Mourning Doves (26 page)

After spending the tumultuous years of the war in a London hospital constantly full of wounded, Edith Mason came home to the village where she was born, to practise medicine with her father, who had had a family practice there for many years.

Though it was extremely difficult for a woman to obtain training as a doctor, old Dr Mason had given his only child every support and encouragement, and he was happy to welcome her home and to have such an experienced physician as his junior partner. Like many other medical students of the time, she had faced a constant flow of terribly wounded or very sick men, and, perforce, her experience during training had been much wider than it would have been in peacetime.

With her father as her partner, his patients tolerated her, though men often specified that they wanted to see old Dr Mason. When, in January 1920, he died, however, the old, ugly prejudice against women doctors surfaced and patients tended to drift away to any physician who wore a pair of trousers.

To Edith’s relief, however, it became evident that women were glad to discuss their more intimate problems with her, and, at the time of Celia’s visit, she was beginning to rebuild the practice, though she was still far from busy. Edna knew of her only from her business plate bolted to her front gate.

Edna felt that Celia would simply freeze in front of
a male doctor and that what her sister needed most was reassurance. Dr Mason seemed to her a sensible choice.

When the two young women arrived at the doctor’s front door, they obeyed a cardboard notice hung on the door handle and entered her hallway. A further notice by an open doorway instructed them to Please Take a Seat, so in they went and shyly sat down.

Dr Mason’s waiting room held only one middle-aged lady, who sat primly upright in a corner. In response to a small ting-ting of a bell, she immediately rose and went into an inner room to see the doctor. The sisters heard her being greeted with a cheerful good morning, and then the door was closed.

When Edna and a very timid Celia answered the bell and went in to face her, Dr Mason was able to give them plenty of time.

At first Edna did the talking, but when finally her description of her sister’s fears about her health became clear, the doctor turned to Celia.

Celia said baldly, ‘I want to know, Doctor, if I am quite normal and sane in my mind and that I am not physically ill in any way. My parents have always kept me at home and consistently said that I am incapable of looking after myself.’

Edith Mason saw much more in this request than Celia realised. She knew the type quite well. A daughter kept as a superior servant, no social life, no sex life, little education, few friends. Queen Victoria had set the fashion for this misuse of a daughter, and Dr Mason had seen a number like her, and, indeed, wives with the same crushed passive look. She knew that, in the case of the latter, sometimes their only escape was into a form of semi-invalidism which had little to do with real illness.

She suggested, first, that she take Celia’s medical history and then give her a thorough physical examination.

Celia said she did not have any medical history. She had never been to a doctor before.

The doctor laughed and, after questioning her, ended up with a long list of childhood illnesses and, as an adult, recurring coughs, colds, unknown fevers, and Spanish flu.

When Edith saw the fear in her patient’s eyes at the length of the list, she assured her that it was quite an ordinary list. Most people went through all these illnesses.

Celia agreed. ‘It must be so, I suppose. Mother never called the doctor for any of them.’

Dr Mason took Celia behind a screen in a far corner of the spacious room, and asked her to undress and wrap herself in a white sheet lying on an examination table. While she did so, the doctor went to check that there was no one else in the waiting room.

Edna remained in the consulting room as chaperone. She was, however, seated at the furthest possible distance from the screen, and could reasonably be expected not to hear the doctor’s quiet conversation with her patient.

It was Celia’s first medical examination and her face went pink with embarrassment. While she was seated on the examination table, the doctor put her stethoscope to her chest and listened to her heart, turned her around and knocked carefully on her back, peered down her throat and down her ears, examined her throat and tongue and turned down her lower eyelids to check for anaemia. She took a little hammer and tapped her knees for reflexes. Then she laid Celia out on her back and took a good look at her, stark naked. She saw a short, small-breasted, perfectly formed, very white, reasonably nourished body that had obviously never been exposed to sunlight, hips of a normal width for her height. She was probably perfectly capable of bearing children and of feeding them. There was no apparent sign of malformation or ill health.

Anxious not to discommode a patient who, she guessed,
had probably never been stripped in front of anyone, never mind a doctor, she did not feel for breast cancer.

She gently covered the little body with the sheet, and pulled a swivel chair up close to the table and sat down herself, picked up her clipboard from under the table and began to make some notes.

‘I should take your pulse,’ she said, her worn face breaking into a smile. ‘I forgot.’ And, looking at her closely, Celia realised, with surprise, that this self-possessed, careful lady was not much older than Edna.

Celia returned the smile. She felt perfect confidence in the physician, and answered as carefully as she could the questions she was then asked. No aches? No bad accidents at any time? No pains? Headaches? Menses regular? Celia had to have the word ‘menses’ explained to her, having previously only heard polite euphemisms, including the curse, for the menstrual cycle. Her last curse had been two weeks before.

Dr Mason sat back and looked at the prematurely sad face before her, and said that she appeared to have normal health, except that she was a little anaemic, for which she would prescribe a tonic. ‘And much more fresh air,’ she suggested. ‘Do you walk?’ Yes. ‘Can you swim?’ No. ‘Play tennis?’ No. ‘Ride a bicycle?’ No. ‘Church?’ No. ‘Mother goes, but I have not had time for months.’

The doctor leaned back in her swivel chair. ‘What do you do with your day?’ she asked in a friendly, conversational way.

Under the sheet, Celia squirmed uneasily. ‘Usually I do whatever Mother wants doing. But now she’s widowed, I have had to do all kinds of things.’ Her voice sounded flat and tired.

‘What kind of things?’ The doctor’s voice was soft and amiable.

The story of her father’s bankruptcy and having to move to the cottage came out, at first diffidently, and then in a
rush. ‘Mother is so upset that she is not able to do much,’ she finished up in polite defence of her surviving parent. ‘So I had to make all the arrangements.’

