We Shall Not Sleep_ A Novel - Anne Perry [36]
He walked into the last tent at the end of the row without hope of learning anything new, or even remotely helpful. There was just one nurse there, standing with her back to him, cleaning surgical instruments on a wooden table. Her dark hair was tied up and back, but the natural curl in it made it impossible to keep tidy. Her neck was slender, and there was grace in the line of her shoulders. It reminded him of something gentle and happy that he could not immediately place.
She must have heard his boots on the floorboards, because she turned. Her blue eyes opened wide and the scalpel slid out of her fingers onto the floor with a clatter.
Joseph also stopped abruptly, his heart pounding. It was Lizzie Blaine. It was absurd. He was shaking and his hands were stiff and clammy, even in the cold.
“Hello…Chaplain,” she said awkwardly.
“Lizzie…Nurse…Blaine.” He found his tongue clumsy, words idiotic, banal. Of course she had said she might join up, after her husband had been murdered in 1916. He had thought she was just searching for something to do—ideas, not reality. “I…” He swallowed. “I thought you were going to be a driver.” He remembered the miles she had driven him during that nightmare time when they were looking for a traitor. She had been the only good part of that summer.
She bent and picked up the scalpel, holding it carefully in her hand to keep it separate from the clean ones. “I started that way, but they needed nurses.” She smiled. “I’m quite good on ordinary roads, but out here it’s a different thing altogether, and I’m not so clever at the maintenance. I’m not inventive enough.”
“Have you been in this section long?” How had he not seen her before, or at least known she was here?
“A few weeks. People are being moved around all the time, to fill in the gaps. Are you here because of Sarah Price and what happened to her?”
“Colonel Hook asked me to help, if I can. Did you see Sarah last night?”
“Yes, of course. We were both working in the Admissions tent and then the Operating tent. She was in Resuscitation for a while. She has—” Lizzie stopped and took a breath. “Had more experience than I do.”
“Do you remember what time you last saw her?”
She flinched, understanding exactly why he asked. “Not really. I saw her coming and going up until we had a new lot of wounded in at about half past two, three o’clock. I went to Admissions.” She looked down, avoiding his eyes. “I hate that. I feel so helpless and I’m never sure if I’m making the right decisions. Some of them die before any doctor even gets to them.” She stopped abruptly, violent emotions naked in her face.
“I know,” he said gently. He touched her, just fingers on her arm, but tender with the ache to comfort her that burned through him.
She looked up. “Yes, of course you do. You must spend hours there, doing what you can. I’m sorry. It’s…” Clearly there was no way to finish.
“Did you know Sarah?” he asked. “Can you tell me anything about her?” He would value her common sense. She was older than many of the other nurses, and he already knew her wisdom from two summers ago, the steadiness she had shown in the midst of her own grief at her husband’s death. She had even kept up a bleak, brave humor when she had been suspected of his murder herself. She had been afraid, but she had never sunk to anger or bitterness. How sweet that was now—like sudden sunlight on a winter landscape.
“Not very much,” she answered. “She seemed a nice enough girl, a bit flighty.” Her face was blank for a moment. “But then she was alone, with nothing in particular to go home to.” She said the words with only the slightest tremor. “Her parents are dead, and her brothers; she had only a grandmother. I heard her say that, and for a moment I saw something more than the rather trivial person she seemed to be.”
She looked away for a moment, and he saw that she was struggling with emotions. He wanted to say something wise and gentle that would comfort her. He wanted overwhelmingly to reach out and touch her, but it would be completely inappropriate.