Authors: Dilly Court
‘Hush, please,’ the nurse said urgently. ‘You’re upsetting the other patients, Mrs Fowler.’
‘Perhaps you’d best send for a constable, nurse,’ Dr Murchison said, glowering. ‘I haven’t time to stand here and argue with this person.’
‘Here, who are you calling a person?’ Minnie advanced on him with a belligerent set to her jaw.
Eyeing Minnie nervously, Phoebe noticed for the first time that she had whiskers growing out of her chin like a man. This confirmed her long-held suspicion that Minnie Sykes was only half female. She held her breath, hardly daring to intervene in case she made matters worse. It was a stand-off now; a battle of wills between the doctor and the two sisters.
‘Well, ma’am. Make up your mind,’ Dr Murchison said icily. ‘Do I send for the police or will you agree to the life-saving operation on your child.’
‘She’s no child,’ Ethel said, brazen to the last. ‘She’s all but fifteen. Old enough to be wed, so she’s no longer my responsibility. Chop her head off for all I care, but don’t send her back to me. I never want to see the
simpleton
again. Come, Minnie. We know where we’re not wanted.’
‘I’ll take that as a yes, then.’ Dr Murchison turned to the nurse. ‘Make Miss Fowler ready for the operating theatre, please. There’s no time to lose.’
He was about to walk away but Phoebe caught him by his coat tail. ‘Doctor, one moment if you please.’
He turned his head to give her an appraising glance. ‘Yes, but hurry.’
‘Who will pay for Dolly’s operation? I’ve half a crown I can give you now.’
His stern features relaxed a little. ‘That will be a matter for the ward clerk to sort out later. We do have some charitable beds and maybe we can utilise one of those for Dolly since her mother seems to have washed her hands of the poor creature.’
‘Will she die, doctor?’
He hesitated. ‘I won’t lie to you, Miss er …’
‘Phoebe Giamatti. I’m just a friend.’
‘And a good one too, if I may say so. Well, Miss Giamatti, I’ll do my very best. The outcome is in the hands of a higher authority.’
Phoebe sank down onto the hard wooden seat. She knew Dolly only a little, but she had been touched by the sorry conditions in which she found the girl, and even more so by the knowledge that her wretched mother had disowned her. She could not imagine her own mother doing anything so cruel and callous. Ma might be many things, but she had always been kind and loving. A little too loving perhaps when it came to the opposite sex, but that was just Ma. It was in her
nature
to give and it seemed that it was in Mrs Fowler’s nature to take. Phoebe settled down to wait for the outcome of the procedure in theatre. She knew that Nonna would be angry with her for being away so long, and that Ma would be fretting for the fancies that her appetite craved, but they would have to wait. She sat upright against the rigid panel at the back of the bench, praying that Dolly would survive the operation.
She must have drifted off into an uneasy doze as suddenly she realised that someone was shaking her gently by the shoulder. Phoebe opened her eyes with a start and found herself looking up into the smiling face of the young nurse.
‘The procedure was successful, miss. Dolly has come round from the anaesthetic and you may see her if you wish.’
Phoebe swallowed hard as tears of relief threatened to choke her. She rose slowly to her feet, stretching her cramped limbs. ‘Thank you, nurse.’
‘Come this way.’
Following the nurse through long corridors that smelt strongly of carbolic, Phoebe was faced with a new problem. Dolly had survived but now she was as good as orphaned. Unless Mrs Fowler changed her mind, and from what Phoebe knew of her she deemed this unlikely, Dolly had no home and she was unfit for most types of work. She would end up on the streets or in the workhouse. Her future looked bleak indeed.
The nurse led her into a long ward lined on either side with regimented rows of iron beds with starched
white
sheets and glassy coverlets drawn up to the chins of the patients, most of whom lay motionless, either sleeping or staring vacantly at the ceiling. Dolly was in a bed furthest from the door. Her head was swathed in bandages and her eyes were closed. She was deathly pale and Phoebe turned anxiously to the nurse. ‘Is she going to be all right?’
The nurse pulled up a chair, motioning Phoebe to take a seat. ‘She’s still suffering the effects of the anaesthetic but if you talk to her she might respond.’ She waited until Phoebe had settled herself before drawing the curtains round the bed. ‘I’ll bring you a cup of tea, miss. You’ve had a long wait.’ She withdrew, leaving Phoebe alone with the unconscious girl.
