Eliza's Child (17 page)

‘I'll just drink this then I'll away to the bread oven,' she said.

‘
WHAT SHOULD I
do, Mam?' Eliza asked. It was Monday evening and Tommy and the two older boys had returned from the pit and were in the back street playing quoits with their friends. Tommy had helped Eliza to lift and bathe Miley and make him comfortable for the night. Then he too had disappeared out of the door, mumbling something about ‘the lads' and wanting to see them.

Eliza was weary to the point where her brain was barely functioning. She and her mother had been talking about whether she should leave the Infirmary and come home to help with the bairn, as Mary Anne still called him.

‘Nay, lass, I don't think we could afford to keep you,' Mary Anne answered. ‘Me and your da will manage. Other folk have to do it. Any road, you've done so well, you've got on, I'm real proud of you, I am. But Tommy would be on at you all the time to find Jack and go back to him.' It was true; Tommy had barely spoken to Eliza when he came in, and then only to ask pointedly after ‘her man'.

‘He didn't tell me to get out, though, did he? He would get used to it,' said Eliza. ‘And besides, haven't I spent all the hours God sends looking for Jack and my little Thomas?'

All the hours she wasn't working, she thought, and even then she had scrutinised the face of every little boy who came into the Infirmary, just in case.

Mary Anne sighed. ‘By, lass, I thought you were doing well to marry out of the pits but I was wrong. Any man that would take a little lad from his mother has no heart, no heart at all.'

‘I have to go to bed, I'm dead on my feet,' said Eliza. ‘We'll talk about it the morn.'

‘Aye, lass, good night. I've strung a blanket on a line to separate your bed from the lads. Now, up the ladder with you. I'll have a rest by the fire. The lads will be in soon.'

For all her weariness, Eliza lay awake for a while. The twilight still lingered and the room was not completely dark. She lay on her back and gazed up at the rafters. After a while she said her usual prayer for Thomas and turned over onto her side. Perhaps she could spare a few shillings a month to pay for a woman to come in and help her mother with Miley? She tried to work out in her head how much exactly but her brain couldn't. Abruptly, she fell asleep.

In the end, that was the arrangement. Eliza was now a senior night sister and she managed to take three shillings every month to Blue House. Miley's back was proving slow to heal and it meant that she had little time to search for Thomas. One day, when she got the chance, she would go up into Northumberland again if only to satisfy herself that he was not there. One day when Miley was better and her commitments were less. Meanwhile Eliza immersed herself in her work on the ward.

‘Can I speak to you for a minute, Nurse?' Bertha asked respectfully one morning when Eliza entered the dining room. Though they had been friends for so many years they were still expected to maintain a distance between them when at work. Nurses were not supposed to treat the domestic staff as equals; they had to be aware of their place and the domestic staff also.

Eliza glanced about the dining room; there was no one near her, the room was almost empty. ‘Morning, Bertha,' she said and smiled at the earnest little woman. Bertha was wrapped in a voluminous overall and wore a cap that came down almost to her eyebrows and showed only a few strands of hair at the sides and back. Her plain face was made attractive by her expressive dark eyes and mobile features.

‘What is it?'

Bertha did not sit down in case anyone of authority came in. Instead she leaned over the table and lifted Eliza's used plate and cutlery.

‘I was up at Alnwick on my day off. Went to see my friend from the workhouse, Maria. I haven't seen her for years but now, since I can write, I sent her a letter.' Bertha blushed and her eyes shone; it was a great achievement for her to do such a thing. Eliza smiled and nodded in understanding.

‘She wrote back to you?'

‘Aye, she did and asked me to go up and see her. She's got five bairns now; she married the under-gamekeeper on the Castle estate. They're bonny bairns, oh they are an' all. But while I was up there I saw something.' Bertha paused and glanced round before continuing. ‘I saw the Missus, you know, Mrs John Henry. She was in the butcher's. By, she's looking her age an' all. Well, she came out of there and climbed into a trap and a little lad with her. A lad about seven, I'd say.'

Eliza's heart began to race. ‘Seven? A lad about seven? Are you sure?'

‘Oh aye, I'm sure. I went up to them and nodded. “Do you remember me?” I asked the Missus. I got a good look at the lad.'

