Dreams Can Come True (32 page)

She smiled tentatively at Hannah as the girl came in carrying little Johnny.

“Look, we’re having your favourite, Hannah. Braised beef and onions, with delicious garden peas.”

Katie tucked a stray hair beneath her nurse’s bonnet and straightened her apron in the sluice room. Another few minutes, then it was away to the Matron’s office. She and Sister Gill had been summoned to a meeting at ten o’clock. Perhaps there had been word of her proposed promotion or a date to be agreed for another exam’. She knew she could do it. All those hours spent in her little room revising from the “Notes on Nursing” that Sister Gill had given her, while the other girls were slipping out to meet various beaus or attending the dances at the local village hall. Or perhaps it was just an appraisal of what Katie thought was her very hard work. Whatever it was, her mood was very buoyant. It was a lovely day at the beginning of June.

“Ah, Sister Gill and Staff Nurse Tibbs.”

Matron Fairhurst smiled over her half-moon spectacles at her nurses kindly and beckoned the pair of them in. She was a tall, thin woman in her fifties, dressed totally in black from head to toe, except for a white, laced, detachable collar around the neckline of her gown and a white, frilly cap pinned firmly in place on her naturally curly, shoulder-length greying hair.

She stood behind her desk and showed them a telegram that she had received that morning.

“It’s from the Hospital Board in Chester. We are to be advised that a troop ship will be arriving in Liverpool, within the next forty eight hours from Bengal. The men aboard have various conditions, but we have been assigned the ones that have succumbed to dysentery. The Hospital Board are trying to arrange it that the men can be treated in the area that they come from, so we probably won’t be receiving that many cases. However, to be on the safe side, I’ll be opening the Hinderton Ward, so I would like you, Sister Gill, to arrange for a team of cleaning women to go in and bring the place up to our very high standards. And you, Staff Nurse Tibbs, are to brief the probationers and auxiliaries on what will be expected from them. Plenty of bedpans need to be available at all times, plenty of bowls for the sickness and, depending on how far gone their illness is, plenty of jugs of water at their bedsides. It is possible that some may have delirium, as although they will have had nurses travelling with them, conditions on a troop ship are not like ours at all. Now, are there any questions from either of you? Sister Gill? Staff Nurse Tibbs?”

“Well, I was wondering how on earth we were going to manage, Matron?” said Sister Gill worriedly. She was voicing Katie’s worries exactly, who didn’t think it was her place to air her fears.

“Of course you will manage; I’ve every confidence in your team. How many are there in the Thornton Ward now? Three, four? One old man with a broken hip, another with a chest complaint, that miner with the damaged leg and the fellow who came in with the scalded face. Hardly wearing you out, are they? Well, we’ll see how many men are assigned to our care before we make a fuss about it, then I’ll borrow some staff from another ward if I have to. Come back to me, Sister, if there’s a problem.”

She dismissed the women with an encouraging smile. They didn’t know they were born, she thought. Let them try and cope with what she had had to in the Crimea. At least there were bedpans here and decent mattresses for the patients to lie on. The soldiers
she
had tended to in Sevastopol had nothing, other than a few thin blankets and a kind word from the nurses that had volunteered to go out there.

Matron let her mind wander back to that incredibly cold winter back in 1854, when the snow lay so deep around their encampment that nothing could move in or out for days on end. They prayed constantly for a ship to arrive at the nearby port, at least to rescue those that had not succumbed to disease or hunger and to bring equipment, food and medical supplies. At last their prayers had been answered, when the steam ship, Cambria,had managed to cut a swathe through the ice of the Black Sea and sent a party of brave young men to seek them out. She had travelled back to Liverpool with the sick and the wounded, along with the body of General Adams, then helped to restore good health to some of the men.

The woman shuddered as she remembered it all.

