“I was afraid my focus on my work had made me a dull companion too,” he said. “You are surrounded by medical men.”
“They believe they know so much more than they do and yet insist on lecturing me as if I were a child,” she said. “I like that you always speak plainly.” She glanced towards the parlor, where he noticed Carruthers was frowning at them over his tea. His was not the only glance, and Hugh saw with great clarity that to be at Lucy’s side was to be in the very center of the company. Affection for Lucy and for her father blossomed in his heart. He understood that the tall brick house and the respected consulting rooms might be his. And that Lucy, raised to understand a doctor’s needs, would offer him all her pretty freshness now and be eager to mature under his guidance.
The moment hovered in silence while a small fountain plashed in its mossy bowl and a breeze, stirring across the cool, tiled floor, set the flower heads to nodding. At last, Hugh put down his teacup, balancing his large buttered tea cake on the saucer. Wiping his hands swiftly on his napkin, he seized Lucy’s hand.
“Dearest Lucy,” he said, and now as he looked into her eyes, he felt no hesitation in laying his heart before her. “For some time I have hoped to speak to you…”
“Forgive me, but I must beg you not to,” she said. She did not withdraw her hand, but she turned her pretty eyes away and added, “You know that I hold you in very high esteem, Hugh.”
“Then why may I not speak?” he asked, pressing her hand. “Just a brief word no one else need hear?”
“I fear you mean to make some sort of declaration,” she said, and lowered her long lashes to her cheeks. “But as I told Mr. Carruthers only last week, it is not possible for an Englishwoman to entertain any pretty declarations from a man not in uniform.”
“I don’t understand,” said Hugh.
“My friends and I have sworn we shall entertain no declarations, no matter how handsome the gentleman or advantageous the match, until he has enlisted,” she said. As she withdrew her fingers and clasped her hands together in her lap, he saw her give the faintest nod towards a large stand of aspidistra. The two girls with whom she had been knitting nodded back.
“Surely love must rebel at such an arbitrary test?” He could not restrain his impatience at what seemed a silly contrivance. “We are not in some fairy tale where dragons must be slain and golden apples fetched for the princesses.”
“Mr. Carruthers swore he would give up his August holiday in Brighton and go straight to the recruiting office,” she said, a pout to her lips and a flush in her cheeks.
“I wish you much happiness with Mr. Carruthers,” he said with mock severity.
“In his case I had hoped he would refuse and I would be rid of him altogether,” she admitted. “But in your case, Hugh, surely you mean to sign up and go with my father? He says it is to be the greatest opportunity for all who follow him.”
“I’m sure your father considers duty above opportunity,” said Hugh. “I can assure you I do not fault your patriotism or doubt the importance of your father’s plans, but I won’t join the fools dashing thoughtlessly to the recruiter.”
“I would expect no less from my stern friend,” she said, smiling again. “I shouldn’t say this, but if you decide to join us, you would be well served to let my father know before the first week in September.”
“I have asked time to write to my father,” said Hugh.
“My father plans to hold a large general enlistment rally during his first lecture back at the hospital,” she said. “You will be expected to attend, and it would look well to show your commitment ahead of the crowd.”
“A general recruitment of doctors?”
“The Army Medical Corps is found to be much smaller than required,” she said, taking up her knitting again. “My father has pledged to recruit a hundred men, and I am pledged to attend every rally to hand out hand-painted flag pins to every new recruit.”
“A charming incentive,” said Hugh, glad at last to have hold of an opportunity to return to romantic banter. “Perhaps I should delay my decision to claim my token from the lady’s fair hand?”
“I must warn you that my friends and I will hand the white feather to all who dare leave the hall without signing up,” she said, and though she ducked her head and smiled with her familiar youthful charm, there was a hint of steel in her eye that he had not seen before. “I have given up an entire swan’s wing hat to the effort, and it was from Paris no less.”
Standing in the high street, her basket on her arm and her straw hat shading her eyes from the bright August sun, Beatrice could see the striped shop awnings with their hastily produced Union Jack pennants strung from edge to edge, the municipal flower trough sporting stiff paper flags on sticks, and every empty wall and post displaying a handbill urging attendance at this evening’s public meeting on the war effort. And yet the town’s business went on as normal. A delivery dray off-loaded crates at the ironmonger; a woman swept the pavement outside the milliner; the fishmonger’s boy set off at an awkward run, a parcel of paper-wrapped fish under one arm and a large bucket of live crabs on the other. As the boy tripped on a wayward cobble, and almost lost a half-dozen crabs from his bucket, England seemed as peaceful and pastoral as the ages.
Beatrice’s basket contained a paper bag of broken biscuits, three small currant buns, and some elderflower cordial. Her pupils were coming this afternoon for their usual tutoring, and though she did not plan to spoil them, their bored and gloomy faces at the first two lessons had prompted her to try these small inducements. The bakery and the grocer had both displayed thin shelves. The big loaves were usually sold out by the afternoon, but today all bread in the bakery was sold and there had been no fancy sugared cakes at all, not even their almond smell, but only buns that looked smaller than usual. In the grocer, all the fresh food was sold, the glass-fronted pie and dairy counter empty, and women were reduced to competing over tins of pressed meat and dried fruit from the uppermost shelves. Honey and sugar being sold, they took black treacle and even brewer’s malt.
“I’d like a standing order for a quarter pound of sugar and a pound of flour,” said the lady being served ahead of Beatrice. She had a long paper list and was accompanied by a stout boy who carried a straw basket of immense size.
“Sorry, madam, I’m not taking any more standing orders,” said the grocer, who looked drawn and nervous, perhaps from delivering such news all day to unhappy customers. “Even my current orders are being reduced, and likely I won’t be able to fill them all.”
“When will you get in more sugar?” asked the woman, and made a written note of the day he mentioned. “I’ll be here first thing and I shall expect to find you have kept some available,” she added.
“I’ll do my best, ma’am,” the grocer said. “But it’ll be all cash money, small notes only and nothing on the accounts.” He mopped his balding brow as she swept from the shop, the stout boy laden with a full basket behind her.
“A bottle of elderflower cordial, please,” said Beatrice. “And a pound of loose biscuits.”
“Biscuits is all gone, miss,” said the grocer, reaching up high for the last, slightly dusty bottle of cordial on his shelves. Beatrice thought it must have been retrieved from deep in the storage cellars. “I’ve only got broken ones.”
“A pound of the broken then,” she said, reluctantly. Shop-bought biscuits might be the necessary compromise of those who lived in rented rooms, but she would not have willingly served broken ones even to servants. However, they might not be frowned upon by hungry boys, and she must have something to nibble on when hunger struck between Mrs. Turber’s small meals. The grocer shoveled loose, broken biscuit pieces into a bag and quoted her a price that she was sure she had paid a few days ago for intact ones.