The Nightingale Sisters

by Donna Douglas

  ‘Gosh, then it must be serious. So who’s the lucky nurse this time? Anyone I know?’

  ‘She’s not a nurse. She’s a doctor. Her name’s Philippa and they met years ago at university.’

  ‘A doctor? That makes a change.’

  ‘It does, doesn’t it?’ Helen looked up at her, her dark eyes anxious. ‘You are all right about it, aren’t you?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’ Millie made a big effort to widen her smile. ‘There was never anything serious between William and me. Besides, I’m engaged to Seb now. Why should I care what your brother gets up to?’

  ‘No reason, I suppose,’ Helen agreed. ‘I just thought you’d want to hear it from me rather than the hospital grapevine.’

  ‘That’s very thoughtful of you, but really there’s no need to worry about my feelings,’ Millie assured her. ‘Anyway, it’s about time William settled down.’

  ‘That’s what Mother says. And as you know, my mother is always right.’ Helen frowned at her. ‘You aren’t upset, are you?’

  ‘I told you, I’m fine. Your brother and I had a silly, five-minute infatuation, nothing more than that. I like to think we’re still friends, but that’s as far as it goes.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Helen said. ‘So why are you folding up that towel you’ve just spread out on the radiator?’

  Millie blinked at the folded towel in her hands, then sighed and unfolded it again. ‘I’ll go and get that sassafras cap ready.’

  She stood at the ward cupboard, staring at the rows of glass bottles full of oils, fluids and various tinctures.

  I don’t care, she told herself. I’m engaged to Sebastian now. William Tremayne can have as many girlfriends as he likes.

  God knows, he’d rarely been without a girl on his arm the whole time she’d known him. Dr Tremayne enjoyed a reputation as the scourge of the Nightingale’s young nurses; no girl was safe from him.

  Including Millie. She had fallen for him just like all the others. But unlike the others, she’d never become one of his conquests. She’d come to her senses, and found someone who truly loved her instead.

  So why was she so shaken to hear that William had found someone too? It didn’t make sense.

  You don’t want him but you don’t want anyone else to have him, that’s your problem, she told herself as she took the large brown glass bottle out of the cupboard and closed the door firmly.

  Back in the bathroom, Helen had got the woman out of the bath, dried her off and was carefully dabbing disinfectant solution on her sores. The warm bath seemed to have subdued her, and she submitted with barely a whimper.

  ‘She probably understands now that we’re only trying to help her,’ Millie said, as they bundled her into a hospital nightgown.

  As Helen went to fill a hot water bottle for her bed, Millie set to work with the sassafras. It was a fiddly job, especially getting the capelline bandage tidy and secure. She was just tucking the final end in place when Helen returned.

  ‘How are you getting on?’ she asked.

  ‘I think I’ve managed it.’ Millie stood back and surveyed her handiwork. She’d done a good job for once, even if she said so herself.

  That wasn’t what Sister Hyde said, of course. She thought the bandage was very poorly executed, and she made sure she told Millie so several times as she and Helen put the woman into bed, where she fell into a deep, contented sleep.

  ‘Poor old thing,’ Millie said, looking down at her, ‘I don’t suppose she ever got much rest, sleeping in those cold, noisy railway arches.’

  The following morning, the woman seemed much brighter. She was sitting up in bed eating toast when Millie arrived for her duty. She was pleased to notice the bandage was still in place – so much for Sister Hyde’s dire predictions, she thought triumphantly.

  But still Sister wasn’t happy with her. ‘When are you going to remove that patient’s cap, Nurse?’ she demanded, as she handed out the work lists. ‘I know you have a horror of pediculi, but I’m sure you have nothing to fear by now.’

  ‘I’ll do it straight away, Sister.’

  ‘And make sure you comb the hair out thoroughly before you shampoo it.’

  This time the woman was as meek as a lamb as she followed Millie to the bathroom.

  ‘You see,’ Millie beamed at her as she unwound the bandage. ‘Having a bath isn’t so bad, is it? And you feel so much better when you’re all clean and . . .’ She stopped, the dressing falling from her hand. For a moment she stared at the woman’s head, unable to believe what she saw.

