‘Oh, what you are apologising for?’ I gave him my hand briefly, and snatched it back as fast as I could.
‘For offending you. That was never my intention. You were commanding a group of probationers as if about to go into battle, and Dr Davenport said that you had a reputation—’
‘Oh! A reputation? What reputation?’ This worried me. With hindsight I can see I was strolling too easily into his little trap.
‘In fact, he said he’d put money on you being the next matron.’
‘Really?’
It was like shooting fish in a barrel, and I was a big clumsy stupid fish who’d never held a boy’s hand. I was sweating under his flattery, and not just a gentle glow that brought colour to my cheeks – the skin of my face was wet. He must have noticed.
He had the longest black lashes I had ever seen, even on a woman. How wasted they were on a man like that, I thought, curling up and fluttering when by rights they belonged on a baby deer.
Thomas Lancaster came from a village near Bristol, had worked for two years in Edinburgh after completing his studies, and was now a surgeon at the London Hospital. As he was telling me this, I noticed that two young doctors had stopped at the gates to watch us. They were sniggering and whispering to each other and I sensed I was the victim of a cruel trick. Only much later did I realise that one of them was Richard Lovett, who would be Thomas’s best man at our wedding.
‘Wager, is it?’ I said.
‘I’m sorry?’
I gestured towards the gentlemen, and he turned to look at them, then back at me, and rolled his eyes.
‘Again, let me apologise. I’m afraid they thought me bold for approaching you. Truth be told, I think they are frightened of women, especially nurses. I told them I was going to ask your name.’
‘My name is Chapman.’
‘Right. My name is—’
‘You’ve told me your name. And you’ve already apologised, in case you’ve forgotten that too.’
‘Yes, I have, haven’t I? Do you know, Chapman, I think you are making me nervous.’ He put a palm to his chest. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you. May I ask your Christian name?’
The cheek of it. Hands in pockets and asking for Christian names. He tried to make my eyes meet his, and in response mine rolled around like marbles. His were intense, as if they were boring holes in my body out of which my secret thoughts would fly like paper messages that he would catch and read. I was not familiar with men socially. I only knew how to be shy or rude.
‘Sister. My name to you will always be “Sister Chapman”.’ I chose rude. I walked past him with my chin in the air, my book clasped to my chest, and didn’t say goodbye. I don’t think I exhaled for at least five minutes after our encounter.
After that, he was everywhere. He made a point of seeking me out and talking to me as if we were on familiar terms. I wasn’t sure how I had given him this impression. He wouldn’t let me walk past him without him saying something, however inane.
‘Good morning, Sister Chapman.’ Or, ‘Good afternoon, Sister Chapman.’ Or, ‘Weather’s a bit gloomy, don’t you agree?’
It was hugely embarrassing because the other nurses would watch, open-mouthed, wondering how on earth we knew each other. Everywhere I went, there he was, popping up or leaping into view with those ridiculous lashes.
I had made a few observations, mainly so that I could reason with myself when I found that I kept thinking of the toothy young man. He talked far too loudly and had a habit of making himself the centre of attention, wherever he was. His eyes were too pale and too feline, and they were overly large; he didn’t blink often enough, to the point where more than once I worried how dry his eyes must be. Even his walk irked me: he was a strutting peacock of a man, with his chest puffed up and his head tilted. Whenever I saw him with nurses, which was often, I thought him a creep; he stood too close to them, making them blush or act coy, and that in itself caused me to wince. I thought him a tart and expected him to plough through the younger nurses like a donkey at harvest time. I was sure Nurse Mullens and he would seek each other out. She was exceptionally fair and seemed to be in nursing solely to find herself a suitable husband. I overheard girls talking about him in the lounge and couldn’t understand why my insides did a loop when I heard his name. They discussed how charming he was, how elegant, how tall, and wasn’t he kind and softly spoken. When he asked for assistance, didn’t he ask sweetly! Another said she’d heard he was the son of a baronet.
That he had fluttered those lashes in my direction did flatter me, but I was not a girl who was commonly described as fair. I had to assume he was this way with all girls, and I was no girl, for by then I was thirty.
*
One night at the end of April, a fire broke out in a storeroom behind the hospital pharmacy. Thomas and his friend, Richard Lovett, were still trapped inside when the fire engines arrived. The receiving room had to be evacuated, causing chaos on Whitechapel Road, but the fire itself was put out quickly enough. Dr Lovett had somehow been knocked unconscious – they assumed by a falling object – so Thomas had thrown him over his shoulder and tried to flee. But one of Thomas’s trouser legs had caught fire. He was admitted to
