Nightingales Under the Mistletoe (16 page)

‘Anyway, I've invited him to spend Christmas Day with us, so hopefully that will give him a bit of a push,' Daisy said.

Jess sent her a sideways look. ‘What does your sister say about having an extra mouth to feed at Christmas?'

‘Oh, I haven't told her yet – but I expect she'll be all right about it,' Daisy replied airily. ‘Grace never makes a fuss about anything. What do you think about a jigsaw puzzle for my brother? On second thoughts, he probably wouldn't sit still long enough to do it!' she answered her own question.

In the end, Daisy bought a bow and arrow for her brother, and a knitted doll for her younger sister.

‘Now I've got to find something for Grace,' she said, sorting through a pile of second-hand clothes.

‘How about some scented soap?' Jess suggested.

Daisy shook her head. ‘Grace doesn't like anything fancy. How about this?' She held up a knitted scarf in a dull brown colour.

‘It's very – practical,' Jess said tactfully.

‘It's perfect for her.' Daisy was searching in her purse for the money when there was a commotion behind them.

‘I'm telling you, I was going to pay for it!'

‘What the—?' Jess looked around to see a heavily pregnant, red-haired girl arguing with one of the WVS helpers. She was holding a baby's knitted matinee jacket.

Daisy nudged Jess. ‘Oh, dear, there's going to be trouble now,' she said, a hint of glee in her voice.

‘Who is she?' Jess asked.

‘Her name's Sarah Newland. She used to be Mrs Huntley-Osborne's maid, until—' She nodded towards the girl's swollen belly. ‘Mrs Huntley-Osborne gave Sarah her cards and told her never to darken her door again.'

The woman behind the table snatched the matinee jacket from the girl's hands. ‘Clear off! We don't want any trouble from you,' she snapped.

‘I haven't come to make trouble, I just wanted to buy some baby clothes.'

‘Well, they're not for sale to the likes of you. These are for respectable mothers.'

‘I am respectable!'

The woman sneered. ‘You don't know the meaning of the word, Sarah Newland! Now be on your way.'

The girl looked near to tears but utterly defiant. ‘You can throw me out, but you can't make me leave this village,' she declared. ‘I'm staying whether you like it or not.'

She directed her comment to Mrs Huntley-Osborne, who was standing as rigid as a statue, watching the scene.

As the girl turned to leave, Jess hurried over.

‘How much for the jacket?' she asked the woman behind the table.

‘Sixpence, but …'

Before the woman knew what was happening, Jess thrust a coin into her hand and snatched up the jacket. Then she turned and offered it to Sarah.

‘Go on, take it,' she said. ‘It's for you.'

Sarah Newland looked warily from the tiny knitted jacket to Jess's face and back again.

‘No, thanks,' she spat out. ‘I don't want anyone's charity.'

Then she turned on her heel and walked out, her head held proudly high.

Daisy came up behind Jess as she stood, frozen with shock. ‘I wouldn't get involved, if I were you.' She took her friend's arm to steer her away. As Jess went to follow her, the knitted jacket still in her hand, she glanced up and caught Mrs Huntley-Osborne's eye. She was staring straight back.

IT FELT STRANGE
to be in a hospital again.

Breathing in the disinfectant-scented air, Millie was transported to her training days. Except now she was no longer a pro trying to escape the eagle eye of the ward sister. She was the lady of the manor, come to dispense some festive cheer to the patients at the behest of the Hospital Fund-Raising Committee.

Even so, when she saw Matron waiting for her with the rest of the committee members, it was all Millie could do not to stand to attention.

Matron stepped forward to greet her but Mrs Huntley-Osborne got there first. ‘Lady Amelia, how wonderful to see you,' she took charge of the situation, almost elbowing Miss Jenkins out of the way in her rush.

‘I'm so thankful that you have given up your Christmas Eve to visit
my
hospital,' Miss Jenkins joined in, with a pointed look sideways at her friend.

‘If you'll come this way …' Mrs Huntley-Osborne stepped neatly in front of her.

‘After you, Mrs Huntley-Osborne.' Matron smiled through clenched teeth.

