Eliza's Child (21 page)

‘With Charlie?'

Eliza didn't know why she was so surprised. After all, she knew that Charlie had taken to studying Bertha with a certain look in his eye but Bertha – well, Bertha had never shown an interest in the opposite sex that she could recall.

‘Aye, Charlie,' Bertha said now. ‘I'm meeting him at the end of the street in half an hour.' She slid the fish on to plates and served out potatoes and peas. ‘Give Tot a shout, will you? He's in the field playing soldiers.'

Obediently, Eliza went out in search of her son. He was in the open space behind the houses as Bertha had said he was. There was a gang of lads shooting pretend guns made out of anything to hand, such as broomsticks and walking sticks. She watched for a moment or two as they re-enacted the Battle of Balaclava as they understood it, or rather, made it up as they went along. The ferocious yells and fierce expressions were enough to frighten any Russian, she thought, smiling.

Tot abandoned his game and came to her as soon as he saw her. ‘What's for tea, Mam?' he asked. ‘I'm famished.'

‘Herrings,' she replied. By, he was a different lad from the fearful boy she had brought back from Northumberland, away from his grandmother's clutches.

‘You should ask Charlie to tea on Sunday,' she said to Bertha when they were sitting round the table eating the meal.

‘Nay, I don't know,' said Bertha doubtfully. She had been as surprised as Eliza evidently was when Charlie, in his mid-thirties and a single man, asked her out, albeit only to the magic lantern show at the chapel. He was good-looking with kind eyes and Bertha couldn't believe he was interested in her. She was past the courting age, in her twenties herself, and had never attracted the attentions of a man and didn't expect to. But oh, he was nice and she liked him; more than liked him. But how could she leave Eliza, who had been her friend for so many years? Mind, she told herself, Charlie hadn't asked her to wed. She was getting a bit in front of herself, like.

‘Bertha likes Mr Carr,' said Tot. ‘She let him kiss her.'

‘Tot!' Bertha was blushing, her face bright red.

‘You did, I saw you,' said Tot.

‘Well, never you mind, Tot,' Eliza put in. ‘If you've finished your tea go on out for half an hour; you can play for a while.'

Tot wiped his plate with a piece of bread and stuffed it in his mouth then stood up. ‘Well, I did,' he said and fled the room.

‘I'm sorry, I'll have to give him a talking to,' Eliza said ruefully.

‘No, it's all right. To tell the truth, he did see me and Charlie Carr together. But it doesn't mean anything.'

‘Why not? He's not just playing with your affections, is he? No, he's not the sort to do that.'

‘No, but—' Bertha stopped as there came a knock on the front door. ‘I'll have to go, I'll be back before nine.' She took off her enveloping overall and Eliza saw she had her best dress on beneath it.

‘Bertha, wait a minute,' Eliza began.

‘No, I have to go.' Bertha rushed out of the room and Eliza heard her open the front door and say something and a man's voice replying. Then they were gone. She realised that Bertha hadn't wanted him to come into the house. Why was that? Oh, they would have to talk, she thought, she and Bertha.

IT WAS HARD
for Eliza to realise that Bertha had a life of her own. She had grown so used to being able to rely on her. Though she was only a few years older she supposed she was almost like a mother to her. But Bertha was a woman and of course she would want to have a family life of her own with a husband and children maybe. Just as any daughter grew away eventually.

It was brought home to her in the following few weeks as Bertha and Charlie settled down to serious courting. Eliza could no longer rely on Bertha being there any time she needed her, she mused ruefully.

‘What time will you be back?' Bertha asked just about every time Eliza went out. ‘Only Charlie and me plan to go to the magic lantern.' Or sometimes it was the choir practice, or even a walk along the riverbank. Now, they sometimes went to the farm so Charlie could show Bertha around it.

