Maisie knew that Enid was dead. She did not need the confirmation that came the next morning, as Lord Compton told Carter that Enid had been among the young women killed and that he should take care of informing the staff in a manner that he saw fit. Not for the first time, Maisie considered how so much in life could change in such a short time. Priscilla enlisting for service, the wonderful evening, meeting Simon Lynch--and Enid. But of the events that had passed in just three days, the picture that remained with Maisie Dobbs was of Enid, swishing back her long red hair and looking straight at Maisie with a challenge. A haunting challenge.
"You worry what you can do for these boys, Maisie. You worry about whatever it is you can do."
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Maisie caught sight of the London Hospital in the distance and did not take her eyes off its austere eighteenth-century buildings until the bus had shuddered to a halt, allowing her to clamber down the steps from the upper deck to the street below. She looked up at the buildings, then at the visitors filing in, people leaving, many in tears, and the ambulances drawing alongside to allow their wounded and bloody cargo to be taken to the safety of the wards.
Maisie closed her eyes and took a deep breath, as if about to jump from a precipice into the unknown.
"'scuse me, Miss, comin' through. You'll get run over if you stand there, young lady."
Maisie opened her eyes and moved quickly to allow a hospital porter through carrying two large boxes.
"Can I 'elp you, Miss? Look a bit lost to me."
"Yes. Where do I enlist for nursing service?"
"You bloomin' angel, you. You'll be just the medicine some of these poor lads need, and that's a fact!"
Positioning his left foot awkwardly against the inside of his opposite shin, the porter held the boxes steady on his knee with one hand, pushed back his flat cap, and used his free hand to direct Maisie.
"You go through that door there, turn left down the long green-tiled corridor, turn right at the end to the stairs. Up the stairs, to the right, and you'll see the enlisting office. And don't mind them in there, love--they pay them extra to wear a face as long as a week, as if a smile would crack 'em open!"
Maisie thanked the man, who doffed his cap quickly before grabbing the boxes, which were about to fall to the ground, and then went on his way.
The long corridor was busy with people lost in the huge building, and others pointing fingers and waving arms to show them the way to reach a certain ward. Taking her identification papers and letters of recommendation out of her bag, Maisie walked quickly up the disinfectant-cleaned tile staircase and across the landing to the enlisting office for nurses. The woman who took Maisie's papers glanced at her over her wire-rimmed spectacles.
"Age?"
"Twenty-two."
She looked up at Maisie again, and peered over the top of her spectacles.
"Young-looking twenty-two, aren't you?"
"Yes, that's what they said when I went to university."
"Well, if you're old enough for university, you're old enough for this. And doing more good while you're about it."
The woman leafed through the papers again, looking quickly at the letter with the Compton crest that attested to Maisie's competence and age. There would be no questions regarding the authenticity of documents that bore not only an impressive livery but the name of a well-known figure at the War Office, a man quoted in newspapers from the Daily Sketch to The Times, commenting on dispatches from France.
Maisie had taken the sheets of fine linen paper from the bureau in the library at Chelstone, and written what was needed. Emboldened by Enid's challenge, she had felt only the shallowest wave of guilt. She was going to do her part for the boys, for those who had given of themselves on the fields of France.
"You've done what? Are you mad, Maisie? What about your university learning? After all that work, all that . . . ."
Frankie turned his back on Maisie and shook his head. He was silent, staring out of the scullery window of the groom's cottage, out toward the paddocks where three very healthy horses were grazing. Maisie knew better than to interrupt until he had finished.
"After all that fuss and bother . . . ."
"It's only a postponement, Dad. I can go back. I will go back. As soon as the war is over."
Frankie swung around, tears of fear and frustration welling in his eyes.
"That's all very well, but what if you get sent over there? To France. Blimey, if you wanted to do something useful, my girl, I'm sure 'is Lordship could've got a job for a bright one like you. I've a mind to go up to that hospital and shop you for your tales--you must've said you were older than you are. I tell you, I never thought I'd see the day when my daughter told a lie."
"Dad, please understand--"
"Oh, I understand all right. Just like your mother, and I've lost her. I can't lose you, Maisie."
Maisie walked over to her father and put her hand on his shoulder." You won't lose me Dad. You watch. You'll be proud of me."
Frankie Dobbs dropped his head and leaned into his daughter's embrace."I've always been proud of you, Maisie. That's not the point."
As a member of the Voluntary Aid Detachment, Maisie's duties seemed to consist of daily round of mopping floors, lining up beds so that not one was out of place, and being at the beck and call of the senior nurses. She had obtained a deferment from Girton, and no sooner had the letter been posted, along with another to Priscilla, than Maisie put her dream behind her and with the same resolve that had taken her to university, she vowed to bring comfort to the men coming home from France.
Maisie became a VAD nurse at the London Hospital in May, amid the never-ending influx of casualties from the spring offensive of 1915. It was a hot summer, and one in which Maisie saw little rest and spent only a few hours at her lodgings in Whitechapel.
Sweeping a stray tendril of hair under her white cap, Maisie immersed her hands into a sinkful of scalding hot water, and scrubbed at an assortment of glass bottles, bowls, and measuring jugs with a bristle brush. It was not the first time in her life that her hands were raw or her legs and back ached. But it could be worse, she thought, as she drained the suds and began to rinse the glassware. For a moment she allowed her hands to remain in the water as it began to cool, and looked straight ahead through the window to the dusk-dusted rooftops beyond.
"Dobbs, I don't think you've got all day to rinse a few bottles, not when there are a dozen other jobs for you to do before you go off duty."
Maisie jumped as her name was spoken, quickly rushing to apologize for her tardiness.
"Don't waste time, Dobbs. Finish this job quickly. Sister wants to see you now."
The nurse who spoke to her was one of the regulars, not a volunteer, and Maisie immediately reverted to the bobbed curtsy of her days in service. The seniority of the regular nurses demanded respect, immediate attention, and complete deference.
Maisie finished her task, made sure that not a bottle or cloth was out of place, then went quickly to see Sister, checking her hair, cap, and apron as she trotted along the green-and-cream-tiled corridor.
"Nurses never run, Dobbs. They walk briskly."
Maisie stopped, bit her bottom lip, and turned around, hands by her sides and balled into fists. Sister, the most senior nurse on the ward. And the most feared, even by the men who joked that she should be sent out to France--that would send the Hun running.