Free Band of Angel by Julia Gregson Page B

It was so charming, it made my day to see it, and then you both bolted down the beach to pick up some more patients. How you survived I’ll never know. All that rushing into the sea with wooden swords.”
    “Oh dear.” Catherine went scarlet.
    “Don’t be embarrassed, you were such warriors. It did my heart good to see you.”
    Catherine looked at her. “So what do you think?”
    “Oh Lord.” Eleri sighed. “Now you’ve absolutely ruined the point of my little homily by setting yourself an impossible task. There aren’t any woman doctors.”
    “There must be.”
    “One, Catherine. One, I think, in the whole of London. My father knows her, she’s an ancient spinster like me and as fierce as a man. I’m sorry, there is no point in encouraging you to do something that will ruin you.”
    “Are there any other proper jobs for women in London?”
    “You could be a governess, but again what a life! My father visits at a place in Harley Street. I can’t remember the exact name—a something, something, for the care of Sick Gentlewomen in Distressed Circumstances. He says they’re such sad creatures— exhausted, poor.”
    “But at least a life of their own.”
    “To some extent, though most would prefer someone else’s.”
    “But they earn their own living.”
    “They earn their own living.”
    “Who runs that home?”
    “I know nothing about her, apart from the fact that father says she is well-born and quite bossy.”
    “Perhaps I could stay there, a respectable place.”
    “Yes, respectable.” Eleri stood up and lit a lamp.
    “You did what you wanted to do, even though it seemed mad to everyone else.”
    “Look, Catherine,” said Eleri. “It’s not impossible, nothing is, and if you are not afraid of going down the social ladder you might gain practical experience as a nurse and study as you go along. But I can’t recommend it as a way of life—” She broke off. “Have you spoken to your father about the idea?”
    “No.” Catherine’s heart sank. “He won’t be in favor of it.”
    “My father would be,” said Eleri suddenly. “He believes that it is high time nursing attracted more respectable people. He is also that rare thing: a man who genuinely admires women.”
    “Might I speak to him?” Catherine cried.
    “Possibly.”
    “Can I come and see you again?”
    “Yes, but don’t come in the morning, I like to paint then.” It was the first time Catherine had ever heard a woman state how a day could be arranged to suit herself. She took one of Eleri’s brown,paint-flecked hands in her own and kissed it. “Thank you,” she said.
    At the bend in the road, she turned in her saddle to wave. Eleri was at the gate.
    “Good luck,” Eleri shouted. “Be brave.”
    The wind blew back her white hair, revealing the pink of her scalp. Against the vast sky and empty fields, even handsome, vigorous Eleri looked small and temporary. But soon she would walk back into her house and turn up the lamp and begin her work.
    Catherine rode down the track to the beach where a lump of lichen-covered driftwood, about three-foot high, had washed up on the beach. She shortened her reins and pointed Juno toward it. As they gathered speed, her mind, as it always did, flashed to the shock and the pain of a fall, the sand slamming into her wet face. Then the moment of suspended joy as she and Juno whooshed through the air to an elegant landing. So often, the bad things you imagined happening did not, and now she had a way forward, not clear, not easy, but better than staying and going mad. But first she must speak to Deio.

Chapter 10

    When they were children, he liked building fires for her. When they took the ponies out, his pockets were always stuffed with papers and twigs and a tinderbox. They’d find a hollow, get their food out, and he’d lay down a ring of stones and crumple the paper, crisscross the wood, and select this or that bit of driftwood to wedge it all into place. When they sat in front