Nightingale Wedding Bells

by Donna Douglas

  ‘Three years.’ You should know, Anna thought. You were there when they came to take him away.

  ‘That long, is it? Terrible shame, I call it.’ Mr Hudson took another drag on his cigarette. The rain dripped steadily off the brim of his hat, splashing on the shoulders of his overcoat. ‘I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’ve no love for the Germans, any more than the next man. But your father … well, you only have to look at him to know he’s a good man. One of the best.’ He shook his head, spattering raindrops all around. ‘Someone should do something about it.’

  Like you did? Anna thought bitterly. She would never forget how Mr Hudson and their other neighbours had stood by and watched her father being marched off to the internment camp with the other German-born men who were living locally. None of them had spoken up for him, and no one had lifted a finger to help Anna and her family afterwards, either.

  In fact, their old friends and neighbours had all turned their backs on the Becks. They had boycotted the bakery, taken their business elsewhere, watched and done nothing when marauders smashed their windows and terrorised them.

  Things had changed since then, however. Somehow over the years, the war had exhausted them all so much that they’d had no choice but to mellow towards each other. Customers began returning to the bakery, and the neighbours no longer turned their backs on Anna and her family.

  Papa had said she mustn’t bear a grudge, so she tried her best not to say anything. But even though they were cordial with each other now, Anna knew she would never forgive them for what they had done.

  They reached the short parade of shops, all in darkness, then turned down the narrow alleyway that led to the rear of the shops. Lights glowed in a couple of the windows, casting shadows across the cobbled yards.

  ‘Looks like your mother’s waiting for you,’ Mr Hudson said.

  ‘Looks like your wife’s waiting for you, too.’ Anna nodded towards the light coming from the window next door.

  ‘With a rolling pin, I daresay!’ Mr Hudson gave a long-suffering sigh. ‘Oh, well, I’ll be seeing you, love.’

  ‘Goodnight, Mr Hudson.’

  I mustn’t bear a grudge, Anna told herself. But she couldn’t help a little smile when Mr Hudson slithered on the wet cobbles and ended up sprawled face down on his doorstep.

  Anna let herself in her own back gate, lowering the latch quietly. When she looked through the window she could see her mother at the kitchen counter, kneading a batch of bread dough, her shoulders hunched over the task.

  She looks tired, Anna thought, as her mother straightened up to tuck a lock of fair hair under her headscarf. Years of strain had taken their toll on her beautiful face, leaving it lined, grey and exhausted.

  Dorothy Beck turned as Anna let herself in through the back door.

  ‘Hello, love.’ she greeted her with a weary smile. ‘I wasn’t expecting you.’

  ‘I told you I’d come.’ Anna shrugged off her coat. The kitchen was bright and blissfully cosy from the ovens, the warm air fragrant with the smell of baking bread.

  ‘Yes, but not in this weather.’ Her mother’s gaze moved towards the rain streaming down the window pane. ‘You’ll catch your death.’

  ‘It’s you I’m worried about.’ Anna put her coat over the chair closest to the fire. ‘You look exhausted. Why don’t you sit down and rest?’

  ‘I can’t, there’s too much to do.’ Her mother looked down at the mound of bread dough on the wooden counter in front of her. ‘I’ve only just got the first batch in.’

  ‘That’s why I’m here.’ Anna rolled up her sleeves and reached for her apron, hanging on a hook on the back door.

  ‘But you’ve had a long day too,’ her mother protested. ‘It’s not fair to ask you to come here after your shift and help with the baking.’

  ‘You’re not asking, I’m offering.’ Anna went to the big stone sink to wash her hands. The cold water stung her skin, and the scent of the red carbolic soap reminded her of the Nightingale Hospital. ‘We all have to work together to keep this place going. And since Liesel went off to be a Land Girl …’ Anna pulled a face. She still hadn’t forgiven her younger sister for abandoning them and going off to work on a farm in the wilds of Essex three months earlier, leaving their mother to cope on her own.

