Nightingale

by Fiona McIntosh

  Without dithering further, instead of boarding the bus she marched in the direction of Oxford Circus Tube Station. Descending into the stale air of the Underground, she was grateful for the warmth and press of people and moved with the swarm onto the platform to board the next train that would hurtle through the catacomb of tunnels and deliver her to London St Pancras and a train to Radlett and some more of Eugenie’s wise perspective.

  ________

  Claire stood on Watling Street, which the stationmaster assured her cut a direct path south to Marble Arch in London or north all the way to York. Radlett was a hamlet, barely a speck on the English map, and only relevant because it sat on the ancient highway from the capital to the northern cities where travellers would blink and pass it on their way to the abbey town of St Albans.

  From what Claire could tell on first sight, Radlett – despite its proximity to London – was located among a thickly wooded area, even now boasting little more than its railway station, a couple of pubs, a church, village hall and the usual array of shops – butcher, fruiterer, grocer, bakery, post office. Claire watched her breath steam and dissipate, feeling oddly comfortable in this small settlement. At this moment on the edge of winter, it looked vaguely dislocated and lonely, and that suited her. She moved towards the railway inn for directions.

  When she reached Loom Lane she knew instinctively which house she sought as she stood among the colourful fallen leaves beneath the giant overhang of a beech tree and its cousins. She imagined herself as dwarfed by the tall but well-clipped hedgerow on either side in the narrow country path and stared at the gabled house made of the distinctive local flint, dressed with a rich red brick at its edges and topped by the dark, smoky-coloured slate tiled roof. The windows were painted a creamy white with numerous small panes that gleamed at her, attesting to regular cleaning. It was too large to be called a cottage by her standards. She shivered, accepting that it was probably dry and cold enough to snow. She couldn’t stand out here much longer without losing touch with her toes and fingers, or perhaps without drawing attention.

  Claire stepped beneath the elaborately wrought arbour arching over the small iron gate and marvelled at the thickly gnarled branches of old roses that had twisted themselves sinuously and blended with a hedge of fearsome holly. The bare rose bush looked forbidding and yet she imagined in summer the blooms of heavily perfumed roses would soften the appearance of this entrance and welcome all-comers to walk through a heavenly scent.

  Claire walked up the neat, brick pathway and sensed a wide garden stretching away on both sides of her and curling around the house like a meadow. She stepped up onto the porch and took a breath of hesitation before she pulled on the bell. From behind the door she heard movement and a few seconds later it was opened. A woman who looked to be in her early forties greeted her, dressed in an old-fashioned uniform more reminiscent of the Edwardian era that Britain was shaking off since the war.

  ‘Yes? Can I help you?’

  ‘I’m looking for Eugenie Lester. This is her house, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is.’

  She explained their history briefly. ‘I do have a letter from her asking me to visit.’ She began digging into her bag for the card.

  ‘Mrs Lester is unwell . . . um, this may not —’

  ‘Oh, please, Miss . . .’

  ‘I’m her housekeeper, Miss Chambers.’

  Claire gave her best smile, imagining now who was behind the fastidious cleanliness of the windowpanes and the clipped precision of the lawn. ‘I’ve travelled a long way today to keep a promise to visit. I should have written ahead, I realise that, and I’m very sorry to hear she’s unwell, but if I could just see her for a few moments please, I would love to pay her my respects.’

  The housekeeper’s expression softened slightly. ‘I shall ask but make no promise. Please come in.’

  ‘Thank you. It’s extremely cold today.’

  ‘You can wait in the reception room. I’m afraid there’s no fire. We weren’t expecting anyone,’ Miss Chambers said, slightly pursed-lipped.

  Elegant furnishings of a bygone era greeted her and Claire imagined that Eugenie must have decorated the house from before she left for her desert home as it was a testimony to an affluent Victorian era. She tiptoed across the darkly polished boards onto a carpet of faded former grandeur reflecting the generally ruby colour of the room, to the cast-iron fireplace that was made up but remained unlit as warned. She hugged herself, rubbed some warmth back into her arms through her jacket and admired the richly painted and gilded porcelain urns that flanked either end of the mantelpiece. Claire didn’t want to sit on any of the crowd of plump armchair cushions, or risk disturbing anything in the room for fear of Miss Chambers’ disdain.

