Winds of Eden by Catrin Collier Page B

one.’
    â€˜Given the number of casualties at the Battle of Ctesiphon, he was probably buried in a mass grave,’ Helen warned.
    â€˜Even so, there’d have to be a marker,’ Clarissa countered, refusing to think of the alternative. ‘Anyway, it’s all rather academic. My father absolutely refuses to allow me to carry on nursing. He insists I have to return home to run the house and care for Mother.’
    â€˜Your parents have a cook and a maid. I saw them.’
    â€˜And a housekeeper,’ Clarissa added.
    â€˜Georgie told me that your father was pressurizing you to give up your career. It amazes me how parents can be so selfish as to deny their daughter her vocation, particularly when that daughter has worked so hard to achieve success. Doubly so in wartime with the shortage of labour and every hospital in the country stretched to the limit, because so many staff are in the services.’
    â€˜My mother’s nerves have never been strong. With Stephen gone there’s only me and my sister, Penny, and she can’t help my parents because she’s expecting her second baby in April.’
    â€˜She’s the one you introduced us to at Stephen’s memorial service, whose husband is a teacher?’ Helen checked.
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Do they live near your parents?’
    â€˜About a mile away.’
    â€˜Then my advice to you is: do what you want, Clary, not what your father and mother demand. They have three servants, they don’t need another. Join the QAINC. You’re over twenty-one, you’re a damned good nurse, and you could save a lot of lives wherever you’re sent, be it Mesopotamia or elsewhere.’
    â€˜It’s easy for you to say that, Helen,’ Clarissa protested. ‘You’ve no family …’
    â€˜Whatever gave you that idea?’ Helen broke in.
    â€˜You never talk about them.’
    â€˜If I don’t talk about them it’s for a reason. My parents consider a female doctor in the family a disgrace. Fortunately my grandmother left me enough money to finance my training at the London School of Medicine for women.’
    Clarissa was shocked. ‘Don’t you miss your family?’
    â€˜As much as they miss me,’ Helen replied ambiguously. ‘I keep in touch with one of my brothers. Although we’re both doctors, he’s the success story of the family. I’m the one they never speak of. You want to nurse in the army, Clarissa, do it.’ Helen looked at Georgiana. ‘You’re remarkably quiet. No words of wisdom on following your calling?’
    â€˜Other than there comes a time in everyone’s life when they have to do what they think best, irrespective of what others say, no. I admire you for wanting to go to Mesopotamia, Clarissa. I hope you find Stephen’s grave.’
    â€˜Thank you.’
    Helen studied Georgiana. ‘You’re trying to work out how you can travel to Mesopotamia to look for Harry, aren’t you?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Think, Georgie, how on earth are you going to get there? The military may accept nurses behind the lines, but they’ll never accept a female doctor.’
    â€˜I’m not expecting them to.’
    â€˜You’ll never get a berth on a boat.’
    â€˜Never is a word you taught me to ignore, Helen.’ Georgiana looked out of the window at the sodden winter fields and dripping hedgerows. Clarissa wasn’t the only one who knew the army was recruiting nurses for Mesopotamia. She’d applied to join the QAINC an hour after she received the telegram from her father to tell her Harry had been posted missing, presumed killed.
    Her godfather, General Reid, would be at the memorial service. He’d been appointed to a senior position in War Office. She’d decided to ask him to pull strings to get her accepted by the corps and find her a berth on the first boat to Basra. She’d never canvassed him