Nightingales Under the Mistletoe (15 page)

Me too, Millie thought. She wasn't sorry to have left Lyford, but Billinghurst didn't feel like her home any more. It had been taken over by strangers and she was no longer welcome there.

She stopped the car at the Lodge to allow her grandmother, Henry and Nanny Perks to get out, then drove it up to the house and parked in the stable block.

As she was heading back down the drive, she heard someone calling her name. She turned to see William running down the steps of the house towards her.

‘I've been watching out for you at the window.' He smiled at her. ‘I'm sorry I didn't have a chance to say goodbye before you left.'

Are you? Millie thought. She could hardly bring herself to look into his face, she was so mortified. All she could remember was Agnes Moss's sneering tone.

It's William I feel sorry for … She's obviously got a thing for him … It's embarrassing.

‘Did you have a good time?' William asked.

‘Yes, thank you.' She started to walk away, but he called out to her again.

‘Millie? Is something wrong?'

She swung back to face him. There was so much she wanted to say, but she couldn't find the words. Instead all her frustration crystallised on the one thing she could say.

‘Your men have vandalised the ornamental fountain.'

He looked taken aback. ‘I beg your pardon?'

‘They've carved their initials in the stone. It's ruined.'

‘Ah.'

There was something about the way he said it. ‘You knew!' Millie accused.

‘Yes, I'd noticed. I meant to talk to you …'

‘How could you?' she cut him off. ‘How could you let them do it?'

‘I can explain—'

‘I trusted you. I welcomed you into my home and this – this is how you repay me!'

‘Millie, please.' He spoke quietly, but there was something about the firm way he said it that silenced her. ‘You're right, I did notice what had happened to the fountain, and I was going to talk to you about it. It's become a bit of a tradition, you see. When one of the men doesn't come home, the others carve his initials in the stone and the date so they can remember him. It's supposed to be a mark of respect, not vandalism.'

‘I—' Millie opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again.

‘But I do understand how you feel,' William went on. ‘I promise I'll tell the men to stop doing it. And I'll get someone from the Works Squadron to come and replace the stonework.'

No, she wanted to say. Just leave it. I'm sorry. But instead the words that came out were, ‘See that you do.'

She started to walk off. She heard William call out her name again, but she ignored him, trying to put as much distance between herself and her scalding embarrassment as possible.

She'd done it again. Stupid, stupid Millie, getting everything wrong …

There was a commotion coming from the Lodge. As she drew closer, Millie could hear Henry's voice, shrieking in excitement, and Nanny Perks's stern tones as she tried to calm him down.

‘What's going on?' she called out as she opened the door. Henry escaped Nanny Perks's clutches and rushed to greet her. ‘Mama, look! Look!'

He dragged her into the sitting room. ‘Careful, darling,' Millie laughed, ‘you'll pull me over …'

She stopped dead. There, in the corner of the sitting room, was the biggest and most beautiful Christmas tree she had ever seen, its branches weighed down by baubles and decorations. It was so tall it scraped the ceiling, filling the drawing room with the fresh scent of pine needles.

Millie stared at it. ‘Where did it come from?'

‘The airmen brought it, Your Ladyship,' the maid told her quietly. ‘Squadron Leader Tremayne said they wanted to do it, to thank you for being so kind and welcoming to them.'

Henry swung from her hand, unable to stay still in his excitement. ‘It's magic, isn't it, Mama?'

‘Yes, darling. It is magic.' Millie smiled at him automatically, but her thoughts were elsewhere.

Stupid, stupid Millie had got it wrong again.

JESS HEARD THE
children screaming in the darkness, long before she reached the ward.

The Fever Wards were situated on the far side of the hospital, beyond the other outbuildings, so far from the main building they might as well have been in the next village.

Jess had been put on the children's whooping cough ward. She had got used to her solitary life; snatching a few hours' sleep at the Nurses' Home if the circling planes overhead and Home Sister's strict housekeeping routine allowed, then tramping the two miles to the hospital along blacked-out country lanes. Occasionally Sulley might give her a lift in his horse and cart, if he was feeling charitable.

