The Woman at the Front Read online

  She lifted her eyes to Sir William, a renewed plea on her lips, but he’d already turned away, was crossing the room to open the door for her. She followed, her spine stiff, her expression placid. She’d also learned that at medical school, to not let disappointment or frustration show, no matter how those emotions raged in her breast. It was weakness, and it made one easy prey, a victim—or a casualty. Find another way. It had become her motto, her creed, to go around the obstacles in her path.

  Find another way.

  Sir William paused with his hand on the latch. “Have you considered the possibility of applying to serve as a nurse or a member of the Voluntary Aid Detachment?” he asked. “Much more ladylike pursuits.”

  Eleanor’s simmering frustration came to a boil. She clenched the handle of her pocketbook so tightly that she heard the bamboo crack. A foul curse word—also learned at medical school—rose to the tip of her tongue. She clamped it behind her teeth just in time.

  Instead she raised her chin and looked along the length of her nose at the bureaucrat. She was taller by half a head, and he noted that, colored, and subtly rose on his toes.

  “I am not a nurse, Sir William, or a volunteer.”

  She leaned forward, her nose inches from his, her eyes narrowed.

  “I am a doctor.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Thorndale, Yorkshire

  February 3, 1918

  The errand would take only a few minutes. Eleanor would present herself at the side door of the east wing of Chesscroft Park at precisely 11:00. She would ring the bell and inform the footman, maid, or butler that she had come to see the Countess of Kirkswell’s secretary. That efficient gentleman would be summoned, and he would arrive at the door with enough servants to unload the parcels of knitted goods from the doctor’s car while he supervised. He would convey his thanks to the ladies of the St. Everilda’s Ladies’ Knitting Circle on her ladyship’s behalf and assure Eleanor that the countess was most grateful for such a steady contribution to the war effort. It would take no more than half an hour.

  By 11:30, Eleanor would be on her way back to the doctor’s surgery, ready to tackle the list of chores her father had left for her. She would start by taking inventory of drugs and medications on hand. By 1:00, she’d be sitting down to transcribe his case notes into the official patient records. At 3:00, she’d dust and tidy the surgery, and at precisely 3:47, she would leave for the train station to be on time to meet her father when the 4:02 express from York arrived.

  She glanced over her shoulder at the bundles of knitted goods in the rear of the car, dozens of pairs of socks and gloves, mufflers and vests for the troops in France.

  There may be a shortage of doctors, but never of knitted items.

  That was uncharitable of her, Eleanor thought. Not only did the countess support the good works of the villagers by providing the wool, she had opened the entire east wing of her home as a convalescent hospital for wounded officers. After her disappointing interview with Foxleigh two weeks ago, Eleanor had hoped the countess might need another doctor to help with the patients, and knowing Eleanor was at medical school and had graduated, she might consider enlisting Eleanor’s help. The request had not come, and her mother insisted that Eleanor must not embarrass her parents by going up to Chesscroft to apply for work like a scullery maid—as if cleaning the surgery at home wasn’t just that.

  It wasn’t as if she knew the countess well enough to request a favor from her. Her ladyship lived a life beyond the touch of most of the villagers. She knew Eleanor by name and by sight, of course, as a member of the community and the doctor’s daughter, but aside from an acknowledging nod from the countess and an awkward curtsy from Eleanor upon a chance meeting, they had never spoken directly. Edward was much closer to the noble family, of course, as a dear friend of Lord Louis, the countess’s youngest son.

  Eleanor bit her lip as she drove, wondering if she might dare to presume on that boyhood friendship to beg an interview with her ladyship and a position at the convalescent hospital. As close as Edward and Louis were, she was an outsider, not one of the Kirskwells’ inner circle. Edward had deliberately kept her separate, and her parents had never enjoyed a closer relationship based on their son’s connection. It was as if Edward lived two lives.

  Another vehicle roared past her in the narrow road, horn honking, throwing in its wake a sudden splatter of thick yellow mud across the front window that landed with a crack so loud it sounded like a clap of thunder or a bomb going off. Eleanor flinched, suddenly blind as muck covered the glass completely, turning day to night. She hit the brakes and felt the car skid.

