The Woman at the Front Read online

  “Stay still!” Eleanor commanded.

  “They said it’s a military hospital, only for officers. They won’t take civilians, emergency or no,” Charlie said, his voice rough. He looked at Eleanor. “I begged them, pleaded, but the bastards refused to help ’im.”

  She looked at Mr. Ross, still standing under the porch. He was staring at the blood in horror, his face pinched and pale. Eleanor took Charlie’s hand and pressed it against the pad that covered the wound. “Firm pressure,” she ordered and got out of the truck. The rain was falling harder now, and she was soaked all over again. Mr. Ross dragged his eyes from the blood and looked at her, taking in her bedraggled condition, the blood on her hands and clothing, and the mud caking her boots.

  “This is Mr. Nevins. He’s a patient of my father’s, but he’s away today, and this is an emergency. He needs medical attention at once.”

  “I can see that, Miss Atherton, but my hands are tied. It’s not my decision. I am merely her ladyship’s secretary. I write letters, order supplies, I am not . . . Have you brought the consignment of knitted goods by any chance?” he asked hopefully.

  Knitted goods—as if a woolen muffler or a vest mattered now, as if they’d stop a bullet on the front or keep a man from bleeding to death here on the doorstep. She ignored the question.

  “I need help getting Mr. Nevins inside,” she said instead.

  He winced. “Another doctor, perhaps, or the village surgery.”

  Eleanor shook her head firmly. “He won’t make it that far. Look at him, Mr. Ross—he’s bleeding badly. I cannot treat him here in the rain. Please—I can see to him myself if the other doctors are busy with patients. I just need a place to do it, a sterile room.”

  “I cannot authorize that!” Mr. Ross said in horror. “I sympathize, of course, but it’s quite impossible.” Behind him in the half-open doorway, the curious faces of maids and nurses appeared, drawn by the commotion.

  “This is a hospital, in’t it?” Charlie called.

  “Is Dr. Ellersby here?” she asked, breathless now. “He knows my father, he’s a friend. May I see him?”

  “Major Ellersby is with patients,” Ross said. “It was he who said—”

  The door was thrust back suddenly, and the maids vanished, and there was Peter Ellersby, wearing a white coat over his bespoke khaki shirt and regimental tie. “What’s all this commotion, Ross? We have sick men trying to rest,” he snapped. His brows rose in surprise at the sight of her and his eyes traveled from her dripping hair to the blood and mud on her skirt and back again to her face. “Eleanor? What are you doing here? You’re soaking wet.”

  She was so relieved to see him that she almost laughed. What did it matter if she was wet? “Peter, this is Arthur Nevins. He’s a patient of my father’s. He has a deep laceration on his right calf, and there’s risk of shock. He needs immediate—”

  Peter’s eyes flicked away from her and took in the truck and the two men inside it with a single sweeping glance before he cut her off with a wave of his hand. She stepped back, expecting him to rush forward, but he stayed where he was, next to Mr. Ross, under the shelter of the porch. “This is a military hospital. We cannot treat this man here. If we did, every local farmer would expect—”

  “I’m a soldier!” Charlie said quickly. “I’ve just been called up, and my brothers are all in the army as well. One died at the Somme. The other two are in the thick of it. Can’t you just—”

  “Impossible,” Peter Ellersby sniffed, unmoved. “Surely your father can tend to this,” he said, pinning Eleanor with an indignant glare. There was no friendliness in his eyes now, no sympathy or compassion. He kept his hands clasped behind his back and glared down the length of his nose at her. She gaped at him. How could a doctor not be moved to help, to use his skill to save a man who was bleeding to death on his very doorstep?

  “My father is in York today,” she said through tight lips. “I can do it myself, Peter. I just need to get him inside.”

  He jerked back as if she’d slapped him. “I am on duty. Refer to me as Major Ellersby, if you please,” he snapped, and paused, waiting. Heat rose under her sodden garments. If he expected her to apologize, he’d have a very long wait. “You cannot practice here, on bumpk—farmers. Surely you must see that would be most inappropriate, Miss Atherton.”

