That's right, we're past the war now!
6th April 1919
Dear Sylvie
The war is over! It's hard to remember that only 5 months ago, we were still at war when so much has changed. I did try to come and see you my little monkey, as soon as we came back to England but my brother was his usual unhelpful self and I'm afraid I didn't want to try to contact you through your father. The less I have to do with that man the better. I promise I shall keep trying to see you though, it's so hard to think of you being ten years old, I think of you as a taller version of your four year old self but of course you must have changed a lot. I have changed too, I hope you would still recognise me.
To start with, I, or should I say we, came back to England as soon as we could. After we got word of the armistice, nothing really changed. There was a huge influx of wounded soldiers on the days following, apparently hearing the news of the proposed armistice made both sides give one more push which caused us quite a lot of work. For a few days afterwards they were still coming in although their numbers dwindled quite quickly and the number of transports leaving for England increased dramatically. By Christmas there were only two wards still in operation and much of our work centred around packing everything up to be shipped back across the channel. Some of the VADs left quite quickly, I think they'd been summoned back as soon as the war was over but we, the original three, stayed on. The flu epidemic did hit us but most of the staff at least managed to avoid becoming ill, there has been some suggestion that because we were badly affected in the first wave of the illness, we were then immune to the second wave. As we were already quite a small hospital, very few patients were sent to us anyway so we escaped relatively unscathed.
One of the most important things happened at the start of December. Tom came back in the last week of November and on the 2nd, we got married. There didn't seem any point in waiting, all the people we wanted there were already with us, apart from you of course. Rosalie and Flora were my attendants and the Colonel gave me away. Miles was Tom's best man. Our congregation was made up of gently sobbing nurses and men who were determined to remain untouched by the emotion of the proceedings. The Chaplain made a lot of fuss but when he discovered that the Colonel had given his blessing, everything fell into place. In spite of the surroundings I think it was the second happiest day of my life. Can you guess what the happiest was?
I had to resign as a VAD before we could get married as serving nurses aren't supposed to be married but it was understood that I would remain there for as long as Tom did and it made sense for me to continue working unofficially during that time too. We came back to England in January and luckily Tom found work very quickly in the London General. He works very hard and I don't particularly like living in the city so we're hoping to move away quite soon. There's a medical practice in a small town in Dorset which is looking for a replacement doctor to take over from the retiring one and even if he doesn't get that position, as an ex-RAMC officer, he'll be very likely to find something soon. Maybe by next year, we'll have moved.
I am terribly bored here, even though I have plenty to do around the house and Flora recently came to live a few streets away so she often visits.
I think of you often my darling, I am terribly happy but I think I would overflow with joy if I heard from you. I miss you and I hope that you are happy too.
Your loving mother
Kitty Gillan
6th April 1919
Dear Mummy
I miss you. I went to Father's house for the summer but Mother has redecorated everything and it no longer looks anything like I remember. It felt like my memories of you had been stripped like the wallpaper in my room. I was only there for a few days, I don't even think my trunk was unpacked before I was sent away to Aunt Ella's. I was quite glad to go really, Mother and Father were arguing a lot and Edward's still very boring. At least Aunt Ella's nice and Freddie and Alice were alright too, they mostly ignored me but it was fine because Uncle Henry said I could spend as much time as I wanted in the library. It's not as good as Father's library but I still read a lot. When I came back to school, Miss Elliott couldn't believe all the new words I'd learnt but I think I've forgotten some of them now. I got bored with the fiction shelves and so I ended up reading books about gardening and about architecture as well. I impressed Uncle Henry by being able to identify all the plants in his prize flowerbed but then Alice called me a silly suck-up and made a horrible joke about me trying to steal her parents because I didn't have any of my own. She really isn't very nice any more in fact. Freddie told her to stop though so I still like him.
After the war ended, quite a few girls didn't come back after Christmas but other than that, nothing has changed. We hoped that the food might get better but actually I think it's worse. The custard is lumpier and the cakes have flour lumps in them and the rice pudding is completely solid. We still have to eat all of it, some of us have got very good at hiding food in our pockets instead of eating it but then, after a while, we are so hungry that we'll eat anything.
Not much has changed since last year really and I feel a bit silly writing this. I don't know if you'll ever read it. I miss you.
Love Sylvie
Yay for a kitmas wedding! I'm probably going to write a drabble of their actual wedding in more detail later on...
Reviews as always guarantee you my eternal adoration :)