Rich Girl, Poor Girl

by Eileen Ramsay

  ‘Send in my first patient, Isa.’

  The morning wore on, and the afternoon, and three weeks, and still Kier had not returned. Had he been accepted? Rose said nothing and Lucy dared not ask. If he had been dismissed would he tell them, tell his wife?

  ‘They’ve reinstated him and promoted him.’ Rose was paler than usual, and was she even thinner? She looked drained, tired. She must, thought Lucy, be under enormous strain. ‘Nearly all the young officers are dead. Hardly worth having a child, is it, to watch them grow and see them go off to be blown to bits? Do you think the bullets will know that Major Anderson-Howard was decorated in the Boer War and is therefore too senior to be obliterated?’

  ‘Sit down, Rose, and I’ll have Isa bring us some coffee.’

  ‘No coffee, Lucy. I can’t face it these days.’ She stopped and for a moment Lucy felt that she was about to say something real, something important. ‘It’s all such a mess, isn’t it?’ was all she said, and then she turned and began to walk into her own office.

  Lucy jumped up and followed her. ‘Rose, please. Where is he? When did you hear? Is he well?’ She stopped, angry at her show of emotion. She saw too that Rose had misinterpreted her interest.

  Rose laughed, an ugly laugh. ‘So we’re both spurned, neglected women, are we, Lucy? I was almost sure I’d find him here that morning, you know. I thought he would run to you to tell you what a bad wife I’d been.’

  ‘He came . . . to say goodbye. Never, ever has he said one word against you. He was always your champion, Rose.’

  ‘My champion? I never needed a champion. Was he rescuing me? From what? What conceited arrogance, Doctor Graham. I may not have had your advantages growing up, but I certainly needed no knight in shining armour to rescue me from the gutter.’ She threw off Lucy’s restraining hand. ‘I have patients to see. We’ll discuss this intolerable situation later.’

  20

  Dundee, 1916

  DECISIONS THAT CHANGED one’s life were often easy to make in the lonely dark stretches of the night. In the morning the spring sunshine was calling all tired, old, even dead things back to life. The blossoms on Dundee’s ethereally beautiful cherry trees seemed to hang dazzled in the air as Rose walked the few streets to Lucy’s offices. They called to her highly charged mind, assaulted her quivering senses.

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ Rose found herself saying. ‘My God, I’m having a conversation with a tree. Is this what being pregnant does to you?’ But she was almost happy as she reached Shore Terrace and the new day of satisfying work that lay ahead of her.

  Lucy did not ask about Kier and Rose found that odd.

  She should ask if I’ve heard from him. Wouldn’t it be normal for an old friend to ask, for my partner to ask about my husband? Unless she has had a letter.

  ‘I have an address for Kier if you would like to have it,’ she said brusquely. ‘I heard yesterday.’

  Lucy looked up from her desk and, for the first time, Rose was aware of the dark shadows under her eyes, of the fact that Lucy, always slim, was even thinner.

  ‘Oh, I’m so glad, Rose. Is he well? Did he say where he is?’

  Rose answered the second question; she did not know the answer to the first. ‘No, and the address doesn’t tell anything but I’ll give it to you.’ She turned to leave the office and then stopped. ‘He hasn’t written to you, then? Dreadful correspondents, men.’

  When the door closed behind her Lucy sighed with relief. ‘Dreadful correspondents? Men? Kier?’ She thought of all the letters she had received over the years. ‘Poor Rose. Poor Kier, but at least he has written. They will work this dreadful thing out. I hope he’s not in France. Surely to God, he’s too old to be sent to France.’

  *

  The telegram waited all day for Rose to return. Mrs Potter put it down on a silver tray and carried it into the drawing room at Laverock Rising. The room was soft and mellow in the warm summer sunshine. As she put the tray down beside a crystal bowl of Rose’s favourite yellow roses, she did not notice the teardrop that beaded on the polished wood beside it.

  ‘Thank God she’ll find out here. Thank God! Poor lassie.’

  *

  Rose waited for the train. She was anxious to get to Fife for the weekend and she desperately needed to loosen her corsets. What a fool I am, what an utter fool! I can’t go on like this much longer.

