‘I mean it,’ he said. ‘You’re far too good for me.’
‘I’ll make my own mind up, thank you very much.’ Millie stopped and turned to face him. She was so close he could smell her flowery perfume. ‘Kiss me,’ she said.
William looked down at her upturned face, her innocent eyes, and felt a jolt of desire so powerful he could barely control it.
‘I can’t,’ he said.
Her face fell. ‘Don’t you want to kiss me?’
‘Of course I do. More than anything. But we’re both extremely drunk, we’re on a lonely stretch of river on a dark night, and it’s all a bit too compromising.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘No, but I do.’ Any other girl and he might have taken advantage. No, he knew he would. He’d done it before. But Millie Benedict was too special. ‘Besides, I made a promise to Helen.’
Millie squinted at him in confusion. ‘What has your sister got to do with this?’
‘She asked me to stay away from you.’ William glanced down at the cobbles. ‘I – I had a bit of an entanglement with a girl she used to share a room with, and poor Helen caught the flak. I don’t think she wants to go through that again.’
‘This is nothing to do with Helen!’
‘You don’t know what it was like for her. You mustn’t blame her . . .’
He reached for Millie, but she pulled away, stiff with indignation. ‘Don’t touch me,’ she said. ‘Your sister might not like it.’
She turned and tottered off up the street. William caught up with her and tried to put his arm around her to steady her again, but she shrugged him off. They crept in through the hospital gates. Millie slipped past the porters’ lodge and headed purposefully around the side of the nurses’ block.
‘How are you going to get in?’ William whispered in the darkness.
‘How do you think?’
She tried the drainpipe, but William stopped her. ‘You can’t climb up there!’ he said, appalled.
‘Why not? I’ve done it before lots of times.’ She was already taking off her shoes.
‘Not after half a dozen port and lemons, you haven’t. You’ll break your neck . . .’
Regardless, she put her hands around the drainpipe and tried to wedge her foot into a piece of loose brickwork. It slipped, sending a brick rolling noisily across the path. They both tensed, waiting for a light to go on. It didn’t.
He put his hand on her arm. ‘Come on, we’ll find another way in.’
They headed around the back of the block, trying windows. ‘Everything’s locked up,’ Millie said mournfully. She gazed at the windows on the first floor. ‘I wonder if I should throw a stone up and try to wake someone?’
‘You might not get the right window.’
‘Then it’ll have to be the drainpipe.’
‘I’m not letting you break your neck.’
‘I didn’t think you cared,’ Millie said huffily.
‘Of course I care.’ Their eyes met in the darkness, and once again William felt the powerful jolt of desire.
This time it was too strong to fight. As he lowered his face to kiss her, Millie suddenly said, ‘I have an idea. Come on.’
She led the way to the other side of the block. ‘There’s a corridor that joins the nurses’ block to the rest of the hospital,’ she explained. ‘We’re not allowed to use it, it’s only for sisters. But if I could somehow get into one of the wards on the ground floor, I might be able to sneak in that way.’
William laughed. ‘Break into a ward? That’s even riskier than climbing up a drainpipe!’ But Millie was already heading towards the courtyard, inching her way around in the shadows. He followed her.
‘Millie, this is ridiculous . . .’
‘Shhh!’ she hissed at him. ‘Do you want me to get caught?’
She edged round a corner and stopped beside a window. ‘This will do,’ she said.
‘Which ward is it?’
‘I can’t tell.’ Millie craned over and tried to peer through the window.
William counted the windows. ‘I think it might be Hyde.’ He judged it with narrowed eyes. ‘Yes, definitely Hyde.’
Millie tested the window. ‘It’s unlocked. I can climb in and sneak through.’
‘What if you’re caught?’
‘Honestly, William, where’s your sense of adventure?’ She smiled at him, a smile that melted his heart and made his head spin.
‘This is where we say goodbye,’ she said.
‘Yes.’ He didn’t want to. His legs wouldn’t move.
‘Thank you for a very enjoyable evening.’
