Where Love Shines Page 5

  Even as she argued with him, Jennifer had to admire such commitment. This was his chosen career. He would consider nothing short of doing his full duty.

  So the day had arrived. The day he was to return to the Lancers.

  “Nurse!” Dr. Menzies bustled in with his abrupt manner. A small man with black hair and beard, he never wasted time and never showed fatigue. Jennifer had seen his black eyes snapping as brightly after hours of performing surgery as they did now. She hurried to assist, holding the bag of instruments and bandages for him.

  Richard held out his hand. Jenny took it and gave it a reassuring squeeze. But they did not speak.

  “Scissors.” Jennifer placed them in the doctor’s hand. “Now we shall see how you do.” Dr. Menzies spoke to the top of Richard’s head as he unwound the first layer of bandages.

  Richard had only one question. “May I return to my regiment tomorrow, Doctor?”

  “We shall see. Bring a basin and sponge, nurse.” Jennifer turned to obey as another layer of bandages came off. Outside she was all cool efficiency. Inside she could hardly breathe. Would the healing now be complete? Would Lieutenant Richard Greyston now be returned to the battlefield to be shot at again?

  The earlier dark clouds rolled away. Bright sun streamed in the window opposite them as Dr. Menzies began on the last bandage. Jennifer smiled at the sensation of warmth on the back of her head. It must be a good omen.

  The bandage fell away. Richard looked up. Jennifer had a fleeting impression of blue-gray eyes surrounded by red puckered skin. But it was only fleeting.

  Richard gave a cry of piercing pain and flung his hands over his face.

  Dr. Menzies nodded. “Just as I feared. Photophobia from corneal burns.” He took the roll of clean bandages that Jennifer held in suddenly numb fingers and rewrapped Richard’s eyes with three quick circles around his head. The springy blond curls had grown back sporadically around the scars on Richard’s head. Tender red skin showed above and below the white strip that covered the light blue eyes.

  After his initial outcry, Richard sat in stony silence and rocklike stillness.

  “Doctor—” If Richard wouldn’t ask, Jennifer would. And yet she couldn’t find the words.

  Dr. Menzies shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows? Sometimes there is improvement. Sometimes not. In time he may be able to bear light enough to see. Or he may not. Go home, young man, and wait.”

  Richard was silent.

  Jennifer wanted to reach out to him. There must be something she could say. Something she could do. But she could think of nothing.

  “Clean up here, nurse.” Dr. Menzies indicated the bandages he had flung on the floor. “Then I shall need you to assist in surgery.” Jennifer must have been slow to respond because he added, “Immediately.”

  Jenny just managed to brush Richard’s hand as she turned to follow the doctor’s orders.

  She was on duty for the next eight hours. It was time for quarters—just past, actually—when she finished her last task. The rules were incontrovertible. She would be severely reprimanded for being in the corridors after eight o’clock. Nurses had been sent home for little more than that. But she must speak to Richard.

  It was a cold night. After that critical burst of sunlight that had given so much pain to Richard’s light-sensitive eyes, the clouds had returned. Now the rain fell heavily. Jennifer threw her short gray uniform cape around her shoulders and ran down the tower stairs, not bothering to take a lamp with her.

  The corridors were deserted. Now with the success of the Sanitary Commission, men were recovering so rapidly that almost all their patients had been moved into real beds in wards. But what did recovered mean? Were men missing arms or legs recovered? Were men whose scars had healed but who still cried out in their sleep recovered? Were blind men recovered? Richard. Would he ever recover?

  Jennifer opened the door and slipped into the silent, darkened ward. Hurrying down the row, she counted the beds almost subconsciously. But there was no mistake when she arrived at the middle. She was too late. Lieutenant Richard Greyston was gone.

  Five

  Five months later, on a bright day in August, Jennifer stood on the deck of the Hansard with a light breeze blowing her skirts. Gulls wheeled and called, and the white chalk cliffs of home welcomed her. She wanted to push back the bonnet confining her thick hair, but gently bred Englishwomen did not go bareheaded in public.

