Connie’s Courage (37 page)

‘It is cancer, isn't it? Connie had asked Iris quietly, after the other woman had offered her services and skilfully examined her new patient.

‘Yes,' Iris had confirmed, equally quietly.

Connie had exhaled her pent-up breath and turned her tear-streaked face to the fading light coming in through the window.

He cannot have very long, I think.'

It is hard to say, but I don't think so,' Iris had agreed gently.

You will leave me something to give him for the pain?' Connie had asked her.

I shall write a prescription for morphine for you, Connie, which I think you will have to have filled by the hospital dispensary. You know how.' Numbly Connie had nodded.

‘Fair upset ‘im, that's what you've done,' Maggie had announced in a surly voice after Iris had left. What with ‘im not being able to get ‘is normal bottle of tonic from the chemist, and then you lot coming round.'

Remembering this conversation now, Connie closed her eyes. The Government had only recently brought in a law banning the sale of cocaine, and it was no doubt this that had been in the tonic' her father was no longer able to obtain, and which had probably held some of the pain of his condition at bay.

She looked toward the door as she heard soft footsteps on the stairs. Ellie!'

How is he?' her sister whispered as she entered the room.

Sleeping,' Connie told her tiredly.

Nurse has arrived, and I have come to take you home, Connie.'

When Connie looked reluctantly at the painfully thin figure in the bed, Ellie reminded her, ‘Gideon will not have you staying here overnight, Connie.

It is for your sake as much as anything else. It will not aid our father if your own health begins to suffer.

‘Yes, I know, Connie agreed wearily.

It was the end of May and her pregnancy was well advanced now, with her baby due at the end of July.

As she and Ellie walked back in the warm evening air, tiny rivulets of perspiration began to form on her skin under the suffocating weight of her blacks, adding to Connie's discomfort. She would be almost as glad to be rid of her widow's weeds as she would the unwanted life inside her. Her future was something she did not dare allow herself to think about, even though Ellie had stressed to her more than once that she and her child would be wanted, and welcome, to live permanently under her roof.

‘You are a widow after all, dearest, and what could be more natural than that you and your child should live with us?'

Harry stared at the letter. Slightly crumpled and grubby, it had obviously been opened at some stage in its journey from New Brighton.

Absently he rubbed his thumb over the envelope; his mother's best writing paper. A slight smile crooked his mouth. He turned the letter round in his hands, deliberately holding off from opening it, wanting to savour every pleasure of its arrival, even the smallest: the texture of the paper, the shape of the envelope, seeing his name written in his mother's familiar neat handwriting. He was like a man facing a meal after starvation.

The letter opener – loaned to him by the Baron, along with the privacy of this sun-soaked corner of the courtyard garden – trembled slightly in his good hand as he carefully slit the envelope.

The letter inside was satisfyingly bulky and his heart started to beat faster.

It couldn't be much longer, they all knew that. Even Maggie's surly outbursts had been tempered, whilst her two younger sons watched the comings and goings to the house in unfamiliar silence.

For Connie, there was some small comfort to be found in the familiarity of routine, and in making her father's sick room as close an approximation as she could of her Infirmary ward. But it was only a small comfort.

Witnessing her father's body being destroyed by what was growing inside him was very hard to bear, her emotions as a daughter constantly threatening to break through her professionalism.

One thing she was learning though was just how much she missed her work.

‘You have a true vocation for this, Connie, Iris commented gently, watching her as she tended to her patient.

‘Matron put us all through a very rigorous training, Connie answered her.

Iris shook her head. ‘I don't doubt that, but I have seen many nurses employing their skills since this War began, and I am not flattering you when I say that you are one of those special few who have a natural instinct for their patient's needs.

Connie didn't answer her for the simple reason that she couldn't. She was standing beside her father's bed, monitoring his pulse. It told her
what the instinct Iris had just praised her for already knew.

I've brought you a prescription for more morphine. If you are in any doubt as to how much to administer, then you must send for me, Connie. No matter what time of day or night.'

Silently they looked at one another in mutual understanding.

Too much morphine would send her father into a deep sleep and from there into death, without the need for him ever to have to wake again to the pain he had been suffering. The prescribed dosage would allow death to claim him at its own pace, whilst giving him only brief periods of respite from his agony.

I won't do what I shouldn't,' Connie assured Iris woodenly.

Half an hour after Iris had gone, her father started to wake from his drugged sleep, his thin fingers plucking at the bedclothes and scratching at his own flesh as the morphine wore off.

Connie fed him the nourishing chicken broth Ellie's cook had made for him, and then gently washed his hands and face.

‘Connie?' There was fear in his eyes as well as pain, as his gaze moved anxiously around the room.

The late afternoon sunshine spilled in through the window, emphasising the stark reality of his wasted body.

I want to get up. I should be in the shop.'

He made the same fretful protest every day, and,
just as she had done every day, Connie soothed him calmly, telling him, ‘In a little while, Father, only wait until Ellie has been to visit you.

‘Ellie is coming?' He said it as eagerly as a child anticipating a long-awaited treat, and yet Ellie had visited him every single day.

There was a nagging ache low down in Connie's back and she massaged her flesh tiredly, determined to ignore it. From the window she could see her sister hurrying toward the house. The moment she was close enough, Ellie looked up at the window, her expression reflecting her anxiety.

Ten minutes later Ellie came into the room.

‘I brought some more chicken soup with me, and some food for the children. They look so much better now that you have given them both a bath, Connie, and supplied them with handkerchiefs. You have a real way with them!'

