Together for Christmas

by Carol Rivers

  ‘Yes, but would you get us all arrested instead?’ Flora asked. She’d heard of the force-feeding the Suffragettes had suffered in prison. She didn’t hold with the angry crowds of screaming women either, or the protests that caused riots in the streets. There had been many casualties that Flora had read of in the newspapers.

  The woman smiled. ‘Don’t you want to have the right to vote, my dear?’

  ‘I don’t know enough about politics,’ responded Flora. The nuns had taught them never to cause trouble in society and always obey rules and regulations.

  ‘If we’re successful, you’ll have a say in how we run the country. We’ll have equal rights with men.’ The crowd of elegant, upper-class ladies began to move on, waving their papers and flags.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind joining the Suffragette cause,’ Hilda admitted. ‘But these women are the posh lot from up West. You’ve got to be a lady to join them.’

  Flora looked sternly at her friend. ‘Hilda, you’re every bit as good as any of them.’

  Hilda stopped and gazed down at her scraped-leather boots. ‘If I was dressed nice and didn’t drop me aitches I might pass muster.’

  ‘Flora! Hilda!’

  They both turned to see a slender young man hurrying across the park. His curly blond hair flopped over his blue eyes. His smile was eager.

  ‘Will, it’s so very good to see you.’ Flora embraced him, quickly stepping aside for Hilda to kiss his cheek.

  ‘You’re late,’ Hilda scolded. She took one of Will’s arms and Flora took his other. ‘But we forgive you.’

  ‘A baker’s life is a temperamental one, girls, as I’ve told you before.’ Will’s deep blue eyes twinkled in his extremely pasty face. ‘If the bread bakes limp or the bagels go square, the apprentice is brought back by the scruff of his neck and stood over the boiling ovens again.’

  ‘I’ve never seen a square bagel,’ said Hilda sceptically.

  ‘And as for limp bread – well, whoever bakes limp bread should be prosecuted!’ Flora grinned as Will assumed a hurt expression.

  ‘There’s no sympathy likely from these quarters, I can tell,’ complained Will, but all the same, Flora felt his elbow squeeze tight over her arm as they began to stroll along.

  ‘We’ll forgive you for making us wait,’ Hilda decided, ‘just as long as you buy us an ice cream.’

  ‘I’ll buy you two,’ Will replied keenly. ‘Or three, if you like.’

  Both girls stopped still. Flora’s jaw dropped and she said, ‘Have you come into money?’

  ‘No, but I’ve worked my socks off in those stifling kitchens. Can’t you see the bags of exhaustion under my eyes?’

  ‘Rubbish! Your skin is as soft as a baby’s!’ exclaimed Hilda, unsympathetically. She thrust her hand through Will’s shining cap of hair. As they spun away, teasing each other, Flora sat on a nearby bench to watch their playful larks. They scrambled like children around the tall plane trees and over the green grass, just as they had in the orphanage yard. But their only space then had been a barren quarter-acre of patchy grass, kicked muddy in winter and sand-dry in summer. Over their playground had loomed the convent of St Boniface. Its many bleak windows and draughty passages wound like a maze through the building’s vast interior. Unlike Hilda, Flora had always been comforted by the sight of the rows of shiny wooden benches and fingers of chalk attached by string to squares of slate in the freezing-cold classrooms. She had been grateful for the chance to better herself. The sweet scent of incense creeping in clouds from the chapel had sent Flora eagerly to Mass, whilst Hilda had done her best to escape it. Flora sighed, lost in thought. The scenes of their childhood were as clear in her mind today as they were all those years ago.

  ‘Well, so much for our ice creams!’ Hilda gasped as she plonked herself down beside Flora. ‘Will’s deserted us in favour of those rebels over there.’

  ‘What can he want with them?’ Flora watched curiously as Will joined the revellers.

  ‘Guess,’ said Hilda, her cheeks flushed.

  ‘I can’t think.’ Flora shrugged, her frown deepening.

  ‘Our Will is to be a soldier!’

  ‘A soldier? Is this a tease?’

  ‘No.’ Hilda’s dark eyes were quite serious. ‘Isn’t it marvellous?’

  ‘I shouldn’t say so at all.’ Flora shook her head, thinking Hilda must have got things wrong.

  ‘Don’t be stuffy. Soldiering will make a man of him.’

