Forgive and Forget (4 page)

‘Hunger can be one of the symptoms, but, sadly, solid food can cause the bowel to perforate. That’s what happened with your mother, I’m afraid.’

‘So it was my fault,’ Polly whispered.

The doctor was silent. He was unable to deny it. He was a truthful man and even though he realized a lie now would lift a lifetime’s burden from this child’s shoulders, he couldn’t do it. All he could say was, ‘You were doing what your parents told you, my dear.’

She lifted her head and looked straight into his eyes; hers were clear and honest yet at this moment filled with suffering. ‘But I should have done what
you
told me to do. Not them.’

‘Ah well, ah well,’ was all Dr Fenwick could say as he patted her hand. But neither his words nor his actions brought Polly any comfort.

‘I must go,’ he said at last. ‘I’ll call in on Mrs Halliday. Let her know . . .’

As the door closed quietly behind him, Miriam began to wail.

Bertha and Seth Halliday had come to live at the end of the street when they’d married. Bertha had done a little nursing at the County Hospital, though she’d never qualified. She’d met Seth when he’d been a patient for a few days following an injury at work. Seth worked at one of the engineering firms and lived in the streets to the south of the city. But Bertha lived up-hill. Her father had died when she was very young and she and her mother had lived with her maternal grandparents. Her grandfather, a retired bank clerk, had not approved of his own daughter’s choice of husband and neither did he take to Bertha’s choice, Seth.

‘You can do better for yourself, Bertha,’ he told her bluntly. ‘You’re a pretty lass. Don’t tell me you’re not capable of catching the eye of an up-and-coming young doctor at the hospital.’

Bertha had smiled to herself but hadn’t argued; her grandfather had no concept of the ratio of nurses to doctors. And the marriageable ones were in even shorter supply. She’d continued to meet Seth in secret, but when she fell pregnant the romance could no longer be kept hidden. Her grandfather, with his Victorian ideals, was incensed and had forbidden her to ‘darken his door again’. Her grandmother sided with her husband and Bertha’s gentle mother had been torn between her love for her daughter and obedience to her own parents. She could not afford to fall out with them. Suffering ill health, she was unable to work and was totally dependent on them. So Bertha left the only home she could remember in tearful disgrace. She never saw her grandparents again, although, greatly daring, her mother visited Bertha in secret or met her by prior arrangement in the city. Though on these occasions the little woman was nervous in case someone who knew them should see them together.

Bertha’s mother lived long enough to see her grandson, Leo, born and to hold him in her arms, but six months later she contracted pneumonia and died. Bertha tried to make peace with her grandparents, but they were adamant they didn’t want to see her or their great-grandson. Two years later they were both dead and Bertha had no near relatives left. Her world became Seth and her baby, but she was a friendly, outgoing soul and her early nursing training, though incomplete, equipped her to offer help to her friends and neighbours when they needed it. Respected by the local doctors and qualified nurses alike, she was soon assisting at births and was always on hand to undertake the less appealing job of laying out the dead. Her no-nonsense approach, tempered with an innate kindness and understanding of the foibles and weaknesses of human nature, endeared her to everyone. The little house at the end of the street became a refuge for those who needed help or a comforting word.

Though both Bertha and Seth would dearly have loved more children – ‘a whole barrowload of ’em’ – no more appeared and their boundless love became focused on Leo. And he did not disappoint them. He was a lovable child, did well at school and, though an early apprenticeship at Robey’s engineering works alongside his father didn’t suit him, his ambition to join the police force was achieved as soon as he reached the right age. The whole family, whilst not being looked upon as ‘do-gooders’, nevertheless did a lot of good in their community. Bertha never turned anyone in distress away from her door and she was backed and encouraged by her husband and son.

And Bertha had never been in such demand as she was when typhoid struck the city.

‘There, there lovey, don’t take on so.’ Bertha Halliday’s plump arms were holding Polly tightly as she sobbed against the woman’s soft bosom.

