“No, I’ll let you do that when peace is declared,” she answered.
“What will your father say? Everyone in your family is a doctor, I’m just a poor boy from Dublin.”
“You’ve saved more lives than my father has. And one day you’ll be a great doctor.” She smiled at him. He loved the way she believed in him and didn’t give a damn about where he came from, or how poor he’d been growing up. Audrey had been that way too, and so was Alex. Emma said the same thing about Pru. They had big hearts and open minds, and none of the narrow thinking that he’d grown up with in Ireland, and Emma had in England, where they were trapped in the class they were born into forever. He liked the idea of moving to America with Lizzie and starting a new life. But peacetime first.
She went back to her barracks then and put the letter safely in her own dresser drawer. Audrey had given her the best Christmas gift of all.
* * *
—
With the unit short of their best and most experienced nurses, Pru and Audrey, the commanding officer of the air evac transport unit called Louise into her office a few days before Christmas, and told her she was being transferred to active transport duty. Her days as hospital relief for patients of her own race, and caring for the German POWs, were over. They didn’t say it in so many words, but Louise understood the full meaning of their gesture. Her color had become irrelevant, even here, where she had never been discriminated against as she had been in the States all her life. The color line had been lifted and no longer existed. She was one of their best nurses, they recognized it, and she had proven what she was capable of on the complicated mission to help the French Resistance unit and their leader three months before, and she saved the leader’s life. He was the most important freedom fighter in France.
She had never had any feedback from it. They weren’t told if the mission had been successful and whether or not the nine people they had rescued had made it safely to the Swiss border, or even whether her patient had survived, or if they’d all been captured and killed. She had never heard from Gonzague again, nor did she expect to. She knew it was one of those rare onetime events in a lifetime. A French Resistance fighter in wartime, who claimed to be a nobleman, had appeared out of the mists, needing her nursing skills, and kissed her like a prince in a fairy tale. She didn’t expect to see or hear from him again, but she cherished the memory. It was one of those wartime experiences that she knew she would remember for a lifetime.
Her new job as full-time flying evacuation nurse was to begin on the first of January. She couldn’t wait to tell her parents. She had done her job well so far and there was justice in what had just happened. She only wished that Pru and Audrey hadn’t died, to leave the places vacant for her. She told the other nurses about it and savored the victory that she would be fully one of them now. They were happy for her. They didn’t know, and never would, how much more she’d had to achieve in order to prove herself worthy of what was given to them so easily. But she didn’t care how long it took, or what she had to do. It was worth it in the end, and the victory was sweet.
Chapter 15
Emma finished reading Pru’s journal the week before Christmas. She then read it again when she had a day off, this time at one sitting. There was so much in it she loved, she didn’t want to miss anything. There were so many references to her, and to Pru’s parents, and her brothers, and everything she cared about and believed in. Reading it, Pru shone through the pages, and one knew exactly who she was.
A tiny part of Emma wanted to keep it, and never let them know it existed, but she couldn’t do that. It wouldn’t be fair. It would be selfish of her. She knew that Pru would have wanted her parents to have it, and her older brother to see it. It belonged with them. She thought about mailing it to them, but that seemed so cold and impersonal. She had no one to be with on Christmas, she never did, like Audrey in the end. She had no family. Audrey had had one, but Emma hadn’t since she was fifteen, and it was only her drunken mother before that. She was used to spending holidays alone. She always spent them working, which gave someone else a chance to take a day off, someone who had better use for a holiday, and loved ones to spend it with, which Emma didn’t.
Lizzie was spending Christmas with Ed, and Louise had volunteered for general duty at the hospital. Alex had volunteered at the psych ward, so Emma wanted to do something special for Pru. She gift wrapped the journal in silver paper she bought, and decided to take a train to Yorkshire. It would probably take forever to get there with wartime disruptions, unreliable train schedules, and bombing raids. But she didn’t care how long it took. She had nowhere else to be. She had already visualized it. She would ring the front doorbell, ask to see Pru’s mother, Lady Pommery, whom she had heard so much about, and hand her the silver-wrapped journal as a Christmas gift from Pru.
She was sure that Pru would have loved her doing it. Emma smiled every time she thought of it. She had two days off, and she didn’t care if she wound up sleeping on a bench in the train station in York on Christmas Eve. She went to the train station near the base at seven a.m. on the morning of Christmas Eve. She waited two hours for a train, and then got one headed north. It stopped several times, and was sidetracked for an hour halfway there, but she reached the station in York at five o’clock, and found an old man who was willing to drive her to Pommery Manor. She offered him some money, but he refused it. He dropped her off in front of the manor and wished her a Merry Christmas. She was holding her precious package close to her chest.
She rang the doorbell of the imposing home, and no one answered for a long time. She was afraid they were out, but she could hear children shouting and laughing from open windows on the top floor. The blackout shades were already up. Finally, after a ten-minute wait in the cold, while she wondered what to do, a tall young man in uniform opened the door. Emma guessed instantly that it was Pru’s older brother, Max. He looked like Pru. He was surprised to see her and asked Emma what he could do for her. She had worn her uniform too, with the trousers, coat, and cap, so she’d be warm on the train.
“May I see Lady Pommery?” Emma asked politely, in her least East End voice. She felt self-conscious being there, and she had noticed immediately that the man in the uniform had the same aristocratic diction as Pru. “I have a package for her,” Emma explained. “From her daughter.” He looked startled at that and opened the door wider.
“Please come in,” he said with a smile. “I’m afraid Lord and Lady Pommery are out. They’re dining with friends. What sort of package is it?” He hadn’t noticed the slim silver-wrapped volume in her hand. She’d added a narrow silver ribbon, to make it look more festive. She hesitated, while standing in the front hall, and then extended it to him.
“I am…I was a friend of Pru’s. We trained together. I’m a nurse. We were in the same unit, and we were roommates. I loved her very much. We all did and we miss her terribly,” she said in a rush, fighting back tears. “I found her journal after I packed up her things. It’s wonderful, and there’s so much in it about everyone she loved…I’m afraid I read it. I thought your mother would like to have it, as sort of a Christmas gift from Pru.”