Easterleigh Hall

by Margaret Graham

  Lady Margaret stood up then, her face fierce, her voice savage. ‘The women will run it, of course.’

  ‘Wonderful, just wonderful. You get down the pit then because you know what to do, do you?’ Evie was raging, hammering on the table with her fist. ‘You don’t even know how to boil a bloody kettle. God save us from vicious women like you. Look around you at people who run hospitals like this. They, and we, are the ones showing that we deserve the vote, and that we don’t bully our way to it by dishing out bird feathers, you silly bloody woman.’

  The door opened. Lady Veronica slipped in. ‘The father and son were stopped before they reached the ward, and they’d rammed the feathers in their pockets anyway to dispose of later. The father is a pitman, the son works in armaments. You will never set foot here again, do you hear me, Margaret? How many chances do you need? You may sleep here tonight, and then I will take you in the trap to the station. Now, you will come with me to my room and stay there.’

  Annie had been sitting as though frozen all this time, but now picked up the dropped stitches and continued knitting as though nothing had happened. ‘Knit one, purl one,’ she said as Lady Margaret left with Lady Veronica.

  Bedtime came late in the hospital, and shifts were taken by the kitchen staff to provide twenty-four-hour cover for the men. It was Evie’s shift this night and she was already weary, but Annie was on duty with her so that would help. The dining-room bell had rung twice already and an egg custard requested, and then bacon for a young lad who was dying. It was Tony, Timmie’s marra, who had arrived three days ago with gas gangrene.

  ‘Tony wants to smell it again. Not taste it, but smell it,’ Nurse Brown told them as she collected his tray, the bacon crispy. ‘He’ll die tonight.’

  As the evening progressed there were also the usual nightmares from the patients, some screams, after which the lads needed tea. Until the small kitchens could be set up the kettle was always simmering in the kitchen. The VADs acted as waiters, thank the Lord.

  Evie and Annie took the opportunity to drag out their knitting as the last VAD left, bearing a tray of tea for the nurses on duty upstairs. They settled themselves on stools and continued with the khaki head-warmers which were in demand. ‘My brother says it’s right cold in the trenches,’ Annie sighed.

  ‘I can’t imagine what it’s like to be that cold and damp, and to be shot at.’ Evie knitted one, purled one. She wasn’t a natural, but if it helped . . . Was young Tony dead yet? Was he with Timmie, were they galloping together on the Galloways?

  Knit one, purl one.

  Was Simon alive? Don’t think.

  Knit one, purl one.

  Was Jack alive? Knit one, purl one.

  Of course they were. She’d know if they weren’t, surely. Knit one, purl one. Were they injured? Was there a new battle? Don’t think. End of the row, turn. Were they in trenches? Were they cold? Wet? They never said in their letters, their precious letters which she kept beneath her pillow.

  Were they alive? Knit one, purl one.

  The ball of wool fell to the floor and rolled under the table. She poked with her feet to bring it towards her. A bell rang. Annie ran out to see who could be summoning them before it stopped clanging. She returned, puzzled. ‘It’s Lady Veronica’s bedroom. She usually comes down.’

  Evie was off the stool, her knitting forgotten, and she took the back stairs two at a time.

  What had happened? Lady Margaret was in the room. What had she done now? She tore along the landing, past the officers’ rooms. It was amazing how many decently sized cubicles you could create out of one guest bedroom, and still they felt spacious.

  She heard screams as she approached Lady Veronica’s suite. They were high-pitched and female. An amputee officer on crutches appeared in his doorway, Lieutenant Harold Travers, who loved salmon. ‘Is everything all right, Evie?’

  ‘It’s just a nightmare, don’t worry, Harry. Back into bed with you. If you can’t sleep let me know what you need. I’ll produce a miracle when I’ve sorted out this little problem.’

  He waited. ‘Call me if you need me.’

  A nurse was outside Lady Veronica’s door, about to enter. Evie waved her away. ‘Let me, I’ll call if needed. Lady Veronica has already rung.’

  She opened the door and went in. The curtains were undrawn and the moon was bright. She saw Lady Margaret crouching over Lady Veronica on the bed, screaming. They were struggling. Evie hurled herself across the room.

  ‘Margaret. Margaret. Stop now.’