  ‘But why does he want to be a soldier?’

  ‘Same reason as all those other fellows,’ Hilda said simply. ‘Will is no exception.’

  ‘But, but . . .’ began Flora, ‘. . . he’s just a boy.’

  ‘You agreed yourself he was old enough to court a girl.’

  ‘That’s different,’ Flora objected. ‘Will’s too – too sensitive – to fight.’

  ‘But he’s after adventure. And who can blame him?’

  Flora’s heart sank as she listened to her friend. They couldn’t let Will go to war. ‘Hilda, we must stop him.’

  ‘How can we? And why should we?’

  ‘Will could do very well if he keeps his job.’

  ‘Like I would, if I stuck at Hailing House, you mean?’ Hilda pouted, kicking her heels. ‘Is that your advice to us both?’

  Before Flora could reply, Will ran up. His pale cheeks for once were pink. ‘Those chaps are volunteers for Kitchener,’ he told them as he sat beside Flora. ‘I’m joining them later for a rally at Buckingham Palace.’

  ‘But you can’t,’ Flora said before she could stop herself. She grabbed his arm. ‘Will, don’t do it!’

  He laughed, looking puzzled. Taking her small hands in his, he squeezed them. ‘Flora, what’s up?’

  ‘You can’t be recruited, Will. You must stay home.’

  ‘But it’s my duty,’ he told her patiently. ‘Britain must protect her little brother Belgium from Germany’s marauding armies.’

  ‘Not you,’ said Flora desperately. ‘You’ll soon be a baker.’

  At this, he laughed, throwing back his head as his curls flopped over one eye. ‘I don’t want to be a baker. I never have. And now I’ve the chance to escape it.’

  ‘But to enlist, you must be eighteen!’

  ‘Who is going to check on an orphanage boy?’

  Flora, holding Will’s slender hands tightly, looked at Hilda. ‘Hilda, how can we stop him?’

  But Hilda, gazing into Will’s amused eyes, replied unhelpfully, ‘If I was a boy, I’d volunteer too.’

  ‘Outvoted,’ Will said, drawing Flora to him and kissing her cheek. ‘But thank you for caring, dearest.’

  ‘How can you even think of shooting someone? Or worse, them shooting you?’ Flora shuddered.

  ‘It won’t come to that,’ Will assured her. ‘The lads are certain the conflict will be over by Christmas.’

  ‘What time is your rally?’ asked Hilda. ‘I’d still like that ice cream.’

  Will, laughing, jumped up, took their wrists and pulled them to their feet. ‘Come along then, girls. Ice creams it is. The recruitment office can wait.’

  Flora allowed herself to be marched along, she in the middle now, with Hilda and Will on either arm. She wanted to join with their happy chatter, but she simply couldn’t. The young man beside her would soon be wearing a fighting uniform and Hilda’s restless spirit refused to be caged for long. Flora loved her friends dearly. Will and Hilda were the only family she had ever known. A brother and sister that she cherished as if they were her own blood. She didn’t want things to change.

  Chapter One

  Nine months later

  ‘Come now, Mr Pollard, rest easy and allow me to treat your wound.’

  Flora held her breath as Dr Tapper gently persuaded the stricken man’s shoulders back onto the examination couch. She heard their patient’s half sob in response as he lay there. His emaciated body under the dirty cloth of his cheap suit was shaking with fear.

  ‘Good man. Now bear with me whil
e I see what’s to be done.’ Dr Tapper glanced at Flora who stood in readiness to help. ‘His boot first, nurse, if you please.’

  Flora had no difficulty in removing the battered boot that hid a filthy sock beneath. But at the putrid stench of infection coming from his exposed leg, she had to steady herself. After Flora eased the rough and bloodstained cloth to his knee, her eyes fell on the wound. Though she had assisted the doctor ever since leaving the orphanage three years ago, this was the worst sight she had ever witnessed.

  She heard the doctor’s indrawn breath and saw his grey head of hair shake almost imperceptibly. ‘Why didn’t you return to me sooner?’ the doctor asked, as Flora took the sterilized scissors from the metal trolley and handed them to her employer. As the sodden bandages caked with pus and blood fell away, Flora found herself unable to distinguish what had once been a human leg from a mass of diseased flesh.

