A Nurse's Duty (11 page)

‘I hope you are not encouraging Doctor Richardson?’ she said coldly.

Karen mumbled a disclaimer and hurried out of the treatment room into the nurses’ cloakroom, her face red with embarrassment. Nevertheless, despite her guilty feelings, she thought how pleasant it would be to go out to dinner with him. She wanted to go to evening dinner, having never done such a thing in her life. In the world of Morton Main, dinner was at midday unless the
man
of the house was on shift when the meal would then be whenever he came up from the pit. Evening dinner sounded exciting and glamorous. There was no harm in going out to dinner, she told herself. They were just two friends going out for a meal, weren’t they? And it would give her a good chance to tell him about Dave.

Of course, she should not have gone. She knew that as soon as they were seated at a corner table in a select little restaurant near the Haymarket. Robert was full of excitement, he could hardly wait until they sat down.

‘You know what I have to ask you, don’t you?’ he said, reaching over the table and taking her hand.

‘Oh, no, Robert. Please …’ Karen flushed and looked down at the tablecloth.

‘I want you to marry me, come with me to Africa.’

‘Robert, you know I can’t. The hospital –’

‘You’ve almost finished your training, what does it matter if the hospital gets to know about us? If they object you can leave after you get your certificate. It’s only a few short months before I will be finished too and we can be on our way. Oh, Karen my dear –’

Karen listened to him as he went on and on, endearments mixed with reassurances that it would work out all right. She had never heard Robert talk so much before, his words tumbling over each other. She looked up and saw his eyes shining with excitement and love. She knew she was going to hurt him terribly and was filled with remorse.

‘Robert, I can’t marry you,’ she said quietly.

He went on talking, describing the life they would have together, how happy and fulfilled they would be working for God.

She tried again, a little louder this time so that the people at
the
next table looked up and then quickly back at their meal as though they had been caught out doing something terribly ill-bred.

‘Robert, I can’t marry you.’

He stopped in mid-sentence, the excitement dying from his face. He looked at her blankly for a moment before deciding he should humour her.

‘Why not? Oh, Karen, we would be so good together. You’re not afraid of marriage, are you? I wouldn’t make you –’

Karen decided the only thing to do was to come right out with it. Taking a deep breath, she said it.

‘I’m married already.’

Robert looked at her across the table, a half-smile of incredulity on his face. The waiter came to take their order and Robert waved him away.

‘What did you say?’

Karen blinked rapidly. She wasn’t hungry any more and the smell of food was making her feel sick. She couldn’t look him in the eyes.

‘I’m sorry, Robert, it’s all my fault this, isn’t it? You must think I led you on but I couldn’t tell you, could I? Probationers have to be single women so I couldn’t tell you, could I?’ She was repeating herself in her guilty embarrassment.

Robert suddenly realized he was still holding her hand. He dropped it, visibly drawing away from her and clasping his hands together on his lap.

‘You see –’ Karen started again, but he interrupted her.

‘Wait! Let me be sure I heard you aright. Did you say you were already married?’

‘Yes.’ She gave him a swift glance, her cheeks aflame. What she saw in his face made her feel even more uncomfortable. ‘I … I didn’t mean to lead you on, Robert.’

He grunted, showing what he thought of that line.

‘And who is he, this husband of yours? And what’s he doing letting you come away to train as a nurse?’

Karen cleared her throat. She glanced up over Robert’s shoulder where the waiter was hovering. He followed her glance and with a muttered exclamation pushed back his chair and got to his feet.

‘Come on, let’s get out of here.’

Even in his emotional state he politely told the waiter they had changed their minds and gave him a tip before leading Karen out of the restaurant into the lamp-lit Haymarket. He hailed a cab. Telling the cabbie to drive around for a while, he handed Karen into it and climbed in beside her.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘tell me all about it.’ He was quiet and controlled again, his profile stern and dark, the happy excitement all gone from him.

‘It’s Dave. You remember Dave Mitchell from Morton Main, don’t you?’

Robert nodded and gave a small bitter laugh. ‘Oh, yes, I remember David Mitchell. How could I forget the boy who made my life a misery in the village? I might have known it would be David Mitchell.’

