Amelia Read online

  ‘I don’t know. Oh hurry, Papa. He’s very ill. I don’t think he’s conscious.’

  ‘Just a minute, Amelia,’ said Papa, and disappeared back into the browny-yellow maw of the pub. Now what was going on? The seconds ticked by, and Amelia shifted from one foot to the other uneasily. She had lost sight of Papa as soon as he went back into the pub, strain as she would to see him. Her friend who had called her father for her caught her eye again and winked at her. But it was a friendly wink. To her own astonishment, and in spite of her worried state, Amelia winked back.

  Just then she started at a clip-clopping sound behind her. She turned to see Papa atop a spanking dog-cart, with a whip in his hand.

  ‘The publican was just back from some business in town,’ Papa called down to her as he turned towards Rathmines, where the doctor lived. ‘He hadn’t even unhitched the horse. I’ll get the doc to Edmund as fast as I can, Amelia. You hurry on home now to him. You’re a topping little girl, you know.’ And with that he was gone, with a crack of the whip and a whirr of the large, elegant wheels.

  The Diagnosis

  Amelia hurried home. She found Edmund still half-conscious, with Grandmama bending over him. The oil lamp still burned on the tallboy, and the room was full of its soft light. Edmund’s breathing was fast and shallow, and the sound of it seemed to fill Amelia’s ears. His face, which had been pale when she left, was bright now with fever, and every now and then he seemed to murmur something that she couldn’t quite catch.

  ‘A fire,’ said Amelia to Grandmama. ‘I’ll set a fire here.’

  Grandmama knew a fire wasn’t necessary. The night was mild. But it would give Amelia something to do.

  ‘Good girl,’ she said. ‘That’s a good idea.’

  Grandmama sat on the side of Edmund’s bed and whispered to him while Amelia toiled up and down the stairs with buckets. Amelia couldn’t hear what she was saying, but it seemed to comfort Edmund, because his own disjointed murmuring stopped, and – perhaps she was imagining it – his breathing seemed to become more regular.

  At last she had a small fire going in the grate. It smoked and spat, but Amelia knew it was only a matter of time before it took off and lit up properly. Then it would be like a friend for Edmund in the room.

  When she had taken the fuel bucket downstairs again, Amelia came back up and joined Grandmama on the other side of Edmund’s bed. Now that she had stopped rustling and clanking, she could hear what Grandmama was saying: she was repeating the Lord’s Prayer over and over again. After a moment, Amelia joined in: ‘Our Father, Which art in heaven, Hallow’d be Thy name …’

  Before they got to ‘As we forgive them …’ Amelia heard the patter and the clatter of the dog-cart outside, and Papa’s loud ‘Whoa, there, boy’ to the publican’s horse, and the sharp clicking of horse-shoes on the road, as the horse slowed down suddenly. Presently there was the sound of Papa’s key in the door and then the two men came pounding up the stairs.

  Amelia had always liked Dr Mitchell, but she had never been so glad to see him as tonight. He was tall and terribly thin, which made him seem taller still, and he bent his head as he entered the room, a precaution he always took in strange houses, in case the door lintel wasn’t as high as he was.

  Grandmama and Amelia excused themselves, partly to allow the doctor to examine Edmund in peace, but mainly because there wasn’t enough room for them all in the tiny bedroom.

  ‘You go too, Charles,’ said the doctor to Papa, who was staring distractedly at the little heap in the bed that was his son. ‘I’ll make progress quicker on my own.’ The doctor was already poking in his black bag for his stethoscope and his mercury thermometer.

  ‘Can I bring you anything, Doctor?’ asked Amelia. She hoped there would be something – hot water, towels, a kettle, a basin – she could be getting. It was dreadful to feel helpless.

  But the doctor shook his head. ‘Just leave me with him for a few minutes. A little peace is the best thing, now. Make your father a cup of tea, Amelia.’

  ‘Oh yes!’ cried Amelia, delighted to be given a task. And she skipped down the stairs ahead of Papa and Grandmama, who lurched down together arm in arm, though there really wasn’t room on the narrow staircase.

  Papa and Grandmama sat in silence at either end of the kitchen table, while Amelia busied herself making tea. She put out four cups and saucers – everyone might as well have a cup. And this time, she never thought even for a fleeting second of the incident in Findlater’s shop as she made the tea. All her thoughts were upstairs by Edmund’s bedside.