  And still the other vehicle honked frantically as she struggled to control the car. Someone heading to Chesscroft, perhaps. Someone cocky, a city sort, driving too fast, not realizing there was not space for even one car in the narrow lane, never mind two abreast between the high stone walls and thick hedgerows.

  She heard the rake and squeal of branches on the roof of the car, and then it came to a stop. There was no crash after all, just a hard bump. For a stunned moment, she sat still, trying to catch her breath and still her pounding heart, holding tight to the steering wheel as the rain drummed on the roof.

  “Bloody idiot,” she muttered. She squinted at the watch pinned to her lapel. It was 10:36. She’d have to get out and see if there was any damage to the car or if it was stuck in the mud, and she didn’t have an umbrella. She’d be late, and she’d arrive at Chesscroft soaked to the skin and muddy.

  Worst of all, at precisely 4:04, two minutes after he’d stepped off the train from York and surveyed the damage to the car in stunned silence, her father would skin her alive with a blistering lecture about duty and responsibility and care. He’d remind her that the sight of the doctor’s shining, pristine motor pulling up outside a cottage or farmhouse was in itself a source of comfort to the sick and injured. A damaged fender, or even a scratch, would undermine Dr. John Atherton’s impeccable professional image, suggest carelessness and undue haste, breed fear and uncertainty in those who must feel the utmost confidence in their doctor’s skill and patience. He’d tell her again that he’d only allowed her to learn to drive because her brother was away in France and there were errands to run, deliveries to make, and—

  The strident knock on the window beside her startled her. A hand swiped the mud away and the blur of a pale face peered in at her.

  “Doc?”

  She recognized Charlie Nevins, a farm lad from up in the dales. Sharp words about driving with more care sprang to her lips. She opened the door and held her skirts carefully to one side as she stepped out. Cold rain hit her face, and the icy mud slithered under her feet and instantly soaked the soft leather of her boots. “Charlie? What on earth do you think you’re—”

  She saw the worry on his face and paused. But it wasn’t for her. There was mud on his clothing, and—blood.

  “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

  He ignored the question and bent to peer into the car. “Is your father with you, El? I need him.”

  It was serious, then. Her gut tensed.

  “He’s gone to York today. I dropped him at the station not half an hour ago. What’s—”

  “Gone?” His eyes met hers, round with despair.

  “Where are you hurt?” Eleanor asked again, scanning Charlie’s wind-chapped face and rangy body, his raw-knuckled hands, knobby knees, and muddy boots, looking for the source of the blood.

  He glanced at the truck, stopped now in the middle of the lane a few yards ahead of the car. “It’s not me—it’s my da. He slipped on a patch of ice up in the high pasture, cut his leg open on some wire. It took me an hour to get him down. He’s in the truck, bleedin’ bad. We stopped at the surgery, but your mother told us the doctor was out. When I saw the car, I was hoping he’d be in it.” He cast another anxious look at the truck. “Can ye tell me when the doc will be back?
Da’s in a bad way.”

  “I can help.” She didn’t hesitate. She dove into the car for her medical bag.

  Charlie shook his head when she emerged and frowned at the black case. “Begging your pardon, but it’s your da I need, not you, El.”

  She blinked the rain out of her eyes and tightened her grip on the handle of her bag. She’d yet to have the chance to use it for anything more significant than delivering liniment for sore joints or syrup for a child’s cough, though it had waited, packed and ready, for the whole of the eight months since her graduation from medical school.

  “I’m a doctor now as well, Charlie,” she said, in case he didn’t know that. It felt odd to say that to someone just a few years younger than she was, a village lad who’d been brought into this world by her father, whose older brothers had played cricket on the heath with Edward before they’d all marched off to war, leaving fourteen-year-old Charlie behind to help his father run the farm.

  “But it’s not a—a woman’s complaint, or a child.” he said. “It’s an emergency.”

  She didn’t argue. There wasn’t time if it was a true emergency. She strode toward the truck, ignoring the mud and squinting at the cold rain falling into her eyes. Charlie hurried to catch up. “Eleanor, wait—”

  “How long ago did it happen? Is the cut deep?”

