Home for Christmas (18 page)

The senior sister’s eyes met those of Lydia, a young nurse who had made her mark here and not just because she was the daughter of a doctor. All the senior sisters had agreed that she was a good nurse. They also liked her, as did the patients. It helped with the latter that she was pretty.

‘It makes our patients happier when a nurse is pretty,’ Sister Ursula had said.

Sister Bertha had rolled her eyes in an indulgent rather than exasperated fashion.

The three women looked down disconsolately at the pale-faced woman lying bloodless and spent in the bed.

On the stand beside her, pink-tinged water floated in an enamel bowl.

Sister Bertha addressed Lydia. ‘You know what caused this.’ This was not a question but a statement.

Lydia swallowed and nodded. ‘Yes.’

Sister Gerda shook her head. ‘Poor woman. I cannot condemn her, and I will pray for her in chapel.’

Lydia sighed. ‘A woman has to be desperate to destroy the child she is carrying.’

She felt angry. How could a woman do that?
She
wouldn’t. Even if the man refused to marry her, she would not destroy her child.

Sister Bertha’s sigh brought her back to reality. ‘She’s lost a lot of blood – and the child too of course. Will you speak to her when she comes round and ask for her name and address? We have to let somebody know.’

Lydia’s eyes met hers. Without her saying a word, Sister Bertha understood and shook her head.

‘No. We will not tell the police.’

The sentence for aborting a child was harsh, for both the abortionist and the victim, the loss of the child recorded as a miscarriage, but murder in the eyes of the law.

Lydia checked on her patient all that night, creeping along the ward in semi-darkness, mopping the poor woman’s damp brow, changing her dressing when necessary.

Placing her age at around forty, it was a foregone conclusion that this was not her first pregnancy. Nobody liked to hazard a guess, but the average for a woman of this age and class was four. It would come as no surprise if she had more children than four, but until she came round they couldn’t know for sure.

The sad thing was that nobody had come looking for her, yet it was no secret that women in a delicate condition quite often made their way to this particular hospital.

It was around three in the morning when Lydia heard a weak call for water.

Getting up from her desk in the middle of the ward, Lydia went to the woman. Her eyes were deep set and bloodshot, her jowls hanging from her jaw like an elderly matron.

She was looking up at Lydia, her mouth opening and closing as though she was desperate to say something.

‘Shhh,’ said Lydia, smoothing the woman’s brow. ‘You’ve lost a lot of blood. If you’ll give me your name and address, we’ll let your family know. Can you do that? Can you tell me your name and address?’

The woman’s voice was barely above a whisper. Lydia got closer, turning her head to one side so the woman could whisper into her ear.’

‘My name’s Edith Allen …’

It was eight in the evening, the end of a long day, when Lydia was told she had a visitor.

‘She’s waiting by the front door,’ said Sally, the girl she roomed with when working the night shift. ‘Fiery sort, your friend. All reddish-blonde hair and insisting she wouldn’t be moved until she’d seen you. Even Sister Bertha backed off and you know what a tartar she can be.’

The fatigue Lydia had been feeling lifted at the news that Agnes was here. She’d heard from her father that Sir Avis Ravening’s widow had fired both the cook and her daughter. Lydia saw the familiar figure immediately. Her hair was still as wild as ever and she was neatly dressed in a navy blue suit with a white collar, a fox fur nestling around her shoulders, a navy blue hat decorated with blackbirds’ wings ungainly on her vast expanse of hair.

‘Agnes! I thought I would never see you again. What are you doing here?’

‘You don’t mind me coming here, do you?’

‘Of course not. I heard what happened. Where are you living? What are you doing?’

‘I’m living with my mother at my grandmother’s house, and as for what I am doing – as in for a living – well, that depends on you.’

‘On me?’ Lydia shook her head. ‘How? What?’

‘I’m looking for a job. Not in service. I certainly don’t want to do that. I’ve got the chance of a job at a factory – better pay than domestic service, but I have my heart set on driving. I was wondering … perhaps your father might know of someone?’

Lydia considered the prospect of asking her father. ‘He may do. I will ask him. I promise …’

‘I thought I might ask Robert, but it isn’t easy. Not now we’re no longer in service to Sir Avis.’

