The Nightingale Nurses (18 page)

‘You’re all right, mate. I’ve got you,’ he said.

Millie stepped up next, putting out her gloved hand for him to help her.

‘Would you mind?’ she asked.

Nick hesitated for a moment, then took her hand and guided her across. Helen followed, grateful for his strong, steady grip as she tottered down the gangplank.

Then it was Dora’s turn. ‘It’s all right, I can manage,’ she said shortly.

Nick didn’t need telling twice. He dropped his hand to his side and stepped back to let her pass.

Helen watched them. They were doing everything in their power not to touch or look at each other. Which could only mean they had something to hide.

‘We’re h-having tea now,’ Danny stammered, breaking into her troubled thoughts. ‘C-can you come?’

Millie’s face brightened, but Helen got in before her. ‘We really must get back,’ she said.

Danny’s slack mouth turned down in disappointment.

‘Tell you what,’ Millie said, ‘why don’t I buy you a toffee apple instead? Come on, let’s go to the kiosk.’

‘Looks like she’s won him over!’ Helen smiled as Millie took the young man’s arm and marched him down the path.

‘I’d best go with them, make sure they don’t get back on that boat!’ Nick muttered.

‘Thanks again for letting us come on your excursion,’ Helen called out, but he was already striding away from them, catching up with Millie and his brother.

Helen watched him go. She didn’t need to look at Dora to know she was watching Nick too, her gaze fixed on him as if she couldn’t drag her eyes away.

Helen wondered if she should say something, but one look at her friend’s wretched expression and she knew it would be wiser to stay silent. Private as she was, the last thing Dora would want was anyone to guess her secret.

ON SATURDAY AFTERNOON
Constance Tremayne was in her rose garden, inspecting the blooms with her husband.

‘What a marvellous display we have this year.’ Timothy Tremayne bent to breathe in their scent. ‘I think all the rain we had earlier has done the garden good.’

‘And brought out the greenfly.’ Frowning, Constance examined the underside of a leaf.

‘This is my particular favourite. It’s called Rambling Rector – rather appropriate, don’t you think?’ Timothy chuckled. ‘I’m sure it must be Morley’s little joke.’

‘Morley takes advantage of your good nature,’ Constance snapped. ‘He clearly hasn’t kept up with the dead heading at all. I sometimes wonder what we pay him for, apart from pulling up the odd weed and drinking tea in the kitchen with the maid.’ She took out her secateurs and savagely snipped at a wilting bloom, then looked up and caught her husband’s eye. ‘What?’

Timothy Tremayne gazed at her with affectionate amusement. ‘You know, my dear, sometimes I think if you reached the gates of heaven themselves, all you would probably notice is that they needed a lick of paint.’

Constance bristled. ‘I just like to see a job done properly, that’s all.’ She straightened up, and caught sight of a lone figure in the distance, coming down the lane towards them.

‘Now who’s this?’ She frowned with irritation. They must be coming to the Vicarage because it was at the end of a country lane and no one ventured that way unless it was on church business. ‘I do hope it isn’t Mr Gregory again,’ she sighed. The elderly churchwarden always kept Timothy talking for ages. ‘His visits are so tiresome.’

‘Mr Gregory is very lonely since he lost his wife,’ her husband pointed out. ‘He likes the company.’

But it wasn’t Mr Gregory. The man walked with a limp, leaning heavily on a stick. As he approached, he took off his cap and Constance caught a flash of red-gold hair. She let out a gasp of dismay.

‘What’s
he
doing here?’ she murmured. But her husband was already ambling down to the gate to meet the visitor.

‘Charlie, what a delightful surprise! Is Helen with you?’

‘I’m afraid not, Sir.’ Charlie shot Constance a glance. ‘I hope you don’t mind me dropping in like this?’

‘Of course not, old chap, we’re very happy to see you.’

‘Although you might have telephoned first to let us know you were coming?’ Constance put in.

Charlie’s smile faltered. ‘If it isn’t convenient, I can always come back . . .’

‘Of course it’s convenient,’ Timothy interrupted before Constance could reply. ‘Come in, come in.’ He pulled open the gate. ‘I’m just sorry we couldn’t order you a taxi from the station. Surely you didn’t walk all the way?’

‘It wasn’t too far,’ Charlie assured him cheerfully as he walked up the path. ‘Besides it’s such a glorious day, and it’s not often I get to breathe in country air.’

