Poppy (3 page)

When Miss Luttrell advanced across the restaurant floor – wearing a dark tweed suit, brown woolly hat and eager expression – Poppy’s first thought was that she hadn’t changed a bit in all the time that she’d known her. Did elderly ladies, she wondered, reach a certain standard of oldness and then stay the same? Unsure of how to greet her, Poppy stood at her approach just as she’d done when Miss Luttrell had come into the school room, but was waved at to sit down again.

‘My dear child, we don’t stand on ceremony these days,’ said Miss Luttrell, pecking Poppy on the cheek.

Poppy sat down. ‘It’s really very nice to see you,’ she said, smiling and a little shy at the strangeness of the occasion. ‘It’s been about a year, I think.’

‘How time flies!’ Miss Luttrell reached for the printed tariff and ran a finger down the choices. ‘I expect you’re hungry, dear. Shall we order straight away?’

Poppy nodded, starving because she’d been too excited at the thought of the outing to eat breakfast that morning.

Miss Luttrell held the tariff at arm’s length and got the words into focus. ‘The steak and tomato pie is always good here, or the braised tongue is a very substantial meal. They both come with mashed potato and vegetable marrow.’

The idea of ox tongue didn’t appeal to Poppy and she and Miss Luttrell both decided to order a pie. When the waitress left them, they stared outside for a moment, where an army truck filled with soldiers had pulled up. A small crowd gathered to watch them and cheer as they fell into ranks and marched in formation under the vast arch of the station.

‘Another legion of our brave boys marching to death or glory!’ Miss Luttrell said, and then, rather embarrassingly, stood up and applauded them (though no one outside the shop could have heard her) so that Poppy felt she had to stand and clap too.

When the soldiers had all disappeared, Miss Luttrell sat down again. ‘Now, do tell me what you’re doing.’

Poppy started on a list of her regular duties at the de Vere house, but was stopped almost immediately.

‘I meant, what are you doing for the
war
?’ Miss Luttrell asked.

Poppy thought. ‘On my own, I suppose not very much, but Cook makes what she calls economy puddings and the household is saving on fuel – we’re never allowed a fire in our bedrooms.’

‘I expect the family still have fires in
their
rooms, though,’ said Miss Luttrell drily. She knew the de Vere family: they gave an annual allowance to the local school in Mayfield where she used to teach, and she and Mrs de Vere occasionally found themselves serving on the same charity board.

Poppy didn’t reply to this little barbed comment, for the family did indeed still have fires in their rooms. ‘Mrs de Vere has a knitting circle making comforts for the men at the front,’ she suddenly remembered. ‘I go to that once a week.’

‘Ah,
comforts
,’ Miss Luttrell said rather disparagingly. ‘I believe the men are weighed down by s
o-
called
comforts
. I’ve heard that they have so many they clean their rifles with them.’ She adjusted her hat. ‘But has Mrs de Vere encouraged her sons to go and fight for the cause?’

Poppy nodded. ‘Jasper de Vere has enlisted. He’s just started his training with the Royal Engineers.’

‘Not before time! And the other boy?’

Poppy was torn. She wanted to denounce Freddie as a war refuser, but it seemed rather disloyal to the de Vere family, who paid her wages and, on the whole, were good to her. And besides, there were those rather perplexing looks Freddie had been giving her lately.

‘At the moment he’s working on the estate,’ she said lamely.

Miss Luttrell raised her eyebrows. ‘While other boys of his age are deep in mud and dodging bullets in the trenches!’

Poppy hesitated. ‘I know it doesn’t sound right –’

‘He’s a coward! Someone should present him with a white feather. I’d do it myself if I wasn’t living in London.’

Poppy’s eyes widened. She knew that for a man to be presented with a white feather was the greatest shame – so much so that the government had issued exem
p
tion certificates and badges to be given to men in certain trades to show if anyone asked them why they weren’t in uniform.

