Break of Dawn (21 page)

There was yet another list for night duty, where it was noticed by several of the girls that they missed a meal:

‘So we’re expected to work longer and eat less on night duty?’ Olive Tollett, Patience’s room-mate, a big Wearside lass with arms as beefy as any docker, stared at Patience in horror. They were sitting on the narrow iron beds the small room held at the beginning of their second week at the Infirmary, having just got ready for bed. ‘Why didn’t I notice that before?’

Patience smiled. She had been a little unsure if she and Olive would get on when she’d first known she was sharing with the down-to-earth steelworker’s daughter, but she needn’t have worried. Whether it was a case of opposites attract, she didn’t know, but the two of them had hit it off from the word go. ‘Probably because you haven’t had time to work it out?’

‘Ee, you’re right there, lass. Me feet haven’t known what me head’s doing and me backside has barely touched solid matter for more than ten minutes. They say they give us half-an-hour or so for meals, but by the time you’ve got to the dining room and sat down, ten minutes have gone, and then you’ve got to get back to the ward again most times. Still, the grub’s not bad, is it, and they’re not chary with the portions.’

Patience thought the food was verging on horrible but didn’t say so. She was realising more and more just how privileged her life to date had been. Olive came from a family of fifteen children, five of whom hadn’t survived past their first year. Their home was in the decaying slums of the East End in the heart of the community in Long Bank. Olive had invited her to go home with her on their first half-day off, and it had been a baptism of what true squalor entailed. Not that Olive’s parents’ two-up, two-down terrace had been dirty or smelly like some of the houses she had passed, their front doors open in view of the hot weather and the stink enough to knock you backwards. On the contrary, Olive’s home had been as clean and tidy as plenty of carbolic soap and elbow grease could make it, but the filth and excrement in the streets outside in which barefoot children, their backsides hanging out of their ragged clothes and their faces covered in running sores, were playing, had filled her with pity mixed with revulsion. They had passed countless gin shops and bars on the way to Long Bank, and
Patience had to admit she was glad of Olive’s stoic bulk at the side of her as thin, rat-faced individuals observed the two girls with dead eyes.

Nevertheless, it was an introduction into the fact that poverty is not necessarily synonymous with squalor. Olive’s three younger sisters were dressed in white starched aprons and their hair was lice-free, and her brothers were polite and cheery. Olive’s mother had presented them with a cup of tea and a shive of fruit loaf, and had been genuinely pleased to see her daughter, and Patience had left the crowded little house feeling envious of her new friend.

‘Do you reckon we’ll be able to stick it, lass?’ Olive surveyed her with mild brown eyes. ‘Me da was all for me starting at the kipper curing-house just down from us. It was better money, and heaven knows they need every penny at home.’ Olive was the eldest child and although two of her brothers were now working alongside of their father at the steelworks, money was still tight. ‘But me mam pushed for me to try for this when I got the heave-ho from Newtons.’ For years Olive had been employed by one of the fishmongers in the East End, beginning when she was just a child of eight or nine after school and then continuing full-time once she had finished her limited education. According to Olive, Mr Newton and his wife had been kind to her, but when he had reached seventy he had sold up and the new fishmonger had two strapping daughters to help him in the shop so Olive’s services were no longer required. ‘Me mam says anyone can work with the kippers but I’ve got a bit more about me.’ This was said with doubt. Olive, in spite of her bulk and cheery manner, wasn’t the most confident of people.

‘I agree with your mother.’ Patience was speaking the truth. She’d observed her friend dealing with the patients a couple of times over the last days, and the big northern lass had a way with her that calmed the most agitated soul. ‘You’ll do just fine – I won’t let you fail, I promise. We’ll help each other through, all right? Bargain?’ She held out her hand.

‘I think you’ve got the worst of this bargain, lass, but aye, all right.’ Olive shook her hand and they grinned at each other.

The bell sounded for lights out within moments and once the girls had settled down, Patience, in spite of being exhausted, lay staring into the blackness as Olive began to snore in her bed across the room. The nurses’ rooms were small but clean, each holding two beds, one wardrobe and two tiny tables which served as desks with a hardbacked chair tucked under each. A series of shelves had been fixed to one wall on which books and papers and personal items could be stored, but the bare floorboards, walls painted a dingy green and paper blind at the window made the accommodation utilitarian at best. At least to Patience. For Olive, used to sharing a bed with her sisters, with a curtain separating their space from the boys’ bed, it was the height of luxury. Likewise the Infirmary’s flock mattress was as comfortable as the softest feather bed to Olive, who had been used to a sparse straw mattress all her life, but for Patience it felt as lumpy as lying on pebbles.

Patience tried to relax and let sleep take over her mind and body, but her thoughts went back over the day and especially to one of the patients on her ward. Gideon was a young man about Matthew’s age, married with two small children, and after his leg had become tuberculous as the result of an accident four years previously and had to be removed, his wife had gone to pieces. She had sat with the woman for some time that afternoon, trying to instil into her that this wasn’t the end of the world and the important thing was that Gideon’s life had been saved, but the young wife had expressed revulsion at the thought of even seeing her husband, and had told Patience she intended to take the children and go back to her mother’s house. She’d had a hard job not to shake the silly woman and had ended up being quite sharp with her, which unfortunately Sister had overheard, resulting in a lecture on the standards of propriety when dealing with patients’ family.

