She had run all the way back to the hospital, not even stopping to put on her cape. By the time she arrived on the ward she was a soaking mess, her hair hanging loose, starched cuffs missing and collar unbuttoned.
Miss Sutton met her in the doorway. ‘Good God, Beck, what do you think you’re doing? You can’t come on duty dressed like that.’ She pointed a stubby finger back towards the doors. ‘Go and explain to Matron why you—’
‘Edward Stanning,’ Anna cut across her. ‘Where is he?’
Miss Sutton’s tiny raisin eyes blinked at her in disbelief. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Edward Stanning.’ She craned her neck to see past Sister’s shoulder. ‘He’s my fiancé.’
A look of realisation gradually settled on the ward sister’s features. She reached out and planted her plump hands on Anna’s shaking shoulders.
‘Come into my sitting room,’ she said.
‘But I—’
‘My sitting room,’ Miss Sutton said firmly. ‘Now.’
Anna had never been in the ward sister’s sitting room. It was her inner sanctum, a place the nurses were forbidden to enter. And yet Anna now found herself perched on the edge of the overstuffed sofa, staring at an assortment of china ornaments on the mantelpiece, a cup of hot sweet tea laced with brandy in her hands.
And all the while, Miss Sutton was talking, her voice gentler than Anna had ever heard it, explaining how Edward’s battalion had been caught up in a mustard gas attack.
Anna heard the words and stopped listening. She knew all about mustard gas. She had washed it off blackened, blistered skin often enough. She had seen its victims coughing and choking, fighting to breathe through burned throats …
‘Is – will he—’
‘Will he live?’ Miss Sutton finished the sentence that Anna could not. She paused a moment too long, and Anna could see her weighing up her words.
‘He has sustained some superficial injuries, but most of the damage was to his lungs,’ she said at last. ‘And, as you know, that can make it rather difficult to assess the long-term damage …’
Anna understood. A patient who had inhaled mustard gas might seem to recover at first, only to succumb to respiratory failure a couple of weeks later.
‘However, Mr Stanning is young and strong, and Dr Logan has every reason to believe he will recover,’ Miss Sutton went on. ‘Would you like to see him?’
Anna looked up at her sharply. For once, the ward sister’s broad face seemed soft, her eyes kind.
‘Yes – yes, please,’ she whispered.
Anna felt a surge of panic as she approached the figure in the bed. She forced herself to walk slowly down the ward, clasping her hands together to stop her reaching out for Miss Sutton beside her.
Superficial injuries, the ward sister had said. But that could mean anything. Anna had seen men so disfigured by war that their own mothers wouldn’t have recognised them. Their flesh melted by the gas, features blurred and formless like dripping candle wax …
Anna pressed her lips together. She hoped her expression didn’t give her away too much. The last thing she wanted was to upset Edward.
She saw his fair head resting on the pillow, and her heart shot into her mouth. She wanted to stop, but she forced her feet to move forward, closer and closer …
Relief rushed through her. Thank God, he looked the same. Older, of course, and his handsome face was more gaunt than the last time she had seen him. But he was still her Edward.
He was sleeping, but as Anna crept closer he suddenly jerked awake. He stared straight at her, and for a second his face twisted with fear and hostility. But then he seemed to recognise her and the warmth came into his blue eyes.
‘Anna?’ His voice was a hoarse whisper.
‘Edward!’ Anna promptly forgot all Miss Sutton’s warnings about being gentle with him, and rushed into his arms. ‘Oh, Edward!’
He hissed with pain, and she pulled away. ‘I’m sorry, did I hurt you?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ He held her at arms’ length. ‘Is it really you?’ he said. ‘Only I’ve had this dream so many times, and every time I wake up, you’re gone …’
‘It’s not a dream. I’m really here.’
‘So where am I?’ He looked around him, confused and disorientated.
‘The Nightingale Hospital, Bethnal Green.’
‘The Nightingale?’ His gaze flicked back to her. ‘I’m home, then?’
‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘Yes, you’re home.’
