When Robbie came he said, ‘We’ve decided that you must destroy those two letters, Hellie – go and fetch them now.’ Slowly I brought them down to him, and my brother took out his matches and set fire to the corners and dropped the burning paper into the grate where the flames flared up among the glowing coals, then died down. ‘There, all gone now Hellie – and no one will ever know.’ He put his arm round me and I began to cry again, but it was a little easier now.
A couple of weeks later they arrived together. ‘Four whole glorious days in Town – how about that, Hellie?’ I smiled at them and said, ‘How nice.’ But I guessed why they had come together – it was their embarkation leave. I lunched and dined with them and accompanied them to several shows - they wanted so much to cheer me up, and they were so excited at the prospect of going to France that I pretended to enjoy the glittering silly musicals they chose. And afterwards we came back through streets that were always dark now for fear of air raids – and they would sit with me in the drawing room over their whisky and soda and then we would all go up to bed. But later I would hear them tiptoeing past my room as they crept out again, and the whistle for a cab far below. As soon as they had left the house I would turn my face into my pillow and lie weeping, for Gerald – my lost love.
Before they went back they told me which evening they would be passing through London with their territorial battalion; they knew they would have to stop at Liverpool Street to change engines, so I decided to go and wait there. I tipped a porter to smuggle me on to the right platform, then stood hiding behind a pile of trunks, under the smoky, cavernous roof. No one would see me in the shadows, now that I was dressed in mourning.
The troop train clanked into the station, and at first I was bewildered: there were so many khaki-clad figures crammed into the compartments, so many caps waving from the open windows as men shouted to the refreshment sellers and newsboys on the platform. Then my eye found the first class, and I peered at the sleekly groomed officers until at last I saw them – Eddie’s laughing face with Robbie’s mirror image opposite him. I ran forward and two pairs of eyes became round in surprise, then they were pushing through the door and out on to the platform and we were all hugging each other at once. ‘Hello, Big Sis – are you going to be a stowaway? We’ll wrap you in a greatcoat as disguise’, ‘and pull a cap down over your face, like this.’ Robbie rammed his own cap down over my eyes; I was half-laughing, half-crying as I clung to them. Then there was an angry bellow from the train and the twins snapped smartly to attention. ‘Must go, Hellie, that’s the Colonel – we’re setting a bad example.’ They kissed me quickly, one on each cheek, then wheeled round together and marched back to their compartment.
I stood watching as the excited soldiers waved their caps and returned the cheers of the crowd on the station concourse; my throat tightened – they were so full of spirit, so eager to be on their way to the war – and down at the other end of the train the fresh engine was already being backed on. I saw a young lance-corporal push the whole of the top half of his body out of the window and raise his hand in a salute. Then he dragged his cap from his tow-coloured hair and waved it – in my direction. I half-turned and glanced over my shoulder, but there was no one behind me and I realized that I was the object of his attentions. For a moment I was indignant – how dare he presume? Then he gave a wide, hopeful grin, and looked so young and carefree that my indignation vanished and I raised my hand to him in acknowledgement and saw the delight on his face just as the train gave a warning jolt. At once my eyes searched frantically for my brothers and locked on to theirs, and I waved and waved until their faces merged with the white blur of all the other faces of that battalion going to war.
I realized that I was praying as I walked back up the platform: ‘Please God, bring them back safely, please God, bring them back safely,’ but God had not let Gerald come back; and the smoke stung my eyes and I could not see, and blundered into a newsboy, so I pretended I had wanted to buy a paper from him. I read it when I got back: the Germans were attacking again at Ypres, the Canadians had held the line after French colonial troops had been driven back by a new weapon – poison gas. My brothers, oh my brothers.
They wrote to say that they had had a very calm crossing that evening, but from Boulogne their men had had to march some distance uphill to a rest camp. Apparently the soldiers had crammed their packs full of last-minute purchases from Britain, and as the going got steeper and steeper, a variety of strange objects had been tossed either side of the road; everything from patent periscopes to knuckle dusters and tins of anti-vermin powder, Eddie wrote. Then Robbie described the misfortunes of the Transport Section: ‘Imagine a cold, wet night – one team of mules baulked at a wooden bridge – behaved as if they’d never seen one before and tried to throw themselves and their limber into the canal – they’d only just been restrained when a wagon in front turned turtle in a ditch and old Rayner (the TO) dismounted to see what was going on and landed straight in a quagmire! Then the pole of one limber ran through the tailboard of the one in front and the whole procession ground to a cursing halt – so here we are on active service!
