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The rain lashed at the windows with tremendous force. The storms back in Mandeville were hardly gentle, but they were certainly never so bleak. While Lucille could appreciate the breathtaking vistas of the land they were visiting, she would be happy to return to London.
“You can’t will away the winds, might as well rest yourselves for the duration.” Mr. MacIver advised the nurses as he headed upstairs to his wife and newborn.
Lucille thanked their host but opted to stay up for a while with her colleague.
“It’s good thing we’ve such a cozy place to weather this out.” Shelagh commented, settling into a soft armchair by the fire with some fortified tea. Lucille accepted a cup of her own and took the seat opposite.
“There is that at least. I hope the others are similarly sheltered.” Worry cast a pall over the welcoming space.
Shelagh’s brow furrow with sympathetic concern. “So do I. Patrick was off to the lighthouse when I saw him last. It should be safe, if they convinced him to stay the night.”
“He wouldn’t think to venture out in this, surely?” Lucille asked.
Shelagh sighed. “He’s not so used to storms like this and he may get a wee bit cocky. He likes it here, quite a bit I think.” She looked concerned. Interesting, Lucille thought, given that Mrs. Turner came from these parts. “Though, I suppose as he’d be rowing Nurse Dyer back with him, he’d be more inclined to act sensibly.”
The thought of Valerie being tossed about in a small boat in the fierce waters surrounding the little village scared Lucille more than she hoped she let on. She sent up a small prayer for her friend’s safety and reassured herself with reminders of Valerie’s solid common sense. Lucille sipped her tea. It was a bit strong, both the brew itself and the hearty liquid seasoning, but she appreciated it right now. “I suppose you must be more used to conditions like this.”
Shelagh looked momentarily affronted, and Lucille feared she’d offended the other woman, but her response held no sharpness. “Aberdeenshire can be quite tempestuous, however my town wasn’t so exposed or... rustic as this.”
Her accent was stronger than Lucille remembered it being back in London and she self-consciously wondered if her own accent responded similarly when surrounded by others from her home country.
“Do you miss it,” Lucille asked impulsively, “your town?”
Mrs. Turner took a moment to think about the question, looking to the dancing flames for an answer.
“I’m happy where I am now, in Poplar.” Her tone rose, another concern catching on the end of her thought. “I would like to visit again some day, but I’ve been away so long, I worry I’d be a stranger to it, and it to me.”
The howling wind swept away her confession, but it lingered in Lucille’s mind. Was that not just how she had been feeling when she corresponded with her mother? Though the Caribbean community of London had welcomed her with open arms, helping her reconcile her old home and the new, it was a mix of many peoples, its customs, food and even speech a different blend from that which she had grown up with. But was that not just what she wanted? Something new? A fresh look at life where so many different peoples came to start anew? Perhaps she had never truly contemplated that immersing herself in this new world might distance her from the old one, even if it was present in some way on these shores as well. She had not seriously considered that she might have to grieve an old self that would become unfamiliar to her.
“Are you happy to leave it like that?” At any other time, Lucille may have worried her question was impertinent, but this cocoon of darkness they were ensconced in seemed an appropriate place to give voice to these shadows that troubled them.
Shelagh studied her, seeing easily that the question held personal interest to the asker. “I don’t know that I am any more. I thought I had to cut myself off when I left.” She looked back to the fire. “I’m not sure that was wise, or kind. And I would like the children to know something of it.”
Children. Lucille had always planned for little ones in her future, but their faces were blurry, as though she was seeing them out of the corner of her eye. Did they have Cyril’s face? Her lack of certainty worried her. The face that replaced their image without her consent worried her even more.
“I’m sure it would be nice for them to know their mother’s homeland.” Lucille commented quickly, trying to banish the intrusive spectres her brain summoned up. “And Dr. Turner does seem to enjoy it out here.”
Now the thought brought a smile to Shelagh’s face, the delicate lines of laughter deepened by the flickering light. “Yes, he’s enjoying the adventure. But he’s a city man at heart, much as he might fancy himself an outdoorsman.”
The thought of her husband pulled her eyes to the dark window. They were the exact colour the water had been that afternoon, Lucille thought, grey-blue under the slate clouds. Valerie’s eyes were that same shade, though a warm light like this one brought out some green in them. How much whiskey was there in this nightcap?
