The Nightingale Sisters

by Donna Douglas

  The neighbours shuffled their feet and looked embarrassed. All except for Lettie Pike, who stared straight back at her.

  ‘You want to know why we’re watching? To see you lot get what you deserve,’ she shot back. ‘That mother of yours was always looking down her nose, reckoning she’s better than the rest of us. Now look at her.’

  Dora swung round to face her. ‘She could be on the streets and starving and she’d still be better than you, Lettie Pike!’ she spat.

  ‘And I expect that’s what will happen to her!’ Lettie’s face was twisted with spite. ‘You wait, it’ll be the workhouse next.’

  ‘Shut it, Lettie.’

  They all looked round at the sound of Nick Riley’s voice. He rarely involved himself with the neighbours’ petty squabbles, so Dora was as surprised as any of them to see him shouldering his way through the crowd towards her.

  Lettie gave a squawk of indignation. ‘Now listen here—’

  ‘No, you listen. All of you.’ He pushed through the crack in the fence to stand at Dora’s side. ‘The show’s over, all right? Any of you lot got anything to say to this family, you can say it to me first.’ He stood eyeing them all menacingly, his arms folded across his muscular chest.

  Dora couldn’t bring herself to look at him but she felt his presence through her skin, tall, strong and protective.

  The neighbours started to move away. A couple of them mumbled apologies, although none of them could meet her eye. Except for Lettie, of course, who gave them both an icy glare.

  ‘Are you coming back upstairs?’ she said to Nick.

  ‘In a minute.’

  ‘But my Ruby will be waiting—’

  ‘I said, in a minute!’

  Lettie flinched at his raised voice. ‘All right, keep your hair on.’ She shuffled back inside, slamming the door.

  He turned to Dora. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I think so.’ She took a deep, shaky breath. ‘At least we’ve given the neighbours something to talk about!’

  He smiled grimly. His face was all hard planes, too dangerous-looking to be truly handsome. ‘It makes a change from them talking about my mum.’

  Dora looked around. ‘Where is your mum? I didn’t see her.’ For all her faults, June Riley was one of her mother’s best friends. It wasn’t like her to miss a ding-dong.

  ‘Sleeping it off, as usual. She didn’t get in till the early hours.’

  ‘I’m surprised she managed to kip through all this.’

  ‘My mum could kip through the Second Coming if she’d had a skinful!’ He fixed his gaze on Dora intently. She could never get over how intensely blue his eyes were, fringed by thick dark lashes. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

  She nodded. ‘I dunno about Mum, though. This has hit her hard. She feels like she’s let us all down.’ Dora would never have admitted it to anyone else, but somehow she felt Nick understood her better than anyone else did.

  He glanced towards the house. ‘Have they taken much?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She shuddered. ‘I’m scared to go in and look.’

  ‘Want me to come in with you?’

  ‘Better not,’ she said. ‘I don’t think Mum would want anyone to see us . . . you know . . .’

  Nick nodded. ‘She’s a proud woman, your mum.’

  ‘She is,’ Dora sighed. ‘I’m not sure what this will do to her, though.’

  ‘She’ll be all right. You all will.’ She knew they were just words. But somehow when Nick said them she believed him.

  She looked into his eyes, and felt her stomach lurch with longing. He stared back at her and she saw his lips part, as if he was about to say something. And then—

  ‘Nick!’

  Ruby’s scream was like a bucket of icy water, drenching them. They looked up to see her hanging out of a window above them.

  ‘Are you going to be down there all day, or what?’ she yelled.

  He winced. ‘I’m coming, all right?’

  Dora smiled at him. ‘You’d better go.’

  ‘She can wait a minute.’ His eyes stayed fixed on Dora’s. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

  ‘I’m fine. Thanks again for coming to my rescue.’

  ‘Any time. You only have to ask, you know that.’

  ‘Nick!’

  ‘I’m coming. Keep your hair on.’

  He walked off. Dora looked up and waved to Ruby. She ducked back inside and slammed the window shut, her face set like stone.