  “What will you do now?” Louisa, one of the returning “lady” nurses, leaned against the rail beside Jennifer.

  Jennifer gave her a startled look. “Why, go home, of course.”

  “Of course! But I mean, will you nurse in a hospital? Or take private patients?”

  The question perplexed Jenny. She had given the matter so little consideration. During all the months of battling overwhelming disease and filth, she had concentrated so hard on helping her patients survive and on surviving herself that she had given almost no thought to what she would do when it was all over. Most of the time it seemed that the horror would never end.

  But it did end. Although the war was not yet over, by the end of July when the Sanitary Commission finished their work, there were only 1,100 patients in the Barracks Hospital, and fewer than 100 of those were confined to their beds. Florence Nightingale had been able to extend her influence to hospitals in the Crimea itself, and the demands on her nursing staff were greatly reduced. It was then that Jennifer had received one of her mother’s persistent letters begging her to return home.

  My very dear dau.,

  You know nothing can give your father and myself more gratification than that our only child should be engaged in so worthy an activity. Indeed it is incumbent upon all of us who name Him Lord that we never neglect our duty to visit the poor and give comfort to the sick. But, my dear, there are so many needy right here in London. Cannot you find your way clear to return to doing good in the bosom of your own family? I know that you will be pleased to learn that the excellent Mr. Merriott has undertaken the added task of factory inspection.

  Your loving mother, Amelia Neville

  For once Jennifer actually had time to consider her mother’s pleading. And she decided that perhaps her mother was right. But now she must confront the issue that Louisa’s question raised. Jenny had known from her early days in Scutari that she didn’t want to continue nursing. But she was surer than ever that she did want to help people. She was a far different woman from the compliant girl who had sailed across the Channel in the opposite direction less than a year before. She had seen what energy and determination could do. She had learned how far her own strengths could reach, and she now had some concept of what must be accomplished. She couldn’t imagine what those who knew her before in her proper sheltered life would think of her. Her life would never be the same.

  But she also knew that shedding her old life would not be enough. She must take up a new one. The hospital had been a success. The army had been saved. Richard had lived. Now she must find new causes she could care about as passionately as those. But she had no idea what they would be.

  “Perhaps I will return to my ragged school work.” Her vague reply satisfied Louisa, who turned to talk to another of the returning nurses. But Jennifer wondered whether it satisfied herself. The schools, mostly begun by missionaries of the London City Mission and overseen by the Earl of Shaftesbury, were a wonderful work. They brought the light of knowledge and of the Gospel to half-naked children living in the unspeakable squalor of London’s slums amid bad water, open drains, and crumbling overcrowded homes. Such thoughts brought back the horrors of the first months at the Scutari hospital to her, and for a moment she felt stifled with putrid air in spite of the fresh sea breeze around her.

  She shook her head. When she had taken part in Mary Stanley’s excited vision of going out to Turkey to “help dear Flo and inspire our brave soldiers,” Jennifer had had no idea she was to undertake anything that would change her own life.

  And apparently no
t all felt so changed. Louisa and Felicia Burkston-Hodder talked excitedly about their plans. “I, for one, have had quite enough of changing bandages and fetching and carrying.” The ribbons of Felicia’s bonnet whipped in the breeze.

  Louisa brushed the tiered ruffled skirt of the new day dress she had ordered during their three-day stopover in Paris on the way home. “Oh, you mustn’t say that. We must always carry with us the inspiration of having worked with Miss Nightingale to save our dear boys. And every woman knows there will always be nursing to do—for our families, for those on our estate—” She paused in some confusion. “—that is, for those with estates—and always charity work for others,” she finished in a rush. It was clear that Louisa had little thought for anything but returning to her family in Surrey.

  And Felicia evidenced even less doubt about the life she was returning to. “My last letter from Papa was to inform me that he has agreed to allow Mr. Murray Relyea to make his addresses to me. What do you think, Jennifer? I have a great fondness for St. Marylebone, but it is rather out of fashion now. Would it not be better to be married at St. George’s Hanover Square?”