  ‘I was afraid you’d chop off me leg,’ said the man with a choke, trying to hide the pain that had turned his gaunt face a marble-grey.

  ‘The decision isn’t for me to make,’ the doctor answered. ‘Now, hold still. I shall have my nurse clean your wound the best she can. Meanwhile, I’ll find you something to ease the pain.’

  The man caught the doctor’s arm. ‘I’m no use to me family with only one leg, Dr Tapper.’

  ‘You’re even less use to them dead,’ the doctor said gravely, nodding to Flora, who stood ready to repair what she could of the result of the terrible infection. ‘But we won’t discuss it further until I have made a thorough examination.’

  Flora knew that the man would almost certainly lose his leg. When she had been present at his first visit two months ago, the doctor had judged there was some hope to save the limb. The wound had been treated at the field hospital. But, like many who were injured at the front lines carved across Europe’s battlefields, many cases proved hopeless.

  In just a few minutes, Dr Tapper returned with the pain-relieving Jamaican balm that was derived from arrowroot, a pap that Flora herself had helped him to prepare that morning. After she had cleansed the wound, she took the boiled application from the bowl in the doctor’s hands and laid it carefully on the weeping sores that were eating down to the bone of the man’s limb.

  ‘Thank you, nurse.’ Dr Tapper placed his hand on Stephen Pollard’s shoulder. ‘Is your wife here today?’

  The man nodded, his agony causing him to writhe uncomfortably beneath the doctor’s grasp.

  ‘Nurse, will you please inform Mrs Pollard that my intention is to refer her husband to the infirmary.’

  ‘No! No!’ protested the distraught patient. ‘They’ll rob me of my leg for sure!’

  Dr Tapper was silent. After washing her hands in the china bowl, Flora left for the waiting room. Here, every seat was taken. Despite it being late on Saturday morning, twenty or more bodies filled the small space, making it clear to Flora that the handful of wooden chairs she had arranged on the bare boards were insufficient for their needs.

  Flora looked with pity at the babies wrapped in their dirt-ridden shawls, the runny-nosed, shabbily dressed toddlers who whimpered at their mothers’ feet, the older patients full of the ague and vapours, together with disabled veterans of Europe’s devastating war. Three younger men leaned against the peeling walls, supported by crutches and crudely made walking aids. Every face turned to her expectantly. One woman rose to her feet. Flora beckoned her.

  ‘It’s all right for some,’ an older lady shouted after them. ‘I’ve been sitting here for over an hour. All I want is something for me rheumatics.’

  ‘Think yourself lucky!’ wheezed an elderly man who occupied the chair beside her. ‘I’ll be dead before I’m seen, at this rate.’

  Flora led the way to the small room adjoining the doctor’s that she used to sterilize the equipment on a burner and help the doctor prepare his prescriptions. It was also a place she used to comfort the patients.

  The smell of carbolic and herbal remedies was strong as Flora entered the tiny space. Here, Flora kept rows of bottles on the shelves in neat order; they were the doctor’s armoury against disease. Smelling salts for fits of the vapours, poultices made from hot water and mustard, Sloan’s Liniment for the agues, camphorated and eucalyptus oils for congestion of the lungs, arrowroot to alleviate nausea, Fuller’s Earth for stings, burns and sores, and compounds of mercury and chloride that were used in emergencies to treat the bowels. There was laudanum too, and opium, for the more serious and sometimes terminal cases. She kept these under lock and key in the cabinet on the wall. On the bench below and in the cupboards were dressings and saline solutions, bandages, lints and sterilized equipment ready for use. Flora often worked at the big porcelain sink with its single tap. She kept it spotless.

  ‘What’s happening, nurse?’ The young woman sat down on the only wooden chair. Flora knew Mrs Pollard was in her twenties but looked twice her age. Haggard and frail, she was old before her time.

  ‘Your husband’s wound is infected. He will have to go to the infirmary.’

  ‘But how will we manage?’ Tears came to Mrs Pollard’s eyes. ‘We’ve got four nippers and an infant. The few pennies Stephen earns are all that we have and—’ She began to cough. It was a deep, racking cough that caused her to bend over and hang her head as she tried to smother the pitiful choking. Flora gave her a clean rag and the woman pressed it to her mouth. A stain glowed bright red on the white cloth.

  ‘How long have you been sick, Mrs Pollard?’ Flora took the blood-spattered cloth and threw it in the pail.

