by Carol Rivers
From the corner of her eye, Hilda noted the extent of her duties. Having returned with the family from Italy, Violet had brought back some souvenirs: travel books and Venetian glass and miniatures of golden-domed churches. Hilda’s eyes fell on Violet’s bureau. It was cluttered with cards and sketches of foreign lands. The most attractive feature of Violet’s room, Hilda decided, was the bed coverlet that Lady Bertha had presented to Violet. The greens, blues and yellows were quite dazzling.
‘Thank you, Hilda, that will be all.’
Hilda’s brow creased as she made her way downstairs. Her plans had been set around the position that was now occupied by Violet. Hilda had gone to sleep at night wondering how this could be changed.
‘There must be a way,’ Hilda muttered aloud, lost in thought as she rushed down the stairs. Suddenly, one of the doors leading to the main house that were used by the housemaids opened sharply.
Hilda stumbled back against the banister in fright. The surprise of the door opening and the tall, dark figure hidden in shadow made her think of the stories told to her by Gracie. Was this the deranged earl, or his silver-haired valet, Turner, who Hilda had never seen and Gracie was terrified of meeting?
Hilda let out a shriek as the shadow came towards her. She stepped back, trapped by the banister. Her breath came rapidly, her body trembled. She put out her hands in fear, glancing down at the dark stairwell beneath her.
Hilda froze. She hadn’t believed Gracie’s ghostly stories, or at least thought they were exaggerations. But what if they were true? Blinking rapidly, she felt the sweat on her spine. If only she had been paying attention as she came down the stairs!
‘Step towards me or you will fall.’
Hilda could barely bring herself to look at him let alone move her legs. His presence seemed to surround her.
‘Come, let me help you.’ His fingers curled slowly around her wrists. ‘Don’t be afraid.’
Hilda could do nothing but allow him to pull her away from the stairwell. She would never forget her first sight of the man as he stepped into the light. Instead of the ghostly apparitions she feared, a real person stood there. She recognized him at once. Like the life-sized painting she had seen in October, his jet-black hair curled around his neck. His shoulders were broad under his crisp white shirt and his dark gaze was just as she remembered it.
‘Oh!’ was all she could say as her body now trembled, not in fear but with delight.
‘That’s better,’ he told her, his eyes roaming over her with an appreciative gleam. ‘You must be careful on the stairs.’
‘Y . . . yes, my lord,’ Hilda stammered.
‘Are you new to Adelphi?’
‘I came here in October, sir,’ she replied as his fingers slipped from her wrists.
‘What’s your name?’
‘H . . . Hilda, sir . . . I mean, Lord Guy.’
He smiled, his eyes seeming to drown her in their ebony gaze. ‘No doubt we shall meet again.’ Then, as swiftly as he had appeared, he disappeared again, speeding down the staircase, the sound of his light footsteps echoing back to her.
Chapter Thirteen
At the end of November a letter arrived from Will.
‘My dearest girls,’ he wrote in handwriting that was barely legible and on crumpled, brown-stained paper,
I read your letters every day, Flora. They give me hope that I am not too far removed from sanity. Whilst this nightmare around me seems real, your words remind me of the world I came from and want with all my heart to return to. As I write, shrapnel bursts above us, flares light up the evening sky. I crouch by the gun wheel that rolled into the trench from the last bombardment. God only knows what happened to the troops who manned it. Thousands have perished in this God-forsaken land. We hardly have legroom in the mud and filth mixed in it. Our gumboots reach our thighs and clip to our belts, but even so, the mud fills them. We lost many men at Artois. The enemy is firing constantly, never letting us rest. Comrades fall silently around me, or sometimes with unbearable screams. The rats drive us mad. They chew into our haversacks and scavenge the rotting corpses. They are afraid of nothing, not even the shelling, and flourish in abominable conditions. Perhaps my letter will never arrive in England. Perhaps you’ll never hear of me again. I am already trapped in purgatory and await hell. Pray for me and my fellows, dear sisters. I rely on you, Flora, to intercede to the Blessed Virgin for my survival. With deepest and everlasting affection. From your miserable brother, Will.
