Something about Violet’s attitude to Tom made me queasy. We had become great friends now but the way she talked about men—her lovers, she called them—they were like chocolates she’d eaten and enjoyed. I wouldn’t want Tom to be one of her sweeties.
“Violet, you mustn’t talk about Tom that way. You’re a woman. He really is just a boy. I mean it, Violet.”
“Very well,” she said. “I’ll leave off. We’re almost home now. Let’s see if we can’t steal a bit of that custard from the kitchen.”
Over the next few months, Tom established himself as an honorary woman of Royaumont although none of us told him that’s what we’d decided. “You want to watch that one,” Quoyle said to me after his first spring visit. “He’s a cheeky young fellow.” But the next time he came he fixed the kitchen table with the wonky leg Quoyle had been complaining about and he put in another light for the kitchen. Then he helped the orderlies clear blocks of stone from a downstairs room we planned to use as an extended reception area. Before he left, he showed Miss Ivens how to tie a reef knot.
“He’s a lovely boy, your brother,” Miss Ivens said afterwards, practising the knot without success.
“He’s always been a handful, to be honest,” I said. “But that’s what brothers are for.” I took the rope and fixed Miss Ivens’s knot.
“Of course they are,” Miss Ivens said, looking at the rope with a puzzled expression. “He’s going to make something of his life. You mark my words. He’s got the same good heart as you, Iris. Your father must be very proud.”
I hadn’t told Miss Ivens much about myself at all. Not that she hadn’t asked. But we’d been so busy that I’d kept our conversations to the work mostly, and now we knew each other so well that it would seem silly to tell her about my background. She’d told me her mother had died when she was twenty and so I’d told her about my own mother’s death. Miss Ivens’s father had remarried too, but unlike Daddy he’d moved his old family, as he termed Miss Ivens and her older sisters, into another house and his new wife into his old house. “We were eating bread and butter pudding at the time he told me,” Miss Ivens said. “I’ve never been able to stand it since.”
Not long after Tom’s spring visit, I received a letter from Daddy, the first I’d had since I’d written to tell him the good news that Tom was not only safe but gainfully employed in the postal service, that I had found a position in a hospital, and that with this in mind, I thought it best for Tom and me to remain in France.
Daddy’s reply started innocuously enough, talking about Risdon and the long dry summer. The twins are into all sorts of mischief, he wrote. Claire says they’re good boys, but they remind me too much of Tom when he was a tyke, built for trouble. And then it started. I had a letter from him, Iris. This business of being in a safe job. I can’t see there can be safe jobs when blokes are running around shooting each other. Every week the list of dead and wounded gets longer.
When I wrote back, I told Daddy more about Royaumont, the soil, the weather, the people I’d met. When I mentioned Tom it was only to say that he was safe and that I was keeping an eye on him as we’d agreed. In his next letter, Daddy responded that there’s no such thing as safety when men have guns for shooting and Tom was a boy who should come home. All I’ve got in the world that matters is my family, and the thought I might lose either of you I can’t abide. So I continued to write, telling Daddy about the things I discovered, the bird that sang in the evening rather than the morning at Royaumont, the light so soft in the middle of the day with nothing I’d seen in Australia to compare it to. Daddy wrote back, pleading with me to see sense. I didn’t give him any more thought than the flowers I started finding in the fields around Royaumont as spring found the fullness of summer. And of course, the longer I stayed and ignored Daddy’s pleas, the more convinced I became that Tom and I had been right all along and Daddy had been wrong.
Late in the summer of 1915 the weather unexpectedly turned cold. The drivers were in their wool coats, there was sleet on the roads, and there was even a suggestion we’d have snow. Violet returned from Creil about two one morning. I’d come off the ward at eleven and was sound asleep. She was noisy coming into the room, bumping into things, not like Violet at all.
“I’m sorry, did I wake you?” she said when she saw my eyes open.
“No. Are you all right?” She was still in her boots, still wearing her wool coat and gloves, which she’d normally have left downstairs.
