It made her blood run cold now to remember that, on this particular Thursday, she had almost decided against spending her precious time off with Edward. She had woken up in an odd, restless, uncomfortable mood, her mind and body filled with vague, unfamiliar yearnings, but then she had reminded herself that Edward would be looking forward to going out. The rhododendrons were in full flower in the park, and he had been looking forward to seeing them for days. The sun was out, the sky a clear, soft blue… No, it wouldn’t be fair to let him down.
And so, suppressing her rebellious yearnings, she had washed in the cold, shabby bathroom which all the girls shared, allowing herself the luxury of washing her hair, and wondering at the same time if she dared to have it cut. She was the only girl in the hostel who wore her hair in such an old-fashioned style, braided into a neat coronet, which Aunt Vi insisted upon. She wondered idly for a moment what she would look like with one of the shoulder-length bobs worn with such suggestive insouciance by some of the other girls, and then sighed as she studied her make-up-free reflection in the spotted mirror.
The other girls wore powder and lipstick, and cheap perfume given to them by their American boyfriends. They curled their hair and darkened their eyelashes with shoe blacking and, if they were lucky enough to own a pair of the coveted nylons, they deliberately wore their skirts short enough to show off their legs.
As she dressed in the serviceable cotton underwear which Aunt Vi’s strict teachings ensured that she spent her precious allowance of soap scrupulously washing until her hands were almost raw and bleeding, to ensure that it stayed white, she admitted that lipstick and fashionably bobbed hair were not for her.
She knew the other girls laughed at her behind her back, mimicking her accent and making fun of her clothes.
Aunt Vi had practised a lifetime of frugality and, as Lizzie had grown out of the clothes she had originally arrived with from London, the older woman had altered garments from the trunks full of clothes she had been given by her employers over the years to fit her great-niece, and, in doing so, had also turned the exercise into lessons in dressmaking and fine plain sewing.
That the skirt she was wearing now had once belonged to Lady Jeveson would have impressed the other girls in the hostel as little as it impressed her, although for different reasons, Lizzie acknowledged. The other girls would have screamed with laughter and derision at the thought of wearing something which had first been worn by a girl who was now a grandmother.
That quality of cloth never wore out, Aunt Vi declared firmly, and indeed it did not, Lizzie reflected wryly, fingering the heavy, pleated tweed.
It was a pity that Lady Jeveson had not favoured the soft pastel colours more suited to her own fair colouring, rather than the dull, horsy tweeds of which she had apparently been so fond. The blouse she was wearing might be silk, but it was a dull beige colour which did nothing for her skin, just like the brown cashmere cardigan she wore over it.
She had seen the other girls, on their days off, going out in bright, summery dresses, with thin floating skirts and the kind of necklines which would have shocked Aunt Vi, and, while she knew that she could never have worn anything so daring, this morning Lizzie found herself wishing that her blouse might have been a similar shade of lavender-grey to her eyes, and that her skirt might have been made out of a fine, soft wool, and not this heavy, itchy stuff, which was a physical weight on her slender hips.
There were no nylons for her. She had to make do either with bare legs, which the rough wool made itch dreadfully, or the thick, hand-knitted stockings her aunt had sent her for Christmas.
She wasn’t sure what had made her opt for bare legs, what particular vanity had decreed that this morning she would not be sensible and wear the hated stockings, knowing that they made her slender ankles look positively thick, even if they were warm and practical.
The hostel was just across the village from the hospital, and Lizzie cycled there on an ancient bicycle. When they were on duty, the girls ate at the hospital; not the same food as the patients, but meals which the others often angrily derided as ‘not fit for pigs’.
Certainly, the meals were stodgy and unappetising, and not a patch on Aunt Vi’s dishes. Her aunt might almost be bordering on the parsimonious, she might make every penny do the work of two, but she was a good cook, and Lizzie missed her appetising meals, the fresh vegetables and fruit in season which she always managed to obtain by some country means of barter.
This morning, since she wasn’t on duty, there would be no breakfast for her at the hostel, and, since the girls were not allowed to cook food in the hostel, that meant either whatever she could buy and eat on the way to the hospital, or an expensive and not very appetising snack in the village’s one and only café.
Trying not to let herself think about her aunt’s porridge, thick and creamy with the top of Farmer Hobson’s milk, Lizzie told herself stoically that she didn’t really want any breakfast.
All the girls were always hungry; their workload was heavy, and no matter how unappetising they found their food it was always eaten.
All of them were a little on the thin side, Lizzie in particular as she was more fine-boned than the rest, with tiny, delicate wrists and ankles that sometimes looked so frail that they might snap.
As she cycled towards the village, she could feel the sun beating down on to the back of her head and smell the fresh warm scent of late spring, mingling with the tantalising suggestion of the summer still to come.
As she rode, wisps of blonde hair escaped from her coronet and curled in feathery tendrils round her face. At first, the other girls had refused to believe her hair was naturally fair, accusing her of dyeing it.
She chose not to ride through the village but to circle round it, using a narrow side-road which meandered towards the rear entrance to the hospital.
Before the war, the hospital had been a grand house, and the lane she was using had originally been that used by the tenants and the tradespeople.
She was cycling happily down the centre of it when she heard the car, the sound so unexpected that at first she made no attempt to move off the crown of the road. The village saw its fair share of wartime traffic; the squire’s wife still drove her car on Red Cross business and Lizzie was used to the imperious sound of car horns demanding the right of way, especially when they were driven by excitable young men in uniform.
She was not, though, used to them being driven down this narrow little lane which led only to the hospital, which was why, lost in her own daydreams, she did not initially react to the sound of this one until it was almost too late.
The realisation that someone was driving up behind her, that the car was one of those expensive, open-topped sporty models driven by a young man with wind-blown thick black hair, bronzed skin, and the dashing uniform of an airforce pilot, hit her in a series of small shocks as she glanced over her shoulder and saw the shiny dark green bonnet of the car, realised that there wasn’t room for both of them on the narrow little road, tried desperately to turn to one side, and lost her balance at the same time. The young man stopped his car with a cacophony of squealing tyres, protesting engine and angrily bellowed complaints about her sanity.
Lying on the dusty road, her knees stinging with pain and her eyes with tears, Lizzie wished devoutly that a large hole would appear beneath her into which she could conveniently disappear.
Her face scarlet with mortification and embarrassment, she struggled to her feet, at the same time as she heard the car door slam.
‘I say, are you OK? That was
