"What is it you want to know?" Ada asked, immediately suspecting an interrogation.
"I am not, and will never be, a mother," Miss Luckes replied, "tell me what it's like."
"Well from what I've experienced, rape is brutal, pregnancy is shadowed in secrecy and taboo, labour is long and agonising, and motherhood is lonely," Ada responded matter-of-factly. She swallowed a lump in her throat. She had spoken honestly about her experiences over the previous nine months for the first time. She felt a sense of a weight being lifted.
Miss Luckes did not know what to expect from Ada's answer to her question, but this had not been it. She clutched Sarah closer to her bosom, observing her intently. She had her mother's eyes and nose, and the delicate fuzz across her crown was similar in colour to Ada's. The roundness to her jawline and the neatness to her ears must be her father's.
"Have you always wanted a child?" Miss Luckes asked.
"If I am honest, Matron, no, I haven't," Ada replied, "as a twenty-two year old applying to be a Probationer, children were the last thing I wanted. I scarcely gave the possibility of a husband and children a thought. That changed somewhat when Dr Walton and I were courting, then, yes, some days anyway, marriage and children seemed wonderful. But then on other days I remembered I was Nurse, and then Sister, Russell, and I would have let nothing in the world change that. But after I broke off our engagement, that I suppose was when I realised that whilst my head would always be in Nursing, my heart wanted something else too. Caring for Anna's children merely confirmed and cemented the desires. She'd put her baby in my arms and, oh, I never felt such a wonderful feeling, contentment and love, as though everything was exactly right. When it was time to put him down, I'd get a physical panging pain, just here," she said, resting her hand below her navel, "as though to tell me where a child should be lying. Though, it was all a bit late by then, I'd rejected the only man I have ever truly loved and I was destined for eternal spinsterhood."
"Do you think of Sarah as a blessing?" Miss Luckes asked.
"I have never loved anyone like I love Sarah. The day you consigned me to bed rest was the first day when I truly accepted that I was expecting, and I have loved her from that day onwards. I was only twelve weeks gestation, I couldn't see or feel her, but I knew she was there and that was enough for me to love her. But I cannot deny that my life has changed unrecognisably in the last nine months. I am only just beginning to find out how to be a mother, and what this means for my place in the world. Soon after I return to Burbridge Hall I will have to be something previously considered impossible, a mother and a nurse, balancing the needs of my patient with the needs of my child. You once told me of the boundaries between love and care, and how they should not be blurred. How do I choose between the needs of the child I love and the patient whom I care for?"
"That is just one reason why I will advocate for the vocation of nursing until the day I die," Miss Luckes remarked, "it is a decision that I for one would have a great difficulty in making."
"I feel that remaining in Lady Burbridge's employment will soon become impossible," Ada continued, "whilst I am grateful beyond measure for the safety, security, the genuine affection, and treatment I have received under her roof, I cannot hide there forever. She is frail, far frailer than she really believes she is. In a medical emergency, do I neglect my daughter or my patient? When the inevitable happens, then what? How many other dowager Countesses would be happy to employ an unmarried mother in any capacity? How many people who are not dowager Countesses would do the same? I don't know what to do."
"Would you consider marriage?"
"Not simply for convenience," Ada retorted sharply, "and anyway, who would have me? Definitely the wrong side of thirty, far too used to being in charge, damaged goods…" Ada's voice trailed off. She suddenly remembered the conversation she had had with Dr Walton on the steps of Burbridge Hall. Did he really mean what he had said?
Miss Luckes registered the change in Ada's demeanour. She gently got up from her own chair and sat beside Ada on the sofa. She freed one arm from underneath Sarah and placed it around Ada, gently stroking her up and down the line of her ribcage. Instinctively, Ada's head found Miss Luckes' shoulder.
"One day," Ada breathed, "I hope women do not have to choose between a career that they love and the prospect of a husband, a loving home, and children. The thought of giving up nursing is breaking me apart."
"Shush, don't upset yourself," Miss Luckes soothed, having felt several tears seep through the material of her dress, "the Lord will provide."
"I admire your optimism and conviction Matron," Ada sniffed, "but I must think about our future. I cannot have the future you, or anyone else, once offered me. I must forge my own path."
"That I once offered you?" Miss Luckes asked, "what do you mean."
"When you offered me Wellington Ward, you told me to think about my future, told me I could have a great career at The London. A great career if I didn't take up the engagement that you knew Dr Walton had offered me. You and he offered me the two things I most desperately longed for in the world, knowing that I could not have both. I chose your path. Terrible, cruel, fate knocked me off that path. And then, a chance encounter reopened a path I believed was firmly closed to me."
