The Nightingale Nurses Read online

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Donna Douglas

  Title Page

  Acknowledgements

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Copyright

  About the Book

  ‘Pay attention please, nurses. The next six months will be the most important of your lives.’

  It’s the final year of training for three young nurses at The Nightingale Hospital . . .

  Helen is at a crossroads in her life and begins to reconsider her future in nursing as she battles with her domineering mother over both her love life and her future career.

  Dora can’t stop loving Nick, who is married to her best friend, Ruby. But Ruby is hiding a dark secret with the potential to destroy Ruby’s marriage.

  Millie is anxious about her fiance Sebastian, sent to Spain to cover the Civil War, and things only get worse when she encounters a fortune teller who gives her a sinister warning.

  With war looming in Europe, and the East End of London squaring up to the threat of Oswald Mosley’s blackshirts, the women of the Nightingale have to face their own challenges, at work and in love.

  About the Author

  Donna Douglas lives in York with her husband and daughter. Besides writing novels, she is also a very well-respected freelance journalist and she writes for numerous women’s magazines and national newspapers.

  Also available by Donna Douglas

  The Nightingale Girls

  The Nightingale Sisters

  The Nightingale Nurses

  Donna Douglas

  Acknowledgements

  The Nightingale Nurses would not exist without the help and support of a lot of people. First, I’d like to thank my agent Caroline Sheldon for encouraging me to take on the project in the first place, and my new editor Jenny Geras for taking me on and becoming a part of the Nightingale world. I’d also like to thank the whole Random House team, especially Katherine Murphy for keeping the production on track, Andrew Sauerwine and his great sales team for getting the book into the shops, and Amelia Harvell and Sarah Page for making sure people heard about it.

  I’d also like to thank the Archives department of the Royal College of Nursing for their tireless help in tracking down facts, the Wellcome Library and the Bethnal Green Local History Archives. Not to mention all the brilliant nurses who have shared their stories (most of which are too shocking to include!) and the lovely readers who have taken the Nightingales to their hearts.

  Last, but not least, I would like to thank my long-suffering husband Ken, who has put up with more hysteria than any man should ever have to suffer, not to mention coming home every evening to find me wearing the Pyjamas of Doom as deadline approached. And my daughter Harriet, who read each chapter as I wrote it, cheered and booed and cried in all the right places, and whose comments and enthusiasm kept me going. Sorry those sad bits made your make-up run on the bus . . .

  To Ken, Harriet and Lewis

  Chapter One

  ‘PAY ATTENTION PLEASE, Nurses. The next six months will be the most important of your lives.’

  The classroom instantly fell silent. Florence Parker the Sister Tutor stood on her dais and surveyed the rows of third-year students over her pebble glasses. She looked like a sweet old lady with her comfortably plump figure and white hair drawn back under her starched cap. But no student ever made that mistake twice.

  ‘You have almost completed your three years of training. But you mustn’t get carried away with your success,’ she warned, her Scottish accent ringing around the walls, which were lined with diagrams of the human anatomy. ‘There is still much ahead of you. In October you will take your State Examinations. Once you have passed those – if, indeed, you pass them –’ she eyed them severely ‘– you will qualify and be able to call yourself State Registered Nurses.’

  Sister Parker allowed a brief ripple of excitement to run through the young women assembled before her on wooden benches before going on. ‘After that, you may choose to continue your training in another field, such as midwifery or district nursing. Or you may be invited by Matron to become a staff nurse here at the Nightingale. But I must remind you, this is a very great honour, and only the very best will be selected.’ Her gaze picked out Amy Hollins on the back row, twirling a strand of blonde hair around her finger as she gazed out of the window. ‘Those who are not invited will, of course, be free to apply to other hospitals.’

  Not that anyone would want that. The Florence Nightingale Teaching Hospital might be in a humble area of London’s East End, but it had an excellent reputation. Every student wanted the chance to call herself a Nightingale Nurse.

  ‘And then, of course, there is the Nightingale Medal itself, which is given to the most outstanding student in each year.’ Sister Parker gave a nod towards the far wall of the classroom, filled with photographs of previous winners. ‘That is something for you all to aspire to.’

  She looked straight at Helen Tremayne as she said it. Helen sat in the front row of the class as usual, slightly apart from the other girls, tall and ramrod-straight, not a hair on her dark head out of place. If she didn’t win the Nightingale Medal, Sister Parker would eat her cap.

  ‘And now, girls, I have your ward allocations for the next three months.’ She went to her desk and pulled out a sheaf of papers. ‘As this is such an auspicious occasion, I thought I would hand them out rather than putting them up on the noticeboard in the dining room.’

  She started to move along the rows of benches, selecting papers and placing them down in front of each girl. As she did, she heard the whispered prayers from the other side of the classroom.

  ‘Please God, don’t send me to Female Chronics. I don’t think I could stand three months of Sister Hyde!’

