A Nurse's Duty (26 page)

‘Karen, hinny, whatever is it? Oh, it’s because of Joe. You two were always close. Did you think he was hurt? He’s fine, see for yourself,’ cried Mam as she glanced up from Joe’s card.

Blindly, Karen took it, fighting hard for control. ‘Yes, Mam, it’s grand to hear from him, isn’t it?’

She turned over the card with its red ‘Passed by the censor’ stamp, to the picture of the ferocious Turk on the front, and giggled helplessly in spite of her emotional state. How like Joe! Turning back to the message she read: ‘Got yours on Friday. Glad everybody well. How would you like to meet this fellow in the street? I’m in the pink, love, Joe.’ Dear Joe.

‘Well, you’d better hurry, pet, if you want to catch that train. Now you’ve got everything, haven’t you? Drop us a line and let us know how Gran is. I’m sure the farm’s getting too much for her but she does want to keep the tenancy. Don’t forget.’

‘I won’t. And mind you look after yourself.’ Karen hugged her mother. ‘Don’t be lifting anything too heavy or anything like that
now
.’ She pushed the letter from Annie into her bag. She would read it on the train, it would pass the time nicely. Fixing her hat firmly on to her head and pinning it to her unruly curls, she picked up her boxes and went out.

Passing Kezia’s door which was standing open she called her goodbyes and her sister came hurrying out, her hands floury from bread-making so that she had to hold them away from her clothes. Leaning forward, she kissed Karen on the cheek and whispered softly to her.

‘Now don’t worry, I’ll find a way somehow. I know I’ll have to tell Da and Mam sometime, but I want to pick my time. After all, there’s a few months left. And Gran will be all right about it, you’ll see.’

‘Thanks for putting up with me, Kezia. I’ll send you a card. I’d better go now.’ With a last look at the row of cottages which was her childhood home, Karen thought desperately that she would never have the courage to come back. And even if she did, how could she shame her parents?

It was not until Karen was on the train to Stanhope that she remembered Annie’s letter. She had taken control of herself again and was determined to try to forget the past and look only to what was to come. She loved the journey which she knew well from the times she had stayed with Gran for her holidays as a child. In spite of her heartache she found herself looking out for landmarks and noting them with satisfaction. Now she sat back in her seat and took out the letter. There was plenty of time to read it before she reached Stanhope. But the first two lines made her sit up with a muffled exclamation.

Dear Karen

The reason I am writing to you now is that I have had a visitor. It was that Catholic priest, you know, Father Murphy,
the
one who visits up at the Hall, and he was in a proper taking with himself. Evidently he had not realized you were going home and he wanted your address, but I didn’t like to give him it without you knowing. It should be all right with him being a priest but I wonder? Him being in a state, not at all like a priest, if you know what I mean. Karen, I knew something was wrong and made you fly home. Was it him? There were those times he called to see you at the house and we never knew why, or at least I didn’t. He has been back twice but I told him I couldn’t give him your address. Please tell me what you want me to do?

I hope you are feeling better now you are back with your family. Things go on the same here, as you can imagine. There’s a lot of new wounded up at the Hall, poor beggars.

Always your loving friend,

Annie

Karen’s first reaction was one of panic. Then she realized Annie had not given Patrick her address. For a moment she had wanted to run and hide, anywhere, in case he found her. Then she felt a crushing disappointment as she saw there was little likelihood of that; Annie hadn’t given him her address.

Laughing shakily, she visualized the family’s astounded reaction if a Catholic priest turned up on the doorstep in Morton Main asking for her. Not to mention the neighbours. She couldn’t think what they would say but tongues would certainly wag. She folded the letter and put it in her pocket.

The train whistled and slowed as it steamed into Stanhope in Weardale. Hastily she gathered her crazy thoughts, straightened her hat and stepped out on to the platform as the train ground to a halt. She was going to begin a new life here in the dales, the past behind her. But first she would write to Annie and tell her on no account to give Patrick her address.

Chapter Sixteen

‘
FATHER MURPHY! YOU’RE
back then. Did you have a nice time in London?’

