Twisted Strands (38 page)

‘Oh, madam.’ The girl rushed towards Eveleen. ‘It’s the master. He’s – he’s gone berserk. I can’t do a thing with him. Nor – nor can Mr
Stokes.’

Not even pausing to remove her hat and coat, Eveleen ran up the stairs. The door to the main bedroom stood open and a scene of devastation met her eyes. Ornaments, perfume bottles, face-cream
jars lay scattered in pieces on the floor, their contents spilled. Clothes had been pulled from drawers and the wardrobe and flung around, even the mattress had been upturned and rested drunkenly
half on, half off the bedstead.

Richard stood in the centre of the room, his eyes wild, his arms flailing, his hands reaching for something else to throw. And he was shouting.

‘I want Bridie here. Get Bridie.’

Brinsley hovered at the door, his face white with anxiety. ‘Thank God you’re here, Eveleen. Maybe you can calm him.’

Eveleen stood a moment and watched. ‘I doubt it,’ she said drily. ‘It’s obvious who he wants.’

She felt her father-in-law glance at her, but he said nothing. Eveleen stepped into the room and moved towards her husband. To see the loving, kindly man she had known reduced to this was
breaking her heart, yet she knew she had to be strong.

‘Richard, please . . .’ She tried to catch hold of his arms to still them, but his hand caught the side of her face, striking her jaw and almost knocking her to the ground.

‘Bridie? Where’s Bridie?’

For a moment Eveleen, her hand to her cheek, stared at him. Then suddenly something seemed to snap inside her. All the emotion of the past four years: her ill-concealed anger at his
volunteering, the stress of trying to take over the reins at the factory and the antagonism she had faced, and the never-ending worry for his safety. And, though buried deep, the thought too that
she would never now bear a child. All of this bubbled up inside her until she felt as wild as the man before her.

With a noise in her throat like a growl, she raised her hand and slapped his face hard. There was sudden silence. Richard stood quite still staring at her. Behind her, she heard her
father-in-law’s muttered, ‘Oh, Eveleen, you shouldn’t have done that.’ Immediately she was filled with remorse. After all he had suffered, all he had been through, all his
loving wife could do was to strike him.

Tears filled her eyes and she held up her arms to him. ‘Oh, Richard, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’

Richard shook his head and passed a weary hand across his eyes as if waking from a dream, or perhaps a nightmare. Drained, he sank to the floor and Eveleen knelt beside him, cradling his head
against her and stroking his hair, rocking him like a child.

Brinsley stepped into the room. ‘I think, my dear,’ he began, but now there was a firm resolution in his tone, ‘you should let him go to Fairfield House.’ His eyes held
deep understanding. Perhaps he guessed something of what she was feeling because he added, ‘I understand how you must feel, but it seems to be what he wants and I think it would be for the
best. We can’t – ’ he waved his arm to encompass the destruction around them – ‘have this and he needs proper care. Care, my dear, that neither you nor I can give
him.’

It was a gentle reproach, but Brinsley was generous enough to include himself in the failure.

Eveleen closed her eyes and held Richard close to her. Then she kissed his forehead and whispered, ‘You’re right. It would be the best thing for him.’ Though not for me, she
was thinking. Aloud, she added, ‘I’ll take him this afternoon.’

‘Will they have a place?’

As she rose to her feet, she nodded. ‘I think so. Bridie said that two were discharged last week. One to go home and one to return to the Front.’

‘Poor fellow,’ Brinsley murmured, saddened by the thought that someone who had already suffered injury should be made to return to that living, dying hell.

There was only one place left at the home; already the other had been filled by a soldier with bandages round his eyes.

‘He’s been blinded,’ Bridie told Eveleen. ‘Isn’t it sad? He was a watchmaker.’

Eveleen bit her lip. Sorry for the stranger though she was, her mind was filled with her own problems. ‘Oh, Bridie, I hit him. I hit Richard. I’ll never forgive myself.’

Bridie took her aunt’s hands, suddenly seeming the older of the two of them. ‘Don’t be upset, Auntie Evie. You maybe did the right thing.’

Eveleen stared at her. ‘The right thing? How can it possibly have been right to hit him?’

Bridie shrugged. ‘It was a kind of hysteria, wasn’t it?’

‘I – I suppose so,’ Eveleen responded doubtfully, still feeling the enormous guilt.

