The next four days were a nightmare. Although clearly feeling ill and apprehensive at first Bob Tyrrell tried to keep a cheerful face. As his jaw gradually clenched he still tried to crack little jokes, which May smiled and laughed at. Then the jokes became smaller and sadder, and ceased altogether once the spasms laid hold of him like a giant hand and forced his body into a rigid arch, so that only the back of his head and the heels of his feet still touched the bed. As Sister had predicted, his stitches tore apart and his stomach wound gaped; May padded and bound it as loosely as she dared and as gently as she could, bending across so that her body hid the exposed gut from his tortured gaze.
May had to fight for control of herself, repeating like a litany, ‘Slow and rhythmical movements, be slow and rhythmical, don’t hurry, touch him gently, warm your hands and be gentle.’ Then, as he collapsed back on the mattress exhausted she tried, oh so carefully, to spoon a little liquid through the gap they had made by pulling out his front teeth. And all the time he lay there with his mouth twisted up, his eyebrows raised and his whole face fixed and rigid in a travesty of a grin. But his eyes, despairing and hopeless, were fixed on May’s, so that she felt her own facial muscles stiffen and contract as she kept her face smiling and her expression calm.
In a corner of her mind May remembered Lady Clarence’s patient, tireless training. ‘Walk more slowly, May, do not bob up and down, move smoothly, be graceful. You must sit absolutely still in your chair, do not ever fidget.’ Now May was grateful as she sat quite still and did not fidget and moved so slowly and smoothly – yet still he went into violent contortions, and once she knew it was her fault, when the door slipped in her hand and banged as she came back from her half-hour at dinner; she watched helpless, consumed with guilt as his body reared up and hung suspended.
Betty Tyrrell, and Bob’s tiny wrinkled mother slipped in and crouched motionless in the corner. The two women’s hands were clasped and May sensed their desperate longing, willing him to survive, to recover. May made herself believe he would; she forced her mind to blank out Sister Simeon’s predictions and kept repeating to herself only, ‘He will get better, he will get better,’ and fancied she saw a faint glimmer of reassurance in the eyes staring up into hers.
Dr Barnes and Sister came and went. At mealtimes Staff Nurse slipped in and sent May out; she ate mechanically, grateful for Ellen’s fierce unspoken protectiveness, which allowed her to sit in silence and pull herself together for the inevitable return. At night, when Grayson came to take over, May did not want to leave, convinced that the stolid Grayson with flat white face and boot button eyes could not understand and anticipate as she could do; though she knew that the other nurse was tireless and efficient.
At the end of four days it was clear that willpower was not enough: Bob Tyrrell was dying. He was gasping for breath, his skin was cold and wet with sweat as May touched him, and his face livid and swollen with the oedema of incipient heart failure. Yet his eyes were still alive, and he gazed imploringly at his wife as she bent over him, whispering her love and her devotion. May watched with breaking heart, and saw intensity give way to resignation; she knew he could fight no longer.
She helped Betty Tyrrell back to her chair before closing the eyelids of the body, relaxed at last. Then she went to the door and summoned assistance, her voice still even and low-pitched, although the man on the bed would suffer no more convulsions now.
After Staff came she led the two women out and listened to their broken words of thanks as she swallowed the bitter taste of defeat. Sister came, and May realised she was offering her a choice: she did not have to lay out the body if she did not wish it. But feeling that she must complete her duty to Bob Tyrrell to the end she said she would prefer to do so. Sister nodded, and left Staff to help her, for which May was grateful.
By late morning the body had been removed, the bedding bundled up and sent down to be sterilised, the mattress and bed carbolised, and the room thoroughly scrubbed out. May reported to Sister Simeon in the ward; the latter ordered her to go and wash in a bath laced with disinfectant and to send all her own clothes for fumigation. ‘Then you may go off duty until five, Nurse Winton.’ As she heard these last words, and realised she was no longer needed in the small side ward, May felt the threatening tears well up, but Sister Simeon’s stern voice telling her to pull herself together held them poised on her lids, and they did not spill over. Then came her dismissal.
‘That is all, Nurse Winton, you have done everything that was necessary.’
But despite her shock and grief May knew that this was not true; there was still something more she must do. Hesitant, groping for words and worried by her own presumption in the face of the inexorable hospital system she reminded Sister Simeon that she, May Winton, was a woman of considerable means – would it be possible? – Betty Tyrrell’s baby was due soon, she had another young child, no husband now, could Sister arrange discreetly, so that no one need know? Sister inclined her head in agreement. She would speak to the Lady Almoner herself, if May would visit her in her office tomorrow – a convenient Charity would be used. May bowed her head, murmured ‘Thank you, Sister,’ and left the ward.
As soon as she was disinfected May went back to her bedroom, threw herself on her bed and wept. At one o’clock Ellen rushed up and dragged her off to dinner, then had to leave her to go back on duty. May tramped round the streets of the East End until she had tired her legs and regained some degree of composure, then for lack of any alternative, came back to her room.
She had only been there for a few minutes, sitting at the table trying to compose a careful letter to Emily, when a maid tapped at the door.
‘There’s a gentleman to see you, Miss, waiting at the porter’s lodge.’
May stared blankly at the maid before she spoke. ‘Thank you, Ethel, I will be down in a few minutes.’
