Lorimers at War (19 page)

‘Who's Robert?' he asked, looking up at her.

‘Aunt Margaret's son. My cousin. Your cousin, too. He's a hero. He was wounded in the war. Tomorrow he's going to have his plaster cut off and then everyone will find out whether he's going to be able to walk properly again. That's why Aunt Margaret's worried. In case he can't. Would you like to meet him? Come along. I'll take you.'

She jumped up and led the way out of the schoolroom, skipping along the corridor. Grant scrambled to keep up. His crawl was ungainly, and he was defeated when she disappeared too fast down a narrow flight of stairs. He managed to bump himself down them in a sitting position, but at the bottom he had no idea where to go. He was stamping and almost crying with vexation when his Aunt Margaret appeared.

‘I'm looking for Robert's room,' he pouted. ‘Frisca was
taking me, but she's gone too quickly and I don't know the way.'

‘I'll show you,' said his aunt, turning back. She was still looking anxious, but she smiled at him kindly. ‘Are you warm enough in those clothes, Grant?'

‘No.' His voice expressed his resentful misery.

‘I thought not. We must do something about that.' She watched as he pulled himself along. ‘Your crutch will be ready tomorrow. That will make things much easier for you.'

Grant had always refused to use the crutch which his father had made for him in Jamaica. He would have liked to refuse this one too, but already he had realized that although his aunt was small and tired and quite old, she was used to people doing what she said. She made no attempt to help him now, but walked slowly enough for him to keep up.

‘Another visitor for you, Robert,' she announced as she opened a door for Grant. ‘Turn them both out as soon as you feel tired.'

The young man proppéd up in bed had bright red hair. He grinned at Grant in a friendly way and persuaded Frisca, who was hanging round his neck, to let go for a moment so that he could greet his new cousin properly.

‘Hello, young Grant. Glad to meet you. You're just the chap I've been waiting for.'

‘Why?' asked Grant, still snivelling.

‘Are you good with trains?' Robert asked him.

The expression on Grant's face turned to bewilderment, and Robert laughed.

‘Perhaps there are different kinds of toys in Jamaica. What do you play with mainly?'

‘I never had any toys,' said Grant. ‘Only books.'

‘Then I'll have to show you what to do. I ought to have grown out of such things at my age, but I still like playing with trains. I make my own nowadays. And I've had an idea for a new sort of points system – you know, for
making the engine go along one track rather than another. I can see you don't know what I'm talking about. I'll ask someone to bring the box in, and then we'll see if you can do a lay-out for me. I can't get down on the ground, you see, with all this plaster.'

‘I could do it for you,' said Frisca indignantly. ‘You never asked me.'

‘It's a man's job,' Robert said. ‘Girls are meant for looking pretty and dancing about and cheering up their sick cousins. Trains are serious business, and something tells me that Grant's going to be very good at them.'

Apart from Miss Mattison, who had once remarked that he was clever, no one had ever told Grant before that he might be good at something. It was a new astonishment, that this cousin who hardly knew him was prepared to be friendly. A few minutes earlier Grant had been anxious to attract Frisca's interest, to establish some special claim on her. But although Frisca was polite, even kind, he could tell already that she would never want to slow down to the pace of someone like himself. Robert was different. At least for the time being, Robert was even less able to move around than Grant. He needed help, and the cheerful grin with which he asked for it was so friendly as to be irresistible. Within the space of a few minutes Grant had banished his sulky expression, changed his allegiance, and given his devotion to his cousin Robert.

For four days after the removal of his plaster Robert would not allow his nurse, Jennifer, or any members of his family to visit him when he was out of bed. He was appalled by his own weakness. His left leg seemed as useless as if it had been shot away. Even his arms, after
such a long period of inactivity, were hardly strong enough to control the heavy crutches which had been brought him. Every day he practised walking up and down his room, brushing aside the help of the orderly who came to make sure that there was no accident. But after only a short spell he was forced to fall back on the bed, exhausted by even such a small effort.

