Together for Christmas (2 page)

Hilda turned away, mumbling to herself.

‘You could have worked in the infirmary too, if you’d volunteered.’ Flora felt it was unfair of Hilda to think she was hard done by. ‘The sick children liked your sunny
smile when you visited them. Even though it was only once or twice,’ she added cautiously.

But Hilda only shuddered. ‘I ain’t got a strong stomach.’

Flora smiled. Hilda
was
squeamish. She had been known to faint at the briefest sight of blood.

‘I didn’t even like looking at the cross in chapel,’ Hilda admitted with a rueful grin. ‘I hated seeing a dead body. It felt like we was worshipping death, not
life.’

‘Hilda!’ Flora was hearing things from Hilda she’d never heard before. ‘What’s come over you? Why are you talking this way? Weren’t we happy at the orphanage?
You, me and Will – just the three of us, as close together as a real family could be?’

Hilda plucked a few shiny blades of grass and leaned forward to scatter them on the water. ‘We were close – are close,’ she agreed, though with a reluctance that Flora
couldn’t fail to miss. ‘You and Will are family to me. But it’s just – just that . . .’

‘What?’ Flora urged, confused.

‘Oh, I don’t know!’ Hilda threw up her hands. ‘Perhaps it’s all this talk of war. But you see, I don’t want to end up being a skivvy like Mum. I want . .
.’ She hesitated, the words trembling on her full lips. ‘I want bracelets and rings that sparkle like boiled sweets in the sunshine. Like Lady Hailing wears on her white neck and slim
wrists. I want shoes that are real leather with bows and frills. Ones that ain’t worn and scuffed at the heel. I want a soft bed to lie in and a bedroom far away from the old biddy next door
who snores and farts all night.’

‘Mrs Bell would have a fit if she could hear you,’ Flora said, disapprovingly.

‘Well, it’s true.’

Flora couldn’t understand these complaints. Was the change in her friend’s character to do with becoming fifteen in April, just four months before Flora’s own fifteenth
birthday in August? Or was it, as Hilda suggested, the turmoil of the nation that was turning them all a little barmy on this sunny August day?

‘Just look at those idiots!’ Hilda pointed to the young men, who were now boasting to some young women. The girls scurried away, giggling behind their gloved hands.
‘They’re happy, wouldn’t you say? Really happy. They’re about to leave their boring old jobs for a new life.’

‘Yes, but an unknown one.’

For a while they sat in silence. Then Hilda snatched up her straw hat and planted it on her head. ‘Well, I’m bored. How much longer must we wait for Will? It’s past one
o’clock. Why can’t he arrive on time for once?’

Flora searched the crowds for Will’s tall, gangling figure. He looked like a lost puppy with his shaggy golden hair and big blue eyes peeping out from under his curls, Flora thought with
amusement. Who would think that Will Boniface was a foundling and hadn’t even got a name of his own, just as she hadn’t. The nuns had chosen their names, even their birthdays, which
were taken from the day they had been found outside the convent. Will was older by two years than herself and Hilda. But despite the age gap, he had somehow attached himself to them.

‘Let’s wait just a few minutes longer,’ she said, and ignored Hilda’s protesting frown.

‘I had to nearly twist Mrs Bell’s arm to let me come today,’ Hilda muttered. ‘She complained she’d have to do all the chores, as Aggie is in the family way
again.’

‘Aggie is blessed, then, to have such a kind sponsor as Lady Hailing.’

Hilda drew herself upright. ‘Well, Lady Hailing is a do-gooder, ain’t she? One of them “slummers” that the newspapers write about, what give their fortunes to the poor.
But I’ve decided I want to work for real gentry.’

‘Lady Hailing
is
real gentry,’ Flora said in surprise.

Hilda pursed her lips and folded her arms across her chest, just as she always had as a little girl when in one of her stubborn moods. Flora reflected on their life at St Boniface’s
Orphanage in the heart of the East End. It had been hard. But though it was a thousand times better than the workhouse, Hilda hadn’t always appreciated it. Flora saw Hilda in her mind’s
eye, a sprat of a girl, barely eight. She had been allowed by the nuns to live with her mother, Rose, in the laundry outhouse. Flora could still remember Hilda’s grief after Rose’s
death. Poor Hilda, a proud little girl who refused to think of herself as just another waif and stray added to the nuns’ long list of dependants.

‘Oh, where is that naughty boy?’ demanded Hilda. ‘You don’t think he’s stood us up for a girl, do you?’

‘Will wouldn’t do that.’

