Rich Girl, Poor Girl Read online

  Sophie’s beautiful bedroom was at the top of the stairs and, when Lucy reached it, she found her patient lying back against the lace pillows, already exhausted – but more, she was sure, from fear than from effort. Her mother sat by her side holding her hand and attempting to quieten her.

  ‘When did the labour begin?’

  ‘She had a show this morning, doctor, but the pains didn’t begin until this afternoon. They’re quite strong now and about ten minutes apart.’

  Lucy bent to examine her patient. ‘Good girl, Sophie, everything is just fine. You and baby are doing very well.’

  She straightened up. ‘I think we’ll make her more comfortable, Mrs Caird . . .’

  ‘Chloroform?’ Sophie’s mother looked happily and expectantly at Lucy’s open bag.

  ‘No, if you’ll help me, we’ll change her nightgown. I can’t see what I’m doing for all this lace. I know there are some plain cotton gowns in her dresser.’

  ‘I made this gown myself.’ Mrs Caird was offended. ‘It’s her favourite.’

  Lucy had found a simple gown. ‘Will you help me, please, Mrs Caird?’ She ignored the anxious mother’s annoyance. ‘And if you could fetch a towel? Sophie is sweating, and we’ll dry her off and make her much easier, won’t we, Sophie dear?’

  They worked together quietly, although Lucy could almost feel the resentment coming from the woman at her side. Mrs Caird had often told Lucy that she was not one of these terribly modern women who were rushing to change the established order of things. She had tried to persuade her daughter to stay with their own family physician, but although Sophie had been attended by Doctor Bracewell all through her childhood, she had been delighted to find a lady doctor when she married.

  The change of clothing was effected just in time for the next contraction. Sophie screamed and her mother clutched at her hands. ‘Oh, my poor baby,’ she cried. ‘Give her something, doctor.’

  Lucy waited until the contraction was over and she had settled her patient back against her pillows, but lying on her side this time.

  ‘There, Sophie, you will feel much more comfortable on your side. You are experiencing back labour; it’s perfectly normal, and all that is happening is that the canal is widening so that your baby will soon be able to make the exciting voyage into the world. Think of your little baby, striving to reach you. You must help by being as relaxed as you can and by not fighting against the contraction but by going with it.’ She straightened up and turned to her patient’s mother. ‘Mrs Caird, you are frightening my patient, and if you can’t behave I will have to ask you to leave the room.’

  ‘You see, darling, you see. She’s trying to send Mamma away. Let me send Papa for dear Doctor Bracewell who . . .’

  Another contraction prevented anyone in the room from knowing what Doctor Bracewell would have done. He would certainly, as Lucy well knew, not have come to the house.

  Sophie remained on her side and Lucy exerted gentle pressure on the small of her back as the contraction took its course. ‘Breathe, Sophie, that’s it, don’t hold your breath. There, dear, that’s better, isn’t it? Now lie back again and your mother will moisten your lips.’ She gave Mrs Caird a simple task to do. There was no point in completely alienating the patient’s mother, but she would do it if she had to in the interest of her patient.

  The evening wore on; the contractions became more severe and at last Lucy decided to administer a little chloroform, enough to dull the pain but not so much that Sophie was unable to help her baby on the greatest and most hazardous journey it would ever undertake. The sickly sweet odour of the anaesthetic filled the air as Sophie inhaled.

  ‘My husband is the dearest man, Doctor Graham, but Colin and I had to fight him every step of the way over the use of chloroform. He would suffer the pangs of childbirth for Sophie if he could but he is so set in the nineteenth century. “Women are supposed to suffer. It’s God’s law,” he says, but I think he’ll change his mind when he sees how you’ve helped Sophie.’

  Lucy said nothing. She had no intention of becoming involved in a moral or philosophical argument, nor had she any intention of making her patient completely unconscious.

  ‘Not long now, Sophie,’ she said. ‘Relax, relax, keep your strength for your baby. Go with the pain, that’s it, that’s it.’

  ‘Auntie’s dead, isn’t she?’ Sophie said suddenly.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I know she is, but I thought I smelled her perfume . . . it’s the chloroform, isn’t it? It does funny things to your mind.’