  Jennifer was glad that Louisa answered for her, giving enthusiastic support to the superiority of St. George’s. This was a topic that would have greatly interested her less than a year ago. Now, however, she had no opinion. Here was another evidence of how much she had changed in these few months. What would Mr. Arthur Nigel Merriott think of her now? Indeed, what would she think of him? And having changed so much, would she be expected to change again?

  She was still worrying later when the train steamed into the Tooley Street Station in Southwark. It didn’t take long for her to spot the familiar figure among all the others waiting on the platform—of stocky build, medium height, but looking rather taller in his high top hat and sober but well-tailored dark suit. Arthur Nigel Merriott had come to meet her. He handed her down from the door of her car and took her hand luggage from her. His thick sandy eyebrows shaded his brown eyes as his square muttonchop sideburns curled forward with a smile of greeting. “Your parents were so kind as to allow me to meet your train. Although why you didn’t come by private coach, I don’t understand. One might be required to sit by anyone on a train.” He signaled a porter. “Where are your trunks, Jennifer?”

  “No, Arthur, this is all.” She had to say it three times before he realized that she had only the two small bags. “I have not been on a pleasure cruise to require a steamer trunk,” she reminded him.

  “Yes, my dear Jennifer, I am aware of that.” He led the way from the platform at a brisk pace. “But now you can put all that behind you. Of course, I’m certain it couldn’t have been all the Times made it out to be. But you must have seen some rather unpleasant things. I still don’t understand why you took it into your head to go all the way out to Turkey when there is so much to be done here. But never mind that now.”

  He hailed a hansom cab, and they were soon trotting briskly northward—as briskly as the congested traffic on London Bridge would allow.

  “Mother wrote in her last letter that you have been appointed to the Factory Inspection Commission.”

  Arthur never needed encouragement to talk about his work. One of the things Jennifer appreciated most about him was his willingness to discuss such matters with her. Certainly her father would never talk to her mother about such unsuitable topics as politics or his work in the bank, and he never gave her mother or herself anything but the society page of the newspaper to read.

  Arthur, however, was far too passionate about his work to curb his enthusiasm, even in the face of society’s demands that the weaker sex be spared such sordid facts. “Oh, you have no idea what work there is to do. The two hours a day of schooling provided for factory children is more often directed by anyone available at the moment—whether or not they can read or write themselves—than by any proper schoolmaster. And even the youngest children are required to work fourteen hours a day or more. If England is to remain the leader of the industrial world—”

  “But, Arthur, what has become of the Ten Hours Act? I’m certain I remember that it passed long before I left.” Jennifer blinked in confusion. It seemed as if she had been gone ten years rather than ten months.

  “Quite right, quite right you are. It passed in substance. But the factory owners have found a loophole. They work children in relays, often requiring six-year-olds to remain at the factory from six in the morning until ten at night, with a few spare hours in the middle, which are of little use for recreation or education. And there has been almost no reform in the potteries. Workers are the foundation of industry. We weaken that foundation by being careless with this resource.”

  The hooves of the cab horse rang briskly on the paving stones, mingling with the cries of costermongers hawking their wares amid the bustling throng of shoppers. Jennifer gazed at the banking houses of the city, the smart shops of New Oxford Street, and—once the congestion of Oxford Circle was behind them—beheld again the quiet elegance of Regent Street. She leaned back against the black leather upholstery of the cab with a sigh and felt herself relax as the familiar sights of Portland Place drew closer.

  “‘…Tribes who killed unwanted babies or sacrificed their children to Moloch were merciful compared with Englishmen of the nineteenth century.’” Arthur’s impassioned voice suddenly penetrated Jennifer’s consciousness.

  “What did you say, Arthur?”

  “I was quoting one of the earl’s speeches for the Ten Hours Act—one of his finest, I believe. I’ve got it all by heart. ‘For we, having sucked out every energy of body and soul, tossed them on the rubbish heap of the world—a mass of skin and bone, incapable of exertion, brutalized in their understandings, and disqualified for immortality.’ And disqualified for further work, I should have added had I been making the speech.”