“Tonight, I was driving a chap, died on the way. The others did their best. It never stops.” We’d had a busy few weeks and Violet had been under considerable strain as we’d lost one of our drivers who’d had to go home to nurse her sick mother.
I got out of bed. Violet’s skin was pale and sheeny. I’d left the window open a crack when I went to sleep but there was quite a chill up now. I put my palm to Violet’s forehead. “You’ve got a fever,” I said.
She was standing in the middle of the room and she started to sway. I went to grab her as she fainted. I half-caught her, forced to let her down onto the floor.
“Someone, come quickly!” I called and in a moment Marjorie Starr was at the door in her nightdress. “Violet’s taken ill.”
Together, we lifted her onto her bed and took off her coat and boots. She was sweating underneath all the layers. There had been an outbreak of typhoid around Creil and I feared the worst. Marjorie went to find a doctor. It was Mrs. Berry who came and I was relieved—she was our best physician. She examined Violet, who’d woken by this stage and was feeling much better, she said. Just a little faint, she said. She might get up and go back to Creil, she thought. I told her to stay where she was.
“You need to rest,” Mrs. Berry agreed.
Violet tried to get up and fell back on the bed. “But I have to go back,” she said.
“No, you don’t. Violet, you’re sick,” I said. “You have to stay here with me.”
When Violet had settled down again, Mrs. Berry took me outside. “Her throat’s inflamed, glands are up, and her chest doesn’t sound good. Iris, you need to stay with her. I don’t like the look of it.”
“It’s not typhoid?” I said, terrified suddenly.
“No, but it’s a nasty infection. And Violet’s not strong.”
Mrs. Berry put her hand on my shoulder and this more than anything worried me. Everyone knew Violet and I were inseparable. We spent every spare minute in each other’s company. If Mrs. Berry was trying to offer me comfort she must think Violet gravely ill. Matron Todd came in then. She took one look at Violet and said to Mrs. Berry, “I rather think we ought to send up to Paris for a man, don’t you?” Mrs. Berry stared at her and didn’t reply.
To me, Mrs. Berry said, “At least we know she’ll have good care here. Iris, you need to stay with her. The fever’s sure to go up again.” She shook her head. “It’s little wonder frankly,” talking to herself now. “We’re not eating properly, not sleeping. And the drivers are out there night after night. Even in the summer, it can be cold. It’s no wonder poor Violet is ill. I’ll go and find Frances and get Quoyle to make up a broth. Tomorrow, I’ll tell Edinburgh this must stop. They must send us the resources we need.”
Miss Ivens came up later that night, the front of her gown covered in blood. She’d forgotten to take it off on her way out of theatre. Violet’s fever had gone up again and come down, I told Miss Ivens. “I sponged her when she was hot and resisted the urge to cover her too much when cold.”
“Poor little flower,” Miss Ivens said, putting her hand on Violet’s forehead. “Iris darling, I’m still operating,” she said without looking at me. “We’ll be going through the night again, I should think. Will you stay with her?”
“Of course.”
“And will you . . . will you come to see me if there’s any change?”
“Yes, Miss Ivens.”
“She’s young,” Miss Ivens sai
d. “That’s in her favour. But she’s not strong. She’s never been strong.”
To me, Violet was so strong. I said, “Do you think not? Oh Miss Ivens, Violet’s a champion. She’ll be all right.”
Miss Ivens didn’t reply, instead putting her hand on my head and leaving it there for a moment. She looked kindly at me and I realised that Mrs. Berry must have communicated something to Miss Ivens she hadn’t communicated to me. They really did believe Violet was gravely ill.
After Miss Ivens left, I sat by Violet’s bed and cried silently. “No, Violet,” I whispered. “You mustn’t leave me, do you hear? We’re the flower bird girls.” I realised how much she’d come to mean to me. She stirred in her sleep, grabbed for my hand. I took both of hers in mine.
