Talland House

by Maggie Humm

  “That’s a new song to me,” Mrs. Beckwith said the next morning. “I’m afraid I only know lieder, and hymns of course.”

  Lily blushed. She must have been humming Zahrat’s theme tune without thinking, and songs about kissing were certainly inappropriate in a hospital.

  “My mother loved lieder too,” Lily said. “She played and sang almost every day. But Nurse Stillman and I were enthralled by the music at His Majesty’s yesterday evening. It hushed the sound of crashing bedpans in our heads!”

  “We’re away from all the clatter,” Mrs. Beckwith said. “It must seem dull to you working silently with me each day.”

  “I’m so very happy to be here with you,” Lily replied. “I’m learning a great deal.”

  Were the words too flattering? She glanced at Mrs. Beckwith, but the older woman didn’t seem startled and continued stacking her prescriptions in lines like a hand of patience.

  “You’re an excellent assistant, Nurse Briscoe.”

  She hoped Mrs. Beckwith’s amused smile held safe the promise of weeks in the pharmacy away from the wards. Would this become her new life, recording information, watching Mrs. Beckwith work swiftly at her mixtures, learning to imitate her skill? These ordinary yet not inconsequential habits made life seem somehow reasonable, and weeks floated seamlessly into each other, one wave of medical records after another, although the piled-up scripts often had a life of their own, escaping the paperweights and fluttering like snow over her pens and the floor.

  She was beginning to care for Mrs. Beckwith’s work, telling herself the pharmacy tasks were a kind of design task, if not as creative as sketching, and she relished any thanks from matrons and nurses as they passed their scripts through the dispensing window. The pressing needs of patients were the fulcrum of the hospital. Men grew well again because of what she did. She felt at the centre of life, with death and healing like painted figures in a hospital mural. Was the feeling shared? Did Mrs. Beckwith see the same magic lingering over the medicine bottles, and in all the prescription requests, clinging to shelves in the pharmacy? Could she both paint and learn about dispensing? Art saved souls and medicine saved lives, but art was also about keeping the unknown out of reach and medicines had to be accurate; the two didn’t seem to match. She picked up her pen and scratched away.

  “I must interrupt you,” Mrs. Beckwith said. “I need help unpacking some boxes. An isolation ward has been prepared for the men with venereal disease, and it needs additional supplies. Quarantining them saves the nurses from having to disinfect all the bedding every time a venereal patient is transferred.”

  “Why are so many men getting sexual diseases?” Lily asked. “They’re supposed to be fighting full-time at the front.”

  “I think the generals turn a blind eye to what goes on,” Mrs. Beckwith said with a blush. “Anything to help morale.”

  “Generals are probably as bad,” Lily said, fiercely stuffing bandage packets into cupboards.

  Before she’d left Ward C, she’d nursed a dying man with convulsions caused by a venereal condition. It was one of the rare times when Matron had explained all the symptoms clearly. “Because the disease is very contagious,” she’d said, “you should be aware of the early signs, Nurse Briscoe.” She must check for a fever, and ulcers or rashes on the palms of the hands and soles of the feet. She’d remembered Matron’s instructions without having to write everything down as usual in her little notebook in the pocket behind her watch. Sitting beside the patient, she’d fanned him gently to ease his death, bowing her head when porters had taken the man to the mortuary, approving the way they’d gently wrapped him in a bed sheet before marching with a respectful slow step.

  Afterwards she’d glanced out of a window, imagining a boat with the body sailing down the Thames, like the death of King Arthur when eight damsels in flowing white gowns rowed him to the Isle of Avalon by the light of the moon. But there’d been no moonlight the night of the young man’s death. Fog had pushed its misty swirls hard against the windows, and she’d seen her reflection—the lines of tiredness, the dark shadows under her eyes—already exhausted before the end of the shift.

  Lily looked up to find Mrs. Beckwith sorting bottles; many had a black skull and crossbones almost as large as the titles: Baud’s Pills, Quinine, Potassium Arsenite. The array seemed endless.

  “I must rearrange these in alphabetical order,” Mrs. Beckwith said, “but first let me tell you about this one. Men die of syphilis much less frequently now because of this discovery. The doctors often call it the arsenic to save the war.” She pointed towards the open medicine cabinet. “It’s Salvarsan—the tall opaque jar of white powder.”

