Front Line Nurse. Rosie James
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A dedicated reader and scribbler all her life, ROSIE JAMES completed her first novel (sadly unpublished) before reaching her teens.
Significant success came much later, and over the last twelve years newspaper and magazine articles, short stories and romantic novels followed under her other pen name Susanne James.
Rosie’s four family sagas were the next stage, the plots reflecting her fascination with the human condition – how different, yet how alike we all are. And in every story one thing is guaranteed – a happy ending.
Letters to Alice
The Long Road Ahead
Lexi’s War
Front Line Nurse
ROSIE JAMES
HQ
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019
Copyright © Rosie James 2019
Rosie James asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
E-book Edition © June 2019 ISBN: 9780008296254
Version: 2019-05-27
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
For my ever-loving family … Including our precious dogs.
November 1900
Randolph Garfield stood on the quayside and watched the last huge roll of tobacco being wheeled into his main warehouse. He nodded, satisfied at the superb quality of this consignment, but what had he expected? Virginian tobacco was the finest in the world.
As usual, his trusted foreman was checking each roll as it was stored away safely, and Randolph glanced at his watch. It was late and all the other workers had already gone home. But they would be back here again tomorrow morning, seven o’clock sharp.
Observing the proceedings closely, as he always did, Randolph tightened his hand on his walking cane. He liked the feel of its smooth, round marble head beneath his palm – palpable even through the fine kid gloves he was wearing – and considered the cane as something of a talisman, because it had belonged to his father who had never left the house without it.
Garfield Tobacco, its name marked out in huge steel lettering across the entrance of the three warehouses, was well known in the East End as it had been for two generations before Randolph. His father had died very young, which meant that Randolph had had to accept leadership of the family firm earlier than he might have expected. But he was not resentful in any way. He had been born into prosperity and enjoyed the life of the prosperous, and was giving 3-year-old Alexander, his only son and heir, the same privileges. So it was highly likely that Alexander, too, would follow in the family footsteps when Randolph no longer wished to head the business. He shrugged briefly. There was plenty of time to worry about that because, after all, he was only 40.
When the warehouse was fully secure, Randolph began to make his way from the docks envisaging how those gigantic rolls of tobacco would soon be transformed into thousands of cigarettes, cigars, plug and pipe tobacco and snuff, all supplying the never-ending needs of the public, rich or poor. The pleasure and solace of smoking was a gift of the gods. Certainly a gift for Garfield’s.
It was a miserable, late November evening, the gloom only slightly lessened by pale overhead lighting. Randolph took his usual route from the docks along the cobbled streets, past rows and rows of ramshackle, terraced houses and countless pubs. He had long since become accustomed to the poverty and deprivation all around, the overpowering scent of unwashed bodies and human excrement, of coal smoke hanging permanently in the air, the persistent smell of beer. There