The Nightingale Sisters

by Donna Douglas

But although Violet was moved by the King’s death, she felt more wretched for the young man behind the screens, rapidly losing the struggle for life after being knocked off his bike on the way to his night shift. Of course she felt sorrow for His Majesty’s passing. But at least he had lived a long, full life, and had died with dignity. There was no dignity for poor Mr Parsons, lying bleeding in a gutter, his life over almost before it had begun.

  She pushed open the door to the visitors’ room and was confronted by a set of anxious white faces. Mr Parsons’ mother, his father, brothers and sisters, all roused from their sleep, overcoats thrown on over their nightclothes in their rush to get to the hospital.

  It was a sight she often faced, but it didn’t get any easier. Patients who clung tenaciously to life during daylight hours seemed to lose the will during the long hours of darkness. As Night Sister it was her job to prepare relatives for the worst, or give them the news they dreaded.

  ‘Is he . . . is he going to be all right, Nurse?’ Mrs Parsons whispered.

  Violet took a deep breath, composed herself, and quietly closed the door.

  News of the King’s death drifted through the hospital on a wave of sorrow. Nurses wept; patients woke up, grew restless, needed to talk. Violet spent the night going from ward to ward, soothing and comforting, holding hands and making endless cups of tea.

  As dawn broke the following morning she was exhausted. All she could think about was going home and crawling into her bed.

  She wasn’t sure if she was imagining it at first when she heard the sound of a tap running in the bathroom of Wren ward just before six in the morning. She investigated, and found an unhappy-looking young nurse filling the bathtub. The night student stood in the doorway watching her, looking almost as wretched.

  They both glanced round sharply when Violet appeared. ‘What do you think you’re doing, Nurse?’ she demanded.

  ‘It’s for my punishment, Sister.’ The young woman’s voice was almost drowned out by the roar of the tap. She looked as weary as Violet felt, her face haggard from lack of sleep, her red hair a frizzy, unbrushed halo.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘My cold bath punishment. Sister Wren says you’re to supervise it.’

  Violet rubbed her eyes with a weary hand. ‘I’m sorry, Nurse, you’re going to have to explain yourself.’ She looked from one to the other of the two girls.

  It was the night student who spoke up first. ‘Sister Wren makes us take a cold bath at dawn if we’re caught talking to men, Sister,’ she explained.

  ‘I see. So I’m to see that this punishment is carried out?’ They both nodded. ‘And suppose I don’t want to?’

  The nurses looked at each other in confusion. ‘I – I’m sorry, Miss,’ said the red-haired student. ‘I don’t understand—’

  Violet sighed. ‘What is your name, Nurse?’

  ‘Doyle, Sister.’

  ‘Tell me, Doyle, were you talking to this man?’

  ‘Yes, Sister.’ She met Violet’s eye when she said it. Not boldly or cheekily, but in a steady, straightforward kind of way. She didn’t look like the flirtatious type, Violet thought.

  She reached over and turned off the tap. ‘Go away, Doyle,’ she said wearily.

  ‘But Miss—’

  ‘Doyle, it’s been a very long night, and now I have to check all the ward reports and make sure all the patients are fed and everything is in order before the day staff come on duty at seven. Do you really think I also have time to supervise you taking a cold bath as well?’

  ‘No, Sister.’ The girl’s broad, freckled face filled with hope.

  ‘No, I do not. And I’m sure you have better things to do with your time, too. So go and have your breakfast, and make sure you report back on the ward promptly for duty.’

  ‘But Sister Wren will be—’

  ‘I will deal with Sister Wren,’ Violet said firmly.

  ‘Isn’t it awful about the poor King?’

  Millie heard it everywhere she went on that bleak, cold Tuesday morning. All the nurses were talking about it over breakfast, and the old ladies on Female Chronic – the few who were aware of what was going on around them, anyway – all wanted to share their fond reminiscences with Millie as she went about her chores on the ward.

  Outside the hospital, church bells rang out. Sister Hyde had allowed a wireless into the ward, but Millie began to wish she hadn’t as they were treated to hour after hour of solemn music.

