Chapter 21

 

Edith had completely forgotten that young Cathy Braithwaite was coming for tea until Hannah mentioned it. Between trying to decide how to behave around Archie and worrying about Julia, her mind was distracted.

“It’s very good of you to have Cathy call, Edith, I was delighted when she said she was calling on you.”

Edith thought she covered up her forgetfulness pretty well. “I’m looking forward to seeing her. Thank God, she’s made such a recovery.”

“Thanks to Doctor Archie and yourself, Miss Horton… I mean Edith.”

Edith didn’t answer, her mind going back to the sight in the cottage kitchen, the feeling when she’d thought the girl had died.

Hannah was speaking again, more hesitantly. “Yes, I suppose she’s made a good recovery and we have every reason to feel grateful. But it’s changed her. Or, I would imagine it’s that that’s done it. She’s not very happy, I think, unsettled like. Anyway, I’ve set a tray out.”

Hannah left soon afterwards and Edith looked out the kitchen window at her departing figure in the sensible, green summer coat. There was new life about her now, though; the downtrodden look had gradually left her. She’d even had a permanent wave put in her hair.

Edith smiled. The departure of Josh Braithwaite had been maybe the only positive thing that had come out of the terrible happenings when Mrs. Butler had died.

Cathy had the bloom of youth and the exuberance, but every so often her eyes looked troubled and there was a downward turn of her mouth. This girl was miles away from Edith in age, class and life experience, but there was some affinity between them.

They sat with their tea in awkward silence. Edith searched in her mind for an opening comment. She’d once been good at talking to people for goodness sake. She took a plunge. “What would you really like to do, Cathy, for a job, if there were no obstacles?”

Cathy’s glance slipped to the side. Now, faced with a direct question she wasn’t confident about talking, it seemed. “I don’t know, Miss…Miss Horton.”

“Well, there must be something? Something you’d like to do, feel that you might be good at?” Edith’s own confidence slipped again. What did she really know about talking to young people and someone of Cathy’s age didn’t necessarily know what they were good at, anyway. She hadn’t.

Uncannily, Cathy next comment reflected her own thoughts at that moment. “What was it like in the war, Miss Horton. You were a nurse, weren’t you? That must have been exciting, like?”

Edith smiled, substituting that for the sigh she felt like giving. Honesty, well partial honesty was what was called for here. She passed the plate of lemon biscuits in Cathy’s direction and saw the girl’s smile of recognition at her mother’s baking.

“I don’t think exciting does the experience justice, you know, Cathy. We certainly thought it would be, though. I went with Mrs. Etherington.

Cathy nodded, her eyes wide at the mention of the woman, who must be one of the main topics of conversation in Ellbeck at the moment.

“Well, to be precise, she went first. I had a bit more persuading to do with my father. We weren’t proper nurses, for one thing. She hesitated, wondering how much interest this could be to a young girl, almost a generation on, but the dark eyes were fixed on hers so she continued.

“There was even some resentment from the properly trained nurses, and I can understand that. While they were fighting for recognition as a profession, a lot of upper class women and girls swanned in and tried to take over, calling themselves sister…a romanticised view of soothing grateful soldiers, mopping their brows, reading letters from their sweethearts.”

She stopped, not wanting to go into too much gory detail yet wanting to be honest. “They got a rude awakening, as Julia and I did. We started out in a rest station in France and later worked in a London military hospital. I think we managed to convince them at interview that we hadn’t such a rosy view as some. The fact that my father was a doctor stood me in good stead. Julia…now, Julia was a born nurse and had done all the courses she could enrol in. Red Cross and so on. In fact, maybe she should have done the proper nurse training.” But, she petered out. Life had taken a different path for Julia.

A thought struck her, an obvious thought, really. “Cathy, you’re not thinking of going in for nursing, are you?”

