THE EASTERLEIGH HOME Farm harvest was finished as August became September, the plums picked and the greengages bottled and in the preserve pantry. It had been a matter of joining forces with Mrs Green to complete the task, but it had been enjoyable. As September advanced the fateful letters in buff envelopes began to arrive from the Front, because only dead officers were deserving of telegrams. The postmen took to pushing the letters through letter boxes, if available, as the constant tears of the recipients took their toll. Evie dragged her bicycle from the bothy and set out for Martin’s uncle and mother.
She arrived, leaning her bike against the cottage wall, and knocked on the front door, not going through the backyard as normal. Martin’s uncle answered and Evie stayed outside to talk to him. She didn’t want to go in and make the family feel they had to gather their strength, exhausted as they were. ‘I have a meeting about the hospital with Lady Veronica at the Hall, but I needed to come.’
Martin’s uncle said, ‘Well, pet, if the Germans hadn’t got him, the pit probably would have. Poor Jack though, he’s lost his marra but perhaps we pit people are better placed than most to bear it, we’re so used to . . .’ His voice broke, he wiped his hand over his face, and his smile was weary as he closed the door.
What an appalling epitaph, she thought, as she pedalled back, making herself concentrate on the meeting ahead. She’d learned within days of their return from Newcastle that work and concentration were the answer, as Mrs Moore had said long ago. After the retreat from Mons, Liège and Namur had fallen. Jack’s platoon had been further depleted but he, Simon, Bernie and James still lived.
Evie watched as the grouse flew free across the fields. No shooting parties this year, not here anyway. She pedalled hard, sliding in and out of the ruts. The honeysuckle crawled over the walls. Were they crawling towards the Germans now? Was Simon safe? She took a hand from the handlebars and patted the photo in her pocket. It had never reached its frame because she needed it with her, night and day.
She made herself see the pigeons pecking at the wheat that had fallen from the stalks, and then the sheep still as statues on the low slopes of the Stunted Tree. She turned into the Hall drive. The leaves in the arboretum had not yet begun to turn, though some were falling. Perhaps because of the hot dry summer? She’d ask . . . No, she wouldn’t, Simon had gone.
She padlocked her bicycle and ran along the back path, round the storeroom and alongside the walled garden, into the yard. Len and Stuart, the chauffeurs, were in London or Leeds with Bastard Brampton who was busy with his steel and brickworks, leaving Mr Davies to run the pits, all of which were working to full capacity. So the greedy grubber and others like him were doing very well, thank you. But it didn’t matter where the man was, as long as he wasn’t here.
She tore down the steps, snatching off her hat and shawl, throwing them on to the bootbox in the bell corridor. Only Lady Veronica’s bell rang now, and that seldom. She more often came down and spoke to them.
Evie spun into the kitchen. Mrs Moore had prepared tea and Mrs Green, Mr Harvey and Annie were already tucking into a sponge cake, though the choice wasn’t as numerous as it had been because prices were already rising.
‘We can’t have waste,’ Lady Veronica had said. ‘We simply can’t in times like these. There’s a war on.’ Her own food had become simple and differed little from downstairs. Good grief, soon she’d be taking her meals with them, and would probably be happier. What must it be like to be so alone? If it weren’t for the hospital plans would she have hoyed off to London to help the war effort, or to dance at the Ritz like Lady Esther? Evie and Mrs Moore felt not.
The clock read four and here was Lady Veronica, hurrying down the passage, her bruises gone. ‘She’s coming,’ Evie warned, pouring tea for herself and Lady Veronica, carrying her own to a free stool next to Mrs Moore. They had put out the china cups, but enamel mugs would have been quicker. There were pencils on the table for note-taking. Each had their own notebook.
Lady Veronica knocked as she always did, and should. Mrs Moore invited her in. She took her place at the head of the table, a notepad and pen in her hand. ‘I have heard today that Easterleigh Hall has been approved as an auxiliary hospital and I have the recommendations from the board. I want to outline some thoughts, and discuss with you how we are going to apply their recommendations,’ she told them.
She described the plans for an officers’ hospital and convalescent home. Dr Nicholls had been transformed into a military doctor. Evie wondered if there had been a magic wand involved, because Nicholls was a portly gentleman with not a militaristic bone in his body. She kept the query to herself. She began to make notes as the others debated using the ballroom as the main ward. Lady Veronica chewed her pen. ‘How many beds will it take?’
Mrs Green thought thirty. Should they or shouldn’t they keep the billiard room as it was, Mr Harvey wondered, a recreation for convalescent patients? Mrs Green wondered if the bedrooms could be utilised, leaving just three – one for Lady Veronica, one for her husband during his leave, and one for Mr Auberon. It was agreed. Mr Harvey asked how many beds Lord Brampton had ordered. Lady Veronica said, ‘He put in a general request, it’s up to us to come up with the final figures.’
Only Evie remained silent, listening intently, waiting, waiting.
At last it had been decided that the billiard room should remain as it would be good for the officers’ morale, the dining room should remain as the dining room, and the two drawing rooms would become the Officers’ Mess, the Orangery a rehabilitation and games room. The smoking room would convert into Lady Veronica’s drawing room, the library would be the drawing room for the nurses, doctors, and VADs, though they could overflow into the servants’ hall and storerooms in the basement which would be made homely. More bathrooms were to be added, and sink rooms for the bedpans and assorted nursing procedures.