  Dorothy seemed to read her thoughts. ‘You mustn’t blame her,’ she said. ‘She’s young, it’s only fair that she should be allowed to spread her wings—’

  ‘She should be here, helping you, not muck-raking and milking cows! This is supposed to be a family business, after all,’ Anna said bitterly.

  ‘You know your sister has never been suited to working in the bakery. Not like you.’ Her mother smiled. ‘You were the one who inherited your father’s gift for baking.’

  Anna unhooked the towel from the nail to dry her hands. ‘Then why won’t you let me give up nursing and come back to work here full-time? I could run the kitchen and you could—’

  But her mother was already shaking her head. ‘We’ve been through all this, Anna,’ she said. ‘I don’t want you to give up nursing.’

  ‘But I never wanted to be a nurse!’ she protested. ‘Papa always meant for Edward and me to run this place together …’

  ‘I said no!’ She started at her mother’s sharp tone. ‘I won’t hear of it, Anna. Now stop talking about it, please.’

  ‘All right.’ Anna retreated into sulky silence. She had never known her mother to speak so abruptly to her. She must be very tired indeed, she decided.

  As she stooped to take the lid off the earthenware flour tub under the table, she heard her mother sigh.

  ‘I’m sorry, my dear. I didn’t mean to snap at you. It’s been a rather trying day, that’s all. I’ll go and put the kettle on, shall I? Make us both a cup of tea.’

  Anna looked at her mother, the tired smile that didn’t quite reach her faded blue eyes. ‘That would be lovely,’ she said. ‘I – what’s this?’

  She straightened up, the flour scoop in her hand. It was heaped, not with the usual pure white flour, but with something else. It was greyish-brown, coarse, and when Anna sifted it between her fingers it felt gritty.

  Dorothy Beck turned, taking off her apron. ‘It arrived this morning. It’s all we could get,’ she said. ‘You know what it’s been like recently, what with the German blockades in the North Sea, and no food getting through? Well, the Government has issued us with this flour instead.’

  ‘You call this flour?’ Anna sniffed it. ‘It smells like sawdust.’

  ‘It might well be, for all we know. But it’s supposed to be very nutritious.’

  Anna frowned. ‘I don’t know what Papa would make of it.’

  ‘I don’t know what the customers will make of it, either. But I suppose we’ll all just have to get used to it, like everything else about this war.’

  Dorothy went to make the tea, leaving Anna to finish off kneading the dough. But no sooner had she put the bowl to prove than her mother returned with two letters in her hand.

  ‘Before I forget, these arrived for you this morning.’

  Anna took the two thin blue envelopes. One bore Edward’s even, looped handwriting; the other an equally familiar spidery scrawl.

  ‘You’re still writing to Tom Franklin, then?’ said her mother, looking over her shoulder.

  ‘I promised I would.’ Anna looked back at her. ‘We owe him so much.’

  Dorothy nodded. ‘We do.’

  Three years ago, Anna could never have imagined how much Tom Franklin would mean to her. Up until then, he had been nothing more than her father’s delivery boy, a scowling, surly young man from a bad family. No one else would have given him the time of day, let alone a job, but typically, Papa had seen something in him that none of the rest of them had.

  And, as usual, he had been proved right. When someone, supposedly in the name of British patriotism, had decided to set fire to the bakery with Anna and her family inside, it was Tom who had risked his life to rescue them. He
had then set about rebuilding the bakery on his own, carefully restoring it to the way it had once been. That Anna, her mother and her sister were alive and had a roof over their heads was all due to him.

  So when Tom was called up and asked her to write to him, Anna agreed. Tom had no family of his own – or none who cared about him. The least she could do was to help him feel less alone.

  Her mother patted her shoulder. ‘You’re a good girl,’ she said. ‘I’ll go and make that tea.’

  She went off, and Anna looked down at the letters in her hand. She wondered what her mother would say if she knew how much Anna looked forward to receiving Tom’s letters. Somehow, over the years, what had started off as a duty had become a pleasure. She and Tom had formed a close friendship through their correspondence. Whether it was the years of war, or just because he found it easier to put his feelings down on paper than to say them out loud, somehow Anna had discovered a different side to Tom through his writing. A warm, genuine, caring, funny side that she had never imagined existed.

