The Nightingale Sisters

by Donna Douglas

  ‘But the boats—’

  ‘Another time.’

  ‘You promised!’ He dug his heels in, nearly pulling her off balance. ‘You promised we could go on the boats!’

  ‘Oliver, do as you’re told!’ Panic and fear made Violet scream at him. She saw his face crumple slowly into tears but had no time to comfort him. All she could think of was getting away, finding somewhere safe to hide as she half carried and half dragged him, sobbing, through the throng of people.

  She could hear Sister Blake behind her, calling out her name. But Violet didn’t heed her as she ran, her lungs bursting, gripping Oliver’s hand so tightly she could feel his fragile bones being crushed in her grasp. She was too afraid to loosen her hold on him in case he ran away from her, straight to Mrs Sherman.

  Car horns blared as she bolted across the road and through the hospital gates. Still she didn’t stop running, through the archway and across the courtyard, then beyond the hospital buildings to the sisters’ block.

  Oliver’s outraged sobbing echoed off the walls as she fumbled with her key in the lock. She opened the door, shoved him inside, then locked it behind her. Her heart pounding, she yanked the curtains closed, plunging them into shadowy darkness.

  She peered through a crack in the curtains. Suddenly the beautiful garden, bathed in spring sunshine, seemed alive with all kinds of dark, nameless horrors. She needed to escape, but she was cornered like helpless prey. Fear overwhelmed her, rising up in her throat, almost choking her.

  She dragged Oliver into the bedroom and closed the door. Pulling the suitcase off the top of her wardrobe, she began to throw clothes in it.

  He stopped sobbing and regarded her curiously. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘We have to go, sweetheart.’

  ‘But I want to stay!’ His lower lip jutted obstinately. ‘I like it here. I helped Sister Sutton plant some seeds, and I want to see them grow.’

  ‘I know, darling, but we have to leave. The bad people have found us. It’s not safe for us here.’

  Oliver’s brown eyes widened with fear. Then he folded his arms defiantly. ‘I’m tired of running away from the bad people. I don’t want to run any more,’ he declared.

  Violet looked at her son, her panic subsiding. She put down the clothes and went over to him.

  ‘Neither do I, sweetheart,’ she sighed sadly, stroking his face. ‘But we can’t stay.’

  There was a knock on the door, and Violet froze.

  ‘Miss Tanner?’ She heard Matron’s voice on the other side of the door and allowed herself to breathe again.

  ‘Stay here,’ she warned Oliver. ‘Keep as quiet as a mouse, and don’t move. Can you do that for me?’ He nodded solemnly.

  ‘Is Matron one of the bad people?’ he whispered.

  Violet stared grimly at the door.

  ‘Let’s find out, shall we?’ she said.

  Chapter Forty

  IT WAS SUNDAY afternoon, but Matron was in her full black uniform, her expression solemn under her elaborate headdress. Miss Hanley stood behind her, grim-faced as a gaoler.

  ‘I think we need to have a talk, don’t you?’ Matron said.

  Violet let out a deep, shuddering sigh. The time had come to be honest at last and it felt strangely like a relief.

  ‘Not here,’ she said, glancing over her shoulder. ‘I don’t want Oliver to hear.’

  ‘Very well. We will talk in my office. Miss Hanley will look after your son. Don’t worry,’ Matron said. ‘She will not let any harm come to him. Will you, Miss Hanley?’

  Violet glanced at the Assistant Matron. They might not have seen eye to eye on everything, but she had a feeling Miss Hanley was a woman to be trusted. Oliver would be safer with her than with anyone, Violet decided.

  In Matron’s office, Violet went to sit down in the chair on the visitor’s side of the heavy mahogany desk, but Matron directed her to one of the polished leather armchairs that flanked the fireplace. It was the same place she had sat the day Matron had invited her to stay at the Nightingale. At the time, it had all seemed too good to be true, and now she knew it was. Miss Fox asked the maid to bring them some tea, and seated herself in the armchair opposite.

  ‘I’m leaving,’ Violet blurted out.