  Lucy smiled but did not answer. During births, during deaths, sitting by the side of the very ill, she was often aware, like the patients themselves, of other forces, other presences. If it made Sophie happier to believe she could smell her aunt’s perfume, then let her believe so.

  Just before midnight, on the day when his great-aunt was buried, John Joseph Dryden slipped easily into the world and set up a bawl that had his father and grandfather, jacketless and tieless, racing one another up the splendid oak staircase.

  When she had finished with her patients, Lucy walked slowly down the stairs to the library where a meal was waiting for her. She was too tired to eat, but she sat back in the chair and sipped a glass of wine while she waited for the coffee she had ordered. She was vaguely disappointed. It would have been so perfect if the baby had been the little girl she was sure Mrs Dryden had always wanted. Not that Sophie and Colin were disappointed; they were quietly and emotionally ecstatic over the birth of their little son. Presently Sophie’s parents joined her. Mrs Caird had forgiven Lucy for threatening to remove her from her daughter’s bedside and sang her praises to her husband.

  ‘Easiest birth I ever saw,’ she said. ‘Muriel was right about you, Doctor Graham, and I shall tell everyone so. She was right about the baby too.’

  Lucy was suddenly alert. ‘The baby? She had so many nephews; I always thought she wanted a little girl to spoil.’

  ‘Oh, no, my dear. The greatest tragedy of her life was that she was unable to give Alistair the son she thought he wanted. Colin was the nearest to her, and she would certainly have tried to usurp my place as little John’s only grandmother. She would be absolutely thrilled if she knew the baby was a boy.’

  ‘Perhaps she does,’ thought Lucy. ‘Perhaps she does.’

  *

  Not for the first time, Lucy fell asleep in the cab on the short drive home. Isa, watching from the hall, saw the cabbie waiting and went out to wake her mistress and to pay him.

  ‘Mr Kier was here,’ she said as she tucked Lucy up in bed. ‘He had a young lady with him. He thought you might be upset after Mrs Dryden’s funeral and he and Miss . . . Napier was it, thought you might join them for supper. Seemingly they was at the opera. Can’t think as how opera, with all those people singing at the tops of their voices, would calm anyone down after a bad day, but the young lady was having her finals . . . did he say orals in all the subjects?’ She waited for Lucy’s answer and since it did not come, continued. ‘The young lady is going to be a doctor. It’s the new degree: MB, Ch.B, and the young lady is lovely, a very gentle manner. I bet she would be wonderful with our older patients and, of course, the younger ones, ones like young Mrs Dryden, would be pleased to have such a pretty young doctor in the practice. I bet she’s snapped up right away, if those that know she’s graduating don’t take advantage and snap her up before it’s in the papers. We could have a holiday then. Sir John plans to tour the western states, doesn’t he, or we could have that holiday in Italy we always wanted?’

  Isa had sown the seeds. She had been married to a gardener long enough to know that the same seeds had to be left to germinate. She turned down the light and left Lucy to sleep.

  Lucy lay in a delicious half-awake half-asleep mood. Her mind was once more full of the knowledge of Mrs Dryden’s generosity. Mrs Colin Dryden was there too, exhausted, but happier probably than she would ever be again in her life, her first child, her son, held securel
y in her arms. Lucy saw her face now as she had not seen it when she attended the birth, soft, glowing, vulnerable.

  Will I ever look like that? Will anyone ever look at me as Colin looked at Sophie? Kier? He was here with Miss . . . Napier, no, Miss Nesbitt, who is about to graduate. He came because he felt that I would need him but he brought Miss Nesbitt. Did I need him? Be honest, Lucy. It is so important that you are honest with yourself. No, dearest Kier, I did not need you. Perhaps, just perhaps, the night Mrs Dryden died, it would have been . . . nice to share the burden of her death with someone.

  Lucy thought of Isa who was becoming more and more motherly, more and more anxious that she eat well, sleep well, have a holiday. A holiday . . . with Father? She would think about it later.