Patrick was brought up short as he saw Nurse Ellis standing by the desk in the hall, taking the report from Day Sister. Somehow he had been expecting Karen to be there on her own.

‘Yes, thank you, Nurse. I was visiting my brother, he’s been home on leave,’ he answered. ‘Er, is Sister Knight in one of the wards? I wanted to see her about something.’

‘Sister Knight has left the hospital,’ said Day Sister, her tone disapproving.

‘Left the hospital? You mean she’s ill?’

‘No, I do not, Father. She’s left the hospital for good, gone back to her home somewhere up North. Left us very short-handed, she has. A very unprofessional thing to do, rushing off like that.’

Patrick turned on his heel and went back out. Too late, he thought numbly, too late. But Karen would not have left without leaving him a message, surely? What had he done to her? He had to find her, he had to. Annie would know where she was, surely she would? He would find out her address from Annie. Perhaps she was still with Annie. The hope this thought offered fired him. He set off for the village almost at a run and as he went he berated himself for taking so much time to make up his mind.

He remembered wandering round the village and out on to the high road that night he last saw her; he had been disturbed and unable to settle to sleep and thought a walk would help. At least it might quiet his tumultuous thoughts a little.

He came to a lonely inn about a mile outside the village and
on
impulse went in and ordered a whisky. There were few men in the bar and after greeting him respectfully they left him alone; there was that about him which discouraged company.

Patrick was every bit as hurt and confused as Karen. He thought of the shock on her face as she had come into the hall earlier on and seen him. It had been as deep as his own. She looked smaller somehow, thinner, her face pinched and white. And he was the cause of it. He had hurt her badly when all he wanted to do was gather her up and cherish her, protect her from the world. But that was forbidden him. He had no right to feel for a woman the way other men had, no right at all. It was a sin, a carnal sin. The words went round and round in his head but they were only words, they meant nothing to him, not compared with his feelings.

Patrick sipped the last of his whisky and ordered another.

Why should I not love a woman? he asked himself. I do love her, I’m not ashamed of loving her. What sort of a God could let a man feel like this if it was forbidden him? Is there a God? Are we all deluding ourselves, the whole elaborate edifice of the Church, is it a sham? If there is a God and he doesn’t care about the war and the suffering and death wars bring, why should he care about me and my troubles? Better to think there is no God.

Taking out the letter which had come for him in the morning’s post, the letter from Sean which was in answer to his, he read it through yet again. Sean, his friend from seminary days. But he had not written what Patrick wanted to hear. Sean was firm in his demands that Patrick should forget his doubts and turn back in true penitence to the Faith.

… you must put this woman behind you, Patrick, you must give her up, repent. Go to see the bishop, you need spiritual counselling. Loss of faith can be a temporary thing. You must carry on. You must pray to God and in time your prayers will be answered …

And in a postscript, Sean had said he was coming down to Essex to see him, to make him see sense, and to speak to the woman if need be.

‘I have met her, Patrick,’ he concluded. ‘You are not the first man to be entangled with her, she is a …’

Patrick’s mind cut off the word Sean had called her there. It wasn’t true, he knew it couldn’t be. Sean was simply trying to make him put her out of his life. But Patrick couldn’t. Rising abruptly, he went back to the bar and ordered another drink and when it came he resumed his seat in the corner. He sipped the whisky and a picture of Karen as she entered the hall of the hospital an hour or so before came into his mind. His thoughts swung away from the guilt he should be feeling to the love he had for her. Repent? Why should he? He loved her, why should he give her up? Surely a love like this could not be wrong, it was as natural as breathing air. And whatever, Karen was not the reason for his lost faith. His eyes had been opened as he worked with the broken minds and bodies of the young soldiers at Greenfields.

He had already kept an appointment with his bishop. Sean was quite wrong in thinking he could help.

‘I am living a lie, my life is a sham,’ Patrick had said. And he had listened dumbly to phrases which were supposed to help. Phrases which meant nothing at all to him, they were only words and hadn’t he mouthed similar phrases himself, to the young men on the wards? ‘Is there something you are not telling me, my son, something, someone, involved in this, drawing you away?’ asked the bishop. Was he used to young priests coming to him like this, ordinary men who had thought they were above ordinary human love and had discovered they were wrong? Or did a priest sometimes panic when he realized that he was human after all and fallible, he could not be Christ, he could not even be Christlike?