Lydia said that she thought that was a great shame. She made no mention of her conversation with Robert following the death of Sir Avis. Neither did she mention her subsequent meetings with him for lunch, for tea, for dinner, any way they could meet. Any mealtime. Any event. Soon she would have no choice, but for now, she put it off, telling herself that the right moment would come when Agnes wouldn’t be hurt so much.

‘Sister Lydia!’

The voice of Sister Bertha boomed across the arched atrium followed by her formidable presence.

‘I’m just going off duty, Sister. My friend Agnes …’

A curt nod went by way of greeting. ‘Good day.’

Agnes did the same. ‘Good day.’

Lydia sucked in her lips to prevent herself from smiling. Agnes was as forthright and cheeky as ever.

‘Edith Allen. Has she gone home yet?’ said Sister Bertha.

‘No, Sister. She’s given us her name, but not where she lives.’

‘Edith Allen?’ Agnes looked from Sister Bertha to her friend Lydia. ‘I know an Edith Allen. She lives in the same street as my gran. Myrtle Street. Next door in fact. What’s wrong with her?’

‘She’s had a miscarriage,’ said Lydia before the senior sister could say anything else. ‘She’s still weak. We have to get her out of her bed and home.’

‘Now would be best,’ said Sister Bertha. ‘Only she has no taxi or bus fare and we have nobody here to drive the ambulance.’

‘Well, that’s no problem at all, Sister,’ exclaimed a bright-eyed Agnes, her fingers visibly twitching at the thought of getting behind a steering wheel again. ‘I can drive her home in the ambulance if you like. I am qualified,’ she said when Sister Bertha’s plump forehead fell in a lumpy frown.

‘I’m not sure we can allow that.’

‘So how else will the poor woman get home?’ asked Agnes.

Sister Bertha looked from one young woman to the other. The young woman who had offered to drive the ambulance was unknown to her. However, she had a very open mind about what jobs women could or could not do. She also had a very flexible approach to getting things done.

‘Doctor Miller will vouch for me,’ Agnes declared in a very refined manner. ‘He attended my late benefactor, Sir Avis Ravening. I have great faith in Doctor Miller’s skills, as he has in me.’

Sister Bertha’s frown lessened. ‘Very well. I have no objection if Doctor Miller can vouch for you. I’ll phone him right away.’

It was apparent from Edith Allen’s expression that she was not happy to see Agnes. Her features, already washed out, went paler and her eyes filled with alarm.

‘You won’t tell, will you? I collapsed. I had the flu and passed out. That’s what you have to say.’

‘Of course,’ said Agnes, too excited at the prospect of driving the ambulance to worry about Edith’s troubles.

She helped Lydia get her into the back of the ambulance where Edith lay down gratefully.

Lydia pulled a blanket from one of the overhead lockers and placed it over her.

‘There. You’ll be back with your family before long and they’ll be none the wiser,’ she said.

‘How ’bout ’er?’

She managed to bob her head at Agnes who was tucking the end of the blanket beneath Edith’s feet.

‘She’s sworn to secrecy,’ said Lydia. ‘Aren’t you, Agnes?’

‘Not a word will pass my lips,’ Agnes stated in a dour manner that Lydia would never have thought her capable of managing.

Lydia declared she would stay in the back with Edith while Agnes drove. ‘We’ll catch up with our news at the end of the journey when you take me and the ambulance back.’

‘I would love to keep the ambulance you know,’ said Agnes. ‘I don’t suppose there would be any chance of a job …’

Lydia sighed. ‘It would be lovely to have you working here. I can’t promise, but I will try.’

Lydia settled herself in the back of the ambulance opposite Edith. The poor woman wasn’t too well and had no idea how close she had been to death. Whoever had performed this abortion was breaking the law. Someone said there had been another woman with Edith helping her up the front steps.

‘Looked like a flower seller. She was carrying a big basket over her arm – a trug – a big trug like what flower sellers have.’

Lydia had some questions to ask.

She started by calmly stroking Edith’s forehead and telling her that everything was fine now.

‘You had a nasty experience. You could have died. The person who did this has to be stopped. The next time they do it, somebody might die. Who was she, Edith? What was her name?’

Edith rolled her head to one side so Lydia could not see the look in her eyes.

‘I daresn’t tell you. I promised.’

‘Have you any other children, Edith?’

Her nod was barely perceptible.

‘How many?’ asked Lydia.

‘Seven.’

‘How old are they?’

