The Silver Locket (12 page)

‘In torment.’ Alex’s gaze was on her face. ‘Sister, you can’t imagine what it’s like, I’m in such agony.’

‘Dr Lloyd will be here soon,’ said Rose. ‘I’ll ask if you can have a shot of morphine, so you won’t need more alcohol tonight.’

The following morning, when Rose, Belinda and the orderlies took round the breakfast trays, they found the men were grinning and nodding knowingly at Rose.

‘What’s the matter with you all this morning?’ she demanded, as she put Alex’s tray down on his locker, then took the top off his boiled egg.

‘Your notoriety has caught up with you.’ Alex picked his spoon up and started on his egg. ‘Where’s my toast today?’

‘The orderly is bringing it in a minute, don’t be so impatient. What do you mean, my notoriety?’

‘Your exploits in the field, Sister Courtenay,’ Alex said. ‘One of the chaps in Blenheim ward has a cousin or something on the trains, he had letter from her yesterday. Apparently, you were famous for your pluck. Or should I say for your stupidity?’

‘Mr Denham, if you speak to nursing staff like that, I shall report your insolence to Matron.’

‘Carry on, report me to Field Marshall French himself,’ said Alex, calmly. He reached across the tray to get some salt. ‘Rose, you look so pretty when you’re cross.’

Alex had meant it when he’d said he was in torment, but he was also happier than he’d ever been in all his life. The shrapnel wounds were healing very slowly, but they weren’t particularly painful. The almost constant headaches made him nauseous and dizzy, but he could cope with that.

But he couldn’t help playing up a bit, for when she changed his dressings Rose’s cool fingers were so gentle. When she thought he really was in pain, she was concerned and kind.

As the weeks went by, she also let herself relax a little. On one or two occasions, she seemed to forget she was a nurse who wasn’t allowed to get too friendly with her patients. She talked to him as if she was a real human being – and as if he was, too. She even brought him presents now and then.

‘Look!’ she said one morning, as she put his breakfast tray in front of him and whipped away his napkin with a flourish.

‘Where did you get that?’ he asked, amazed.

‘We nursing staff were sent a dozen, and that one’s mine, but I don’t like them.’ Rose picked up the orange. ‘Shall I cut it up for you?’

‘You ought to have it.’

‘I told you, I don’t like them.’ Rose picked up his knife. ‘How would you like it, in segments or in quarters, or shall I squeeze the juice into your glass?’

The next week, there was chocolate, which she said she didn’t want, because it gave her spots. Then special fancy biscuits which a visiting colonel had left for all the nurses, but which the nurses shared all round the men.

When she had the time she sat and read to him, and sometimes they played cards, a round of rummy or two-handed whist.

‘All four knaves,’ she smiled, one heavy, sultry afternoon, as she put down her hand to show him that she’d won – again. ‘See, four knaves, three sevens. What were you collecting?’

‘I was waiting for the queen of hearts.’

Rose turned over the remaining cards. ‘She’s here, at the bottom of the deck. She’s hiding from you, Alex.’

‘No, Rose – she’s sitting here beside me.’

‘Mr Denham!’ She tried to frown at him, but it was obvious she couldn’t, because a smile was tugging at the corners of her mouth. ‘You know you’re not allowed make improper observations to the nurses.’

‘What do you mean, improper observations?’ Alex frowned. ‘I’m sorry, Sister Courtenay, but – what did I say?’

‘You know full well. You’re nothing but a knave yourself, and now I have to go and do a ward round.’

She fussed around him, bossily scooping up the cards and tucking all the blankets firmly round him, her mouth set in hard, straight line again.

But he could see the sparkle in her eyes, and was almost sure that if he grinned she’d start to smile again.

‘I heard you were married,’ she said one afternoon as she stripped away the blood-stained bandages, swabbed the wounds with saline, then pressed fresh gauze against his side.

‘Yes,’ he admitted, dead-pan.

‘Celia Easton said your wife was going to have a child.’

‘The baby was stillborn,’ he murmured. ‘Chloe nearly died.’

