Connie’s Courage Read online

‘Me?’ Connie gave her an astonished look. ‘You are the Miss Goody Two Shoes,’ she reminded Mavis, teasingly. ‘I’m always getting into trouble.’

  ‘I don’t suppose I should tell you this, but I heard Sister saying that you are a natural.’

  Connie tried to look nonchalant, but her face went pink and inside she was secretly thrilled to have been picked out for praise.

  Ellie was grateful for the warmth of the beautiful new furs Gideon had bought her, as she stepped out of Cecily’s husband’s motor car, to join her cousin on the pavement on Basnett Street. Cecily was one of Aunt Gibson’s two daughters, and Ellie had always got along with her cousin very well. They were outside Liverpool’s most exclusive store, Bon Marche, where they had come to do some Christmas shopping. This store, whilst owned by the Lee family, carried a far more exclusive stock than George Henry Lee’s across the road from it. Bon Marche catered for the cream of Liverpool society, and it was here that women flocked to buy the latest Paris fashions.

  Gideon had driven her over to Liverpool the previous evening, and he was picking her up this evening, and then driving her to Hoylake so that they could pay a visit to her Aunt and Uncle Parkes, before returning home to Preston.

  ‘Oh, Ellie, this takes me back! You and I going shopping together.’ Cecily smiled, as they stepped into the deliciously perfumed warmth of the store. ‘Do you remember when we used to meet Iris at the Adelphi for afternoon tea? Not that we can do that today, of course, for they have pulled it down and are rebuilding it.’

  Ellie nodded her head. She knew that Gideon had hoped that this visit to her cousin would lift her spirits, but Cecily’s comment had simply reminded her of a time when her sister Connie had been alive.

  ‘Connie always loved Christmas so much,’ she said sadly. ‘I think it was her favourite time of the year. We used to hurry home from school so that we could make our Christmas cards together. I miss her so much, Cecily.’ Tears filled Ellie’s eyes.

  ‘Ellie, you really must try to put her loss behind you,’ Cecily told her firmly. ‘I know it was very sad, but under the circumstances, bearing in mind the disgrace she had brought upon herself …’

  ‘I know that what she did was wrong, Cecily, but …’

  ‘Indeed it was. Very wrong! I suppose I should look for something for the maids,’ Cecily fretted, deliberately changing the subject, ‘although not in here, of course. It would be far too expensive. I thought perhaps a pretty handkerchief, Mama always gives her maids gloves which she buys from the Church bazaar. What are the children to have this year?’

  Ellie smiled, roused from her sadness by the mention of her family.

  ‘Gideon has insisted on buying a brand new train set for Richard, and we’ve ordered a new rocking horse for Joshua. Henrietta is to have a set of paints. She is very artistic, and Gideon thinks that we should get her some private tuition.’

  Cecily started to frown. ‘Well, I know how much you love her, Ellie, but I have to say that with her looks – and she is quite strikingly oriental-looking now, although very pretty – you may regret making her so much a part of your family. Mama says that it would have been far better if you had had her adopted, or sent her back to Japan.’

  Ellie was shocked.

  ‘Cecily, I look on Henrietta as my daughter, as much as though I had borne her myself,’ she told her cousin in outrage. ‘Gideon and I have adopted her legally and, to us, she is our eldest child.’

  Really, Ellie thought crossly, sometimes Cecily seemed to be growing unpleasantly like her mother!

  ‘Brrr, it’s cold!’ Connie exclaimed, as she huddled into her thin coat.

  ‘Oh, do let’s look at Bon Marche’s window,’ Mavis begged her, catching hold of her arm.

  Arm in arm, the two girls studied the elegant window displays, and the luxurious furs worn by the mannequin.

  Still arm in arm, they crossed over the road to look into the windows of George Henry Lee’s.

  ‘Oh, Connie! Evening-in-Paris perfume. I can remember my father buying my mother some! And look at those gloves!’

  They walked happily from the store to Bold Street, ‘the Bond Street of Liverpool', lingering over each window display and teasing each other, their laughter ringing out in the cold air, as they drew level with Cripps shawl shop.

  ‘Oh, do let’s go in, ‘Connie, Mavis urged. ‘I would love to buy my mother a really good warm shawl!’

