by Nicola Slade
‘You don’t look very churchy.’ Addy watched me as I took off my hat in the hall. ‘Did you actually go to the service or just dawdle about town?’
‘Horrid child,’ I snapped as I stalked into the kitchen and clattered cutlery as I laid the table for luncheon. ‘If you must know, the Priory was well-attended, the vicar spoke on the subject of forgiveness, and I enjoyed myself. I even splurged on a rare luxury – a cup of coffee at The Blue Boar, because I earned it.’
I suppose I looked forbidding because although they stared in disbelief, nobody challenged my statement and we sat down to our soup in silence until Addy, who is unquenchable, piped up, ‘Major Larking called again. He was frightfully cross that we wouldn’t let him in to see Judith but he didn’t dare argue with Granny. She just looked down her nose at him and he shrivelled away down the front path.’
That was interesting. I unbent a little. ‘Did he say why?’
‘Trying to appear kind and concerned, I suspect,’ Alix put in. ‘He went straight round to next door when he had no success here. I wonder when he’ll propose? He hired a cab and took Mrs and Miss Peebles to Winchester for luncheon so I don’t suppose he’ll pop the question today. You wouldn’t want your mother looking on if you were being proposed to, would you?’
We all paused to picture ourselves in such a situation, with Mother in attendance, but it was hard to imagine. As far as we know, she didn’t actually notice her own proposal because she had her nose in a book at the time.
After luncheon Alix suddenly remembered some interesting news.
‘I completely forgot! I took Bobs up round the park for a short stroll this morning,’ she said. ‘And I bumped into Vera, the other volunteer; she sometimes does Saturday and Sunday. She was taking a smoking break down by the river and she told me that one of the nurses says Dr Pemberton has retired as of today.’
‘No!’ I was shaken out of my pointless mulling over the morning’s events. ‘Was he drunk? Did he jump or was he pushed?’
‘Pushed!’ Alix was enjoying my astonishment, we all dearly love to be the bearer of exciting gossip. ‘Apparently he ordered the operating theatre to be set ready this morning. You can imagine their surprise, ever since the change to a convalescent hospital there haven’t been any operations at all, because they don’t take emergency cases.’
‘What on earth did he think he was doing?’ I was agog.
‘Vera told me he summoned the nursing staff to go on his rounds with him while he examined everyone’s wounds straight after breakfast. He then pronounced Lt Parker’s right leg to be a splendid example of the treatment he’d received in the various hospitals. In particular – of course – at Groom Hall. Even when Mr Parker pointed out that it was his left leg that had been wounded, the doctor just smiled and patted him on the shoulder. But that wasn’t what made them finally decide he was dangerously incompetent.’
Addy and I waited with bated breath.
‘It was when he peered more closely at poor Lt Mortimer’s arm, the one that’s been causing problems, though both the trained nurses believe a piece of shrapnel is working its way out and can be removed quite easily. However, Dr Pemberton decided he would amputate there and then. They think he had some kind of brainstorm because he was talking wildly when he arrived up there this morning and seemed not to know what he was about. For once they don’t think it was because of his usual little nip of brandy. However, he snapped at anyone who asked after his health and ordered everyone to do as they were told.’
She drew a breath. ‘Both nurses were suspicious and wouldn’t let the doctor near Mr Mortimer and every patient who could stagger out of bed formed a wall round him. Matron was furious and said they were talking nonsense so Nurse Thompson summoned a cab to take the doctor home. She told Mrs Pemberton on the telephone that he was not to return to Groom Hall and she then telephoned the hospital at Netley and demanded a locum immediately. Matron was almost frothing at the mouth, but both the senior nurses and the officers were adamant.’
‘A mutiny!’ Addy squealed, bright-eyed with excitement. ‘You know Granny’s always been scathing about Dr Pemberton. She says he runs the place as his own private fiefdom and if it wasn’t for Lord Greysdale’s influence, the authorities would have got rid of him years ago.’
‘They’ve tried.’ Alix heaved a sigh. ‘Annually, from what I hear. He still hangs on, even if it is reduced to a handful of patients who don’t need much nursing.’
