Rich Girl, Poor Girl Page 5

  ‘Oh, poor Lucy, but I can see her point. Besides, won’t it take years and years?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He stopped walking and she had to stop with him. She looked up into his face.

  ‘Hell, Lucy. Years. Have you thought it all out?’

  ‘I’ve thought of everything, Kier.’

  He smiled, the gentle sweet smile that reminded her of their shared childhood. ‘Then I must be your strong supporter and your first patient.’

  ‘You were my first patient.’

  He laughed. ‘And no bedside manner did you have. We must hope for an improvement, Doctor Graham.’

  The awkward moment was over. Hand in hand they went to the cosy sea green drawing room where Lucy had spent so many hours with the ailing Kier.

  ‘Mother,’ he announced as they walked in, and Lucy listened to him and thought that perhaps she had never loved him more, ‘you will never guess what our frightfully clever Lucy is going to do.’

  *

  The evenings arrived early in that part of Scotland. Kier rode back to The Larches with Lucy, for even a girl modern enough to contemplate becoming a doctor could not ride home alone in gathering darkness.

  ‘I have the curious feeling I’ve lost something very precious,’ he said, surprising himself more than Lucy, ‘and I can’t think what it is.’

  Lucy’s heart raced and she was glad the twilight hid the blush she could feel stealing over her cheeks. ‘Everything is just the same,’ she said calmly. ‘We’ll always be great friends.’

  Kier said no more until they reached the stables. Unlike his own home, where at least ten servants were needed to answer the basic needs of the small family, no stable-boy rushed to unsaddle Lucy’s horse and Kier did it for her automatically, just as he had done since she first put up her hair.

  ‘How long will it take, Lucy?’ He spoke quietly, but she had a strange feeling that a great deal depended on the answer she was able to give.

  ‘Only a little while, three or four years, perhaps a little more if I want really worthwhile qualifications.’ Lucy knew that she was not being quite truthful. ‘I really don’t know the answer myself,’ she thought.

  Kier heard her calm, almost deep voice through the darkness. How often had that same quiet, matter-of-fact voice steadied his nerves through the panics of illness and fretfulness? Three or even four years? ‘I can wait,’ he said and surprised himself, for he was not sure what he hoped for at the end of the wait.

  *

  Once she had made her opinion known, Lady Graham threw herself into the process of making years of medical schooling as easy as possible for her only daughter. Before they returned to Washington, D.C., she had found a good tenant for their beloved little house and had bought a small flat in a good area of Edinburgh.

  ‘Annie will come with us, won’t you, Annie, to look after Lucy while we’re abroad?’ Lady Graham spoke to Annie Bell, their maid-of-all-work who had been with her almost since Lucy’s birth. ‘The Archibalds, their new tenants, want you to stay on here, but I said you were part of the family, not a servant. You will come, won’t you?’

  And Annie went, although a noisy, dirty city full of smoking chimneys and horse-drawn carriages that bowled past her at . . . well, she wouldn’t be surprised if they went as fast as five miles every hour, and horrid little boys with iron hoops that they spun clattering along the cobblestones, was not precisely where she would have liked to be. She made no judgement about Lucy. God had called her to a station in life where she was to look after her mistress and, to the best of her not inconsiderable ability, she would ensure that Lucy had a clean home, three decent meals every day and clean underwear – which she might well need if she were to be knocked down by one of those self-same carriages and taken to the very hospital down Leith Walk where she was going to do her practical work.

  Lucy had a fair notion of the sacrifice the country-woman was making for her, and although she vowed to take her back to the country whenever possible – had they not an open invitation to stay with Kier’s parents? – she realized very quickly that she was exactly where she should be and sacrifices would have to be made, by Annie as well as herself, for the greater good.

  From that first morning, when she had walked into the lecture room and been warmly welcomed by her fellow students, she had known this was where she wanted to be. These few women were, she felt sure, the vanguard of an enormous army that one day would take the field against ignorance and prejudice. They were not all young; she was quite sure that the tall bronzed woman who sat so quietly waiting for the first lecture was at least thirty. Good heavens, half her life was over already and she was prepared to start to study. Lucy looked at her with respect and interest. What had brought her here? Perhaps she would never know, but it was enough that they were together.