  ‘It’s only a cough.’ Mrs Pollard gazed up at the shelves. ‘Give me something from one of them glass bottles, won’t you? Some wintergreen. Or maybe a bit of embrocation for me chest.’

  ‘I’ll ask the doctor.’ Flora knew that none of the remedies on the shelf could help this young woman.

  Just then the doctor walked in and heard for himself the sickly sounds the woman was making. Flora looked into his eyes. His gaze went to the cloth in the pail and he gently put his hand on Mrs Pollard’s shoulder. ‘The ambulance has been sent for,’ he said quietly. ‘Your husband must go to the infirmary.’

  ‘No!’ shrieked Mrs Pollard. She gazed tearfully up at the doctor. ‘Please don’t send him away.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Dr Tapper replied firmly. ‘Now, let us see about you. How long have you been coughing like this?’

  Flora left them alone and went to the waiting room. She did her best to calm the doctor’s anxious patients. But she couldn’t help thinking of Mrs Pollard. There was little doubt in her mind that the young woman had tuberculosis: a cruel and highly infectious disease of the lungs.

  Woken by a banging on the front door, Flora left the warmth of her bed and pulled on her dressing gown. As she hurried to the sitting room she fastened back her long, tangled locks that had been kept orderly under her white cap for the working week. Flora blinked at the strong daylight streaming in through the drapes. The embers of last night’s fire still glowed in the hearth and had kept the basement, which Flora and Dr Tapper always called the airey, warm.

  Flora pulled back the heavy bolt and opened the door to find Hilda standing there. ‘Goodness, Hilda, what are you doing here at this time of the morning?’

  ‘Let me in, I’ve some terrible news.’ Hilda flung herself from the basement step into Flora’s sitting room. ‘It’s the Lusitania. She’s been sunk.’

  ‘But that’s impossible,’ replied Flora. ‘Not a great liner like the Lusitania.’

  ‘She was torpedoed by the Germans yesterday. Just off the Irish coast. Over a thousand passengers are missing.’ With her brown curls flying around her face and her jacket unbelted at the waist, Hilda was breathless.

  ‘Sit down.’ Flora indicated the chair by the fire, with its plump cherry-red cushion. ‘I’ll open the curtains.’

  ‘I can’t stay long. I’ve got to get back to the house.’ Hilda flopped down on the chair. ‘Mrs Bell just told me. She heard it from her ladyship’s m
aid. One of Lady Hailing’s friends, a wife of a high-ranking government official, was on board and is unaccounted for, along with her staff.’

  Light filled the room, and Flora sat down. ‘What a terrible catastrophe!’

  ‘Yes, and it’s gentry who’ll suffer the most losses. It’s only them with money who can afford passage with the Cunard Steamship Company.’

  ‘Does this mean all Britain’s ships are at risk now?’

  ‘Dunno. But you can’t deny that this changes everything.’ Hilda swallowed hurriedly. ‘More men will be drafted to the Front, leaving their jobs to the women. It’s already been written in the newspapers that female workers are twice as good as the men. I reckon I’d do all right for meself in a factory.’

  ‘You’d hate it, I’m sure.’

  Hilda rolled her brown eyes. ‘No more than I hate the house. Anyway, what I’ve come to tell you is, I’m giving in me notice today. The Lusitania sinking is a sign.’

  ‘But you can’t, Hilda. It’s a good job you’ve got.’

  ‘I told you, it ain’t. Mrs Bell gives me all Aggie’s jobs. Aggie is worn out with her kids and husband to look after. The mistress calls on me for help in the soup kitchen, and with all me other jobs, I’m going down the very same road as Mum. She was at the nuns’ beck and call. Stuck in the laundry, washing her life away in those great big tubs. Well, I won’t be treated the same. I won’t!’

  Flora looked at her friend with sympathy, but knew things could be much worse. ‘You have a roof over your head. Many girls would be envious of your position.’

  ‘It’s all right for you to say, living here at Tap House.’ Hilda got up and began to pace round the comfortable room. With puzzled eyes, Flora watched her friend treading slowly over the wooden duckboards and stroking her fingers across the chintz covers that Flora had made for the fireside chairs. ‘You’ve made it so pretty, so homely. Three rooms all to yourself, even a little kitchen and scullery. I’d be very happy to live here.’