Rich Girl, Poor Girl Read online

  She turned in time to see her sister slip out of the room. ‘Donaldina . . .’ she began, but then she turned back to the dying woman on the bed. ‘I’m going to get you to the hospital, Ma. I’ll make you a wee bit more comfortable and then I’ll go for an ambulance.’

  There was no response and Rose set to work to get some water to wash her patient. She moistened the dry, cracked lips. ‘I’ll make us a nice cup of tea, Ma, when I get back with the doctor. Tea you can dance on, all right? Just wait for me, Ma.’

  She hurried out, her mind still conversing with the woman on the bed. You should have gone to the doctor. There’s a women’s hospital in Dundee. They can cure syphilis, but now there are so many complications. It’s not too advanced: you’ll get better, Ma. In the hospital with real doctors and real nurses, where it’s clean and . . . She was crying as she ran along, but the tears had dried by the time she had reached the hospital and had arranged for the horse-drawn ambulance to bring her mother back.

  ‘Where are all the neighbours?’ she asked herself angrily. ‘Ma was always taking care of everyone else. I must find Murray’s address. Ma must have it somewhere. Frazer’s dead and Lindsay’s dead and God knows where Donaldina’s gone.’

  Elsie was lying as Rose had left her. But she was dead. Her heart had stopped beating

  ‘She’s deid, lassie. Even I can tell that.’

  ‘No. Let’s get her into the ambulance.’

  *

  Doctor James Robertson was on duty. If only it had been anyone else. He looked down physically and mentally on all women, especially those pushing their way into what he believed to be the rightful place of men.

  ‘There was a football match this afternoon, Miss Nesbitt. We have been busy enough without having to deal with this.’

  ‘She has syphilis, doctor.’

  He turned to the duty nurse. ‘Take it away.’

  Anger blazed through the tears in Rose’s eyes and he saw it and looked again at the body on the table before him. Very gently he began to examine Elsie.

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss Nesbitt. She’s dead. Perhaps if she had come in weeks, even days ago . . . She’s lucky. The heart gave up before the worst.’ He looked again at the intense young face before him. Good heavens, if she took the death of every patient so hard she would burn herself out before she was even properly qualified. ‘We all lose patients. You’ll have to face it if you’re going to be any good, Miss Nesbitt, and they say you are going to be good, you know, but you’re not God. None of us are, although sometimes our patients think so and adulation like that can go to one’s head. I’m sure you did everything you could.’

  Rose shook her head. ‘I did nothing, nothing.’

  ‘Good God, girl, don’t be childish. I suppose it’s your monthly time that makes you so irrational. Isn’t there something in the rule book that says you are supposed to stay off the wards when you are unbalanced?’

  Unbalanced! Rose began to laugh. She had almost been ready to like him: he had been so gentle. There had been no distaste on his face as he had dealt with what had been Elsie. Elsie with the hard hands, ready to slap, readier to cuddle and console. And now she was dead. Wishy was dead. Frazer was dead. Elsie should have gone on for ever. And then, unbidden, unwanted, a thought came into Rose’s head that she condemned and loathed, and was unable to forget for the rest of her life. I’ll never have to introduce her to Kier.

  ‘The patient’s name is Elsie Nesbitt, Doctor Robertson. She is my mother and I will take care of her burial.’

  Again he surprised her. Did she expect him to look at her differently when he saw the stock from which she had come?

  ‘Nurse,’ he said, ‘fetch Miss Nesbitt a cup of tea. I’m afraid she’s had rather a bad shock.’ He turned to Rose. ‘Sit down, my dear, while I take care of the paperwork for you. A cup of tea is always the very best medicine.’

  11

  Dundee, 1905–1907

  ‘HIGH TIME YOU got someone to help in the surgery, Doctor Graham.’ Isa looked down at the thin slice of rare roast beef on the plate in front of her mistress. ‘And when are you going to have a holiday? You’ve been talking about a holiday all the time I’ve known you.’

  Lucy roused herself. ‘Don’t take it away, Isa. I’m sure it will be perfectly delicious.’

  ‘No, doctor. It should be hot, and the gravy, and the vegetables. I’ll warm up a plate, and you should have it with a nice glass of wine.’

