A tear slid down Rachel’s face. “I am so ungrateful. You have done so much for me and all I could do was moan about Palestine. You must think I am horrible.”
“Never. I think you are a very brave, wonderful, young woman who can achieve her dreams. All of them. If you want to qualify as a doctor, do it. Palestine will need doctors and if they don’t, your people surely will. It is going to take years to help those poor creatures who survived the war, either in the concentration camps or elsewhere. I’m sure you could volunteer to help in the camps now with your VAD training.”
“I never thought of doing that.” Rachel’s eyes lit up. “Maybe that’s what I should do. There is plenty of time later to choose a career.” Then her face fell. “What about Ruth? She’s too young to travel to Palestine.”
“Ruth can stay here for as long as she wants.”
“I want to stay here forever. I don’t want to go to a new country. I want to say with Maggie.”
The adults turned at once to see Ruth standing in the doorway, her hands on her hips.
“I am almost twelve-years-old and nobody thinks to ask what I want. I’m really glad Mama lived through the war but if she really wanted me, she would come here. She put us on that train and sent us away. She only cares about the boys. If you want to go to her, Rachel, go. Leave me alone. I don’t care.”
Maggie’s eyes glistened. “Ruth, darling come here and sit down.”
“I’m not a child.”
“I know that, love, you are a young woman. But come and sit down anyway. You have the wrong idea about your mother. When she put you and Rachel on that train, she made the most difficult decision any mother could make. You are not my flesh and blood, yet I don’t think I could bear to put you on a train to another country even if I knew it was to save your life. I love you, child, but you are part of your mother. She did what she did because she loves you more than she loves herself.”
Ruth hiccupped but didn’t say anything.
“Rachel has protected you and loved you, in your mother’s place, ever since that train pulled out of the Berlin platform. She’s done a wonderful job and I hope you will always be as close as you are. But it’s time for Rachel to live her own life, Ruthie.”
Maggie’s use of her pet name made Ruth lean into the older woman. Maggie put her arm around her and pulled her closer. “Rachel has to make her choices but even as she makes them, she is still thinking of you. She wants you to be safe and happy.”
“I am safe and happy here. I don’t want to go away. Not again.”
Maggie looked to Rachel.
“Ruth, Mama loves us both. She knows we are safe, that’s why she has to look for the boys. She doesn’t know what happened to them, if they are even alive. That’s why she is going to Palestine first. You’re her baby, if anything, her favorite.”
Ruth looked mutinous. Her voice shook, as she insisted, “I don’t want to go.”
“I am not forcing you to go to Palestine, but I think you should write to Mama and ask her if you can stay here.”
“What if she says no?”
Rachel took her sister’s hand in hers. “I don’t believe she will. She won’t want you making that journey on your own. She will want you to finish school.”
At Ruth’s face, Rachel laughed. “Do you think Maggie will let you leave school?”
Ruth glanced at Maggie.
“Not on your life, child. Education is the key to freedom, particularly for girls. You will finish school and then head to university, if I have my way.”
“Maggie! I hate school,” Ruth protested. “I want to leave and get a job as soon as I turn fourteen.”
“Not on my watch, love. You will stay in school for as long as they will have you. Agreed Rachel?”
Rachel nodded.
Ruth stood up. “Maybe I will go to Mother after all,” she announced, as she flounced out the door.
Rachel rose to follow her, but Maggie held her hand.
“Let her go, love. She doesn’t know whether she is coming or going. She knows your mother saved her life, but she feels abandoned. That will take some time for her to figure out. You’ve done your best for Ruth. It’s time to concentrate on Rachel now.”
“Listen to Maggie, Rachel. She’s a wise, old woman.”
“Less of the old, thank you very much, Sally Matthews.”
37
Near Grosvenor Square, London, October 1945
“Evening Mother.” Derek stood in front of the fire, in the main drawing-room. He’d been released from St Thomas’s earlier in the day.
“Darling, why didn’t you let me know you were coming. I would have arranged a dinner with friends. It’s much easier to go out these days. Rationing is such a trial. Goodness knows when the staff will supply a decent meal.”
Derek let his mother’s complaints roll over him. He’d already eaten in the kitchen, much to the consternation of Cook. As far as he could see, his mother and her staff wanted for little. There was plenty of gin and whiskey in the decanters. Mother must have good contacts on the black market.
“It’s so difficult to find good staff these days. Those munitions factories have ruined it for everyone, with the wages they paid. Do you know, I interviewed a young girl to come in as a daily maid, she wanted half a crown an hour! When I asked her what her rate would be if she were to live in, the young
