The Bad Penny (17 page)

‘You were lucky because Matron was away and Miss Briggs didn’t tell on you, but I don’t suppose your pal Toby had the same luck,’ Selina had said wisely, when Patty told her the whole story. ‘But when you ran off, queen, you were running from injustice. This young feller, this Toby Rudd, hadn’t been whacked across the face with a cane or wrongly accused, had he? He was just trying to get away, back to his own folk. He’ll do it again just as soon as he can I don’t doubt, but that doesn’t mean you should. From what you’ve told me you’re in good standing at Durrant House right now, and you’re eleven years old so you’ve not got all that long to go before you’re a trusted senior, with a deal more freedom. Just keep your nose clean and work hard and you’ll gerrout of the orphan asylum legal-like, without having half the scuffers in Liverpool on your trail. Isn’t that a good deal better than running off again, getting caught, and being in a heap o’ trouble?’

Half reluctantly, Patty agreed that it was, but she still kept looking behind the loose stone in the wall, half hoping that, one day, there would be a message from Toby.

But as time passed, she began to think that Toby must have gone. He was clearly the sort of boy who would not meekly sit down and wait until he could legally leave the orphanage and besides, unlike herself, he had a destination – a destiny, almost – in mind. There might have been a note, taken by some other child, or there might not have been, but she began insensibly to believe that Toby was either dead – horrid thought – or gone from the city. And though she continued to look in the wall whenever she was able to do so, there was never a note, never a word.

Patty still dreamed but she ceased, in her heart, to hope.

‘Well, Mrs Brierley, your pulse and temperature are both normal,’ Patty said, having scrutinised the thermometer which she had just removed from her patient’s mouth, ‘and little Miss Brierley seems to be doing well. Have you any worries? If so, you can tell me about them whilst I check your stomach.’ Patty placed her hand flatly on the woman’s still swollen abdomen and pressed down gently but firmly, to check that all was well with the uterus. ‘Any pain or discomfort, Mrs Brierley? I’ve already dealt with the baby’s umbilicus and everything there is fine.’

‘Yes, Nurse. I’m gettin’ sort o’ crampy pains,’ said the young woman lying in the rumpled bed. ‘They aren’t there all the time but they comes now and again. I s’pose you could say they was a bit like early labour pains, though not – not quite as bad. I – I hopes as they ain’t nothin’ serious?’

‘Oh, no, don’t worry, it’s just a sign that everything’s going back into its proper place,’ Patty assured her patient. She drew the blanket up over the other woman’s stomach and smiled down at her. ‘Where’s your mam, queen? She told me yesterday, after Baby was born, that she’d be staying with you for a week or so, but there was no sign of her when I came through the kitchen.’

‘She came round early and got breakfast for all of us – that’s herself, me and me old man – and now she’s gone home to see to me dad and the house before doin’ the messages, but she’ll be back in time for dinner,’ Mrs Brierley explained. ‘She’s that delighted with my little Flossie that she could scarcely tear herself away.’ She looked shyly up at Patty. ‘I think she loves this one all the more ’cos I lost the first,’ she finished.

‘Very understandable,’ Patty said briskly, beginning to put her instruments back into her little black bag. ‘I expect your breasts are feeling a little swollen and sore? You know that this is merely the milk coming in; has Baby been fed today?’

‘Oh aye, and she sucked like a right ’un,’ Mrs Brierley said. ‘Me mam’s goin’ to deal with the dirty nappies and gowns and so on, but when can I gerrup, Nurse? I know I’m lucky being an only child so Mam’s only got me to worry about, but I’d like to be able to help out a bit.’

‘Give it a week if you can,’ Patty said, thinking ruefully of the many mothers on her district who had no choice but to get up, sometimes within hours of the birth. ‘No need to stay in bed all that time, mind; you can sit in a chair by the fire, make a cup of tea, potter about gently. But no heavy work and no leaving the house. And when I say you can do these things, you shouldn’t be up for more than an hour or two a day.’ She reached the door and turned to smile at her patient. ‘See you tomorrow, Mrs Brierley.’

The visit to Mrs Brierley was typical of many Patty paid that day. She saw one patient who had given birth to her fifteenth child; a puny, large-headed little creature whose constant wailings were already causing the family much annoyance. She visited a mother of twins, who met her at the door with her five-day-old babies tucked into her shawl, since she intended to do her messages before the other kids came back from school. Remonstrating with her would have been useless, but Patty persuaded her to return to the kitchen so that she could take her pulse and temperature and check her physical well-being, after she had first examined the twins.

‘It’s a mortally cold day, despite the sunshine,’ Patty said gently, as she changed the dressings on the babies’ umbilical cords. ‘Why don’t you ask a neighbour to do your messages, Mrs Smith? It really isn’t good for you to go out into this wind, carrying two great babies so soon after the birth. Come to that, it isn’t very good for the babies either!’

