The Liverpool Nightingales Read online

  Maud saw a shiver go through the boy’s small frame at the sweep’s words and her heart went out to him. She glanced at Miss Fairchild and she knew that she had seen it too, but it seemed like there was nothing either of them could do except wait for the job to get started. Greer had started unpacking his brushes and the boy was standing with his head bowed. Maud couldn’t bear to watch any of the preparation so she turned and checked around the room for one last time. Sensing her unease, Miss Fairchild also made a move, nodding to Maud and mumbling something about orders for the kitchen maids and then she was gone, leaving Maud, in her position as senior housemaid, to supervise the sweeping of the dining-room chimney.

  When all the brushes were unpacked Greer turned to face the boy, his face tight. With a nod he indicated that it was time to unfold and place the soot cloth that would cover the hearth. Maud saw the boy shudder and wondered if the story that these boys had to sleep under the soot cloth was true.

  Maud stood quiet, her right hand balled into a fist once more as she watched the unfolding and the fixing of the soot cloth around the hearth. Greer’s last lad had been a sturdy specimen who could stand his ground, the sort who would no doubt go on to be a master sweep himself. But this boy was one that you just wanted to wrap up warm in a blanket and give a drink of milk.

  When all was ready the boy removed his tattered coat and mucky boots, and stood for a few moments as if he didn’t know what to do next. He was black from head to toe, with ripped elbows on his shirt and the knees of his trousers worn through.

  ‘Get a move on – we haven’t got all day,’ barked Greer.

  The boy glanced up at Maud before entering the hearth and pulling his cap down so the brim would protect his nose and mouth. He then disappeared through a slit in the cloth, holding the flat brush in his right hand.

  ‘What are you waiting for, Christmas?’ said Greer, looking over at Maud for approval of his joke.

  She was not concerned with Greer or his jokes; she had looked up the flue that morning as she cleared out the remains of the fire. The opening was small, and it was dark and hot up there. How would the boy be able to breathe?

  Maud’s fears were realized much sooner than expected when a whimpering cry came from the chimney. A cry that quickly became a terrified wail.

  Greer hastily pulled the soot cloth aside and yelled up the chimney, ‘What the blazes is going on up there? Sweep that soot and stop messing about.’ Glancing back at Maud, he tried to smile but quickly had his head up the chimney again. ‘What do you mean you’re stuck? You’ve only just gone up there, you lazy bastard. You’d better look sharp or I’ll light a fire under you, mark my words I will.’

  The boy went quiet and Maud held her breath, straining for a sign of life. She could feel her heart racing and her fist was now balled so tight her fingernails were digging into her palm. The sign that the child had heard came soon enough, however: a mournful wail that brought tears to her eyes.

  ‘Please, Mr Greer,’ she implored. ‘You must do something.’

  ‘Do something, do something?’ he shouted. ‘I’ll do something,’ he yelled up the chimney again. ‘I’ll light a bloody fire under him.’ And with that he pulled his head from the flue and made a move to the pile of kindling that lay ready by the fire.

  Instantly Maud was there, blocking his way. ‘No you don’t, Mr Greer,’ she said with some steel in her voice. ‘We’re not lighting any fires.’

  Greer glared at her, then turned back to the chimney, stuck his arm up and felt for the boy’s leg. He could just reach a small foot and, after forcing his shoulder further up the flue, was able to get some purchase and pull hard. The boy was stuck, but not fast, so that with one good yank Greer was able to bring him down, crashing on to the hearth.

  He fell hard, then was covered with a soft flump of soot.

  Greer dragged him out and tried to stand him up but his legs gave way and he started to sob uncontrollably.

  ‘Please don’t send me up again, please don’t send me up again …’ he wailed, with soot in his mouth and snot and tears running down his face.

  Greer was about to start shaking him when Maud placed her hand firmly on his blackened sleeve.

  ‘Don’t do that, Mr Greer,’ she said with a sure and certain tone in her voice that she had never used before. ‘You’ll get soot all over the show and if that happens Miss Fairchild won’t offer you any more business at this house.’

