Christabel delayed her return to Hilbury for a few more days because Violet asked her to stay for Kay’s second birthday. Lewis was still at sea and because she had no immediate family of her own, Violet felt desperately lonely.
Back at Hilbury, Christabel wondered if the war was ever going to end. There were times when she treated men who had been so horribly injured in one or other of the ongoing battles that she felt she was in a living nightmare. Occasionally, she wondered how it would feel like to live once again without being surrounded by barbed wire and people in khaki uniform and all the rules and roll-calls that were part of each day.
Days became weeks, then months, and still the massacre went on; the wounded arrived, were operated on, patched up and moved on. The nursing staff automatically knew how to deal with most injuries; they were no longer sickened by the sight of blood, the stench of putrefying flesh or the agonised cries of the wounded.
Christabel managed to get home for two days over Christmas 1917 but her mother and Lilian, who was now pregnant, complained so bitterly about everything, including the shortage of food, that every time she sat down for a meal with them she felt guilty about eating any of what they had.
Dennis had been sent to France and for several weeks there had been no letter from him, which worried Lilian a great deal. She was afraid he might come to some harm and wanted him home before the baby was born.
It was August the following year before the war news took a turn for the better. By October the Allies had recovered France and Belgium and spirits began to soar. When they learned that the allies had pushed the Germans back beyond the Hindenburg Line and that the Kaiser had abdicated everyone was optimistic that the war would end soon. When Armistice was declared in the second week of November, they were overjoyed.
As the weeks passed, rumours about the hospital being closed down were rife. Christmas 1918 was a strange mixture of elation and uncertainty about the future. As the bitter winter reluctantly gave way to spring, Christabel felt restless. Her job was no longer rewarding, or satisfying. The men in their care were, for the most part, well enough to leave hospital. In ordinary circumstances they would have done so in order to free beds for the newly wounded, only now that the fighting had stopped the flow of wounded men had ceased.
The end at Hilbury came quite suddenly. A fleet of army vehicles arrived at dawn one morning in late March. Those well enough to be sent home were dispatched, those who were prisoners of war were marched into waiting vehicles and taken away to secure camps. The army personnel attached to the hospital were driven off in separate trucks.
The nursing staff were left marooned and without any information about their future. Two days later a Ministry official arrived and handed out dismissal notices. Staff were told that they could apply to be transferred to a civilian hospital if they wished.
Christabel decided she needed time to think before taking such action. At the moment, she welcomed the thought of a rest from it all. It was almost spring and she toyed with the idea of spending the summer months free from routine and pressures of all kinds but, because Lilian was still living at home, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to live there too.
When she received a letter from her mother to say that Lewis was on his way back, and his boat was due to dock within the week, she made up her mind to go home. She longed to see him again. It would be like old times, all of them gathered together.
Christabel’s unexpected arrival brought exclamations of surprise from her mother. After she had hugged and kissed her, she stared in surprise at the number of cases Christabel had brought with her.
‘Does this mean you have come home for good?’ she asked.
‘That’s right, Mother. They’ve closed Hilbury down, everyone and everything gone.’
‘Why didn’t you let us know?’
‘It all happened so suddenly. You know what the army is like. Orders came from the top and they acted immediately, so there wasn’t time to send you a letter.’
‘You could have phoned.’ There was a hint of displeasure in her mother’s voice.
‘Yes, I’m sorry. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now, does it?’
‘Lewis is home. He’s here at the moment with Violet and Kay.’
‘Tremendous! Where are they?’ Without waiting for her mother to answer she burst into the dining room and was immediately enveloped in a bear hug by Lewis, who had recognised her voice and was waiting to greet her.
For a moment she was taken aback because she hadn’t seen him in his navy-blue sailor’s uniform before.
‘Are you so proud of your uniform that you don’t want to change into civvies?’ she teased, laughing up at him.
‘It’s not a case of being proud of it; I can’t find anything in my wardrobe that still fits me,’ he laughed, straightening his shoulders and pulling himself up to his full height.
‘Yes, you have broadened out a little!’ She stepped back, holding him at arm’s length and studying him critically, her head tilted to one side. ‘Agreat improvement, I’d say.’ She grinned.
He grabbed her to him, kissing her heartily on both cheeks. ‘And you look fine yourself,’ he told her. ‘A lot older, of course. In fact, I would say quite grown-up,’ he teased.
‘Come along, Christabel, slip your coat off, you’re just in time for lunch. I’ll tell Mary to lay another place,’ her mother told her.
‘I’ll take my things upstairs, first,’ Christabel murmured. ‘I won’t be a moment. I must freshen up.’
She turned and went out of the room and picked up one of her suitcases. Her foot was already on the bottom stair when her mother came hurrying after her.
‘Wait, Christabel. Hold on a minute. We . . . we didn’t know you were coming home . . . your room isn’t ready.’
‘That’s all right. I can put clean sheets on the bed, or whatever needs doing, later on. I’m only going to take these upstairs out of the way.’
‘Christabel, you don’t understand. Dennis is using your room.’
‘Dennis!’ Christabel turned sharply, a look of annoyance on her face.
