Nightingales Under the Mistletoe (2 page)

‘I'll be here tomorrow morning first thing to collect you,' he called after her as she walked away, dragging her case behind her.

Jess turned to face him. ‘You what?'

‘I have to take you and the other nurses down to the hospital. It's a two-mile walk otherwise.' He jiggled the reins and the old horse clopped off into the darkness before Jess could reply.

The Nurses' Home, such as it was, stood at the end of a deeply rutted farm track. It was a long, low building with rough whitewashed brickwork, and a bucket by the front door to catch the drips from the rickety tin roof.

Jess squared her shoulders. Oh, well, in for a penny, she thought, and knocked at the door.

It was opened by a tall, elderly woman in a stark grey dress and linen bonnet. Jess recognised her at once as Miss Carrington, one of the Nightingale Hospital's most fearsome ward sisters. Jess's heart sank to her shoes. As Sister of the Female Chronics ward in London, Gertrude Carrington had regularly reduced students to tears. Jess couldn't imagine what she would be like as a Home Sister, tasked with looking after the nurses' welfare.

She looked down her long nose at Jess. ‘You were expected over an hour ago, Nurse Jago,' she greeted her coldly.

And good evening to you, too, Jess thought. ‘The train was late, Sister.'

Miss Carrington narrowed her eyes. ‘You'd better come in,' she said. ‘And take off those shoes. I don't want you trampling filth all through the place.'

Inside the building was just as bad as outside. The air was sharp with cold, and reeked of damp. Jess's breath curled upwards in a feathery plume as she followed the Home Sister down a long, straight passageway with doors leading off to either side.

‘As you can see, our surroundings are somewhat – basic,' Miss Carrington said matter-of factly. ‘But there is a war on, so we must make the best of it.' She fixed Jess with her steely gaze. ‘May I remind you that even though you are not in London, you are still a nurse of the Nightingale Hospital, and will be expected to adhere to the standards of your training.'

‘Yes, Sister.'

‘The rules in this Home are the same as in London. No male visitors at any time, and lights out at half-past ten. The door is locked at ten o'clock, and you are expected to be in by then unless you have been given a late pass by Matron. Is that understood?'

‘Yes, Sister.' Jess looked down at her stockinged feet so that Miss Carrington wouldn't see her smile. She didn't know a nurse who hadn't flouted those rules at least once. Most of them managed to lead very lively social lives right under the noses of their superiors. As she walked down the passageway, she was already thinking how easy it would be to slip in through an open window after lights out. She wouldn't even have to risk her neck shinning up a drainpipe.

Then she remembered. She was stuck in the middle of the country, miles from anywhere. What would be the point of sneaking out when there was no dance hall, or picture house, or anywhere else to go?

Not only that, she had scarcely been out since Sam was called up. It didn't feel right to go out and enjoy herself.

They reached the end of the passageway, and Miss Carrington flung open the very last door. ‘This will be your room,' she announced.

It was so small, there was barely enough room for the two narrow iron bedsteads, separated by a chest of drawers. Each bed had a small pile of starched, pressed bed linen sitting squarely on the bare mattress. Over one of the beds, close to the ceiling, was a thin strip of window, shrouded by a heavy blackout curtain. Jess frowned up at it. Perhaps she'd been wrong about sneaking in after lights out. Getting through that tiny gap would be like squeezing through a letterbox.

‘We are expecting another nurse from Ireland next week, but you will have the room to yourself until then,' Miss Carrington said. ‘The bathroom is down the passageway, the fourth door on the right. There is a nurses' common room at the other end of the building, should you wish to use it.' Her lip curled with disapproval. ‘However, it is next to my room, and I don't expect to be disturbed. That means no music, no dancing, loud laughter or high jinks.'

‘Yes, Sister.'

‘The driver will pick up you and the other nurses at half-past six in the morning, and take you up to the hospital,' Miss Carrington continued. ‘You should report to Matron's office straight away, and she will assign you to a ward. As you know, we are having to share the hospital building, so you will report to the matron of the infirmary, Miss Jenkins.' She sniffed the air above Jess's head, her nose wrinkling. ‘And please make sure you have a bath before you go to bed. I can see I will have to speak to Mr Sulley yet again about transporting manure in that cart of his!' She gave a final roll of her eyes and then left.