It was comical to watch the pair of them jockeying for position as they led the way down the corridors. At any moment, Millie expected their ample backsides to become wedged in the double doors as they tried to pass through at the same time.

They visited each ward in turn so Millie could hand out gifts. Each ward was bright and cheerful, decorated with a Christmas tree and paper chains looped across the high ceilings. As they entered each ward, the sister in charge would be waiting to greet them. Millie recognised some faces from her days at the Nightingale. And judging from the puzzled looks several of the ward sisters gave her, they knew her, too. She could almost see the consternation on their faces as they tried to place where they had met Lady Amelia Rushton before. It made her smile to think what they would say if they knew she was the same Nurse Millie Benedict who had often featured so unfavourably in their ward reports.

‘It seems very busy,' she commented to Matron. ‘I would have expected most of the patients to go home for Christmas, yet you seem to have extra beds in every ward?'

‘I'm afraid we are rather overcrowded,' Matron agreed. ‘It generally happens during the winter months, when we're overrun with bronchial complaints. But we've also had to turn two of our wards over to military patients. And we have to find room for all the patients they keep sending down from London. As if we didn't have enough sick people down here.' She heaved a sigh.

‘I'm sure it must be in the patients' best interests to send them?'

‘I daresay it is.' Miss Jenkins sniffed. ‘But I must say, Lady Amelia, between you and me, I don't like it one bit. Of course I didn't object when I was told that the Nightingale was moving down here. I had hoped their Matron and I could work together. But she has completely taken over in a most unwelcome manner.'

‘Our delightful hospital has been quite overrun with sick people from London, bringing their nasty diseases with them,' Mrs Pomfrey put in.

‘And the London nurses leave a great deal to be desired,' Matron finished. ‘Honestly, I don't believe I've ever met such a shabby, ill-disciplined group of young women as those Nightingale nurses.'

‘Really?' Millie said. ‘How interesting.'

The Nightingale nurses certainly didn't seem shabby or ill-disciplined to her as they moved around the wards purposefully in their familiar blue uniforms, going back and forth with trolleys and trays, plumping pillows, straightening bedclothes and consoling the patients. It made Millie long for the days when she had been one of them, giggling and gossiping with her friends in the sluice when Sister wasn't looking.

On the Military Ward, Millie was pleased to see another familiar face. She remembered Miss Wallace, the ward sister, from her days in training. She had always been the most delightful of the sisters, friendly and caring to even the humblest of pros.

Miss Wallace seemed just as pleased to see her. ‘Why, Nurse Benedict,' she greeted her, a wide smile lighting up her face. ‘Have you come to work?'

‘Unfortunately not, Sister.'

‘That's a pity. We could do with some more good nurses here.' She flicked the slightest of glances in Matron's direction.

‘I'm not sure how good I was,' Millie said ruefully.

Matron broke in, looking puzzled. ‘I didn't know you were a nurse, your ladyship?'

Millie smiled at Miss Wallace. ‘Oh, yes,' she said. ‘As a matter of fact, I trained at the Nightingale.'

She didn't want to look at Miss Jenkins's face, but she was sure it was a picture.

Matron was rendered speechless for the rest of their tour. Afterwards, when Millie joined the other trustees for tea, Matron excused herself from the festivities. Millie thought she might have offended her with her jibe about the Nightingale, until Miss Jenkins explained that she had to go and rehearse for the Christmas show.

‘Oh, the Christmas show!' Mrs Huntley-Osborne trilled. ‘What fun! I must say, I am looking forward to it this year. Tell me, Matron, will you be performing another of your memorable arias?'

‘I will indeed,' Miss Jenkins beamed. ‘“Let The Bright Seraphim”, if all goes well.'

But Millie was hardly listening. The Christmas show. Just those three words brought all kinds of wonderful memories rushing back, of scurrilous songs and sketches composed in bedrooms, rehearsals that left them aching with laughter and poor Miss Wallace trying to keep control of it all. ‘You're putting on a Christmas show?' she said.

‘Well, I'd hardly call it a show,' Matron dismissed. ‘Just some of the doctors and nurses performing for the patients. Most of it is rather juvenile, actually, but some of us try to raise the tone if we can.'

