Suffragette Girl (47 page)

‘He will stay with her now.’ She didn’t add ‘until the end’, but Florrie knew that was what she meant.

As she went down the mountain in the cabin, she missed Hans Meyer’s quiet companionship, and only the thought of facing Mrs Milner’s inane chatter over the dinner table made her
relish these moments of quiet solitude.

After dinner she watched the road from the window of the sitting room, waiting for the first sight of him. Her heart was beating foolishly like a young girl’s. And then
she saw him, striding along, purpose in every step as he came towards the place where she was waiting for him. For a fleeting moment, all her anxieties left her: the anguish of their parting, the
loneliness of the years that had followed – even her fear for Jacques – all were swallowed by her joy at seeing Ernst and knowing that he was coming to see her and her alone.

She was trembling as she opened the door herself and led him into the sitting room. Mercifully, they could be alone.

She turned to face him and held out her hands to him. After a moment’s hesitation, he took them. The warmth of his touch sent a thrill coursing through her. The years between had not
lessened her desire for him. They sat down side by side, staring at each other.

‘You haven’t changed at all,’ he murmured. ‘You’re still just as beautiful.’

‘Why did you never write? Not once?’ she whispered.

He sighed and shook his head, avoiding her direct gaze now. ‘It – wouldn’t have been right.’

‘Because of your wife, you mean? I take it you married your fiancee?’

‘Yes,’ he said hoarsely.

‘And?’

‘And – what?’ He met her gaze once more, but now his eyes were wary.

Florrie lifted her shoulders. ‘Have you any children?’

He hesitated before being forced to reply. ‘Yes. Three. Two boys and a girl.’

It felt like a betrayal. It was one thing to make a suitable marriage – wasn’t that exactly what her own father had wanted her to do? But to have children, to raise a family with
another woman, after everything he’d said to her, was something else. So that was why he’d never written to her, had never contacted her, had never wanted to carry on their love affair,
even though he’d felt obliged to honour his promise to another woman. Hadn’t he realized that he’d only had to call and she’d have come running? She would willingly have
become his mistress. She’d have been content to live nearby quietly and unobtrusively. She was finding now that there were many English people living in Davos. They were like a community
within a community. They even had their own church, St Luke’s. No one need ever have known about their secret life. But it was not what he’d wanted. That was becoming obvious.

‘So – until I contacted you about – about Jacques – you’d forgotten all about me.’

He squeezed her hands. ‘I have never forgotten you. There has never been a day that has gone by that I haven’t thought about you. But it was not meant to be. Our love grew out of a
terrible time, a time when we never knew if there was to be a tomorrow for us. We lived with danger and death all around us. We – we snatched at our happiness. But the real world –
our
real world – awaited us back home. If we survived. And we did.’

‘You regret everything that happened between us?’

He held her hands tighter. ‘No, never. I should, but I don’t.’

‘And your wife? She – she knows about me?’

‘Monika? Of course not. No one knows.’

He’d called Florrie ‘the love of his life’ and yet he’d never spoken of her – to anyone. No doubt he’d tried to forget her, along with the horror of the
trenches. She didn’t believe that there was any regret.

She swallowed, suddenly feeling very foolish. Somewhere, deep down, she’d hoped this visit would rekindle their love; a love so strong that even the years in between, his wife and family,
would all fade into nothingness before the strength of their passion. But it was not to be.

‘You want to know about Jacques?’ He was bringing her back to the present, back to painful reality.

‘Of course,’ she whispered hoarsely.

‘I’m afraid today there is nothing much I can tell you. I still have more tests to do and I must observe him for several days before I know.’

‘Can’t you tell me
anything
? Can’t you give me some hope?’

Ernst smiled – that funny, lopsided smile that twisted her heart. ‘There’s always hope. Especially here in Davos.’

Briefly, Hans Meyer’s face came into her mind. There was no hope for him, not now. But she remained silent. Ernst had unshakeable faith in his vocation. He’d given his life to it
– and hers. He’d sacrificed their love for his career, for his reputation and to honour his promise to the girl he’d left behind.

Slowly she withdrew her hands from his grasp.

‘Thank you for coming to see me,’ she said stiffly. ‘I realize how busy you are.’

