Another Kind of Life (38 page)

Mama stood at the open window, issuing last-minute instructions to me, dabbing at her eyes with her lace handkerchief. Impulsively, I leaned out and kissed her. It was the surprised gratitude of
her expression that finally made the tears spring to my eyes.

‘Thank you, Mama,’ I said softly, ‘for being with me. I shall write soon, I promise.’

I felt wretched as we drove away. Every time I think of Mama now, that is how I see her – an elegant figure, but one with the lines of frailty already etched about her person, waving her
handkerchief at the departing carriage, her left hand clutching restlessly at the pearls around her throat.

But I was already intent on looking forward, not back. I was filled with the excitement that comes from intense, youthful conviction: the sense of mission that makes one believe that one’s
life can make a difference to others. I knew that I was no Elizabeth Blackwell – I did not have courage enough to be a pioneer. I had not the vision then to aspire to a career in medicine: I
believed only that I was good enough to be a nurse. I had read everything I could about St Bartholomew’s. I knew of the hospital’s work among the poor, of the excellence of its patient
care and the high standards of its training. I saw my future unfold itself before my delighted, terrified eyes: a life of caring for others, of womanly independence, of fulfilment. I could hardly
bear to wait.

Those first months at St Bartholomew’s hospital were more terrifying than anything I have ever endured, before or since. But for you, I believe I should have gone truly
mad.

The homesickness from which I suffered had an intensity that was akin to physical distress, a wound inflicted which took many months to heal. While it mended, silent and invisible to others, its
residual ache lasted for months. I hope that I have used the memory of my then unhappiness to good effect in the training of my nurses over the years. You cannot heal others unless you have first
learned to heal yourself.

I remember well my extraordinary confusion in those days: I had made good my escape from home, planned and executed it with admirable efficiency in my own eyes. And now, suddenly, the only thing
I wanted was to be back. All I could think about was Papa calling me ‘Mouse’ with that wonderful tenderness that had lit up my childhood; and Mama – tending chilblains, braiding
hair, making tears go away. Ironically, the routine of hospital life probably helped to save me. Gradually, the tearful occasions became fewer. After fourteen-hour days, all I wanted was to fall
into bed and oblivion before the whole demanding cycle began again. All forty of us were on the wards by seven o’clock, emptying bedpans, making beds, feeding and washing patients,
disinfecting every surface: there were many times when I angrily compared our lives to that of a step-boy. Where was the healing hand in our work? Where was the bravery, the occasion for
compassion, the bringing of comfort and relief to the sick?

For that first year of our training, the lessons we learned most frequently were humility, discipline and the ability to hold your tongue when provoked beyond endurance by the unreasonable
demands of Sister. Even the patients were obedient, cowed into silence by each unvarying day on the ward, by the need for immaculate beds, dust-free surfaces, and no visitor to disturb the
relentless march of routine. I am sure that patients often felt themselves to be an inconvenience. Sister Sheridan could run the ward a lot better in their absence – their presence did
nothing to assist in the smooth preparation of her domain for the visit of Almighty Doctor. This was not how I had imagined Florence Nightingale to behave in the Crimea, nor did it seem to reflect
the newspaper accounts of the glory of ministering to the sick and wounded in the Transvaal. I was experiencing the terrible disillusionment of the young idealist. However, in the circumstances of
our rigorous training at St Bartholomew’s, there was little time and less energy for fomenting rebellion.

Along with the natural disillusionment of those days came the valuable realization that I was tougher than I had thought. The sharp rebukes, the lack of physical comforts, the daily humiliations
inflicted for some small transgression all served to make me more determined to finish what I had come to London to do. I grew an outer shell, a carapace that allowed me to survive underneath while
pretending stoicism, patience and even humility whenever I was in the presence of Sister.

