Nightingales on Call

by Donna Douglas

  But it was the silence here that struck Dora, and had since that first day. Every bed was occupied, and yet apart from the sobs of the little girl at the end, none of the children made a sound.

  She paused, listening. It wasn’t right. Even poorly kids should be making a bit of noise.

  ‘All right, Nurse?’

  She started as Nick Riley brushed past her, pushing the linen bin in front of him. They had been courting for more than six months, but the sight of his dark curls and tall, powerful frame in his brown porter’s coat still made Dora catch her breath.

  ‘Yes, thank you, Mr Riley,’ she replied politely, treating him with distant courtesy as she knew she must on the ward. But their eyes locked, telling a very different story. Nick could smile without moving his lips. The warmth in his intense blue gaze made Dora blush.

  Even after all these months she could still hardly believe he loved her as much as she loved him.

  ‘Can I see you tonight?’ he whispered. ‘I need to talk to you.’

  Dora glanced around to make sure Sister wasn’t watching. If she were caught talking to a man, it would be another black mark against her name.

  ‘I finish at five,’ she hissed back.

  ‘Meet you at six? The usual place?’

  Before she could reply, Lucy interrupted them.

  ‘Sister said I must help you with the dressings.’ There was a sour expression on her sharp-featured face.

  ‘I can manage, thanks.’

  ‘Sister doesn’t seem to think you can, otherwise she wouldn’t have sent me, would she?’ Lucy turned to Nick. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Linen collection.’

  ‘Well, you’d better get on with it, hadn’t you? I don’t know why you’re standing around here, wasting time.’

  ‘I’m on my way, Nurse.’ He leaned his weight against the trolley, pushing it forward towards the double doors of the ward. Dora watched him go. At the doors, he turned and winked at her.

  She started to smile back, but quickly composed herself when she saw Lucy staring at her.

  ‘I hope you weren’t flirting with him, Doyle?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Dora prayed Lucy wouldn’t see her blushing face and guess the truth. She knew she would be dismissed instantly if Matron ever found out about her and Nick. And knowing Lucy Lane, she would be only too eager to report anything she discovered.

  Dora changed the subject. ‘We’d better get on with these dressings, then.’

  ‘Yes, we should. Do buck up, Doyle, for heaven’s sake. The sooner we get started, the sooner we can get this over with.’

  Lucy seized control of the trolley and strutted off towards the first bed, leaving Dora trailing behind her.

  Typical Lane, always had to be in charge, Dora thought. In the three years they had been training, Lucy had never missed a chance to try and make her feel small. But Dora was an East End girl, and far too tough to allow herself to be bullied by a petty snob like Lucy Lane. After three years of constant sniping, they had at least learned to tolerate each other. But being stuck together on the same ward for fourteen hours a day was testing Dora’s patience to its limits.

  With Lucy taking charge, they moved briskly down the ward from one bed to the next. If she’d been working on her own, Dora would have taken the time to chat to the children as she changed their dressings but Lucy worked quickly, barely sparing a glance at the faces of her patients as she worked.

  When Dora did stop for a moment to admire a drawing one of the boys had done, Lucy stood at the foot of the bed, drumming her hands on the rail.

  ‘Oh, do let’s get on, Doyle,’ she sighed. ‘We haven’t all day. I’m due to finish at five, and I want to get off duty on time, even if you don’t.’

  ‘Keep your hair on, I’m coming.’ Dora put the drawing carefully back in the boy’s locker and followed Lucy to the next bed.

  She felt Lucy twitching as they prepared the dressings for the next patient, desperate to say something.

  ‘Don’t you want to know why I have to finish on time?’ she burst out finally.

  ‘Not particularly,’ Dora shrugged.

  Lucy ignored her. ‘My parents are having a soirée,’ she announced. ‘There will be all kinds of very important people there.’

  Of course there will, Dora thought. Lucy’s father was Sir Bernard Lane, a millionaire who’d made his fortune manufacturing lightbulbs. Lucy never let anyone forget how rich and well connected he was.

  As they reached the end of the ward, the little girl was still crying behind the bars of her cot. Her howls had subsided to a pathetic whimper that cut through Dora even more than her screams of protest.

