Chapter 7: It Had Two Horns Like a Lamb but Spoke Like a Dragon

HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA, CANADIAN MARITIMES

February 1918

Penelope Shaw’s foyer was a Victorian riot of wallpaper finches. Her hat stand was carved to look like a candelabrum and had to weigh fifty pounds. Laura draped her knitted scarlet tam on the latter, where it hung limply and looked inadequate. “I should have brought a larger hat,” said Laura. “If I had such a thing.”

“I am so glad to see you,” said Mrs. Shaw. She had got a little thinner since that night in the Parkeys’ parlor, and she was dressed in full Victorian mourning, black from head to toe. But her back was straight, her clothes brushed, her manners impeccable. She said, “How are you, my dear? Have you been sleeping?”

“I’ll do,” said Laura. “The hospital has started to empty out. I think I shall take up a hobby. I read about a fine British lady who breeds hellebores.”

“I volunteered at the hospital in the early days.” Mrs. Shaw led Laura down a thick-carpeted hallway. “Spooning soup into people. But I wasn’t good at it, really. I’d see all those poor children—” Her voice faltered. “And I didn’t do them any good, fumbling and getting teary-eyed. I was better at knitting—I’ve been making ever so many baby blankets. And little socks. This way.”

Laura found herself walking gingerly. The carpet was the tender yellow of buttercups. She wasn’t used to softness. The Parkeys lived in a rambling old pile, and the old ladies were as indifferent to comforts as a trio of hunting dogs. Laura was worse, after years in field hospitals. She could sleep on bare dirt if she had to. But Penelope Shaw’s house was frivolous, and colorful, and soft. It made Laura uneasy.

“Oh—I’m so glad you’re here,” Mrs. Shaw said, half-turning as she walked. “It’s the least I can do, the very least, after tackling you in that silly way. And then you found out—and I…” Her voice faltered again. “What do you like with tea? Sugar is so dear, but I managed a little—and oatcakes, and I—” She threw open a parlor door. “Oh, Mary, my dear, here’s the lady I was telling you about. Miss Laura Iven, Mrs. Mary Borden.”

She sailed into the room. Laura, startled, paused in the doorway. She knew the name Mary Borden. Mrs. Shaw had led them into a charming, old-fashioned parlor. Laura had a muddled impression of pastels: peonies on china, a pink and green rug. A fine coal fire going in the grate, the last word in luxury, with coal so dear. Penelope Shaw and her house together were like a picture postcard from the last century. From the world that had ended when the war began.

The woman waiting for them stood out starkly against all the old-fashioned loveliness. About Mrs. Shaw’s age, and her hair was short as Laura’s. No corset. A ruffian’s smile. The look in her eyes, Laura recognized from her own mirror. “Mary Borden, Laura Iven,” said Mrs. Shaw.

Mary said, “A pleasure. I’ve heard of you, of course, Iven. A Croix de Guerre, wasn’t it?”

“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Borden,” said Laura. She’d been decorated in ’15, after the first gas attack of the war. It was nothing she wanted a memento of, let alone to discuss with a stranger. “Is that curried chicken in that sandwich? How international of you, Mrs. Shaw. How many can I eat before you show me the door?”

“Call me Pim,” said Mrs. Shaw. “My friends do. As many as you care to. You want fattening up.” She turned the plate. “These have jam, and these have roast beef.”

“You angel. Call me Laura,” said Laura, sitting down on a raspberry-striped loveseat. She wondered if Pim would let her smoke a cigarette in her parlor. Probably not. She took four sandwiches. Pim’s eyes got big.

“I heard rumors you’d died, Iven,” Mary said. “Thirdhand, of course, but still. You look well, for a corpse. But not unscathed either.”

“No? I’m blithe as a bird,” said Laura, taking a bite of a sandwich. “What brings you to Halifax, Mrs. Borden? Done with the war at last?”

Mary Borden, not really a nurse herself, was still moderately famous. She had founded a private aid station behind the lines—in the Belgian sector, Laura thought, or was it the French—in the early days of the war. Managed to convince a lot of skeptical people to let her run it.

“No. I’m going back a week from Thursday,” said Mary.

“How do you like your tea, Laura?” Pim put in.

“Hot,” said Laura. “Extremely. With four sugars, and as much milk as you can cram in.”

“Same for me, Pim,” Mary said.

“My,” said Pim, pouring and stirring.

“It’s because of the water,” said Mary. “In the forbidden zone. They chlorinate it, or we’d all have dysentery. Enough sugar you don’t taste the chlorine. The sweet’s a bit of a habit now. It keeps you on your feet when there’s a push on.”

“The where?” said Pim, looking fascinated.

Mary looked briefly self-conscious. “I mean the back area, behind the lines. It’s just what I call it. There are signs everywhere in French: zone interdite, they say. So I call it the forbidden zone.”

“How romantic,” said Laura dryly. She sipped her tea, and took up her fourth sandwich. Strawberry jam. She ate it in four bites. Pim looked impressed and nudged the plate in her direction. Laura started on another round of curry.