  Greer drew back immediately, shocked by the power in the voice of a housemaid who was usually so quiet. Maud stooped down to the boy. She just wanted to gather him up in her arms but she could see the terror on the child’s face and see how he instinctively leant away from her. She could see his breathing coming fast and she felt a pain in her heart as she saw him start to tremble. She had to help him, she had to make him know that she would not hurt him, so she murmured softly to him, ‘It’s all right, it’s all right, I’m not going to hurt you.’ Then she held out her hand to him. His eyes widened for a moment and for a split second she thought that he was going to turn away but then he took her hand.

  ‘Try to stand up,’ she said gently. ‘Try to stand and we’ll get you a drink and something to eat.’ He looked at her now with the palest blue eyes that she had ever seen. Eyes that would match the finest blue gown that you could buy.

  She felt him pulling on her hand as he tried to stand up and she placed her other arm around him protectively but as soon as he was almost upright he began to keel over again. Instinctively Maud held on to his hand and then she grabbed one of the dining chairs from under its protective cover and lifted the boy to sit down on it. She saw the soot from his clothes smear black on to the yellow silk damask but in that instant she knew that she had more important concerns than the soft furnishings.

  As the boy sat he rested back and closed his eyes. Maud crouched by him and gently placed the flat of her hand on his tiny chest. She could feel how dreadfully thin he was and how his small heart was beating as fast as a rabbit’s in the cage of his ribs. Looking down to his poor knees, now exposed as he sat, she saw how the skin was shredded and matted with fresh blood and soot. Spotting a discarded linen napkin under the table she grabbed it and pressed the clean white cloth gently to his wounds.

  ‘Don’t be fussing him now,’ said Greer, advancing towards them. ‘Nobody has call for a climbing boy who’s gone soft. He just needs more salt brine on those knees and a rough brush to harden them up.’

  Maud let out a small gasp at the thought of the boy’s poor knees being scrubbed with brine. She had heard of this practice but thought it was something of the past. How could this still be happening?

  Greer pushed past her, grabbed the boy and tried to haul him up off the chair. But the child screamed out in pain and Maud immediately yelled, ‘Stop!’

  The sweep froze in his tracks, surprised by the power of the housemaid’s voice.

  ‘Let go of him,’ said Maud with a voice full of authority, ‘or I will ring for Miss Fairchild.’

  Greer dropped the boy’s arm and Maud lifted him back so that he could be supported by the chair. She could see that the arm looked out of shape. Clearly it had been twisted as the sweep had dragged him back down the chimney.

  ‘He has been injured,’ said Maud.

  ‘What?’ said Greer. ‘It’s nothing, just a sprain. I need him today so you’ll have to bind it up.’

  ‘I will not bind it up,’ said Maud. ‘The boy needs to be seen by a doctor.’

  ‘No doctors,’ said Greer. ‘He needs to be up them chimneys. I’ve got three more on for today and he hasn’t even finished this one yet.’

  Maud stood up and turned to face Greer, eye to eye.

  ‘This boy is hurt,’ she said with steel in her voice. ‘He will not be climbing your chimneys.’

  Just at that moment the door of the dining room swung open and Miss Fairchild swept into the room.

  ‘Whatever is going on in here, Mr Greer?’ she said, seeing Maud standing in front of the boy with both arms held out to shield him.

  ‘The boy got stuck up there,’ Maud explained. ‘He was wailing and screaming, and then Mr Greer dragged him back down. His arm is twisted out of shape, Miss Fairchild. He needs to be seen by a doctor.’

  Greer stamped his foot impatiently but before he could speak again Miss Fairchild held up a hand to silence him.

  ‘Mr Greer,’ she said, ‘may I remind you that you are employed to sweep the chimneys of this house and many other chimneys of the houses in Devonshire Square on my recommendation, and my recommendation alone. If I was to inform the proprietor of this home and the other houses that I thought your standards were no longer suitable, then I’m sorry to say there would be no more work for you here ever again.’

  Maud saw Greer take a step back and then he bowed his head and muttered, ‘Right then, right … I’ll get him to a doctor if that’s what you say.’

  ‘No,’ said Miss Fairchild, holding up her hand to silence him yet again. ‘You will not get him to a doctor, Mr Greer. I do not trust you to take care of him. My maid here will take him up to the hospital and we will make sure that the boy is properly treated.’

