Nightingale Wedding Bells

by Donna Douglas

  Her mother shook her head. ‘It wouldn’t be allowed. Anyway, you and Liesel have your own lives here.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter!’ Anna insisted. ‘We’re a family, we should be together.’

  ‘But we might not stay together. Don’t forget, you and your sister would be treated as foreigners in Germany, just like your father has been over here …’

  ‘You mean, they might lock us up like they did Papa?’ Anna said. ‘How do you know they won’t lock you up, too?’

  Dorothy lifted her chin. ‘That is a chance I’m willing to take, if it means being with your father.’

  Anna looked across at her mother. She’d always known her parents loved each other, but hadn’t realised how much until this moment.

  ‘Oh, Mother,’ she said. ‘Of course you must go.’

  They spent the rest of the afternoon talking and crying and hugging each other.

  ‘We will see you and Papa again, won’t we?’ Anna sobbed.

  ‘Of course. This war surely can’t go on forever.’ Her mother put her arms around Anna, drawing her close. The soft wool of her cardigan smelled of lavender soap. ‘We’ll all be together again one day, I’m sure of it.’

  Anna nodded. ‘You’re right. This war will be over soon. And then you and Papa can come home, and take over this place …’

  Her mother pulled away from her, holding her at arms’ length. ‘No, Anna,’ she said gently. ‘We will see each other again one day, I’m sure of it. But you must understand, your father will never run the bakery again.’

  Anna stared at her, aghast. They had been talking about her father leaving for hours, turning it all this way and that. But until that moment it had never occurred to her that somehow, sometime, he wouldn’t be here again, standing in his kitchen, testing the trays of loaves to see if they were baked, or working on one of his artful spun-sugar creations.

  ‘But what will happen to this place?’

  ‘I don’t know … I suppose we’ll have to sell it.’

  Pain lanced her, like a knife deep in her heart. ‘We can’t! Not Papa’s bakery. It’s his life.’

  ‘His family is his life. This is just bricks and mortar, Anna.’

  She wrenched herself free from her mother’s grasp, suddenly furious. ‘How can you say that? It’s more than that. It’s what Papa worked all his life for. It was – is – his pride and joy.’ She shook her head. ‘We can’t allow the bakery to close. I won’t let it happen.’

  Her mother looked helpless. ‘I can’t see another way …’

  ‘Edward will run it,’ Anna said. ‘You know Papa always meant for him to take over the business one day? He can do it when he comes home.’

  ‘That might – be a long time.’ She could see her mother choosing her words carefully. But Anna still understood what she really meant. And she couldn’t allow herself to think that way.

  ‘He will come home,’ she insisted quietly. And so will Papa, she added silently. One day she would have her loved ones all back together again, and everything would be just as it always was.

  And until then, she had to keep everything going for them.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Grace never approached Sergeant Trevelyan’s bed without expecting him to be dead.

  It had been three weeks since he survived his operation, defying all the doctors’ worst predictions. His recovery had been agonisingly slow since then, and every time Grace had to go to his bedside to feed him, or wash him, or administer his painkillers, she did it with dread, thinking that this would surely be the day she found his lifeless corpse lying there.

  She was sure of it now, as she and Dulcie did the dressings round together. Grace had been keeping her eye on his bed while they attended to the other patients. He was lying on his back, perfectly still. It was hard for her to tell if he was breathing, but she was certain he hadn’t moved in all the time she had been observing him.

  When the time came, Grace found herself approaching Sergeant Trevelyan’s bed on tiptoe, wincing at the trolley’s squeaky wheel.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Dulcie asked.

  ‘Shhh!’ Grace turned to her, finger to her lips. ‘I think Sergeant Trevelyan might be – you know.’

  ‘What?’

  Grace mouthed the word silently. ‘Dead.’

  Dulcie frowned. ‘Why are you whispering, if he’s dead? He won’t hear you.’ She peered over Grace’s shoulder. ‘Come to think of it, he does look a bit blue,’ she said.

  ‘Do you think so?’ As Grace edged closer to check, a pair of cold green eyes snapped open. Grace jumped back with a yelp, colliding with the dressings trolley and sending a bowl of swabs clattering to the floor.

  Dulcie laughed. ‘Look, Duffield, you’ve woken the dead!’

