‘It’s always been a nice part of Queens Drive here, hasn’t it? It’s a long time since I was last here, but I recognised the house, immediately. If I remember, last time, I wasn’t offered tea.’
Miss Devonshire didn’t comment. ‘Do sit down,’ she said and waited for Doris to sit. The fire was laid, waiting to be lit in the evening, and in the corner of the room was what looked like a brand-new television.
‘Oh, you have a television, how nice.’
‘Yes, don’t you?’
‘Not yet, no. We thought of it, for the coronation, but then we were away and so, well, the moment passed. We are getting one now though, I have just decided – Oliver may visit more often if we have one.’ She laughed and then felt immediately guilty at the mention of her son’s name. She was trying her best to lighten the mood, would try to talk Dukie down a little, lower her defences. She would only play her trump card if she had to.
‘You know why I’m here, don’t you?’
Miss Devonshire picked up the scatter cushion next to her, plumped it up and then placed it on her knees, her suddenly trembling hands folded on top. In an instant, she had lost the mettle that made her the tyrant she was known to be.
‘I do, and I have to tell you, there is nothing you can do because I have evidence which is irrefutable.’ She sprang to her feet and left the room, to return only seconds later and place the first and second letters of complaint, along with the weigh sheet, into Doris’s outstretched hands. ‘Even your husband would have to take note of that,’ she said, finding a new confidence as she sat down.
Doris read both letters slowly and carefully. ‘I understand how you have had to take this into account,’ she said as she folded the letters, but it is obvious by the handwriting that they have been written by the same person, someone who has an axe to grind. Dukie, I have held that little boy, I have fed him his bottle and he is as healthy now as my own son was at that age – which is a miracle, given how poorly Louis was when he was admitted. He has been very well looked after. You have to change your mind. You cannot take this child away from the people he thinks of as his parents just before Christmas, breaking all their hearts, not to mention those of the entire staff of the hospital and everyone who knows them and place him in Strawberry Fields. It is frankly absurd.
‘You know that once the Fields accept him the legal status is that he is theirs and they could have him with a new family within hours. No one knows that better than you.’ Her voice became as tense as a finely tuned violin wire as she spoke. As she said it out loud, she could barely believe what her old friend was doing and what she was having to subject her to. It was hurting them both, something she hadn’t anticipated.
Miss Devonshire looked as though she was about to break until Doris saw the resolve slip into her spine and she sat upright. ‘I do appreciate what you say; however, I’m afraid that, on the basis of those letters, I have to do my job – indeed, my duty. She has also lied and someone who is fit to be a parent cannot lie. What on earth would she lie about next?’
Doris smiled, weakly. ‘What about you, Dukie?’
‘What do you mean, what about me?’
Doris sat forward and folded her hands on her knee. She didn’t need a cushion to protect her, she had the force of the truth behind her. ‘Haven’t you built your own life on the back of a lie? What makes Emily Horton’s lie any worse than the one you have been living with for all of these years?
Chapter 23
Beth had undressed Eva and placed her in a hospital gown. ‘She looks jaundiced,’ she said, ‘is stick-thin, oedematous ankles and probable abdominal ascites. Her pulse is rapid, probably due to the pain and her temperature is 104.’
‘Thank you, Doctor,’ Teddy said and Beth blushed. She was always being ribbed for trying to guess a diagnosis ahead of the doctors. ‘Let’s speak to everyone who has brought her in and see what information we can gather. It’s hard dealing with a patient with zero information.’
*
‘I only know she had the baby on the bathroom floor,’ said Ida.
‘I know nothing,’ said Melly. ‘I only clean her rooms, but she asked where she could wash her clothes and I could smell something very funny in the scullery when she was in there.’
Malcolm now stood at the side of the trolley, holding Eva’s hand. His eyes were moist and, instinctively, Teddy was gentle with his questions.
‘She’s collapsed a number of times,’ said Malcolm, ‘but she was always all right after and I thought it was because she was so thin. The Disprin worked a treat.’