  She reached for the woman, who swung round. Something thumped into Evie’s arm, then her hip. Margaret was like the patients in the midst of nightmares that took them somewhere no one could follow, fighting demons no one else could see, or hear.

  Evie caught her arm, wrenched it up behind her back, up and up. ‘Stop it, I said. Stop it.’ Without releasing her arm she grabbed the woman’s hair and forced her head back. Lady Margaret struggled for just a little longer and then stopped and so, too, did the noise.

  After a moment Evie let her go and she slumped, half on to Lady Veronica who was crawling to the edge of the bed. Evie blessed the fact, yet again, that she had a fighter for a brother.

  Lady Veronica half fell on to the floor, then recovered. She was in her nightgown, her hair in a plait, and she was panting as she reached for Lady Margaret, gathering her up in her arms. ‘She’s not in her right mind. Oh God, Evie, she seems demented. She woke thinking she was in prison, thinking they were coming to feed her. I went to her bed but it made it worse. She ran at me.’ Veronica gestured from the spare bed to hers.

  Evie sat on the bed, suddenly weak, suddenly feeling sick. Her arm was wet. She touched it. Yes, it was wet. Her hip hurt. That was wet. Her clothes were wet. She stared at her hand. Yes, wet. Lady Veronica put on the light. They both saw the blood, then the scissors where Margaret had dropped them, red-stained.

  Lady Veronica fetched the nurse, who inspected the wounds. ‘They’ll need a stitch or two. What about her?’ She checked Lady Margaret, who was now lying on her bed. Evie heard Harry call. ‘Is there a problem? Do you need me?’

  Evie called back, ‘It’s fine, Harry. But thank you. It’s good knowing you’re there.’

  Lady Veronica carried a bowl from her bathroom, and bathed her cuts with a white towel. ‘Mrs Green will have my guts for garters, Evie Forbes, using a towel like this,’ she whispered, keeping half an eye on Lady Margaret as the nurse left to fetch Sister. She came, quietly, and efficiently administered a painkiller, and stitched Evie’s arm and hip carefully, because, she said, she still wanted the standard of cooking to be maintained. The women laughed softly, though Evie could still feel the pain. Lady Margaret was silent, as though at last asleep. ‘I’ll have to wash my clothes and I need a clean apron. I really object to that,’ Evie said, her teeth chattering.

  Lady Veronica smiled, but she was shaking too. ‘I’m so sorry, Evie, it should have been me.’

  ‘What? I don’t think so. Matron would be even less impressed if you swept one-armed.’

  Evie’s mind was running at two levels. She was knitting khaki, knit one, purl one. She was talking to Lady Veronica. There was no space to worry about Simon, about Jack, about poor little Tony, and for these few moments she was at peace.

  Sister checked and sedated Lady Margaret and they agreed that she should be left to sleep, and then she made for the door. Lady Veronica said, ‘Sister, would you ask Harry to keep himself available? All he could do is bash her over the head with his crutches, but he needs to feel useful.’

  How they were all learning, Evie thought, as she shrugged off their concern and found her way to her room, smiling at Harry as she passed, explaining that Lady Margaret, who had been force-fed many times, had had a nightmare and had no knowledge of what she’d done. ‘Just a few stitches,’ she reassured him.

  ‘Poor woman. I understand her.’ His face was pale, his eyes too dark. He was the son of Sir Anthony Travers and had joined up from school. He h
ad led a privileged existence, he had told her a few weeks ago as she checked that each man was happy with their luncheon. ‘War came as a bit of a shock, not quite what I expected,’ he had joked, but the laugh hadn’t reached his eyes. He should have been asleep, but like many that was a distant memory for him.

  She changed her uniform and was back on duty within ten minutes. There was a war on, this was nothing. The pain really struck in the early hours, and Annie insisted on dragging in an armchair from the servants’ hall and pushing Evie into it. ‘I’ll wake you if I need you.’

  ‘The chair’s a good idea. We’ll keep it here because there’s no need for two on shift to stay awake.’

  Lady Margaret would be nursed in Lady Veronica’s room, because she had fought her war for too long. It had broken her, but not for ever. Here, at Easterleigh Hall, she would recover. ‘We’ll keep the scissors in the sewing basket where they belong, shall we?’ Dr Nicholls said as he met them outside the bedroom in the morning, his bag in his hand, his white coat on preparatory to entering to treat his patient.