On the fifth day, however, he waited until he heard Jennifer's knock on the door and then stood up, steadying himself on the crutches before he called her to come in. She clapped her hands with pleasure as she paused in the doorway, her pale face flushed with happiness.

‘That's no way to congratulate a fellow on being vertical again,' said Robert. ‘I hoped you'd fling yourself into my arms and smother me with kisses.'

‘I was afraid of knocking you off balance,' Jennifer answered in a whisper. Her shyness revealed itself in her face as well, but she came towards him in spite of it.

‘Knocked off balance is what I want to be.' He could only spare one arm to hold her as she kissed him, but when his head began to swim again it was with excitement, not weakness.

‘Darling Jennifer!' he exclaimed. ‘But perhaps, having made my little gesture, I'd better sit down again. And you can give me a demonstration of your bedside manner.'

‘I'm so glad for you, Robert. It's marvellous to see you up after such a long time.'

‘I'd begun to think it would never happen. But now I really do feel that it's only a matter of time before I'm trotting round normally again.'

‘Of course it is,' she agreed. ‘And not very much time, either.'

‘So there's no reason any longer why I shouldn't ask the most beautiful girl in the world whether she'd consider marrying me.'

There was a moment's silence, but it was not a pause which caused him any anxiety, for he could feel the
pressure of Jennifer's hand on his own. She was savouring a few seconds of joy, that was all.

‘There never was any reason, Robert,' she said softly.

‘Oh yes there was. That standard plot about the beautiful nurse who devotes her life to her crippled patient is fine and romantic in stories, but highly unsatisfactory in real life.'

‘That would have been for the nurse to decide. But I'm delighted for your sake that it will never be necessary.'

‘You haven't actually answered me yet.'

‘You haven't actually asked me yet,' she replied. But her head was on his shoulder and her arm round his waist. ‘Will it be all right with your mother, do you think?'

‘Mother will be delighted.' Robert spoke with certainty, knowing that whatever his mother's reservations might have been at first, she would welcome Jennifer into the family whole-heartedly once the engagement was a firm one. ‘I've dropped a hint to her already, as a matter of fact. Made it clear, of course, that it all depended on you and I was only telling her what
I
wanted. But any mother thinks that her son must be irresistible, doesn't she, so I don't believe the announcement will come as much of a surprise. What about your father?'

‘Daddy's sixty-four,' said Jennifer. She flushed slightly. ‘Ever since my brother was killed, he's only got one ambition left in life: to have a grandson. Each time I go home I'm put through a great inquisition to find out whether I'm – what's his phrase? – “interested in anyone”. He's desperate for me to be married. I can promise that he'll welcome you with open arms.'

‘Mother would love a grandchild as well,' said Robert. ‘Well, I've no objection to making the old folks happy, have you?' He laughed affectionately to see how Jennifer flushed again. It made her look prettier than ever. ‘So the sooner we get on with the wedding, the better. All the same, I need to get a few more muscles back into
use. January, d'you think? Let's tell everyone the middle of January.'

He kissed her again, his happiness so complete that he could think of nothing but the present moment. It was impossible to plan for the future, disagreeable to wonder whether he would have to return to the front, unreal to visualize a peacetime job and a married life in a home of his own. Too many things were beyond his control. The only certainty was that he loved Jennifer and she loved him. His mind clung to those two facts as tightly as his arms gripped her body – a body which looked so slim and fragile but felt surprisingly solid and reassuring.

When the time came for her to go on duty he felt a need to share his happiness with someone to whom he need not explain it.

‘Could you find young Grant on your way out and tell him I need company?' he asked. As he expected, it was some time before the boy appeared. He was still dragging himself along the ground, Robert noticed with a frown.

‘Where's your crutch?' he demanded.

‘I can't manage it. It's too heavy and it won't go where I want it to go.'

‘I know the feeling,' Robert sympathized. ‘All the same, it's a battle which has to be won. Let's declare war together on old Kaiser Crutch. I'm just getting the hang of mine. It comes suddenly, if you practise. From now on you and I are going to have a session together every day until we've got it licked.'