How delicately put, Evie thought.
Lady Veronica continued, ‘The kitchen remains the kitchen. All the houses on the estate should be utilised as staff accommodation. Now that brings me to staff.’ She looked expectantly at Evie, who was doodling in her notebook.
Carefully Evie placed her pencil down, looking around the kitchen, gaining strength from its familiarity. She knew most of what there was to know about managing a kitchen and she could work anywhere now, and in a few moments, she might have to. Collecting her thoughts she spoke firmly, her eyes on Lady Veronica only. ‘I am not prepared to recruit any of the villagers to work at a hospital that caters only for officers.’
She saw the shock, but didn’t falter. ‘If we must segregate the ranks, then so be it, but I’m sure that Sylvia Pankhurst, if she was here, would stipulate that we catered for all injured. I know that you are repeating the recommendations of the board, Your Ladyship, but I suggest that we have the right to make our own decisions.’
Mr Harvey looked fit to explode, Mrs Green was almost crying with mortification, Mrs Moore was smiling slightly and Annie just looked from one to another.
Lady Veronica broke away from Evie’s stare and made notes on her pad, then looked up. ‘Absolutely right.’ Her smile was magnificent. ‘So, let’s rearrange the rooms, shall we, but perhaps we’ll need more tea, Evie, and next time, let’s have it in enamel mugs, shall we?’
Yet again Mr Harvey looked dangerously close to explosion, and Mrs Green as though she needed to lie in a darkened room.
The next morning Evie cycled back to Easton, knocking on doors, explaining the problem, reassuring the villagers that Lord and Lady Brampton were busy with their other concerns and had left the running of the hospital completely in their daughter’s hands, at which point the volunteers came thick and fast. She collected names of wives and daughters, and retired fathers and uncles, both for work around the estate and in a nursing or housekeeping capacity, as there would be a mountain of cleaning and laundry. She explained that rotas would be drawn up and Lady Veronica’s trap would be brought into use for those who didn’t have bicycles. ‘Tinker’s contribution to the war effort,’ she smiled.
She ended up at the vicarage, where Grace and Edward were heaving two valises into the trap. ‘Thank you for the message, Grace. I’m sorry you’re going, but glad too, if you know what I mean. It’s what you want.’
‘Yes, it is. I have my Home Nursing and Red Cross Certificates and am now a VAD. I need to be doing something to help, but I’m scared to death.’
Edward had his arm around his sister. ‘The men will be lucky to have her. I’ll fetch your shawl, Grace.’ He hurried inside. Grace came to Evie and hugged her, saying quietly, ‘I need to be near him. I need to know I can reach him if he is hurt and that I can bring him home safely to his family, and Simon to you, if need be. Poor Martin, poor all of them, Jack will be suffering at the loss of his marra. It’s not going to be a quick war, though we will probably win. But in the doing it will break all our hearts.’
Evie’s last call was to her mam. She helped her and Millie to hang out washing, while Mam agreed to help inasmuch as her duties as a wife and grandmother allowed. It was the same answer that Evie had received from many of the women. ‘We need a nursery for the children, someone to look after them while you all work. I’ll sort it out,’ Evie said, pegging up a sheet Millie handed her. There was a decent breeze. Millie was reluctant to join the growing bank of helpers. ‘The Hall has bad memor-ies for me,’ she complained, crossing her arms and looking petulant.
Evie ignored her longing to slap Millie, so normal was it. ‘Perhaps you’d like to help in the nursery, then you could have Tim with you.’
Tim was playing with a small wooden train that her da had made him, sitting on the path and making choo-choo noises. Her mother was pegging up Da’s trousers. Millie snapped, ‘I’m a trained cook, so the kitchen’s where I’ll be if I’m anywhere.’
Evie sighed, trained my Aunt Fanny, it was the extra food she was after, and the thought of having Millie back gave her a headache. But of course she could be shifted elsewhere once she arrived, if she arrived.
That afternoon the Home Nursing course and Red Cross First Aid course began, and Evie smothered a grin as Dr Nicholls brought the newly arrived Matron to visit the group, which included two aristocratic neighbours of Lady Veronica’s as well as a bevy of servants and villagers. Matron said, her bosom as large as a shelf, ‘I only want people who will work, not people to turn up at the end of the day to soothe a few brows and hold a few hands. You will be dealing with disgusting dressings, bedpans full of urine and excrement, men who swear and groan and smell and perhaps have maggots in their wounds. If you are not prepared for that, do not remain, do not return.’
Lady Wendover returned for the next session, along with all the servants and villagers. The beds began to arrive, and workmen banged from morning to night. Phone calls came from Lady Brampton with a long list of produce requirements for their London home which Stan, the ancient head gardener, flung into hampers and delivered to the station, cursing at the extravagance.
By the end of September all those who had taken the courses had received their certificates. They now knew that of the 90,000 men who landed in France, one in every six had become casualties and the army ranks were dreadfully depleted, and the hospitals dreadfully full. According to a letter received from Grace it was becoming clear to the soldiers, and the nurses and doctors, that the technical development of modern weaponry had rendered the old methods of war obsolete, but had that knowledge reached the generals? At Easterleigh Hall the pace of preparation increased and sleep became a luxury. The staff also received leaflets with instructions for cooking invalid food.