It was nothing short of a miracle that had brought him to her, she thought. Injured men were usually hospitalised as close to their homes as possible, but it was just as likely Edward could have ended up at one of the military hospitals on the coast, or out in a far-flung part of Essex.
And if it had been a day or two earlier, the wards would have been full and there would have been no room for him. It might have been weeks or months before she heard any news …
‘Thank God.’ He released her hand, and slid his fingers under his hospital gown, wincing as they found the dressing over his damaged skin. ‘Is it – very bad?’ he whispered.
‘You’re safe,’ Anna replied. ‘That’s all that matters.’
He managed the smallest of smiles. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s all that matters.’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
‘I have considered your request, Nurse Moore, and the answer is no.’
Dulcie stared at Matron across her polished mahogany desk. She couldn’t look at her elaborate starched white headdress without thinking of a galleon in full sail.
‘But why, Matron? I don’t understand.’
Matron bristled, her mouth pursing in disapproval. Dulcie knew it wasn’t the done thing to question her judgement, but she couldn’t help herself.
Matron’s stiff grey uniform crackled as she pulled herself upright. ‘I have spoken to Sister and consulted the ward reports, and I do not believe you are cut out to work with the neurasthenia patients.’ Her eyes met Dulcie’s. ‘Quite frankly, Nurse, I am surprised you would even put yourself forward for such work.’
‘But I’m very interested in shell shock, Matron,’ Dulcie insisted.
‘Are you, Nurse? From what I’ve read in the ward reports, it seems to me you are hardly interested in the patients at all, shell shocked or otherwise.’
She opened the drawer on her left and drew out a heavy ledger, which she placed on the desk in front of her. Dulcie’s heart sank as she recognised the dreaded ward book, where the various ward sisters wrote all their comments about the nurses’ conduct and behaviour.
‘Let’s see, shall we?’ Matron opened the ledger and ran her finger down the page. ‘Ah, here we are. “Twenty-seventh of June, nineteen seventeen … Nurse Dulcie Moore left a patient unattended in the bathroom today. Sister has told her that she must not be so ready to make excuses for her mistakes.”’ She flicked over a few pages. ‘Or this one, from the seventh of July … “Sister found Nurse Dulcie Moore smoking in the sluice today, when she should have been with the patients outside. She has been warned.”’ She turned over more pages. ‘And here is one from the nineteenth of September. “Nurse Dulcie Moore requires keeping up to the mark, as she is inclined to get slack if left unsupervised …”’
Matron looked up, her pinched face framed by white linen. ‘It all makes for rather depressing reading, doesn’t it, Nurse?’
‘I can do better,’ Dulcie said. ‘If you just give me a chance to prove myself?’
‘You have had ample opportunity to do that, Nurse. And you have failed every time.’ Matron closed the ledger and put it back in her desk drawer. ‘May I ask why you are so determined to work on Wilson ward?’
Dulcie lowered her gaze and tried to look suitably humble.
‘I believe men’s minds can be broken just as badly as their bodies,’ she said. ‘I am interested in helping them to heal.’
Risking a quick glance, she saw Matron’s expression soften, and was glad she had listened for
once when Grace Duffield was explaining it to Eliza Parrish on the ward earlier.
‘Very well,’ Matron said at last. ‘I will give you a chance to prove yourself, Nurse Moore.’ Then, before Dulcie could respond, added, ‘But not on Wilson ward. Not yet, anyway. I want you to demonstrate to me that you can show compassion to all our patients before I agree to your moving.’
Dulcie frowned. ‘And how long will that take, Matron?’
Matron’s gaze was every bit as unforgiving as the November frost outside. ‘That really depends on you, Nurse Moore, don’t you think?’
‘“That really depends on you, Nurse Moore,”’ Dulcie mimicked to Grace later on as she watched her scrubbing a mackintosh sheet. ‘Honestly, she was so high-handed, I’m surprised I didn’t walk out.’
‘That wouldn’t have done you a lot of good,’ Grace pointed out mildly.
‘It could be weeks or months before I’m finally transferred to Wilson,’ Dulcie went on, ignoring her. ‘Some other girl is bound to have snapped up Dr Logan by then. It’s so unfair!’
