by Maggie Hope
‘Is he dead?’ A gleam of interest shone in Jenny’s eyes. For the first time her face looked like a child’s rather than a little old woman’s.
‘Come and sit down,’ said Elizabeth, ‘we’ll sit on the settle, will we? And I’ll tell you all about him and Mam.’
Jenny glanced once at the door, uncertain, but the pull of talking to Elizabeth, her own sister, after all the hours of being on her own was too much of a temptation. They sat down together on the settle and Elizabeth told her what she could remember of their dad, and of Mam and the rest of the family. And Jenny sat, as quiet as a little lost sparrow.
Chapter Seven
‘DAD MIGHT STILL come back for us,’ said Jenny, her little face alight with hope. ‘I mean, if he’s making his fortune in America, he might just have been a long time getting rich and might still come back.’ She got down from the settle and took the kettle to the pail of water in the corner, filling it with a ladling can obviously kept for the purpose. She carried the kettle back to the fire in two hands, leaning forward from the weight of it. Elizabeth wanted to help but Jenny shook her head.
The fire, which had been almost out when Elizabeth came in, was freshly made up with small pieces of coal and blocks of peat and was throwing a fair amount of heat out into the room. Elizabeth, who had no experience of peat, watched with interest. It had taken longer to catch hold than coal but the heat from it was impressive.
She had told Jenny that Mam had died and they had had to be split up because they were too young; she had told her about Kit and how he was called Christopher now that Auntie Betty was his mother. And how Alice had a nice new mother in Coundon and Jimmy was working in the pit.
Jenny had listened carefully, her little face rapt. She seemed to have forgotten all about her foster father, even her fear that he would come in and be angry because she had let Elizabeth in. Elizabeth was apprehensive, though. The nights were cutting in now it was the back end of September and surely Peart would be coming home soon? She could have gone, made the excuse she had to get back to Frosterley before dark, but she felt she had to stay in case Jenny needed protecting from the man.
‘Does he hit you?’ she asked. ‘Does he treat you badly?’
‘No,’ Jenny replied. But she rubbed at her arm as she spoke and the sleeve rode up and there was a purplish bruise encircling the whole of her upper arm. She saw Elizabeth staring at it.
‘He didn’t hit me,’ Jenny said quickly. ‘It’s just when I’m lazy and don’t get something he asks for quick enough, like. He was a bit rough when he caught hold of my arm. It was my fault, I’m too slow.’ She stared at the fire. ‘He would never let me call him Dad. I went to school for a while and all the other girls had dads. And she told me I was a charity case. They took me in out of the goodness of their own hearts. I wasn’t their daughter, really.’
Took you in for a slave was what they did, thought Elizabeth. She remembered the way Jenny had jumped and run to Peart’s every bidding the first time she was there and felt hot words rising to her lips. But she held them back. She had to be careful, she counselled herself, Jenny had to stay with the man.
‘What was it like when Mrs Peart was here? Was she nice?’
Conflicting emotions chased across Jenny’s face. She looked down at the faded skirt of her over-large dress. ‘It was all right,’ she whispered at last.
Elizabeth frowned. ‘Was she not nice to you then?’
‘Aye … Yes, she was,’ the child answered, but her voice was hesitant. Elizabeth was about to press her further but just then the door was flung open and the dog rushed into the room, barking furiously. He raced up to Elizabeth and, sticking out his head, snarled and growled and barked. His master was directly behind him, though and Peart flung his stick at the dog, catching it a glancing blow on the shoulder. The cur broke off, growling abruptly, and sneaked into the corner and lay down, whimpering softly.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Peart demanded of Elizabeth. ‘Did I not make it clear you weren’t welcome the last time you came poking your bloody nose in?’
‘I have a right to visit my sister,’ she replied, lifting her chin and staring at him defiantly. ‘You didn’t adopt her, she’s still under the guardians, really. And I was told I could visit her.’ It was stretching the truth somewhat but Elizabeth didn’t care.
She wrinkled her nose as he came near her. The rank smell from him hadn’t improved since she last saw him; she reckoned he hadn’t had a wash, never mind a bath, since then. And yet Jenny was clean even if she was dressed in threadbare clothes.
