The Wartime Midwives

by Daisy Styles

  ‘Make sure it doesn’t happen again,’ Matron said, not unkindly. ‘If you feel inadequate about changing Heather, ask Sister Ada to assist you.’

  Continuing with her inspection, Matron suddenly realized the solution to her problem was right before her. Heather could be diagnosed with a fracture! It would mean colluding with the doctor again, but it might work. She could lie to Jones (he’d believe anything for a bottle of whisky), tell him that Heather had had a fall and she suspected a possible fracture. He could drive the child to the cottage hospital, apparently for an X-ray, when, in fact, Percival would be waiting for him and Heather in a prearranged place. Heather could be secretly transferred into his car and taken to the Grange. Heather’s extended absence from Mary Vale would be explained away by another lie: that her injury needed specialist treatment and she had therefore been transferred to Lancaster Infirmary for an indefinite period – something Matron would instruct Jones to relate to the staff at the appropriate time.

  ‘And the best thing of all about the whole plan is I won’t have to set foot out of Mary Vale!’ Matron rejoiced.

  On the day of her formal interview with the Reverend Mother, poor Shirley was a nervous wreck. It hadn’t been a problem to open her heart to Sister Ann, but would she be able to speak so articulately to the Reverend Mother, who might well think she was stupid, tainted, uneducated or, even worse, believe – as Matron did – that she was using the order to secure free board and lodgings.

  ‘Will you be there with me?’ she asked Sister Ann, as they sat in the dark, timbered corridor waiting for the wall clock to tick round to 11 a.m., which was the time scheduled for her interview.

  Sister Ann nodded. ‘The Reverend Mother agreed I could be with you, but this is about you, child, not me. I can’t speak of your vocation; it is for you to express that wish and explain your motives as best you can.’ Seeing Shirley’s small white hands trembling on her lap, the nun gripped them in her own. ‘Just be yourself and speak the truth, as you did to me.’

  Though the Reverend Mother was kind, she nevertheless grilled Shirley on why she wanted to enter their religious order and why she thought she had a vocation. When Shirley answered her questions with the same clarity and love as she had previously with Sister Ann, it was clear that the Reverend Mother was affected by the girl’s innocence and utter sincerity.

  Later, over a cup of tea in the sitting room (recently vacated by the highly overexcited Nativity cast rehearsing their play), Sister Ann explained to Shirley what might happen next.

  ‘That went well,’ she started. ‘Congratulations. I think the Reverend Mother was touched by what you had to say.’

  ‘She did ask a lot of questions!’ Shirley exclaimed.

  ‘Quite right too!’

  ‘So what next, Sister?’ Shirley asked impatiently. ‘When can I become a nun like you?’

  Sister Ann smiled at her eagerness. ‘Don’t get ahead of yourself,’ she warned. ‘You’ve a long way to go. If you’re accepted, you’ll undergo a form of training. This is when you will learn about the life of a nun and our order from the inside. It’s a testing time for a new postulant, a period of prayer and introspection, when you decide whether or not you really want to be a nun.’

  ‘I do!’ Shirley blurted out.

  ‘I know that, you know that, perhaps God knows it too, but this early part of your postulancy is vital for your spiritual development,’ Sister Ann said patiently. ‘It’s good that you can now read, as there is a lot of wonderful material in the Scriptures that will guide and inform you.’

  Sister Ann reached into her capacious pockets and handed Shirley a weathered leather copy of the Bible. ‘This was mine,’ she said. ‘I read it continually throughout my postulancy – the New and the Old Testaments. I’d like you to have it now, child.’

  Overcome, Shirley reached out to take the book. ‘Will I really be able to read this?’ she said, squinting at the tiny print written on delicately fine paper.

  ‘Of course, you’re a quick learner – and you have plenty of time,’ Sister Ann assured her student. ‘I’ll help you with any difficult passages and I’m sure Gloria will too.’

  ‘Thank you, Sister,’ Shirley murmured emotionally, as she clasped the book. ‘I’ll treasure it forever,’ she promised.

  Sister Ann continued, ‘Once you’re sure you want to become a nun, you’ll take temporary vows of chastity, celibacy and obedience. After fulfilling your temporary vows, you’ll take your final vows and be ready to lead a totally religious life,’ she concluded. ‘As I just said, you’ll have plenty of time in which to think about this momentous decision.’

