The Bad Penny (2 page)

Mr Mullins did not reply and Patty turned away. Fanny jumped up from her place at the table and came over to her. She was a thin girl with poor skin and dull fair hair, but her eyes were bright and the hand she laid on Patty’s arm was gentle. ‘Me dad’s in a turble way,’ she murmured. ‘But we do have relatives not far away – me Aunt Edie and me Uncle Jim – and I know they’ll help us to sort things out.’

‘I’m glad of that,’ Patty said tiredly, making her way out of the room and along the passage to the front door with the baby still in the crook of her arm. She picked up her bicycle and tucked the blanket-wrapped infant into the breast of her uniform coat while Fanny went ahead of her to open the front door.

As Patty wheeled the bicycle carefully down the steps, the child followed her and, when Patty would have mounted, laid a detaining hand on her arm. ‘Where’ll you put her, miss? The baby, I mean? I’d – I’d like to see her again, know folks is being good to her. It’s true what me dad said; without me mam she wouldn’t get brung up proper. Likely she’d starve, poor little bugger. The rest of us is hungry most of the time, but we gerralong, one way or t’other. This ’un’s too little to help herself and we’s too busy wi’ t’other kids to take on a baby.’ She pulled gently on Patty’s arm. ‘Can I have a look at her, miss?’

‘Course you can,’ Patty said gruffly. ‘I don’t know where I’ll take her yet, but I’ll see she goes somewhere decent, where she’ll be fed and – and looked after. I’ll let you know where she is in a couple of days.’ She rebuttoned her uniform coat tightly to the neck, then turned towards Fanny once more as she mounted the bicycle. ‘I’ll come and see you in a day or two and tell you what’s happening then.’

‘Thanks, miss … Nurse, I mean,’ the girl said gratefully. ‘And don’t think too badly of me dad. He were mortal fond of our mam, even though there were times … but least said, soonest mended; there won’t be no more of
that
, any road.’

Patty watched until the child had disappeared back into the house, then began to cycle slowly out of the court and into Cuerden Street. It was still dark, though it was no longer snowing, but a glance at the cloudy sky overhead convinced her that there was more snow to come. She should try to get back to her lodgings before it started but first, of course, she ought to make some arrangements for the baby inside her coat.

However, it occurred to Patty that no one was likely to query the child’s whereabouts. When the doctor finally arrived at the Mullins home, he would undoubtedly assume that Mrs Mullins had given birth to a baby which had died with her. Mr Mullins was unlikely to admit that there had been a living child also, and with their father’s threat to abandon them the children would most certainly keep the fact to themselves. So it did not really matter if Patty took the baby home for a few hours before handing it over to the authorities. Officially, the child did not exist, and would not do so until she was formally handed over.

Patty reached Richmond Row just as the snow began to fall again. The road was still white from the previous fall and consequently slippery, so Patty dismounted and began to push her bike towards home. With a bit of luck, she might get a few hours’ sleep before the baby began to bawl.

It took her forty minutes to reach home and when she finally entered her room, it was to find that Nurse Higgins had already left. Thankfully, Patty removed her outer clothing, laying the baby on her bed whilst she took off her lace-up boots. She looked down at the child and was suddenly smitten by a feeling of great tenderness. The Mullins baby was so small, so fair, so vulnerable somehow. Patty thought of this tender little creature facing up to life in an institution and her heart smote her. Orphan asylums were full of children who had lost one or both parents but Patty herself had been a foundling, unwanted right from the moment of her birth. Even her name had been plucked out of the air by reason of the fact that a policeman called Patrick O’Donoghue had found her in Peel Street. It was as well, Patty had frequently thought sourly, that she had not been discovered in Dingle station by a woman called Dorothy. Dotty Dingle would have been more than any child could have borne.