Before he had a chance to reply, Millie bobbed up and in one swift movement threw open the window and slithered through. It wasn’t until she had disappeared that he realised he was still holding her shoes in his hand.
Millie landed with a soft thud in the narrow space between two beds. She crouched for a moment in the darkness, waiting for her eyes to get used to the gloom. All around her, bedsprings creaked and the air was filled with the sound of low moans and sobbing. They sounded like souls in purgatory. Millie shuddered. What an awful place to have to be.
She finally got her bearings and started to inch forward on her hands and knees to peer around the end of the bed. The doors seemed to be a hundred miles away, at the far end of the ward. She was still working out how she could crawl down the length of it when she heard the muffled squeak of rubber-soled shoes approaching. She turned around, just in time to see a tall, slender figure emerge from behind a screen, a bedpan in her hands.
Before Millie could duck back into the shadows the nurse saw her. She jumped, let out a startled cry and dropped the bedpan with a clatter. It crashed like noisy cymbals around the ward, setting all the women off in an unearthly chorus of screaming and wailing.
Millie recognised the nurse in the middle of all the chaos. ‘Tremayne? It’s me.’
Helen peered at her in the darkness. ‘Benedict? What are you doing here?’ she hissed.
Before Millie had a chance to answer, more footsteps approached.
‘What’s the meaning of all this noise?’ Millie heard the Night Sister’s voice and dived for cover under the nearest bed. She lay there, hardly daring to breathe. She could see the Night Sister’s sensible shoes, just inches from her face.
‘Well?’
‘I . . . I . . .’ she heard Helen floundering desperately. Shock seemed to have paralysed her vocal chords.
‘Speak up, girl.’
‘Sister, there is a young woman under my bed,’ a voice announced, clear and high, from just above Millie’s head. She froze.
She heard the Night Sister’s heavy sigh. ‘Mrs Mortimer, there is not a young woman under your bed, just as there are no fairies prancing every night on top of Miss Fletcher’s bedside locker, or men playing the bagpipes down the middle of the ward. It’s all just the effect of your medication.’
‘But—’
‘Please, Mrs Mortimer, I don’t have time for this,’ the Night Sister said impatiently. She turned to Helen. ‘Get this mess cleaned up immediately,’ she said. ‘And please quieten the patients. This ward gets more like a menagerie every night. I’m sure Sister Hyde would not approve.’
She walked away, her tread as light and soft as a dancer’s.
Millie waited until she was sure the coast was clear, then stuck her head out.
‘It’s all right, you can come out now.’ Helen squatted down to pick up the bedpan, her face stony.
She looked so furious, Millie couldn’t help giggling. ‘It’s not funny,’ Helen snapped. ‘You could have got both of us sent to Matron. Honestly, it’s bad enough that you come in through the window at all hours without . . .’ She sniffed, suddenly alert. ‘Have you been drinking?’
‘No. Yes. A little,’ Millie admitted.
‘Oh, for God’s sake! This is too much. First you stay out late, then you break into a ward drunk as a lord. I’ll be amazed if they don’t throw you out on your ear.’<
br />
‘They’ll have to catch me first.’ Millie wriggled out from under the bed and stood up, dusting off her dress. ‘I’m terribly sorry,’ she said to the woman in the bed, who was watching her through narrowed eyes.
‘I should think so too,’ snapped Mrs Mortimer. ‘Thanks to you, that wretched woman now thinks I’m as demented as the rest of them. This nurse is quite right, you should be thrown out. I will write to the Board of Trustees in the morning.’
Millie looked at Helen and another giggle escaped her.
‘Just go to bed,’ Helen said wearily. ‘And try not to get caught.’
Lucy Lane shuffled along the darkened corridor to the toilet, still half asleep. She jumped when she heard the stairs creak and saw a dark shape appear on the landing.
‘What the—’ she started to say. But the shape stumbled past her and continued up the stairs to the attic. It tripped on the top step and Lucy heard a high-pitched giggle.