‘Charlie says this,' or ‘Charlie says we should do things this way,' were phrases that were often on Bertha's lips. Sometimes Eliza, too used by now to doing things her own way and having Bertha follow her example without question, had to clench her teeth to stop herself retorting. But Bertha was happy. She hummed to herself all day and once or twice Eliza caught her standing and just gazing into the distance with a small smile hovering on her lips.

‘Charlie says we can get wed in October, maybe. That's after the harvest and before the threshing,' said Bertha early one morning before Eliza set out on her rounds. Eliza paused in packing her bag and stared at her.

‘I thought he hadn't asked you to marry him,' she replied.

‘Aye. No, I suppose he hasn't.' Bertha looked a little confused. ‘Not in so many words, like.' She shook her head, dismissing the thought and got on with placing newly ironed clothes into piles for her girls to take back to the customers. ‘But still, we had an understanding.'

‘You didn't tell me.' Eliza was a bit put out, something she knew was silly, really.

‘I thought you realised.' Bertha paused again then went on, ‘Listen, we'll talk about it the night. We have to have a proper talk.'

As Eliza drove off on her rounds, dropping Tot off at the school gates on her way, she tried to think through the situation. She didn't really think Charlie was the best man for Bertha. He was a farmer, a middling sort of farmer rather like Farmer Dean, whose cottage she and Jack had lived in near Haswell. Comfortable enough, but he would expect Bertha to work hard on the farm. Not that Bertha would mind that, but Eliza suspected the only reason he was thinking of matrimony was that his mother, with whom he lived, was getting too old to do the milking and butter-making and housework, let alone helping in the fields when extra hands were needed.

Bertha and she herself had grown used to thinking for themselves and Charlie was the old-fashioned sort who would expect a wife to do what he told her to do. Obey would be the main vow in
their
wedding ceremony.

Only yesterday Charlie had come in the house with a bare knock on the door, not waiting for anyone to invite him in. He had walked in and stared at Bertha, who was still in the middle of washing up the tea things.

‘Aren't you ready?' he had asked her, when she obviously was not.

‘I won't be a minute,' she replied, looking a bit flustered, Eliza had thought and was indignant for her.

‘We'll be late for choir practice, did you forget the time? Howay, you can finish that when you get back. Or mebbe Sister Mitchell can do it?' He had given such a look at Eliza as made her feel like a veritable slave-driver.

‘Yes, I can do it,' she said, however. ‘Go on, Bertha, you go.'

‘But—'

‘Never mind buts,' said Charlie. ‘Let's away.'

Bertha had untied her overall obediently and gone with him. It made Eliza feel unreasonably hard done by, even though she had told Bertha to do just that. She had had a hard day, fitting in extra patients when she was approached in the street, something that happened often now that her tub trap was well known in the surrounding area. She rose to her feet and finished the drying up and put the pots and pans away in the dresser and pantry with some fairly unnecessary banging.

Her bad humour didn't last long for she had to smile at herself. She was being silly. She had no rights at all on Bertha's time: the girl wasn't a servant really, nor a slave. And she had a right to enjoy herself and get wed an' all.

Maybe Charlie did love Bertha. And if he did not then he must be fond of her and she was fond of him besides. And most men expected total obedience from their wives. Hadn't Jack? Still, a girl liked to be asked, she thought as she headed for Sherburn Hill.

Eliza's thoughts returned to the present and the cool of the morning as Dolly slowed her pace and stopped outside the Greens' house. The pony was like a milkman's horse now and knew most of the stops on her rounds.

Lottie opened the door before Eliza even knocked. ‘By, I'm that glad to see you, Nurse,' she blurted. ‘I was going to ask the lad next door to run for the doctor if you didn't come. Only Mr Green doesn't like me to, he reckons doctors cost money and it's a waste when he's paying a nurse.'

‘What is it, Lottie?' Eliza asked over her shoulder as she hurried in. ‘Is Mrs Green worse?'

‘Aye, she is—'

But Eliza was no longer listening as she entered the front room and saw her patient. Mrs Green was lying very still, with her eyes closed. The skin around her mouth was cyanosed and the lips were sunken in a little.