  Chapter Twenty

  SUNDAY LUNCH AT the Vicarage was always an ordeal for the Tremayne children. But today it was even worse for William. Because today was the day he introduced his mother to Philippa Wilde.

  It was the first time Constance Tremayne had met any of his girlfriends. For one thing he never liked his romances to become that serious, and for another he’d never met a girl he thought could withstand a bruising encounter with his mother.

  But Phil was more than up to it. He watched with open admiration from across the table as she dazzled his parents, flirting with his father and fielding all his mother’s questioning with her usual breezy charm.

  It hadn’t started too well, though. Constance Tremayne had gone straight on the attack, before they’d even made it to the table.

  ‘William tells me you’re a doctor, Philippa. That seems like an odd choice of career for a woman. I wonder why you didn’t think about becoming a nurse?’

  William gripped the narrow stem of his sherry glass so hard it was a wonder it didn’t break. He waited tensely for Phil to deliver her usual stinging verbal assault on anyone who dared suggest women should not become doctors. She’d been fighting her corner and slapping people down about it ever since he’d known her at university.

  She might even say something scathing about the submissive role nurses played on the ward – he had known her do that before, too. That would go down very well with his mother, he thought, especially when Constance was so very proud of her own nursing training.

  But Phil merely smiled, that quirky little smile of hers, and replied tactfully, ‘You know, Mrs Tremayne, I really don’t think I have what it takes to become a nurse.’

  Constance Tremayne smirked with approval, and William allowed himself to breathe again.

  ‘Well, yes, my dear, I suppose you’re right,’ she agreed. ‘Nursing does demand rather a lot of a girl. I always think it’s much more of a vocation than simply a career. When I was on the wards . . .’

  And she was off again, on another of her fond reminiscences. William shot a quick, grateful look at Phil. She raised her glass in a teasing salute.

  He looked around at his sister, sitting next to her boyfriend Charlie on the sofa. Helen was as taut as a piece of stretched elastic, knees locked together, elbows clamped by her sides, as if by making herself as small as possible she could evade her mother’s watchful eye. Charlie sat equally upright beside her, his fair hair slicked down smartly, his neck reddening under his tight shirt collar. Poor Charlie, William thought. As if a haircut and his best suit would cut any ice. Constance had done her best to ignore him ever since he’d walked in.

  At least Father seemed to take pity on him.

  ‘And how are you, Charlie?’ Timothy Tremayne asked kindly, peering over his half-moon spectacles at the young man. ‘You’re working at your uncle’s joinery firm now, aren’t you?’

  Charlie looked pleased at the unexpected attention. ‘That’s right, sir. I’m getting on well, too. My uncle says I’m a natural with my hands. Just as well, really, I s’pose, since my legs have let me down!’

  He smiled around the room, then caught Constance Tremayne’s disapproving glare and his expression faded.

  ‘How marvellous that you have a trade,’ Phil spoke up. ‘I’ve always admired men who can actually do something useful.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Reverend Tremayne joined in enthusiastically. ‘Which reminds me, I wonder if perhaps you could look at the window frame in my study? The wind rattles throug
h it so loudly I can hardly hear myself think.’

  ‘I’d be glad to, sir.’

  ‘Would you? I keep meaning to telephone a joiner, but—’

  ‘That really won’t be necessary,’ William’s mother cut in. ‘We couldn’t possibly impose on Charlie’s good nature.’

  ‘Oh, but it’s no trouble,’ Charlie said. ‘Probably just needs a bit of putty replacing.’

  ‘All the same, I wouldn’t hear of it,’ Constance Tremayne stated firmly, a forbidding glint in her eye.

  ‘But—’

  ‘Really, that is my last word on the subject.’ She rose to her feet, her taut smile back in place. ‘Shall we go through to the dining room?’

  As they left the drawing room, William heard his mother say to his father in a stage whisper, ‘Really, Timothy, I’m surprised at you for even suggesting such a thing. Isn’t it mortifying enough that our daughter is consorting with a tradesman, without engaging him to do odd jobs around the house?’

  William glanced at Charlie, hoping he hadn’t caught her remark. The young man’s genial smile was fixed in place, but the hurt look in his eyes told him he had heard every word.

