Eve and Her Sisters (22 page)

‘That’s Sister Shelton. Her bark’s worse than her bite.’

‘I’d rather not suffer either.’

She was rewarded by a grin. ‘I’m glad you came, Eve.’

She nodded, her voice soft. ‘So am I. Goodbye, Caleb.’

She stopped at the sister’s desk on her way out. ‘When is the next visiting time?’ she asked quietly.

‘Normally Saturday between three and four thirty but we make allowances in certain circumstances. You are the first visitor Mr Travis has had. I presume he has no friends or relations in these parts? No one who can easily pop in?’

‘No, sister. There’s no one.’

‘When do you have to return home?’

Eve hesitated. ‘I want to stay until the doctor is sure he’s going to be all right. I’ll get lodgings somewhere. ’

The sister nodded, her starched cap rigid. ‘Then we’ll see you at the same time tomorrow afternoon.’

‘Thank you.’ Eve relaxed. ‘Thank you very much.’

The tight face softened just the slightest.‘We always put the patient’s best interests first.’

‘Yes, I can see that.’ Eve smiled and walked away, her heart singing. He would be all right. She’d make him all right.

Eve stayed in Oxford for a full week. At the end of that time Dr Reynold pronounced himself satisfied that both legs were healing nicely. The patient would never win the Olympics, he remarked jocularly to a prim-faced Sister Shelton, but there was no reason why by the end of the year he shouldn’t be walking without his sticks. Not if he was sensible. And they would see about moving him closer to home now he was out of danger. Would the patient like that?

So it was that when Eve took her leave of Caleb on the day she was returning to the north-east, he was a vastly different individual to the dangerously ill man of a week before and looking forward to his transfer to the north. ‘They reckon a week or so if it can be arranged and then I should be moved to Newcastle or Sunderland.’ He smiled at her, his eyes bright. ‘And then I shall be home in no time.’

No time, according to what Sister Shelton had told her, would be a good month or two but Eve didn’t dampen his enthusiasm.

‘I’ll come and see you as soon as I know where you are,’ she promised, ‘but in the meantime do as you’re told and don’t try to do too much.’ The sister had told her only that morning that they had caught Caleb attempting to get out of bed because he had a fierce distaste for the bedpan he was forced to use at present.

‘Yes, ma’am.’ He grinned at her and she smiled back. And then he caught her hand, his voice soft as he said, ‘Thanks for staying, Eve. I don’t know how I’d have got through the last week without your visits to look forward to. In the middle of the night . . . Well, you know. Things always seem at their blackest then.’

She was trembling deep inside. She always trembled when he touched her. Even before he had gone to war it had been the same. She wetted her lips. ‘That’s all right.’

‘It must have cost you a fortune in that boarding house. I’ll make it right when I come home.’

‘Don’t be silly. I’m not exactly destitute.’

‘It will seem strange tomorrow when you don’t come.’

She didn’t think she could stand much more of this without flinging herself on him and that would never do. ‘Look, that’s the bell. I must go.’ Even to her own ears her voice sounded throaty. She saw his eyes narrow. ‘I’ll give your love to your mam, shall I? Say you sent her a big kiss?’

Her attempt to lighten what had become a tense few moments worked. ‘Not if you want us to remain friends,’ Caleb grunted. ‘But give Nell a hug from me, OK? And tell her I’m looking forward to seeing that bairn of theirs.’

‘It’ll be two bairns soon.’ He had let go of her hand and she stood up. ‘She looks ready to pop, bless her.’ Friends, he had said. Did he see her as a woman at all? ‘Goodbye, Caleb.’

‘Goodbye, Eve. And thanks again for everything.’

Outside in the summer sunshine she stood still for a moment or two, composing herself. Two women came out of the doors of the hospital, one crying bitterly and the other trying to comfort her. As they passed her she heard the first one say, ‘This war! What’s glorious about a man with no legs, you tell me that,’ and then they moved out of earshot. Eve stood and watched them until they disappeared from view, the blazing sunshine mocking the tragedy. How many more women were facing the same sort of thing, their loved ones crippled or blinded or maimed beyond recognition. Thank God, oh thank God that Caleb was out of the war now. Lloyd George might give his rousing speeches but the reality of the conflict was in the building behind her and they were the ones who had survived, if you could call it survival for some of the broken bodies she had seen in the last week. The war that had been supposed to end that first Christmas was going on and on, what would be left at the end of it?