Patty put her hands behind her and untied the strings of the long white linen apron – now sadly soiled – which reached almost to her ankles. Then she peeled off her black lisle stockings and began to unbutton her plain print dress, shivering a little as she did so, for it was very cold in the room. She pulled on her nightdress, shaking out her short blonde curls, and slid between the sheets, promising herself a couple of hours at least. Then she reached out and pulled the blanket-wrapped baby under the covers with her. Rather to her surprise, it was gloriously warm, like a little hot water bottle, and looking into the small, fair face Patty suddenly realised that she could not abandon this child to the sort of childhood she herself had led. After all, it was a pretty baby and girls were always adopted more willingly than boys. Surely there was someone, in this great city, prepared to lavish love on her? Why, for two pins, I’d keep her myself, Patty found herself thinking. She would be company – and how rewarding it would be to know that she had saved a little girl from the fate she herself had suffered.

Presently, on the verge of sleep, Patty remembered that the child was not an orphan. She had a father living and a name she could call her own; she was, in fact, a Mullins. If I keep her, I think I’ll call her Marcia, Patty told herself dreamily. Marcia’s a pretty name, much prettier than Patty. But I don’t like Marcia Mullins, and even Marcia Peel sounds a bit odd. No, I’ll call her Merrell. There was a lovely kindergarten teacher at the orphanage – Miss Merrell – who looked after the babies. She was the only person who really seemed to like me and took my side. I was so sad when she left to get married; I felt I’d lost my only friend in the world. Besides, Merrell is a pretty name and it goes quite well with Peel. Not that I could keep her for always, of course; just until I find someone really nice who’s willing to adopt her.

And with that thought, Patty fell asleep and dreamed a beautiful dream in which Miss Merrell came to the orphanage and took little Patty away to be her own girl. There was no husband involved and the two of them lived in a dear little house in the country, surrounded by woolly sheep, bright pink pigs and other animals, all of which bore a strong resemblance to the inhabitants of the Noah’s Ark which Patty had greatly admired in a rich family’s nursery.

Patty awoke when the door of her room burst open and Higgins came in. She was a stout, square girl, with thick black hair growing low on her brow and a tendency to spots. She spent all her spare money on food and Patty sometimes thought the only thing that mattered to her roommate was to have her stomach comfortably full. Like Patty, she was a midwife, but she still worked at the hospital and seemed to have little interest in anything outside her own ward. Patty frequently marvelled that she had ever chosen to live out and had not been at all surprised when Higgins had put her name down to move back into the nurses’ home.

Now, however, Higgins stared at her, wide-eyed. ‘Wharrever are you doin’ still in bed, Peel? Don’t you have some revisits to do today?’ Her voice grew sharp, almost triumphant, and Patty, who knew that a good many of the nursing staff resented both her ability to pass examinations and her choice of working a district rather than remaining attached to a ward, stiffened slightly. Higgins must have noticed, for her voice took on a more conciliatory tone. ‘I know you’re doin’ Stoddard’s area as well as your own, so I’d have thought you’d be pretty busy, but I suppose you know your own business best.’

Patty stifled a wave of panic and sat up. Higgins was absolutely right, she did have revisits! What was more, there was something niggling on the edge of her consciousness, something to do with a call-out in the middle of the night, something …

The baby! The Mullins baby, which the father had rejected. She had meant to take it to an orphanage … no, she had decided to have it adopted, meant to keep it herself until a suitable couple could be found who were willing to bring up the baby as their own. Against her side, the baby stirred and Patty fished it out of the covers, still wrapped in its piece of blanket, and tucked it comfortably into the crook of her arm. She stared defiantly into Higgins’s astonished face. ‘I’ve been busy, and I just fell into bed at about seven o’clock, meaning to have a couple of hours’ sleep. What’s the time now, Higgins?’

‘It’s four in the afternoon,’ Higgins said accusingly. ‘Oh, Peel, you’re going to be in awful trouble. And where did that baby come from? It don’t look too healthy to me.’

‘The mother died,’ Patty said, after the briefest of pauses, during which her mind worked frantically on how much she should tell Higgins. ‘It’ll have to go to a wet nurse until the orphanage will take it in. Be a few weeks, the matron said.’

‘Well, so long as you don’t mean to keep it in here,’ Higgins said grudgingly. ‘Why, you don’t even like kids, Peel! Still, I suppose for one night, anything’s bearable, even a brat in your own bed.’ She turned away, clearly losing interest in the topic. ‘It’s a good job for you there’s so much sickness around. You can say you were struck down by the ’flu if anyone asks what you’ve done all day.’