  ‘I do wish that wretched child would shut up,’ Lucy snapped, pressing her fingers to her temples. ‘All that whining is giving me a headache.’

  ‘Have a heart,’ Dora said. ‘She’s in a strange place, and she’s had her only comfort taken away from her.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, it was only a stupid teddy bear!’ Lucy retorted. ‘Besides, it was practically falling apart. Sister Parry was quite right, it was probably crawling with all kinds of germs.’

  Sister Parry was quite right, Dora mimicked behind her back. No wonder Sister liked Lucy so much. They were as heartless as each other.

  ‘You take the trolley back to the sluice. I’m going to comfort her,’ Dora said.

  Lucy stared at her, appalled. ‘You heard what Sister Parry said. We’re to leave her be until she stops crying.’

  ‘She hasn’t stopped yet, has she?’

  ‘But Sister—’

  ‘Sister’s on her break, she won’t know anything about it.’ Dora handed the trolley over to her. ‘It’s all right, you don’t have to break any rules. Just keep an eye out and warn me in case she comes back.’

  Lucy hurried off, her turned-up nose in the air, the picture of disdain.

  Dora tiptoed to the cot and peered over the bars. The little girl was curled on her side, whimpering and sucking hard on her thumb to comfort herself. Something else Sister Parry would not approve of, Dora thought.

  ‘All right, love?’ Dora gently lowered the bars of the cot. The little girl looked up at her, red-rimmed eyes wary. Dora didn’t blame her. In the few hours she’d been on the ward, all she’d known was unkindness from the nurses in their uniforms. ‘It’s all right, don’t be scared. I expect it’s not very nice for you, is it, being away from your mum and dad?’

  ‘Mum?’ The little girl pulled her thumb from her mouth, her wide eyes filling with hope. ‘Want Mum!’

  ‘Sorry, love, she’s not here.’ Dora saw the little girl’s mouth begin to tremble. ‘You’ll see her soon, though,’ she said desperately. ‘Oh, no, please don’t start crying again—’

  But it was too late. The child stared at her, eyes brimming with fresh tears. Then, as Dora froze in horror, her mouth began to widen into a gaping hole of despair. Dora braced herself a second before a howl filled the air.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing, Doyle?’ Dora jumped back just as Sister Parry came bustling over, Lucy Lane at her heels.

  ‘I—’

  ‘Did I ask you to attend to this child?’

  ‘No, Sister, but she was still very upset . . .’

  ‘And you’ve made her feel so much better, haven’t you?’ Sister Parry sighed and consulted her watch. ‘It’s five o’clock. Lane, you may go off duty. Doyle, you can stay behind and scrub those mackintoshes in the sluice before you go. Perhaps that will teach you to follow orders when they’re given to you. And you can be sure I will be mentioning this in my ward report,’ she added darkly.

  It was nearly six before Dora finished all her duties. Her hands were raw with scrubbing when she hurried back to the nurses’ home. Her friends Millie Benedict and Katie O’Hara were in the bedroom, studying. They looked up as she rushed in, already tearing off her starched collar.

  ‘I’m going to throttle Lane if I get my hands on her,’ she muttered under her breath.
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br />   Millie smiled sympathetically. ‘What’s she done this time?’

  ‘Dropped me in it with Sister Parry.’ Dora explained what had happened as she pulled off her shoes and stockings. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if Lane went to fetch her,’ she added. ‘That’s just the sort of spiteful thing she’d do.’

  ‘Surely not?’ Millie looked shocked. ‘We’re all in the same set, we’re supposed to stick together.’

  ‘She’s never liked me, though, has she?’ Dora said. ‘Remember how she tried to turn everyone against me? She said I shouldn’t be allowed to train because I wasn’t educated enough. Just because I didn’t go to a posh finishing school, I’ve never been good enough for her.’

  ‘No one’s good enough for Lane,’ Katie O’Hara said, not looking up from her book. ‘I should know, I’ve shared a room with her for three years.’

  ‘I don’t know how you’ve managed it,’ Dora said, throwing open the wardrobe and grabbing the first dress she found. ‘I would have smothered her in her sleep by now.’

