The Nightingale Nurses

by Donna Douglas

  Ruby shrugged. ‘I wanted to marry him.’

  And what about us? a voice inside Dora’s head screamed. What about what Nick and I wanted?

  ‘Anyway, it’s done now, ain’t it?’

  Yes, it’s done now, Dora thought. One lie had taken Nick away from her for ever.

  She thought about the wedding day: how she’d stood and watched Ruby marry the man she loved. It had hurt so badly Dora thought she would die from the pain, but she had endured it because she thought it was the right thing to do, for the sake of Ruby and the baby she was carrying.

  And all the time Ruby had been lying, stringing them along. She had destroyed Dora’s happiness, and all so she could get what she wanted.

  Dora stared at her. Ruby looked so casual, as if she had been caught out in a silly fib. Dora thought she saw a faint gleam of satisfaction in her eyes, and clutched her hands together to stop herself from slapping that smug face.

  ‘How could you do it?’ she whispered.

  ‘There’s no need to look at me like that,’ Ruby snapped. ‘All right, so I wasn’t straight with him. But so what? We’re happy together now. I’ve been a good wife to Nick, I’ve given him everything he could want. You ask him, if you don’t believe me.’

  Dora shook her head in wonder. ‘You don’t understand, do you? You’re that selfish, you just can’t see it. He’s mourning for a baby who never existed. You broke his heart, Ruby.’

  The other girl turned her face away, her mouth set in an obstinate line. ‘He’ll get over it.’

  ‘You need to tell him the truth.’

  Ruby gave a squawk of disbelieving laughter. ‘Are you joking?’

  ‘If you don’t tell him, I will.’

  The colour drained from Ruby’s face. ‘You wouldn’t!’

  ‘He should know the truth.’

  ‘He’d leave me.’

  ‘Maybe that’s what you deserve.’

  Ruby stared at her for a moment. Then a slow, knowing smile spread across her face. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’ she said. ‘And I suppose you’d be there to welcome him with open arms? Good old Dora, always ready with a shoulder to cry on. Or maybe you’d like to offer him more than that?’ she suggested slyly.

  Dora felt her face flaming. ‘I dunno what you mean.’

  ‘Don’t give me that!’ Ruby’s lip curled. ‘Do you really think I’m that daft? I know you’re in love with my husband. I’ve always known it. You think you’re so clever, but for all your brains you can’t hide your feelings.’ She shook her head pityingly. ‘All this talk about Nick needing to know the truth, as if you’re doing him a favour. When all the time you’re thinking about yourself, looking for your chance to take him away from me.’

  ‘That’s not true . . .’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ There was a taunting edge to Ruby’s voice. ‘You sure about that, Dora? Because from where I’m standing, you’re the one who’s selfish, not me.’

  Dora could hardly believe what she was hearing. ‘How do you work that out?’

  ‘Think about it,’ Ruby said. ‘We’re married. Maybe Nick wouldn’t have wed me in the first place unless he’d thought I was expecting, but we’re happy now. If you tell him about the baby, what good would it do? All right, he might walk out on me. But he could never divorce me, not unless I gave him grounds. And whatever else I’ve been, I’ve never been unfaithful to him. So he could never really be yours, could he? And I don’t suppose that Matron of yours would like the idea of you taking up with a married man, do you?’

  Dora stared at Ruby’s face, twisted with spite. She barely recognised the hard-faced girl standing before her as her friend.

  She hated to admit it but Ruby was right. Telling Nick the truth would surely break up his marriage, but it wouldn’t bring Dora any happiness. He would still be a married man, and she would be disgraced if she had anything to do with him.

  And if he stuck to his vows and stayed with Ruby, they would be unhappy for ever. Did she really want to condemn him to a lifetime of misery and mistrust?

  Ignorance is bliss, so her Nanna Winnie always said.

  Ruby must have seen the doubt in Dora’s face. She smiled.

  ‘You can tell Nick if it makes you feel better,’ she said. ‘But it won’t change anything. He was mine the minute he put this ring on my finger. And nothing you can do or say is going to change that!’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  IT WAS THE night of the Founder’s Day Ball, and the attic room was in chaos. Helen sat on her bed, with a heavy textbook propped on her knee, and tried to read as discarded shoes, aprons, collars and cuffs flew through the air around her.