  ‘You stay there, I – um – won’t be a moment.’ Smiling encouragingly at the patient, she backed out of the bathroom and rushed to the kitchen where she found Helen making tea.

  She looked up from warming the pot. ‘Hello, aren’t you supposed to be looking after our new patient?’ Then she saw Millie’s stricken expression. ‘Oh Lord, please don’t tell me you’ve done something awful to her?’

  ‘You could say that.’ Millie swallowed hard. ‘You’d better come and see.’

  Helen didn’t quite believe what she saw either. ‘But I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘Sassafras shouldn’t do that to anyone’s hair.’ She frowned at Millie. ‘You’re sure you put it on properly?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure!’ Millie stared at the woman’s hair. No matter how hard she stared at it, it still looked the same. Overnight, it had gone from dirty brown to a halo of startling orange.

  ‘You don’t think it was shock, do you?’ Helen ventured. ‘You hear of that happening to people.’

  ‘Shock turns people’s hair white, not . . . that colour.’ Millie chewed her lip. ‘Oh, Lord, what am I going to do? Sister Hyde is going to have an absolute fit.’

  ‘Not if you don’t tell her.’

  ‘Tremayne, she can spot a speck of dust from the other end of the ward. Do you really think she won’t notice something like this?’

  ‘You could try to cover it up?’

  ‘How?’

  Helen looked thoughtful. ‘A hat?’ she suggested.

  ‘You’re not being very helpful.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Helen bit her lip. Millie could see she was making a supreme effort to stop herself from laughing.

  ‘It’s not funny. She looks like a marmalade cat.’

  ‘She looks more like Doyle!’ Then Millie caught sight of the orange hair out of the corner of her eye and felt her own mouth twitching treacherously.

  ‘It’s not funny,’ she repeated. But then Helen started laughing and Millie couldn’t stop herself from joining in. The patient joined in too, with a bellowing snort of a laugh that made Helen and Millie giggle even more.

  ‘Something amusing nurses?’

  Hearing Sister Hyde’s voice was like having a bucket of icy water thrown over them. Even the patient sobered instantly, staring at Sister with round, fearful eyes.

  ‘Really, Tremayne, I might have expected foolish high spirits from Benedict, but not from you. I thought you had more—’

  Millie couldn’t look, but she guessed Sister Hyde had spotted the patient, perched on her chair beside the bath, looking prim in her nightgown.

  ‘What is this?’ she said faintly.

  ‘I don’t know, Sister,’ Millie replied.

  ‘You don’t know?’ Sister Hyde swung round to face her, eyes narrowing. ‘What do you mean, you don’t know? Is this some kind of prank, Benedict?’

  ‘It isn’t, Sister, believe me. All I did was apply the sassafras cap as you told me, and then when I removed it this morning, it was – like this.’ She looked at the patient. ‘I thought perhaps it was supposed to do that?’ she suggested hopefully.

  Sister Hyde quivered with rage. ‘Have you seen this woman’s hair, Benedict? Have you?’

  ‘Yes, Sister.’

  ‘And do you honestly suppose that it is normal to turn a patient’s hair orange while removing head lice?’

  ‘Well—’

  ‘No, Benedict, it isn’t.’ Sister Hy
de closed her eyes briefly. She looked as if she was praying for strength. ‘How on earth could you have done something like this? Are you sure you followed my instructions?’

  ‘Yes, Sister.’

  She and Helen glanced at each other as Sister Hyde picked up the lint she had taken from the woman’s head and sniffed it.

  ‘Odd,’ she said. ‘What exactly did you put on this, Benedict?’

  ‘Oil of Sassafras, Sister. From the bottle in the cupboard.’

  ‘Which bottle was that, Benedict? Show me.’

  They made a humiliating procession to the ward cupboard, Sister Hyde in front, Millie and Helen trailing behind. Word had begun to spread, and a couple of the other nurses had sidled off to see for themselves what Millie had done now.

  ‘This is what I used, Sister.’ Millie took down the brown glass bottle and handed it to her. Sister Hyde examined the label, then unscrewed the cap and sniffed it.

  ‘Tell me, Benedict, does this smell like the sassafras oil you used?’