Patrick had not told the bishop about Karen, he could not. He
shook
his head. ‘You must pray, get down on your knees.’ ‘God knows, I have prayed …’

‘You would not use such a term if you did not believe, deep in your heart. You are risking your immortal soul here, man.’ The bishop had sounded irritated, impatient. ‘You must pray, pray unceasingly that God will forgive you.’

Patrick had left unmoved in his resolution. When he entered the priesthood he had been following a path which was mapped out for him since he was a child. Then he had thought what a grand thing it would be to be a priest. He had listened to his mother and shared in her fervour. Oh, how she had worked and longed for him to become a priest, how she boasted about him to anyone who would listen.

‘Patrick is to go to Maynooth,’ she’d said, bringing it into every conversation she had with anybody. And Patrick had listened and desperately wanted it. He worked and prayed that he would succeed. He had a true vocation, he was sure of it. It had been the happiest day of his young life when he entered the seminary. His faith was absolute, his love of God the greatest thing in his life. The beauty of the Mass, the sublime beauty of the Catholic Faith itself … there had been no doubts then, none at all.

But the war had changed everything. He felt his eyes were well and truly opened now. He drained his glass and rose to his feet. He had come to a decision. In these last weeks he had avoided Karen as he struggled to make up his mind. But tomorrow he would go to her and tell her, ask her to forgive him for the way he had treated her. It was not his love for Karen which had forced his decision, he told himself. It was the senseless suffering and slaughter of this war, the wasted lives such as Private O’Donnel’s, the misery of war. It was a world revealed without God. Patrick bade the barman a short ‘Goodnight’ and left the inn.

Next morning, though his resolve remained firm, Patrick had to
change
his plans. In the post there was a letter from Betty, his sister-in-law. His brother James was home from France, having sustained an injury to his left arm in the battle for Passchendaele and he was home on leave recuperating.

‘… it’s not serious,’ Betty had written. ‘He would have written himself except that he is left-handed, as you know. Still, we would be pleased to see you if you could manage to get up to London for a few days.’

‘Of course you must go, Patrick,’ said Father Brown when told of the letter. ‘You’ve been looking strained yourself these last weeks. A spell away at your brother’s will do you good. Don’t worry about the boys at Greenfields, I’ll see to them. After all, it’s only for a few days. Or perhaps a week. Take a week, Patrick.’

Nothing could change much in a week, he told himself. He thought of leaving a note for Karen, but how could he express in a note what he felt? He could go to see her at Mrs Blakey’s cottage but he knew she would be going to bed for the day just about this time. She might already have gone. And Mrs Blakey might ask awkward questions if he insisted on seeing Karen. Annie had looked sideways at him the last time she had seen him with Karen. In the end, he went off to Hackney, which was where his brother lived, without doing anything to get in touch with Karen at all. She would still be at the hospital when he got back, he reasoned, and in the meanwhile he had more time to consider his best course of action.

James, Patrick’s brother, was sitting in a comfortable armchair before the fire with his youngest child Alice, who was three years old, on his knee, sleeping. He was a tall, strong man with a red face sporting a thick moustache and a close-cropped head which only showed the black of his hair by the line of slightly longer hair at the top of his brow. He looked to be in the rudest of health were it not for the fact that his left arm was in a sling.

‘Ah, it’s you, Patrick,’ he bellowed, whereupon the child in his arms woke up and started to grizzle. ‘Betty! Come and see to Alice, will you? She wants her bed, I’m thinking.’

‘I don’t want to go to bed, Daddy,’ cried Alice, her grizzles turning to wails so that Patrick had to raise his voice to be heard over the din.

‘Hallo, James. You look well enough I must say. Betty said you had been hurt but there’s not much sign of any injury from here. Are you sure you haven’t been having us on?’

‘Shame on you, and you a priest. It’s hard as nails you are,’ said James cheerfully.