  At last she was able to sit down in the first-class carriage and she relaxed. Soon she would be at Leuchars. Someone would be there with the car. She must learn to drive. I was right to ask for the use of a flat, Rose smiled. At Laverock Rising she had come to terms with what had happened to her. She had drifted, like the cherry blossom, until the decision was taken out of her hand. Was it that or a gut feeling that abortion was wrong, that she, who strove so hard to maintain life, should be the last person in the world to end it? Or was it merely a bargaining tool in her battle with Kier? Whatever it was, she was now six months’ pregnant. ‘Why can’t I bring myself to tell Lucy? I can’t hide it any longer. How have I hidden it from her? Surely she suspects; some doctor!’ Rose smiled. Lucy preferred bones to babies. ‘Half my patients are making cosy remarks. If I don’t get this bloody corset off I won’t have to tell her, I’ll abort anyway.’ And suddenly, suddenly Rose felt cold and very frightened. She put her hands for the first time protectively over her stomach where tight corsets and the fashion of the day had allowed her to conceal the fact that she was most definitely pregnant.

  ‘I’ll admit you’re there on Monday, little person. I’ll need your Aunt Lucy. I certainly don’t want your grandmother around.’ The relationship with Kier’s mother, never good, was now non-existent.

  She was home. Laverock Rising. Everything would be all right.

  ‘This came this morning, madam.’

  Rose stood still. She did not turn but slowly eased her kid gloves off her long slim fingers, as always having difficulty sliding the material over the huge diamond Kier had given her on their engagement. She knew. She had had that cold feeling in the train. Or was it the housekeeper’s tone, the voice low and almost breaking? She laid the gloves down on the polished rosewood table. Ma would have admired that table. The right glove, then the left glove. Turning, she saw the small buff envelope and stretched out a hand that would not be allowed to tremble.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Potter. That will be all.’

  She did not notice that, for the first time ever, Mrs Potter bobbed a slight curtsey before she withdrew.

  How long did letters take to get to the Front, for that was where he had been, some damned place in France. This would be so much easier to bear if she could be certain that he had had the letter, that he had known.

  *

  Kier looked through the smoke. What was it? Mars, Flaming God of War. It was not Mars. Surely a God, if there was a God, would be a noble being. If He brought death and destruction, would there not be some beauty in that death, some justice at least?

  It was a dragon. He could see it, them. Sweet Jesus, there was more than one. He could see them advancing towards the trench where he stood. He could hear them. Yes, that was the sound he had made all those years ago when he had played St George and the Dragon. Lucy had been better though. Darling Lucy, she had been better at everything. He smiled. Did she know? How happy she would be for him.

  Someone was pulling him; voices were screaming at him. He was so tired of noise, interminable noise.

  ‘Bird-song,’ he said quite seriously. ‘Bird-song is the best sound. I used to think it was the sound of a violin, properly played of course, or a tenor. Yes, a tenor: Caruso. The most beautiful sound in the world.’

  ‘Christ, major. Them’s flame-throwers. The bloody Krauts are going to incinerate what they haven’t blown to bits.’

  Kier looked again. He echoed the soldier. ‘Christ.’ he said.

  He could feel the heat.

  ‘Run,’ he yelled. ‘Run!’

  He shook off the hands and climbed out of the trench. Wh
ich way, which way? Any way but forward. That’s where the dragons were making their slow, deadly and inexorable progress. ‘And more inexorable far, Than empty tigers or the roaring sea.’ Shakespeare; he was quoting Shakespeare. Was it because part of his mind refused to believe what his eyes were telling him, that this could not be happening?

  ‘Major?’

  He came to himself, sensible, articulate, trained.

  ‘That way, lads. Run.’ He looked around. Easy enough to find a weapon later if they escaped. The ground was littered with the debris of the dead. ‘Throw away everything that will hold you back.’

  A man went up beside him like a bonfire at Hallowe’en. The screams threatened sanity. No time to think, to plan. The terrified soldiers ran tossing rifles, even masks, aside in their mad need to get away from the advancing horror. The mud grabbed at their feet, clung to them like a lover, loath to release them. They slipped, stumbled, fell and, sobbing desperately for their wives, their mothers, they tried either to rise or to bury themselves under the mud, to do anything that would help.