Millie. Lucy listened to her clattering about on the top landing, taut with resentment. No matter how hard she’d tried, Lady Amelia Benedict showed no interest in being her friend. She seemed to prefer to hang around with that awful common Dora Doyle. It sickened Lucy to see them together all the time, laughing and joking.
They should both stick to their own kind, she decided. She had far more in common with Millie, but most of the time the other girl ignored her.
And she had led such a charmed life, too. Everyone adored Millie, and everything came so easily to her. Lucy couldn’t imagine her losing sleep over whether her parents were fighting, or whether she was rich or popular or clever enough. Millie had never known a moment’s real anxiety in her life.
Lucy smiled to herself in the darkness. Well, it was about time she learnt what it felt like.
Chapter Thirty-Two
MILLIE WOKE UP the following morning with a pounding headache, dry mouth and a churning stomach, absolutely certain she was going to die. The maid’s voice outside their door summoning them awake sounded like an unearthly clamour.
‘I truly don’t feel at all well,’ she told Dora, pulling the thin covers around her, her teeth chattering. ‘Do you think I should go to the sick bay? I think I might have a virus, and I don’t want to pass it on to the patients.’
‘I don’t think what you’ve got is contagious.’ Dora smiled knowingly as she adjusted her woollen stocking to hide a hole. ‘If you ask me, I reckon you had too much to drink last night.’
‘Surely not!’ Millie sat up sharply and wished she hadn’t, as the world lurched sickeningly around her. ‘I only had – oh, heavens.’ She’d lost count after the third port and lemon, but she had the awful feeling there had been many more.
Dora laughed. ‘You came crashing in here, fell over the rug and passed out face down on your bed. I had to get you undressed.’
Millie clutched her head and stared at the heap of discarded clothes that lay crumpled on the floor as the previous night’s events came back to her in sickening waves. Had she really climbed in through a window in Female Chronics? Worse still, had she really asked – no, practically begged – William Tremayne to kiss her?
Hot shame washed over her. She wasn’t sure which was worse, her asking or him refusing.
Dora noticed her look of dismay. ‘What happened last night?’ she asked.
Millie couldn’t meet her eye. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Dr Tremayne didn’t try anything with you, did he? Only I’ve heard about his reputation with the nurses. I wasn’t sure if I did the right thing, leaving you alone with him . . .’
‘Dr Tremayne was a perfect gentleman.’ Millie blushed, thinking of the bold way she’d turned her face towards his, ready for a kiss.
‘How odd. From what I’ve heard, he never usually misses a chance to get fresh.’ Dora shrugged. ‘Anyway, you’d better hurry up and get dressed before Sister Sutton comes in. This room smells like a brewery.’ She sat down on the bed to pull on her shoes.
‘I can’t.’ Millie fell back groaning against the unyielding pillows. ‘You don’t understand. I can’t ever face the world again.’
‘It’s not that bad.’
‘But I did something terrible. Tremayne is going to hate me.’
‘Why? What on earth did you do?’
Millie told her about breaking into the ward. For some reason Dora seemed to find the idea of her getting stuck under a patient’s bed hilarious.
‘You’re a caution, d’you know that?’ she laughed, wiping away a tear.
‘It’s not funny!’ Millie insisted. ‘I’m so mortified, I just want to crawl away and die.’ She pulled the sheets over her head. ‘Tremayne is probably writing to her mother about me as we speak.’
‘Don’t be daft.’ Dora tugged at the covers. ‘Now get up, get dressed, wash your face and come and have some breakfast.’
‘Ugh! I couldn’t face breakfast.’
‘You must. It’ll do you good.’
She was right. Even though Millie’s stomach churned as she forced herself to eat tiny forkfuls of cold kipper, by the time she’d washed the last of it down with a cup of hot, sweet tea she felt less fragile.
She was still feeling a little shaky as she cleaned out the sluice and did the bedpan round. And when she had to hold a bowl for one of the women to be sick, her own stomach heaved in sympathy.
But she thought she was managing quite well until Sister Wren sought her out and told her to report to Matron’s office.
‘Why, Sister? What have I done?’
