Together for Christmas (26 page)

‘The doctor said I had a fever.’

‘Yes, but not from a cold.’

‘A bad arm is much worse.’ Hilda pulled the bedclothes up to her chin with her free hand. She lay back on the pillow and gave a self-pitying groan. ‘It hurts.’

‘Well, it would, wouldn’t it?’

‘I didn’t want Flora to know I fell down the stairs.’

‘You didn’t, did you?’ Gracie hurried, shivering, to her bed, removed her stays and quickly jumped under the thin cover. ‘Even Mrs Burns knows that was a lie.’

‘What makes you say that?’ Hilda asked.

‘Mrs Burns ain’t daft.’

Hilda suspected the same. But she also knew Mrs Burns didn’t want the truth to leak out. Mrs Burns’ job was to protect the family from scandal. That was why she had insisted Hilda
stay in her room and instructed Gracie to perform her chores.

‘I like staying in bed,’ Hilda exaggerated, intent on getting her point across. ‘I was worn out with all the extra chores.’

‘Huh!’ Gracie’s puff of indignant breath made the candle flicker on the table. ‘And I’m the donkey well-laden again!’

‘You didn’t mind helping me before.’ Hilda glanced reproachfully at Gracie with her one good eye. ‘And anyway, my arm will soon be better and I’ll be able to
work.’

‘And what’s gonna happen then? Are you going back to your old ways, that’s what I’d like to know. ’E ’urt you bad this time, but what about the
next?’

‘It’s a game we play, Gracie, that’s all. It got a bit out of hand.’

‘You ain’t supposed to play games with the uppers. ’Specially him.’

‘Stop speaking about Lord Guy like that!’

‘Blimey, just listen to you. He ’alf killed you, ’Ilda!’

‘Gracie, you don’t understand. He didn’t mean it.’ Hilda was shocked at the change in Gracie’s attitude. Once upon a time, she would have done anything for Hilda
just to keep her friendship. Now, she was getting on Hilda’s nerves, always warning her that something terrible was going to happen if she didn’t stop her night-time excursions. But
Hilda was sure that her lover had changed his ways. After the horse had knocked her down, he had been so kind and considerate. He’d lifted her in his arms and soothed her, kissing her eye
that was bleeding from the graze the horse’s hoof had made. He had even wrapped her arm in a sling made from his torn shirt. He had lifted her carefully onto the horse and ridden slowly back,
cradling her in his arms. Then he’d woken Mr Leighton and told the butler to help her. Hilda had felt elated, even in the pain she was in. Mr Leighton’s face had been a picture of
shocked indignation. But he’d done what his master had instructed: bathed her scratches and placed her arm in a fresh splint. The next day, Mrs Burns was told she’d had an accident on
the stairs and a doctor must be called.

Hilda smiled to herself as she sat in bed. Now Mrs Burns and Mr Leighton both knew that Lord Guy had chosen her. She was special to him. They could do nothing but accept the situation. Hilda
recalled her master’s gentle kisses and his regretful whispers that their game had gone too far. From horror at his actions, she had begun to believe that in his own way he really did love
her. That the man she had known, who had terrorized her, was in fact now a changed person. The man she had at first fallen in love with and so adored. Hilda was happy to be here in bed, knowing
that he loved her. She only wished he had sent her a message, or somehow found a way to reassure her. But then, he couldn’t trust anyone other than Mr Leighton.

‘You don’t need to worry, Gracie.’ Hilda tried another tactic as she knew it was wiser, for the moment, to have Gracie on her side. ‘Lord Guy would be relieved to know
you’re keeping the secret.’

Gracie gave a despairing sigh. ‘You’ll never learn, will you?’

‘What have I got to learn?’

‘That ’e’s just using you, ’Ilda.’ Gracie turned over, staring at her. ‘Like what all the toffs do, if they can.’

‘Guy’s different. You should have seen him after the horse kicked me. He told me he would make amends. He could have just left me if he didn’t care.’

‘And let you tell the world?’

‘I wouldn’t!’ Hilda turned and let out a yelp of pain. Her arm and her eye both hurt at the same time. It was Gracie’s fault for upsetting her. ‘I love him and he
loves me. One day we’ll be together.’

Gracie stared at her with tired eyes. Then, saying nothing, she blew out the candle.

