She’d simply been the means to an end, a tool to shame Edward. It appeared to be her function in life as far as her father was concerned, her only use. But Edward had balked, while she had taken the bit in her teeth. She gritted them now.
“But I didn’t fail. I am a doctor. It’s too late to tell me no, to expect me to be less than I am. Aren’t you at least a little bit proud of me?”
He frowned at her, and she recognized the familiar signs of his annoyance. “You could still fail, Eleanor. You made it through medical school. I was—surprised—and yet I thought, quite correctly, I believe, that such an education would make you suitable for life as a doctor’s wife, a helpmeet.” He shook his head. “I have never wished or expected you to practice as a doctor in your own right. In my opinion no woman is fit for that. I am still hopeful that you’ll see sense. It’s not a life for a woman.” She held his gaze. She knew there were tears glittering in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. It was too late for that, too. He looked away first, turning his attention back to the list, dismissing her. “You’d better go and pack.”
“Will you forgive me if I go? Will Mama?”
He picked up his pen. “Close the door on your way out.”
CHAPTER SIX
What did one wear to a war zone?
Edward sent pictures of debutantes and duchesses visiting HQ in stylish dresses and pearls. The women who worked as clerks and messengers or ambulance drivers wore prim military-style uniforms, and nurses and members of the Voluntary Aid Detachment wore saintly, nunlike attire.
But Eleanor was none of those. She was a civilian and a doctor.
She chose sober, professional, dark-colored clothing that would not show mud or blood. She packed warm woolen stockings, sensible boots, and the heavy, porridge-colored cardigan she had worn on damp, chilly student days in Edinburgh. When she was done, virtually everything in her case was black, navy, or gray.
She opened the writing desk, looking for the leather folder she used for stationery, pens, and pencils. She’d need to keep records of Louis’s condition, which she would turn over to the doctor his mother chose for him here in England—his lordship’s Harley Street man, most likely, the very best. She fully intended to impress him.
She looked at the stack of correspondence that filled one of the cubbies of her desk. There were several letters from a medical school friend, a woman who’d left the bullying and challenges of their university classes to marry a doctor. They lived in London now. “You can hear the guns all the way from France,” she’d written to Eleanor. “When there’s a barrage, the sound wakes me in the night, like distant thunder, but deadly and unending. I think of the men facing the bombardment and how terrible it must be there, for it is bad enough seeing the conditions of the poor wretches who’ve returned to England. They cannot even bear to be looked at. Even if I’d become a doctor, I would not be allowed to do anything for them. At least as a volunteer I can offer them tea, a welcome home, small comforts.” But Eleanor was a doctor. She’d braved the bullying and the hardships and made it through. This was her chance to do more than offer tea and a smile. This was her chance to ease pain, to heal, to help. Even if it was just Louis, just one man.
The other mail in the cubby was mostly postcards and letters from Edward, addressed to her mother, read and passed on to her, though they contained no message for her. She opened one envelope and took out a photograph of her brother looking smart in his uniform, standing next to Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig. She studied Edward’s smiling face. Was he in danger? She’d know, wouldn’t she, since they were twins? But they’d never been particularly close. They’d been too competitive. Edward had been the apple of her mother’s eye and her father’s legacy for the future. Eleanor was simply a girl, an extra child, and of little importance beyond her ability to goad Edward to do better, to work harder so she would not outdo him. And oh, how hard she’d tried to claim just a scrap of her parents’ love and admiration! In the end, he’d grown bored of their expectations, their fierce pride, and he’d scarpered, taken up with Louis Chastaine, joined a social circle where his parents—and Eleanor—could not follow.
They hadn’t really spoken since the day they’d traveled together to write the medical school exam at Edinburgh, their father’s alma mater, and one of the oldest and best medical schools in Britain. Edward ignored the prestige of it. He’d gone with bad grace, frowning, getting on the train and slumping in his seat, ignoring Eleanor entirely. He wanted it over with, had plans with Louis that evening—if he made it back in time. Sitting the entrance exam was everything to Eleanor, but to Edward it was an interruption of his gay and carefree life. She couldn’t understand how he could feel that way—he’d been raised for this day, with the expectation that he would write the exam, study hard, graduate, and join his father’s practice. She noted the sharp-edged resentment in the set of his jaw as he stared out the window of the train.
He’d glanced at the textbook in her lap with disdain. “Don’t you think you’ve studied enough?” he asked. She’d looked up at him, saw the anger behind his insouciant air. It made her angry as well. She’d worked hard for months—years—with far less encouragement or assistance than he had received. She’d studied while he went to dances and parties with Louis, flirted with girls, and came home drunk. Her father had hired a tutor, bought textbooks, insisted his son study. She’d had none of those advantages. And yet now, he mocked her. “And you could have studied harder. Do you want to fail?” She’d braced herself for one of his jibes, something about being unfeminine or a bookish bluestocking, or a foolish girl who secretly wished she’d been born a man, but he simply regarded her, his gaze flicking over the book in her lap. He looked up at her, studied her face for a long moment, and she held his gaze and waited for it. Instead, he reached toward her. She flinched, but he merely tucked back a wisp of hair that had fallen from her prim coiffure. She pulled away, raised her chin, and scowled at him, still sure the unexpected kindness would turn into something unpleasant. Instead, he’d tilted his head and smiled at her, giving her the dazzling white, charming, devilish grin that he’d learned from Louis. She blinked at him. “Buck up, old thing. You’ll do fine.”
