The Nightingale Girls Read online

  ‘She doesn’t mind.’ Josie shrugged, stacking the dishes in the deep sink. ‘She knows how Alf likes to talk.’

  ‘All the same, I wish he’d shut up about the bloody house in Loughton. He’s only a van driver, not Governor of the Bank of England.’

  ‘Dora!’ Josie laughed at her in surprise. ‘I don’t know why you don’t like him.’

  Dora looked at her sister. Josie was very grown-up for her age. There were four years between them, but since their middle sister Maggie had died they’d become more like friends than sisters. They had once shared all kinds of secrets, tucked together in their big bed, whispering and laughing together under the covers so Bea couldn’t hear.

  But there were some secrets Dora couldn’t share, not even with her sister.

  ‘I just don’t,’ she mumbled, picking a plate off the draining board to dry. ‘I won’t miss him when I leave, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Don’t talk about leaving, I don’t like it,’ Josie said, pulling a face. Then in the next breath she added, ‘Do you think I could have your old bedroom when you go?’

  ‘No!’ She shouted it so forcefully Josie stared at her in surprise.

  ‘Why not? It’s no fun being stuck in a bed with Bea. She kicks me in the night, and she snores worse than Nanna. And she’s so nosey too. She’s always into my things.’

  ‘All the same, you don’t want to be in my old room. It’s so cold and draughty, and – it’s haunted.’

  Josie’s dark eyes widened. ‘You’ve never said.’

  ‘That’s ’cos I’ve never wanted to frighten you. But there’s a ghost all right.’

  Just then Rose appeared in the scullery doorway, her cheeks flushed pink from the port and lemon she’d had.

  ‘Everything all right?’ she asked. ‘I thought I heard our Dora shouting.’

  ‘She says her bedroom’s haunted,’ Josie said.

  Dora didn’t meet her mother’s eye, but she could feel her frown. ‘Your sister’s having you on,’ she said briskly. ‘The only thing haunts this place is your Nanna. And she’d be enough to scare any ghost off. Now Dora, stop filling Josie’s head with nonsense.’

  I wish it was nonsense, Dora thought.

  After they’d washed up the dishes, Alf went to the pub, and for the first time in the evening, Dora felt herself relax. She played Snakes and Ladders with Josie and Bea while they listened to Henry Hall on the wireless. Nanna dozed by the warmth of the fire and her mother got on with the rest of her mending for the laundry.

  Later, they all went to bed. Nanna Winnie complained loudly, claiming the fish and chips had made her ill.

  ‘I’ll probably die in my sleep,’ she predicted gloomily, as she rose stiffly from her rocking chair.

  ‘No one ever died of indigestion, Mum!’ Rose laughed.

  ‘That’s what you reckon,’ Nanna said darkly. ‘You lot will be laughing the other side of your faces when you find my cold dead corpse in the morning.’

  Dora and Josie stood side by side at the scullery sink, brushing their teeth.

  ‘It’s going to be lonely here without you,’ Josie said.

  Dora spat toothpaste down the plug hole. ‘You’ll have Bea and Little Alfie.’

  ‘But I won’t have you.’

  ‘I told you, I’ll come home for visits.’

  ‘Promise?’ Josie rinsed her mouth out and turned to face her sister, her dark eyes shining. ‘Promise you won’t forget me?’

  ‘How could I forget you? I’m your big sister, ain’t I?’ Dora stroked her silky dark hair. ‘I’ll always look out for you, Jose.’

  When they’d all gone to bed Dora lay in the darkness under the weight of her old eiderdown, listening to Nanna’s snores through the thin wall. From next door, she could hear June Riley yelling at her sons.

  Tired though she was, she didn’t dare sleep until she heard the sound of Alf’s key scraping in the lock.

  Her stomach clenched in fear as she heard his heavy tread in the passageway. Please God, she prayed. Please don’t let him come in. Not tonight.

  His footsteps stopped outside the bedroom door. Dora held her breath as the knob began to turn, ever so slowly . . .

  He moved quietly for a big man. Dora felt him standing over her as she lay still, her eyes tightly shut, pretending to be asleep.

  But he wasn’t fooled. ‘I know you’re awake.’ He leaned closer to her, his hot breath fanning her face, stinking of beer and cigarettes. ‘Waiting for me, are you?’