With a start, Teddy recognised his patient. ‘I remember her,’ he blurted out, ‘I saw her outside the main entrance. She asked me where the admin block was and you are right, Malcolm, she looked faint and then quickly recovered.’
‘We only know what we read in the letters at Malcolm’s,’ said Biddy. ‘She’s Louis’ real mother and she has been as far as America and back and it wasn’t her fault that Louis was left.’
‘She called him Elijah,’ said Ida.
The doors opened and no one spoke as a stricken Dessie and Emily walked in and Biddy walked towards them. Emily took her son and for a moment, there was a gulf between them as Biddy stood back. She was paralysed by guilt, thought she had let everyone down. Dessie spoke – Emily was incapable as conflicting emotion coursed through her veins.
‘It was no one’s, fault, Biddy. He’s left outside to sleep in his pram every day. She could have taken him from anywhere, so please, please don’t blame yourself.’ He opened his arms wide and encircled them around his wife, Biddy and the boy who was his son, aware that he might not be so for much longer.
‘I’m going to have to ask you all to leave the area, please, I have to draw the curtains now,’ said Sister Pokey. ‘Everyone to the waiting room please.’
Teddy put a hand on Malcolm’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, but she is very poorly and we need to find out what is wrong.’
As soon as the curtains were closed, Teddy began to palpate Eva’s abdomen and said to Beth, ‘A Cusco’s speculum, please, and Sister Pokey, can you grab the gynaecologist on call and alert the theatre, please?’
‘Right away, Dr Davenport,’ said sister as the curtain fell back into place.
‘Are her obs still the same?’ he asked Beth.
‘Yes, her pulse is 120, her temperature is 104 and her blood pressure is 110 over 90. Exactly what it was when she came in through the door. I’ll fetch an instrument trolley.’
As Beth left, Teddy noticed his patient open her eyes and took advantage of the few moments he had with her while she had rallied round to consciousness.
‘Hello, Eva, you don’t feel very well, do you?’
Eva shook her head.
‘How long have you had this pain, can you remember?’
He could barely hear her reply and placed his ear close to her mouth. ‘Since I had Elijah,’ she whispered.
Teddy shook his head, it couldn’t be possible. Beth reappeared with an enamel trolley and glanced at Eva, who had slipped back into unconsciousness.
‘Sister has called the gynaecologist on call, he’s on his way,’ she said.
‘Good. It may not even be related to the birth, but I can’t find anything else to go on at the moment. Her chest is clear. It could be a urinary tract infection, I suppose, but the retained abdominal fluid tells me otherwise. The night cleaner says she had her baby spontaneously on a bathroom floor and I’m wondering if there are any retained products? If there were, she would have bled to death by now, unless it was something small, causing a chronic problem rather than acute.’
‘Wouldn’t she have collapsed before now?’ asked Beth.
‘Yes,’ said Teddy. ‘I suppose she could have had a low-grade infection and fought it off with her own immune system for a time, but this long? I doubt it. Can you hold her knees for me?’
Beth eased Eva’s knees up and let them fall partially to the side and then held them in place. Teddy stared at the cur
tain, his eyes almost closed, concentrating hard on what he could feel. He removed the speculum, threw it into the bucket and it clattered against the side with some force. The only response from Eva was a fluttering of her eyelashes as he tore off his rubber gloves. Beth retook Eva’s blood pressure.
‘What is it now?’ he asked.
Beth peered at him over the top of her glasses and he instantly detected the warning set of her jaw. ‘100 over 80,’ she said. ‘It’s dropping.’
Teddy looked alarmed. ‘She definitely has retained products. Her uterus is as hard as a cricket ball. Call theatre now and I’ll run her up there myself and assist, tell the gynae to meet me there.’ He kicked off the brake, swung the trolley around as Beth lifted the curtains. ‘Here, help me!’ he shouted and Jake took the other end. ‘Up to theatre now.’
*
‘I haven’t lived a lie,’ said Miss Devonshire, ‘my past is no one’s business.’