  Of course, he would never replace Edward in her affections. Edward was her first love, she adored him with all her heart and couldn’t wait for him to come home so that she could spend the rest of her life with him.

  But unlike Tom, Edward found writing letters very difficult. His, when they arrived, were short, light-hearted, full of jokes. He complained when Anna was too emotional. ‘It’s depressing,’ he said. ‘Do you think I need to hear how miserable you are? Cheer me up, sweetheart, for heaven’s sake!’

  So Anna tried to keep her letters to him light and entertaining. It was only to Tom that she was able to open her heart, to share her deepest, darkest fears. And he did the same.

  Anna tested the envelopes. Edward’s was thin, barely substantial. She couldn’t blame him for that, but she dearly wished he would allow her more than a few hastily written lines now and again.

  She slipped the letters into her apron pocket and set about her work again.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Mixing and kneading the dough, Anna could feel the tension in her shoulders relaxing, and the flutter of fear in her stomach ebbing away. The warm fug of the kitchen, the delicious smell of baking, transported her back to a time when she was young and carefree, when she and Edward worked side by side with her father, learning their trade. How they all used to laugh together, so content in their little world of bread and pastry and sugarwork. Even though her father could be an exacting task master when he wanted to be, he always delivered his lessons with a twinkle in his dark brown eyes. Anna could see him now, busy in the kitchen, his slight figure so precise in his movements, his white toque perched on his sleek dark head.

  Oh, Papa. Anna blinked back the tears that blurred her eyes. She had to be strong, for everyone’s sake. She had to keep the bakery going, so that Papa and Edward would have a place to come back to when they both returned home. And then they could all be together again.

  She had taken the last batch of loaves from the oven when she remembered the tea her mother had promised her two hours earlier. Anna had been too busy to think about it, but now her throat was parched from breathing in the dreadful grey-brown stuff that was more dust than flour. Surely the kettle should have boiled by now?

  She took off her apron and went down the hall to the small scullery that served as the family’s kitchen.

  ‘What is it they say about a watched pot?’ she started to say. But the scullery was empty. The kettle was on the stove, but when Anna put her hand on it, it was stone cold.

  She went next door to the sitting room. There was her mother, sitting on the couch fast sleep, her chin on her chest.

  Anna smiled. Poor Mother, she must be exhausted to drop off like that. She didn’t even stir when Anna fetched a shawl from her bedroom and draped it over her to keep her warm.

  As an afterthought, Anna sat down on the couch beside her. Almost immediately the wave of weariness she had been fighting overcame her. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to close her eyes for a couple of minutes, she thought, nestling against her mother and pulling the shawl up over her shoulder.

  She was woken by the sound of a whistling kettle. Anna sat bolt upright, startled into wakefulness.

  ‘Morning, Miss Anna.’

  Ida Church stood in the doorway, taking off her coat. She had been a customer at the shop for years, but since Liesel had left, she had been helping behind the counter. She had lost her husband at the Somme and struggled to survive on her widow’s allowance, so the money came in useful.

  Anna blinked in confusion at the sight of her. What was she doing there in the middle of the night?

  Then her tired brain registered the crack of pale light creeping through the drawn curtains. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Nearly six. Your mother’s in the kitchen, making tea.’ Ida went to the window and pulled the curtains back. ‘And the rain’s stopped at last, which is a blessing. I was beginning to think we might need the Ark!’

  But Anna was scarcely listening. She was already on her feet, heading for the kitchen, hastily gathering up her shoes and coat.

  Her mother appeared in the scullery doorway. ‘Don’t you want a cup of tea?’

  ‘I can’t.’ Anna hopped on one leg, pulling on her shoe. ‘I’m late as it is. I’m due on duty in an hour. If the Home Sister sees my bed hasn’t been slept in she’ll have my guts for garters.’ And poor Grace’s, too, she thought.

  ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have let you sleep. But I’ve only just woken up myself when Mrs Church arrived.’