  ‘No. I’m rather worried about Mrs Dryden. I may be called out.’

  ‘Young Mrs Dryden?’

  ‘No, she’s not due for a few weeks yet.’

  Isa hurried out with the dishes and almost stomped down to her kitchen where Donald was sitting in his shirt-sleeves, cleaning the silver soup spoons.

  ‘She hasn’t eaten again,’ he said, looking at the untouched plate.

  ‘She got as far as cutting some meat. She’s too tired. On the go all day, and then all night sometimes as well. If she’s not going to marry Mr Kier, and God alone knows if she’ll ever get round to that, she should at least take a business partner.’

  Isa bustled about, arranging the cauliflower, carrots and potatoes as temptingly as possible around the meat.

  ‘Don’t overdo it, Isa. Too much food makes you tired just looking at it when you’re already exhausted.’

  Isa removed a floret of cauliflower and then, when Donald had turned to the sink with his spoons, popped it back on again, covered it with another plate and slipped it into the warming oven.

  ‘I’ve been telling her she should take a partner, and it’s about time she had a holiday.’

  Lovingly Donald polished one of the beautiful spoons. ‘She had a few days here and there with Sir John last summer.’

  ‘A jaunt into the country for a picnic is not a holiday.’

  ‘Wouldn’t fancy them foreign places, but the rich are different.’

  Isa agreed with her husband and then straightened up from the stove with annoyance as they heard the peal of the front door-bell. She pushed the plate back, whisked off her apron and hurried back upstairs tidying her hair as she did so.

  Mr Colin Dryden stood on the doorstep.

  ‘Hello, Isa. Is the doctor in? I’m afraid my aunt has had a turn for the worse.’

  ‘Doctor hasn’t eaten yet,’ protested Isa, but she knew better than to keep a patient from her employer at any time, day or night. ‘Come in, Mr Dryden, sir. She’s in the dining room.’

  Lucy was sitting at the window that looked out over a garden changed beyond measure from the one the young solicitor had first shown his client, now his friend and his beloved aunt’s physician. She rose at once at the sight of Colin’s face, papers scattering from her blue silk lap. ‘Oh, my dear,’ she said. ‘I’ll get my things and come at once.’

  A few minutes later, Isa closed the door behind her mistress and returned to the dining room. She cleared the table of all evidence that dinner had been set there, but she left the papers on the floor. They were probably case notes, and therefore were not to be touched by any hand but the doctor’s own.

  *

  ‘At least she died in her own bed. Thank you, Doctor Graham. I will always be grateful for that and, of course, all your care these past years.’

  Mr Dryden Senior looked very much as he had always looked, but already the loss of his beloved wife was taking its toll.

  ‘May I act in this instance as your physician too, and beg you to get some rest?’

  ‘You’re right, of course, my dear, but I would like a few minutes more with her.’

  Lucy and Colin withdrew and left the old man with the body of his wife.

  ‘You should go home to Sophie, Colin. I hope she will have gone to sleep, but she cares for your aunt very deeply.’

  ‘Her mother, in fact her parents, are with us.’ Colin poured himself a brandy and gestured with the decanter.

  ‘No, I must get home. I have to call at the hospital first thing.’ He made as if to sta
nd. ‘No, Colin, I’ll go in a cab. Your wife will need you and I would prefer that you see your uncle to bed. Have Edith give him some warm milk and this powder.’

  ‘She’s left a great deal of money to the Women’s Hospital, with the stipulation that you become a trustee.’

  Lucy could barely speak. ‘How very kind. She was such a good woman.’ She set aside her own grief for a moment. Mrs Dryden had been a mother to Colin.

  ‘Oh, my dear, I had forgotten . . .’

  ‘I’ll be all right, Lucy. We knew she was dying and it’s almost a relief in a way that her suffering is over.’ He swallowed painfully. ‘We are grateful; no one could have worked harder than you to make her last days comfortable. I’m concerned about my uncle. You see, he always knew she bullied him. I didn’t realize until I married Sophie. He said it was the secret of a happy marriage. “If she’s a prudent and loving woman, give her her head and pretend that you think you’re in control,” he said. They would have been married fifty-two years in June.’