‘Why don't you stay and watch it?' Mrs Huntley-Osborne enquired. ‘It's hardly Glyndebourne,' she added, ignoring a glare from Miss Jenkins, ‘but I'm sure our performers would be delighted to have such a distinguished audience. Isn't that right, Matron?'

‘Quite right, Mrs Huntley-Osborne,' Miss Jenkins replied through gritted teeth.

Millie was just about to refuse, but then she stopped herself. Could there be any harm in stepping away from her duties and reliving the old days, just once?

‘I'd love to,' she said.

William saw Millie straight away, sitting in the front row of the audience beside a large woman in a tweed coat. Before them a makeshift stage had been set up, with a lopsided curtain draped across it.

He fixed his gaze on the back of her blonde head as he and the other men took their seats at the back of the dining room. Even from the other end of the room, he could see her back and neck were rigid with tension. Did she ever relax, he wondered.

The last time they had seen each other was three days ago, when they'd had that stand-off over the wretched fountain. He'd waited to see her again, but all he'd had was a chilly little note the following morning, thanking him for the Christmas tree and informing him that no further action should be taken over the ornamental fountain. The men could go on carving into the stonework if they wished.

At least she still had a heart somewhere inside that frozen exterior, William thought. After their last meeting, he had begun to doubt it.

He was disappointed that he hadn't been there to see her face when she saw the Christmas tree for the first time, though. He had so wanted to see her smile again.

Or perhaps he'd just wanted to see her, full stop.

‘So what is it we're watching, Tremayne?' the flying officer beside him interrupted his thoughts.

‘Oh, it's just a piece of nonsense the hospital puts on every year,' he said. ‘Songs, sketches, a few monologues, you know. The main point is to poke fun at your superiors, take revenge for everything you've suffered over the past year.'

He'd always enjoyed his involvement in the show, even though he generally got into serious trouble with his consultant afterwards.

‘Will there be pretty nurses?' another officer asked. ‘I'll sit through anything so long as there are pretty nurses.'

‘You've already got a pretty nurse!' someone reminded him.

‘More than one, from what I hear!' another joined in.

‘It doesn't hurt to look though, does it?' the officer said. ‘Look but don't touch. Isn't that right, Squadron Leader?'

‘Quite right, Phillips.' William's gaze sought out Millie's blonde head again, sitting in front of him. ‘Look but don't touch, that's the motto.'

Millie was certainly untouchable these days. He'd thought as time went on she might start to thaw slightly, to become more like her old self. He had looked forward to her visits, watching her as she sat in his office or as they walked the grounds together, waiting for a smile or a look, something to tell him that she was still the Millie he had remembered. But as fast as she'd started to come out of her shell, she had suddenly withdrawn again. The shutters had come back down, and he finally had to admit that the Millie he'd known, the girl he had once adored, was gone for ever.

Of course he couldn't blame her. The poor girl had been through so much, he wasn't surprised she'd toughened up, developed a hard shell to cope with it all. But all the same, he couldn't help missing her.

The lights dimmed, and the show began, and all around him the men began whooping and clapping. Millie glanced around and William hunkered down in his seat so she wouldn't see him.

The show was all exactly as he had expected. Lots of cobbled-together sketches and monologues, well-known tunes with new lyrics about different aspects of hospital life, poking fun at various characters. The London nurses did a very funny song about life in the country, with lots of references to a particularly bad-tempered black and white cow. Having seen the matron deliver a trembling aria, a fearsome sight in her black and white uniform, William had no doubt who they were singing about.

Meanwhile, the airmen around him seemed to be making their own entertainment, guffawing with laughter every time someone forgot their words or a piece of scenery fell down. And whenever a particularly attractive nurse appeared on the makeshift stage, the catcalls were deafening.

But William barely noticed what was happening on-stage. His attention was fixed on Millie. She was laughing, he noticed. All the tension had left her and she was throwing herself into the show, clapping and singing along with the rest of the audience. Seeing her, William felt a stirring of attraction to the girl he had once known. This was Millie as he remembered her, carefree and happy, her face suffused with so much joy it was as if she was lit from within.