Flora's War

by Audrey Reimann

  ‘Not the whole of it,’ Aunt Dorothy said. ‘We have the furnace down here too, and storage space and a big games room. But it’s essential in this climate of cold winters and hot summers that the foundations of the houses go deep below the frost line.’

  Around three sides of the house was a veranda – the deck where Flora could put Alexander in the big baby carriage that Aunt Dorothy had saved from her own sons’ babyhood for ‘the grandbabies we hope to have one day’.

  Uncle John Murray was a big man in his fifties with a weather-beaten face, kind eyes and a shock of grey hair. Tough and cheerful, he was the eldest of five sons of an Irish farmer who had come to Canada as an immigrant to find that the virgin land he’d been given was uncleared forest with thin, rocky soil. John and his brothers helped clear and work the land and build their home in the summer months; then he and his brothers had gone, with their father, as many young men did, to the winter logging camps in Algonquin Park in northern Ontario.

  The family had prospered, and now Uncle John had a sawmill at Bird’s Creek, handy for the York River and only a mile or two from Bancroft. The general store at Bird’s Creek sold everything from kerosene and finished planks from the sawmill to ladies’ corsets, butter, eggs and cheese. The store was run by Aunt Dorothy, who told Flora she’d have peace of mind knowing Flora was minding the house for her. Flora said enthusiastically, ‘I’d really love to’.

  In the evenings, Flora sat and knitted balaclava helmets for sailors, glad to be a part of this happy family, while Aunt Dorothy served supper. Every evening Uncle John told tales of old logging winters; of how sixty men living in one huge wooden hut never changed their clothes, but worked and slept in them the whole winter. He laughed at Flora’s horrified outburst of ‘How could they?’

  ‘They had no choice,’ he replied with a hearty chuckle. ‘No running hot water. They’d wash their socks and string them up to dry in the smoke from the big central stove that was used for cooking and heating.’

  He told of horses dragging 120-foot logs on sledges and slides down to the frozen rivers and lakes, there to await the spring thaw, when they would begin their slow journey down the Rivers Ottowa, Petawawa and Madawaska further north, and the York River that runs right through Bancroft and Hastings County. He told of the dangers of the downstream drives where log jams were a fact of life. He’d seen brave men venture out on to a mountain of logs that sometimes were backed up for miles behind the jam. They had to find and saw through the key logs that were holding the others back. A missed footing or a sudden release of logs and these men did not make it back to the banks but slipped underwater as the logs closed above their heads.

  Flora was horrified and enthralled. ‘Will I see the logs?’ she asked. ‘Do they send them downriver now?’

  ‘You’ll see some. They send logs down the York as far as Baptiste for the electricity poles and railway sleeper ties. But not like the old days,’ Uncle John replied. ‘Now they have the railways they don’t need to send them by river.’ He said, ‘Would you like me to show you the lakes and forest?’

  ‘What about Alexander?’ she said.

  ‘Dorothy will be in seventh heaven if you’d leave him with her for a day,’ he said. ‘It’s only a half-day’s drive to Algonquin. And would you like to see the sawmill?’

  ‘Yes.’ She would. She would like nothing better than to be accepted, to be useful to this big, cheerful family of uncles and aunts and cousins who had all been to visit and welcome her into their midst, making her feel she belonged, giving her a chance. ‘But,’ she said, ‘I intend to work for my living wherever I can have Alexander with me. I have sworn that never in my life will I be homeless or penniless again.’

  ‘What are you trained for?’ asked Aunt Dorothy.

  Flora looked downcast. ‘Domestic work’s about it, I suppose. I can cook and sew and wash and iron. I worked as housekeeper to a blind man …’, then she added wistfully, ‘I loved that job.’

  ‘That was before you married?’ Aunt Dorothy asked.

  It had been the very last lie she’d told and this one at Nanny’s insistence. She had travelled as the young widow of a seaman. Now, Flora did not want her new life to start on the basis of lies, though the biggest secret of all could never be admitted. She knew she was blushing, and felt her cheeks go fiery as she said, ‘Would it make you think badly of me if I told you that I was never officially married?’