He was as good as his word. At first, because he himself tired so easily, all they could do was to walk in turn up and down his room, but as Robert's strength returned, so did his adventurousness. By the time Christmas came, the two of them were climbing the stairs every day to the Long Gallery in which the Glanville ancestral portraits hung and playing complicated games of football and crutchball with a soft woolly ball stolen from little Pirry's nursery.

‘It's not fair really,' Grant complained as Robert scored his third goal one morning. ‘You've got two crutches and I've only got one.'

‘But you've got one perfectly good leg. You can stand steady even without a crutch. I've only got two weak and feeble legs. If you take
my
crutches away, I shall simply collapse on to the floor.'

‘You'll be all right soon, though,' said Grant. ‘I'm going to be like this always.'

‘All the more reason to make the best of it.' But Robert looked consideringly at his young cousin even as he spoke, and later that day he brought up the subject with his mother.

‘Can anything be done about Grant?' he asked. ‘This chap who's pummelling me about every morning, for example. Could he do any good?'

Margaret shook her head. ‘No. He can help to strengthen muscles. But he can't alter the shape of a bone.'

‘Suppose Grant had been standing next to me when the shell burst,' Robert suggested. ‘Suppose his hip had been smashed up like mine. The doctors could have set it into the position in which it
ought
to be, couldn't they, instead of back where it was before?'

‘Sending a boy of eleven out to a battlefield in order that he shall be blown up is rather a drastic solution.'

‘Of course. But I mean – I can only put it crudely. Wouldn't it be possible for someone to hit Grant with a hammer – scientifically, of course, and under anaesthetic – and break whichever bit of bone is causing the trouble? And then put him in plaster, like me, until it mends, but in a better position. Or wouldn't his leg be long enough to reach the ground even if it were straight?'

‘No, it wouldn't,' said Margaret. ‘But that could probably be remedied. He could wear a surgical boot. You're quite right to prod me, Robert. These past few months, with such a never-ending stream of casualties to cope
with, it's been difficult to think of anything but the hospital. But it's wrong of me to neglect the family. Before the war there wouldn't have been anything to be done in a case like Grant's, but doctors who've been treating a wide range of casualties are working miracles nowadays. There are all sorts of new operations and techniques. I'll make it my New Year Resolution: to find someone who can help Grant.'

Margaret stared at the sulky face in front of her and sighed. She had gone to a good deal of trouble to have Grant examined by a specialist. The verdict was a hopeful one. The boy's body could never be perfect, but a considerable degree of improvement was possible. An operation which might have been thought chancy in 1913 had become routine by the beginning of 1917. Margaret had felt pleased and enthusiastic as she explained to her nephew what would be involved, but his reaction was all too familiar.

‘I don't want to,' he said.

‘Is it because you're frightened of being hurt?' Margaret asked. ‘You don't feel anything at all in an operation, you know. The doctor puts a mask over your face, with ether on it. Before you know what's happening you're in a deep sleep, and when you wake up it's all over.'

‘I don't want to,' said Grant again.

‘Come with me,' said Margaret. She found it continually necessary to fight against irritation in her dealings with her uninvited guest. Grant was no longer quite as unattractive in appearance as on the day of his arrival. Piers had taken him to a tailor to be equipped with clothes which were not only warm enough for an English winter but were also cut to accommodate his distorted limb without looking too ungainly. His hair had been neatly cut and the exercise of moving about on his crutch had helped him to lose a little of the podginess developed in a childhood spent mainly sitting on the ground. But although Robert seemed to have the knack of cheering
up his young cousin, Margaret herself was offered nothing but sulkiness in response to her efforts to be helpful.

She led the way now to a large room which had once been the main dining room at Blaize. Half a dozen empty Bath chairs stood against the walls. The men who had arrived there in them were standing in the middle of the room, each helped by an orderly to come to terms with a pair of crutches, just as Robert had been forced to do once. But Robert was now as fit as he had ever been, able to ride or walk as well as any other member of the family. Each of these men, in their suits of bright hospital blue, had one empty trouser leg.