‘Perhaps you could give him one,’ said Miss Luttrell briskly. ‘After all, why shouldn’t he fight? The privileged rich have even more reason than the rest of us to make sure this country isn’t overrun by Fritz.’

‘I couldn’t . . .’

‘My dear, it’s your duty. Haven’t you seen the posters?’

‘The recruitment posters?’ Poppy nodded.

‘Especially the one showing women standing at an open window watching their nearest and dearest marching off to fight.’ Miss Luttrell raised her voice and cried, ‘
Women of Britain say
– “
GO
!” ’

Several people in the restaurant turned to look at her.

‘No, I haven’t seen that one yet,’ Poppy said hastily.

‘No one need know the feather has come from you,’ Miss Luttrell resumed. ‘You could leave it at his place at the dinner table perhaps. Or even put it in the post.’

‘But I couldn’t do that to F– I mean, Mr de Vere.’ Poppy was quiet for a moment, then she said with a sigh, ‘My brother’s the same, though, Miss Luttrell. He hasn’t even got the excuse of having an estate to look after.’

‘Then he must also have a white feather!’ When Poppy didn’t reply to this, she added, ‘Our country needs every one of our boys to be ready to fight. We women should be hardening our hearts and playing our part in getting them there.’ She looked searchingly at Poppy. ‘As for you, my dear, you have a
brain
. You could be playing a far more useful part in the war instead of plumping madam’s cushions and making sure her card table is dusted.’

‘I suppose so,’ Poppy said. ‘Some of the staff at the house have already moved on. Our housekeeper has gone to be a bus conductor, Cook’s girl is working as a clerk in an office and some of the others have gone to take the men’s places in factories.’

‘As a matter of fact I wasn’t thinking of factory work for you.’ Miss Luttrell paused, then said earnestly, ‘I was going to suggest that you become a nurse, a member of the army’s Voluntary Aid Detachment.’

‘Oh!’ Poppy said, surprised. She had never considered nursing, much less considered it in wartime. She’d seen pictures on the newsreels of field hospitals near the front line, with rows of camp beds and nurses, as silent and compassionate as angels, flitting up and down the rows tending to their patients. Her only thought on seeing them had been that they must be awfully decent girls.

Their meal arrived and during the first few mouthfuls neither of them spoke, for Poppy was thinking about things, wondering if she could . . . if she should . . .

It was Miss Luttrell who resumed the conversation. ‘I saw how well you nursed your mother when she was so poorly after her last child.’

Poppy nodded, remembering the dark times just after Barney had been born. Her mother had been very ser­iously ill then – hysterical and sweating with childbed fever – and Poppy had nursed her day and night. Tragically, little Barney, always weak, had died when he was a few weeks old. With her father not long dead and her two sisters still very young, it had been a terrible period for her family. She’d coped – just about – but she’d been caring for a close relative then, she thought; someone she loved, not some anonymous stranger. On the other hand, perhaps it would be easier to nurse someone she wasn’t emotionally attached to – and it would be rather wonderful to become one of those nurses with a starched white uniform bearing a red cross, so highly thought of, so revered.

‘At present I’m doing some Red Cross work,’ Miss Luttrell said. In response to Poppy’s look of surprise she added, ‘Oh, I don’t mean actual nursing. I haven’t the energy for that – it’s terrifically hard work. What I do is serve in army canteens, handing out cigarettes and cocoa to our chaps, and I roll bandages and cut gauze into wads for the dressing of wounds.’

She stopped speaking for a moment and they both looked out of the window at a man, with a bandage which went round his head and completely covered both eyes, walking with uncertain steps. Another man was holding his arm and guiding him between obstacles. Poppy silently prayed that Miss Luttrell wouldn’t stand up and applaud again and, luckily, she was too involved in saying her piece to do so.

‘You’re just the sort of girl they’re looking for to be a VAD,’ Miss Luttrell went on. ‘Young, enterprising, healthy, intelligent. You could make a real difference.’