  Aunt Dorothy’s eyes filled quickly with tears. ‘Of course not. Thank you for telling us. I won’t mention it again.’

  Uncle John could not stand ‘tears and talk’, as he described women’s secrets. ‘If we are not too small a start for you, you can work in the store as soon as you are ready,’ he said. ‘I’ll pay you the going wage and you can live here and help Dorothy in return for your board and lodgings. Dorothy goes into the store every day and we need another pair of hands. Take the baby with you. Two of you can manage the work and a baby. We are getting busy now the depression’s over. Pity it took a war.’

  ‘I’m ready now.’ Flora wanted to work, to be useful, to do her bit. She finished the letter to Nanny:

  I have said that I will not stay without paying my way, and since they refuse to take the money (I still have nearly £100 left – or rather, $440 – and when you consider that a working wage is $18 a week that makes me rich), I shall make myself useful around the store and house.

  I hear the news and read the papers. We get a few British papers though they come weeks late. And I am afraid for you living with the bombs and Blitz and rationing when I am living in luxury in a land of plenty. I wish you were here, Nanny, out of harm’s way. I owe you such a debt of gratitude. It was not until we sailed that I began to appreciate all you have done for Alexander and me. Joan Almond, my friend, told me that there were 210,000 applications for a place on the White Empress and that ugly questions were asked in Parliament, where the organisers were accused of giving places to ‘the moneyed classes’ while the working class languished.

  Mr Churchill did not approve of the evacuation. He deprecates what he calls a stampede from Britain, but there was really not much that I could have done to help.

  Alexander and I would just be another two mouths to feed.

  Now I am here I am going to do whatever I can to help the war effort, as well as praying every night for you all.

  Love, Flora.

  She dared not ask of Nanny the question she so desperately wanted to: did Nanny think Robert really was better off with a title and as heir to an estate than with his own flesh and blood?

  She remembered Gran’s words, ‘it’s a rare female of any species that will adopt a suckling’, and hoped that Ruth never had cause to regret adopting Robert. If Ruth were to have a child of her own, wouldn’t she love it more than she ever could Robert?

  She sealed the envelope and on the little rounded flap point, though it would mean nothing to Nanny, drew a weeping tree for Robert.

  1944

  Ruth came-to in a bleak private ward with a tearing pain across her belly and an unbearable thirst for water. Two nurses were holding her. ‘I’m going to–’ she said, before she was violently sick. ‘Oh, no! No!’ she managed to moan before another bout of projectile vomiting jerked her upright again.

  ‘It’s all right. Don’t panic,’ the senior nurse said briskly, while the younger one mopped Ruth’s face with some kind of disinfectantladen gauze. ‘It’s all over. You had a son. A fine seven-pound boy.’

  Ruth’s whole body from the waist down was on fire. Another spasm overtook her and she clutched at the young nurse’s arm. ‘Drink of water,’ she demanded.

  ‘No water for you. I’ll bring the baby to you,’ said the older nurse in her bossy, no-nonsense way.

  ‘Don’t you dare!’ Ruth tried to shout but her voice sounded squeaky. It would be the chloroform. It was coming back to her now. She had demanded hospital and this Caesarean operation though the doctors had tried to dissuade her. How dared these women order her
about?

  Yesterday she’d read in the papers about the free health service the country was to get when the war was finally over. Once that was imposed it would make little tyrants of the doctors and nurses. The patients would become supplicants. Well, it had not happened yet, and here and now they should be reminded of who was paying whom. She said, ‘I am paying for this! Don’t tell me what I will or won’t do.’

  ‘All right, mother,’ the nurse said, but the hectoring tone had gone. She turned on the junior instead. ‘Bring Lady Campbell a feeding cup with two fluid ounces of water. Be quick.’ Then, to Ruth, as she laid her back against the pillows, ‘Try to sleep, Lady Campbell. You can have your baby when you are rested.’

  Ruth fell back against the pillows, closed her eyes for a second or two then said, ‘Before you go, Nurse, something for the pain, please.’

  Five minutes later she felt the spout of the china drinking cup on her lips and this time obeyed the order: ‘Take it slowly, or you’ll bring it all back.’

