The Nightingale Girls (32 page)

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was dimly aware that it was getting late and he should think about getting Millie back to the nurses’ home. But he was enjoying himself too much to want the evening to end.

Millie sipped her drink. ‘Do you know, I rather like port and lemon,’ she said thoughtfully.

‘You should, you’ve had enough of them!’

She squinted at him. ‘Do you think I’m squiffy?’

‘I don’t know. I’m too drunk myself to tell.’

She giggled. ‘Oh, dear, we’re behaving rather badly, aren’t we? I’m sure Blanche would approve.’

William studied her. She was unbelievably pretty, with her soft lips, small, slightly upturned nose and the bluest eyes he had ever seen.

But it wasn’t just the way she looked. Millie was also the sweetest, gentlest girl he had ever met. She didn’t flirt
and giggle about nothing the way other girls did. She seemed genuinely interested, asking about his work and his family. For once William didn’t feel as if he needed to impress her. He wanted her to know everything about him, good and bad. He even found himself telling her all about growing up in the vicarage with his gentle, henpecked father and fearsome mother.

‘She watches us all like hawks,’ he told her. ‘No one dares put a foot wrong.’

‘Even you?’ Millie smiled teasingly at him.

‘It’s true, I get away with a lot,’ William admitted, shame-faced. ‘But only because I’ve learnt to tell her what she wants to hear. And Helen covers for me too. Poor Helen,’ he sighed. ‘She gets far worse treatment than me. My mother seems to set particularly high standards for her daughter. Helen works so hard to please her yet she’s barely allowed to breathe without Mother’s say-so. I’m sure she thinks Helen’s going to run wild.’

‘Perhaps your mother worries Helen will meet someone like you?’ Millie suggested.

William smiled. ‘I see my reputation precedes me. I’m surprised you allowed yourself to be alone with me?’

‘I never listen to gossip,’ Millie said firmly. ‘I prefer to make up my own mind about people.’

‘And have you made up your mind about me?’

She gazed at him for a long time, her blue eyes searching his face. Then she pushed her glass towards him.

‘Buy me another drink and I’ll tell you.’

Two drinks later, they were still talking. It came as a shock when the bell for last orders rang.

‘I didn’t realise it was that late. You do have a late pass, don’t you?’ William asked. Millie shook her head.

‘I never do. But I’ll find a way back in, don’t worry.’

They left the pub. William knew he was slightly drunk,
but Millie was worse. She wobbled like a baby gazelle, stumbling against him. He put his arm around her, and kept it there as they walked back along the river. The Thames snaked like an oily black ribbon ahead of them, its cranes, docks and factories shadowy shapes looming through the darkness around them.

‘I think Blanche would have enjoyed this evening,’ Millie declared.

‘So do I. I bet she’s looking down at the two of us now and laughing.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she always thought we should get together.’

He waited for Millie to pull away from him, but she didn’t. ‘I know,’ she sighed. ‘She kept telling me I should give you a chance.’

‘And what do you think?’

‘I’m still considering it.’ William felt the yielding warmth of her body against his, and longing hit him like a punch in the stomach.

Any other girl and he would have taken her in his arms, but not Millie. He felt protective of her in a way he couldn’t have imagined possible. And he’d made that promise to Helen, too. Although out here, walking together under the stars with his arm around her, he wasn’t sure he would be able to keep it.

‘You’re quite right to be cautious,’ he said. ‘In fact, you should probably stay well away from me.’

‘Because of your reputation? I told you, I don’t listen to gossip.’

‘But it’s true in my case. I’m nothing but trouble. Just ask my sister.’

Millie laughed. William wished he could have laughed with her. But for once he wasn’t joking.

He usually enjoyed this part of the game, the teasing
to and fro before he moved in to claim his prize. But not this time. Millie deserved more than a few days of flirtation.

And that was all he could offer. William wasn’t the type to lose his heart to anyone. Most girls understood it was just a game and were happy to play along. But then there were girls like Peggy Gibson, who didn’t understand the rules. They were the ones who got badly hurt.

The memory of what had happened to Peggy still weighed heavy on him. He didn’t want to put anyone through that again. Especially not someone as sweet and adorable as Millie.

‘I mean it,’ he said. ‘You’re far too good for me.’