  Or rather not quite all her thoughts. With a little corner of her mind she thought about Mama, and she heartily wished she were here. Grandmama was too silent to be of any comfort to Amelia, and Papa – well, much as she loved her papa, somehow having him there didn’t feel like having a grown-up in the house at all.

  The doctor came heavily down the stairs, mopping his forehead with a large check handkerchief. It must have been very warm in Edmund’s room with the fire lighting, and then there had been so many people.

  He drew out a chair and sat down gravely at the kitchen table.

  ‘Dear Lord,’ Amelia thought to herself. ‘Dear Lord, don’t let it be consumption.’ Consumption was the worst thing she had ever heard of. She knew it got you in the chest, and Edmund had always been chesty. ‘Dear Lord, please, I’ll go to Meeting every Sunday and I’ll wear any old dresses, just don’t let it be consumption.’ Then she thought again. She might as well get value for such a big promise. ‘Or scarlet fever, or diphtheria, or the croup.’ She was adding as many serious illnesses as she could think of.

  ‘Well, Charles,’ said the doctor at last. ‘I’m afraid it’s a bad case of pneumonia.’

  Pneumonia! She hadn’t thought of that one. If she’d added that one quickly enough, would she have been able to save Edmund with her prayer? No, that was silly, she realised as soon as she thought it.

  ‘What’s the prognosis, Hubert?’

  ‘Well, he’s not a strong boy, as you know,’ said the doctor slowly. Oh quickly, quickly, say he’s going to be all right. ‘But he may pull through, with good nursing.’

  ‘Should we move him to hospital?’

  ‘No. I wouldn’t recommend it. If he is well looked after here he’ll be as well off. The journey wouldn’t do him any good, in his present condition. Can you promise me he will be well nursed? Where’s Roberta?’

  Amelia’s mouth fell open. Papa couldn’t lie, not in front of Grandmama. If he did, she would simply contradict him. But surely he couldn’t tell the truth either. It was too humiliating. Amelia forgot all about being proud of Mama. At that moment, she wished to goodness Mama had never heard of votes for women.

  ‘She’s been called away,’ said Papa. ‘Suddenly. She can’t be with us just now.’

  Brilliant! Even Grandmama couldn’t baulk at that.

  ‘Surely she can come back? In the circumstances.’

  ‘No,’ said Papa firmly, making it quite clear he wasn’t going to explain or argue. ‘Not even in the circumstances.’

  ‘Oh dear. Well, in that case, maybe we should move the lad to hospital after all.’

  ‘No!’ thundered Papa. ‘Not if there is the smallest risk attached. Amelia will nurse him. I have the utmost confidence in Amelia.’

  In spite of herself, Amelia swelled up inwardly. Papa had the utmost confidence in her.

  The doctor looked at Amelia. She drew herself up under his gaze and pushed her chin out as if to say, I’ll do it! I’ll make him well if it’s humanly possible.

  The doctor rubbed his chin. Then he took out a notebook and wrote down a series of instructions for Amelia. He gave her a thermometer and showed her how to read it. He gave lengthy directions about the preparation of poultices. And he gave her a large bottle of pink medicine, nearly as big as a soda syphon, and he told her to give him a tablespoonful three times a day. He told her what he should drink and how often he should drink. He gave her stuff to rub o
n his back and stuff to rub on his chest and he asked her if she knew how to make beef tea. She nodded, even though she didn’t, because she was sure it would be in Mrs Beeton’s book of recipes and advice on household management that Mama kept at all times on the kitchen dresser.

  At last he stood up and went to the door. Amelia’s heart sank as she watched him go. Now Edmund was her responsibility. At the door the doctor turned and said, ‘I’ll be back in the morning.’ Relief flooded through Amelia.

  ‘Come along, Charles. You’ll have to drive me home, as you wouldn’t let me take my own horse because you were in such a rush to get me here.’

