‘Ellie, you’re worrying me. Are you ill?’ He took her hand again, held them gently. ‘You know I can help you if you’re sick, don’t you? There’s no need to be embarrassed if you need me to treat you.’
‘Spencer,’ she said, eyes filling with tears that she tried so hard to fight, desperate to stay strong. ‘I’m pregnant.’
He didn’t move, didn’t speak, simply stared at her as if she’d said nothing at all. Ellie opened her mouth, about to repeat her words, when he came back to life.
‘Ellie,’ he said, his mouth fixed in a line that was almost a smile. ‘I, well, I don’t know what to say.’
He stood stock-still, his hands still holding hers.
‘Just say it’s not the worst news you’ve heard all day,’ she mumbled, trying so hard not to sob.
‘Oh, Ellie, don’t say that. It’s’ – he blew out a breath, smiling – ‘wonderful news. Or at least it would be wonderful if we weren’t here.’
She nodded, wondering if he was only saying nice things to spare her feelings. ‘I know. I’ll be sent away, I don’t know when, but I wanted you to know before someone realised, or before I have to tell anyone about my’ – she hesitated – ‘condition. I know they have rules about this.’
‘We need to get married,’ he said, his face more serious again, tone deeper. ‘I will organise an army chaplain and we’ll be married immediately. It’s the only thing to do.’
‘No. No!’ she said. ‘This is not how it was supposed to happen. It’s not what I wanted.’
‘You don’t want to marry me?’ he asked, eyebrows drawing together. ‘Ellie, this is the right thing to do.’
She gripped his hand tighter, hating how matter-of-fact he was being. ‘Of course I want to marry you,’ she said. ‘But not like this, because it’s the right thing to do.’
‘Ellie, I was never going to let you go,’ he said, leaning forward, stroking her face with the back of his fingers, sounding more like himself again and less like he was reading from a script with the right words to say. ‘I was going to wait, make sure we survived this wretched place, and ask you to marry me when we returned home. But what does it matter when? You’re the best thing to happen to me during this war.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Heck, you’re the best thing to happen in my life, Ellie.’
She held on tight, hearing his words, wanting to believe that he’d honestly want to marry her if they hadn’t got a baby on the way. ‘Truly?’ she asked.
‘Truly.’ He kept hold of her hand as he lowered, bending to one knee. ‘And that was no way for me to propose before.’ Spencer cleared his throat. ‘Ellie, will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’
She burst into tears, frantically wiping them away. ‘Yes. Yes, Spencer, I will. Of course I will.’
‘We’ll be married tomorrow, or as soon as can be arranged. Then we’ll find out how to send you home,’ he said, dropping a kiss into her hair as she fell against him, exhausted and still feeling sick. ‘I’ll write to my mother. She’ll await your arrival in London, and you’ll have somewhere to stay and be looked after until I return.’
Ellie froze. ‘Your mother?’ she mumbled against him. She’d imagined herself going back to her own home, to her own family.
‘We can discuss the arrangements later,’ he said, brushing hair from her eyes as she looked up at him. ‘My mother will adore you, and you’ll be safe and cared for with her. She can arrange anything you need, I promise.’ He grinned at her, looking more boy than man in that moment. ‘I’ve told her all about you, Ellie. Don’t look so surprised.’
She touched his shoulder, wished it was the two of them somewhere private instead of here. Anywhere but here.
‘We’re moving at the end of the week,’ she said. ‘We can’t possibly do it then.’ In a few days’ time they were supposed to start packing up. They’d been told they would be working in a proper building this time, rather than under canvas, which would make a nice change.
They’d already moved camp once, from their casualty clearance station to their field hospital, when the Allies had advanced further into France, and now they were moving again to be of more help. They were going to stop admitting new patients before the end of the day, which meant she had a long shift ahead of preparing patients to move to other hospitals. The army trucks would start arriving, patients would start being moved, and then somehow everything would be packed up and relocated within hours at the new site for them to be up and running, admitting patients immediately upon set-up. She could hardly stand the thought of what was ahead of them, just when things had become less frantic.
Once she finished her Thursday shift, it would be a short rest before they started packing up, getting everything prepared for the orderlies to travel with all the equipment. Her stomach wasn’t likely to help her, and she hated the thought of vomiting around others, of not having any privacy. She could only imagine the gossip amongst the other nurses when they put two and two together, if they saw her being sick ahead of her wedding.
‘Ellie, my love, everything is going to be fine,’ Spencer told her, echoing what Scarlet had said only moments earlier as they’d walked in. ‘This baby, it’s a blessing, not a burden. One day, when we’re old and sitting in our rocking chairs, we’ll look back and smile about my hasty proposal. I promise. You’re not to worry about what anyone else thinks, either, because this has happened countless times at hospitals everywhere.’
They were sweet words, but they weren’t enough to stop her from worrying.
‘I had better get to work before Matron comes looking for me and gives me a telling-off,’ Ellie murmured, lifting her face to look at Spencer.
‘We wouldn’t want that now, would we?’ Spencer chuckled and kissed the back of her hand, before leaving her.
She was to be married. She was having a baby.
The war didn’t look as if it was going to be over any time soon, and yet here she was with another life growing inside of her. Ellie placed a hand flat to her stomach, took in a few deep breaths, before heading out to do her job. She only hoped she could keep what little was left in her stomach down for the entirety of her shift.
The others were going to bathe in the river later, or so they’d planned, despite the freezing cold. She’d do anything to freshen up, although the way she was feeling, she might be better off sitting it out and being the lookout for snipers.
For some reason, the nausea Ellie had been feeling didn’t have its usual hold over her as she stood and waited for Spencer. She was so nervous, ridiculously nervous, about what was about to happen, but later that day they were moving to a new camp. Before then, she was to be married. Her hands were shaking, and even with Scarlet and Lucy to keep her calm, she was a nervous wreck.
‘You look beautiful,’ Scarlet said, looking so excited even though all that was about to happen was a hurried set of vows being recited before an army chaplain.