Wedged into our narrow beds at night, with freezing sheets and ice forming frequently inside the windows, we girls would whisper to each other about Sister’s peculiarities – her dry
cough whenever she was displeased; her irritating manner of intertwining the fingers of both hands, one thumb rotating around the other as she waited for the answer that her victim almost certainly
did not possess; the silent eyebrow-arch of disapproval which could stop a young trainee in her tracks at forty paces. We would replay the day’s events, borrowing and inventing freely, with
the express purpose of making the others laugh. Sometimes the laughter became hysteria, and we would have to stuff our fists in our mouths so as not to be heard beyond our dormitory. Despite our
tiredness, we would often lie awake in the darkness, giggling again and again at some remembered foible, sending each other off once more into paroxysms of helpless laughter.

And so I passed the first, and the hardest year of training.

I
T
HAD
ALL
taken very little on May’s part, really.

She had written to Richard at Hannah’s request – one godparent to the other – and sent him the photograph taken on the morning of Eileen’s christening. The baby sat, in
tiny solemnity, on her mother’s knee. She wore Hannah’s own christening robe. The guipure lace reached almost to the floor, giving the child a strange, elongated appearance. Charles had
sat to Hannah’s left, while May and Richard stood, one to each side of the baby, in the traditional pose of guardianship. All the adults had remained breathlessly still, each hoping that
Eileen would not choose
that
moment to move, to sneeze, or cry out with boredom or hunger.

Richard had written back at once, professing himself delighted with the photograph. His new god-daughter, he said, now adorned his mantelpiece, and very fine she looked, too. Other letters
followed, and Hannah responded regularly, charmed by Richard’s apparently insatiable appetite for news of his small god-daughter.

Finally, there was the invitation for everyone – Charles, Constance MacBride, Hannah, May, Eleanor, indeed, all the O’Connor family should they so wish – to visit him at
Abbotsford, where he would attempt to return the generous hospitality he had received at everyone’s hands in Holywood. He should be delighted, he said, to host his god-daughter’s first
birthday in his home. May encouraged her sister to make the visit – Hannah had been ill and lethargic at the beginning of her new pregnancy, and May was concerned about her, felt that she was
ready for a change of air.

Somehow, May’s plans to move out of Holywood never came to fruition. First there was the joy and novelty of helping to look after baby Eileen; then Charles asked her to stay on, confiding
that current difficulties in his practice kept him from home more than he would wish; then Hannah became pregnant again, and was too unwell to look after the now highly active Eileen. Somehow, a
year and a half had passed. May was conscious that it was now high time for her to go, to find some way of making her own life. Even Mama had started making discreet enquiries about when they could
expect her back in Dublin.

In the event, Hannah, Charles and May were persuaded to make the visit to County Meath, bringing baby Eileen with them. Within a day of their arrival, Richard had spoken to Charles, who spoke to
Hannah, who spoke to May, and somehow it was all swiftly resolved.

Richard held May’s small hand in his, and amid much stumbling and faltering, told her he had loved her since he first saw her. He could promise her devotion, fidelity, respect – all
the things by which a man defined his integrity. Money, ease or elegance were a different matter. Farm life was tough, but he had never wanted for anything that was truly essential. If she would
have him, he would be deeply honoured, would share everything he had with her.

Yes, she’d said, I will marry you.

Philippe still blurred at the outline of her vision, and she tried hard to keep her eyes focused straight ahead. At least the way in front of her was brighter than it had been in some time: its
edges were no longer crowded with the bitter weeds of grief and disillusionment. The prospect of spinsterhood, solitude and the unremitting yoke of filial duty finally began to recede a little into
the yellow fields and gentle hummocks of a substantial County Meath farm.

C
HARLES
CARRIED
THE
sleeping Eileen on to the train, her head lolling across his shoulder like one of
Hannah’s childhood dolls. May hurried behind him, blankets at the ready. Hannah smiled to herself. May would make an excellent mother: she had a gravity which calmed Eileen and soothed her
tears into chuckles. Richard walked behind them, carrying their cases with ease. It was just as well there was one strong farmer among them, he’d said with a wide grin: the station was far
too small to boast a porter at this hour of the evening.

