A Nurse's Duty Read online

  Karen’s heart sang as she turned down the track to Low Rigg Farm and saw the rowan tree standing by the gate. It always came into view first and she watched out for it. She breathed deeply of the moorland air. It was so fresh and tangy, not like the air in Morton Main which was thick with the smell of the cokeworks, sulphurous and heavy and overlaid with the stink of the middens lining every back row. Even the muck heap by the barn smelled better than that, she decided.

  ‘The rowan berries will soon be ready. You can help me make jelly,’ said Gran. ‘You can pick the wild raspberries in the ghyllie an’ all. Oh, aye, you two are going to be a grand help to me.’

  And they were. They picked pounds and pounds of the wild fruit and helped Albert, the orphan boy from Durham, look after Posy the cow and Daisy the Dales pony.

  ‘Daisy’s not a bit like a pit pony,’ said Joe, searching in his pocket for the crust he had secreted from breakfast. He found it at last and held it out to her, and though there were bits of fluff stuck to it she didn’t turn her nose up at it but delicately took it from his fingers and munched contentedly.

  ‘Well, she’s too big for the pits anyroad, she’s bred to work on the fell,’ said Albert. He was a big-boned lad of about fifteen and already he was putting on the stature of a man. Joe idolized him and followed him about all day. ‘I’m going up the high moor to check on the sheep later on,’ Albert went on. ‘Does you want to come?’

  ‘Eeh, yes, Albert, that I do,’ cried Joe, his eyes lighting up.

  ‘Right then, better ask your gran.’

  Joe raced into the kitchen where Karen was kneeling on a stool by the table helping Gran roll out suet pastry for the pot pie which they were going to have for dinner.

  ‘Can I go up the high moor with Albert later on? Can I, Gran?’ he asked, his brow knitted in anxiety in case she said no. But Gran nodded.

  ‘You can both go, Karen an’ all. It’ll do you good, blow the cobwebs away. You can take some sandwiches and a bottle of water for a picnic tea.’

  After dinner they set out, Karen carrying the basket and the two boys with crooks, Joe’s almost twice his height. But he carefully watched Albert and tried to hold his crook just the same way though more than once he stumbled and almost tripped himself up with the unwieldy stick. But Karen was lost to everything but the moor stretching away above and below and all around them, for miles and miles. She watched the sheep skipping away at their approach, the lambs almost as big as the ewes now it was August. She laughed aloud at the cock pheasant which started up almost under her feet with a flash of rainbow colours, and the hen birds, dowdy and fluttering, in the brilliant purple of the heather.

  They reached a good spot for a picnic and Albert went off to check on the sheep which didn’t take him long for Gran’s stint on the moor didn’t allow for many animals. And then they settled down to their picnic though it was little more than two hours since they had eaten the pot pie. Karen gazed about her, looking for the lone curlew which was calling out persistently but she didn’t see it until Joe pointed it out. It must have some chicks close by, she thought. Its cry was so plaintive yet so throbbingly beautiful, it made her heart ache somehow.

  ‘I wish we lived here all the time,’ she sighed, and Joe looked surprised.

  ‘But you’d want Mam and Da, wouldn’t you?’

  For a moment, Karen’s happiness dimmed as she thought about her mother and father. ‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘But they could come and live here with us, couldn’t they?’ Yet she knew it was only a dream. There were no coal mines this high in Weardale so where would Da get work?

  Chapter Two

  ‘JEMIMA’S GONE AWAY to work in Manchester,’ said Kezia. ‘I’m leaving school at Christmas anyroad. And mind, our Karen, you’ll have to help me as much as you can till then, run the messages and such and do what I say.’

  Karen and Joe were back in Morton Main for the new school year. Karen gazed at her elder sister but she was too miserable at leaving Low Rigg Farm and her gran to bother complaining about Kezia’s being so bossy.

  ‘Now, Kezia,’ laughed Mam, ‘I think you’ll both still be doing what I say. I’m still the gaffer here and I’m not completely useless yet.’

  That was the nice thing about coming home though, thought Karen. Mam was looking and feeling better. She felt the lightness in the air. The house itself was brighter somehow, because Mam was better.