  The housekeeper returned silently to stand at the entrance of the room and Claire let out a breath of relief she hadn’t been caught touching anything.

  ‘Mrs Lester will see you now. Follow me, please.’

  She was led into the hall and quietly ascended the flight of stairs that curved onto a landing where a stained-glass window drenched a vase of creatively arranged rosehips with soft winter light. They rounded the landing and continued up a short five steps that groaned pleasingly for Claire, who recalled a creaky staircase in her parents’ cottage where she’d been born and had lived for those early happy years.

  ‘In here,’ Miss Chambers gestured. She opened the door and Claire entered first to see the eager, affectionate smile of someone she barely knew and yet was perhaps her most intimate friend.

  ‘Eugenie,’ she whispered and didn’t wait for permission but hurried to her side and hugged the elderly woman.

  ‘Oh my dear, my dear,’ her old friend replied, in no rush to let Claire go from her embrace. ‘I’ve so wished for this moment to know you’re safe and hoped you’d not forgotten me. You received my note, yes?’

  ‘A couple of days ago. I’m sorry I haven’t been —’

  Eugenie made a gentle sound of disdain, waving away Claire’s apology. ‘You’re here, child. You’ve brightened my existence just by arriving. Thank you for coming.’

  Claire drew back to regard Eugenie in her postered bed with silk awnings that were tied back with gold tassels. She was propped up on fine damask and lace pillows but for all the finery, her friend appeared withered and half the size Claire recalled.

  ‘Let’s have some tea, Chambers, shall we?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Lester, right away.’

  ‘All the trimmings, please. This is a special friend of mine.’

  The woman acquiesced with a nod of her head and withdrew.

  ‘Scary, isn’t she?’

  Claire laughed. ‘A little bit, yes.’

  ‘She puts the fear of, well, I don’t know quite what, into most of my visitors, especially the rector. But you’ve probably worked out that she has my best interests at heart.’

  ‘Is she family?’

  Eugenie shook her head. ‘But might as well be. She treats me like a giddy old aunt. She’s the daughter of the woman who used to run this place for my parents. So she feels rather proprietorial at times.’

  ‘So I’ve noticed. But you were gone for so long.’

  ‘Yes, I think it’s why she’s punishing me. All those years of being in service to other people when all she wanted was to be here.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re reunited,’ Claire said. ‘I didn’t know you’d be here, of course. I came on a whim. I’m so pleased you are.’

  Eugenie nodded. ‘I came home to die, my dear, and before you make placations, I am dying and I decided that as much as I loved Egypt, it wasn’t fair to leave my body behind there for strangers to care for. Makes it so difficult and we Brits hate to fuss, don’t you know?’ Claire’s shoulders drooped in a private sorrow. Now she understood the cryptic quality of Eugenie’s request for the visit. ‘Besides,’ Eugenie continued breezily, ‘I got it into my head that I wanted to be buried near my parents and Edward.’

  ‘Edward?’
r />   ‘My husband.’

  Claire gasped. ‘When Miss Chambers called you Mrs Lester, I realised I barely knew anything about you, and yet you know almost everything about me. Why did I assume you were not married?’

  Eugenie shrugged. ‘Perfectly reasonable. I gave no clue that I was. Besides, there’s nothing that needs knowing, my dear. My life was drawing to its close when we met, whereas yours was essentially only beginning. I was far more interested in your life than mine anyway, for I came from wealth and never needed anything. I was a loved child, a beloved wife, I knew no adversity and when Edward died in Africa on one of his exploration expeditions that young men seem to think equates to heroism, I ran away in search of a bit of adventure myself, or certainly somewhere to escape every­thing that reminded me of him. I loved him so much that curiously I didn’t want a single bit of him near me, not even his grave. The heart is strange.’ Eugenie suddenly paused, looking down at her hands, which now bore a wedding ring that Claire had not seen her friend wear previously. It seemed she was ready to have everything that reminded her of Edward kept near as she drew closer to death and joining him again. ‘Anyway, Egypt is the past and soon I’ll be past but you’ve made me so incredibly happy that you kept a promise to visit.’

