Chapter 10
chapter
St. Peter’s Parish
Uncle Arthur greeted them at the farmhouse door, wearing his good suit from attending church in St. Peter. “Happy birthday, Ivy.”
“Thank you.” She stepped inside to see Leo and Ruby Bissell. “Uncle Leo! Aunt Ruby! I’m so happy to see you.”
Aunt Ruby, Dad’s youngest sister, gave Ivy a hug. “We see each other every day, silly goose. Where’s Fern?”
Ivy leaned closer to lower her voice. “Occupation Disease.” The increased roughage in the rationed diet brought frequent bouts of dysentery, even as it reduced cardiac disease and gout.
“Poor Fernie.”
Ivy murmured her sympathy. Her sister’s misery was compounded by the arrival of Billy and Freddy’s birthday, which they shared with Ivy.
The boys were now ten years old, and Fern couldn’t hug them or bake for them or tease them about how tall they were.
Only twice-yearly messages from Dad, Mum, and Bill informed her of the boys’ growth.
Ivy hung her coat on a peg. The Jouny farmhouse was as cold as all Jersey homes nowadays, but heat radiated from the kitchen. “Is Aunt Opal in the kitchen?”
“She’s running behind.” Aunt Ruby settled into a wooden chair and adjusted her glasses. “But she won’t let me help.”
Aunt Opal peeked out of the kitchen, her cheeks flushed. “I won’t let you help either, Ivy.” Her voice rasped a bit. “What a pretty dress.”
“Thank you.” Ivy fingered the burgundy wool gabardine. “It’s Fern’s birthday gift. She remade one of Mum’s old dresses she found in the attic. She’s so talented.”
“Want to hear the latest news?” Uncle Arthur gestured for Ivy and Charlie to sit on the sofa with Uncle Leo, and he sat in an armchair.
“I would.” Charlie’s eyes gleamed. “The Evening Post isn’t allowed to publish much, but it’s clear the British and the Americans are sweeping the Germans out of North Africa.”
Uncle Leo chuckled. “The Huns here are as skittish as newborn calves.”
“They should be.” Uncle Arthur leaned forward. “The Vichy French surrendered in Morocco and Algeria, and our boys are chasing the Germans back through Libya.”
“Remember not to repeat this on the docks. There are informers everywhere.” Uncle Leo stabbed a finger in Charlie’s direction. “If you must tell your friends, speak in Jèrriais. It confounds the Germans.”
Ivy creased the gabardine in her fingers. The prison on Gloucester Street, next door to the General Hospital, teemed with men and women arrested for owning a wireless set or for spreading news from the BBC. “Do be careful, especially around those Todt men.”
Charlie kept his chin low. “Bernardus and Gerrit aren’t what you think.”
A slow sigh leached from her lungs. They weren’t what Charlie thought either, despite Gerrit’s chivalry to elderly women.
“They feed the Todt workers. The Russians. On the sly.” Charlie lifted his chin, and the disappointment or frustration Ivy had observed the past fortnight washed away in a sea of conviction.
They fed the workers? That seemed unlikely. Why would men in an organization that beat its workers show kindness to them? Ivy had now treated two men who had escaped Nazi deprivation and abuse. “Regardless, don’t—”
“I don’t. I know better.” An edge crept into his voice, a reminder to all that he was no longer a child. Then he brightened. “But it’s your birthday. I have presents.”
“You shouldn’t have done.” The shops were practically empty, and any remaining goods were dear. “Having all of you together is the best present I could receive.”
“Good.” Uncle Arthur clapped his hands on his knees. “That’s all we’re giving you.”
Ivy joined in the laughter.
“This didn’t cost much at all.” Charlie handed Ivy her own wristwatch—ticking.
She gasped and buckled it around her wrist. “Thank you. How—”
“A watchmaker in Saint-Malo fixed it. Now Fern can stop harassing you.”
“Harassing?” Uncle Arthur said.
“It isn’t that bad.” Ivy held the watch to her ear and savored the sound. “She sets timetables for me, but I’m hopeless without a watch. I have no sense of time.”
Aunt Ruby sniffed. “I’ve seen those timetables. Our dear Fern does run a tight ship.”
“I couldn’t do it without her.”
Aunt Ruby crossed her arms, clad in a dark blue jumper. “She’d have no ship to run without you.”
“Oh, Fern would find something to run,” Uncle Leo said.
Charlie snickered.
“Charlie!” Ivy said.
“Uncle Leo said it.” He pointed at his uncle, whose shoulders jiggled with laughter.
Correct or not, Ivy didn’t like talking about someone who wasn’t present.
“She is efficient, our Fern. An excellent quality.” Aunt Ruby’s dark eyes turned serious. “But you mustn’t let her talk down to you, especially in front of the patients. It undermines their respect for you. I’ve spoken to her about that.”
Aunt Ruby had spoken to Fern? Ivy wrestled up a little smile. “It isn’t that bad. And I know Fern is unhappy, which makes her crosser than usual. Not only is she separated from her family, but she’s working for her younger sister.”