Flora dropped the letter in her lap. She was sitting alone in the airey, beside the hearth. The fire that she had built that morning before work had kept the cold at bay. But inside her she felt chilled to the bone. Will’s vivid description of his life in the trenches had brought tears to her eyes. A feeling of hopelessness overwhelmed her. Like all the men who had come to the surgery, his account of the war was unbearable. What good could come of all this killing? Flora could find no answer.
That night, she went on her knees and threaded her rosary between her fingers. She begged the Blessed Virgin Mary for protection for Will and his comrades.
Once again, it was all she could do for the dear boy who meant so much to her and Hilda.
The first week of December brought heavy rain and, each day, Flora mopped the floors of the surgery as patients arrived, many whom had suffered from the cold in November and now were laid low with bronchitis and flu. There were also more victims from the battlefront. They spoke of the Artois–Loos offensive that had failed in the autumn. Will was ever-present on Flora’s mind. Each casualty gave an account of the mud-filled trenches and, as Will had written, the armies of rats spreading disease amongst the troops.
‘Machine-gun fire felled us in our hundreds,’ one soldier told Flora and the doctor. He was stick-thin and in distress with stomach pain. ‘The snipers shot our wounded who were trying to get up and run but struggling to take off their equipment. I was grazed by a bullet, but managed to get back to our lines.’ His haggard face fell. ‘Though sometimes I wish I hadn’t made it. I fell into the bog that contained the dead and dying. Bodies floated on the surface and piled up. I shall never forget them; those sightless eyes and bloated bodies.’ He paused, wiping the moisture from his eyes with shaking hands. ‘They . . . they fished me out and took me back to the field infirmary. I was sick and fevered. There’s no lavs in the trenches, just pits that we dug and never filled in. They overflowed in the rain and the stench was unbearable. Nor did we have any clean water. We could only get supplies when we got back to the reserve lines.’ The soldier groaned, putting his arms across his stomach and bending forward. ‘The doctors told me I had dysentery and sent me home.’
‘And not before time, young man,’ said the doctor, as he dispensed a little white medicine into a small cup. ‘This will help to ease the diarrhoea and subdue the pain. But you must rest in bed. Drink as much clean water as you can. Take small quantities of barley water, milk or light soup. Have you someone at home to care for you?’
The soldier nodded. ‘Me mother.’
Flora knew that, as with the victims of poisoned gas, there was little more they could do for those who had dysentery. Men who survived the first stages were often troubled by frequent attacks throughout their lives. Those who were too weak to fight for their health soon perished.
As the young man left, he was replaced by another: an older man in his thirties who had volunteered for Kitchener. ‘I can’t stop scratching,’ he complained. ‘And I got a fever that’s left me as weak as a kitten.’
Flora helped the doctor to unravel the man’s thick clothing. Over his chest, arms and legs were the red sores caused by lice. ‘You have pyrexia or, as it’s more commonly known, trench fever,’ the doctor explained as he examined the patient. ‘Your rashes and bites are caused by lice, though I see no evidence of the creatures on your body now.’
‘The orderlies shaved me,’ the man said, scratching his bald head. ‘Then put this stuff all over me that felt as if it was burning my skin.
We were given these blue sterilized suits to wear. I still can’t stop scratching even though the lice are gone. They burrow into you, into your clothes and pants and then it feels as if they enter your insides. Some of them are as big as rice grains. We used to light candles and drop the wax on ’em. You heard ’em pop and the blood would spurt out of them. Yet you’d never be able to rid yourself of the buggers. I wake up fevered in the nights, still tearing at my skin and drawing blood.’
‘My nurse will apply a suspension of zinc and iron oxide,’ the doctor consoled him, nodding to Flora to administer the pink-coloured lotion from the trolley. ‘This will reduce the inflammation of your sores and help you to resist scratching. The fever will come and go until you’ve completely recovered.’
‘My wife is afraid I’ll spread the disease to her and the kids,’ the soldier said miserably.
‘To address her worries,’ the doctor advised, ‘suggest that she use Naptha disinfectant in and around the house. Keeping the body and home clean is a deterrent to the spread of any disease.’
