Suffragette Girl

by Margaret Dickinson

  Despite his warning, hope leapt in her heart.

  ‘It might – and I repeat might – not even be tuberculosis.’

  ‘Might not—? But he’s so ill. That dreadful cough. He’s had it for months. And – and the doctor in England was so sure.’

  Ernst lifted his shoulders. ‘It is sometimes difficult to diagnose,’ he said diplomatically. ‘Particularly if you are not a specialist in the disease.’

  Now tears flowed down her face. He drew her into his arms and she buried her face against his chest. He’d never seen this brave, passionate, wonderful girl weep before, but now – with only a glimmer of hope – she could not stem the flood. He stroked her hair and sighed as he gazed out across the valley to the mountains beyond and wondered silently, for the first time, if he’d been right to follow the path he’d chosen. He had all that he thought he’d ever wanted. But at what cost? Just what had he sacrificed to get it? He would never know.

  As she became calmer, he drew her to her feet. He smoothed back the hair from her face and gently touched the faint scar she still bore. Then he kissed her gently on the mouth. His, too, was a farewell kiss. There was no turning back the years.

  ‘Like I say, Florence, I am hopeful – very hopeful – but I must be certain. And that may take days, possibly weeks. But, please, not a word to Jacques – or to anyone – until I am sure. You promise?’

  She nodded and whispered, ‘I promise.’

  Fifty-Four

  Time hung heavily for Florrie. She took a walk each morning, towards Dorf or in the opposite direction, walking by the river. Sometimes she climbed the hills and found a seat to rest on and look out over the valley. But she was lonely and anxious. There was still no word from Ernst about Jacques’s condition. Since that day on the Parsenn when he’d given her a tiny glimmer of hope, he’d said nothing and already it was the end of October and they’d been here over six weeks. She’d scarcely seen him since that day.

  She wrote home every week, trying to keep her letters cheerful and hopeful, but it was increasingly difficult. And answering Gervase’s concerned and caring letters was almost impossible. She knew her replies were stilted and formal. He’d even offered to come out to stay with her to keep her company, but she’d written back at once to refuse.

  The last person she wanted out here was Gervase.

  And yet she began to think of his kind, craggy face with longing. She badly needed a friend at this moment and he – more than anyone except perhaps Isobel – had always been her friend.

  On Sunday evenings she walked to St Luke’s, the English church, to attend the five o’clock service. She found comfort in the friendliness of the other English residents and visitors there. One evening in early November, as she returned for her evening meal, she was surprised to see Ernst waiting for her outside the pension.

  Her heart leapt in fear, but as she approached him she could see through the gloom of the winter’s evening that he was smiling. He held out his hands to her. ‘I have good news for you, my dear,’ he said at once.

  ‘Oh, come in – come inside. I’m sure Frau Schwarz won’t mind . . .’ She led him to the communal sitting room, removing her gloves and coat. They sat down as she looked at him expectantly.

  ‘We have monitored his temperature, his pulse and his weight carefully during the weeks he has been here. I have listened to his lungs almost every day. There is evidence of a severe lung infection—’

  Florrie gasped and her eyes widened. He’d said ‘good news’.

  ‘But I have also analysed his blood and made a microscopic analysis of his sputum and he’s had a series of X-rays. My dear Florence, there is no sign of tuberculosis.’

  ‘Oh, Ernst—’ She clasped her hands together, tears running down her face. ‘Thank you, thank you.’

  He held her for a few moments whilst she wept tears of joy and relief. She eased herself from his comforting arms and accepted the white handkerchief that he offered.

  ‘So, this lung infection? What is it?’

  ‘I think it is a congestion that he has not been able to shake off, and he is suffering from asthma because of it. But don’t blame your doctors in England, I beg you. Mis-diagnosis of consumption is quite common. They may not have the benefit of all the equipment and knowledge that we have here. I – and my father before me – have made a lifelong study of the disease,’ he added, as if it explained everything.

