A Child's Voice Calling (8 page)

‘Hush, Mabel, hush, hush, my child, you mustn’t blame yourself, I won’t have it. You did all that a good nurse could do for him.’

‘But I promised I’d look after him, Dr Knowles, an’ he died – he
died
, an’ I couldn’t save him!’

Dr Knowles had never before seen Mabel Court give way like this, and he was touched to the heart by her grief and self-reproach. ‘My dear, there are times when nothing can be done – when there’s nothing
anyone
can do to save someone we love. Listen! I’m certain that Walter would not have lived as long as he did if it hadn’t been for your devoted care. No sick child was ever better served. Hush, Mabel, hush, my dear.’

At the little gathering after the funeral the doctor tried to emphasise to Jack and Annie Court the importance of Mabel’s immediate return to school. ‘She’s an exceptionally bright girl, and must not be allowed to waste her time doing chores and running errands, however willing she may be,’ he told them, but Annie’s only response was to burst into helpless
tears once again over the loss of her baby and Jack Court’s sullen mutter was hardly encouraging. Mrs Mimi Court shrugged her plump shoulders at the doctor and told him that he had better speak to Mabel herself, or he’d be wasting his breath in this house.

The doctor stared at her for a moment, wondering why she made him think of a case he’d had a couple of years back, a single girl who’d threatened to kill herself because she was expecting a child; he’d directed her to a Salvation Army refuge for girls in her condition and when he’d met her a few months later she was no longer expecting. She’d told him about a woman . . . and he had decided not to know. Mabel’s grandmother had seen him looking at her, because she quickly took her leave, saying that there was nothing more she could do.

Knowles found Mabel in the kitchen with Mrs Bull who was telling her that Walter had always been a little angel and not long for this sad world. ‘I said as much, soon’s I saw the poor little mite, di’n’t I, Mabel, my duck? And now ’e’s gorn back to ’eaven agin to be wiv the other little angels, so yer mustn’t cry.’

Mabel’s eyes brightened at the sight of the doctor who smiled and beckoned to her. ‘I’ve got some news for you, Mabel, about your friend Maud Ling,’ he said.

‘Oh, Dr Knowles, what’ve yer heard?’ she asked, clasping her hands together, half in hope, half in dread. ‘Tell me please! Is she in prison?’

‘No, no, no. After she was questioned by the police, she and her brother were put into the care for a society run by the church for children in need of care. It’s called the Waifs and Strays Society, and
Maud and her brother are in a home at Dulwich for . . . well, for waifs and strays, where they’ll get enough to eat and won’t have to roam the streets any more.’

‘Is it a . . . a workhouse?’ asked Mabel fearfully.

‘Oh, dear me, no, children aren’t sent to workhouses any more, thank heaven. No, dear, this is quite a good place, homely, not too large, and Maud and her brother will go to school and be trained for useful work. The society will take good care of them, something which their parents completely failed to do.’ He hesitated, then added, ‘Not like your little brother Walter, who was always loved and cared for, wasn’t he?’

Mabel nodded, remembering Maudie’s shocking accounts of violent drunken quarrels and the deaths of three other children. ‘Yes, but isn’t it
wicked
, Dr Knowles, all the poor children who
aren’t
loved and looked after, like Maudie and Teddy!’ she cried with a sudden fierce passion that took the doctor by surprise. ‘Oh, how I wish I could take care of them all!’

The doctor looked very thoughtful. ‘Not yet, Mabel, and not all of them,’ he said after a pause. ‘But one day I think you’re going to be able to help
some
of them, my dear. You’re a born nurse and you’ll have to train at a hospital, but for now—’

‘Oh, Dr Knowles, d’ye really think so? Did yer mean what yer just said? I want to be a children’s nurse more ’n anything else in the world!’ Mabel’s whole face was transformed as she told him of her dearest wish.

‘And so you will one day, I’m sure, Mabel, but first of all it’s very important that you learn all you can now while you are still at school. I don’t want to hear
of you missing any more school days, do you understand?’ His words were stern, but his face so kind that Mabel smiled and promised to work really hard at her lessons and regain her place at the top of the class.

‘Take that gin away, woman – out of the room, out of the house!’ ordered Dr Knowles. ‘I won’t have the vile stuff near a woman in childbirth!’

Mrs Lowe indignantly denied all knowledge of the offending jam jar on the window shelf and a flustered Mrs Bull hastily removed it from the bedroom. It had been her contribution towards Annie Court’s ease in labour and having decanted the colourless liquid into an innocent-looking jar, she thought it would escape notice. Knowles had detected it as soon as he entered the room.