I sat on the wooden crate we had as a bedside table in our little room and waited for morning to come. I said decade after decade of the rosary. I added extra Our Fathers and Glory Bes. And then, just before dawn, the priest from Asnières appeared at the bedroom door. Father Rousselle had become a key part of our life at Royaumont. He often sat and prayed with the soldiers, or said a mass. He was particularly helpful to those who suffered mental problems following their ordeal. It was kind of him to come out in the cold, I said, and he could come and bless Violet but she was not to be anointed. She didn’t believe in it anyway, I knew, and for my part I would not accept that she was near the end and requiring anointing. Father Rousselle was such a sweet man; he came and did as I asked and no more.
As dawn made its way into the room, Violet became delirious. She kept saying the name Peter, and whoever he was, he disturbed her mightily. No, Peter, no, she was saying. Peter might have been the one who’d given her his car and cigarette case, I thought. He’d been older than Violet, she said, “and terribly sophisticated, darling” until “I got bored. I always get bored with them.” Even at the time, I knew she hadn’t been telling me the full story. Her confidence was marvellous—it shone from her—but it was also somehow brittle, so that even as she dazzled everyone around her, including me, I knew I was the happier person. I was ever the quiet one, the observer, the dependable plain Iris Crane, but Violet was amazing. And even if her brash confidence masked another Violet, this frightened girl I nursed through that long, long night, strangely, it didn’t make me love her less. It made me love her more.
As if the priest’s blessing had spoken some stern words to her soul, little Violet returned to us. By lunchtime on the second day, her fevers were less severe. By nightfall, she had improved further. Miss Ivens came again, with Mrs. Berry, and they said it was my dedication that had saved Violet but that now I must rest. I was fine, I said, relieved to my very bones. I stayed by Violet until she was awake and had taken some broth and then I sponged her and changed the bedding. It wasn’t until she slept again that I crept in beside her, spooning my body around her as we had that first night, and fell into a deep sleep myself. We remained there, sleeping peacefully, until morning.
Violet spent the rest of the week in bed on Mrs. Berry’s orders. I popped in to see her when I could. I was just so relieved to have her back. “Oh Violet, don’t you dare get sick again.” I had made much of the priest’s visit. “I’m sure you’re for heaven now,” I said. “Father Rousselle has blessed you. You’re going up not down after all.”
“Stop it,” she said. “I’m going straight to hell and the old curé is coming with me.”
“Don’t talk about Father like that. He’s wonderful.”
“He is,” Violet said. She grabbed my hand. Her green eyes were shining and her curls fell about her face. “I heard you wouldn’t let him anoint me, darling.”
I’d confided in Mrs. Berry my decision about the priest. She must have told Violet.
“Of course not,” I said. “He said he could anoint the sick even if they weren’t dying and that if you died without anointment, he couldn’t vouch for your soul. But I couldn’t let him do it. I decided I’d vouch for your soul if it came to that. I felt it would be like giving up on you.” I swallowed hard. “Oh Violet, just don’t get sick again.”
“Of course I won’t, darling,” she said. “Perhaps if I never drive to Creil ever again I’ll be healthy as a horse.” While I knew she was joking, I could see that the horror she faced was taking its toll on her.
If ever I felt upset or worried about the awful things we witnessed at Royaumont, I walked through one of the wards, and the light coming through those long windows, the red blankets over the beds, neatly made, the soldiers as comfortable as we could make them, it truly was as if Royaumont could protect all under her roof. We were a haven in the forest, in the midst of chaos. But Violet was daily in the chaos itself. Violet, who drove that long rough road to Creil, who saw those poor men who never made it to Royaumont, brought from the trains already dead or so close to death there was no point moving them, the horrors she witnessed were much worse than I could imagine.
