The Gates of Rutherford Read Online Free PDF Page A

brushing vigorously, the bristles prickling her scalp. Octavia had wanted to bring her own maid to attend to Charlotte, but there the line had been firmly drawn. “Mother, it is 1917,” Charlotte had told her sternly. “It’s nonsense to be gussied up by a maid. I don’t need it. I’m certain that I can dress my own hair.”
    But the more she stayed alone in the room, the worse things became. She couldn’t fasten the skirt properly; the blouse was too voluminous. At last, not knowing what was the matter with her, and realizing that sooner or later Octavia would indeed come up to see to her, Charlotte slumped down on the bed and wept. “Mother,” she murmured, and then kicked the suitcase in frustration and fury.
    There was a sudden knocking at the door.
    Charlotte froze, hastily rubbing away a tear. “Who is it?”
    The door opened a tiny crack, and a wide, smiling face looked in at her. “It’s me, pumpkin.”
    â€œOh, Christine! Well, you might as well come in.”
    â€œMight I? It looks a perfect cavern of destruction. What a mess you’ve made of a decent room.” And, laughing, Christine Nesbitt came into the bedroom. She was carrying a bottle of champagne and two glasses. “What’s the matter?” she asked. “You’ve not been weeping?” She walked over to the bed. “If you have, I shouldn’t blame you,” she commented blithely. “Here, have a drink. You’ll feel so much better.”
    She poured the wine, and sat down next to Charlotte. “Bottoms up. Here’s to swimmin’ with bow-legged wimmin.”
    Charlotte stared at her, then, despite herself, burst out laughing.
    â€œThat’s better,” Christine said. “Here’s another one. May you be in a heaven an hour before the Devil knows you’re dead.”
    â€œAmen.”
    They drank.
    Charlotte had known Christine for six months. All those weeks ago, on one of her three volunteer days at St. Dunstan’s Hospital, Charlotte had spotted a slight figure—she’d really thought that it was a boy at first—perched on a bench in the park, engaged in what looked like very earnest conversation with a Navy man who had recently arrived.
    Charlotte had hurried across to them that morning—out of anxiety more than anything else. She had been told to keep a close watch on Joshua Smith. He was a Lewis gunner in the Naval Air Service—or rather, he had been. But Allington had trouble believing that such a life as he had lived in the last two years was now in the past. He had been in a state of confusion for some time even after his diagnosis.“I’ll go back when I can see again,” he’d told her robustly on the day that he had been admitted. “It’ll come back. It’s only the cold.”
    His pilot had ditched at sea. They had quite simply run out of fuel over the Channel, way out past Dover, towards the North Sea, on the coast of Norfolk. “We got lost,” he had added, smiling to himself. “That’s what I reckon, lost.” No one had told him any different that first day. The difference being that his pilot was dead, and Joshua blinded, slumped unconscious, had known nothing until the water hit him.
    â€œIt’s the cold, the cold,” he had kept saying. She had sat with him on the first evening. He had been feverish and kept removing himself from the bed. She had caught him feeling his way down the corridor, his fingers pinching the wooden rail at waist height. He’d heard her footsteps behind him. “Where am I?” he’d asked her. “In hospital at home,” she’d told him, and gently taken hold of his arm.
    â€œDon’t put me back with the blind,” he’d said. “I’m not blind. It’s only the cold of the sea that’s done it. It’s temporary.” And on, and on. The cold, the cold. Eventually she had got him