  ‘Thank you God, for making Mam well again,’ she whispered the next day, which happened to be a Sunday. She was sitting in Sunday School with the other girls in her class and Mr Dent, the Sunday School superintendent, was praying aloud in front of the crowded room and the children were sitting with their hands together and their eyes closed. Karen’s thoughts began to wander as the prayers went on and she cautiously opened her eyes and squinted through her lashes at the boys’ benches, across the aisle.

  Robert Richardson was there, his head bowed in reverence. He was the son of the Minister and Karen supposed all his thoughts must be pious. Idly, she studied him. He sat next to Joe who was swinging his legs backwards and forwards impatiently though Robert seemed oblivious of it.

  ‘In the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ,’ said Mr Dent. ‘Amen.’ Everyone shuffled about and sat up and Mr Dent launched into the Old Testament reading and followed up with his sermon. He was talking about the trials of Job.

  ‘Job was a just man and true yet many misfortunes and calamities fell on him. But Job submitted himself to the Lord and God magnified and blessed Job. And we have to remember the story of Job when our way is hard and everything is going wrong, we have to trust in the Lord as he did and the Lord will help us in our troubles.’ Mr Dent paused and turned the page of his Bible and began to read. Karen sat listening to the drone of his voice, waves of sleepiness threatening to overwhelm her. But she sat up, suddenly awake, as she heard the words of the text which hung on the wall at home.

  ‘“… He had also seven sons and three daughters. And he called the name of the first Jemima, and the name of the second Kezia, and the name of the third, Keren-happuch. And in all the land were no women found so fair …”’

  Karen smiled, thinking of the many times Da had sat her on his knee and quoted the text. But when she looked up she saw Dave Mitchell and his friends nudging each other and grinning at her. She scowled fiercely at him. She didn’t like Dave Mitchell, he was a big boy and a bully. And when Sunday School was over and she came out with the other girls, she wasn’t surprised that Dave and his friends were waiting for her.

  ‘Keren-happuch, Keren-happuch! Is that your proper name, then? Does your da think he’s Job?’

  ‘Leave me alone!’ Karen shouted at them, her dark eyes snapping with anger. ‘My name is Karen, you know it is.’ Her father had changed the spelling of her name to the more usual Karen, but it was from the Book of Job that she’d got her name.

  ‘Go on then, make us leave you alone,’ said Dave. ‘Or mebbe you can get your seven brothers to chase us off, Keren-happuch.’ The crowd of lads began to jeer and Karen bunched her fists in frustration.

  ‘Leave our Karen alone!’ cried Joe, running up and aiming a punch at Dave, but Dave easily held him off with one hand and slapped him with the other. He was at least a head taller than Joe and the younger boy was no match for him.

  ‘Hey, there, stop that!’

  Robert Richardson came out and strode up to the two boys, pulling Dave away from Joe and putting the younger boy behind him. Karen felt a surge of gratitude to him for sticking up for her and Joe.

  ‘Aw, go on, what’re you going to do about it?’ asked Dave. ‘You’re a proper pansy. You won’t fight on a Sunday, your da wouldn’t like it.’

  He planted his feet apart and grinned. ‘Go on then, hit me, go on,’ he jeered, and behind him his friends snickered. Karen’s temper rose and spilled over. She rushed forward and kicked Dave hard on the shins, the steel toe protectors on her boots drawing blood so that he stepped back and shouted in surprise at the pain. Befor
e he could recover himself, Kezia rushed up and grabbed Karen and Joe and darted into the yard of their house with them.

  ‘It’s lucky for you we live so close to the Chapel,’ she said grimly to them. ‘An’ don’t you let Da know you’ve been fighting on a Sunday or you’ll get a belting. It would serve you both right, I reckon, but I won’t have Mam upset, do you hear?’

  Karen was still shaking with rage at the way Dave had held Joe and hit him and the way he had spoken to Robert, but she saw the sense of what Kezia was saying. She closed her eyes tight and tried to force herself to calm down.

  ‘Mind, hey, your sister has some spunk, hasn’t she?’ said Dave. His tone was admiring and Karen opened her eyes to see he was watching her and Joe over the yard gate.

  ‘Go away!’ she shouted at the top of her voice and marched into the house closely followed by Joe, who banged the door shut behind him. Only later, after they had eaten the dinner of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and vegetables which Da had grown in the allotment down the road, did she remember Robert. Had he got away without having to fight? She felt a momentary pang of guilt at not checking he got home all right. Oh, well, she would thank him properly when she went to the evening service, she thought. But for some reason he wasn’t at the service and eventually she forgot about the incident.

