The Nightingale Girls

by Donna Douglas

  ‘I thought he might be rather keen on you.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Millie laughed. ‘And even if he is, I’m not keen on him.’

  ‘Aren’t you?’ Seb’s eyes were fixed on her.

  ‘Dr Tremayne has something of a reputation at the Nightingale,’ she said, evading the question.

  ‘Ah.’ Seb nodded wisely. ‘I suppose it’s for the best,’ he said. ‘Can you imagine what your grandmother would say if she found out you were stepping out with an impoverished junior doctor?’

  ‘I think by this stage she would be grateful I was stepping out with anyone,’ Millie sighed.

  ‘Perhaps we should get married?’ Seb said suddenly.

  Millie laughed. ‘What?’

  ‘Why not? We’ve got a lot going for us,’ he said, still with his gaze fixed on the dance floor. ‘We get along all right together, don’t we?’

  ‘Most of the time,’ Millie agreed, trying to straighten her features.

  ‘And it would make our respective families very happy, I’m sure.’ He glanced her way. ‘What do you say?’

  ‘I say that if that’s the best marriage proposal you can come up with, then you really should work on your approach before you seriously pop the question to a girl!’

  He pulled a face. ‘Who says I wasn’t serious? Think about it, Mil.’

  She looked into his eyes. He looked so earnest that for a moment she almost believed him. But after knowing him for so many years, she knew how believable Seb’s practical jokes could be.

  ‘I really don’t think I need to,’ she replied.

  Seb sighed dramatically, the very picture of a scorned lover. ‘Oh, well, I suppose it was worth a try. Tell you what, I’ll make a deal with you. If neither of us has found someone to marry us by the time we’re twenty-five, we’ll marry each other. How about that?’

  This time Millie had to laugh. ‘I’m sure you’ll be snapped up by then, Sebastian.’

  Right on cue, Georgina Farsley swanned up behind them. She looked radiant in eau-de-nil georgette that perfectly complemented her dramatic dark colouring.

  ‘There you are!’ she cried, as if she hadn’t been watching Seb’s every move for the past half hour. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Some of the gang are heading off for supper. We’re desperate for you to join us. Please say you’ll come?’ She was already tugging on his arm.

  Seb turned to Millie. ‘Will you come too?’

  Millie saw the sour look that flashed across Georgina’s face. ‘I’d love to, but I can’t. I have a late pass, but I still have to be ready for duty at seven tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Maybe I shouldn’t go either. After all, it’s bad form to leave your own sister’s wedding . . .’

  ‘You should,’ Millie encouraged him. ‘The bride and groom will be leaving soon anyway. Besides,’ she added in a low voice, ‘you need to practise being a playboy, remember?’

  Later, up in Sophia’s old bedroom, Millie helped the bride take off her heavy wedding dress and change into her going away outfit, a fitted costume in brilliant emerald green.

  ‘I’m so nervous,’ she blurted out, as she sat at her dressing table while Millie unpinned her hair.

  ‘Why? The wedding’s over, everything went beautifully. What have you got to be nervous about now?’

  ‘You know. The wedding night.’ Sophia met her gaze meaningfully in the mirror. ‘I just wish I knew what to expect,’ she said. ‘I tried to talk to Mummy about it, but she wasn’t very helpful. She told me I shouldn’t refuse my husband, no matter how much I might want to. But refuse him what?’

  Millie hid her smile. While she had still never even kissed a man herself, she had learned a lot from listening to Sister Parker and the women on Wren ward. She now considered herself quite worldly wise, in theory at least.

  ‘Do you really want to know?’ she said.

  Sophia twisted round to look at her. ‘What have you heard?’ she said. ‘Tell me, please. I need to know what to expect.’

  Millie looked at her friend’s desperate face. ‘Well . . .’ she began, putting down her hairbrush.

  By the time she’d finished, they were both giggling like schoolgirls. ‘Are you sure?’ Sophia said. ‘It all sounds so absurd.’

  Millie nodded. ‘It is rather, isn’t it?’

  Sophia reached for her hand. ‘Thanks for telling me anyway. I’m not nearly so terrified now.’ She smiled archly at Millie. ‘I expect it’ll be your turn soon!’

