She wasn’t the only one watching him. On the other side of the chapel, Grace sat perfectly composed, staring at Max. There was a raw yearning in the way she looked at him, her hands folded in her lap as if to stop herself reaching out for him.
As if he knew he was being watched, Max turned his head slightly and caught her eye. Both of them looked away sharply, their gazes dropping to the ground.
Daisy felt a pang. She tried to tell herself it wasn’t her doing, but she couldn’t fight the feeling of guilt that overwhelmed her. There was already too much unhappiness in the world, and she couldn’t help feeling as if she’d brought about even more.
The chapel door opened behind her, and a sudden hush fell over the congregation. Turning round, Daisy saw why. Sarah Newland had walked in, her baby in her arms. Her pale face and fiery red hair contrasted dramatically with the shabby black coat she wore.
The silence lasted a second or two, then broke into a hubbub of whispers.
‘Look at her!’
‘What’s she doing here? She should know better than to show her face.’
‘Bold as brass, that one.’
‘Fancy bringing that child into a house of God.’
The tide of whispers followed her, but Sarah seemed determined not to be aware of them as she made her way to the far side of the chapel, head held high, baby clasped to her shoulder. But Daisy could see the scarlet flush rising up her neck.
She reached the area where the villagers stood, packed shoulder to shoulder, almost as if they were forming a wall against her.
‘May I find a space, please?’ Sarah’s voice was quiet and clear, making a challenge.
Everyone ignored her. Then, suddenly, a voice rang out from the front.
‘Here, you may take my seat.’
A collective gasp echoed around the chapel. Even the British and Canadian airmen who knew nothing of village life seemed to be aware that something interesting was happening as Mrs Huntley-Osborne rose from her place on the front pew and stepped aside.
Sarah stood frozen, her expression wary. For what seemed like an endless moment, the two women stared at each other across the width of the chapel. Then, slowly and cautiously, Sarah moved towards Mrs Huntley-Osborne.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered.
‘We can’t have you standing with a baby, can we?’
Almost immediately, both of the people beside Sarah jumped to their feet to offer Mrs Huntley-Osborne their seat. She placed herself down on Sarah’s right. The two of them sat side by side, neither of them speaking or even looking at each other. But Daisy was aware, as were most of the villagers, that a momentous shift had occurred.
She glanced across at Grace to see if she’d noticed it too, before she remembered that they weren’t on speaking terms. A cloud of loneliness settled over her then. It was at times like this that she missed her sister more than ever.
After the service, Grace slipped quickly out of the chapel. Daisy saw Max looking for her. He stood like a mighty oak, his big frame towering above the rest of the congregation as they filed past him towards the doors.
Daisy wormed her way through the crowd until she was standing behind him.
‘If you’re looking for Grace, she’s already left.’
‘Oh.’ His broad shoulders slumped in dejection.
Daisy hesitated, not sure what to say next. She had always struggled to make conversation with Max. Not like Grace, who seemed to be able to chat away to him for hours …
‘I’m sorry – about Harry,’ Daisy ventured. ‘It’s such a terrible thing for his wife. She must be heartbroken.’
‘He was due to go home next month.’
‘No! How awful.’
Max nodded. ‘Just a few more weeks and we would have been safe and sound in Canada.’
It took a moment for Daisy to register what he’d said. ‘We? Are you going back to Canada too?’
‘Yes.’ For the first time, his frowning gaze flicked to meet hers. ‘I thought Grace would have told you.’
Daisy lowered her gaze. ‘Grace and I aren’t on speaking terms.’
‘Told me what?’
‘So you won’t know that I asked her to come with me? Daisy’s mouth fell open with shock. She’d had no idea that Max’s feelings for her sister ran so deep. ‘What did she say?’
‘What do you think?’ His eyes turned to chips of ice. ‘She turned me down. Said she couldn’t leave her family.’
Daisy was silent, shaken by his revelation. ‘But I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘She could have had a new life …’
‘I guess she prefers her old one.’ Max shrugged.