“And your hands?” asked Mary.

“Ten fingers, all present and accounted for,” said Laura, concentrating on her sandwich.

“Have a cake, Mary,” said Pim, with a hint of reproof in her voice.

Mary was undaunted. “It’s all right. Manners are going to be a casualty of this war, along with corsets and long hair. You’re a relic, my beautiful Penelope. Never change. Iven’s a modern creature. She’s not offended. Can you still work?”

“Why should I?” said Laura. “I’m retiring to my estate in the country and growing hellebores. Pim will tell you.”

“Mary,” said Pim. “Manners may not survive the war, but I’ll have them in my parlor, if you please.”

Mary raised her cup in salute, picked up a sandwich. “I was sorry, Iven, when Pim told me they’d sent your brother’s things.”

Laura took an oatcake. She could not quite keep the edge from her voice. “They say you once carried a German cavalry spear into King’s Cross station. A vicious rumor, no doubt?”

“The papers exaggerated,” said Mary, accepting the change of subject. “But yes, I did. In the early days. Caused a sensation.” She smiled to herself. “I drove ambulances at first. Then started my own aid station. Brought the Belgians hot chocolate in the trenches. Lord, the lines were close together. Once Fritz sent a message over—told me to wear a skirt so they wouldn’t snipe me by mistake—I was right in the trenches nearly every day—puttees were better for getting around, you know.” She shook her head. “Eventually I moved, moved again. A Belgian baron had abandoned his château—who could blame him?—so I took his house and grounds at Couthove. Now I’ve nearly got a full hospital. We call it an aid station, so we don’t ruffle feathers, but we’ve got surgical bays, triage, and Madame Curie even donated an X-ray. They tolerate me well enough, at the various HQs, so long as I drum up funds myself. Not like they can turn down hospital beds these days. Especially not the French. I do some nursing, but mostly I run the place. I’m better at that sort of thing anyway.”

Pim looked like she was struggling to decide whether to be horrified or impressed. It was a measure of their new world that a woman could talk with equanimity about running a hospital in a war zone.

Laura studied Mary over the rim of her teacup. “But you’re far from your hospital now, Mrs. Borden.”

Mary shrugged. “We run on private donations. With America entering the war, I thought it a good moment to come and pass the hat, as it were. Give some lectures. There’s plenty of money, this side of the Atlantic. America’s got most of Europe’s by now, haven’t they, what with selling them all those things to keep the war going? So I went round to Boston, New York. Chicago. Philadelphia. Set up in churches, talked. Meant to spend a week with Pim, and then take ship for Liverpool. We were friends as girls, you see, before my father moved us to Chicago.” She shook her head. “What a bloody shambles, that explosion.”

A small silence fell.

“These oatcakes are a delight, Pim,” said Laura. “I’d ask for the recipe if I could afford the butter.”

Pim said, “Have another, at least. I’ll send some home with you. Aren’t they nice with the currants? You should have seen me before the war; fat as a squirrel, honestly. I was always cooking. The oatcakes were Nate’s favorite—and—and Jimmy’s.” She hurried on. “He was my husband. Nate. Nathaniel. Mary knew him. He—he died. January of ’16. It was very sudden. His heart…But he did love my cooking.”

“I don’t doubt it,” said Laura, biting into another oatcake.

Mary said, “What will you do now, Iven? Since you’ve been discharged.”

“Hellebores, hellebores, I told you, Mrs. Borden.”

Mary was not to be diverted. “Bit of a waste, isn’t it? You held rank, didn’t you?”

Laura said, “We cannot all tour America and pass the hat for money.” The edge was back in her voice.

Mary said, still unruffled, “And you don’t want to go back?”

Back?The word echoed through her brain. For a moment she was back in Flanders, at Brandhoek, right after the first shell came down, her eyes meeting Kate’s before they ran off in different directions, the gas alarm ringing, Laura shouting at her staff to put on their masks, flinging herself on an armless man before he could throw himself off the cot in his panic.

“No,” Laura said. “I don’t want to go back. Pim, do you like gardens? I grew foxgloves in Veith Street, before I went to Flanders, and the Parkeys are mad for climbing roses. They planted all manner of shrubbery to keep the salt from the canes, so you can hardly see the three flowers the poor things manage every year.”

Pim said, “Have they tried globe thistles? They stand the salt well, and I love the dear blue flowers, just the color of the harbor in July.” Pim had clearly taken the measure of Laura’s mood.

Later, Laura walked back to Blackthorn House, picking her way down a blue-iced street. Twilight lay over the city, and it was raw cold. She was glad to retreat to her bedroom and attempt the stretches that would ease the scar tissue on her hands and on her leg. Finally she gave up, and poured herself a drink. Half a bottle later, she managed to go to bed without going through Freddie’s things one more time. Except for the tags, which she put under her pillow. But she couldn’t help but glance at that damned postcard, which lay out on the dressing table, the lonely gray line of its mountain stark against a pale sky.