  ‘Don’t,’ Millie groaned. ‘Everyone’s been nagging me about marriage today. Even your brother’s been going on about it.’

  ‘Seb? What did he say?’

  ‘He proposed, would you believe?’ Millie picked up the hairbrush and started to brush out her friend’s long dark hair again. ‘Well, not really. He came up with a ridiculous plan for us to get married if no one else would have us. I think he wants to save me from ending up on the shelf. He can be such a joker sometimes.’ She smiled fondly to herself, then glanced up and saw Sophia’s serious expression in the mirror. ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t think he was joking, Millie.’

  ‘Of course he was!’

  ‘You really don’t know how he feels about you, do you?’ Sophia shook her head, marvelling. ‘Millie, my brother has been head over heels in love with you for years. But he’s always been too shy to do anything about it. Until now, apparently.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘I can’t believe Seb asked you to marry him like that. I suppose he thought if he pretended it was all a big joke he wouldn’t feel so bad if you turned him down. As if anyone would ever accept such an appalling proposal!’

  Millie was barely listening to her. She was too dazed by the revelation. ‘I had no idea,’ she said.

  ‘You won’t say anything to Seb, will you?’ Sophia pleaded. ‘He’d be simply mortified if he thought I’d breathed a word. I just thought you ought to know.’

  But Millie wasn’t sure she did need to know. She wasn’t sure how she was going to face Seb again, knowing he had feelings for her. Sophia’s revelation had changed everything between them. ‘But I don’t want to marry anyone,’ she protested.

  ‘I realise that, and so does Seb. You know he’d never put any pressure on you, don’t you? He truly admires what you’re doing. I think he’d wait for ever for you, if you asked him to.’ Sophia smiled and Millie tried to smile back, but her lips were frozen. She didn’t want him to wait for ever. She didn’t want him to wait at all.

  Her father’s chauffeur Felix drove her back to the Nightingale. Millie sat deep in thought all the way, still shaken by Sophia’s revelation. She had genuinely never realised Seb had any feelings for her beyond just friendship. But now she did, she wasn’t quite sure how she felt about it.

  She liked him. He was fun, clever, and witty without being unkind: gentle, sensitive and kind-hearted without being utterly wet. He could quote poetry and discuss books as well as he could ride a horse or shoot. And he was good-looking, too. A season of dancing with oafs and listening to bragging bores had taught Millie that she could certainly do a lot worse. But even so . . .

  As the Daimler turned the corner, it illuminated a couple embracing in the shadows of the looming hospital walls. They were in each other’s arms, kissing passionately, oblivious to everything around them.

  Millie looked away, embarrassed, but not before the young man turned his face towards her and she caught a glimpse of his profile. It was William Tremayne.

  ‘Are you all right, my lady?’ She hadn’t realised she’d cried out until Felix caught her eye in the rear-view mirror.

  ‘Yes . . . thank you, Felix.’

  Millie resisted the urge to look back over her shoulder until they’d reached the hospital gates. By then, thankfully, the couple had gone.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  DORA TRAILED TO the ward with a heavy heart to start her duty, already dreading the thought of seeing Alf again.

  Even after three weeks, the sight of him in his blue striped
pyjamas, his face florid against the starched pillows, turned her stomach.

  Her only consolation was that he seemed as unhappy as she did.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he greeted her unenthusiastically when she arrived to do his TPRs. ‘What do you want?’

  She ignored him, reaching for the thermometer over his bed. He eyed her warily. ‘What are you doing?’ he demanded.

  ‘Taking your temperature, what does it look like?’ She shook the thermometer with a flick of her wrist.

  ‘Isn’t there anyone else who can do it? What about that blonde piece?’ Alf craned his neck, looking desperately around.

  ‘She’s on her tea break, so I’m afraid we’re stuck with each other.’ She jammed the thermometer into his mouth before he could reply.

  She gingerly picked up his wrist to check his pulse, and felt him recoil. She watched him curiously as she counted the beats. His eyes were fixed on her, but not in the leering, overconfident way he usually looked at her. This time he looked almost . . .

  Fearful.

  That was it, she realised with a shock. Alf was actually afraid of her.

