The Silver Locket (6 page)

Rose was dreading this. She’d never seen a naked man. ‘You start this side,’ said a staff nurse crisply, pointing to the six beds on the left. ‘Don’t touch any of their dressings, mind – just top and tail them, and don’t forget to comb their hair.’

‘Do Private Bannerman first,’ added the sister, who was walking past. ‘But be very careful when you shave him, because he’s got a mole on his cheek. If you happen to catch it with the razor, it bleeds like anything.’

Rose thought she’d cut and run.

But then she squared her shoulders and told herself she hadn’t come all this way and tried so hard to fall at the first hurdle. She owed it to herself to see it through.

‘Private Bannerman?’ She poured out boiling water from a jug into a bowl. ‘Good morning, I’m Miss Courtenay, the new volunteer. I’m going to wash and shave you.’

It can’t be very difficult she thought, as she stropped the razor clumsily. After all, men do it every day.

Private Bannerman opened one dull eye. ‘Mind me mole,’ he said.

‘Miss Courtenay?’ As Rose wiped soap and blood from Private Bannerman’s butchered face, a nurse came up. ‘Goodness, you took ages with that shave! I need some help with Sergeant Fowler. It takes two to turn him and he’s got nasty pressure sores, so come along with me.’

By the end of that first week, Rose thought she had died and gone to hell. She had constant backache, her hands were red and raw, she’d somehow hurt her shoulder, and although she did her best, the nurses criticised her all the time.

She had to admit she was no good. Even laying breakfast trays was far beyond her skill. She could not remember which of the patients needed cups or beakers, who liked scrambled egg, who wanted fried tomatoes or who had just toast.

‘They’ll be sacking you,’ observed a sour-faced staff nurse, at the end of yet another awful, muddled and exhausting day. ‘Girls like you are nothing but a nuisance. Sister Fraser nearly had a fit when she saw how you’d put away the linen, up on Bentley Ward.’

But Rose did not get sacked, for the wards were filling up with yet more wounded soldiers and she could see that even her haphazard help was needed desperately.

By copying the others and secretly consulting a notebook she kept in her apron pocket, she somehow got through those first awful weeks.

‘You’re doin’ all right, Sister,’ Private Benson told her, as she combed his hair one Friday morning. ‘You ain’t so nervous now, an’ you got a lovely gentle touch, not like some people I could mention.’ He glanced towards the staff nurse who was constantly berating Rose. ‘Don’t take no notice when certain people grumbles. They’re only jealous ’cos you’re a looker an’ they ain’t.’

Rose blushed, but was encouraged. She told herself she would stick it out.

Later that same day, towards the end of what had turned out to be a gruelling shift, she heard somebody call her name. She turned to see what she’d done wrong.

But Staff Nurse Gower wasn’t glaring angrily, and Rose breathed again. She liked Maria Gower, who never nagged or scolded. The men all liked her too, for she was pretty. She had soft, fair hair and mild, grey eyes.

‘I know you’re due to go off duty soon,’ said Staff Nurse Gower, ‘but before you leave, I’d like some things brought up to Stafford Ward.’ She pointed to a tray, piled high with kidney bowls and shaving mugs and a jugful of thermometers.

Rose picked it up, then followed Staff Nurse Gower. She was so very tired, and her feet and ankles ached so much she could have cried. But after she had taken up this tray, she could go home to Heston Terrace, where Mrs Pike would have her dinner waiting, and she tried to concentrate on that.

She turned the corner into Stafford Ward, and then disaster struck. She didn’t know how it happened, for her boots had rubber soles and usually kept their grip, even on these highly-polished floors. But she had still lost her balance. The contents of the tray flew up like missiles, and she was sitting sobbing amidst a heap of broken glass and china.

The staff nurse was ahead of her, and when she heard the crash she came to help Rose to her feet. Then they began to gather up the broken crockery.

‘Be careful with the glass, you’ll cut your hands,’ the staff nurse warned. ‘Go and fetch a broom. There’s one in the ward cupboard.’

