The Nightingale Nurses (2 page)

When a set of students joined the Nightingale for training, they tended to stick together as a group. But right from the start, Helen had been set apart. The other girls were wary of her because she worked hard, and because her mother was on the Board of Trustees. They quickly decided Helen was too much of a swot and a teacher’s pet to be included in their plans. Helen sometimes wished she could explain that she only worked hard to please her mother. But she wasn’t sure anyone would listen.

As if she could read her thoughts, Millie said, ‘Perhaps if you made more effort to join in, they might feel differently about you.’

‘To be honest, I don’t really care how they feel,’ Helen replied. ‘I’m here to work, not to make friends.’ She parroted the stern instruction her mother had given her the one and only time Helen had tried to explain how lonely and left out she felt.

Millie stopped, halfway up the stairs. ‘We’re friends, aren’t we?’

Helen turned to smile back at her. ‘That’s different.’

It was impossible not to love Millie – or Lady Amelia Benedict, to give her her full title. She was simply the sweetest girl Helen had ever met. She even looked sunny, with her bouncy blonde curls and wide smile. There were no airs and graces to her at all, even though she was the daughter of an earl and had been brought up in a castle in Kent.

Millie and their other room mate Dora Doyle were in the year below and had come into Helen’s lonely life like a breath of fresh air nearly two years earlier. They had refused to be put off by Helen’s shy reserve. It was thanks to their friendship that she had learned not to mind so much when the other girls in her set were spiteful to her.

Her friends had also given her the confidence not to run away when she met the love of her life, Charlie Dawson. Between them and Charlie, Helen was the happiest she had ever been. Even though her mother’s shadow still fell over everything she did.

‘I should think so, too!’ Millie beamed, then added, ‘And you really mustn’t mind about Amy Hollins. She’s an awful cat. I can’t say I’m looking forward to spending the next three months with her on Female Medical!’

Their room was at the top of the house, long and sparsely furnished with three beds tucked into the sloping eaves. A dormer window cast a square patch of silvery moonlight on to the polished wooden floor.

Millie shivered. ‘Why does it always seem so cold up here, even in April?’ She reached for the light switch, flicked it – then let out a cry of dismay.

There was a girl sprawled on the middle bed, fully dressed, her stout black shoes poking through the bars of the iron bedstead. Her left arm dangled off one side, still clutching the limp remains of a cap. A wild mop of red curls fanned out over the pillow, hiding her face.

At the sound of Millie’s cry her head jerked up, revealing a freckled face bleary with sleep.

‘What the – oh, it’s only you.’ Irritable green eyes peered out from under the ginger hair. ‘I thought there was a fire.’

She sat up slowly, stretching her limbs. ‘I must have nodded off. What time is it?’

‘Nearly half-past nine.’

‘Really?’ Dora Doyle snatched up her watch from the bedside table and held it close to her face, squinting at it. ‘Blimey, I’ve been asleep for two hours.’

‘Had a hard day?’ Helen said sympathetically, easing off her own shoes. Her feet throbbed in protest.

‘You could say that.’ Dora rubbed her eyes. ‘Sister had us cleaning the ward from top to bottom all day. I’ve been up and down, cleaning windows and turning mattresses and damp dusting. I ache all over. I’m glad tomorrow’s my day off. I’d probably be too stiff to get out of bed otherwise.’

‘I know how you feel. They always seem to work us harder on our last day, don’t they?’ Millie rifled in her chest of drawers and pulled out a lighter and a packet of cigarettes. She took one, then offered the packet to Dora.

‘I hope you’re going to open a window?’ Helen warned, unpinning her cap. ‘You know Sister Sutton can smell smoke a mile off.’

‘Yes, yes, don’t fuss so, Tremayne. We’re not going to get you in trouble.’ Millie reached up and unlatched the window, pushing it open. Then she sat down and lit Dora’s cigarette for her.

‘So where are they sending you next?’ she asked.

Dora took a long draw on her cigarette. ‘Casualty,’ she replied. ‘How about you?’

‘Female Medical. Although I’m not sure what Sister Everett will make of me.’

‘She’ll be fine,’ Helen said. She pulled off her starched collar and examined the raw mark on her skin where the starched fabric had chafed. ‘She can be slightly eccentric, but don’t let that fool you. She’s as sharp as a tack when it comes to the patients. Knows all their notes off by heart and expects her nurses to do the same.’

