Secrets of Nanreath Hall

by Alix Rickloff

  After breakfast I dressed in my smartest plaid walking dress and a Dolly Varden hat trimmed with burgundy ribbon, said a frosty good-morning to the old disapproving German couple who ran the bakery next door, and turned my steps to the tram stop on the corner. Halfway down the street, a newsboy shoved a paper in my face.

  MURDER OF AUSTRIAN HEIR AND HIS WIFE.

  I paid my halfpenny and shoved the paper in my handbag to read later.

  The tram took me as far as Victoria, where I met a very flustered Jane. “There you are. I’ve been waiting forever. It’s no use trying to get a bus. A coal wagon’s overturned and traffic is snarled in every direction. We’ll have to walk.”

  “If we cut through St. James’s Park, we should arrive in plenty of time.”

  We made our way north, hurrying as best we could through the growing morning crowds. “By the way, I bumped into Doris last week,” she dropped casually into our conversation as we passed Wellington Barracks.

  “Did you?” Our estrangement remained a sore point.

  Jane threw me an encouraging look. “She’ll come around sooner or later, Kitty. Just give her time to stew a bit.”

  I smiled brightly and let the conversation drop, refusing to have my break with Doris mar what was otherwise a perfectly glorious June day of warm sun, soft breezes, and the anticipation of four bob in my purse by evening.

  “Has Simon gone to see his family?” Jane asked.

  “Yes, he says as long as he continues to draw an allowance, he has to check in at least once every three months just so they know he’s still alive. I was hoping to go with him, but I couldn’t take the time from work, and they’re a bit . . .”

  “Disapproving?”

  “They wanted him to follow in the family profession, marry the right girl, have fat, dimpled babies, and be a proper Lincolnshire gentleman.”

  “You’d think catching an earl’s daughter counted for something in their eyes.”

  “Perhaps if we were married.”

  “So why don’t you?”

  A question I’d asked myself more than once, but whenever I broached the subject with Simon he refused to talk about it or turned it into a lecture on outdated societal customs. “He has his work, I have my schooling. We will someday, but right now it’s enough that we’re together.”

  “You’re a brave woman, Kitty. It’s not many who’d throw convention to the wind and hold their head high while they’re doing it.”

  As long as Simon held firm, there wasn’t anything else I could do, but Jane didn’t have to know that.

  She checked the watch pinned to her lapel and our steps increased apace. If we were to make our appointment, we needed to hurry. We followed the gravel paths through the well-tended park, over the footbridge, and on toward Charing Cross. Here Simon and I had paused to throw bread to the ducks, there we’d sat on the grass and read each other passages from Dickens and Trollope. One fine afternoon we’d even explored the aviary on Duck Island and admired the pelicans there. Small, mundane moments, but they made up a new life; one I could never have imagined even a few short months ago. I felt a different person; alive and energized. I told myself that marriage and children would come in time. Right now I would revel in the freedom to be and do exactly what I wanted.

  Since coming back to London, I studied my surroundings with a new eye, observant to every detail, keen to note every subtle nuance, more aware than ever of the emotions hidden behind a bland expression. It had been an advantage in the studio—and the bedroom.

  Everywhere there were stories to tell if one looked hard enough: the tired lines biting deep into the face of the man trimming the shrubbery along the path where I walked; the jaunty whistle of the chap in the boater just ahead of me, face lifted to the sun, hands shoved into his pockets; the young couple standing under the trees up ahead. He wore a uniform. She, a dress of pale yellow to set off her ash-blond hair. There was no doubting their affection for each other or the pain of their imminent separation; the way they stood close but not touching, as if to do so might cause physical pain, the haunting sorrow in the woman’s eyes while the man murmured softly and reassuringly into her ear.

  I came closer, and my heart and feet stumbled at the same horrible moment. I pulled myself together, slowing to stare stupidly as if I were hallucinating. Caught back in my nightmare of last night, the storm dragging me from shore, the lights of Nanreath Hall fading behind a veil of rain.

  The woman who wore her grief like a mantle was Cynthia, but that was not William wiping her tears nor kissing her cheek. I had never seen this gentleman in my life, though it was clear he and Cynthia were on intimate terms.