  The shop was busy with customers, and whilst they waited to be served, Mavis fingered some of the shawls.

  ‘Oh, look at that one, Connie,’ Mavis exclaimed, pointing to a particularly warm, soft, lavender blue shawl. ‘It is so pretty.’

  Connie looked at the shawl. It felt warm to the touch, and it was obviously expensive.

  An hour later, after Mavis had finished her shopping, and Connie had mentally earmarked the small items she had decided to buy for her friends, Mavis said tiredly, ‘I’m parched. Shall we go and have a cup of tea?’

  ‘Yes, let’s, Connie agreed, and linking up together they started to walk down the road.

  They had just reached the teashop, when Connie exclaimed, ‘Oh, I’ve just remembered there’s something I wanted to get. You order that tea, Mavis, and I’ll just dash back for it!’

  It didn’t take her long to hurry back to Cripps, and, mercifully, this time there were no other customers. Connie pointed out the lavender blue shawl and opened her purse.

  ‘It’s one of my favourites,’ the saleswoman said to her approvingly. ‘Fair lifts the heart that colour does.’

  Thanking her, Connie paid for her purchase and left. Connie hadn’t forgotten the help Ma Deakin had given her, and when she had seen the shawl, she had thought immediately of the midwife.

  The late autumn afternoon was already closing into dusk, as Ellie walked out of a shop ahead of Cecily. The street was busy with shoppers, but Ellie’s attention was caught by one girl who was crossing the street, a few yards away from her.

  Ellie froze, gripped by shock. The girl had her back to her, but something about her made Ellie’s heart pound. Connie. It was Connie! The angle of her head, the way she walked. It was her sister! Frantically Ellie started to hurry after her, calling out her name, desperate to catch up with her, oblivious to the attention her urgency and strained expression were attracting.

  She was walking so fast that she accidentally turned her ankle, and would have fallen if a kindly fellow shopper hadn’t reached out to hold her arm steady. Choking back a sob, Ellie thanked him before begging, ‘Please, I must go. My sister … I must find her …’

  ‘But your ankle – you gave it a nasty twist …’

  ‘Please …’ Ellie pulled away. She had to catch up with Connie, before she was swallowed up in the busy crowd and lost to her.

  ‘Ellie. What is going on? I saw you slip,’ Cecily told her anxiously, catching up with her.

  ‘Cecily, I just saw Connie …’ Ellie burst out immediately. ‘We must go after her. We must find her, Cecily …’

  Tears were running down Ellie’s face, as her frantic gaze searched the crowded street.

  Cecily stared at Ellie in consternation. She knew how distressed Ellie had been by her younger sister’s death, of course, but … ‘Ellie, you can’t have done … you must have been mistaken,’ she told her gently, taking hold of her arm.

  ‘No, Cecily, it was Connie,’ Ellie insisted again. ‘We must go after her.’

  ‘Oh, Ellie, my dear, be reasonable. How could it possibly be Connie?’

  Ellie stared at her cousin, suddenly realising how she must appear to her.

  And Cecily was right. How could it have been Connie? Connie was dead. Ellie had let her own pain overwhelm reality! Bleakly Ellie let Cecily lead her away.

  ‘I’m sorry, Cecily,’ she apologised shakily. ‘It was that just for a minute …’

  ‘Let’s go and have our tea,’ Cecily told her firmly, tightening her grip on Ellie’s arm.

  ‘I’ve ordered us tea and some crumpets
,’ Mavis told Connie, as she hurried into the teashop. ‘I’m really looking forward to Christmas at the Infirmary now. I wasn’t at first, but Josie told me that Sister said that it is the most jolly time, with every ward having its own party and all manner of festivities taking place. There’s a proper Christmas dinner and Matron herself hands out presents from a huge tree.’

  ‘And, with a bit of luck, that handsome young policeman who’s got an eye for you might be on duty?’ Connie teased her mischievously, laughing when Mavis blushed.

  ‘If you mean Frank, the only reason he stopped me to talk to me the other day was because he wanted to ask after old Mr Beddoes. He brought him in, you see, and he wondered how he was getting on!’