  “Didn’t Nero kill his stepbrother with arsenic in order to become emperor of Rome?” Lily asked, but Mrs. Beckwith had already returned to dispensing.

  She often surprised herself with these absurd hotchpotch pieces of history. She didn’t know which ruler came before or after Nero—chronology never seemed to stick, purely dramatic events, but she’d loved her governess’s history stories with their peculiar titles. The Diet of Worms involved neither worms nor eating, she was certain, but some important meeting, and the Defenestration of Prague had something to do with throwing things—or was it people?—out of windows. She was proud she’d remembered a little Latin vocabulary from her schoolbooks; it’d been useful in the pharmacy, but she didn’t have a tidy mind. Father became impatient with what he called her “grasshopper brain,” but Mother had consoled her. One day, after Father’s refusal to supervise her history notes—he’d closed the book abruptly and she’d cried—her mother had swept her under an exquisite bright red kimono and they’d giggled about worms while sketching together in her mother’s sitting room.

  In the late afternoon, Mrs. Beckwith came over as Lily was entering a prescription.

  “Are you finished?” Mrs. Beckwith asked. “I’ve a little surprise for you.”

  Her face had an excited sheen, making her seem years younger.

  “It’s cocoa time on the wards,” she continued, “so we have fifteen minutes before they all come knocking on the window with their scripts. I want to show you something.”

  The two women climbed up a narrow twisting staircase Lily had never seen before, at the far end of the basement’s corridor. Breathless by the time they reached the top, Mrs. Beckwith turned a key in a door ahead; as she stood on the threshold, Lily was astonished at the height of the attic.

  “I was searching the hospital for extra space for supplies and discovered this loft,” Mrs. Beckwith said, smiling at Lily. “It’s too warm for medical stores, but I thought you could use it as a studio—you and your friend Eliza. You’ve spoken so often about your painting.”

  Lily glanced around the room, thrilled by the amount of light a north-facing skylight was pouring onto the floor and walls. It was surprisingly clean and completely empty. The walls were distempered white, making the space seem even brighter, and the floor had an old cotton rug covering a good deal of its surface; with the downstairs heat rising up into the room, they’d be able to paint long into the night.

  “It might have been intended as a dormitory, perhaps when the hospital was first built,” Mrs. Beckwith continued. “I don’t think anyone even knows of its existence. The key was covered with a spider’s web on the stand downstairs. You and Eliza could use it during your lunch hour or after work.”

  “Thank you, thank you so much,” Lily said, imagining the older woman as an engraving of Hippocrates with his mortar and pestle, although dressed in a smart frieze outfit under a white coat with shiny Oxford shoes rather than a Greek tunic and sandals. It seemed as though a change was on its way, as if she was being taken out of Nurse Briscoe into a new self.

  1917

  DURING THE NEXT YEAR LILY CONTINUED HER REGULAR visits to Father, along the familiar route from Brompton Road, past tall houses with tiny gardens. She had a sudden memory, like a leaf falling, of her mother the year before she died, sitting slumped in
the garden. Perhaps if she’d told Father, told someone, her mother could have been treated earlier, had more years of life. Lily shook her head.

  Walking to her mews home was like tucking herself further and further into a thick, safe insulation through which the maelstrom of war couldn’t be felt. Although the house seemed more compact each time she stepped through the front door, her studio hadn’t altered. Returning was a hint of her own continuity, a welcome back into a life, a safe old life, no matter how much she knew she’d changed. On one such visit in July, she’d wiped a finger along a bookcase shelf; its tip remained clean, and she was glad the maid was conscientious.

  Her mother had always taken charge of the house, allocating duties, supervising the cook, keeping the accounts “shipshape”—Father’s favourite term when he praised his wife’s calm organization. Yet he’d managed very well after her death with overseeing the household tasks, even if he tried to transform daily chores into a timetabled office routine.

  The studio smelled fresh with polish—checking for cleanliness would never have crossed her mind before the rigorous nursing training. Everything was in its old position. The easel stood in a corner, holding a painting with its back to the room, out of direct sunlight. Coffee-table copies of the The Studio were neatly stacked. She was pleased Father hadn’t cancelled the subscription once she’d become a nurse. Did he believe in her ability, or, more likely, had he wanted to keep Mother’s passion alive in the house for as long as he could? She flicked through the latest copy, and it seemed the art world, miraculously, had continued unperturbed throughout the war. Gallery and exhibition ads stretched over several pages.