  ‘Karen is a very bright girl,’ said Miss Nelson, and Karen squirmed in her seat on the sofa. The horsehair cover was prickling through the thin cotton of her dress and petticoat but she daren’t scratch the place, not when they had the headmistress visiting. It was the last week of the summer term and Miss Nelson was there to persuade her parents to allow her to stay on as a pupil teacher. The headmistress put her cup, a delicate, china cup with roses painted round the bowl which was one of the precious set Mam kept for important visitors, on its matching saucer and placed them on the table. She looked earnestly at Thomas and Rachel Knight. ‘It would be a shame if she had to leave school and go into domestic service. It would be an absolute waste of a good brain.’

  Karen waited, holding her breath. Until now she hadn’t let herself even consider the possibility of being allowed to stay on at school, though she had dreamed of being a teacher. She saw her father glance at Mam but she couldn’t tell what they were thinking.

  Oh, yes, please God, put it in Da’s mind, let me be a teacher, she prayed, desperately trying to will him into agreeing. But her father still didn’t say anything.

  ‘Well,’ Miss Nelson pulled on her gloves and rose to her feet, ‘I’ll leave you to discuss it. I’m sure you will do what is best for Karen.’

  Karen jumped up and accompanied her to the door leading directly out to the front of the row. Miss Nelson paused in the doorway and looked round. ‘Goodbye, then.’

  ‘Goodbye, Miss Nelson,’ echoed the family in unison, almost as Karen’s class would do in school.

  After she had gone, Karen looked anxiously round. Da was pursing his lips thoughtfully and Joe was grinning at her in delight.

  ‘Clever clogs! Clever clogs!’ he shouted, and Jemima, who was home for a week’s holiday from her job in Manchester and looking very smart and grown-up, burst into angry speech.

  ‘Why should she stay on at school? Me and our Kezia never had the chance. It’s not fair.’

  ‘Eeh, I don’t mind,’ said Kezia. She was eighteen now, courting Luke Nesbitt and saving hard for her bottom drawer.

  ‘I had to go away to Manchester when I was only fifteen,’ said Jemima. ‘And Kezia has had to work in the manager’s house and help Mam. Why should our Karen have it easier?’

  ‘Jemima, you wanted to go to place,’ put in Mam gently.

  ‘Only so that I could see a bit of life and not be tied in the house all day. And anyroad, I’ve been able to send a bit home, haven’t I?’ Once, and it was when Jemima got her first pay, Karen remembered, she had sent five shillings home.

  ‘You’re jealous, Jemima,’ observed Joe. She rounded on him and clipped his ear with the back of her hand, her face suffused red with anger. Da stepped forward and towered over her, his hand raised.

  ‘That’s enough, Jemima! I’m ashamed of you. Now keep quiet or I swear I’ll take the belt to you, big as you are. Sit down and keep quiet, do you hear?’

  The whole family, including Jemima, sat still and gazed at him. Karen could only remember one or two occasions when Da had raised his voice in the house but when he did everyone sat quiet and listened to him. Once everyone was silent, Da sat back down in his chair and looked at Karen and she could tell by the pity in his eyes that any hope she had had of becoming a teacher was gone.

  ‘You know how we are held, pet,’ he said. ‘You’re old enough to know the pits aren’t doing so well. You know we can’t afford to keep you on at school, feeding and clothing you and buying books and things and you bringing nothing in. And though Jemima shouldn’t have said what she did, it’s true – she took her turn in helping your mother and so has Kezia. It’s Kezia’s time to do something different now, you know it is.’

  ‘I’m all right, Da,’ said Kezia, and he smiled at her.

  ‘Aye, pet, I know you are, you’re a good lass, a proper blessing from God. But you are courting Luke and you will be wanting to get married afore long. And why not? It’s only natural.’ He sat silent for a few minutes while he lifted a glowing coal from the fire with the steel fire tongs and lit his pipe. When he had the pipe going to his satisfaction he sat back in his chair. ‘Well, Rachel, what do you have to say?’

  ‘I’m sorry, lass, but your da’s right,’ she answered. ‘I’m that proud of you doing so well though.’

  Karen sat on the horsehair sofa, no longer feeling the hard prickle of the hair through her skirt. All she could think of was her crushing disappointment. Her eyes ached with unshed tears and there was a lump in her throat which felt as big as an apple.

