Promise Me This (32 page)

In late September Annie and Connie passed their Red Cross examinations with flying colors and earned their First Aid Certificates. By mid-December they had each earned their Home Nursing Certificates, as had every girl of similar station in their circle.

“We can officially brew beef tea and bandage broken limbs!” Connie crowed. “In addition to keeping current on all the London gossip.”

“And poach eggs,” Annie amended with a pretentious twinkle. “You mustn’t forget that we are now fully capable of poaching eggs, changing and smoothing bed linens, and dressing all sorts of cuts and scrapes.”

“And that is quite enough for young ladies to know of such things.” Mrs. Sprague looked over her spectacles at the girls as she knit.

“No, Mother, actually . . . it is not,” Connie responded.

Mr. Sprague lifted his eyes from his newspaper and Mrs. Sprague dropped her knitting, so rare was a maternal contradiction from their outspoken daughter.

“Constance?” Mr. Sprague inquired, the shade of a warning in his question.

“I am sorry, Mother—truly. It is just that the training we’ve received in our weekly Red Cross meetings is not enough—not enough for proper nursing.”

“Nursing?” Mrs. Sprague spoke the word as if she could not comprehend its meaning.

Annie bit her lip and held her breath. She knew Connie’s plans, and she knew the Spragues would not approve.

“Yes, I have spoken with Matron about further training. I shall be twenty-three February next—the required age to apply for overseas service through the Voluntary Aid Detachment. I want—I intend—to go to the front.”

“That is absurd!” Mrs. Sprague retorted, picking up her knitting as though the juvenile discussion was closed. “Edwin! You will not allow it!”

Mr. Sprague pulled his spectacles from his nose and studied his daughter closely. “I certainly hope the war will be over before 1916! In any case, I do not wish you to go, Constance.”

“But, Father—”

Mr. Sprague held up his hand for silence, interrupting his daughter’s tirade before it began. “I said that I do not wish you to go. I did not say, however, that I would forbid it.”

“Edwin!” Mrs. Sprague tried to laugh. “It is out of the question! She could be killed.”

“We could all be killed, Mother—sitting in our drawing rooms. The Germans are racing the French and Belgians to the North Sea and the channel now by way of their trenches. The moment they cross, we might all be eating sausages and sauerkraut for the rest of our lives.” And then, quietly but firmly, “If I were a boy, you would not flinch.”

“But you are not; you are our daughter!”

“Is not equal treatment between men and women what we seek when we seek the vote?”

“Not this! Not in war!”

“I’ll not be fighting; I shall be nursing our own British soldiers.”

“You cannot let her go, Edwin. I forbid it!”

“I shall be twenty-two in February, Mother. After training, I intend to volunteer in the hospitals here in London if they will have me—and I think they will. The number of casualties is astonishing, and the hospitals are overflowing. I shall apply for foreign service as soon as they allow. I shan’t need your permission.”

Mrs. Sprague looked as if she might burst. “Constance!”

“Ladies,” Mr. Sprague intervened.

“Father—you do understand, don’t you? It is my patriotic duty! The duty of our family.”

“I understand your point of view, Constance. I respect and commend your call to duty and charity, though I must ask if it is daring and adventure you crave in—”

“Father!”

“My apologies,” he sighed and bowed his head wearily. “Tell me about the training.”

The training details Connie offered were truthful and straightforward, but Annie knew her friend couched them in terms as delicate as possible, for her mother’s sake. Even so, the reality of nursing, bathing, and caring intimately for dirty, wounded, traumatized men was not lost on Mrs. Sprague’s imagination; it was etched in her face.

“Edwin, please . . .” Mrs. Sprague looked as though she might weep.

“The war may be over in twelve months, Betty. And Constance is correct; she does not need our permission.”

Connie raised her chin. “Thank you.”

“But I do ask you to consider a proposition.”

“Terms, Father, as in a legal contract?” Connie half smiled.

“Rather.” Her father returned the smile. “Take the training in the new year—take all the training you need. Then nurse here in London for two years. Our hospitals are desperate for nursing volunteers.”

“Two years! But—”

Mr. Sprague held up his hand again. “If after those two years you are still determined to go abroad, your mother and I will not stand in your way. I will give you my blessing.”

“One year,” Connie countered. “The necessary training, and if I pass the examinations, one year of nursing in London.”

Mr. Sprague studied his daughter. “Before you apply for an overseas position.”

Connie hesitated only briefly before accepting the offer. “One year of nursing in London before I apply for an overseas position.”

They shook hands.

Mrs. Sprague looked about to erupt, but Mr. Sprague placed his hand on her forearm. “It stands at least a year and a half away, my dear. We shall see what transpires in that time.”

“And what about me?” Annie softly raised her question, kneading her thumb into her opposite hand.

The Spragues turned as one toward Annie. They seemed to have forgotten her.

“You, my dear?” Mr. Sprague asked.

“Yes, may I take the training as well?” Annie pushed back her shoulders and lifted her head a little higher, trying her best to look confident, steady, mature.

“But you are only seventeen!” Mrs. Sprague gasped.

“It is the minimum age required for VAD training. But it doesn’t matter; they all think I’m the same age as Connie—as Constance.”

“Why?” Mr. Sprague asked. “You are leaving for America in August. Your family is expecting you.”

“Yes,” Annie replied. “But what if the war is not over by then?”

“It must be!” Mrs. Sprague all but jumped from her chair.