  ‘Believe me, I’ve been tempted. She’s always making fun of me, telling me I’m a country bumpkin, just because I come from a little village in Ireland.’ Katie pulled a face. ‘And she says I’m fat . . .’

  Millie and Dora glanced at each other. The truth was, Katie was a little on the plump side.

  ‘You seem in rather a hurry,’ Millie smiled up at Dora. ‘Are you meeting someone?’

  Dora opened her mouth, then closed it again. She’d shared a room with Millie for nearly three years and she was her closest friend at the Nightingale. But she daren’t even tell her that she was courting Nick Riley.

  And she certainly didn’t say anything in front of Katie O’Hara, who was the biggest gossip in their set.

  ‘No one special,’ she lied, her fingers fumbling over the fastenings of her dress. She didn’t dare look up at Millie in case her face gave her away.

  She changed the subject quickly, turning back to Katie. ‘At least you won’t have to share a room with Lane for much longer,’ she said. ‘Once we pass our Finals, we’ll be moving to the proper nurses’ home.’

  ‘If I pass them,’ Katie put in gloomily. There was a brief silence as they all considered their prospects. There were still six months to go before the State Final Examinations, and as the weeks went by Dora felt less and less prepared for them. She had started to have nightmares about exam papers.

  ‘I was actually hoping to share a room with my sister when she starts here in a couple of weeks,’ Katie went on. ‘I wondered if Sister Sutton would let me swap with someone for the last few months I’m here. Effie’s bound to be shy when she first arrives, and it would be nice for us to be together. I know my mother is worried about her.’

  ‘You’ll have to catch Sister Sutton in a good mood,’ Millie said.

  ‘Is Sister Sutton ever in a good mood?’ Dora wondered. She grabbed a hairbrush and began to drag it through her thick red curls.

  ‘That’s true’ Katie said. ‘It wouldn’t hurt to ask, anyway.’ She grinned. ‘Perhaps Lane could move into your room? You have a spare bed since Dawson left.’

  Dora pointed her hairbrush at Katie. ‘Don’t you dare put that idea in Sister Sutton’s head. The next six months are going to be hard enough without Lane making it worse. I don’t think I could stand to listen to her for hours on end, going on and on about how rich her father is, and all the dresses and jewels he’s bought her, and all the soirées she’s been to.’

  ‘Not to mention all the times her photo has been in the society columns,’ Katie added.

  ‘And how she’s so clever she could have gone to university, but she decided to give us poor unfortunates in the nursing profession the benefit of her presence instead . . .’

  Dora was suddenly aware the others had gone very quiet. She felt a cold creep of dread up her spine and turned round. Just as she’d feared, Lucy was standing in the doorway.

  Millie found her voice first. ‘Won’t you join us, Lane?’ she said, her impeccable manners immediately to the fore.

  ‘No, thank you,’ Lucy refused stiffly. She turned to Katie. ‘I only wanted to remind you I have a sleeping out pass this evening.’

  Her room mate nodded. Across the table, Dora could see Katie’s cheeks growing redder with the effort of holding in her emotions.

  Lucy glared at Dora then turned on her heel and walked out, letting the bedroom door swing shut behind her.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ Katie giggled.

  ‘Poor girl,’ Millie sighed. ‘That can’t have been nice for her to hear.’

  ‘She deserves it,’ Katie said. ‘She’s been horrible enough to everyone else in the past. It’s time she had a taste of her own medicine.’

  Dora was silent. Whether Lucy deserved it or not, Dora didn’t think it would make her own life on the ward any easier.

  Chapter Four

  LUCY SENSED THE tension in the air the moment she arrived at her parents’ house in Eaton Place.

  There was the usual flurry of activity that went with preparing for a party, with staff going back and forth, setting out tables, polishing glasses and arranging flowers. But Jameson the butler seemed ill at ease as he helped her off with her coat.

  ‘Where is my mother?’ Lucy asked, looking around the marble-tiled hall.

  ‘Her ladyship has retired to her room, Miss Lucy.’