  ‘Oh, I see, it was just to talk about the old man that he stopped you, was it?’ Connie asked guilelessly. ‘I’m only asking, seeing as how Mr Beddoes is on my ward.’

  Seeing how self-conscious Mavis looked, Connie relented and stopped teasing her. ‘Did Frank say if they’ve found out who it was who knocked him about so badly? Poor old thing’s got a broken leg and Gawd alone knows what happened to his insides! Mr Clegg isn’t saying anything, but somehow I don’t think he’s going to be going home,’ she added darkly.

  ‘Frank said that Mr Beddoes wouldn’t tell them anything, but that Mrs Beddoes said something about them being pestered for money by some man. Frank says there’s some sort of gang been set up that goes round demanding money from people. But they can’t do anything, because everyone’s too afraid to talk to the police.’

  EIGHT

  Connie shivered as she climbed reluctantly off the bus, and huddled deeper into her coat, wrapping her scarf more closely around her face against the taste of the freezing vapour shrouding the street.

  It was the week before Christmas, Mavis had gone to New Brighton to see her family and to take her Christmas presents to them, as they were both working on Christmas Day. Vera had gone out with her young man and Josie was on duty, which had left Connie free to complete her self-imposed task.

  Apprehensively, she turned to look over her shoulder, but to her relief the dingy street was empty. Even so, Connie was nervously aware of being in a part of the city which was neither safe nor desirable.

  And yet, she had lived here with Kieron, she reminded herself, as she hurried down the street, hoping that she did not look as vulnerable and out of place as she felt.

  It might be less than a year since she had left this area, but already the time she had spent here was a dim memory she wanted to forget rather than to remember.

  The laughing, loving girl who had come here with Kieron had gone. She was a different person now, Connie recognised. A wiser, more cautious, person who bitterly regretted what she had done. She knew she would never forget what had happened to her here, neither Bill Connolly’s harsh cruelty nor the wonderful kindness of Ma Deakin. But for her, Connie suspected that her miscarriage might well have taken her own life, as well as that of the child she had been carrying.

  A small stab of guilty pain ached through her. She was glad, of course, that she had not had to endure the stigma of bearing an illegitimate child, but, even so, the thought of that small lost life saddened her.

  The corner of a building loomed up marking the entrance to Back Court where she and Kieron had lived. As Connie hurried past it, she turned her face away from it, and fought her compulsion to turn back to look into the dank sour-smelling opening, in case Bill Connolly was waiting there to pounce on her, and drag her into the pit of sin he had planned for her.

  It was only a few more steps to Ma Deakin’s small house, and, as she stepped up to the door and knocked quickly on it, she looked anxiously up and down the street. It was unlikely that if anyone saw her, they would recognise her. But what if they did? What if they were to tell Bill Connolly?

  Not for the first time, Connie questioned the wisdom of what she was doing. But something stronger than her fear had made her come here, and although Connie herself did not know it, it was the same something that her superiors at the Infirmary had recognised in her: a strength of character and a fortitude, which she had been born with, but which her circumstances had forged into true strength and inner courage.

  The door opened, and a sullen-faced, unfamiliar young woman stared aggressively at Connie.

  ‘If it’s me mam youse is wantin’ she’s away at a laying-out,’ she announced brusquely, and made to shut the door.

  Quickly Connie put her hand against it, and produced the small package she had brought with her. Inside it was the lavender blue shawl she had bought for Ma Deakin, and which had cost her more than she could easily afford. Wrapped in bright-coloured Christmas paper, it looked almost obscenely out of place in such grey surroundings, and Connie could see the woman’s eyes widening, as Connie thrust it toward her.

  ‘You will give this to your mother, won’t you!’ Connie asked her anxiously.

  ‘'Course, I will,’ the young woman replied fiercely. ‘I ain’t no thief, and even if I was I wouldn’t take from me own mam. What do you take me for, and who are you anyway? she demanded suspiciously.

  Satisfied that she was speaking the truth, Connie guessed that the young woman must be Lily, whose bed she had taken whilst Ma Deakin was nursing her back to full health. Whoever she was, Connie was glad that she did not recognise her.