‘Pap, just pap, bonny lass,’ Mrs Moore said, slamming about with pans and sieves. ‘They need fresh fruit and vegetables.’
Evie agreed, adding, ‘We’re not overcooking things either, because as you said we might just as well fling the goodness down the drain. We’ll just cook lightly. Keep the skin on potatoes, that sort of thing, as we did with Lady Margaret. We’ll need two stockpots, we’re going to be a factory down here and we need to feed them when they want feeding, not when the army says they must eat.’
‘You’re right, Evie lass, they’re our soldiers, that they are, and they will have the best. We just need someone to tell her Ladyship and for her to tell Matron.’
Mrs Moore had a renewed vigour, and though her rheumatics were sliding into a bad phase there was a sparkle about her that had been gone for too long.
‘You can run up those stairs now and do just that, then,’ Evie said, preparing a game pie. The grouse and pheasant had been bred and the gamekeeper had insisted they must be shot and he would breed more for next year. They’d need them. There were a great many birds hanging in the game pantry, of which a few had been sent to the Bramptons, but not as many as ordered. Lord Brampton was too busy to shoot, too busy setting up an armaments factory, according to Lady Veronica.
‘You cheeky young madam, as if I’m going to run up those stairs indeed.’ Mrs Moore was laughing as she disappeared into the pantry, then tutting at the stock-taking that needed to be done. ‘We need our staff replenishing yesterday, along with the produce, my girl. You can tell her that too.’
‘Shouldn’t Mr Harvey?’ Evie had rolled her sleeves up to her elbows and was sprinkling flour on to the pastry. She hadn’t time to go upstairs and besides, the kitchen staff stayed below stairs, as Mr Harvey had said, insisting that the rules continued to be obeyed.
‘He’s with Mrs Green sorting out the bedrooms, or trying to get the workmen to sort them out anyway. Stop shilly-shallying, silly lass.’
‘I could say the same for you, hiding in the big pantry, for heaven’s sake, bossing me around as though it was what you were born to do.’ Evie rolled out the pastry and carried it on the marble board to the cold cupboard just down the passageway. She dusted off her hands and pulled a face at Mrs Moore as she entered the kitchen. Mrs Moore only laughed, slapping her bum, before Evie hurried past the bootbox, which was empty. Everyone now cleaned their own footwear, even Lady Veronica.
Evie took the back stairs two at a time. Lady Veronica would be in the ballroom with Dr Nicholls, or so she had told them yesterday over tea in the kitchen, at which all the upper servants gathered regularly now since there was so much to discuss, even Mr Harvey. Quite what he felt about relinquishing his head-of-the-table role to a mere slip of a girl, even if she was a lady, was something Evie longed to know.
As she entered the ballroom she was struck by the change. It was to be the other ranks’ quarters: bed after bed were waiting in rows, with small bedside tables on the left of each, and screens which would ensure privacy when it was needed. There were central tables for recreation. A wooden partition had been erected halfway along to divide those who were extremely ill from those who were in recovery.
Gone was the glory in more ways than one – the chandeliers had been taken down because of the danger of dust falling into wounds. Men hurried everywhere. Hammering made it necessary to shout. Did Simon shout over the shells? Evie shut her mind. Concentrate.
The bedrooms and dressing rooms and whatever other space could be found were being refashioned into individual officers’ accommodation. The nurses and VADs would double up in the servants’ quarters – which were emptier by the day as they left for towns, or the war – and wherever else room could be found.
In the ballroom Lady Veronica and Dr Nicholls were poring over a large sheet of paper on which four chunks of builders’ wood stood, holding it down at the corners. Lady Veronica looked up at Evie’s approach, startled, then alarmed. ‘Is all well, Evie?’ Then she turned to Dr Nicholls. ‘This is Evie Forbes, my . . .’ She paused. ‘My friend who creates miracles in the kitchen with Mrs Moore, and will be the powerhouse of our patients’ recovery.’
Dr Mason Nicholls smiled at Evie, his uniform stretched across his belly, his buttons looking for all the world as though they were about to fire off in all directions. A sight too many pies in the beggar’s gut, Evie thought; he’d be a useful weapon on the front line. ‘Hello Evie, how is your mother, and what about your father now?’
‘Grand, Dr Nicholls. You look a picture in the uniform. You be careful or all the ladies in the village will be after you.’
He roared with laughter. They were all shouting above the builders’ noise. There was dust in the air, and sawdust on the dust sheets, and motes danced in the sun as it streamed through the windows which would need drapes, surely? ‘Mrs Nicholls would certainly have something to say about that. I was just explaining to Lady Veronica that we won’t be receiving cases straight from the battlefield, but we will be having men suffering from the after-effects of gas gangrene as well as other wounds. It’s new to us. There is anaerobic bacteria in the Belgian soil, it’s mainly agricultural after all, and we’re seeing it infect the simplest of wounds, and all that can be done is amputate. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.’
Evie wouldn’t think of anything other than the men hammering, and the man behind Lady Veronica carrying in some two-by-four planks of wood. Lady Veronica was checking her lists. ‘So we will be receiving amputees, lots of ’em,’ the doctor said.