‘He’s seventeen in December. Quite old enough for courting.’ Hilda jumped to her feet and dragged Flora up with her. ‘Come on, let’s stretch our legs.’

‘Will’s too thoughtful to stand us up.’ Flora placed her own straw hat on her head and tucked her golden ringlets behind her ears. ‘Besides, Will would need a very
special girl, someone kind and loyal, who would look after him.’

‘Like us, you mean?’ Hilda laughed.

‘We’d need to investigate her,’ Flora agreed with a giggle. ‘Size her up. Put her to the test and see that she came up to our standards.’

‘Which are high – in Will’s case,’ Hilda agreed, as she slipped her hand over Flora’s arm. Swinging her parasol, she glanced across the lake. Some of the young men
had jumped into the water.

‘Our Will is a well-mannered boy, not like them, the tearaways.’ Hilda giggled as the swimmers called out and waved. ‘Oh, you’ll be lucky, m’dears, we’ve got
high standards!’ Hilda called back, then, turning to Flora, she whispered, ‘The cheek of it! Thinking we’d look twice at drowned rats like them. Oh, watch out!’ Hilda pulled
Flora back with a jolt as a pony and trap sped towards them on the path a few feet away. Flora gazed up into the florid, moustached face of the driver who quite openly winked at her.

‘The old devil!’ Hilda said angrily as the trap passed. ‘He wouldn’t dare to do that if we was real ladies. Did you see his backside, bulging out of his breeches like
cream from a Lyons scone?’

They burst into laughter again and were still giggling when a group of women approached them. Flora stared at their big floppy hats and bands across their chests. They were handing out pieces of
paper.

‘Join our movement, why don’t you?’ one young woman asked them. ‘Read this and it will tell you all about the National Union of Women’s Suffrage. If it were up to
women, there would be no wars.’

‘Yes, but would you get us all arrested instead?’ Flora asked. She’d heard of the force-feeding the Suffragettes had suffered in prison. She didn’t hold with the angry
crowds of screaming women either, or the protests that caused riots in the streets. There had been many casualties that Flora had read of in the newspapers.

The woman smiled. ‘Don’t you want to have the right to vote, my dear?’

‘I don’t know enough about politics,’ responded Flora. The nuns had taught them never to cause trouble in society and always obey rules and regulations.

‘If we’re successful, you’ll have a say in how we run the country. We’ll have equal rights with men.’ The crowd of elegant, upper-class ladies began to move on,
waving their papers and flags.

‘I wouldn’t mind joining the Suffragette cause,’ Hilda admitted. ‘But these women are the posh lot from up West. You’ve got to be a lady to join them.’

Flora looked sternly at her friend. ‘Hilda, you’re every bit as good as any of them.’

Hilda stopped and gazed down at her scraped-leather boots. ‘If I was dressed nice and didn’t drop me aitches I might pass muster.’

‘Flora! Hilda!’

They both turned to see a slender young man hurrying across the park. His curly blond hair flopped over his blue eyes. His smile was eager.

‘Will, it’s so very good to see you.’ Flora embraced him, quickly stepping aside for Hilda to kiss his cheek.

‘You’re late,’ Hilda scolded. She took one of Will’s arms and Flora took his other. ‘But we forgive you.’

‘A baker’s life is a temperamental one, girls, as I’ve told you before.’ Will’s deep blue eyes twinkled in his extremely pasty face. ‘If the bread bakes limp
or the bagels go square, the apprentice is brought back by the scruff of his neck and stood over the boiling ovens again.’

‘I’ve never seen a square bagel,’ said Hilda sceptically.

‘And as for limp bread – well, whoever bakes limp bread should be prosecuted!’ Flora grinned as Will assumed a hurt expression.

‘There’s no sympathy likely from these quarters, I can tell,’ complained Will, but all the same, Flora felt his elbow squeeze tight over her arm as they began to stroll
along.

‘We’ll forgive you for making us wait,’ Hilda decided, ‘just as long as you buy us an ice cream.’

‘I’ll buy you two,’ Will replied keenly. ‘Or three, if you like.’

Both girls stopped still. Flora’s jaw dropped and she said, ‘Have you come into money?’

‘No, but I’ve worked my socks off in those stifling kitchens. Can’t you see the bags of exhaustion under my eyes?’