Constance pulled off her gardening gloves, her afternoon ruined. ‘I hope he’s not going to stay long,’ she hissed to her husband.

‘My dear, he is a guest. At least let him take his coat off,’ Timothy replied mildly.

‘It’s very poor form for a guest to invite themself unannounced,’ Constance whispered. ‘What if we’d been entertaining?’

Her husband looked amused. ‘We rarely do.’

‘Nevertheless, it might have been very embarrassing,’ Constance insisted.

She was still in a bitter mood as she instructed Mary, their maid of all work, to make some tea.

‘Doesn’t he realise this is not the East End?’ she muttered, as much to herself as to the maid. ‘We don’t just drop in and out of each other’s houses without an invitation. It’s simply not good manners. Don’t use the best cups, Mary. Where are the ones we’d put aside for the church rummage sale?’

She tarried in the kitchen for as long as possible on the pretence of making sure Mary made the tea properly, until she couldn’t put off seeing Charlie any longer.

She was shocked when she joined the men in the drawing room to find Charlie with a screwdriver in his hand, adjusting the lid of the piano.

‘What are you doing?’ she demanded, horrified.

Timothy looked up at her. ‘Charlie is fixing the piano lid for us, my dear. You’ve been saying for weeks we should do something about it before it crashed down on someone’s fingers.’

‘I meant we should call in a local carpenter,’ Constance said tightly.

‘No need, it’s a quick enough job.’ Charlie put down the screwdriver and stepped back. ‘There, that should do it. Try it now.’

Timothy opened and closed the lid a few times to test it. ‘Perfect,’ he said. ‘Look, Constance, you can practise your Chopin without fear now.’

‘Marvellous.’ Her tense smile made her jaw ache.

‘I’ll take a look at that desk drawer of yours too, if you like?’ Charlie offered. ‘The one you said keeps sticking?’

‘Would you?’ Timothy’s eyes shone with gratitude. ‘I say, Constance, isn’t it grand to have a useful chap in the family?’

Family! Constance bristled silently. Not if she could help it.

‘Really, Charlie, we shall be asking you to use the tradesmen’s entrance soon!’ She said it lightly, but knew her barb had hit its mark when she saw the hurt look in his eyes. ‘Now, shall we have some tea?’ she offered. ‘Or would you rather have it in the kitchen, with the other staff?’

‘Let’s have it here.’ Her husband spoke hastily. ‘Then Charlie can tell us why he’s come to see us.’

‘As a matter of fact, it’s Mrs Tremayne I’ve come to see. I wondered if we might have a word in private?’

‘I hardly think . . .’ Constance was about to refuse but Timothy cut her off.

‘Of course, dear boy,’ he said. ‘It’s quite all right, I have a sermon to finish.’

‘You don’t have to leave.’ Constance shot her husband a beseeching look, but either he didn’t notice or he chose to ignore it.

Then she was alone with Charlie. Constance busied herself pouring the tea and planning her tactics. She already had a notion of why he had come, and wanted to be ready for him.

‘I suppose Helen sent you?’ she said, handing him his cup.

‘She doesn’t know I’m here.’

That was something, at any rate. Constance didn’t like to think of her daughter being involved in anything so ill-mannered.

She dropped a lump of sugar into her cup and stirred it. ‘Well, I can’t think what on earth you would want to talk to me about.’

‘Are you sure about that, Mrs Tremayne?’

His direct blue gaze flustered her. Her spoon rattled against the side of her cup. ‘If you’re talking about the ball . . .’

‘I don’t care about the ball,’ he dismissed. ‘But I do care about Helen. She’s very upset.’

Constance stared at him, sitting there in his shabby suit, clutching one of her second-best teacups in his work-roughened hands. ‘And so she should be.’ She pulled herself upright. ‘She said some very unkind things.’

‘So did you, from what I hear.’

She coloured under his frank gaze. ‘I stand by everything I said.’

‘I daresay you do.’ Charlie smiled. ‘But I haven’t come to pick a fight with you, Mrs Tremayne. I know you’ve got your opinion of me, same as I’ve got my opinion of you. But it’s Helen I’m worried about. Your behaviour is hurting her, and I want it to stop.’

‘My behaviour? How dare you!’ Anger scorched through her veins. ‘You’ve known my daughter for all of five minutes, and now you come in here and lay the law down to me?’ She set her cup down. ‘I think you should leave.’

‘I’m not going anywhere until I’ve said my piece. Sorry, Mrs Tremayne, but you can’t order me about like you do everyone else.’