‘We’ll win but it will break our hearts in the doing of it,’ Evie murmured, thinking of Grace. The other two just looked at her. ‘Indeed,’ said Dr Nicholls, all laughter gone and his face a picture of sadness.
Lady Veronica swallowed, looked out of the windows and after a moment turned back to Evie. ‘You needed to speak to me?’
‘Mrs Moore wants you to know that the kitchen will be supplying anything and everything, but never the pap described in the leaflets we were sent. Instead the food will be lightly cooked, the vegetables al dente, the fruit as plentiful as possible and as the goodness is in the skin no peeling will be done, even of carrots. We will be on call twenty-four hours a day, because the sickest of men will know when they want to eat, the army will not. In fact, much as we did with Lady Margaret, if you remember.’
Dr Nicholls was grinning. ‘I rather think I can detect an Evie Forbes directive in there somewhere. But yes, I agree completely. I will instruct Matron.’
Evie left them, wanting very much to be a fly on the wall when anyone tried to instruct Matron in anything.
By November the opposing armies had ground to a halt, each in entrenched positions. Edward received a letter from a friend and told Evie’s da, who told her, that it was felt this situation would vary very little with each subsequent month that passed. Indeed, all that altered were the soldiers because each day young men queued outside recruitment offices to replenish the dying platoons. ‘These in their turn will die, won’t they,’ Mrs Moore said to Evie.
In late November the first of the wounded arrived at Easterleigh Hall. Millie had decided to take the Red Cross course and help upstairs, to the kitchen’s utter relief. Judging from the regular nurses who sat in the servants’ hall or cluttered up the kitchen on that first day, her decision was not received with total joy, for she was worse than useless. Lady Veronica did not achieve a much better report because she didn’t know how to sweep the floor properly or boil up the facecloths, or wash the sick bowls before sterilising them, she explained in the kitchen after her shift.
‘I’m a complete fool, though I manage to produce sparkling bedpans,’ she sighed. ‘They taught that on the course. How absurd, and appalling that I know so little.’
The next day Evie led Lady Veronica into the scullery and tied a hessian apron around her waist. Lady Veronica looked over her shoulder and laughed. ‘A charming bow would be nice.’
Evie grinned. ‘You get what you’re given in our neck of the woods, Cinderella.’
She handed Lady Veronica a broom, took one herself and demonstrated how to brush without drenching the world in dust. She then led her to the zinc-lined sinks, filled them, placed cloths and scourers into her hands and soda crystals in the water, and insisted she wash pots properly. Annie and Mrs Moore stood by the range, their hands over their mouths until their laughter became too loud, at which point Evie ejected them, while Lady Veronica stared at the ruin of her hands, then plunged them yet again into the hot water, shouting over the clatter at Evie.
‘I must learn to cook as well. They are setting up little kitchens so that the men can make themselves coddled eggs if they feel the need, and things like that. Or if they can’t then the nurses will.’
She came down again the next morning, and while Millie was upstairs reading to a sergeant in the Fusiliers who had been shot in the face and whose eyes were in jeopardy, Evie taught her how to make cocoa, and then a roux.
‘I’m a complete fool,’ Lady Veronica repeated. She poured in milk, stirring continuously.
‘No, you’re a high-born woman with a social conscience. I don’t see anything foolish in that.’ Evie looked at the clock. ‘But I need you out of the way now, because we have a million lunches to prepare. Go and find someone to inflict your new-found skills upon.’ Mrs Moore was studying the lunch plan, running her finger down the page. Annie was preparing the table. The new scullery maids were managing very well with no old hands; they had come up from the village, fresh from school. The servants’ hall was filling with staff, nurses and orderlies, with Mr Harvey back in his place at the head of the table.
Out in the corridor a bell rang, the front hall bell. A visitor? Normally the orderly on the desk handled these. Archie left to answer it. ‘I want to finish this,’ Lady Veronica protested. Evie took over. ‘You’d better go. What would the neighbours think?’ The two of them laughed. Lady Veronica hurried to the kitchen door.
‘Apron,’ Mrs Moore called. Lady Veronica pulled it off and threw it on to a stool. ‘Good shot,’ Evie called. They fell silent. Shot? No. Lady Veronica rushed out, pinning up strands of hair that had escaped.
She was only gone ten minutes before she reappeared but this time with Lady Margaret, looking thin, worn and old.
There was utter silence. Evie, Annie, and Maud, Barbara and Sheila, the three new scullery maids, exchanged looks. Mrs Moore just stared at the young woman, then at Lady Veronica.
‘Lady Margaret is here to help,’ Lady Veronica said, carefully looking at no one, her voice strained. ‘I thought I’d make a cup of tea for her, if that’s all right with you?’ She directed her question at Mrs Moore and then Evie. Both nodded.
Lady Margaret was settling herself on a stool where she had sat all those months ago, before she had burned the stables. Had everyone forgotten that, Evie wondered. For pity’s sake, she could have killed people, let alone the horses. Lady Margaret was staring at Lady Veronica as she put the simmering kettle on to the hotter range plate. ‘You’re doing that?’ She sounded outraged.
Lady Veronica had moved to the dresser and was collecting enamel mugs. As she returned, she gave Evie and Mrs Moore a quick grin. ‘Yes, I am. There’s a war on and I need to increase my skills so Evie and Mrs Moore are teaching me. Aren’t they wonderful? There’s so much I don’t know, it’s absurd. I think we could all do with some tea, don’t you?’ If Evie lived to be a hundred she would never forget the amazement on Lady Margaret’s horse-face, swiftly followed by further outrage.