  ‘Very well.’ Matron regarded her with calm grey eyes. ‘If that’s what you wish, I wouldn’t dream of trying to change your mind. But first I would like an explanation. I feel you owe me that, at least.’

  Violet floundered, unsure of where to start. Until Matron said, ‘Miss Hanley tells me you had a visitor?’

  Panic raced through her. ‘Mrs Sherman was here?’

  Matron looked at her consideringly. ‘I take it she’s the reason for your sudden desire to depart?’ Violet nodded. ‘Who is she, may I ask?’

  ‘My husband’s housekeeper.’

  ‘Don’t you mean his former housekeeper? Your husband is dead, surely?’ Violet shook her head. ‘So you’re not a widow after all?’

  ‘I only wish I were,’ she murmured. She saw Matron’s look of surprise, but no longer cared. ‘My husband is a monster,’ she declared, lifting her chin. ‘He made my life a misery from the day I married him.’

  ‘Then why did you?’

  ‘Because I was young, stupid and naïve. Stupid enough to allow myself to be flattered when a consultant showed an interest in me. And naïve enough to believe my mother when she told me that marrying a man old enough to be my father would be the making of me.’

  But she couldn’t blame anyone else for what she’d done. Her mother had only wanted the best for her; it had been Violet’s decision alone to marry Victor.

  Mr Victor Dangerfield. One of the country’s top neurosurgeons. The medical journals called him a genius, a pioneering surgeon capable of making the blind see and bringing the dead back to life. With power like that at his fingertips, was it really any wonder he had turned out to be an arrogant, narcissistic bully?

  There was a knock on the door, and the maid entered with the tea tray. Violet paused, collecting her thoughts, while Matron busied herself pouring them both a cup. Then she settled back in her chair and looked at Violet expectantly.

  ‘Start at the beginning,’ she said. ‘And I want you to tell me everything.’

  And so Violet told her. It was the first time she had ever told her story to anyone who really wanted to listen. She had tried to tell her mother once, but Dorothy Tanner refused to hear anything against her perfect son-in-law. Now, at last, Violet had someone who was ready to hear what she had to say, and it was such a relief to let it all out.

  She was twenty-two years old when Victor Dangerfield had swept her off her feet and married her.

  Looking back, she wondered how it had ever happened. Victor Dangerfield was wealthy, powerful and charismatic. He could have had any woman he wanted. And yet he had chosen a shy mouse like her, picked her out as she hid away at the end of a line of nurses when he arrived on the ward to do his round. She wondered if that had been part of the attraction for him. Victor was the kind of man who needed a wife who would worship and revere him at home the way the nurses did at the hospital.

  Whatever his motives, once he had decided she was the one he wanted, she had had very little say in the matter. He didn’t court her so much as overwhelm her: so forceful was his personality that they were engaged to be married almost before she had realised what had happened.

  But there was a moment when she tried to voice her doubts. As the wedding approached, she had confided her fears to her mother. Victor was in his forties, twice her age, and she felt she barely knew him. He was charming and attentive, but she knew nothing of what lay beneath the surface. She didn’t know his background, his friends, his family. She couldn’t remember having a single serious conversation with him.

  But her mother had just laughed off her fears, told her how lucky she was that someone like Victor Dangerfield had ever looked her way. Dorothy Tanner had struggled to cope since her own husband died, and she knew the v
alue of finding a good man to take care and provide.

  And so Violet had pushed her doubts to one side and married him. But they had only been married a matter of weeks before she realised what kind of man she had taken for a husband.

  She stared down at her teacup, unable to meet Matron’s eye as she told her story. Even now, she still felt embarrassed and ashamed, as if it were somehow her fault.

  ‘We had been married less than a month the first time he beat me,’ she said flatly. ‘I remember, it was all to do with a set of curtains.’ She smiled faintly at the memory. It seemed so petty and ridiculous now. ‘I’d moved into his house, you see, and it was full of heavy, dark furnishings and fabrics that looked as if they had been there since Victorian times. Of course, being a young bride, I was keen to make my mark on the place. So I ordered some new curtains. I didn’t tell him, I thought they would be a nice surprise.’ Her mouth twisted bitterly.