‘Do you think the army will call me back up to the lines?’ the man asked as he rose unsteadily.
‘You’re far from fit,’ Dr Tapper replied. ‘I shall vouch for your convalescence.’
When they were alone that evening, Flora told the doctor about Will’s letter. And about how, when Will had volunteered, he had believed that the war would be over by Christmas last year.
‘I’m very sorry, my dear,’ he replied. ‘But it seems the stories are one and the same. Your young friend, together with thousands of others, must have had had a very rude awakening.’
Flora knew the doctor was thinking of Wilfred. She wanted to ask him if he had any news of his son. Wilfred had been missing for six months. And now, after all she and the doctor had witnessed, Flora knew that with each passing day, as conditions in the trenches worsened, Wilfred’s chances of survival were slim.
The following weekend, Flora went to see Mrs Bell.
‘You’re soaked through.’ Mrs Bell tutted. ‘Come into the warm.’
Mrs Bell took Flora’s wet coat. The heat of the black-leaded range soon made the gabardine mac smell.
‘Read this.’ The cook slipped an envelope from her pocket.
Flora recognized Hilda’s small, tight handwriting. But all that was written on the paper was a request for Mrs Bell to lend her a pound, if possible, well before Christmas.
‘Not a thing about her new post, or any little details that might tickle me fancy,’ Mrs Bell said crossly, as she poured tea and turned a sponge from a baking tin onto a plate.
‘Why didn’t Hilda ask me for the money?’ Flora wondered.
‘Don’t know.’ Mrs Bell sat down and cut the sponge in half. ‘Well, perhaps I do. I’m afraid I got into the habit of helping Hilda out.’
‘That was very kind of you.’
‘I didn’t think sending her a few shillings would do no harm.’ The cook spread jam and cream thickly on both sides of the sponge then placed it in the middle of the table. ‘Did you know she’s paid less than she was here?’
Flora had been worried when Hilda had told her this, though Hilda hadn’t seemed to mind at the time.
‘Hilda’s not one to save,’ Mrs Bell continued, slicing the cake. ‘She might go out to the village and throw money away on all sorts of distractions. Perhaps even at the local inn.’
‘But Hilda don’t drink.’
‘I hope it stays that way.’
‘She’s only sixteen.’
‘But looks older.’ Mrs Bell frowned. ‘Maybe she’s not been paid yet.’
Flora was beginning to feel concerned. A pound was a good deal of money.
‘I really don’t know what to do for the best. The money don’t trouble me. I always have a pound or two put by. It’s what our Hilda wants it for that’s worrying me. The lowers often take to tippling, my dear. A nasty habit to get into. But there’s plentiful temptation for those who see it as their right to polish off the fine wines the family might leave, or sample the strong brew that can be bought in the villages on a day off.’
‘I really don’t think Hilda would do that.’
‘You’d be shocked at the change in character that overcomes a girl when the work piled on her is never-ending. In the big houses, even the cook might reach for the sherry bottle at the end of her busy day.’ Mrs Bell looked anxious, her hands tightly clenched together. ‘And what of these village wenches that Hilda has to mix with? They wouldn’t think twice about leading a young girl astray. The drinking that goes on in taverns amongst country folk – well, I’ve seen it all in my time, Flora. And money washes down the drain as fast as water.’
Flora could see that Mrs Bell was very upset. She didn’t know how to advise her.
‘Though I wouldn’t rest if I didn’t send her something.’ Mrs Bell looked at Flora.
‘Perhaps ten shillings,’ Flora suggested. ‘Half a pound should go a very long way.’
‘Yes, you might be right.’
They ate their cake and drank their tea in silence. Flora wondered why Hilda hadn’t written to her; it was almost two months since she’d left the East End.
By the time Flora left Hailing House, she had managed to bring a smile back to the cook’s face. Mrs Bell thought a great deal of Hilda. It would be hard for her to refuse Hilda’s request, even though there was no explanation to say why Hilda needed the money. More importantly, Hilda hadn’t taken the trouble to write about her new life at Adelphi Hall. A few lines, thought Flora, a little put out, would have easily satisfied Mrs Bell.