  She remembered what her mother had said about Alf being terrified of doctors and hospitals. Now, not only was he in hospital, but he was also completely at her mercy. And after everything he had done to her, no wonder he was scared.

  ‘What you smirking at?’ Alf watched her, eyes narrowed suspiciously, when she took the thermometer out of his mouth. ‘What does it say? Is it bad news?’

  She didn’t reply as she noted down the figures on his chart and hooked it back on the end of his bed.

  ‘You didn’t ought to go around grinning like a bloody Cheshire cat when there are sick people about,’ Alf grumbled.

  ‘And you didn’t ought to go around telling nurses what to do,’ Dora said, still smiling. ‘I could make life very uncomfortable for you, remember.’

  She saw him pale, his face suddenly grey against the snowy pillows. That would give him something to think about, she decided.

  And it gave her something to think about too. A way to make sure he didn’t hurt her sister again.

  Helen had never been in love, but she was sure it must feel something like she felt now, sitting in the stalls of the Rialto, holding hands in the dark with Charlie Denton.

  She had been nervous when he first suggested a trip to the pictures. She had never been to the cinema with anyone but her parents before, and then only on very rare occasions when it was a film of which her mother approved. She had also heard the other girls talking about what went on in the back row, and she worried that Charlie’s hands might start to wander after the lights went down.

  But he was the perfect gentleman as he had been every other time they’d been out together, buying her a box of chocolates and insisting on paying for the tickets.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind the stalls?’ he said anxiously.

  ‘It makes no difference to me where we sit.’ Helen would happily have sat on the floor as long as she was with him.

  The last six weeks had been the best of her whole life. Every week she and Charlie would meet on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. They would go to the park if it was fine, take a bus trip into town or go for tea at the local cafe. Helen knew the other girls would probably laugh at her – they liked to brag about the smart places they’d been with their boyfriends – but she was content just to be with him.

  Charlie had even taken her to meet his family. She already knew his mother from her visits to the hospital, and Mrs Denton was delighted to welcome the shy young nurse into her home.

  ‘You’ve been a tonic to our Charlie, you really have,’ she told Helen, embracing her warmly. ‘He’s a different lad since he met you.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Don’t say anything, but I never really took to that Sally Watkins. Too full of herself by half.’

  Helen had been overwhelmed by Charlie’s noisy, boisterous family – his younger brothers and sisters and his down-to-earth dad who sold fruit and veg in the market. It was so different from her own quiet home, where her mother would never even hug her own children, let alone a stranger.

  Although now Charlie was dropping hints about meeting her family. It was the only thing spoiling Helen’s happiness as she sat in the darkness, watching Robert Donat avoiding spies in The Thirty-nine Steps.

  She hadn’t told her mother about Charlie, of course, and shuddered to think what she would do if Constance ever found out about him.

  ‘You’re not ashamed of me, are you?’ Charlie had joked when she made yet another excuse.

  ‘Of course not,’ Helen said. Her mother would disapprove even if she were stepping out with the Prince of Wales.

  She hadn’t set out to deceive her parents, but she had never imagined she would get this far with Charlie. She’d thought that after one or two dates he would get bored and drop her. Then everything would go back to normal and her mother would be none the wiser.

  She had never imagined that weeks later they would still be seeing each other. And she certainly never imagined she would fall in love with him.

  She hadn’t realised she was frowning so hard until she caught Charlie looking questioningly at her in the darkness. She smiled and squeezed his hand reassuringly. She knew that one day she would have to do something about the situation, but not yet. Being truly happy was a rare feeling for Helen, and she wanted to enjoy it for as long as she could.

  ‘Did you enjoy the film?’ he asked as they stepped out into the brightly lit foyer.

  ‘Oh, yes, it was smashing.’

  ‘Really? Only you looked as if you were a million miles away.’

  ‘Sorry, I was just thinking about something else.’ Helen tucked her arm under his. ‘But I loved the film. It was terribly exciting, wasn’t it? Especially that bit at the end where the memory man gets shot—’

  But Charlie wasn’t listening to her. He was staring transfixed at a point beyond Helen’s shoulder. She turned to look. Descending the sweeping staircase from the circle on the arm of a good-looking young man was Charlie’s fiancée, Sally.