Once or twice she had managed to snatch a few hours with her friends, if one of them had the morning or afternoon off duty. They had even been to the pictures in Tunbridge Wells with Kit, Max and Harry. But most of the time, Jess lived in a twilight world of poorly children.

And they were all desperately poorly. For the whole of her twelve-hour shift Jess had to cope alone with twenty sick children, none of whom slept for more than an hour at a time. As she hurried from bed to bed, comforting them, cleaning up vomit and changing wet and dirty beds, she lived in fear of one of them convulsing or choking during a severe bout of whooping.

Each night was an endless vigil of loneliness and anxiety, ending with exhaustion and a pile of stained linen to rinse for the laundry.

Not surprisingly, the day nurse looked at the end of her tether as she handed over to Jess.

‘We had a new one in today, a baby,' she said. ‘Whooping cough and gastro-enteritis. He needs to be barrier nursed, so I've hung up an overall for you by the bed. Be really careful, won't you? The last thing we need is for the rest of them to get infected.'

‘I will,' Jess promised.

‘Dr Drake said he'll check on him in a couple of hours, but of course you know to telephone him at any time if you're worried. I have to say, I'm not sure the poor little mite will last the night.' She spoke in a flat, matter-of-fact way. They lost too many children on the Fever Wards to allow themselves to mourn them. ‘You're supposed to be sharing a runner tonight, but I haven't seen her yet so I expect one of the other wards has already nabbed her. Do telephone the Night Sister if you need any help, won't you?'

Much good it will do me, Jess thought. The Night Sister would just tell her to get on with it, as usual. Miss Tanner did her best to help, but she couldn't magic spare nurses out of thin air.

After the day nurse had gone off duty, Jess went round all the beds, checking on everyone, cleaning up vomit and changing beds while all around her children screamed and retched and made the terrifying whooping sound that seemed to turn their little bodies inside out.

Then she went to attend to the baby, remembering to put on the overall and cap that hung beside his cot. She did it carefully, pushing her arm through one sleeve then the other, fastening the button and tying the tape around her waist.

The baby's name was Stephen Cope. He was a tiny, feverish little thing, clammy with perspiration. Strands of fine hair clung damply to his scalp. Jess checked him over and gave him a few drops of boiled, cooled water from a sterilised pipette.

She was changing his nappy when the runner appeared. She was a pro, a local girl called Julie Todd.

‘Ugh, that looks nasty.' She flinched from the livid green contents of the nappy.

‘It is.'

‘Poor lamb.' Julie peered past Jess's shoulder at the baby in the cot. ‘Will he do, do you think?'

‘The day staff nurse didn't seem to think so, but you never know.' Jess hoped he would. Losing a baby was awful enough, but it was particularly cruel so close to Christmas. She could only imagine what Stephen's poor parents must be going through, ragged with worry for their little boy.

Julie took the soiled nappy out to the incinerator, but she didn't come back. Runners were in short supply, and Julie had either been nabbed by another ward or she had dallied by the Furnace Room for a sneaky cigarette. Being warm and isolated made it a popular spot for exhausted night nurses.

Either way, her absence irritated Jess as she rushed around, trying to deal with all the children's needs at once. A three-year-old girl struggling to breathe who needed a steam tent. A frightened eight-year-old evacuee who woke up in tears after a nightmare. All his friends had gone back to London for Christmas, but his mum hadn't sent for him. Now he was terrified that the bombs had got her or, that she had forgotten about him.

Jess did her best to console him, all the while aware that at the other end of the ward at least two more children were coughing themselves sick.

And then baby Stephen started screaming.

He was in a terrible state by the time Jess reached his cot, feverish and almost black in the face. As Jess went to put on her overall and gown, he suddenly started to convulse violently, his tiny body jerking and twisting like a puppet.

For a moment she froze, utterly terrified. Then, forgetting her cap and gown, she scooped Stephen up into her arms and ran with him to the sluice.

She could hear the other children screaming out for her but she was deaf to them as she filled a sink with cold water and immersed the baby in it as gently as possible. She had never done it before, it was something she'd only heard about in lectures while she was training. She wasn't even sure it would work, or if the shock of the cold water would kill him. But if it didn't, she knew the convulsions would.

