Mary felt awful when she woke up. Her tears were dried on her cheeks, leaving only the salt behind, and her hair was still pulled back in the bun that she had to wear for the hospital. She was thankful that Sophia coaxed her to change into her sleeping gown before she actually fell asleep or she would have smelt like burning flesh and dried blood the entire day.
Mary rolled over to see that Sophia was missing from the other side of the bed and she sat up, checking the time, seeing that she slept in just enough to make her have to rush around. She frantically ran around, trying to get the once clean uniform she had, and making sure that she was fresh enough to go downstairs for the day. Mary slid on her shoes, looking at herself in the mirror, making sure it didn't seem that she was crying all night before she left the safety of her room and headed downstairs.
Downstairs, Sophia and the other girls were talking in hushed voices, over their breakfast as the tenant made eye contact with Mary, smiling at her before shushing the other girls.
"It's okay, you can continue, I know you're all curious about what happened last night." Mary sat next to Sophia, keeping her head down. She didn't want to talk about it, Sophia probably knew that, but she knew that she would have to answer the other girls' questions.
"Are you alright, Mary?" Mary looked up at Vanessa, not expecting the question. She believed that they would just ask about William or the letter, not about Mary.
"No, not at the moment, but I will be. Sophia and I are going to the army's office near Westminster today and trying to put the pieces together. I doubt we'll find much of anything since I'm not family, but we are going to try."
"Yes, we are. You may be a pushover, Mary, but I was raised to not take no for an answer unless you're threatened to be arrested, so I will fight the man at the desk until they push me out the doors." Mary smiled as Sophia gently pushed her shoulder up against Mary's. "I also will ask Jack if we don't get our answers from the office. I'm going to be with Mary the entire way like she was there for me." Mary smiled as Sophia told the other girls her plans. Mary had never had a friend like Sophia, most of the time she was with Thomas and Joseph and hung around them on their estate. Mary only had friends that she would spend time with at school, but with Sophia, they were coworkers, but it felt more like a sisterhood at this point than a friendship.
"We'll be here for you too, Mary. You've always taken care of us, washing the dishes for us when we're tired and doing our uniforms when we don't want to, we'll be here for you," Vanessa chimed in, smiling. Mary never saw this side of Vanessa before, since she was always having her nose in the air, trying to get into others' business. Mary smiled, not wanting to refuse her offer, but really wanting Vanessa to be far away from Mary's business as possible. "Well, we best be off or we'll be late. We'll take Doctor Smith for you and tell him what's going on, he'll understand."
"Thank you, we should be going too. Come on, Mary, we have to get there before the line is too long." Mary nodded, letting Sophia pull her out of her seat and towards the front door. "We'll figure it out, Mary, I promise."
~~
"Next!" Mary, Sophia's arm looped with hers, stepped up to the desk in the office. "Name?"
"Mary Blake, but I'm here about another soldier. I know my brother is safe." Mary got out her letter to show the man.
"Are you related to the soldier, Ma'am?" "No, but-" The soldier cut her off before she could even give him the letter.
"Then I can't give you any information. Next!"
"I just need to know-"
"I'm sorry, Miss. I know it's frustrating, but thems the rules." The man behind Mary tried to step up to the desk, but Sophia pushed Mary aside so she was facing the man at the desk.
"Listen, my friend was writing to this soldier for months. He held her dying brother in his arms and then continued on with his mission to get to her other brother and stop him from being killed. Then, instead of being checked by a doctor, he wrote to her family when no one else would. Then he continued to write to Mary and Mary wrote to him. They love each other, and if he weren't in France, they'd probably be engaged by now, so you're going to tell me what the hell this stamp means." Sophia grabbed the letter out of Mary's hand and placed it in front of him. Mary just watched, with an open mouth, as the soldier at the desk took the letter and looked at it.
"It means that he's not actively in France anymore. He could be dead, injured, missing, or just discharged. He could even be injured and sent over here for recovery. He's just not active anymore. They don't exactly keep records of everyone over there, Miss. I can't tell you much more than that. Next!" Sophia huffed, but grabbed the letter and walked over to Mary, who proceeded to hug Sophia.
"Thank you."
"I told you, we'd figure it out. Now, we have to figure out where he lives so we can figure out if he's alright. They'll be no use to us here. Did he tell you anything about his home or family?"
"Just that his mother and sister are out of London. Somewhere in Sheffield, but they kept their flat here in London, just in case William wanted to live there."
"Okay, so we don't know much, that's alright, we'll figure it out. Now, we have to go to work, we're already horribly late and we have no idea if Vanessa is actually trustworthy on her promises." Mary smiled, looping her arm through Sophia's as they walked out of the office and towards the hospital. She knew that there was probably no chance of her finding William and that he would have to find her, but she had more hope that he was alive than she had the night prior. That's all she could hope for.