Millie chewed her lip worriedly. ‘I wish I were going to Casualty with you, Doyle. I’ve heard it’s so much fun down there.’

‘If you don’t mind severed limbs and people dropping dead at your feet!’ Dora sent a stream of cigarette smoke up through the open window into the chilly night sky, then twisted round to look at Helen. ‘Where are they sending you, Tremayne?’

‘Theatre.’

‘Oh, how exciting!’ Millie joined in. ‘I’d love to be a Theatre nurse.’

Dora cackled with laughter. ‘You? In Theatre?’

Millie frowned. ‘What’s so amusing about that?’

‘No one would ever send you to Theatre. You’re far too accident-prone.’ Trust Dora to spell it out, Helen thought as she pulled off her apron and stuffed it into her laundry bag. Typical Doyle, always blunt and to the point.

‘No, I’m not.’ Millie looked so injured, Helen couldn’t help smiling. She glanced at Dora. She was fighting to keep her face straight too.

‘Let’s see . . .’ Dora pretended to consider. ‘Remember that time you cleaned everyone’s false teeth in the same bowl and then couldn’t remember which set was which? And what about the time you gave a patient a delousing treatment and accidentally bleached their hair?’

‘And don’t forget nearly drowning Sister Hyde with a soap enema,’ Helen put in.

‘All right, all right. You’ve made your point,’ Millie sighed.

She looked so dejected, Helen’s heart went out to her. ‘You more than make up for it in other ways,’ she said soothingly.

‘Like what?’

‘Well . . . you’re very kind, and compassionate. And you have a way of talking to people that makes them feel better. Everyone adores you.’

Millie had a way of winning people over. Even grumpy Sister Hyde on Female Chronics had been a little tearful when Nurse Benedict left her ward.

Another muffled squawk of laughter came up through the floorboards, followed by a crash.

Millie shook her head. ‘They’re asking for trouble down there.’

‘What are they celebrating, anyway?’ Dora asked.

‘Bevan’s got engaged.’ Helen wriggled into her flannel nightgown. ‘Her junior doctor popped the question two days ago.’

‘At this rate there won’t be any of us left after we qualify.’ Millie looked down at her bare left hand. She wasn’t allowed to wear the engagement ring her journalist boyfriend Sebastian had given her before he left for an assignment in Berlin. ‘It’s so silly, really. You’d think they’d let us carry on working after we get married, wouldn’t you?’

‘I don’t know what Sister Sutton would say about having husbands in the nurses’ home!’ Helen smiled.

‘You’re not moving Seb in here,’ Dora warned. ‘It’s bad enough with the three of us.’

‘Can you imagine?’ Millie laughed. ‘No, I’m sure they could make some arrangements, though. It seems such a waste, to spend three years training and then have to leave.’

‘I don’t think Bevan is too worried about that.’ Helen picked up her hairbrush. ‘From what I could make out, she can’t wait to say goodbye to the Nightingale and all its rules and regulations.’

‘Well, I don’t want to leave,’ Millie said. ‘I’d like to stay on after I get married, if they’ll let me. But I don’t suppose I’ll get the chance. Once I’m married, that’s it.’

‘You could always put off the wedding?’ Helen suggested.

Millie shook her head. ‘I’ve already kept poor Seb waiting long enough. And I suspect my grandmother would have an absolute fit if I told her we were postponing the wedding. She’s desperate for me to marry and produce a suitable heir to inherit the estate before anything happens to my father.’

She was so matter-of-fact about it, Helen could only marvel at her. Millie had a huge weight resting on her shoulders. The future of her family depended on her producing a son. She had been groomed by her grandmother for a suitable marriage almost from the moment she was born. Millie had made a brave bid for independence by training as a nurse. But they all knew her freedom would have to end one day.

‘How about you?’ she asked. ‘When are you and Charlie planning to get married?’

Helen pulled a blanket around her shoulders to keep out the chilly April air that blew in through the open window. ‘I’m not sure. I’d have to talk to my mother . . .’

‘You’re over twenty-one, surely you can do as you please?’

‘Even so, my mother would expect to be consulted.’

‘I don’t see why she would object. Charlie is adorable, and anyone can see the two of you are head over heels in love.’

Helen glanced up into Millie’s candid blue eyes. If only life was as simple, she thought.

‘Can we stop talking about weddings for five minutes?’ Dora interrupted them sharply.