  Slightly deflated at the thought of a long wait, Shirley groaned. ‘Years and years.’

  ‘It’s a long and wonderful journey,’ Sister Ann said. ‘And you might ponder as you pray what work you’d like to do as a novice and as a nun.’

  Seeing Shirley looking startled, Sister Ann added, ‘For example, I became a midwife.’

  Shirley quickly shook her head. ‘I could never do that!’ she exclaimed, then burst out laughing. ‘I’ll clean – that’s what I’m best at.’

  ‘Shirley, with an education you could teach if you wanted to,’ Sister Ann suggested.

  Again Shirley shook her head. ‘No,’ she repeated. ‘I’ll clean for God!’

  Though Isla tried hard to prepare herself for leaving her daughter, she struggled; it was clear to all her friends that the poor girl was upset, and, even though she thought she was doing the right thing, it still hurt her to do so. Isla had tried to put a distance between herself and her daughter, but she had inevitably fallen in love with the little girl, who gurgled and burbled in her cot and wriggled with pleasure at the sight of her smiling mother.

  As Emily and Gloria helped Isla pack her suitcase, which had been hidden under her bed since her arrival at the Home months ago, Emily cautiously asked, ‘Will you come and see us?’

  Isla answered her as honestly as she had Ada when the ward sister asked the same question. ‘I know it sounds rude, Em, but I think, once I leave here, I will never come back. The thought of returning to Mary Vale and not seeing Heather in the nursery would break my heart.’

  Emily nodded; she could completely understand Isla’s motives.

  ‘But we must keep in touch,’ Gloria insisted. ‘We can’t pretend none of this ever happened.’

  ‘Maybe you – and your children too – could come and stay with me in Windermere? Jeannie’s house is big enough for an army,’ Isla suggested. ‘Promise you’ll come?’

  ‘Promise!’ her friends replied.

  As Daphne had with Bertie, Isla begged her friends to keep an eye on Heather. ‘I know she’ll be collected by her adoptive parents soon after I leave, but while she’s here in the Home, please will you cuddle her if she cries after I’ve left?’

  Knowing the potential danger Heather might be in once her mother departed the Home, Isla’s friends exchanged a quick conspiratorial look; remembering Ada’s words about not alarming poor Isla, they all kept tight-lipped. Fortunately, Isla was too upset to notice their awkward expressions. Unable to hold back her sorrow a minute longer, she fell on to the bed and sobbed her heart out.

  ‘I thought I was going to be all right,’ she wept. ‘I thought it was all organized. I was sure I was doing the right thing, but the thought of never seeing her again, never smelling her again, never holding her again, just crucifies me.’

  Gloria, who couldn’t even imagine parting with a beloved child, sat on the bed beside her friend and stroked her silky blonde hair.

  ‘It will get better once you leave her,’ she assured Isla. ‘These last days have been a torture, but when you’re back in Windermere you can start looking to the future.’

  A rap at the bedroom door distracted them. ‘Come in,’ Emily called.

  They were all surprised to see Sister Mary Paul standing, looking flustered, in the doorway.

  ‘Sorry to bother you, ladies, but the farmer from Cartmel Fa
rm just down the road has come calling,’ she announced. ‘He said he found Robin wandering around his stables.’

  Jumping guiltily to her feet, Gloria cried, ‘ROBIN!’

  The last time she’d seen her son he was playing in the garden; checking her watch, she realized with a shock that that had been hours ago. Heavy and lumbering as she was, Gloria tore down the stairs, coming to a breathless halt at the door.

  ‘He’s out in the garden with the farmer,’ Sister Mary Paul said with a secretive smile.

  Gloria hurried into the garden, where, to her amazement, she found Robin, grinning from ear to ear, sitting on a little donkey. The cheery farmer grinned as he affectionately patted the donkey’s big bottom.

  ‘Yon lad ’ere ses yer after wanting a donkey for Christmas, is that reet, missis?’

  32. The Cottage Hospital

  As Emily and Gloria waited rather tensely for Jeannie to arrive to take Isla home, Gloria said, ‘Thank God Isla’s not leaving Mary Vale on Christmas Eve – what with the play – and now the blinkin’ donkey – I don’t think I could take one more thing!’

  ‘That boy of yours should be sent to Berlin to deal with Hitler – he’d sort him out in no time!’ Emily chuckled.

