Rose saw it was no use. She’d been found out. She hardly ever cried, but tonight she was so tired and so unhappy she couldn’t help herself.
Maria let her sob for a minute, then offered her a fresh, clean handkerchief. ‘Where’s your home?’ she asked.
‘In Dorset,’ Rose replied.
‘What do your people do?’
‘My father is a farmer.’ This was true enough, thought Rose, for Sir Gerard’s tenants did farm several thousand of the ancestral acres on his vast estate.
‘Why did you run away?’
‘I didn’t run away!’
‘Rose, I think you did.’
‘They wouldn’t let me breathe.’ Rose looked at Maria helplessly. ‘You can’t imagine what my life was like. Every single move I made, they watched me. I wanted to go and help in a hospital they’d set up in the village. But it was no, you can’t do that. You must stay at home, marry the man we choose for you, and bury yourself alive.’
‘You must tell your parents you’ve come here,’ Maria said, firmly. ‘Poor things, they must be frantic. They probably think you’ve been abducted and sold as a white slave.’
‘Perhaps, but I don’t care.’
‘Why, did they beat you, or hurt you in some way?’
‘No, but – you wouldn’t understand.’
‘Rose, I’ll keep your secret,’ said Maria. ‘But you must write a letter to your mother. You must do it now, and I’ll post it when I leave tonight.’
‘What if I refuse?’
‘You won’t do anything so cruel and foolish. Listen, you write that letter, and I’ll get you transferred to Stafford Ward. We’re not so rushed up here, the orderlies are helpful and the sister is a gem. We’ll turn you into a real nurse – agreed?’
‘You promise you won’t tell Matron what I’ve done?’
‘My God, I wouldn’t dare.’ Maria grinned. ‘She took you on, and she’d have a heart attack if she ever found out you took her in! You’ll find some writing paper in that drawer.’
So Rose wrote the letter. After she had sealed the envelope, she felt as if a burden had been lifted from her shoulders. Even though she expected to be summoned home to Dorset straight away, and threatened with all sorts of dire reprisals if she refused to go, she trudged back to her lodgings feeling almost happy.
She ate the meal of mutton stew and glutinous rice pudding Mrs Pike warmed up for her, then she had an undisturbed night’s sleep, the first since she’d arrived in London.
She worked out a plan. She wouldn’t leave the hospital, and if her parents tried to force or bribe her to return to Charton, she’d run away again.
So she was surprised and slightly hurt when she heard nothing. ‘Do you think they got my letter?’ she asked Maria, when a fortnight had gone by.
‘I expect they did.’ Maria shrugged. ‘But if you’re worried, why don’t you write again?’
‘It would look as if I minded, and I don’t.’ Rose picked up a tray of instruments needing to be washed then sterilised. ‘Sister said to clean the sluice and then sort out the linen, but may I watch you do some dressings later?’
‘You could do some yourself.’
‘All on my own?’ Rose stared, alarmed. ‘It’s not the actual bandaging,’ she added. ‘I can do that now, and I’m not squeamish, I don’t mind the blood. But I’m just so scared of hurting them.’
‘Then you might as well go back to Dorset.’ Maria’s mild grey eyes met Rose’s dark ones. ‘Private Coleman, Corporal Spink and Sergeant Major Logan. You watched me change their tubes and do their dressings yesterday, so today you’ll do them by yourself. I’ll be on the ward, so if you’re stuck just ask me what to do. But if you’re only playing at being a nurse?’
‘I’ll do the dressings.’
As Rose’s confidence increased, her skill improved. The pace on Stafford Ward was not as hectic as on Kingston, so she had time to watch the other nurses, then try things on her own.
As she finished doing dressings one November morning, Sister Hall called Rose into her office. ‘Staff Nurse Gower says you’re doing well,’ she told her, smiling. ‘I know you came here as a volunteer, to help us out in this emergency. Matron says you were a governess. But I think you’re the sort of person who would make a splendid nurse.’
Rose felt she had come home. ‘Sister says she thinks I should apply to Bart’s or Guy’s,’ she told Maria, as they did a round together later that same day.
‘What do you think, Rose?’
‘I’d love it!’ Rose’s eyes were shining. ‘When the war is over, I shall ask my father if he’ll let me train at one of the big London hospitals. I’d like to work with children, actually.’