  She added, ‘Your husband and son are here. I told them you must not be disturbed until you are ready. They are with the baby.’ Then she gave her an injection at the top of her thigh. Funny, Ruth thought as she drifted off, funny thinking of the nurse as old – she might even be younger than I am.

  Ruth was thirty-seven and considered herself too old for this child-bearing nonsense. She remembered as she drifted into the limbo between sleep and wakefulness that her age was the reason she’d given to the team of specialists and surgeons that they cut it out of her. She would not, could not, contemplate the ruin of her body that a normal delivery would entail.

  So Gordon was here at the Simpson Maternity Hospital and had the other brat with him? He would be satisfied now, she hoped – and she hoped too for his speedy recall to naval duties. She put her hand down to her middle, wanting to feel the old flatness, but pulled away fast as an agonising pain shot through her. Her body had been bound with tight bandages – at her own insistence. Losing one’s figure was to be expected, Gordon had said and had added, ‘It doesn’t matter. Just as long as you and the baby are all right, my dear.’

  She would be all right and the baby was a healthy weight, so her duty was done. Thank the Lord. At Ingersley a new, younger nurse had been engaged. Between the new girl, Bessie and Nanny, who had closed Ivy Lodge and moved back into the house to look after the brat, they should be able to cope with two children. Ruth had no interest whatever in either of them. All she wanted to do was to get back to normal, to the riding and the civic duties, which to her surprise she enjoyed. She’d taken to the work of JP as a duck to water.

  One nurse would be enough for the baby. Besides, it was all the estate could afford. The evacuees had gone and plans were afoot to build estates of council houses and prefabricated houses using German and Italian prisoner-of-war labour. Nobody wanted to live in hamlets and villages and isolated farm cottages. Ruth’s income had already dropped. The Great War had started the decline in their fortunes. Elizabeth’s legacy had revived them for a time, but half of Ruth’s own money was now gone.

  The war, changing attitudes and the obscene wages that labouring people now expected had drained all the big estates. Ingersley and the Campbells were not alone. Any number of landed families were in worse trouble than they were. When it was over and everyone counted the cost, many estates would go to the wall … Many. But not hers. Ruth would not budge.

  There was a commotion outside her room when Ruth came to and looked at the clock: 3 p.m. She had been asleep for an hour and could have slept for longer. She looked down at herself. They had put her own pink silk nightgown on her and the angora-trimmed bed-jacket was draped prettily across her shoulders.

  She heard Gordon’s voice and the brat, Robert, clattering his feet on the polished floor outside her room, tapping at her door. ‘Come in,’ she said in a faint voice, and slid lower in the bed.

  Gordon had evidently seen the baby, for he came to her mistyeyed, with arms outstretched. ‘Darling! How was it?’

  ‘Hell,’ she replied, closing her eyes and turning her face away from his lips so that they brushed her ear. ‘There will be no more.’ She meant it – and he’d know now that his married life was over.

  She had told him that a woman of her age had no interest in married love and that if he wished he could take a young mistress. Gordon had been horrified at the suggestion, saying that he would abide by her decision but that he hoped she would change her mind once the baby was here. She would not. She could no longer bear his lovemaking, the timid fumblings and his gratitude when he was so quickly and easily satisfied.

  Today he wore uniform, which made him appear authoritative and handsome. Behind him stood two nurses, one of them with a bundle in her arms. Gordon quickly lifted Robert, who held a bunch of carnations, on to the bed, saying, ‘You wanted to come and see your mummy and baby brother, didn’t you?’

  Ruth screeched, ‘Get him off me. My God – my stitches!’, as Gordon set down the frightened child, who began to cry loudly: ‘Don’t whip me, Mummy. I’m sorry … sorry … sorry!’

  ‘Robert didn’t know . . .’ Gordon began, but at that moment one of the nurses came forward quickly to help Ruth into a sitting position, while the other held out the bundle, saying, ‘Can you manage, Lady Campbell, or shall I hold Baby?’

  She must get it over with. Gordon was displeased by her outburst against the brat who was the apple of his eye. She made a half-hearted attempt at a smile. The nurse gently placed the bundle into her arms and Ruth looked with polite curiosity at the tiny face of her baby.