‘Oh, Alex – I’m so sorry!’ Rose looked directly at him, and he saw the sympathy glowing in her soft, grey eyes. He had to grit his teeth and look away, or else he would have cried.

‘I believe she’s getting better now,’ he managed, when he had regained his self control.

‘You
believe
?’ Rose stared at him in horror. ‘But didn’t they let you have some leave?’

‘We were undermanned along that section of the line,’ lied Alex, glibly. ‘I didn’t like to ask for leave, and Chloe has her family around her, anyway. I write, of course.’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Rose.

‘A telegram for you, Miss Courtenay.’ The orderly who’d brought the evening post round handed the flimsy envelope to Rose. ‘I hope it’s not bad news.’

Everybody looked at Rose, and as she slit the envelope she was aware that the whole ward held its collective breath.

The message was short and to the point.
‘Lady Courtenay very ill,’
it said.
‘Suggest return to Dorset straight away.’

‘Rose?’ began Belinda.

‘My mother’s ill,’ said Rose. She pushed the telegram into her pocket. ‘My father wants me to go home. I don’t suppose it’s anything very bad. Mummy has always been a drama queen.’

‘When are you going?’ asked Alex, who had almost managed to convince himself that this eternal summer was never going to end, that somehow he and Rose would be together for all time.

‘As soon as I can get a lift to Rouen.’ Rose had finished doing the morning’s dressings, and now she was going from bed to bed, straightening the sheets and counterpanes before the sister did her round.

‘When will that be?’

‘Probably on Monday week, when the supplies come through.’

‘Rose, I’m going to miss you.’

‘I – I’ll miss you, too. I’ll miss all of you boys.’

Alex looked at Rose, she looked at him, and he felt a dreadful, yearning longing – he wanted to grab her hand and cry, don’t leave me!

But of course he didn’t. He picked up a new book he wasn’t reading and opened it at random. ‘You mustn’t let me hold you up,’ he said.

The journey back to England was long, involved and tedious, but for Rose it couldn’t be long enough. She was dreading going home.

How would her parents greet her, and how should she behave? Would her old room be waiting for her, cosy, warm and comfortable as ever? Would Polly still be her maid?

As soon as she reached Charton, Rose saw everything had changed. As she walked into the Minster, she saw it was now a convalescent home for senior officers. All the Victorian clutter her mother loved was hidden away. The Persian carpets Boris liked to chew had been rolled up and stored. Instead of hot-house flowers, the whole place smelled of Lysol.

The matron who came up to greet her was a young, attractive Queen Alexandra nurse who introduced herself as Jessie Mason. ‘Your parents are expecting you,’ she smiled. ‘You’ll want to spend some time with them, I know. But do come up and see us here if you have an hour or two to spare. As you can imagine, we can always use an extra pair of willing hands!’

Sir Gerard, Lady Courtenay and Boris had moved into the Dower House, a tiny Queen Anne box a mile from the Minster. As Rose walked up the path to the front door, she took a few deep breaths. She feared she would be in for a hard time.

But Lady Courtenay didn’t look fit enough to give her one. She was always pale, but now her cheeks were sunken, her blue eyes were dull and she had lost a lot of weight.

‘So you’ve come home at last,’ she said.

‘Daddy said you were ill.’ Rose felt the blush creep up her neck. ‘I know you must have worried about me, but–’

‘She knows I must have worried!’ Frances Courtenay seemed to choke. ‘Rose, you don’t have children of your own. So don’t insult me by presuming to imagine how I felt!’

She turned her head away. ‘The doctor gave me chloral, but still I couldn’t sleep. When I closed my eyes, I saw you as a little child. Your clothes would be on fire, or you’d be drowning. You’d cry to me to help you, but I couldn’t. I was paralysed.’

‘Mummy, please–’

‘I don’t know which was worse, dreaming about you when you were a baby, or waking up to know you’d disappeared, that absolutely anything might have happened, and I could do nothing.’

‘Mummy, I’m so sorry.’ Rose crouched at her mother’s side and tried to take her hand.