  I prayed Cynthia didn’t look over, prayed our months apart had altered my appearance enough to create doubt in her mind. I dropped my head, as if searching through my bag for some misplaced item. And then . . .

  “Oh no, Kitty,” Jane shouted. “Your paper . . . it’s getting away.”

  Jane chased the lost pages across the grass as both Cynthia and her officer looked over. Chuckling, he bent to speak to her, his golden-blond hair gleaming in the morning sun. But Cynthia’s face was drained of color. Her lips a flat, disbelieving line, her eyes two burning coals focused on me as I stood flustered and apologetic as Jane handed me back my crumpled paper.

  “Now we really will be late for our sitting. Come on, Kitty,” she said, sounding a bit too much like my old nursemaid for comfort. “There’s a bus stop at the edge of the park. I think I’ve enough fare for both of us if we sit on top.”

  So much for reading the news. Clutching the wreckage of my paper, I raced to keep up, still feeling the scalding heat of Cynthia’s unblinking stare between my shoulder blades, my morning’s confidence shattered.

  Chapter 13

  January 1941

  Anna returned to Nanreath Hall amid a rush of new patients. Ambulances lined the gravel sweep, and stretchers lay in untidy rows outside the house’s main doors. The sisters moved briskly among the patients, their scarlet-edged capes thrown back as they checked identity disks against the stacks of forms they carried. Tilly knelt beside a stretcher, holding a cup of water for a young man with his arm in a sling. Two more VADs were directing the stretcher bearers as they continued to unload while Sister Murphy was haranguing an ambulance driver who’d had the misfortune to wedge himself into one of the many bottomless potholes dotting the sweep.

  Matron stood at the top of the steps. “Get these men inside as soon as possible. It’s too bloody cold out here. We don’t want them catching pneumonia on top of everything else.”

  Tilly and an orderly took hold of each end of the first litter and clumsily carried it up the steps and inside. But even with all the orderlies, bearers, and VAD working together, it would take hours to shift them all. Anna abandoned her luggage to join those hastening to move the patients out of the damp cold and the icy rain that was beginning to fall.

  “Hiya, nurse. You’re a blessed sight.”

  “I reckon I’ve died and gone to heaven. Nothing but old dragons at that last hospital.”

  “An angel, you are, love. An angel from above.”

  Each soldier offered a grin or a wink, their tired gray faces lifting in apologetic gratitude.

  “Hate you to go to so much trouble.”

  “Wish I could get out and walk, Nurse. Save you the bother.”

  “You shouldn’t be trundling an old porker like me about, miss.”

  Anna joked and smiled in return as trip after trip was made until her arms and legs ached from hefting the unwieldy stretchers and her right shoulder burned and tingled under the unceasing strain.

  Inside, Matron worked the receiving end of the operation, directing the stream of traffic to the correct ward where Captain Matthews moved one by one down the beds assisted by Sister Murphy, who by now had managed to bring the earlier ambulance driver, two stretcher bearers, and another VAD to tears.

  As Anna settled a gunner from Perthshire with a bad case of mumps into bed
, the sister caught sight of her. By now Anna’s overcoat and three-button tunic had been shed, her blouse sleeves rolled back, and her storm cap sadly askew.

  “Trenowyth!” Sister Murphy barked. “Quit flirting with that boy.”

  Since the boy in question looked to be at least forty with a face as lumpy as risen bread dough, Anna ignored the order though she did give him a sly wink as she tucked him in.

  “Don’t stand there mooning, Your Highness.” Sister Murphy checked a thermometer, wrote the results on her clipboard, moved to the next victim . . . er . . . patient. “If you’re to be of use to anybody, get yourself into proper ward attire and meet me back here in ten minutes. We’ll need all hands on deck if we’re to get through this bunch before midnight.”

  As if Sister Murphy’s barked command were the signal, the hospital staff’s eyes seemed to swivel on stalks until it felt as if every person in the place was staring at her. Most offered a businesslike nod of greeting or a hasty smile. Captain Matthews glanced her way with an oh-so-nonchalant straightening of his uniform that had Tilly, who’d staggered in with yet another case of mumps (must be an epidemic), clamping her lips over a giggle before mouthing “Welcome back” from across the room.