‘I’m so sorry!’ Rose began to brush the mess into a dusty heap. ‘I just seemed to slip–’

‘Don’t worry, these things happen. That wretched floor’s a menace.’ Staff Nurse Gower handed Rose a clean white handkerchief. ‘Come along, dry your eyes.’

But Rose could not stop crying, even though the men could see her through the open doors of Stafford Ward, even though she knew she’d be sent home and told not to come back.

‘Come in here, Miss Courtenay.’ Staff Nurse Gower led Rose into the ward sister’s office and shut the door behind them. ‘Do sit down,’ she said.

Rose sat on the edge of a hard chair.

Maria poured her a small brandy, then made her choke it down. When Rose was merely gulping as opposed to sobbing as if her heart was going to burst, she fixed her with grey eyes in which Rose could see a hint of steel.

‘Let’s have the truth,’ she said.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You’re no more a governess than I’m the Queen of England. So who and what
are
you? A German spy?’

Chapter Four

‘I was only joking,’ said Maria, as Rose stared in horror. ‘But I’ve been watching you. It’s obvious that before you came to work here at St Benedict’s, you had never fed an invalid. You’d never washed anybody in your life. I don’t suppose you’d even washed yourself. You had a maid to do it.’

‘No, you’re wrong!’ Panic-stricken, Rose gaped at Maria with wide, scared eyes. ‘I know I’m sometimes clumsy. But that’s because I’m nervous. Some of the men have dreadful wounds, and I’m afraid of hurting them.’

‘This kind of nursing is new to all of us. We’re all seeing terrible things we’ve never seen before. But
you
can’t slice the top off a boiled egg. So unless you’ve come from somewhere where they don’t have eggs?’

Rose saw it was no use. She’d been found out. She hardly ever cried, but tonight she was so tired and so unhappy she couldn’t help herself.

Maria let her sob for a minute, then offered her a fresh, clean handkerchief. ‘Where’s your home?’ she asked.

‘In Dorset,’ Rose replied.

‘What do your people do?’

‘My father is a farmer.’ This was true enough, thought Rose, for Sir Gerard’s tenants did farm several thousand of the ancestral acres on his vast estate.

‘Why did you run away?’

‘I didn’t run away!’

‘Rose, I think you did.’

‘They wouldn’t let me breathe.’ Rose looked at Maria helplessly. ‘You can’t imagine what my life was like. Every single move I made, they watched me. I wanted to go and help in a hospital they’d set up in the village. But it was no, you can’t do that. You must stay at home, marry the man we choose for you, and bury yourself alive.’

‘You must tell your parents you’ve come here,’ Maria said, firmly. ‘Poor things, they must be frantic. They probably think you’ve been abducted and sold as a white slave.’

‘Perhaps, but I don’t care.’

‘Why, did they beat you, or hurt you in some way?’

‘No, but – you wouldn’t understand.’

‘Rose, I’ll keep your secret,’ said Maria. ‘But you must write a letter to your mother. You must do it now, and I’ll post it when I leave tonight.’

‘What if I refuse?’

‘You won’t do anything so cruel and foolish. Listen, you write that letter, and I’ll get you transferred to Stafford Ward. We’re not so rushed up here, the orderlies are helpful and the sister is a gem. We’ll turn you into a real nurse – agreed?’

‘You promise you won’t tell Matron what I’ve done?’

‘My God, I wouldn’t dare.’ Maria grinned. ‘She took you on, and she’d have a heart attack if she ever found out you took her in! You’ll find some writing paper in that drawer.’

So Rose wrote the letter. After she had sealed the envelope, she felt as if a burden had been lifted from her shoulders. Even though she expected to be summoned home to Dorset straight away, and threatened with all sorts of dire reprisals if she refused to go, she trudged back to her lodgings feeling almost happy.

She ate the meal of mutton stew and glutinous rice pudding Mrs Pike warmed up for her, then she had an undisturbed night’s sleep, the first since she’d arrived in London.

She worked out a plan. She wouldn’t leave the hospital, and if her parents tried to force or bribe her to return to Charton, she’d run away again.

So she was surprised and slightly hurt when she heard nothing. ‘Do you think they got my letter?’ she asked Maria, when a fortnight had gone by.

‘I expect they did.’ Maria shrugged. ‘But if you’re worried, why don’t you write again?’