‘What did she say?'

‘Nay, she didn't say much, just mumbled and shook her head like. Then she whipped up the pony and went on her way. Not up to the house, though, another way altogether.'

Eliza's mind raced. As far as she knew Henry had no children and certainly not a seven-year-old lad.

‘Mind, it doesn't mean it's Thomas,' she said.

‘No, I thought that. But I had a good look at him and he had lovely dark blue eyes and long lashes such as are wasted on a lad. Eyes just like yours.'

‘Oh, Bertha do you think it is?'

‘Well now, I'd lay a bet on it if I wasn't chapel,' Bertha replied then straightened up hurriedly as Cook called from the kitchen door.

‘How long does it take to clear the covers, Bertha?'

‘I'm just coming, Cook,' she said and gathered the pots quickly and sped away.

‘I'll meet you outside, over in the wood,' said Eliza before she went. ‘When?'

‘An hour,' Bertha replied. ‘I'll be able to get ten minutes.'

Eliza was waiting on the outskirts of the wood within half an hour. She couldn't rest; she was filled with hope and dread alternately and in equal measures. She was beginning to despair of Bertha managing to get away when the sound of the church clock striking ten came across the fields. And then at last she saw Bertha coming along the path. Eliza backed into the cover of the trees and waited anxiously.

‘Are you sure, Bertha, are you really sure?' she asked as soon as the girl drew nearer.

‘I am,' she said. ‘I think the old besom has your lad. I followed the trap, it was easy enough. I kept to the side and the pony wasn't one you'd put in Blaydon Races. It was a Galloway; it took its own sweet pace. Any road, it was there by the last house on the edge of Alnwick. A lad was just leading him round to the back.'

‘But the little lad? Where was he?'

‘Loitering by the door. He was talking to the stable lad.' Bertha leaned forward and went on. ‘He was talking and the lad was laughing and the old woman came to the door and shouted. She said “Come away in, Tot, I told you once! Do you want the belt? That's what you'll get if you don't come this very minute!”'

‘She called him Tot? Are you sure?'

Bertha sighed. ‘I wish you wouldn't keep asking me if I'm sure. I was there, I heard the woman and that's what she said. The bairn ran in looking a bit scared, I will say. I don't know, a little lad shouldn't be scared of the belt, that's what I think any road. Look you, I'll have to go back or Cook will be spitting feathers.'

‘All right, go on. Thanks, Bertha.'

Eliza watched as Bertha sped back through the fields. She hugged her arms around her and tried to think. Would Annie call Thomas Tot? Maybe it wasn't him. Maybe it was another lad altogether. Oh, it was hard to know, it was. She walked up and down, her weariness following the long night's work forgotten, and tried to marshal her thoughts. Whether it was Thomas or not, she had to go and find out. But her next night off duty wasn't for a fortnight and then she had to take the money for Miley to Blue House. No, she had to get time off before that. She would go mad if she worked at the Infirmary for two weeks before she went.

‘Please, Matron, I need leave of absence,' she said, and even in her present state of mind she quailed at the unblinking stare directed at her.

‘You
need
leave of absence? Explain yourself, Sister.'

Eliza looked at Matron, feeling as intimidated as she did when she first started her training five years before.

‘I am afraid so, Matron,' she said.

‘And may I ask why, Sister Mitchell-Howe?'

Eliza normally used the name Mitchell except in her hospital life. She had given the double-barrelled name Mitchell-Howe on her application form and she knew it had helped in securing her training. Hadn't Miss Nightingale said that nurses should be of good family? A double-barrelled name usually meant a good family. Together with various other characteristics. These raced through her mind as she tried to think of an answer. Sober, honest truthful, trustworthy, punctual, quiet, orderly, cleanly patient, kindly – a nurse had to be all of these.

‘For family reasons, please, Matron,'

‘This hospital is your family, Sister.' Matron sat back in her chair and gazed at Eliza. She herself was from Hertfordshire and had trained in the great Florence Nightingale's school in London. She tried to follow her mentor in everything, but it was hard here in the north of England where nurses were different from those in the south. It was hard to put a finger on the reason why or how this was so. Oh, they were hard-working and dedicated, especially the one before her now, but they were different.