  Anna smiled her thanks as she rushed from the ward. The sweep was now empty, the patients having all been moved into the main hall, but even here the initial chaos seemed to have slowed to a manageable crush. She picked her way between stretchers on her way to the main staircase, dispensing words of encouragement and smiles as she passed.

  “Nurse Trenowyth.” A voice called to her just as she’d reached the landing. She turned to find Matron staring up at her, a hand on the baluster. Despite the effort of the past hours, she remained crisply put together and her voice maintained the same strict edge. Her nod was as sharp as her creases, but the expression in her face warmed Anna as if she’d been wrapped in a hug. “Glad to see you back.”

  “It’s good to be back,” Anna replied and realized she meant it.

  “We need you on the wards, but if you take an extra five minutes to change, I’ll be sure to smooth it with Sister Murphy.” She gave her a significant yet unreadable look.

  “Uh, thank you, Matron.”

  “Go on, then. Get yourself settled then come find me. I’ll need someone experienced in stores or we’ll be in a sad muddle by tonight.”

  Slightly confused but grateful nonetheless, Anna raced to the top of the landing and down the passage. Gray light filtered from a few office windows into the corridor, shadows speckled with falling snow. She passed the staff dining room and rounded the corner at a dead run right into the arms of Hugh.

  “Bloody hell.” He staggered, his hands gripping her elbows, his leg nearly buckling. “Anna?”

  She wrenched away from him, losing her cap and half a dozen more hairpins in the process. “Can’t talk.”

  He grabbed her arm before she could escape. “Wait. I thought you were gone.” He frowned. “You were gone. I distinctly remember that bit. The rest is a tad fuzzy. Actually, there’s about a week I can’t seem to recall, but . . . your departure is quite clear.”

  “I left. I came back. I’m in a titch of a hurry so if you’ll let me pass, please.”

  He dropped her arm immediately, though he didn’t step aside. He looked as though he’d dressed blindfolded in a closet, a moth-eaten wool cardigan that might once have been blue and a pair of khaki trousers smeared with liberal amounts of motor oil—at least she hoped those ominous dark stains were oil. If Anna looked hard, she could just make out the faintest of bruising around one bloodshot eye. All in all, he looked dismal. Served him right.

  “Mother was wrong to lose her temper with you,” he said. “I told her so as soon as I sobered up. Unfortunately by that time, you’d left for London.”

  “I thought I would do better somewhere else. That my coming here was a mistake.”

  His gaze softened, and a dimple winked at the side of his mouth. “I’m glad you changed your mind.”

  “I had some help changing it, but I think it will be all right now.” She tossed her head, dislodging her storm cap completely. “And it’ll take more than a few nasty words and a glare to chase me off.”

  He bent awkwardly and retrieved the cap, handing it back with a dry laugh. “You’re a Trenowyth, all right. Hardheaded to the core and too stubborn to notice—or care.”

  “Bloody right.” Anna tossed off a careless, fleeting smile and a “must dash” before ducking round him on her way to the crooked narrow staircase that would take her to the VADs’ attic quarters, but her earlier stomach-rolling tension expanded like a warm bubble until her whole body seemed to fizz. “I am a Trenowyth,” she pronounced to the attic passage’s stretch of whitewashed plaster. “And there’s not a bloody thing anyone can do about it.”

  By the time she reached the door to her old room, her careless smile had grown to a bright grin of pure pleasure, and she flung herself inside in a frenzy. In that split second as she simultaneously unbuttoned her blouse, untucked it from her travel-rumpled skirt, and chucked the cap onto the nearest bed, she noticed someone had very considerately brought her trunk up.

  She also noticed what looked like a flea-bitten bear in a fetal curl on the bunk opposite.

  “Sophie?” Anna asked, one arm still trapped in her blouse, her skirt hanging about her knees.

  Her friend might have slept within the old coat’s furry folds but for the queerish manner of the stillness, almost as if sheer willpower was the only thing keeping her from flying into a million jagged pieces. Her cap of dark curls was a tangled mess, the fur collar hiding her face.