‘If he really has gone you might get a handsome young doctor in his place,’ I sympathised and grinned at her. ‘As long as he’s wealthy too, that would be just the ticket.’
‘He won’t be handsome,’ she gloomed. ‘None of the patients ever are. I took a long, hard look at them all yesterday when they were having their tea. Not one of them could be called handsome, apart from Henry, who is by far the best-looking of the lot.’
‘And he’s taken,’ Addy mumbled through the second fairy cake she’d stolen from the bun tray cooling on the stove.
‘Taken?’ I stared at her as my stomach tightened in a knot.
‘Don’t be silly, Christy.’ She swallowed her last mouthful. ‘Everyone knows Henry belongs to you.’
As she spoke there was a knock at the front door and I rushed to open it. One of the senior nurses, Nurse Thompson, had come to check on Judith Evershed, the doctor being “unavoidably called away” she explained. I ushered her into the dining-room and went to sit on the stairs.
Henry? Belonged to me?
Alix had the bright idea of offering to do an extra shift up at the Hall. ‘I’ve just had a word with Nurse Thompson and she’s told Mrs Mortimer about the doctor leaving,’ she said, putting on her coat and hat. ‘I’ll offer to walk up to the Hall with our tame Gorgon, she’ll be worried sick.
‘They’ll be short-handed up there,’ she added, tweaking a curl so that it peeped out becomingly from under her hat. She admired herself in the looking-glass. ‘There’s always an extra influx of visitors on a Sunday so I’ll volunteer to help with the teas. They’ll be glad of the help and I can listen to gossip legitimately.’
Granny banished Addy from the sick room telling her not to come back until she had completed an essay on famous doctors in history. Judith recognised that Addy was a prime example of the horse you can lead to water but not make it drink, so she had seized on this topic as one that might strike a chord. Alix’s suggestion of Dr Crippen was received with a haughty sniff but judging by the pages and pages in Addy’s large, looped handwriting, she had dived happily into the topic. I wondered whether Judith would approve of Dr John Dee, notorious alchemist and astrologer of Queen Elizabeth’s time, but I supposed she could deal with Addy.
I, on the other hand, was too restless to settle and Granny was soon exasperated.
‘For heaven’s sake, Christabel,’ she snapped. ‘Put that pencil down and take yourself off for a brisk walk in the park for half an hour. You’ll do no good work the mood you’re in and you’re putting me off my counting.’ Unusually pettish, she threw down her knitting and picked up the pattern she was trying to follow.
‘Leave us in peace and for pity’s sake don’t come home till you’ve shaken off the fidgets.’
I knew she was right so I shrugged on my coat and crammed a tam o’shanter on my head as I fended off the dog. I felt mean because he loves a walk but I was confused and needed time to think. Besides, I had no wish to bail him out if anyone caught him chasing pheasants.
The morning chill had given way to a dull day, neither cold nor warm, and not a glimmer of sunshine, just grey skies that suited my mood. I hardly expected to find any of the patients out and about in the grounds of Groom Hall; most of them prefer to play billiards or sit and smoke together as they chat. Very few bother about doing anything physical other than the exercises prescribed for their own particular condition.
Henry is unusual in that respect, as he goes for a walk every day, come rain or shine. Admittedly most of his walks seem to end in a visi
t to our house but he has stuck to his routine of exercise before pleasure, and as a result his leg is gaining in strength.
It came as a surprise, therefore, to find him in the park, wearing his greatcoat and sitting in the sheltered spot we had always called our play house as children, out of the wind and out of sight of the house. He was slumped against the trunk of the old willow tree that in summer would let its branches form a secret hiding place. My heart thumped because I thought something dreadful had happened to Henry too, but I realised he was asleep. Unhappily asleep at that.
He was shaking, twisting this way and that and as I slowed my pace I wondered whether I should tiptoe away and leave him in peace. Would it be dangerous to wake him, like a sleepwalker? Then he started to cry. Alix had described – and I’d heard for myself – the agonising screams that some of the patients were unable to suppress in their sleep, but this was different. I was stopped in my tracks by the quiet anguish of the sobs that shook him. It was painful to hear and the sobs were choked off abruptly, only to become heart-wrenching whimpers that made my heart melt.
