Eliza's Child (23 page)

ELIZA ACKNOWLEDGED TO
herself that she was sorely tempted to marry Peter as she drove Dolly home. She couldn't concentrate on her work, so she thought she would take an early dinner time as the morning was almost over. Then she would do the rounds of her patients in the afternoon. It was Saturday, and she usually tried to finish early on Saturdays but she had too much to do today.

If she married Peter, Tot would have a chance to get into the grammar school on a scholarship sponsored by the miners' union. If not he would have to take his chances in the public scholarship and there would be a great deal more competition for that. She didn't think she could enlarge her practice to make more money to pay his school fees. She hadn't enough time in the day to do what she needed to do now. Of one thing she was certain: one way or another he was going to have a higher education than that supplied by the national school, he was indeed.

She and Peter were not in love, not as she and Jack had been, but look where that had got her. But she was fond of him, very fond. He had been there so often when she needed a friend.

By, she thought, she could do with someone to talk it over with. She thought wistfilly of Bertha. They hadn't been able to discuss things as they used to do, not lately. Bertha knew she wasn't fond of Charlie and it caused some restraint between them. Besides, Bertha would be busy all day, what with her own work and farm work and later on she would be going to the choir concert at chapel with him.

Eliza dropped in at the butcher's to buy something for dinner. No doubt Tot had been running and playing football all morning and he would come in ravenously hungry.

‘Where've you been, Mam?' Tot greeted her as she went into the kitchen with her bag of meat pies and pease pudding. ‘I'm famished. I scored a goal, Mam. You should have seen it, it was grand. I'm a good player, Mam, I am. Me and Albert are going to get a proper team together and we'll play proper matches, we have it all planned—'

‘Go and wash your hands under the pump,' said Eliza, ‘and then come back and sit down. Where's Bertha?'

‘Eeh, I don't know where she is. I scored a goal, Mam, did you hear me?'

‘I did, that's lovely, pet,' Eliza replied, looking at his face. He was filled with pride and enthusiasm and she had hardly noticed. ‘I think it's grand,' she said, to make amends for her seeming lack of interest.

Tot trotted off, satisfied, to the water pump by the back door and washed his hands. He didn't know why his mam was so insistent on him washing all the time, none of the other mothers were bothered. His mam was different. Maybe it had something to do with her being a nurse. It was when he came back and took a mouthful of pie and spoke through it that he dropped his bombshell. She had opened her mouth to tell him not to speak with his mouth full when she realised what he was saying.

‘I'm going to leave school and go down the pit, Mam. I'll be making good money, Albert says—'

‘What? Leave school? Of course you're not going to leave school.'

‘I am, everybody is. Some of the lads left when they were nine. I'm the oldest in the school, Mam. They only go there to learn how to read and write and figure some. I'm old enough to be fetching money in. Then you won't have to be out so often.'

Oh, she should not have let him go to the national school, she should not indeed. She should have tried to get him into a better school. But the national school was only threepence a week. The Methodist school was cheap an' all but it was on the other side of Durham. The thoughts ran round and round in her mind. In building up her nursing practice she had neglected him, oh, she had. She should have been there for him more.

‘You're leaving that school all right, Tot,' she said. ‘But you are going to a high school and there will be no arguing about it.'

Tot looked mulishly down at his plate. He stirred his pease pudding with his fork and stabbed at the pieces of pie, breaking them up into little bits. But he had been too well trained by his grandmother to argue any more about it, even now after a few years with his mother.

‘Are we going to Blue House tomorrow after chapel?'

It sounded as though he had changed the subject and Eliza was glad of it. ‘We are,' she replied. ‘Do you want to see your grandma and granda?'

‘Aye.' Tot started to eat again, finishing off the food on his plate. He drank the dandelion and burdock pop that was always his treat at weekends and looked at Eliza. ‘Can I go out now?'

‘All right. Mind, I'll be out this afternoon, working, but Bertha won't be long, I shouldn't think.'