Millie turned to her, startled. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

‘Nothing. I’m just sick of hearing about people getting married.’ Dora took off her shoes and climbed on to her bed, leaned out of the window and stubbed her cigarette on the ledge, then tossed the stub into the night air.

Before Millie could reply, Sister Sutton’s voice rang out from the passageway below them.

‘Lights out at ten o’clock, Nurses.’

Millie and Helen left Dora changing into her nightclothes and joined the line of girls shivering in the passageway outside the bathroom.

‘You don’t have to stand here with me, you know,’ Millie reminded Helen, pulling her dressing gown more tightly around her. ‘You’re a senior. You could go to the front of the queue.’

As if to prove her point, Amy Hollins, Brenda Bevan and a few of the others from her set drifted down the passageway from Hollins’ room and elbowed their way straight into the bathroom, laughing at the glaring faces of the junior students who had to move back to let them in.

‘I might as well stay here.’

‘Suit yourself. But you know they’ll take all the hot water before we get there, don’t you?’

‘I’m sure there’ll be some left for us.’ Helen smiled.

Millie sent her a narrow look. ‘You know, you’re not nearly bullying enough,’ she said. ‘I bet you don’t make pros do all the dirty jobs on the ward, either.’

‘I don’t like ordering other people around.’

‘In that case, you’ll never be a ward sister!’ Millie nodded towards Amy Hollins. ‘Perhaps you should take a few lessons from her?’

‘I don’t know about that!’

Millie paused for a moment, then changed the subject. ‘Doyle was rather cross earlier, don’t you think?’ she commented. ‘What do you suppose is the matter with her?’

‘I don’t know. Her friend is getting married tomorrow, and Doyle’s a bridesmaid. Perhaps that has something to do with it.’

‘So she is,’ Millie remembered. ‘But I still don’t see why that should make her so irritable. If anything, she should be happy about it.’

‘I suppose so. But you never really know what she’s thinking, do you?’

Helen had been intimidated by Dora at first, the way those green eyes looked out so challengingly at the world, as if she would take on anyone who came near her. She had come to understand that was just Dora’s way, that she was a typical East End girl, down to earth and fiercely proud. But she kept her feelings locked away under a tough exterior.

‘Perhaps she’s just upset because she has a ghastly dress?’ Millie suggested.

‘You could be right,’ Helen agreed. Whatever was on Dora’s mind, Helen doubted they would ever find out about it.

RAIN WEPT OVER
the back streets of Bethnal Green on the day Dora Doyle’s best friend Ruby Pike married Nick Riley.

‘Talk about April showers!’ Ruby grimaced, clearing a patch on the steamy kitchen window to look down over the back yard. Even though it was the middle of the afternoon it was as dark as twilight outside. ‘It’s coming down in stair rods.’

‘Come over here and keep still. I’ll never get this seam straight if you keep running off,’ Dora mumbled through a mouth full of pins as she knelt at her friend’s feet.

It was chaos in the Pikes’ crowded kitchen. Ruby’s father Len jostled at the sink with her brothers Dennis and Frank, all trying to shave in front of the tiny scrap of mirror. Her mum Lettie was cleaning shoes at the kitchen table, a pinnie fastened over her best dress.

Meanwhile, Dora was on her hands and knees, doing a last-minute repair to the bride’s hem.

It was the last place she wanted to be. But Ruby was her best friend, they’d grown up next door to each other in the narrow, cramped tenements of Griffin Street, and Dora had made a promise that she would be bridesmaid.

‘I dunno why you’re bothering. I’ll look like a drowned rat by the time I get to the church anyway.’ Ruby sighed. ‘My Nick will probably run a mile when he sees me.’

‘If he turns up!’ Dennis suggested cheekily.

‘He might do a runner,’ Frank agreed. He and Dennis looked at each other, then both broke into song: ‘“There was I, waiting at the church” – ow!’ they chorused, as their father fetched them both a slap round the ear.

‘He’d better bleeding turn up or I’ll have him, I don’t care how big he is. He’s had his fun, now he’s got to pay for it!’ Len Pike grumbled.

‘You, go up against Nick Riley? I’d like to see you try!’ his wife sneered. ‘He’d make mincemeat of you!’

Len Pike huffed and blew out his cheeks, but they all knew Lettie was right. No one in their right mind would ever take on Nick Riley. Even by the tough standards of the East End, Nick had a reputation.

‘He’d better bloody turn up, that’s all I’m saying,’ Len mumbled. ‘He’s got you into this mess, my girl, he’ll have to get you out!’