Northfield 3-4. A Jane Eyre retelling.

This story, as you will see, addresses some Real Life People from the history of psychiatry, but in a slightly anachronistic manner. I hope it can still be read as fiction. In Call The Midiwfe, the social history of medicine is an important feature, so I got my inspiration from there.

Northfield, Chapter 3.

In this AU story, Alec Jesmond does not die.

Listening

Timothy Turner enjoyed having a new audience; Shelagh was soon given many opportunities to see his new photographs and drawings. He visited Nonnatus House quite often, and Shelagh developed a good rapport with the sensitive, lonely boy. Working alongside Mrs. Fairfax in the Nonnatus kitchen, Timothy told Shelagh of his days at school and his Cub meetings. Shelagh had also been shown his treasured family photo album with pictures of a young Doctor Turner, Mrs. Jennifer Turner and other relatives in it. The family ties to Birmingham were now loose, but it seemed that before Mrs. Turner's death and their removal to London, the couple had belonged to a very close circle of family and friends. These friends were mostly old Doctor Parker's colleagues and their families. Below the pictures, Shelagh came across many familiar names, scribbled there apparently by Granny Parker, as Tim called his maternal grandmother.

"Doctor Bion and Mrs. Faulkes playing croquet." "Lydia Rickman having tea with Jennifer in the garden" "Uncle Trotter with his nephews and nieces".

For Shelagh, these were near-famous people whose articles she had read as a student nurse: Wilfred Bion, Siegfried Faulkes, John Rickman and Wilfred Trotter*. In one group portrait, there was even Ernst Jones**, of whom she had heard quite a lot from Anna Freud.

At the surgery, Shelagh developed a similar rapport with Timothy's father. He liked to talk shop with her.

Through these conversations, a new world was opening for Shelagh. They talked of the cases of the day and new treatments –but that was not so unfamiliar to her. The man himself was a new experience. It seemed he had a deep interest in the history of medicine and that not many people in Poplar shared this interest.

He could still be blunt but he was no longer dour in those times when she let him think aloud, and he seemed to enjoy her popping questions or remarks at him.

On one spectacular day, they had one of these conversations.

"That was a close call."

Doctor Turner came back from the telephone clearly relieved at the news he had just received. Earlier that day, there had been a serious accident at a construction area. A young architect, Alec Jesmond, was badly hurt, and after Doctor Turner's first aid, Jesmond was transferred to the London. Now they got the news that the vascular surgery had been successful; his foot had been saved.

"That is good news, Doctor."

He sat down and stretched his arms above his head. "To think that only ten years ago this day would have gone quite differently. Without antibiotics, Alec Jesmond may well have died. And the progress of surgery has been enormous. During the war, we only dreamed of these things."

He chuckled with a hint of cynicism. "Do you know what my most desired diagnosis was in the war? Just four little words: No need to amputate. "

"Did you like serving in the army?"

"Yes, I liked to serve in the army. It was practical and you felt needed. Different from psychiatric cases, which can sometimes leave you helpless. The progress in psychiatry can be too slow for my impatient nature….".

He grinned a little. "Aha, you are smiling, Nurse Mannion? Do you admire my astonishing self-awareness?"

"Please go on, Doctor. The progress is slow in psychiatry…?" She had gained some resistance to his teasing.

He exhaled. "All right. Sometimes I am fed up with the poor resources we have. And there are not enough treatment options. We can give barbiturates, electric shocks or supportive therapy and that's it. Group therapy and other clinical experiments showed early promise, as did psychoanalytic research, but they are not fully feasible to all mental illnesses…."

His face turned a little melancholy. "I'd like to be of use, to be able to make things better. Just think that only forty years ago, a simple appendectomy was a great risk. Now it is a relatively routine procedure."

He looked at Shelagh with quizzical eyes. "I remember being told that Doctor Ernst Jones's first wife died during appendectomy. It is hard when a death comes so near. It makes our professional expertise seem futile."

He stared into the distance. "If something goes wrong…..you just have to bear it. Do you know what Jones chose for his wife's epitaph? 'Here the indescribable is done'."

He winced. "Sometimes I understand where he was coming from. What's the point? Someday we will all be food for worms."

Shelagh understood that he wasn't talking only about the Joneses. She had an inkling of how he may have dealt with his own losses. It was good that he didn't keep it all inside.

Yet on a day like this, there was no need to dwell on such memories. She decided some tough love was needed.

"Well, I am not ready for the worms yet, and neither was Alec Jesmond. Let that make us cheerful today. Cheerful enough to finish writing these prescriptions."

She put a pile of papers before him. He raised his upper lip in an ironical manner and rose up from his lounging position.

"Aye aye, sir. I mean mademoiselle. As you wish."

After filling in a couple of forms, he stopped for a moment and looked up at her:

"It is good that you keep me in order. You are the first receptionist to succeed in that. "

"Well, you are quite a handful, Doctor."

