“Wow! Thank you.” Alex was touched. “So are you. I loved working with you today. I hope they let me ride with you for a while. I have a lot to learn.”
“Less than you think. You would have done fine without me in any of those situations today, and the boys are very good.” The corpsmen she worked with were excellent.
“You’re all very good. Better than that, you’re amazing. All of you nurses here are like flying angels. Half of those boys wouldn’t be alive if they had tried to bring them back on the ground. The air evac really makes a difference. I can see that now. I was worried about there not being a doctor on the flight. But you don’t need one. Your knowledge and experience are way more advanced than that of most nurses.” Emma laughed in response.
“My experience,” Emma reminded her, “is as a midwife. And I’m probably losing my touch at that. I haven’t delivered a baby since I enlisted.”
“You’re doing something far more important here,” Alex said, deeply impressed.
“I thought you’d give me a hard time,” Emma said, looking embarrassed.
“Why would I do that?” Alex looked startled when she said it.
“Because you come from a much fancier background than I do. I grew up in the slums, in a rat-infested tenement. Anyone English knows exactly what I come from by the way I speak. And you obviously had a much more posh background than anyone here. I felt that way about Pru in the beginning too. British aristocrats are such snobs. I thought she would be too, and she’s the sweetest, simplest, most humble woman I know. And I think you are too.”
“Thank you, Emma.” Alex smiled and almost wanted to hug her for the compliment, but she didn’t dare. Emma was a little bristly and took time to warm up, but she’d been warm and kind all day. “Fancy doesn’t necessarily mean good. I’m not too impressed by anyone in my family. They’ve never accomplished a damn thing, except my father in business maybe. They’re spoiled rotten, lazy, self-centered. I have a sister who’s convinced she’s the queen of the universe, and she never thinks of anyone but herself, or of doing anything for anyone else. All I knew when I was growing up was that I didn’t want to be like them. I still don’t. I don’t respect them, and I don’t want to lead the lives they do. I’m pretty sure I’ll wind up alone. No one I grew up with would put up with me or has the same ideas. My sister’s husband is a decent guy, but their values horrify me. I hate to think of their children growing up as spoiled and selfish as they are.”
“You’re not like that,” Emma said in an admiring tone.
“No, I’m not. But I’m a lone voice in what I consider a very dark world.”
“I don’t think Pru feels that way about her family, her parents sound like nice people. They took in a huge number of children who had been evacuated from London, many of whom are orphans now. Her people just bore her, although I’ve never liked the idea of aristocrats. But she’s the only one I’ve ever actually met, and she’s a lovely person.” Emma sounded sincere as she said it, and deeply affectionate toward Pru. Everyone loved Pru. She was what aristocrats should be, and often weren’t, and an example to others.
“My family disgusts me,” Alex said bluntly. “I’m ashamed to be one of them.”
“Maybe you can do things differently when you go back. People think that the war will change things here, in the social system, and it might. Although I don’t have much hope for it. We British are so steeped in our traditions, and part of that is keeping the lower classes down and not giving them a chance to make something of themselves. Whatever you’re born is what you stay here, forever. I’ll always be a poor, low-class girl from the slums here. America is the land of opportunity. It’s different there. And things will probably change there. Women have joined the workforce, even here. They’ve managed everything—family businesses, children, jobs—while their husbands were at war. They can’t just shut women away and ignore them again when the war ends. We have a voice now. And that should be true in your world too. You should be able to do what you want and be what you want when you go back to America.”
“I don’t think my family believes that,” Alex said seriously, impressed by what Emma had said to her, and even more so by what she had overcome to survive poverty, go to nursing school and become a midwife, and now what she was doing in the RAF with the air evacuation transports. She had really made something of herself, no matter what class she had started out in. “You know, you’ve really defied the class system yourself,” Alex reminded her.