‘And what do you personally hope to do in the future?’

And Celia replied dully, ‘Look after Mother and the house and the garden – and …’ She tailed off.

‘And?’ The doctor prompted.

Celia looked her squarely in the eye. ‘Do you really want to know?’

‘Well, it is natural that you might want to do something you enjoy in your spare time. You don’t have to tell me, but the more I know about you, the better I will be able to advise you. Did you lose someone in the war, my dear?’

‘Both my brothers. There is just Edna, Mother and I left now – Edna’s husband died of the Spanish flu.’

‘No sweetheart?’

Celia laughed disparagingly. ‘Me? I’m far too plain to have a sweetheart.’

Edith smiled inwardly. This, she thought, is where I begin the healing. ‘I don’t think you’re too plain,’ she assured her. ‘You have a pretty, healthy body, and you are not at all ugly.’

‘Really?’ Celia had never in her life received a compliment regarding her appearance.

‘Of course.’ No need to tell her that most of the males of her generation were dead.

‘Is there nothing that you would like to do, if you had time? Your mother is not going to live for ever. You need to have something else to do.’

Celia propped herself up on one elbow, and said almost eagerly, ‘Well, yes, there is. But Mother has always assured me that I am totally incapable of doing anything. My father, too. That’s why I came to you – to find out if I am sick in some way – or if I am mentally deficient. You see I get so frightened that I curl up into a ball and I can’t do
anything for hours until it passes.’ Her voice faded into despair. ‘You must think I’m awfully stupid.’

Panic attacks. ‘You poor child. Because of these episodes you think you are mentally deficient?’

‘I fear so. Edna doesn’t think I am, but she doesn’t know me very well. She’s been in South America for years and has only just recently come home.’

The doctor again put her fingers round Celia’s wrist. The girl’s pulse was now racing. She grasped her hand and squeezed it. She smiled, and said, ‘You strike me as a perfectly normal person, perhaps a little too dutiful a daughter, but, nevertheless, perfectly normal. Now, tell me what it was you wanted to do – it must be important since it apparently drove you to come to see me.’ She laughed. ‘Nobody knows better than a woman physician how difficult it is to become a professional – or do anything the least unusual.’

And while Edna fidgeted her way through a couple of magazines, Celia told Edith Mason about Mr Philpotts and the proposed furniture shop.

Edith Mason smiled. She said easily, ‘People said things like that to me when I announced that I was going to be a doctor. Women are incapable, they told me, besides which it is vulgar – I might have to look at blood – and at naked men – shocking!’

Celia giggled nervously. Then she remembered the revolting characters who had chased her when she walked on the sea wall, and she felt slightly nauseated.

Her new-found doctor continued, ‘Fortunately, my father was there to encourage me.’

‘My father wasn’t like that.’ Celia’s golden eyelashes closed over her tired eyes, as she remembered her dread of her father. The tiny movement was observed by Dr Mason. A lot of pain there, she considered. Had the man used her sexually?

She decided that it would only frighten her more if she
inquired. Instead, she said briskly, ‘Perhaps you would like to dress, while I go to my desk and write this up. And then I hope I can suggest a few things to improve your health.’

She removed herself and went over to exchange a few pleasantries with Edna. She had noted Edna’s mourning dress, but assumed that, like her sister’s, it was worn because of her father’s death. She sat down by her, and told her that Celia did not seem to have anything wrong with her, but she should get out and about, enjoy herself in the fresh air and get more sleep.

Edna’s deeply lined, yellowed face broke into an unexpectedly pretty smile. ‘I told her so.’ She fidgeted with her black leather gloves, and then added, ‘She’s had a rotten life at home, and she’s coped marvellously since Father died. But Mother keeps telling her she’s a fool – and she isn’t. She’s just crushed.’

‘I couldn’t express it better myself,’ Edith Mason replied softly, not wishing to have Celia hear herself discussed. ‘You will know more about this business she wants to start than I do; but if it is worthwhile, it could be the making of her. A real interest.’

‘And a way of maintaining herself after Mother dies,’ replied Edna a little sharply.

‘Oh, she didn’t mention that. It must be an underlying fear, however.’ She hesitated, and then said tentatively, ‘She tells me that you have also lost your husband, and it must be trying for you to have to cope with Miss Gilmore’s ills at such a time. Please accept my condolences.’

‘Thank you,’ Edna said. Then she heaved a big sigh. ‘It’s good for me to have Celia in whom to take an interest, since I have no children.’

The doctor took one of Edna’s hands in both of hers, and said, ‘Though you have not consulted me, the advice I am going to give Miss Celia may help you, too.’

She wrote a prescription for a tonic for Celia. ‘Three times a day after meals. And I’d like to see both of you
again in two weeks’ time.’ Then she advised them to take a long walk together every day or, better still, buy bicycles and go out and explore the Wirral. ‘It’s lovely at this time of year,’ she said.

‘Cycling in mourning? Mother will have a fit. She’ll never permit it,’ Celia protested.

‘Tell her doctor’s orders. Try to persuade her to ride with you,’ suggested the indomitable doctor, and sent them home laughing at the idea of their mother in her long gowns riding a bicycle.

Laughing herself, Edith Mason went back to her desk, to write up her notes. Afterwards, she leaned back to stretch, and considered idly all the so-called stupid daughters and dumb maidservants who had hung up their aprons and gone out during the war to replace men on farms, in factories, in banks and offices. In France, she had seen them driving ambulances and nursing dreadfully hurt men in first aid stations on the front lines of battle. She hoped that now the war was over they would refuse to be treated ever again as nonentities, especially now that they had the vote – provided they were aged over thirty.

‘Up with women,’ she muttered with a grim smile, and went to put on her coat and hat and do her house calls – on a bicycle.