The Lost Sister by Kathleen McGurl (i can read book club .TXT) 📕

on purpose, to spite her. She’d never got over the loss of Ruby. ‘She’ll get used to the idea,’ Emma said to Lily. ‘I think it’s wonderful of you.’

‘I have to do what I can,’ Lily said. She stood and began stacking the plates. ‘I can train here in Southampton, so I won’t need to leave home and can still help out, with Ma and everything.’

‘Thank you,’ Emma said. Ma was increasingly frail these days. Although she was just over 50 years old she seemed much, much older. Ever since Ruby had died, it was as though something had died inside her too. She’d stopped taking in any laundry though she still did small amounts of sewing. Emma and Lily did all the cooking, shopping, and housework, leaving Ma to sit quietly, as she so often did, alone with who knew what thoughts running around her head. She no longer ever left the house. ‘Lily, I’ll clear up tonight. You go and sit with Ma, reassure her that you won’t be in any danger.’

‘All right.’ Lily hugged Emma. ‘Thank you for being the best sister ever.’

Emma squeezed her in return. ‘I’d do anything for you, you know.’

Lily smiled. ‘And I would, for you.’

The war dragged on throughout 1915 and into 1916, with the newspapers bringing depressing news of countless casualties daily. Emma had changed jobs – she was now a cleaner at the Royal South Hants hospital, the same one in which Lily worked as a nurse. Lily had tried to persuade Emma to train as a nurse also, but Emma was reluctant. She was better at caring for rooms than sick people, she argued, and it was important to keep wards spotless. At least working in the same building she would occasionally come across her sister, and when their shifts coincided they were able to walk to or from work together.

It was in the early autumn of 1916 when Lily announced that she was volunteering to work on board the various hospital ships that had been requisitioned and were being used to collect injured soldiers from points around the eastern Mediterranean.

‘I feel I can do more good closer to the front line,’ she said. ‘There are so many men stranded in makeshift camps out there – they must be brought back and cared for. Several ships have been going back and forth. They need more nurses, and I want to do this.’

‘You’re going to sea,’ Ma said, looking up at Lily with tired, sad eyes. Ma was lying on the settee in the front room – it was where she spent the bulk of each day, simply napping the hours away. She no longer took in any sewing work. Emma and Lily brought her meals to her there, and left bread and cheese within her reach when they went out to work. Often the bread and cheese remained untouched.

‘Yes, Ma, I am. To help out with the war effort. It is the best thing I can do.’

‘But I lost my Ruby when she went to sea.’

‘Oh Ma. This is different. We won’t be sailing across the Atlantic, just around the Mediterranean. It’s perfectly safe.’

‘There was that ship, the Lusitania – it was torpedoed. How can you say it’s safe?’ Ma closed her eyes as she spoke, as though keeping them open was too much effort.

‘But I’ll be on a hospital ship, marked with a red cross. No one would torpedo a hospital ship. It’ll be perfectly safe.’ Lily leaned over and kissed her mother. ‘I wouldn’t go if I didn’t feel I had to, Ma. But I must do something.’

‘All right, if you must. You are grown up now, and I must not stand in your way. Will Emma stay home to look after me?’

‘Of course I will, Ma.’ It was Emma’s turn to kiss her mother.

What was wrong with her? Ma seemed to be wasting away. She was grieving still, for Ruby. She’d lost her favourite daughter, the lively one, the one she’d always said was most like herself. And she seemed not to be able to move on from that. She ate less and less, and sometimes it seemed as though the very act of swallowing was more than she could bear.

Emma had suggested they call a doctor to see her, but Ma shook her head. ‘We can’t afford a doctor. Anyway there’s nothing wrong with me that a doctor can fix, I’ll tell you that for nothing.’

‘But they might be able to do something. There are doctors we know at the hospital – Lily might be able to persuade one to call on you for no payment …’

‘No, lovey. I don’t want a doctor.’ Ma had sighed. ‘I just want my Ruby back, and that I cannot have.’ She’d turned over then on the sofa, her back to the room, signalling the end of the conversation. A moment later she was asleep again.

‘It’s as though she’s lost the will to live,’ Lily said later, when Emma told her about the conversation. ‘She’s just lying there waiting to die. Oh, Ems, what can we do?’

‘We could bring a doctor round despite what she said? We could ask Dr Thompson, perhaps, he always seems like a lovely chap when I’ve passed him in the wards. Maybe there’s something we can do to help her …’

Lily nodded. ‘I’ll talk to him, at least. If I describe her symptoms he may be able to advise us even without seeing her.’

Lily did speak to Dr Thompson, and reported back to Emma a couple of days later. ‘He’s so busy, but he’ll try to call round. We can introduce him as a friend, perhaps. Meanwhile we’re to make nourishing soup that’s easy to digest, and feed her that, and try to find something to interest her. Another nurse gave me a couple of magazines. I’ll give her those.’

But Ma wouldn’t look at the magazines, saying they hurt her eyes. And although she tried the soup, she would not finish even a small