Nightingales on Call (4 page)

‘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.

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.

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 working 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!’

Lucy sat down at the dressing table and turned her attention to her hair, humming to herself as she pinned it up and admired the elongated arch of her neck.

‘That’s typical of you, isn’t it? You may think you’re a gentleman because you’ve made a fortune, but underneath it all you’re nothing more than a glorified tradesman. You can’t buy class and breeding, you know!’

‘So you’re always telling me.’

Or perhaps she should leave it down and let it fall in waves around her face? A looser style softened her sharp features. Inherited from her father, as Clarissa never failed to point out.

‘Sometimes I think you only married me because you needed someone to introduce you to polite society!’

‘And you only married me because you knew I was a better bet than one of those chinless aristocrats your father wanted you to marry!’ Lucy’s father was angry now, his raised voice reverberating through the wall. ‘So stop pretending we didn’t both do well out of this marriage. If it weren’t for me you’d still be stuck in some crumbling old castle, freezing to death because no one could afford to light a fire. If this is a cage, Clarissa, then it’s a bloody gilded one!’

Lucy jumped as a door slammed, making the walls tremble. A moment later her father stomped down the stairs.

Lucy tensed, waiting. Then, when she knew she couldn’t put it off any longer, she went to her mother’s room.

Clarissa Lane lay on her bed, curled up on the silk cover. Lucy glanced at the empty glass on the nightstand, her heart sinking. How could her mother do this, tonight of all nights? Surely she must know how important it was for Father to make a good impression? There were at least two members of the Cabinet dining with them this evening, who could perhaps help her father achieve the peerage he longed for.

‘Mother?’ she said softly.

Clarissa looked up. ‘Oh, it’s you. I thought it was your father.’

As Lucy bent to kiss her mother’s cheek, she caught the smell of gin mingled with the heady scent of her perfume. ‘I’ve come to show you my dress for the party.’

Her mother sat up to cast a critical eye over Lucy. The early-evening sunlight streaming through the curtains caught the jutting bones of the older woman’s sharply angled face, casting harsh shadows over it. Clarissa Lane had once been considered a beauty, but now her fashionable slenderness made her seem drained and gaunt.

‘Those shoes are quite wrong,’ she said flatly. ‘And you’re wearing far too much colour in your cheeks. You look like a shop girl.’

‘I’ll take it off.’ Lucy fumbled in her bag for a handkerchief. ‘What are you wearing this evening?’

‘I will not be attending your father’s party.’

‘But you must!’ Lucy froze, handkerchief pressed to her cheek. ‘Father is relying on you.’

Her mother snorted. ‘All the more reason why I shouldn’t go. Perhaps if I’m not always dancing to his tune he’ll start to be a little more attentive towards me.’ Her mouth tightened. ‘He spent last night at his club – again.’