For a moment I wondered whether he would be mortified to know I’d seen this but I couldn’t bear to walk away. I knelt beside him and put my arm tentatively round his shoulders.
‘Henry,’ I whispered. ‘Wake up, it’s me. You’re safe now.’
The sobs stopped and I felt him shudder as he woke. ‘C-Christy?’
‘You’re safe now,’ I said again, and hugged him closely.
He scrabbled in his pocket for his handkerchief, mopped his face and blew his nose. ‘Oh God, Christy, I’m so sorry. What must you think of me?’
I didn’t speak but put both arms round him and hugged him tightly and he managed a smile as he eased his own arm round my waist. That brave, quivering smile broke my heart and suddenly, quite out of the blue, it was my turn to burst into tears.
‘It shouldn’t be like this, Henry,’ I sobbed and fished out my own handkerchief. ‘It’s all wrong, the war’s all wrong; it’s not supposed to be like this.’ I hiccupped and tried to compose myself. ‘We’re too young. I’m eighteen, I should be at school with a pash on the Games Mistress or at college, studying to become a teacher or something. And Alix should be going to dances and flirting madly, not coping with shockingly damaged young men.’
He reached for my hand and squeezed it in silent sympathy and that made me cry even more. ‘It’s so much worse for you, you ought to be at Oxford.’ I hiccupped again, my stiff upper lip washed away in the flood. ‘You’re not even twenty-one. You should be rowing perhaps, or playing cricket and flirting with pretty girls, instead of being in constant pain that will never go away and suffering terrible nightmares because you’ve seen sights no human being should ever have to see.’
‘I’m all right,’ he said, in his usual stoical way as he cleared his throat. ‘I’m alive, don’t forget, Christabel. That has to be counted an advantage.’
‘I’m sorry, Henry.’ I gulped and leaned my head on his shoulder. ‘This isn’t like me, please forget I was so silly.’
‘Consider it forgotten,’ he murmured. ‘Besides, one out of three isn’t bad, is it? There may not be any cricket or rowing but at least I’ve got a pretty girl in my arms.’
Goodness. I held my breath, wondering what to do. Was Henry flirting with me? And pretty? Me? Was this what Addy had meant?
Before the silence grew too long he changed the subject. ‘I wouldn’t have gone to Oxford anyway,’ he said lightly. ‘I told you the other day that my father disagreed with it, he thought university wasn’t a place for Real Men. He hadn’t always felt that. He was brought up with wealth and comfort but when he was seventeen, and aiming for Oxford, his father died and it turned out he’d gambled away all the money and left his family penniless. They were the poor relations then and Father hated it. He started as a clerk in the accounts department at a big manufacturing firm in the Midlands and he turned out to be a very shrewd businessman indeed. By the time he married my mother he had an office in Birmingham and several small businesses that manufactured things like pen nibs and needles and pins; the sort of thing everyone needs. There are other, much larger firms in the same line so he was never one of the big industrialists, but even though he died of apoplexy, the company still jogs along comfortably.
‘Jonty and I always knew university was out of the question,’ he sighed. ‘Father’s attitude was that as he’d been unable to go to Oxford, we shouldn’t either. Jonty, as the elder son, had to go into Father’s business, of course, and the only time Father ever looked at me with the slightest hint of approval was when I said I wanted to be a solicitor. He thought it would be useful to have a tame lawyer at his disposal but the war put a stop to that. I’m glad I didn’t have to tell him I would never work for him, but to do him justice he did set me off on my training with a good firm.’
‘Poor Henry.’ He smiled as I made a face. ‘We were both unlucky with our fathers, weren’t we? Yours a tyrant and mine a rogue. What will happen to the business now? Will you have to go back to Birmingham eventually?’
‘No.’ It was quiet but definite. ‘When Father died, Jonty put a capable man in charge,’ he added. ‘I’ve made no changes but when I come of age in May I intend to talk to Cousin Edgar. Major Peebles has offered to advise me too.’