Jess listened to the Home Sister's footsteps squeaking back down the passageway, then sat down on the bed. The thin horsehair mattress barely yielded under her weight. She could already feel the springs of the ancient bedstead poking through. She could only imagine what it would be like to sleep on.

She took off her gloves and massaged the life back into her frozen hands. Her fingers throbbed as the blood flowed painfully back into them. It made her think longingly of the accommodation in London. At the height of the Blitz, all the nurses, sisters, doctors and students had taken to sleeping down in the basement. It had been hot, cramped and frightening at times as the bombs rained down on them, but Jess would rather endure that discomfort than this freezing cold room.

Keeping her coat on, she set about making up the bed. The thin blanket and sheets looked as if they would barely keep her warm.

She eyed the empty bed beside her for a moment, then grabbed the blanket from the neatly folded pile and added it to her own bed. When her new room-mate arrived she would give it up, but until then her need was greater.

She unpacked her belongings. She hadn't brought much with her. She lined up her books and propped the photograph of Sam on the windowsill. She paused for a moment, her fingertip tracing the curve of his handsome face. He looked so serious in his uniform, she barely recognised the cheeky young man who had joked his way into her heart four years ago.

She could imagine how he'd laugh at her now. ‘Look at you, making such a fuss,' he'd say. ‘Life could be a lot worse, believe me!'

And he'd be right, thought Jess as she lay back on the hard bed, her eyelids already drooping. As Miss Carrington had said, there was a war on and they had to put up with it.

After all, how bad could it be?

EVEN WITH AN
extra blanket and most of her clothes on, it was far too cold for her to sleep that night, so Jess was exhausted the following morning when Mr Sulley arrived in his horse and cart to take her and a dozen other bleary-eyed nurses to the hospital. At half-past six it was still pitch-dark and they huddled together in the back of the cart, their cloaks pulled around them for warmth.

‘At least it's not raining,' said the girl next to Jess, a pleasant-faced staff nurse called Alice Freeman. ‘That's much worse. Especially when Mr Sulley won't put the cover up.'

‘You mean he leaves you to get wet?' Jess said in disbelief.

‘Soaked to the skin, sometimes.' Alice nodded gloomily. ‘We've all got colds, and Nurse Owen was sent to the sick bay with pneumonia last week.'

The other nurses joined in with their own horror stories of life away from London, so by the time they arrived at the hospital gates Jess was feeling thoroughly depressed.

She clambered out of the cart after the others and found herself standing outside high walls and an imposing pair of wrought-iron gates. Dawn was starting to break, and against the dull pewter sky she could make out the solid black bulk of a building at the end of a long sweep of drive.

‘That's the infirmary. Grim, isn't it?' Alice whispered beside her. ‘Apparently it used to be a lunatic asylum, until they closed it down and turned it into a hospital. We all reckon it's haunted.'

It didn't look very welcoming, that was for sure. Now her eyes were getting used to the gathering light, Jess could make out a forbidding three-storey building with straight rows of windows that seemed too small for such a large place. They seemed like dozens of blank eyes, staring down at her.

‘I don't believe in ghosts,' she said.

‘Probably just as well,' Alice replied.

They hurried up the drive, and Alice pointed her in the direction of the main building, and Matron's office.

‘Be warned,' she said. ‘She'll probably be awful to you. She's awful to all the London nurses.'

‘Why?'

‘I don't know. We think she's a bit upset that we've taken over her hospital.' Alice rolled her eyes. ‘As if it's our fault we're here.'

‘Is she that bad?'

Alice gave her an enigmatic look. ‘She's nothing like our darling Miss Fox, that's for sure.'

There was already a sorry-looking line of nurses waiting outside Matron's office when Jess got there. One carried the evidence of her crime, a broken thermometer in a receiving dish.

As Jess joined the end of the line, the two nurses beside her were whispering between themselves.

‘What did you do?' she heard one say to the other.