  Lucy slept and, not too far away, Rose Nesbitt lay awake. She could not sleep because she had been kissed and because she had been so careful, all her life, to make sure that such a thing never happened to her. Now she had let it happen, and she was not sure if she was changed or if life could go on the way that she planned. Perhaps it was the giver of the kiss who was the problem because Rose felt, correctly, that Kier Anderson-Howard had kissed quite a few girls in his time. Did it mean anything or was it just a gesture of admittance into the inner court, the women like Dr Graham who could be greeted with a kiss on the cheek and a ‘Hello, darling, how lovely to see you.’ Yes, that was all it meant, and it should be treated just as nonchalantly. Rose was quite, quite sure that she had no special feelings for Kier. She had even become used to having him around, to hearing his voice which had ceased to thrill her. When had that happened? When she had first known him, when she had first, so nervously, accepted an invitation to the theatre, she had listened to the music of that voice and been excited and happy and even amazed that it was directed at her. She had avoided him for months after her mother’s death. It had been easy: she had been so busy, so tired. Had she also, unconsciously, been weaning herself farther and farther from the roots that were now well and truly pulled out of the soil that had nourished them? There was very little of Rosie Nesbitt left in the delicate, sophisticated young medical student who ran furiously between university and hospital, and hospital and home. Then in October of 1904 a Students’ Union was opened in Dundee. Naturally, the president of the union was a man, but Rose had been overwhelmingly voted in as convener of social events. Mind you, the women could not go in the main entrance; they went down the basement steps and entered the union from there, but still they had achieved something.

  Rose could hardly believe her first official function. She looked at herself in the mirror, admired the hard-earned pale olive silk suit, the carefully waved hair. ‘This can’t be real. This can’t be me, wee Rosie Nesbitt, arranging a luncheon for Mrs Andrew Carnegie whose husband just happens to be Lord Rector and one of the richest men in the entire world.’

  Not only did Lucy arrange the luncheon, she hosted it. Among her guests, besides Mrs Carnegie, were Mrs Woodrow Wilson, wife of a prominent American politician, and Lady Donaldson, wife of the university principal. It was to be a ladies’ luncheon and the men had cheerfully given up all rights to the dining room for the afternoon. They themselves were giving a reception before the luncheon for all the ladies and their powerful husbands.

  Rose was immediately aware of the unbelievable personal magnetism of Andrew Carnegie. As she shook his hand and smiled, ‘How do you do, sir,’ into those compelling eyes, she was aware of nothing and no one but the man himself.

  ‘He has quite an effect, doesn’t he?’ The voice was one she had vowed would never overawe her, but she was overawed. Kier Anderson-Howard stood at her side, a sherry glass in his hand.

  ‘Miss Nesbitt, I will not complain that you have been deliberately avoiding me if you will allow me to take you to the theatre this evening.’

  Rose’s hard-won sophistication flew right out of the union windows and disappeared somewhere beyond the Tay.

  ‘At least you don’t deny that you have been avoiding me. Come, Miss Nesbitt, we poor males are not bidden to your hen party. I will admit that Doctor Graham was to accompany me to the theatre, but she has a patient. Doctors always have a patient, Miss Nesbitt. Will you come to the theatre while you have a chance to sit through an entire performance?’

  Rose laughed. It was that kind of day. ‘Yes,’ she said, her sophistication returning, ‘to celebrate my meeting with the great man.’

  ‘Oh, more than one, Miss Nesbitt.’ He misinterpreted the look she gave him. ‘Good heavens, not me. They say we will hear more of Mr Wilson.’

  ‘Rose, Rose, Mrs Carnegie and Lady Donaldson are looking for you.’ Sybil Anderson, another student, bustled up. ‘I must tear our Rose away, sir,’ she added to Kier. ‘Quickly, Rose, Sir James has told Mr Carnegie of how wonderfully you behaved when you lost his award. I heard him say it would have to be made up to you.’

  Rose stood for a second, unable to move. She wanted to go; she wanted to stay. Too much was happening all at once.

  Kier smiled. ‘Same address?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Seven?’

  ‘Seven.’

  And that had been the first of not many but several engagements with Mr Anderson-Howard. He had even asked her to a Christmas Ball at his home, that lovely, lovely house with the lovely, lovely name, Laverock Rising, but there was no money for a suitable gown and no Elsie to buy one in one of the second-hand shops in the Hilltown.