  Ex-fiancée, Helen reminded herself. But no one could have told it from the expression on Charlie’s face. Their eyes met across the room and Helen felt herself fade into the crowd.

  Sally made her way over to them. ‘Hello, Charlie,’ she said. ‘Fancy seeing you here.’

  ‘Sal.’ His voice was gruff.

  ‘You know Sam, don’t you?’ The two men nodded to each other. Helen waited for Charlie to introduce her, but he seemed to have forgotten all about her as he stared at Sally.

  They made polite small-talk for a minute or two, then she said, ‘Well, we’d best be off. It was nice to see you, Charlie. Maybe see you again sometime?’

  They walked back to the hospital in moody silence. Helen could tell Charlie was troubled but she was too afraid to ask why. All she knew was that their evening had been ruined. Seeing Sally had changed everything, she could tell.

  They were almost back at the hospital when he suddenly said, ‘Do you mind if we sit somewhere for a while? I need to talk to you.’

  Helen’s stomach dropped. Here it comes, she thought.

  ‘Can’t it wait?’ she said desperately. ‘I’ve got to be back at the hospital by ten, and it’s nearly quarter to.’

  ‘I’d rather say it now, if that’s all right?’

  No, it isn’t all right, Helen wanted to scream. She had the sudden urge to run away, never to hear the words that would end her happiness for ever. But it was already over, she realised sadly. It had been over the moment Charlie set eyes on Sally Watkins again.

  They sat on a bench across the road from Victoria Park. Helen stared at the tall iron gates and mentally tried to prepare herself for what she was about to hear.

  ‘I’m sorry about Sal,’ Charlie said. ‘I didn’t know she’d be there, otherwise I would never have suggested going to the pictures.’

  ‘You had to see her sooner or later, I suppose.’ And once you did, you realised
you were still in love with her and it was all over for us, she added silently.

  ‘I know. I’ve been wondering what I’d feel like when I saw her again. I’d been dreading it, to be honest. I mean, we’d been together since we were kids. We’d planned our future. She was the girl I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.’

  Charlie turned to look at her. His face was so wretched, Helen’s heart went out to him. ‘Real love doesn’t just go away, does it?’ he said.

  ‘No,’ Helen agreed sadly. She took a deep, shaky breath. ‘Look, you don’t have to explain. I understand,’ she said.

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Of course. I’ve been expecting it, to be honest.’ She looked down at her hands, unable to meet his eye. If she looked at him, she knew she would cry. ‘Like you said, you and Sally were together a long time. You’re bound to still have feelings for her. And I’m sure in time, once she gets used to the idea, she’ll realise she still has feelings for you, too. If you really love each other then it will work out.’ She gathered up her bag and stood up. ‘Now if you don’t mind, I must be getting back.’

  ‘Hang on.’ Charlie’s hand closed on her arm, pulling her back. ‘What are you on about? Who says I want Sally back?’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘Not a chance.’ He frowned at her. ‘Why would I want her back when I’ve got you?’

  It took a moment for his words to sink in. And even then Helen wasn’t sure she’d understood them. ‘I don’t understand. You just said . . .’

  ‘I’ll admit, I was dreading seeing her again. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about seeing her on the arm of another man. But when I saw her . . .’ He shook his head. ‘I felt nothing. Nothing at all. Except glad that I was with you and not her.’

  Helen sank back down on to the bench beside him. She wasn’t sure her legs would hold her up. ‘But you said real love doesn’t just disappear.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t. That’s what made me realise, what I felt for her was never real love. I was infatuated with her, I suppose. She was the prettiest girl in our street, and I was proud to be seen with her. I was even prouder when she said she’d marry me. But it didn’t seem real somehow. We always wanted different things. She was one for going out, living the high life, having a good time. She was always pushing me to get on, make something of myself, bring in more money. It used to drive her mad that I was happy to stay working with the lads at that factory.’ His mouth twisted. ‘Funny thing is, now I’m working with my uncle, learning a trade, which was what she always wanted me to do. But I’m not doing it for her any more. I want to do it to make you proud.’