She watched as he pulled on his cap and jacket and went out of the back door and down the yard. The yard gate banged to after him. She cleared the table and got ready to go on her rounds. Not that there were many patients she had to see and those she did were mainly convalescent. Of course there was Billy and she had had a message from Dr Gray to visit the pit manager's little girl at Shincliffe's Banktop colliery. It was a way out on the other side of Durham, though. Still, as Dr Gray had asked for her, she would go.

As she travelled in her tub trap, watching Dolly's fat behind swaying from side to side as she plodded along, Eliza was coming to a decision. She would wed Peter Collier and get Tot away from the friends he had made at the school in Gilesgate. Maybe it wasn't the best reason for marrying anybody but Peter had his own reasons for asking her and she didn't think one of them was love. Peter Collier was in love with the union, he lived, ate and slept the union. He was a kind and caring man, though. He would do his best to get the lad into a decent school; most likely the high school. They would grow to love each other. All it took was effort and understanding. She smiled at herself in mockery. It was not as though she had such a great knowledge of marriage.

It did not occur to her to think that the union was the mineworkers' and Peter wouldn't think Tot's ambitions to be a miner were quite so bad as she did. Having made her decision, she put it out of her mind for the moment. She was approaching Shincliffe and the short drive of the manager's house. It was well rutted by wheels but there had been an attempt to fill in the ruts with gravel and small stones. Dolly picked her way delicately up it to the front of the house.

The door was opened by a maid. Not a little workhouse skivvy such as Lottie or Bertha had been, but a woman of indeterminate age in a clean white apron and cap. She looked Eliza up and down, dressed as she was in her nurse's cape and cap with the ribbons tied under her chin, and evidently decided this was an equal or even an inferior rather than a superior being.

‘You're the nurse,' she stated. In her experience nurses were widow women or others desperate to earn a living and some of them were no more than slatterns. This one might be dressed decently but she was still only a nurse. ‘You should go round to the back door.'

‘And you're a servant and supposed to be polite to visitors,' said Eliza pleasantly. ‘Dr Gray sent for me. Please take me to him and ask someone to see to my pony and trap.'

The woman's eyes flashed and she began to splutter, but from behind her came a man's voice.

‘Is that Nurse Mitchell-Howe, Jane? Let her in, woman, let her in at once!'

‘Yes, sir, I was just about to,' the woman replied hastily and stepped aside so Eliza could walk in to the hall. It was a square hall, not large, but the floor was paved with black and white tiles in a chequered pattern and there was a side table flanked by a couple of chairs. Advancing towards the door was a man of about forty with side whiskers and a frock coat of a good tweed material. He too looked Eliza up and down, but his face was expressionless.

‘I'll take you to my daughter, Matilda,' he said with no preamble. ‘Dr Gray is with her.' He led the way up a flight of stairs with a bend in the middle. There was a carpet running down the middle and the sides were polished. It was as opulent as her father-in-law's staircase up by Alnwick, Eliza thought. Coal was definitely profitable for some, if not for the men who worked it. She pushed the radical thought from her mind. There was a sick little lass here and that was what mattered.

‘Sister, I'm glad you could come.' Dr Gray turned to the door of the bedroom. He smiled warmly; still the same as he had been years ago when she had worked with him in the Infirmary, although as she shook his hand she noticed tiny lines around the corners of his eyes and mouth and a few threads of silver in his hair she had somehow not noticed when she worked with him a few times recently. He drew her forward and introduced her to the woman sitting by the bed, a small woman in the full skirt that had succeeded the crinoline.

‘This is Sister Mitchell-Howe, Mrs Prentis,' he said gently. ‘You couldn't put your child into better hands.'

Mrs Prentis looked up at Eliza. ‘Sister,' she said, nodding her head courteously. She had large brown eyes, which were red with crying. Her hair was drawn back into a bun at the nape of her neck and she was wearing a lacy cap in the fashion of married ladies of the day.

‘Perhaps you should go and have a short rest and perhaps a cup of tea, Mrs Prentis. Just while Sister and I look at Matilda.'