  ‘I do believe she’s going to cry, the big babby,’ remarked Jemima, and Karen’s head jerked up.

  ‘I’m not. I was only thinking,’ she declared. ‘I didn’t want to be a teacher anyroad.’

  Da looked keenly across the smoke billowing out of his pipe at her. ‘Lies are an abomination before God,’ he said. But he spoke gently, not exactly accusing her of lying.

  ‘No, I mean it,’ Karen said quickly. ‘I’ll leave school and see if I can get a morning job in Auckland. Then I can help Mam in the afternoons and study to better myself at night.’

  ‘Mind,’ said Jemima, smiling smugly now her views had prevailed, ‘you’re going to be the busy one, aren’t you? And don’t tell us you didn’t want to be a teacher, ‘cos it’s a lie, all right.’

  ‘I’m not lying,’ said Karen, and even as she said it she realized it was true. ‘I want to be a nurse.’

  ‘A nurse? You mean you want to work in the workhouse hospital at Bishop Auckland?’ asked Kezia, sounding very surprised.

  ‘No, a proper trained nurse,’ said Karen. ‘We learned about it at school. All about Florence Nightingale and how she started training nurses and they went out to the war in Russia and that. And now all the big hospitals train nurses. Hospitals like the County Hospital at Durham and the Cameron at Hartlepool.’

  Miss Nelson had told them the story of the Nightingale nurses only last week, but this was the first time Karen had even thought of trying to become one. But she wasn’t going to let Jemima know how disappointed she was at not being able to be a teacher. No, she was not, she told herself. Mam interrupted her thoughts.

  ‘Mind, Karen, nurses have to do some dirty jobs. Emptying chamber pots and the like. Are you sure you want to do that?’

  Karen nodded her head with enthusiasm. The more she thought of it the more she wanted to do it. She felt like going after Miss Nelson that very minute to see if the teacher knew how she should go about being a nurse. ‘I can do it, Mam,’ she said.

  Jemima laughed. ‘Oh, aye? Well, we’ll just see if you do,’ she said, and Karen’s resolve hardened further. She jumped to her feet.

 
‘I’ll go and see Miss Nelson now,’ she said. ‘She will tell me what to do.’

  It was harder than she had thought it would be but she was determined to succeed and Miss Nelson helped her. For the County Hospital in Durham insisted that only girls with a matriculation certificate would be considered. Karen went to bed each evening with her head buzzing with French irregular verbs and in her nightmares she wandered through a maze of mathematics. Then there was the walk to the hospital in Bishop Auckland and a mountain of work awaiting her in the hospital kitchen where she had secured a part-time job.

  Praise the Lord for Sundays, she thought to herself one Sunday afternoon. Da didn’t allow studying of anything but the Bible on the Sabbath and no housework was done. And praise the Lord she was almost at the end of her studies. Soon she would be able to apply for a place as a probationer. She was sitting quietly, ignoring the whispers of the others, but all of a sudden she noticed that the noise had grown louder and they were looking over to the boys sitting on the opposite side. It was Robert Richardson they were all looking at, she saw. The Minister’s son was just taking a seat beside Joe.

  Karen watched him. He didn’t usually attend the Chapel in Morton Main these days, but today his father was to preach. All the girls, apart from Kezia who was courting Luke Nesbitt, were watching Robert, and trying to attract his attention, he was so tall and good-looking and distinguished. And when he walked out to the lectern and read the lesson for his father, he looked so gravely handsome that there was not so much as the rustle of a sweetpaper from the girls and Karen watched him as hard as any of them. Why, she thought, he must be twenty years old by now. Hadn’t Da said he was going for a doctor? Well, she wasn’t going to be such a fool as to make sheep’s eyes at him, she decided. She hadn’t time for lads, not even those who were training to be doctors. Anyroad, doctors didn’t go out with pit lasses, she knew that, even if she had been interested in him.

  ‘By, that Robert Richardson is a bonny lad, isn’t he?’ Kezia’s friend, May Thompson, was saying as the group of girls paused outside the Chapel after the meeting. The girls always stood for a few minutes by the Chapel railings, watching the boys who were standing across the road, laughing and talking together. Both groups were very busy pretending not to notice each other, laughing just a bit too loudly at their mates’ jokes and glancing across the street and catching the eyes of the girls, quite accidentally of course.