Nightingales on Call (38 page)

They finished their cigarettes, stubbed them out and threw them out of the skylight.

‘I suppose we’d better get back to our books,’ Lucy said reluctantly. The truth was, she was enjoying her chat with Dora.

‘Or we could go downstairs and play cards instead?’ Dora suggested.

Lucy smiled. ‘Why not? I reckon we deserve a treat, what with everyone else being at the ball.’

‘Proper little pair of Cinderellas, ain’t we?’ Dora grinned. Her face seemed softer, almost pretty, with her curls hanging loose around it.

Lucy smiled back at her. ‘I don’t think we’re missing anything, do you?’

The first Effie knew something was wrong was when Anna Padgett was violently sick into a Grecian urn.

‘Looks like someone can’t hold their drink!’ Hugo remarked. He took a hip flask out of his pocket and offered it to Effie.

‘No, thanks.’ She watched as two of the other girls helped poor Anna off to the cloakroom. Her face was a strange greyish-green colour. ‘How much did you put in that punch?’ she asked.

‘Not how much, darling,’ Hugo replied. He and his student friends grinned at each other. They were all swigging from hip flasks, she noticed with a feeling of unease.

‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Putting alcohol in the punch is a bit old hat,’ Hugo explained.

‘Everyone expects it,’ his friend Andrew joined in.

‘So we thought we’d do something different to liven things up,’ Hugo finished.

Effie’s mouth fell open. ‘Not cascara again?’

‘Oh no,’ Hugo shook his head. ‘Although I must admit, that was rather amusing last year.’ His mouth twitched.

Sister Wren pushed past them, heading for the doors. She had the same greyish tinge as poor Anna Padgett.

‘Ever heard of antimony?’ Hugo asked. ‘Antimony potassium tartrate, to be precise.’

Effie shook her head. ‘What is it?’

‘One of the most powerful emetics known to man,’ Andrew said.

‘Or medical student!’ Frances laughed.

Effie stared around her. The band had stopped playing as people rushed from the dance floor, hands clamped over their mouths. Even the trumpeter was looking queasy, doubled up where he sat.

She turned back to Hugo. ‘You didn’t?’

He looked pleased with himself. ‘I did! Rather a lot, actually.’

‘But why?’

‘Because it’s fun!’ Frances said. ‘Look around you. Have you ever seen the ward sisters in such a state? What a chance to get our own back for all those awful things they make us do every day.’

Effie looked over to where Matron stood, watching the mayhem around her with narrowed eyes.

‘We should tell someone,’ she said.

‘I think they’ll work it out for themselves soon enough, don’t you?’ Hugo smirked.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, O’Hara, don’t be such a spoilsport!’ Frances snapped.

‘
You’re
the spoilsport. Everyone was really looking forward to this evening, and now you’ve ruined it.’

Effie thought about the girls in her set, rushing round to get ready, agonising over their dresses and borrowing each other’s lipstick. They had all been so excited about having a night off, the chance to dress up and be glamorous for once. And now they’d been humiliated.

‘It’s just a prank, darling,’ Hugo said soothingly. ‘A harmless prank, that’s all. Everyone will have a good laugh about it in the morning.’

‘Or the morning after that,’ Andrew suggested.

Effie stared at them both with loathing. ‘And who is supposed to run the wards and look after the patients if half the staff are in the sick bay?’ she snapped. ‘It’s all right for you medical students, you just hang around the place and no one would notice if you were there or not. But some of us have work to do!’

Before Andrew could reply, a cry went up from the far side of the room.

‘Quick! Mulhearn’s collapsed!’

Effie rushed over, following the surge of people. But Miss Hanley was already there, clearing a circle.

‘Stand back! Give the girl some air!’ she ordered.

Effie glimpsed over a porter’s shoulder. Poor little Prudence was on the floor, twitching and jerking like a puppet on the end of invisible strings.

‘She’s having a seizure,’ Miss Hanley said. ‘Someone call for an ambulance.’

Effie watched as the Assistant Matron moved swiftly into action, loosening Prudence’s clothing and putting her into a safer position. One of the waiters produced a wine cork and Miss Hanley set it between the girl’s teeth.

Effie sensed someone at her side and looked round. Frances was standing there, her face pale with shock.

‘Not so funny now, is it?’ Effie muttered.

Frances shot her a dark look and pushed her way back through the crowd towards the doors.