  Grandmama wanted to sit up with Amelia, but Amelia argued that there was no point in both of them losing a night’s sleep. She would need Grandmama to take over in the morning. So, reluctantly, Grandmama went to bed. Amelia undressed and put on her dressing-gown, but she didn’t go to bed. She sat by Edmund’s bed in Mama’s old rocking chair, one of the few pieces of furniture they had brought with them from Kenilworth Square, and rocked and listened to the pattern of his breathing. It was an armless rocking chair, the kind called a nursing chair, designed for mothers to sit in and nurse their babies without being hampered by arms. Mama had nursed her and Edmund in it.

  Amelia was to bathe Edmund’s face every hour with tepid water, and to give him a drink if he woke. Barley water, the doctor had said, but for tonight plain boiled water would have to do. She sat tensely, listening for any change in his breathing.

  Papa came back shortly and joined Amelia. He sat on the foot of the bed with a loud creak and leant sidewards against the bedstead. He was tired. He’d driven to and from the doctor’s, four journeys in all, and then he’d had to stable the publican’s horse and groom him, and walk home from the pub. He let out a long sigh.

  ‘Oh, Amelia,’ he whispered. ‘What is to become of us? I wish your mother were here. Poor Edmund.’ At this point he beat his fist softly but with feeling on the bedpost. ‘Oh God! My little boy! My only son! Don’t take away my only son!’

  Papa’s eyes were tightly closed, but a tear crept down his cheek all the same.

  ‘Oh, Papa,’ said Amelia. ‘You’ve got a daughter too.’

  She didn’t mean that she could ever take Edmund’s place. She only said it to comfort Papa, but he must have taken her up wrongly, because he said, ‘Ah, a daughter. Daughters are well and fine, but what is a man without a son?’

  It was as if someone had hit Amelia in the stomach. Hard. She knew Papa was tired and distraught but even so, what ever did he mean? What was a man without a son? Could it be that Edmund was more to Papa than just Edmund? Could he mean that Edmund was not just his darling child that he couldn’t bear to lose, but that he had some sort of special value, because he was a boy? How could that be? Did fathers, for all their doting on their daughters, secretly esteem their sons more highly? Try as she would to excuse Papa, Amelia could not avoid this conclusion. Edmund was more to him than she was, because he was a male child.

  Then she felt angry. Not jealous. How could she be jealous of this poor, ailing child she had been put in charge of? How could she feel anything but love and pity for him, who was so weak and so in need of her care? She felt angry. But she wasn’t angry with Papa. Papa didn’t mean to hurt her, she knew that. He was only saying what was true. That boys were more valuable than girls. That was what made her angry. That bare fact.

  Now she thought she had an inkling of what it was that made Mama what she was. Mama must have felt this anger too. It must be this anger that made her walk the streets with a placard and land herself in gaol. At last, Amelia began to understand.

  The Crisis

  The next day they moved Edmund into Grandmama’s bed, so that Amelia wouldn’t have to sleep in a chair in order to be with him at night, and Grandmama took over Edmund’s room. Grandmama wanted to take turns in nursing Edmund at night, but Amelia wouldn’t hear of it. Grandmama was an old lady. The strain might be too much for her. In any case if something terrible happened to Grandmama in the middle of the night, what use would she be to Edmund? And of course Papa couldn’t be expected to keep watch through the night. He had to get up in the mornings to go to work.

  For nine days and nine nights Amelia nursed her little brother. At night she slept fitfully, waking hourly to bathe him down and to administer medicines and treatments as the doctor prescribed. Twice in the night she would refill his hot-water jar. During that time, Amelia got to know the hours of the night the way most people know the hours of the day. She knew the darkest hours and when they came, and she knew when the grey streaks in the sky heralded the dawn, and how long it would be before the sun came up. She knew when to expect the birdsong, and when it would be at its most vociferous, and she knew when to expect the cheerful clatter of the milk-cart on the street and the first sounds of the waking city. And as each day dawned, Amelia thought of Mama locked up in her cell in Mountjoy, and she wondered if Mama had a window, and if she was waking up now and seeing the grey light of dawn through the bars. It was almost two weeks since they had seen Mama, and Amelia missed her dreadfully.

  In the daytime, Amelia would sleep when she got a chance, to make up for her broken nights. She didn’t mind leaving Grandmama in charge of Edmund for a few hours during the day. She napped in Edmund’s proper bed, where Grandmama slept at night now.

