A Nurse's Duty (39 page)

‘You’re here then,’ said Kezia. ‘I’ve been watching for you. I
thought
you might like to have a cup of tea with us before you see Da.’

Patrick frowned and Karen said swiftly, ‘There’s no need for that, is there? I wrote to them an’ all, they’re expecting us.’

‘Please yourself,’ said Kezia tartly. ‘I just thought you might want to catch your breath, like.’

‘We’ll go straight in if you don’t mind, Kezia,’ said Karen. ‘We’ll see you later, will we?’

‘Mebbe. Luke’s in fore shift and he’ll be in for his dinner, and there’s the lads’ll be coming in for theirs. They’re at the Sunshine Corner at Chapel. And little Meg’s fretful.’

‘Oh. I hope she’s not sickening for anything?’

Karen clutched little Brian closer to her and Kezia noticed and smiled in understanding.

‘Nay, lass,’ she said. ‘It’s her teeth. She’s cutting a double tooth.’ A child wailed in the house behind her and Kezia glanced over her shoulder. ‘I’ll have to go in and see to her. Don’t worry, Karen, it’ll be all right with Mam and Da, you’ll see.’

Patrick had said nothing at all during the short exchange between the sisters. His face was impassive; he could have been just an interested bystander.

Karen knocked at the door of number two then felt like an idiot. Why on earth had she done that? Pressing down the thumbpiece of the sneck latch, she opened the door and went in, followed by Patrick.

Mam and Da were in the kitchen, sitting on either side of the fireplace. The room was spotless, not a thing out of place, and Da had on his Sunday suit while Mam was in her good woollen dress. Karen could have cried. There they were, arrayed as for company. Was she not their daughter any more?

Da got to his feet and went to them. Gravely he kissed Karen on the cheek and, hesitating only a moment, held out his hand to Patrick.

‘Now then, Karen, Patrick,’ he said.

‘Hallo, Da,’ she said. ‘We’ve brought your grandson to see you both.’

‘And not before time,’ he answered. ‘It’s long past when we should have made our peace with each other and I pray the Lord will forgive us for it.’ He pulled the blanket away from Brian’s face and gazed at the sleeping baby. ‘He’s more like his da than you, our Karen,’ he observed, his tone lighter now he had said his piece.

‘Eeh, Karen, let’s have a look.’

Mam had risen and Da stood aside for her to look at Brian.

‘Nay, I don’t know, lad,’ she said. ‘He does have a look of our Joe when he was a bairn.’ She looked up at Karen and smiled. ‘Hello, pet,’ she said softly.

Karen put her free arm around the frail shoulders and kissed her. Rachel’s cheek was wet with tears.

‘Come and sit down, Mam,’ she said gently. ‘You can hold the bairn while I take off my coat.’

‘I was going to mash some tea –’ her mother began.

‘I’ll do it in a minute,’ Karen insisted.

She covered her rush of emotion by busying herself with the kettle and teapot. The best teaset was already out on the embroidered linen cloth which covered the bare boards of the table. Mam sat crooning to the baby and Brian woke up and stared solemnly up at her, with Patrick’s black-fringed eyes.

Patrick … oh, she hadn’t even introduced him properly! Karen suddenly remembered that he hadn’t even met her parents before today. She had brought him in to the house and almost forgotten he was there.

‘Da,’ she said, turning to begin a belated introduction, ‘Da –’

But her father was pulling out a seat for Patrick.

‘I’ll take your coat,’ he said courteously, and waited while Patrick put the basket of eggs and butter on the table and took off
his
coat. Da took it over to the hook behind the door and then turned sternly to the younger man, his tone changing.

‘So you are my daughter’s man,’ he said. ‘Are you treating her right? You don’t stop her from going to Chapel, do you? And you a Catholic, I mean.’

‘I don’t stop her,’ said Patrick.

‘Aye, well, I had to ask you. There’s those Irish up at Paddy’s Row, spend half their time in the pub at Morton. You drink strong liquor, do you?’

‘Da!’ cried Karen. ‘No, he doesn’t. Don’t question Patrick like –’

‘Let the lad answer for himself,’ said Da quietly. ‘I just want to know what sort of a man he is.’

‘I don’t drink,’ said Patrick, glancing at Karen’s distressed face. And he thought of the last time he had had a drink. It was with a man from Paddy’s Row, he remembered.

Da opened his mouth to continue the catechism.

‘Thomas,’ said Rachel Knight quietly, ‘leave the lad alone.’