  Grace quickly gathered up the scattered swabs and put them in the bowl ready for burning. Then she turned back to Sergeant Trevelyan with a smile.

  ‘Good morning, Sergeant,’ she greeted him brightly. ‘How are you today?’

  ‘Still alive.’

  He looked quite angry about it. But then, Sergeant Trevelyan was remarkably bitter for someone who had been snatched from the jaws of death. His square face was a mask, his mouth a permanently unsmiling line. When he spoke at all, his deep voice was clipped and gruff, as if he could hardly spare the words.

  Most of the other men on the ward had lost their anger now, but not Sam Trevelyan. His guard was still up, his gaze cold and watchful under permanently frowning brows.

  ‘Well, that’s good news, isn’t it?’ Grace said. ‘Now, let’s take a look at you, shall we?’

  As she removed the dressings to reveal the wound, she noticed Dulcie out of the corner of her eye, averting her gaze.

  Grace couldn’t blame her. Three weeks on, Sergeant Trevelyan’s wound still wasn’t a pretty sight. Even Grace had to brace herself as she carefully peeled away the bloodied gauze that packed the gaping crater in his side. Raw flesh glistened under the hospital lights.

  How had he ever survived it? she wondered. Most men would have died on the battlefield.

  As tenderly as she could, Grace removed the last of the gauze packing, and started to wash out the wound with saline.

  ‘Now, you know this is going to sting,’ she warned.

  It was an understatement. Usually the men started screaming at this point, unable to stand the agony. But Sergeant Trevelyan endured it in absolute silence. Only his gritted teeth and the sweat standing out on his temples gave him away. Grace could see the powerful muscles bunched in his arms and shoulders, the sinews standing out under his skin as he braced himself against the pain.

  ‘There, all finished.’ Grace heard Sam Trevelyan’s slow exhalation as she put away the saline and started to repack the wound. ‘How does that feel?’

  ‘How do you think?’

  Grace looked up at his face. He had the flat, broken nose of a prize fighter, his firm jaw bristling with sandy-coloured stubble. He had obviously refused to allow the VAD to shave him again. His obstinacy annoyed Sister no end. She liked all the men under her care to be turned out smartly. But even she did not care to tussle with Sergeant Trevelyan.

  ‘It’s turned even colder, hasn’t it?’ Grace tried again to make conversation. ‘They say it’s going to be one of the worst winters we’ve ever had. Still, it’s nice and cosy in here, isn’t it? Although I reckon those poor VADs will have their work cut out for them, keeping the fires going …’

  She chattered on, trying not to look into his face. Talk to him, Dr Carlyle had said. Try to draw him out.

  She would have had more luck getting blood out of a stone.

  She tried again. ‘Trevelyan,’ she said. ‘That’s a Cornish name, isn’t it?’ He didn’t reply, but his green gaze sharpened. ‘I thought so. I’m from Devon, you see. The West Country, just like you.’

  He looked away, his blank mask back in place.

  ‘My father has a dairy farm, just outside Tiverton,’ Grace ploughed on. ‘There
have been Duffields there for at least six generations, Pa says. He reckons our family might even go back to William the Conqueror …’

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Sam Trevelyan’s pained curse cut her off.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Grace said. ‘Did I hurt you?’

  He flashed her a murderous look. ‘I’m not interested in your family, or where you come from, or bloody William the Conqueror for that matter!’ he hissed. ‘Just concentrate on what you’re doing, will you?’

  Before Grace could reply, Dulcie joined in.

  ‘Leave her alone, she’s doing her best,’ she said. ‘Anyway, she’s only trying to be nice.’

  ‘I don’t want her to be nice,’ Sam Trevelyan snarled back. ‘I just want her to do her job properly!’

  ‘It was my fault,’ Grace put in quickly. ‘He’s right, I wasn’t thinking about what I was doing. I – I’m sorry.’

  As she blundered to her feet, she crashed into the dressings trolley, sending another bowl of swabs flying and splashing Dulcie with saline.

  ‘Careful, you clumsy oaf!’ Dulcie gasped, mopping at her apron.

  ‘Leave her alone, she’s doing her best,’ Sam Trevelyan parroted in a low voice.