  “Sophie?” Anna repeated, the hairs on the back of her neck lifting, the bubble of joy growing lead-like in the pit of her stomach.

  That was when she spotted the edge of the telegram. It lay where it had fallen, half under the bed. Anna pulled it out and read it.

  . . . received the news this morning . . . Lady S. wanted you to know as soon as possible . . . Charles loved you very much. . .

  Five extra minutes, Matron had said.

  Anna took ten.

  As January turned to February and then March, air attacks picked up. At least two or three nights a week, Anna donned her tin hat, piled mattresses in front of the windows, and assisted her patients under their beds or down into the cellar shelters to wait for the all clear. Newquay was bombed again. Truro. The airfields at St. Eval and Exeter. London continued to be targeted. Despite its reputation as the safest restaurant in town, two bombs struck the Café de Paris, killing scores of dancers and diners and beheading its graceful, sinewy bandleader.

  The newspapers and wireless were filled with reports on the campaign in North Africa and the mounting North Atlantic shipping losses. Civilian casualties clogged the hospitals on top of the steady stream of returning wounded soldiers, sailors, and airmen, and the atmosphere was one of grim determination in the face of ongoing bad news.

  Anna had been working three weeks of nights, and this morning her head had barely touched the pillow when an orderly knocked on the door with a summons from Matron. “Be dressed and out front as soon as possible. A car will be waiting.”

  Rubbing the grit from her eyes, she rose and dressed, being sure her ward uniform was in perfect order, her veil straight and crisp, her face smoothed of any nervous uncertainty. By the time she arrived on the front steps of the house, Matron was waiting in company with Captain Matthews.

  “Is there a problem, ma’am?” Anna asked, trying not to reveal the quiver in her question. Lady Boxley had made no more attempts to have her transferred, but she’d be a fool to think the woman didn’t resent her continued presence and would leap at any opportunity to have her sent away.

  “There’s been a road accident. The car carrying the blood transfusion service’s medical staff has gone into a ditch. The medical officer and two of the nurses accompanying him have been injured. Not seriously, but they’ve been admitted to hospital for observation. That leav
es them shorthanded for today’s scheduled visit. I’m sending them Captain Matthews and yourself to assist.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The MO smiled, though she was quick to note it was not in the least flirtatious or wolfish. More the encouraging look of someone’s kindly indulgent father. A look Graham might have given her. She smiled back and allowed him to hold the door as she slid into the front seat of the Buick. He joined her at the wheel, and the two pulled out of the sweep and onto the long, tree-lined avenue toward the main gates.

  “We won’t be on our own if you’re worried,” he said, glancing over with a smile.

  For one horrible moment, Anna thought he was flirting with her. “No?”

  “We’ll still have two of the VADs, a medical orderly, and both FANY drivers to assist. That’s the usual crew on these outings,” he said as they bowled down the drive and onto the road into the village. “It’s a well-oiled machine compared to the last war.”

  She let out a shaky breath and laughed at her irrationality. “You fought, sir?”

  “No, but I cleaned up after those who did, and a bloody great mess it was, too.”

  She clamped one hand on her veil and another on the door handle as they took the turn at the station road and down the steep hill over the creek. A rumble as they crossed over the bridge, followed by the roar of the engine as the captain gunned the accelerator, and up the hill they sped.

  “The fighting in this war is still a bloody great mess, but at least we’ve come a long way in the patching-them-up-afterward department,” he added.

  The village hall had become a mini hospital ward with beds separated by screens and a row of folding chairs set by the door for those waiting their turn. A young woman wearing a white coat sat at a table taking donors’ information as they arrived while a VAD ushered each one back in turn. Anna and the MO were met with a row of filled beds and a second frazzled VAD who was sporting a bruised cheek and a bandage on her arm.

  “Just in the nick of time,” she said. “They’re already stacking up in the street waiting. They’ve been checked for blood type and had their particulars taken. It’s just a matter of drawing the pint, letting them rest a bit after with a nice cup of tea, and sending them on their way.”