  “Um, I can see the bone,” Charlie muttered. “But Da won’t want—”

  She reached the truck and opened the door. Arthur Nevins lay on the seat, his right leg wrapped in a blood-soaked blanket. His face was white, his lips drawn back in pain. His brow crumpled in confusion when he saw Eleanor. “What the devil—” He looked at his son. “Where’s the doctor, lad? I told ye to fetch the doctor.”

  “He wasn’t in the car, Da. It was just Eleanor. The doc’s gone to York, but she says she can see to ye.”

  Arthur Nevins gaped at her, then echoed Charlie. “No offense to ye, lass, but this isn’t some female complaint—it’s me leg. I need a proper doctor.”

  She squared her shoulders and pushed the sodden hair out of her eyes. “I am a proper doctor, Mr. Nevins.” She reached for the edge of the blanket and lifted it. She swallowed hard. The wire had bitten deep into the calf muscles, carved a long, bloody gash. She saw smears of dirt and manure on his skin. Risk of infection. The wound needs cleaning, possibly cauterizing, and suturing, her medical brain noted. Amputation? She shook off that thought. This wasn’t just a patient. She’d known Arthur Nevins all her life. He had four sons. Two were in the army, still alive, and one—Matthew—had been killed at the Somme in ’16.

  Arthur needed his leg.

  “We need to stop the bleeding,” she said carefully. “The wound needs cleaning and stitching. Is the bone broken?”

  But Arthur flipped the blanket back over the wound. “Leave it be, lass. If I wanted a woman practicing her needlework on me, I’d have had my Muriel sew me up. I need a doctor!”

  “I’ll take him up to the surgery in Ribblesdale,” Charlie said.

  Eleanor shook her head. “That’s ten miles away over rough roads, and we had word last week that Dr. Skerritt was called up. He’s gone to France, and his replacement isn’t due to arrive for another week. My father is the only doctor—the only male doctor—in the district. Charlie, this can’t wait. It’s very serious. I can—”

  “No,” Arthur interrupted sharply. He drew the blanket up to his chin like a shy maiden and glared at her over the edge of it.

  Charlie stared at her for a moment, rubbing his jaw, assessing her, perhaps, deciding if she could truly help his father or not. “We need to hurry, Charlie.”

  Charlie took a breath and swiped the wet hair off his forehead, then turned to his father. “Da, see reason. I’m leaving in a fortnight. What will ye do then? Ma can’t help with the sheep, and it’ll be lambing time soon.” He looked at Eleanor. “I turned eighteen last month, and I’ve been called up. I’m going to France.”

  Eleanor looked at him in surprise. She hadn’t realized that Charlie was old enough, but she saw the stubble along his narrow jaw, the jut of the Adam’s apple at his throat. She couldn’t imagine him as a soldier. He was tall and skinny, his eyes still wide and blue and innocent. Still, he was full-grown, strong, and able-bodied. She looked at him and knew what his father must be thinking, what his mother feared. Matthew had been eighteen when he left, was killed at nineteen, and now it was Charlie’s turn to go.

  Worry shimmied up her own spine, but there was another emotion as well, a darker, distinctly selfish one. Charlie was going to France to do his bit while she was stuck in England running errands, forbidden to go. It made her more determined to help Arthur, to do what she was trained for.

  “Charlie’s right, Mr. Nevins. I’m fully qualified, and you’re in a bad way. This is very urgent. The wound needs to be seen to at once, cleaned, disinfected, properly cared for. There are germs in the soil, tetanus . . .”

  “I ain’t got germs!” Arthur said. He turned to his son. “Take me home, lad. Your mother can put a poultice on it for me, and when the doctor’s back again, he can see to it.”

  “No!” It was Eleanor’s turn to object. “It will be too late. It could be—” Fatal. She stopped herself from voicing her greatest concern aloud. If blood loss didn’t kill him, infection would set in. The leg would turn septic, gangrenous. There’d be fever, delirium, and terrible pain. Amputation, too, if it wasn’t too late.