  Bumpkins and farmers? She stared at him in stunned silence.

  “Look, there’s nothing I can do, and I have rounds in ten minutes. Take him back to your father’s surgery if you wish, but he cannot come in here.”

  It was no longer about her pride, or her ability to treat Arthur. It was about saving his leg, and very possibly his life. “Please, Pe—Major Ellersby. He won’t make it.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Eleanor. You know what your father would say. You are overstepping your authority and your experience. He can see this patient tomorrow. Keep the limb elevated. Now go home. I shall see you at supper on Friday evening as usual.”

  Supper. She shook her head. How many meals had he shared with her family, how many cases had he discussed with her father over brandy and chess? He was a family friend, welcome company, and yet he was looking at her as if she were a stranger—a very irritating stranger.

  But she was a grown woman, a doctor, and her father’s patient—her patient—needed her. She gritted her teeth and marched up to him. “He won’t make it. He’ll die,” she hissed. “You can see that, I know you can, even from here. I won’t keep you from rounds—I simply need help carrying him inside, a place to wash my hands, some carbolic, a clean examining room, and—”

  Peter’s jaw clenched. “I said no.” He turned away, pushed past the small crowd of curious staff that had gathered again, and was gone. She looked for Mr. Ross, but he, too, had fled, and it was Chesscroft’s starchy butler who stood regarding the situation placidly.

  Arthur was pale as a lily, shaking badly, in shock. She saw the terrible fear in Charlie’s face as his father faded before his eyes.

  “What can I do?” he asked her. He swiped a hand across his eyes and left a smear of blood on his cheek. “What can we do?”

  Eleanor turned to the butler. “Mr. Heseltine, may I speak to her ladyship?”

  He scanned her face, his own starchy expression never changing, the stiff dignity of his immaculate posture unrelenting. “Mr. Ross has gone to find her. I heard you speaking to the major. You can do this? Take care of him?”

  “Yes,” she said firmly. “But not here in the rain, and the surgery is too far away.”

  “I have my dignity, Jasper Heseltine,” Arthur Nevins called. “I won’t take charity where I’m not wanted, or let some chit take care of me. No, I say. Charlie, take me home.” The effort of the tirade left him gasping. “I won’t stay—”

  “Heseltine?” They all looked up at the sound of the countess’s voice. Her ladyship stood in the doorway, her back ramrod straight, her dark hair perfectly coiffed, though streaked with gray. Her gown was the height of elegance, a day dress or a morning gown, perhaps, though black, for mourning. Lines of grief were etched around her mouth and in the shadows under her eyes, though her face was otherwise immobile as she surveyed the scene on her east doorstep. If she was angry or dismayed, there was no sign of it in her countenance. She radiated authority through her posture, the tilt of her head, the determined set of her chin. She took in everything in a single sweeping glance, then let her eyes go back to flick over the truck, pausing on Charlie and Arthur, and finally on Eleanor. Her brows rose slightly as she noted Eleanor’s disheveled state. Eleanor refrained from the urge to tuck back a dripping lock of hair or run a hand over her skirt, now wet and rumpled and soiled with mud and blood. Eleanor dipped a curtsy out of habit, as she’d been taught, but didn’t hesitate to speak.

  “I have a medical emergency, your ladyship. It cannot wait, and the surgery is too far. I’d like to tend to this man here, bef
ore it’s too late.”

  The countess’s eyes widened for an instant. “You would?”

  Eleanor nodded. “I’m fully qualified, a doctor.”

  “Yes, I know,” the countess said. “Or I’d heard.”

  Behind her Arthur grunted. “Uh-oh, now there’ll be trouble. She’ll get her comeuppance now,” he murmured, and Charlie shushed him.

  The countess didn’t hesitate, either. She kept her eyes on Eleanor as she addressed her secretary, who had returned to hover behind her. “Mr. Ross, please ask Major Ellersby to come at once. Find some orderlies to carry this man inside.” She glanced at Eleanor again. “With Miss Atherton’s approval, of course.”