The look of distaste on the girl’s face was answer enough.” “Oh, I couldn’t Miss Horton, not for all the tea in China.” She blushed with the sudden spread of a colour wash. “I’m sorry, but I honestly don’t think I could, even though they were so good to me, the nurses at Harrogate hospital, when that woman…” She dropped her head. She hadn’t mentally recovered from the attack, not at all.

“But…”

The words came in a rush then. “I think I would like to teach. I’m good with children. Miss Buckley said so when I was at school, but…my father. Not that he tried to stop me, but he thought it were a daft idea and, well, it put me off, I suppose.”

Edith felt a surge of pleasure, excitement even.

“I suppose it’s too late, now though?”

Edith smiled at the idea that it could be too late to do anything at Cathy’s age.

“Of course it isn’t. Tell you what, Cathy. I’ll have a word with Dr. Horton. He knows Miss Buckley at the school very well through various committees.”

The girl smiled, her face transformed from troubled to carefree in a second.

Edith wondered briefly how easy it would be to broach this or any subject for that matter with things as they were between her and Archie. Yes, well…they couldn’t continue skirting around each other forever. Normal life would have to resume sometime.

She brought her attention back to Cathy who was still lit up, a new world opening up to her. “I used to think that what I wanted to do was move away from Yorkshire, Miss Horton, you know, go somewhere bigger with more life about it,”

Edith smiled. She knew all too well what the girl meant. Then she listened more closely.

“Elsie, my friend…she used to talk a lot about London and now she’s gone and got a job, there,”

Edith had a moment’s wonder at the thought of setting off for London, full of excitement, nervousness. The girl was unlikely to experience anything remotely resembling what had happened her and Julia–Thank God, but it was a vicarious thrill, just for a fleeting moment to imagine the newness of it.

“But, I don’t think I want to leave the countryside, not really. Maybe for a while. I’d miss the space, you know, and the green. I think of traffic and smoke and crowds and crowds of people and it makes me feel a bit terrified, to be honest.”

She seemed to have remarkable self-knowledge for her age.

“But, Elsie. She were always a bit of a restless one, Miss Horton. Then she met this lady in Harrogate, through her cousin who worked in a hotel. A rich woman of course, living in London, Chiswick, I think. And this Mrs. Sheridan wanted someone quickly because something had happened to her last lady’s maid. She got ill, I think.”

Edith’s hearing faded. She could no longer make out Cathy’s words. A feeling was thrumming in her throat and her mouth went really dry. Very slowly, she reached down for her cup and sipped the tea, which tasted good and brought her back to the room.

Cathy didn’t seem to have noticed anything.

“A Mrs. Sheridan?” Edith cleared her throat. Her heart was still racing though her thoughts had slowed. There would be time to think about this later; properly think about it. There must be some connection; for now, she needed to make sure of her facts.

“Yes, definitely–glamorous according to Elsie. Mind you, she’s always been impressed by anything different from Yorkshire, has Else.”

Get on with it, thought Edith but she watched her reactions. She couldn’t betray anything. Actually, she didn’t even know what it was that she must hide at the moment, just that there was a strange connection between Ellbeck and Giles Etherington’s, whatever she actually was—former girlfriend…”

Cathy was chatting, happily now, full of her tale of the friend who was living this adventurous life. “Husband’s a barrister, no children, which Elsie was pleased about as she’d enough of that at home, with nieces and nephews and that. Anyway, she got talking to one of the chambermaids in the Royal and guess what, this Betty was Elsie’s cousin, so Elsie got the chance, first hand, like, no need to be writing off or applying through agencies or any of that.”

She paused and gave Edith a concerned look. “Are you all right, Miss Horton?”

Edith nodded. “Yes, I’m fine, Cathy. I just remembered something I should have done. Head like a sieve, these days. So, Elsie started with this Mrs. Sheridan, then? When was that?”

Edith thought how very odd she must be sounding, showing such an interest in a girl she didn’t know, but Cathy showed no signs of thinking anything amiss.