The Victory Garden(92)

“I think I had better stay down there, if you don’t mind,” Emily said. “A crisis has developed in the village. Young Timmy Hodgson has come down with influenza.”

“Then given your delicate condition, you should stay well away.” Lady Charlton wagged a warning finger.

“Oh, don’t worry, I didn’t go in to check on the child,” Emily said. “But I have tried to make a brew to see if we can bring down his fever and ease his lungs.”

“Have you? What do you think might work against something as virulent as influenza?”

“I don’t know if anything can,” Emily replied. “But I’m trying willow bark because it’s supposed to be effective against fever, and several other things to ease the lungs and excessive phlegm.”

Lady Charlton nodded. “That sounds like a sensible plan. Let’s just pray that it works. They have just got their father back safely. They don’t need to lose a child now.”

Emily insisted on going back to the cottage. She made another batch of the remedy, in case more was needed. First thing the next morning, she went back to see how Timmy was doing, almost dreading to hear the worst. But the news was good.

“He seems a bit better, you know. The fever broke overnight, but now I think our Lizzie is coming down with it.”

Emily supplied more of the remedy, and then heard that Mrs Soper’s older son, Sammy, had also developed influenza. Emily treated him, then his brother went down with it, and then Maud and Mrs Soper herself. Emily couldn’t believe that someone as robust as Maud could be so stricken. She had made a vow not to go near the infected people, but in the Sopers’ house, there was nobody to take care of them. Only the old grandfather seemed to be immune. “You can’t die, Maud!” she shouted as Maud moaned and tossed in her fever and Emily attempted to force some of her mixture past her dry and cracked lips.

Alice came up to the Sopers and found Emily there.

“You want to watch yourself, love,” Alice said, looking at her with concern. “You should be thinking of yourself. If you get it, then what might happen to the baby?”

“I can’t let anyone die, Alice,” Emily replied. “If my herbs can do any good at all, then I have to keep going.”

“Well, I suppose it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if something happened to the baby,” Alice said. “It would actually be the best solution for your future, but—”

“No!” Emily exclaimed. “Nothing is going to happen to my baby! I won’t let it.”

“Then let me do the actual nursing,” Alice insisted. “It don’t matter if I get it. Nobody’s going to miss me.” And she laughed.

“I’d miss you,” Emily said. “You’re the big sister I never had.”

“Go on with you!” Alice poked her in the side, but Emily could tell she was moved.

She had just reached her front door, looking forward to putting her feet up by the fire, when she saw the vicar slipping and sliding down the lane towards her. He waved and shouted. “You have to come right now,” he called, gasping for breath as he reached her. “It’s my wife. She’s very bad. I don’t think she’s going to survive.”

Emily hesitated. Mrs Bingley’s unkind words echoed in her head. How easy it would be to refuse. But instead she went inside, poured more of the infusion into her jug and set off again.

By the end of the week, three quarters of the inhabitants of Bucksley Cross had contracted influenza. Emily stayed well away from the big house, hoping that the disease would not reach the old lady. She brewed more and more of her mixture, and she and Alice went from house to house. By the end of the month, the disease had run its course and nobody had died.

“Quite astonishing,” the doctor proclaimed when he could finally make it through the snow to visit his patients. “It must be so cold and bleak up here that even the influenza didn’t want to stick around.”

Emily felt the warm glow of accomplishment. I helped with that, she thought. They are alive because of me. It was an amazing feeling, and the irony struck her. She had wanted to join Clarissa and be a nurse, but had been turned down. Now it was her medical skills that had saved a village. Clarissa would be impressed. She got out her writing paper and wrote her a letter.

I know it wasn’t anything like as terrible here as your conditions in London, but I am sure some of these people would have died without my remedy. I’m enclosing the recipe, just in case someone in the medical profession at your hospital would like to take a look at it and see if it could be of any help to you.

At the end of the week, she received a letter with a London postmark, but written in a strange hand.

Dear Madam,

I am not sure of your last name, as you only sign yourself as Emily. I am the matron of the Royal London Hospital, and I am sorry to inform you that Nurse Clarissa Hamilton succumbed to complications of influenza two weeks ago and passed away. She was a brave young woman who worked tirelessly in the worst conditions of the East End and gave her life for others. I am enclosing her family’s address in case you would like to write a letter of condolence.

Emily sat staring at the piece of paper, as if willing the words to change. “Not Clarissa!” she wailed out loud. “That’s not possible. It’s not fair!”

Clarissa, the fearless, strong one. The one who had taken the risks at school, sneaking out of the dorm window, smoking in the old bell tower. Who had risked her life every day at the front in France. To have perished now, in her own country, when the war was over, seemed the ultimate cruelty.