  ‘Why do we have to listen to this?’ Maud Mortimer demanded as she submitted unwillingly to Millie wielding a hairbrush. ‘Isn’t this place depressing enough without having to listen to these dreadful dirges?’

  ‘It’s for the King,’ Millie said, carefully untangling a knot in Maud’s long, silky white hair.

  ‘Why? He can’t hear it, can he? For heaven’s sake, girl, do you have to be so rough?’ she snapped, jerking her head away.

  ‘Sorry.’ Millie slowed down her brushing. ‘But the music is a mark of respect, don’t you think?’

  ‘Respect, my eye,’ Maud tutted. ‘It’s nothing but a lot of mawkish sentimentality, if you ask me. Although I’m not remotely surprised at you getting so emotional about it – you strike me as the mawkish type,’ she added.

  ‘It’s always sad when someone dies.’

  ‘What utter nonsense,’ Maud dismissed. ‘For most people it’s a blessed release. Or it would be, if it weren’t for the likes of do-gooders like you,’ she added accusingly. ‘You nurses and doctors, coming in here with your face flannels and your feeding cups and your sickening, relentless cheerfulness, trying to keep us alive when all we want to do is die in peace.’

  ‘It’s our job to care for people, Mrs Mortimer.’ Millie’s smile wobbled uncertainly.

  ‘You call this caring? If you really cared you’d put us all out of our misery.’

  ‘You mustn’t talk like that.’

  ‘Why not?’ She gestured around the ward. ‘Have you ever taken the trouble to look around you? Do you believe these women want to be helpless and in pain? Do you think they enjoy having to have someone to feed them and wash their hair and wipe their backsides? Don’t you think every one of them would choose to go to sleep and never wake up if they could? I know I would. Oh, don’t look so shocked,’ she snapped. ‘If I have nothing left to live for, why shouldn’t I go when I please?’

  ‘There’s always something left to live for.’

  Maud Mortimer sent her a look of pure contempt. ‘You foolish, foolish girl!’ she hissed. ‘You only say that because you’re young. You wait until you’re my age, and everyone you care about has passed away or forgotten you exist. Wait until your mind is fading and your body is letting you down, and you’re at the mercy of stupid girls with sunny smiles and hairbrushes, then tell me you want to live.’

  The bleakness in her hard, bright eyes made Millie want to cry. She could feel hot tears pricking the back of her eyes.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ Maud snatched the hairbrush from her, but it fell from her weak grasp and rolled away under the bed. ‘You see?’ she said. ‘I can’t even brush my own hair now. What kind of life is that?’

  Millie dived under the bed to retrieve the brush, but Maud waved her away. ‘Just leave me alone,’ she said wearily. ‘You’re giving me a headache.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Did you hear me? I said go away. Go and torment one of these other wretched women. Perhaps you can have a good old weep together about the poor old King.’

  Millie was still shaking as she pushed her trolley back towards the sluice. She tried to tell herself that Maud was just having a bad day. But the bitterness she’d seen in the old woman’s eyes haunted her.

  She avoided Maud Mortimer for the rest of the morning. Luckily Sister Hyde gave Helen the job of feeding Maud at dinnertime. Millie watched from the other end of the ward as her friend sat beside the bed, a feeding cup in her hand.

  ‘I don’t want it,’ Maud said, turning her head away. ‘I
refuse to be fed like a child.’

  ‘Come on, Mrs Mortimer, you have to keep your strength up,’ Helen pleaded. ‘Just try one sip for me—’

  ‘I told you, I don’t want it!’ Maud shoved the cup away from her with such force, it flew out of Helen’s hand and skimmed across the floor.

  There was an appalled silence. Sister Hyde stalked over to Maud, her expression stern.

  ‘Really, Mrs Mortimer, you must let Nurse Tremayne feed you,’ she warned her. ‘Otherwise—’

  ‘Otherwise what?’ Maud faced her defiantly. ‘I’ll starve to death?’

  ‘Otherwise we will have to use a feeding tube,’ Sister Hyde said quietly.

  There was a long silence. Even from the other end of the ward Millie caught the brief flash of fear in Maud’s face.

  ‘Very well, then,’ she said with dignity. ‘You may feed me.’

