“We do rely on systems,” Margaret said. “It can get pretty chaotic here at times so we need to adhere to procedures, both out on the wards and behind the scenes.”
They took a seat at a refectory table and Margaret went over to the counter and soon returned with two cups of tea. “Would you like a scone?” she asked Millie.
“Oh no, I’m fine,” Millie replied.
“Nonsense, you need to eat, Millicent. You need to keep up your strength,” and before Millie had chance to say more, Margaret rose again and soon reappeared with two plates. “I eat at every opportunity,” she explained as she sat back down.
“But you’re as thin as a rake,” Millie observed involuntarily.
Margaret laughed. “Well you see, there are times when the opportunities don’t arise so often!”
Margaret tucked into her scone before being distracted by a young boy who entered the canteen on crutches and called out to her.
She returned the greeting, flashing him her angelic smile.
Catching a brief glimpse of the boy’s face, Millie found she had to turn away.
Margaret knew exactly what the problem was. “Don’t worry Millicent. You’ll get used to it.”
Millie caught Margaret’s eye but found she couldn’t admit her difficulty in looking at the men. The boy who Margaret had greeted so easily was badly disfigured.
“It’s hard for us all at first,” Margaret reassured her. “But imagine what it’s like for them, Millie. Having to look at themselves in the mirror. The one advantage we have is that we don’t know what they looked like before.”
“Yes,” Millie said, sipping her tea and looking sadly at Margaret.
“The best you can do for them is to be cheerful, Millie. That really does lift their spirits,” Margaret advised.
“Yes,” Millie replied, nodding.
“Now eat your scone,” Margaret instructed light-heartedly.
Millie found she had to smile at the kind girl’s insistence. She seemed remarkably down-to-earth for such a beautiful young woman. Millie understood why Richard was besotted by her.
* * *
As the days passed in the hospital, Millie became better acquainted with her role in the office and began to feel more at ease around the patients. But she envied the easy relationships that Margaret and the other nurses seemed to have with the men; bonds that obviously arose from the caring roles that the nurses undertook. Whilst she knew that her own work was valued, Millie felt necessarily distant from the real life of the wards. Talking with Richard one evening, she alluded to this. In response, he assured her that the smooth administrative running of operations was the backbone of the hospital’s effectiveness. But these words were little comfort to Millie.
Shortly after this conversation, Millie’s afternoon was interrupted by Margaret’s appearance in the office. It had become their ritual to take tea together in the refectory if Margaret was able to have a break from her duties, and Millie was glad, not only of her company, but also of the opportunity to feel more absorbed into the daily life of the hospital – much of her work was confined to her solitary office, the hospital manager and senior surgeons being the only staff who regularly frequented it beside herself.
Once seated at a table in the airy canteen, Millie having taken her turn to fetch their tea and cakes, as she noticed that Margaret was looking particularly tired, Margaret began, “Richard mentioned that you’d like to be more involved with life on the wards.”
Millie was taken aback by the comment. She felt inadequate in comparison to Margaret, who was such a skilled nurse. “Yes but it’s difficult to see what use I could actually be,” she said dismissively.
“Oh I wouldn’t be so sure, Millicent. What we nurses are often short of is time.” Margaret paused to take a bite of her cake.
Millie waited, eager to hear more.
“One of the things a lot of the boys like is to read, Millie. It takes their minds off their worries in the evenings before bed. But many of them don’t read well. Some of them can’t read if their sight’s been damaged, of course. And even if they can read, there’s something soothing about being read to. If you could find a spare hour or so in the evenings, I’d be glad of your help.”
“Just reading to the men?” Millie queried.
“Yes, it would be wonderful if you could do that.”
“Of course,” Millie said, brightening. “I’d be only too happy to.”
“We have quite a library of novels that were in the house, and I’ve been storing up some more accessible modern stories for a while now,” Margaret said.
And so it was agreed that Millie would join Margaret on her shift the following evening. After their conversation, Millie returned to her office feeling nervous but excited about her new role.
* * *
“What would you like me to read, Robert?” Millie asked the young man she remembered from that first time she’d gone into the canteen with Margaret – the boy whose face she couldn’t look at. It was still hard for her to maintain her gaze when confronted by his disfigurement.
He leaned over to the small cabinet beside his bed and, opening a door, reached in and produced a bundle of letters. “If you don’t mind, Miss,” he said, “I wondered if you might read these to me. I’ve read them before,” he added, “but I’d like to hear them again.”
Millie accepted the bundle and untied it.
“Start at the bottom,” Robert instructed. “And I’d be obliged if you’d call me Bobby, Miss.”
Smiling at his formality, Millie responded, saying, “Very well, Bobby. I’d be obliged if you’d call me Millie.”
“Oh no, Miss,” Bobby protested, “that’s too familiar.”
“Millicent then,” Millie replied.
“But that sounds too grand,” he complained. He thought for a moment and then suggested, “Why not Miss Millie? I like that much better.”
Millie smiled to herself as she opened the first letter from the bottom of the pile, wondering whether she’d ever escape her title.