  A second later a scream from upstairs ripped through the silence of the hall. Lucy drew in a deep breath, feeling the familiar tightness in her ribs.

  ‘Is my father with her?’ she asked.

  ‘I believe so.’ Jameson’s expression didn’t waver. Like her, he had seen this drama played out too many times.

  Lucy paused for a moment, gathering her thoughts. ‘Are the preparations for the party all under way?’ she asked calmly.

  ‘Everything is in order, Miss Lucy.’

  A crash on the ceiling overhead shook the chandelier. Jameson barely flinched.

  ‘Very well,’ Lucy said. ‘In that case, I will go up to my room and get ready.’

  ‘Will you be requiring Higgins to help you, miss?’

  Lucy shook her head. ‘I can manage by myself, thank you, Jameson.’

  As she walked up the grand staircase to the first floor, she could hear the argument gathering force, like an approaching storm.

  ‘Where were you?’ Lucy heard her mother’s voice, loud and demanding.

  ‘I told you, I spent the night at my club.’ Her father sounded weary.

  ‘I don’t believe you. You were with her, weren’t you?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I don’t know her name, do I? How can I keep track of your mistresses when there are so many?’

  Lucy heard her father’s sigh. ‘Now you’re being ridiculous.’

  ‘Ridiculous, am I? I don’t think so. There must be another woman. How else do you explain all those nights you spend at your club? You spend more time with her than you do with me.’

  ‘Clarissa, please. We’ve been through all this before—’

  There was a choked sob from the other side of the door, then her mother’s voice screamed out, ‘No! Don’t you dare touch me!’

  Lucy tiptoed past and let herself into her own room. It was her sanctuary, a beautiful retreat decorated in delicate shades of apricot and lilac, with a silk coverlet on the bed. The muffled sounds of quarrelling still seeped through the walls, snagging her attention. Her father was shouting now, his booming voice matching her mother’s screams.

  Lucy sat down at her dressing table and clamped her hands over her ears. She stared at her reflection, forcing herself to focus on her own face, the hazel of her eyes and the smooth swathe of chestnut-brown hair that framed them. It dawned on her that she had grown up doing this, comforting herself by gazing at herself while her parents raged and argued and ripped each other apart next door.

  ‘Clarissa, Please!’ she heard her father shouting. ‘How am I supposed to find time for a mistress when I’m workin
g every hour God sends?’

  ‘So you say!’ Her mother’s voice was shrill and mocking.

  ‘Do you think the factory runs itself?’

  ‘No, but I think you have people to run it for you. You don’t need to spend every waking hour there.’

  ‘You have no idea, do you? You don’t have a clue what running a business like mine involves. All you’re interested in is how much money you can spend. If you only knew what I go through . . .’

  ‘What you go through? What about me?’

  Lucy went to her wardrobe and threw open the doors. She was faced with a sea of silks, satins and furs, each in its lavender-scented cover, each a couture garment that she and her mother had chosen together. Lucy’s mother adored shopping. It was one of the few things that gave her any pleasure.

  Shutting out the raised voices, Lucy concentrated on selecting a gown. Not red, she decided. Not blue either. Green? She reached in and pulled out a delicate bias-cut silk in a soft mint colour, trimmed with bronze beading.

  She held it up against herself and examined her reflection in the cheval mirror, trying to imagine what her mother would say about it. Clarissa Lane took as much pride in her daughter’s appearance as she did in her own.

  Appearances are everything. Those words had been drilled into Lucy from an early age.

  ‘I’m not naïve, Bernard, whatever else you may think of me!’ her mother screeched.

  ‘No, but you’re clearly drunk.’

  ‘Is it any wonder, when you treat me so cruelly?’

  Her father laughed harshly. ‘You think all this is cruel?’

  ‘You neglect me,’ her mother sobbed. ‘You only pay me any attention when you need me to entertain your dull friends.’

  ‘They’re hardly friends, Clarissa. These people are important to the business.’

  ‘That’s all you think about, isn’t it? Your wretched business. Sometimes I feel like a glorified employee.’

  ‘Oh, believe me, if you were an employee I would expect a great deal more from you, for the amount you’re paid!’