, and don’t let me catch you giving it her.”
“They say there’s nobbut fower per cent. i’ stout,” retorted the daring female.
“Fower per cent,” mimicked the doctor brutally. “Why, what does an ignorant creature like you know about fower per cent.”
The woman muttered a little under her breath.
“What? Speak out. Let me hear what you’ve got to say, my woman. I’ve no doubt it’s something for my benefit — ”
But the affronted woman rushed out of the room, and burst into tears on the landing. After which Dr. Mitchell, mollified, largely told the patient how she was to behave, concluding:
“Nourishment! Nourishment is what you want. Nonsense, don’t tell me you can’t take it. Push it down if it won’t go down by itself — ”
“Oh doctor — ”
“Don’t say oh doctor to me. Do as I tell you. That’s your business.” After which he marched out, and the rattle of his motor car was shortly heard.
Alvina got used to scenes like these. She wondered why the people stood it. But soon she realized that they loved it — particularly the women.
“Oh, nurse, stop till Dr. Mitchell’s been. I’m scared to death of him, for fear he’s going to shout at me.”
“Why does everybody put up with him?” asked innocent Alvina.
“Oh, he’s good-hearted, nurse, he does feel for you.”
And everywhere it was the same: “Oh, he’s got a heart, you know. He’s rough, but he’s got a heart. I’d rather have him than your smarmy slormin sort. Oh, you feel safe with Dr. Mitchell, I don’t care what you say.”
But to Alvina this peculiar form of blustering, bullying heart which had all the women scurrying like chickens was not particularly attractive.
The men did not like Dr. Mitchell, and would not have him if possible. Yet since he was club doctor and panel doctor, they had to submit. The first thing he said to a sick or injured labourer, invariably, was:
“And keep off the beer.”
“Oh ay!”
“Keep off the beer, or I shan’t set foot in this house again.”
“Tha’s got a red enough face on thee, tha nedna shout.”
“My face is red with exposure to all weathers, attending ignorant people like you. I never touch alcohol in any form.”
“No, an’ I dunna. I drink a drop o’ beer, if that’s what you ca’ touchin’ alcohol. An’ I’m none th’ wuss for it, tha sees.”
“You’ve heard what I’ve told you.”
“Ah, I have.”
“And if you go on with the beer, you may go on with curing yourself. I shan’t attend you. You know I mean what I say, Mrs. Larrick” — this to the wife.
“I do, doctor. And I know it’s true what you say. An’ I’m at him night an’ day about it — ”
“Oh well, if he will hear no reason, he must suffer for it. He mustn’t think _I’m_ going to be running after him, if he disobeys my orders.” And the doctor stalked off, and the woman began to complain.
None the less the women had their complaints against Dr. Mitchell. If ever Alvina entered a clean house on a wet day, she was sure to hear the housewife chuntering.
“Oh my lawd, come
in nurse! What a day! Doctor’s not been yet. And he’s bound to come now I’ve just cleaned up, trapesin’ wi’ his gret feet. He’s got the biggest understandin’s of any man i’ Lancaster. My husband says they’re the best pair o’ pasties th’ kingdom. An’ he does make such a mess, for he never stops to wipe his feet on th’ mat, marches straight up your clean stairs — ”
“Why don’t you tell him to wipe his feet?” said Alvina.
“Oh my word! Fancy me telling him! He’d jump down my throat with both feet afore I’d opened my mouth. He’s not to be spoken to, he isn’t. He’s my-lord, he is. You mustn’t look, or you’re done for.”
Alvina laughed. She knew they all liked him for brow-beating them, and having a heart over and above.
Sometimes he was given a good hit — though nearly always by a man. It happened he was in a workman’s house when the man was at dinner.
“Canna yer gi’e a man summat better nor this ‘ere pap, Missis?” said the hairy husband, turning up his nose at the rice pudding.
“Oh go on,” cried the wife. “I hadna time for owt else.” Dr. Mitchell was just stooping his handsome figure in the doorway.
“Rice pudding!” he exclaimed largely. “You couldn’t have anything more wholesome and nourishing. I have a rice pudding every day of my life — every day of my life, I do.”
The man was eating his pudding and pearling his big moustache copiously with it. He did not answer.
“Do you doctor!” cried the woman. “And never no different.”
“Never,” said the doctor.
“Fancy that! You’re that fond of them?”
“I find they agree with me. They are light and digestible. And my stomach is as weak as a baby’s.”
The labourer wiped his big moustache on his sleeve.
“Mine isna, tha sees,” he said, “so pap’s no use. ‘S watter ter me. I want ter feel as I’ve had summat: a bit o’ suetty dumplin’ an’ a pint o’ hale, summat ter fill th’ hole up. An’ tha’d be th’ same if tha did my work.”
“If I did your work,” sneered the doctor. “Why I do ten times the work that any one of you does. It’s just the work that has ruined my digestion, the never getting a quiet meal, and never a whole night’s rest. When do you think I can sit at table and digest my dinner? I have to be off looking after people like you — ”
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 256