  ‘Like a right pair of Sleeping Beauties, you were.’ Ida Church beamed. ‘I hardly liked to disturb you. Mind, I’m sure it did you both the world of good.’

  Anna looked at her mother. At least she looked more rested now. Some of the grey pallor had gone from her face.

  ‘It’s no good for you, coming here to work as well as your nursing.’ Ida Church shook her head. ‘I dunno how you do it, I really don’t.’

  ‘It’s got to be done, Mrs Church.’ Anna shrugged on her coat. Even after a night in the warm kitchen, the damp cold seeped through to her skin.

  ‘I wonder why you’re bothering.’

  Anna turned on her. ‘Because it’s Papa’s business, and we need to keep it going for him.’

  ‘Yes, but surely—’

  ‘You’d best be going, hadn’t you, Anna?’ Dorothy cut in before Ida Church could finish her sentence. ‘Don’t want you to be late, do we?’

  ‘I’ll see you tonight.’ Anna planted a quick kiss on her mother’s cheek.

  At least Mrs Church was right about one thing: the rain had finally stopped. But it was bitterly cold, and the sun was still shrouded behind cloud, the pale sky reflected in ice-laced puddles.

  Anna hurried up the alley into Chambord Street. Mrs Hudson was opening up the shop next door, her husband nowhere to be seen. She waved at Anna as she swept bloody sawdust from the doorway into the street.

  Anna looked up at the sign above her father’s shop. Beck’s Bakery, it said, the curling gold letters cracked and faded with age. She remembered her father telling her how proud he was as he had stood on that very same spot as a young man, watching the sign writer painting those letters.

  I wonder why you’re bothering. Mrs Church’s words came back to her.

  Anna shook her head. Oh, Papa, she thought. Ida Church would never understand.

  Dorothy Beck stood at the shop window, her teacup in her hand, and watched her daughter going up the street. Anna was so like her father, small and slight, with her dark colouring and lively face.

  ‘I dunno where she gets her energy from,’ Mrs Church commented, coming to stand behind Dorothy.

  ‘She’s determined, like her father.’ They were so similar, it made Dorothy’s heart ache.

  Mrs Church was silent for a moment. Then in a quiet voice she said, ‘She doesn’t know, does she?’

  Dorothy shook her head. ‘No.’

  ‘When are you going to tell her?’


  ‘I don’t know. Soon, I suppose.’

  ‘She’ll have to find out sometime.’

  ‘I know.’ Dorothy dragged her gaze from the window.

  But she also knew it would break Anna’s heart.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  They had barely finished making up the last bed before the new convoy of war wounded began to arrive.

  They knew they were on their way because crowds started to form beyond the hospital gates. They pressed against the railings, watching as the string of ambulances made their way up the gravel drive and circled around the main hospital building to the Casualty block.

  Another crowd had gathered there to watch the wounded being brought out. Some of the men hobbled on crutches, others were brought out on stretchers. They were still in their khaki uniforms, filthy and mud-caked, their wounds wrapped in crude dressings. They blinked in the pale light, squinting into the sky in dazed disbelief. The onlookers cheered and threw cigarettes and chocolate, but only a couple of the men stopped to pick up the gifts. Most shuffled on, heads down, shoulders hunched.

  ‘They look so tired,’ Anna said.

  ‘I hope they’re not all lice-infested like the last lot.’ Dulcie shuddered. ‘I hate lice.’

  ‘I don’t suppose the poor men like them much, either,’ Anna snapped back.

  Grace sent them both a sidelong look. As usual, she was standing between them, caught in the middle.

  ‘Do stop gawping, Nurses!’ Sister’s voice rang out behind them. ‘Look sharp, there is work to be done. Duffield and Beck, go down to the Admissions ward and do what you can to help. Take Parrish with you,’ she added as an afterthought. ‘I’m sure they will welcome an extra pair of hands.’

  As Miss Sutton had predicted, the Admissions ward was desperately busy. Nurses hurried back and forth between the closely packed white beds, wheeling trolleys of dressings and medications and endless amounts of hot soapy water. But even the strong scent of carbolic was not enough to overcome the stench of filth and sweat coming off the men.