Look after yourself, Big Sis,
Your loving brothers,’
And the two familiar signatures were scrawled across the page – identical except for the fact that one sloped to the right and one to the left.
Cadogan Place was desolate now, so I wrote to Mrs Benson and asked if I might come down to Surrey to act as a VAD in her Red Cross Hospital. When I told Mother I was going she said, ‘It’s just as well, Helena, as I’m going back to Cheshire to set up a convalescent home at Hatton, so I shall be leaving London shortly myself.’ I looked at my elegant beautiful mother, leaving Town in the Season – even she could not remain impervious to the War any longer. Most of Cadogan Place was put under dustsheets and a pair of maids stayed behind as caretakers. Papa was vague about his plans; he said he might put up at his club.
Pansy and Mrs Benson were very kind and they were so blessedly simple and uncomplicated. I spent hours sitting with Pansy talking about Gerald, though I never told her of my insane jealousy or the letter I had written; she would not have understood. When I had exhausted myself, she talked of Guy. Her eyes were soft and shining as she said how wonderful he was – so kind, so brave, so clever. ‘Eileen is so lucky, Helena.’
We did very little in the way of nursing. The men were well on the way to recovery and they cared for their own needs; there were some bed pans in a cupboard, but I never saw one which had been used. Every day the vicar’s three sturdy daughters came cycling up the drive and went rushing round the ward with trays and medicine bottles, like a gaggle of cheerful geese. I swept and dusted and scrubbed lockers. Sometimes I felt rather bored, but mostly I drifted about in a daze.
By the middle of May the French had gained land near Ypres, but the papers were more excited by the British landings on the Gallipoli peninsula – so now we were fighting the Turks as well, far away at the other end of the Mediterranean. Then a letter came from Guy: he was in hospital in London – nothing serious, he assured me, just a touch of fever – he felt rather a fraud being evacuated back to England for it. I rushed up to London at once; he was in a nursing home in Park Lane and he did not look particularly ill – but his eyes had a beaten look. I asked him if he had been in action recently and he replied abruptly, ‘Forget it, Hellie.’ Then he stared at the flowers on his locker and said, ‘Eileen’s given me the push. She married Jimmy Enscombe last week.’
I whispered, ‘Oh Guy, I’m so sorry.’ He sat in a glum silence. ‘Look, why don’t you come and convalesce at The Pines? Mrs Benson’s still got the same cook, and Pansy will be thrilled to have you.’
He looked more interested, then muttered, ‘I don’t know if I can stand Pansy mooning round me all day.’
‘She’s a very sweet girl, Guy.’
‘Quite. Eileen wasn’t sweet at all – Christ – I wish she’d married me last time.’
But he came
the next day, and was quite ready to let Pansy wait on him hand and foot. He would sit in the drawing room while she knelt at his feet lighting his cigarettes and pouring his whisky for him.
After a week he went up to the Medical Board, and when he got back he came to find me in the garden and told me they had passed him fit; he was going back in ten days. I stood very still and thought that I could hardly stand the anxiety of having all three brothers at the Front again, but there did not seem to be any choice. Then he stubbed out his cigarette and said, ‘I’m going to marry Pansy.’
I gaped at him. ‘But I’ve just been talking to her – she didn’t say anything…’
‘Oh, I haven’t asked her yet, but I know she’ll have me.’
He did not sound particularly pleased, so at last I asked, ‘But why, Guy?’ He turned and stood looking at me for a long time, his eyes dark. Then he said, ‘Because it’s bloody awful over there – I’ll probably be wiped out by some shell – blown to smithereens, or buried alive like…’ He began to shake; I put my arm through his and held him close until he got control of himself again. ‘I just want to leave something behind – I want to beget a son, Helena.’ He added, ‘I’m not bothered about the bloody title, the twins can have that – it’s me, I want to leave something of myself.’ His face contorted, then he lit another cigarette with hands that shook.