  Sister Hyde smiled. ‘That’s better. Tremayne, prepare another feeding cup. And Benedict,’ she called over to her, ‘see this mess is cleaned up at once.’

  As Millie mopped the floor, she watched Helen feeding Maud.

  ‘There,’ she said soothingly, holding the cup to her lips. ‘That’s not so bad, is it?’

  Millie caught the bleak look in Maud’s eyes, and remembered what she had said about being at the mercy of girls with sunny smiles. It was bad, she thought. As far as Maud Mortimer was concerned, it couldn’t get much worse.

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘I’M SORRY, LOVE. The room’s gone.’

  Violet stared at the woman who stood on the front doorstep, arms folded across her chest. She looked straight back at her, her face a blank mask.

  ‘But it was available this morning.’ It had been perfect. Large, filled with light, with a door that led out on to the garden. ‘I told you I wanted it. I said I was coming back this afternoon with the money—’

  ‘Yes, well, someone beat you to it, I’m afraid.’

  Violet drew herself upright. ‘You told me the room had been available for weeks. It’s very strange that two people should turn up and want it on the same day, don’t you think?’

  ‘These things happen.’ The woman shrugged.

  Violet held on to Oliver’s hand. ‘So it has nothing to do with my son?’ she said quietly.

  The woman’s darting gaze gave her away. ‘I thought you were a respectable single lady,’ she muttered.

  ‘I’m a widow.’

  ‘Is that right?’ The woman glanced meaningfully at Violet’s cheap ring, glinting unconvincingly in the pale sunlight. ‘You weren’t wearing that this morning?’

  ‘I have to take it off when I’m working.’

  ‘Oh, yes? And what kind of work would that be, then?’

  Colour scalded Violet’s cheeks. ‘I’m a nurse!’

  ‘If you say so, dearie.’ The woman looked at her sceptically.

  Violet held in her anger, determined not to let Oliver see her upset. She hated the way the other woman looked down her nose at her, but at the same time she couldn’t blame her. She wouldn’t be the first young mother to buy a cheap ring from a pawnshop and try to pass herself off as a widow for the sake of respectability.

  It’s not what you think, she wanted to cry out. But fear kept her silent.

  ‘Look, love,’ the landlady said kindly. ‘I’m sure it can’t be easy for you. You seem like a nice woman. But I can’t let you have the room. Not with—’ Her eyes flicked to Oliver and away again. ‘Haven’t you got any family that can help you out?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ Violet’s voice faltered. ‘I don’t have anyone.’

  ‘Then I feel sorry for you, I really do.’

  Violet stood on the doorstep for a moment after the front door had closed in her face, blinking back the tears.

  ‘Mummy?’ Oliver pulled on her hand, his voice uncertain. ‘Are we going to live here?’

  ‘No, sweetheart. It turns out it’s not the right place after all.’

  ‘But I don’t want to live with Mrs Bainbridge any more.’

  Neither do I, Violet thought. But we don’t have a lot of choice.

  ‘We’ll find somewhere soon, darling,’ she promised. By the time she looked down at him, she’d managed to summon up a smile. ‘Now then, shall we go home through the market? We’ll buy some apple fritters from the van, how about that?’

  ‘Yes, please!’ Oliver did a little dance, wriggling and jiggling while she held his hand. ‘And can we have fish and chips for tea?’

  ‘Why not? I think we deserve a treat.’

  They walked home, past shops decked out in sombre black crepe to mark the King’s death. It was freezing cold and a biting wind blew through the narrow streets but at least it had blown away the choking fog. Violet stayed out for as long as she could, partly because she dreaded going back to the damp, dark tenement, and partly to give Oliver the chance to get some fresh air. She’d noticed his breathing was getting worse recently, his little chest rising and falling as he gulped for air. Mrs Bainbridge had also complained that his coughing kept her awake.

  But finally she couldn’t put it off any longer, and they trudged back home, stopping for fish and chips on the way.

  Their little room reeked of damp and decay. Violet tried not to notice the patches of black mould creeping up the plasterwork under the window as she helped Oliver out of his coat, then went into the kitchenette to set out their fish and chips.

  ‘Can’t we eat it out of the newspaper?’ he begged.

  ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘But that’s how Mrs Bainbridge eats it.’