  Lady Veronica smiled but insisted, ‘Please remove your coat. They wore white coats to force-feed.’

  He did so immediately. ‘Good point. Let’s make notes on this. There must be many women suffering in the same way.’

  Lunch was as busy as usual, but Mrs Moore, Annie and Evie had things down to a fine art, and now they had at least two other kitchen assistants from the village every day, so it was never frantic. Young Bert and Joseph from Hawton went rabbiting daily and there were still the grouse and pheasant, so they were becoming more self-sufficient. Stan the head gardener had agreed to pigs rooting around in his orchard, so that boded well for the spring, with all the piglets that had been born.

  The clatter of pots and pans being washed after lunch was as loud as it always was, and Evie’s stitches were pulling, so Mrs Moore shooed her out of the kitchen at two in the afternoon. ‘We can’t put up with martyrs down here, lass. Move yourself up those steps and get some fresh air. Be thinking about the Christmas menu while you’re about it. We’re going to need to produce a feast out of our reserves, I think. Stock is getting scarcer at the co-op with the panic buying, even though they’re doing their best to order in for us.’

  Evie walked out into the stable yard with its empty stalls. These would soon take more pigs as Lady Veronica felt that it was wasted space, and indeed it was. Perhaps they could have more in the rear stables? She strolled out to the drive, saw Harry using his crutches to manoeuvre himself down the front steps and joined him.

  ‘Harry, how are you today? Did you enjoy the rabbit pie?’

  ‘Great grub, Evie.’ He was such a lovely lad, and at least he would not be returning to the Front. His parents were so relieved that they had brought flowers on their last visit for all the staff. These had lasted for many days in the front hall and gave it an air of elegance which was at odds with the hustle and bustle, somewhat calmed by the arrival of the orderlies who manned the front desk. ‘You should have your muffler on,’ Evie said, drawing her shawl tighter. ‘Annie will be cross. She spent many hours and many swear words making it.’

  Harry laughed, and then they turned at the sound of a bicycle crunching on the gravel. It was Arthur, the young telegraph boy whose family lived in Easton. Evie and Harry watched him. Crunch, crunch. Her heart seemed to beat in time with every turn of the bicycle wheels. Harry eased a hand from his crutch and gripped her arm. He said, ‘Try not to worry until you have to.’

  The boy skidded to a halt. ‘Can you take this, missus?’ The lads hated these telegrams, because they all had fathers or brothers or friends out at the Front. Evie said, ‘Of course.’ But she wanted to insist he took it away again. She read the name of the addressee. Harry saw it, sighed, and almost whispered, ‘Would you like me to take it to her?’

  ‘What, and carry it in your teeth?’ They almost laughed. She looked at the cedar tree – so still, so strong. She entered the hallway, leaving Harry in the fresh air, which he would ruin by lighting his pipe, balancing on his crutches. Lucky boy, lucky mother and father, for there would be no such telegram for them now.

  There was snow on the wind. Would it be a snowy Christmas? Think of that. The orderly saw the telegram and smiled sympathetically. Evie walked to the green baize door, opened it, and went down to the kitchen. Lady Veronica wasn’t there. Evie checked the kettle. Yes, simmering as usual. She saw her knitting on the chair. Knit one, purl one. She made tea, poured it into a cup, not an enamel mug and added sugar, lots. She walked slowly to the door, and called down to the game pantry where she’d remembered Annie was teaching Lady Veronica to pluck disgustingly ripe grouse.

  ‘Veronica, will you come here?’ She’d never called her just Veronica before, but now the woman needed to know that she had a friend, a proper friend, and she needed to be warned in advance.

  Veronica came into the kitchen, her face pale. She saw the cup and saucer. She knew, Evie could tell. She knew. ‘Who, Auberon or Richard?’ Evie made her sit. ‘Let’s see, shall we?’

  It was Captain Williams, wounded in action. One leg and one arm amputated to avoid gas gangrene. He was in hospital in Le Touquet. ‘You must go and fetch him back yourself,’ Evie said. ‘You really must. He needs you.’

  Lady Veronica was rereading and rereading the telegram, her fingers shaking, her lips forming the words. She murmured, ‘Of course I must.’

