Roses for Christmas

CHAPTER THREE

THE DAYS SLID BY, October became November and the bright weather showed no sign of giving way to the sleet and gales of early winter. The ward filled up; acute bronchitis, pneumonia, flu in a variety of forms, followed each other with an almost monotonous regularity. Eleanor, brimming over with good health and vitality herself, had her kind heart wrung by every fresh case. They got well again, of course, at least the vast majority did, what with antibiotics and skilled nursing and Sir Arthur and his assistants keeping a constant eye upon them all, but Eleanor, wrapping some elderly lady in a shabby winter coat, preparatory to her going home, wished with all her heart that they might stay in the ward, eating the plain wholesome food they never cooked for themselves, enjoying the warmth and the company of other elderly ladies; instead of which, going home so often meant nothing more than a chilly, lonely bed-sitter.

They weren’t all elderly, though. There was the teenager, who should have been pretty and lively and nicely curved, but who had succumbed to the craze for slimming and had been so unwise about it that now she was a victim of anorexia nervosa; the very sight of food had become repugnant to her, and although she was nothing but skin and bone, she still wanted to become even slimmer. Eleanor had a hard time with her, but it was rewarding after a week or two to know that she had won and once again her patient could be persuaded to eat. And the diabetics, of course, nothing as dramatic as Miss Tremble, but short-stay patients who came in to be stabilized, and lastly, the heart patients; the dramatic coronaries who came in with such urgency and needed so much care, and the less spectacular forms of heart disease, who nonetheless received just as much attention. Eleanor didn’t grudge her time or her energy on her patients; off-duty didn’t matter, and when Jill remonstrated with her she said carelessly that she could give herself a few extra days later on, when the ward was slack.

And towards the end of November things did calm down a bit, and Eleanor, a little tired despite her denials, decided that she might have a long weekend at home. She left the hospital after lunch on Friday and took the long train journey to Lairg and then the bus to Tongue, warmly wrapped against the weather in her tweed coat and little fur hat her mother had given her for the previous Christmas, and armed with a good book, and because it was a long journey, she took a thermos of tea and some sandwiches as well. All the same, despite these precautions, she was tired and hungry by the time she reached the manse, but her welcome was warm and the supper her mother had waiting was warm and filling as well. She ate and talked at the same time and then went up to bed. It was heavenly to be home again; the peace and quiet of it were a delight after the busy hospital life. She curled up in her narrow little bed and went instantly to sleep.

She was up early, though, ready to help with the breakfast and see Margaret and Henry off to school, and then go and visit Mrs Trot and her fast-growing family. ‘We’ll have to find homes for them,’ she declared as she helped with the washing up.

‘Yes, dear.’ Mrs MacFarlane emptied her bowl and dried her hands. ‘We have—for two of them, and we thought we’d keep one—company for Mrs Trot, she’s such a good mother—that leaves one.’

‘Oh, good.’ Eleanor was stacking plates on the old-fashioned wooden dresser. ‘What’s all this about Henry going climbing?’

‘His class is going this afternoon, up to that cairn—you know the one? It’s about two miles away, isn’t it? Mr MacDow is going with them, of course, and it’s splendid weather with a good forecast. He’s promised that they’ll explore those caves nearby.’

‘The whole class? That’ll be a dozen or more, I don’t envy him.’

Mrs MacFarlane laughed. ‘He’s very competent, you know, and a first-class climber—the boys adore him.’ She looked a little anxious. ‘Do you suppose that Henry shouldn’t have gone?’

‘Oh, Mother, no. Can you imagine how he would feel if he were left behind? Besides, he’s pretty good on his own, remember, and he knows the country almost as well as I do.’

Her mother looked relieved. ‘Yes, that’s true,’ she smiled. ‘I’ve always said that if I got lost on the mountains I wouldn’t be at all frightened if I knew you were searching for me.’

Eleanor gave her mother a daughterly hug. ‘Let’s get on with the dinner, then at least Henry can start out on a full stomach. Are they to be back for tea? It gets dark early…’

‘Five o’clock at the latest, Mr MacDow said—they’ll have torches with them…I thought we’d have treacle scones and I baked a cake yesterday—he’ll be hungry.’

Henry, well fed, suitably clothed, and admonished by his three elder relations to mind what the teacher said and not to go off by himself, was seen off just after one o’clock. The afternoon was fine, with the sky still blue and the cold sunshine lighting up the mountains he was so eager to climb. Not that there was anything hazardous about the expedition; they would follow the road, a narrow one full of hairpin bends, until they reached the cairn in the dip between the mountains encircling it, and then, if there was time, they would explore the caves.

‘I shall probably find something very exciting,’ said Henry importantly as he set off on his short walk back to the village school where they were to foregather.

Eleanor stood at the door and watched them set out, waving cheerfully to Mr MacDow, striding behind the boys like a competent shepherd with a flock of sheep. She said out loud: ‘I’d better make some chocolate buns as well,’ and sniffed the air as she turned to go indoors again; it had become a good deal colder.

She didn’t notice at first that it was becoming dark far too early; her mother was having a nap in the sitting room, her father would be writing his sermon in his study and she had been fully occupied in the kitchen, but now she went to the window and looked out. The blue sky had become grey, and looking towards the sea she saw that it had become a menacing grey, lighted by a pale yellowish veil hanging above it. ‘Snow,’ she said, and her voice sounded urgent in the quiet kitchen and even as she spoke the window rattled with violence of a sudden gust of wind. It was coming fast too; the sea, grey and turbulent, was already partly blotted out. She hurried out of the kitchen and into the sitting room and found her mother still sleeping, and when she went into the study it was to find her father dozing too. She took another look out of the window and saw the first slow snowflakes falling; a blizzard was on the way, coming at them without warning. She prayed that Mr MacDow had seen it too and was already on the way down the mountain with the boys. She remembered then that if they had already reached the cairn, there would be no view of the sea from it, the mountains around them would cut off everything but the sky above them. She went back to her father and roused him gently. ‘There’s a blizzard on the way,’ she told him urgently. ‘What ought we to do? The boys…’