  She thrust it under Millie’s nose. She recoiled as the pungent smell hit her. ‘Ugh! No, Sister.’

  ‘How about this?’ Sister Hyde reached into the cupboard and took out another, identical brown glass bottle. Dread crept like ice through Millie’s veins as the truth began to dawn on her. She realised what she’d done even before Sister Hyde had unscrewed the cap and waved it under her nose. ‘Perhaps this smells more familiar?’

  It smelt familiar, all right. How many times had she used it to treat septic wounds? But she had been so preoccupied she hadn’t even noticed. ‘Yes, Sister.’

  ‘And what does the label say?’

  Millie didn’t even have to raise her eyes to know. ‘Hydrogen peroxide, Sister.’

  ‘Which explains the patient’s miraculous transformation, doesn’t it?’

  Millie heard a muffled giggle from the other side of the door. ‘I’m sorry, Sister. I don’t know how it happened—’

  ‘Oh, I do.’ Sister Hyde’s mouth thinned with contempt. ‘You are, as I have always suspected, completely incapable of following simple instructions.’

  Millie stared at the floor. She must have been so busy thinking about William, she hadn’t read the label on the bottle correctly.

  ‘Sorry, Sister.’

  ‘Sorry indeed.’ Her chilly gaze raked Millie from head to foot. ‘I realise, Nurse Benedict, that this work is little more than a distraction for you, a way of filling in time before you get married, but I would thank you to remember that some of us take nursing very seriously. For some of us, taking care of patients is our life’s work. And if you’re not able to respect that, then perhaps you shouldn’t be here.’

  ‘But, Sister—’

  ‘I really don’t wish to hear any more from you, Benedict. Now I want you to go back to the bathroom and sort out that poor woman’s hair. You’d better go with her, Tremayne, and make sure she doesn’t leave her completely bald next time.’

  ‘Yes, Sister,’ they chorused.

  ‘And while you’re at it, Benedict, you can think about how you’re going to explain this sorry incident to Matron, too. Because you can be sure I will be mentioning it in my ward report!’

  Millie was still smarting over Sister Hyde’s harsh comment when she got back to the bathroom.

  ‘It’s not fair,’ she protested, taking off her stiff cuffs and rolling up her sleeves. ‘She made me sound like some silly girl who is just doing this for fun. For heaven’s sake, if I were out for fun, do you really think I would be here, disinfecting patients’ sores and killing head lice?’

  ‘You mustn’t blame Sister Hyde,’ Helen said. ‘She’s dedicated her whole life to nursing, and she expects the rest of us to do the same.’

  ‘Who says I’m not devoting my life to nursing, too?’

  Helen sent her a sceptical look. ‘Everyone knows you’re going to marry Sebastian as soon as you finish training.’

  ‘You’re going to marry Charlie.’

  ‘Not for a few years. We agreed to wait before we got engaged, so that I could really make a go of my nursing.’

  ‘I might do the same.’

  ‘Do you think your grandmother would allow that?’

  Millie was silent with resentment as she started to rinse the woman’s hair.

  Helen leant forward to peer at her. ‘Are you crying?’

  ‘Certainly not. I’ve just splashed myself in the eye, that’s all.’ She wiped her streaming nose on her sleeve.

  She wouldn’t give Sister Hyde the satisfaction of seeing her cry. Then she really would think Millie was an idiot.

  ‘She said she wasn’t crying, but I knew she was,’ Helen told Charlie later. ‘Poor Benedict, Sister really tore her off a strip. I’ve never seen her in such a temper.’

  They were sitting in their favourite café, the place where Charlie had proposed nearly five months before. The cockney-Italian café owner had had a soft spot for them ever since, and often let them stay behind after hours while he cleaned up around them.

  ‘I reckon that Sister of yours could do with a sense of humour,’ Charlie grinned. ‘It sounds like a right lark to me.’

  Helen smiled in spite of herself. ‘It was, but it could have been very serious. As nurses we can’t afford to make mistakes like that. Someone could have died as a result of Benedict’s reading a label wrongly.’ She twirled a teaspoon between her fingers. ‘The worst thing is, I can’t help feeling it was all my fault.’