Annie’s pains had begun on an afternoon halfway through February and Dr Knowles had asked to be notified as well as the midwife. On arriving at Sorrel Street he found Mabel in the kitchen seeing to the children’s tea and keeping the kettle on the boil for Mrs Lowe. ‘Mm-mm, something smells good. What is it, Irish stew? Any chance of a taste, Mabel?’

She dipped the ladle in the big blackened saucepan, but as she lifted it up a shout and a bump was heard upstairs. ‘It sounds as if me mum might be having the baby, Dr Knowles.’

‘Then I’d better go up and see what Mrs Lowe’s doing,’ he answered with a smile. He knew that the midwife was sensible and reliable, better than some of the untrained handywomen like Mrs Clements who still practised as midwives among the poorer neighbourhoods. The new compulsory registration would eventually phase them out, but he knew it
would be some years before registration could be enforced.

Apart from banishing the gin jar, he stood aside and let Mrs Lowe go ahead in her own way while he held Annie’s hand and talked her through the contractions. They had not long to wait and a baby girl was born within twenty minutes. Her lusty cries greeted her father as he arrived home in no happy mood.

‘A daughter for you this time, Court, and your wife’s due for a rest,’ said the doctor pointedly. ‘If you’d care to come and see me we can talk about preventive measures.’

Jack nodded, frowned and finally forced himself to smile upon the newcomer who was to be called Daisy.

What had gone wrong with his life, Jack Court wondered. Take today, three consecutive races won by the favourite and Dick Sammons swanking at the wheel of his own motorcar, while he, the best bookmaker between here and Goodwood, had come home to a houseful of chuntering women, bawling children, yet another baby and God only knew what mess being ladled out at the kitchen table and masquerading as a man’s supper – talk about a bloody workhouse! And now this old know-all of a doctor telling him what he should and shouldn’t do with Annie in bed. Huh! Chance would be a fine thing these days. If she wasn’t having a child or feeding a child or bleeding or moaning about being tired or sighing over that poor little imbecile whose life had fortunately been snuffed out – God! Here he was at thirty-four, in the prime of his life and stuck with this lot. He could hardly be blamed for sometimes accepting what was on offer elsewhere . . .

Mabel’s days were now filled with housework, running errands, going to school and escorting younger children to and from Hallam Road with her – and always hurrying back to her darling baby, her little Daisy, a dark-haired little thing who cried a lot but always responded to Mabel’s soothing voice and touch. The first word she spoke was not ‘mama’ or ‘dada’ but ‘Maby’, accompanied by a broad smile and holding out her little arms to be lifted up.

‘I loves ’oo, Maby – I loves ’oo!’

Albert too was a favourite with his youngest sister and would pull comical faces to make her laugh. One of his tricks was to get under the table and then pretend to bang his head on it. Out he would come on his hands and knees, loudly boo-hooing and rubbing his head, which made the little girl shout with laughter and beg him to ‘Do it again, Alby!’

‘Nice to be appreciated.’ He grinned at Mabel who was glad to see him in a good humour. A lot of his time was spent out with other boys who found ways and means of making a sixpence or two. One way was by discreetly taking scrawled notes from back doors and bringing them to Jack Court with small sums of money. ‘Running messages’ they called it and Jack gave a warning frown if they ever opened their mouths.

It was during Daisy’s first year that Mabel found an opportunity to ask her mother about something that had long been on her mind. They were in the kitchen together. ‘Mum,’ she began, ‘yer told me I was named after yer mother.’

Annie stiffened slightly. ‘Yes.’

‘If I was named for her, who was Albert named for? And Alice and George and Daisy?’

‘Albert was named after Queen Victoria’s husband and Alice after the little girl in Mr Carroll’s story of Wonderland. And your dad and I both liked the name o’ Daisy.’

‘And Georgie?’

‘He was named for my own dear father, George Chalcott. A better man never lived. Mabel, have you put those peas in to soak?’

‘Yes, an’ the ham bone’s simmerin’, doesn’t it smell good? Mum, what was yer mother like? Yer never talk about her or any o’ yer family.’ Annie Court’s face seemed to close up, though her tired blue eyes softened at some far-off recollection, which encouraged Mabel to persist. ‘And did yer live in Hampshire with her an’ yer father?’

‘Yes, but I lost them both before I married your father and came to live in London.’ Annie spoke abruptly, with an edge to her voice, and again Mabel sensed a mystery of some kind.