“And you?” she asked him.
His gaze slid toward the window, the smile fading to a smirk. “Oh, I daresay I’ll be fine as well.” He held out his hand, palm down. “See, steady as a rock.”
She’d wished she could say the same. She’d wondered later, still wondered, if that unexpected moment with her brother had galvanized her in some way, stiffened her determination. She remembered how she’d envied his confidence that day, the easy way he’d strolled into the university building, whistling a bright little tune as if he hadn’t a care in the world.
They’d walked into a room filled with men. Their eyes had turned hard or sharp or hostile as they looked at Eleanor, the only woman in the room. The haughty proctor had made her sit at the back of the room, where she wouldn’t disturb “the serious students,” and warned her not to faint. For the first time in her life she’d questioned if she could truly do this, if she had the strength and the courage to become a doctor. She knew she was smart enough. But she’d been nervous when the exam started, and the answers wouldn’t come. She barely recalled her own name that day. By the end of the allotted time, she’d been so sure she’d failed. But Edward was waiting for her by the desk as the men handed in their completed exam booklets one by one, still jaunty and calm. He’d watched her come toward him, taken her elbow, and led her to the door. He’d been so damnably, hatefully jaunty on the trip home, while she blinked back tears of defeat and frustration. He’d handed her his handkerchief, patting her hand as he pressed it into her palm. “Don’t fuss, Eleanor. People are looking,” he’d murmured. He’d gotten off the train in York to meet Louis and left her to finish the journey alone. Her parents had been at the station, their smiles fading as she got off the train without Edward. They did
not ask about the exam, and for once she was glad of their lack of interest in anything to do with her. Her stomach was churning, and she couldn’t have answered even if they had chosen to inquire.
She’d waited for the results to arrive in the mail, dreading the day. At last her father called them into his study, and they stood before his desk, staring at the two envelopes that lay on the blotter before him. There was no question that he’d be the first to open them and read the results. Eleanor waited, her teeth gritted. Her father would grin, clap Edward on the back, and tell him how proud he was. Then he’d scan her letter, his expression bland, and hand it to her to read for herself that she’d failed. He’d turn to Edward and proudly invite his son to join him on his rounds to visit patients. But that’s not how it went at all. Her father had opened her letter first. She saw surprise flick over his face. He set the letter down without comment and opened the other one. His face reddened as he scanned the words. He read them again, and his brow furrowed. The clock ticked in the silence. At last he set one letter down silently. He stood and held the other one out. She heard Edward sigh, saw him reach for it. “No,” their father said crisply. He kept his eyes on Edward as he handed the letter to Eleanor. “Leave us,” he told her sharply. “And shut the door behind you.” She closed the door and held the single printed page up to her face. She took note of the university crest, the weight of the vellum paper in her hand. She read the words twice, sure she hadn’t understood them correctly the first time. Dear Miss E. Atherton, It is with pleasure that I hereby announce . . .
For the first time in her life, she heard John Atherton yelling. At supper he announced to their mother that Eleanor had passed the entrance exam and Edward had not. Grace had been stunned, dismayed, had burst into tears. No one had spoken a word to Eleanor or offered congratulations. Edward had not even glanced at her. He’d concentrated on eating, had gone out as soon as the meal was over. A week later he announced he intended to go to Cambridge and study laws, not medicine. Mama had cried and taken to her bed as if it were a terrible tragedy. Her father had said nothing at all, had been silently, coldly furious. He allowed Eleanor to make arrangements to go to school over her mother’s objections. Edward had packed his bags for Cambridge, planning on rooming with Louis. She drove him to the station, where she found Louis already waiting.
“Good luck at school, old girl” was all Edward said as he got out of the car, his eyes on the train and on the pretty young lass with Louis. Edward walked away without another word. Only Louis waved to her with a wink and a grin before he bent to kiss the girl goodbye.
A year later, the war began, Edward joined up with Louis and left for France, and she hadn’t seen him since, except in the photographs he sent home. Mama had something to brag about to the knitting circle, crowing about the exalted company Lieutenant Atherton was keeping and how handsome he looked in uniform. Papa read Edward’s letters and said nothing at all, but a framed portrait of Edward, standing next to Field Marshal Haig and the Prince of Wales, appeared in his surgery one day.
Her brother had scrawled a postcard to her for her graduation. Congratulations. Best, E. was all it said.
She stared at the postcard in her hand, now months old, and wondered how it would go if she saw Edward in France. Would he be glad to see her? Louis was more a sibling to Edward than she was. Her brother felt shamed by his own family, and he believed his friendship with Louis made him part of the class he should have been born into. He’d told her that once, when he was drunk and dismal—that he detested their parents, their foolish middle-class pride, their poky Yorkshire village life. “They think they’re so important, better than everyone else in the bloody village, the good doctor and his wife. They lord over everyone, so smug and superior. They’re small people, same as the farmers and shopkeepers and the rest of the people they serve. Money is what makes the difference. Money, education, and connections—connections most of all. That’s how men rise out of the mud of a place like Thorndale. Papa will always have the mud of this place under his fingernails, no matter how hard he scrubs them and pretends he’s different.”