‘Helped myself to the leftovers from a patient's plate. I couldn't help it, Sister had cancelled my dinner break and I was starving. Now I'm going to lose half a day's leave over a wretched potato!'

All too soon it was Jess's turn to be summoned to Matron's office. Miss Jenkins sat behind her desk, all dressed in black. She was older than Miss Fox, more solidly built and a great deal grander. Her face was unsmiling beneath her elaborate starched linen headdress as she regarded Jess over the rim of her spectacles.

‘Who are you?' she demanded.

‘Jago, Matron. I've been sent from London.'

‘Another one?' Miss Jenkins tutted. ‘We're already quite overrun as it is. Honestly, doesn't Miss Fox need any nurses? She seems very keen to send you all down here.'

‘I'm sure she just wants to help you, Matron.'

Jess realised it was the wrong thing to say as soon as she saw Miss Jenkins's pale blue eyes harden.

‘Are you suggesting I need help?' she snapped. ‘Perhaps you don't think my nurses are up to the job?'

‘No, I didn't mean—' Jess started to say, but Miss Jenkins cut across her.

‘That's the trouble with you London nurses, you think you know everything. I daresay you've come to teach your country cousins a thing or two, have you?'

Jess again tried to protest, but Miss Jenkins was still speaking.

‘Let me tell you something, Jago. I have been running this hospital for thirty years, and I think I know what I'm doing. And I must say, I'm rather sick and tired of outsiders coming down here and telling us our business. As if your London training somehow makes you better than everyone else!'

She stopped abruptly, her cheeks flushed pink. ‘Very well,' she said, more calmly. ‘Since you're here, I suppose you should make yourself useful. Report to Sister Allen on Female Medical, I daresay she'll know what to do with you. Send in the next girl on your way out, please.'

And that was it. Jess was still in a daze as she headed out of the front door and back down the stone steps.

She hadn't expected Matron to clasp her to her bosom and thank her for coming to the rescue. But it would have been nice to feel she was actually wanted …

‘Watch out!'

Jess swung round to see a bicycle hurtling towards her. The rider was pedalling furiously, gathering speed, almost as if he wanted to knock her down. Jess barely managed to spring out of his path as he flashed past.

‘Look where you're going!' she called out. ‘You could have sent me flying.'

‘You shouldn't be dawdling, should you?' the young man shouted back over his shoulder as he barrelled past.

‘And you shouldn't be riding on the path. You're a menace!'

But he was already gone, his scarf fluttering behind him like a pennant in the dawn light.

She found the Female Medical ward on the top floor of the main building. Like the wards at the Nightingale in London, it was a vast, high-ceilinged room, smelling of polish and disinfectant. Forty beds faced each other in two rows running along its length. In the middle of the ward stood a long table and the ward sister's desk.

Sister Allen was as pleased to see her as Miss Jenkins had been.

‘And Matron sent you to me, did she?' she sighed. She was in her late twenties, sandy-haired and freckled. ‘Well, I suppose she had her reasons. You can start by helping Maynard with the baths. Then do the beds and get the patients ready for the doctor's round at half-past ten. Do you think you can manage that?'

‘Yes, Sister.'

‘Hmm.' Sister Allen looked as if she very much doubted it. ‘Well, ask Maynard if you get stuck. Don't come to me, I'm far too busy.'

Jess found Maynard in the bathroom, warming towels on the radiator. She was a lively, green-eyed blonde of about Jess's age.

‘Oh, hello,' she greeted Jess over her shoulder. Maynard was the first person to smile at her since she'd walked through the hospital gates. ‘Where did you spring from?'

‘I'm Nurse Jago. I've been sent down from London.'

‘Have you? Poor you.' The girl looked sympathetic. ‘I'm Nurse Maynard, but you can call me Daisy.'

‘What do you want me to do?'

‘Mrs McCready needs an emollient bath. She's a diabetic and her skin is itching like mad. Do you think you could prepare the linseed bag for me? You'll find everything you need in the prep room next door.'

‘I'll do it now.' As Jess turned away, she happened to glance at the contents of the bath tub. ‘Is the water supposed to be that colour?' she asked.