As we turned to walk back to the house I asked hesitantly, ‘But, what about Pansy?’
‘I’ll be doing her a favour, Hellie. She’s always been besotted with me, ever since she was in the schoolroom – just like you were with Gerald. Well, now she can have me.’ Then he added, his voice bitter, ‘I suppose she’s a better bet than Eileen – since I’ve got to leave her on her own – Eileen’s not cut out to be a faithful wife.’ I remembered the pretty girl on Guy’s arm that day, but I did not remind him – as Mother had said, it was natural for men.
Pansy was radiant, Mrs Benson fondly thrilled, Mr Benson beamed with pleasure. Mother and Papa came down; they were pleased too. As Mother said to me, ‘Pansy is her father’s sole heir now – and he’s a very wealthy man.’ To be fair to Guy, I do not think he had given the money a thought.
It was a quiet wartime wedding in the local church, not the fashionable London affair we had expected for Guy and Eileen. It was only too obvious he was making the same comparison; his mouth was an angry line as he stared straight ahead, and he scarcely seemed to be aware of the bride by his side. Pansy looked as velvet-soft as her namesake in a white silk afternoon dress; she wore her mother’s lace veil over her curling brown hair.
As they left for their honeymoon she was clinging to Guy’s arm, and her blue eyes shone as they gazed adoringly up at him; but my brother’s face was bleak and his square jaw jutted ominously. When he delivered Pansy back to The Pines the following week her eyes were no longer shining, and she flushed as her mother embraced her. Her small hand trembled in mine as Guy said abruptly, ‘Pansy offered to come up to Charing Cross to see me off, but I told her not to bother – she’ll only start howling.’ Then he muttered, without looking at me, ‘How about you, Hellie – do you fancy a run up to Town this afternoon?’
Pansy whispered, ‘Please go with him, Helena,’ so I rang for my hat and coat. Pansy was crying as he quickly kissed her goodbye; I could scarcely bear to look at her.
At Charing Cross I put my arms round Guy and he held me tightly against his chest; his heart was beating very fast. Then he muttered, ‘God, Hellie – I wish I had more guts – I don’t want to go back.’ He kissed me quickly, then pulled away and I watched him stride over to the train. He waved as it drew out and I waved back, then I forced my shaking legs to walk away.
Guy had gone back on the last day of May, and next morning we heard that Zeppelins had bombed northeast London that evening. The official communique stated that the number of casualties had been small – but one had been a child, and one a babe-in-arms. Mrs Benson kept repeating, ‘I can’t believe it, I can’t believe it – not London, they can’t have bombed London – oh when will it ever end?’ Pansy sat at the table with swollen, red-rimmed eyes; she had scarcely spoken since she had come back from her honeymoon. I went up to her room later, with a wedding present which had just arrived, and she was lying on her bed, sobbing. I was going to slip away, but she heard me and called me back, so I went slowly in and sat down. At last I said, ‘Guy – Guy will be all right, I’m sure he will.’
She looked at me vaguely, her blue eyes blurred, then she reached out and seized my arm, her nails biting into my flesh. ‘Helena, I’m so ashamed’ – her face flushed scarlet – ‘I can’t tell you what Guy did to me – he was like an animal, it was horrible, horrible.’ She was panting and distraught; I sat stunned, not knowing what to say. ‘But I must tell someone, I must – or I shall go mad – and I can’t tell Mumsy, I can’t.’
She looked at me desperately until I swallowed and asked, ‘What did Guy do?’ She whispered, ‘In the hotel, he came into my room, when I was in bed – and started taking all his clothes off, in front of me – and he was so hairy and…’ She was sobbing again, Pansy, whose mother had not even allowed her to see soldiers in their pyjamas.
I felt very old and tired as I asked, ‘Did your mother not, well, say anything to you beforehand?’