  Chambers arrived and set all the tea paraphernalia down on a table by the window.

  ‘I’ve brought some parkin cake left over from bonfire night.’ She stared at Claire.

  ‘Er, parkin cake?’ Claire wondered aloud, before she could censor herself.

  Chambers blinked in irritation but Eugenie chuckled. ‘Treacle and oats. A favourite of northerners and this is a good one, deliciously sticky.’

  The housekeeper pointed at the biscuits she’d also brought. ‘I hope you like ginger stem?’

  ‘Oh, I do,’ Claire nodded, would not have dared say otherwise.

  ‘Mrs Lester likes the tea to brew for four minutes, or would you prefer I wait and pour?’

  Claire stood, affected a breezier voice and smiled gently. ‘No, I can do it, thank you, Miss Chambers. I’d like to,’ she said and began slowly walking around the room, gazing at all of its fascinating objets d’art as if Miss Chambers was already forgotten.

  It was an eclectic mix of Eugenie’s travels and she was pleased to see much of her friend’s Egyptian influences had found their way into this, her most intimate living space. And so the colours were brilliantly rich like precious jewels, which somehow didn’t seem to clash with the self-patterned emerald wallpaper depicting peacocks or the massive gilded planter with its overflowing fern.

  She realised the housekeeper was watching her.

  ‘Thank you, Joy,’ Eugenie said as a soft dismissal. As the door closed, she added, ‘She doesn’t suit her name but she’s had an unhappy life and there’s nothing I can do to draw her from her sorrows. She lost her father and three brothers in the war.’

  ‘Oh,’ Claire said. ‘That explains plenty.’

  ‘Indeed. But it was the death of her fiancé that finished dear Joy off. She had finally found someone as she entered her fifth decade, and I’m afraid he didn’t come home either. Died at Amiens just a few months before the Armistice.’

  Claire’s heart opened with sympathy. ‘I was serving on the Western Front.’

  ‘I suspected you might, after we heard about the evacuation from the Dardanelles. But I was sorry to lose track of you so suddenly. I won’t ask how it was because it’s obvious.’

  Claire gave a sad smile and gestured at the tray. ‘I’ll pour, shall I?’

  ‘We took tea together the last time we met.’

  ‘But I see you take milk now,’ Claire teased, removing the tea cosy.

  ‘I’m in England, dear. And it’s winter. And you’d better nibble a biscuit whether you want to or not.’

  Claire brought the cup and saucer over. ‘Can you manage?’

  ‘Dying I may be, but I’m not a complete invalid. Not yet, anyway.’

  She frowned. ‘What ails you?’

  ‘Oh, old age, I’m sure. But they say my heart is giving out. I guess you know the feeling.’

  Claire hesitated. ‘Does it show?’

  Her elder nodded. ‘In every part of you, child. Your eyes see but they don’t seem to search hard enough; there’s no curiosity in them. Tell me you haven’t stopped looking.’

  Claire’s emotions stirred at the remark. She allowed her gaze to roam beyond the glass of the window into the garden. She looked past the gate, even over the hedgerow to the spire of the parish church nearby. And still her gaze searched: beyond to the peaceful patchwork of Hertfordshire’s countryside to where sheep grazed on thin pickings and fallow fields waited patiently through the winter. No snow today, a steady drizzle had begun and tiny rivulets of moisture striped the glass in the window and it seemed to mirror her tears.

  ‘Claire? Come and sit.’

  She dabbed at her eyes with a napkin and joined Eugenie with her tea. ‘Forgive me. Truly, that’s the first time I’ve dropped a tear in years. I’ve seen so much ugliness and despair that I feared I’ve become immune. At least it proves I still have a heart,’ she said in a dry tone, trying to lighten the mood. She sipped her tea that was deliciously strong.

  But Eugenie was clearly not having it. ‘I take it you haven’t heard from Mr Wren?’