Karen bit her lip. It was true, Dave had been a one for tormenting boys who were different. And certainly Robert had been different from the other boys in the village. She remembered now that Dave had had a nick-name for him. What was it? Saint Bob, that was it. She remembered Dave and his cronies shouting it after Robert as he walked home from school, his shoulders hunched defensively. And she remembered how she had burned for him to retaliate. He was bigger and older than Dave. If he had turned on his persecutor, Dave would have left him alone.

‘Well? Go on,’ Robert prompted her.

Karen wasn’t going to tell him of Dave’s desertion. She had not even called it that to anyone as yet. But it was almost two years
now
and somehow when she started talking about him the whole story came out: how he had gone away to Australia and simply disappeared, shaking her off along with his old life.

‘We were only married for a few weeks before he went and I was going to follow as soon as I finished my training. I never heard from him again. He wrote to his mother at first but even she hasn’t heard from him for over a year.’

Robert said nothing. The only sound was the clip-clop of the horse’s hooves on the cobblestones. Karen stared out of the window, unseeing.

‘Well, we’d better get back to the hospital,’ Robert said at last, his voice flat.

‘You won’t say anything to Matron, will you?’ Karen asked tremulously. ‘I only have a few weeks now. I’ll go to another hospital when I have my certificate.’

‘You’re living a lie, Karen,’ he said.

‘Oh, please, Robert! Please don’t give me away.’

The cab reached the hospital gates and he handed her down.

‘Robert?’

‘I won’t give you away. As you say, it is only for a few weeks,’ he said and made to walk away before abruptly turning back to her.

‘Oh, Karen, how could you? How could you marry a blackguard like David Mitchell?’ he cried. Then, without waiting for an answer, he strode rapidly away from her.

She hurried up the drive with tears streaming down her face. Oh, she was a terrible, unfeeling woman to hurt such a good man as Robert Richardson. She had told herself it was all innocent but she knew in her heart she had been leading him on, she had. She had thought she could go out with him tonight and have a grand dinner and then tell him about Dave. And now look what she’d done. She was a terrible bad woman, she was, and Mam and Gran would be horrified if they knew of it. And Da … Karen didn’t like to think what he would say.

Next day Robert was polite but distant when they met in the course of their work, his face closed up tight. Gradually, over the next few weeks, Karen stopped wanting to hide away whenever she saw him and they formed a polite, though constrained, working relationship.

She spent all of her spare time in her room, studying for her finals, and began to consider looking for work in another area, away from the North-East and Robert and her memories of Dave. She was not really needed by the family; Kezia coped wonderfully and even their mother seemed to be fairly fit and well. She was finished with men, Karen decided. From now on she would concentrate on her career. She was a good nurse with a lot to offer any hospital.

Kezia’s baby was born at the end of October, a fine boy. Karen went to see him on her day off, the first time she had been home for some weeks thanks to her studying. But now her finals were behind her and she had her Certificate of Competence.

‘He’s grand, isn’t he, Karen?’ Kezia, sitting up in bed with her baby in her arms, lifted him up so that Karen could see him properly.

She looked at the tiny red bundle and agreed with her sister. She took hold of the tiny fist and wondered what it would have been like if Dave had stayed, if it had been herself proudly holding her first baby. But she pushed the thought away. This was Kezia’s day and she was very happy for her sister.

‘We want you to be godmother, don’t we, Luke?’ said Kezia, and he nodded his head, beaming, willing to agree to anything his wife suggested.

The baby was to be named Luke also and already was being called Young Luke to distinguish him from his father. It was a proud and happy day with the family all gathered round, Gran too, down from the dale for the day.

‘I’ll have to be getting back,’ said Karen after a while. ‘I’m on duty tonight. But I’ll get down more often now that I’ve got my certificate. I won’t be studying so much.’

‘I’ll walk to the end of the street with you,’ said Mam, and Karen knew she wanted a quiet word.

‘Your Da’s that proud of you getting your certificate, our Karen,’ said Rachel as they walked up the row, adding anxiously, ‘You won’t try going off to Australia to look for Dave, now will you, pet?’