  ‘Leave me alone,’ she whispered into the darkness, her eyes still closed.

  ‘Not until I get what I’ve come for.’ He wrenched off the bedclothes, leaving her trembling and exposed. Dora curled up in fear, head down, knees pulled up to her chest, as if she could disappear inside her flannel nightdress.

  But it was no use. He had already pinned her to the bed with his knee as he fumbled with his trouser buttons.

  ‘I’ll tell Mum,’ she threatened, twisting away from him. ‘I’ll scream and everyone will come running.’

  ‘And then what?’ Alf mocked her. ‘What do you think will happen then? She might kick me out, but I’m telling you now, you won’t be far behind. D’you really think she’d want to see your face again, knowing what you and me had done?’ He was on top of her, his bulky body stifling her. His breathing was hard and ragged as his rough hands pawed under her nightdress. ‘And what about the rest of the family? They’ll be on the streets before you know it, without me to pay the rent. Is that what you want?’

  ‘I want you to leave me alone.’

  He grunted with laughter. ‘No, you don’t. You love it.’ He grabbed her hand and plunged it into his trousers. She tried to pull away but he gripped her tightly, forcing her against him until she felt her arm would snap in two. ‘You should count yourself lucky. Ugly little cow like you, no other man would ever look at you.’

  He suddenly yanked her arms back, pinning them above her head as he thrust himself clumsily against her. All the fight gone out of her, Dora could do nothing but blank her mind. She turned her face to stare at the crack of dim lamplight between the faded rose print curtains, listened to the distant sound of June Riley’s screeching voice, and told herself it would all be over soon.

  Chapter Three

  IF THINGS HAD gone as her grandmother had planned, Lady Amelia Charlotte Benedict should have been celebrating her engagement by her eighteenth birthday. The Dowager Countess of Rettingham had even taken the trouble to draw up a list of the most eligible prospects, starting with the son of a duke and ending with a minor baronet from Lincolnshire – not ideal, but better than nothing, as she’d pointed out.

  And yet here Millie was, on a November morning six months after her nineteenth birthday, standing in Matron’s office yet again. It was simply too tiresome.

  Matron obviously felt the same. ‘So, here you are once more, Benedict,’ she said with a heavy sigh.

  ‘I’m afraid so, Matron.’

  ‘Do you realise you are the only one in your set to have failed Preliminary Training?’

  Millie stared down at the parquet floor. ‘Yes, Matron.’

  ‘Do you know why you have failed, Benedict?’

  ‘I think so, Matron. But it was an accident,’ she added quickly. ‘If that soap enema solution hadn’t exploded in my hands—’

  She saw Matron’s forbidding expression and stopped. A student was not supposed to speak to her superiors unless spoken to. Even making eye contact with Matron was discouraged. Millie knew some pros who hid in the sluice room during her ward rounds so they wouldn’t have to be in her presence.

  Which was a shame, really. Matron looked as if she might be rather fun, once you got to know her.

  Not that there was much chance of a humble student ever doing that.

  ‘The soap enema incident was . . . unfortunate,’ Millie could have sworn she saw Matron’s mouth twitch, ‘but it is not the only reason you failed PTS. According to your tutor Sister Parker, your general attit
ude leaves a lot to be desired.’ She consulted her notes. ‘She says you’re easily distracted, you chatter in class, and you spend a great deal of time daydreaming. Sister Sutton also says you’re untidy and you have a lax attitude to the rules of the nurses’ home. I see you’ve been caught by the night porter on two occasions returning after ten o’clock, and without a late pass?’

  ‘Actually, it was three times, Matron.’ Millie could have bitten off her tongue as soon as she’d said it. Her grandmother always said honesty was one of her biggest character flaws, and she was right.

  ‘Is that so?’ Matron’s brows rose. ‘Are you trying to set some kind of record, Benedict?’

  ‘Indeed not, Matron.’

  ‘I’m very glad to hear it.’ Matron regarded her steadily. ‘Well, Benedict, I’m afraid all those late nights and gadding about have cost you dear. While the rest of your set are commencing their training on the wards, you are back to square one, having to repeat your twelve weeks’ Preliminary Training . . .’