  ‘I blame Sister Mary Paul for indulging Robin’s every whim,’ Gloria said fondly. ‘It turns out she was the one who introduced him to the farmer – and she’s the one that’s cleared a shed in the back garden for Big Ears – that’s the donkey’s name, by the way.’

  By this time both women were in convulsions of laughter.

  ‘Are we really going to have a donkey trot into the chapel on Christmas Eve?’ Emily said, mopping tears of laughter from her eyes.

  ‘Have you seen Sister Mary Paul’s camel outfit?’ Gloria giggled. ‘Talk about getting the hump!’

  Emily clutched her stomach. ‘For heaven’s sake – stop it!’ she begged. ‘I shall go into labour if I laugh any more.’

  They quickly sobered up when they saw a car pulling into the drive of Mary Vale.

  ‘Oh, God! Jeannie’s here already,’ Emily gasped.

  ‘We must be brave for Isla’s sake,’ Gloria whispered urgently.

  ‘Brave is the last thing I feel,’ Emily confessed. ‘God only knows how Isla’s feeling right now, poor kid.’

  When Ada saw Jeannie arriving, she hurried to the nursery, where she knew she’d find Isla. Looking down on her sweetly sleeping daughter, who had the faintest shadow of a smile playing at the edges of her lips, Isla was blinking back tears.

  ‘I don’t want to leave her,’ she blurted out when she saw Ada. ‘I never thought I would love her the way I do.’

  Ada, who’d seen many a young woman in the same heartbroken state, quickly moved Isla away from the sleeping baby.

  ‘I promise you we’ll take the greatest care of her,’ she said fervently to the weeping mother, who, after taking one last lingering glance at her baby, fled the nursery in floods of tears.

  In the bedroom that she was just about to vacate, Isla hugged Emily and Gloria in turn.

  ‘Goodbye, goodbye,’ she cried. ‘I could never have got through these last months without you both.’

  Also in tears, Emily burst out, ‘And how would we have survived without YOU, Isla?’

  ‘We’ll keep in touch,’ Gloria assured Isla, who was being firmly shepherded out of the bedroom and down the stairs to the front door by Jeannie. ‘Goodbye!’

  Downstairs, Jeannie whispered to Ada, ‘I need to get her away as quickly as possible; otherwise she’ll be hysterical all the way home.’

  As Isla walked out of Mary Vale, she recalled the moment of walking in, with Heather safely inside her; now that her baby was born, she no longer had any claim over the daughter she’d grown to love. Taking one last look at the Home, she climbed into the car before she could run back inside to grab her baby – as she so longed to do.

  ‘Drive carefully,’ Ada said, quickly slamming the door; then, with a quick wave, Jeannie roared away in a swirl of falling snowflakes.

  When Isla had gone, Emily returned to the bedroom she had shared with Isla and also Nancy when she had first arrived at Mary Vale months ago. As she stood in the cold, echoing room, she smiled softly as she recalled Daphne’s hooting laughter combined with Nancy’s nervous giggles. How she missed them both; but how much more would she miss Isla. They’d been through so much together – not just their pregnancies but the perilous adventure they’d had on the stormy marsh the day they’d saved Shirley’s life. She hoped they would remain friends for the rest of their lives, but she realized that keeping her baby would inevitably put a strain on their friendship. If Isla were to see Emily’s baby grow up, how could she not make painful comparisons. How could she not think that her Heather would be the same age? Determined to shake morbid thoughts from her mind, Emily walked over to the window, which gave spectacular views of the fells etched out in dark silhouette against the sharp winter light.

  ‘Isla might have left but Heather’s still here, and I owe her a duty: I will watch and protect her every minute she’s in Mary Vale – this time, I will NOT let an innocent child down,’ she vowed.

  Thoughtful Ada was concerned that, until the new arrivals appeared, Emily might start to feel lonely left on her own in the big bedroom, so she suggested that she move closer to Gloria and Robin.

  ‘There’s a large single room on the same corridor as Gloria and Robin,’ she told Emily, who instantly liked her idea.

  By dinner-time she’d moved into the comfortable room and looked a lot more cheerful for it.

  ‘I was beginning to get gloomy,’ she confessed.

  ‘You won’t be gloomy for long with Robin around,’ Gloria chuckled. ‘He’ll have you on donkey duty before you know it!’

