The Nightingale Girls (21 page)

‘Are you terribly disappointed?’ he asked. ‘I could arrange for you to sit next to Richard, if you’d prefer?’

‘That’s quite all right. I can make my play for him after dinner. I shall dazzle him with my dancing.’

‘That should be entertaining. Richard is an even worse dancer than you are.’

It was fun, sitting next to Seb. He wasn’t like the usual men one met during the Season, great bellowing bores who talked about nothing but hunting, shooting and fishing, and expected girls to hang on their every word. Seb was intelligent, witty and well read. He rode and loved the outdoors as much as Millie, but not to the point of being tedious. He was also interested in her nursing, something everyone else seemed to regard as rather an embarrassment. Millie entertained him with tales of her training, and he filled her in with lots of amusing gossip about his undergraduate friends.

After dinner, it was time for dancing.

‘Please tell me your dance card isn’t already full?’ Seb said as he escorted her in to the ballroom.

Millie pulled a face. ‘It’s completely empty, I’m afraid.’

‘Then allow me.’ Seb took out his pen and scribbled his initials gallantly beside every dance.

‘You really don’t have to, you know. I’ll only stamp all over your toes,’ Millie warned him as they took to the floor.

‘Sooner me than some other poor blighter.’

‘Miss Farsley looks as if she is far lighter on her feet than I am,’ Millie commented, as the mysterious Georgina skimmed around them, whirled around the floor by another admirer. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t rather dance with her?’

‘Even having my feet crushed by you is preferable to fighting off her attentions, I assure you.’

‘Why don’t you want to marry an American heiress? It
might be rather fun.’ Millie glanced at Georgina as they whisked by each other. ‘And she is very beautiful.’

‘So is a Ming vase, but I wouldn’t like to be married to one. Although come to think of it, I would probably get more entertaining conversation out of a piece of ancient pottery than I ever would out of Miss Farsley.’

Finally, after an exhausting couple of hours’ dancing, the clock struck midnight and they all poured out on to the terrace to watch the firework display the Claremonts had arranged.

‘Happy New Year,’ Millie said to Seb.

‘It will be for some people.’ He nodded over to where Sophia was entwined in the arms of her fiancé David, their happy faces illuminated by bursts of colour overhead.

‘Perhaps it will be for you, too?’ Millie smiled. ‘I think nineteen thirty-five will be the year someone finally notices your excellent qualities.’

He smiled back at her in the moonlight. ‘We can but hope,’ he murmured.

‘
TODAY I WILL
be explaining the human reproductive system.’

A ripple of nervous giggles ran through the classroom, quickly silenced by Sister Parker’s stern look.

‘Really, Nurses, I fail to see what is so amusing. Reproduction is simply a function of the human body like any other. I don’t recall anyone being this giddy when I explained the digestive system,’ she reminded them. ‘Now, turn to page seventy three in your textbook. We’ll begin with the male sexual organs . . .’

There was a rustle of pages, and Millie pushed her book across the desk towards Dora. But she couldn’t bring herself to look down at the diagram in front of her.

‘As you can see, the male genitalia is comprised of the following . . .’

Someone in the back row gave an embarrassed cough. In front of her, Dora could see the tips of Katie O’Hara’s ears glowing red. Lucy Lane was making feverish notes, her pencil flying over the page as if her life depended on capturing every word.

Dora kept her gaze fixed on the colourful diagram of the respiratory system that was pinned to the wall opposite. She tried to fill her head with the song one of the older girls had been thumping out on the piano the previous night. Anything to tune out the words Sister Parker was saying.

Millie nudged her sharply. ‘You’re supposed to be
writing all this down,’ she hissed out of the corner of her mouth.

Dora stared down at the blank page of her notebook. As she did, she caught sight of the diagram in the textbook.

A sudden, horrible image of Alf Doyle came into her mind, grunting like an animal as he pushed himself insistently against her. She clamped her lips together to stop the tidal wave of nausea that swept up into her throat.

The room was chilly but she could feel perspiration standing out on her brow. She gulped for breath, but the air was suddenly filled with the smell of Alf’s stale sweat and cigarettes.

‘Is something the matter, Doyle?’

Sister Parker was staring at her across the classroom, her brows meeting in a frown over the top of her pebble spectacles.