‘Albert’s thirteen. He’s just started work. Told them he was fourteen. Beatrice is eleven, George is ten, Oswald is eight, Teddy is six, Gertie is four and Gladys is two. Then there’s our Harry. I had him years ago before I met Cyril.’

‘So that’s ten of you.’

Edith nodded.

Lydia didn’t know the exact size of the house Edith lived in, but guessed it wasn’t big – no bigger than the one lived in by the Kinski family.

‘And this woman, the one who helped you get rid of your baby. Does she live in Myrtle Street too?’

Edith’s eyes stared up at her, the alarm that had abated now returning.

‘No! You won’t tell anyone, will you? I had to do it. I couldn’t cope with another mouth to feed. I really couldn’t.’

Lydia persisted. ‘So where does she live, this woman?’

She hated to upset Edith, but she’d heard at the hospital how many women came in following abortions carried out by someone with little knowledge. Not all of them survived the ordeal. Some carried the scars, both physical and mental, for the rest of their lives.

The very thought of money changing hands for what was murder by any other name made her angry.

Edith shook her head. ‘I can’t tell. I just can’t.’

‘Listen,’ said Lydia, leaning closer so she could speak in a whisper. ‘Someone may die, Edith. If we don’t stop this woman, someone, someday, may die.’

Edith kept her head turned resolutely away.

Lydia sighed. Nobody told. That was the way it was.

She’d thought that was it, until suddenly Edith said, ‘What would we do without somebody like Daisy. There’s nobody else.’

Daisy! The woman’s name was Daisy.

Lydia tried to coax her into telling more, but Edith had closed her eyes, feigning sleep, unwilling to betray the woman who had almost killed her.

The house where Edith lived was in darkness, but flickered into life when they knocked at the door. A young man looking as though he hadn’t slept for days filled the doorway, almost whooping with joy the moment he saw his mother.

‘Mam! Where have you been? Jack’s out looking for you.’

Agnes explained that Jack was Edith’s husband.

‘Works on the docks,’ she added.

Lydia might normally have added that almost everyone around these streets seemed to work on the docks or in warehouses hereabouts, but she was too preoccupied, too consumed with anger.

Edith threw her arms around her eldest son, telling him she’d collapsed and been taken to the hospital.

‘But I’m all right now, my lovely boy,’ she said, gazing up at him in adoration and stroking his face. ‘I’m all right now. Have you had any supper, our Harry?’

‘No Mam, I’ve been too worried …’

‘I’ll get you some now. Don’t you worry. Can’t ’ave my boy going to work on an empty stomach …’

Lydia looked at Agnes, amazed at Edith’s sudden surge of energy and the adoring way she looked at her son.

‘She dotes on him,’ said Agnes, who was running her hands over the bonnet of the ambulance, eyeing it almost as adoringly as Edith had Harry. ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’

‘Very commendable,’ replied Lydia, presuming her comment was with regard to the scene they’d just witnessed. ‘I would still like to know …’

She stopped what she’d been going to say. It wasn’t right that Agnes should know. Edith had a right to privacy.

Agnes sighed from her position draped over the bonnet of the ambulance.

‘You haven’t turned it off.’

‘I know. If I turn it off you’d have to turn the starting handle, and I’m not sure whether you’re up to it. That’s why I haven’t invited you in for a cup of tea before we take it back.’

‘Are you sure of that?’

Agnes’s expression gave nothing away. ‘Yes. Of course.’

They might have left right away if Sarah Stacey hadn’t suddenly opened the front door.

She looked astounded to see the ambulance. ‘Where did you get that?’

Only when she saw Lydia in her uniform did her expression change, a sigh heave from her chest and a girlish smile tremble on her lips.

‘Miss Lydia. Well, I never. Would you like a cup of tea?’

Agnes had no option but to turn off the engine. ‘It’ll be a devil to start when it’s time to go. It’s getting cold out here,’ she grumbled.

Lydia found the house warm and welcoming, the opposite to the Kinskis’ house and others like it she’d visited since. The furnishings were simple and either worn but clean or home made with an eye on detail and matching one colour to another.

A lump of a woman, short and snoring loud enough to do better to the fire than a set of bellows, lay sprawled in an armchair, legs akimbo, face huddled against her shoulder.

‘My mother,’ whispered Sarah Stacey. ‘Best not to wake her.’