Daisy pictured her sister’s yearning face as she’d watched him in the chapel. It was exactly the same expression she saw on his face now.
Jess couldn’t face the service in the chapel. She’d woken up on Sunday morning with the same pounding headache behind her temples that she’d had ever since the day Harry died. It wouldn’t go away, even with the aspirin Miss Carrington had given her.
Even so, she’d tried to go, for Harry’s sake. As soon as her night duty finished, she’d walked up the lane to the tiny stone-built chapel in the grounds of Billinghurst Manor. But as soon as she walked in, she realised she couldn’t do it. It was too hot and too crowded, and she could feel clammy perspiration blossoming all over her body just from being there, crushed in by people on every side. As everyone else took their seats, Jess had slipped outside, gulping in the cold, fresh air as if her life depended on it.
Now she took refuge by the ornamental fountain, soothed by the bubbling water and the darting fish in the pond’s murky depths.
There were six new sets of initials carved into the stonework, the letters fresh and white against the mellow grey stone. Jess quickly found the one she was looking for: HT. Harry Turner. And there, underneath it, was the date the plane had crashed, 28 February 1942.
Jess traced the letters with the tip of her finger, but they still didn’t seem real to her.
Why have a tribute at all? she wondered. Why constantly remind themselves he was dead? Wasn’t it easier to keep him alive in their minds, as if he’d just popped outside for a smoke? Then they wouldn’t have to face the unbearable pain of knowing they would never see him again.
Either that, or they should forget him completely. What was it Christina Rossetti said in her poem? ‘Better by far you should forget and smile/Than that you should remember and be sad.’ It would make no difference to Harry whether they mourned him or not, and it was surely easier for everyone than sobbing in the chapel, wringing their hands and feeling sorry for themselves.
As she had written in her last letter to Sam, it was far better to try and put it behind them and get on with life. That’s what Harry would have wanted, and that’s what Jess was trying to do. But her friends wouldn’t have it. Daisy and Effie followed her around, watching her closely, as if they expected her to break into hysteria at any moment.
‘Are you all right?’ Effie kept asking her anxiously.
‘Yes, of course I am. Why shouldn’t I be?’ she snapped back.
And if they weren’t watching her, they were sighing over their memories.
‘Do you remember when we all went to the coast?’ they would say. Or: ‘Just think, it was only a couple of weeks ago we were at that dance in the village hall …’ As if they could make themselves feel better by dwelling on how much they missed him. It made no sense to Jess.
For once, she was relieved that Matron had kept her on nights during the diphtheria epidemic, and didn’t have to listen to them going on, wallowing in their misery and memories. She didn’t have time to think about Harry’s death because she was so busy trying to look after her living patients. The diphtheria outbreak was spreading, and every day seemed to bring more cases to the already overcrowded fever ward. Jess spent her nights running from bed to bed, swabbing throats, setting up steam tents and administering serum.
But if she worked hard, then Dr Drake worke
d even harder. He seemed to be a permanent fixture on the ward since the outbreak had started, and Jess got used to working alongside him. They rarely spoke, but she liked the reassurance of having him there. The ward seemed strangely empty without him on the rare occasions he was called away to an emergency elsewhere in the hospital.
But even working as hard as they did, they still couldn’t save everyone. The night after Harry’s remembrance service, a boy called Toby died. He was sixteen years old and delivered groceries for the village shop until he was taken ill.
Dr Drake came to fill out the paperwork and sign his death certificate, then Jess set about performing last offices. She washed Toby’s body carefully, combed his hair and wrapped him in a shroud ready for the orderlies to collect. She tried to work quickly and efficiently, but her aching limbs seemed to defy her, growing heavier and more difficult to move the faster she tried to work. All the while her headache was pulsing behind her eyes until she had to stop and close them for a moment just to ease the pain. She could feel a sheen of sweat on her brow.
When she emerged from the room where she’d laid out the boy, Dr Drake was still on the ward. He was making a great show of checking a patient’s notes, but Jess had the feeling he’d been waiting for her.
‘Are you all right, Nurse?’ he asked.