  ‘All the more reason for us not to,’ Violet murmured to herself as she pulled two plates out of the cupboard.

  That was when she noticed the cocoa tin was gone.

  The place might be rotting around their ears, but she kept it spotlessly clean. The wooden surfaces were scrubbed with lysol, and everything was lined up neatly in the cupboards. So it was easy for her to spot when something had been moved. Or taken.

  A cold feeling washed over her. She reached to the back of the cupboard, scrabbling among the tins and packets, already knowing that what she was looking for was missing, but not wanting to give up hope.

  ‘Mummy!’ Oliver called out.

  ‘Just a minute, darling. Mummy’s looking for something.’

  But the old Rowntree’s cocoa tin in which she kept her money and the few treasured belongings she had, was gone.

  Forcing herself to stay calm, she gave Oliver his fish and chips, then went downstairs and knocked on Mrs Bainbridge’s door.

  It was a few minutes before she came to the door, wiping her hands on her flowery pinny. Over her shoulder the kitchen was a chaos of babies wailing, children arguing and the rancid smell of frying fat.

  ‘Yes? What do you want?’

  Violet had meant to stay calm. But seeing Mrs Bainbridge’s narrow, sly face was too much for her.

  ‘Where’s my tin?’ she demanded.

  Mrs Bainbridge blinked at her. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘You know very well. I had an old cocoa tin in my cupboard and it’s gone.’

  ‘What are you looking at me for? I ain’t had it.’

  ‘Someone has.’ Violet looked past her into the kitchen. Half a dozen children stared back at her, all with eyes as sly as their mother’s.

  ‘Are you calling me a thief?’

  Violet struggled to keep her temper. ‘I just want my belongings back,’ she said patiently. ‘I don’t even care about the money. But there was jewellery in that tin. A locket my mother gave me. It’s all I have left . . .’

  ‘Then you should have taken better care of it, shouldn’t you?’

  ‘And you should stop helping yourself to other people’s things!’

  Mrs Bainbridge looked outraged. ‘I ain’t had your rotten locket,’ she snarled. ‘You’re welcome to search the place if you don’t believe me. But I’m telling you, you won’t find anything here.’

  She stepped back from the doo
rway. Violet stared past her into the steamy fug of the kitchen. What was the point? she thought. Her jewellery would have found its way to the pawnshop hours ago.

  ‘Or maybe we should call in the police?’ Mrs Bainbridge suggested. ‘Let them sort it out?’

  ‘No!’ Violet saw the flare of triumph in Mrs Bainbridge’s eyes and realised she’d spoken too quickly. ‘Just stay away from what’s mine,’ she said quietly.

  ‘And does that include your boy?’ the landlady called after her as she headed back towards the stairs. ‘I s’pose that means you don’t want me keeping an eye on him while you’re out any more?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure as I want to. It’s not nice, y’know, being called a thief when you’re just trying to be neighbourly. I reckon I might need an apology from you before I put myself out again.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Violet whispered.

  She walked back up the stairs to the top of the house, burning with fresh anger and frustration at each step. How she hated that evil woman! But Mrs Bainbridge was right. Violet couldn’t even put a lock on the door because she relied on her to look after Oliver while she was at work.

  He looked up at her as she let herself back into their room. ‘Mummy, your fish and chips have gone cold.’

  ‘I’m not very hungry any more.’ She picked up her plate and tipped its contents into the bin.

  After tea, she got Oliver washed at the sink and into his pyjamas, read to him and put him to bed.

  ‘I’ve left you some milk and biscuits in case you get hungry in the night,’ she said, stoking up the fire. ‘Now remember, sweetheart, what Mummy always tells you?’

  ‘Don’t touch the fireguard, and don’t let any strangers into the room,’ he parroted dutifully. ‘And don’t go off with anyone, no matter what they tell me.’

  ‘That’s right.’ Violet sat down on his narrow bed and kissed her son goodnight. As always, she hugged him fiercely, gripped by a terrible fear that this would be the last time she saw him.

  ‘I wish you didn’t have to go away every night, Mummy,’ he said.

  ‘So do I, darling.’

  ‘I liked it better when we lived with Mr Mannion in the big house.’