Mrs Smith was a big, ginger-haired woman, with a squint and most of her teeth missing. She was clearly astonished at Patty’s words but agreed, rather doubtfully, that perhaps the wind was a bit keen. When Patty offered to go next door, she was quite willing to accept help.

Patty left the house after half an hour, wondering how Mrs Smith’s large brood managed to survive. She knew it was largely ignorance and not deliberate neglect and could not help wondering what sort of a man Mr Smith was. Despite attending three of Mrs Smith’s lyings-in, she had never yet met the master of the house. However, it was none of her business and, as usual, she had other patients to visit, so she bicycled briskly along the narrow, dirt-splattered roadway towards her next case.

As soon as she reached the house, she knew that there was trouble here which she could not deal with alone. The new mother, a woman in her late forties, lay groaning and tossing amidst filthy sheets in the tiny bedroom. When Patty took her pulse, her heart sank, for it was racing at an incredible speed and her temperature was 104 degrees. She seemed to know Patty but ordered her, quite sharply, to take the baby out of the room since the child’s wails had given her a terrible headache. ‘What’s more, you only brung out one of the babies; there’s another in there, I’m sure of it,’ she wheezed hoarsely. ‘Me stummick is swole up like a bleedin’ balloon and it hurts me somethin’ cruel. You’ve gorra do somethin’, Nurse.’

Patty looked round the room. There was no sound from the baby fast asleep in its makeshift bed but she realised that her patient was delirious and almost certainly suffering from puerperal fever. Patty went to the head of the stairs and called down to the eldest child present, a girl of fifteen or sixteen. She told her to boil water and to send someone for the doctor and then began, grimly, to do what she could for her patient.

Much later, knowing that the woman was in good hands, Patty left the house. Dr Carruthers was held in high esteem by all the midwives and, though he had looked worried when he first entered the bedroom, a few quick-fire questions and an examination had been enough to reassure him that this was not the deadly strain of the disease.

‘There’s no septicaemia present since there has been no vomiting, and the abdominal wall, though distended, is by no means rigid,’ he told Patty. ‘Infection is obviously present, so you had best go home and disinfect your clothing and do all that is necessary. I’ll get a replacement to finish your visits and someone else to see to things here. Thank you for calling me in good time, Nurse.’

When she got home later that afternoon, she had done no more than bath and change her clothing before a knock came on the door. Patty crossed the room and flung it open. Mrs Clarke stood there, looking anxious. ‘Oh, it
is
you, Patty! I thought it were when you passed me window. Have you a moment? Can I have a word?’

‘Yes, of course,’ Patty said, ushering the other woman into her warm kitchen. ‘Where are the children?’

‘They’re asleep in the pram. It’s just outside your door,’ Mrs Clarke explained. ‘I won’t risk bringin’ them in, because I were just off to do me messages when I saw you pass, so they’re well wrapped up, the little darlin’s.’

‘That’s all right then; I’ll pull the kettle over the flame,’ Patty said, suiting the action to her words. ‘I could just do with a cuppa. I wonder if Maggie has left me any scones?’

Maggie proved to have left several scones, so Patty buttered two of them, made two cups of tea and then glanced enquiringly across at her visitor. ‘Well, has something gone wrong? I know Merrell can’t be ill or unhappy because you’d have told me straight off.’

‘No-o-o, but it ain’t exactly good news, or not in one way, it ain’t,’ Mrs Clarke admitted. ‘D’you remember when we first met, I telled you I’d been workin’ in a clothing factory? Well, they’ve offered me me old job back on an increased salary and me old feller says I should take it. Naturally, I can’t look after Merrell or Christopher when I’m workin’ so me and Ronnie talked it over and the upshot was I went along to Mrs Knight’s flat and – and axed her if she’d be willin’ to have Christopher whenever I were workin’. I telled her I was sure Maggie would have both kids durin’ the school holidays and – and I think Mrs Knight got hold of the wrong end of the stick. Anyroad, she said she’d be delighted to have both Christopher and Merrell – she even said she’d give Maggie a meal, when she were off school – so – so I said I’d have to talk to you first and here I am.’ She had been looking down at the floor but now she shot an anxious glance at Patty through her lashes. ‘I hope I done right. I know you’re friendly wi’ Mrs Knight, her being next door to you, an’ you know she loves kids. She’s ever so good wi’ babies and often says how she envies other women her age who’ve got grandchildren round them all day. So what d’you say, Nurse?’