  Kier fell and a rat popped up from the mud in which he lay. He could see its little eyes, terrified, insane. ‘Just like mine,’ he thought as the most excruciating pain enveloped his entire body.

  ‘No, please,’ he said and his prayer was answered. His agony, everything, was blotted out . . .

  It was impossible that anyone could be left alive. Kier regained consciousness to find himself lying against the wall of the trench into which he had fallen. Gradually he became aware of silence. When had the pounding stopped, that relentless pounding that had gone on and on, and roared around in his brain until he could do nothing but beg for a respite, beg even for death in order to escape it?

  ‘Am I dead too?’

  The air was full of smoke from the flame-throwers but no gas: they hadn’t used gas this time. Kier straightened up slowly and that’s when the pain started, pain that made him cry out. The sound startled him.

  ‘I’m not dead if I can feel pain,’ he said.

  ‘Help me . . . somebody help me.’

  There was someone else. Thank God, thank God, he was not alone.

  Kier tried desperately to focus his eyes. The voice came again.

  ‘Who’s there? Is that you, Joe? Major, is that you?’

  He should answer; he was the major. He knew that, but his tongue refused to obey the commands his brain was sending. The voice stopped and the moaning started.

  ‘I’m here,’ he said desperately, but no sound came. He was confused. There was the pain that clawed at him, and the groaning of dying men that was almost as hard to bear as the pain. But from somewhere there was the scent of violets. Who wore violets? Lucy? No, no, it was Rose.

  ‘Rose?’ he said but the sound of her name, the smell of her flowers, they were in his head. He tried to smile. ‘Rose,’ he said it again and this time he could see her. He was in the nursery at Laverock Rising; he was with Rose. The pain ebbed away. There was no moaning, no sound but the sweet Scottish voice.

  ‘Kier,’ she said, so clearly that he lifted his head to smile into her lovely, smiling, happy, eyes. ‘Kier,’ she said again and held out her hands to him.

  The officer found them . . . at least he thought that the blackened remains had once been men. He looked and he retched.

  ‘In the name of the Father,’ he began, ‘and of the Son, and of . . .’ But the prayers refused to come. He tried again. ‘Into Thy hands, oh Lord.’ The tears were running unchecked down his cheeks.

  ‘Lieutenant? Are you all right?’ The boy soldier was very young.

  The officer looked at him, at his frightened young face.

  ‘How will the world remember us?’ he asked. ‘Will they think of Germany and say Goethe, will they say Wagner? Will they say Beethoven . . . or will they say . . . savages?’ He looked down at his feet. ‘Rest in peace,’ he said softly. ‘I pray that I could.’

  *

  Dr Rose Nesbitt, Mrs Kier Anderson-Howard, widow, was extremely drunk. She was still sober enough to know that she was drunk and she was very ashamed of herself. She had ordered a bottle of Kier’s best claret to be sent up from the cellar just because she felt that old Baxter did not really want her to have it. It belonged to Kier, to the master, the laird, and now that he was dead it was to be kept inviolate. Rose had always known that the staff did not like her. She thought it was because they could strip away the veneer of expensive clothes and see the frightened slum lassie underneath.

  ‘Why couldn’t they accept me?’ she raged. ‘I never pretended to be anything other than what I am. I’m proud of my fight out of the gutter.’

  Then she remembered all the people who had helped her struggle, especially Frazer and Ma, and she cried maudlin drunken tears.

  ‘Ma would have understood why I would never have introduced her to Kier. I didn’t know a thing about my husband. I was never really interested. He was Lucy’s, and I took him away from her and made him miserable and I didn’t even need to do it. Oh, Lucy, why didn’t you ask me to work for you when I first qualified? Why did I have to go through all those applications? Why did I have to threaten to go to Africa? I could have had a practice and you could have had Kier. No, not Lucy’s fault. Rosie’s. Rosie uses people. She used Frazer and old Wishy and Ma . . . and Lucy and Kier. But I’m being punished now. Oh, God, I’m being punished.’