Usually Jess would have answered him politely, but her weariness and aching head made her snap. ‘Why do people keep asking me that?’
Dr Drake blinked owlishly behind his spectacles. ‘I couldn’t answer for anyone else, but you seem rather unwell to me.’
Jess forced herself to calm down. It wasn’t Dr Drake’s fault. The poor man must have been wondering what had hit him.
‘I’m sorry, Doctor. You’re right, I am a bit under the weather. I think I might have a cold coming.’
‘Yes, I can see you have a fever.’ His pale gaze searched her face. ‘Perhaps you should go to the sick bay?’
‘Oh, no, I’m far too busy for that.’
‘No one is too busy to be ill, Nurse. Tell me your symptoms.’
His authoritative tone stopped her in her tracks. ‘I have a headache and my limbs ache,’ she admitted.
‘Any sore throat?’
Jess paused. ‘A bit,’ she said. ‘But it isn’t what you think,’ she went on in a rush, seeing his face. ‘I had the Schick test, remember?’
‘Test or not, let me see your throat.’
She sighed heavily and sat down at Sister’s desk, tilting her head back so he could examine her by the light of the green-shaded lamp. She had never been so close to him before, and found herself swivelling her gaze so she wouldn’t have to look so closely into his pale silvery eyes behind his spectacles. He smelled of coal tar soap.
Finally he released her and she straightened up, massaging her neck. ‘As you can see, I’m fine,’ she started to say, but he cut her off.
‘Nurse Jago, you are far from fine,’ he said shortly. ‘I want you to report to the sick bay immediately. I will telephone Night Sister and inform her.’
The serious expression on his face worried Jess. ‘What is it, Doctor?’ she asked.
But deep down she already knew the answer.
‘Diphtheria?’
‘That’s what Miss Carrington says. Apparently Dr Drake noticed Jess was ill when she was on duty last night and sent her straight to isolation.’
Effie rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. The Home Sister had roused her even earlier than usual that morning with the news that Jess had been taken to the sick bay. She had stripped Jess’s bed and told Effie to get dressed and then pack up some of her room-mate’s toiletries and nightclothes for her.
She was now trying to do just that while Daisy sat on the bare frame of Jess’s bed.
‘How bad is she?’ Daisy asked.
‘I don’t know. But she must be bad to be in isolation, don’t you think?’ Effie packed Jess’s toothbrush, tooth powder and a clean flannel, towel and soap, then deliberated over the few items of make-up set out on the dresser. She couldn’t imagine that her friend would need lipstick and powder while she was in isolation. She hardly ever wore them anyway.
‘Should someone tell her family?’ Daisy said.
Effie shook her head. ‘I don’t think she has any. Not that she’s close to, anyway.’ She knew Jess’s mother was dead, and that she came from a desperate, rundown part of Bethnal Green. She also knew Jess loathed her father and stepmother and never spoke to either of them. But apart from that, Effie was surprised to realise that she knew next to nothing about her friend’s family. Effie had told Jess everything about her own life growing up in Kilkenny, her mammy and daddy and four sisters. She’d even told her the name of their parish priest! But she couldn’t remember Jess ever telling her anything in return. When it came to talking about herself, Jess was as closed as the many books on her shelf.
‘I wonder if she’ll want any of these?’ She ran her gaze along the leather spines. David Copperfield … Great Expectations … Jane Eyre … Jess always had her nose in one of them. Effie could never understand why. It took all her time and concentration to read one book, let alone all these, over and over again.
‘I can’t imagine why,’ Daisy said. ‘If she’s that poorly, she won’t feel much like reading, surely?’
‘But she’ll need to do something to pass the time,’ Effie argued. ‘Poor girl, if she really has diphtheria she’ll be flat on her back for weeks, not seeing a soul. Maybe I’ll put a couple in the bag, just in case.’ She chose Great Expectations, because it was Jess’s favourite – she knew that about her, at least. Jess was always willing to talk about her favourite books, if nothing else.
‘Should someone tell Sam, do you think?’ Daisy asked.