  Grace swung round to look at him. His face was impassive as ever, but she wondered if she had imagined the glint of amusement in his green eyes.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘I don’t know why you bother trying to be nice to him,’ Dulcie said later, after she had changed her apron and they were continuing with the dressings round. ‘He’s so rude.’

  ‘Dr Carlyle says I should try to talk to him,’ Grace replied. ‘She’s worried about how withdrawn he is.’

  ‘Oh, Dr Carlyle!’ Dulcie said scornfully. ‘I suppose she’s decided he’s to be another of her pet shell shock cases?’

  ‘Don’t say it like that. Dr Carlyle says neurasthenia is a real medical condition.’

  ‘Neurasthenia now, is it? I suppose Dr Carlyle taught you that word, too? Giving it a fancy name doesn’t make it real, you know.’

  ‘There are psychiatric hospitals where they offer specialist treatment—’

  ‘I wonder Dr Carlyle doesn’t go and work there, then.’

  ‘Dr Carlyle is a physician, not a psychiatrist,’ Grace reminded her.

  ‘Why should that stop her? Since she’s so wonderful, I would have thought she could do anything.’

  Dulcie’s voice was bitter with jealousy, and Grace knew why. Years ago, while they were students, Dulcie and Kate Carlyle had fallen out over a man. Dulcie had ended up humiliated and she had never forgiven Dr Carlyle for it.

  It was such a pity, Grace thought. As far as she was concerned, Kate Carlyle was an inspiration. As the first female medical student at the Nightingale, she had fearlessly taken on the men and beaten them at their own game. She had overcome all kinds of obstacles and prejudices to qualify as a doctor, and also to work on the male wards, somewhere female doctors were generally not allowed.

  She had blazed a trail for other women. Ten more girls had since studied at the Nightingale, but so far as Grace was concerned, Kate Carlyle was the bravest of them all.

  ‘Did Sergeant Trevelyan’s wound look all right to you?’ Dulcie changed the subject.

  Grace frowned. ‘Yes, why?’

  ‘I don’t know … I just thought it looked a bit – inflamed.’

  Grace was surprised Dulcie could tell, from the wary distance she had kept. ‘Do you think so?’

  Dulcie nodded. ‘Perhaps we should get the doctor to look at it.’

  ‘I’ll mention it to Dr Carlyle when she does her rounds later.’

  ‘Dr Wallace is the surgical registrar. Surely he should be the one to look at it?’

  Grace glared at her friend. Dulcie’s innocent tone did not fool her for a minute.

  ‘If you think I’m going to summon Dr Wallace just so you can flirt with him again, you’ve got another think coming!’ she said.

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  For the past three weeks, Grace had watched Dulcie shamelessly throwing herself at Roger Wallace. Fortunately he seemed more bemused by the situation than anything else, but poor Sylvia Saunders was taking it rather badly.

  ‘I was just concerned about a patient, that’s all,’ Dulcie said. ‘But if you don’t think it’s worth mentioning to a doctor …’

  ‘I’ll talk to Dr Carlyle,’ Grace said firmly.

  Dulcie was still sulking as they approached their final patients.

  The two young men had arrived in the same ambulance just before Grace went off duty the previous night; a head wound who was able to walk on crutches, the other man on a stretcher.

  The stretcher case still looked pale and terrified, but his friend with the head wound had cheered up immensely. He sat up in bed, a broad grin on his face as they approached.

  ‘Here, Gordon lad, look what we’ve got here,’ he called out to his friend in a broad cockney accent. ‘Two lovely ladies. One for each of us, eh? You can have the tall one, though. No offence, miss,’ he said to Grace. ‘But I’m a bit on the short side myself, and I can’t have my girlfriend towering over me, can I?’

  ‘I quite understand, Corporal –’ Grace consulted his notes ‘– Sallis.’

  ‘Albert, please. But you can call me Albie, love.’ The young man winked at Dulcie.

  ‘And you can call me Nurse!’ she snapped back.

  ‘Ooh, get her! Your pal’s not very friendly, is she?’ Albie Sallis pulled a face. He was a stocky boy, nineteen years old according to his notes, with a freckled face and a squashed pug nose. The close-cropped hair around his bandaged wound was coppery red. ‘Don’t suppose you’ll give me a kiss, either?’

  ‘Certainly not!’ Dulcie looked so indignant, Grace almost laughed.