‘I’ll make my own mind up, thank you very much.’ Millie stopped and turned to face him. She was so close he could smell her flowery perfume. ‘Kiss me,’ she said.

William looked down at her upturned face, her innocent eyes, and felt a jolt of desire so powerful he could barely control it.

‘I can’t,’ he said.

Her face fell. ‘Don’t you want to kiss me?’

‘Of course I do. More than anything. But we’re both extremely drunk, we’re on a lonely stretch of river on a dark night, and it’s all a bit too compromising.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘No, but I do.’ Any other girl and he might have taken advantage. No, he knew he would. He’d done it before. But Millie Benedict was too special. ‘Besides, I made a promise to Helen.’

Millie squinted at him in confusion. ‘What has your sister got to do with this?’

‘She asked me to stay away from you.’ William glanced down at the cobbles. ‘I – I had a bit of an entanglement with a girl she used to share a room with, and poor Helen
caught the flak. I don’t think she wants to go through that again.’

‘This is nothing to do with Helen!’

‘You don’t know what it was like for her. You mustn’t blame her . . .’

He reached for Millie, but she pulled away, stiff with indignation. ‘Don’t touch me,’ she said. ‘Your sister might not like it.’

She turned and tottered off up the street. William caught up with her and tried to put his arm around her to steady her again, but she shrugged him off. They crept in through the hospital gates. Millie slipped past the porters’ lodge and headed purposefully around the side of the nurses’ block.

‘How are you going to get in?’ William whispered in the darkness.

‘How do you think?’

She tried the drainpipe, but William stopped her. ‘You can’t climb up there!’ he said, appalled.

‘Why not? I’ve done it before lots of times.’ She was already taking off her shoes.

‘Not after half a dozen port and lemons, you haven’t. You’ll break your neck . . .’

Regardless, she put her hands around the drainpipe and tried to wedge her foot into a piece of loose brickwork. It slipped, sending a brick rolling noisily across the path. They both tensed, waiting for a light to go on. It didn’t.

He put his hand on her arm. ‘Come on, we’ll find another way in.’

They headed around the back of the block, trying windows. ‘Everything’s locked up,’ Millie said mournfully. She gazed at the windows on the first floor. ‘I wonder if I should throw a stone up and try to wake someone?’

‘You might not get the right window.’

‘Then it’ll have to be the drainpipe.’

‘I’m not letting you break your neck.’

‘I didn’t think you cared,’ Millie said huffily.

‘Of course I care.’ Their eyes met in the darkness, and once again William felt the powerful jolt of desire.

This time it was too strong to fight. As he lowered his face to kiss her, Millie suddenly said, ‘I have an idea. Come on.’

She led the way to the other side of the block. ‘There’s a corridor that joins the nurses’ block to the rest of the hospital,’ she explained. ‘We’re not allowed to use it, it’s only for sisters. But if I could somehow get into one of the wards on the ground floor, I might be able to sneak in that way.’

William laughed. ‘Break into a ward? That’s even riskier than climbing up a drainpipe!’ But Millie was already heading towards the courtyard, inching her way around in the shadows. He followed her.

‘Millie, this is ridiculous . . .’

‘Shhh!’ she hissed at him. ‘Do you want me to get caught?’

She edged round a corner and stopped beside a window. ‘This will do,’ she said.

‘Which ward is it?’

‘I can’t tell.’ Millie craned over and tried to peer through the window.

William counted the windows. ‘I think it might be Hyde.’ He judged it with narrowed eyes. ‘Yes, definitely Hyde.’

Millie tested the window. ‘It’s unlocked. I can climb in and sneak through.’

‘What if you’re caught?’

‘Honestly, William, where’s your sense of adventure?’ She smiled at him, a smile that melted his heart and made his head spin.

‘This is where we say goodbye,’ she said.

‘Yes.’ He didn’t want to. His legs wouldn’t move.

‘Thank you for a very enjoyable evening.’

Before he had a chance to reply, Millie bobbed up and in one swift movement threw open the window and slithered through. It wasn’t until she had disappeared that he realised he was still holding her shoes in his hand.

Millie landed with a soft thud in the narrow space between two beds. She crouched for a moment in the darkness, waiting for her eyes to get used to the gloom. All around her, bedsprings creaked and the air was filled with the sound of low moans and sobbing. They sounded like souls in purgatory. Millie shuddered. What an awful place to have to be.

