Nancy nodded slowly to herself. She turned the photograph back and studied it intently; yes, he would be a good deal changed, as indeed she was herself. She knew that, before the war, a photograph of herself would have shown a conventionally pretty, innocent girl, still on the threshold of life, whereas now the picture would be very different. She was not yet twenty-three but knew she looked a good deal older than girls who had not nursed men from the trenches. But it was impossible to guess from this photograph, over four years old, what sort of man Andrew Sullivan was now. The boy had a nice face with guileless eyes. Still, the very fact that he had admitted he had changed meant he was an honest man who did not mean to deceive her.
Having studied the photograph for several more moments, Nancy turned to the letter.
Dear Miss Kerris,
Thank you for writing in answer to the advertisement. It was very brave of you, but then all the nurses I met during the war were brave; they had to be to do such terrible work. I have enclosed a photograph of myself, but I am much changed. No one could go through what we all went through and remain unaltered. However, now I am home again I would like a wife and family of my own but girls are scarce in the outback. I am under-manager of a cattle station, and I have a brother. I am twenty-seven years of age and my brother, Clive, is twenty-four. He works with me at the Walleroo cattle station in Queensland and is single like myself, with no commitments, and he also is looking for a wife.
I have had one other answer to my advertisement but have decided that the lady would not be suitable. I will not deceive you into believing that life on a cattle station is easy for a woman. In summer, the heat can be intense and very trying if one is not accustomed, and in the wet, though it is not cold, it rains constantly and turns the station into a bog. Cattle stations are very large, so one’s nearest neighbours are a great way off, which can mean a wife is lonely, though of course we employ a great many native workers. However, the native people do not always understand our ways and a woman in the outback needs a friend, which is why I decided to advertise. The other lady who wrote was very frank. She is a widow, forty-two years old, and has lived in cities all her life. I wrote back and explained how we live and she agreed it would not suit her. But you, Miss Kerris, might find the life almost easy after your work in France. You say in your letter that you have two sisters; would one of them not like to take up our offer also? It would be company for you, both on the long journey and, if we decide we are suited, on Walleroo station.
I expect you can guess that this letter has taken me days and days to compose. I do not mean to give you information which may put you off, nor do I want you to see the outback through rose-coloured spectacles. You say in your letter that you were born and reared in the country and this, more than anything else, leads me to hope we might suit. Horses are our main means of transport, but if you cannot ride you can always drive the pony cart.
Clive and I have agreed between us that we will not urge marriage on anyone who comes over as a result of our advertisement, but will leave it up to you to either stay and marry one of us, or return home. I have not enclosed a money order since, until you reply, I cannot tell whether you will come alone or bring a companion – or whether you will simply decide that the Sullivan brothers, and life in the outback, are not for you. As soon as you let me know, hopefully, that you will give us a chance, I will set things in motion.
I am not a man who writes many letters and this one has taken me a mighty long while. I hope I’ve said nothing to offend you and shall eagerly await your reply.
Yours sincerely,
Andrew Sullivan
Having read the letter through twice and then, very slowly, a third time, Nancy settled back in her chair and thought long and hard. If she took up Mr Sullivan’s offer, it would be an adventure indeed, but the more she thought about it the more convinced she became that it would be madness to go alone. She might find herself like a bone between two dogs, which would be very uncomfortable, and even if she discovered, upon arrival, that she did not wish to marry either young man, it would still be a difficult situation. She realised, of course, that this applied equally to the two young men, but even so, she found herself heartily agreeing with Mr Sullivan that two girls would find any situation easier to deal with than one woman alone.
She was still mulling the matter over when the door opened and Jess came into the room, untying her apron as she entered and saying in an exhausted voice: ‘Well, thank goodness that’s over! I’ve been assisting Staff Nurse Smith in a dressings round and oh, Nancy, she’s so clumsy and slow! But of course I’m not allowed to say anything, and when I told her that she had laid a dressing down on an unsterile surface and shouldn’t use it, she was absolutely furious and ordered me off the ward to go and—’ She stopped short, staring at her friend. ‘What’s happened? Who’s the letter from? Oh, what a handsome young man!’
