Nightingales on Call Read online

‘I know you dote on your little dog, Miss Sutton, but not everyone likes them. Some people find them rather – unhygienic.’

  From the look in her blue eyes, Jess guessed Sister Parker was one of them.

  Sister Sutton looked down at the terrier sitting at her feet. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Then I won’t go either.’ She started unbuttoning her coat.

  ‘Oh, but you have to!’ Jess blurted out, then felt herself redden as she caught Sister Sutton’s eye. ‘Your friend will be so disappointed,’ she added.

  ‘She’s quite right,’ Sister Parker agreed. ‘Besides, we’ve bought the train tickets.’

  ‘But I can’t leave Sparky by himself.’ Sister Sutton looked near to tears at the prospect.

  ‘I’ll look after him,’ Jess offered.

  ‘You? Look after Sparky?’ Sister Sutton looked horrified at the very idea. ‘Oh, no, I don’t think so.’

  ‘But he’s used to me,’ Jess reasoned. ‘And I’ve been taking him for walks in the park, haven’t I?’

  To prove her point, she reached down to pet Sparky, who promptly snapped at her fingers. Treacherous little beast, Jess thought.

  ‘Well, I think it sounds like a very sensible suggestion,’ Sister Parker said briskly.

  ‘But what if he gets upset without me?’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, it’s only a wee dog!’

  ‘I’ll take very good care of him,’ Jess cut in, as Sister Sutton looked upset. ‘It’s only for a few hours, and your friend will be ever so disappointed if you don’t visit.’ And I won’t be able to help Effie revise, she added silently.

  ‘I suppose you’re right,’ Sister Sutton’s heavy sigh set her chins wobbling. ‘I shall at least give him a biscuit before I leave.’

  As she went off, Jess and Sister Parker exchanged long-suffering looks. It was hard to tell which of them was more relieved.

  Jess worked hard throughout the morning, racing through her duties – which were a lot easier without Sister Sutton following her around, picking holes in everything she did. Although with Sparky trotting after her, watching her closely, it felt as if he’d become his mistress’ eyes and ears.

  ‘Yes, I am getting into the corners,’ Jess muttered, as he sat watching her clean the window, his head tilted on one side. Then she laughed. ‘Listen to me! I’ll be as daft as Sister Sutton soon, talking to you as if you’re human.’ She pointed her cloth at him. ‘Don’t you dare go telling her I said that, all right?’

  When Jess had finished all her chores, she tidied herself up and went to Effie’s room to help her revise. She was waiting for Jess as usual, her textbooks spread out on the bed.

  ‘I think I’ve got respiration taped at last!’ she announced proudly, her blue eyes shining.

  ‘Let’s hear it, then.’ Jess sat down cross-legged on the floor to listen. She fondled Sparky’s ears absent-mindedly as Effie described the whole respiration process.

  When she’d finished, she regarded Jess anxiously. ‘Well? Did I miss anything out? Please tell me I didn’t?’ she begged.

  ‘It was perfect,’ Jess said.

  Effie smiled with relief. ‘I’m so glad! I spent all last night trying to learn it. I don’t think I ever want to think about it again after this wretched exam is over.’

  Jess didn’t like to point out that passing PTS was just the beginning. She’d spent most of the past week keeping Effie calm and telling her she could get through it.

  And, to Jess’ credit, Effie had applied herself. She had spent every night with her books and not sneaked out or stayed out late once.

  And now Sister Parker was taking the day off, Effie had all day to seek Jess’ help.

  ‘Is there anything special we need to revise today?’ she asked.

  Effie thought about it. ‘Well, I do need to practise bandaging,’ she said. ‘That is, if you don’t mind sitting there while I truss you up like a turkey?’

  ‘If it helps you.’ Jess shrugged.

  They could hardly contain their giggles as she sat on the chair while Effie put Jess’ arm in a sling and dressed her ‘fractured’ ribs and skull.

  As Effie worked she chattered about the forthcoming examination, and how desperate she was to pass.

  ‘I really don’t want to go home to Ireland yet,’ she sighed. ‘Not when I’ve fallen madly in love.’

  Jess rolled her eyes. At least this time Effie had managed nearly twenty minutes without bringing Hugo’s name into the conversation. Usually she could turn the subject around within five.