  ‘And he was angry about it?’

  ‘Oh, no, he was never angry.’ That was what was so terrifying about him. Anger would have been preferable to the chilling, calculating punishments he meted out to her. At least she could have predicted anger. But his blows could come out of nowhere. ‘He was very calm as always. He instructed me to take them down and throw them on the fire. Then he hit me around the head, so hard it burst my eardrum.’

  She saw Matron wince.

  ‘You didn’t go to the police?’

  Violet shook her head. ‘Who would have believed me? You have to remember, my husband was a prominent surgeon – a man of status. Men like that don’t beat their wives, do they? It’s only working-class men coming home drunk from the pub who set about women. Even if I’d tried to tell anyone, Victor would have made sure they didn’t believe me. My husband can be highly persuasive when he wants to be. He managed to persuade me often enough. For a long time, I was convinced everything was my fault. That I’d deserved my punishments through my own foolishness. I thought if only I could be a better person, less of a disappointment—’

  ‘You poor child.’

  Tears stung the back of Violet’s eyes. It was the first time anyone had ever taken pity on her, she realised.

  ‘The beatings weren’t the worst of it,’ she said. ‘I know it sounds hard to believe, but I think I could have put up with the physical pain of a cracked rib or a few bruises But it was what he did to me here.’ She tapped her temple. ‘That was what really hurt. He made me feel as if everything was my fault. Every criticism he gave me, every time he punished me, I had to apologise for offending him. And if I didn’t, he would make me suffer more. He would burn my clothes, or forbid the servants to feed me, or lock me in my room. Sometimes he would simply ignore me for days on end. I was like a dog he had to bring to heel. And, of course, I always came in the end.’

  ‘But why, my dear? I simply don’t understand it.’ Matron looked perplexed.

  ‘Neither do I,’ Violet admitted. ‘It’s so hard to explain. It’s different when you’re there, in the middle of it all. It’s as if you can no longer tell right from wrong, or up from down.’

  ‘But wasn’t there someone who could have guided you? Your mother, perhaps?’

  ‘My mother wasn’t allowed anywhere near us after we were married.’

  It was ironic, she reflected. Dorothy Tanner had been so mad keen for her daughter to marry well, to increase her own social standing. And yet Victor despised her. He ridiculed her pretensions to Violet, and wouldn’t allow her to visit.

  But such was the power he exerted over people, Dorothy still adored him. She had refused to countenance Violet’s desperate pleas to return home after the way her husband treated her, and even now remained firmly loyal to her son-in-law.

  Of course, there had been one woman closer to hand to whom Violet might have turned: Mrs Sherman, Victor’s devoted housekeeper. Violet had to struggle to keep the venom out of her voice as she spoke the name.

  ‘I think she was secretly besotted with my husband. She had been his housekeeper for many years before I came along. I don’t know if she was jealous of me, or if she couldn’t accept the idea of Victor bringing a new bride into the house, but she treated me with nothing but unkindness and contempt from the day I arrived.’

  ‘Did she know about your husband’s violence towards you?’

  ‘She not only knew, she took pleasure in seeing me suffer.’ Violet’s voice shook with anger at the memory. ‘There were many times when she could have stepped in and saved me from humiliation. But she didn’t. And the few times I appealed directly to her for help, she brushed me off as if she didn’t know what I was talking about. Sometimes I genuinely wondered if she even allowed herself to acknowledge how cruel Victor was. Surely no human being could have allowed it to go on otherwise.’

  Violet drained her cup, and Matron refilled it immediately.

  ‘I’m surprised you wanted to have a child with him,’ she remarked, passing it back to her.

  ‘Like everything else, that wasn’t my decision.’ Violet’s gaze drifted towards the window. The sun was going down outside. She began to feel nervous at the idea of the descending twilight, knowing Mrs Sherman was lurking nearby. ‘Victor was obsessed with the idea of being a father. He desperately wanted a son to continue the Dangerfield name. I think that’s one of the main reasons he married a young girl like me.’ She stirred her tea slowly. The sound of the spoon rattling in the teacup seemed to echo in the silence of the room. ‘He was extremely – frustrated – that I didn’t conceive immediately.’