Lady Veronica mashed the tea in the pot and poured for them all. She pushed a mug to Lady Margaret, who picked it up as though it was something she had found under her shoe, and then replaced it. ‘Perhaps you’d like some milk in your tea, Margaret?’ Lady Veronica said firmly. ‘We don’t always have time for the niceties, so we use what is to hand. If you wish to stay here and help you must accommodate the changes.’
There, it was said. Everyone else in the kitchen found something fascinating to look at, staring at it as though they had found the mystery of the universe. Lady Veronica added milk to her tea. ‘Come on everyone, let’s sit down and catch up on the day.’
Yet again Lady Margaret’s outrage rose a notch as they did so, each taking a stool. Evie said, ‘I will take over the roux, Lady Veronica. We’re having mullet with a fairly bland sauce.’
Mrs Moore read out the menu, and Annie and Maud talked quietly together. Lady Margaret finally poured a little milk into her mug and drank it, examining the lip carefully before she did so. Clearly the interloper would welcome a steriliser in the kitchen, as well as those provided for the nursing staff.
At the end of each day Evie, in lieu of Mrs Moore who was resting her eyes in her room, had been joining Matron, Lady Veronica, Mr Harvey, Mrs Green and Dr Nicholls in the front hall, sitting around a small table while they discussed the patients’ progress and needs. Evie would bring them up to date on availability of food and proposed menus. Special diets were also discussed, and this evening, a few days after Lady Margaret had arrived, she suggested that they make a nominal charge for the cakes they supplied for the patients’ visitors, who congregated in the newly designated tea room, formerly an anteroom leading off the hall. ‘The money could be put to good use buying books and games for the patients, and even the staff,’ Evie finished.
Dr Nicholls smiled at her. ‘Why not?’
Matron shrugged. ‘Nothing to do with me. What about Mr Harvey, Mrs Green and Lady Veronica?’
Evie checked with them, but they were already nodding, and making a note in their little books. Maud had wonderful handwriting and she could write the notices of charges that could be pinned on the tea-room door and placed on the table. Evie then asked if Lady Margaret could manage the money on top of pouring tea, for it was she who had volunteered to run the tea room. ‘If she can then it will permanently release Lady Wendover to help in the wards, which is where she’d like to stay. After all, she did do the course with us.’ Everyone agreed.
‘What an asset she is,’ Matron declared. ‘A woman who is not afraid of rolling up her sleeves, just like you, my dear.’ She smiled at Lady Veronica.
‘I roll up my sleeves and have for years,’ Evie muttered.
‘And you have lovely arms, too, my dear,’ Matron said, laughing.
They discussed the new intake of men. There were nine amputees who had arrived in ambulances. There were several patients wounded by shells and progressing well. Three had gone home on leave. ‘In order to become fit enough to return to the charnel house in due course,’ Dr Nicholls said, which was his usual response. Christmas was coming and there was no festive cheer in their hearts but always cheer on their faces.
Archie appeared then, from the tea room, stooping to whisper in Lady Veronica’s ear. She looked startled and then furious. ‘Excuse me, I’m needed. Evie, perhaps you’d come too? Archie, would you hurry and find the two visiting relatives who have received white feathers while I discuss the matter with Lady Margaret. Try and find them before they reach the patient and urge discretion on them. We can’t have any loss of trust or confidence.’
Lady Veronica rose, and Evie too. The others stared from one to another, and then at the tea room. ‘Please,’ Lady Veronica said, ‘carry on. I don’t want this to become obvious.’
To Evie, as they walked steadily but unhurriedly, she said, her voice cold and grim, ‘Perhaps you would take Lady Margaret downstairs, by the ears if you like, and I’ll talk to the visitors.’
In the tea room several families were standing at the refreshment table, as though struck by lightning. Three young men stared at white feathers they had clearly just been handed by Lady Margaret. Evie marched round the back of the table and firmly took her by the elbow. Lady Margaret resisted. Lady Veronica addressed the young men, who had dropped the feathers on to the table as though they were red-hot. ‘I am so very sorry.’
Evie said quietly into Lady Margaret’s ear, ‘If you don’t come with me, I will hit you, very hard.’
The woman strode with Evie through the hall to the green baize door at the back, every inch of her defiant. In the kitchen Evie shoved her on to a stool, hissing, ‘How bloody dare you?’ Maud came to the entrance of the scullery, a cloth in her hand, her mouth open.
‘We’ve been told to by Christabel. She said white feathers are to be given to all men of military age out of uniform. This is our new cause. We will show that we are fit for the vote with our war work, and this.’ Lady Margaret’s face was pale but determined.
Annie had been knitting khaki head-warmers for the troops at the table while a white soup simmered for a young soldier. He had been unable to eat for the last two days but had suddenly fancied soup, like his mother made. Annie dropped several stitches.
Evie snapped, ‘So, you want all the miners out of the pit, all the essential workers to be slaughtered on the front line, all those men convalescing and on leave to strut about in uniform. Do you intend to do everything you are told for the rest of your life, you silly lass? How on earth do you think you’ll be fit to have a view on the government of this country if you follow rubbish like this? So just how do you propose that we run the country with no men?’