Hannah was glad for her sister. Richard was a good, kind man, generous to a fault, fond of children. Rather like Charles, in fact. May had chosen well. Hannah had no doubt that her sister had
been first to choose here: Richard had followed, of course, more than willingly, hardly able to believe his good fortune. Money, though, would always be a problem. They would never have enough, and
Abbotsford was a draughty, sparsely furnished place. Hannah shivered at the memory – no matter how early the young girl from the village lit the fires in the bedrooms, no matter how high
Richard had piled on the logs in the drawing-room grate, Hannah’s memory of the entire five-day visit was of having felt the cold.

Charles turned back now to help her on to the train.

‘All right, my dear?’

He had been particularly kind to her since she’d been ill with this next baby. He always thought ahead, planned for her ease and comfort, and yet she knew something was troubling him. Some
weeks back, she had asked him, tentatively, was he angry that there was another baby on the way. He had looked so genuinely astonished that she had felt relieved at once, reassured that she was
not, somehow, the cause of his worry.

‘You must never think that, my dear, never.’

He had grasped both her hands in his, his voice urgent.

‘I am delighted to be the father of a growing family. The prospect fills me with nothing but happiness. I am concerned only that your health should not suffer.’

She had felt lighter after that, less weighed down with guilt. She suspected that people were not paying him as promptly as they should, and the thought depressed her. The last thing she wanted
was to repeat her own mother’s history: fighting and complaining over money. But once Charles had reassured her that he longed for this baby as much as she did, everything seemed to change.
As if by magic, she began to feel better in the mornings, no longer racked by nausea. Charles seemed to slot back into his old routine, too, coming home on the minute-past-six train each evening.
And now the glad news of May’s wedding: Hannah knew she was selfish to want to hold on to her sister until then, but she couldn’t help it.

May had written home the very evening she had accepted Richard’s proposal. Hannah had gone into her room just before dinner to hug her all over again, to make plans, to tell her what a
wonderful man Richard was – quite the best, in Charles’s estimation, quite the soundest man he had ever known.

‘I don’t want to go home just yet, Hannah. I couldn’t bear Mama’s fussing.’ She paused. ‘May I stay with you until a few weeks before the wedding?’

What May did not confess to her sister was that she couldn’t bear the thought of Mama prying into Richard’s affairs – how much land he had, what his income was, how May’s
life with him would be. She knew, no matter what Richard’s virtues, that his worth would be subtly, perhaps even wordlessly, but nonetheless unfavourably, compared with Charles’s.

According to Mama and Papa, they were delighted and proclaimed Richard ‘a gentleman’. May was only a little resentful that they appeared almost uncaring about the details of her
forthcoming marriage. She thought they were glad to have her off their hands at so little trouble to themselves.

Once the others were settled in the compartment, May went back on to the platform to say goodbye to Richard.

‘Come back soon,’ he said softly, pressing her hands between his. ‘Now that I have someone to work for, you won’t recognize Abbotsford the next time you visit. I’ll
make it right for you.’

‘Don’t, Richard – please don’t change too much on my behalf. I love it just as it is, truly.’

May returned the pressure of his large hands, feeling an overwhelming affection for this gentle man. And she meant what she said. She loved the old charm of Abbotsford, had found the slightly
worn rooms to be warm and comfortable. She already thought of it as her home.

Impulsively, she reached up and kissed him. She didn’t care who was watching; she would soon be his wife. Then she turned and fled, back to Charles and Hannah.

Hannah had watched her discreetly, the whole time. That kiss, she felt, more than anything else, meant that the ghost of Philippe had finally been laid to rest. And Richard would never reject
her, should he ever discover her secret. His need for her was every bit as great as hers for him. They really were a perfect match, she thought.

W
HEN
H
ANNAH
WOKE
, the room was full of light. Mama was still in the rocking chair beside the bed,
asleep, her head resting on one hand. Maeve was in the Moses basket beside her. Hannah didn’t know how long she’d slept, but she felt better, much better. Suddenly, the silence seemed
strange – the baby had to be hungry – why wasn’t she crying? As though her new daughter had heard her, a thin wail arose from the depths of the basket. Her mother started, setting
the rocker in sudden motion. She reached towards the basket and lifted out her tiny granddaughter. Then she turned to smile at annah, her whole face lined with sleep.