Nightingales Under the Mistletoe (33 page)

He left, and it was just the two of them. Daisy stood framed in the doorway, her arms wrapped around herself in a self-protective hug. It was a habit she'd developed on the day their mother died. She had looked so lost and vulnerable then that Grace had promised herself she would go to the ends of the earth to protect her.

And now she was the one who had caused her sister pain, the reason poor Daisy was looking so lost.

‘I'm sorry,' Grace said again, knowing how useless the words were.

‘I came back for you,' Daisy said quietly, her voice barely above a whisper. ‘I was worried about you walking home on your own.' She looked at Grace with reproach in her eyes. ‘How could you, Gracie? You knew how much I cared for Max. How could you do it to me?'

‘It didn't mean anything,' Grace said. ‘What you saw – it was a mistake. I wasn't thinking, I didn't know what I was doing …'

‘I think you knew exactly what you were doing.' Daisy spoke in a low, flat voice.

Grace started. ‘What do you mean?'

‘You've always been jealous of me, haven't you? Always resented that I was the one with the education, the chances in life.'

Grace stared at her in shock. ‘How can you say that? I've always looked after you. I've put you and the kids before everything. Why would I be jealous of the chances you've had, when I worked so hard to give them to you?'

‘That's what you want everyone to believe, isn't it? You love it when they talk about you, the poor girl who gave up everything to look after her brothers and sisters. Selfless Saint Grace, always cheerful, always putting everyone before herself, willing to do anything for anyone.' Daisy's tone was mocking. ‘But that's not it, is it? Deep down you're angry that you had to miss out.'

‘That's not true. I'm proud of you, not jealous,' she tried to say, but Daisy wasn't listening.

‘You can't let me have anything without wanting it too,' she accused. ‘It's the same at the hospital, with you thinking you're a nurse!'

‘I don't—'

‘Don't deny it! I've seen you sucking up to Miss Wallace and Lady Amelia, like you're one of them. And then trying to talk to me about the patients and their treatments, as if you know the first thing about it. As if you were the one with three years' training!' Daisy's green eyes glittered with malice. ‘But you're not a nurse and you never will be. You're just – a glorified housemaid!'

‘I – I know,' Grace faltered. She stared at her sister, scarcely able to believe the venom that was pouring from her. ‘Daisy, stop, please.'

‘And now … as if it isn't enough that you've come to the hospital and tried to take all my friends away from me, now you've decided you want to steal Max away from me too.'

‘I didn't … I don't …'

‘Do you love him?'

The question was so sudden, it took Grace by surprise. ‘I—' She hesitated a moment too long.

‘You do!' Daisy accused.

‘It doesn't matter how I feel,' Grace said quickly. ‘All I want is my family. That's what's important to me, not Max. You, me, Walter, Albie and Ann, all of us together, just like Mum would have wanted.'

‘Yes, but we can't have that now, can we? We can't be together any more. It can't be like that ever again, because
you've
ruined it!'

‘It's not my fault Max doesn't love you!'

Grace realised she'd said the wrong thing as soon as she'd blurted out the words. ‘I'm sorry,' she said, ‘I didn't mean it to sound like that. Daisy, don't go!'

Her sister stared at her with hatred in her face. ‘There's nothing more to say, is there? You've got what you wanted.' She turned to leave. ‘I'll ask Matron tomorrow if I can move into the Nurses' Home.'

‘No!' Grace recoiled. ‘You can't do that. We belong together.'

‘Then you should have thought of that before you stole my boyfriend, shouldn't you?' Daisy turned on her viciously. ‘You've destroyed this family, Grace Maynard. I only hope he was worth it!'

Back at the Nurses' Home, Jess was having a sleepless night.

She couldn't stop thinking about Sarah Newland. She lay staring up at the ceiling in the darkness, wondering how she could have misjudged someone so badly. She'd been sure she'd recognised a kindred spirit in the girl, someone who had been toughened by life but who deserved a second chance.

And in spite of what had happened this evening, she still wasn't sure she'd been wrong. Sarah didn't seem like a thief, although her defensive refusal to explain made her seem guilty.

Effie couldn't sleep either. That was another reason sleep eluded Jess: her room-mate insisted on chattering.