  Eleanor nodded and turned to direct the men who had appeared as if by magic with a stretcher. They lifted Arthur out of the truck with as much care as possible, but the old farmer roared and swore in pain. The countess didn’t turn a hair at the rude language, or the blood.

  She turned as Peter arrived behind her. “My lady, I’m sorry you were disturbed,” he said, his tone deferential now. He frowned as they carried Arthur toward the door and stepped in front of the stretcher, forcing it to stop. “I thought I’d seen to this matter. All this will be cleared away at once, of course. These are local villagers. They’re just leaving.”

  “Leaving? Even I can see that this man is in no condition to leave.” The countess looked at Eleanor. “Miss Atherton says he needs immediate care. Is that correct, Miss Atherton?”

  Eleanor avoided Peter’s eyes, but felt his glare burn into her forehead like sun through glass. “Yes, your ladyship,” she said firmly.

  “I overheard you saying you’ve given three sons to the cause,” the countess said to Arthur. “And now you’re going over as well, young man,” she added to Charlie. “I have a son over there myself.”

  “We know it well, your ladyship,” Charlie said. “We’re all praying for Lord Louis’s safe return. We were grieved to hear of Lord Cyril’s passing.”

  The countess lowered her gaze, but not before Eleanor saw the sharp glitter of tears in her eyes. They were gone when she looked at Peter. “Take this man inside at once, Major. Give him whatever treatment is required—the very best care.”

  “But, your ladyship—” Peter began, drawing up to attention, looking affronted.

  The countess drew herself up as well. “A man who has given so many sons to the cause deserves our respect, Major. Do you not agree? This is a hospital, is it not?”

  “For officers, for heroes,” Peter murmured.

  “Then make room for one more hero,” the countess said. She turned to Eleanor. “I’m certain the major can see to this quite competently from here. Would you join me for a few minutes, Eleanor?”

  It was on the tip of Eleanor’s tongue to object, to insist that Arthur was her patient, that she could perform the necessary medical care, but the countess’s brows rose at her hesitation, and there was nothing to do but to politely murmur her thanks and acceptance.

  Arthur would receive the treatment he needed, and wasn’t that what truly mattered? It was a victory. Except for the small niggle of defeat in her own breast at yet another missed opportunity to practice medicine, to prove her skills equal to any emergency. Perhaps the countess’s invitation meant trouble, a scolding for interfering, for daring to imagine herself a capable physician.

  She glanced again at the Nevinses as she entered the house, but they were on their way down the hall, following Major Ellersby’s indignant figure, and she was on her own.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Servants took Eleanor’s wet coat away to dry it by a fire. She removed her boots as well and donned a pair of the felt slippers the servants wore over their shoes when they worked so their hard-soled footwear would make no sound and leave no marks on the polished floors.

  The countess led the way through a door covered with green baize. Unlike the stripped-down medical wing, here the ancient oak floors glowed with polish, and glorious paintings hung on damask walls. The busts of past earls stared down at her from niches in the wall, and Eleanor recognized the bronze countenance of the current earl, his unsmiling face stamped with an expression of distant dignity and noble suffering. As a doctor, she wondered if his lordship’s teeth troubled him, or his digestion. Perhaps his wild youngest son was the cause of his worries. No doubt with Louis at war and his eldest son so recently dead and buried, the lines on the earl’s face were now deeper still.

  The countess opened a door to an elegant sitting room. A portrait of Louis Chastaine, painted perhaps seven or eight years earlier, when he was about sixteen, hung above the fireplace. Eleanor’s heart skipped. She remembered him then, sharing adventures and getting up to trouble with Edward on half-term holidays and long summer afternoons. Louis’s rascal’s grin was still the same—or at least the same as the last time she saw him, on his way to war with Edward nearly four years ago. The artist had done well—Louis’s painted gaze was full of all the dash and daring it held in life.