  ‘I hope I get Male Orthopaedics. I’ve heard it’s an absolute riot.’

  ‘As long as they don’t send me down to the Fever ward,’ someone else sighed.

  ‘What about you, Hol
lins?’ one of the girls asked.

  ‘I want Theatre,’ Amy Hollins declared firmly.

  Then you’d better buck your ideas up, Florence Parker thought as she placed the paper down in front of her. Hollins stared back, her blue eyes insolent in her doll-like face. The blonde curls that peeped from under the edges of her cap tested the limits of the hospital’s strict dress rules. Perhaps if she put as much energy into her studies as she did into her social life, she might have the makings of a good nurse. But the reports that came back from the wards made the Sister Tutor despair.

  She made her way back to the front of the class and placed Helen Tremayne’s paper down in front of her. She didn’t make a grab for it like the other girls did but sat perfectly still, eyeing it warily as if it might bite her.

  ‘Female Medical!’ said Amy Hollins, screwing up her paper, her voice full of disgust. ‘That’s so unfair. Everyone knows old Everett is as mad as a bat.’

  ‘If you’re unhappy with your allocation, I’m sure Matron would be pleased to discuss the matter with you.’ Sister Parker glared across the classroom at her. Amy blushed, her expression still mutinous.

  The Sister Tutor turned back to Helen, who had finally steeled herself to turn over her paper.

  ‘I hope you at least are satisfied with your allocation, Tremayne?’ she said, peering at Helen over her spectacles.

  ‘Yes. Thank you, Sister.’

  ‘Your mother told me you were very keen to work in surgery. She mentioned you might like to be a Theatre nurse when you qualify?’

  Helen looked up at her, and Florence Parker caught a flash of dismay in her large brown eyes before her gaze dropped again. This was news to her, Sister Parker could tell. Poor Tremayne, always under her mother’s thumb.

  ‘I’m not sure I’d be good enough, Sister.’ Her voice barely rose above a husky whisper.

  ‘Och, I’m sure you’ll have no trouble. You are an excellent student, Nurse Tremayne. I daresay we’ll be seeing your picture up on that wall of Nightingale Medal winners, before too long.’

  ‘I daresay Mummy will see to that, too.’ Sister Parker picked up Amy Hollins’ spiteful whisper from the back row. ‘It must be nice, having a mother on the Board of Trustees!’

  Helen must have heard it too. She ducked her head, the tips of her ears burning bright red under her smooth dark hair.

  Sister Parker remembered her last meeting with Constance Tremayne, when she had marched into the classroom and demanded that Helen be allocated to Theatre. After more than forty years as a nurse, Florence Parker did not scare easily. But Mrs Tremayne had made her feel like a terrified probationer again, being hauled in front of Matron.

  She glanced back at Helen, picking at her bitten nails. Whatever Hollins might think, Florence Parker couldn’t imagine it was very nice to have Mrs Tremayne for a mother.

  Helen heard the squeals of laughter drifting down the stairs when she returned to the nurses’ home with her room mate Millie Benedict after their duty finished that night. It was past nine o’clock and most of the nurses were preparing for lights out at ten, unless they were lucky enough to have a late pass or brave enough to risk sneaking in through the windows.

  ‘Listen to that,’ Millie said, as they took off their cloaks in the gloomy, brown painted hallway, taking care not to let their feet squeak too much on the faded lino. ‘It sounds as if someone’s having a party.’

  ‘Hollins,’ Helen replied. ‘I heard her planning it during supper.’

  ‘I’m surprised Sister Sutton hasn’t heard them, all that noise they’re making.’ Millie glanced towards the Home Sister’s door. ‘That’s typical, isn’t it? Hollins and her gang can get away with having a party, but if I so much as drop a hairpin on the floor Sutton’s banging on the door, threatening to send me to Matron.’

  Millie pulled an expression of disgust. She was every bit as blonde and pretty as Amy Hollins, but with none of Amy’s hard edges.

  ‘Perhaps she’s asleep?’ Helen said.

  ‘Sister Sutton never sleeps. She prowls the corridor all night with that wretched little dog of hers, waiting to catch us poor nurses in the act of enjoying ourselves.’

  They climbed the stairs, taking care to miss the creaking step halfway up that always brought Sister Sutton out of her lair. The dark polished wood was uneven under their feet, worn down by the footsteps of generations of weary young girls just like them.

  As they reached the second landing, they heard another muffled shriek coming from the other end of the long passageway. Millie turned to Helen. ‘Will you be joining the party later, as they’re your set?’

  Helen shook her head. ‘I have to study.’

  ‘I’m sure it won’t hurt to give revision a miss for one night?’

  ‘Not with the State Finals six months away.’

  ‘The others don’t seem to care too much about that.’

  ‘Perhaps they’re more confident of passing than I am?’