‘You’ll just have to do as she says then, won’t you?’
Dulcie sighed. ‘That’s easier said than done, isn’t it? Especially with Sister on at me all the time for the slightest thing, just waiting to write my name in those wretched ward reports of hers.’ She still burned with indignation, thinking about how Matron had produced those pages so smugly, reading each damning line aloud. How Dulcie would love to throw that wretched book in the stoke hole! ‘Anyway, I daresay whatever I did, I could never become as perfect as those paragons they’ll have on Wilson ward.’
Grace, who was trying to manoeuvre the mackintosh over the rack to dry, suddenly lost her grip. The sheet flapped like a wild, wet sail, showering Dulcie in soapy water.
‘Watch it!’ she cried out.
‘Sorry.’ Grace wrapped her arms around the sheet, manhandling it over the rack.
‘I should think so.’ Dulcie brushed at the wet spots on the bib of her apron. ‘Do you know who’s going to be working there?’
‘Where?’
‘Wilson ward!’ Dulcie stared at her, exasperated. Really, Duffield could be very obtuse sometimes. ‘Come on, you must have heard some gossip?’
‘No.’
The mackintosh slithered off the rack, soaking Grace’s apron.
Dulcie sighed. ‘Here, let me help you.’ She stooped to lift the edge of the mackintosh. ‘I daresay it’s some absolute angel, anyway.’ She laughed as Grace’s blushing face emerged from the other end of the mackintosh. ‘Duffield … are you all right? You’ve gone positively puce.’
And then it dawned on her.
‘It’s you, isn’t it? You’re moving to Wilson.’
Grace’s blush deepened to an unflattering crimson. ‘I didn’t ask to go,’ she gabbled. ‘I don’t even know why they picked me. I’ll probably only last a day before they get rid of me …’
Dulcie watched her, open-mouthed. ‘You mean to tell me last week, you were asked to move? You didn’t even have to put your name forward?’
Grace looked away awkwardly. ‘Dr Carlyle approached me,’ she mumbled.
‘Oh, her!’ Dulcie rolled her eyes. ‘Well, that’s it, then. I’ll never be moved to Wilson now, not while Dr Carlyle is in charge. She hates me.’
‘I’m sure that’s not true.’
‘You know it is. She’s never forgiven me for all that business with Dr Latimer.’
As if it was her fault that the senior houseman had made a play for her! Dulcie hadn’t even known he was courting Kate too. She had tried to do the right thing and end it with Charlie Latimer as soon as she found out – Dulcie had no time for deceivers. She had also tried to warn Kate Carlyle what he was really like, but it had all backfired on her.
She didn’t know why Dr Carlyle still bore such a grudge, especially as she was now madly in love with another doctor, Rufus French. If anything, Dulcie had helped her to a lucky escape.
She looked at Grace, still struggling with the mackintosh sheet. She was such a blushing, clumsy mess, it was hard to imagine how Dr Carlyle could have decided she was a better bet than Dulcie. It could only be jealousy, she thought.
But then again, there was a way it could all work in her favour.
‘At least you can keep an eye on him for me,’ she said.
Grace looked up, startled. ‘Me? Keep an eye on Dr Logan?’
‘Why not? You’ll be working together. You can keep all the other nurses at bay.’ Dulcie nudged her. ‘And you might even put in a good word for me, too.’
‘I can’t!’ Grace was horrified. ‘I can barely speak to him, he makes me so nervous.’
‘Go on,’ Dulcie wheedled. ‘You are supposed to be my friend, after all. You can turn on the charm for my sake, can’t you?’
‘Oh, my.’ Grace looked faint at the prospect. Friend or not, Dulcie didn’t hold out much hope for the chances of either of them.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Dulcie returned to the ward, still simmering over Matron’s words. It was completely unfair, she decided. She was every bit as good as the other nurses, and better than some. Miriam Trott, for instance, could be positively callous at times.
And besides, didn’t Sister always say nurses had to learn to keep themselves distant from their patients? It didn’t always do to be as soft-hearted as Grace Duffield, letting herself get so emotional over the men’s troubles.