  Greer said nothing more. He stooped down and started packing up his brushes, noisily clattering them together and shoving them into the bag. Then he strode out of the room muttering and swearing under his breath.

  ‘Right, Maud,’ said Miss Fairchild, ‘there is no time to lose. I’ll go and get a blanket and organize one of the footmen to go with you up to the hospital. You stay with him there, Maud, and make sure that he is all right. You are excused from your duties for the rest of the day … Oh, and I have some money saved up; I will pay for anything that the boy needs.’

  ‘Thank you, Miss Fairchild,’ said Maud, almost in tears, and then letting out a small gasp as she spotted the linen napkin in her hand stained with blood and soot.

  Miss Fairchild took the napkin straight out of her hand, saying, ‘Don’t worry about that. Those stains won’t come out. I’ll dispose of it.’

  As Miss Fairchild turned once more to check on the boy before she left the room Maud saw that her eyes were brimming with tears, but when she spoke her voice was firm. ‘This stops right here, Maud. I should have done something about this before; there is no excuse. This practice of sending boys up chimneys is barbaric. The sweeps were supposed to stop doing it years ago but it still goes on. They have brushes that can be used to do that job these days, not children. From now on I will make sure that in this house we will only employ a sweep with one of the appropriate systems of brushes. I don’t care if it doesn’t sweep as well as a boy or it puts more soot out into the room. I don’t care. This has to stop.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Fairchild,’ said Maud, her heart swelling with pride for the woman.

  That same evening, in a house near Lime Street Station, Ada Houston’s half-sister, Stella, was tending to the needs of one of her regular customers. As the man sat on the bed she pulled his shirt off, seeing once more the jagged wound that ran the length of his right arm, cutting through the distinctive tattoo, tearing apart the name of some person and what looked like the shape of a swan, a black swan. Then, as she leant forward to pull the singlet over his head, she saw the stripes across his back that she knew, for sure, were the marks of the lash.

  Unbuckling his belt, she slipped down his breeches, noting once again the muscular left thigh with its covering of pale hair and then the right leg, pitiful and wasted with a big chunk of flesh missing from the calf, the angry skin on that leg pulled tight around the shin. Stella had seen all sorts in her time but the sure knowledge of violence and pain that shot through her every time she saw that particular wound always made her stomach turn. And, as always, no matter how gentle she was, her hand caught the scarred remains of his calf and she felt the man wince with pain.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said straight away, hating the pain that the man had to suffer and angry with herself for not being more careful. Then laying the breeches aside, she turned to face him with her hands on her hips. He sat on the edge of the bed with his head bowed and she could see that he was gritting his teeth waiting for the pain to subside. He looked thinner, she thought, and even more exhausted. She had known him for years and knew how he lived, and it looked like things were starting to catch up with him. He lifted his head and she smelt the liquor on his breath. She saw, too, the crease in his brow and the lines around his eyes that told her that he was still in a great deal of pain.

  Seeing the sympathy in her gaze he snapped at her, ‘Just get on with it, will you? At least I’ve paid this time.’

  ‘I’m just waiting for you to be more comfortable,’ she said gently.

  ‘Get on with it,’ he snapped again.

  ‘All right then,’ she said. ‘Have you got your French letter?’

  ‘In my breeches pocket,’ he said, before swinging his legs up on to the bed and lying back on the pillows.

  Afterwards, as always, Stella gave the man time to sleep on her bed and she must have nodded off herself because she woke with a start, hearing the shrill laughter of her friend, Laura, in the next room. Feeling a bit sick and groggy, Stella felt her heart pounding as she tried to get some idea of how long she’d been asleep and how many customers would be waiting. She needed to get this man moving. Shaking him by the arm, she tried to rouse him but he was sound asleep and his skin felt like it was burning up.

  ‘Come on, come on,’ she said, ‘I need to work. Watching you sleep won’t earn me any brass.’ But she couldn’t wake him and when she looked down at his leg, she could see that it was discharging fluid on to her bedsheet.