She gulped, then whispered, ‘Mumsy said Guy might – might do something I didn’t like – and I was to close my eyes and not complain. But Helena’ – her voice rose in a wail of distress – ‘I didn’t close my eyes soon enough! He came towards me and I saw… I didn’t know men looked like that, I couldn’t look away, and then he – he pushed my nightgown up and – oh, Helena,’ she began to sob again. ‘And it hurt, it did hurt so much, but I didn’t say anything, I bit my lip very hard, but I didn’t complain. And afterwards I lay there, waiting for him to go away, and I thought, ‘Well, at least it’s over now, it’s done, and then, Helena – he did it again!’
Poor, innocent, ignorant Pansy. ‘But why didn’t you tell him, that he was hurting you?’
‘How could I, Helena? I was so embarrassed. I didn’t know how to face my maid in the morning, and there was blood on the sheets – whatever must the chambermaid have thought? I felt as if everyone was looking at me.’ She sighed, very heavily, ‘It happened every night, and once he wanted me to go upstairs in the afternoon – in the afternoon! I couldn’t, I just couldn’t, so I said no and he was very angry and swore at me and went to play golf.’ She gave another long, shuddering sigh. ‘So when it was time for him to go back, for a moment I was pleased, and now I feel so guilty, because I do love him so much.’
I looked at my small sad sister-in-law with pity. Then I pulled myself together and tried to explain. ‘Pansy, what Guy did is quite normal – all husbands do it with their wives.’
She stared up at me, then said very firmly, ‘Not Mumsy and Papa – they wouldn’t.’
I looked at her helplessly. ‘But they must have done, Pansy – otherwise you wouldn’t be here.’ She still looked up at me, in total disbelief, so in desperation I said, ‘I want to show you something, I’ll be back.’
I ran to my room, delved in my bag and found my midwifery textbook. I took it along to her and showed her the pictures of the small, curled-up babies, and explained why Guy had done what he had, and finished, ‘And that’s why he did it so often, because he wanted to make sure.’
She gazed in fascination at the pictures, then put her hand on her flat stomach and said, her voice awestruck, ‘Oh, Helena, do you think…?’
But suddenly I did not want to talk about it so I thrust the book into her hands and said brusquely, ‘Read it – keep the book, it’s no use to me any more.’ I left her quickly and went down to the ward in the ballroom and began to scrub the already-gleaming glass trolley.
Pansy was very quiet and thoughtful for the next two weeks, then one day she came to me, her face radiant, and I knew what she had to say. She asked me to tell Guy when I wrote to him; she was too embarrassed herself. I had di
fficulty in writing the words to my brother; my monthly cramps had started, and when at last I crawled into bed I lay and wept with my womb for Gerald’s unbegotten sons.
Chapter Nine
I could not bear to stay and watch Pansy’s body swelling with child. A notice had come round that the big military hospitals in London were taking on VADs now, and as I had passed my First Aid Certificate at The Pines I applied at once. Before the end of July my orders had come through from Devonshire House: I was to report to the 6th London General Hospital at Wandsworth. An asylum for orphans had been requisitioned at the outbreak of war; the orphans had been dispatched elsewhere and the building was now at the hub of a vast sprawling encampment of hutted wards, erected to receive the never-ending stream of casualties from France.
I found it very easy to slip back into nursing. The routine of a military hospital was sometimes different, but the sisters and staff nurses were almost all on the Territorial Force so they had trained in hospitals very like the East London and I knew what they expected of me. In return Sister treated me like a civilian probationer and answered my questions and told me what I needed to know.
My life narrowed, and I became totally absorbed in my ward and in my patients. When they won their evening tussle with their neighbours in the next hut for possession of the gramophone I was glad – even though it meant that the sentimental favourites blared out incessantly, and we had to bandage to the tune of ‘If you were the only girl in the world’, and give out cocoa to the words: ‘Hold your hand out, naughty boy’. When they lost their battle, the packs of cards appeared and endless games of solo whist and cribbage were played for cigarette stakes. Occasionally a group of men would slip off to the latrines together, and we knew the Crown and Anchor board was in use; but we pretended not to notice, since dice counted as gambling, and gambling was strictly forbidden.
Song of Songs Page 24