Ernst shrugged, and it seemed the lines on his face deepened. ‘Not so busy as we used to be. The economic situation has meant we don’t get so many patients now.’ He smiled
wryly. ‘People are still sick, but they cannot afford to come here. Even the rich are feeling the – how do you say – the pinch? And besides, I prefer to visit the relatives where
they are staying. Too many prying eyes and listening ears at the sanatorium. The patients seem to find out everything that goes on. But as for Jacques, we have already put him on a strict daily
regime. Plenty of fresh air, a little exercise – there are some beautiful walks in the mountains – good food, especially milk. Lots of milk. There’s every reason to be hopeful, my
dear.’

Fervently she prayed there was hope for Jacques, for now she knew there was none for her.

It wasn’t until he’d left that she realized he’d never mentioned reading the notes that the sister had made. The notes that would tell him the truth about Jacques.

Standing on the upper sun terrace at the sanatorium the following afternoon, Florrie glanced up at the first-floor windows.

‘Jacques, do you know which is Frau Meyer’s room?’

‘Who? Oh, the wife of the man we met on the train? No – but it doesn’t matter now. I think she died last night.’

Florrie looked down at her son. ‘Who told you?’

‘No one. They don’t broadcast any deaths, Mother.’

‘So how—’

‘I was awake in the night and I heard a lot of scuffling. I peeped out of my door and saw them carrying a coffin out of a room at the far end of the corridor. They took it down in the
lift. I expect it was being taken to the cellars. They have a tunnel to the funicular, you know.’

Florrie shook her head. ‘No, I didn’t know.’

‘That’s how they take the dead out, and at night so no one knows.’

‘Have you seen Herr Meyer?’

Jacques shook his head. He leaned back and closed his eyes. He wanted to rest, so Florrie tiptoed away. She went in search of Sister Bergamin, but knew she mustn’t go into the building.
She paused near the steps leading up to the covered communal balcony.

‘You look a little lost,’ one of the patients lying on his day-bed near the steps spoke to her in German.

‘I was just wondering if you had seen Herr Meyer this morning.’

‘Ah, the man whose wife died last night?’

So, Florrie thought, the patients were not supposed to know when there had been a death, but they all did. She remembered Ernst’s words the previous evening.

‘No, I haven’t seen him this morning,’ the man went on. ‘But I believe he stayed here the remainder of the night after she – well, afterwards. He’ll no doubt
be making arrangements. It’s a sad thing for our relatives to have to do.’ He lapsed into silence.

Gently, Florrie said, ‘How long have you been here?’

The man wrinkled his forehead. ‘A year, I think.’

‘No, you haven’t,’ the patient lying next to him said. ‘You were here when I got here and I’ve been here fourteen months.’

‘Oh yes. I forget,’ the first man smiled. ‘One loses track of time here.’

The front door opened and Florrie looked up to see Herr Meyer emerge. His face was grey with fatigue, his shoulders hunched with sorrow. He came down the steps towards her, but he didn’t
appear to notice her until she touched his arm.

‘Herr Meyer, I’m so very sorry.’

He blinked and looked round at her. ‘Ah, Frau Maltby. Thank you. It has been a difficult time, but Eva is at peace now.’

Tactfully, Florrie drew him out of earshot of the other patients. ‘You – you’re taking her home?’

He nodded. ‘Yes, all arrangements have been made. It will be very expensive, but she would like to be buried at home, amongst her family. If – if I don’t take her home, she
will be cremated here. I don’t want her burned. I – I know it’s the sensible thing, but I can’t bear to think of it.’ Tears filled his eyes and ran down his cheeks.
Feeling helpless, Florrie patted his arm. ‘You must do whatever you feel best – for both of you.’

Fear clutched at her heart. What if she had to make the same dreadful decision over Jacques?

‘What makes it worse, dear Frau Maltby, is that I have just been presented with a bill for the cost of burning all her possessions, all the bed linen – even the mattress she died on
– and for fumigating the room before another patient can occupy it.’

‘Oh, how dreadful!’ Florrie was appalled. It seemed heartless and yet she could understand it. There were cases of mis-diagnosis. It would be dreadful if a patient who hadn’t
actually got the disease already were to contract it by occupying a room where someone had died of it. But she couldn’t say all this to the poor man. It was the hope she was still clinging to
– that perhaps Jacques hadn’t really got tuberculosis. That was why she was prepared to see him kept apart from the other patients – and even from meeting her, other than in the
open air – until Ernst had carried out all the tests.