  The moment the other girl had taken the parcel, Connie turned and plunged back into the thickening, freezing mist, hurrying away from the shame of her past and toward the bus that would take her back to the safe security of her present and her future.

  Connie, I’m glad you’re on your own.’

  Connie smiled as Mavis sank down onto her bed.

  ‘Were your mother and sister well, Mavis?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, yes, they were fine, that’s what I wanted to say to you. I …’ She went slightly pink as she hesitated, and then burst out. ‘Connie, my mother has asked if you would care to come and stay with us when we get our two days off in lieu of Christmas. I have told her so much about you, and that you have no family of your own.’

  Connie had gone pink herself as she listened. Those nurses who were going to work over the Christmas period had been given two days off after it, and Connie had already wondered how on earth she would spend hers.

  ‘Did your mother really mean it?’ she asked Mavis excitedly.

  ‘Connie, she said she would love to meet you, and so did my sister, and I would love you to meet them. I know that Josie is to go and stay with her aunt, and I expect that Vera will be seeing Bert and her parents.

  ‘Isn’t it funny how things turn out? Connie murmured thoughtfully. ‘When we all met that first day, I thought that Vera and I were so alike, and we were, then, but now … Connie paused and shook her head. ‘I never imagined that learning to be a nurse would make me feel the way that it does.

  ‘I always knew I wanted to be a nurse, Mavis said quietly.

  Silently they looked at one another, both recognising in each other a kindred spirit, in a way that went far deeper than mere shared interests.

  Putting her hand out, Connie touched Mavis’s arm and said huskily, ‘I am so glad that you have asked me to come home with you, Mavis.

  Unbidden, the thought came into Connie’s head that both her mother and her sister would have liked Mavis, and approved of her as a friend. But neither of them would ever know her. Her mother was dead, and she, Connie, was as good as dead to Ellie.

  ‘Connie, you look so sad, what is it? Mavis asked her worriedly.

  ‘It’s nothing, really,’ Connie fibbed, but inside she was acutely aware of how much she wished both her mother and her sister might be able to recognise how truly she repented of her stubbornness, and selfish foolishness. She longed to feel that both of them might be able to witness her remorse, and forgive her for her past sins. Especially Ellie. If Ellie could see her now, would she hold out her arms to her, and tell her that she still loved her? Did she ever think of her and wonder about her?

 
; Suddenly Connie was filled with a longing to see Ellie again … to talk with her. It was almost Christmas after all. A time when families came together.

  ‘But Vera you can’t do that! We all have to work over Christmas, Connie protested.

  ‘Well, I’m not going to. Bert wants me to spend Christmas day with his family, and that’s what I’m going to do. You won’t catch me missing out on a good opportunity like that! I’m lookin to better meself!’ Vera answered her, tossing her head belligerently.

  ‘You ll be found out, Connie warned her, ‘and after what’s already happened …

  ‘So what if I am found out, Vera shrugged. ‘I don’t care. I’ll be leaving here anyway just as soon as I’ve got Bert’s engagement ring on me finger, and like as not he’ll be putting it there Christmas day! Do you know something? Vera continued sharply. ‘The trouble with you, Connie Pride, is that you are getting more like Mavis every day!

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ Connie told her, quickly finishing her meal and getting up from the table, ‘I’m back on duty in a few minutes.’

  Connie walked as quickly as she could through the tunnel, without breaking into a run, which was strictly forbidden by Matron, since the sight of a nurse running might panic the patients.

  The operating theatre, and the wards for the surgical patients were on the top floor of the Infirmary, and Connie knew she would have to hurry to be back on duty in good time.

  Mr Clegg the Infirmary’s senior surgeon, a man who was admired both by his patients and those who worked under him, had the previous day had to perform an emergency amputation on a young man who had slipped under the wheels of a brewery dray. Mr Clegg had had to remove both his legs, and Connie was thinking of the young man as she hurried onto the ward.

  The sight of his empty bed, stripped of its bedding, and the set, stiff faces of her colleagues told its own story.

  Connie felt tears burn the backs of her eyes, but she knew better than to let them fall. It was a strict rule that nurses were not supposed to become emotionally involved with their patients.

  ‘What happened?’ Connie asked one of the other nurses in a hushed whisper.