Robert’s letters were a mixture of missives from home, mostly from his mother; some from his father; the odd one from younger friends who had escaped enlisting due to their age, but most significantly from a girl named Bella, whose words seemed to affect the boy deeply.
Millie enjoyed reading through the letters, and the initial disappointment she’d felt at missing the opportunity to revisit Great Expectations as she’d intended, was soon cast aside, amidst the interest she found within these small windows into Robert and his family’s lives.
As she progressed through the pile, approaching the present day, Millie became despondent at the realisation that, whilst the letters from Robert’s mother became all the more frequent once he had been injured, those from Bella petered out. She knew that she was not, of course, gaining insight into Robert’s return communications to the letters but she gleaned that Bella’s tone changed and her letters became fewer and further between at the point at which Robert must have communicated the nature and extent of his injuries to her. Millie found it hard to hide her sadness and disappointment at this discovery from Robert.
“Would you like to see a picture of Bella?” Robert asked, reaching eagerly over to the small cabinet again before Millie had chance to reply.
As she said yes, Robert handed her a photo, not only of his sweetheart but also himself, before the war, the two of them looking happy and carefree.
“Pretty isn’t she, Miss?” Robert said.
“She’s lovely, Bobby,” Millie replied, preoccupied, in truth, with Robert’s handsome, youthful features. She recalled Margaret’s comment about how hard it was for the wounded soldiers to come to terms with the alternations in their circumstances and appearance – Robert, surely, was one of the more extreme cases of this. Though he still had his limbs intact and was fully mobile, Millie knew that Richard thought it unlikely the boy’s face could ever be reconstructed to resemble that of his former self.
Lifti
ng up her eyes from the photograph, Millie tried very hard to look at Robert and smile, despite her sadness on this count.
“You’ll have noticed she writes less often now, Miss Millie,” the boy said, struggling to make the statement sound matter-of-fact.
Millie instinctively took his hand but found herself unable to coin an adequate response to his comment.
Stifling a tear, the boy looked over at the book Millie had placed on his bed. “What’s that?” he asked.
“Great Expectations, a novel by Charles Dickens,” Millie said. “Do you know it, Bobby?”
“No Miss,” he replied, shaking his head.
“I thought, if you like, we could read it,” Millie said. “I read it as a girl but I don’t recall the detail so well.”
“I’d like that, Miss Millie,” Robert said.
Millie smiled at him. “We don’t have to start tonight. Maybe you’re too tired? Maybe you’d like to rest now?”
“No, Miss, I’d like to hear some of the story, if you don’t mind. Just the start – it might help me settle.”
So Millie began to read the book aloud and, before long, she found that Bobby, who had sunk down in his bed to lie flat upon his pillow, had fallen asleep.
Chapter 16
Weeks passed, months passed at the hospital – the war continued. Millie became increasingly confident in her role and Richard Sutton was pleased to see her blossoming into a sensible, mature young woman, realising fully that the influence of his beloved Margaret was in no small way responsible for the transformation.
Millie was happy to be occupied in her work and glad to feel useful. She seldom thought of Glassnest and, whilst she heard little from her father or aunt, didn’t worry unduly about it. As time passed, however, she grew increasingly concerned that she received no word from Ryan. But she knew that, in a way, she should be relieved. Millie concluded that she could only assume he was alright (since no information to the contrary came via Glassnest) and hope that perhaps Effie had replaced her as his main correspondent.
Millie’s current life of duty supported her conviction to cease to look upon Ryan as a lover. She told herself that if and when she did meet with him again, she would treat him with the care and concern she extended to all the soldiers she encountered at the hospital – she would greet him as if he were her brother. It wouldn’t be hard. Millie had learned a lot more about men whilst she’d been working at the hospital.
These days, far from flinching from the sight of the wounded soldiers’ injuries, Millie looked upon them frankly and smiled fondly at them. She knew many of them well now, through reading to them, but young Bobby remained a favourite.
One evening, long after they’d completed Great Expectations, Millie sat on the edge of his bed, talking to him in hushed tones, as the other patients slumbered about them.
She found their conversations had a repetitive quality. Bobby had impressed her with his desire to hear more classics of literature but she soon realised that it was love stories he craved – and not simple, comforting happy endings; what Robert wanted to hear were tortured stories of rejection and loss. Their readings of such tales invariably led to his reflection on his own situation but tonight, after she’d completed a chapter of Wuthering Heights, his thoughts turned to her.
“Do you have a sweetheart, Miss Millie?” Robert asked.
Millie hesitated, before replying, “Yes.”
“Away at the Front?” Bobby surmised.
“Yes Robert.”
“An officer?”
Millie shook her head. “He’s a groom. He handles working horses.”
Bobby looked intrigued that Millie’s beau should not be of the same social rank as her. “How did you meet?” he pursued.
“He works for my father.”
“And does your old man approve?” Bobby asked.
“He doesn’t really know, Robert,” Millie replied, adding, “but if he did, no, he wouldn’t approve.”