Hilda lay in the darkness. She felt angry with Gracie, with Mrs Burns and with Mr Leighton. They were all against her. She even felt angry with Flora, who had come to see her with a man. Who
this man could be, she didn’t know. Gracie had just said that he was tall and had a posh voice. Well, that wasn’t very helpful! Hilda decided it must be someone that the doctor knew. Or
even Lady Hailing. Someone wealthy enough to own a car. Flora must have told everyone she was coming to Adelphi Hall.

At this, Hilda grew even angrier. Flora could have spoiled everything. She would have made a great fuss if she’d seen Hilda’s black eye and bound arm. Insisted that something else be
done for her injuries. In her heart, Hilda needed her friend’s sympathy. She had always had it before. Mrs Bell’s too. And now she missed their attention.

Hilda managed to find a comfortable position under the bedclothes. She felt ugly and sorry for herself. Guy was the only person who had shown her any sympathy. No wonder she loved him as much as
she did.

‘I’m going to ask you to walk without your cane this evening,’ the doctor said as he completed his examination of Michael’s leg. ‘After all, there
is definite improvement. The muscle is firming up and your cane could be redundant.’

Without speaking, Michael slid his legs from the couch and dressed with Flora’s help.

She caught his grateful gaze, just for a moment, but today she felt there was something wrong. Before Christmas last year, he had hardly been able to bend his leg without agony. But that had all
changed over the months of exercises. He was always eager to try to test himself, to do all the doctor asked of him. But tonight, the energy seemed to have deserted him. Since their return from
Surrey two weeks ago, Flora had noticed how quiet he’d become.

‘We’ll try with the cane first,’ Dr Tapper said when Michael was fully dressed. ‘Walk a direct line to the window, then turn to your left and pause at my desk. Retrace
your steps to the door and back to the window again.’

Michael took his cane from beside the couch. He stood still for a few seconds, staring at the window, then moved slowly towards it. Flora noticed how pronounced his limp was and it became worse
when he left the desk and walked to the door.

‘What is it?’ the doctor asked in concern.

‘Nothing. Perhaps just a little discomfort in the thigh.’ Flora couldn’t understand what this could be. Over the weeks and months, the muscles had slowly healed and the nerve
endings had ceased to radiate pain. After half an hour’s massage, Michael was always eager to try to walk. It was the doctor who cautioned him not to hurry.

Michael limped on. Flora saw how slumped his normally straight shoulders were. How his leg dragged as he shuffled towards the window.

‘Now, without the cane,’ Dr Tapper said. But when Flora looked at him she knew he was thinking the same too. Had Michael relapsed in his recovery?

Michael leaned the cane against the wall. He turned, and his face was white and tense with small beads of sweat across his brow. He took three steps forward then reached out and gripped a chair.
Shaking his head, he looked up. ‘I’m afraid I’m making a hash of this.’

‘Keep trying,’ the doctor encouraged.

Michael took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead. He tried to walk forward but stumbled. Then his tall, lean frame started to sway. Flora wanted to rush forward and help him.
But the doctor glanced at her and shook his head. She knew he wanted Michael to recover on his own.

Another faltering step came, then another. After passing the desk, Michael stood still, once more stroking his handkerchief across his damp forehead. Shaking his head slightly and blinking his
eyes, he took a long step, but then hesitated, almost overbalancing.

The doctor reached him before he collapsed completely. Flora ran over too, and between them they helped Michael back to the couch.

He sat silently, his head in his hands. ‘I think I’m beaten,’ he said wearily.

Dr Tapper looked at Flora. ‘A cup of tea, my dear. Can you make a pot in my kitchen and bring it down? I don’t think Michael will attempt the stairs today.’ She read the
message in the doctor’s eyes. He was as bewildered as she was. Only a few weeks ago, Michael had seemed close to walking without a cane and eager to try. But the beaten man who now sat before
them looked a shadow of his former self.

‘I can find nothing wrong with him. His thigh bears the scars of his injury, but on examination shows no sign of deterioration,’ Dr Tapper told Flora after Michael
had left. ‘Yet, as we saw, he was unable to walk more than a few feet without discomfort.’

Flora stared at the cups of cold tea that no one had drunk. Everything had been going so well until they had gone to Surrey.

The doctor looked at her keenly. ‘What is it, Flora?’

