FOUR

      Connie sat nervously beside Ma Deakin as the bus jolted through the streets. Thanks to the good offices of the midwife’s niece, she had been granted an appointment to be examined by the Matron to see if she was fit to train as a nurse.

      ‘Where are we going?’ she asked anxiously, as she looked out of the bus window. ‘This isn’t …’

      ‘Mill Road, o’course, ninny, Ma Deakin answered her affectionately, giving her a dig in the ribs with her elbow as she chuckled.

      ‘Mill Road, but that’s where the poorhouse hospital is!’

      ‘Aye, that’s right, where else would we be goin’? Come on, ‘ere’s our stop,’ Ma Deakin instructed Connie, heaving her weight out of the seat.

      The Infirmary, in other words, the Poor Hospital. All the bright dreams Connie had been weaving suddenly collapsed. To have to be taken into one of the Poor Hospitals carried as much stigma as being taken into the workhouse, and, for a minute, she was tempted to get off the bus and run away. But she had nowhere to run to, she reminded herself in despair, as she followed the midwife.

      Even on this sunny day, the Infirmary cast a dark shadow which made Connie shiver. When Ma Deakin had spoken of her going into nursing, it had never occurred to her that she had meant her to go into the Poor Hospital. Why, it would be as bad as though she were in the poorhouse itself.

      ‘I’d best not come any further with yer,’ Ma Deakin was saying. ‘T’ matron here don’t approve of the likes of me – yer have to have a proper training to call yersel’ a midwife round ‘ere. Now, you haven’t forgotten what yer have to do, ‘ave yer, luv?’

      The motherly concern in her voice gave Connie a pang of guilt. Ma Deakin had been so kind to her, she couldn’t offend her by telling her that she could not work in the poorhouse hospital.

      ‘Yer to go in and ask for t’ matron, and to give ‘em our Sarah’s name. Tell ‘em she’s arranged everything like!’

      Numbly Connie nodded her head. Was it really to come to this wretched place that Ma Deakin had washed and mended Connie’s shabby dress, shaking her head over Connie’s best one, ‘No, lass, that’s too fancy.’ She had pursed her lips and added, ‘Yer don’t want ‘em thinkin’ yer flighty, like!’

      ‘Connolly will never come looking for yer in here.’

      Connie looked at her saviour, her eyes suddenly brimming with emotional tears. Flinging her arms round the midwife, she gave her a fierce hug.

      ‘Eeh, lass, don’t be such a softie,’ the midwife told her, giving her a push in the direction of the hospital. ‘Off yer go now, and think on, lass. No more getting yersel’ into trouble!’

      The entrance to the Infirmary loomed in front of her, and Connie knew that if Ma Deakin hadn’t been standing watching her, she would have been tempted to turn and run away. The poorhouse hospital! The life she had known really was lost to her now, and as for her dreams about the fun she would have going to the music hall and the picture house … She gave a small shudder of fear. They locked you in your room at night at the poorhouse, didn’t they? Everyone knew how cruelly its inmates were treated.

      She checked, and turned to look over her shoulder. Ma Deakin was still watching her. With feet that felt like lead, Connie took a reluctant step into the new life she was now dreading.

      Harry Lawson grimaced to himself in disgust as the pungent smell of bad drains filled his nostrils. The sooner he could get his mother and sisters out of their current accommodation, and into something decent, the better.

      He had to return to Hutton in the morning, but he was hoping he might have obtained some translation work from the P&O shipping line. It would mean long nights spent working over complicated documents translating them from Spanish in the main, and sometimes French into English. The pay wasn’t very good, but, so far as Harry was concerned, every penny helped.

      As he passed the spot where Connie had gone into labour, he averted his gaze. The plight of the young woman had concerned him, for her own sake, and for his sisters’ as well. He couldn’t bear the thought of them being pulled down to such a level, but poverty dragged clanging chains of other ills with it, as Harry knew.

      His mother was waiting for him when he opened the door to their shabby accommodation.

      ‘Harry, the best of news!’ she exclaimed happily. ‘I took the ferry across to New Brighton to see your father’s Aunt Martha. She has agreed that we may move in with her, Harry, on condition that I look after her. Oh, Harry, I am so pleased. The house is big enough for any family, and there is a garden for Sophie. The air is so much healthier there as well, and you are to have a room of your own for when you come home from Hutton! Harry, it is such a relief! I do not think I could have tolerated another night in this dreadful place.’

      Harry looked ruefully at his mother. ‘Great Aunt Martha is an old, cantankerous bully who will treat you like a servant, Mother. You know how Father always said how mean she was. I might have secured some extra work …’

      ‘I shall not mind looking after her, and anyway it will give me something to do. I don’t want you to put your career at risk by taking on so much extra work that you neglect your teaching duties, Harry,’ she told him gently.

      Harry sighed, but he knew better than to argue with her.

      ‘There is more good news,’ she continued merrily. ‘We have heard today that they are taking on probationer nurses at the Infirmary. You know how much Mavis has always wanted to be a nurse!’

      ‘The Infirmary!’ Harry stopped her sharply. ‘But mother that is the poorhouse hospital.’

      ‘Well, we are poor, aren’t we?’ Harry heard his sister Mavis challenge him, as she came into the room.

      ‘I shall have my board and a wage, and I shall be training to do what I have always wanted to do,’ she told Harry proudly.

      Harry’s heart sank. It hurt him inside that they had come to this, and that there was nothing he could do about it.

      ‘It is what I want, Harry. To be a nurse!’ Mavis told him fiercely.

      ‘A nurse, yes,’ Harry stopped her. ‘But an Infirmary nurse is not …’

      ‘Not what? she demanded. ‘Not as good as other nurses? Well, let me tell you something, Harry Lawson. I am going to be the best nurse there is! If the Infirmary will take me on, then that’s where I shall go! And if you’re ashamed of …’

      ‘I shall never be ashamed of my family,’ Harry stopped her fiercely, adding in a quieter voice, ‘But I am ashamed of myself, for not being able to do better by you all.’

      The Matron of the Infirmary was not a person to be trifled with, and she was no fool either. When she glided, like a ship under full sail, into the carbolic-smelling, scrubbed room in which the batch of would-be new nurses were waiting for her, it was with the express purpose of ensuring that they recognise her authority and quailed under it.

      Her experienced glance took in the gaggle of young women in front of her, but it was the sudden giggle of one of them that caused her to turn her head and focus on her.

      A potential troublemaker. Matron knew exactly how to deal with those and if she