‘I – I don’t feel very well, Sister,’ Dora whispered.

‘For heaven’s sake!’ The Sister Tutor tutted. ‘I might have known someone would have the vapours, but I didn’t think it would be
you
. Go outside and get some fresh air, girl. But be quick about it.’

Dora stumbled to her feet and hurried out of the classroom. As soon as she felt the slap of the icy January air on her cheeks she felt foolish. Fancy feeling sick at the sight of a drawing in a medical book! If she was like this now, how would she be when she reached the wards?

Of course Lucy Lane had a field day afterwards, regaling everyone who’d listen about Doyle turning queasy at the facts of life lecture.

‘I told them all it must have been something you ate,’ Millie told her loyally in their room later. Dora had escaped
there as soon as the morning lectures had ended, unable to face lunch in the dining room with the others. Millie had taken the big risk of smuggling her a slice of bread and marge, even though it meant sneaking it past Sister Sutton’s room and Sparky’s keen nose.

‘Thanks.’ Dora nibbled on the crust. It might have been true, she reflected. She was usually ravenous by lunchtime, but it was all she could do to swallow past the solid lump of misery in her throat.

Millie watched her, her wide blue eyes sympathetic. ‘It is all rather beastly, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘All that business Sister Parker told us about, I mean. Glenda Pritchard actually fainted when she told us during my last stint in PTS. So I think you did rather well, under the circumstances.’ She shook her head. ‘It seems so terribly complicated, doesn’t it?’ she whispered, her voice hushed with awe.

Dora put down her piece of bread, her appetite deserting her. ‘I don’t know and I don’t want to know,’ she said firmly. Then she added, ‘I think I should just pack it in and go home.’

Millie stared at her. ‘Why? Not just because you went a bit wobbly in a lecture, surely? I told you, Glenda Pritchard was far worse than you—’

‘Not just because of that,’ Dora said. The truth was, she didn’t feel as if she really belonged at the Nightingale. She’d really tried to fit in, but she was always painfully aware of the differences between her and the other pros. They were all well-to-do, well educated girls who knew so much more than she did. Not just the subjects they learned in class, but all the other things books didn’t teach. The unwritten rules, like which knife and fork to use, how to pour a cup of tea, how to speak properly. They talked in a language she didn’t understand, about ballet lessons and boarding schools.

And none of them understood her, either. None of them had lived the life she had, working in a sweat shop and dodging the rent man.

Not that she could explain that to Millie. She was the poshest of the lot of them, but she was also the nicest. She was so used to being pretty and popular, she simply wouldn’t be able to imagine what it must be like to feel like an outsider.

‘I’m going to fail PTS,’ Dora said. ‘The exams are only a couple of weeks away, and I still don’t have my books. I’ll never catch up at this rate.’

‘I’m sure they’d let you take PTS again, like they did me,’ Millie said cheerfully.

Dora smiled, but didn’t reply. They might give an Earl’s daughter a second chance, but she doubted if they’d do the same to an East End girl who’d barely scraped in the first time round.

‘Anyway, I’ve already said you can have my books,’ Millie went on.

‘And I’ve already said thanks but no thanks.’

‘There must be some way you can get the money to buy them?’

‘I don’t have rich relatives like you, more’s the pity.’

‘My relatives aren’t that rich, most of them are in hock up to their eyeballs just to keep – that’s it!’ Millie’s eyes lit up. ‘You could pawn something!’

Her pretty, innocent face was so earnest, Dora couldn’t help laughing. ‘And what does an Earl’s daughter know about pawning things?’

‘You’d be surprised,’ Millie said. ‘My third cousin Lord Lumley had a terrible gambling habit. He was forever heading up to London with a suitcase full of the family silver.’

‘It’s a pity I don’t have any silver to pawn, then!’ Dora said wryly.

‘What about that charm your friend gave you?’

‘My hamsa? I can’t get rid of that.’

‘You wouldn’t be getting rid of it. You could get it back when you get paid next month.’

Dora considered it. Esther had told her to use it whenever she needed a bit of luck. Perhaps it would turn out to be lucky for her after all . . .

‘Can you pawn this for me?’

Nick examined the tiny silver hand Dora had given him. He’d never seen anything like it before. ‘What is it?’