Sister Wren looked affronted. ‘Good heavens, there is so much wrong with you I would hardly know where to start,’ she said. ‘But for once the complaint has not come from me. Now hurry along. I want those lockers cleaned and scrubbed when you get back.’
At nine o’clock, Millie joined the line of sorry-looking nurses waiting outside Matron’s office.
Matron sat behind her desk, Miss Hanley the Assistant Matron at her shoulder. Outside the harsh wind spattered rain against the windowpanes like gravel against the glass. It was more of a downpour than an April shower.
Matron eyed her wearily. ‘Do you recall, Benedict, the last time we met in this office I told you that if I heard one more report of your misbehaviour, I would have no choice but to dismiss you?’ she said.
‘Yes, Matron.’ A tiny seed of unease began to unfurl inside her.
‘And if I recall correctly, you gave me your word that you would be a reformed character and apply yourself assiduously to your studies?’
‘Yes, Matron. I have, Matron.’
‘Indeed?’ Matron’s brows rose. ‘In that case, why did I this morning receive an anonymous note claiming that you returned to the nurses’ home late last night in a severe state of intoxication?’
Millie stared down at the parquet floor. She was too afraid to breathe, let alone speak.
‘Should the allegations in this note turn out to be true, you understand I would have no choice but to dismiss you immediately from this hospital. I cannot have students behaving in such an outrageous fashion.’
‘No, Matron.’ This was it, Millie thought. She could already see herself travelling home on the train, Felix picking her up at the station, her father’s disappointment, her grandmother’s elation . . .
‘However, as yet I have been unable to prove these accusations,’ Matron continued. ‘I have received no official complaint either from Home Sister, or the night porter. I cannot make decisions about a nurse’s future based on gossip and rumour. And since the author of this note clearly lacks the courage to approach me personally with any proof, I am regrettably forced to give you another chance.’
Millie looked up, scarcely able to believe what she was hearing. Neither could Miss Hanley, judging by the thunderous look of outrage on her face.
‘You – you mean you’re not dismissing me?’ said Millie.
‘Not unless you wish to confess to this misdemeanour?’
Millie opened her mouth and closed it again. She knew
honesty was one of her many failings, but even she wasn’t silly enough to speak up now.
‘I have nothing to say, Matron,’ she said stiffly.
‘No, I didn’t think you would.’ There was a glint in Matron’s grey eyes. ‘Very well, then, Benedict, you may go. But rest assured, I will be keeping my eye on you.’
‘Yes, Matron. Thank you, Matron.’
‘Oh, and Benedict?’
‘Yes, Matron?’
‘You might find a couple of Aspirin beneficial, I think.’
Millie felt as if she’d received a last-minute reprieve on her way to the gallows. Her hangover forgotten, she almost danced her way through the rest of her duties on the ward, and by lunchtime she was feeling a great deal better, even though she still couldn’t face food.
She was pushing a stringy piece of meat around her plate when one of the seniors, Amy Hollins, plonked herself down in the seat next to her. Millie was shocked; seniors rarely associated with lowly pros.
‘What were you doing in Hyde last night?’
Millie looked at her sharply. ‘You saw me?’
‘I was coming back from my break just as you were sneaking out. You weren’t exactly being subtle about it. What were you up to?’
She laughed when Millie told her. Millie couldn’t understand why everyone seemed to find it so amusing.
‘You’re lucky no one caught you.’
‘They did,’ Millie said miserably. ‘I had to see Matron this morning.’
‘I bet she was furious.’
‘Actually, she was very nice about it. She said since Sister Sutton hadn’t caught me red-handed, there wasn’t much she could do.’ Millie put down her fork, her appetite gone. ‘I wish I knew who’d written that note. What a beastly thing to do.’
‘I bet I can guess,’ Amy said through a mouthful of food. ‘It’s got to be Tremayne, hasn’t it?’
Millie shook her head. ‘She wouldn’t do a thing like that.’
‘What makes you so sure?’
‘Because she’s not like that. She’s always covered for me in the past when I’ve come in late.’
‘Perhaps you upset her?’
The Nightingale Girls Page 26
