Snowflakes in the Wind Read online

  The civic party would dutifully tour every ward of the hospital after lunch, distributing smiles and nods and stopping for a chat with a patient now and again. That was fine on the other wards, but on the chronic wards they often encountered a wizened granny who would whip off her nightdress and lie there as naked as the day she was born before the nurses could get to her, or an elderly gentleman with a glazed smile on his face doing something unmentionable to himself under the covers.

  This tour used to take place before lunch, but an incident some years before had put paid to that. A sweet-faced, white-haired little old lady who had, unbeknown to the nursing staff, done her business in her bed, then decided to give her gift offering to the nice visitors by throwing it at them with a deadly aim when they stopped to talk to her. The resulting screams and stampede for the door had resulted in the mayor’s wife slipping on the foul-smelling mess and ending up sliding down the ward on the carefully polished floor, to the accompaniment of clapping and garbled calls from the patients who genuinely thought it was a show put on for their benefit.

  ‘Night then.’ Kitty’s voice was already drowsy, and within a minute regular snores from her bed told Abby her friend was out for the count, but tonight Abby found sleep eluded her. All day, no matter what she had been doing, memories of Christmas Eve the year before had darted into her mind. Perhaps it was because an air of sentiment and festive mawkishness pervaded the usually austere confines of the hospital? she thought, trying to harden her heart. But it was no good. Tonight Nicholas wouldn’t be denied access. She lay picturing his tall strong body and handsome face, his shock of black hair and deep-brown eyes, and fought the tears that pricked at the backs of her own eyes.

  It had been right to send him away, she reassured herself, and she knew that. Any liaison between them was doomed from the start, what with his father and Nicholas’s position in life, and her own family. Her grandfather and Robin would never understand. Only last week Rachel had written that a deputation of farmers had gone to see the laird to ask for a reduction in the rent on their farms now the depression was worsening so rapidly, but he wouldn’t give them the time of day. Wilbert was predicting dire times ahead, Rachel had written, and she and Robin were so grateful to him that he had already agreed with the farmer that Robin would take over as shepherd in the next few years and continue to live in the cottage. Every so often now they saw whole families tramping the roads, and the men would offer to work for nothing more than a roof over their heads and food to eat. And there was the laird, in his big house and with more money than he knew what to do with, refusing to lower the rent by so much as a penny. He was a fiend, a devil, that’s what Wilbert said.

  She had read the letter and she had agreed with it. Nicholas’s father was a monster, but his son wasn’t like that. She knew he wasn’t. But she also knew her grandfather and Robin wouldn’t accept that in a million years.

  She fell to sleep eventually through exhaustion, and woke just before six to Kitty shaking her shoulder and thrusting a small present into her hands. ‘Come on, wake up, it’s Christmas Day,’ said Kitty, for all the world as though she was a small toddler rather than a grown woman.

  Pam was sitting on her bed, amazingly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed considering she still hadn’t been back when Abby had fallen asleep in the early hours. The three of them exchanged gifts – small bottles of Californian Poppy from Kitty, scented soaps from Pam and boxes of chocolates from Abby – while Pam regaled them with tales of her lurid night of love with her Dr Ferry who apparently was ‘the one’. The fact that each of Pam’s boyfriends was ‘the one’ until she decided otherwise when she got bored was neither here nor there, and Abby and Kitty wouldn’t have dreamed of reminding Pam of this, not on Christmas Day.

  Then Pam produced a small bottle of brandy from her hidey-hole and poured a measure into each of their toothbrush glasses. ‘To Flo,’ she said, a catch in her voice. ‘The best of friends.’

  ‘To Flo,’ Abby and Kitty echoed.

  ‘And may the swine who killed her burn in hell,’ Pam added.

  It wasn’t quite in the spirit of Christmas but they were all in agreement nonetheless. Abby had never tasted brandy before and she thought it was horrible, but the warm glow it produced in her stomach was welcome in view of the freezing-cold room and lack of sleep. It provided the boost of adrenaline needed to start what was bound to be an exceptionally busy day, especially considering that in the matron’s eyes the visit of the mayor was considerably more important than the birth of the Saviour of the world.