‘My lucky charm.’

‘Why do you want to get rid of it, if it’s that lucky?’

‘Because I need the money to buy books. If I don’t get them, I’ll need more than a charm to get me through preliminary training.’

They stood on the patch of waste ground behind the nurses’ home. Nick had been intrigued when Dora had asked to meet him there. He’d tried to imagine what she might want, but this hadn’t even occurred to him.

‘Why come to me?’ he said. ‘Why not take it down to Solomon’s yourself?’

‘I don’t get another day off until next month and I need the money before then.’

‘Why don’t you ask your dad?’

‘Why don’t you mind your own business?’ The vehemence of Dora’s reply shocked him. ‘I don’t want to ask him for money, all right? I’ve got my reasons.’ Her eyes met his. ‘Now, will you help me or not?’

Anyone else and he might have said no, especially after the way she’d just spoken to him. But Dora had always been good to him and Danny, and Nick didn’t forget a kindness.

‘I s’pose I could nip down there on my way home,’ he
conceded grudgingly. He looked at the charm nestling in his palm. ‘How much do you need?’

‘The books cost just over a fiver new, but I might be able to get some secondhand for cheaper.’ She looked up at him anxiously. ‘Do you think I might get that much?’

‘From old Solomon? You’ll be lucky!’ he laughed, then saw the disappointment in her face and added, ‘I’ll see what I can do, all right? But no promises.’

‘I understand.’

She smiled that strange, lopsided smile of hers. No one in their right mind could ever call Dora pretty, but there was something about her.

He remembered her nanna’s words on Christmas Day: ‘Dora can’t afford to be fussy.’ And the way she’d turned red, and he’d pretended not to hear so she wouldn’t be embarrassed.

He liked Dora. She had a dream, just like him. He could imagine telling her about his plan to go to America, knowing she wouldn’t laugh at him.

As she walked away, he called after her, ‘How do you know I won’t just nick it and keep the money?’

She looked back over her shoulder at him. ‘I trust you,’ she said simply.

Her words haunted him all the way home. People didn’t trust Nick Riley. They either respected him because he was a hard grafter, or they feared him because he was good with his fists.

But no one had ever trusted him before. It was a strange, heady feeling.

He reached Solomon’s just as the old man was shutting up shop for the night.

Mr Solomon emerged from the curtained-off back room at the tinkle of the bell over the front door. He was a wiry
little man, with a face as wrinkled as a walnut and shrewd brown eyes.

‘Nicky boy! To what do we owe this pleasure?’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘How’s your mother? Well, I hope? I haven’t seen her in here for a while.’

That’s because we’ve got nothing left to pawn, Nick thought.

The musty smell of the cramped little shop made him feel sick. As a small boy it had seemed like a place of wonder, its shelves lined with all kinds of strange and magical things – old paintings, antiques, curios, children’s toys, even a stuffed cat once. And then there was the glass cabinet, crammed with watches, rings, necklaces, brooches, like a pirates’ treasure chest. He remembered spending hours just staring at them while his mother argued with old Solomon.

‘A tanner? Is that the best you can do, you tight old sod? How am I going to feed my kids?’

‘That’s your husband’s job, Mrs Riley, not mine,’ Mr Solomon would always reply.

But somehow the deed was always done in the end and his mother would drag Nick back to Griffin Street by the hand, complaining bitterly all the way about how she’d been robbed.

Ten years later she was still pawning everything she could get her hands on.

‘Got something for me, have you, Nick?’ Mr Solomon’s eyes gleamed with anticipation.

Nick reached into his pocket and pulled out Dora’s chain. ‘What can you give me for this?’

‘Well, well. What have we here?’ Mr Solomon dangled the chain from his fingers, admiring the charm as it swung gently before his eyes. ‘Now what’s a
goy
like you doing with a thing like this, Nicky boy?’ He looked up at him sharply. ‘You didn’t pinch it, did you?’

‘No, I didn’t.’ Nick glowered back at him. ‘It belongs to someone I know. Are you interested, or what?’

‘That depends, doesn’t it? I need to examine the merchandise closely first.’

Nick tried to control his impatience as Mr Solomon fetched his magnifying glass from under the counter and began scrutinising the charm against a square of green baize. He took ages doing it, turning it this way and that.