As Yet Untitled - Part One, Chapter Eight.

Chapter Eight.
 A series of letters had found their way to the residence of Lady Emma Woodcount  for both herself and for her niece from Lady Beechwood. They were becoming increasingly demanding as to Ida’s reasons for staying on in London for such a long time. The last letter that Ida had received had included the lines “I cannot stop my sister from being unusual in her staying in Town throughout the year but I refuse for you to become strange at such a young age. I bid you come home and tell me what kept you away for so long. I demand an explanation. If it were not for my nerves I would come and fetch you myself.'' As the agreed month had passed Lady Woodcount told Ida that she must put her mother out of doubt for her reasons for staying. After a month Ida and Blanche had been moved from day shifts to a month of night shifts, it was thus when she returned from the hospital that morning that Ida finally sat down to tell her mother the truth. 
 “Dear Mama, 
I hope this letter finds you in good health (your mention of your nerves in your last worried me) and I am pleased to hear of the advancements for Mary and Barnaby Harrington but I too have news. I know my staying in London has caused you worry and I am very sorry to have been such a strain. For the past month I have been in training at a hospital in Eastbourne as part of the Voluntary Aid Detachment. I have found myself to be fulfilled in my nursing and in doing so I have made a friend in a Lady B Gascony, whom I believe we were introduced to in the Spring of last year. I hope you and Papa will approve of my helping in the war effort and that you will allow me to stay on. Aunt Emma has no objection to my staying longer. 
With all my love to you, Papa and dear Mary. 
Ida.”
Unfortunately for Ida, when her letter reached her mother she was most agitated by the very mention of hospitals. That day as she returned from a short walk of the grounds with Mary, she found the village doctor waiting for her with Lord Beechwood in the Library. Lady Beechwood often called for the doctor to be brought to the house whenever one of her particularly severe headaches attacked. Therefore the sight of Doctor Roberts, with his glasses perched on the end of his nose, did not induce a feeling of happiness. Pouring herself some of the tea that had been left on a table by a window and sitting on the sofa nearest to the fire, jovial in it’s crackling and spitting, she awaited an explanation for either of the gentlemen who sat opposite her. After making his greetings the doctor sat down once more. He looked terribly uncomfortable and his cup rattled on it’s soccer as he placed it on the low table in front of him. In his deep voice lord Beechwood told his wife that the doctor had an interesting idea for how they might help in the war effort. By the way in which he said this Lady Beechwood knew that it was highly unlikely that she would agree with it’s being interesting. The doctor cleared his throat before continuing on from where Lord Beechwood had stopped. 
 “I have been asked as a doctor if I know of any place that would be suitable to be used as a place of convalescence for the duration of the war to aid the hospital in town, I thought that perhaps you might consider your home being used to this effect due to its practical position. Of course the whole house would not be used as this would cause great disruption to your lives.”
Lady Beechwood told him that they would have to think it over but something in her eyes told Doctor Roberts that there was little hope. Once the doctor had left, riding out of sight on his bike, his belief in the power of physical exercise extending to his choice of transport, Lady Beechwood did not allow her husband a word on the matter. As she left the room her final words were ‘absolutely not’. 
 After reading her daughter’s letter Lady Beechwood felt a particularly bad headache coming on and was forced to retire to her darkened room until the changing gong sounded. 
 Ida was far too busy to wait anxiously for a reply from her mother. She found that she struggled more with the night shifts than she had imagined that she would, she barely found the solace of sleep during the day. There was, however, a change occurring within the walls of the hospital that kept her going through many a hellish shift. It had begun discreetly, a nod or perhaps a smile as nurses passed her in the corridors in the ghostly hours of the early morning, but the women they worked with were beginning to accept Ida and Blanche into their ranks. 
 A few shifts later when Ida arrived home tired to her bones the Butler gave her a letter from her mother. It was exactly as she had expected but to see it on paper made it all the more true and all the more difficult to know what was to be done. Her mother wanted her to return home as soon as she received the letter and on no account was she to continue her work. Ida slipped into her bed before her aunt awoke and fell into a deeper and more complete sleep more hastily than ever before. 
 When Ida awoke some hours later with deep creases imprinted into her cheek from her crumpled pillow and wild hair that had escaped her plait she found that a letter had been left on her bedside table. It was from Mary and read,
 “Darling Ida,
Mother has told us what you have been up to in London and it has caused quite the stir. Papa said he was extremely proud and when mother told him that she had told you to come home he stormed out to the stables. In front of the servants! As you can imagine that upset Mama greatly. I do not often argue with her but I agree with Papa, I just wish that you had told me what you were doing so that I could have been part of your experiences. 
 A part of me thinks you should stay in London but then I think of mother’s headaches and I do not know what to advise as an older sister. If Mama was very cross in her letter it might have been caused by the very strange meeting she had with Doctor Roberts. He wants to use the house as a convalescent home for soldiers from the hospital in town! Can you imagine?
 Missing you with all my heart,
Mary.”
When Ida had read the letter a second time once she was back in uniform and then read it to her aunt a plan was beginning to form in her mind. 
 Before her shift began Ida wrote to her father and Mary telling them how important it was that everyone encouraged Lady Beechwood to allow the house to be of use. Her time in the hospital had opened her eyes to real suffering and she found that she had little, if any, sympathy left for her mother and her nerves. After all this it was no surprise that Ida arrived at her shift in an irritable mood. She still walked to the hospital though Blanche was still driven, and in her walk she had realised some of her frustrations. This had made her walk with a concentrated force and thus she was forced to wait for Blanche. As she stood by the entrance a nurse she recognised but with whom she had barely spoken greeted her. 
 “Evening, thought I’d be the early one, needed to get out of the house to get some peace and quiet!”
The nurse was a pretty young woman about the same age as Ida, as Ida listened intently to her East End accent she magiced a packet of cigarettes from nowhere and offered one to Ida. 
 “Good evening, oh no thank you.”
 “Suit yourself, you’re Nurse Crawford aren’t you?”
 “Yes and you are Nurse Clark?”
 “Nancy Clark, that’s me! Someone said you’re called Ida. Is that right?”
 “Yes I am. Would you mind terribly if I did try one?”
Something about standing on a street in the gathering darkness with a near total stranger made Ida feel releckless. Nancy Clark, knowing that Ida had never smoked before, lit one before she handed it to Ida. Since beginning work at the hospital Ida had become accustomed to seeing women smoking but her imitation of them made her cough violently. Nancy laughed, throwing her head back as she did so. 
 “Try again but don’t breathe in quite so hard this time!”
Said Nancy, still laughing. Ida tried again and suppressed her coughs feeling her watering eyes blur. She watched the smoke that unfurled from Nancy’s delicate nostrils with far greater respect than before. 
 Blanche’s astonished face as she saw Ida leaning against the wall, cigarette in hand, laughing with Nurse Clark as nurses began to enter and leave the building, pleased Ida almost savagely.