  Effie never stopped talking about her new boyfriend. And the more Jess heard about him, the less she liked the sound of him. Not that she could ever tell Effie that.

  She sat patiently now, Sparky curled up at her feet, as Effie told her how Hugo had sneaked into the grounds of the nurses’ home and thrown stones up at her window to wake her in the middle of the night, just so he could see her face.

  ‘It was so romantic,’ she sighed. ‘He said he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about me since we met. He wanted to climb up the drainpipe to my room.’

  Jess stared at her, scandalised. ‘I hope you didn’t think about letting him?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Effie replied, then added, ‘Katie would have gone mad.’

  ‘And I dread to think what Sister Sutton would have done!’ Jess said.

  ‘Trust you to be so practical!’ Effie wound the bandage around her head and pulled it taut. ‘You wait until you’re courting, then you’ll know how it feels.’

  Jess thought about Sam. They weren’t courting, exactly. A cup of tea in the local café after their night class every week was hardly the height of romance, but she had started looking forward to it almost as much as she looked forward to the class itself. She wasn’t sure what she would do when their exams were over and they didn’t have to meet every week. Sam hadn’t talked about it, and neither had she.

  ‘There.’ Effie pinned the last piece of bandage in place and stepped back to admire her handiwork. ‘How does that feel?’

  Jess turned to admire herself in the mirror. But as soon as she moved her head, she felt the bandage slowly unravelling itself.

  ‘Is it meant to do that?’ Jess asked, as the bandage slipped down over her right eye.

  ‘Not as far as I know,’ Effie sighed. ‘I can’t seem to get it right. It keeps coming apart.’

  Jess caught her eye in the mirror. Effie looked so despondent, Jess couldn’t help smiling.

  ‘It’s not funny!’ Effie protested. But then a loop of bandage slithered down around Jess’ neck, and she started laughing too.

  ‘What’s going on?’ They were both laughing so hard they hadn’t heard the door opening. Anna Padgett stood in the doorway, with a couple of other girls from Effie’s set.

  Anna looked from one to the other of them. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked coldly.

  Jess jumped up at once, pulling off the bandages. But Effie was unconcerned. ‘Jess is helping me to practise my bandaging.’

  ‘You should have come to us. We could have helped you.’

  Jess stared at the floor and willed Effie not to say anything, but of course she did.

  ‘Thanks, but I prefer revising with Jess. She explains things to me, you see.’

  Jess risked a glance at Anna. Her face was a picture of astonishment. ‘How could someone like her possibly help you revise?’ she asked

  Once again, Jess silently pleaded with Effie not to speak up.

  ‘Actually, Jess is very clever,’ said her friend. ‘She knows more about anatomy than I do.’

  ‘That’s hardly difficult, in your case!’ Anna murmured, and the other girls laughed.

  Anna turned to Jess, scarcely able to hide her contempt. ‘You do know you’re not supposed to be in our rooms, don’t you?’

  ‘But I invited her,’ Effie put in.

  ‘Even so, I don’t think Sister Sutton would like it.’

  Jess read the threat in the other girl’s cold stare. ‘I was just leaving
,’ she mumbled.

  ‘Wait a minute . . .’ Effie started to say, but Jess cut her off.

  ‘She’s right,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t be here.’

  ‘But what about my revision?’

  ‘We’ll help you,’ Prudence said. ‘We’re a set. We’re meant to stick together, aren’t we?’

  Jess left them and went back to her room. She felt more foolish than upset. She should have known that her friendship with Effie would be exposed and ridiculed. But the way Anna had looked down her nose at her, and her disbelief when Effie had told her how clever Jess was, still rankled.

  ‘No point in getting upset about it, is there?’ she said aloud to Sparky. ‘We don’t need them anyway. We’re better off keeping ourselves to ourselves.’

  She sought refuge, as she usually did, in her reading. For once she didn’t pick up the anatomy book Sister Sutton had given her, but instead chose Jane Eyre. The story of the quiet governess who saw her dreams come true was somehow comforting.

  She had barely found her favourite place when there was a soft knock on the door.

  ‘May I come in?’

  Jess put down her book at the sound of Effie’s voice on the other side of the door. ‘If you like.’

  The door opened and Effie’s dark head appeared around it. ‘I just wanted to say sorry,’ she said. ‘About Padgett, I mean. She had no right to talk to you like that.’