  She had had no idea of the enormous scale of illness and disease in the world. Illness caused by poverty, and there was too much of that; illness caused by accident or neglect; and the more frightening one, illness caused by ignorance. She threw herself wholeheartedly into medical training, everything she learned filling her with an almost unbearable excitement and desire to learn more and to help more. Letters from her parents, once more in the American capital, or from Kier at Oxford, called her back unwillingly from what was to her the real world. She answered them quickly, assuring her mother that Annie’s cooking was as tasty and nutritious as ever and that, no, she had not had time to make herself known to Mrs This or Lady That yet, but she would, honestly, just as soon as she had a moment to spare. Her letters to her father and to Kier were different:

  I am to have one hundred lectures in Anatomy from a Doctor Dewar, another one hundred lectures in Physiology from Doctor James, and so, academically, you will agree that there is nothing I will not know of the human body. What really interests me, of course, is why the body malfunctions from time to time and, much more important, what I will be able to do to set it back on the right track. I am thrilled to discover from Amy Wood Browne, a fellow student, that we are to enjoy fifty lectures in Practical Pharmacy from Doctor Jex-Blake, yes, the Dr Jex-Blake, the pioneer. Shall I sit in such awe of this wonderful woman that I shall be totally incapable of making a single note and shall fail her classes miserably? I am also to have, see how bold my language has become, Father, fifty lectures in Midwifery from this same idol. I think the subject interests me the least of all the wonders in store.

  Her first lectures were in Physiology and in Surgery. Physiology was interesting. Her dictionary told her it was the branch of science concerned with the functioning of organisms. Dr James, the lecturer, made it almost holy, for was not the human body a collection of the most interesting and fascinating and yet secretive of all organisms? They went to the hospital down in Leith for their first lectures in Surgery. Amy Wood Browne was among the three students who silently collapsed and were unceremoniously helped from the operating theatre. Did Dr Cathcart even notice them as he continued dissecting? Lucy did not. The human tissue so revealed did not repel her, it engrossed her. She could not learn quickly enough.

  She considered remaining in Edinburgh for the winter break. There was so much reading to do; her notes should be read and corrected. Hospitals could be visited. Goodness knows, a pair of hands that had some idea of what they were doing were very welcome, especially in the poorer area. Textbooks and clinical specimens were well and good and they could be examined over and over again at any time of the day or night, but people, real people, suffering people, that was where one really learned.

  ‘I must remember always the person. I must not be so excited by symptoms that I forget the living, breathing body.’ Healthy people had to be considered too. Kier’s parents, who had renewed their invitation; her own parents, who wanted her to have a rest; and, of course, the most important person that Christmas was Annie, who missed the country and her family.

  Lucy packed her suitcases and found space for a few textbooks. When they boarded the train at Waverle
y she was pleased that she had bought first-class tickets, for it was packed with holiday-makers. She had almost resented the break from what she was coming to consider the real world, but at last she began to feel that delicious sense of growing excitement that had always heralded Christmas.

  ‘Lucy? I don’t believe it. What absolute luck,’ called a well-loved voice, and she found herself caught up in a strong masculine embrace.

  ‘Put me down at once, you idiot,’ she scolded as she tried to wriggle free from Kier’s exuberant greeting.

  He did not quite release her but looked down into her face. ‘Gosh, it’s good to see you. I have had the most appalling forty-eight hours. The wine at the Christmas Ball gave me the most unbelievable headache. Did I drink too much, or was it the quality that was dubious?’

  ‘Both,’ said Lucy, pushing him away firmly and sitting down to meet Annie’s aggrieved look. ‘What else happened?’ she asked.

  ‘The train was like something out of the Inferno – too hot, and too many people squealing around.’

  ‘Definitely too much to drink,’ diagnosed Lucy. ‘Does your mother expect you by this train? She said nothing in her letter.’