  Florrie stared at him and it all seemed to fall into place. The path he’d chosen – to devote his whole life to the medical profession and the study of tuberculosis, its causes, its treatment and cure – had all been for an altruistic purpose. He’d been prepared to sacrifice anything else that might have diverted him from that course.

  Even love.

  She’d seen the people to whom he brought hope and often a cure, and now she knew how that felt. Where others had failed, because of all his learning, his dedication and his knowledge he’d been able to tell her that her beloved Jacques did not have the frightful illness. For that, she could forgive him anything, and everything.

  Now, it was she who took hold of his hands – those clever, devoted hands – and pressed them to her lips. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered again. ‘And thank you for being so – forgiving. You could have turned us away.’

  Ernst shook his head. ‘I would never do that – whoever he had been.’ He sighed. ‘And I must ask your forgiveness too. I treated you badly. I don’t blame you for – for taking revenge.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have done. I could have done you great harm, if the belief that you’d fathered my child had become common knowledge amongst the medical team out there. It – it didn’t, did it?’

  He was silent for a moment, glancing away in what seemed to be embarrassment. ‘No.’ His voice was hoarse. ‘Oh, Florence, it is I who should be on my knees begging your forgiveness.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘After you left, Sister Blackstock spread the rumour that your baby was that of a dead soldier. Without actually saying so, she squashed any idea that the child could be mine. And I – coward that I was,’ his voice trembled with shame, ‘did nothing to stop her.’

  ‘Good,’ Florrie said promptly, and Ernst stared at her until she explained. She squeezed his hands again and said softly, ‘It’s what I asked her to do.’ Her mouth twitched with amusement as she remembered Rosemary’s shocked face. ‘I promised you I would say the child wasn’t yours – and I did. All Sister Blackstock did,’ she ended simply, ‘was to repeat what I’d told her, just as I hoped and expected she would.’

  ‘But your reputation?’ This was something Ernst would never grasp.

  Florrie laughed and shrugged. ‘I never cared about my reputation. That’s why—’ She paused as realization came slowly. ‘That’s why I couldn’t understand you.’ She sighed. ‘But now I do. You had – still have – a cause you believed in and I, of all people, should have understood.’

  They sat a while longer together, remembering the passion and reliving the pain. But now there was mutual forgiveness and understanding. At last, Ernst broke the silence. ‘I would like Jacques to stay another few weeks to build up his strength before,’ he smiled, ‘you have to take him back to face your English winter. But you will be home in time for Christmas with your family. And you will have so much to celebrate at the New Year.’

  New Year, Florrie thought. Oh yes, this New Year there would indeed be cause for rejoicing.

  ‘And now,’ he added, ‘will you let me take you tobogganing tomorrow night?’

  ‘I – I’d love to. But why at night?’

  ‘It’s more – breathtaking – at night. You will see. And now I must go. Come tomorrow afternoon to see Jacques. Have dinner with me and then we will go tobogganing.’

  As he took his leave at the front door, she asked, ‘Have you told Jacques the good news?’

  ‘Oh yes. I told him at once. He’s a young man now and had a right to be told first. Goodnight, my dear.’ He raised his ha
t and she watched him walk away into the darkness.

  When Florrie arrived at the sanatorium the next afternoon, she couldn’t hide her joy. She saw Jacques at the far end of the veranda, still sitting a little apart from the others. She rushed towards him and flung her arms around him, laughing and crying at the same time.

  ‘Shh, Mother,’ he said, trying to push her off, but he was grinning as he said it, like her, delirious with relief. ‘It’s not fair on the others.’

  But Philip, sitting close by, asked, ‘What’s to do, lad?’

  Florrie turned, her mouth already forming the words, but they remained unspoken. As her glance took in the line of sick patients, some of them so weak and ill she doubted they could ever really hope for a full recovery, she bit back the words.

  ‘Well, I can see summat’s up. Come on, lass, out wi’ it.’

  Softly, so that only he could hear, she said, ‘He’s all right. He’s not got consumption. It – it was a misdiagnosis back home.’

  Philip stared at her and then his face broke into a wide grin. He raised his voice, ‘Hear that, folks?’