He eased his hold on me and we leaned against the willow tree and to my relief (which, I know, was cowardly of me) there was no more mention of pretty girls as we sat in friendly silence
‘I’ve got something to show you,’ he said eventually, rummaging in his breast pocket. ‘Here. Major Peebles is a real brick. He stood over me and taught me how to develop Addy’s snaps. He made me do it all myself and I think you’ll find them interesting.’
He was quite right; the photographs were interesting though I had no idea what relevance they had.
‘You’ll see she managed to talk a couple of the fellows into showing her their scars, despite the threats we’d made. Heaven knows how she wasn’t spotted, for Lt Wilberforce even seems to have let her photograph his stump. Lucky for him that Matron didn’t see what they were up to. This other picture is one I think you’ll find intriguing.’
‘It’s Judith,’ I exclaimed. ‘She’s talking to Captain Halliday. Goodness, he’s glaring at her, isn’t he? And that’s Major Larking in the background; he’s looking at her too and tugging at his moustache. I really don’t like him, you know.’
‘See in this corner?’ Henry pointed to a figure. ‘That’s Matron, and she’s looking daggers at Miss Evershed. So that’s all the people we thought might have taken a dislike to her.’
‘Judith did rather rub people up the wrong way that day,’ I sighed. ‘It doesn’t prove anything though. What are you looking for?’ I added as he shuffled the photographs.
‘You’ll like this one, it’s another of Addy’s pictures,’ he said, handing it to me. ‘It makes me laugh. Look at the way she’s got them sitting in two rows like schoolchildren.’
He handed me a photograph of most of the officers, all grinning at the camera.
‘I didn’t see her take this,’ I said, smiling at the amused faces.
‘It was when you and Alix went to collect your mother from the library,’ Henry explained. ‘It didn’t take long because we all knew Matron would be breathing fire if she got wind of it. The chaps all think Addy’s splendid fun and they wish she’d visit more often, she reminds them of their sisters and daughters. It’s a breath of home. They say that about all of you girls, actually.’
‘I didn’t realise nearly all of you smoked pipes,’ I said idly, looking at them, most with their pipes clenched between their teeth.’
‘It’s the thing to do,’ Henry shrugged. ‘Smoke a pipe, grow a moustache. It’s supposed to make you look manlier.’
I caught the gleam in his eye as I looked sideways at his own very fair face and hair, and he laughed out loud.
‘I did try,’ he said, stroking his upper lip. ‘I managed a bit of a w
hisker but it was almost invisible so the CO told me to abandon the effort. Besides, nobody bothered in the trenches and a moustache can make it difficult to get a good seal on a gas mask.’
That would have been the commanding officer who, from Henry’s brief remarks, had treated him like a son, and whose death had hit him hard. I looked at the cheerful faces in the photograph once more and again felt a nudge, a glimpse of something half-remembered.
‘Did you try a pipe?’
‘No, I don’t smoke, it’s never appealed to me. Major Peebles doesn’t smoke either, and of course Trevelyan couldn’t. Matron, who thinks we don’t know, Major Larking, and Halliday – they’re the only cigarette smokers, especially Halliday. The poor chap has nothing else.’
Again I felt that germ of an idea, but I ignored it for now.
‘Enough about that,’ Henry said, sounding determined. ‘What do you want to do after the war, Christy? You can’t spend your life looking after your family. Will you try for university, like Addy?’
‘No, I’m too practical and far too managing,’ I admitted and was glad to see the twinkle in his eyes. ‘I shouldn’t relish three years in an ivory tower, though that would have been perfect for Mother. But not me.’
‘Will you carry on writing?’
‘Perhaps.’ I thought about it. ‘Yes, probably, some kind of stories, historical novels maybe, but not the boys’ own stuff.’ I bit my lip and looked down at my feet. ‘I don’t think I’ll want to, even though it’ll break another link with Bertie.’ I blew my nose again and sat up straight.
‘I’d like to go to France,’ I said, warming to my theme. ‘Grandpapa spent time near Carcassonne, studying the Cathar strongholds, when he was young. Italy, too, and Pompeii. Imagine how romantic, to sit on a sunny terrace eating olives and drinking wine while looking across the sparkling blue sea towards Vesuvius.’