  It obviously pained Constance Tremayne that her daughter had fallen in love with a costermonger’s son from Bethnal Green. William knew she’d tried to put a stop to the romance. But when her plan had failed, she had resorted to her usual trick when faced with an unpleasant situation she could not control. She simply ignored it.

  Poor Charlie did his best to get on with Mrs Tremayne, and it upset William to see his efforts rebuffed. He felt ashamed of his mother; Constance Tremayne always fancied herself a paragon of the social virtues, and yet she was being unutterably rude.

  If only his mother had realised it, Helen could have done a lot worse than Charlie Dawson. He was kind, polite, and obviously adored her. William watched them holding hands under the table and felt pleased that his sister had finally found someone who made her happy. She had suffered so dreadfully under their mother’s iron control before this, putting up with far more than he had ever had to endure.

  Perhaps that was why Constance resented Charlie, he thought. But it was still no excuse for making him feel so unwelcome.

  William turned his attention to Phil instead. She really was magnificent, he thought, as he gazed at her across the table during lunch. She wasn’t an obvious beauty – her chin was too pointed, her mouth too wide, and her hair couldn’t seem to decide whether it was brown or blonde, or just a streaked mass of both. But her imperfections, and the way her bronze eyes sparkled in challenge above her high, jutting cheekbones, gave her an irresistible sex appeal. She was also intimidatingly clever, frank, funny, and frighteningly well connected. No wonder he was utterly besotted with her.

  But what really attracted him was that Philippa Wilde was a challenge.

  ‘So where are you working now?’ Constance asked as they handed round the vegetables.

  ‘St Agatha’s, in Berkhamsted. I specialise in Orthopaedics.’

  ‘Oh? I would have thought you’d prefer Paediatrics?’

  He saw the light of combat in Phil’s eyes. ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Helping to heal sick children seems so much more feminine, don’t you think?’

  ‘Actually, Mrs Tremayne, I don’t really like children,’ Phil replied, spooning peas on to her plate.

  ‘Phil’s terribly clever,’ William put in hastily, seeing his mother’s expression darken. ‘She got a double first at university. She was always by far the brightest in our year.’

  ‘There wasn’t a great deal of competition,’ Phil replied, passing on the bowl.

  ‘And yet you’re only a junior houseman, while my son is a senior?’ Constance said. ‘How odd.’

  ‘Not when you consider that most hospitals are run by the old boys’ network of male consultants who feel threatened by a woman in their midst.’

  ‘I think you’ll find most patients prefer a male consultant,’ Constance replied. ‘So much more reassuring, don’t you think, to know you’re in a man’s safe hands?’

  ‘I daresay you’re right,’ Phil said. ‘I know I like to be in a man’s hands.’ She sent William a smile across the table that almost stopped his heart.

  ‘So you two knew each other at university?’ Helen broke in quickly, before Constance had a chance to realise what had been said. Like William, she was on edge, permanently alert for anything that might set their mother off.

  Mercifully, Phil took the hint. ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘Although our paths didn’t cross a great deal in those days,’ she sighed. ‘I was too busy studying, and your brother was too busy with his—’

  ‘Carrots?’ William thrust the bowl across the table at her, shooting her a warning look.

  ‘Thank you.’ Phil took it, her smile teasing. ‘As I was saying, I was too busy studying, and Will was too busy with his studies, too.’ William shook his head at her, but she ignored him. ‘We lost touch for several years when we went our separate ways. But we met again at a college reunion at Christmas. Isn’t that right, Will?’

  The searing look she gave him made him blush. That night had been one of the most memorable and extraordinary of his life. He had never met a woman who was so confident, so sure of what she wanted.

  ‘It must have been nice for you, to catch up on old times?’ Constance remarked.

  ‘Oh, yes. We had a lot of catching up to do, didn’t we?’

  She simply didn’t give a damn, he thought. That night they had gone back to his hotel room and made love, and then the following morning Phil was gone before he’d woken up. When he’d finally managed to track down her telephone number, she had seemed almost irritated to hear from him again. It came as an unpleasant shock to William, who was more used to dealing with clinging, tearful girls than fiercely independent ones.