  ‘The baby is coming in June, my dear. That will be your uncle’s saving.’

  ‘She wanted to hold this baby so much.’ He set the glass down very carefully and stood up. ‘Come, if you’re sure, I’ll put you into a cab. You really ought to have a companion, Lucy. You should not be going back to that big house alone.’

  There it was again, even after all these years, this unspoken belief that a woman could not possibly manage on her own.

  ‘Isa will have stayed downstairs. She’s beginning to fuss as much as your dear aunt did.’

  ‘A servant isn’t the same thing.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think of Isa and Donald as servants, Colin. Now, make sure Mr Dryden takes that powder and then you get off home. The next few days will be very stressful.’

  They were, and for Lucy too. It threatened to rain on the day of the funeral but by afternoon the skies had cleared.

  ‘She would have hated a dismal day,’ said Mr Dryden as the mourners waited in the church garden for their carriages, the horses strutting proudly, their black plumes nodding. It was as if the whole of Dundee had come to bid farewell. ‘Lucy, my dear, you will stay with us after tea, for the reading of the will?’

  Lucy, who had intended to slip quietly away after the graveside service which she knew many of the family women would not attend, could only nod. Should she have told him that she already knew of Mrs Dryden’s generous gift to the hospital? She went in the MacDonald family carriage. Mr MacDonald had not mellowed over the years; his wife would not attend the graveside, but would wait with the other family ladies at the family home. He had, however, given up trying to apply his values to Doctor Graham’s life.

  ‘I was once very rude to you, Doctor Graham . . .’ He saw the slight smile she tried to hide. ‘Perhaps I was rude more than once, but I have meant, often, to apologize. I cannot see that you have done anything a responsible male practitioner could not have done, but the women of our family are certainly happier, if not healthier . . . and who is to know the truth of that? I know Mrs Dryden has asked that you be put on the board of the new Women’s Hospital. You will also be asked, soon, to take the Chair of Gynaecology at the university. I believe it is a two-year secondment, and several board members have put forward your name.’

  Lucy was glad that they had arrived at the cemetery. And what was she supposed to do with her patients? Had these generous gentlemen, who finally half grudgingly admitted her capabilities, thought what would happen to her patients, to the practice she had laboured night and day to establish? Keep your Chair of Gynaecology, she thought angrily. It’s absolutely the last subject I would dream of teaching.

  The earth falling on the coffin brought her back shamefacedly to the day.

  Oh, dearest Mrs Dryden, I’ll miss your generosity of spirit. I’ll miss your humour and I’ll miss your warm friendship. The world is a colder place without you, but I would not keep you in such pain as you suffered these last few years. Say I helped, my dear, I pray I helped.

  The minister was praying and the crowd around the grave had bowed their heads. Lucy lifted hers and felt the spring sun warm on her face.

  And then suddenly she knew. I’m saying goodbye to my own mother, she thought and she smiled. There had been a memorial service in the wee church in Fife, but Lady Graham lay for ever under the parched dry soil of India, in a cemetery Lucy had never seen. At last, at last, goodbye, beloved mother. I hope you’re proud of me. Goodbye, dearest Mrs Dryden.

  Lucy’s heart was light as she left the cemetery, not heavy as it had been when she stood in the church listening to a list of her patient’s virtues. She saw Mr Dryden, eyes clear, back straight. Father must have looked like that. Good men, both. I’ll write to Father tonight and tell him. I know he’ll understand.

  She sat through the interminable tea. Colin did not stay but went home to his wife who, of course, could not be seen in public in her condition.

  And why ever not, thought Lucy. In the midst of life we are in death and surely, surely, in the midst of death we are in life? I hope they have a little girl for Mr Dryden.

  Those mentioned in the will were shepherded into the drawing room, a dark and gloomy room at the best of times since it still wore all the trappings of Victoriana; today it was even more grim as the curtains were drawn against the pleasant early summer sun and black ribbons swagged the family portraits. Lucy felt cold. This room needed Mrs Dryden’s cheery voice to warm it.

