A Daughter’s Choice

‘Oh, poor you,’ Ally said and linked her arm through mine. ‘My parents have been really good to me. They were expecting me to work in the shop – Dad owns a grocery business – but I told them I thought it was important to give something back to the men who were giving so much for us and they agreed.’

Ally was obviously from a better class of home than my own, but she was prepared to be friendly and it would be nice to have at least one friend in this venture.

‘Your family sounds nice. I – I don’t have a mother, just Gran and my father. Gran is lovely, but my father has a temper. He hit me after an argument so I left before he could do it again.’

‘Good for you!’ Ally hugged my arm and gave me a look of approval. ‘I hate that sort of brutality. I’m glad you left home, Kathy. I think we shall be good friends.’

‘I think so too.’

Ally smiled. ‘You spoke about your friend just now. Is he a soldier?’

‘Yes. His name is Billy Ryan. He’s asked me to marry him, but I haven’t said I will yet. I want to learn to be a nurse first – and there’s no sense in planning anything until the war is over.’

‘That’s just how I feel,’ she agreed. ‘I’ve got a special friend too. His name is Mike Saunders. He’s just been promoted to sergeant. In his last letter he said he wants to get married when this is all over, but we’ve agreed not to rush things.’

‘Are you in love with him?’ I asked her shyly. Ally nodded, a little smile of satisfaction on her mouth. I continued, feeling I could open up to her now, ‘I’m not sure how I feel about Billy. I like him – and he makes me feel odd, sort of excited, when he kisses me – but I don’t know if I love him enough to marry him.’

‘Wait until you are sure,’ Ally advised. ‘There’s nothing worse than being married to the wrong man. You remember me mentioning my cousin Joan?’ I nodded. ‘Well, she is divorced …’

‘Never!’ I stared at her in amazement.

Ally nodded solemnly. ‘It caused terrible trouble in the family. But Joan said he was making her life a misery and she left him. He divorced her. He’s something in the city and rich. She got absolutely nothing because he claimed she was unfaithful to him. Joan didn’t care as long as she got away from him. She applied to be a nurse and then the war happened.’

Ally’s sophisticated talk of divorce was an eye-opener for me. It just wouldn’t have been thought of where I lived, but I was beginning to realize that the world was very different away from the lanes. A rush of excitement made me glad I had taken my courage in both hands and walked out when I did – and that I had found a new friend.

‘She sounds wonderful – your cousin.’

‘Joan has a lot of courage,’ Ally replied seriously. ‘My father says she’s one of the new modern women who will emerge when this war is over. He thinks it can’t be long before women are allowed to at least vote for who they want in Parliament. Joan is ahead of her time. If she hadn’t wanted to be a nurse she would probably have tried to stand for Parliament herself.’

I stared at her in amazement. ‘Can women do that?’

Ally shook her head. ‘Not yet but one day they will – and if she lives to see it my cousin will be one of the first to join the men on the hustings.’ She laughed at my look of disbelief. ‘I can see I am going to have to educate you about your rights, Kathy – but for the moment I want my tea!’

The hospital was the most amazing place I had ever seen. Both Ally and I were speechless as the bus finally pulled up in the courtyard of Beckwith House.

‘Good heavens,’ Ally said in an awed whisper. ‘We’ve done all right for ourselves here, Kathy. This must have been someone’s private house before the war. And what a house! Mind you, I wouldn’t want to live here, stuck out in the wilds like this. When they said it was outside London I didn’t expect it to be this far.’

‘I expect that is because they like to keep the location as secret as possible; no doubt that’s why they brought us here instead of giving us the money to find our own way. It’s huge, isn’t it – and that’s without all those temporary buildings they’ve put up in the grounds.’

‘You mean those tin shacks we passed?’ Ally grimaced. ‘I’ll bet you that’s where they put us.’

‘Well, I don’t suppose we’ll be staying in the main house; that’s sure to be needed for the men.’

‘They come first, of course.’

‘Pay attention please!’

An officious-looking man in uniform was trying to line us all up. We stopped talking and waited for directions.

‘Nursing recruits are to report to the Dower House. Orderlies and outside staff come with me.’

‘They get the tin huts,’ Ally said and grinned. ‘Where do you suppose the Dower House is? Hey – where are we supposed to go? Some of us are new around here, you know. We’re not all mind readers!’ She got a glare from the sergeant in charge of new arrivals, but there was a murmur of agreement from some of the other girls.