Lady Margaret stood up then, her face fierce, her voice savage. ‘The women will run it, of course.’
‘Wonderful, just wonderful. You get down the pit then because you know what to do, do you?’ Evie was raging, hammering on the table with her fist. ‘You don’t even know how to boil a bloody kettle. God save us from vicious women like you. Look around you at people who run hospitals like this. They, and we, are the ones showing that we deserve the vote, and that we don’t bully our way to it by dishing out bird feathers, you silly bloody woman.’
The door opened. Lady Veronica slipped in. ‘The father and son were stopped before they reached the ward, and they’d rammed the feathers in their pockets anyway to dispose of later. The father is a pitman, the son works in armaments. You will never set foot here again, do you hear me, Margaret? How many chances do you need? You may sleep here tonight, and then I will take you in the trap to the station. Now, you will come with me to my room and stay there.’
Annie had been sitting as though frozen all this time, but now picked up the dropped stitches and continued knitting as though nothing had happened. ‘Knit one, purl one,’ she said as Lady Margaret left with Lady Veronica.
Bedtime came late in the hospital, and shifts were taken by the kitchen staff to provide twenty-four-hour cover for the men. It was Evie’s shift this night and she was already weary, but Annie was on duty with her so that would help. The dining-room bell had rung twice already and an egg custard requested, and then bacon for a young lad who was dying. It was Tony, Timmie’s marra, who had arrived three days ago with gas gangrene.
‘Tony wants to smell it again. Not taste it, but smell it,’ Nurse Brown told them as she collected his tray, the bacon crispy. ‘He’ll die tonight.’
As the evening progressed there were also the usual nightmares from the patients, some screams, after which the lads needed tea. Until the small kitchens could be set up the kettle was always simmering in the kitchen. The VADs acted as waiters, thank the Lord.
Evie and Annie took the opportunity to drag out their knitting as the last VAD left, bearing a tray of tea for the nurses on duty upstairs. They settled themselves on stools and continued with the khaki head-warmers which were in demand. ‘My brother says it’s right cold in the trenches,’ Annie sighed.
‘I can’t imagine what it’s like to be that cold and damp, and to be shot at.’ Evie knitted one, purled one. She wasn’t a natural, but if it helped . . . Was young Tony dead yet? Was he with Timmie, were they galloping together on the Galloways?
Knit one, purl one.
Was Simon alive? Don’t think.
Knit one, purl one.
Was Jack alive? Knit one, purl one.
Of course they were. She’d know if they weren’t, surely. Knit one, purl one. Were they injured? Was there a new battle? Don’t think. End of the row, turn. Were they in trenches? Were they cold? Wet? They never said in their letters, their precious letters which she kept beneath her pillow.
Were they alive? Knit one, purl one.
The ball of wool fell to the floor and rolled under the table. She poked with her feet to bring it towards her. A bell rang. Annie ran out to see who could be summoning them before it stopped clanging. She returned, puzzled. ‘It’s Lady Veronica’s bedroom. She usually comes down.’
Evie was off the stool, her knitting forgotten, and she took the back stairs two at a time.
What had happened? Lady Margaret was in the room. What had she done now? She tore along the landing, past the officers’ rooms. It was amazing how many decently sized cubicles you could create out of one guest bedroom, and still they felt spacious.
She heard screams as she approached Lady Veronica’s suite. They were high-pitched and female. An amputee officer on crutches appeared in his doorway, Lieutenant Harold Travers, who loved salmon. ‘Is everything all right, Evie?’
‘It’s just a nightmare, don’t worry, Harry. Back into bed with you. If you can’t sleep let me know what you need. I’ll produce a miracle when I’ve sorted out this little problem.’
He waited. ‘Call me if you need me.’
A nurse was outside Lady Veronica’s door, about to enter. Evie waved her away. ‘Let me, I’ll call if needed. Lady Veronica has already rung.’
She opened the door and went in. The curtains were undrawn and the moon was bright. She saw Lady Margaret crouching over Lady Veronica on the bed, screaming. They were struggling. Evie hurled herself across the room.
‘Margaret. Margaret. Stop now.’
She reached for the woman, who swung round. Something thumped into Evie’s arm, then her hip. Margaret was like the patients in the midst of nightmares that took them somewhere no one could follow, fighting demons no one else could see, or hear.
Evie caught her arm, wrenched it up behind her back, up and up. ‘Stop it, I said. Stop it.’ Without releasing her arm she grabbed the woman’s hair and forced her head back. Lady Margaret struggled for just a little longer and then stopped and so, too, did the noise.
After a moment Evie let her go and she slumped, half on to Lady Veronica who was crawling to the edge of the bed. Evie blessed the fact, yet again, that she had a fighter for a brother.
Lady Veronica half fell on to the floor, then recovered. She was in her nightgown, her hair in a plait, and she was panting as she reached for Lady Margaret, gathering her up in her arms. ‘She’s not in her right mind. Oh God, Evie, she seems demented. She woke thinking she was in prison, thinking they were coming to feed her. I went to her bed but it made it worse. She ran at me.’ Veronica gestured from the spare bed to hers.
