Secret for a Nightingale (40 page)

“I suppose we should not expect such a man to put duty before pleasure.”

She laughed at me.

“Oh, Anna, I can’t help it. You look so stern. You always do when you talk of him. And all the time I think you find him as fascinating as I do. Are you still bent on your quest?”

“If you mean do I still want to find some way of showing him up for what he is, yes.”

“But what is he? That’s what we don’t know. That’s what makes him the most exciting thing in our lives. I’m sure he’d get the better of us anyway … whatever we tried to do to him.”

She was laughing secretly to herself and I thought: She is obsessed with him.

I believed that I might be, too. But that was different. I knew he was a danger to those about him. I had seen the disintegration of my husband and I blamed him for that. I had read his books and I knew a great deal about him through them. His pagan spirit had looked out at me and I knew it was there.

I continued to be anxious about Henrietta. I knew how impulsive she could be. If he returned, if he had any notion of her feelings for him, what would he do? Would he attempt to exploit them? I feared he might.

I hope he will never come back, I said to myself.

But in my heart I longed for his return.

There was a small room close to the wards where we kept a few supplies and I was in there one day when Charles Fenwick came in. He looked very tired. Like all the doctors, he worked constantly and always under the shadow of frustration because of the lack of equipment.

“Oh, Anna,” he said.

“I’m glad I found you alone. I wanted to have a word with you.”

“It seems so long since we have spoken together,” I said.

“The two hospitals are really one and yet it is amazing how little one sees of one’s friends.”

“How is everything going?”

“Not very well. This wretched siege! If only they could break through.

We haven’t the heavy casualties now but the weather is killing our troops. Cholera. dysentery. These have always been a greater enemy than the Russians. It’s got to end. They can’t hang out indefinitely.

”

“They are a very determined people and they know how to suffer. Think what happened to Napoleon when he marched on Moscow.”

“This is different. Sebastopol has to fall. It is amazing that it has held out as long, but it can’t indefinitely and then the war will be virtually over. But it isn’t that I want to talk about with you. It’s us.”

“You mean … the doctors?”

“No. You, Anna … and myself.”

I looked at him questioningly and he laid a hand on my arm.

“I’m thinking ahead to when this is over and we go home. Have you thought about that?”

“A little.”

“Will you go back to that house of yours?”

“There’s nowhere else. Miss Nightingale is going to reform the hospitals at home. I should like to be involved in that.”

“Have you thought about marriage?”

“Why … no.”

“I have,” he said.

“I feel I want to purge myself of all this horror.

I want to forget it. these smells which have become part of daily life . the pain and suffering all around us. “

“Isn’t that part of the lives of doctors and nurses?”

“Not unnecessary pain and suffering like this, not these ghastly diseases which are brought about by insanitary conditions starvation and festering wounds which can’t be properly treated. I can only get through these days by thinking of the future.”

“I think we all feel like that.”

“I want a future to look forward to a quiet practice somewhere… perhaps in the country. Or if you would prefer, London.”

“I?”

“I want you to share it with me, Anna.”

“Am I hearing you correctly?”

“I think so.”

“Then this is a proposal of marriage?”

“It is just that.”

“But Charles … I thought…”

“What did you think?”

“I knew you liked me, but I thought it was Henrietta in whom you were interested … I mean in that way.”

“Of course I like Henrietta, but it is you whom I love.”

“I am just astonished.”

“My dearest Anna, of course I love you. I love your strength and your seriousness, your dedication. I love everything about you. If you promised to marry me as soon as we are free of all this, it would give me a great deal to look forward to, to plan …”

He had taken my hands and was looking earnestly into my eyes.

“Oh Charles,” I said, “I am so sorry. I was so … unprepared for

this. I know that sounds like the cry of the bashful maiden, but I really am. I had no idea. I was certain that it was Henrietta.”

“Well, now you know it is not, what do you say?”

I was silent. I thought of the country practice, a new life, a new home, the village green, the ancient church with the yews which would have stood there for hundreds of years, dew on the grass, the lovely smell of damp earth, the gentle rain, daisies and buttercups and I felt a great yearning for it all.

He was watching me eagerly.

“Charles,” I said, ‘there is a great deal you don’t know about me. “

“It’s going to be exciting learning about each other.”

“We are here … in this place,” I reminded him, ‘and things are not natural here. You might make decisions which you regret afterwards.

”

“I don’t think I shall regret this.”

“As I said, you don’t know me.”

“I know you well. Didn’t I see you at Kaiserwald? And here? I know your sterling character, your honesty, your goodness, your compassion.

I have seen you give yourself wholeheartedly to the sick. “

“You have seen a nurse, that’s all. I’m a good one, yes. It would be false modesty to deny it. But that is one part of me. I can’t think about marriage. I am not ready.”

“I understand that I have sprung this on you. Think about it. I love you, Anna, We could make a good thing of it. Our interests are so closely woven together.”

“There is something I must tell you, Charles. I’ve been married before.”

“Anna!”

“And I had a child.”

“Where is your husband?”

“He is dead.”

“I see. And the child?”

“He died, too. It became an unhappy marriage. My husband was addicted to drugs which in the end killed him. My child died when he was not quite two years old.”

The tears pricked my eyes. He saw them and put his arm about me.

“My poor Anna,” he said.

“I have not yet grown away from it,” I told him.

“I understand.”

“I took my maiden name and started out again as a single woman. I felt that was best. I could not bear to talk of my marriage and the death of my child, but I tell you because it will help you understand why I cannot think of marrying anyone.”

“You will… in time.”

“I don’t know. It seems so recent. I don’t think I shall ever recover from the death of my child.”

“There is one way to recover from such a tragedy,” he said, ‘and that is to have another child. “

I was silent.