‘And it worked, didn’t it?’

Eveleen nodded.

‘There you are then.’ She patted Eveleen’s hand, trying to comfort her. ‘And I know how you must feel having to bring him here, but you have done the right thing.
Honestly.’

Eveleen nodded again, but the tears spilled down her face and Bridie hugged her. ‘There, there,’ she whispered as if to a child.

Later, after Eveleen had left and Richard was asleep in his room, Bridie confided in the matron. ‘She slapped his face. Was that the right thing to do?’

Dulcie pursed her lips. ‘I’d sooner she had found another way. I wouldn’t allow any of the nurses under my control to use such methods. The furthest I’d go is some kind
of restraint.’ The matron sighed. ‘But I understand how difficult and frightening it must have been for her.’

‘She had a bruise on her jaw,’ Bridie went on. ‘He caught her as she tried to calm him. He didn’t mean to hit her, she said. He didn’t know what he was
doing.’

‘He wouldn’t. But he’s here now and we’ll keep him here until he’s quite, quite well.’ She smiled at the girl. ‘And he can be your special patient,
along,’ she added, her eyes twinkling, ‘with Mr Hardcastle.’

The war news was heartening. At the end of September the papers said that the Allies were sweeping all before them along the whole Western Front. On 11 November came the news
that the whole country had longed to hear for more than four years. The war was over. Church bells rang out to herald the peace. In the city factories closed and a jubilant workforce rushed into
the streets, cheering, dancing and waving flags. At Reckitt and Stokes Eveleen declared a day’s holiday, but as Brinsley remarked sadly to Eveleen, ‘The fighting may be finished, but
the war will never be over for so many. They’ve another kind of battle to contend with now. We’ve lost a whole generation of our youth.’

Brinsley visited Richard regularly at Fairfield House and Eveleen came every weekend and on Wednesday afternoons. But Sophia Stokes now refused to visit her son.

Shortly after noon on Monday, the day before Christmas Eve, when Bridie was helping to usher the patients into the dining room for their midday meal and carrying trays to those who could not
manage to get down the stairs, she heard the sound of a car in the driveway. Glancing out of a window, she saw her aunt climbing out of the vehicle and almost running towards the front door.

Bridie’s heart skipped a beat and then began to thud. Something was wrong. Eveleen had only left the previous evening after her usual weekend visit. And Monday was one of her busiest days
at the factory.

Bridie hurried into the bedroom and thrust the tray at the man in the bed. ‘Sorry. I’ve got to go. Auntie Evie . . .’ She rushed out of the room again and ran down the
stairs.

‘Bridie!’ Dulcie’s voice rang out in the hall. ‘Don’t run.’

‘Sorry, Matron, but Auntie Evie’s here.’ As she spoke the urgent pealing of the front doorbell began and despite Dulcie’s reprimand, Bridie scurried across the polished
hall floor and pulled open the door.

Eveleen’s face was wreathed in smiles and Bridie felt a sudden relief. There was nothing seriously amiss if her aunt was looking happier than she had for weeks, months – probably
years – since this whole sorry war had begun. Standing on the doorstep, she flung her arms wide and cried, ‘I’ve wonderful news, Bridie. The best Christmas present ever.
Andrew’s safe. He’s coming home.’

Bridie smiled and nodded and gestured her aunt to step inside. ‘Of course he is,’ she said simply.

Eveleen entered the house, staring at Bridie. ‘You don’t seem surprised.’ She glanced towards Dulcie. ‘Oh, you’ve heard already?’ The matron shook her head
and they both turned towards the girl.

Bridie was smiling happily, but all she said was, ‘I told you all along he wasn’t dead. I knew he’d come back.’ She shrugged. ‘I just knew God wouldn’t let
him die.’

The two older women now glanced at each other, marvelling at the young girl’s unshakeable belief. Eveleen put her arm about Bridie’s shoulders and her voice shook slightly as she
said, ‘I wish your grandfather could see you at this moment. Your faith shames even his devotion.’ She handed Bridie a letter. ‘This is for you. It was enclosed in
mine.’

Now the girl’s hands were shaking as she took the letter and thought she recognized the handwriting. She held the letter to her bosom for a moment, then, slipping it into her pocket, she
murmured, ‘I’ll read it later.’