  A wash of colour swept across his face. ‘You will never believe, Lucy . . .’ He stopped and she waited. ‘I was going to a house-party; chap I met at school. They’re all coming to me for the New Year. They think Scotland should be fun – “quaint”, I think was the word she used. Anyway, his sister . . . I took her to the ball, and there she was, behind an urn, wrapped around some chap.’

  Lucy, who had once found herself behind an urn, felt a sneaking sympathy for the unknown girl. ‘Perhaps she couldn’t help herself.’

  ‘My very thought. But when I pushed him away and walloped him, she screamed at me like a little cat.’ He glowered at her morosely and then laughed. ‘Women,’ he said. ‘I’m giving them up!’

  *

  ‘I’ve given you the best guest room, Lucy dear,’ said Mrs Anderson-Howard.

  They had arrived at Cupar station to be met by Kier’s delighted father.

  ‘Welcome home, welcome home. There’s a nice hot pig for your feet, Lucy, and a warm rug. Have you snug at home in no time. You sit up here with me, old chap. Fresh air might cure whatever ails you.’

  ‘More likely kill me, sir.’

  ‘Then all the more reason for you to sit up here and blow away the cobwebs and the tobacco smoke. We’ve had a powdering of snow, just enough to slow me down, but I’ll be as quick as safety allows.’

  And now here they were home, and Mrs Anderson-Howard had taken Lucy straight upstairs to a delightful bedroom where a coal fire blazed cheerfully. ‘Such a surprise that you met Kier; I had not expected him till nearer Christmas. Dinner is ready as soon as you like, my dear, but there’s just the four of us so no need to dress.’

  Lucy, quite rightly, took this to mean that if she had diamonds she need not wear them, and she washed in the hot water brought up to her, uncoiled her hair and quickly put it back up again, and changed her wool travelling dress for a dark blue silk dinner-gown.

  The soft lamplight in the dining room lit up the faces at the dinner table but not the corners of the large room, and Lucy was lulled into feeling that they were the only four people in the world. The talk went from one young person to the other and Lucy told as much of her medical training as she felt the older couple would find interesting, and Kier recounted what Lucy felt must surely be an expurgated account of his activities.

  ‘He tells me things he does not tell his parents,’ she realized and had a sudden overwhelming desire that this dinner-party could continue for ever, that she could really belong to the loving circle and not merely be a welcomed guest. ‘Have I made a terrible mistake?’ she thought sadly. ‘Have I pushed him towards all these, no doubt beautiful and eminently suitable, young women he talks about? At least this Cynthia has blotted her copybook.’

  But, although Cynthia of the urn did not come for the New Year festivities, it seemed to Lucy that the house echoed always with the laughter of others.

  ‘What do they mean to him?’ she asked herself sadly as she watched Kier flirt with each girl in turn, but the only person she could confidently ask about the strange ways of marriageable young men was three thousand miles away.

  She returned to Edinburgh early in January. A letter from her mother had reminded her yet again of the visits she was supposed to make in the capital and Annie Bell, who had professed to hate the city, was definitely unhappy away from what she now saw as her own home. When Kier took Lucy to the station to catch the London train, they were both quiet, perhaps restrained by Annie’s presence.

  ‘It’s been a lovely . . .’ They had spoken together and so they laughed, at last at ease.

  ‘Will you come home for the Easter break?’

  ‘No,’ said Lucy quietly, ‘and I won’t come back in the summer either. Leith Hospital is allowing me to do volunteer work in the spring and I’m going to Rouen for the summer, to work in a hospital there.’

  ‘Alone?’ Kier was shocked.

  ‘Don’t be silly. There will be hundreds of patients and not a few real doctors and nurses.’

  ‘You know perfectly well what I mean, Lucy. Your parents will never allow it. You’re a girl, you’re young: you need the protection of a brother, or father, or . . . well, a husband.’

  The word dropped between them like a stone but Lucy managed to laugh.

  ‘I’ve had enough trouble getting into training, Kier. A husband would certainly be an encumbrance I can well do without . . . at this point,’ she finished softly.

  ‘Damn it all, Lucy,’ he said suddenly, and like poor Cynthia behind the urn, Lucy Graham found herself being thoroughly kissed.