Nancy had spread the letter out on the table and propped the photograph against the milk jug. She went to gather the pages together, preparing an evasive reply, then changed her mind. ‘The letter’s from the fellow who put an advert in the paper weeks and weeks ago; remember, I showed you? And the photograph is the one he sent me.’ She handed the pages to her friend. ‘Go on, read it. Tell me what you think.’
For a moment, she thought Jess was going to refuse. The other girl’s colour heightened and her eyes narrowed dangerously; then she snatched the letter, plonked herself down in the chair opposite Nancy, and began to read. As Nancy had done, she read the entire thing through twice and then a third time, before pushing the now rather crumpled pages back across the table. ‘Anyone who takes up an offer like that is mad,’ she said bitterly. ‘Mad and sex-starved, if you ask me. Oh, I don’t mean to insult you, Nancy, because I suppose you answered his advertisement as a joke, but he says one woman actually took him seriously, poor fool. What’ll you do now, though? Write and tell him it’s not on, I suppose – or you could just not reply; perhaps that would be best, just don’t get involved.’
Nancy stared thoughtfully at her friend. Jess had beautiful hair, a pretty face and a neat, though slender, figure. She had been an attractive girl but her looks were spoiled now by the strain in her eyes and the bitter lines about her mouth. Nancy gathered up the pages of the letter and thrust them into her pocket, then picked up the photograph and stared at it, trying to imagine the changes which four years of that most dreadful war must have brought. He had talked about the nurses, which meant he had been wounded at least once. For all she knew, he might be crippled . . . no, of course not; if he were crippled he could not possibly be the under-manager of a large cattle station. Besides, she realised suddenly that she believed him to be an honest man, a straightforward man, the sort who would be likelier to tell the worst rather than the best.
‘Well?’ Jess’s voice was sharp, almost spiteful. ‘I’m tellin’ you, Nancy, if you go, you’ll go alone. And if you ask my opinion, only a shameless hussy would go off into the blue, chasin’ after a man she’s never even met. So what are you going to do, eh?’
‘I’m going to write to him again and I think I shall probably set off for Australia some time in the summer, like the shameless hussy I am,’ Nancy said quietly. ‘I’m sorry you have such a poor opinion of me, Jess, my love, but I think I’ve discovered that nursing in peacetime isn’t for me. If Graham had lived, I would have married him and borne his children and been perfectly happy. As it is, I’m prepared to settle for something less. Perhaps I’ll get to this cattle station and discover I’ve made a mistake but, oh, Jess, it’ll be a new country, a new life! Even if Mr Sullivan and myself decide we aren’t – aren’t suited, as he put it, there may be somebody else. At any rate, I mean to give it a go. Jess, my love, come with me! I don’t believe you’re any happier with the present situation than I am. Think of it! A new country, new opportunities and young men; decent young men who want wives and families. Please, Jess, give it a chance. Don’t turn your back just because it’s a long way off.’
‘It’s nothing to do with being a long way off,’ Jess said, her voice rising. ‘I were in love with Barney and I’ll never love anyone else, lerralone marry. You may forget Graham, but that’s not my way. I’ll be true to Barney till the day I die and I won’t go chasin’ after no bleedin’ foreigners.’
‘I’m not chasing after anyone, Jess,’ Nancy said coldly. ‘I may get there and decide Mr Sullivan is not for me and come straight home. Or I may go for work in an Australian hospital, or do something quite different. And . . . I shall never forget Graham, but if he were here and able to speak to me, he’d tell me to seize any chance of happiness. After all, I’m only twenty-two; I might live another fifty years. Why should those fifty years be sterile ones? I told you how I enjoyed helping with my sister’s baby whilst I was at home; the truth is, Jess, I would very much like a baby of my own.’
‘That’s disgusting,’ Jess said. ‘Girls like us don’t get married just to have babies; we know better. Anyway, there’s no guarantee that you would have a baby. Lots of people marry and never have kids; what about that, eh?’
‘If I can’t have a baby of my own, then perhaps I could be a nanny and have charge of someone else’s babies,’ Nancy said, rather wildly. ‘What’s wrong with that, Jess?’
