Secrets of Nanreath Hall

by Alix Rickloff

  “You’re overwrought, and this is neither the time nor the place. We’ll return home where we can discuss this in private. I’ll not be made a public show for the titillation of every passing stranger.”

  Here was my chance to be the confident woman of my imagination. “No, you’ll listen to me now. My whole life, you’ve shut your eyes and ears to everything I try to tell you of how I’m feeling or how I want to proceed with my life. You want me to be good and be quiet, but I can’t. Not anymore.”

  Mother stared in the same way she might have stared if the sofa had started complaining about being sat upon. “We’ve offered you everything a daughter could want. Is this how you repay us? With insolence and cheek?”

  “You’ve offered me the world, but then you snatch it away and tell me I’m not allowed to step foot into it. I can’t accept that.”

  Mother’s face clouded over, her features alive with barely tamped fury. “You’re naught but a spoiled child and not too old to be switched and put to bed without supper.”

  My heart threatened to pound from my chest, and my throat closed around the words so that I struggled to say them, but say them I did. “I won’t be returning home. Not now. Not ever. I’m leaving.”

  “You haven’t the courage,” Mother dared me.

  That was the final straw. I turned on my heel, still high on the drama of the moment, and set off down the gravel path.

  “You want to be independent?” Mother called after me. “To step foot into the world? We’ll see how long you last. I’ll wager you’re back by the time dinner is served.”

  Her words fell like a gauntlet at my feet. I lifted my chin, squared my shoulders, and continued walking.

  Too bad I had no idea where I was going to go.

  Chapter 7

  December 1940

  November rains were gentle, a drizzle that silvered the air and greened the park until it glowed like an emerald carpet. December rains turned the park into a sodden mess of drowned shrubbery and hip-deep mud. After a day, the tennis court flooded. After three days, part of the nurses’ showers collapsed. After an entire week, a tree fell across the main drive, causing no end of headaches for vehicles. From her window at the top of the house, Anna looked out on the white-capped froth of ocean beyond the rows of razor wire and the ominous ugly hump of pillboxes. The surf’s dull roar echoed like constant radio static. The damp seeped cold and clammy against her skin.

  Despite the best attempts at insulation, drafts infiltrated every crack and wind whistled down every chimney. The patient wards were kept warm, but the staff was left to shift for themselves as best they could on the upper floors. Anna’s attic billet had a wheezing, clanking radiator that either gave off sauna heat or none at all. She never knew whether she would be pulling on the extra layers or shedding garments like a soldier’s pinup.

  In the months she’d been at Nanreath Hall, she’d seen little of Hugh beyond a nod when they met in a corridor or a few moments of small talk when to ignore him would be outright rude. Hugh’s mother, Lady Boxley, made only one appearance to the hospital while Anna was on duty. As if on regal procession, she swanned through the wards accompanied by Captain Matthews and Matron, dispensing pained smiles and stilted conversation, though her permanent expression of displeasure contradicted her otherwise encouraging words.

  Anna could have sworn Her Ladyship’s hard gaze sought her out where she stood half-hidden behind a trolley of magazines and newspapers. But when Matron brought her forward to be introduced as their newest VAD, there was not even a flicker of recognition nor the barest twitch of an eyebrow.

  So much for the idea of approaching Lady Boxley for information about her mother. It was clear she wanted nothing to do with the consequences of the family’s scandal.

  Downstairs, Anna’s life had fallen into a routine that allowed the sharp edges of her grief to smooth until she could remember Graham and Prue without feeling as if she’d taken a bullet to the chest. Up at six to wash and dress and eat in a hasty clatter before reporting to the wards by seven. Once on duty, there were endless rooms to scrub, equipment and instruments to sterilize, bandages to cut and prepare, laundry to wash, fold, and put away, and meals to arrange and serve. But it was the time she spent attending to the patients that filled the empty places inside her.

  Anna listened to their jokes as she handed out squill oxymel or the ubiquitous M. & B. 693 tablets, learned of sweethearts and family back home as she took daily temperatures, removed stitches, or checked bedpans, and heard more than one heart-thumping tale of life at the front during afternoon tea or one of the countless cutthroat games of cricket the men engaged in on the small patch of lawn cut and rolled smooth for the purpose.