  A door creaked along the corridor. The maid must be carrying a tea tray into the drawing room, and Lily followed, smiling at Father. He was her last contact with Mother apart from the voice in her mind, and that was growing fainter every day.

  “Your mother would be so proud of you, doing such responsible work at the hospital,” he said as Lily poured and offered a round of sandwiches. Father said much the same thing each visit, but she revelled in the praise.

  “Well, I’m learning a great amount of Latin from Mrs. Beckwith,” she said, keeping back further details in case Father might think she wanted another career. “But I’m as committed to art as I always was, especially now Mrs. Beckwith has kindly given Eliza and me an attic to use as a studio,” she added, holding a teacup in front as if it might grow to the size of something to ward off any suggested change. The night she’d told Eliza of Mrs. Beckwith’s generosity, Eliza had said it meant Mrs. Beckwith cared for her without her saying so directly, and she’d felt extraordinarily cheerful.

  Father was kind to support her, but he never understood the excitement, the almost physical pain of her urge to paint. Best not to give him hope she might choose another profession at last. Pouring another cup of Earl Grey, she examined him more closely. He was now completely bald, and his hands shook a little with the strain of holding level his cup and saucer, his shoulders loosening as the afternoon sun played on his back and neck. They had an hour or so before the sun would set. Time enough to hear again his stories of “marrying the most beautiful woman in the world,” and “having the loveliest child in the world,” as he always added, smiling and winking.

  He was immersed in his familiar smells of tobacco and brown leather, and she glanced round the room. It was full of mismatched pictures, each representing a particular moment in her parents’ marriage, apart from the much-loved Vermeer print View of Delft, which her mother had bought before the wedding. There were country scenes, pretty watercolours by minor Victorian painters. One Impressionist painting of a beach and boats blazed with light. Perhaps seeing this image every day had made her choose St Ives after Paris? She’d come to believe in chance, in fortuitous events, the war having made all planning pointless, and she turned to find Father had replaced his cup on the tray and was leaning towards her.

  “I feel I should talk to you as both a mother and a father,” he said, without looking at her face.

  She wanted to reassure him of her happiness before he asked the question she thought might be coming, but he was too quick.

  “Why don’t you marry, my dear, as soon as the war is over,” he asked, “whenever your nursing duties are done?”

  Lily held onto the question before replying. Mentioning her mother showed he’d been thinking of what to say, how to appeal to her, and she leaned back, feeling guilty because she didn’t know if she agreed. When young she’d learned from other children Father treated her gently. There was no shouting, and never any physical punishment, but any small criticism was enough to make her tearful. So what about marriage? She’d never prized the idea of a house to manage, a husband and children. They wouldn’t be able to enlarge her artistic knowledge and might even curtail her need to paint. It was a spinster in her thirties who looked back at her in the mirror during the morning wash. What she saw was mainly satisfactory. She would have liked larger breasts, rounded and womanly, but she neither disliked nor loved the figure in the frame. What did she look like to others—a still-slim body, narrow “Chinese” but distinctive eyes in an unblemished face? She’d never wanted to climb out of her skin; there were a few lines, but she didn’t mind too much, and she was free to do whatever she wanted. Not needing any longer to match her life against other women’s lives, she was approaching middle age unalarmed, without fear. A husband would control the rest of her life, the separation of their minds extending as the years advanced—she’d seen a gap grow even between her parents. There’d be no space for art, for the passion of creation, unless for babies, and it was probably too late for those.

  She put down her cup. What could she reply? Could she survive without a husband’s income? It was true that since the outbreak of war she’d managed to complete very few things. There was the evening when she’d savoured an hour alone in the hostel kitchen, inspired to sketch onto large scraps of newspaper and create a collage. It had been sheer liberation from preparing canvasses, although, from the expression on her face, Eliza hadn’t shared her joy at the completed picture. Another time she’d experimented with ink and pastel on paper, trying to use different surface patterns to show emotions, without figures, but she’d hardly sold anything and had little money to spend on oils. Visits to her favourite Winsor & Newton were rare due to long hours at the hospital, and, when she did manage to go, she could merely gaze at the new paints in the front window, jingling the too-few coins in her purse.