"Yes. I am. "

*) Siegfried Foulkes, Wilfred Bion and John Rickman are the founders of group psychotherapy and therapeutic communities in Britain. Wilfred Trotter was a sociologist who created the concept of herd instinct and he was Ernst Jones’s brother-in-law.
** ) A British psychoanalyst and a biographer of Freud


Northfield Chapter 4
A baby delivered by Cynthia dies in mysterious circumstances soon afterwards. The police become involved, and other pregnant women refuse to allow the shy young midwife to attend them, bringing Cynthia to the verge of a breakdown.

The sad case of the Kelly baby

There is nothing sadder in the world than a baby dying. Sister Mary Cynthia had been forced to go through hell with the death of the Kelly baby, and the Nonnatus House community had lived it with her.

There was a sense of relief, in the middle of sadness, when she had been declared innocent of any malpractice.

Doctor Turner was sitting at the large desk in the Clinic Room, finishing the final report to the medical officials, when Shelagh brought him a tea tray.

"Is there anything else I can get you, Doctor?"

He leaned back in his chair and gazed at her.

"Some of your faith, perhaps. With cases like this, I wish I had one."

"With cases like this, I wish faith would matter."

Doctor Turner's face bore a mixture of alarm and an odd kind of relief.

Then he drew up a chair. "Please be seated. Have tea with me." He poured a cup of tea for her, without asking if she wanted it or not, and fetched a mug for himself from the cupboard.

He was clearly having one of his impish moods. Shelagh had a contrary streak in her character that whispered she should decline and leave the field victorious. But something in his similarly antagonistic nature forced her from her shell. It was as if he was a messenger sent to reveal the unseen corners of her soul, whether she wished it or not. His sarcasm, wit and humour made her drop her guard. She felt called to be courageous. She slipped into the chair.

"So, what do you think will cure the Kelly family?" he asked.

"A second baby. But that does not mean they will forget Thomas."

"You are so good with names. An excellent skill in district nursing. But what about Sister Mary Cynthia?"

"She has God to comfort and restore her, and she has her Sisters. And the joy of birth. There will be many other chances to prove her skills for her. She has been at difficult births before and has successfully saved the lives of both babies and mothers. It will happen again."

"Hmpphh. Your trust in your God is good for you and for Sister Mary Cynthia. But what of us infidels? Our second chances do not rely on the idea of Providence. Is there a redemption in repetition?"

His face turned incredulous. "This conversation is odd. I am asking you, a mere girl, the eternal questions. "

"That is all right, Doctor."

He took a cigarette from his case and lit it.

"I should perhaps apologize for always being so brusque. Now I am at least trying to break that habit. But in general, will you allow me to speak to you as someone more experienced than you? Being twelve years older, will you allow me to patronize you a little?

She chuckled.

"Are you laughing at me?"

He offered her a cigarette. She shook her head. "I don't smoke." After a pause, she continued: "But I could take a puff."

"Of this?" Doctor Turner said, astonished.

"Yes." He gave her the cigarette. He looked slightly alarmed at her easy familiarity in taking a puff.

He took the cigarette back, inhaled sharply and asked squinting his eyes: "So, why the mirth, Mannion?"

She smiled internally. She loved the way he used her surname like an endearment.

"I'm laughing because I am a paid underling of yours here at Nonnatus House. I am not used to doctors asking for permission to be patronizing. You get used to that as a matter of course in nurse training."

He grinned. "I'm sure you do. I had forgotten that you are my subordinate here. So, will you sometimes let me talk to you informally without mistaking that for insolence because you work here?"

"No, not on that basis. I think I can tell the difference between informality and insolence. One I rather like, the other nothing free-born would submit to, even for a salary. But I will let you talk however you like because you forgot that I was just a nurse."

Doctor Turner's countenance melted into gentleness. Shelagh thought he looked rather sweet that way. Then he let out a contemptuous harrumph and the cynical expression returned. "I think you underestimate the human ability to accept humiliating treatment if the price is right. So, back to the topic, do you think I could get a second chance? For happiness? For redemption? What does your God say or those wise psychoanalysts you have been living with? You are familiar with the concept of a corrective experience?"

"I believe in corrective experiences. I also believe that you have to let your conscience guide your choices."

"The conscience. Does that voice speak always the truth?"

"That is my experience."

"Hmm… Not mine." There was again that shade of sullenness.

He rose.

"Well, Mannion, no clear answers for today, but it has been an education, as always. You should be paid extra for acting as my personal Sibylla."

He pressed both his palms on the desk and bent down to Shelagh.

"Do you mind me calling you Mannion?" His tone was serious.

"No, not at all."

"Thank you, Mannion. Keep up the spirit. Sorry, I have to go. My son and other duties call. Goodbye." He left.

As ever, he had created more enigmas than revealed. Who is really the Sibylla here? Why the talk of second chances?

Shelagh felt her face glow. She should not, ought not, wonder. And yet she did.