  Millie laughed. ‘Hardly! Everyone knows you’re one of the best students at the Nightingale. You should go, Tremayne. You know what they say about all work and no play . . .’

  ‘I told you, I don’t want to!’

  Helen started up the steep, narrow flight of stairs that led to their attic room before Millie could argue any more. She didn’t want to tell Millie that she hadn’t been invited to join the party, or how humiliated she had felt, sitting at the other end of the dining table while the others made their plans. She knew she should be used to it after three years. But it still hurt, even though she tried not to show it.

  When a set of students joined the Nightingale for training, they tended to stick together as a group. But right from the start, Helen had been set apart. The other girls were wary of her because she worked hard, and because her mother was on the Board of Trustees. They quickly decided Helen was too much of a swot and a teacher’s pet to be included in their plans. Helen sometimes wished she could explain that she only worked hard to please her mother. But she wasn’t sure anyone would listen.

  As if she could read her thoughts, Millie said, ‘Perhaps if you made more effort to join in, they might feel differently about you.’

  ‘To be honest, I don’t really care how they feel,’ Helen replied. ‘I’m here to work, not to make friends.’ She parroted the stern instruction her mother had given her the one and only time Helen had tried to explain how lonely and left out she felt.

  Millie stopped, halfway up the stairs. ‘We’re friends, aren’t we?’

  Helen turned to smile back at her. ‘That’s different.’

  It was impossible not to love Millie – or Lady Amelia Benedict, to give her her full title. She was simply the sweetest girl Helen had ever met. She even looked sunny, with her bouncy blonde curls and wide smile. There were no airs and graces to her at all, even though she was the daughter of an earl and had been brought up in a castle in Kent.

  Millie and their other room mate Dora Doyle were in the year below and had come into Helen’s lonely life like a breath of fresh air nearly two years earlier. They had refused to be put off by Helen’s shy reserve. It was thanks to their friendship that she had learned not to mind so much when the other girls in her set were spiteful to her.

  Her friends had also given her the confidence not to run away when she met the love of her life, Charlie Dawson. Between them and Charlie, Helen was the happiest she had ever been. Even though her mother’s shadow still fell over everything she did.

  ‘I should think so, too!’ Millie beamed, then added, ‘And you really mustn’t mind about Amy Hollins. She’s an awful cat. I can’t say I’m looking forward to spending the next three months with her on Female Medical!’

  Their room was at the top of the house, long and sparsely furnished with three beds tucked into the sloping eaves. A dormer window cast a square patch of silvery moonlight on to the polished wooden floor.

  Millie shivered. ‘Why does it always seem so cold up here, even in April?’ She reached for the li
ght switch, flicked it – then let out a cry of dismay.

  There was a girl sprawled on the middle bed, fully dressed, her stout black shoes poking through the bars of the iron bedstead. Her left arm dangled off one side, still clutching the limp remains of a cap. A wild mop of red curls fanned out over the pillow, hiding her face.

  At the sound of Millie’s cry her head jerked up, revealing a freckled face bleary with sleep.

  ‘What the – oh, it’s only you.’ Irritable green eyes peered out from under the ginger hair. ‘I thought there was a fire.’

  She sat up slowly, stretching her limbs. ‘I must have nodded off. What time is it?’

  ‘Nearly half-past nine.’

  ‘Really?’ Dora Doyle snatched up her watch from the bedside table and held it close to her face, squinting at it. ‘Blimey, I’ve been asleep for two hours.’

  ‘Had a hard day?’ Helen said sympathetically, easing off her own shoes. Her feet throbbed in protest.

  ‘You could say that.’ Dora rubbed her eyes. ‘Sister had us cleaning the ward from top to bottom all day. I’ve been up and down, cleaning windows and turning mattresses and damp dusting. I ache all over. I’m glad tomorrow’s my day off. I’d probably be too stiff to get out of bed otherwise.’

  ‘I know how you feel. They always seem to work us harder on our last day, don’t they?’ Millie rifled in her chest of drawers and pulled out a lighter and a packet of cigarettes. She took one, then offered the packet to Dora.

  ‘I hope you’re going to open a window?’ Helen warned, unpinning her cap. ‘You know Sister Sutton can smell smoke a mile off.’

  ‘Yes, yes, don’t fuss so, Tremayne. We’re not going to get you in trouble.’ Millie reached up and unlatched the window, pushing it open. Then she sat down and lit Dora’s cigarette for her.

  ‘So where are they sending you next?’ she asked.

  Dora took a long draw on her cigarette. ‘Casualty,’ she replied. ‘How about you?’

  ‘Female Medical. Although I’m not sure what Sister Everett will make of me.’

  ‘She’ll be fine,’ Helen said. She pulled off her starched collar and examined the raw mark on her skin where the starched fabric had chafed. ‘She can be slightly eccentric, but don’t let that fool you. She’s as sharp as a tack when it comes to the patients. Knows all their notes off by heart and expects her nurses to do the same.’