‘Aye, well, I should have left her in t’Home. She’s nowt but a trouble to me. Wanders off up the moor when she gets the chance, she should have been a bloody sheep! Might as well have been an’ all. Once I found her wi’ the sheep – sleeping in among them she was – an’ nobbut a slip of a bairn an’ all. That’s why I cannot let her out.’ He looked again at Elizabeth, eyes sliding from her face to her feet, lingering on her figure.
‘I suppose you could take a cup o’tea? The lass’ll be making one for me, if she ever gets hersel stirred. Jump to it, lass!’ The last was a barked order and Jenny did indeed jump to it as though she’d been shot. But she glanced at her sister, eyes wide, and Elizabeth guessed she was as much startled by his offer of hospitality as she was by his order. But it was getting late, Elizabeth had to go if she wanted to get back to Newcomb Hall. Besides, she couldn’t understand why Peart had changed his mind about letting her come. It was suspicious.
‘Thank you but I haven’t time,’ she said, ‘I have to catch the last train from Frosterley.’ She turned to her sister. ‘Will you walk me a way up the path, Jenny?’
‘No, she won’t,’ Peart said shortly. ‘You found your way here, I reckon you can find it back. The lass has my meal to get ready.’
Elizabeth glared at him then turned back to Jenny. ‘I’ll see you in a fortnight,’ she promised. ‘You’ll be here?’
‘Where else would she be?’ Peart answered for her. ‘An’ I’ll be here an’ all. I’m not having you two talking about me behind me back.’
It was only when Elizabeth was hurrying along the path to Frosterley station in the near dark and going over in her mind the events of the afternoon that she realised something. Jenny had talked to her when they were alone; she had almost seemed like a normal little girl then, asking questions, listening to the stories Elizabeth told her about her parents. But she had never once called Mr and Mrs Peart anything except ‘he’ and ‘she’. And when Peart had come in she had said not one word. Well, Elizabeth promised herself, she would get to the bottom of it. Oh, yes, she would.
Jack Benson sat out on a garden bench until quite late that Sunday afternoon. In the morning he had worn his new feet; wooden they were, with metal joints which he had been warned he would have to keep oiled. He had actually got up on his feet himself, with a great effort of will and some encouragement from Nurse Turner and Elizabeth, or Lizzie as he privately thought of her. He had been reading Jane Austen simply because it was there in the library at the Hall and he was a voracious reader, always running out of books. And Nurse Nelson, the little nurse’s aide, for all her lowly status, reminded him of Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. She was so sensible for a young girl, instinctively knowing when his legs hurt. She had such a delicate yet firm touch when she helped Nurse Turner gently massage with spirit the new pink skin which covered his wounds, to harden it, or the way she could make a pad of Gangee tissue without a single crease in it to protect the ends when he wore his new feet. She was better at it even than Nurse Turner and definitely streets ahead of Nurse Middleham.
She wasn’t there when he triumphantly stood up again that afternoon, even took the step which got him on to the garden bench and off that damned chair. He had glanced around, expecting to see her, strangely disappointed that she was missing.
‘Where is Nurse Nelson?’ he had asked.
‘The nurse’s aide? It’s her half day. I don’
t know where she’s gone,’ Nurse Middleham had replied. ‘Now, are you all right there? Only I have such a lot to do this afternoon, it really is a nuisance when she has time off.’
And Nurse Middleham had hurried away over the grass to the Hall, the wings of her VAD’s cap floating behind her in the breeze.
Bitch’d never make a nurse in a million years, Jack told himself savagely. He sat back on the bench and carefully crossed his legs. He could feel the weight of the wooden foot which dangled in the air from the straps which wound around his calf. After a while it became uncomfortable and he put it back on the ground, jarring it a little as he misjudged the distance. The feeling of optimism which had been with him since the morning began to evaporate a little. At the back of his mind he could sense the black shadows forming; the demon which had sat on his shoulder since he’d stood on the mine was waiting to pounce again. He deliberately looked up at the sunlit sky.
‘I don’t know, Jack, do you think you should be out here on your own and out of your wheelchair? No attendant either, it’s very worrying.’