Doris felt desperately sorry for her, she always had. The reason their friendship had faltered was because of Oliver. Once he was born, Doris couldn’t bear to see the pain in her friend’s eyes and her friend couldn’t bear to see the pleasure in her own. It might have been easier if Oliver had been a girl, but she doubted it. Doris reached out and placed her hand over that of her old friend.
‘Dukie, you had a baby. Your parents wouldn’t let you keep it so you gave him up for adoption. He was a little boy. I saw him, I held him, remember?’ Miss Devonshire nodded her head and a tear plopped onto the back of Doris’s hand. ‘I haven’t ever forgotten him, so I am sure you haven’t. He looked very much like Louis, didn’t he? Dark brown hair and dark eyes?’
There was no response.
‘Look, what I am saying is, I don’t really think you can make objective decisions with regard to adoption, do you? I don’t think you should be doing this job. You are so professional and so good, but your past, the past you cannot change, clouds your judgement and you cannot be blamed for that, or help it. It isn’t your fault, Dukie…’
Another tear plopped and she lifted her hand and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘It was all so long ago,’ she said.
‘It was, but if I haven’t forgotten Robert, you can’t have done either. You were his mother. Please listen to me; I was always your good friend. I cried too when you had to give him up, you know I did. You don’t know this, but I fought and argued with your parents here, in this room, when you were locked up in that awful mother and baby home. Your father wouldn’t budge an inch. He was more interested in what the neighbours would think than how his daughter felt. You had spent six weeks feeding Robert and caring for him, loving him. It was too cruel, barbaric – and you had a double blow, your Francis killed in the war only weeks later. You had the worst grief to bear, Dukie, and now, you are letting it get in the way of another child’s happiness, another family. Of a couple like the one who adopted your Robert. You can’t deny them that, for all the wrong reasons, can you? Louis isn’t Robert, the circumstances aren’t the same.’
They both jumped as the door knocked. Doris felt irritated, thinking it was her husband, trying to hurry her along. As she opened the door, leaving Miss Devonshire to dry the tears that had fallen unhindered, she was shocked to see Gracie shivering on the doorstep.
‘Goodness me,’ said Doris, ‘what are you doing here? Why aren’t you at the nurses’ home with Mrs Duffy?’
‘My nan sent me, she’s at the hospital with the others, She told me I had to come and say that she wrote the letters – she pushed the one through the door this morning. She asked me to tell the lady that she’s very sorry. The baby’s real mam is back now, but she’s very sick.’
‘Who is at the hospital, Gracie, and why? Come on in, you’re frozen. Come and explain and then maybe we should go to the hospital too.’
Doris looked out of the door and down the path. The drive was white, covered in a layer of snow. She worried if they would be able to get to St Angelus in the car, if they waited much longer. She lifted her hand to her husband and Dr William who waved back. Both men looked frozen as they banged their hands together to keep them warm. ‘Yes, we can all go to the hospital now.’
*
Sister Pokey sent everyone home – and Miss Devonshire sent Louis home with Dessie and Emily.
‘If she is his real mother and it wasn’t her fault, then I am afraid she will be able to have her son back. It will be a matter for the police, not me, but that is the truth of it. I am sorry,’ she said to them. Emily looked up into her face. She didn’t know what had happened, but a kinder Miss Devonshire stood in front of her today.
Emily could barely see for the tears pouring down her cheeks. Dessie held onto her and rocked her from side to side.
‘I fully understand if you don’t want to take him back home with you now,’ Miss Devonshire added, ‘all things considered.’
‘No!’ Emily shouted the word and hugged Louis close to her. ‘We are taking him, he is coming back with us, he has been ours, is ours. I understand, but while she…’ Emily couldn’t bring herself to say the word ‘mother’, ‘Eva is here, he will come back to his bedroom, his cot, his home. It’s his home.’ She sobbed the last words.
‘Shush, Emily, let’s not frighten Louis. Come on, we will take him,’ said Dessie, he and Emily realising that it might be the last time he ever said those words.
*
Pammy checked on Victoria, who was not progressing as quickly as quickly as she had at first. She looked in through the portal window and waved to her and Dana, who was laying a cold cloth on her friend’s brow.