  And soon she was to graduate and Kier Anderson-Howard had kissed her, not passionately, but gently on her unrouged lips.

  ‘Next time I see you, you will be Rose Nesbitt, MB, Ch.B I shall be terrified to kiss Doctor Nesbitt.’

  And then he had asked the question that was also keeping her awake.

  ‘What do you plan to do, Rose?’

  12

  Dundee, 1905

  THEY COULD NOT meet. Rose looked in her mirror and hated what she saw. She saw, not a girl who was going to become a doctor in a few weeks’ time and who had worked and slaved and sacrificed for the opportunity, but the face of a girl who finally admitted to herself that she was ashamed of her family. For Kier was not the only visitor to the students’ lodgings in the West End; Donaldina Nesbitt too had become a common visitor. She came, quite frankly, not because she loved or missed her older sister but because, in her perception, Rose was rich and she was definitely poor and so the balance must be redressed.

  Rose had suffered badly when Elsie died. She had castigated herself for the neglect she felt her mother had suffered. I could have done more. I could have helped. I should have stayed at home – there, she still called that two-room flat up the closie, home – during the summer holidays and given Ma my money instead of saving for a costume.

  Elsie was dead. Donaldina was alive and Rose tried to help. Donaldina knew about the approaching graduation and she hinted for an invitation.

  At least Rose did not try to pretend that Donaldina would be ill at ease in the grand hall where the degrees would be awarded. It was quite simply that she, Rose Nesbitt, did not want her half-sister to meet Kier Anderson-Howard. For he too had hinted that he would like to attend.

  Unlike Donaldina, he had not been subtle but almost direct. ‘There’s only this half-brother of yours in Australia, Rose . . .’ (Rose had given him a carefuly edited version of her life story. She had never actually lied about Frazer – Frazer was too good, too noble not to be admitted into her life – but she had never told the whole truth either.) . . .  ‘and he’ll never manage to come. Unless he’s one of these fellows who suddenly finds gold. He’s not an Australian millionaire, is he?’

  ‘I doubt it. Murray is my half-brother, Kier. We’re not really in touch. Men are notoriously bad correspondents.’

  Kier, who had written letters religiously to and from many corners of the globe, did not deny this sweeping statement. ‘You can’t graduate alone, with no one to cheer madly,’ was all he said.

  ‘I’d like you to be the
re.’

  ‘Good, and what are you doing with this hard-won medical qualification?’

  Should she say something? Should she tell him? He could approach Dr Graham. Hadn’t Dr Graham promised, hinted even, that she might help?

  ‘I’m not sure yet. There are several possibilities.’

  So far there were no offers of employment. No private doctor, no hospital, was rushing to hire the new female graduates.

  ‘There’s a further degree . . .’ (My God, I’ve spent my entire life studying. Now I want to practise . . .) ‘I’m not sure,’ she finished lamely.

  In the months before her graduation, Rose found herself worried more and more about the future. She was unconcerned about whether or not she would pass the examinations. Of course she would; quite simply, she was the best. She could not share her fears with Kier. He would speak to Dr Graham, and Rose had decided that she would rather starve than ask Dr Lucille Graham for a helping hand. If Dr Graham wanted Dr Nesbitt, she could jolly well come and ask her. Donaldina Nesbitt became her half-sister’s only confidante.

  ‘Whait will ye dae, hen?’ Donaldina had asked, with a certain amount of relish as her sister became more and more dejected.

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t believe it’s happening. It’s men, always men, with their wee small minds. They’re terrified we’ll beat them at their own game. Do you know that there are still professors in this very university who believe that if we were decent women we would find ourselves husbands and stay at home having children? Their knowledge has moved forward, but their petty little minds are still rooted in the Middle Ages. The law of the land says they have to educate us, but as yet it doesn’t force them to employ us.’

  ‘But the other lassies? Are no some of them getting jobs?’

  ‘Yes, but not in Scotland. I want to stay in Dundee. I want to work right here, to help my own people.’

  That much she could do. She could try to deny her own immediate family, but she would not deny her people.