When she entered the drawing room, Mrs Hogarth and Molly were already standing with their heads bowed, her mother was regally seated on one of the sofas with her eyes closed, and her father was droning on as usual. She was two minutes late. Heresy, as the swift piercing glance her mother gave her confirmed. Patience sat down but she didn’t shut her eyes. Instead she glanced round the room she knew she was seeing for the last time, looking at the old familiar surroundings with a total lack of sentiment.
She had been happy in this house until the day her mother had whipped Sophy to within an inch of her life, but everything had changed from that point. It wouldn’t be too extreme to say her eyes had been opened and she hadn’t liked what she had seen, nor the person she herself had been then. And going away to school had driven home the fact that she was in grave danger of becoming her mother’s daughter in every sense of the word. She knew she could be bossy and overbearing, ‘a little prig’, one of the girls in her dormitory had called her, but it was the narrowness of her vision which had alarmed her more than anything else. She had been so entrenched in her mother’s way of thinking and doing things that she hadn’t considered it could be wrong.
It had been a painful awakening. She nodded inwardly to the thought. But necessary. And now she thanked God for it, oh, she did.
She glanced at her father and not for the first time felt amazement that he could have come from the same parents as Sophy’s mother. She wondered who Sophy’s mother had taken after. The great-grandparents perhaps? Or maybe a free spirit reared its head in every family now and again? One thing was for sure, black sheep were never discussed or acknowledged, and all trace of them was effectively covered over.
When the prayers finished, Patience realised she hadn’t heard a word of them. Mrs Hogarth and Molly trooped out, and she and her mother and father made their way to the dining room.
She found it enormously difficult to eat anything but forced down a few mouthfuls of porridge before buttering one of the soft rolls Mrs Hogarth made fresh every morning. Mrs Hogarth’s cooking wasn’t a patch on the meals Kitty had produced, but at least her bread was nice, Patience thought.
Her parents had started on their eggs and ham when Patience spoke. The meal had been conducted in total silence before then. ‘I have some news.’
Her father raised his head but her mother continued eating.
Patience took a deep breath. ‘I have been accepted as a nurse at the Sunderland Infirmary and I begin my training tomorrow. Probationer Nurses are provided with board and lodging and most of their uniform as part of their remuneration so I will be living at the hospital for the next three years until I obtain my nursing certificate. Of course, I can visit you on my half-day off once a week if you wish me to.’
If she had taken all her clothes off and danced stark-naked on the table she couldn’t have shocked them more. Her father stared at her, his mouth slightly agape as he visibly tried to take in what she had announced, but it was Mary who sprang up, her chair falling backwards, as she cried, ‘Never! I forbid it, do you hear me? Isn’t it enough that your elder brothers have disgraced us without you attempting to do the same?’
Patience sat very still. ‘John and Matthew are working hard and doing well at their respective jobs,’ she said quietly, ‘and their young ladies are pleasant, respectable girls. I see no reason for disgrace in any of that. As for me, my mind is made up. It has been for some time.’
‘This is what comes from allowing her to demean herself working voluntarily at that dreadful Eye Infirmary in Stockton Road.’ Mary had swung round to face her husband, her thin face flushed with temper. ‘I told you no good would come of it, but you wouldn’t have it. You could have been involved in all kinds of good works without coming into contact with sick people,’ she bit out to Patience. ‘It’s not right for a young unmarried girl to see such things. But to get paid for it, to work. I shall never be able to hold up my head again. I won’t have it, Patience. I mean it.’
‘And I mean it, Mother. And you’re quite right, the valuable experience I’ve gained at the Eye Infirmary has made up my mind where I see my future. I’m not squeamish and medicine fascinates me, moreover I’ve a natural affinity with the patients – everyone says so.’
‘At the infirmary? But of course they would, girl. Cheap labour, they’ll butter you up all they can.’
Patience stood up, white-faced. ‘It was the head doctor who said it and he is not in the habit of “buttering up” anyone, believe me.’
‘Is your mind made up?’ Jeremiah entered the exchange. ‘Are you absolutely sure it’s what you want to do, Patience, because it will mean hard, relentless work, day in and day out. There’s nothing romantic about nursing. You will be cleaning bedpans and giving bed-baths and seeing sights that will turn your stomach, and all for a pittance, remember that. It will be nothing like the voluntary work you’ve been doing. Are you prepared for that?’
‘Of course she isn’t, the stupid girl.’ Mary was beside herself. ‘Tell her! Tell her it’s ridiculous.’