  As a girl, she’d had a crush on Louis Chastaine, and the kicking of her heart now told her she hadn’t grown out of it, that she was just as smitten as she’d been the first time she saw him with Edward. Her brother had thrown mud on her frock and pulled her hair, but when Edward had run away laughing, Louis had surreptitiously given her his handkerchief to dry her tears before he followed his friend. She’d loved him from that moment on, had slept with that handkerchief under her pillow for weeks until the maid found it and threw it away. She tried to picture him now, to imagine the battlefield and Louis’s place on it—or above it, rather, since he was a pilot.

  “That’s my favorite portrait of him,” the countess said. Eleanor realized she’d stopped in the middle of the floor to stare at the painting, and her ladyship stood beside her, holding one elegant hand to her cheek as she, too, regarded her son’s image. “There are other portraits of him, even several photographs from before he left for war, and some taken in France, but this one . . .” the countess began, but her voice faded. Eleanor glanced at her, but she turned away, settled herself on one of the antique settees that flanked the fireplace under the portrait. “Please sit down.” She indicated the seat opposite her own, and Eleanor silently perched on the edge.

  “You’re all grown up, aren’t you?” her ladyship said. “I remember you as Edward’s little sister, in pigtails and pinafores.” Once again her bland gaze flicked over the mud on Eleanor’s skirt and the smears of blood on her blouse. Her hair was wet, and it would twist itself into frizz as it dried, turning her into Medusa before her ladyship’s wondering eyes. She hoped her face was clean, at least. She nodded politely, did her best to look professional and brave, the doctor’s daughter, and a doctor in her own right.

  “I don’t know why Edward didn’t bring you with him when he came to visit Louis. I daresay he was here as often as he was at home.”

  “A sister isn’t much wanted on the adventures of two boys,” Eleanor said quietly. She had been very firmly warned away, in fact, threatened with snakes in her bed and sharp pinches and Papa’s bitterest and most poisonous medicine in her milk if she followed her brother to Chesscroft.

  Her ladyship tilted her head. “I daresay they’d not leave you out now.”

  Eleanor felt herself blushing at the compliment.

  “I heard that you were at university, studying medicine.”

  “Yes, your ladyship. I graduated last spring.”

  “So you really could have treated that poor man?”

  Eleanor looked at her in surprise. “Yes, of course. I’m a fully qualified physician.”

  The countess’s brows rose, and she smiled faintly. “Just like your father, while your brother chose a different path altogether. Laws at Cambridge, though I believe he once had expectations of attending medical school, did he not?”

  Eleanor studied her hands. “Y-yes.” Heat rose between her shoulder blades
despite the dampness of her clothes. “He . . .” She swallowed, stumbling over the explanation, the excuse. “He did not—that is, he decided to attend Cambridge instead.” The real reason he had made that decision was a private family matter. She felt her cheeks heat under the countess’s curious eyes. Thanks to Louis’s friendship, Edward had landed a plum posting at British headquarters, and his future was bright indeed, his star on the rise. He seemed content, even if her father had been disappointed—no, furious—when his son had failed the medical school admission exams and his daughter had passed. It had been a surprise to everyone, but to no one more than Eleanor. She still could not understand how it had happened. She’d been with him on the day of the exam, had seen his cocky self-assurance. She remembered how she’d frozen with nerves when the test began, even though she’d studied hard, had been prepared . . . Edward had been uncharacteristically kind to her on the train home as she struggled to contain the certainty that she’d failed. She had always refused to cry in front of him, to show him any weakness he might use to mock her. Instead he’d handed her his handkerchief without a word and sat back to read the newspaper with one leg propped on his knee, humming a popular little dance hall ditty and saying nothing at all.

  “I hope you don’t mind that I asked Major Ellersby to see to your patient,” the countess said, changing the subject.

  “I didn’t come to interfere,” Eleanor said. “I was nearby, you see, on my way here. The ladies’ knitting circle has completed another consignment of socks and mufflers for the troops, and—”

  Her ladyship smiled faintly. “Oh, I haven’t brought you here to rebuke you, Eleanor. On the contrary.” She hesitated. “Please thank the ladies of the knitting circle. I shall write a note when—” She drew a sharp breath and paused again, seemingly gathering herself before beginning again. “When I saw you today, I was hoping . . . it seems . . . It seems I have need of some discreet medical services.”