The Secret Armour by Lucilla Andrews

Author:Lucilla Andrews [Andrews, Lucilla]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: Maggie Hope, Jean Fullerton, 1950s, nurses, hospital, Nadine Dorries, romance, Donna Douglas, midwife, doctors, maternity, Nightingales series, nursing
Publisher: Corazon Books (Doctors and Nurses)
Published: 2017-10-18T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

CASUALTY LEAVES NO TIME FOR UNHAPPINESS

David wrote:

This letter is nine months overdue. In fact, I hardly dared to write it at all. But I must.

Alistair has told me that you know I’m back at work again. This is my last week-end at home, and I’ve been temporarily posted to the Admiralty. Which means, of course, that I’ll be living in town. I know I have no right to ask, but, just as I must write, so I must ask, can I see you again?

There is so much I have to explain. So much I have to tell you if you will let me. Will you, please?

Mother said, ‘Darling, do you feel well? You look so white.’ She looked at the letter in my hand. ‘Anything wrong?’

The kitchen was revolving slowly round me; I had to hold on to the rim of the table. I was not surprised to hear I looked white. I felt green.

I said, ‘Nothing wrong, Mummy. I’ve had a bit of a shock ‒ that’s all. A nice shock, but a shock.’

She filled the electric kettle deliberately and plugged it in before she spoke again. When she turned round her eyes were anxious.

‘I expect you can do with a cup of tea, Maggie. It’s a good while since we had breakfast.’

She moved quietly round the kitchen, collecting cups and saucers, sugar and milk. When the kettle boiled she heated the pot, made the tea, then closed the scullery door.

‘If the men have to come in and wash they won’t disturb us in here,’ she said; ‘even your father hesitates to open that door when he thinks I’m baking.’

I smiled. ‘I can remember how he and I used to peer through the windows when you had closed that door before we dared come in. It’s only two years that I’ve been away ‒ not two hundred.’

‘It might be two hundred,’ she said placidly, pouring the tea. ‘You left here a child. You’ve come back a grown-up young woman; and you’ve done your growing-up away from us. That’s a big thing for a parent to realize.’ Then she said, ‘Would you care to tell me about the shock, Marguerite, or is it a personal affair?’

My mother was like that. She had never forced my confidence, or hustled me into confessing a secret as a child. Now, she had given me time to think over my letter. I knew if I said I did not want to talk about it she would leave the subject. I also knew that she thought it something serious, because she called me Marguerite.

She lifted Rudolph, our cat, out of the wooden armchair and sat down herself, still holding him and stroking him gently, to show me that she was in no hurry to cook or do anything but listen to me, if I wanted to be heard. On an impulse I handed her David’s letter.

‘You are sure you don’t mind my reading it, dear?’

‘Quite sure. I think I want some maternal advice. I don’t seem very successful at coping with my own little problems.

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