Poppy’s brow furrowed, trying to see herself in that role. ‘But I’ve never thought about
nursing
. I don’t know if I . . .’

‘Volunteers get two or three months’ training before they’re allowed on a ward,’ Miss Luttrell said, ‘and they always work under a sister’s guidance.’

‘Yes, but you just called them
volunteers
,’ Poppy said. ‘So they don’t get paid.’

‘They get their board and lodging, just as you do at the de Veres’. You’d live in a hostel with other trainee nurses.’

‘But I send half my wages home to Mother,’ Poppy said. ‘I wouldn’t be able to do that if I were a nurse, would I? She really needs what I send.’

‘No, you wouldn’t have wages as such.’ She smiled. ‘But, my dear, I have a proposition for you.’

Poppy, intrigued, waited while Miss Luttrell finished her pie and gathered her thoughts.

‘I’ve been left a small annuity by an ancient relative,’ she said eventually. ‘I don’t need it all, and I’d like to share it with you – if you’d let me.’

Poppy’s jaw dropped. ‘But I couldn’t possibly!’ she said automatically.

Miss Luttrell went on as if she hadn’t heard, ‘The pity of it is, if I’d been left the money a few years ago I could have helped pay for your college education.’

‘That really is too kind,’ Poppy protested.

‘If you wanted to join as a VAD I’d be able to provide you with an allowance – one that would be about the same as the wages you earn now,’ Miss Luttrell continued.

‘That’s terribly generous, but –’

‘I think you might find that, when the war is over, you want to stay in nursing and obtain some proper qualifications. It’s a fine career for a woman. Maybe you could even study to be a doctor. I think you’d be capable of it.’

‘Never!’ Poppy exclaimed. It was true, she
was
becoming a little bored at the de Vere house, but she hadn’t given much thought to what she could do instead of being a parlourmaid. Could she really become a nurse?

‘I don’t see why not!’ said Miss Luttrell.

An amount of time elapsed before Poppy, chewing her lip, asked, ‘Can I let you know? It’s most awfully good of you, but I must think about it.’

‘My dear, of course you must give it proper consider­ation!’ Miss Luttrell pushed her empty plate away and rummaged in her handbag. ‘In the meantime, do please take these two white feathers and give them out as you see fit. Remember:
every
young man should enlist and fight for his country. And you know, in your heart, who deserves to be given one . . .’

Chapter Four

The feathers were small and soft and curled. Poppy put them in her coat pocket but somehow contrived to lose one of them between Euston and Mayfield stations. She pretended to be cross with herself, but was actually rather relieved. She’d already decided that, before presenting her brother with such a thing, she ought to give him a chance and would have a good and sober talk with him. Surely if she explained how important playing his part was, if she told him how desperately regular Tommies were needed, if she spoke to him seriously, he would agree that he must join the army.

That left one feather for Freddie de Vere.

But should she really give it to him – and exactly how should she do it? She’d seen pictures in the newspapers of resolute women standing outside public houses, feathers in hand, ready to accost any able-bodied man who wasn’t in uniform. She knew she’d never have the nerve to just present him with it – and anyway, this would surely mean instant dismissal from the de Veres. Leaving the feather in Freddie’s room was out of the question, too – with the diminishing number of staff in the house only a few had access to it so she was bound to be suspected.

As for training as a nurse – well! It was a fine and noble calling, but did
she
wish to be fine and noble? What would her mother have to say about it? Would she enjoy living in a hostel in some strange city with a crowd of girls she didn’t know? Posh girls, too, she’d heard.

Lying in bed that night, Poppy went over her options. She’d seen and admired the VAD nurses, but if she became one, what sights might she have to see? What gruesome tasks would she have to undertake? She was not especially squeamish, but she knew that many unfortunate men came back from the war with such horrendous injuries that not even their own mothers could face looking at them. Living with the de Veres might be tedious som
e
times, but at least it was clean, safe and uncomplicated.

Ten indecision-filled days had passed after her meeting with Miss Luttrell when Poppy received the following letter.