‘But he’s a Catholic, born and bred,’ said Da. ‘I have to make sure he won’t force our Karen. And then there’s the bairn, an’ all.’

‘I won’t,’ said Patrick. His voice was still reasonable but his eyes had gone hard and Karen felt a twinge of foreboding. ‘I am not a practising Catholic.’

Da was struck dumb. He sat down at the table, unsure what to make of this.

‘We’ll have our tea now,’ said Mam, and Karen brought the food out of the pantry and poured cups of tea in a lengthening silence broken only by her father’s intoning of the Grace.

Karen took Brian into the front room to feed and change him. All the while she sat on the hard, prickly seat of the horsehair settee and strained her ears to catch any signs of normal conversation from the kitchen. She could hear her mother’s voice, offering Patrick an extra buttered teacake, and his courteous
acceptance
. But she couldn’t hear her father at all. She thought of how he had questioned Patrick. He hadn’t mentioned anything about his being a priest; the fact that he was a Catholic was more important to him. The baby finished his meal and she buttoned up her dress and put him against her shoulder to bring up the wind. And then the door opened and she looked up eagerly. Kezia’s presence would help, she thought. If she brought in the children everyone would relax.

But it wasn’t Kezia, it was a man, a tall, dark, sun-tanned man, still in a khaki uniform with a sergeant’s stripes and wearing a bush hat.

‘Hello, our Karen,’ he said. ‘I didn’t expect to find you here, I was coming up to see you tomorrow.’

‘Joe!’ she cried. ‘Oh, Joe.’ Still holding the baby, she jumped to her feet and rushed to him and he opened his arms to her and hugged her and her baby to him.

Suddenly the room was filled with family. There was Mam crying over her son and holding on to his arm as though she would never let him go. And Da was patting him on the back and beaming with delight. And Kezia came running in with little Meg in her arms and Tommy and Young Luke by her side, closely followed by her husband, fresh bathed after his night in the pit and with his trousers pulled hastily over his nightshirt. Everyone was laughing and talking and asking how long Joe could stay and no one noticed Patrick at first as he stood in the doorway from the kitchen and watched.

‘Howay, lad, don’t be shy. Come on in and meet your brother-in-law. Joe, this is our Karen’s man.’

It was Da who had been the first to remember Patrick and he had gone to the door and taken hold of his arm and drawn him in to the family group.

Joe, who had taken Brian from Karen and was holding him easily in his arms, admiring him, looked at Patrick and nodded his
head
slightly. But he smiled and Karen knew he liked what he saw.

‘Hello there,’ he said at last, giving Patrick his free hand. ‘So you’re the fellow who’s taken on our Karen, are you? Aye, well, no doubt you’ll make her a good man and look after this little chap.’

Karen’s heart swelled. Everything was all right, Patrick was accepted into the family. She smiled gratefully at Joe. It was his coming home which had worked the miracle, she thought. Dear Joe, all her life he had helped her over difficult times, even when he had been all that way away in Australia.

‘We sail next Saturday,’ he was saying, his arm around his mother’s shoulders and Kezia’s children gazing up at him with round, wonder-filled eyes.

‘So soon?’ said Mam, her smile dimming for an instant.

He kissed her lightly. ‘I’ll be back though, Mam, don’t fret. I won’t forget you.’

‘I should think not indeed,’ said Kezia tartly, and they all laughed.

Reluctantly, Karen and Patrick prepared to leave. They had to be back to help with the evening chores. The whole family walked with them to the bus stop at the end of the rows, just outside the gates of the pit yard.

‘Try and get down to see us a bit more often, pet,’ said Mam, kissing Karen goodbye. ‘I know it’s not that easy, what with your gran and the farm, but we do love to see you. And give my love to Gran, will you? Maybe this summer I’ll be well enough to get up to see her.’

‘I will,’ promised Karen.

Joe, who had been carrying Brian, handed him over to her as the bus came round the corner with a grinding of gears and Karen and Patrick climbed aboard and sat down. To a chorus of goodbyes from the others and a ‘chin-chin’ from Joe, they were off, the longed for yet dreaded visit over.

Karen’s eyes met Patrick’s and they smiled at each other in mutual understanding. They had made their peace with Karen’s parents, or at least they were reconciled, and Karen felt as though a cloud was lifted from her mind. The bus wound its way through the pit villages to Bishop Auckland where they would change for Weardale. It was as they descended from it that they met Robert walking along the pavement, his medical bag in his hand.