‘He’s been in a prison camp,’ Eveleen explained. ‘That’s why we’ve heard nothing. Evidently when he went on that raiding party, he was injured and lay out in
the open all night. In “no man’s land” they call it.’ Bridie nodded. She had heard the soldiers talking about it. ‘The following day,’ Eveleen went on, ‘he
was found and taken to an enemy field hospital and then to a prison camp. He had no identification on him and he refused to tell them who he was. In fact, he wouldn’t tell anyone until he
knew he was back in England.’

Bridie brushed away her joyful tears and asked, ‘When will he be home?’

‘We’re trying to arrange that. He’s in a hospital in the south of England at the moment, but Mr Stokes is making enquiries – ’ Eveleen laughed – ‘and
pulling a few strings to get him moved here.’ Her face sobered and she glanced from Bridie to Dulcie and back again. ‘There’s just one thing. You’ll have to watch both Jimmy
and Andrew. There could be trouble. I’ve no doubt that Andrew has harboured bitterness against my brother all these years.’

‘Perhaps it would be best if Andrew didn’t come here,’ Dulcie said.

‘Oh no, please let him come,’ Bridie exclaimed at once. ‘I’ll manage them. Besides, my father is much better . . .’ Then she remembered to add hastily,
‘Physically, that is. Perhaps he could go to Gran’s. It’s what she wants.’

Eveleen smiled wryly. ‘Ah, but is it what Jimmy wants?’

In the privacy of her room, Bridie opened her letter.

His ‘dearest’, she thought, clasping the letter to her again. Then she read on.

Bridie smiled gently, relieved that she had kept her promise to him.

All his love, always, she thought. If only he really meant it.

‘I aren’t going there.’ Jimmy glowered. ‘I don’t know them from Adam. Why should I go and live with strangers?’

Bridie could not argue, for Dulcie was standing beside her. She had no intention of breaking her promise to her father, even though he was glaring at her as if the suggestion that he was well
enough to go and live at Pear Tree Farm now had come solely from her.

‘Trying to get your own back, are you?’ he hissed at her.

‘No,’ the girl said calmly. ‘We thought it might be best. It might help you to regain your memory,’ she added pointedly, ‘if you were in familiar
surroundings.’

‘They won’t be familiar, will they,’ he countered sarcastically, ‘if I can’t remember them.’

‘True,’ the matron agreed. ‘What Singleton means is that surroundings that should be familiar to you might help jog your memory.’

Jimmy’s only answer was a growl.

Ignoring it, Dulcie went on with a tone of finality that suggested the decision had been made for him. ‘Besides, we need the bed.’

‘Don’t tell him who it’s for,’ Bridie had warned Dulcie earlier. ‘Else he’ll refuse to go just out of spite, if what Auntie Evie says is anything to go
by.’ But it seemed that the grapevine within the home had been buzzing.

‘Oh, aye. Is it for Burns?’ A sly grin spread across Jimmy’s face. ‘Well, I’d like to be here to greet him. I’d like to see his face when he sees me
here.’

Dulcie was staring down at him. Slowly she said, ‘I thought you couldn’t remember anything?’

‘Oh – er – well, I get little flashes now and then,’ he faltered and then, as his mind worked surprisingly quickly, he added, ‘Besides, Eveleen was telling me. How
we had a fight and all that.’ He nodded towards Bridie. ‘Over her mother.’ He grinned broadly. ‘I expect I won.’

As they moved away, Dulcie frowned thoughtfully whilst Bridie held her breath. Was she going to be questioned and found out?

‘I think he knows more than he’s letting on to us, Bridie, don’t you?’

‘It – it sounds a bit like it,’ the girl said, crossing her fingers behind her back and praying for forgiveness for the little white lie. But perhaps now there was no need to
keep up the pretence. The war was over and even if Jimmy went back to sea eventually he would not be going back to a war situation. Not now, thank God.

And now Andrew was coming home. Bridie skipped through her work, her heart singing.

Andrew was coming home.

‘He’s here. Oh, he’s here!’

Bridie ran down the wide staircase and across the hall. Dulcie appeared in the doorway of her office, but for once she did not reprimand the excited girl. Earlier she had warned her that they
had not yet been informed of his injuries. Andrew might look very different from how Bridie remembered him. ‘You do know, don’t you, that he could have lost a leg or an arm or be blind,
deaf . . .?’