  She knew they were all waiting for her to say something but she could not, for as she looked at the baby, the room seemed to fade about her. There came a terrible pain in her throat and her heart, then a sudden, searing surge of emotion that immobilised her in the stillness of the room. Tightening her arm around him to hold him secure, and with the peppery, heady scent of carnations filling the space around her, Ruth gently pulled back the shawl so that she could better see this tiny, blond, pink and perfect creature.

  Never in her life had she felt this powerful, protective force. Never had she seen a child so beautiful. Love for him overwhelmed her as she looked up, starry-eyed, at Gordon. ‘He’s your living image. He’s beautiful, Gordon,’ she whispered. ‘Thank you.’

  Gordon came to sit at her side, embarrassed now. ‘No need to thank me, darling,’ he joked. ‘You did it all, you know.’

  Robert came clambering on to Gordon’s lap. He put a restraining arm around the child but said, ‘Have another look at your brother, Robert.’

  Ruth watched in horror as the brat poked his great ugly head into the baby’s face. She shouted, ‘Get your head out of the way!’, and pushed her open hand hard against Robert’s face to send him toppling backwards on to Gordon’s lap.

  ‘Steady on!’ Gordon said as he held Robert close and comforted him. The child cried harder. Gordon had seen enough. ‘Come on, my boy. Let us leave Mummy and baby to rest a while.’

  He stood and held fast to Robert’s hand. ‘Where do you want to go?’ he asked, smiling, rumpling his son’s dark curls affectionately. ‘You are still my first-born, my son and heir. You will always be number one to me, Robert,’ he said.

  When they had gone, Ruth put the angelic bundle on to the bed. The baby cried. Ruth picked him up and he stopped crying at once. Smiling, she put him down again. Again he started to cry. The nurse was still in the room and Ruth turned to her. ‘Bring a cradle in here, Nurse,’ she said. ‘I have changed my mind. I’ll keep him beside me, day and night.’ She gazed down at her baby. He was so fair, sweet and content. To think she had given life to this wonder. He was her; he was herself but new and shiny. She would mould him to be herself but better. He was Napoleon. He was Jesus Christ. There had never been such a child. All else faded into insignificance, as the nursing sister came back, wheeling the cradle, took the sleeping baby from Ruth and wrapped him in the shawl.

  She placed him
in the cradle and left the room while Ruth lay, watching her miracle; Edward, she would call him. He was snuffling with his tiny, delicate hand waving in front of his face. All her pains had gone. She reached over and placed her little finger in his hand. The infant grabbed it with surprising strength. She smiled and whispered, ‘You, Edward, are the real son and heir. The rightful son and heir of Ingersley. It will be yours. I have been keeping it for you. Nobody shall threaten you, my lovely, my darling.’

  13 May 1945

  Suddenly it was all over. After almost six years, the war was over. In London, 50,000 people went wild with joy, shaking hands, kissing and hugging strangers, dancing in the streets and gathering around Queen Victoria’s statue at the Palace, demanding ‘We want the King!’ until eight times the Royal Family came on to the balcony, waving to the joyful people celebrating their victory below.

  In the North Atlantic on that day, the frigate on which Andrew, now first lieutenant, was on duty as officer of the watch, slowly circled on the flat, calm sea, waiting for the word. He could do nothing but watch the horizon around them, the dull sky overhead, the blank radar screen, as they turned ninety degrees to port every half-hour, obeying orders, waiting, waiting. They had been steaming for two days and two nights at a steady ten knots, getting nowhere; keyed up in case there were any last-minute attacks.

  At ten o’clock the signal came: Hostilities terminated. All U-boats have been ordered to surrender. The signal is a large black flag. There were no U-boats in the waters around them, Andrew was certain. U-boat attacks were sporadic now.

  Then the beaten foe emerged. All over the Atlantic, where they had been lying in wait or hiding, they surfaced. Some, he later learned, scuttled themselves. Most, like the two he now saw before him, rose dripping and silent on the horizon, their hard shapes topping the grey sea level.