We had a concert at the end of 1915 to celebrate our first year and Miss Ivens treated us all to champagne and a wonderful supper of smoked trout. Cicely created a pageant, and if you could have seen the wards lit up for Christmas, the orderlies in their costumes, elves and sprites and fairies, the candles, the men clapping and laughing and singing along, you’d have thought there was no war on at all. Violet, with her beautiful voice, had always played a key role in our performances, but she said she wasn’t well enough and despite all our pleadings she didn’t join in. I could see her in the audience. She sat, unmoved. It wasn’t until they started on Christmas carols—six of the girls had got themselves dressed up in the blue capes the sisters wore and came through the wards with candles singing—that Violet agreed to get up and sing with them. She sang a solo of “They Didn’t Believe Me.” As I listened, I let tears run down my cheeks unashamedly. I doubt there was a woman there who wasn’t crying and as for the patients, they clapped and clapped when Violet finished and then when she sang the chorus once more, they gave her a standing ovation of sorts, those who could stand standing and the rest sitting up as well as they could.
“You see, Violet,” I said, wiping my eyes as she came past me. “You are giving something important.”
Early in 1916, Miss Ivens spent a day and a night in Amiens to visit the British hospital there. I’d taken the opportunity to tidy her desk and now we were back together on her morning rounds. We’d had another problem with provisions for soldiers. The army had decreed that every French soldier was to be provided with a daily ration of wine, the precious pinard. The hospital was expected to pay for the wine. The committee in Edinburgh couldn’t see the need. I was wondering how I would broach the matter with Miss Ivens without angering her further.
She was unwinding a bandage around a man’s calf. She’d been quiet since she’d been back and I missed her usual chatter. I even wondered if she was offended that I’d tidied her office. I watched as she changed the dressing, taking such care it might have been a tricky amputation.
I was about to ask about her visit to Amiens when she said, “When I finished medicine, I wanted to be a surgeon to make people’s lives better. I mean, I knew the College wasn’t admitting women but I believed they would change. They’d let us sit their examinations and slowly, as we showed them our hands were as nimble as theirs, our minds as deep, they’d capitulate and admit us as Fellows.”
The man had fallen asleep by this time. They often did. Miss Ivens always spoke in low tones around the patients and her voice was so calming. This man was from Algeria, with skin as black as night, and he couldn’t understand a word Miss Ivens said, but he’d listened all the same until his eyes were too heavy to remain open. It was as if she hypnotised them. Dr. Henry once joked that if Miss Ivens had been born in another century, she’d have been burned for a witch. Miss Ivens said it was no joke, we’d all have been burned for witches. It’s what happened to women healers.
Miss Ivens sat back and surveyed her work and looked up at th
e sleeping man and smiled. “But do you know, for the first time, I’m not even sure I want to be one of them.” She pinned the bandage and stood up and smoothed her coat and we walked together from the ward, having finished the day’s rounds. She nodded towards the ward sister on her way out the door and the sister, a new recruit from Canada, looked as if she might be about to salute, but Miss Ivens raised an arm to stop her. “All’s well, Sister Courtney,” she said. Miss Ivens always called the staff by name. Sometimes she was even right. Not this time though. This was Sister Jackson, not Courtney. Sister Courtney had come from Liverpool, not Canada. I never corrected Miss Ivens and most of the staff took her forgetfulness about names in good humour.
“You know I went to Amiens yesterday to meet the surgeon there,” Miss Ivens said on the way down the stairs. “The folk at Creil suggested it, told me the surgeon was a good chap I should get to know.
“His name is Roger Crampton and I’d heard of him. I’m sure Berry knows him. I must ask her. Well, he was pleasant enough and happy to have me there. But as we moved from bed to bed, I saw that between one patient and the next he wouldn’t use antiseptic—wouldn’t even wash his hands. God knows what he does with his instruments, because when I said, ‘Are you not sterilising?’ he said, ‘Don’t tell me you’ve fallen for that Lister nonsense. You’d do better to cut deep around infection than worry about those so-called germs.’ I can’t believe there could still be a doctor on God’s earth who doesn’t know or respect bacteria. It puts us back fifty years. He’s in charge of the surgical group and he has no idea.”
We’d reached Miss Ivens’s office and she unlocked and opened the door and went in, still speaking, assuming I’d follow. She went to the desk and looked wearily at the pile of papers, neater but no less overwhelming, hung her coat on the hook behind the desk, and wound her stethoscope around the same hook.
In Falling Snow Page 18