‘As we left Adelphi Hall, we stopped to look back at the house. A horse and rider galloped towards us. Michael was by the car, putting up the hood, but I was by the fence. I thought for a
moment the horse wasn’t going to stop.’

‘And Michael tried to reach you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Tell me again exactly what happened,’ the doctor said, at once alert and sitting forward.

Flora repeated in more detail all that had happened. As she spoke, he listened carefully and when she had finished, he sat back with a long sigh.

‘This, I believe, is important.’

‘Do you think Michael hurt himself as he rushed from the car?’ she asked.

‘No. But something happened that is far more worrying.’ He was deep in thought for a few moments. ‘As you know, Flora, many of the men we see in surgery suffer the effects of
conflict when they return home. Our first casualty was Tom Howe, but we have seen many such cases since. Michael is different. He showed no signs of emotional trauma. In fact, he seemed to be
extremely well adjusted, other than his concerns about surgery. He was eager to return to his regiment. However . . .’

Flora held her breath. She knew that what the doctor was about to say would be very important.

‘Michael is a soldier, trained for battle. All his instincts would have been to defend you – and he failed.’

‘But he didn’t fail.’

‘No, he did not,’ the doctor agreed. ‘In fact, he acted gallantly, attempting to prevent the horse from injuring you. But I believe that in this moment, in his inability to
move swiftly and take action, a memory or memories were triggered of something that happened in Gallipoli. Something he buried deep inside and, until his meeting with Lord Guy Calvey, had stayed
hidden.’

Flora felt her heart sink. If only they hadn’t gone to Surrey! If only she had taken notice of Hilda’s letter. Even Mrs Bell had suggested a trip to the seaside instead.

The tears were suddenly close.

Her feeling of dismay deepened the following Tuesday when Michael didn’t arrive for his appointment. Nor did he come to the surgery the following week. By the time the
month was out, there had been no message from Michael. Each day Flora took the shawl and butterfly brooch from the drawer and gazed at them. What had happened to her mother? And Michael? Would she
ever see him again?

On a hot Sunday morning at the beginning of July, Dr Tapper knocked on Flora’s door. He was dressed in his best black frock coat and held his Gladstone bag.

‘Last night, I was visited by a patient,’ he told her. ‘The mother of a young man who has just returned from the fighting. He is suffering from shell shock and walks with a
stick. I’ll call on him today. Would you like to join me?’

Flora was dressed to attend Mass at St Edmund’s, wearing Hilda’s blue suit and a soft blue beret. She hoped to counteract the worries that had beset her since she had last seen
Michael by an hour on her knees and a special novena said at Our Lady’s altar. Even Mrs Bell, whom she had spoken to about Michael the previous week, had reminded her that heaven’s
gates sometimes needed battering.

But five minutes later, Flora was sitting in the trap instead. She could smell the salty tang of the river as the breeze blew off the incoming tide and gave relief to the still warmth of the
summer’s day. The pony’s head bobbed up and down, reminding her of the last time she had accompanied the doctor, on their call to Mr Riggs. Over a year had passed since poor little
Polly had died and the
Lusitania
had sunk. Her thoughts went back to that time, when Will had found himself a victim to life in the trenches and Hilda had uprooted her whole life at
Hailing House. So much had happened in the two years of war. She thought of Michael and their first meeting at the market. A young man who, since then, had never been far from her thoughts.

The symptoms of shell shock were very clear on Archie Benson’s gaunt face. His eyes held a fearful expression. His shaven head and big ears looked too large for his thin
body. Flora noticed his walking stick which was positioned by his chair. Mrs Benson had rolled up one trouser leg, exposing the bandage on his calf muscle, in readiness for the doctor’s
examination.

‘They brought him home on a merchant ship,’ Mrs Benson told them as she sat on the narrow couch. The living room of her small Poplar terrace was neat and tidy, Flora thought, but it
was filled with the invisible tension that came with ill health. ‘I’m lucky, I know, to have one son survive,’ Mrs Benson continued. ‘My eldest, Stan, was killed at
Flanders. Archie was caught in an explosion. A piece of metal went into his leg, but the surgeon got it out and it seems to be healing. But it’s the memories of what happened that torment
Archie. The nightmares he still has, of the men from his unit who were killed.’

Archie gave a gurgling sound.

‘What is it, son?’