Teddy was already scrubbed and in theatre, relieved that the anaesthetist was already there from the previous operation. He rescrubbed and they were ready to start in record time.
‘I have no idea when she last ate,’ said Teddy, ‘but it could have been three hours ago when she finished her cleaning night shift here.’
The anaesthetist was in the process of intubating his patient. ‘That’s helpful,’ he said with an eyebrow raised and a sigh.
‘Sorry,’ said Teddy.
‘Well, we have no information and therefore no choices,’ the surgeon interjected. ‘It looks to me as though we are fighting the clock here anyway. If we weigh risk against caution, risk wins hand down.’
Minutes later they were reeling at what they found. The gynaecologist looked at Teddy and the anaesthetist over the top of his mask, his tools of surgery balanced in his hand.
‘Hysterectomy is the only chance we have of saving her life here on the table,’ he said. ‘And there is only a very slim chance of survival here. I am sure this is the primary growth we have stumbled upon, given her history, possibly a minute retained product and chronic infection behind it. I’m guessing it’s turned malignant over time.’
‘She’s so young,’ said Teddy.
‘Yes, that will have worked against her; the cells will have reproduced rapidly and I don’t yet know what is on the inside. I think she may have the beginnings of septicaemia too, and who knows what else we will find…’ The atmosphere in the theatre was charged. ‘Are you with me, gentlemen? Sister?’ he asked as he looked at Teddy, the anaesthetist and the theatre sister.
‘We are,’ they replied in unison. The gynaecologist nodded his response and worked quickly and skilfully to bring the procedure to a close in the fastest time possible.
As they cleaned up after the operation three long hours later, the men were silent as sister cleared away the instruments.
‘Sister,’ said the gynaecologist, ‘can you make sure no other operations are performed in this theatre until the walls have been thoroughly washed down and swabbed? This theatre is now classed as dirty until it is sterilised.’
The theatre was silent as was often the way after an operation when all the parties involved knew the best had been done, but it wasn’t enough. The blood-filled buckets were removed, the aprons and greens stripped off, hands scrubbed – and still no one spoke.
The
y were on their way back down to the receiving ward before Teddy asked the gynaecologist the question everyone downstairs would.
‘Is there a chance she will she make it?’
The gynaecologist was unequivocal in his answer. ‘No. I was surprised we didn’t lose her on the table. You rarely see anyone that advanced, but when you do, it’s always a shocker. More common before the days of the NHS when women bore everything in silence. It was almost always too late then. I’m more surprised she has recovered from the anaesthetic. The blood transfusion may help, but it won’t last for long. I’ve given her penicillin and a hundred milligrams of Pethidine and written her up for more. At least she will be relatively pain-free now. We will keep the drip up, obviously; she is a young woman but she’s lost a huge amount of blood. In my best opinion, she was too poorly for surgery. I would give her four to six hours. She is a very, very sick young lady in the most advanced stages. She could have dropped dead at any moment over the last weeks. Frankly, quite incredible that she hasn’t. She must have had a very strong reason to keep battling on.’
*
Back at home, Dessie and Emily had barely spoken. There was nothing to say that could change anything or make the situation any better, so Emily sat with the baby who had stolen her heart and forced herself not to cry. To laugh and play with his fingers, to kiss him and feed him, to will him not to sleep because she wanted to commit every waking moment to memory. She didn’t even notice when Jake entered the house. Barely lifted her head to the sound of murmuring voices and only responded when Dessie tried to take Louis out of her arms.
‘What are you doing?’ she demanded to know. ‘Where are you taking him? You can’t, not yet, he’s ours for tonight.’
‘Emily, love, Eva, his – his mother, she’s dying and she’s asking for him. Jake is here, Matron has sent him. He says that Dr Davenport asked him to tell us she only has a few hours at the most. Matron says she’s not forcing us to take Louis, that it’s entirely our choice, but I think we should, while there is still time, and let her hold him. What do you think?’
Snow Angels: An emotional Christmas read from the Sunday Times bestseller (The Lovely Lane Series Book 5) Page 26