  Katie O’Hara hopped around the bedroom, pulling on a stocking. ‘We’ll be so late, we might as well not bother going.’

  ‘The sooner you stop complaining, the sooner we’ll be ready,’ Lucy Lane snapped, jostling with Millie for space in the mirror over the chest of drawers.

  ‘I hope my Tom doesn’t think I’ve stood him up.’ Katie stepped into her dress and wriggled it over her hips.

  ‘I’m sure he’ll find someone to keep him entertained,’ Lucy muttered as she applied her lipstick.

  ‘I heard that!’ Katie looked up, hurt. ‘I know what everyone thinks, but my Tom isn’t like that. Not any more, anyway. He says he’s a changed man since he met me – oh, no! Now look what I’ve done!’

  Helen looked up from her textbook. White flesh poked through a rip in the seam of Katie’s dress.

  ‘That’s your fault!’ she accused Lucy.

  ‘Me? What have I done?’

  ‘You made me agitated, talking about my Tom.’

  ‘I did not!’

  ‘You did!’

  ‘If anything it’s your fault for putting on more weight.’

  ‘Calm down, both of you. I can easily stitch it up again.’ Dora cast Helen a long-suffering look as she reached on top of her wardrobe for her sewing kit.

  ‘Have a drink, it’ll make you feel better.’ Millie pulled a bottle of gin out from under her mattress and passed it to Katie.

  ‘Do you have to drink that in here?’ Helen cast a panicked glance at the door as Katie opened the bottle and took a long swig. ‘If Sister Sutton comes in . . .’

  ‘She won’t,’ Millie said, taking the bottle back and swigging some herself. ‘She’s too busy downstairs, ordering everyone to take their make-up off.’

  ‘If she tells me to take my make-up off, I’ll – I’ll kick her dog!’ Katie declared.

  Helen smiled to herself as she went back to her reading.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want to come with us, Tremayne?’ Dora asked.

  ‘Quite sure,’ Helen said, keeping her eyes fixed on a diagram of the digestive system.

  She wasn’t sure she could trust herself to see her mother, after what Constance had done. How dare she ask Alec Little to take Helen to the ball? And after she had said she wasn’t going, too.

  Constance was probably expecting Helen to turn up with her tail between her legs, to fall in with her plans as usual. But not this time. Helen was determined to make a stand.

  ‘I’ll probably go and visit Charlie later anyway,’ she said, flicking over a page of her book.

  Ten minutes later they were gone and a welcome hush fell over the room. Helen listened to them stumbling down the stairs, trying to be as quiet as possible so as not to rouse Sister Sutton. She smiled when she heard Sparky yapping, followed by Sister Sutton’s voice roaring, ‘You girls! Where do you think you’re going in such a hurry? What have you been told about running?’

  Helen smiled to herself. She hoped Sister Sutton didn’t find the hip flask of gin Millie had tucked into her evening bag.

  After they’d gone, she quickly tidied up everything they’d left behind, folding up uniforms, smoothing out collars and cuffs and tucking discarded shoes under the bed. Then she put on her coat and hat and went out to visit Charlie.

  She’d reached the landing downstairs when she heard a s
ound coming from Amy Hollins’ room at the far end of the passage. Helen hesitated, listening. It sounded like someone crying.

  She paused for a moment, her hand on the banister. It was none of her business, she told herself. She started down the next flight of stairs, but had barely taken two steps before the sound of muffled sobbing stopped her in her tracks again.

  She went back up the stairs and crept along the passageway towards Amy’s room. As she breathed in, she caught the scent of roses. It seemed oddly familiar, but she couldn’t place where she’d smelled it before. Probably on one of the girls who had just gone out, she decided.

  ‘Hollins?’ she called out softly. ‘Are you all right?’

  The crying stopped abruptly. Helen waited, then tapped on the door. ‘Hollins?’

  ‘Go away!’ a voice clotted with tears called out from the other side of the door.

  Helen stepped back as if she’d been slapped. Every ounce of good sense she had told her to walk away, but somehow she couldn’t.

  ‘You sound upset,’ she said. ‘I just wondered if there was anything I could do—’

  ‘I said, go away!’ Amy’s voice was harsh.