  After a hasty breakfast the morning flew by. An hour before the mayor was due, each sister in charge of a ward called her nurses into her office to give them a pep talk on how smoothly she expected her respective ward to run when the mayor and his party arrived. To the junior nurses’ amazement, this was followed by a cup of coffee from a big urn the kitchen staff had brought to each ward minutes before, along with the offer of a cigarette by the sister and dates and chocolates from a tray on her desk. Abby drank her coffee quickly, as did everyone else, feeling acutely uncomfortable. All year the sisters and staff nurses ranted and raved at them and it seemed the strangest of things to be standing in the sister’s office, hitherto only a place of sharp rebukes, drinking coffee and watching some of the nurses smoke.

  Christmas dinner was equally uncomfortable. It was the only time in the year the matron ate with them, and what with the mayor being present and everyone on edge lest something went wrong, the meal was far from relaxed.

  Then the visit to the wards began, each sister listening with bated breath for the spy she had positioned at the end of her particular corridor to come running to say the mayor’s party was approaching. Patients were warned on pain of no Christmas dinner later that day not to say a word out of place; the chronics – heavily sedated for the occasion after the disaster of a few years before – had their bedcovers straightened for the umpteenth time as they snored loudly showing ancient toothless gums, and on the children’s wards – bodily functions taken care of well before time – washed and scrubbed little angels sat or lay meekly in their beds, the promise of a chocolate and a cup of milky cocoa for everyone who behaved enough to ensure perfect calm.

  The sigh of relief when the mayor and his party drove away from the hospital could be heard throughout the building, and once they had gone, there was a couple of hours to feed the patients their Christmas dinners and do necessary jobs before the Christmas festivities began in the concert room. Skeleton staff were left on each ward during the entertainment as the main bulk of the patients were taken to enjoy the sight of their medical staff ‘doing turns’ as one granny described it. Everyone, even the sisters and staff nurses, entered into the spirit of it, singing songs, acting short sketches – often with a risqué element attached to them – telling jokes and even doing a spot of conjuring.

  It was in this interlude after the mayor had left and before the concert began, that the staff nurse on Abby’s ward came into the bathroom where Abby was helping a young woman who had been beaten to within an inch of her life some weeks before to take a bath. Everyone knew the husband had been responsible for the woman’s appalling injuries, but the woman – who was really little more than a girl – feared him more than death itself, and had insisted it was a stranger who had broken into the house and hurt her.

  The staff nurse eyed Abby balefully. ‘You’ve got a visitor and Sister says it’s a good job it’s Christmas Day or you’d be for it, encouraging a young man to come to the hospital.’

  ‘What?’ Abby stared at the staff nurse in surprise. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I don’t understand, Staff Nurse.’

  Abby stared into the thin, pinched face. This particular staff nurse was universally loathed. ‘I don’t understand, Staff Nurse.’

  ‘There’s someone in the waiting room off the front lobby to see you so Sister says to cut along and she wants you back in time to help take the patients to the concert room.’

&
nbsp; Utterly bemused, Abby cut along. A young man? Was it Robin? Was something wrong at home? And then reason kicked in. Robin would have said he was her brother. That left . . . No, no he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t come to the hospital. He of all people would know the protocol, the rules, the code of behaviour that was expected.

  When she reached the front lobby Abby took a moment to compose herself before she opened the door of the waiting room. Nicholas was standing with his back to the door, looking out of the window.

  She had forgotten how broad-shouldered and tall he was. It was a silly thought to have at such a time, and even more silly that her heart seemed to be trying to thump its way out of her chest.

  He turned, and his first words were disarming. ‘I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have come, but I had to. It’s different when I’m in London, but coming home and being so close . . . Well, I had to come. I . . . I said I was your cousin, by the way, and that I had some family news I needed to impart regarding the death of a great-aunt.’

  She stared at him. What a ridiculous lie. It wouldn’t fool anyone.