  Rose lurched across the room and violently closed the curtains. Kier’s gardens were so beautiful. She did not want to see them

  When had she ordered a second bottle? When had she drunk it? She staggered across the room to find the door. When she had negotiated the beautiful oak staircase she found her bedroom, their bedroom, and fell across the bed. Rose slept.

  It was dark when she woke up and she was glad. She never wanted to see sunlight again. She would stay in the bedroom for ever and she would draw the curtains to make sure the light stayed out.

  Rose moaned as she tried to rise from the bed. Her head was aching and swimming and her stomach . . . she barely managed to reach the bathroom.

  When the retching was over she was unable to rise from the floor and lay for some time beside the lavatory. At last the top of her head seemed to have settled itself where it belonged, and she managed to push herself up by holding on to the lavatory and then the hand-basin. She did not recognize the ravaged face that stared back at her with frightened eyes from the mirror.

  She splashed cold water on her face and into her mouth and then managed to undress by pulling at the buttons so skilfully and expensively sewn down the front. She managed to get back to the bed and this time to throw off the counterpane and to crawl tremblingly under the blankets. Rose slept, but the nightmare was still with her when she woke up.

  ‘Doctor Graham sent a messenger to see how you are, Mrs Anderson-Howard,’ Mrs Potter came in answer to her bell. ‘Baxter told him to say that you would prefer to be alone, that we would take care of you.’

  ‘I’d like some tea, please, Mrs Potter.’

  ‘I’ll fetch something else as you’ll be the better for it. First we’ll get you into a nice fresh nightie.’

  Rose tried to protest but found herself, for the first time in her life, being undressed and tidied up.

  ‘There, doesn’t that feel better? I’ll be back with your tea.’

  Rose barely had time to realize how much better she felt before her housekeeper returned with a tray of tea and a bowl of a strange-smelling brown liquid.

  ‘It’s just a bit of bread and a little Worcester sauce. I know, smells awful when you’re hungover but it’ll cure you. Come on, eat up.’

  With a barely suppressed shudder, Rosie put a morsel of the foul-smelling mess into her mouth.

  ‘There, now. Doesn’t that feel better?’ Mrs Potter spoke as if Rose was a child. Was that how she dealt with her own grief, looking after Kier’s . . . widow? ‘Here,’ her voice was motherly, almost loving, ‘have a nice hot cup of tea. Then you c
an sleep again and you’ll feel better in the morning.’

  But in the morning Kier was still dead and nothing would make her feel better. How could she feel better when he would never feel again? He lay dead somewhere in the mud of a river called the Somme. They had strolled near there on their honeymoon. The banks of the river had been ablaze with wild flowers; the sky had been reflected with the flowers in the clear water. Kier had pulled her down among the flowers and . . . ‘Oh, God, don’t let it be the same place. They don’t even know, they can’t even tell me . . . his mother will never get over this, ever. There’s no body, nothing. “The officers made a pact to lie with their men.” Was that supposed to make me feel better? Would it make his mother feel better? Would this? I should tell her. Had he known? Was he pleased? Oh, please God, please let him have known.’

  She took two days to recover from what Lucy called ‘grieving’ and Rose knew was merely a hangover. She returned to the offices on Shore Terrace to find Lucy looking almost worse than she did herself. She had had the extra burden of her own real grief and Rose’s patients but, as usual, she angered Rose by being solicitous.

  ‘You shouldn’t have come back, Rose. People won’t expect you to carry on like this.’

  ‘I want to come back, Lucy.’ Rose reached for the file with the names of the patients she was to see that day. ‘I need to be back. I’m sorry that you’ve had extra work.’

  ‘I was happy to do it. It’s understandable. You should have taken some time as soon as you heard the news. I feel that perhaps you still need time. Two days . . .’

  ‘For God’s sake, Lucy. You always have to see the best in people, don’t you? I had a hangover, a simple hangover because I drank too much. I wasn’t weeping a widow’s tears.’

  ‘We all grieve in our own—’

  ‘Oh, no platitudes, doctor, please. Have you grieved yet? For my husband, your lover?’ She hadn’t meant to say that, she knew Lucy and Kier had never been lovers. But Lucy had loved him and, oh yes, Kier had really loved Lucy.