‘It would look as if I minded, and I don’t.’ Rose picked up a tray of instruments needing to be washed then sterilised. ‘Sister said to clean the sluice and then sort out the linen, but may I watch you do some dressings later?’

‘You could do some yourself.’

‘All on my own?’ Rose stared, alarmed. ‘It’s not the actual bandaging,’ she added. ‘I can do that now, and I’m not squeamish, I don’t mind the blood. But I’m just so scared of hurting them.’

‘Then you might as well go back to Dorset.’ Maria’s mild grey eyes met Rose’s dark ones. ‘Private Coleman, Corporal Spink and Sergeant Major Logan. You watched me change their tubes and do their dressings yesterday, so today you’ll do them by yourself. I’ll be on the ward, so if you’re stuck just ask me what to do. But if you’re only playing at being a nurse?’

‘I’ll do the dressings.’

As Rose’s confidence increased, her skill improved. The pace on Stafford Ward was not as hectic as on Kingston, so she had time to watch the other nurses, then try things on her own.

As she finished doing dressings one November morning, Sister Hall called Rose into her office. ‘Staff Nurse Gower says you’re doing well,’ she told her, smiling. ‘I know you came here as a volunteer, to help us out in this emergency. Matron says you were a governess. But I think you’re the sort of person who would make a splendid nurse.’

Rose felt she had come home. ‘Sister says she thinks I should apply to Bart’s or Guy’s,’ she told Maria, as they did a round together later that same day.

‘What do
you
think, Rose?’

‘I’d love it!’ Rose’s eyes were shining. ‘When the war is over, I shall ask my father if he’ll let me train at one of the big London hospitals. I’d like to work with children, actually.’

‘You’ve heard from your parents, then?’

‘No, not yet.’ Rose bit her lower lip. ‘Maybe I should write again?’

‘Yes, perhaps you should.’ Maria rubbed her eyes and yawned. ‘You talk about the war being over, but that isn’t going to be for ages.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Rose, don’t you ever listen to the men?’ Maria sighed. ‘The Germans dig their trenches and then sit down on their side of the wire. We sit on the other side, and nobody’s prepared to give an inch. England’s full of factories producing shells and rockets and grenades, and I dare say Germany’s the same. So how’s it going to end?’

‘
I
don’t know!’ cried Rose. ‘Anyway, it’s up to the government to sort it out.’

‘You trust the government?’

‘I suppose I do.’ Rose shrugged. ‘Well, women can’t do anything, anyway. We don’t even have the vote, and my father says we never will.’

‘I do hope he’s wrong.’ Maria smiled. ‘You should come to a meeting where we discuss these things.’

‘You mean to listen to Mrs Pankhurst?’ Rose looked doubtful. ‘Daddy says she’s mad. They ought to put her in mental home for hopeless cases.’

‘Your father sounds a very decisive man,’ observed Maria. ‘You must take after him.’

‘I thought you were dead.’

Chloe stood scowling on the station platform, dressed in old black boots, a wide-brimmed hat devoid of veiling or a single feather, and a shapeless coat of an unflattering mud brown.

She twisted a strand of colourless hair around one long, thin finger, while the other hand sat on her bulging pregnancy. ‘Why didn’t you write to me before?’

‘I was in a coma.’

‘But when you came out of your coma?’ Chloe’s tone was sharp and accusatory. ‘Why didn’t you write then?’

Alex merely shrugged. He knew he ought to touch her, kiss her, make some simple gesture of affection, but, although he wanted to feel something, and although he knew he ought to be considerate and kind, and take an interest in Chloe and the baby, he just stood there, feeling nothing.

Since he had woken in that army hospital, it had seemed a dead weight of indifference, to everyone and everything, had replaced his living, beating heart.

He didn’t feel any pain or fear, but more than that he didn’t feel any affection, any love for anything or anyone – except for one specific someone, and he couldn’t allow himself to think of that, he would go mad. ‘I wrote as soon as I could hold a pen,’ he muttered, tersely.

‘I’m sure I’m very honoured.’ Chloe’s pale blue eyes were chips of glass. ‘What happened, anyway?’