“Do you think anything will come of it?” Bobby said, with a directness that took Millie by surprise.
“I don’t know,” she responded vaguely, reflecting on the other issues that were far too complex to try to explain to Bobby. “Look, it’s late, Robert,” she said. “I think we both need some rest.”
Reluctantly, he agreed and Millie, briefly reaching out her arm to squeeze his hand in her own, rose from his bedside and walked silently down the long corridor of the great house that had been adapted into a hospital ward.
But she didn’t get very far before the low whisper of a familiar voice arrested her.
“Millie,” was all it took to unsettle her.
She stopped in her tracks and turned in the direction of her name.
“I knew it was you,” he continued. “I couldn’t see you – only hear.”
Millie walked over to Ryan’s bedside, gazing down in disbelief.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Millie,” he said.
She shook her head and sat down on his bed.
He reached out a hand to hold her arm. Instinctively, she leant over and, with her free hand, stroked his face.
“What happened?” Millie asked.
“The war,” Ryan replied wryly.
“Your injuries?” she continued, detecting no visible signs of them.
Ryan shrugged his shoulders. “The odd scrape,” he said dismissively.
Millie looked intently into his eyes.
“Apparently, it’s my spirits that are broken,” Ryan admitted, unable to look at her as he said it.
“I hadn’t heard from you for so long,” Millie said.
“No,” Ryan confirmed, looking bleakly into the middle distance. “My pal Tom,” he explained tentatively, “was killed some months ago now.”
“I’m sorry,” Millie said, wanting to hold him but knowing she had to be cautious with her displays of affection. She stroked his cheek and sought his gaze. “I’m so glad you’re alright,” she said. “So glad you’re out of danger.” Immediately she uttered those phrases, she realised they were small comfort to him. Millie knew very well, from her dealings with the patients and her talks with Margaret, that one of the greatest obstacles facing most of the boys in the hospital was their sense of guilt that they had returned from the Front alive, when so many of their companions had fallen there.
Millie felt unable to continue their discussion – it was too much to take in. She resorted to repeating the spiel she so often had to deliver to Robert. “It’s late,” she began, “and we can’t talk at this hour. The other men are sleeping. I’ll come and find you tomorrow – we’ll talk then.”
He turned his head and looked her in the eye.
Millie desperately wanted to tell him she loved him but she couldn’t. “You must rest now,” she said, leaning over him and placing a kiss on his cheek.
As she withdrew from Ryan’s bedside, Millie saw the look of confusion on his face. She tried to meet it with the steady, reassuring smile she projected towards all the other patients but it wasn’t so easily done in his case.
* * *
The following morning it was Richard, not Ryan, whom Millie sought out as soon as she was about her work. Although her deepest instinct was to rush to Ryan’s bedside, she remained confused about how to behave towards him and, furthermore, she wanted to hear from Richard just what the extent of Ryan’s injuries were.
She found Richard working in his office and was relieved that they could talk in private. Richard anticipated what Millie was about to say as she entered the room.
“I’m so sorry,” he began, “I meant to find you last night but it was so hectic in theatre.”
Millie established that Richard knew Ryan’s identity and he confirmed her suspicion that the nature of Ryan’s physical injuries was not really extreme enough to warrant his place in the hospital.
“I believe your father has had a hand in this, Millicent,” he said in hushed tones. “From what I’ve seen of the lad, I think he’d be patched up
and sent back to the Front pretty sharpish under normal circumstances – he’s a strong boy. But there’s something amiss in his outlook,” Richard continued, looking at Millie soberly, “and I think Randolph wanted to ensure he had longer to convalesce before being sent back over there.”
Millie left Richard’s office with a muted smile on her face. Perhaps Randolph did care for his only son after all. But her anxiety related to Ryan. She would wait till evening to see him. She would think very carefully about how to behave.
* * *
“How are you feeling?”
“I hoped you’d come sooner.”
“I’m sorry, we were really busy in the office today,” Millie explained awkwardly. She knew he didn’t believe her. In truth, she had put off seeing him until early evening – such a time as she thought many of the other patients would be safely installed in the refectory. She didn’t want their conversation to be overheard.
Millie took a seat at Ryan’s bedside – sitting on the bed itself was too familiar. She realised he wasn’t going to answer her initial question. “How’s your grandmother?” she asked.
Ryan gazed at her sadly. “She’s dead, Millie,” he said plainly.
“No!” Millie faltered. “I’m so sorry Ryan – I had no idea–”
“Ma Overton wrote to me a couple of months back. They said it was peaceful – in her sleep.”
Millie had leant forward and now held onto his hand. He, in turn, placed his other hand on top of hers.
“I don’t know what to say, Ryan,” Millie admitted.
“She was old,” he replied. “She’d had her life.” He paused before going on, “It puts it into some sort of perspective that I’ve seen so many young lives wasted these past months.”
“Yes,” Millie agreed softly. “Have you heard from Effie?” she asked after a while, eager to find a more optimistic topic of conversation.
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