  The walls of the brothel were thin; she didn’t have to knock all that hard to get some attention. So within seconds the door to her room was swinging open and Laura stood there, breathless and worried, with a heavy stick in her hand.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Stella, ‘he wasn’t getting rough or anything. Poor bugger’s passed out, that’s all.’

  Together the women wrapped the man in the sheet where he lay and then dragged him off the bed.

  ‘We’ll put him on that mattress in the cellar for now. He’ll be warm enough down there with plenty of blankets,’ said Stella. ‘And if he’s still there when I’ve finished for the night I’ll see if I can get him up to the Infirmary.’

  ‘Why not just tip him out on to the street?’ said Laura.

  ‘No, I can’t do that. He’s a regular and I think he must have been in the army. He’s fought for Queen and Country, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Just looks like a drunk, the same as the rest, to me,’ said Laura. ‘But it’s up to you. Give me a shout if you want and we’ll take him up to the Infirmary on the handcart.’

  The next morning a drunk and delirious man was found sitting on the steps of the new Nurses’ Home on Dover Street, right next to the Liverpool Royal Infirmary. Stella and her friend had pushed him in the handcart but decided not to go right up to the hospital itself; they didn’t want any questions, they just needed to get back to their beds. So they had left him at the next best place, the Nurses’ Home and Training School.

  Stella knew that one of the superintendents – maybe even Ada – or any number of probationers would be passing by the man on the steps as they made their way to their morning shift at the hospital. They were bound to find him, she thought.

  Before they left him there, propped on the steps, Stella stood with her hands on her hips looking up at the first-floor windows of the fancy brick building, imagining that’s where the nurses’ dormitory would be.

  ‘Bet they’re sleeping sound up there in their clean beds,’ she said quietly to herself, thinking of her half-sister again. No love lost there, she thought, but she couldn’t help but feel some envy towards a woman who didn’t have to share her bed with some lout from the backstreets and would always have clean sheets to lie on. Then again, she wasn’t sure that she’d be able to stomach all that cleanliness and discipline and time-keeping, and she felt fortunate in that she hadn’t actually been forced to go into the same trade as her mother. Her mother, Marie, ran the brothel and she had told Stella, her only child, to make her own choice. She could have gone into domestic service, she could have probably come up here and worked at the hospital, and there was always work at the docks for a strong, healthy woman. But she had chosen to follow her mother and one day she would take over the running of their place herself. She would make sure that they always had the right standard, keeping the place as clean and as safe as they could for the women.

  ‘So that’s that,’ she muttered to herself, ‘no clean and tidy life for me.’ Then she turned from the building and saw Laura, her red hair pulled back from her face, looking exhausted and shivering in her thin gown. She went straight over to her and put an arm around her shoulders, giving her a bit of a rub to try to warm her up.

  ‘Come on, let’s get you back and then we can both have some sleep before the next lot of rabble come knockin’ at the door.’

  Then linking her friend’s arm and huddling up to her, she walked away. But before they were out of view, Stella glanced back once more and made a promise to herself to go up to the Infirmary later that day to see how he was getting on.

  The door of the Nurses’ Home opened at 6.30 a.m. sharp and the nurse probationers started to emerge into the morning light. They all saw the man on the steps but, as they filed past him in their brand-new uniforms and white starched aprons, none of them stopped to attend to him. They could see that he looked drunk. His head was lolling around, his face was flushed red and he was muttering about Miss Nightingale, he wanted to see Miss Nightingale. And then, as each one walked by, the man reached out a hand to try to touch the long skirts of their clean uniforms, tantalizingly close and brushing the steps as they passed him without looking, each one making sure to keep her distance.

  The truth was the young nurses could not stop even if they had wanted to. They all needed to get to the ward on time, but certainly Nancy Sellers, leading the group with her nose in the air and her neatly curled blond hair pinned beneath a spotless white cap, did not want to stop. Nancy should have been beautiful – she had perfect features set in a heart-shaped face, big blue eyes with dark lashes, a narrow waist and perfect feet; she should have been the belle of Liverpool Infirmary – but unfortunately Nancy’s nature was such that it seeped out through her face and made her look sour, and when she opened her beautiful mouth to speak her voice came out harsh and her words were usually spiteful.