  Millie gazed past Matron’s shoulder and out of the window at the wintry grey sky, tinged yellow by smoke belching from the factories. Winter seemed much bleaker in London, where the creeping damp made your bones ache, and a thick, acid fog rolled up off the river, clogging your lungs and leaving a metallic taste in the back of your throat.

  It wasn’t at all like the winters in Kent, where the air was crisp and clean and refreshingly cold, smelling of nothing more than bonfires and damp earth and leaves. She loved to go out riding then with her father, galloping across the bare fields, shorn of their crops, the naked trees silhouetted dramatically against the vast, empty sky.

  Most people assumed a girl wouldn’t be interested in the land, but Millie knew every one of Billinghurst’s five thousand-odd acres, and the tenants who farmed them.

  Naturally her grandmother didn’t approve.

  ‘She is your daughter, not your son and heir!’ Millie had overheard her scolding her son. ‘Really, Henry, isn’t it hard enough for the girl growing up without a mother to guide her, without you turning her into some kind of hoyden as well? Next thing we know she’ll be wearing trousers and keeping the company of Bohemians like your sister Victoria. And who do you think will want to marry her then?’

  ‘Benedict, are you listening to me?’ Matron’s voice snapped her back to reality.

  ‘Yes, Matron. Sorry, Matron. You were saying?’

  ‘I was saying, Benedict, that this is your last chance. If you fail PTS again, I will have no choice but to dismiss you from the Nightingale.’

  ‘Yes, Matron. I understand.’

  ‘Do you, Benedict? I wonder.’

  ‘I do, Matron, honestly. I will try very hard indeed to get through PTS and become a credit to this hospital.’

  She really had no choice. It was either that or return to Billinghurst with her tail between her legs and get married.

  ‘In that case, you’d better get back to the nurses’ home and prepare to start your training again.’ Matron made a note in her file and closed it. ‘Perhaps if you apply yourself rather more to your studies and less to your social life, you’ll have better luck this time, Nurse Benedict.’

  Dismissed, Millie headed out of the office where a trail of dejected-looking nurses were nervously waiting in the corridor for their turn to meet Matron’s wrath, and went downstairs. She immediately headed round to the back of the nurses’ block, to the narrow, overgrown strip of ground where the student nurses sneaked off for a cigarette away from the watchful eye of the Home Sister.

  Glenda Pritchard, a girl from her set was already there, shivering with cold as she puffed on a Craven A. She started nervously as Millie rounded the corner of the building.

  ‘Oh, it’s you.’ Glenda put her hand to her chest, sagging with relief. ‘I thought it was Sister Sutton on the warpath.’ She handed Millie her cigarette. ‘How did it go with Matron?’

  ‘Well, she didn’t send me packing, which is something.’ Millie took a long drag and blew the smoke out in a steady stream. ‘But I have to retake PTS.’

  ‘Poor you!’ Glenda looked sympathetic. She was what Millie’s grandmother would have called an ‘unfortunate-looking’ girl, with glasses and buck teeth. ‘But at least you don’t have to go home.’

  ‘True.’ Millie hadn’t been looking forward to seeing the triumph on her grandmother’s face when she arrived back at Billinghurst. ‘But I’m not looking forward to spending another twelve weeks with Sister Parker either. She hates me.’ Millie took another drag on the cigarette and passed it back to Glenda.

  ‘She doesn’t hate you. She just thinks you’re hopeless, that’s all.’

  ‘Thank you. That makes me feel so much better.’ After three months on PTS with Glenda, Millie knew the other girl meant well, but she could be a bit tactless at times. ‘I’m so envious of you lot. You’ll all be starting work on the wards while I’m stuck with the new students.’

  ‘Damp dusting the practice room every morning,’ Glenda reminded her.

  ‘Listening to all those lectures,’ Millie sighed.

  ‘And doing battle with Mrs Jones!’

  ‘Don’t remind me!’ Mrs Jones was the dummy patient they used for practice sessions in PTS. Millie always seemed to end up wrestling with her. Once Mrs Jones’ arm had come clean off in her hand. She’d thought Sister Parker was going to explode with rage.

  ‘I wonder if you’re really cut out to be a nurse, Benedict?’ she would say to her almost every day, peering at her over the top of her pebble-thick spectacles as if she were a specimen in one of the jars lined up on the shelves of the classroom.