  “Nurse Trenowyth’s got pluck. She served in France before it fell,” one of the orderlies volunteered with pride as a lanky sergeant with a wrenched ankle recounted a dogfight over the Kentish countryside. She’d been handing round cups from a loaded trolley, the setting winter sun casting a stark light over the room. But as all eyes swiveled in her direction, she felt her breath catch in a throat clogged with unexpected fear.

  The men noticed none of this. They peppered her with questions, showing their new respectful interest.

  “Were you at Le Havre?”

  “My brother made it out on a minesweeper the last day.”

  “What were the beaches like?”

  “Were you afraid?”

  Caught off guard, she could think of nothing to say as her heart raced, and sweat washed cold over her back despite the warmth in the room. She stumbled, the cups and saucers on the trolley rattling dangerously. A glass wobbled and fell.

  A hand caught it before it hit the ground. “Easy or young Newsome will be wearing his tea.”

  She looked up to find Flight Lieutenant Lambert, concern etched upon his strong, handsome face.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “One of my fliers is recovering from rheumatic fever.” He continued to regard her with unspoken curiosity as he placed the glass back upon her tray. “Glad I was nearby to avert a disaster.”

  “It was an empty glass, not a hand grenade.”

  “You wouldn’t know it by the way you looked as it fell.”

  She shook off her memories and turned to the young soldier with a forced smile. “Did you ask me if I was afraid? My greatest fear was fending off a shipload of homesick soldiers with only a tongue depressor.”

  The young man laughed, and the moment passed on smoothly. She completed her round of the salon with no further trouble. Only in the corridor, away from the eyes of the men, did she slump against the wall, hands fast under her ribs to slow her frantic heartbeat.

  “Miss Trenowyth? Are you all right?”

  Tony Lambert again. Couldn’t he see she wanted to be left alone?

  “I’m fine. Why do you ask?” She straightened, adjusting her apron, touching her veil as if assuring its crispness.

  “Because you’re pale as chalk and look as if you’ve seen a ghost. Did the men upset you with all that war talk?”

  “Do you really think I can’t take hearing about the war without falling to pieces? I wouldn’t be much of a nurse if that were the case.”

  “But sometimes the talk stirs memories we’d rather keep buried.”

  “I have nothing to bury.”

  “No? I served at an airfield in Poix. The stories I could tell about the evacuations would turn your hair white.”

  “I don’t need to hear your stories. I have my own.” She cleared her throat. “If you’ll excuse me, I have patients to see to.”

  As she crossed the hall to return to the main ward, she felt his gaze tickling her spine like a blade. “Remember what we talked about? Don’t let another chance pass you by, Anna Trenowyth,” he called after her. “In these times, there’s no guarantee it will come your way again.”

  “You’re awfully brash.”

  “No, just very mortal.”

  It took a closed door and a gruff o
rder from Sister Murphy before she let out the breath she’d been holding.

  But it took until the very end of her shift before she stopped hearing his words over and over in her head.

  Saturday night. A rare evening off. Anna sat cross-legged on her bunk with emery board and polish at the ready. Not all the hand cream in the world could put right the damage done by constant scrubbing in hot water, but at least her nails would be tidy.

  She’d just finished writing to Mrs. Willits, who’d been true to her word and kept in touch. Anna welcomed the weekly letters from Cardiff, filled with the trials and tribulations of ration coupons and overzealous AR wardens. She usually answered with colorful tales of hospital life and her fruitless attempts at befriending her aunt and cousin, though Tony Lambert’s name seemed to crop up in this latest letter more than she’d intended.

  Anna chose to ignore what that might mean. She wasn’t cut out for a reckless fling, and anything more serious was unthinkable while the war news continued to be so bad.

  “There you are, Anna. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” Tilly burst into their room, bringing with her a frigid blast of air from the corridor.

  “What do you want to borrow tonight?” Anna asked, unable to hide her smile.