  Jess shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Yes, it does. You’ve helped me so much, even if I don’t get through this exam I’ll always be grateful to you.’ She hesitated. ‘And I wondered if you’d carry on helping me?’

  Jess looked up sharply. ‘What about Padgett and the rest? I thought you were going to revise with them?’

  ‘I don’t want to. They’re all so busy showing off what they know, they’re no help at all to me. I want to revise with you. If you’ll do it?’ Effie looked up at Jess from under her lashes. ‘Will you?’

  Jess smiled reluctantly. ‘I suppose so,’ she said.

  Effie grinned. ‘I am glad,’ she said. ‘Because I really need to get this capelline bandage right before next week.’

  Effie had just about mastered dressing Jess’ fractured skull when Sister Sutton came home that evening.

  Typically, she greeted Sparky before she even noticed Jess.

  ‘Have you missed me, my sweet?’ She bent down to gather him into her arms. ‘Has he been quite well? You haven’t neglected him?’

  ‘He hasn’t left my side all day,’ Jess replied.

  ‘And you’ve given him his supper? The chicken I left out for him?’

  ‘He ate every scrap. And a few biscuits, too.’

  ‘Did you, you naughty boy?’ Jess held her breath as Sister Sutton examined him. ‘Well, he seems all right,’ she conceded finally. ‘And what about your chores? I take it you’ve finished them all?’

  ‘Windows cleaned, brasswork polished and lampshades taken down, just as you ordered.’

  ‘I shall inspect them later.’ Sister Sutton bent down with difficulty to put Sparky on the floor. ‘Now I shall go to my room. I’m rather tired.’

  Usually Jess would have been relieved to escape. But there was something about Sister Sutton’s grey, exhausted face that made her say, ‘Would you like me to make you a cup of tea before you turn in?’

  Sister Sutton stared at her for a moment. Then, to Jess’ astonishment, her fleshy lips curved in the shadow of a smile. ‘That would be very nice,’ she said. And just as Jess was reeling from the shock of seeing her smile, she added, ‘Perhaps you would like to join me? I must say, I am rather in need of some company.’

  It felt very odd, to be in Sister Sutton’s sitting room as a guest and not just to clean. Jess perched on the edge of the overstuffed armchair, a cup of tea in her hands, and gazed at the mantelpiece. Sister Sutton had a mania for knick-knacks. Every surface in the room was covered in glass paperweights, china ornaments and Toby jugs. Jess dusted them all every day, and lived in fear of accidentally sending one crashing on to the hearth.

  ‘How is your friend?’ she asked, breaking the silence.

  Sister Sutton, whose eyelids had been drooping, snapped awake. ‘Her health is improving,’ she said. ‘But unfortunately her fall has left her unable to manage for herself. I don’t suppose she will ever be able to go home to her cottage. Such a pity for poor Rosemary.’ She shook her head.

  ‘Where will she go?’ Jess asked. ‘Does she have family to look after her?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. She chose to dedicate her life to her profession, you see. She did not marry, so she has no children to care for her in her old age. It’s the same for many of us,’ Sister sighed.

  ‘So what will happen to her?’

  ‘Oh, there are charitable institutions who will take her in. She has a place at the home for retired nurses in Bournemouth.’

  There was something about the pinched look on her face when she said it. ‘You don’t seem very keen on the idea?’ Jess remarked.

  ‘Oh, my dear, I’m not.’ Sister Sutton shuddered. ‘I’m sure the ladies there are well looked after, and of course if you have nowhere else to go . . . but I have seen them, and I would rather not end my days in a place like that.’

  Jess sipped her tea and wondered how to ask her next question. But it seemed Sister Sutton had read her mind.

  ‘I was fortunate, I suppose, that when I retired from the wards, Matron allowed me to stay on here as Home Sister,’ she said. ‘The Nightingale has been my home since I was your age, and I would very much like to see out my days here. But who can say what the future may bring?’ Her expression was desolate. ‘Rosemary’s accident has brought home to me how precarious our lives really are. It only takes a fall, or an illness of some kind, and suddenly you are unable to continue your duties and have no choice but to go . . .’

  Jess looked into Sister’s eyes, which were dark with sadness, and realised how worried she was about such a fate. Her visit to her friend seemed to have lowered her spirits dramatically.