She finally got her bearings and started to inch forward on her hands and knees to peer around the end of the bed. The doors seemed to be a hundred miles away, at the far end of the ward. She was still working out how she could crawl down the length of it when she heard the muffled squeak of rubber-soled shoes approaching. She turned around, just in time to see a tall, slender figure emerge from behind a screen, a bedpan in her hands.

Before Millie could duck back into the shadows the nurse saw her. She jumped, let out a startled cry and dropped the bedpan with a clatter. It crashed like noisy cymbals around the ward, setting all the women off in an unearthly chorus of screaming and wailing.

Millie recognised the nurse in the middle of all the chaos. ‘Tremayne? It’s me.’

Helen peered at her in the darkness. ‘Benedict? What are you doing here?’ she hissed.

Before Millie had a chance to answer, more footsteps approached.

‘What’s the meaning of all this noise?’ Millie heard the Night Sister’s voice and dived for cover under the nearest bed. She lay there, hardly daring to breathe. She could see the Night Sister’s sensible shoes, just inches from her face.

‘Well?’

‘I . . . I . . .’ she heard Helen floundering desperately. Shock seemed to have paralysed her vocal chords.

‘Speak up, girl.’

‘Sister, there is a young woman under my bed,’ a voice announced, clear and high, from just above Millie’s head. She froze.

She heard the Night Sister’s heavy sigh. ‘Mrs Mortimer, there is not a young woman under your bed, just as there are no fairies prancing every night on top of Miss Fletcher’s bedside locker, or men playing the bagpipes down the middle of the ward. It’s all just the effect of your medication.’

‘But—’

‘Please, Mrs Mortimer, I don’t have time for this,’ the Night Sister said impatiently. She turned to Helen. ‘Get this mess cleaned up immediately,’ she said. ‘And please quieten the patients. This ward gets more like a menagerie every night. I’m sure Sister Hyde would not approve.’

She walked away, her tread as light and soft as a dancer’s.

Millie waited until she was sure the coast was clear, then stuck her head out.

‘It’s all right, you can come out now.’ Helen squatted down to pick up the bedpan, her face stony.

She looked so furious, Millie couldn’t help giggling. ‘It’s not funny,’ Helen snapped. ‘You could have got both of us sent to Matron. Honestly, it’s bad enough that you come in through the window at all hours without . . .’ She sniffed, suddenly alert. ‘Have you been drinking?’

‘No. Yes. A little,’ Millie admitted.

‘Oh, for God’s sake! This is too much. First you stay out late, then you break into a ward drunk as a lord. I’ll be amazed if they don’t throw you out on your ear.’

‘They’ll have to catch me first.’ Millie wriggled out from under the bed and stood up, dusting off her dress. ‘I’m terribly sorry,’ she said to the woman in the bed, who was watching her through narrowed eyes.

‘I should think so too,’ snapped Mrs Mortimer. ‘Thanks to you, that wretched woman now thinks I’m as demented as the rest of them. This nurse is quite right, you should be thrown out. I will write to the Board of Trustees in the morning.’

Millie looked at Helen and another giggle escaped her.

‘Just go to bed,’ Helen said wearily. ‘And try not to get caught.’

Lucy Lane shuffled along the darkened corridor to the toilet, still half asleep. She jumped when she heard the stairs creak and saw a dark shape appear on the landing.

‘What the—’ she started to say. But the shape stumbled past her and continued up the stairs to the attic. It tripped on the top step and Lucy heard a high-pitched giggle.

Millie. Lucy listened to her clattering about on the top landing, taut with resentment. No matter how hard she’d tried, Lady Amelia Benedict showed no interest in being her friend. She seemed to prefer to hang around with that awful common Dora Doyle. It sickened Lucy to see them together all the time, laughing and joking.

They should both stick to their own kind, she decided. She had far more in common with Millie, but most of the time the other girl ignored her.

And she had led such a charmed life, too. Everyone adored Millie, and everything came so easily to her. Lucy
couldn’t imagine her losing sleep over whether her parents were fighting, or whether she was rich or popular or clever enough. Millie had never known a moment’s real anxiety in her life.

Lucy smiled to herself in the darkness. Well, it was about time she learnt what it felt like.