She’d only been at the hospital a matter of days and had a black mark against her. Patience wrinkled her nose. And she suspected she’d already found what was going to be her Achilles heel to getting on in her career, because she couldn’t in all honesty say she would do any differently if the same circumstances presented themselves. Well, apart from making sure Sister wasn’t in earshot.
She smiled wryly to herself. She had all the time in the world for those family members who were bereft or anxious about their loved ones, but that silly, selfish woman needed a good slap.

Sister had tried to excuse Gideon’s wife by saying the woman had been gently brought up, being a landowner’s daughter with a privileged background, but that didn’t cut the mustard with her either, Patience told herself. Florence Nightingale had been a gentlewoman of the upper classes – and look what she had accomplished, working in the worst of conditions in military hospitals in the Crimean War and transforming the most appalling state of affairs. Women weren’t the empty-headed, weak creatures society – or perhaps she should say men – made them out to be, with lesser intelligence and fortitude than the male sex.

Patience nodded in the darkness, the thoughts she had been having more and more over the last months gathering steam. And marriage wasn’t the be-all and end-all for a woman either. When she thought back now to how she had behaved with Mr Travis, who was her superior neither in intellect nor breeding, it made her hot with fury that she could have been so stupid.

She would never marry. Tiredness was overcoming her at last. Looking like she did, who would fall in love with her? And only love would do. And so nursing would be her husband, and the patients the children she’d never have. And she would be content with that. Given time.

It was the beginning of a brand new year, and if nothing else, Rosalind and Christopher Robins knew how to throw a good party, Sophy thought, watching as everyone kissed and hugged and wished each other a Happy New Year. Rosalind had a reputation as a good actress, but when Kane had mentioned her once he’d been of the opinion that her looks, rather than her acting skill, had got her the leading roles for which she was known. Certainly she was beautiful, her golden-brown hair and eyes so blue they were almost violet setting her apart from many of her peers, and perfect for the traditonal, ‘pretty’ roles she favoured. Her husband, on the other hand, was a somewhat dour individual, but then if half the rumours about his wife were true, he had a lot to put up with. Of course he wasn’t an actor so that didn’t help, although there was no doubt his wealth hadn’t done any harm in furthering his wife’s career. Actresses with successful marriages tended to be married to fellow actors who did not expect them to conform to the conventional role of wife and mother, although in the Robins’ case it was more Rosalind’s cuckolding of her husband that was the problem.

Had Toby had an affair with Rosalind? Was he
still
having an affair with her? He said not, but then he would, wouldn’t he. And
then the next moment she found herself whisked round and into his arms as he said, ‘I’ve been looking for you – where did you get to? Happy New Year, my darling,’ and he kissed her hard. For an instant she returned the pressure of the kiss – it was always the same when he touched her, she melted – but then she pulled away. She tried to tell herself Toby was in love with
her
when thoughts of him and Rosalind came to torment her, that he wouldn’t betray her, and when she was with him she believed it. There were always rumours about someone or other flying around in the theatre world, half of which weren’t true. It was just how it was. But with Rosalind near, she felt . . . odd.

Quietly, she said, ‘I didn’t go anywhere. I thought you were getting us another drink?’

‘I got sidetracked, you know how it is. People who wouldn’t have bothered to speak a year ago now act as though I’m their best friend.’

This was said with a certain amount of satisfaction. Toby was enjoying his triumph in the West End and still couldn’t understand the reluctance she’d expressed in following him there a year ago when she’d had the opportunity. He had told her more than once that the seat prices in his theatre ranged from one shilling in the pit to half a guinea in the stalls, and the theatre was full every night, with box-office takings of three thousand pounds a week. The play was an extravagant musical comedy with wonderful dancers and, of course, the famous Rosalind, but to hear Toby talk you would have thought the show’s success was down to him alone. But she was being unkind, she told herself.

‘Come on.’ He took her hand, pulling her out of the magnificent drawing room and through the hall into another smaller room which appeared to be a morning room, whereupon he shut the door. She expected him to take her in his arms again, so when he dropped to one knee, taking her hand and looking up at her with the blue-grey eyes that had the power to make her weak at the knees, she was taken aback. She looked down on their joined hands. His was soft and finely boned for a man, the fingers long and thin. Quite different to Kane’s hands, which were sturdy-looking, the
backs covered in fine black hair. She didn’t know why thoughts of Kane had intruded at such a moment, especially as she was now aware of what Toby was about to say.

‘Will you marry me, Sophy? Will you make me the happiest man on earth and agree to be my wife?’

She had been longing for this moment, praying for it for months whilst doubting it would ever happen, but now it was here she felt strangely detached as though they were acting in a play. Perhaps it was because Toby’s demeanour had the air of the theatrical about it, or maybe it was just that she had never been proposed to before and had imagined the moment so often it could never have lived up to expectation. Whatever, it tied her tongue and she gazed down at him, her eyes wide.

‘Well, sweetheart, what is my answer?’ His voice was laughing, playful; aware that he had surprised her, he probably thought she was overcome. But it wasn’t that. Not exactly. She didn’t know what it was.

His beautiful face swam before her eyes and somehow she managed to whisper, ‘Yes, yes, I’ll marry you,’ through the numbness.

He stood up, drawing her to him and kissing her again before putting his hand in the pocket of his evening suit and drawing out a small box. Opening it, he presented it to her with a flourish, and again she felt they were acting a part. She looked down at the glittering gold band with a half hoop of two rubies and a diamond in the centre. Taking the ring from its velvet case, he slipped it on to the third finger of her left hand. ‘A perfect fit.’ He smiled at her, the smile that had the ability to make her forget everything. ‘A good omen, don’t you think?’