“You seem quite a city girl yourself, if you don’t mind my saying so. You took to Poplar far faster than I did.” The gentle lilt pulled her out of her reverie.
That was news to Lucille. “I have always considered myself more at ease in an urban environment. The circumstances certainly did set me off running,” she replied. She thought she’d made quite a mess of things, falling ill on her first day. Of course nobody faulted her for the extreme conditions and the difficulties resulting from them, but Lucille had hoped to make a better first impression. And there had been some nasty comments about how unsuited she seemed to such conditions. Not from Nonnatus, and not that those who said such things had fared any better with the unexpectedly ferocious winter... her mind wandered off along the well-worn tracks of her first weeks in Poplar. The community, the work, the weather, the new people that had changed her life so completely.
Shelagh interpreted her silence as exhaustion and gave her a polite out. “I suppose we should heed Mr. MacIver’s advice and sleep while we can. We should be out early tomorrow if this storm has the good grace to let up during the night.”
Lucille cleared her mind with a nod and left the cups and pot for Shelagh to clean up at the latter’s offer that she use the facilities first.
The thin cots creaked and sagged, and flashes of lightning pulled her back to the surface every time she finally felt herself sinking into sleep. The experience was far from restful, the turbulence tossing her mind from one unsettling dream to another, none of which she could fully remember when the thin light of dawn called her to wakefulness. The rain was still coming down in sheets, but the wind seemed to have died down. Emerging into the kitchen dining room, she saw Mrs. Turner engaged in a quiet, urgent conversation with Mr. MacIver over some thick-cut toast, generously slathered with preserves. Both seemed fully alert, in spite of the early hour.
“A distress call was sent out from the lighthouse during the night. Mr. MacIver picked up bits of it on his radio.”
“Forgot to turn it off. Didn’t expect to go from catching fish to catching a wean.” The man’s pleasant, round face clearly telegraphed dire expectations, the look of dazed joy mixed with tiredness and anxiety so common on the faces of new parents now forgotten. “Thought about heading out, but if I went myself I’d only be adding to the number of those needing help.”
“Is it...” Lucille couldn’t bring herself to complete the question, all manner of catastrophic situations flicking in front of her eyes.
“We know very little, only that it sounded quite serious and they likely still require help. We think it’s safe enough to head out now.” Shelagh’s voice was grim, but authoritative. “Mrs. MacIver and baby are both doing well,” Shelagh added as Lucille automatically turned to the upstairs bedroom where their patients slept, noting as she did how Mr. MacIver’s lips pressed together more firmly, holding in his own concern.
She silently gave her assent. Panic fluttered in her breast and action was needed to still it. Action and a good outcome.
In spite of their macs and hefty boots, by the time they reached the water’s edge, Lucille felt as though the cold rain had somehow managed to seep into her very marrow. Thankfully, they would have to go no further. A blessedly familiar voice hailed them brightly from several meters out in the bay.
“Lovely morning for it!” Valerie laughed as her two round-backed companions pulled them the last few strokes into shore.
Lucille’s throat closed around the relief that welled up within her and flowed over the brims of her eyes. Thank goodness the rain would hide it.
She wrapped her arms around her confused friend as Mr. MacIver explained the situation to the gathered party.
Shelagh reached for her husband as soon as he managed to splash his way out of the boat, drawing him close with evident relief. In spite of her cloaked and somewhat bedraggled state, he looked at her like she’d personally lifted him out of the churning sea.
Lucille closed her eyes as they kissed, the comfort they shared with that intimacy painfully off-limits to her.
The way the young midwife clung to her friend aligned a piece of the puzzle Shelagh had been trying to assemble since the train ride north. Friends could be quite close, of course, she had been blessed with at least one such friendship in her own life, but the intensity of emotion in those warm brown eyes was something she recognized in another close relationship. The ease they had around one another, the casual intimacy of their words contrasting with the stiltedness of their gestures, consciously avoiding contact. The understanding and attentiveness they showed each other, together with the lingering gazes, the long, held looks and heavy silences that lay between those who could not say or even openly think what they held in their hearts. Those spoke to something more.
Perhaps she was reading too much into things, Shelagh thought as she breathed in the earthy, mineral smell of her own sodden love. It was so easy to see in others what you yourself once tried to hide. And surely, as two women, they were just passionate friends. Still, nestled in her husband’s arms, she found herself hoping that on this rough, romantic outpost, her colleagues might embrace the art of letter-writing.