  Helen didn’t need to be told again. Gathering her coat around her, she hurried down the stairs.

  ‘Scarlet Fever?’

  Helen stood on the doorstep of the Dawsons’ narrow terraced house. It had just started to rain, but she barely noticed the big fat drops that splashed off the end of her nose. She could scarcely believe what she was hearing.

  ‘He’s been poorly for a couple of days now,’ Nellie Dawson said. ‘Sorry, love, I did leave a note up at the hospital for you. Charlie will be so cross you’ve had a wasted journey.’

  But that was the last thing on her mind. ‘How bad is he?’ Helen asked.

  ‘Well, he’s in a right old state with himself. Hasn’t been able to do anything the past couple of days, and you know that’s not like our Charlie.’ Nellie Dawson smiled on seeing Helen’s stricken expression. ‘There’s nothing to worry about, ducks,’ she assured her. ‘He’ll be right as rain by the end of the week. I’ve nursed most of mine through Scarlet Fever, and it always looks worse than it is.’

  ‘Can I see him?’

  Nellie frowned. ‘Are you sure that’s a good idea, love? We wouldn’t want you catching it, would we?’

  ‘I suppose not.’ Helen bit her lip, fighting the sudden urge to cry.

  Nellie Dawson sighed. ‘Look, since you’re here, why don’t you come in for a cuppa? It’s all right, none of us are infectious or we would have shown symptoms by now. I’ve scrubbed the house from top to bottom, and Charlie’s tucked away upstairs. You’re quite safe.’

  ‘All the same, I wouldn’t want to intrude—’

  ‘Bless you, love, you couldn’t intrude if you tried. Come on in, before you catch your death in that rain.’

  Helen sat at the table in the Dawsons’ cosy kitchen and watched Nellie bustling around, preparing the tea on the big, old-fashioned range. Whenever Helen had visited before, Nellie had always insisted on her going into the front parlour, their ‘best’ room, as she called it.

  ‘It’s because she thinks you’re posh!’ Charlie always laughed.

  But Helen much preferred the kitchen. It felt like the heart of the house, full of warmth and noise. Charlie’s dad snored softly in the chair beside the fire, his stockinged feet up on the range, the evening paper still open on his lap. Charlie’s younger brothers and sisters played cards at the other end of the table, smiling shyly at Helen as if she was some exotic creature. Band music came from the crackling wireless in the corner and Nellie hummed along as she filled the teapot. She was a big, comfortable-looking woman, with the same red-gold hair, bright blue eyes and rosy cheeks as her son.

  Nellie put the enormous brown teapot on the table, followed by a plate holding big slabs of cake.

  ‘It’s only a bit of seed cake,’ she said apologetically. ‘I would have got something better in if I’d known you were coming.’

  She dislodged a fat ginger cat snoozing on a kitchen chair. As it left in a huff, Helen noticed the book it had been perched on. It was a copy of Great Expectations.

  ‘What’s this?’ She reached for it. ‘Is this yours, Mrs Dawson?’

  ‘Bless you, love, can you imagine me reading all them long words?’ A blush crept up Mrs Dawson’s plump cheeks. ‘Our Charlie got it out of the library last week.’ She took it from Helen and dusted the cat hairs off it. ‘He was asking for it this morning. I wondered where it had got to.’

  ‘I didn’t know Charlie liked Dickens?’

  Mrs Dawson leaned forward confidingly. ‘Between you and me, he’s decided to go back to night school, get some exams,’ she said. ‘And I reckon we’ve got you to thank for that.’

  ‘Me?’

  Nellie nodded. ‘Now he’s stepping out with such a clever young lady, I think he wants to improve himself.’

  Helen had a sudden mental image of her mother. ‘He doesn’t have to improve himself for my sake,’ she said.

  ‘I realise that, love, but you know what Charlie’s like.’

  Helen turned her eyes to the ceiling. ‘I wish I could see him.’

  Nellie thought for a moment. ‘Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt for you to just take a peep at him, through the door?’ She suggested. ‘If you kept a long way away from him, I’m sure you wouldn’t catch anything.’

  Charlie was sleeping when she cautiously pushed open the door and looked inside. She could see immediately the tell-tale flush on his face, deep pink against the whiteness of his pillow. He was bundled under a pile of quilts.