  Claire shook her head, sipped again and swallowed her emotional outburst with her tea.

  ‘Fill me in on what happened since we last met.’

  Claire gave a potted version of her life, from hugging Eugenie goodbye at the hotel to this morning’s conversation with the stranger on the bus and finding herself outside the Langham Hotel.

  ‘So you have tried to find him through the official means?’

  ‘Yes. It’s a waiting game, I’m afraid. I’m one of the many women growing older and sadder, hoping for news. I looked for him on every stretcher, in every tented ward, even on the few days off in local towns in the hope I might glimpse him. I sent letters to AGH1 but there was no news.’

  ‘What about his family?’

  She shrugged. ‘Now that we are in peacetime I have to use the channels set up to find a soldier because I don’t know his people, and even if they are aware of my existence, I’m a perfect stranger. However, we all love him, all want him back safely. Anyway, I have written, but I’m likely many weeks away from hearing back. Mail is so slow. Besides, so many soldiers are yet to demob that his family may not yet have reliable information.’ She shrugged. ‘It could take a year or more to see him, even if he is alive.’

  ‘He could have been posted.’

  ‘And he could have died at Gallipoli, for all I know, or been that same soldier who died in Cairo.’ She shrugged. ‘Or died in Palestine, Egypt, Jordan. He could have been sent to France or Belgium, or —’ The warning look from Eugenie halted her.

  ‘There’s still the promise.’

  Claire gave a small, wry smile. ‘Nothing wrong with your memory.’

  ‘It’s all that remains sharp about me, my dear. You will keep the rendezvous, won’t you?’

  ‘Yes. That promise was precious.’

  ‘So, with that to aim for and with the war behind us, can you not find a reason to look forward?’

  ‘Well, I reached that decision this morning, actually, and part of it was to reconnect myself with others – hence my visit. I’ve been moving around in a bubble of my own pity for too long.’

  ‘And the other part?’ Eugenie asked, leaning forward.

  ‘Well, that part’s harder but I know what I need is a purpose: something that will keep me occupied and distracted until April, but something that is meaningful.’

  Eugenie gave a triumphant sound. ‘Good for you, my girl. That is indeed the spirit. May I point out that your body could use some fattening up,’ Eugenie nodded at the parkin cake, ‘and to find some curves again. Your mouth – smile more often; force it if you have to.’ Claire was reminded of Doreen’s mouth. ‘Your eyes . . . light them up, they’ve seen more
than their fair share of death and that winter of war is behind us now – look to spring peacetime. Your clothes . . . dress them up, and your hair . . . oh, my dear, for heaven’s sake, cut it!’ Claire giggled. Eugenie had always managed to amuse her. ‘So what is it to be, this fresh purpose – a new job?’

  She shook her head. ‘Not yet. I don’t feel like nursing again straightaway but you’re right, I know I need a purpose. So firstly I’m going to find a friend of mine from my time in the Medi­terranean. We were in Gallipoli together.’

  ‘Go on.’ Eugenie’s gaze sparkled over the rim of her tea.

  ‘Do you remember the Arabic prayer book?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘I’m hoping she has it.’

  ‘Why would she have it?’

  Claire gave an embarrassed wince. ‘I came hurtling to you that day after the nurses in Cairo told me Jamie had died from his injuries.’

  ‘And I was perfectly sure that we’d set that aside on the basis that there are many Jameses in the world and the bird surname could have been mixed up in the chaos.’

  Claire lifted a shoulder in resignation. ‘Except when I came back to the dock that day Rosie looked so downhearted I knew she had more bad news. She said the nurses recalled that it was definitely a light horseman called James, with the bird surname, who had died.’

  Eugenie made the connection. ‘And that’s what sent you off to the Western Front.’

  Claire nodded.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I was in such a state, in here,’ Claire admitted, touching above her heart. ‘I was so angry at the world that I just wanted to get what felt like the inevitable over with. I couldn’t wait for orders to come through so I could —’

  ‘Jump the queue?’ Eugenie offered with soft sympathy. They both knew they were talking about death.