“That’s what I like about Matron,” Sister Gill said, as she and Katie walked along the stony path back to Thornton Ward. “She knows what she’s talking about, though she should do after being a nurse for thirty odd years. Did you know she trained under Florence Nightingale? Well, she was at Crimea anyway; whether she ever met the woman, I’m not sure. Matron keeps herself to herself, as you will have noticed, but she knows her job all right. Knows exactly how many patients are on each ward and what’s wrong with all of them; knows that we’re overstaffed at the moment with summer being here. Not so many accidents and illnesses once the sun starts shining and I’ve noticed how little there is to be done, once the ward work is finished each morning. I think I’ll take over the Hinderton Ward myself and leave you to run our ward with the help of Win and Mrs. Mottram, the auxiliary. I’ll take Janey, the new probationer and I’ll make do with Mrs. Kane. Though I’ll not be far away, so you will have my support if necessary and it goes without saying if we cannot cope with the new influx, you’ll have to help me out in there.”

“Yes, Sister, thank you, Sister,” replied Katie happily.

To be left in charge of a ward was such a great honour, her heart soared at the thought of it. So what if she only had four patients to care for? She’d be an Acting Sister, wouldn’t she? The committee of the Hospital Board would be impressed as well.

Johnny stood on the bridge of the steamer, Irish Maiden, watching as his partner, Dermot Ryan, steered the vessel deftly into port. So this was it then, he thought to himself sadly. The end of an era, the closing of a chapter, exchanging it all for a life on shore. Minutes from now it would all be over, except for saying goodbye to the present crew. He had resisted the calls of a farewell bevy; something that normally he would have been glad to do. But he needed a clear head for the following morning, when he was to take over as owner of the ship’s chandlers; here on the very harbour, that he had sailed out from for some years now. This business with Maggie had given him the shove that he had needed; a kick up the backside to make changes in his life.

He had lain for days in his room all those weeks ago, drifting in and out of delirium, not really wanting to live if he couldn’t have Maggie by his side. He’d be dead now if it wasn’t for Dermot, who had come to “dig the bugger out” after Johnny had missed two sailings across to Liverpool. He’d been a good mate, calling on a doctor, who had the sick man transferred to the City Hospital. There had been plenty of time since then to dwell on his near-death experience and realise that he was lucky to have another crack at his life.

“Penny for them, Johnny,” Dermot broke into his thoughts, before the ship lunged uncontrollably against the solid wall of the berth, sending the pair of them flying.

“Bloody old tub, you’d think she’d know how far we were off that wall by now, wouldn’t yer? Let down the gangplank, somebody,” he roared, as the wheel righted itself once more and the ship settled down with a sigh.

“What was I saying? Oh, yes. If it doesn’t work out, yer know you can always come back and work fer me – this time scrubbing decks though. You’ll have spent all me buy out money on that bloody business, by then I suppose.”

He held out his hand and murmured softly.

“Don’t let her get to yer, Johnny. There’s plenty other mermaids in the sea.”

Johnny felt choked at this unexpected show of sympathy from his shipmate. His advice had always been to love them, then leave them. “Saves getting yer heart all broke” was what Dermot usually said.

He just nodded, too full with emotion, shook hands then climbed down the steps to the gangway. He took one last look at the steamer as he set off for his digs in the city, listening with amusement as some of the crew hung over the stern to wave and shout at his back. Some good humoured joshing, some perhaps tinged with resentment. Dermot could be a harsh man who would lash out at the drop of a hat.

“Oh, damn yer, Maggie,” Johnny swore, as he pulled up the collar of his jacket against the wind that suddenly blustered. The only woman he had ever loved, beside his mother, had made him feel a lovelorn eejit.

“Mother, we’ve got to talk about this,” said Hannah pleadingly. She was hovering outside Maggie’s room, where her stepmother lay on top of the bed, pale and exhausted.

“Let me come in. You need somebody to talk to, or better still we’ll sit in the garden. The sun’s still warm, even though it’s late in the day.”

