The Silver Locket by Margaret James Read Free Book Online Page B

Gerard’s tenants did farm several thousand of the ancestral acres on his vast estate.
    ‘Why did you run away?’
    ‘I didn’t run away!’
    ‘Rose, I think you did.’
    ‘They wouldn’t let me breathe.’ Rose looked at Maria helplessly. ‘You can’t imagine what my life was like. Every single move I made, they watched me. I wanted to go and help in a hospital they’d set up in the village. But it was no, you can’t do that. You must stay at home, marry the man we choose for you, and bury yourself alive.’
    ‘You must tell your parents you’ve come here,’ Maria said, firmly. ‘Poor things, they must be frantic. They probably think you’ve been abducted and sold as a white slave.’
    ‘Perhaps, but I don’t care.’
    ‘Why, did they beat you, or hurt you in some way?’
    ‘No, but – you wouldn’t understand.’
    ‘Rose, I’ll keep your secret,’ said Maria. ‘But you must write a letter to your mother. You must do it now, and I’ll post it when I leave tonight.’
    ‘What if I refuse?’
    ‘You won’t do anything so cruel and foolish. Listen, you write that letter, and I’ll get you transferred to Stafford Ward. We’re not so rushed up here, the orderlies are helpful and the sister is a gem. We’ll turn you into a real nurse – agreed?’
    ‘You promise you won’t tell Matron what I’ve done?’
    ‘My God, I wouldn’t dare.’ Maria grinned. ‘She took you on, and she’d have a heart attack if she ever found out you took her in! You’ll find some writing paper in that drawer.’
    So Rose wrote the letter. After she had sealed the envelope, she felt as if a burden had been lifted from her shoulders. Even though she expected to be summoned home to Dorset straight away, and threatened with all sorts of dire reprisals if she refused to go, she trudged back to her lodgings feeling almost happy.
    She ate the meal of mutton stew and glutinous rice pudding Mrs Pike warmed up for her, then she had an undisturbed night’s sleep, the first since she’d arrived in London.
    She worked out a plan. She wouldn’t leave the hospital, and if her parents tried to force or bribe her to return to Charton, she’d run away again.
    So she was surprised and slightly hurt when she heard nothing. ‘Do you think they got my letter?’ she asked Maria, when a fortnight had gone by.
    ‘I expect they did.’ Maria shrugged. ‘But if you’re worried, why don’t you write again?’
    ‘It would look as if I minded, and I don’t.’ Rose picked up a tray of instruments needing to be washed then sterilised. ‘Sister said to clean the sluice and then sort out the linen, but may I watch you do some dressings later?’
    ‘You could do some yourself.’
    ‘All on my own?’ Rose stared, alarmed. ‘It’s not the actual bandaging,’ she added. ‘I can do that now, and I’m not squeamish, I don’t mind the blood. But I’m just so scared of hurting them.’
    ‘Then you might as well go back to Dorset.’ Maria’s mild grey eyes met Rose’s dark ones. ‘Private Coleman, Corporal Spink and Sergeant Major Logan. You watched me change their tubes and do their dressings yesterday, so today you’ll do them by yourself. I’ll be on the ward, so if you’re stuck just ask me what to do. But if you’re only playing at being a nurse?’
    ‘I’ll do the dressings.’
    As Rose’s confidence increased, her skill improved. The pace on Stafford Ward was not as hectic as on Kingston, so she had time to watch the other nurses, then try things on her own.
    As she finished doing dressings one November morning, Sister Hall called Rose into her office. ‘Staff Nurse Gower says you’re doing well,’ she told her, smiling. ‘I know you came here as a volunteer, to help us out in this emergency. Matron says you were a governess. But I think you’re the sort of person who would make a splendid nurse.’
    Rose felt she had come home. ‘Sister says she thinks I should apply to Bart’s or Guy’s,’ she told