  ‘I know,’ he said, as though she had spoken out loud. ‘But I played my trump card and showed my credentials to prove that I’m a doctor. The family thought in view of the fact that you were close to this great-aunt and were bound to be upset, a doctor was probably the best person to come and tell you the news.’

  She didn’t want to smile; it was outrageous. He was outrageous. Nevertheless her lips twitched in spite of herself.

  Nicholas’s eyes narrowed as he tried to gauge her mood. ‘Say something,’ he said after a few moments had slipped by.

  ‘Do you always lie to get what you want?’

  ‘When I said, “Say something,” I was thinking of, “Hello, Nicholas,” or, “It’s nice to see you, Nicholas.” ’

  She tried, she really tried not to smile, but then they were both laughing. When he came and took her hands, though, her face became straight. Carefully she removed her fingers from his, sitting down on one of the hard-backed chairs lining the waiting-room walls as she said, ‘You shouldn’t have come here. I thought we had agreed it was best we didn’t see each other again.’

  ‘Did you?’ He sat down himself, not next to her but with a chair between them. ‘That is not my recollection. If I remember rightly, you gave me a list of reasons why you thought a relationship between us was impossible, but I certainly did not agree with them.’

  He looked wonderful. Worried that the deep pain in her heart, the longing, the feeling that was coursing through her and making her feel heady and dizzy, would reveal itself in her eyes, Abby lowered her gaze to her hands. They were red and sore; they were always red and sore with the incessant scrubbing and cleaning and scouring and polishing that took up a large part of her day, but it was worse in winter when it was so cold. A woman of his own class would never have hands like hers. Without raising her eyes, she said flatly, ‘A gentleman would not press his attentions where they weren’t wanted.’

  ‘I agree so let’s take it I am not a gentleman and that’s one of your reasons null and void. I am simply a man, Abigail, and you are a woman. All this talk of class that seems to preoccupy you is so much hogwash.’

  ‘It’s not and you know it.’

  ‘Well, it damn well should be.’ He made an exasperated sound in his throat and stood up, and in the next moment he pulled her up and into his arms. The kiss was not the sweet and tender thing she had always imagined her first kiss from a man to be; it was something so far above that it took her breath away. It spoke of hunger and desire and frustration; it made the blood course through her veins like fire and brought every nerve singing.

  When he at last raised his mouth from hers he drew in a long shuddering breath but didn’t let her go, his brown eyes raking her flushed face. ‘I had to come,’ he said for the third time. ‘I think of you all the time. You can’t let my father and your grandfather and brother stand in the way of what we feel, you can’t.’

  The mention of her grandfather and Robin acted like cold water on the fire of her emotions; she jerked out of his hold, taking a step backwards. ‘I haven’t changed my mind and I can’t see you again. You’ll meet someone else, someone more suitable for you—’

  ‘Don’t say that.’ His voice was angry now, harsh. ‘At least give me the credit that my feelings for you are genuine if nothing else.’

  ‘Then if you do feel the way you say you do, you’ll go.’

  ‘Do you care for me, Abigail?’

  It wasn’t the words, it was the look on his face as he spoke that undid her. She wanted to deny it but she couldn’t. After an endless moment, she whispered, ‘I do, but . . .’

  ‘Not enough,’ he finished for her. And when she said nothing, he murmured, as though to himself, ‘Yes, I see that now. Not enough. If you cared for me as I care for you, nothing else would matter. You would let nothing and no one stand in our way.’

  She wanted to scream at him that that was unfair. He was the laird’s son; if he took up with her and his father disapproved, the most that would happen to him was that he might be thrown onto purely his career as a doctor for earning his living, but even that was doubtful. As the son and heir, his parents would probably forgive him anything in time. Whereas for her it was so different. Nicholas’s father had the power to turn her grandfather and Robin and Rachel out of their home and take away their livelihood if he wanted to punish her for enticing his son. And even if the laird was reasonable, which verged on the laughable, her grandfather and Robin would look on her as a traitor; worse, they would face suspicion and resentment from everyone because of her. They would be ostracized and cold-shouldered and their lives made unbearable. She couldn’t be responsible for that. Her granda had taken them in and given them all he had; she couldn’t make his twilight days ones of misery and heartache. She wouldn’t. Nicholas had no idea of how it would be and that alone spoke of the huge gulf between their two worlds.