‘Just think – I'm engaged,' she said for the hundredth time. Even in the darkness, Jess knew she was admiring her left hand, imagining a ring on her finger. ‘I can't believe it, can you?'

‘No, I can't,' Jess replied, and meant it. The story seemed fanciful, even for Effie. The boyfriend who had ditched her a couple of weeks before, suddenly turned up and popped the question. ‘It seems a bit rum for Kit to change his mind like that, don't you think?'

‘He realised how much he loved me,' Effie said simply. ‘You know what they say – absence makes the heart grow fonder?'

More like out of sight, out of mind in Kit's case, Jess thought. He didn't strike her as the marrying kind somehow.

But then, she thought, she was starting to make a habit of misjudging people.

‘Does your friend Connor know?' she asked.

‘Not yet. I looked for him straight away, but he'd already gone. He didn't stay too long, come to think of it,' Effie said in a troubled tone.

‘At least he'll be able to go home and tell your mum and dad that you're engaged,' Jess said.

‘Hmm,' Effie replied thoughtfully. ‘I'm not sure how my daddy will feel about me marrying an Englishman – and a Protestant, too.' She blew out a heavy sigh. ‘I'll be glad when I turn twenty-one in three weeks. Then I can do as I please.'

Jess smiled in the darkness. Effie O'Hara tended to do as she pleased anyway.

‘Oh, I nearly forgot,' Effie changed the subject. ‘You'll never guess who turned up to the dance after you left? Dr Drake!'

‘What?' Jess sat bolt upright in the dark.

‘Can you imagine? Talk about a fish out of water! He just walked in, stood there gawping around for a minute or two, then stomped out again. It was so funny. It's a shame you and Maynard weren't there to see it, you would have laughed.'

‘I wish I'd been there,' Jess said quietly.

Poor Dr Drake. Shy as he was, it must have taken a great deal for him to walk into that crowded dance hall. She couldn't imagine what he must think of her now …

Three dull thuds came out of nowhere, startling her out of her reverie. Effie squeaked in terror. ‘What was that?'

‘Sounds like someone knocking on the door.'

‘In the middle of the night?' There was a rustle in the darkness as Effie pulled the covers up to her chin. ‘You don't think it's the Germans, do you?'

‘Germans wouldn't march up and knock on the door, would they?' Jess flung back the bedclothes and got out of bed.

She picked up her torch and went out into the hall. The beam picked out various other heads sticking out of bedroom doors down the length of the passage, most of them wearing crowns of spiky curlers.

At the far end of the passage, Miss Carrington emerged from her bedroom, swathed in a tartan dressing gown and looking cross.

‘Who on earth is calling at this time of night, disturbing everyone's rest?' she muttered, heading for the door on slippered feet. ‘Go back to bed, girls,' she instructed.

Most of the heads shot back into their bedrooms, but something made Jess hesitate. She heard bolts being drawn and keys jingling as locks were turned. And then, finally, Miss Carrington said, ‘Yes? Who are you?'

‘I – I'm looking for Jess Jago.'

Jess hurried up the passage until she could see the doorway. There, just visible beyond Miss Carrington, was Sarah Newland, wearing an old overcoat, doubled over in pain.

‘Sarah?'

The girl looked up and spotted Jess. ‘Help me,' she whimpered. ‘I think the baby's coming!'

EVERYTHING ELSE WAS
forgotten as they all rallied round to help.

Miss Carrington ordered two of the nurses to take Sarah into the sick bay, and another to run down to the telephone box in the lane and call for an ambulance.

‘But the baby's coming!' Sarah wailed, struggling to catch her breath, gritting her teeth against the pain.

‘Then we'll just have to do what we can, won't we?' Miss Carrington said grimly. ‘Nurse Carr, go and fetch my medical bag from my room. Jefferson and Bevan, we'll need to make up the bed with a mackintosh sheet, and plenty of newspaper for the floor as well. Now, which of you girls has done her midwifery training?'

Two hands shot up. ‘Excellent. One of you can prepare the room while the other prepares this – the patient.' She eyed Sarah dubiously.

The nurses set about boiling water and gathering up bowls, rubber gloves, cotton wool swabs, disinfectant and towels. In less than five minutes the sick bay was prepared and Sarah had been persuaded out of her overcoat, washed, and a clean nightgown had been found for her.