  She considered her options. The surgery was nearly three miles away, but Chesscroft was less than half a mile up the lane. “We’ll take him to the convalescent hospital at Chesscroft,” she said to Charlie. “Every minute counts. I’ll come with you.” She took a wad of clean bandages out of her bag and climbed into the truck.

  “What are ye doing?” Arthur demanded, his voice rising an octave as she pressed in next to him and lifted his leg carefully into her lap to elevate it.

  “I’m going to put a clean pad on the wound, something to absorb the blood until we get to the hospital.”

  Charlie slid behind the steering wheel. “The countess’s hospital is just for loonies, isn’t it? Officers not right in the head?”

  “It’s a convalescent hospital for all kinds of wounded officers,” she said, concentrating on the wound.

  “There are real doctors there? Not just nurses?” Arthur asked.

  “Yes, Mr. Nevins. Male doctors,” she said tartly. She pressed the bandage over the wound, and blood immediately soaked the white linen. “Hurry, Charlie. Drive fast.”

  Minutes later, Charlie flew through the gates of Chesscroft Park at top speed. The truck jumped from the rutted lane to the manicured gravel drive, and Arthur yelped in pain. Eleanor held the bandage in place and glanced out the window, trying to judge how long it would take to reach the east wing. Two minutes, three perhaps, no more than that. She glanced at the black wreaths on the estate’s gates, indicating a recent death in the family and a house in mourning. Not a war death this time, but an accident that had claimed the earl’s eldest son only three months earlier.

  The wadded cloth covering Arthur’s leg was soaked in blood, her hands red with it, and she replaced it. She held tight, bracing her shoulder against Arthur’s to minimize the jolting as the truck skidded to a stop by the east door. He grunted with pain anyway. “Mind the gears, boy,” he muttered weakly.

  “Go inside and get help,” she said to Charlie. “I’ll wait with your father. Tell them it’s urgent.”

  “No offense, lass, but a proper doctor should be a man,” Arthur said, staring at her, an older, more weather-beaten version of his youngest son. His mouth was drawn tight with either his conviction or pain, and his eyes were still suspicious.

  She changed the cloth again and didn’t bother to reply. Her hands were slick with blood. She heard the ticking of her watch, or perhaps it was just the rain on the roof of the truck and the gravel outside. Time wa
s passing, time Arthur Nevins didn’t have to spare.

  She wondered if Peter Ellersby, one of the doctors here at Chesscroft and a major in the Royal Army Medical Corps, would be on duty today. He’d become a friend of her father’s, and he often came to the surgery for supper. He’d be happy to help, she was certain.

  “Where the devil is Charlie?” Arthur muttered fretfully.

  Eleanor looked up at the pitiless facade of the imposing manor house. The yellow stone glowed against the gray sky, and the crumbling bulk of the original Norman tower peered out from behind it, testament to the fact that there had been Chastaines in this spot since they arrived with William the Conqueror.

  How many times had she followed her brother here as a child? Edward and Lord Louis had been playmates as boys, then partners in mischief and misadventure as they got older. They’d climbed and played and swum together, had gone to Cambridge together, and enlisted together, though Louis had eventually joined the air corps, while Edward found a place as an adjutant at headquarters, thanks to his connection to Louis. And now Louis’s older brother was dead, and Louis was the new Viscount Somerton and would be the next Earl of Kirkswell.

  If he survived the war.

  She pushed the grim thought from her mind, concentrated on changing the sodden dressing on Arthur’s leg yet again and pressing a fresh wad of linen against the wound, the last one she had. Where was Charlie? She couldn’t leave Arthur to check.

  When the door opened at last, only the countess’s secretary stepped out. He stayed under the porch out of the rain and peered at the truck. He pushed his spectacles back up his nose. “Mr. Ross, I need help!” she called. His brow furrowed, but he stayed where he was.

  “Yes, Miss Atherton, I understand, but I’m afraid that—”

  Charlie shoved past him, his face alight with indignation and worry. “They won’t help him!”

  “What?” Eleanor said, stunned. “Why?”

  “That settles it. Take me home, lad,” Arthur said, trying to shift his position on the seat of the truck. He hissed in pain.