‘You’ve heard from your parents, then?’
‘No, not yet.’ Rose bit her lower lip. ‘Maybe I should write again?’
‘Yes, perhaps you should.’ Maria rubbed her eyes and yawned. ‘You talk about the war being over, but that isn’t going to be for ages.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Rose, don’t you ever listen to the men?’ Maria sighed. ‘The Germans dig their trenches and then sit down on their side of the wire. We sit on the other side, and nobody’s prepared to give an inch. England’s full of factories producing shells and rockets and grenades, and I dare say Germany’s the same. So how’s it going to end?’
‘I don’t know!’ cried Rose. ‘Anyway, it’s up to the government to sort it out.’
‘You trust the government?’
‘I suppose I do.’ Rose shrugged. ‘Well, women can’t do anything, anyway. We don’t even have the vote, and my father says we never will.’
‘I do hope he’s wrong.’ Maria smiled. ‘You should come to a meeting where we discuss these things.’
‘You mean to listen to Mrs Pankhurst?’ Rose looked doubtful. ‘Daddy says she’s mad. They ought to put her in mental home for hopeless cases.’
‘Your father sounds a very decisive man,’ observed Maria. ‘You must take after him.’
‘I thought you were dead.’
Chloe stood scowling on the station platform, dressed in old black boots, a wide-brimmed hat devoid of veiling or a single feather, and a shapeless coat of an unflattering mud brown.
She twisted a strand of colourless hair around one long, thin finger, while the other hand sat on her bulging pregnancy. ‘Why didn’t you write to me before?’
‘I was in a coma.’
‘But when you came out of your coma?’ Chloe’s tone was sharp and accusatory. ‘Why didn’t you write then?’
Alex merely shrugged. He knew he ought to touch her, kiss her, make some simple gesture of affection, but, although he wanted to feel something, and although he knew he ought to be considerate and kind, and take an interest in Chloe and the baby, he just stood there, feeling nothing.
Since he had woken in that army hospital, it had seemed a dead weight of indifference, to everyone and everything, had replaced his living, beating heart.
He didn’t feel any pain or fear, but more than that he didn’t feel any affection, any love for anything or anyone – except for one specific someone, and he couldn’t allow himself to think of that, he would go mad. ‘I wrote as soon as I could hold a pen,’ he muttered, tersely.
‘I’m sure I’m very honoured.’ Chloe’s pale blue eyes were chips of glass. ‘What happened, anyway?’
‘We were in a cellar that got shelled. Some bricks fell on my head and knocked me out. Or so the nurses said. I had some cuts and bruises, but they’ve healed.’
‘So you weren’t badly hurt at all – no broken bones or anything like that.’ Chloe pursed her lips. ‘The Royal Dorsets have taken quite a hammering. My father says they’re down to half their strength.’
‘Yes, so I’ve heard,’ said Alex.
‘My mother thought you’d washed your hands of me.’ Chloe began to walk along the platform. ‘She said your kind don’t marry girls like me, so was she right?’
‘No, she was wrong.
’
‘So we will be married?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Alex took her limp, white hand and tried to force a smile. ‘We’ll need to get a move on, though – I shan’t be in England very long. How old are you, Chloe – twenty, twenty-one?’
‘I’m twenty-two next Wednesday. So we wouldn’t need to wait for anyone’s consent, unless of course you’re not–’
‘I was twenty-one last May.’ Alex led Chloe through the barrier, out on to the concourse. ‘So we could get a special licence. Chloe, I have a fortnight’s leave. We could go and stay in a hotel, as man and wife.’
‘Stay in a hotel?’ Chloe’s pale face flushed. ‘Alex, I don’t think my mother–’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Chloe, you’re grown up! It doesn’t matter about your mother! If you want to marry me–’
‘You know I do. But my father said you’d have to get permission from the colonel.’
‘I’ve spoken to the colonel.’
‘Oh – I see.’ Chloe squared her rounded shoulders, lifting the enormous mound of baby. ‘Alex, I’ve been thinking about names. If it’s a boy, I rather fancy Victor – or maybe Jack, or Frank? If it’s a girl, the names of flowers are pretty. What do you think of Lily?’