‘How am I going to tell me dad? He’ll – he’ll – ’

‘Yar not to blame yarsen, Polly,’ Bertha said firmly. She held the girl away from her and looked down into her face. Placing strong fingers beneath Polly’s chin, she lifted the girl’s face to look up at her. ‘You hear me? Yar dad should have listened to you – and yar mam. She heard the doctor say it. You said so.’

Polly nodded.

‘Well, then. It’s not your fault. And Dr Fenwick should have spelt it out to you. Just saying “only fluids” to a slip of a lass. How was you to know what he meant, specially when your mam started demanding you cook her a breakfast? Oh no, me lass, I won’t have you blaming yarsen. D’you hear me?’

It warmed Polly’s frozen heart to hear Mrs Halliday defending her, but it didn’t help her. Not really. She knew that she would always blame herself and that the guilt would stay with her for the rest of her life.

The Longden family was devastated: the hub of their home was gone. William sank into a deep depression, refusing to leave his chair by the fire to go to work even after the funeral was over and Polly was trying desperately to get the family back to something like normality. Even Eddie and Violet were subdued.

Only Stevie and the baby, both too young to understand fully what had happened, were the same as always. But when the four-year-old little boy tried to climb onto his father’s lap and was rebuffed, even Stevie began to realize that something was very wrong.

‘Leave me alone,’ William said heavily. ‘There’s a good chap. I’ve got a headache.’

Polly glanced at her father, a sudden fear clutching her heart. That was the first symptom her mother had complained about when she’d started with the dreadful disease. Polly watched him for a moment as he sat huddled in the chair in front of the fire. Then she saw him shiver and hold his hands out to the warmth.

She bit her lip. ‘Dad, have you got a fever?’

He glanced up, his eyes haunted by the loss his family had suffered. But there was something more there too. An unnatural brightness.

Polly moved closer. ‘Have – have you any pain?’

William considered. ‘A bit. Me stomach feels sort of – unsettled, but I wouldn’t call it pain. Not really.’ He seemed about to say more, but a fit of coughing overtook him as Polly looked on anxiously.

‘Mam had a cough, Dad,’ she said softly when the fit had subsided.

William shook his head irritably. ‘Do stop fussing, girl. Haven’t I enough to worry about without you wishing the disease on me?’

Polly gasped. ‘Dad, how can you say such a thing? I’d never—’

He glared at her. ‘If you hadn’t given your mam that breakfast, she’d still be here.’

Polly felt the colour drain from her face and she clutched at the nearest chair. Her heart began to thump painfully. To blame herself was one thing, but to keep hearing from her father that he blamed her too was unbearable.

But then her fiery temper came to her rescue. She pulled in a deep breath and pointed an accusing finger at him. ‘I told you what the doctor had said and Mam heard him ’ersen. You wouldn’t listen – neither of you – and now you’re trying to put all the blame on me. You’re as good as saying I killed her. Well, you listen to me, Dad.’ She bent closer. ‘I’ll always blame mesen, but don’t you dare say it’s all my fault, ’cos it ain’t. And if you do, then I’m off. I’ll leave and then where will you be? The kids’ll all be in the workhouse up the hill, that’s where.’

William groaned and dropped his head into his hands. ‘Don’t, Poll, don’t say such things. What would yar mam say if she could hear you?’

Polly felt the anger still rising within her and before she could stop herself, she said, ‘And what would she say to you if she could see you sat in front of the fire all day while your family go hungry?’

As he raised his head to look at her, she could see the beads of sweat on his forehead, see his shoulders shaking. Her anger died as swiftly as it had come. ‘Dad, you are ill, aren’t you? This is more than – more than grievin’, in’t it?’

William groaned and rested his head against the back of his chair. His eyes were closed and his breathing rapid.

‘I’m fetching the doctor.’

‘No,’ he argued, but his voice was weak and lacked conviction. ‘We can’t afford no more doctor’s bills.’

Polly leant close, unafraid of contracting the disease. ‘Dr Fenwick told me to get him if anyone else fell ill. And I aren’t about to disobey him. Not again. Besides, if you have got the typhoid, we’ll be breaking the law if we don’t notify it, won’t we?’