‘Dolly.’ Phoebe leaned closer to the bed. ‘It’s me, Phoebe. Can you hear me?’
She was rewarded by a flicker of Dolly’s eyelids and a slight movement of her pale lips. Encouraged, Phoebe moved a little nearer. ‘You gave us a nasty fright, young Dolly. But you’re all fixed up now, and soon you’ll be your old self again.’
Dolly opened her eyes, focusing on Phoebe’s face with obvious difficulty. ‘Ma?’
‘No, dear. It’s Phoebe. You probably don’t remember me, but I used to keep you amused sometimes when your ma came to my house to have her fortune told.’
‘Ice cream,’ Dolly murmured sleepily. ‘Hokey-pokey; penny licks.’
Encouraged, Phoebe smiled. ‘That’s right. I used to give you ice cream when Nonna wasn’t looking. You like ice cream, don’t you, Dolly?’
‘I do.’ Dolly closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep with a gentle smile curving her full lips.
Once again, Phoebe blinked away tears. Whatever the surgeons had done, they had brought Dolly back to life again. She sniffed and searched in her skirt pocket for a hanky. Nonna always insisted that Phoebe should have a clean hanky in her pocket and wear freshly laundered undergarments, just in case. Quite what that case might be Phoebe had only a vague notion, but she thought it might have something to do with street accidents, such as being run over by a brewer’s dray, or falling beneath the wheels of a hansom cab and ending up in hospital. Or in Dolly’s case, simply falling to the floor and hitting your head on a sharp object, if that was how she had received her near fatal injury. Phoebe suspected that Dolly might have been beaten by her mother or had been flung across the room in a fit of temper, which would account for the severity of her wound. The truth of what had occurred in that dreadful room might never be known. Ethel would never admit to any wrongdoing and Dolly was unlikely to remember the exact course of events leading to her accident.
Phoebe looked up as the nurse drew back the curtain and handed her a steaming mug of tea. ‘There you are, miss. Drink that and it’ll bring the colour back to your cheeks. You’d gone quite pale back there. I thought we might have to find a bed for you.’
Phoebe accepted the tea gratefully. ‘Ta, nurse. I was feeling a bit queasy, but I’m fine now, and Dolly has spoken to me. She remembered ice cream. Perhaps I could bring her in some. Would that be allowed?’
‘I don’t see why not, miss. But I suggest you go when you’ve drunk your tea. She needs plenty of rest and quiet.’
‘But she will be all right, won’t she?’
‘It’s too early to tell and anyway you’d need the doctor’s opinion, not mine. But she’s come this far, so I think it’s a good sign.’
Phoebe returned to the hospital whenever she could get away from the house and her interminable chores. Each time she visited Dolly she took a small basket lined with cabbage leaves and packed with ice in which she placed a bowl of Nonno’s vanilla ice cream. It was worth all the trouble to see the smile on Dolly’s face. She was recovering well, but the question of where she would go when discharged from hospital was looming large in Phoebe’s mind. Neither Mrs Fowler nor Minnie Sykes had been near the ward, and Dr Murchison did not bother to disguise the contempt he felt for Dolly’s family when he told Phoebe that she would soon be well enough to leave hospital. Phoebe did not need her mother’s crystal ball to tell her that Dolly would not be welcomed at home. So far she had kept the reason for her daily visits to Bart’s from the family. Her mother had barely noticed her absences, living as she was in a self-centred world of her own, and fretting daily because Ned had made no attempt to contact her. ‘He doesn’t love me,’ she moaned when Phoebe showed concern for her. ‘He was pleased enough to have his way with me but he don’t care for me, not one bit.’ She turned her face to the wall, refusing to say another word.
There had been nothing that Phoebe could say or do which would make any difference or penetrate the wall of misery that her mother had built around herself, and there was no one at home in whom she could confide. Her grandfather was fully occupied making vast quantities of ice cream and water ices to supply the public’s needs, and somehow she did not think her grandmother would be very sympathetic to Dolly’s plight.
In the end it was Gino who discovered the truth by following her one evening when she went to the hospital. He was outside, leaning against the wall and smoking a cheroot, when she emerged from the main entrance. He tossed the butt into the gutter and fell into step beside her. ‘So, are you going to tell me what’s going on, cara? I thought we had no secrets from each other.’
‘It’s not really a secret, Gino.’