‘No, Mam, I won’t. That’s over. He must not want me or he would have written so I’m not going chasing after him. Anyway, I doubt I’d find him, it’s a big country, you know. No, I’ll stop in England, Mam, don’t worry about that.’ She hesitated for a moment before continuing, ‘I might go down south, though. I saw an advertisement for a hospital in Essex in the
Newcastle Chronicle
. You won’t mind that, will you? I will still be able to come home every year. I want to get away, Mam, what with Dave leaving me like that. I want to make a fresh start.’

‘Eeh, Karen, I can’t say we won’t miss you, pet. But we understand how you feel. Mebbe it will be for the best.’ Rachel kissed her and patted her on the shoulder. ‘Now go on or you’ll be late back at that hospital of yours,’ she said firmly, and turned back down the row.

It was after Karen had said goodbye to her mother and was waiting for the horse bus to the station that she saw Mrs Mitchell. Dave’s mother was walking along on her way back from the shops, basket in hand and an old woollen shawl clutched round her chest. She marched up to Karen and stood squarely in front of her. Karen smiled tentatively but this was ignored.

‘I suppose you’ve been to see Kezia’s new babby then?’ Mrs Mitchell demanded. ‘You weren’t going to come and see me, I gather.’

‘Hallo, Mrs Mitchell. No, I’m sorry, I haven’t got much time. I have to get back,’ Karen excused herself.

The older woman sniffed. ‘It doesn’t matter to you that it’s your fault I’m left on my own, does it? No, you don’t give a tinker’s cuss.’

‘My fault? Why is it my fault?’ Karen was stung into replying.

‘It was your fault, all right. It was you drove my lad away, wasn’t it? Leaving a poor widow woman all on her own like. You’d only been married a few weeks. What did you do to my lad to drive him to the other side of the world, that’s what I want to know?’

‘I didn’t – it was Dave wanted to go, I wanted him to stay –’

But Mrs Mitchell wasn’t listening to Karen. She went on and on, her voice getting louder and louder, until folk in the street began taking notice and Karen wished fervently that the bus would turn up and she could get away.

‘By, if I’d known what would happen I’d have stopped my lad marrying a bitch like you! Turned him against his own mother, you did, not content with driving him away. I haven’t had a letter from him for long enough, God knows what has happened to the poor lad. I can’t sleep at nights thinking about him and worrying.’

‘Mrs Mitchell, I can’t help it if he’s lost touch with you, can I?’

‘No? He hasn’t got in touch with you, has he? No, because he wanted rid of you, that’s what. And I daresay he’s stopped writing to me in case you find out where he is from me. Me, his own mother! And I was saving up to go out and see him, mebbe make a home for him like, poor lad.’

Mrs Mitchell folded her arms and glared, thrusting her face to within an inch of Karen’s nose. ‘You couldn’t be a proper wife to my lad and now
I
have to suffer for it. Oh, it’s all right for you, away to your posh job in Newcastle, but what about me, eh?’

Karen was saved the necessity of replying as the horse bus drew up and she climbed aboard. A small crowd had gathered, mostly
women
with shopping baskets on their arms; they were drinking in every word avidly. This would provide plenty to talk about in the back rows for days and days. As the bus drew away Karen could hear her mother-in-law declaiming to the interested onlookers, nodding her head emphatically and shaking her fist after the bus.

I will get away, she vowed to herself as she stared straight ahead, ignoring the amused glances of her fellow passengers. I’ll apply for the first post I see which is as far away from here as I can get.

When she returned to the village for young Luke’s baptism on the Sunday before Christmas 1913 she had already left the Royal Victoria Infirmary and had secured a post as a staff nurse at Oldchurch Hospital in Romford in the county of Essex. Karen had never been in the South of England in her life and had only sketchy knowledge of Romford or Essex, but she didn’t care. It was hundreds of miles from County Durham and that was all that mattered to her.

The day was sunny but crisp and cold and Young Luke was bundled up in two shawls over his christening gown so that only the lace hem peeped out. It was the robe which Gran had embroidered for her first-born. All the Knights had worn it in their turn and now Young Luke was the first of the new generation to be baptized in it. They set out for the church, Karen carrying the sleeping baby, watched anxiously by Kezia.

The proud father had his hands full too, for he was to offer the first person they met on the way to Chapel a piece of christening cake and a shiny new threepenny bit. The old custom was solemnly carried out to the delight of the young boy who was lucky enough to turn into the row at just the right moment.