THE DEPRIVED... Chapter 3...Part 37.

A continuation of my book.

Beth followed him into the surgery.
“Come along girl! I haven’t got all day!” snapped the irritable Doctor, pushing Beth down into the chair.
“Head back and mouth open.” came the order and Beth complied, aware of the two burly orderlies who stood either side of her.
“There’s not much worth saving here.” said the Doctor, prodding at the front teeth so that Beth winced in pain.
“Hold her down!”
The two orderlies on either side of Beth moved in and held her down to the chair and pinning her by the arms as the Doctor approached, his hand holding the pinchers. Beth screamed as the blood spurted and filled her mouth, till the extremity of pain from the continuing tooth extraction seemed to anesthetise the pain to a dull ache.
“There!” exclaimed the Doctor as he dropped the last of the teeth into a bowl and standing back.
Beth felt the pressure from the orderlies relax and she stood, quite light-headed and put the shawl back up to her mouth as she felt the blood run back down her throat.
“Of you go, girl! Go back to work.” said the Doctor, opening the door and pushing her out before calling for the next girl to enter.

The afternoon was a whirl of pain and aberration for Beth, not sure whether she was doing the right thing or not and simply dipping the matchsticks into the chemicals and not even caring if she burned her fingers. Through the pain her only thoughts were of Nat and what he would say when he saw she had lost every tooth to her top jaw and some to the lower. Would he be put off by her appearance and the fact that she could not speak clearly, not pronounce her ‘S’s, so that the word ‘Sausages’ came out as ‘Sodages’? After all it was Nat who had persuaded her to go to the Doctor and have her teeth pulled, considering that she was like many of the girls and minus their teeth.
“And you would never lose your beauty or my fancy!” he had exclaimed.

When the hooter blasted at seven o’clock that evening Beth found Nat was waiting for her at the gates, his face full of concern as he drew her shawl down from her mouth. Taking one corner of the shawl he tipped at it with his tongue and wiped gently at the dried blood around her lips then wiping at the tears as she began to cry bitterly, allowing the pain and shame to flood out.
“Don’t cry Beth, my darling.” said Nat softly. “You aint lost your looks. Aint you still the most beautiful girl in the factory and soon to be me blessed wife.”
Beth stopped crying, looking up into Nat’s face. His wife?
The pain and shame of losing her teeth seemed to fade into a distance and Beth needed to hear those words again, once more to reassure herself of what Nat had said.
“Your wife?”
The words came out from her mouth yet the sound was not of her speech, sounding strange and unmanaged.
“Yes darling Beth. I want us to be married as soon as we can and I will see to the fixing of it, once your mouth is better.”
Clearly, Beth thought, no man could love a woman more than did Nat who loved her in this sad and sorry state. Together they walked homewards, Nat with his arm around the shoulders of Beth.

For the next few days Beth’s mouth remained swollen and sore and only allowing Nat to give a gentle touch of his lips on hers before each night’s sleep and in the morning before each went to their station of work.
Each day the swelling and the pain lessened until on a fine Sunday morning both Beth and Nat stood before a Registrar and announced their vows to each other and to the world that they would remain in wedded matrimony until death parted them.
That night they celebrated with a hot punch shared between them and Mr. Yates, along with his niece Annie who excitedly divulged the information that she too would hope to be married once she had finished her studies and returned to the family home.
In a strange way Beth seemed to grow more content at work as if she now belonged to that group of women who had suffered from the same emergency of having their teeth yanked out. Whether the fumes and the intake of noxious energies had an effect on child-bearing it seemed that no matter what Beth and Nat tried there was no fertilisation and with it came the knowledge that she might not be able to bear a child. Nat was in total consolation and told her it lay with God’s plans for them and Beth accepted this. However it might also have been in God’s hands to give Beth the child she longed for in a rather strange way.

It was on the Thursday evening that Nat, having met Beth as usual at the factory gates and beginning to walk her home through the darkened streets. The rain had begun to drizzle before turning into a steady drumming which glistened the cobbles and urged those out to hurry their pace.
“Come on, Beth.” said Nat as he lengthened his stride so Beth hurried to catch up with him.
“Wait Nat, not so fast!” she had exclaimed and it was lucky that she had said so because, had she not said so Nat might well have tripped over the bundle of rags which lay on the pavement.
“What is it?” asked Beth on seeing Nat stop to peer closely at the bundle.
“It’s a young ‘un!” exclaimed Nat now kneeling to turn the bundle over so that they could see the pale whiteness of a small boy’s face. The boy’s eyes were closed while the breath came faint and hard to tell whether he breathed or not.
“It’s that boy from the factory!” cried Beth. “The little boy who Stanbridge once hit. He used to sweep up the factory floor! Oh Nat, pick him up and bring him back home with us. Hurry, so we can put him by the fire.”
Nat gently lifted up the small body, as light as a feather and carried him through the dark till they reached their room and set him down on the bed. Nat quickly set a fire blazing while Beth carefully cut away the rags which half-clothed the boy’s body.
“Oh Nat!” Beth cried. “Look at his body, it’s covered in bruises!”
“That aint the marks of a caring.” said Nat. “That looks like the work of a beast!” he added, surveying the marks, scars and bruises which damaged the boy’s skin.
Beth began to cry.
“It’s not for crying over, Beth!” said Nat sternly. “Dry him and put him into a warm bed whilst I get some soup warmed up. Perhaps when he wakes up he will take some and then tell us what he was doing out on the cobbles.”
“Do you think we ought to run and get a Doctor, Nat”
Nat shook his head.
“We aint got the afford of spare pennies to pay for a Doctor and besides, some old quack will only give him some herbal tonic as to likely finish him off.” replied Nat.

That night Nat and Beth took it in turns to stay awake and see to the boy and happy to note the colour had somewhat returned to his cheeks. It was around four o’clock the next morning when the boy’s eyes fluttered open and Nat reheated the soup, gently spooning some into the open mouth as the large haunted eyes which Beth remembered so well, moved from Nat’s face to Beth and then back again. He made no sound, nor did his expression change as he swallowed the soup.
“He seems to be alright now.” said Nat. “Let’s make up a bed on the floor near the fire.”
Having made a bed up on the floor Nat lowered the boy onto it and then both sat on their bed, knowing it would soon be time to go to work.
“What can we do, Nat?” whispered Beth. “Neither of us can afford to take the day off work but we can’t leave him on his own, can we?”
“There aint much we can do except we will just have to leave him here. I aint into thinking he will be able to move about too much, still being weak an all. I’m into thinking he will sleep the day away.” replied Nat.
Beth could do nothing but agree with Nat, neither being in a position to take the time from work. By a quarter to five that morning both Nat and Beth had donned work clothes and with a last look at the boy, who seemed not to have moved one bit, they took their leave and hurried their path to work.