  Mr MacDonald read the will, a straightforward enough document. There were a few sentimental bequests to her husband, the bulk of her jewellery to young Mrs Dryden, legacies to other relatives and to devoted servants, and then ‘all monies left to me by my late father and invested for me by my dear husband, I leave to the Women’s Hospital of Dundee for the succour of any indigent woman of this place and with the sole stipulation that Dr Lucille Graham be appointed to the executive board of the said hospital for her lifetime.’

  There were no ripples of surprise, no angry or offended glances. Mrs Dryden must surely have discussed her incredible generosity with her extended family. The lawyer was waiting once more for Lucy’s attention.

  ‘I read this as she dictated it,’ he said. ‘She had a most particular sense of humour.’

  ‘I also ask Doctor Graham to choose one of the two paintings that I bought in Paris and to hang it in her consulting rooms so that her patients may, like me, be cheered and fascinated by it. The other is to go to my dearly beloved nephew, Colin, who, like Doctor Graham and unlike the bulk of my very worthy family, is possessed of an open and enquiring mind.’

  Lucy saw a smile of genuine merriment cross the face of the elder Mr Dryden. How often had she caught them in loving battle over the two pictures.

  ‘A child could have done them.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous; you know nothing of modern art.’

  ‘There is nothing to know except that you have been robbed by an unscrupulous charlatan. He saw you coming, my dear.’

  ‘You have an uneducated mind. In twenty years your thrifty Scots soul will be wishing that you had bought Monsieur Dufy’s entire collection.’

  ‘At least you need not look at that monstrosity in the peace of your home, Doctor Graham,’ consoled the wife of one of Mrs Dryden’s many nephews.

  Lucy smiled but said nothing.

  ‘I think when I miss her too much, Lucy, I may find myself in your consulting rooms,’ said Mr Dryden as she was leaving. ‘I still prefer a nice pastoral scene. I’m afraid my mind is quite closed to this so-called modern art, but she loved them and she loved you.’

  Lucy knew she did not need to tell him what she felt about his wife.

  ‘You are welcome at any time in my consulting rooms, Mr Dryden.’

  ‘I’m too old to become a patient, my dear.’

  ‘Why should you change from Doctor Bracewell? He is a fine doctor and he forgave me for stealing Mrs Dryden away from him.’

  ‘Together with all the other wome
n in this family.’ There was a clatter of frenzied hooves in the street. ‘Why, here is Colin . . .’

  They both looked at the street where a horse-cab had lunged to a halt and Colin Dryden had almost fallen out on the pavement.

  ‘Lucy, quick, quick, it’s time! Oh, Uncle, what a time to intrude but Sophie . . . Lucy, quickly, the baby’s coming.’

  ‘Calm down, Colin. I must get my bag. Goodbye, Mr Dryden. I’m absolutely certain that Mrs Dryden, like young Sophie, is in excellent hands.’

  The elderly man and the young doctor smiled at one another in perfect understanding and Lucy turned and led Colin back down to the cab.

  ‘Stop at No. 4 Shore Terrace,’ she ordered the driver, ‘and see if you can do it without injuring me or this poor horse.’

  ‘Do as the doctor says,’ ordered Colin, since the cabbie looked belligerently at Lucy. ‘To 4 Shore Terrace first, as safely as you can, and as quickly.’

  ‘Try to calm down, Colin. Your nervousness will frighten your wife. Even if she in labour, and she is two weeks early you know, the baby will take some time.’

  ‘You will make sure she suffers no pain: you have this chloroform?’

  ‘I have it, yes.’ She did not tell him that she would ease his wife’s labour pains, not sedate her completely.

  They fetched Lucy’s bag and then drove on to Blackness Avenue where a frightened-looking maid-servant who had obviously been watching for them opened the door.

  ‘Oh, Mr Dryden, sir, the mistress is suffering something awful,’ she blurted out with some degree of pleasure.

  To Lucy’s surprise Colin turned as white as a sheet and, had it not been for her quick grip of his arm, would have fallen.

  ‘My poor darling,’ he breathed. ‘I must go to her.’

  ‘Oh,’ thought Lucy, ‘for a nice working-class home where I could set the expectant father to boiling water.’

  There was a piteous cry from upstairs and Lucy hurried towards the staircase. ‘No, Colin,’ she ordered as he made to accompany her. ‘Join your father-in-law and keep him from worrying. Sophie’s mother and I will manage between us.’