Sophy thought Patience must have been a formidable nurse.
The second week, Sophy was allowed out of bed in the afternoons and she was surprised how this tired her. It was then she began to realise how physically exhausted she had been, and that Patience had been right to dispatch Sadie to the theatre the morning after her collapse with a note informing the manager that Mrs Shawe wouldn’t be well enough to return to work for at least a month, possibly two.
The third week, Kane was permitted to call, and a few days later, Dolly and Jim. It touched Sophy that Patience hovered like an anxious hen with one chick the whole time, and by the fifth week Sophy was feeling better than she had in a long, long time.
The day before William was due to take Patience and Tilly home, the four women spent a delightful afternoon shopping for the bassinet Sophy wanted to buy for the baby, along with so many other items, Patience was forced to protest. ‘Please let me,’ Sophy said quietly, when Patience demurred at the number of tiny outfits in Sophy’s arms. ‘I feel I am part of the family, doing this.’ Patience said no more after that.
The day of departure was bitter-sweet for Sophy. She had known her cousin couldn’t stay for ever, and with Patience’s baby due in just over a month, it was high time her cousin returned home and prepared for the birth. Also, in the last few days, she had begun to look forward to returning to the theatre and letting life resume its normal pattern. It would signify the beginning of a new chapter in her life. Whereas, just weeks ago, this would have filled her with foreboding, now she found she could look to the future if not with optimism, at least with a clear idea of what she was going to do.
She and Patience had had many long talks over the time they were together. They had talked about Cat and the manner of her death, the danger young women in the theatres and music halls could find themselves in from unwanted admirers and men like Forester-Smythe, the inequality which existed in the world between the sexes and how the Vote for Women would be the first stage of addressing this to some extent. Sophy had told her cousin how Cat and other actresses, dissatisfied with a male-dominated theatre and the manipulation of women, had entered the fight for the vote, sometimes at the cost of their career. And as they had talked, and argued on occasion as Patience did not support the militant tone the Women’s Suffrage movement had taken of late, Sophy found her own opinions and views solidifying. Because Cat had cared so passionately about the vote she had gone along with supporting it without really thinking deeply for herself. Her work, the struggle of trying to make her failing marriage succeed, had taken centre stage. But now she was thinking for herself and she was angry. And yes, when Patience had gently suggested it, Sophy had agreed she was embittered too. What was more, she didn’t intend to apologise for it.
As she stood on the doorstep in the late-summer sunshine waving Patience off, Sophy squared her shoulders. Never again would she let any man reduce her to the state she had been in when Patience had arrived. But that time was gone now: she was better, she wanted to live again. Her life had to have some purpose to it other than entertaining people in the theatre; she not only owed that to herself, she owed it to Cat. She would make a difference. She wasn’t quite sure how yet, but that would come.
She had made a great mistake when she had married Toby. She had let love make a fool of her, and in a way she had perpetuated that mistake by trying to be a trusting wife, by supporting him and standing by him when in truth she should have left him years ago. But it was no good looking back. She had learned by her mistake and she wouldn’t make the same one twice. She was successful in her own right, she didn’t need a man to support her and she certainly didn’t need one in her home or in her bed.
The cab disappeared round a corner and Sadie, who was standing just behind her, said, ‘Well, ma’am, it’s just the two of us again.’
Thank God for Sadie. And that’s what she had to do. Count her blessings and get on with life. Turning, she smiled. ‘As you say, Sadie, it’s just the two of us.’
PART SIX
A Woman of Substance
1909
Chapter 22