The sun disappeared from his view as his mother put herself between him and the sky. The demon crept closer.
‘Hello, Mother.’
He hitched himself up on the bench and forced a smile.
‘I’m fine on my own, really I am. I like a bit of peace sometimes anyway. How are you, Mother?’ He lifted his face as she bent to kiss him on the cheek, the familiar smell of violet-scented face powder and lavender water drifted over him.
‘Sit here, Mother, why don’t you?’ He patted the seat beside him and she took out a handkerchief and dusted the slats of the bench with it before sitting down.
‘Oh, don’t ask, don’t ask, dear boy,’ said Olivia Benson, putting her head to one side so that the stuffed bird on her Queen Mary-style hat tilted perilously. ‘How can I complain when such a terrible thing has happened to you? No, I’m fine, I’m fine, though I can’t remember the day – or I should say night – when I’ve had more than two hours’ sleep put together. And I can’t eat, really I can’t. “Rations!” I say. “They make no difference to me, I don’t eat anything anyway”.’ A dot of saliva appeared on her lips from the emphasis with which she spoke and she dabbed at it with a wisp of lace. ‘Of course, Nancy eats my share anyway, great lump that she is. It’s perhaps just as well I can’t get another maid. I certainly couldn’t feed one.’
She stopped talking and looked at him properly; it was almost like an inspection. Then she pursed her lips and sighed.
‘I don’t know, Jack, really I don’t. What would your dear father have said if he could have seen you now? Really it’s just as well he’s dead and gone, bless him.’ Her look was reproachful as though she blamed Jack for getting injured; obviously she thought he should have watched where he was going and then he wouldn’t have stepped on a land mine, would he? Jack smiled as he remembered his schooldays. She had had the same attitude when he fell off his horse, or when a cricket ball thumped him between the eyes and landed him in the sick bay at school. He was just plain clumsy and didn’t look where he was going, in her considered opinion.
‘Well, Mother, at least I won’t be going back to the front, will I? And I suppose I’ll get a war pension.’
‘Hmm!’
It was a snort, showing what she thought of that. Jack wished fervently that she would go. He knew perfectly well what her next words would be and he was right.
‘You know I can’t have you home, don’t you, Jack? There’s no possibility of my looking after you, I’m just not up to it, and neither is Nancy, she’s too old.’
‘It’s my home too, Mother. And besides, I will have to leave here soon. Did you not notice I’ve got my new feet? I stood up today, I’ll be walking quite well soon.’
Olivia Benson sniffed. Her glance at the feet was anything but encouraging. ‘I was in at the watchmaker’s in Newgate Street on Friday, picking up my pendant watch. Nancy was clumsy enough to knock it from the dressing table last week, but I told her the cost of mending it will be taken from her wages.’ Mrs Benson pursed her lips and half shook her head, endangering the stuffed bird once again.
‘Well, what I was going to say was that Mrs Buxton was there, the watchmaker’s wife. You remember Mrs Buxton, don’t you? I was telling her that you were to be fitted with artificial feet and she was telling me that her cousin had an artificial foot but he wasn’t able to wear it much, it made his leg far too sore. So how you can possibly expect to walk with two of them is beyond me …’
‘For pity’s sake, Mother, will you shut up?’
Most of the other people in the garden stopped talking and listened as Jack roared at his mother, the demon finally taking over.
‘Well, I mean, I was only telling the truth. You have to be prepared for these things—’ Mrs Benson stopped abruptly as she saw his expression. She lowered her voice. ‘Don’t shout, Jack, everyone is looking,’ she whispered.
‘I don’t care who the hell is looking, Mother, do you hear me? Now find me an orderly or a nurse or someone. I want to go back to my room!’
Mrs Benson stood up and hovered and suddenly she looked like a frail old lady and the people about were all looking at Jack as though he were a murderer. She took out her wisp of lace again and dabbed at her eyes.
‘Please, Jack,’ she whimpered.
He sighed. ‘All right. Sit down, Mother, please. I’m sorry I shouted, I won’t do it again.’