  She packed immediately, and Evie’s da, who was working in the gardens on his off shift, drove her in the trap to the station. As they disappeared down the drive Evie, standing by the front steps, thought of those words again. ‘Yes, it will break our hearts,’ she sighed, and gestured to Harry. ‘If you don’t come in we’ll be treating you for pneumonia and Matron will put me on bedpan duty, and that might mean she cooks.’

  He smiled, emptying his pipe on the grass while he rested on the crutches. ‘A fate worse than death, for us,’ he said. He tucked his pipe into his hospital blues and swung his way over. She told him of Captain Williams. ‘That’s his war over then,’ he said with a satisfied smile.

  Evie nodded. ‘Indeed it is.’

  She thought of Lady Veronica. As well as breaking hearts war could begin to heal them too, and this might be a case in point. She accompanied Harry inside and then arranged with the orderly for Captain Williams to be assigned the main bed in Lady Veronica’s room. She had insisted on that before she left, tears in her eyes. ‘He’s my husband, where else should he go? Please free his room up for more patients, Evie.’

  A letter arrived from Grace the next day. It was the second Evie had received from her.

  Dearest Evie,

  I can get no further than Le Touquet at the moment. The convoys come in and we rush to attend to them, and take down their particulars on slips of paper. My feet are swollen from rushing about. My dreams are full of maggots in wounds, of bedpans that I am emptying, of instruments I am sterilising in operating theatres. I hold kidney trays of instruments as the surgeons operate, or the triage nurses investigate. You know, Evie, these brave souls poke at wounds so terrible that no one would believe such horrors. I think I dream because I’m too busy to sort out the images while working. We VADs are called Very Artful Darlings by some, and Victim Always Dies by others. I have a friend, Lady Witherspoon. She had never washed a cup till she came here and is absolutely marvellous and flinches at nothing.

  I have Captain Williams here. A telegram has gone and I have sent this with a friend so that it follows, hotfoot. He has lost an arm, and a leg; this bloody gas gangrene, but at least it’s halted the beast and he’ll live. He needs to come home, his sole thought is of Veronica. He talks of bruises, to her, not him. He talks in his sleep of her, and his recovery will be so much better at home. She must come for him. Tell her.

  I send my love to you, dearest Evie. Write to me again. And no, before you ask, I have heard nothing of our friends, except that it’s stalemate after the Marne battle.We know the casualty lists and so far they
have not been amongst them. I miss Easton. I miss you, but I love my work. It makes me feel a valuable human being. We can never go back to being appendages, can we?

  Your friend, Grace.

  Evie folded the letter and placed it beneath her pillow, where she kept the letters from those she loved. Besides, Grace and Jack should lie together. She reread all her letters every night by the light of the oil lamp. She knew every one by heart. Simon’s last one had told of his love for her.

  ‘The trees, Evie, were proper trees when we came. Now they are stumps, and the birds have gone. Such is war.’

  She peered through the window out to Fordington. Would they ever fetch sea coal again, all of them? Well, no, not all of them, for Martin, Tony and two others of the marra group had gone, and Bernie. The pitmen’s families had been allowed to keep on the cottages until they had found alternatives, at Mr Auberon’s decree. Families whose pitmen had enlisted kept their houses, with his father’s surprising agreement.

  Things were changing, a few for the better. Yes, such is war.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  JACK, SIMON, JAMES and another private staggered into the casualty clearing station carrying a youngster. ‘Only sixteen, he is,’ Jack told the VAD. She looked so young herself, so tired, and so blood-spattered. He surveyed his men with their muddied puttees, muddied boots, muddied hair and knew he looked the same, but at least the mud hid the boy’s blood.

  Tommy was dead, Jack had known that the moment after the shell hit the road, but they couldn’t leave him there, by the side of the road, alone, especially not so close to Christmas, poor little bugger. He checked the other VADs quickly, but none were Grace. Where was she? Safe? God, he hoped so, but he knew many nurses were losing their lives.

  The four men turned to leave, stepping over the walking wounded who were sitting or half lying on the ground, some smoking. There were grunts, groans, screams. There was the steady shouting of triage nurses and orderlies, and the barked orders from the doctors up to their elbows in blood. There was the stench. None of it was new. It was just how things were. Martin would have said, ‘A home from bloody home, bonny lad.’