‘Is there anything I can do, Sister?' Jess asked, as Miss Carrington emerged from her room, having dressed in her uniform.

‘Are you trained in midwifery, Jago?'

‘No, Sister.'

‘Then it's best you stay out of the way.'

No sooner had she said it than Sarah screeched out, ‘Jess! I want Jess.'

Miss Carrington lifted her brows heavenwards. ‘It seems you're required after all,' she said.

Jess followed her into the sick bay, where one of the midwifery nurses was examining Sarah. She turned to Miss Carrington, eyes bulging in her pale face. ‘Sister, I think the baby's coming.'

‘Well, yes, that's why we're here, isn't it?' Miss Carrington washed her hands in the first of a line of enamel bowls that had been set out on the chest of drawers.

‘No, Sister, I mean – look!'

Miss Carrington turned around in time to see the bloodied crown of a head appearing between Sarah's spread-eagled legs.

‘Good lord!' she exclaimed, losing her composure for a fraction of a second. ‘Come along, Nurses, there isn't a moment to waste!'

Jess barely had time to reach Sarah's bedside and grasp her hand before she screamed again. Jess's fingers were crushed in a vice-like grip until they lost all feeling, and a moment later a baby, bluish-red, smeared with blood and waxy vernix, slithered into the world.

‘It's a girl!' Miss Carrington raised her voice over the baby's outraged cries. She looked dazed, poor woman. And no wonder – she hadn't delivered the child so much as caught it.

‘A girl.' Sarah smiled dreamily. ‘I've got a baby girl.'

Miss Carrington blinked hard. ‘Let's cut the cord, shall we?'

They cut the cord and one of the nurses went off to wash the baby and find something warm to wrap her in, while Effie went to the kitchen to make a cup of tea for the new mother.

‘I'm sorry – about what I said earlier,' Sarah murmured to Jess through dry, pale lips.

‘It doesn't matter.' Jess squeezed her hand lightly. ‘You were right, I shouldn't have interfered.'

‘You were only trying to help. I suppose I'm just – not used to it.' Sarah's eyelids drooped and her head began to loll on her slender neck.

Poor girl, Jess thought. She was worn out. But then she saw the blood blossoming on the sheet between Sarah's legs like a giant crimson flower.

‘Sister, she seems to be bleeding rather a lot … And she's gone very pale all of a sudden.'

‘Let me see.' Miss Carrington remained utterly calm, but there was a slight tremor in her voice as she said, ‘Yes, she does seem to be haemorrhaging more than I would expect. We'll try manual manipulation until the ambulance arrives.'

But nothing they could do would stem the tide that flowed out of Sarah.

‘She must have torn an artery when she delivered so quickly,' one of the nurses, Janet Carr, whispered to Jess. ‘I saw it happen once in training. It was awful.'

‘What happened?'

‘Well, she died, of course, but …' The nurse stopped herself, realising what she'd said. ‘I'm sure your friend will be all right,' she said quickly.

I'm not, Jess thought. Sarah seemed to be fading before her eyes, her face taking on a worrying ashen look.

‘I'm going to – die – aren't I?' she said to Jess, her voice barely above a whisper.

‘Of course not,' Jess replied, giving her hand a little shake. ‘Don't talk like that. Anyway, you can't die. You've got a daughter to look after, remember?'

The shadow of a smile curved the corners of Sarah's lips. ‘I don't want her to grow up – in an orphanage,' she said. ‘I don't – want her to be – like me.'

‘She won't,' Jess said. ‘She's got a mum who loves her.'

Sarah's eyes drifted closed, then snapped open again. ‘I want you to do – something for me. The ring …' She lifted her hand and listlessly clawed at her throat, searching for it.

‘It's here, ducks.' Jess picked it up from the bedside locker, where the nurse who had prepared Sarah had left it.

She tried to give it to Sarah, but she shook her head. ‘Take it back – to her,' she murmured, eyes drooping again. ‘Tell her … tell her I'm sorry for everything …'

The ambulance arrived, and the next moment Jess was being ushered from the room as they got to work putting Sarah on a stretcher. The last thing Jess saw was her pale face, as cold and white as alabaster, as she was carried out.