She began to walk, knowing she had to hurry if she wasn’t going to miss the train.

She wished she didn’t have to go back to Washington and leave Caleb here, but although he saw her only as a friend they had grown closer over the last days. And love could blossom out of friendship, given the right circumstances. She would be able to visit him often when he was moved north and once he was home again anything could happen. She wasn’t going to give up, somehow she would make him love her. She didn’t mind how long it took and now he was safe, time was on her side.

 

By the time the horse-drawn cab she’d caught outside the station dropped Eve at the inn she felt like a wet rag. The moon was riding high in the sky but it was still quite warm and muggy, not so much as a breath of wind moving the sluggish air.

She entered the inn by way of the back yard and as she stepped into the scullery she was immediately greeted by a whine. ‘Jack, is that you, boy?’ The next moment she was almost knocked off her feet by a rapturous shaggy shape. ‘What are you doing out here by yourself ?’ she murmured as she fussed the ecstatic animal. ‘Why aren’t you keeping Ada and Winnie company?’

She left her travelling bag where it had fallen and opened the door into the kitchen, only to freeze as she took in the scene in front of her. Nell was sitting at the kitchen table and Ada was stirring something on the range, but it was the golden-haired girl opposite Nell who claimed Eve’s attention.

Mary had come home.

‘I tell you, Toby, there’s something funny about all this.’ It was the next morning and Nell and her husband were sitting having their breakfast before he had to leave for the pit. ‘When Winnie came to fetch me yesterday and said Mary had turned up at the inn, I didn’t know what to expect, but not what greeted me, I can tell you. She’s . . . different.’

‘Well, she would be, she’s been gone a couple of years.’

‘Aye, I know, but it’s more than that. She says her husband’s an officer away fighting and she’s dressed nice, beautiful, but why would she choose to come and pay a visit now, her expecting an’ all? Don’t that seem strange to you?’

‘When did she say the bairn was due?’

‘October. But like I said, there’s something funny going on.’

Toby sat back in his chair.‘What is it you’re saying, lass?’

‘I don’t know.’ Nell gave a weak smile. ‘I don’t know what I’m saying. Oh, perhaps I’m being silly. Put it down to my condition.’ She patted her huge stomach, the baby was due in four weeks at the end of August.

Toby didn’t smile.‘You’re never silly,’ he said slowly. ‘If you think there’s something wrong then there probably is.What does Eve say? Does she agree with you?’

‘We didn’t have a chance to speak privately. She didn’t get home until I was ready to leave. I’ll try and have a word on the quiet with her today.’

Toby nodded, standing up and picking up his bait tin from the table. ‘I don’t want you worrying,’ he said quietly,‘not with the babbie an’ all.You’ve enough on your plate looking after Matthew and it being so hot. Whatever is wrong, if something
is
wrong, we’ll sort it.All right? She’s back in one piece and according to you doing very nicely thank you. Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad, pet.’

Nell nodded, and then as they heard Matthew call out, she said, ‘Let me get him quick and then you can see him for a minute before you go. He likes that.’

The next five minutes were filled with the child but once Toby had left for the pit and Matthew was settled in his wooden high chair eating his porridge, Nell found herself going over what had happened the evening before. Toby was of the mind nothing much was wrong but she wasn’t so sure. May God forgive her if she was wrong, but she didn’t believe Mary’s story of a husband and a big house down south and all the rest of it. Something didn’t sit right. And her clothes. They were bonny, fancy, and must have cost a packet, but . . . Nell couldn’t find the words to describe the way Mary had been dressed. If she had been more wordly she would have known the colours were just a little too garish, the cut of the bodice of the dress a smidgen too low. As it was, the unease in the pit of her stomach wouldn’t go away.