‘No, I think I’d better go, you’re obviously overwrought. Look, there’s an orderly over there, I’ll ask him to be good enough to take you in.’ She walked a few steps away and then came back. ‘I’ll say goodbye now, Jack, I’ll see you next week if I am well enough. But you know the precarious state of my health …’
‘Yes, Mother. Very well, I’ll see you soon.’ He watched as she went up to Private Wilson who was standing on the steps of the Hall. He saw her push something into the man’s hand and Wilson nodded and touched his forelock and started over the grass towards him. His mother went off along the drive to where her groom was waiting with a governess cart.
Jack’s stumps felt sore. The black shadows were clouding in from the back of his mind and taking over altogether.
Chapter Eight
‘DID YOU HAVE a nice time on your afternoon off?’
Elizabeth, who had been gently washing the ends of Jack’s legs with a solution of boracic acid, looked up in surprise at his question. Captain Benson had rarely spoken more than two words to her except to say what he wanted her to do for him. But now he was smiling at her. His normally austere expression had vanished and he looked genuinely interested. He lifted an eyebrow and she found her tongue.
‘Yes, thank you, sir.’
She bent her head to what she was doing, gently squeezing the liquid over the reddened patches made by his feet the day before. She was suddenly intensely conscious of him. They were on their own, Nurse Turner having gone off to see Miss Rowland and Nurse Middleham on her day off. Elizabeth was gradually being allowed to do proper nursing jobs on her own; in fact, some of the men especially asked for her; she was beginning to get a name for her ‘healing’ hands. It was not usual for a nurse’s aide to do dressings but the hospital was chronically short-staffed. Most trained nurses preferred to be in the larger hospitals or even in the military ones in France.
Elizabeth turned her mind to the afternoon before. How sweet it had been to talk to Jenny after all the years of longing for her, worrying about her. The journey back to Newcomb Hall had passed swiftly as she had gone over every word in her mind. She wished she knew why the girl was so timid, so frightened of her foster father.
Elizabeth finished the bathing and dried the stumps carefully with cotton wool before applying zinc and castor oil ointment. He hardly winced at all, and she felt a measure of satisfaction at that.
‘Did you go somewhere special?’ Jack asked, surprising her again, and Elizabeth flashed a glance at him from under her lashes, her cheeks tinged wi
th pink. He was such a lovely man, and it was a terrible thing that had happened to him. His poor poor feet. And you could see from his face it had taken a lot out of him. Well, it was bound to.
Jack was sitting up against his pillows. There were shadows under his eyes and the scar on the left side of his face stood out red against his pallor. His legs had ached all night, he had got very little sleep. But now, lying here, feeling her soothing touch, he felt content, almost happy, though it didn’t occur to him to realise why.
‘On your afternoon off?’ he prompted her.
‘I went up to Bollihope Common to see my little sister,’ she said at last.
‘Your little sister? Bollihope Common in Weardale? She’s living there?’ Jack was surprised. He had thought, taken it for granted, really, that Elizabeth was from one of the mining villages. ‘You’re from the Dales?’
‘No. I’m from the Children’s Home, the one attached to the workhouse,’ said Elizabeth. ‘We were sent there when my mother died.’ The statement was made matter-of-factly without a trace of self-pity but Jack was stricken, though it was a common enough story.
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
She was carefully padding his legs with Gangee tissue, ready for him to attach his feet. The doctor had been in earlier and decreed that, despite the soreness, Jack should try to accustom himself to wearing them.
‘You’ll be surprised how soon the skin will harden, Captain Benson,’ he had boomed. Dr Hardy was not an army man but a local general practitioner who put in a number of hours at the Hall. Elizabeth knew him for a good doctor, a gruff red-faced man with a Scottish accent who lived for his day off which he spent at the golf club in the town. He sported tweed plus fours and Argyll woollen socks and brogues, and his hair was parted down the middle and slicked back and to the sides.
It was raining today so Jack was only going to walk across the bedroom and back to his chair in the window. But he was in no hurry to end this pleasant interlude with the little nurse’s aide; in no hurry to call in that oaf of an orderly to help him out of bed. He looked down at the knot of glossy black hair which emerged from the back of Lizzie’s cap, contrasting so well with the white skin of her nape. He felt something … Perhaps he just felt protective, she was so capable and yet vulnerable.