Patty opened her mouth to reply and immediately remembered how thin were the walls of the flats. She hoped, desperately, that neither Mrs Knight nor Darky were home at this moment. She said uneasily: ‘Oh, I do like her. She’s ever so nice and she’s really fond of Merrell as well. She made her the pink flowered Vyella dress which I keep for best and she knitted the pink cardy which she wears over it. I do agree she’d be a marvellous person to look after the babies, only – only what about Darky?’ Patty had lowered her voice still further on the last few words but Mrs Clarke, it seemed, had no such inhibitions.

‘Oh, men don’t count when it comes to lookin’ after babies,’ she said. ‘He won’t have nothin’ to do with either Christopher or Merrell. Mostly he’ll be out at work – he’s an electrician out at Levers, you know – but even if he happens to be workin’ some weird shift, he won’t take no notice of ’em. I told Mrs Knight we’d pay her five bob a week between us, but to tell you the truth I think she’d ha’ done it for love, she’s that fond o’ kids. So what d’you think?’

Patty felt as a Christian must feel in the arena when the lions come roaring in. It was all very well for Mrs Clarke but Patty happened to know that Darky greeted her with casual friendliness when they met. She had even seen him bend over the pram and make some remark about the way Christopher was growing, though he always ignored Merrell and had continued to look through Patty rather than at her whenever they met. ‘Well … is she in now?’ Patty hissed. ‘More to the point, is young Mr Knight in? I don’t suppose you’ve noticed, but he doesn’t like me at all – won’t even give me the time of day when we meet. I can’t think he’d welcome his mam having Merrell because it would mean either Maggie or myself being back and forth quite a bit.’

‘Are you sure Darky don’t speak to you?’ Mrs Clarke said, her tone incredulous. ‘I know they say he’s quiet and has been ever since his wife died, but he’s never rude – or not to anyone I know, at any rate. He often asks after the kids when he meets me wheeling the pram and usually comments on how they’re growin’. He chucks Merrell under the chin and tells her she’ll break hearts one of these days, just like anyone else might do.’

‘Oh!’ Patty said, considerably surprised. ‘Well, perhaps he doesn’t hold any grudge against Merrell then, but he definitely doesn’t like me. Honest to God, Mrs Clarke, he won’t meet my eye if he can help it. But if he has no choice, he’ll glare at me as though I were his worst enemy, and so far as I know I’ve never offended him in any way.’

After a few moments’ frowning thought, Mrs Clarke’s brow cleared. ‘There may be a reason for the way he treats you,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘His wife died giving birth to a dead baby. Mrs Knight says the baby were comin’ awkward, upside down and round about. Breech I think they calls it. Darky weren’t there o’ course, but his mam were and she wanted the midwife to call the doctor as soon as she realised how tired young Mrs Knight were gettin’. Apparently the midwife – she were an elderly woman called Mrs Thripp – refused to get the doctor, saying she’d managed many a breech birth without help from anyone. She and the doctor on call that night were sworn enemies and she were determined to manage alone.

‘In the end, Mrs Knight defied her and sent someone for the doctor but by the time he arrived it were too late; mother and child were too far gone to save either and the doctor made no bones about tellin’ Darky that if the midwife had called him sooner, it might have been possible to save them. I’ve heered Darky’s pals say that he hates all nurses, especially midwives, so probably he don’t see you as a person but just as a member of the profession. Does that explain it, d’you think?’

‘I suppose it might,’ Patty said thoughtfully. ‘Well, he can like me or dislike me, I’m indifferent to how he feels, but I dare not risk his interfering with Merrell in any way. I’ll have a chat with Mrs Knight, I think, before making up my mind.’

‘Yes, you’d best do that,’ Mrs Clarke agreed, getting to her feet. ‘But fancy you not havin’ a bit of a weakness for Darky! All the girls is crazy about him, and he’s got a real good job and a nice regular salary as well. I didn’t know him before he married, but I believe all the girls were wild for him then, including his wife, o’ course.’ She sighed deeply. ‘Oh, his wife were lovely. She was from Edinburgh and had beautiful red-gold hair, ever such white skin and the softest, prettiest Scotch accent you can imagine. He were heartbroken when she died – who wouldn’t be – but everyone thought he’d marry again because until he got wed he were a real one for the girls. He goes to dances now, and to the flicks, and when Levers take parties of workers to the coast for a day, he goes along wi’ the rest. The girls at Levers say he’s always polite and friendly enough but never singles any one person out for special attention. It’s an awful shame ’cos he’s so good-looking. He reminds me of Rudolph Valentino only o’ course Darky’s hair is curly, not all slicked back. Anyway, if he don’t speak to you I reckon it’s just because you’re a nurse.’

‘Oh, that makes it much easier to bear,’ Patty said with a sarcasm which passed Mrs Clarke completely by, for she nodded vigorously.

‘Yes, it does, because you know it ain’t personal,’ she said. ‘Why’s you home at this time of day, anyroad? You’re earlier than usual; does that mean you want Merrell back now?’