  ‘Actually’ – Emily dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, ‘Now that Isla’s gone, I’m on another kind of duty – I’m keeping an eye on Heather,’ she confessed.

  Gloria gave her a sideways glance. ‘That makes two of us,’ she said with a sly smile.

  Christmas Eve dawned bright and beautiful. Half the residents of Mary Vale were awakened at dawn by Big Ears braying loudly and continually, until Sister Mary Paul and Robin arrived with his breakfast, after which he was taken into a section of the garden cordoned off exclusively for his use.

  ‘Father Christmas is coming tonight, Merry Paul!’ Robin chanted as he literally danced up and down, wild with excitement.

  ‘And Baby Jesus too,’ the smiling nun reminded him.

  Wide-eyed and suddenly still, Robin asked, ‘Will Mummy’s baby come tonight with Jesus?’

  ‘Mummy’s got a few more weeks to go before her baby’s born,’ Sister Mary Paul gently explained. ‘Hopefully, no babies will be born at Mary Vale tonight and we can all enjoy ourselves singing carols in the chapel once it goes dark.’

  In various parts of the Home, watchful eyes continued to follow Matron’s every movement. When she bustled into the nursery with Dr Jones, Ada hovered over Heather like a protective mother hen, while Shirley, as usual mopping the hospital floor, moved in closer to hear what was going on, and Sister Ann pretended to be busy reading notes at the nearby nursing station. The three women, alert for any misdemeanours, were taken aback when Dr Jones (sufficiently prepped by Matron) announced that he’d like to give Heather a full examination.

  ‘Why?’ Ada asked.

  ‘I shan’t be visiting the Home over the Christmas holidays, unless there’s an emergency,’ he replied. ‘So, if it’s not too inconvenient, Sister, I’d be grateful if I can examine the child now. If all is well, I can close her medical file in readiness for her to be collected by her adoptive parents.’

  Ada trusted the drunken doctor as far as she could throw him.

  ‘I’d like to attend while you perform the examination,’ she said curtly.

  After a cursory examination, with Ada breathing down his neck, Dr Jones nervously cleared his throat. ‘The child appears to have something wrong with her right
arm.’

  Completely astonished, Ada protested. ‘She was perfectly all right this morning when I fed and changed her.’

  ‘Well, she’s not all right now,’ Jones said, nodding in the direction of Heather, who, after his clumsy examination, was howling furiously. Turning to Matron, he said sharply, ‘I suspect she’s got a fracture.’

  Matron rolled her eyes in deep disapproval. ‘It doesn’t surprise me, Doctor. Some of the girls are quite careless with the new-borns, throwing them around as if they were nothing more than bags of sugar.’

  Though Ada bridled at her waspish comment, her thoughts were entirely on the upset baby, who was now sobbing her little heart out. Catching sight of Sister Ann’s tense face and Shirley watching wide-eyed with fear, Ada made a move to pick up the baby.

  ‘I think she might need changing,’ she said briskly.

  ‘Not so hasty, Sister,’ interjected the doctor. ‘With your permission, Matron, I’d like to take the child immediately to the cottage hospital for an X-ray.’

  Matron put a hand to her face before she gushed, ‘Of course, Doctor. We can’t leave her in pain all over Christmas.’

  Ada’s blood boiled; this was exactly what she had vowed would not happen and yet, before her very eyes, Heather was on the point of being removed from Mary Vale, just like the other two babies who’d been in her care. Striding forwards, she said in an over-loud voice, ‘NO!’

  Astonished, Matron and Dr Jones glared at her.

  ‘Excuse me, Sister!’ Matron snapped.

  ‘Are you saying, Sister, that you don’t agree with my diagnosis?’ Jones queried.

  Ada swallowed hard. ‘Yes, I am,’ she declared. ‘I am quite sure Heather doesn’t have a fracture and I would prefer it if the child stayed here to be nursed. Sister Ann and I could arrange round-the-clock care, just as Matron did when Tom had measles,’ she added pointedly.

  Holding her breath, Ada could almost see Matron’s hackles rise.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ she mocked. ‘Rarely in my working life have I seen such a gross display of poor practice.’ Turning to Jones, she threw up her arms in a dramatic show of displeasure. ‘It would seem, Doctor, that our senior nurse would prefer to see the poor child crying in pain here rather than having specialist treatment for her injury elsewhere.’