  ‘Oh no,’ Florrie began, but Philip was determined to spread the good news.

  ‘The lad’s all right. He’s—’ He hesitated a brief moment and then, with a huge wink at Florrie and Jacques, he added, ‘He’s cured.’

  There was silence and then clapping and cheering broke out. The sound carried and some of the patients on their balconies leaned over and shouted down to know what all the noise was about.

  Philip stood up, his blanket dropping to the floor unheeded. ‘He’s cured. He’s going to be all right. He’s going home.’

  The cheering filled the air, carrying up and up from balcony to balcony, even, it seemed, echoing across the valley and into the mountains.

  Philip turned and said quietly, ‘See? It gives them hope. Forgive the little white lie, eh?’

  Florrie nodded, a lump in her throat. ‘Of course.’

  As a junior nurse brought out the tray with their afternoon drink, Philip snatched up a glass. ‘Here’s a toast to you, lad, in milk! Good health and a long life!’

  Later, when Ernst came to collect her from the veranda, he asked, ‘What was all the noise about?’

  ‘They were celebrating Jacques’s – cure.’

  ‘Cure? But—’

  She held up her hand. ‘It was Mr Henderson who – well, shall we say – rephrased it a little. We don’t mind. It gave them all such hope and,’ she added mischievously, ‘did your reputation no harm at all.’

  He had the grace to laugh a little sheepishly as he led her into the building. Although, as they passed Emmi Bergamin, the sister raised her eyebrows, Ernst took Florrie’s elbow and led her through the X-ray room and beyond it to a small room set out as a comfortable sitting room. Behind a curtain in one corner was a single bed.

  ‘I often have to stay the night when we have a very sick patient. When the funicular no longer runs, it is a long way down the mountain after a hard day. Please, sit down. I will ring for some dinner to be served.’

  They dined together in the little room and later they stepped out of the front door and walked towards where the toboggan run began. They sat on a sledge, Ernst in front and Florrie behind him, her arms around his waist, her body pressed close to his back. And then they were speeding down the deep, icy channel, emerging suddenly from beneath the trees. The sharp night air snatched her breath away as the sledge rocketed down the run. She gasped at the sight below them: a thousand twinkling lights from the windows of Davos, and then they were beneath the trees once more. She screamed once, though whether with terror or sheer joy, even Florrie herself didn’t know.

  Breathless, yet exhilarated, they slowed down and stopped. Ernst stood up and held out his hand to her.

  ‘That was wonderful,’ she said, slipping her arm through his as he escorted her back towards her lodgings.

  They paused outside the front door of the pension and, in the shadows, Ernst took her face between his hands and kissed her gently on the mouth. ‘This is goodbye, Florence. Jacques will be well enough to travel in a week or so.’

  She knew she would not see Ernst again. Tenderly, she returned his kiss. ‘Goodbye, Ernst.’

  One last kiss and he turned away from her and was swallowed up in the darkness.

  This time Florrie did not watch him go. Instead, she opened the door, stepped inside and closed it firmly behind her.

  Fifty-Five

  They were sitting once more on the train from Davos to Landquart, but how very different this journey felt to their arrival. The dark cloud that had hung over them both for several months was lifted. Jacques looked so much better. With all the food he’d eaten, he’d put on weight. His skin was healthy and his cough almost cured.

  And best of all, he’d been cleared of the dreaded disease.

  Florrie had sent a telegram to Candlethorpe Hall, and to Gervase and Isobel too, telling them all the good news.

  Not TB. Coming home.

  And she’d followed it up with a long letter to her grandmother. There was no need to hurry back – they’d still be home in time for Christmas, but first there was something she had to do.

  ‘Jacques, are you feeling quite well?’

  The boy grinned at her. What a miraculous change in him since he’d sat huddled in the corner of the compartment, feeling ill and frightened.

  She’d so much to thank the Schatzalp sanatorium for – and Ernst Hartmann. And she was glad that, at last, they’d parted friends. She doubted she’d ever see him again. Strangely, the thought no longer troubled her.

  She was finally over him. Her love for him had been real once, but, unforgiving of his deceit, she’d exacted a revenge that had been unfair.