  ‘If I go now, I won’t come back.’ He looked at her standing white and still in front of him. ‘I won’t trouble you again. Is that what you want? Think before you answer.’

  She could talk until she was blue in the face and he would never understand. How could he? He had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He had never been hungry; never lived in dread of the rent man; never shuddered at the thought of the workhouse. But for her granda, that’s where she and Robin would have ended up; incarcerated in a living hell for years and years and bearing the stigma for the rest of their lives. Nicholas had always had soft scented sheets to sleep on, freshly laundered clothes to wear and everything of the best quality. A nanny, servants, private schools – the list was endless.

  ‘It has to be this way,’ she said quietly.

  ‘No, it doesn’t.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  He nodded, his handsome features carved in granite. ‘Then there is nothing left to say but goodbye.’

  ‘Goodbye, Nicholas.’ It was as though the kiss had never happened, she thought helplessly. He had gone from her. He might still be in the room but he had left her.

  He made no attempt to touch her again, walking over to the door and opening it without glancing her way. He shut it quietly, so quietly she wasn’t sure he had gone until she turned round and saw she was alone.

  So alone.

  PART FIVE

  A Divided World

  1939

  Chapter Twenty

  For the first few years after the final parting from Nicholas, Abby’s life had, on the whole, run smoothly. She’d made up her mind within weeks after he had left that her career would have to be her life. A husband and children were now ruled out for her. She’d told family and friends that she was married to her job and her patients were the only dependants she wanted. No one knew the real reason she’d given up on a husband and family of her own, but when Nicholas had left the hospital that Christmas Day he’d taken her heart with him. It was as simple as that. She knew there could never be an
yone else for her and having made that decision, Abby set out to be the best nurse she could possibly be.

  By the time she took her finals at Hemingway’s it was generally acknowledged that Nurse Kirby was a cut above the other trainees. Her results were gratifyingly outstanding, and Abby rose swiftly through the ranks. When Pam finally married her Dr Ferry some years after their first night of unbridled passion, Abby was already the youngest sister that Hemingway’s had had.

  Most of the time Abby would have said she was, if not happy, then content with her lot. She was an auntie three times over now that Robin and Rachel had twin boys and a baby girl, and she enjoyed visits to the farm to see her grandfather and indulge her nephews and niece with armfuls of presents. She had gradually relaxed about going back home when the years had ticked by and there was still no sign of Joe McHaffie. Most folk were of the opinion that he had grown tired of living with his parents and the prospect of being their carer and provider in the future, and had taken the easy way out by skedaddling to pastures new while he was still young enough to make a different life for himself. It was typical of him, the farm folk murmured out of earshot of his parents. Joe always had been a moody and taciturn individual and selfish to the core. The only time people thought of him now was when they saw his mother standing at the cottage window. From the day he had gone, she had taken to watching for him for hours, and it was generally acknowledged that his going had sent her a bit funny in the head.

  Abby would probably have continued working at Hemingway’s indefinitely, but it was Matron Blackett, her fears about the future having gathered steam with Hitler gaining power in 1933 and launching Germany into wholesale rearmament, who first brought up the subject of Abby and several of her other nurses becoming military nurses. Matrons all over Britain were being encouraged by the government to apply pressure to trained nurses along this line, and Matron Blackett could see that in the event of war the army would need well-trained, capable and dedicated nurses, and who better than her girls from Hemingway’s? Matron Blackett had watched as the worldwide depression had damaged ordinary people’s faith in democracy and capitalism, helping to bring Hitler’s National Socialists to power in Germany, and boosting Mussolini’s imperial ambitions. It had distracted the world leaders’ attention from Stalin’s terror in the Soviet Union and stimulated the rise of new dictatorships. As she explained to Abby and some other nurses one morning in her sitting room, war was inevitable and their skills and devotion to duty would be needed as never before.