She put her arm through Herr Meyer’s. ‘Come, I’ll go back to your lodgings with you. Is there anything I can do to help you?’

He covered her hand with his own. ‘Dear lady, how kind you are. But I fear there is nothing anyone can do. Not now.’

Florrie awoke the following morning to find that snow had fallen during the night. She was filled with a mixture of apprehension and delight. Fear because she might not be able
to travel up the funicular, and joy because the scenery that had been beautiful before was now breathtaking.

But she found that a light covering of snow did not bring life to a halt in a land where the residents were used to it. She travelled up the funicular, half-expecting that she’d not be
allowed to see Jacques until the afternoon. No doubt he’d be on his balcony and out of bounds to her. But she found him on the covered veranda on the ground floor, sitting a little apart from
the other patients, but still near enough to engage in conversation.

‘They’re changing the beds, Mother,’ he greeted her with a smile. ‘They do it every day.
Every
day! Can you imagine the work that would cause Beth and the others
if we did that at home?’

Florrie, heartened to see him more cheerful today, laughed, thinking of the clouds of steam, red hands and sweating faces that ‘wash day’ caused their servants. And then she
remembered the laundering of bedding that Ernst had insisted be done in the field ambulance, even when the guns pounded and shells burst nearby. No doubt it was here at the sanatorium as a young
doctor that he’d learned the value of strict hygiene.

There were few other visitors, but Florrie braved the cold to sit for an hour or so with Jacques. Snowflakes danced on the breeze and settled on the blankets covering the patients.

The man sitting a few feet away from Jacques called to her, ‘Good morning, Mrs Maltby. I’m Philip Henderson from Yorkshire. I wish I could shake your hand, but it’s not
allowed.’

Florrie smiled at him, pleased to hear another English voice. Though Jacques could speak both French and German, it would be less taxing for him, she felt, to be able to chat in his native
tongue.

‘I’m pleased to meet you, Mr Henderson.’ She hesitated to ask questions, not knowing how ill the man was or what his prospects were. He didn’t look too sick – not
like some of the others. Further along the veranda two women sat side by side and one, Florrie thought, looked dreadfully ill. Her thin face was flushed as if she was feverish and her cheekbones
were sharp beneath the paper-thin skin. Her hands, when she took them out briefly from beneath the covers, looked skeletal. But Philip Henderson, a man of fifty or so, Florrie guessed, had a
lightly tanned skin. His grey eyes did not yet have the hopeless, defeated look. He was tall and thin, but not unhealthily so. His next words explained. ‘Like your son, Mrs Maltby, I’m
a recent arrival and still awaiting a diagnosis. That’s why me an’ Jacques here can’t sit with the rest of ’em.’ He winked saucily at her. ‘Still, I don’t
mind if it gives me a chance to talk to a pretty lady.’ He laughed, but the joyful sound turned into a cough that was altogether different – a juicy splutter that had him reaching for
his handkerchief to hold to his mouth. When the spasm had passed, he lay back for a moment and closed his eyes as if exhausted. She could hear his rasping, painful breathing and she shuddered
inwardly, fearing that the poor man was sicker than she’d thought. The sound reminded her of the gas victims she’d nursed. And there’d been little hope for most of them.

A few moments later, he raised his head again. ‘By ’eck, it’s a bugger – this!’

Florrie pretended she hadn’t heard his muttered oath, but silently she agreed with him wholeheartedly.

She turned her attention back to Jacques but, with a glance, she included Philip Henderson in her question. ‘What did you have for breakfast?’

‘It was huge,’ Jacques said. ‘I couldn’t eat it all. Oatmeal, yoghurt, scrambled eggs and cold meats, cheese and fruits and then coffee or tea.’

‘And dinner last night was seven courses, would you believe?’ Philip, feeling better, put in. ‘Wonderful food, mind you, even better than my missis cooks. But don’t tell
’er I said so.’

‘Is she here with you?’

The man’s eyes clouded. ‘No, we couldn’t afford for ’er to be here an’ all.’ He lapsed into silence again, while Jacques returned to the subject of food.