  She knew very well that Dulcie didn’t mind giving a soldier the odd peck on the cheek if she liked the look of him. Poor Albie had obviously got on the wrong side of her.

  ‘I think she prefers you, lad.’ Albie looked at the young man in the next bed. ‘Gordon’s more the strong, silent type,’ he said. ‘Ain’t that right?’

  Private Gordon gave them a wavering smile.

  ‘See what I mean?’ Albie said. ‘Lucky he’s got me to do all his talking for him, eh?’

  ‘You seem like good friends,’ Grace said.

  ‘Would you believe, we only met on the ambulance train coming over from France? But we’re best pals now, ain’t we, Gordon? Albie leaned closer to the nurses. ‘I’ve taken him under my wing, so to speak,’ he whispered to Grace. ‘Poor blighter’s lost the use of his legs. Reckons his back’s broken.’ Albie shook his head. ‘Terrible business. And him only twenty, too.’

  ‘And what about you, Corporal Sallis?’ Grace said. ‘It says here you have a shrapnel wound.’

  ‘I’ll say I have, Nurse. A right corker, it is.’

  ‘Let’s have a look at it, shall we?’

  Grace wasn’t sure what to expect as she unwound the dressing around Albie’s head. But the wound was surprisingly small and clean.

  ‘Hardly a mark there, eh?’ he said proudly. ‘I would scarcely have believed it myself, but the doctor showed me the X-ray last night, and there’s still a bloody great lump of shrapnel in there. If you’ll pardon my French,’ he added quickly.

  ‘Can they get it out?’ Grace asked.

  ‘Don’t reckon they can, Nurse. Not without killing me, at any rate.’ Albie sounded remarkably cheerful at the prospect. ‘No, all they can do is leave it there and hope it don’t decide to shift one way or the other. If it does …’ He shrugged. ‘And to think, if that shrapnel had gone in an inch to the left or the right – well, I wouldn’t be here now. I’m a walking miracle, that’s what I am!’

  ‘I should think you are, Corporal Sallis,’ Grace agreed, as she set about cleaning his wound.

  Grace and Dulcie finished the dressings round just as Dr Carlyle arrived on the ward.

 
Dulcie saw her first. ‘Now we’ll be for it,’ she muttered. ‘You know Sister likes to have everything done before the doctor arrives. We should have finished doing the dressings ages ago. That’s your fault for stopping to chat all the time – oh, Lord, she’s coming this way!’

  They both stood to attention, adjusting their caps and smoothing their aprons like soldiers on parade as Dr Carlyle approached, carrying a large buff envelope tucked under her arm. Grace noticed how her gaze slid past Dulcie as she greeted them with a nod.

  ‘And who’s this?’ Albie immediately turned on his boyish charm. ‘Another pretty nurse? Reckon we’re spoiled, Gordon lad.’

  ‘Good morning, Corporal Sallis. My name is Dr Carlyle.’ She turned to the young man in the next bed. ‘And you must be Private Gordon?’

  ‘Dr Carlyle?’ The look of astonishment on Albie’s face made Grace smile. But Kate Carlyle seemed coolly unaware of it as she picked up Gordon’s notes and started to write on them.

  She finished finally and put them aside. ‘I would like to test your reflexes, Private Gordon, if I may?’

  Grace and Dulcie glanced at each other, then slowly they began to back away, inching the trolley between them. But as they turned to go, Dr Carlyle said, ‘Please stay, Nurse Duffield. I may need your help. You may go,’ she dismissed Dulcie curtly.

  Grace couldn’t look at Dulcie as she left. But the rattle and squeak of the dressings trolley as it was shoved down the ward told her how angry the other nurse was.

  Grace pulled back the covers on Gordon’s bed and carefully adjusted the folds of his voluminous hospital gown to expose his white, bony knees, covered with a smattering of coarse dark hairs. His calf muscles were already starting to wither, she noticed.

  She stood back as Dr Carlyle tested the young man’s reflexes. As Grace had expected, there was no response. Dr Carlyle tested them again, striking his knees harder this time with her tiny metal hammer, until even Grace winced. But still Private Gordon did not twitch.

  Grace watched Dr Carlyle’s face. Her expression was impassive but there was concern in her dark eyes.