Chapter Fourteen
It was Tuesday and Flora was clearing up. The morning had been very busy and now, at last, the waiting room was empty.
‘What are your plans for Christmas?’ the doctor asked, peering over his half-spectacles as Flora swept the floor. The patients had brought mud and dirt in from the streets on their damp shoes and clothes. Flora took particular care in the wet weather. It was in the damper conditions that diseases thrived. She knew the uncarpeted wooden floor would be just as dirty this evening, but still she left no corner untouched. The smell of disinfectant was all around as the doctor sat at his desk.
‘I’m going to the midnight service with Mrs Bell. And Aggie too, if she’s free.’ Flora had tried not to think how much she would miss Hilda this year. Since they’d left the orphanage, their tradition was that after Mass she and Hilda would come back to the airey and Hilda would sleep the night on the big sofa. Christmas Day was very special for them. They made their own decorations and cooked a roast dinner. The chicken would be very small, but they always had plenty of vegetables. Will joined them, bringing freshly spiced buns and marshmallows from the bakery. They would eat them by the fire, toasted on long forks. But last year had been very different. Will had enlisted and she and Hilda had celebrated alone.
‘Your friend won’t be visiting from Surrey?’ the doctor enquired.
‘Hilda hasn’t written,’ Flora said a little dejectedly.
‘Then perhaps you might think of joining me for lunch,’ said Dr Tapper. ‘Mrs Carver insists on leaving me much more than I can eat. And of course, without Wilfred . . .’
Flora realized that Christmas for the doctor held only memories of times past and he would be very alone this year. ‘Thank you. That would be very nice,’ Flora accepted, replacing the mop in her bucket.
She was still thinking about the doctor’s kind offer when he continued. ‘I’m sad to say that a death has been reported to me. Stephen Pollard, whose leg was amputated at hospital.’
She looked sadly at the doctor. ‘What will become of his widow and children?’
‘Mrs Pollard has been admitted to a sanatorium.’ The doctor brushed back his thick grey hair with his hand. ‘And the children sent to temporary care.’ He stood up and braced his shoulders. ‘Let us hope, she will recover soon.’
Flora knew the doctor was very upset. She was about to leave, when he said quickly, ‘There is, on the
other hand, good news from my colleague, Gordon Whitham.’
Flora recognized the name at once. ‘The doctor you sent Sidney Cowper to?’
‘Yes. It seems, so far, Sidney is improving.’
Flora felt excited. ‘The new treatment has worked?’
‘Not entirely. Many months of painful exercise must be endured for complete rehabilitation. I shall look forward to hearing again. But even this is welcome news.’
Flora knew the doctor was trying to keep cheerful. It was, after all, the Christmas season.
‘Perhaps we will close the doors a little earlier today,’ he said, with a smile.
Flora knew how much he cared for his patients. But he couldn’t let the thought of the many unfortunates, like Mrs Pollard and her family, overwhelm him. The news of Sidney Cowper had been especially welcome today.
Flora decided she would go to the market and buy Christmas cards. She wanted to end 1915 by reminding Will and Hilda about the happy times they had shared. And tell them her prayers were with them, no matter how far away they were.
The traders of Cox Street market had made an effort at Christmas cheer despite the shadow of war, Flora noted happily. Wrapped up warmly in her coat, scarf and hat, she made her way through the crowds. Bunches of holly and mistletoe were nailed to the beams of the stalls. Some of the handmade paper-chains strung across their interiors had turned limp and bedraggled, but still looked seasonal. The fruit and vegetable stalls were doing a brisk business, despite the shortage of food supplies that Flora had heard everyone complaining about. She noticed how people were still buying in large quantities – vegetables, oranges and apples were arranged enticingly on the costermongers’ stalls. The barrow boys selling hot chestnuts turned the crisp fruit on their braziers. She loved the smell of the roasting nuts; after browning on the tin plates, the chestnuts disappeared into boat-shaped newspaper bags, still steaming in the misty air. In the distance, she could hear a man singing, ‘Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag’. The song reminded her of Will.