‘Then why do you come here every day? You aren’t sick, are you?’
She slipped her hand through the crook of his arm, giving it a squeeze. ‘No, of course not. It’s not me, it’s Dolly Fowler. She had a bad fall and needed an operation.’
He threw back his head and laughed. ‘That’s a relief. I thought you were either dying of consumption or you had fallen in love with a handsome doctor.’
‘You are silly, Gino. Why didn’t you ask me outright? And why did you feel the need to follow me? It was wrong of you.’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I love you, Phoebe. I
know
you don’t feel the same way about me and that our engagement is in name only, but I never know what’s going on in your head. Sometimes you seem very far away from me.’
She stopped, turning to face him squarely. ‘You are so good to me, Gino. I appreciate everything you’re doing for me and for Ma. Without your help I would never have managed to persuade Nonno to let me stay in London.’
‘And what will happen when your mother is delivered of the child? What will you say to your grandparents when they return to London next spring?’
‘I don’t know. That’s Ma’s problem, not mine. All I know is that I have to protect her from the Paxman gang and from my uncles. They believe in vendetta and I know that Julio has friends in the Camorra, and possibly the ‘Ndrangheta too. Nonno doesn’t know about it and he would be furious if he found out, and I don’t want my family torn apart by Ma’s affair with Ned Paxman.’ Phoebe stopped to draw breath, looking over her shoulder in case anyone might have overheard her anxious words. The gangs had spies everywhere. There was no one you could trust implicitly. Spies were rewarded by their masters and punished by those whom they betrayed. The dead houses on the banks of the Thames were filled with corpses fished out of the water by the river police or the lightermen.
In answer, Gino drew her roughly into his arms, pressing her back against the cold glass of a bookshop window. His mouth sought hers and his tongue parted her lips, caressing, tasting and consuming her with a
sudden
release of pent-up passion. His body was hard against hers and she could taste the smoky fragrance of the cigar on his breath. She struggled at first but the sweet sensations racing through her blood made her go weak at the knees. Needy for love and understanding, she slid her arms around his neck, allowing him to take her weight as she gave herself up to the pleasure of a close embrace from a man who loved her with all his heart. A small voice in her head warned her that this was unfair, but his ardour had awakened something deep inside her that craved to be satisfied. It was Gino who eventually drew away just far enough to gaze into her face. His eyes were glazed with desire and his full lips were parted as if he were about to kiss her again.
She let her arms fall to her sides. ‘We should get home, Gino.’
‘You do love me, cara. You wouldn’t kiss me like that if you had no feeling for me.’
‘I don’t want to give you false hope.’
He stroked her neck with the tips of his fingers. ‘But you could love me. I know it.’
‘There’s too much going on in my head. With Ma in such a state and having to keep her condition a secret from Nonna, I can’t think about my own feelings. You must give me time, Gino.’
He brushed her hair back from her face, dropping a kiss on the tip of her nose. ‘I’ll give you all the time you want, my beloved Phoebe.’ He raised her hand to his lips, kissing the gold ring. ‘It’s going to be a long winter for me without you, but in the spring I hope you’ll have made up your mind.’
‘I will. I promise you that I will.’ She straightened her blouse, tucking it into the waistband of her navy blue serge skirt. ‘Now, let’s go home. If Nonna is in a good mood perhaps she’ll ask you to stay for supper.’
‘He’s a fine boy,’ Maria said, ladling boiled cabbage onto the macaroni and bacon. ‘You’ll be well cared for when you marry Gino. I don’t know why you can’t come with us and marry him right away. I could have a great-grandchild on my knee by next summer if only you would see sense. You shouldn’t give up your young life for that mother of yours.’
Phoebe smiled. She knew better than to argue with Nonna. ‘Shall I take this one up to Ma?’
Maria’s brow darkened. ‘She can come downstairs and eat with the family. I’m getting tired of her vapours. She’s done nothing but lie in bed all day. I think I could stand her going to the pub and coming home tipsy better than this pretence of being ill. She should get up and do a day’s work. I’m the slave round here, working my fingers to the bone while she swoons and playacts.’
Phoebe was struck with a sudden brilliant idea. She put the plate down. ‘Nonna, I think I have the solution. As I’m doing Ma’s readings and the table tipping and everything, I can’t help you as much as I used to, but I know a young girl who might just suit. She is a willing worker and will do as she’s told.’