  Millie couldn’t help being accident-prone. Objects just seemed to take on a troublesome life of their own in her hands.

  Like that wretched enema solution. Heat rose in her face at the thought of it. For the past week she’d had nightmares about seeing the soapy water dripping off the examiner’s chin . . .

  Glenda Pritchard dropped the cigarette on the ground and stubbed it out with the heel of her stout shoe. ‘A few of us are off to celebrate our last night before we start on the wards. Come with us, if you like?’

  ‘No, thanks.’ Much as Millie usually enjoyed a night out, the thought of listening to everyone chattering about their new ward allocations only made her feel worse. ‘I think I’ll stay in and study.’

  ‘You, study? That’ll be the day!’ Glenda scoffed.

  ‘I’m serious. I’m going to be a model student from now on.’

  ‘If you say so.’ Glenda grinned. ‘But I give it a week.’

  We’ll see about that, Millie thought as she headed back through the double doors into the student nurses’ home. The rambling Victorian building was once a grand mansion for a well-to-do family, but now the elegantly proportioned rooms and hallways were hidden under dull brown paint, and thick net curtains shrouded the bay windows, as if the sight of sunlight might lift the poor pros’ spirits more than was good for them.

  Around a hundred students lived in the house for the three years of their training, crammed three or four to a room, under the care – if that was the right word – of Sister Sutton, the Home Sister. She occupied three rooms on the ground floor, just inside the main entrance, from which she and her horrid little dog Sparky kept a watchful eye on her charges. She was supposed to be like a mother to them, but her bad temper and the heavy ring of keys jingling at her belt made her seem more like a gaoler.

  Millie trod carefully past her door, holding her breath as she went. She had almost reached the stairs up to her room when she heard a tell-tale heavy tread from the landing above her. Next moment Sister Sutton’s broad, squat figure filled the space at the top of the stairs, blocking out the feeble light from the landing window. Sparky, a small brown-and-white Jack Russell terrier, pranced around her own feet, yapping.

  ‘Benedict!’ Millie cringed at the sound of her own name. ‘Why are you creeping about here at this time of the day?’ Sister Sutton demanded.

  ‘I’
ve just been to see Matron, Sister.’ Millie held out her hand to pat Sparky. He let out a low growl and retreated behind Sister Sutton’s voluminous grey skirt. Nasty, bad-tempered thing, Millie thought. Nothing like Nero, her father’s beloved Labrador.

  ‘Hmm. Why am I not surprised to hear that?’ Sister Sutton glared at her. Her eyes were like tiny black raisins, almost lost in the doughy folds of her fat face. ‘I hope she’s given you your marching orders?’

  ‘No, Sister. I’m to retake Preliminary Training.’

  ‘And what a waste of time that will be for everyone!’ Sister Sutton tutted impatiently. ‘Poor Sister Parker, her patience must be stretched to breaking point already, with all you useless girls. But I suppose Matron must know what she’s doing,’ she murmured under her breath.

  ‘Yes, Sister.’

  ‘Well, don’t just stand there, girl. Go to your room at once!’

  As Millie went to move past her, Sister Sutton’s hand shot out and fixed on her arm, holding her back.

  ‘Have you been smoking?’ Her tiny eyes narrowed even further.

  ‘No, Sister,’ Millie lied guiltily.

  Sister Sutton thrust her face close to hers, so close Millie could see the wiry grey hairs sprouting from her chin. ‘You know I can’t abide smoking. It’s a filthy, detestable habit.’

  ‘Yes, Sister.’ As Sister Sutton stared beadily into her face, Millie suddenly caught a familiar whiff. ‘Is that Guerlain perfume you’re wearing, Sister?’

  Sister Sutton released her abruptly, her cheeks flushing. ‘What an impertinent question!’ she spluttered. ‘As if I have time for such fripperies. Go on with you, girl. Get up to your room. I shall come up there in a minute and inspect it. I dare say it’s a terrible mess as usual?’

  Still blustering, she stomped off down the stairs, Sparky trotting behind her.

  Millie watched her go, smiling to herself. Smoking might be a nasty, detestable habit. But it wasn’t nearly as bad as rifling through other people’s drawers and stealing their perfume.