“Go away, Hannah. I’m not up to anything – talking or sitting in the garden. Just leave me alone, will yer. I wish I’d never gone to the Parade today.”

She groaned, as Hannah came in full of determination, flinging back the bedroom curtains and letting the sun come flooding in.

“Right, we’ve been pussyfooting around for long enough and it’s time someone took control of the situation. Look at the state of you, Mother. That was your moment of glory carrying the banner, all dolled up in your elegant dress. You’ve worked hard enough for that attribution and it shouldn’t have been taken so lightly. I was horrified when you passed it on to Mrs. Featherstone. What has she ever done to deserve the honour, except snipe at anything good you’ve done for the place?”

Maggie sniffed back her tears at the humiliation she had felt, when the banner had been so heavy that she had realised she’d not carry it more than a yard or so. Her, big strong Maggie Haines who could do anything she set her mind to, had felt as weak as a kitten. Of course she had used her recent illness to excuse herself, but that hadn’t stopped the accusing glares.

“Too big for her boots, too beneath her to carry the banner.” She knew what would be said about her. That’s why she was lying with the curtains drawn, blocking out a damning world.

“This isn’t like you, Mother,” said Hannah tenderly, sitting on the side of the bed, stroking Maggie’s hair.

“You’ve not been the same since that week you had in Liverpool and I’m sure that something happened there. Something that you are not willing to tell. I’m sorry I was rude to you, call it a trick of the light, but to me you looked as if you could have been expecting. I know, I know, it was thoughtless. I know that you and Father are through.”

Maggie sat up and made herself comfortable with a pillow at her back. It was time she faced up to her future and her stepdaughter owed her, didn’t she? Jack had walked away from their marriage because she had taken Hannah’s side against him. Now it was Hannah’s turn to listen to her sorry tale.

“Do yer remember, Hannah, when you turned to me for help that time over Jeremy?”

“Yes,” the admission was given hesitantly.

“Well, I think it will now be your turn to help me.”

Hannah sat in a state of stunned silence, while Maggie shamefacedly told the girl about Johnny Dockerty. From the meeting all those years ago, to their secret tryst at the Adelphi Hotel. To give Hannah her due, the only time she winced was when Maggie spoke of Johnny’s defection.

“So, you don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t mentioned your unwillingness to go that morning?”

“It wasn’t that I was unwilling, Hannah; it was because I was just nervous. I’ve built a cosy nest here at Selwyn Lodge and all this is because I worked hard fer all those years. I’ve got used to not having a man around telling me what to do. But, I’m a Catholic, and there’s no getting away from the fact that I’m married, and now I’m guilty of committing adultery. Johnny, poor lamb, was just happy that we had finally admitted our love for one another and was weaving a magical future for the two of us to share.”

“So, is it possible that you could be expecting? I think you are; you have that look about you.”

“Well, you’d know about it, Hannah, seeing that’s the state you’re in.”

“This is serious, Mother, so don’t joke about it. How on earth could we pass off your baby? Father’s been gone for nearly two years.”

There was a sudden silence between them as they both realised the importance of her words. Hadn’t Maggie been shown that morning just how prevalent the antipathy towards her still was? After all those years, there was still a lot of envy towards the woman she had become. Her good name would be reduced to the level of the gutter. She’d be thrown off her committees; shunned if she attended church. The ladies of the parish would have a field day if Maggie was in a certain condition. She would have to think of going away.

“Of course, I may be worrying unnecessarily, yer know. It could be that I am as Joan has told me, suffering from middle-aged spread.”

Maggie looked at Hannah hopefully, who snorted, “I don’t think so. You should get in touch with Uncle Johnny. It’s his baby and he should be responsible. He’s the Captain of the Irish Maiden, isn’t he? Eddie says he ties up in Liverpool every other day.”

“Well, I did write him a letter, just before I went down with influenza, but he hasn’t bothered to reply to me, so why should he do so now?”