She closed her eyes, praying fervently, until she felt the twitching and jerking stop. Stephen went very still in her arms. Jess hardly dared to open her eyes, terrified that the poor little mite would be dead.

But, thank God, he was staring up at her with his bright little button eyes. Jess took him out of the water and undressed him quickly, put him in a clean nappy and laid him back in his cot. Then she telephoned to let Dr Drake know what had happened.

She put the telephone receiver down and slumped back in Sister's chair. It was just turned midnight, and she felt as if she'd already lived through a lifetime.

Dr Drake arrived on the ward five minutes later.

‘How is the child?' For once Jess was so thankful to see him she didn't mind his abrupt manner.

‘He's a lot better, Doctor. His temperature is still high, but not dangerously so. And he's taken some more water.'

She waited tensely while Dr Drake examined the baby. ‘And he was convulsing, you say?'

‘Yes, Doctor. I tried to cool him down as best I could. It seemed to work.'

She didn't mention what had happened afterwards, how she had sat in the darkness at Sister's desk and cried quietly with relief.

‘Indeed. Indeed,' Dr Drake muttered. For the first time he looked properly at Jess, and she felt herself pinned by a pair of sharply intelligent eyes. ‘How did you know what to do?' he asked.

‘I only did what any other nurse would do, sir.'

‘Hmm.' He went on staring at her for a long time, until Jess started to feel uncomfortable. Then he looked away and scribbled a few lines on the baby's notes. ‘Well, he seems to be doing well at the moment,' he said, hanging up the chart on the end of the cot. ‘Telephone me immediately if there is another crisis.'

‘Yes, Doctor.'

As he took off his overall, he said quietly, ‘Well done, Nurse.'

‘Thank you, sir.'

He went to walk away, then stopped. ‘By the way,' he said. ‘I thought you should know, I arranged for Mrs Briggs on Female Medical to be transferred back to London today.'

Jess blinked at him. ‘Thank you, sir,' was all she managed to say.

She watched him as he strode off down the ward, letting the doors swing shut behind him without looking back. Had she really just had a few kind words from Dr Drake? Effie and Daisy would never believe it, she decided.

She was right, Daisy didn't believe it.

‘You're making it up,' she declared, when Jess met her the following afternoon. They were going to a WVS sale of work in the village hall where Daisy was hoping to find some Christmas presents for her family.

‘I'm telling you, it happened.'

‘You mean to say Dr Drake was actually nice to someone?' Daisy grinned. ‘You don't think it was that mistletoe giving him ideas, do you?'

‘Don't!' Jess still blushed to think about it.

The village hall was set out with long tables, each neatly arranged with all kinds of items for sale. There were peg dollies and teddies made from fabric scraps, home-made cakes, Christmas puddings and jars of jam, knitted scarves, gloves and hats, as well as all kinds of second-hand toys and clothes.

Jess spotted Miss Pomfrey, her varicose veins now on the mend, sitting behind a long table laden with her precious embroidered tray cloths and antimacassars.

Mrs Huntley-Osborne moved briskly amongst them, exhorting everyone to buy.

‘It's all in a good cause,' she boomed. ‘All proceeds to the Prisoners-of-War Fund.'

‘I could do with some mistletoe, to give Max some ideas,' Daisy said, examining a painted wooden car. ‘He's so shy, it's all I can do to get him to hold my hand!'

‘You should take it as a good sign, that he respects you,' Jess said. ‘It's better for a man to be a bit reserved than out for what he can get.'

‘I suppose so,' Daisy said but she still looked wistful. ‘I just wish he was a bit more keen. You know, like Effie's Kit?'

He's a bit too keen, if you ask me, Jess thought. Going to the pictures in Tunbridge Wells, she had sat chastely in the front of the stalls with Harry, Daisy and Max, while Effie and Kit wrestled in the back row. Jess was worried that her friend was getting into a situation she might not be able to control. But as usual when Effie was in love, there was no telling her anything.