“Connections like Louis?” Eleanor asked.
“Yes, to start with.” He’d puffed out his chest. “I’m accepted at Chesscroft.”
“You’re still an Atherton.”
He’d narrowed his eyes. “For now, until I can make my name count, and I will—just watch me.”
That conversation had happened a few days before the earl had given a weekend party for his sons’ highborn friends and Edward had been pointedly left off the guest list, though Louis had tried to include him. For the first time Edward had truly understood that the difference between the Athertons and the Chastaines had less to do with fortune and everything to do with blood and breeding. Edward was as humble as the rest of his family, it seemed. A few weeks later the twins had gone to Edinburgh to write their entrance exams, and the world had changed, turned upside down, gone to war. Edward was a soldier, and she was a doctor.
A doctor on her way to France.
Eleanor stared at herself in the mirror. Her skin was so winter pale it was almost white against the freshly washed russet leaves of her hair, which hung long and loose over her shoulders, making her look innocent and young, a novice about to take holy orders, a girl about to take her first steps into independent womanhood.
She clenched her fist, pressed it against the ache and burn that lay under the armor of her ribs, armor that had protected her tender heart against all the blows of insult and rejection. Her heart was filled not just with blood but also with potential, pride, and determination. It was her destiny to be a doctor. She was Joan of Arc, she was Marie Curie, she was Aspasia, and she finally had the opportunity she’d longed for, and she would not fail now. It was her destiny.
But destiny offered no guarantees of success. There was the possibility that she might be killed. It was war, and men died every day. The enemy, the bombs and bullets and bayonets, would not make exceptions for a woman.
She thought of the photographs she’d seen of the front, of wounded men, crosses and corpses, heartbreaking devastation. But there were other pictures, too, of living men, hollow-eyed and battle-weary, yet still with dignity and pride in their eyes. They’d been bloodied, but remained determined.
“I will bring him home,” she whispered to her reflection. Home to the bosom of his family, the next heir, the hero. Then she’d establish a practice of her own with the countess’s grateful support. She’d impress her father at long last and show her mother that a woman could be smart, successful, and admired. She’d marry if and when she chose, have her pick of husbands, and break the hearts of the countless suitors she did not take.
She laughed and gave a theatrical toss of her head, her hair swinging around her like a red cloak, waist-length and glossy in the lamplight. It was her best feature, her vanity, and her beauty. She picked up her brush, counted the long strokes, plying the boar’s hair bristles until the silken locks crackled, then she braided it into a thick, gleaming rope, a red line the world dared not cross without her permission.
She added a set of tortoiseshell hair combs to her luggage, and bright pink ribbons that glowed like venal sin among the sober garments.
Then she closed the lid, buckled the straps, and carried the case across the room, her feet bare, her nightgown swirling against her legs with every stride, and set it by the door.
“I’m ready,” she said to the room where she’d slept since childhood, her nursery, sickroom, schoolroom, and haven. She’d left it to attend university, and she had found the room smaller than she remembered when she returned, like an outgrown shoe.
She wondered if it would feel smaller still when she came home from war.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The next morning, Eleanor set her tidy and sensible brown leather case by the door and went into the sitting room. Her mother was perched on a straight-backed chair by the window w
ith her knitting needles idle in her lap.
“Is Papa in the surgery?” Eleanor asked.
“He’s out. He had patients to see.” Her mother added nothing to the bare-bones statement, no personal message, no farewell from her father. “It looks like rain. Have you packed an umbrella?” She ran her eyes over her daughter. “That hat, Eleanor, really.”
Eleanor touched the brim of the simple woolen cloche. “It’s practical.”
Grace Atherton sighed. “I suppose that’s what matters.” She looked at the skein of dark gray wool in her hands, a color that very nearly matched Eleanor’s hat, and sighed. “No one wears color anymore. Women dress for practicality or mourning. Hopefully it will be over soon and things will return to normal—yet how long have we been saying that now? I’ve spent three terrible years worrying about your brother, and now you . . .” She turned away. “It’s not safe, not a place for a decent woman. People will question your upbringing and blame me, though it’s not my fault. And if you’re injured—” She paused. “Men are pitied when they come home maimed, scarred, missing limbs, their wits gone. For a woman, it would be better if you didn’t come home at all.”
Eleanor’s mouth dried. “Mama,” she said softly, but her mother’s face had turned to stone.
“That’s why your father went out. He can’t bear to see you doing something so foolish. It isn’t too late. You can still change your mind, stay, marry Peter.” But Eleanor kept her face impassive, and Grace Atherton fell silent.
The rumble of a motor sounded, and her mother twitched the curtain aside and peered out the window. “It’s her ladyship’s car. Her secretary is getting out.”
Eleanor crossed to kiss her mother’s stiff cheek. “Tell Papa goodbye for me.”
The Woman at the Front Page 6