‘Hello, Karen,’ he said quietly, stopping short and politely lifting his hat. She moved the sleeping Brian to a more comfortable position on her arm as she looked up at him. Beside her she could feel the change in Patrick, a tension in him.

‘Robert,’ she said. ‘It’s nice to see you.’ Looking up at him she saw there were fine lines around his eyes and mouth, a bleak look in his eyes as he glanced at the sleeping baby and then at Patrick. There was a small silence. She wanted to tell him she was sorry, for him to tell her it didn’t matter, he was getting on with his life, she hadn’t hurt him really. But as he looked gravely down at her, she faltered, there was nothing to say. In the end it was Patrick who took her arm in a proprietorial gesture.

‘We have to go, Karen,’ he said, and drew her away.

‘There’s influenza in Stanhope. Spanish, they reckon,’ said Jack, and Karen felt a surge of apprehension.

The postman began to bring daily reports of the folk laid low with the new plague and eventually of the deaths which it brought in its wake. And then, almost inevitably, it made an unwelcome visit to Low Rigg Farm.

It happened one day when Patrick was out on the fell seeking a lost ewe. It was lambing time and Nick and Karen were busy among the sheep in the pasture. Gran had been persuaded to stay in the warmth of the kitchen to look after Brian and prepare a hot meal, for the weather had taken a turn for the worse as so often
happened
in April. It was very cold with an east wind promising snow.

‘Well, we found her. Or I should say Flossie did,’ Patrick announced as he returned with the ewe and her lamb and turned them into the fold.

‘A good strong lamb too,’ Karen answered, and smiled in satisfaction. ‘That’s twenty so far. Not bad if we can manage to keep them all.’

‘Are you done?’ Patrick was hungry, it had been a long day. ‘I wonder what there is for supper?’

‘You’ll be getting fat,’ laughed Karen as Nick came up behind them. Linking her arm through Patrick’s, they all walked leisurely back to the farmhouse.

Foreboding struck all three as they turned into the yard. Something was wrong. No smoke curled from the chimney, no delicious cooking smells emanated from the house. They quickened their steps and eventually broke into a run as they heard fretful cries from the kitchen. Brian was awake and obviously nobody was attending to his needs. Karen was the first to burst through the door.

‘Gran? Gran?’ she called anxiously, but there was no reply. Going into the kitchen, she gazed anxiously around but couldn’t see her grandmother at first. Quickly she ran over to the cradle and picked up the red-faced, sobbing baby, checking him fearfully. But the only thing wrong with him seemed to be that he was decidedly damp and chilly. His sobs lessened as he felt his mother’s arms around him and Karen looked about her as Patrick and Nick came in. The fire was out and the air was cold and dank. Where on earth was Gran?

‘Gran!’

Patrick had seen her first, lying on the flagged floor, half-hidden by the dresser. Carefully he picked her up and laid her on the settee, chafing her hands which were blue with cold. She must
have
been lying on the cold stones for some time, they realized, to get as thoroughly chilled as she had done. Karen handed the baby to Nick who rocked him gently in his one arm to still his protests.

She felt Gran’s fluctuating pulse and burning brow and immediately took charge, issuing directions to the two men.

‘Get some firewood and light the fire, Patrick. And you, Nick, go and get the blankets from her bed.’

‘What about the bairn?’ he said, perplexed.

‘Oh, give me the baby.’

Deftly she whipped a nappy which had been airing from the brass line under the mantle shelf and made the child comfortable. Then, despite his protests, she put him back in his cradle, fastening him in with the strap. Brian was getting to the age when he could sit up and maybe climb out.

Soon the fire was blazing up the chimney and giving off a cheering heat which quickly warmed the kitchen. Karen filled the stone bottles with hot water as soon as the kettle boiled and placed them around Gran, who was flushed and delirious and breathing heavily.

Meanwhile, Patrick had harnessed Polly to the trap and rushed away for the doctor. But Doctor Oliver was already out on calls and it was not until the early morning that he arrived at Low Rigg Farm, looking grey and exhausted. He shook his head as soon as he saw the old lady, who looked somehow diminished as she lay propped up by the pillows which Karen had arranged behind her in an effort to help her breathing.

‘Careful nursing, that’s all you can give her,’ the doctor said to Karen. ‘She is in good hands at least which is more than can be said for some of them. But, you know, Mrs Rain’s a good age now. You must be prepared for the worst.’