Effie considered it. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘He’s bound to wonder what’s going on when he doesn’t get a letter from her. Especially as she writes to him practically every day.’
‘I think we should write to him,’ Daisy decided.
‘But how do we find out his address? He could be stationed anywhere.’ Effie racked her brains to remember if Jess had mentioned it. But her relationship with Sam was something else she never talked about.
‘Have a look for one of his letters. It might give you an address.’
Effie recoiled from the idea. ‘I couldn’t do that! Jess wouldn’t like it. You know how private she is about her things.’
‘Then I’ll do it.’ Daisy slid off the bedframe. ‘Where does she keep his letters?’
‘In that box under her bed. But I don’t think you should touch it,’ Effie added. ‘It’s not right to go spying in her personal business.’
‘I’m not going to read them, am I?’ Daisy got down on her knees and rooted under the bed, groping for the box. ‘I only want to look at one to get the address – ah, here we are.’
She pulled the cardboard box out from under the bed. ‘Blimey, it’s heavy,’ she said, lifting it on to the bare mattress. ‘Sam must be an even bigger letter writer than Jago!’
‘He can’t be. She never seems to get any letters from him.’ Effie frowned. ‘Come to think of it, I can’t remember her getting a single letter from Sam in the whole time I’ve been here …’
‘And I think I know why – look.’
Daisy pushed the box towards Jess, and she peered inside. The box was full of letters, all in thin blue envelopes, all sealed – and all addressed to Sam in Jess’s neat handwriting.
Chapter Forty-Five
‘I SAY,’ SAID Teddy. ‘Isn’t that your friend William down there?’
Millie averted her gaze from the airfield below them. She had already picked out William’s tall, lean figure, with a sheepskin jacket over his blue flying suit, striding across the runway towards the plane.
‘Yes, it is,’ she said, tight-lipped.
Seeing him had quite spoiled her day. Up until then, she had been enjoying a pleasant Sunday afternoon ride with Teddy and Henry. Teddy was riding her father’s handsome old hun
ter, Samson, while Henry sat sturdily astride her own childhood pony, a fat piebald called Mischief. Millie was riding Aphrodite, a slender and rather excitable chestnut.
They had ridden around the park, and Teddy had very patiently taught Henry to trot. Then, at her son’s insistence, they had taken the path up to the ridge to look down over the airfield. Henry rode between them, Mischief’s fat flanks grazing their horses’.
It had been such fun, having Teddy there to share the day with them. Henry adored him, and insisted on showing off all his tricks. And Teddy, as usual, made a very patient audience.
He was looking at Millie now, eyebrows raised. ‘What’s this?’ he said sharply. ‘A lovers’ tiff?’
Millie busied herself leaning down to adjust Henry’s stirrups, hoping Teddy couldn’t see her face. ‘Whatever there was between us is over,’ she stated firmly.
It had been a week since Millie had delivered her ultimatum. And even though she realised with hindsight she might have been unfair to make demands that William couldn’t possibly meet, she still stood by every word.
‘What did he do wrong?’ Teddy asked.
‘Nothing. I just realised that it would never work between us, that’s all.’
Teddy pulled a face. ‘Oh, my dear. Did you find out something truly shocking about him? An unforgivable skeleton in his closet?’
‘Nothing like that.’ Millie smiled in spite of herself. ‘If you must know, I realised I couldn’t possibly allow myself to fall in love with another pilot.’
‘Ah. I see.’ Teddy considered this for a moment. ‘Yes, all becomes clear to me now. You can’t face the prospect of those sleepless nights, worrying if what happened to Seb will happen to him?’
‘Exactly.’ If Teddy could understand how she felt, why couldn’t William? Millie wondered.
But he plainly didn’t. And things had become strained between them since that morning. Now, if they happened to meet in the grounds or near the house, William simply ignored her.
‘Anyway, whatever there was between us is well and truly over now,’ she said firmly. She eyed the planes as they taxied down the runway. ‘Shall we turn back? I can see they’re about to take off, and Aphrodite is easily spooked.’
Nightingales Under the Mistletoe Page 30