‘Let’s wait until the baby’s born.’ Lily, Violet, Poppy – anything, thought Alex, provided it’s not Rose.
Maria didn’t take Rose to meet Mrs Pankhurst or her daughters, to be harangued by harridans who wanted to turn women into men and make them ride astride. There wasn’t time to go to meetings. Everyone was working double shifts, and every day new casualties came in.
More wards at St Benedict’s were cleared for wounded soldiers. The nurses were kept more than busy, learning on the job themselves as well as training volunteers.
But Rose did meet Maria’s sister, who was waiting in the lobby as they came off shift one Wednesday night.
‘Rose, this is Phoebe,’ said Maria. ‘Phoebe – Rose.’
‘Hello, Miss Gower.’ Rose held out her hand.
‘Pleased to meet you, Rose.’ Phoebe Gower grinned. ‘I’ve ’eard all about you. Maria said you was a governess?’
‘Yes, and now I’m going to be a nurse.’ Rose looked at the other girl, and saw she was nothing like Maria. Phoebe had crudely-bleached blonde hair, glittering dark eyes and a knowing grin that was nothing like Maria’s warm, engaging smile.
A short, tight hobble skirt revealed her slender, shapely ankles. A fitted jacket showed off her curvaceous bosom, and a tiny velvet hat sporting a feather at a jaunty angle drew attention to her heart-shaped face.
If she let her hair grow out into its natural brown, and wore clothes that enhanced her shape but didn’t emphasise it, she wouldn’t look half so common, Rose decided – then she blushed. I sound just like my mother she thought, embarrassed.
‘Do you work in a hospital?’ she asked.
‘God in ’eaven, no!’ said Phoebe, shuddering theatrically. ‘No, I couldn’t be doing with none of that. Anythin’ to do with blood an’ guts gives me the creeps.’
She smirked and preened. ‘I’m in the Varieties,’ she continued. ‘I started small, I was in the chorus for a while, but then I ’ad me break. I got me own act now, up the Haggerston Palace Music Hall – ain’t that right, Maria?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’ Rose saw a spasm flicker across Maria’s pretty face. ‘Phoebe and her friends are doing wonders for recruitment.’
‘Maria means I sings a song or two, shows the blokes me drawers, then they comes up on stage an’ takes the shillin’.’ Phoebe grinned again. ‘Yeah, I might not be much cop at bandagin’ an’ that, but I does me bit. Maria, I was wonderin’–’
‘Yes, you told me.’ Maria turned to Rose. ‘Do you think you could excuse us for a moment? Family business–’
‘Actually, I left my gloves upstairs.’ Rose smiled diplomatically. ‘I’ll just run up and fetch them.’
When she walked back into the lobby, Phoebe and Maria were deep in conversation. ‘You know I hate it when you take that stuff,’ she heard Maria mutter. ‘He shouldn’t make you work so hard, and you should have more sense–’
Then Phoebe noticed Rose and motioned to her sister to be quiet. ‘Got your gloves?’ she chirped, her eyes unnaturally bright.
‘Yes, thank you.’ Rose was blushing, wondering if they’d think she had been trying to listen to what they said. ‘Maria, I know we’d planned to have some supper, but I could go home by myself.’
‘No, wait for me, I’m coming now.’
‘But your sister–’
‘I’m just off.’ Phoebe dropped some coins into her bag. ‘Some of us ’as got to work tonight. Rose, it was nice to meet you. If you’re ever over Haggerston way–’
‘I shall be sure to come and see you,’ promised Rose.
‘Over my dead body,’ Rose thought she heard Maria say. ‘Rose, we were going to have some supper.’
‘Yes.’ Rose watched Phoebe mince away, sashaying down the hospital steps and off into the night. ‘Sister Hall was saying there’s a nice place near the station, where lots of nurses go. She said the food’s all right.’
Rose and Maria walked through the cold streets. These days they were full of men in khaki, officers and men. ‘Good evening, Sisters,’ said a captain, touching his hat to them as he walked by.
‘It’s strange how it takes a war to make men treat us with respect,’ murmured Maria. ‘If we’d met that man six months ago, he’d have thought we were a couple of tarts, looking for trade.’
‘Even though we’re nurses?’