The ambulance arrived shortly afterwards, and Prudence was taken away. Matron went with her. But the party had already started to disperse. Those guests who weren’t still locked in the cloakrooms groaning in agony were fetching their coats to leave.

Effie looked for Hugo, but there was no sign of him or his friends. They had all cleared off and left her.

She searched for her sister, but her friend Millie Benedict said Katie had already left with Tom, before all the fuss started.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked Effie. ‘You look a bit grey. You didn’t drink any of that filthy punch, did you?’

‘No . . . no, I didn’t.’

‘Good thing, too,’ Millie said. ‘Anyone with any sense brings their own supply. That poor pro,’ she sighed. ‘I do hope she’s all right. It looked rather serious, don’t you think?’ She frowned at Effie. ‘Are you sure you’re all right? I would offer to share a taxi back to the hospital with you, but I have a sleeping-out pass so my fiancé and I are going to the Café de Paris. Will you be able to get back by yourself?’

Effie reassured her she would be fine. But privately she wasn’t so sure she had the money for a taxi. She’d left in such a hurry, all she’d stuffed into her evening bag was a lipstick and a few coins.

She stood outside the cloakroom and delved into her coat pocket, hoping that a miracle had happened and her taxi fare might have magically appeared, stuck in the lining.

And then she found it.

She pulled out the test tube, and stared at it. How did that get into her pocket? She peered closer. It was empty, but there were traces of a buff coloured powder clinging to the bottom of the tube.

Effie was peering at the label, trying to make out the words on it, when the test tube was snatched out of her hands.

‘Let me see that!’

She looked up in dismay. Miss Hanley towered over her, the test tube held aloft in her manly hand.

‘Where did this come from?’ she demanded.

Effie stared at it helplessly. ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve never seen it before in my life.’

‘I don’t believe you.’ Miss Hanley’s eyes narrowed. ‘I think we’d better show this to Matron, don’t you?’

‘
HAVE YOU EVER
heard of Adams-Stokes Syndrome?’ Kathleen Fox asked.

Effie O’Hara looked blank. ‘No, Matron,’ she whispered.

‘It’s a sudden, transient episode of fainting and seizures, caused by temporary heart failure. And do you know what causes the heart to fail, O’Hara?’

‘No, Matron.’ The girl’s eyes were already straying towards the floor.

Kathleen held up the empty test tube. ‘Antimony poisoning,’ she said. ‘Little did you know before you played your stupid prank that you could have killed poor Prudence Mulhearn.’

Effie looked up at her sharply. ‘It wasn’t my prank, Matron.’

‘This tube was found in your pocket.’

‘Yes, but I don’t know how it got there.’

‘Well, if you didn’t put it there someone else must have.’ Kathleen regarded her calmly. ‘Who was it, O’Hara?’

She leaned forward, willing the girl to speak. Effie opened her mouth, then closed it again. ‘I don’t know, Matron,’ she mumbled.

‘I think you do. Was it one of your friends? Another nurse in your set perhaps? Or was it one of the medical students?’

Say it, she urged silently. Just say his name, for God’s sake.

Kathleen knew exactly who had poisoned the punch. Hugo Morgan had a reputation as a joker. He didn’t seem to care how far he went, or who suffered in the process, as long as he amused himself and his foolish friends. It wasn’t the first time Kathleen had been made aware of his little pranks, but so far there had been nothing she could do about him. His father Roderick Morgan was an eminent cardiac surgeon at the Nightingale, and it had been made clear to Matron by the Board of Trustees that she should do nothing to offend him or his family. As far as Roderick was concerned, his son could do no wrong.

If Kathleen had had her way, Hugo would have been out on his ear a long time ago. As it was, he and his friends were allowed to swagger around the wards as if they owned the place.

But if she could prove that Hugo had endangered someone’s life, it would be a different story. Even his father couldn’t protect him then.

All she had to do was to persuade Effie O’Hara to give up his name. But she was either too frightened, too loyal or too lovesick to do it.

‘If you know who it is, you owe it to Prudence to speak up,’ Kathleen said.

‘I don’t know who put the tube in my pocket, Matron.’

‘But you do know who poisoned the punch?’

Effie bit her lip to stop it trembling. Silly girl, Kathleen thought. She was clearly besotted by Hugo. And she wasn’t the first either. The little snake was always getting nurses to take the fall for him.

Effie was glancing towards the door now, as if she expected him to come in and rescue her at any minute. She would wait a long time, Kathleen thought. Hugo Morgan was as cowardly as he was cruel.