‘Nurse? Nurse, can you help me?’
Dulcie turned at the sound of a man’s voice coming from the bed opposite. She was just about to go over to him when she realised he was calling out to Anna Beck at the other end of the ward.
Dulcie stopped in her tracks as Anna approached him. ‘Yes, Private Garrett? What seems to be the matter?’
‘My splint’s giving me a bit of gyp. You couldn’t loosen it off for me a bit, could you?’
‘Let’s have a look at it, shall we?’
Dulcie watched Anna as she unfastened her starched cuffs and slipped them into her apron pocket.
‘I daresay he didn’t want to bother you, Nurse,’ Sergeant McCray answered Dulcie’s unspoken question. ‘We know you’re always so busy.’
She turned to look at him. There was a mocking glint in the sergeant’s eye she didn’t like.
An orderly appeared, carrying a bundle of newspapers. Dulcie hurried over.
‘I’ll have one of those, please.’ She took it from him and made her way purposefully up the ward, to where Sam Trevelyan was sitting propped up in bed, scowling into space as usual.
He sent her a wary look as she approached. ‘What do you want?’ he growled.
Dulcie determinedly ignored his ferocious mood. ‘Good morning, Sergeant Trevelyan,’ she said. ‘I’ve brought you a newspaper.’
He looked at the paper in her hands, then turned away. ‘I don’t want it.’
‘Don’t you want to know what’s going on in the world?’
‘Not particularly.’
‘I’ll leave it here on your locker for you anyway. Just in case you change your mind.’
‘I won’t.’
Dulcie stared at him, at a loss for a moment. ‘Some of the other men are setting up a game of whist,’ she said. ‘Don’t you want to join them?’
He looked up at her with those cold green eyes of his. ‘Any reason why I should?’
‘I just thought you’d enjoy some company, that’s all.’
‘I’d rather be on my own.’
He sent her a meaningful look, which Dulcie ignored. ‘Here, let me plump up your pillows.’
‘There’s no need,’ he started to say, but she was already punching them into shape.
‘What’s all this in aid of?’ Sam Trevelyan wanted to know. ‘Are you in Sister’s bad books again?’
‘Certainly not!’ Dulcie said, but all the same she couldn’t help glancing around, hoping that Miss Sutton would witness her being busy and compassionate. But she was busy behind the screens around bed four.
/> ‘You’ll punch all the life out of that pillow if you’re not careful.’
Dulcie stuffed it quickly back into place. ‘There, that’s better, isn’t it?’
‘If you say so.’
She was about to walk away when the screens around bed four were suddenly pushed back, and Sister emerged. Dulcie immediately turned back to Sam Trevelyan.
‘So,’ she said. ‘You come from Cornwall, do you?’
He looked up at her sharply. ‘Who told you that?’
‘I heard you telling Nurse Duffield.’ She glanced sideways. Sister was still deep in conversation with Dr French. ‘I’m from the west country myself.’
‘You’re a long way from home.’
‘Yes, and that’s just how I like it.’ The words came out without her thinking. Then, seeing Sam’s look of surprise, Dulcie said, ‘I much prefer the city. That’s why I became a nurse, so I could move to London.’
‘And there was me, thinking it was your caring nature.’
Sister was coming, her flat feet plodding down the ward. Dulcie swung round, searching for something purposeful to do.
‘I’ll tidy your locker, shall I?’
‘There’s no need …’
‘It’s no trouble.’ She bent down to open the door.
‘I said, leave it!’
But by then she had already found the flat leather box. ‘What’s this?’
‘Put it back.’
‘But what is it?’
She heard Sam’s angry sigh as she started to lift the lid. Inside the box was a gleaming silver medal bearing an image of King George, on a crimson, white and blue ribbon.
‘Oh, my goodness, where did you get this?’
He didn’t reply. Dulcie removed the medal from its box. It felt cool and heavy in her palm.
She turned it over to read the inscription on the back.
‘For bravery in the field …’
No sooner had the words left her lips than Sam snatched the medal out of her hands. He shut it back in the box and tossed it carelessly to the back of his locker.
Nightingale Wedding Bells Page 9