Jess snorted. ‘You could be a nanny in this country,’ she pointed out. She got up from her seat and went round the table, putting an arm round Nancy’s shoulders and giving her a quick hug. ‘I’m sorry I was horrible but you’re me best friend and I can’t bear to think of you going so far away. Nancy, just think! If you’re ill, or very unhappy, you’ll have no one to turn to. Not me, because I’m certainly not going with you, not your family, because they’ve got their own lives to lead. Why, you’ve only worked in this hospital for a month but you’ve half a dozen friends already who would do anything they could to help you.’
‘I would hope to make friends wherever I went,’ Nancy said. ‘Jess, come with me! If there are two of us . . . remember, if I’m your best friend, you’re mine! Don’t let me down now. Come to Australia as well and I’ll make you a promise: if you hate it and want to come home again after giving it a try, then I’ll come back with you. Isn’t that fair?’
Jess shook her head. ‘I’m not going
anywhere
,’ she said crossly. ‘And nor are you if you’ve got a ha’p’orth of sense. Oh, Nancy, say you won’t go!’
Nancy sighed. She and Jess would be sharing this room and in each other’s company for weeks, because she realised it would take time to arrange a passage to the other side of the world. Besides, she might change her mind, decide not to go after all. So she said slowly: ‘I’m making no promises, Jess, except that I really will think very carefully before committing myself. I’ve already got several books about Australia out of the library, and I know a little bit about the heat and the sort of clothing and so on which will be necessary if I do go, but I mean to write back to Mr Sullivan and ask him to paint me a picture of the sort of life a woman would live, and the kinds of opportunities which children would have, because I understand folk on a cattle station can be pretty isolated. But there are some farms on Dartmoor that are pretty isolated, so I’m not really worried by that, but I promise you, Jess, I won’t do anything hasty. Will that satisfy you for now?’
‘Not really, but I suppose it’s the most I can hope for, if you’re set on making a change,’ Jess said sadly. ‘Write back to him if you must, but remember, he wants a wife so he may not tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’
‘There would be little point in his lying because, if I go, I shall see for myself what the true state of affairs is,’ Nancy said wearily. ‘Besides, you’ve seen his photograph; he looks pretty straightforward to me. Why, you said yourself
What a handsome young man
when you first saw the picture.’
‘Handsome is as handsome does,’ Jess said, rather obscurely. ‘And now let’s forget all about it because I’ve probably already said too much. I’m nippin’ out to the shops to buy half a dozen eggs and a new loaf; do you want anything?’
In the end, it was not until the autumn of 1919 that Nancy finally left the hospital and set sail for what she hoped would be the greatest adventure of her life. She and Andrew Sullivan had exchanged a great many letters, and the more she learned of him, the more she liked the thought of meeting him in person. She thought that she was unlikely to fall in love with anyone, for Graham’s face was still clear in her memory, his voice in her inner ear. But Graham had been a generous and loving man and Nancy knew with every fibre of her being that he would want her to be happy.
Despite her hopes, however, Nancy was travelling alone. Not only had Jess proved obdurate, but a week after Nancy had booked her passage they had had the most dreadful row. It was over Nancy’s intention to go to Australia, of course, and both girls had said things Nancy was sure they would later regret, though it was Jess who had hurled the most unforgivable insults. It was fortunate that Nancy had handed in her notice at the hospital and was off to spend her last two weeks in England with her parents and sisters, for she did not think she could have so much as met Jess’s eyes without remembering the terrible things her friend had said. She stood on the deck of the ship, which would take at least six weeks to reach her destination, and looked back at the coastline, fast disappearing as a light morning mist thickened. A tiny figure waving a white handkerchief was her sister Anne, who had insisted upon accompanying her and seeing her safely aboard. Nancy had hoped that Jess might let bygones be bygones so that at least they could exchange letters, and had written her a conciliatory note, telling her both the port and the hour of her departure. She had scanned the crowds eagerly, but there had been no sign of Jess, and when she had admitted her hopes to Anne, her sister had reminded her that Jess was scarcely likely to be given time off from the hospital merely to wave goodbye to an old friend. Nancy knew that it was true, but she also knew that if Jess had really wanted to make up their quarrel by seeing her off, she would have managed it somehow.