  “I resent that.” Tilly jammed her hands on her hips and puffed out her bottom lip. “How do you know I’m here to borrow something?”

  Anna cast her a long, skeptical look.

  “Oh, very well,” Tilly answered hastily. “It’s that dreamy blue jumper, the one with the pearl buttons. You don’t suppose . . . I mean, you’re not going out tonight, are you?”

  “A date with a bottle of Young Red or At Ease pink?” Anna said, waving two bottles of nail polish for Tilly’s opinion.

  “The red definitely. I hear it’s Captain Matthews’s favorite color.”

  “And why would I care what the MO’s favorite color is?”

  “Only because he’s completely smitten with you.”

  Captain Matthews was the comfortably middle-aged medical officer in residence at the hospital. At least two of the nurses and three VADs were madly in love with him, despite regulations putting him firmly out of bounds.

  Anna was not one of them.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said firmly. “He’s merely being polite.”

  “He’s polite to the rest of us. He gushes over you. If I have to hear one more time how Trenowyth knows just the right way to give an enema, I shall scream.” Tilly changed out of her ward dress and into a pretty floral skirt and white blouse.

  “He doesn’t do that.”

  “He does. That’s the act of a smitten man, and I should know.”

  “Who’s so smitten with you that you need to borrow my new jumper?” Anna asked, in a desperate attempt at changing the subject.

  Tilly swung round from her mad primping, wearing a cat-with-the-canary expression, her blue eyes dancing with excitement. “Lord Melcombe asked if I’d go into Newquay with him for a pint and maybe some dancing.”

  “Are you certain that’s a good idea?”

  “And why wouldn’t it be?”

  “Only that it would be awkward if things didn’t work out. You could hardly avoid him, could you?”

  “Is that why you haven’t accepted Captain Matthews?” Tilly smirked as she brushed her golden hair until it crackled.

  Anna rolled her eyes. Tilly really was incorrigible. “You have to see that Hugh’s different from Captain Matthews. I mean, he owns the hospital . . . this house. He’s not like us.”

  “He’s exactly like you. You’re cousins, aren’t you?”

  “You make it sound more than it is.”

  “Last time I checked, he pulls his trousers on like every other man, one leg at a time. That’s good enough for me.”

  “It’s how he takes his trousers off that worries me.”

  Tilly turned back to the mirror, reapplying her lipstick, tucking an errant curl in place. “You leave his trousers to me.”

  “That’s a picture I didn’t need to conjure.”

  “Really, Anna. It’s one evening out. It’s not as if I’m planning a walk up the aisle at Westminster Abbey or anything.”

  “The jumper’s in my locker.”

  “You’re the absolute, Anna love,” Tilly said, rummaging through until she found it. “Thanks heaps.”

  She departed with an airy wave of her handbag and a waggle in her hips, leaving Anna alone . . . for almost a complete five silent minutes before Sophie wandered in to collapse in a chair with an exhausted sigh. “Every muscle in my body aches. I’ve just finished cleaning, organizing, and double-checking labels in the drug dispensary. Even the thought of primping for a gin and a jitterbug is enough to send me into a swoon. I think I’ll take a shower and then curl up in bed to write Charles a lovely long letter full of hearts and flowers.” She heaved herself out of her chair long enough to pour two tiny glasses of hoarded sherry, handing Anna one of them. “I had a letter from him yesterday. He says it’s spiffing Hugh has a cousin. Apparently, his only other family is an aunt living in Singapore with rich husband number three and her wild daughter. Compared to them, you’re practically a nun.”

  “Thanks . . . I think.”

  “Oh, you know what I mean. You’re sensible, clever, kind, frugal . . .”

  “In other words, dull.”

  “I was going to say perfect.”

  Anna studied the sherry shimmering in the glass. Downed it in one gulp. “Right. Perfect.”