  The cab came to a stop before Number 7 Portland Place, and Jennifer saw her mother coming out the door to meet her. With a stifled sob, Jennifer barely waited for the butler to open the cab door before she sprang down. “Mama, I had forgotten how beautiful you are!”

  Mrs. Neville returned her daughter’s embrace and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek before suggesting they go inside where they would be unobserved. But Jenny was right. At barely over forty, with only a few gray hairs highlighting the rich brown hair beneath her lace cap and dressed in a deep violet dress with a wide crinolined skirt, Amelia Neville retained much of the beauty that had made her the belle of her coming-out season a generation earlier.

  They entered the parlor decorated in rich shades of deep green and plum, with its dark wood furniture heavily carved and upholstered in thickest velvety plush, its mantel, piano, and tables draped with silk-fringed scarves. To Jennifer it seemed as cool and quiet as the heart of a forest where the sun never truly penetrated. Nothing could have been further removed from the plains of northern Turkey. Jennifer sank thankfully into a chair overhung by a verdant potted palm and accepted a cup of tea from the tray brought in by Hinson, the butler. She was home.

  Arthur passed the tray of cucumber and cress sandwiches. “You can have no notion, Jennifer, of how needed our factory inspections are. I have witnessed children with a whole alphabet of deformities brought on by the iniquitous demands of their labors.” Arthur placed a cheese and hazelnut sandwich on his own saucer before sitting down. “The side alleys of our cities are thronged with the dirtiest—”

  “It was so kind of you to fetch Jennifer from the station, Arthur, dear. I know your support must have meant a great deal to her after such a fatiguing journey.” Mrs. Neville took a sip from her flowered china cup.

  Arthur’s thick sandy eyebrows underwent a strange pattern of contortions as Mrs. Neville’s hint registered with him. “Ah, yes. I was delighted to be of service. But, of course, now that you’re returned to us, Jennifer, my dear, we shall have plenty of time to discuss all these matters. Indeed, Ashley—er, that is, the Earl of Shaftesbury—is to make a public address on the topic soon
. You will doubtless wish to hear him. Perhaps you would allow me to accompany you, Mrs. Neville?”

  By the time Arthur left them after his third bow, Jennifer couldn’t decide whether to scream or to cry. “Dear Arthur—such energy, such dedication, such goodness. It’s quite exhausting to contemplate. If there were a dozen like him in the city, I’m sure the worst rookery should be swept clean in a matter of months. I do admire him so much.”

  “Indeed, my dear. Arthur is the finest of men. He’s assured to go far, especially with the earl’s support. I’m certain his future wife—whoever she may be—will find herself Lady Merriott one day.”

  “Yes, Mama. That had not escaped my consideration.” But Jennifer laughed as she said it. She had learned months ago at Scutari that laughter was often the best release for the feeling of having been run over by a steam engine.

  “But you must not be too quick about taking up your charity work again. You look woefully drawn.” Mrs. Neville examined her daughter’s hands. “My goodness, you look as if you’d been scrubbing with the housemaids. It’s no wonder Mary Stanley returned after only a month of nursing. Why didn’t you come then, too? I’m sure if we’d known it would be anything so difficult, your father and I would never have permitted you to go out to Scutari at all. There are plenty of good works to be done right here in our own city.”

  “Yes, Mama.” Jennifer pushed her teacup aside. Her head was beginning to ache.

  “Fortunately, I have a fine new cucumber and rosewater cream from Fortnum’s. You must use it faithfully. A lady can never take too much care of her skin. And we will begin our calls next week. It is well I had the foresight to refuse all invitations for this weekend. We will visit my dressmaker in the morning.”

  “Yes, Mama.” Whether it was due to the rigors of the past months or from the specter of returning to a never-ending round of afternoon calls and dinner parties, Jennifer’s head felt as if it would split apart.