‘Well, yes, dear. We didn’t know you were coming home; you didn’t write and let us know and now that Lilian is back, living here with her new baby, he had to have somewhere to put all their stuff.’
Christabel felt she wanted to hide in a corner and cry. She knew she was being childish but she’d so looked forward to coming home, to her own room and possessions, and now it was like living in a hotel, she thought sadly.
‘Leave it until after lunch, dear, and we’ll see what arrangements we can make. Perhaps Dennis could move their things into Lewis’s old room.’
‘Don’t bother, I’ll use that room,’ Christabel said resignedly.
Later, she stayed upstairs for a long time until the light began to fade, staring out of the window, watching the diamante patterns emerging on the darkening sky as, one by one, the stars emerged, trying to work out why she was feeling so resentful about Dennis’s invasion of her home.
Next morning, her mother was the only one up when she went down to breakfast.
‘Since it seems to matter to you so much, Christabel, you can move back into your own room any time you wish,’ Mabel told her coldly.
She looked up, ready to apologise, to explain why it was so important to her, but her mother had turned away and Christabel was uncomfortably aware that she had upset her and that it was too late to make amends.
Chapter Ten
Christabel found the tension in the Montgomery household was palpable. She wondered if the edginess they were all feeling was because, in different ways, they were all missing her father. The house certainly seemed to be a different place without his authoritative presence.
From the moment she’d come home she’d noticed that everyone seemed to be arguing about something or snapping at each other over trivial matters, when they should have been one of the happiest families in the land.
She had returned from nursing far more worldly-wis
e but none the worse for all the grim sights and experiences she had encountered. Lewis had been at the Battle of Jutland, and had been torpedoed at the Dardanelles, yet he’d come through both of these harrowing engagements completely unscathed, at least physically. He was now home again and had resumed work in the family shipping business where he’d taken over his father’s partnership in the firm, which meant he had a lot of extra responsibility.
Christabel was aware that both her mother and Lilian seemed to be uneasy about her being there. Most of the time there was friction between the three of them and frequently it was almost unbearable.
Partly, Christabel reflected, it was due to all the fuss they both made about Lilian’s little girl. Marlene expected to be the centre of everything that was going on. Compared to the way Kay was being brought up, Marlene was thoroughly spoilt by both her mother and grandmother. As a result, she was constantly throwing tantrums and screamed if she couldn’t have her own way.
Since Lilian had been at home looking after her mother they’d developed a close bond and Christabel sensed that Lilian resented her being there or offering an opinion about anything. She wasn’t sure why, but she suspected that Lilian was afraid that she might want to take over the reins and run things herself. In fact, nothing was further from her mind.
She didn’t intend to stay at home a moment longer than she had to because she found it far too claustrophobic. She had plans for her future and spent a great deal of time and energy working on them.
The one thing she did enjoy, and which she knew she would miss very much if she went away again, was visiting Violet and taking little Kay out and about.
Kay was a pretty little girl with dark hair and big expressive blue eyes. Violet was a good mother and, as a result, Kay was bright and well mannered; she asked so many questions that Christabel found it stimulating to be with her. She enjoyed taking her down to the Pier Head to see all the ships or on one of the ferry boats across the Mersey to New Brighton.
When the weather was unsuitable for those sorts of outings, they often spent happy hours looking at family photographs. Kay especially loved the ones of when her father, and her aunts, Lilian and Christabel, were small.
‘Grandma always says that I look exactly like you in those pictures,’ she told Christabel. ‘When I’m grown up I’m going to be a nurse just like you were in the war,’ she added with a big beaming smile.
Seeing how enraptured Lewis and Violet both were with Kay frequently revived disturbing memories for Christabel of her own child. Although she knew she’d had no alternative but to have her adopted, the very fact that her baby would now be the same age as Kay sometimes brought a stab of regret over what she’d done. It also made her all the more interested in Kay’s progress and sometimes she had to hold back for fear of upsetting Violet or being told that she was spoiling the little girl.
It was yet another reason Christabel decided that the time had come for a change. She decided to organise a family get-together so that she could tell them what her intentions were for the future.
Lilian looked dubious when she mentioned it to her. ‘You mean have a proper party?’ She frowned. ‘We haven’t had one of those for ages but have you given any thought to all the work it will entail? I have enough to do looking after Mother and Marlene without taking on anything extra.’
‘We’ll time it for Kay’s birthday. She’ll be five in February so we can plan it for then and tell her we’re all going to get dressed up and that there will be a birthday cake with candles on it, she’ll love that,’ Christabel went on, ignoring all Lilian’s protests.
At the very last minute, on the day of the party itself, Christabel decided that the occasion demanded a new dress. She wanted one that was the very latest fashion so she went to Liverpool’s Bold Street. Having bought the dress she felt it needed one of the new hairstyles to complete the effect which meant going to the hairdresser’s and this made her even later arriving home.
They were all gathered in the dining room ready to start the party when she walked in. The straight-cut apple-green silk dress skimmed her knees and had floating panels of darker green chiffon draped from the waist. With it she wore a matching sequined headband positioned straight across her forehead so that it partially concealed her new hairstyle.