Eliza took hold of her wrist and saw that her fingertips were blue, too. It took her a while to find her pulse, which was thin and thready. Her breathing was so shallow as to be almost undetectable.

‘Go for the doctor, Lottie,' Eliza commanded, without even looking round. ‘Tell him I think her heart is failing.'

‘Oh!' Lottie started to weep, long, noisy sobs. ‘What will Mr Green say?'

‘Never mind that, just go. Run!'

By the time the doctor came Mrs Green had finally given up the effort to breathe and slipped away. ‘At least she died peacefully,' Eliza murmured. She gently closed the woman's eyes and pulled the sheet over her head. She could do no more, for she was well aware that Mr Green would not pay a trained nurse's rates for laying his wife out. Not when there were women among the miners' wives who would do it for a few pence.

‘A blessed release,' said Dr Gray as he lifted the sheet and looked at the patient. ‘Poor woman has had a hard time of it, there's no doubt.' He turned to Lottie, who was still crying, though quietly now. She was just a scrap of a girl with bent legs from an attack of rickets when she was small. Her large maid's cap was falling over her eyes. ‘Sit down a minute, Lottie,' he said kindly. ‘You look worn out.'

‘Eeh, I couldn't, not in the front of the house,' she answered. ‘Mr Green would go mad.'

‘He's not here, though, is he? And I'm telling you to sit down. Nurse will bring you a cup of tea with sugar in it. It will be good for you. In fact, Nurse Mitchell, bring three cups. We could all do with one.'

Dr Gray was a good, kind man, Eliza told herself as she settled the kettle on the fire and set a tray with cups and saucers. He was not much older than she was herself yet he showed an understanding and empathy with his patients and the ordinary mining folk that was not always found in the doctors she had known. He had lovely brown eyes too and dark wavy hair with a lock that often fell over his forehead.

What was she thinking about? She was finished with men, of course she was. They took away a woman's rights and independence, oh they did that! Eliza made the tea and added the sugar bowl and a jug of fresh milk she found in the pantry and took the tray into the front room.

Dr Gray looked up as she came in. ‘Thank you, Nurse,' he said. His accent was not local; there was a hint of a border burr a little more pronounced than what Jack had had.

Lottie sat on the edge of her seat as though she were ready to jump up should Mr Green suddenly return. Though that was not likely, for he had gone out to work with the back shift today and wouldn't be home till the evening. She had stopped crying apart from the occasional sob, though she kept her gaze averted from the bed.

The three of them sat there, sipping their tea, Lottie watching the others surreptitiously and trying to do exactly as they did. And it was true, the sweet tea not only tasted good but she felt the better for it as Dr Gray had said she would.

‘You won't go until someone comes in, will you, Nurse?' Lottie asked Eliza fearfully, when Dr Gray had left. ‘I don't like to be left in the house on my own with – with—'

‘It's all right, Lottie, there's no need to be scared,' said Eliza. ‘Look, I'll call in at the mine offices and tell the manager. He'll send Mr Green home early, you'll see.'

‘Yes but – can I just go next door until he comes?'

‘Get your neighbour to come in here,' Eliza advised. ‘Mr Green won't like it if the house is left empty, not now.'

Lottie hurried off, looking relieved, and returned with a solemn-looking woman, so Eliza was able to go on her way. She had several patients to see and it was almost two o'clock before she could pull Dolly on to the entrance to a farm road and put on her nosebag. She sat in the trap and ate her own sandwich and drank water from a bottle she had brought with her. While she sat she went over the morning's work and reflected on the two patients she still had to see. One was a small girl who had fallen into the pithead pond. The water was coal black and fairly deep but at least it wasn't infected and a passing miner had managed to drag her out. Still, the little lass now had pneumonia and needed careful nursing. The other was a miner with a ‘bett' hand, a hand swollen and suppurating, oozing pus. It was practically impossible to impress on his wife that the best way of dealing with it was absolute cleanliness. She insisted on putting a poultice of filthy cobwebs on the hand rather than a poultice of linseed, which was what Eliza did. But every time she went back to the house he was sitting in agony from a dirty hand, which now showed ominous red lines beginning to run up his arm.