  Christmas threatened to be a sorry affair. Between fear over the new offensive in North Africa and the heart-wrenching reports of the terrible bombing raids on Manchester and Liverpool, there seemed little to be festive about. In a valiant attempt at merrymaking, the nurses strung tinsel and colored paper streamers throughout the wards. One of the orderlies came up with the brilliant idea to tack army-issued socks up on one of the carved mantels in hopes of a visit from Father Christmas. And hymns and carols replaced the wild strains of Glenn Miller and Count Basie on the music room’s piano. Even Sister Murphy was caught humming a few bars of “Good King Wenceslas” under her breath.

  Anna spent the afternoon of Christmas Eve walking into the village. She quickly found a box of pretty stationery for Sophie while a lovely green scarf caught her eye that would be perfect for Tilly. Both were wrapped and hidden at the bottom of her locker until the morning. She pondered the idea of purchasing Hugh a gift, even going so far as to stroll the tobacconist’s for a box of cigars or a new cigarette lighter, but turned coward at the last, and departed empty-handed. She would not push where she so obviously was not wanted, but it was hard not to look back to past Christmases in the little house on Queen’s Crescent; the small spruce in the front room heavy with paper snowflakes, pinecones, and pretty dried leaves gathered on walks, and Graham, Prue, and Anna sitting round the table in their paper crowns while Lessons and Carols played on the radio, and not wish with a heavy heart for a return of those carefree days.

  “‘Libby has knitted you this scarf,’” she read aloud to a young man seated in a wheelchair beside her. “‘Your sister spent all the fall working on it so you are to be sure and tell her how much you like it the next time you see her . . .’”

  “As if that will happen anytime soon.” He stared blankly into the distance, a lumpy blue and brown scarf wrapped round his neck over his pajamas and robe. His hands clutched at the arms of his chair, his hair brushed low across his brow to hide the scars upon his forehead from an accidental paraffin explosion.

  “I’m sorry. That was an ill use of words, but you may yet regain your sight. The MO was quite optimistic.”

  “And if I don’t?” he asked, his mouth twisted into a bitter, ugly sneer. “What do I tell my sister then? Do I lie and tell her it’s beautiful even though I can’t see it?”

  “You thank her for the kind gift and tell her you hope to be home with her soon.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  “No, but I w
ish it were, Lieutenant. I wish I had someone who cared for me so much that they spent hours knitting me a scarf. You’re far luckier than you can possibly imagine.”

  “Nurse Trenowyth?” An orderly stood at her shoulder. “A letter’s come for you.”

  For a moment hope leaped in Anna’s chest. There had been a horrible mistake. Graham and Prue had been in hospital this whole time, unconscious and unable to write. Or better, they’d been away on a trip to come home and find the house wiped out and no word of her. It had taken them this long to locate her through the proper channels. A fool’s hope destroyed as soon as she took the envelope.

  She recognized the handwriting as her own. A great red stamp across the face of it read RETURN TO SENDER. UNDELIVERABLE ADDRESS.

  Cardiff had been one of the cities heavily hit by German bombing. Mrs. Willits had been concerned that by leaving London she was running away from the war. In the end, there had been no safe place to run. The war had found her anyway.

  A weight seemed to anchor Anna to her chair, a pain like an old wound reopening with the agony of a scalpel blade. “Thank you, Price. I . . . uh . . . I appreciate you bringing it to me.”

  “Nurse?” the young soldier asked gently. “Are you all right?”

  “Of course, Lieutenant. Why do you ask?”

  “My sight’s gone, miss. My hearing’s sharp as ever.”

  Her chest and stomach ached, but she dragged in a shaky breath. She mustn’t lose heart. She must stay brave for the men who needed her to be their strength and their hope when theirs was gone.

  “Ho! Ho! Ho!” Hugh bellowed as he and one of the hospital fire crew hefted the top of an enormous Scotch pine through the doorway. His cheeks were pink with cold, and he wore a set of old jingling sleigh bells round his shoulders. “What’s Christmas without a tree?”

  Immediately, the room came alive with laughter and conversation. Someone struck up a chorus of “O Christmas Tree.” Tilly appeared draped in long red and green paper chains. “They’re not pearls but I think they suit me better, don’t you?”

  Stuffing the letter into her apron, Anna rose to take the top box from an overloaded orderly. “The boys worked wonders. They’ll look lovely.”