“I pray that it is. I pray that everyone comes home safely and that I can go to America and spend my life puttering in Allen’s Run Gardens and helping Aunt Maggie design wreaths and dry herbs for sale, as planned. But what if it is not? What if this war goes on and on? The need for nurses will surely grow.” Annie hesitated. “I don’t imagine that I would apply for foreign service.” She glanced apologetically at Connie. “Our experience in France was more than I am eager to repeat, and I know that was nothing to compare with what France must be now.

“If the war ends before I’m needed, I shall simply be better trained to make my way in the world. But if it doesn’t end, and if I am needed, I would be trained to volunteer here in London.”

Annie leaned forward. “I do not want to sit inside the house and wait. Because of Aunt Eleanor, I have gone an entire year without my gardens. I’ll not be allowed to plan for and work in them this spring, and I cannot focus on what I do not have. What else would I do for nearly a year?”

“Have you forgotten your studies, my dear?” Mrs. Sprague’s patience was wearing thin.

“Mother, she has no tutor,” Connie interrupted. “Mr. Lounsbury has enlisted. He leaves for training next week. He told me as I passed him this morning, on my way to post office, just as he came out of the recruitment office.”

“But he has a contract!” Mrs. Sprague sputtered.

“He had to go—all the men are going.” Connie looked away. “He said he’s planning to speak with you tomorrow, Father.” And then more quietly, “He’d been given the white feather.”

Annie gasped. “You did not tell me that! Mr. Lounsbury is no coward!”

Mr. Sprague sighed and massaged the bridge of his nose as though a headache lodged there. “No, he is no coward. Contract or no, he must do his duty for God and king. We all must.”

Mrs. Sprague paled and looked for all the world to Annie as if she had been plopped down into a foreign country, right in the midst of her own drawing room. She placed her knitting squarely in her bag, rose, and walked from the room without saying good night.

Annie had not imagined that convincing Mr. Sprague would be so easy. An hour later, as the girls prepared for bed, she congratulated Connie on her excellent speech and powers of persuasion.

Connie threw her hairbrush onto the dressing table. “It was too easy. Father would not have given in so quickly were he not wrestling with the matter himself.”

“What do you mean?” Annie felt a prick up her spine, fearing she knew exactly what Connie meant. “He’s too old to fight—too old to be conscripted! They would not allow him to enlist, would they?”

“If the war goes on too long, they may be forced to extend the ages of conscription. And even if that does not reach Father’s age . . .” Connie shrugged, a frown pursing her lips. “I know Father; he will find a way to do something. I’m simply not certain what he has in mind. But I do know that Mother is not going to like it.”

Headlines of the war in Europe and the list of countries that had now joined the fray tainted Michael’s third Michaelmas birthday with Aunt Maggie and Daniel but strengthened his hope for Annie’s early arrival in New Jersey.

Daniel’s suggestion made perfect sense to Michael—Annie should come now, before the war spread across the channel, before England found herself at the kaiser’s mercy.

When Annie blatantly disagreed, Michael threw her letter to the table and his hands in the air.
How can I protect Annie when she doesn’t think she needs my protection, when she thinks my plan a poor one, when she chooses to stick to her own timetable?

Even Daniel shook his head.

But Maggie clucked her tongue. “It makes perfect sense for Annie to finish her training before she comes! You men think you can work out every situation with your sage advice and your snap decisions. You’re spoiled for real women—the both of you—and I’m to blame! You’ve foolishly taken my good nature for granted. Not all women will let you go stomping your bluster about and having your way so freely.”

Michael had no idea what she meant. But he and Daniel hustled out the back door.

Whatever the reason—and Michael dared not ask—Maggie spent less time in the kitchen fussing over their meals, less time darning their socks or sitting by the parlor fire through the evenings. She took to moonlit walks and spent more time at the church through the long autumn.

“What is she doing over there every evening?” Michael wanted to know.

“I think she’s in the cemetery, talkin’ things over with Sean.” Daniel puffed on his pipe.

“But . . . how . . . ?”

“That’s one of the ways of women you need to understand—when they’ve something on their minds, they must talk it out, whether anyone be listening or no.”

“What do you suppose she’s talkin’ over?” Michael was not interested in Maggie changing. He liked her fine, just the way she was, though he’d like to see the frequent sadness leave her eyes.

“Maybe about what she should do next, or what she should do with two old bachelors living under her roof.”

“You don’t think she’s fixin’ to pitch us, do you?” That had never occurred to Michael.

“Maybe she’s thinking of marrying and what she’d do with us if she did.” Daniel tamped his pipe. “We’d be a mite in the way of a new man.”

“Why would she be thinking of marrying?”

Daniel shrugged. “It’s more’n two years since Sean died. Maggie’s a good woman—a fine-looking woman yet and young enough.”

“She’s old!” Michael wanted to shout some sense to someone—anyone who might listen.

Daniel stiffened and puffed. “She’s not old, Michael. She’s a rare bird—a heart of gold, a head for business, and a sweet companion. She’d make a fine wife for any man.”

Michael stared at Daniel as if he didn’t know him.

Daniel stopped rocking, grunted, then took himself down the steps, out to the street, and headed toward the church.

Michael was only mildly surprised when Daniel began following Maggie out the door and down the lane after supper during late October, through November and most of December.

He wondered how long Daniel had loved Maggie—or known he loved her, for surely he did. Michael saw it in the way Daniel rose early and built the fire in the cookstove each morning before Maggie made her way to the kitchen, in the way he served her favorite cuts of meat or fish or fowl as he carved at the table, and when he fished the choicest pieces of stew from the pot to set on her plate. He saw it in the way Daniel pulled the buggy close to the overhang of the porch after rainy-day rides so Maggie would not have to run through the downpour, and the tender way he helped her up the steps to the house or the church or the post office.