“Where? If you had a place of your own, you wouldn’t have been sheltered in Mrs. Hennessey’s doorway. I don’t know your reason for being there, that’s your affair. It’s just that I wouldn’t send a dog back out into this weather. And I think you must know that you aren’t dressed for spending the night in the street.”
She looked down at her clothes, smiling ruefully. “I was in something of a hurry.”
“There’s another cup in the pot,” I urged. “And I believe there are some biscuits in the cupboard. Have you had any dinner?”
“I don’t remember. When I last ate, that is. Yesterday?” She accepted the second cup of tea and even one of the biscuits.
I had set my satchel down at the door, and I went to fetch it and put it in my own room. Opening the door to Diana’s, I said, “This should do. The sheets are clean. Mrs. Hennessey sees to that for us. The bed’s quite comfortable, and a good night’s rest makes sense. Tomorrow…” I shrugged. “Everything looks better in the daylight, doesn’t it?”
Biting back tears, she said, “Yes, all right. Thank you very much. I don’t like to be a burden, but I dread going back outside. You’re very kind.”
I smiled. “You would have done the same for me, I think, if you had found me on your doorstep with nowhere to go.”
She nearly laughed at that. “My doorstep?” she began, then broke off, shaking her head. “I live in the country,” she added after a moment. “We seldom find strangers at our door.”
Then she was not from London. What had brought her here? Or perhaps I should say, who had brought her here? I waited, hoping she might tell me more, but the moment had passed.
I went to fetch soap and towels, setting them on the table beside her. “You’ll find a fresh nightdress in the tall chest, middle drawer. You and Diana must be of a size. If not, we’ll look for one in Mary’s room.”
I busied myself clearing away the cups and filling the pot for tomorrow morning. I knew what my father and Simon would have to say about taking in a stranger, most particularly one who might be hiding from the police, but my mother would have understood that leaving her to the streets on a night like this was unconscionable. There was no way this woman could have guessed that I would be coming home tonight. She had simply chosen a doorway in which she could find a little respite from the wind. And perhaps, as well, shelter from whoever had struck her such a blow.
She took the towels and after a moment, pulled off her coat and hung it on the rack by the door, as if to be handy if she had to leave in a rush. Her clothing was of the same quality as the coat and her hat.
In the street below, I heard the sharp blast of a constable’s whistle. Was the hunt still on? My guest heard it as well. Crossing quickly to the window, she pulled the curtain aside just far enough to look out. Down in the street someone burst into a drunken song, breaking off as the constable ordered him to move along. Relieved, the woman let the curtain drop, then flushed as she turned to find me watching her. But she didn’t explain her anxiety, ducking her head and moving past me without a word.
I felt a moment’s unease, but it was forgotten as she reached the door to Diana’s room and swayed, suddenly dizzy. From worry? Not eating properly? Bad as it was, I couldn’t quite believe that the blow to her face had been that severe.
The dizziness passed, and I said nothing.
Sitting on the bed in Diana’s room, she allowed me to bring her a fresh cloth for her face, and then gently shut the door behind me with another murmured word of gratitude. I could hear her moving about as she prepared for bed, but I had a feeling she hadn’t looked for a nightgown. Would she leave, once she was warm enough to face the cold again?
I blew out the lamp, went into my own room, and when I had undressed, lay down on the bed to keep watch. But in spite of good intentions, I went soundly to sleep, and when I awoke, it was late morning. I sat up, wondering if my orphan of the storm had left while I slept. I hoped she hadn’t; I could hear the patter of a steady rain. I hastily threw on some clothes and went to see.
To my surprise, I saw that her coat was still there on the tree, and I suspected she was even more tired than I had been. Emotionally as well as physically.
It was close on ten o’clock when I heard her stir, and then she came frantically through the door, still trying to button her jumper, as if somehow believing I’d discovered her name and sent for whoever it was she’d run from. When she found me sitting there with a cup of tea in my hands, looking out the window at the rain, she stopped, suddenly shy.
“I was dreaming,” she said. “I thought-I didn’t recognize my surroundings when I woke up.”
A nightmare, I reckoned, rather than a dream.
“Let me make you a fresh cup.” The bruise was darker today, and there was heavier blackness around her left eye as well. It would be a week-ten days-before it faded completely.
“No, this will do nicely,” she told me, coming forward to pour her own tea. With her back to me, she said, “You must be wondering how I got this-this-” Not able to find the right word, she gestured in the general direction of her face. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t wish to speak of it?”
“Someone struck you.” I let the words fall between us. “I told you, I’m a nurse. I can’t help but know that much,” I went on. “As I said, it’s your affair, of course it is. But if for a while you need sanctuary…” I let my voice trail away.
She was torn. I could see that. At a guess, she’d dashed out of the house in the clothes she stood up in, too shocked or frightened to think beyond the need to get away. It would only have occurred to her later to give any thought to where she was going and what she would do when she got there. In fact, I wondered if perhaps she had very little money with her, unprepared to pay for food or hotels or other clothing.
If she was telling the truth about living in the country, perhaps even reaching the train to London had seemed an impossible task. I wouldn’t have wanted to walk from my parents’ house in Somerset to the nearest railway station. Yet when I glanced at her shoes, I could see that they hadn’t seen hard use on a country lane in winter.
She didn’t answer my suggestion directly. Instead she confessed, “I thought-I thought he might follow me. After leaving the railway station, I walked and walked. For hours. First this direction and then that. Until I was completely lost. And there was nowhere to turn, no one I could trust. Not even the constables I passed from time to time. But they must have seen me, because suddenly they were hunting me. He must have given them my description. And I didn’t know what they would do with me, if they caught me. I’ve heard-the suffragettes. They were treated cruelly in prison.”
“The police last evening weren’t hunting you,” I said gently. “They were searching for a deserter. I was on an omnibus. They stopped it and told us why.”
“A deserter?” She stared blankly at me. “I- Are you sure?”
“Quite sure. Unless, of course, the man you speak of is wanted by the police.”
“No, of course he isn’t.” She seemed shocked that I should think such a thing.
I realized then that a guilty conscience had led her to believe the worst.
“He. Your husband?”
“No. Yes.” She came to take the chair across from me, staring at the window. “I wouldn’t want you to think ill of him. That he’s brutal. It was as much my fault as it was his. I-I taunted him. I said things I shouldn’t have. When he struck me, he was as shocked as I was. But I couldn’t stay, you see. Not after that. We can’t take back our actions, can we? However much we may wish to.”
She was taking the blame for what had happened. But I kept an open mind on that issue, having been accustomed to hearing battered women in hospital claim that their drunken husbands hadn’t meant to strike them, that it was their own fault. Their excuses were infinite. Dinner was late, or their husband’s trousers hadn’t been pressed properly, or the children were noisy. I had been a junior sister on a women’s ward where broken bones and bruised bodies were common, and the husband, once sober, came to beg forgiveness. I knew, as the women in the ward had known, that the words were hollow, the promises too. But almost invariably, the wife returned to her home, because she had nowhere else to go.
I thought it best to change the subject before she had talked herself into a deeper sense of guilt. I said, “We weren’t properly introduced last evening. My name is Elizabeth. Elizabeth Crawford. Most of my friends call me Bess. What would you like me to call you?”
Startled, she said quickly, “I’d rather not-”