Patty had been hastily dressing whilst Higgins talked and now she turned to face the other girl, fastening her cuffs as she did so. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t keep an eye on the baby for me whilst I do my revisits?’ she asked, without much hope. She and Higgins tolerated one another but had never been friends. Patty had always told herself she did not need friends; it was better to be independent and self-reliant. She had noticed that girls with friends depended on one another for almost everything. They went around in pairs, chattered and gossiped when they should have been studying and rarely achieved the sorts of results the hospital demanded. Still, it would have been useful now to have had a friend who could take the baby over whilst she was out on her rounds.

‘Look after that brat?’ Higgins said incredulously. ‘You’ve gorra be joking! And don’t you think you can leave it here while you swans off, ’cos I won’t stand for it and nor will old Ma Bogget.’

With a sigh, Patty picked the baby up, tucked it into the front of her coat and buttoned that garment securely up to the neck before heading for the stairs. There was no point in pleading with Higgins and anyway her pride would not have allowed it. Fortunately, now that she was thoroughly awake, she realised that the best thing she could do was take the baby with her. One of her revisits was to young Mrs Blake, who had given birth to her fourth child and lost it only hours later. The family were poor and the young woman would be glad of the money Patty would pay her to breastfeed the baby until it was old enough to be weaned. As she descended the stairs, crossed the hall and kitchen and let herself out into the snowy backyard, it also occurred to Patty that Mrs Blake might just as well take the child off her hands for several weeks, at least. She would be breastfeeding it every four hours or so, which made it impractical for Patty to keep taking the child back. Things would be very much easier if Mrs Blake would agree to the arrangement.

Patty wheeled her bike along the jigger, deciding as she did so to make Mrs Blake her first call. There was no point in carting the baby round to all her patients, having to explain the reason for the child’s presence. Fortunately, Mrs Blake was in Patty’s own district, so she turned right into Penrhyn Street, crossed the Scottie and headed for the courts which lined Wright Street.

Mrs Blake was doing the washing when Patty arrived at her door. Doing the washing and weeping with a sort of steady helplessness which went to Patty’s heart. Her three children were sitting on the rag rug in front of the kitchen stove, playing with a pile of empty boxes and tins. The floor was very wet and one of the children was actually floating a box on a puddle. Steam rose gently from the floor. Glancing around, Patty tried to hide the dismay that she felt, greeting the family cheerfully, but shaking her head reprovingly at Mrs Blake’s occupation. ‘Mrs Blake, you know very well you ought not to be exerting yourself so soon after a birth,’ she said. ‘Your sister offered to give a hand whilst you recovered your strength and that meant doing the housework and the washing and seeing to the children. Do you want to make yourself ill?’

Mrs Blake had turned back to the sink after greeting her visitor but now she moved away from it and collapsed on to a creaky wooden chair. ‘I hears what you say, Nurse,’ she said tiredly, ‘but Elsie works at the pickling factory so she can only help mornin’s and evenin’s, and the washing’s got to be done else there’s no money comin’ in.’

Patty knew that Ada Blake’s husband had recently been laid off from his job as a van driver at the jam factory. Mrs Blake had told her that this happened quite often in January and February. ‘We has to allow for it by saving up the money from the good months, when he works overtime – July, August and September mainly – but it still comes hard in the winter,’ she had explained. ‘So I has to keep me little jobs goin’, whether I’m in the fambly way or no.’

Patty had thought that Mr Blake, knowing how things stood, might have planned the production of small Blakes a little more carefully, for three-year-old Amy, two-year-old Horace and one-year-old Annie had all been born in the early months of the year. Mrs Blake, however, seemed to take it for granted that she would continue to work throughout her pregnancies and bore her husband no ill will for the exhaustion which followed each birth.

‘I know you need the money – don’t we all? – but you really shouldn’t do hard physical labour,’ Patty said, for what felt like the hundredth time. ‘And if your husband has been laid off, why isn’t he here? He could give a hand with wringing out the sheets and putting them through the mangle. He could even take care of the children for you whilst you worked.’ She felt a drop of water on the back of her hand and glanced up at the ceiling to see a crudely made wooden rack laden with dripping sheets above her. ‘Don’t you have a mangle?’