  They let the house go to pot. Grandmama and Papa managed as best they could, scratching meals together and washing up and sweeping and keeping the fire in the range going, but the house was never dusted, the windows were never cleaned, the pots were never properly scrubbed. Nine days is not a very long time, but it is surprising how grimy a house can get in that time, particularly a house in which fires are kept constantly burning. Every time Amelia noticed the dust and dirt, she thought of Mama. For all her madcap ways, Mama would never let the house get like this, and Amelia silently apologised to her.

  Every day Amelia changed Edmund’s sheets, which were drenched with sweat. Grandmama was too frail to wash clothes, and Amelia was too busy, so they sent everything to the laundry. Grandmama staggered off most mornings with a laundry-bag full of Edmund’s bedlinen and she trotted home with the previous day’s sheets in a nice tidy parcel, all starched and crisp from the laundresses’ hands. The Magdalen Laundry it was called. People said that was where the ‘fallen women’ worked. Whatever fallen women were, thought Amelia, they were certainly a dab hand with an iron. Amelia sent a load of Papa’s shirts there too when he began to complain that he was running out.

  Dr Mitchell came daily to check on Edmund. He told Amelia that she was doing a fine job, better than any hospital nurse. He took off his stethoscope and put it over Amelia’s head and showed her how to listen to the heartbeat and how to detect the sound of something wrong in the chest. Amelia was fascinated, but she didn’t practise too much with it, because she worried that Edmund would catch cold lying there with his nightshirt up around his neck and his little white body exposed to the air.

  ‘Maybe we’ll make a nurse of you, Amelia,’ said the doctor cheerfully.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Amelia. ‘I don’t want to be a nurse. I’d like to be a doctor.’

  It was only as the words dropped from her lips that Amelia realised that this was her ambition. She turned the idea over in her mind: Dr Amelia Pim, with a bulging little black budget, a stethoscope around her neck and a stopwatch in her pocket. Perhaps she could specialise in looking after children, or maybe in looking after women in childbirth. But definitely she would prefer to be a doctor than a nurse. Nurses did an important job in looking after their patients, but Amelia wanted not just to nurse but to know. She wanted to know what made people ill and she wanted to know how to cure them. She wanted to be the one who detected what it was that a patient had, and who decided which were the right medicines, and she wanted to know how to write complicated Latin squiggles for the chemist to decipher.

  ‘Indeed!’ said Dr Mitchell with a loud laugh, as if Amelia had made a gr
eat joke. ‘I think you’ll find, Amelia, that a lady can’t be a doctor.’

  ‘Why is that, Doctor?’ asked Amelia, puzzled.

  ‘Well,’ said the doctor, and paused for a moment, as if he couldn’t quite think why. ‘I suppose,’ he said at last, rather lamely, ‘it’s just not the sort of thing ladies are good at.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Amelia, disappointed to have her dream shattered before it had even been properly dreamt.

  ‘Nursing, now,’ the doctor was saying, ‘that is an honourable profession for a girl with a medical turn of mind. I have known some very fine nurses in my time, excellent women all.’

  But Amelia said nothing at all.

  On the ninth day, a Saturday, the doctor explained to Amelia that this was the crisis point. That meant that it was an important stage in the development of the pneumonia. If Edmund survived this night, he said, he would pull through.

  Amelia wasn’t sure whether she was glad or sorry to hear this. Every day up to now, she had been thinking only of the demands of the moment: did Edmund need a drink, was his temperature creeping up, was he in a draught? But now for the first time she began to think about Edmund’s dying. No, she mustn’t let him die. What if Mama came home from prison to find that Amelia had let her little boy die? It was too dreadful even to imagine.

  She wouldn’t go to bed at all this night, she resolved. She would keep him alive by sheer will-power.

  Sure enough, as the doctor had predicted, the fever seemed to reach a peak that night. The child’s eyes rolled in his head, he babbled incoherently, his breath rattled in his throat, and all night, sweat ran in beads off his body and drenched the sheets. All night Amelia sat by him. She tried to force him into consciousness, talking him out of his delirium by keeping up a steady flow of sensible talk, not letting him slip into incoherence. She felt that if she could prevent his mind from rambling, she would somehow save him. She had never thought about death before, but tonight she became convinced it was a breakdown in order and coherence, a descent into chaos and nonsense.