  Frustrated. It was such a small word for the world of pain that he had inflicted on her for her failure.

  ‘Then, finally, two years into our marriage, it happened. And my life changed overnight.’ She smiled, remembering. The nine months of her pregnancy were the most peaceful of her whole marriage. ‘Victor stopped beating me, and treated me as if I was the most precious thing in the world to him. He simply couldn’t do enough for me. But even though I tried to be happy, I couldn’t help dreading what might happen after the baby was born. I started to have nightmares that I’d given birth to a daughter. I just couldn’t imagine what Victor would do if I didn’t give him the son he expected.’

  She tugged at her thumbnail between her teeth, a habit she had developed during her pregnancy and had not been able to shake off since.

  ‘But you had a boy?’

  ‘Yes, I did. But it was a horrible, difficult labour, and I was confined to bed for a month afterwards to recover my strength. By the time I was well enough to get up and start looking after my son, I found it was too late. Mrs Sherman had already taken over.’

  The housekeeper looked after every aspect of the baby’s care, directing the nanny and nursery maids as if she were his mother. Only reluctantly did she give him up to be fed, and even then she would watch Violet jealously from the doorway of the nursery, itching to snatch him away from her as soon as she could.

  ‘I tried to fight back, but with her and Victor ranged against me, it was almost impossible,’ Violet explained helplessly. ‘I was utterly wretched and miserable. The only pleasure I had were the moments I managed to steal with my son. But even those were denied me when Oliver started to get older. I began to realise that if I didn’t want my boy to turn into a monster like his father, I had to get away.’

  And so she had planned her escape. She secretly applied for another job, arranging for letters to be delivered to a post-office box in Bristol so Victor wouldn’t know what she was doing.

  ‘I didn’t apply to hospitals but to private individuals instead,’ she said. ‘I applied under my maiden name, and claimed I was a widow. I felt wicked writing the words, but then I began to wish they were true.

  ‘At first I was turned down because of Oliver. But finally I found a job looking after an elderly lady in the Midlands. Even then, I wasn’t sure I would be able to get away.’

  The memory of that day still haunted her. She’d planned her escape for Mrs Sherman’s day off, knowing the housek
eeper was due to visit a friend. But at the last moment, Oliver had gone down with yet another chest infection, and Mrs Sherman had decided to stay and nurse her little angel.

  ‘I panicked, told her there was no need, but she insisted. I’d ordered a taxi to pick us up. I could see the time drawing nearer and nearer – I knew if it arrived while Mrs Sherman was there then the game would be up for ever. I would probably end up dead,’ Violet said flatly.

  She had told Mrs Sherman to go out to the chemist for some Friar’s Balsam. Mrs Sherman argued. For once panic had made Violet fearless. She stood up to her, pointed out that she was the nurse and Mrs Sherman should do as she was told, for Oliver’s sake. Or would she rather Mr Dangerfield was told that she had left the child to suffer? Mrs Sherman rather huffily set off into town on her bicycle, assuring Oliver she would only be gone for a few minutes.

  As soon as she left, Violet hastily dressed Oliver and gathered up her few belongings in a couple of cases. The taxi was late, and she was terrified Mrs Sherman would reappear over the hill before she could get away.

  ‘But you managed it?’ Matron was on the edge of her seat, her expression tense.

  ‘By the skin of our teeth, yes. I spotted her cycling back up the hill as we were heading down to the village. If that train had been delayed by just a minute, I dread to think what would have happened.’

  Violet looked down at her wedding ring. She had sold her original one soon after she’d run away, not realising how much she might need the badge of respectability in the years to come. The one she wore now was a cheap ring she had found in a pawnshop in Wolverhampton. ‘But even after we’d escaped, I was terrified that Victor would track down the taxi driver and somehow find out where I’d gone. I knew he would never stop looking for us.’

  From then on her life had become a game of cat and mouse all across the country, using different names, different stories, to try to throw her husband off the scent. She had lived so many different lives in the space of the last five years she could hardly remember who she was supposed to be from one day to the next.