‘I didn't want them spreading any germs around Father, Connie answered her briskly, as though excusing her own behaviour.

Ellie shook her head tenderly. ‘You are already behaving like a mother, Connie.

‘No!' Her denial was sharp and immediate, causing Ellie to frown, and Connie herself to stiffen. There was no point in trying to explain her feelings to Ellie. She would never understand. ‘I … I cannot think of such things whilst there is Father to care for, she excused her reaction lamely.

‘How is he?' Ellie whispered, looking toward the bed.

‘Much the same,' Connie fibbed.

Connie, I want you to promise me that … I want to be here,' Ellie told her steadily.

One cannot always know these things,' Connie hedged.

Promise me,' Ellie insisted.

I shall do my best.'

Sighing slightly, Ellie sat down at the small table by the window. I have brought sewing with me.'

‘More clothing for the men at the Front?' Connie asked ruefully, knowing that her sister, like so many other women of her class, was part of a group of women who met every week to sew for charity.

See for yourself,' Ellie smiled serenely, holding up a small bed gown. I have been making clothes for your baby, Connie.'

‘You shouldn't have bothered!'

‘It was no bother, I have enjoyed it. Do you have any names chosen for the babe? His father's, I imagine, if you have a boy,' Ellie answered her own question, before giving a small sigh. ‘I had always intended that if I had a daughter I would give her our mother's name.'

Connie closed her eyes against the pain that felt like a knife twisting inside her heart. On the bed, their father cried out sharply and she turned to him, glad of the distraction.

Can you not give him something to ease his
pain? Ellie asked in distress, as his moans grew louder and his movements more frantic. Unable to speak, Connie shook her head.

The sun's dying rays bathed the letter in gold light as it lay on the stone seat beside him. Harry reached out toward it and then stopped. He didn't need to read it again. He had read it and re-read it so many times he knew every word by heart.

His mother's outpouring of joy that he was alive when they had all feared him dead, the passing away of his great-aunt, and the unexpected discovery that she had not, as she had always threatened, left everything to charity but had instead willed both the house and her capital to his mother. Harry thanked God for that, for his mother more than deserved it.

The letter also told of Frank's safe return from the War and the injury he had suffered, as well as his mother's delight that he and Mavis had made their home with her; Sophie's continued determination to follow in Mavis's footsteps and train as a nurse; and the fact that Rosa had given birth to a son, and he was now a father. He had a child. A son, and yet all he could feel was … nothing. No joy, no pride, no gratitude at such a gift of promise for the future. Nothing …

A child. He and Rosa had a child. A deep shudder ran through him and he hated himself for the bitterness of his own inner denial.

Rosa was his wife, this child his own flesh and blood. He could not deny either of them their place in his life, and if he was to think himself an honourable man, he could not deny them a place in his heart either.

Unable to stop himself Harry reached for the letter, searching as hungrily as he had already done a dozen and more times for some mention of Connie, and knowing that he would find none. So went the lover's heart, hoping when there was no hope. Longing when there could be no surcease. Loving when there could be no return of that love.

Connie gritted her teeth as she tried not to listen to the agonised sound of her father's breathing.

She had heard of – and seen – patients' deaths dragged out over many weary days by this dread
disease, but she had still hoped that fate might be kind to her father.

Now as she witnessed his distress, she knew her hope was not going to be answered. Deliberately she tried not to look to where she had placed the morphine. There was enough and to spare if she could but bring herself to administer it. But to do so would be to murder her father!

Murder? An already dying man? And when she knew it would spare him further pain? Helplessly Connie paced the floor, torn between different duties, and oblivious to the commotion of an arrival downstairs, until the bedroom door opened.

‘Iris!

Relief shadowed surprise in her eyes, followed by her tensing at the unexpectedness of the arrival. But before she could say anything, Ellie edged round the door behind Iris causing Connie's eyes to widen even further.

‘Doctors have instincts, too, you know, Iris told Connie gently, as she removed her coat.

Tears welled in Connie's eyes. ‘I'm glad you came, was all she could manage to say. ‘Both of you.

‘Oh, Connie. As Ellie hugged her and they clung together, Iris asked matter-of-factly, ‘I take it you haven't given him any morphine this evening?

Numbly Connie shook her head, prising herself out of Ellie's arms as Iris pulled on a clean white gown, to demand agitatedly, ‘Iris, you won't give him too much, will you? He's so weak now and …

Connie, I'm the doctor here,' Iris reminded her gently. ‘But, no, I won't.'

Connie held her breath though as she watched Iris prepare the drug.

Ellie, I think you had better go downstairs and ask your stepmother if she wants to be here,' Iris announced calmly.

Automatically Connie turned her head to watch Ellie leave. When she turned it back again Iris was saying calmly, I have mixed a full dose.'

That will be too strong,' Connie protested.

I only intend to use as much as we need, Connie. We can use the rest later …'

Reassured, Connie helped her to administer the drug, her eyes blistering with hot tears, as she did so.

From downstairs the noisy sound of Maggie's grief fractured the quiet calm of the bedroom, making Connie flinch. Her father took a deep gulping breath of air and trembled violently, before trying to throw off the bedcovers.

Connie had seen the signs of addiction many times before, but she still winced, and well understood the shocked look on Ellie's face as she came back into the room – without Maggie who had chosen to stay away, for now – and stood by the bed.

If one didn't know the true nature of that addiction, to watch the relief and release from pain soothe their father, could almost have been to witness a form of benevolent magic, Connie admitted.

His eyes were still open, and she could see recognition in them as he looked from her to Ellie and back again. ‘My daughters. My lovely girls.