  ‘How do you make that out?’

  ‘I told her about William’s new girlfriend. She put on a brave face, but I know she took it badly.’

  Poor Millie. However much she might protest otherwise, Helen knew she still had feelings for William. She wished now she hadn’t tried to keep them apart. She’d only done it because she was worried her brother would break Millie’s heart, like he’d hurt so many girls in the past. But perhaps if she’d stood back and allowed the relationship to take its course, Millie would have realised for herself what he was like. Then her friend wouldn’t be feeling so sad now.

  ‘She would have found out sooner or later,’ Charlie said pragmatically. ‘Better it came from you than anyone else.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Helen admitted with a sigh. ‘William does seem rather besotted with this new girlfriend of his.’

  ‘What’s she like?’

  ‘I only know what he’s told me. She’s a doctor and they met at university. They got back in touch recently, and William apparently fell head over heels in love.’

  ‘How long’s it going to last this time, I wonder?’ Charlie’s mouth twisted.

  ‘That’s the thing. I think he’s really serious this time. He wants to introduce her to our mother. He’s never done that before.’

  ‘I hope she’s a brave woman,’ Charlie remarked. ‘She’s going to need to be.’

  Helen looked across the table at him. He was smiling as usual, but she knew how hurt he was by the way her mother treated him.

  Perhaps it was because he didn’t come from the right background, or because an accident had left him disabled, or just because he had given Helen the confidence to stand up to her mother at last. But whatever the reason, Constance Tremayne made it clear she disapproved of her daughter’s choice of boyfriend. No matter how well mannered and charming Charlie tried to be, her mother treated him with barely disguised contempt.

  He certainly didn’t deserve it, Helen thought as she looked into his smiling blue eyes. Charlie was simply the most wonderful man she had ever met.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she apologised automatically.

  ‘Whatever for?’ He looked at her in surprise.

  ‘My mother. I know she can be rather difficult . . .’

  ‘She’s protective of you, that’s all.’ Charlie put his hand over hers. ‘Any mother would be. My mum’s just the same.’

  ‘No, she isn’t.’ Helen pulled a face. ‘Your mother is an angel compared to mine.’

  ‘Only because she’s so relieved to f
ind someone to take me off her hands!’

  Helen smiled. ‘She adores you, and you know it.’

  The Dawsons had welcomed her into the family from the first moment she’d met them. Helen had been a little intimidated at first, faced with Charlie’s extended tribe of brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins, who filled their cramped terrace house with constant noise and laughter. It was all so different from her own quiet, orderly upbringing in the Vicarage of St Oswald’s, where laughing or speaking out of place were frowned on.

  Not by her father, of course. The Reverend Timothy Tremayne was a kind, loving man, but like the rest of the family he was dominated by his wife. Constance Tremayne controlled everything and everyone, and Helen, her father and her brother had learnt quickly that it was best to fall in with her plans.

  Which was why Helen had ended up becoming a nurse in the first place. Constance had trained as a nurse herself, and it didn’t occur to Helen to argue when her mother announced that she should do the same. But even when she started her training, Helen couldn’t escape; her mother had seen to it that she became a nurse at the Nightingale, where Mrs Tremayne was on the Board of Trustees.

  Helen might have gone on living under her mother’s thumb if she hadn’t met Charlie on her ward. He had lost his leg in an accident, and Helen had helped him come to terms with his anger and despair. But somewhere along the line professional caring had turned to friendship and then to love.

  Knowing how horrified her mother would be at the idea of her daughter having a boyfriend, she and Charlie had kept their romance a secret at first. But inevitably Constance had found out. Of course she had tried to put a stop to it at once, even going so far as to pack Helen off to Scotland to finish her training. But by some miracle, and after an impassioned plea by Charlie, she had relented at the last minute and given her grudging approval to the match.

  But that didn’t mean she was happy about it.

  ‘Tell you what, I wouldn’t mind being a fly on the wall when your mum meets William’s new girlfriend,’ Charlie said.

  ‘You won’t have to be a fly on the wall. We’ve been invited to lunch too.’

  Invited, she thought with a smile. It made it sound as if anyone had a choice in the matter.