“She’s jealous,” Charlie said. “You’re a doctor, and she isn’t.”
Ivy’s shoulders squirmed. “She never wanted to be a doctor.” If anything, Ivy was the one who ought to be jealous of her gorgeous sister with her gaggle of friends.
“You depend on your sister, just as you always depended on your father.” Aunt Ruby tipped her head, her gray-streaked hair rolled on the sides and coiled in the back. “It’s time you depended on God alone and trust the skills he gave you.”
“Thank you. I’ll try.” Ivy edged forward in her seat. “I should check with Aunt Opal.”
“I’m waiting for the blancmange to set,” Aunt Opal called, followed by a cough.
“It’s worth the wait.” Uncle Arthur rubbed his belly, far leaner than it had been two years earlier. “She does wonders with carrageen moss.”
Joan de Ferrers and the other island chemists did quite a business turning the reddish seaweed into a powder that became gelatinous when boiled. Miss de Ferrers used it to make syrups more palatable, and Aunt Opal used it to make a splendid dessert.
“I have another gift for you,” Charlie said.
“You shouldn’t have done. This is all I need.” Ivy stroked the brown leather of her watchstrap.
“You’ll like this.” Charlie fiddled with something under the wing of his jacket. “The real reason you hate the timetables is because you can’t draw.”
Ivy sighed. She could draw only in the evenings, and only the same subjects over and over. When she saw something breathtaking on her rounds, she was powerless. “I understand why it’s necessary. When I draw, I get caught up, and hours pass. That isn’t fair to my patients.”
“All right, Dr. Picot.” Charlie leveled a fatherly look at her. “When Uncle Arthur had a cut on his leg, did you amputate?”
“Of course not.” Ivy slid her uncle a smile. “Perhaps I should have done.”
Uncle Arthur gave her a mock scowl.
“Well, Fern amputated your drawing, when all you needed was some ointment. Or a kitchen timer.” Charlie lifted a little steel timer and a big grin. “I obtained it through the ‘Exchange and Mart’ column in the Evening Post, traded for some of Dad’s tobacco.”
Ivy turned the dial, and it started ticking. The loud ding would break into Ivy’s dreamworld when she was drawing. In fifteen minutes, she could sketch an outline, the essence of what had attracted her. Then she could finish the drawing in the evening.
She clasped the timer to her chest. “Charlie, you’re brilliant. And so thoughtful.”
He flapped a hand at her, and his cheeks reddened.
“Speaking of kitchens and timing . . .” Aunt Ruby frowned at the kitchen door.
“I’ll check.” Ivy stood and set the timer on the sofa. “I didn’t greet Aunt Opal properly anyway.”
Aunt Opal sat at the kitchen table. She sprang to her feet and to the stove. “It’s almost ready.”
Aunt Opal never sat when cooking. And her color was high. Her voice rasped.
“Are you all right?” Ivy asked.
“Of course.” Her neck contorted as she swallowed, and she wobbled as she stirred the pan on the stove.
“Let me see your throat.”
“Nonsense. It’s nothing to—”
“Dad always says doctors make the worst patients. Must I add doctors’ daughters to the list? Let me see.” Ivy came beside her aunt.
“It’s nothing.” Her sigh released a foul odor. A familiar odor.
Ivy gagged. The odor of the sickroom where she’d watched Dulcie des Forges die. The odor of Overdale Isolation Hospital right now.
She set her fingers on her aunt’s chin and turned her toward the light from the kitchen window. “Open wide.”
Ivy needed no torch to see the gray membrane on her aunt’s tonsils, no thermometer to detect her aunt’s fever.
She moved the pan off the stove. “It looks like diphtheria.”
“Diphtheria? That’s a children’s disease.” Aunt Opal groped for the pan handle.
Ivy stilled her aunt’s hand. “This epidemic is hitting adults too. We’re all weakened by our poor diets. I’ll send you to Overdale straightaway.”
“Right now?” Bleariness dulled Aunt Opal’s dark brown eyes. “But dinner—”
“We’ll make do.” Ivy went to the kitchen door. “I’m afraid we have a change in plans. Aunt Opal might have diphtheria.”
“Diphtheria?” The cry circled the room.
“Uncle Leo and Aunt Ruby, please go home,” Ivy said.
“Even if you had the disease as children, we mustn’t take chances.
Uncle Arthur, please pack a bag of necessities for Aunt Opal.
Charlie, please go to the telephone box on the road and ring for an ambulance—then go home straightaway. You never had diphtheria.”
“An ambulance?” Aunt Opal said from behind Ivy. “That’s hardly necessary.”
“It’s quite necessary.” Ivy leveled a firm gaze at her aunt. “The Germans requisitioned your car, and you mustn’t exert yourself by bicycling. Charlie?”
“On my way.” Footsteps pounded to the door.
“Diphtheria?” Aunt Opal sank into a kitchen chair, and her eyebrows tented.
“We caught it early. That makes for a good prognosis.” Ivy gave her the most comforting, most confident smile she could muster.
Even as fear wrenched through her gut.