The Silver Locket by Margaret James

Maria, as they did a round together later that same day.
    ‘What do you think, Rose?’
    ‘I’d love it!’ Rose’s eyes were shining. ‘When the war is over, I shall ask my father if he’ll let me train at one of the big London hospitals. I’d like to work with children, actually.’
    ‘You’ve heard from your parents, then?’
    ‘No, not yet.’ Rose bit her lower lip. ‘Maybe I should write again?’
    ‘Yes, perhaps you should.’ Maria rubbed her eyes and yawned. ‘You talk about the war being over, but that isn’t going to be for ages.’
    ‘Why do you say that?’
    ‘Rose, don’t you ever listen to the men?’ Maria sighed. ‘The Germans dig their trenches and then sit down on their side of the wire. We sit on the other side, and nobody’s prepared to give an inch. England’s full of factories producing shells and rockets and grenades, and I dare say Germany’s the same. So how’s it going to end?’
    ‘ I don’t know!’ cried Rose. ‘Anyway, it’s up to the government to sort it out.’
    ‘You trust the government?’
    ‘I suppose I do.’ Rose shrugged. ‘Well, women can’t do anything, anyway. We don’t even have the vote, and my father says we never will.’
    ‘I do hope he’s wrong.’ Maria smiled. ‘You should come to a meeting where we discuss these things.’
    ‘You mean to listen to Mrs Pankhurst?’ Rose looked doubtful. ‘Daddy says she’s mad. They ought to put her in mental home for hopeless cases.’
    ‘Your father sounds a very decisive man,’ observed Maria. ‘You must take after him.’
    ‘I thought you were dead.’
    Chloe stood scowling on the station platform, dressed in old black boots, a wide-brimmed hat devoid of veiling or a single feather, and a shapeless coat of an unflattering mud brown.
    She twisted a strand of colourless hair around one long, thin finger, while the other hand sat on her bulging pregnancy. ‘Why didn’t you write to me before?’
    ‘I was in a coma.’
    ‘But when you came out of your coma?’ Chloe’s tone was sharp and accusatory. ‘Why didn’t you write then?’
    Alex merely shrugged. He knew he ought to touch her, kiss her, make some simple gesture of affection, but, although he wanted to feel something, and although he knew he ought to be considerate and kind, and take an interest in Chloe and the baby, he just stood there, feeling nothing.
    Since he had woken in that army hospital, it had seemed a dead weight of indifference, to everyone and everything, had replaced his living, beating heart.
    He didn’t feel any pain or fear, but more than that he didn’t feel any affection, any love for anything or anyone – except for one specific someone, and he couldn’t allow himself to think of that, he would go mad. ‘I wrote as soon as I could hold a pen,’ he muttered, tersely.
    ‘I’m sure I’m very honoured.’ Chloe’s pale blue eyes were chips of glass. ‘What happened, anyway?’
    ‘We were in a cellar that got shelled. Some bricks fell on my head and knocked me out. Or so the nurses said. I had some cuts and bruises, but they’ve healed.’
    ‘So you weren’t badly hurt at all – no broken bones or anything like that.’ Chloe pursed her lips. ‘The Royal Dorsets have taken quite a hammering. My father says they’re down to half their strength.’
    ‘Yes, so I’ve heard,’ said Alex.
    ‘My mother thought you’d washed your hands of me.’ Chloe began to walk along the platform. ‘She said your kind don’t marry girls like me, so was she right?’
    ‘No, she was wrong.’
    ‘So we will be married?’
    ‘Yes, of course.’ Alex took her limp, white hand and tried to force a smile. ‘We’ll need to get a move on, though – I shan’t be in England very long. How old are you, Chloe – twenty, twenty-one?’
    ‘I’m twenty-two next Wednesday. So we wouldn’t need to wait for anyone’s consent, unless of course you’re not–’
    ‘I was twenty-one last May.’ Alex led Chloe through the