‘Am I permitted to know why you need the time off?' Matron asked.

Eliza hesitated for just a moment but Matron did not miss it.

‘Well, Sister?' she demanded.

‘My little brother has injured his back, Matron.' She realised Matron wanted more. ‘He was pushing a wagon and it fell on him,' she elaborated. She was not going to mention the pit if she could help it. Matron would not like to think she was a pitman's daughter.

Matron sighed. She looked down at the rota she had been busy drawing up when Eliza requested an interview. It would have to be adjusted.

‘How long do you need, Sister?'

‘One week, Matron. Please.'

‘Very well, Sister. You may go. Report back to me in seven days' time.' Matron looked down dismissively and picked up her pen. ‘I hope your brother is not too badly injured, Sister.'

Eliza went out of the room with a feeling of having been let out of prison. Which was surprising, really, for she loved her work. Yet she soon forgot about Matron and the Infirmary and even her lack of sleep as she packed a bag and set off for the station. She didn't even care about telling a lie about her reasons for needing the time off.

The problem was that as soon as she sat down on the train the lack of sleep caught up with her and she closed her eyes, just for a minute or two, she told herself, and slept immediately. She dreamed of Thomas taking his first steps down the lane leading to Farmer Dean's farm, chuckling and picking daisies and dandelions under the hedge. In her dream there were no shadows and she was happy as she walked with him and caught him up in her arms when he stumbled. In the distance she could hear the roar of a steam engine on the line and the clickety-clack of the wheels on the rails.

It was semi-dark when Eliza woke up. She had a crick in her neck and her left arm had gone to sleep where she had leaned against the wooden ridged side of the wagon. She stretched and groaned to herself as her aching muscles cried out in protest. The train was stopped in a siding and it was semi-dark all around, that particular dark that is midsummer night in the north.

‘Now then, Missus,' a gruff voice said. ‘What are you doing here? Nobody can sleep the night on the train. It's an offence, that is. You'd best be gone or I'll have the polis on you.'

The voice belonged to a man in a railwayman's cap and coat and he held a lantern high over the half door of the third-class wagon. ‘Now then, be off with you.'

‘Where are we? I missed my station, I was asleep. Have we passed Alnwick?'

‘Passed Alnwick? Why, we're long past. This is the junction. You'll have to wait for the morn to get back to Alnwick.' The man looked at Eliza in the light of his lantern and evidently decided she was not a vagrant. ‘If you walk back along the wagonway you will come to the platform. You can wait there. It'll be half-past six mind, afore the train comes.'

Eliza picked her way over the stones and gravel by the side of the track until she reached the platform. She had to scramble up onto it for there were no steps or gradation from the rough track. The morning was beginning to lighten from the east, though it was only half-past three by the station clock by the time she sank down on a bench thoughtfully provided outside the locked waiting room and put her Gladstone bag at her feet. She sat, leaning back against the brickwork of the waiting room for a while and closed her eyes. A small pain throbbed behind her left eye and her mouth was dry and foul-tasting.

After a while she got to her feet and walked to the end of the platform in order to stretch her aching legs. It was very quiet as she gazed out at the surrounding fields and distant woods. Birds were starting to sing. She amused herself trying to make out the different songs. Anything rather than think about Thomas, for when she did that she alternated between soaring hope and deep pessimism. After all, there was so little for her to go on, just Bertha's encounter with her mother-in-law and a small boy. Bertha could be mistaken about the boy, perhaps he was only four or five, perhaps he was Henry's child.

She forced her mind back to the dawn chorus; there was a blackbird's sweet trill and the chattering of sparrows, the harsh call of starlings. And as the sun rose a skylark rose too. She watched the tiny speck in the sky and listened to its song. It made her feel better. She walked back to her seat and without realising it she was humming the old folksong, ‘
Early one morning just as the sun was rising. I heard a bird singing in the valley below
.'

‘It won't be long now, Missus,' the station attendant said. It was five o'clock according to the station clock, the long night was over. Eliza hadn't even noticed he had come on duty as she watched and listened to the birds. He opened the waiting-room door for her and it put her in mind of the last time she had come. It was five years ago now.