Frances Courtenay snatched her hand away. She would not meet her daughter’s gaze. ‘Your father had the Dorset police out scouring the whole district,’ she continued, tonelessly. ‘He and Michael never stopped, they were out in all those autumn downpours, searching the estate and all the area round about.

‘I know your father won’t say anything to you. He won’t reproach you, he’s not that sort of man. But I saw him age a month for every single day you were away. He was too exhausted even to lift the telephone and call the chief inspector when you had the kindness to inform us where you’d gone.’

Boris loped in then. As Rose turned to greet him, he blinked and ambled over to her on arthritic feet, sniffing cautiously. She supposed he must have caught her old, familiar scent. But he was puzzled to find it overlaid with other, stranger smells.

She held out her hand to him. He nosed at it politely, but then ambled off again to settle down by her mother.

Rose’s heart contracted as she imagined how he must have grieved. How he must have spent a hundred weary days and sleepless nights plodding and searching all around the Minster, looking for his mistress. He had aged, as well. She could see grey hairs on his black snout.

As she crouched there, feeling sick with guilt, it was as if the golden doors of childhood closed behind her, for she finally realised what a selfish, thoughtless monster she had been.

She took her mother’s hand. ‘Mummy, I’ll make it up to you,’ she promised. ‘I won’t go back to France. I’ve said I’ll go and help up at the house, but I’ll stay here and sit with you as often as you wish.’

Lady Courtenay shrugged indifferently. ‘You father will be home at half past five.’ She stroked the dog’s soft muzzle. ‘Perhaps you would be good enough to ring for Mrs Jackson, and remind her he will want some supper.’

‘But what
is
wrong with her?’ persisted Rose, when she went to see her mother’s doctor and have a private talk with him.

‘It’s probably her heart.’ Dr Weldon looked at Rose over his half-moon spectacles. ‘She had a fever after you were born. I suspect the valves were damaged irreparably. Now she’s getting on in years, the strain is bound to tell.’

‘I never knew.’

‘She didn’t like to make a fuss.’ The doctor shrugged. ‘I told her it would be a risk to have another child. She said it didn’t matter – you were perfect. My dear, she’s very pleased to have you home.’

‘Dr Weldon, is she going to die?’

‘If she doesn’t have a sudden shock or serious illness, she could maybe live to be a hundred.’ The doctor looked at Rose severely. ‘So, Miss Courtenay, don’t upset her or go running off again.’

As the summer faded into autumn, Rose did her best to be a model daughter. Although she spent some time up at the Minster, helping out and getting to know Jessie Mason well, she took her mother shopping, visiting and paying calls. On sunny days, they went for drives in Lady Courtenay’s little chaise.

She put up with the veiled comments and insinuations about her past behaviour made by Lady Easton and her crony Mrs Sefton. Lady Easton, Rose observed, was pregnant once again – although she must have been nearly fifty.

‘Do you mean to stay in Dorset now?’ asked Mrs Sefton, as Rose and Lady Courtenay sat and drank weak China tea in the drawing room at Easton Hall, and watched the youngest Easton children roll around the floor. Their latest nanny had just left, and Lady Easton was interviewing possible replacements in the dining room.

‘I have no plans to go away.’ Rose smiled at Mrs Sefton artlessly, then turned to see Michael’s mother flounder in. ‘Lady Easton, have you heard from Michael recently?’

‘Yes indeed, he writes to me each week.’ Lady Easton flopped into a chair. ‘The dear boy’s well and happy. He’s doing his bit and being a stout fellow, I don’t doubt.’ She looked at Rose impressively. ‘He always mentions you with great affection and respect.’

He must think there’s still a chance I might get Daddy’s money then, thought Rose. ‘I must write soon,’ she said. ‘I hope he gets some leave now and again?’

‘He was at home for Christmas, but the poor boy’s been in France since then. Of course, we miss him terribly.’

‘I’m sure you do.’ After all, thought Rose, you only have another dozen children to keep you company.

‘I heard Alex Denham has come home,’ said Mrs Sefton, baring her large teeth. ‘But his wife is not in Dorset. So I don’t know what we should make of that.’