Hope - Lesley Pearse [182]
Hope had laughed at that. She couldn’t possibly imagine ordering someone to wash her clothes, cook a meal or clean up after her. But Alice had reprimanded her and reminded her that the servant would be a soldier’s wife, and if she didn’t learn to be firm, the chances were the woman would take advantage of her, and Hope would become a laughing stock.
Hope had already got the idea that most soldiers’ wives were like Betsy, colourful, noisy and a bit wild, but then Betsy had always been proud that Hope was educated and more ladylike than she was. Would she and Gussie have been horrified at her becoming a nurse? She could almost see Betsy shaking her head in bewilderment and claiming her friend wasn’t right in the head!
But they would certainly be overjoyed that she’d married Bennett. Betsy would give her that knowing look she’d had and tell her she wasn’t a girl any more but a real woman.
In the days that followed, Hope felt she really had become a grown woman. She felt confident in her lovely new clothes, and the genteel and demure manner appropriate for a doctor’s wife seemed to come easily to her. Yet it was something of a shock to find she could be so lusty. Even as they were eating a meal in a restaurant or braving the high winds along the seafront, she could think of little else but lovemaking. Once out of sight of passers-by she kept making Bennett kiss her, pressing herself up against him wantonly. One day on a walk along the clifftop, she took his hand and put it up her skirt. If Bennett had taken her there and then on the grass, she would have been delighted. As it was, they could hardly wait to get back to their room and devour each other.
*
‘Do you think all married couples are like this?’ she asked Bennett on the last night of their honeymoon. In the morning they were due to go back to Winchester, and they were reluctant to go to sleep, as if they thought they would never get a chance to make love again.
‘I suppose some must be,’ he said with a wide grin. ‘But I don’t think many of the officers I know are so lucky. Their wives look like they’d avoid it at all costs.’
‘Well, maybe the officers aren’t very good at loving,’ she said, sitting astride Bennett and putting his hand on her breasts. ‘Maybe they all do it like that ship’s captain that Betsy went with. It put her off!’
Bennett laughed. Throughout the week, Hope had taken a great deal of pleasure in relating many bawdy little stories told to her by patients, women she’d known in Lewins Mead and by Betsy. It gave her a thrill being able to share such things with a man. Bennett enjoyed them too, and in turn told her some from men he knew. ‘But I don’t want you giving out instructions on such things in Winchester,’ he said with mock severity. ‘A great many of the army wives are very prim, and I don’t want them gossiping about you.’
‘Then we’d better hope we don’t get given a bed with squeaky springs,’ she said, leaning forward and covering his face with kisses. ‘Because, my darling husband, I intend to have my wicked way with you every night!’
Hope reminded Bennett of that remark as they stood by the ship’s rail looking out to sea. She had been appalled to see their bunk beds were so tiny, though she had no intention of sleeping in one alone. ‘Do you think we’ll even get a bed where we’re going?’ she asked. ‘I heard someone say we’ll be sleeping in tents!’
‘That might well be true,’ he replied. ‘I saw a great many being loaded, and I took the precaution of packing two camp beds. But then this whole campaign is a rum do – no one, not even the COs, seem to know exactly where we’re bound. I’ve heard Malta, and