‘Rubbish! Your skin is as soft as a baby’s!’ exclaimed Hilda, unsympathetically. She thrust her hand through Will’s shining cap of hair. As they spun away, teasing each
other, Flora sat on a nearby bench to watch their playful larks. They scrambled like children around the tall plane trees and over the green grass, just as they had in the orphanage yard. But their
only space then had been a barren quarter-acre of patchy grass, kicked muddy in winter and sand-dry in summer. Over their playground had loomed the convent of St Boniface. Its many bleak windows
and draughty passages wound like a maze through the building’s vast interior. Unlike Hilda, Flora had always been comforted by the sight of the rows of shiny wooden benches and fingers of
chalk attached by string to squares of slate in the freezing-cold classrooms. She had been grateful for the chance to better herself. The sweet scent of incense creeping in clouds from the chapel
had sent Flora eagerly to Mass, whilst Hilda had done her best to escape it. Flora sighed, lost in thought. The scenes of their childhood were as clear in her mind today as they were all those
years ago.

‘Well, so much for our ice creams!’ Hilda gasped as she plonked herself down beside Flora. ‘Will’s deserted us in favour of those rebels over there.’

‘What can he want with them?’ Flora watched curiously as Will joined the revellers.

‘Guess,’ said Hilda, her cheeks flushed.

‘I can’t think.’ Flora shrugged, her frown deepening.

‘Our Will is to be a soldier!’

‘A soldier? Is this a tease?’

‘No.’ Hilda’s dark eyes were quite serious. ‘Isn’t it marvellous?’

‘I shouldn’t say so at all.’ Flora shook her head, thinking Hilda must have got things wrong.

‘Don’t be stuffy. Soldiering will make a man of him.’

‘But why does he want to be a soldier?’

‘Same reason as all those other fellows,’ Hilda said simply. ‘Will is no exception.’

‘But, but . . .’ began Flora, ‘. . . he’s just a boy.’

‘You agreed yourself he was old enough to court a girl.’

‘That’s different,’ Flora objected. ‘Will’s too – too
sensitive
– to fight.’

‘But he’s after adventure. And who can blame him?’

Flora’s heart sank as she listened to her friend. They couldn’t let Will go to war. ‘Hilda, we must stop him.’

‘How can we? And why should we?’

‘Will could do very well if he keeps his job.’

‘Like I would, if I stuck at Hailing House, you mean?’ Hilda pouted, kicking her heels. ‘Is that your advice to us both?’

Before Flora could reply, Will ran up. His pale cheeks for once were pink. ‘Those chaps are volunteers for Kitchener,’ he told them as he sat beside Flora. ‘I’m joining
them later for a rally at Buckingham Palace.’

‘But you can’t,’ Flora said before she could stop herself. She grabbed his arm. ‘Will, don’t do it!’

He laughed, looking puzzled. Taking her small hands in his, he squeezed them. ‘Flora, what’s up?’

‘You can’t be recruited, Will. You must stay home.’

‘But it’s my duty,’ he told her patiently. ‘Britain must protect her little brother Belgium from Germany’s marauding armies.’

‘Not you,’ said Flora desperately. ‘You’ll soon be a baker.’

At this, he laughed, throwing back his head as his curls flopped over one eye. ‘I don’t want to be a baker. I never have. And now I’ve the chance to escape it.’

‘But to enlist, you must be eighteen!’

‘Who is going to check on an orphanage boy?’

Flora, holding Will’s slender hands tightly, looked at Hilda. ‘Hilda, how can we stop him?’

But Hilda, gazing into Will’s amused eyes, replied unhelpfully, ‘If I was a boy, I’d volunteer too.’

‘Outvoted,’ Will said, drawing Flora to him and kissing her cheek. ‘But thank you for caring, dearest.’

‘How can you even think of shooting someone? Or worse, them shooting you?’ Flora shuddered.

‘It won’t come to that,’ Will assured her. ‘The lads are certain the conflict will be over by Christmas.’

‘What time is your rally?’ asked Hilda. ‘I’d still like that ice cream.’

Will, laughing, jumped up, took their wrists and pulled them to their feet. ‘Come along then, girls. Ice creams it is. The recruitment office can wait.’

Flora allowed herself to be marched along, she in the middle now, with Hilda and Will on either arm. She wanted to join with their happy chatter, but she simply couldn’t. The young man
beside her would soon be wearing a fighting uniform and Hilda’s restless spirit refused to be caged for long. Flora loved her friends dearly. Will and Hilda were the only family she had ever
known. A brother and sister that she cherished as if they were her own blood. She didn’t want things to change.

Nine months later

‘Come now, Mr Pollard, rest easy and allow me to treat your wound.’

Flora held her breath as Dr Tapper gently persuaded the stricken man’s shoulders back onto the examination couch. She heard their patient’s half sob in response as he lay there. His
emaciated body under the dirty cloth of his cheap suit was shaking with fear.