Silence for the Dead(2)

? ? ?

“Katharine Weekes.” The woman glanced through the papers in her hand, shuffling them deftly through her long fingers, the corners of her mouth turned down in concentration.

“Kitty,” I said.

She glanced sharply up at me. We were in a makeshift office where perhaps the butler or the housekeeper had once sat, tucked in the back of the building, the room furnished with only a scabbed old desk and a mismatched wooden filing cabinet. Out the window, the fog drifted by.

She was a tall woman, with square shoulders, her hair cut in a blunt fringe that was almost mannish. She wore a thick cardigan over her uniform, and a pair of half-glasses that she didn’t bother to use dangled on a chain around her neck. The white cap she wore seemed out of place and almost ridiculous on her head. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at me. “You will not be called Kitty,” she said. “You will be Nurse Weekes. I am the Matron here, Mrs. Hilder. You will call me Matron.”

I filed this piece of information away. It was stupid, but I would need it. “Yes, Matron.”

Her eyes narrowed again. Even when I tried, I had never had an easy time sounding obedient, and something must have slipped through my tone. Matron would be one of those women who never missed a hint of insolence. “It says here,” she continued a moment later, “that you come from Belling Wood Hospital in London, where you worked for a year.”

“Yes, Matron.”

“It’s a difficult hospital, Belling Wood. A lot of casualties came through there. A great many challenging cases.”

I nodded mutely. How did she know? How could she know?

“We usually prefer more experienced nurses, but as you were at Belling Wood, it’s to be assumed your skills are higher than would strictly be required here at Portis.”

“I’m sure it will be fine,” I murmured. I had carefully placed my hands on the lap of my thick skirt, and I kept my eyes trained on them. I wore my only pair of gloves. I hated gloves, but I hated the sight of my hands even more. At least the gloves hid the scar that traveled from the soft web between my thumb and fingers down to the base of my wrist.

“Are you?” Mrs. Hilder—Matron—asked. Something about the careful neutrality of her tone set a pulse of panic pumping in the back of my throat.

I risked a glimpse up at her. She was regarding me steadily from behind a gaze that gave nothing away. I would have to say something. I quickly searched my memory.

“Belling Wood was exhausting,” I said. “I was hardly ever home. I began to think I couldn’t really make a difference.” Yes, this I remembered hearing. “I was tired of casualty cases, and I had heard of Portis House by reputation.”

A bit thick, perhaps, but I felt it had been called for. Matron’s expression didn’t change. “Portis has no reputation,” she said without inflection. “We opened only last year.”

“I hear that the patients are very well treated,” I said. Also true, even if I had heard it only from the taxi driver twenty minutes earlier.

“They’re treated as well as they can be,” she replied. “You also have a letter of reference here from Gertrude Morris, Belling Wood’s head nurse.”

I watched her extract the page and read it carefully. Her eyes traveled down the handwritten paper, then up again. Sweat beaded on my forehead.

It was a lie, all of it. I’d never set foot in Belling Wood. My London flatmate, Alison, had worked there, and in her few hours home between shifts, she’d told exhaustive stories of what it was like. It sounded like hard work, but hard work didn’t bother me, and I wanted a job. Washing bandages and emptying a few bedpans didn’t seem like much compared to the factory work I’d been doing, and when I was let go, I found myself with no way to pay my half of the rent.

Ally’d had two nursing friends over one night, and as I sat in my tiny bedroom, I listened through the thin walls to their talk. One had a pamphlet from Portis House advertising for nurses and was thinking of applying. She was sick of London and the work sounded easy—just a few shell-shocked men, if you please, far from the blood and the vomit and the influenza in the city. But the others said the place was so far away she’d likely go mad. Besides, rumor had it Portis House couldn’t keep staff past a few weeks, though no one could say why, and it was desperate for girls. Who wanted to give up a good London job and go all that way to a place that couldn’t keep nurses? Best, all the girls agreed, to stay in London and hope for a promotion—or, even better, a husband.

I’d sat on my thin bed listening, hugging my knees, my heart pounding in excitement as they’d tossed the idea away, and after they left, I’d fished the pamphlet from the trash bin. It was the perfect solution. A far-distant place, desperate for girls, and all I’d have to do was wait on a handful of soldiers. I’d sent off an application claiming Ally’s experience as mine, complete with a letter of reference from the head nurse. Ally had talked about her often enough; it was simple to change my handwriting and use the woman’s name. Who would check too closely in these days of chaos, with the war just over?

I’d received a reply within a few days—an acceptance sight unseen, accompanied by travel instructions. I’d told Ally a made-up story about getting another factory job and packed my bag, leaving her none the wiser. If it doesn’t harm anyone, I’d always thought, it’s fair game.