‘See,' his wife had said the day before. ‘I think that stuff you put on is giving him blood poisoning. I don't think you should come back here, Nurse.'

‘Florence Nightingale said cleanliness was the most important thing to stop it happening,' said Eliza. ‘You needn't pay me, I know you must be hard up with Billy being off work. I'll come anyway.'

‘There's no need,' Billy's wife said stubbornly. Her eyes were hard as she stared at Eliza. Billy had wanted Eliza, but as far as his wife could see, the nurse was no better than the old woman who lived on the end of the street. ‘A but of dirt never did anybody any harm.'

‘John Wesley said cleanliness was next to godliness,' said Eliza desperately.

‘Aye, well,' the woman replied doubtfully. ‘I don't know.' The minister was always quoting the sayings of John Wesley and she thought more of his sayings than any of Florence Nightingale.

It had been Billy's voice from inside that settled the matter. ‘You come the morn, Nurse,' he had said, his voice weak from pain and fever. ‘Take no notice of her. She doesn't know what she's talking about.'

The freshness of the morning was beginning to dim as Eliza went into the tiny miner's cottage. Inside the one downstairs room little light got in through the small window and there was an unpleasant smell coming from Billy's hand. He was sitting in a chair before the fire and he was shivering even though sweat stood out on his brow. As Eliza approached him his head fell against the back of the chair as though he hadn't the strength to hold it up.

‘The lad's badly, Nurse,' said his wife, who was sitting at the table looking very worried indeed. ‘It's not my fault,' she went on as Eliza saw that the poultice she had put on his hand was missing and in its place there was a bandage grubby with cobwebs.

‘I asked you not to put that stuff on his hand,' said Eliza.

‘Aye well, I know, but he was getting no better and I was talking to the lasses and they swear by cobwebs—'

Eliza sighed. ‘Well, I think I'll have to get the doctor to him now.'

‘The doctor? Don't be soft, we cannot afford the doctor! I only have elevenpence to last the rest of the week.'

Eliza looked at Billy; his skin was shiny with patches of red on white, his breathing rapid. She bit her lip. It was up to her to do something. ‘Put the kettle on, woman, I want a bowl of hot water,' she said, coming to a decision. She had a lancet in its case in her bag; she would have to lance the hand and try to get the pus out. Though it was suppurating very little matter was getting out. She got out the lancet. It was clean at least, she had washed it only last night.

‘Eeh, what're you going to do?'

‘Leave her alone, Betsy, let her get on with it,' Billy said, suddenly showing a small spurt of energy. ‘She can cut the bloody thing off for all I care.'

‘No, I'm just going to lance it, let the putrid matter out,' Eliza said. She washed the hand to get rid of the cobwebs in the bowl of hot water provided rather sceptically by Betsy, who really couldn't see the point of such newfangled ideas. Then she picked her place with care and sunk the point of the lancet into the heart of the abscess that had swelled beneath the skin. Billy gasped but didn't cry out.

A few minutes later, Eliza had the hand cleaned up and bandaged and had given him instructions to keep it held high. ‘I'll call back later today,' she told Betsy. ‘Don't touch it.'

‘Well. I don't know—'

‘Betsy,' Billy warned. He looked thoroughly washed out, thought Eliza. But she could only wait and see if she had done the right thing.

Eliza had two hours free before she called on the couple of cases she had to see later in the day, so she drove home. She could spend some time with Tot when he came in from school, she thought. Sometimes it irked her that he should seem to be as fond of Bertha as he was of his mother. It was unreasonable, she knew. What would she have done without her friend? Well, if Bertha got wed she would have to spend more time with her son. At least they would be able to manage financially now.