Again, a deep, guttural groan escaped his lips. ‘I don’t know, Poll. Don’t bother me. Just look after the bairns and don’t bother me, there’s a good girl.’

Polly had been down the street to the Hallidays’ house and was back home waiting anxiously for the doctor to call. When the knock came at the front door, she ran to it, flinging it open in her haste to get the medical man into the house to help her father.

‘Oh!’ She gaped up at the tall, handsome figure of Leo Halliday standing there with a huge tureen in his hands.

‘Me ma’s sent this, Polly. She ses your dad’s taken badly and you could likely do with a bit of help.’ He thrust the tureen towards her. ‘Mind, it’s hot. Tek hold of it with the cloth.’

Tears sprang to Polly’s eyes not only at Bertha Halli-day’s kindness but also at the gentle concern in Leo’s voice.

Polly had grown up knowing Leo. Her earliest memories had been of him kicking a ball about in the street with lads of his own age. But despite being lavished with love and whatever his hardworking parents could give him, Leo was surprisingly unspoilt. He was well liked amongst his peers and popular at school, and even when he joined the police force he still retained the friends he’d always had.

‘By heck,’ they teased him, ‘we’ll have to mind our Ps and Qs now he’s to be a copper. He’ll run us in soon as look at us.’

‘That’s true.’ Leo would grin, giving back as good as he got. ‘I’ve warned me mam, if she dun’t toe the line, I’ll run her in an’ all.’

They’d all laughed, but there was a grain of truth in Leo’s threat – or rather promise. If he became an upholder of the law, he meant to carry it out to the letter, no matter what.

But now he was a police constable, albeit still in his probationary period, he saw his job as something more than just apprehending criminals. He meant to be a help to the community. And so he was happy to stand on the doorstep with a bowl of hot stew in his hands to help his neighbours.

As little Polly Longden reached out to take the bowl, he noticed for the first time how she was growing up. To him she’d always been just the kid from up their street, the eldest of a family whose older son had the makings of a real tearaway.

‘You’ll have to watch that Eddie of theirs,’ his mother had always warned him. ‘He’s a bad ’un. He’ll be the death of his poor mam, if I’m not mistaken.’

Well, the poor mother had died. It had not been young Eddie who’d caused it but the disease that was bringing such heartache and suffering to their lovely city, a city Leo now felt responsible for.

Now, close to, Leo noticed Polly’s eyes for the first time – green and sparkling and her pretty little face surrounded by that glorious cloud of red curling hair. He saw too that there was a blush to her cheeks that he hoped wasn’t the start of the fever.

‘Thank you,’ she was saying shyly. As she took the bowl, he saw her hands tremble.

‘Careful.’ Leo laughed. ‘Don’t spill it.’

‘It’s very kind of your mam. Please thank her.’

Leo nodded and his expression sobered. ‘She said you reckon your dad might be starting with the fever?’

Polly bit her lip and nodded. ‘We’re waiting for the doctor now. I – I thought you were him. When you knocked, I mean.’

‘Is there anything else I can do for you? D’you want me to come in and wait with you?’

‘No, no – I wouldn’t want you to catch it. I mean – I don’t know if you can catch it exactly . . .’ Her voice trailed away.

Leo shrugged. ‘Me neither, but I’ve been amongst it enough just lately that if I’m going to get it, well, I will. And me ma’s helping folks out all the time.’

Polly nodded. ‘I know. She’s been very good to us.’

There was a brief pause whilst they looked at each other; Polly with the bowl of stew in her hands that was becoming almost too hot to hold. But she wasn’t going to admit it – not whilst there was chance of talking to Leo for a few minutes longer.

‘There’s something else,’ Leo said. ‘Mam’s got chance of an old cot going begging. It wants doing up a bit, but she thought you might be glad of it.’

‘Ooo yes, please, Leo. Mebbe Dad could—’

‘That’s all right. I’ll have a go at it. Paint it up and that.’

‘That’d be grand.’ She felt herself close to tears at his kindness. ‘Baby’s sleeping in a drawer at the moment.’