Even curiosity seemed deadened as she mechanically pulled her cloak round her shoulders and drew on her gloves.
As she walked across the busy courtyard she saw the man waiting at the main entrance – tall, broad-shouldered, immaculately turned out, gold-knobbed cane held casually in one hand – it was Harry Cussons. He came forward, right hand extended.
‘Miss Winton, I feared I would never run you to earth, you seemed to be held captive in this convent – or prison!’ She watched the remembered muscles ripple in his throat as he laughed. ‘May we go somewhere more private to talk?’
‘Across the road, there are public gardens, above the tunnel entrance. We can go there.’
She walked ahead of him out into the bustle and noise of the Dock Road. He took her elbow as they threaded between the traffic, but released it as soon as they reached the other side. The gardens were deserted, except for a few wizened old men, huddled on the benches on the far side, soaking up the meagre rays of the winter sun. May turned and faced her companion.
‘I do not advise the seats, they harbour bugs.’
For the first time since they had met Harry Cussons looked discomfited, but he rapidly recovered himself.
‘Miss Winton, May, the last time we met, I forgot myself. I was so impatient for your company I just did not think – I failed to realise the implications of taking you to a public restaurant. Please do forgive me.’
He waited expectantly. As she looked at him May had a strange sensation of unreality. The cold wind whipping her skirts around her ankles, the gusts of grit blowing into her face, the roar and clatter of the traffic running down the steep slope to the tunnel – that was all real enough. But it was as though the man standing in front of her were the other side of a thick sheet of plate glass: he smiled, he spoke – she saw his smiles, she heard his voice, but they did not touch her.
He seemed to be waiting for an answer, so she replied, ‘We all make mistakes, Mr Cussons.’
He beamed in relief, and said gallantly, ‘I do, Miss Winton, but you, I’m sure, never!’
May thought of Sister Simeon’s many rebukes, and a bleak smile passed over her lips. Harry Cussons seemed to interpret this as encouragement.
‘Miss Winton, this is hardly the appropriate time or place, but I wish to ask you – as I have never asked any woman before,’ he paused, then pressed on. ‘Will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’ He gathered momentum. ‘I find you so beautiful, so high-spirited, so witty, so charming. Let me,’ and he made a sweeping gesture that encompassed their drab surroundings, ‘let me take you away from all this ugliness and grime, let me take you back to that life of gaiety and elegance and luxury where you belong. I do love you, May, and I think you feel something for me.’
As he spoke these last words May felt the sheet of glass begin to shiver and soften. The dusty grey shrubs around them receded and she seemed to be peering down the tube of a kaleidoscope, a child’s toy in which there, in the distance, were the brightly-coloured patterns, forming and re-forming before her eyes: the glittering ballrooms, the shining summer sun at Ascot, the white napery and gleaming silver of a long table arrayed for dinner. They were tiny and far away, but they were there, sharply etched, jewel-bright, and infinitely desirable. But then, as she bent nearer, she saw another picture: Lord Hindlesham’s sad, monkey face in the shadows of the cab, and she heard again his low, serious voice, ‘You are lucky, my dear. You see the evils that you wrestle with – the dirt and the disease and the poverty. They are all clear before you, too clear, perhaps, but you know your enemy and can fight it face to face. There is evil and weakness and corruption in Society, too, but it hides itself under a dazzling exterior, and its creeping rottenness is hard to grasp and harder still to battle with.’ And as she listened, the pictures in the kaleidoscope became smaller and smaller, and shrank to the size of a pin’s head, and went out.
May pulled her cloak more tightly around her against the cold wind and asked, ‘What of your mistress, Mr Cussons. What of Lady Hindlesham?’
He flinched, as though she had struck him; then took hold of himself again. ‘Of course, if we were married, I would break the association completely.’
May looked at him, and the betraying conditional hung in the air between them. Then he began to try and regain his lost ground, his voice gentle and persuasive.
‘I know you value your calling, you feel you are useful here; but, seriously, May, there must be many other women with a talent for nursing, while there is only one woman I could ever marry, and that is you.’
And May saw the sincerity in his eyes and knew that that was true, for the moment, anyway. And what was her task here, but to watch helplessly by as young men arched their backs in agony and died too slowly? But as the wave of easy surrender reared up and hung poised, waiting to sweep down and overwhelm her, she remembered other voices: ‘Pull yourself together, Nurse Winton, there are other patients. We will have a heavy ward this evening.’ And the sobbing: ‘You tried, Nurse, you tried. Thank you for trying.’
May shuddered, pulled herself up straight and raised her chin. She spoke in a level tone.
‘You are right, Mr Cussons. I am not indispensable here, but there is some benefit to others in what I do, however little. I will not give up now. Besides,’ she hesitated, then plunged on, ‘though it is true, as you said, that I do feel something for you, I do not respect you as a woman should respect the man who is to be her husband. Thank you, but I cannot marry you.’
She turned away from his stricken face and moved swiftly along the gravel walk. She ran between the jostling traffic and under the archway, fleeing inside the high, prison-like walls as though into a refuge.
Home Sister was crossing the courtyard. ‘Is that you, Nurse Winton?’ she called. ‘Hurry along, girl, and have your tea, or you’ll be late back on duty.’
‘I’m sorry, Sister. I’m quite ready.’