Evie sat on the bed, suddenly weak, suddenly feeling sick. Her arm was wet. She touched it. Yes, it was wet. Her hip hurt. That was wet. Her clothes were wet. She stared at her hand. Yes, wet. Lady Veronica put on the light. They both saw the blood, then the scissors where Margaret had dropped them, red-stained.
Lady Veronica fetched the nurse, who inspected the wounds. ‘They’ll need a stitch or two. What about her?’ She checked Lady Margaret, who was now lying on her bed. Evie heard Harry call. ‘Is there a problem? Do you need me?’
Evie called back, ‘It’s fine, Harry. But thank you. It’s good knowing you’re there.’
Lady Veronica carried a bowl from her bathroom, and bathed her cuts with a white towel. ‘Mrs Green will have my guts for garters, Evie Forbes, using a towel like this,’ she whispered, keeping half an eye on Lady Margaret as the nurse left to fetch Sister. She came, quietly, and efficiently administered a painkiller, and stitched Evie’s arm and hip carefully, because, she said, she still wanted the standard of cooking to be maintained. The women laughed softly, though Evie could still feel the pain. Lady Margaret was silent, as though at last asleep. ‘I’ll have to wash my clothes and I need a clean apron. I really object to that,’ Evie said, her teeth chattering.
Lady Veronica smiled, but she was shaking too. ‘I’m so sorry, Evie, it should have been me.’
‘What? I don’t think so. Matron would be even less impressed if you swept one-armed.’
Evie’s mind was running at two levels. She was knitting khaki, knit one, purl one. She was talking to Lady Veronica. There was no space to worry about Simon, about Jack, about poor little Tony, and for these few moments she was at peace.
Sister checked and sedated Lady Margaret and they agreed that she should be left to sleep, and then she made for the door. Lady Veronica said, ‘Sister, would you ask Harry to keep himself available? All he could do is bash her over the head with his crutches, but he needs to feel useful.’
How they were all learning, Evie thought, as she shrugged off their concern and found her way to her room, smiling at Harry as she passed, explaining that Lady Margaret, who had been force-fed many times, had had a nightmare and had no knowledge of what she’d done. ‘Just a few stitches,’ she reassured him.
‘Poor woman. I understand her.’ His face was pale, his eyes too dark. He was the son of Sir Anthony Travers and had joined up from school. He had led a privileged existence, he had told her a few weeks ago as she checked that each man was happy with their luncheon. ‘War came as a bit of a shock, not quite what I expected,’ he had joked, but the laugh hadn’t reached his eyes. He should have been asleep, but like many that was a distant memory for him.
She changed her uniform and was back on duty within ten minutes. There was a war on, this was nothing. The pain really struck in the early hours, and Annie insisted on dragging in an armchair from the servants’ hall and pushing Evie into it. ‘I’ll wake you if I need you.’
‘The chair’s a good idea. We’ll keep it here because there’s no need for two on shift to stay awake.’
Lady Margaret would be nursed in Lady Veronica’s room, because she had fought her war for too long. It had broken her, but not for ever. Here, at Easterleigh Hall, she would recover. ‘We’ll keep the scissors in the sewing basket where they belong, shall we?’ Dr Nicholls said as he met them outside the bedroom in the morning, his bag in his hand, his white coat on preparatory to entering to treat his patient.
Lady Veronica smiled but insisted, ‘Please remove your coat. They wore white coats to force-feed.’
He did so immediately. ‘Good point. Let’s make notes on this. There must be many women suffering in the same way.’
Lunch was as busy as usual, but Mrs Moore, Annie and Evie had things down to a fine art, and now they had at least two other kitchen assistants from the village every day, so it was never frantic. Young Bert and Joseph from Hawton went rabbiting daily and there were still the grouse and pheasant, so they were becoming more self-sufficient. Stan the head gardener had agreed to pigs rooting around in his orchard, so that boded well for the spring, with all the piglets that had been born.
The clatter of pots and pans being washed after lunch was as loud as it always was, and Evie’s stitches were pulling, so Mrs Moore shooed her out of the kitchen at two in the afternoon. ‘We can’t put up with martyrs down here, lass. Move yourself up those steps and get some fresh air. Be thinking about the Christmas menu while you’re about it. We’re going to need to produce a feast out of our reserves, I think. Stock is getting scarcer at the co-op with the panic buying, even though they’re doing their best to order in for us.’
Evie walked out into the stable yard with its empty stalls. These would soon take more pigs as Lady Veronica felt that it was wasted space, and indeed it was. Perhaps they could have more in the rear stables? She strolled out to the drive, saw Harry using his crutches to manoeuvre himself down the front steps and joined him.
‘Harry, how are you today? Did you enjoy the rabbit pie?’
‘Great grub, Evie.’ He was such a lovely lad, and at least he would not be returning to the Front. His parents were so relieved that they had brought flowers on their last visit for all the staff. These had lasted for many days in the front hall and gave it an air of elegance which was at odds with the hustle and bustle, somewhat calmed by the arrival of the orderlies who manned the front desk. ‘You should have your muffler on,’ Evie said, drawing her shawl tighter. ‘Annie will be cross. She spent many hours and many swear words making it.’
Harry laughed, and then they turned at the sound of a bicycle crunching on the gravel. It was Arthur, the young telegraph boy whose family lived in Easton. Evie and Harry watched him. Crunch, crunch. Her heart seemed to beat in time with every turn of the bicycle wheels. Harry eased a hand from his crutch and gripped her arm. He said, ‘Try not to worry until you have to.’