"Who did you meet?" Miss Luckes asked, more to encourage Ada to talk than anything else; she already had a name in mind.
"Lady Burbridge is one of Dr Walton's private patients at Harley Street. She collapsed some months ago and he was sent for. Obviously, given our former acquaintance, he was curious and concerned as to the events leading to my then condition and presence at Burbridge Hall. I told him everything. And then."
Ada's voice caught in her throat. Miss Luckes held her tighter. For the first time, Ada reached an arm around Miss Luckes' waist. With her other hand she stroked Sarah's bootied feet.
"What?" Miss Luckes asked.
"He, he, told me, he still loved me," Ada managed to stammer, "he told me that despite all I had done to him, despite the fact that, at the time, I was thirty-one weeks pregnant with an illegitimate child, he loved me. He wanted me. He said he wanted to meet Sarah."
Ada's voice trailed off. Miss Luckes unfurled herself from Ada's embrace and placed Sarah into her arms. She then returned to the chair opposite Ada and watched mother and daughter thoughtfully for a moment, trying to formulate her next sentences in her mind. Eventually, she managed to say,
"There cannot be many men who express a desire to become acquainted with another man's offspring."
"That's what Ethel said," Ada admitted.
"Do your feelings for him remain as they once were?" Miss Luckes asked.
"I love him no less," Ada sighed, "but."
"Now, as then, you love nursing more than him?"
"James is kind, a gentleman, devoted to who and what he loves, but I always got the impression that, as his wife, he would have wanted me to be something I'm not. The quiet little thing, at home with the children, waiting for him with his supper on the table and his slippers warmed by the fire."
"Is that so unreasonable?" Miss Luckes asked.
"Perhaps not to women of your generation, my mother certainly settled for such an allotment in life. But the world is changing around us Matron. At The London, as a woman I can manage a ward, or the Receiving Room, take on responsibility, lead, command when necessary. Outside these four walls, what can I do? I can't manage a company, or own a property, or have any say in how this country is governed."
"Miss Russell," Miss Luckes interjected alarmedly.
"I will never be content with the life that my mother had," Ada continued, ignoring the interruption "I don't just want to be Mrs James Walton, wife, and mother, I want to be me."
"I have always admired your strength and courage Ada, but dreams must be tempered by realism. The world is going to have to change enormously for your dreams to come true, and I cannot fathom an event with the power to create such upheaval. The progression you hope for may one day arise, but I doubt it will be in my lifetime, or yours."
"Then what am I to do?"
"As much as you resent it, it seems that marriage is your only real option."
Ada sighed, her posture slumping as far as her corsetry would allow.
"Have you written to Dr Walton, announcing Sarah's birth?" Miss Luckes asked.
Ada shook her head, "no, not yet."
"Given the results of your recent encounter," Miss Luckes continued, getting up from her chair and walking over to her writing desk, "a short note would be most appropriate." She picked up a pen and ink and a few sheets of note paper, before placing them on the low table in front of Ada. In response to Ada's wide-eyed expression, Miss Luckes added, "it can be sent with an errand boy to Harley Street this afternoon."
"What should I write?" Ada asked, handing Sarah to Miss Luckes and picking up the pen.
"'Dear Dr Walton' would be a good place to start," Miss Luckes replied, gently rocking Sarah.
Ada flashed the most rapid of scowls at Miss Luckes, before loading the pen and scratching the words across the top of the page.
"I would suggest that you tell him that you have a beautiful daughter, who is the spitting image of her mother, and that you are currently staying here with me at The London."
"Why tell him that I'm here?" Ada asked, looking up from the page.
"I thought that was obvious," Miss Luckes replied with a snap sufficient to take Ada aback. When Ada failed to respond, Miss Luckes continued, "a well-connected, well-respected, dare I say, handsome gentleman of more than your acquaintance, wants to meet your child. While you are staying with me seems the perfect opportunity for such an encounter. And," a wry smile and the slightest inkling of a flush of colour darted across Miss Luckes' face, "you could kindle the, feelings, that exist betwixt you."
Ada stared at Miss Luckes, wide-eyed, her mouth agape, scarcely able to believe what she had heard come forth from her former superior's lips. Miss Luckes allowed herself a broader smile at Ada's reaction and then, snuggling Sarah tighter against her bosom, allowed her gaze to move pointedly between Ada's face and the writing paper on the table before her and said,
"Carry on Miss Russell."