Constance gasped. ‘And you wonder why I want my daughter to have nothing to do with you?’ she spluttered. ‘You are rude, ill bred . . .’

‘. . . and
you
never listen to anyone else!’ Charlie cut her off. Constance stared at him, shocked into silence. She couldn’t remember anyone ever daring to raise their voice to her.

She could see him fighting for control, trying to calm himself down. ‘I haven’t come to argue with you,’ Charlie said quietly. ‘That’s the last thing I want. I actually came here to see if we could sort it out between us, try to get along for Helen’s sake.’ He put down his teacup carefully. ‘I know you’ve got a good heart, and that you love your daughter. And I know you don’t mean to hurt her, but that’s what’s happening. All Helen wants to do is to please you, and you making her choose between us is tearing her apart. It’s just not fair on her.’

Constance winced. Charlie had touched a nerve, but she was determined not to show it.

‘Surely my daughter should be the one to say all this?’ she said coldly.

‘She’s tried, but you won’t listen. You always cut her off because it’s not what you want to hear.’

‘That’s not true!’

‘You see? You’re doing it now.’

She looked at him, as if seeing him for the first time. Charlie was handsome, with his golden hair, firm chin and candid blue eyes. She didn’t blame Helen for falling for him. But that didn’t change the fact that he was eminently unsuitable for her.

Constance had fallen for a handsome face herself once, and looked how that had turned out.

‘It was Helen who walked out on me, the last time we met,’ she pointed out.

‘I’m not surprised, from what she told me.’

‘I was buying her a dress. I thought it would be a treat for her.’

‘No, you were choosing one for her. Just like you’ve chosen everything else. But Helen’s over twenty-one now. She’s a grown woman, and entitled to make her own decisions.’

‘And what if she makes the wrong one?’

Charlie smiled wryly. ‘Like choosing me for a boyfriend, you mean?’

If he’d expected her to deny it, he had another think coming. ‘I’m sure you’re a very nice young man, but you’re not right for my daughter. Helen could do a lot better.’

‘I daresay you’re right.’ Charlie sounded resigned, almost weary. ‘But I love your daughter with all my heart. Surely that counts for as much as knowing which knife and fork to use?’ He leaned forward, appealing to her. ‘Please, Mrs Tremayne, I’m begging you. I know we’ll never be the best of friends, but can’t you find it in your heart to get along with me, for Helen’s sake?’

Constance turned her gaze towards the French windows and out over the rose garden. The June sunshine was disappearing behind a cloud, turning the garden grey.

‘It will rain soon,’ she said. ‘You’d best be getting back to the station, if you don’t want to be caught in the downpour. I’ll get Mary to see you out.’ She reached for the bell.

‘So that’s it?’ Charlie said. ‘There’s nothing I can do to build bridges between us?’

‘Yes, there is something you can do.’ She turned back to him, steely-eyed. ‘You can stay away from my daughter. If you really love Helen, you’ll walk away from her and stop dragging her down.’

Charlie’s mouth firmed. ‘That’s not going to happen.’

‘In that case, there is nothing more to say.’ Constance turned her face away again. The first drops of rain were already pattering against the windows.

There was a soft knock on the door and Mary appeared. ‘You rang, Madam?’

‘Our guest is leaving.’

Constance held herself rigid as she heard him stand up. Charlie reached the door and she was about to let out her indrawn breath when he turned and said, ‘You know what’s so sad, Mrs Tremayne? That you always have to be right. That’s what’s going to come between you and Helen in the end, not me. As far as I’m concerned, there’s room for all of us in her life. And Helen needs you as much as she needs me.’

Constance laced her fingers tightly in her lap. ‘And you can tell my daughter I will be waiting for an apology for her behaviour,’ she called after him.

Charlie gave a sad little laugh. ‘Typical, Mrs T. You always have to have the last word, don’t you?’

Timothy returned to the drawing room just as the front door banged shut. ‘Has Charlie gone?’ He looked disappointed.

‘He had to catch his train.’

‘Surely you didn’t let him go out in this weather? We could have telephoned for a taxi.’

‘You heard what he said. He appreciates the fresh air.’ Constance looked at the rain, which was falling steadily now.

‘What a pity it was such a flying visit.’ Timothy shook his head. ‘He’s such a nice young man.’

‘If you say so.’ Constance’s lips tightened. She changed the subject. ‘How are you getting on with your sermon?’