  Marriage would secure her future, but the man she most admired appeared an unlikely spouse. It seemed Louis was too caught up in his painting and in teaching to reply to her letters, and what about the others? Hilary was too wealthy, Eliza had said, to become involved with her, and the kindly doctor hadn’t taken her for coffee.

  “Most men prefer much prettier women,” Lily replied, smiling at Father, “and in any case, so many eligible men have died in the war, there are far too few to go around. And I’m perfectly content with my friends, Father, really I am.”

  She felt supported by her friendships, sometimes thinking friendship as good as marriage, perhaps even better. Emily’s ideas had enlarged her world; the Ramsays, she knew, had been a substitute family, Marie and Mrs. Beckwith surrogate mothers; and now she and Eliza were two women who saw each other daily, and were together not from any physical attraction but by a shared love of painting, their agreement to continue in a life devoted to art as best they could without complaints, encouraging each other whenever possible, and for as long as they might need to.

  His forehead furrowed. “But what will you do when you’re my age, dear?”

  “The same as you, Father, I expect,” Lily said with a chuckle, “take pleasure in my newspaper, pipe, and tea.”

  His duty done, Father curved back into his chair, contentedly patting her hand, and rang the bell for the maid. What had started to happen had stopped, and the topic surely wouldn’t be mentioned again. One way or another, home did have to be left
behind; her childhood was caught in the late evening’s amber light, but not her.

  Returning to the hospital, she strode the length of Brompton Road, disconcerted the well-to-do mansions somehow kept an aristocracy of buildings and a perpetual white shine throughout the war, with clipped bay trees protecting wide, glossed black front doors. As she squinted from the glare, they became a mass of shapes, but the gardens had a kind of beauty. The evening light gave every shrub, every flower, a deeper hue, not bright exactly but solid against the white. The month was sultry, especially at night for the patients with fevers, and she took off her cape and cap, feeling her hair lifted by a breeze, and she glanced up at the sky. The moon was a crescent, but it was a clear night with the rain clouds now vanishing.

  Tired at last, she jumped onto a bus heading for the Embankment. Although the roads were much more crowded than before the war, she didn’t want to take the tube with its underground stations reeking of dense body odours, lingering from people sleeping over whenever there was bombing. In these moments on buses, she always felt sentimental about London, about Londoners, fascinated by the different kinds of clothing, the way fabrics shaped bodies, saturating the carriage with patterns and colours.

  Although she took the same route from Father’s house every time, why were people always different on each journey? Perhaps they all knew each other, and she was the one solitary person, but the mixture of ordinary Londoners complete with legs and arms was a great relief after the constant procession of maimed men in the hospital. From her front row seat, church spires were black spikes against the remaining light, with the lofty octagonal tower of the Victoria and Albert Museum looming ahead. By the time she finally reached Pimlico, it was ten o’clock, too late to sketch. Hoping Eliza would be awake, she jumped quickly down from the bus.

  Whistles blowing across London stopped her, and she was amazed at the sight ahead. Across the Thames, surging clouds of smoke dotted by what looked like sparks turned the skyline into a flat frieze of black irregular squares against a gradually reddening sky. The birds had sensibly flown away. Her unease grew into fear as lights were dimmed and blackout curtains hurriedly drawn in the one flat near the river showing light, and windows rattled from the booming guns. Above her now the sky sank down, becoming darker than night. The usual cool river breeze had turned into an intense warm wind she could feel on the back of her neck, and she crept along the Embankment as fast as she could, desperate to get to the hostel. In the searchlight beams, faint outlines of aircraft passing overhead were barely visible, their engines grinding insistently, following the line of the river. Shocked to discover the Germans flying bombers, not the silent Zeppelins, she felt like an insect scuttling along under bullets from anti-aircraft guns scudding up towards the planes. Making herself step, with exaggerated care, over circles of broken glass surrounding each lamppost, her nostrils were filled with an acrid smell of burning ash, and, as she put one hand over her mouth, stumbling, she pictured Louis on the studio terrace, his plaid cape stretched over his nose and mouth defying the sea storms. She was surprised by the memory. Why was he filling her mind?