The boy skidded to a halt. ‘Can you take this, missus?’ The lads hated these telegrams, because they all had fathers or brothers or friends out at the Front. Evie said, ‘Of course.’ But she wanted to insist he took it away again. She read the name of the addressee. Harry saw it, sighed, and almost whispered, ‘Would you like me to take it to her?’
‘What, and carry it in your teeth?’ They almost laughed. She looked at the cedar tree – so still, so strong. She entered the hallway, leaving Harry in the fresh air, which he would ruin by lighting his pipe, balancing on his crutches. Lucky boy, lucky mother and father, for there would be no such telegram for them now.
There was snow on the wind. Would it be a snowy Christmas? Think of that. The orderly saw the telegram and smiled sympathetically. Evie walked to the green baize door, opened it, and went down to the kitchen. Lady Veronica wasn’t there. Evie checked the kettle. Yes, simmering as usual. She saw her knitting on the chair. Knit one, purl one. She made tea, poured it into a cup, not an enamel mug and added sugar, lots. She walked slowly to the door, and called down to the game pantry where she’d remembered Annie was teaching Lady Veronica to pluck disgustingly ripe grouse.
‘Veronica, will you come here?’ She’d never called her just Veronica before, but now the woman needed to know that she had a friend, a proper friend, and she needed to be warned in advance.
Veronica came into the kitchen, her face pale. She saw the cup and saucer. She knew, Evie could tell. She knew. ‘Who, Auberon or Richard?’ Evie made her sit. ‘Let’s see, shall we?’
It was Captain Williams, wounded in action. One leg and one arm amputated to avoid gas gangrene. He was in hospital in Le Touquet. ‘You must go and fetch him back yourself,’ Evie said. ‘You really must. He needs you.’
Lady Veronica was rereading and rereading the telegram, her fingers shaking, her lips forming the words. She murmured, ‘Of course I must.’
She packed immediately, and Evie’s da, who was working in the gardens on his off shift, drove her in the trap to the station. As they disappeared down the drive Evie, standing by the front steps, thought of those words again. ‘Yes, it will break our hearts,’ she sighed, and gestured to Harry. ‘If you don’t come in we’ll be treating you for pneumonia and Matron will put me on bedpan duty, and that might mean she cooks.’
He smiled, emptying his pipe on the grass while he rested on the crutches. ‘A fate worse than death, for us,’ he said. He tucked his pipe into his hospital blues and swung his way over. She told him of Captain Williams. ‘That’s his war over then,’ he said with a satisfied smile.
Evie nodded. ‘Indeed it is.’
She thought of Lady Veronica. As well as breaking hearts war could begin to heal them too, and this might be a case in point. She accompanied Harry inside and then arranged with the orderly for Captain Williams to be assigned the main bed in Lady Veronica’s room. She had insisted on that before she left, tears in her eyes. ‘He’s my husband, where else should he go? Please free his room up for more patients, Evie.’
A letter arrived from Grace the next day. It was the second Evie had received from her.
Dearest Evie,
I can get no further than Le Touquet at the moment. The convoys come in and we rush to attend to them, and take down their particulars on slips of paper. My feet are swollen from rushing about. My dreams are full of maggots in wounds, of bedpans that I am emptying, of instruments I am sterilising in operating theatres. I hold kidney trays of instruments as the surgeons operate, or the triage nurses investigate. You know, Evie, these brave souls poke at wounds so terrible that no one would believe such horrors. I think I dream because I’m too busy to sort out the images while working. We VADs are called Very Artful Darlings by some, and Victim Always Dies by others. I have a friend, Lady Witherspoon. She had never washed a cup till she came here and is absolutely marvellous and flinches at nothing.
I have Captain Williams here. A telegram has gone and I have sent this with a friend so that it follows, hotfoot. He has lost an arm, and a leg; this bloody gas gangrene, but at least it’s halted the beast and he’ll live. He needs to come home, his sole thought is of Veronica. He talks of bruises, to her, not him. He talks in his sleep of her, and his recovery will be so much better at home. She must come for him. Tell her.
I send my love to you, dearest Evie. Write to me again. And no, before you ask, I have heard nothing of our friends, except that it’s stalemate after the Marne battle.We know the casualty lists and so far they have not been amongst them. I miss Easton. I miss you, but I love my work. It makes me feel a valuable human being. We can never go back to being appendages, can we?
Your friend, Grace.
Evie folded the letter and placed it beneath her pillow, where she kept the letters from those she loved. Besides, Grace and Jack should lie together. She reread all her letters every night by the light of the oil lamp. She knew every one by heart. Simon’s last one had told of his love for her.
‘The trees, Evie, were proper trees when we came. Now they are stumps, and the birds have gone. Such is war.’
She peered through the window out to Fordington. Would they ever fetch sea coal again, all of them? Well, no, not all of them, for Martin, Tony and two others of the marra group had gone, and Bernie. The pitmen’s families had been allowed to keep on the cottages until they had found alternatives, at Mr Auberon’s decree. Families whose pitmen had enlisted kept their houses, with his father’s surprising agreement.
Things were changing, a few for the better. Yes, such is war.