  ‘Go on, don’t talk like that. You’ve got years left in you yet!’ said Jess. ‘You and Sparky will still be following me round when you’re a hundred, telling me I ain’t cleaned the grates or set the fires properly.’

  Sister Sutton looked up at her, and once again Jess saw her small, sad smile.

  ‘I hope so, my dear,’ she said. ‘I truly hope so.’

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  THE FIRST SUNDAY in the month was visiting day on the children’s ward, and Sister Parry was in an even worse mood than usual as she gathered the nurses around the table for her morning report.

  ‘Staff Nurse Ryan will be away for some time, so her duties will have to be shared out among the rest of you,’ she told them all. ‘Anderson, I want you to take over specialing room two. Doyle, you can assist her. Lane, I want you to take over most of Staff Nurse Ryan’s duties while she’s away. You can begin by assisting me with the medicine round.’

  ‘Yes, Sister.’ Dora watched Lucy preening herself as Sister Parry handed out the rest of that morning’s jobs. Dora shouldn’t have been surprised, of course, that Lane had been given nearly all the senior jobs. She was Sister Parry’s pet, after all.

  ‘And of course it’s visiting this afternoon,’ Sister Parry continued, her lips tightening. ‘Although I’m sure we could all do without that disruption, since we’re short-staffed.’

  ‘That’s so typical of her, to only think about herself,’ Dora muttered to Daphne Anderson later, as they made up Ernest’s bed.

  ‘She has a point, though,’ Daphne said. ‘You know what the children are like once visiting time is over. This place is absolute bedlam. Half of them are inconsolable because their parents have gone, the other half scared out of their wits because they arrived in the first place.’

  It had come as a shock to Dora at first to see the younger patients reeling in terror at the sight of people who had become strangers to them beside their cots. It br
oke her heart to see the agony on the parents’ faces, too. They had waited so long to see their babies, but their babies no longer knew them.

  ‘As far as the children here are concerned, we’re their families now,’ Daphne said, smoothing down the drawsheet.

  ‘Except we’re not allowed to comfort them if they’re lonely or afraid. I can’t imagine what kind of mother would ignore a crying child.’

  ‘I’m sure Sister Parry knows best,’ Daphne replied primly. ‘She does care, you know. In her own way.’

  Dora sent her a sidelong look. Daphne was like Lucy, desperate to stay in Sister’s good books.

  ‘All I know is, I can’t wait to get off this ward,’ she murmured. ‘I thought I’d love working with kids, but Sister’s made it an absolutely misery.’

  Damn Staff Nurse Ryan and her scarlet fever, she thought. Being laid up probably wasn’t nice for her, but it was even worse for Dora, being stuck on the ward for another three months.

  As if they weren’t busy enough, a new patient was admitted in the middle of the morning, just as Matron arrived to do her rounds. Sister Parry seemed most displeased at the interruption, and immediately had two pros usher the girl off to a bathroom while she discussed the case with Matron.

  ‘She has been sent over from the orphanage in Stepney,’ Dora heard Sister Parry saying. ‘A most unusual case, I believe. She was adopted by a couple from the church last year, but her new mother returned her to the orphanage two weeks ago, saying they couldn’t cope with her any longer. She hasn’t spoken a word or eaten since.’

  ‘I expect the poor child is in shock,’ Matron said. ‘She doesn’t appear particularly wild, I must say. I wonder why her adoptive parents couldn’t keep her?’

  ‘I’m sure it’s not for me to ask questions like that, Matron,’ Sister Parry replied primly.

  ‘Quite.’ Matron paused. ‘When is the doctor coming in to see her?’

  ‘Mr Hobbs is due in an hour, Matron.’

  ‘Please keep me informed, Sister. I would be interested to know what he makes of this child.’

  They continued with their round. Dora watched them going from bed to bed, Matron tall and stately in her black dress and elaborate white headdress, Sister Parry and Lucy flanking her on either side. Dora tried to tell herself she wasn’t jealous, but the sight of Lucy simpering in the background irritated her. It wasn’t fair. Lucy Lane made it clear she disliked children, and barely tried to disguise her contempt for them. And yet she was the one who was shown off to Matron, while Dora was dismissed to the kitchen like a dirty pro.