‘Did yer have a big house to live in, Mum?’

‘Oh, yes, it was a beautiful house.’

‘Bigger ’n this?’

‘Much bigger, yes.’

‘Did it have a garden?’

‘What a lot of questions, Mabel – yes, we had quite a large garden.’

‘And did yer have brothers an’ sisters, Mum?’

Annie hesitated. ‘Two sisters, quite a lot older than I was.’

‘What were their names?’ asked Mabel eagerly, for this was what she really wanted to know about, these sisters of her mother who were her aunts.

But Annie made an impatient gesture, pushing past Mabel to get to the range oven. ‘It doesn’t
matter, Mabel, I don’t have anything to do with them now. Just put this saucepan to the back, will you?’

‘But Mum, yer must think about them sometimes,’ said Mabel, unable to imagine forgetting Albert, Alice, George and Daisy – and poor little Walter.

‘Why should I? They didn’t want anything more to do with me after I married your dad.’

‘P’raps they were jealous ’cause ye’d got married and they hadn’t.’

Annie shrugged and did not answer.

Mabel took a big breath and asked the question that had been on her mind ever since that unpleasant exchange with Mimi when she had talked scathingly about the Chalcotts’ money. ‘Mum, was yer daddy rich?’

Annie glanced at her sharply. ‘Why do you ask that? Have you been talking to – oh!’ She seemed to remember something and her eyes hardened. ‘Listen, Mabel, if you’ve heard your grandmother Court saying anything about my family, don’t take any notice; she doesn’t know anything, she never met them. And I don’t wish to speak of it any more, Mabel, it’s all in the past.’

But Mabel longed to know about those sisters and their big house in the country. ‘Mum, your sisters – they’re my aunts, aren’t they?’

Suddenly Annie covered her face with her hands. ‘Oh, Mabel, don’t bother me any more, it breaks my heart to remember – it’s all in the past, and – and—’

Mabel was all penitence and went straight to her mother’s side. ‘I’m sorry, Mum, I really am – I promise I won’t talk o’ the Chalcotts again. Don’t be upset, Mummy, please, I’m sorry.’

George became old enough to start school and
trotted along after Alice who resented being put in charge of him, although he was no trouble, as Mabel pointed out, not half as much bother as Albert had been at that age.

After Daisy’s birth Annie never completely recovered her strength and was constantly tired. She seldom ventured far from the house alone, and it was left to Mabel to take Alice and the younger children down to Tooting on one Sunday afternoon each month to visit their grandmother. They travelled on the new electrified tram that now went from Westminster Bridge straight through via Clapham to Tooting, where Mimi received them regally at Macaulay Road and gave them a lavish tea. She and Mabel maintained a polite relationship in which there was no love, more a wary mutual respect, avoiding confrontations.

There was little time for Mabel to read or practise the piano, but because of her promise to Dr Knowles and her determination to become a nurse one day she tried not to miss school, and did her best to keep up with her studies by going over the lessons in the evening after Daisy and George were in bed. Sometimes she could hardly keep her eyes open, but she knew that she must learn to write fluently and legibly in order to take lecture notes and sit for her nursing examinations in time to come.

It was at last becoming recognised that the persistent poor school attendance of older children, especially girls, was due to their being kept at home to look after the under-fives when the mother was ill or having another baby – or having to go out to work as the breadwinner. One London borough after another began to respond by setting up nurseries or ‘babies’ rooms’, usually attached to a school where for a
minimal charge babies and toddlers could be cared for while their older brothers and sisters were taught their lessons next door.

Dr Knowles added his voice to the long campaign to provide this service at Hallam Road and when the idea eventually got taken up by a public-spirited woman with some money, he immediately thought of Mabel. For the scheme would be set up by the time she left school and of course he would warmly recommend her as an assistant nursery maid.

And Annie Court had her own secret life.

Whenever the opportunity occurred she would creep upstairs, loosen her stays and lie down on her bed. Within minutes she drifted into a blissful haze in which she forgot all about the upsetting things in her life: the loss of her dear little Walter, Mimi’s scorn and Jack’s frequent absences from the overcrowded house with its scratched paintwork and discoloured walls – the constant struggle to keep up appearances of respectability. Just for an hour or two Annie would drift away to the Hampshire countryside in which she had grown up and once again she would be Anna-Maria Chalcott, a little girl walking with her sweet mamma through the garden at Pinehurst and down the lane that led to the edge of the fields.