‘Follow that path.’ He pointed to the right. ‘The one between the shrubbery there. Someone will look after you when you get there. Right! Sort yourselves out, I haven’t got all day. Everyone other than nursing recruits come with me.’

‘Poor devils,’ I whispered to Ally as several women and a couple of elderly men trooped after him. ‘He’s a real bully. I’m glad I’m not in his charge.’ I picked up my case. ‘We’d better try to find the Dower House.’

‘Not very welcoming are they?’

Ally and I both turned as we heard the bored but extremely cultured voice behind us. The girl who had spoken had black hair and grey eyes and she was beautiful. Not just pretty or attractive but ‘knock ’em dead’ gorgeous, and the dress she was wearing looked as if it had come straight from the pages of an expensive fashion magazine.

‘It’s all such a bore, isn’t it?’ she said smiling wryly now that she had secured our attention. She offered her hand to me and I took it thinking she seemed nice enough in her way. ‘I’m Eleanor Ross, by the way.’

‘I’m Kathy and this is Ally – Alice Bowyer.’

‘I’m not in the least bored,’ Ally retorted with a sparkle in her eyes. I could sense her hostility towards the other girl immediately. ‘Why did you join if you didn’t want to come?’

‘Daddy insisted,’ she replied and pulled a face. ‘It’s good for his public image to have a daughter doing her bit. I’m lucky. He chased my poor brother into the Navy as soon as this stupid war started. Paul hates every moment of it. He’s a talented musician and that’s all he wants to do, but he wasn’t given a choice.’

‘What does Daddy do?’ Ally asked in an acid tone.

‘He’s a parliamentary secretary,’ Eleanor replied. ‘Very patriotic and filthy rich. One daren’t refuse to do as he asks or one might be cut off without a penny.’

‘And that would be dreadful for one, wouldn’t it?’ Ally glared at her with dislike. ‘Come on, Kathy. We don’t want to bother with her sort. She doesn’t belong with the rest of us.’

Ally took my arm and marched me away down the path some of the other girls had already taken. I glanced back at Eleanor Ross feeling a bit sorry for her. She looked unhappy and was vainly struggling with three heavy suitcases. I was considering whether to risk Ally’s disapproval and help her when a young man in a white coat approached Eleanor. He was good-looking, tall, had dark hair and clean-cut features that immediately triggered something in my memory.

‘Let me give you a hand?’ he offered. ‘You’ll never get all this stuff to the Dower House alone. You’ve brought rather a lot, haven’t you?’

‘I wasn’t sure what I would need.’ She gave him a flashing smile. ‘This is very kind of you, Mr …?’

‘Dr,’ he corrected. ‘I’m not a consultant so you call me doctor – Tom O’Rourke off duty.’

Ally had looked back to see what had caught my interest. She scowled as she saw the very attractive man speaking to Eleanor.

‘Trust her to get her claws into a terrific-looking bloke five minutes after we get here! That sort always know how to get their own way.’

‘I think I know him,’ I said as we started walking again. I could hear Eleanor talking to Dr Tom O’Rourke as they followed behind, though I couldn’t quite catch what they were saying because they were trailing some way back down the path. ‘I’m not sure, because I haven’t seen him for ages, but I think he used to live near me at home. I know his sister well. She’s always been really nice to me, because she delivered me when I was born.’

Ally gave me a curious glance. ‘You’ll have to introduce me when you get a chance. We can’t let Miss Stuck Up Madam get all the best men, can we?’

‘What about your boyfriend? I thought you were thinking about marrying him?’

‘That’s when the war is over,’ she said and grinned naughtily. ‘I intend to have some fun in the meantime. Mike doesn’t expect me to sit at home and twiddle my thumbs every night – and if he does he’s mistaken.’

I smiled and let the subject drop. I was in no position to introduce her to Tom O’Rourke. He probably wouldn’t remember me. I was still a snotty-nosed kid at school when he’d gone off to college. I remembered people talking about it, saying he was lucky to be alive because of the illness he’d had in childhood. The family was well liked and they had all wished him luck. He’d obviously done all right for himself, and it was an odd sort of coincidence me coming to train at this particular hospital.

I forgot about Dr O’Rourke as we arrived at the Dower House to find it a scene of friendly chaos and confusion. When some of the fuss had died down, we discovered that there were only three rooms to accommodate ten newcomers. It meant that we would be three to a bedroom and one of us was going to have to share with the senior nurses, which was something no one seemed to want to do, hence the argument.