Nurse Beachcombe slid her shoes on and stood next to me. “It isn’t so hard. I’ll help.” She assisted me out of my blouse and skirt and gave me a shy smile. “I’m Martha,” she said to me, “and this is Nina. Where are you from?”
“London,” I said. “And I’m Kitty.”
“I like that name,” said Martha. “I’ve only been to London once myself, and wasn’t it wonderful! You see, this is rather simple—underskirt, skirt, then blouse and collar. The apron goes on last.”
“So you’re the new girl,” said Nina. She was watching me with a wariness I couldn’t quite fathom, as if she thought I’d steal her valuables, whatever they might be. “You’ve already met Boney, I see.”
“Boney?” I frowned as Martha helped me with the skirt, trying to place the reference. “You mean Napoléon?”
“Oh, you’re an educated one, then.” This was said with disdain. “Yes, our little dictator. That’s what we call her, though not to her face, of course. Matron’s pet, she is, don’t you think?”
“I’ve no idea.” Without knowing the lay of the land, I wasn’t about to insult another girl behind her back—even if she was obviously Matron’s pet. “I’m not educated,” I said. “I just read books.”
“Well, there won’t be any time for that here.” Nina’s glasses glinted in the waning light from the windows. “You’ll be worked off your feet. Six o’clock we’re up, and on duty at seven. You’re on duty until nine thirty, lights out at ten. Then it starts all over again.”
“Nina’s engaged,” said Martha. “To a man named Roland. He’s coming to collect her next month. Isn’t that romantic?”
“Martha, hush,” said Nina, though she couldn’t quite keep the superiority from her voice. “We’ve only just met her.”
“Well, she’s one of us now, and shouldn’t she know? I think it’s so exciting. I had a boy back in Glenley Crewe, but I had to come here for work, and he married someone else. Do you have a fellow, Kitty?”
In every group of girls I’d ever encountered—girls working together on a factory shift, girls living together in boardinghouses—the girl who was engaged had the highest status. It was probably the reason Boney, so fond of her superiority, disliked Nina so much. I would have to tread carefully. “No, I don’t.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. You shouldn’t have trouble with the men here—they’re not a bother in that way. Some of them don’t much know what’s going on, really, so they don’t get any ideas.”
“Ideas?” I tried to button the detachable collar with fingers that were suddenly cold and clumsy. “What do you mean?”
“For goodness’ sake, Martha,” Nina chided. “They’re patients. And madmen.”
Martha shrugged. “It doesn’t mean they can’t get ideas, does it? That’s all I was saying. There, now you fit right in.”
I stared down at myself. My long, slim serge skirt and serviceable blouse were gone, replaced by layers under a full apron that nearly brushed the floor. There had been grumblings that hems six inches from the ground were too short to be proper on a girl, part of the immorality we girls had learned during the war, though the grumblings never discouraged us from wearing the shortest hems we could find. Now I’d gone back in time, like a woman in an old photograph, one of those stiff biddies with sour expressions. The blouse’s shawl collar sat heavy on my shoulders, and the long, puffed sleeves ended past my wrists and halfway up my hands. How was I supposed to work in this?
“Your shoes,” said Martha. “Are those your only ones?”
I looked at my only pair of oxfords where I’d discarded them on the floor, their leather starting to separate from the soles. “Yes.”
“Oh, that won’t do. The floors are cold here, and you’ll be on your feet all day.”
“Didn’t you need thicker shoes in a London hospital?” This was Nina, regarding me closely from behind her glasses, with the suspicious look again.
“No,” I fumbled. “That is—there was no regulation. For shoes.”
“No matter.” Martha bent next to my narrow bed and rummaged on the floor. “The last girl left her boots; they’ll fit just fine, I think. She was the same size as you. There, do you see? How lucky!”
I took them from her. They were ankle boots of thick leather, well made and low heeled, like something a girl would wear on a farm. I pulled them on—they did fit surprisingly well—and stared at my feet in dismay. I had no desire for elegant clothes, and no money for them if I had, but I barely recognized myself. What had I gotten myself into? And what kind of girl, I wondered, left her boots behind when she left a job?
“We’ll just add the cap,” Martha was saying. “It has to be worn straight, see? If you put it on an angle, Matron will notice.” She took a closer look at my head. “Your hair is just perfect for it. Did you do these braids yourself?”
I ran my fingers along the pattern of hair where I’d wound long braids around the back of my head. “Yes.”
“It’s so pretty. Don’t you think, Nina?”
“I think we’re going to be late.”
Martha reached up to place my cap, and I saw her forearms were bare, her sleeves shorter than mine. It took me only a minute to puzzle it out—I noticed small fabric loops along her cuff as she adjusted my cap. So that’s how one works in this dress. Detachable sleeves. Clever.
I slid my fingers along my own sleeves, finding the buttons and undoing them one by one. I kept my expression calm, almost bored, as if I had known all along.
“I hope I won’t need these,” I said, dropping the sleeves on the bed when she finished.
Nina stared at me uneasily, then headed for the door. “You’ll need them for inspections, so keep them ready.”
“I won’t lose them,” I said.
“See that you don’t. Come now, or we’ll be late for supper.”
CHAPTER THREE
Twenty minutes later, after hastily eating a bite of bread and cheese and taking a gulp of lukewarm tea, I was standing again in the doorway of the grand dining room. I was finally getting my first look at the patients, the madmen of Portis House.
They filed past me into the room, quiet and orderly. They were of all kinds—tall and short, skinny and fat, light and dark. Each man wore a uniform of oatmeal-colored heavy linen: a simple pair of trousers and a long-sleeved buttoned shirt with the words PORTIS HOUSE HOSPITAL stenciled across the front and the back. I realized I had been picturing them all in military uniforms and puttees, as if the war were still on; to see them dressed in hospital dress was disconcerting and somehow diminishing.
They didn’t look at me. They spoke to one another in murmurs, if they spoke at all, as they took their seats. They seemed almost docile, and my first, incongruous thought was: They don’t seem mad.
Nina sidled up beside me. “No belts or suspenders,” she said. “If you see either, you’re to confiscate it. Straight razors, too.”