Eve was experiencing the same thing. Owing to the fact the three spare rooms at the inn were occupied by paying guests, Mary was sharing her room which was more than big enough for two with a large double bed and small writing bureau and chair as well as a small sofa under the bay window. Mary seemed to have filled the room with her bags and clothes, but what had really shocked Eve was her sister’s nightwear. She couldn’t bring herself to use the word indecent but the transparent black negligées and nightdresses, along with Mary’s underwear, had caused her mouth to fall open. She had spent all night telling herself she was probably being stuffy and old-fashioned, that she had no idea what the middle-class and upper-class fashions were or how high society behaved, but nevertheless she felt perturbed and uncomfortable. And Mary herself, she was so brittle, so gay. It didn’t seem natural, not with the uncertainty of a husband at the front and a baby on the way.

Eve had risen early and come down to the kitchen where she’d had her breakfast with Ada and Winnie and caught up with the local gossip and how things had gone in the last week while she had been away. Jack hadn’t left her side, but now as she prepared a tray for Mary who was still sleeping, he made no attempt to follow her as she left the kitchen. Ada had told her Mary had made a great fuss about shutting the dog out because he had growled at her when she had first arrived. ‘I think it was the fur coat she had draped over one of the suitcases,’ Ada confided. ‘Apparently she didn’t want to pack it in case it got squashed. I think Jack thought it was some sort of animal.’

‘It was once, more than one,’ Eve said flatly. Mary had told her with some pride the coat was mink and had cost a fortune. She had seemed to set great store by it.

On reaching the bedroom she entered quietly and placed the tray by the side of the bed. Mary was fast asleep, her hair spread out over the pillows and her breathing quiet and even. She didn’t look like a married woman who was expecting a baby in three months’ time. Asleep like this beneath the covers, Mary was her baby sister again, fragile and appearing far younger than her seventeen years. ‘Mary.’ She shook one slim shoulder gently and as her sister opened her eyes, she murmured, ‘I’ve brought you a breakfast tray.’

Mary rubbed her eyes and yawned. ‘What time is it?’

‘Seven o’clock.’

‘Seven o’clock? Heavens, Eve, it’s still the middle of the night. I usually sleep the mornings away.’

‘You do?’ Eve stared at the sleep-flushed face.‘That’s a funny way to run a household, isn’t it?’ Her sister had told her she had a housekeeper and maid at home.

Mary pouted her lips for a moment. ‘Not really. Things are done differently down south. I - we entertain a lot.’

‘But not when your husband is away surely?’

Mary stretched and yawned again. ‘Life doesn’t stop when he’s not there. And we have lots of mutual friends.’

‘Have you a photograph of him or a small portrait?’

‘Not . . . not with me. I meant to bring one but I forgot.’

‘And his family are from where?’

‘Sussex.’

‘I thought you said Surrey yesterday.’

‘Surrey, Sussex, it’s all the same.’ Mary sat up in bed and now she appeared every one of her seventeen years and more besides, the sheer material of her nightdress clinging to her body as the covers fell to her waist.

Eve took a deep breath. She had to ask. If she was wrong and mortally offended her sister she’d beg her forgiveness but she had to ask. She placed the tray on Mary’s lap and then sat at the end of the bed as Mary began to drink her tea.There was no easy way to say it. ‘Are you really married to this man?’ she asked quietly.

Mary placed the cup back on its saucer. Eve had expected outrage or at the very least a vehement protestation, but as Mary’s blue eyes met hers she saw the lovely face was wary. For answer she held out her left hand on which a wedding ring nestled beside a pretty ruby and seed pearl ring.

Eve’s voice was low when she said, ‘Anyone can buy a ring, Mary. You know that as well as I. Look, if . . . if you’re in trouble, I would rather know now, not find it out later. I’m asking you as your sister and because I love you but I won’t be lied to. There will always be a home for you here, you know that. Caleb - Caleb wouldn’t see you in need and Mildred has always favoured you, but even she wouldn’t like being made a monkey of. Tell me the truth. Are you married or not?’

There was a long silence and Eve’s heart rose up in her throat, its beating choking her. She had known. The minute she’d walked in this house last night and seen her sister sitting there, she had known something was very wrong.

‘I said I was married because I didn’t think you’d want people to know with me being . . .’ Mary touched her rounded stomach. ‘A husband at the front sounds acceptable.’

Eve’s eyes widened and her lips opened and shut without emitting words a few times before she could say, ‘So you are not married.’ It was worse having it confirmed.