  Helen watched him for a moment. He looked like a sleeping angel with his burnished golden hair tousled, lashes curling on his cheeks. He looked so peaceful she didn’t want to wake him, but as she was stepping away he suddenly spoke her name.

  She looked back around the edge of the door. Charlie’s blue eyes were staring straight at her, his mouth curved in a sleepy smile.

  ‘I didn’t want to disturb you,’ she whispered.

  ‘I would have been upset if you’d gone without saying hello.’ He rolled over on to his back and stretched. ‘What are you doing here? Why aren’t you at the ball?’

  ‘I couldn’t face it. How are you feeling?’

  ‘Blooming awful, since you ask. I ache all over, and my head’s pounding. And I can’t get warm, no matter how many blankets I sling on.’

  ‘You’ll feel better soon.’ Helen smiled. ‘The rash will probably get worse in the next day or two, but it should start to subside by the end of the week – what?’ She stopped talking on seeing his amused expression. ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘You. You’re like a walking textbook, aren’t you?’

  She smiled reluctantly. ‘That’s what comes of too much studying, I suppose.’

  They gazed at each other longingly. The small bedroom seemed a mile wide when they were unable to touch. Helen didn’t think she would ever take holding his hand for granted again.

  ‘You should have gone to the ball, you know,’ Charlie said. ‘It’s not right for you to fall out with your mum.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about her,’ Helen said flatly.

  ‘I know, but promise me you’ll make it up with her?’ He looked at Helen appealingly, his head tilted to one side. ‘Go on,’ he urged. ‘For me?’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ she promised. ‘Now I’d best get back downstairs. Is there anything you need before I go?’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind a kiss, but I can’t have that.’

  Helen laughed and blew him one. ‘You’ll just have to make do with that, I’m afraid. I’ll kiss you properly next time I see you.’

  He winked at her. ‘I’ll hold you to that.’

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ‘YOU LOOK GORGEOUS,’ Joe said, as they climbed the broad marble staircase of Bethnal Green Town Hall, where the Founder’s Day Ball was being held.

  ‘I don’t know about that.’ Dora bl
ushed at the compliment. ‘I don’t remember ever wearing anything this fancy, though. I borrowed it off Benedict. It’s proper silk chiffon, so heaven knows how much it cost.’

  She had been reluctant to wear the emerald green gown at first. ‘What if I tear a hole in it, or spill something down the front?’ she had wailed.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Millie had insisted. ‘And anyway, what else are you going to wear? The only long dress you have is your nightgown, and you can’t go to the ball in that!’

  ‘It’s not the dress that’s fancy. It’s you.’ Joe’s gaze was so intense it made Dora’s skin prickle. ‘I must be the luckiest bloke in the room.’

  They’d reached the top of the stairs. Before she knew what was happening, he pulled her to him and kissed her.

  ‘Stop it!’ Dora pushed him away. ‘Everyone’s looking at us!’

  The wide sweeping landing was crowded with people waiting to go into the ballroom. Nurses, ward sisters, doctors and consultants, all turned to look at them.

  ‘So? Let them look. I want everyone to know you belong to me.’

  ‘I don’t belong to anyone,’ Dora replied, tight-lipped.

  Joe looked down at her hands braced against his chest. ‘You think you can keep me at arm’s length for ever?’ He grinned at her. ‘I told you, I’m going to get you in the end, Dora Doyle. You see if I don’t!’

  There was a reckless glint in Joe’s eyes that made her feel uneasy. She frowned. ‘Have you been drinking?’

  ‘Tommy and I might have stopped for a couple of pints on the way, just to get us in the mood.’ He laughed. ‘Don’t look so disapproving! We’re meant to be having fun, ain’t we?’ Joe slipped one arm around her waist, pulling her to him. ‘You could do with a drink yourself, loosen you up a bit.’

  ‘We’ve been given orders to stick to the fruit punch.’

  His brows rose. ‘Since when did you nurses ever do as you’re told?’

  Dora glanced towards the double doors leading to the ballroom. Miss Fox the Matron was standing just inside them, tall and elegant in a gown of midnight blue crepe. She was smiling, but her gaze was everywhere, missing nothing. Dora wondered how many of the nurses would be lining up outside her office the following morning, feeling very sorry for themselves.