  ‘He must mean to marry you,’ said Annie comfortably as a slightly dishevelled Lucy watched the young man stride away.

  ‘He’s going the wrong way,’ she said.

  ‘What did I tell you?’ said Annie triumphantly and steered her mistress to the open door of their first-class carriage.

  4

  Dundee, 1892

  IN 1892, WHEN Lucy Graham was finishing her first year of study at the Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women, Scottish universities opened their doors to women for the first time.

  ‘There, didn’t I tell you?’ With frozen fingers Rosie Nesbitt stuffed the newspaper she had been reading inside her schoolbag and hurried home, her thin coat protecting her as best it could from the biting wind. It was all coming together. With the University of St Andrews a mere eleven miles away across the Tay, she need not live away from home. That troubling thought had managed to surface every now and again over the last few years. How was she to live in Edinburgh when she had gained entrance to the women’s medical college there? It had never occurred to Miss Nesbitt that she would not win a place. If you were prepared to work, you could do anything in this exciting world. She could hardly wait for the new century. It would see Rose Nesbitt, MA, MB, Ch.B, most likely with distinction, for Miss Nesbitt was thorough. She had thrown herself into her Latin studies so well that dear old Wishy had insisted on teaching her Greek too. Rosie could not absorb enough and now, thanks to the generosity and far-sightedness of Sir William Taylor-Thomson who had left the residue of his estate to provide bursaries for students of either sex, and especially so that females might study medicine, she was working towards winning such a grant to St Andrews University. She would have to wait until she was nineteen to study medicine, but at least she could start on an Arts degree. If she came top in the combined entrance and bursary examination – and there was no reason why she should not – she could win an amazing twenty pounds a year. Then Frazer could afford to marry his sweetheart, Nancy, who had waited so patiently. Everything and everyone had willingly sacrificed themselves to Rosie’s driving ambition. And, oh, how she would thank them and make it all up to them once she had qualified?

  She raced up the stairs, for once so excited by the wonderful news she
had to read to Ma that she forgot to watch out for daft old Tam, the ‘flasher’. He had waited for her, as he did every night, and his sad genitalia almost withered away as she raced past without even seeing him. He settled back against the closie wall to wait for the next woman, and Rosie banged into the kitchen where Ma was painfully stirring the stew in the pot over the fire.

  ‘Your back’s bad again,’ said Rosie, taking the spoon. ‘Sit down and put your feet up. I’ll make you a cup of tea and read you the paper. Where are the weans?’

  ‘In the street. Mind you, it’s that cauld with this bluidy snaw day after day that they’re probably in somebody’s hoose. Did ye no see them?’

  Rosie straightened up. ‘Ma, I’m so happy I didnae see old Tam and he must have been there waving defiance at me.’

  They laughed wickedly at one another. In the past few years they had become more friends than mother and daughter. Elsie treated Rosie as if she were an adult and Rosie rewarded her by telling her everything, by sharing her learning, assuming rightly that her mother, though illiterate, was intelligent. Ma had even learned a word or two in Latin and Greek, in German and French.

  ‘Come on then, lassie,’ said Ma, gratefully gulping back the scalding hot brew, ‘tell me whit’s sae exciting.’

  Rosie pulled out the Dundee Courier and Advertiser and unfolded it. Then she smoothed out the crumpled sheets and read out the article. ‘“Tuesday, March 15th 1892. The Senatus Academicus of the University of St Andrews has agreed to open its doors in Arts, Science and Theology to women students from next session onwards, and, although it rests with the university court to make arrangements in detail, women will henceforward be taught along with men. Next year the university will receive the sum of £30,000 to be spent by it in bursaries open to students of both classes attending the university, one half of this sum being devoted to women exclusively.” There, Ma, what do you think of that? D’ye see what it means? Instead of waiting till I’m old enough tae get into the women’s college in Edinburgh, or instead of leaving the country for an education – and heaven knows how we could have afforded that – I can bide at hame and take the train into St Andrews every day. Frazer can marry Nancy and get their ain bit. Losh, Ma, with just the two of us and the two weans, we’ll be rich and there’ll be that much room we could hae a lodger and you could stop working in the mill.’