Mrs Prentis began to shake her head but the doctor was firm as he put a hand under her elbow. ‘I think you should, Mrs Prentis,' he said gently. ‘We don't want you ill too, do we?' Somehow his will prevailed and she found herself being escorted to the door. ‘I will call you if there is any change, dear lady,' he went on, and closed the door firmly behind her.

‘It is so difficult sometimes,' he remarked to Eliza. ‘Naturally mothers—' He didn't finish the sentence, just shrugged expressively and returned to the bedside.

The room was excessively hot, for heavy curtains were drawn across the windows, leaving only a narrow slit for light to come in, and a large fire burned in the grate. The patient had thrown the bedclothes back and was restlessly moving her head from side to side. Her lips moved as though she was muttering to herself in delirium.

‘She is suffering from diarrhoea,' Dr Gray said. ‘I suspect typhoid though I hope it is not. At any rate, the little spots are not evident.' He glanced at Eliza, who was by the opposite side of the bed. ‘We need to get her temperature down. But I will have to ask the parents' permission for a cold sponge-down. The mother is against it but if I talk to the father I'm sure I will be able to show him the necessity for it. Will you wait a moment while I do that?'

While he was gone, Eliza sponged the child's face. She picked up the bottle of medicine that stood on the bedside table and saw it was an aconite derivative, which was used as an antipyretic. Oh, she hoped it wasn't typhoid or any of the other fevers, which could sweep through a district and take so many with it.

‘You can go ahead, Sister,' Dr Gray said as he came into the room. ‘I hope you can stay, at least for a few days. Mr Prentis wants you to stay.'

‘I'm sorry, Dr Gray, I cannot,' Eliza replied. ‘Surely you can get a monthly nurse to do it?'

‘Not one like you, Sister. Not trained in the Nightingale methods.'

‘Still, I cannot. I have a boy of my own at home to see to.'

Dr Gray nodded. ‘I understand, of course, but I promised I would ask you. Perhaps you will stay long enough to explain what to do to the woman we get?'

Eliza was in something of a dilemma. This was a child and she owed it to her to do her best for her. But there was Tot at home. Bertha had always been there for him but things were changing now. Bertha had her own priorities.

‘Mr Prentis will send a message to Gilesgate for you,' the doctor said. He waited for her decision.

‘You knew I could only take on day cases,' said Eliza.

‘Yes, but you were the only one I could think of with the skills little Matilda needs.'

Matilda moaned and moved restlessly almost as though on cue. ‘Well, for the moment I must get on and try to make her as comfortable as possible.'

‘Of course.'

In the end, Eliza agreed to stay until the following morning. A messenger was dispatched to Gilesgate to let Bertha know and a local widow woman who earned her living usually as a monthly nurse was brought in. She was at least clean and had a pleasant face and didn't appear to mind being told what to do by a newfangled Nightingale nurse who was half her age. Or she didn't say so to Eliza as so many didn't hesitate to do. By the next morning Eliza felt confident enough to leave Mrs Dunne, as she was called, in charge.

Riding home in the tub trap, Eliza reflected on her patient. The girl seemed better this morning. Her temperature was down slightly and she was not delirious.

‘I think she stands a good chance of recovery,' Dr Gray had said to Eliza, ‘and she owes it to you as much as anyone. Of course she will still need careful nursing. You will call back this evening?'

‘It's away across the city, Doctor. And I have other patients. I will have to visit some today even though it is Sunday. No, I will come back tomorrow if that's all right. Mrs Dunne is very good, there's no need for me.'

‘Very well, but I may need to send for you. You will come if you're needed?'

Eliza had assented; what else could she do? There were always so many people, so many patients who needed help, and not enough trained nurses or doctors either. What was worse, some of those were steeped in the old ways and dismissed the idea that disease was caused by living organisms. They refused to wash even their hands between patients. But the idea of antisepsis was gradually taking root at last. As Miss Nightingale had said, the main weapon she had for saving soldiers' lives in the Crimea was the scrubbing brush.

The house was empty when Eliza finally arrived home and put Dolly in her own little stable. The pony trotted in happily, as glad to be home as Eliza was herself. Eliza placed some fresh hay in the manger and, closing the half door after herself, went in by the back door.