‘Especially since we’re nurses,’ said Maria. ‘We’re not ladies, so we must be whores.’
Rose bit her lip and wondered – was Phoebe Gower a whore? She looked like one, and even Rose knew actresses were women of easy virtue, who often lived with men they hadn’t married.
Alex Denham’s mother was supposed to have been a whore. So had she had her hair bleached brassy yellow to the texture of dry straw, had she worn tight skirts that showed her figure, had she had a saucy grin and glittering dark eyes?
Alex Denham. Rose knew she should forget him, or at least consign him to the vault of memory, sealed inside a box along with other things and people she couldn’t think about, or she would cry.
‘A penny for them?’ said Maria.
‘What?’ Rose rubbed her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, I’m just tired.’
‘Do you want to go straight home?’
‘No, I want my dinner.’ Rose lengthened her stride. ‘Look, Oldham’s Supper Rooms – that must be the place.’
Rose was expecting trouble. But when she finally received a letter from her mother, there were no reproaches and no threats. Lady Courtenay didn’t even ask if Rose was coming home. She did mention Boris was pining for his mistress, plodding round the Minster howling and keeping everyone awake at night.
Poor Boris, Rose thought guiltily. He hadn’t tried to make her marry Michael or forbidden her to join the VAD.
She wrote back to her mother straight away, saying she was sorry for the anxiety she must have caused and promising to visit as soon as she could get away. But she also wondered why her mother wasn’t angry – or didn’t seem to be.
She found out soon enough. As she was doing dressings one morning, Sister Hall came up and said she had a visitor in the lobby.
‘I’ll see to Corporal Anderson,’ she added, with a twinkle in her eye. ‘Off you go, Miss Courtenay. You may have the rest of the morning off.’
Rose expected it to be her father, possibly with two policemen and a padded van. But when she walked into the lobby, determined to assert herself and resist arrest, she saw Michael Easton standing chatting to the porter. He was in the uniform of a second lieutenant in the Royal Dorsets, and looked very handsome.
‘Hello, Rose,’ he said. ‘I thought I’d come and see you.’
‘I hope you didn’t make a special journey?’ Rose hoped she looked braver than she felt.
‘No, of
course not.’ Michael smiled urbanely. ‘I had to see my tailor and do other things in town.’
They took a cab to Piccadilly. As they drove along, Michael didn’t speak to Rose at all. He took her to a restaurant, where he ordered without asking what she wanted. He told the waiter that the lady would like a glass of wine.
‘Well, what a pretty pickle,’ he observed.
‘I’d rather you didn’t talk to me as if I were a child.’
‘Why shouldn’t I?’ Michael’s blue eyes sparkled. ‘You’ve behaved like one.’
‘Michael, I don’t think–’
‘No one’s accusing you of thinking, Rose. Quite the reverse, in fact.’
Rose was about to answer back, but then she realised there was nothing to be gained from arguing with Michael. ‘I hope you didn’t worry,’ she said placatingly.
‘The woman I’ve asked to be my wife goes missing for a month, then sends a mysterious letter to her mother to say she’s well and happy, but isn’t coming home. Of course I didn’t worry.’
‘I’m sorry, Michael.’ Rose looked down at the tablecloth. ‘But you know they’d never have let me go, and I simply had to get away.’
‘I understand.’ Michael smiled, then nodded to the waiter. When he’d served their soup and backed away, Michael covered Rose’s hand with his, and held her gaze. ‘So is it what you’d expected?’ he enquired. ‘Do you find nursing interesting? Do you feel fulfilled?’
‘I feel I’m doing a useful job.’
‘As I’m sure you are – and having some experiences you wouldn’t get in Dorset on the side.’
Rose didn’t like the tone of that remark, but she was relieved to find he didn’t seem inclined to make a scene. As she dipped her spoon into her soup, it was suddenly obvious Michael hadn’t cared when she’d gone missing. She wondered if she ought to feel annoyed.
She waited for the ultimatum she was sure must come. She’d had her little adventure, he would say, and if she would go home with him tonight and resume the empty life she’d led before the war, they’d say no more about it.
But Michael didn’t speak. When he’d finished his soup he merely sat back in his chair and lit a cigarette.
The Silver Locket (Choc Lit) Page 5