Impatience made her snap, ‘If you don’t tell me I shall have to assume it was you who did it, and the consequences will be very serious for you. Do you want that, O’Hara? Do you think it’s fair that you should be punished for something you didn’t do?’

Effie’s blue eyes swam with tears. ‘I don’t know . . . but I didn’t do it, Matron.’

Kathleen sighed. ‘In which case someone has planted the evidence on you, haven’t they?’ she said. ‘Someone has done this dreadful thing and then arranged matters so that you take the blame for it. Tell me, does that sound to you like the action of someone who cares for you?’

‘No, Matron.’ Her voice was barely above a whisper.

‘No, indeed. So why would you defend someone like that?’

‘I—’

There was a knock on the door. Kathleen saw Effie O’Hara’s shoulders sag with relief.

‘Come in,’ she said.

She would have been surprised to see Hugo Morgan. But she was even more surprised to see Effie’s sister Katie standing before her.

‘Please, Matron, you can’t punish my sister for the antimony,’ she blurted out. ‘It was me who put the tube in her pocket.’

Effie whipped round to stare at her sister. ‘Katie!’

‘Quiet!’ Kathleen silenced her with a wave of her hand, her eyes still fixed on Katie. ‘What are you talking about, girl? Explain yourself.’

‘I did it,’ Katie whispered, her gaze fixed on the inkstand on the desk. ‘I – I thought it would be a lark to put it in the punch. And then I had nowhere to put the empty tube, so I – I stuck it in my sister’s pocket in the cloakroom.’

‘I see.’ Kathleen regarded her coolly. The poor girl was trembling so much she could barely get a sentence out.

‘It wasn’t her!’ Effie said.

‘Shhh!’ her sister hissed.

‘But it wasn’t!’ Effie turned to Kathleen. ‘It was me,’ she said. ‘I did it. She’s just trying to cover up for me.’ She stood up straight. ‘You can punish me, but Katie had nothing to do with it.’

‘Be quiet, Effie!’

‘Be quiet, both of you!’ Kathleen’s voice rose, silencing the bickering sisters. They both shut up at once and turned guiltily to face her.

‘Sorry, Matron,’ Katie said. She nudged her sister, who mumbled an apology.

Kathleen took a deep breath. ‘I don’t believe it was either of you,’ she said. ‘It’s quite clear to me that you –’ she pointed at Effie ‘– know perfectly well who the culprit is, but from reasons of misguided loyalty you have decided not to give up their name. And you –’ she pointed at Katie ‘– from reasons of equally misguided loyalty, have decided to place yourself in the firing line to protect your sister. Meanwhile, the real villain of the piece is allowed to go Scot free.’

She eyed them both severely. ‘I cannot waste any more of my time on this matter,’ she said. ‘I can’t punish either of you since I know you’re both innocent of poisoning the people at the ball. But please understand that I am deeply disappointed in your behaviour.’ She addressed herself to Effie in particular. ‘I gave you a chance to stay here against my better judgement, and it seems that was a mistake. The next time I see you before me, it will be to dismiss you. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Yes, Matron.’

Kathleen watched them both shuffle out of her office, then sat back with a sigh.

Hugo Morgan lived to fight another day. But not for much longer, she hoped.

Effie couldn’t speak to her sister as they made their way in silence down the corridor from Matron’s office. It wasn’t until they had emerged into the sunshine of the courtyard that she finally found her voice.

‘Why did you do it?’ she asked. ‘Why did you try to take the blame?’

Katie didn’t look at her. ‘Because you’re my sister,’ she said.

‘But you could have been sacked.’

Katie shrugged. ‘I promised Mammy I’d look after you and not let you come to any harm.’

Effie felt a lump of suppressed emotion in her throat. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

Katie turned to her. ‘If you really want to thank me, you’ll stop behaving like such an eejit,’ she said. ‘You’ll forget all about falling in love and finding a boyfriend, and especially about that fool Hugo Morgan, and you’ll settle down to some hard work.’ She jerked her head back in the direction of Matron’s office. ‘You heard what Matron said. The next time she sees you, you’ll be dismissed.’

‘I know.’ Effie’s heart was only just beginning to slow down to a regular beat after skipping all over the place. She hadn’t slept a wink since last night. ‘I will work hard, Katie, I swear. I’ll be a changed person. I’ll never get into trouble again, I promise.’