  ‘I’ve never felt better, Mother,’ Jacques was saying.

  ‘Then there’s something I’d like to do before we go back to England. If you’re sure you feel up to it, I’d like us to make a little detour into Belgium.’

  Jacques’s eyes clouded. ‘That’s – that’s where Uncle James was – was killed, wasn’t it? D’you want to visit his grave? Is that it?’

  Florrie nodded and touched his hand. ‘We’re going to Ypres.’

  ‘That’s where a lot of the fighting was. Is that where he was killed?’

  ‘Yes, but – oh, Jacques, there are things I have to tell you. So much you don’t know.’

  ‘What – things?’

  ‘Not here, Jacques. Not where we can be overheard.’

  ‘But there’s no one else in the compartment, Mother.’

  ‘Please, Jacques, not now. We’ll find a nice little hotel and then tonight, I – I promise I’ll tell you everything.’

  It was the second most difficult thing she’d ever had to do. The first had been to stand and see her brother shot for desertion. Haltingly, she began to explain. ‘Jacques, you’re probably going to be very angry with me for not having told you all this before, but there’ve been reasons. Good reasons. But I should have told you.’ She took a deep breath. ‘You know your grandfather is a hard man. For years he’s ignored your presence in the house. It’s really only because of your great-gran that we’re both still there.’

  ‘Because I’m illegitimate, you mean? I’d guessed that, Mother. Or rather, some of the chaps at school taunted me about it. Calling me “the little bastard”. Saying my sort shouldn’t be allowed in a school like ours.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘Charlie was great. He always stood up for me. Told them my father had been killed in the war. He got into a fight about it once and got a bloody nose.’

  Florrie gasped. ‘I remember that. Isobel was beside herself because he stubbornly refused to say who he’d been fighting with and what it’d been about.’

  ‘It was about me.’

  ‘Well, Charlie was right about one thing. Your – your father was killed in the war. You see, your father was James.’

  He stared at her horrified. ‘Your – your brother?’

  She nodded.


  There was a look of utter disgust on his face and he shrank away from her. ‘You mean, you mean – you and he . . .’

  Florrie’s mouth dropped open, her eyes widened and she flushed furiously. ‘Oh no, no, Jacques. Not that. I’m not your mother – not your natural mother.’ She ran her hand across her forehead. ‘Oh dear, I am explaining this so badly. Listen, please just listen to me.’

  She told him it all, just as she’d explained it to Emmi Bergamin, who, in turn, had told Ernst.

  ‘Shot? For trying to get back to – to my mother? Didn’t he tell them?’

  Florrie lifted her shoulders helplessly. ‘No – and he wouldn’t let me. He didn’t want to bring further trouble on Colette Musset. Her family had already disowned her. That was why he was trying to get to her. They were going to be married – your mother told me.’

  ‘So – so how do I come to be with you?’

  She was relieved to hear there was no anger in his tone, no blame; he just wanted to understand everything. When she’d finished he sat for a while, gazing out of the window, yet seeing none of the wonderful scenery. His young mind was trying to take in everything she’d said. Florrie, though she longed for him to say something – anything – made herself sit quietly.

  ‘So, you could have left me. Put me in an orphanage. You didn’t have to ruin your own reputation for me.’

  ‘Yes, I did. There was no other way. If I’d taken you home – back to England and told everyone the truth, that you were James’s son – then there’s no knowing what my father would have done. He’d disowned James and had forbidden his name to be mentioned in the house. Though he was incredibly angry with me and didn’t speak to me – or you – for years, at least he couldn’t turn us out. Not while Grandmother is still alive, anyway.’

  Jacques smiled at the thought of Augusta.

  ‘I haven’t always been the mother I should have been,’ Florrie went on. ‘The mother I vowed I would be.’ She rarely shed tears, but they glimmered in her eyes now.

  Jacques glanced at her and shrugged. ‘Weren’t you? You were away a lot, I suppose, but I always had Grannie and Great-Gran. When you came home it was such fun, because you spoilt me rotten.’