Her appearance stunned them all; they stared at her in silence.
‘Oh, Chrissy, what have you done to yourself?’ Lilian’s squeal of horror started everyone talking at once.
‘It’s the latest fashion,’ Christabel retorted, tilting her head and pirouetting round so that the floating panels flared out seductively.
‘It certainly shows off your legs and you’ve a good pair of pins, old girl,’ Dennis chortled.
Lilian gave him a warning look as she saw her mother frowning uneasily.
‘What is that thing you have on your head, Christabel?’ her mother asked in a puzzled voice.
‘It’s a headband.’
‘It looks like some sort of Indian headdress with those feathery things in it,’ Lilian scoffed.
‘Don’t be silly.’ Although she smiled, Christabel removed the offending piece.
The gasps when they saw her new hairstyle were even greater than the furore caused by the shortness of her dress.
‘In heaven’s name what have you gone and done to yourself, Christabel?’ her mother exclaimed. ‘What’s happened to all your lovely long hair?’
‘By the look of things she’s had it chopped off for one of the new short cuts,’ Dennis laughed admiringly.
‘It is very short!’ Violet murmured.
‘It’s called a bob,’ Christabel told them, running her hand over the back of her head and then trailing her fingers down her face to where the side hair was swept forward dramatically on to her cheeks just below eye level.
‘You look naked!’ her mother told her, her eyes travelling from Christabel’s long, slim, bare neck to the low cut neckline of her new dress.
‘It will take time to get used to, but I rather like it,’ Christabel defended.
‘Then it seems you are the only one who does,’ her mother told her scathingly.
‘You’d better learn to like it,’ Christabel laughed, ‘I can hardly put my hair back on again, can I?’
‘No, Christabel, I realise that you can’t do that, but you’d better make sure you wear a hat when you go out. I don’t want people seeing you make such a spectacle of yourself. Either that, or else stay indoors until it grows again,’ she added tetchily.
‘Mother, we’ve got to move with the times,’ Lewis defended as they took their places at the table and he saw the tears glistening in Christabel’s eyes.
‘Lewis is right, Mother. I’m sorry you disapprove but I need to look not only smart but also fashionable in readiness for my new job, so I’m trying to make the most of myself,’ Christabel affirmed as she passed the plate of sandwiches to her.
‘A new job? What sort of job? You never said you were thinking of going out to work. Does it mean you’re going to a new hospital? I thought you’d given up nursing for good.’
‘I’ve been offered a post as nurse-companion to a young girl who is recuperating from tuberculosis. As part of her treatment, she is being sent to live in Switzerland,’ she explained.
‘Switzerland!’ Her mother’s reaction was a mixture of disbelief and consternation. ‘Surely you could find something nearer home,’ she grumbled as she stirred the cup of tea Lilian had placed in front of her. ‘I shall be so worried about you. All that snow and ice everywhere and all those mountains, you could so easily break a leg, you know.’
‘Mother, Fiona Gleeson is recovering from TB. She isn’t fit to undertake anything energetic, let alone ski. She has been sent out there by a Harley Street specialist because the alpine air is considered to be very beneficial. I have been hired as a nurse-companion. My job will be to entertain her and make sure that she has plenty of rest. It will also be my responsibility to ensure that she eats the right foods, an
d takes the medicines prescribed.’
‘And what about her family? Where will you live? Will there be servants to look after you?’ A torrent of questions poured out from all sides.
‘Fiona’s parents will come out and visit her about once a month. There’s a housekeeper and servants to look after the chalet. All I have to do is keep Fiona company and make sure she sticks to the rules laid down by her specialist.’
‘Won’t you find it very dull?’
‘Dull?’ She shrugged. ‘I’ve never been to Switzerland before so it will be quite an exciting experience. I’ve been told that the scenery there is absolutely magnificent.’
Her vivid blue eyes hardened as she stared at her mother. ‘The fact that I am going away will make things better for you all. It will give Lilian more space. Now that she has a child and all the paraphernalia that entails, as well as the fact that Dennis is home, means we are very cramped.’
‘There’s no need for you to rush off or to go to the other side of the world; this is your home as well, and there’s plenty of room here for all of us,’ her mother told her quickly. ‘I’m not entering into an argument with you, but the thought of you going off to Switzerland worries me, whatever you may think,’ she added huffily.
‘Dissatisfaction with what you have seems to be one of the aftermaths of the war with you young people,’ she went on reflectively. ‘Only this morning Mary handed in her notice and told me that she will be leaving at the end of the month because she’s getting married and moving to Scotland. I must say, it came as something of a shock to discover that she’s been engaged for almost two years. I’ve never even thought about her having a life outside our home.’
Christabel was about to point out that they’d always taken Mary for granted, rather like they did herself, but she decided it was time for them all to remember that the real reason they were all there was not to have a family argument but to celebrate Kay’s birthday.
‘Do you want some more jelly and blancmange, or are you ready for someone to light the candles on your cake, Kay?’ she asked, smiling across the table at the little girl.
Whispers of Love Page 8