  It had been the same ever since. Phil called the shots completely. He thought he knew how to play games, but he was a beginner beside her. Not that she played unfairly; she was utterly candid, and made it absolutely clear that William was by no means the only man in her life. He had to fight for her attention, and when he finally won it, it felt like a real victory.

  Phil turned her attention to Helen and her boyfriend. ‘Will told me you two met in hospital. How divinely romantic!’ she said.

  ‘How unprofessional, more like.’ Constance glared down the table at Helen as she crossly attacked her roast beef. ‘Romantic associations between patients and nurses are not permitted at the Nightingale. I’m surprised my daughter wasn’t dismissed.’

  ‘We didn’t have an association while Charlie was a patient, Mother,’ Helen pointed out. William stared at her, impressed. Six months ago, a harsh word from her mother would have been enough to turn his sister into a nervous, stuttering wreck.

  ‘But I did have my eye on her,’ Charlie admitted with a sheepish grin. ‘Not that I thought she’d look twice at me, after my accident,’ he added. He turned to Constance. ‘Lovely dinner, Mrs Tremayne.’

  ‘In polite circles, it is referred to as luncheon,’ she corrected him frostily.

  ‘Oh. I beg your pardon.’ William saw Charlie redden, and exchanged an anguished glance with his sister across the table.

  Phil turned to Charlie, her face animated. ‘Do you mind if I ask you about your leg?’

  William laughed, thankful that she’d changed the subject. ‘I forgot to warn you, Charlie old man, Phil has an absolute obsession with limbs, especially lost ones.’

  ‘I merely have a professional interest.’ She turned back to Charlie. ‘You don’t mind my asking about it, do you?’

  ‘’Course not,’ he replied good-naturedly.

  ‘Not at the table, Philippa, please!’ Constance said with a tight smile.

  Phil ignored her. ‘So how did it happen?’ she asked.

  ‘It was an accident at the factory where I was working. Got my trouser leg caught in a bit of unguarded machinery.’

  William saw his
mother’s narrow mouth purse with distaste. ‘Some of us are still eating . . .’

  ‘How fascinating. What happened then?’ Phil asked

  ‘Well, my leg got trapped. It ended up being pulled into the machinery and crushed.’

  ‘Completely crushed?’

  ‘There was nothing left of it, once they cut my trouser leg off.’

  ‘Goodness, I would have loved to have seen that. I’ve been present at amputations before, but nothing as dramatic as that. I don’t suppose they took photographs?’

  ‘I don’t think there was much left to photograph, to be honest. The doctor reckoned—’

  ‘Really, I hardly think this is suitable conversation!’ Constance let her knife and fork drop with a clatter, silencing them. ‘Timothy, perhaps you would like to tell the children about your sermon this morning, since they missed the service?’ She turned pleadingly to her husband.

  William noticed the mischievous wink that passed between Phil and Charlie, and smiled to himself. He didn’t blame either of them. Charlie deserved some revenge after the way Mother had treated him.

  It was a relief all round when the afternoon ended. Phil drove them back, since William’s beloved car Bessie was in the garage yet again.

  ‘Nice car,’ Charlie commented. ‘Hillman Minx?’

  Phil nodded. ‘Pressed steel body and a thirty brake horsepower engine.’

  ‘Synchromesh?’

  ‘Of course. Got it new last year.’

  ‘Phil knows about cars,’ William said.

  ‘Phil knows about everything,’ she corrected him, gunning the motor into life.

  ‘But she’s incredibly modest with it,’ he added, grinning at her.

  The atmosphere in the car was much more relaxed on the way back to London. They chatted, and laughed, and were generally relieved that they had survived another Sunday at the Vicarage.

  ‘Your mother’s not that bad,’ Charlie said tolerantly. ‘Well, she isn’t,’ he insisted, to a chorus of groans.

  ‘Why do you insist on seeing the best in everyone, Charlie?’ William asked, exasperated. ‘You make the rest of us look terrible.’