“Anna,” he went on, ‘don’t say no yet. Just think about it. Think what it would mean. It would be something for us to plan for when we get out of this . hell. It can’t last, I know. The end is in sight.

You and I, and the children we shall have. This is the best way to lay the ghost of the past. You can’t go on grieving. “

He kissed my hands and I felt a great affection for him. I knew he was a good man and he would make me see a way out of my unhappiness. It was a different way from that of revenge which I had followed so far.

I saw myself on that country lawn, the doctor’s wife, with her family growing up around her, her children who might look a little like Julian children whom I would love and cherish . children who would soothe that aching void which had never left me since I had lost him.

I was suddenly aware of the passing of time. One always felt guilty when one snatched moments from hours of duty.

“I must go,” I said.

“Think about it,” Charles insisted.

I shook my head, but I knew I should.

He kissed me gently.

“Anna,” he said.

“I love you.”

I did not tell Henrietta of Charles’s proposal. I could not bring myself to speak of it. I felt she would urge me to accept him. She liked him very much and she had said she thought he was a good doctor and a good man. There were times when I thought marriage to him would be the best thing for me. Was I going to spend the whole of my life as a lonely woman? True, I wished to nurse in one of the new hospitals which Miss Nightingale would attempt to set up in England on our return, but was that enough for me? I had experienced motherhood, and my overwhelming love for my child had taught me that I should feel my life was wasted if I did not have children.

Like so many people, I had an admiration for Florence Nightingale which was near idolatry. There was something about her indomitable spirit, her single-minded dedication, her quiet, almost ruthless efficiency which had impressed even those men who had in the beginning been most sceptical about her endeavours. She had turned her back on marriage and motherhood for a cause; but she had never experienced the joy of holding her child in her arms. I had; and that had convinced me that nothing else could ever take the place of that joy with me.

Here was a new path for me. I could marry Charles. I could be a wife and mother. I could turn my back on the past. I could forget those futile longings for revenge. The new prospect opening for me made me see them for what they really were. Childish anger. Little children tried to soothe their hurt by turning on some inanimate object. Aubrey had been weak;

he had been easily led; a strong man would never have succumbed to drugs as he had. I had blamed Dr. Adair for his downfall and he was in part responsible but people’s fate was in their own hands.

And while I thought of my Eden in England the country practice, the children round me, I saw the Demon, as I had always called him in my thoughts, laughing at me.

I would forget him, I told myself.

But somehow I knew I never would. He had some devilish quality. He could put a spell on one. I believed he had on Henrietta. Had he on me? “

He had travelled through the East as a native. He had discovered all manner of strange secrets and customs. Perhaps mysterious ones . the occult, even. He was not like other men. One could not judge him by the same standards. What had he been doing in that house in Constantinople dressed in that fashion? What did it mean?

I brought my thoughts back to Charles and his proposal, but I could not get the demon doctor out of my mind.

And one day I came face to face with him.

He was walking the wards in his white coat as though he had never been away. He gave me a curt nod which implied there was nothing unusual in his sudden appearance.

But he was soon making his presence felt. He found signs of inefficiency in the wards. He blamed the nurses. Patients had been neglected, he said. As if he did not know that the poor girls were worn out after hours without rest. And this from the man who would absent himself for a few weeks’ respite when he felt like it!

My anger against him was fierce and I felt more alive than when I had last seen him.

He thought that nurses should not be too long in one place and he wanted some of them sent to the Barrack Hospital and others brought in from there to replace them.

Henrietta and Ethel were among those chosen to go to the Barrack. We were dismayed, although we were not so far apart, but one did not see nurses so often if they were in a different hospital.

Henrietta was resigned. Not so Ethel. She was in great distress.

“You see,” she explained to Eliza and me, “I won’t be seeing Tom.

We’ll never see each other. “

“You’ll be able to come here and see him,” I comforted her.

“It’s not the same. I look after him. I haven’t told him. It’ll kill him.”

“What’s all this potty idea about moving people?” demanded Eliza.

“It’s that Dr. Adair,” said Ethel.

“He says we’ve been neglecting our duties. I was with Tom when he come through the ward the other day. He must have noticed.”

I said angrily: “It’s so stupid. The nurses are overworked. Of course they are going to forget things now and then. He’s just trying to make trouble.”

Ethel was in despair.

Eliza sought me out afterwards.

“This isn’t half going to upset young Ethel. I reckon it could blight the budding romance. Do you think you could do something about it?”

“How?”

“Speak to him … the almighty one.”

“Do you think he would listen to me?”

She looked at me shrewdly.

“He just might … to you.”

“He despises us all. And I haven’t done anything to make myself especially acceptable in his eyes.”

“I think he knows you. What I mean is … the rest of us is just bits of furniture to him, not useful pieces either.”

“Oh, even he must see what the nurses are doing here.”

“Perhaps he does but he won’t let himself see. He is the high and mighty doctor and nurses is just skivvies to go here and come there at his command.”

“And you think
could change him?”p>

Eliza nodded.

“It would be worth a try.”

I couldn’t help laughing at the prospect, but in that moment I decided to make the attempt.

The opportunity occurred that very afternoon. I saw him go into that room where Charles had proposed to me and I followed him.

“Dr. Adair.”

He swung round and as he looked at me, I felt all the anger and resentment I had harboured against him flare up.

“Miss er ” I know you are thinking I have great temerity in daring to address you . ” I paused and he did not deny it.

“But there is something I have to say to you. I believe it is your

idea to move some nurses from the General to the Barrack and vice ” Am I expected to discuss my plans with you? ” he asked almost pleasantly.

“I am asking you to discuss this particular plan with me.”

“May I know why?”