The Nightingale Nurses (47 page)

Authors: Donna Douglas

BOOK: The Nightingale Nurses

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She wondered how many of the set before her would do the same.

Helen was barely surprised to see her mother waiting for her as she came out of Matron’s office and stepped into the courtyard on that brisk November afternoon.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, although she already knew the answer. This was the day she found out what her future held, and there was no chance that Constance Tremayne would want to miss that. ‘I’ve already had my interview with Matron, if that’s what you’ve come for?’

‘Don’t be absurd, why would I want to interfere?’ At least her mother had the grace to look away when she said it. ‘I had to come here to meet the Head of the Trustees,’ she went on. ‘But since I am here – how did you get on? What did Matron say?’

Helen took a deep breath. ‘She has formally invited me to take up a post at the hospital,’ she said, unable to keep the pride out of her voice.

‘Well, of course she has!’ Constance dismissed this impatiently. ‘For heaven’s sake, you came top in your State Finals and you won the Nightingale Medal. She’s hardly going to turn you away, is she? But what has she offered you? I hope it was Theatre,’ she said, without waiting for an answer. ‘It’s the very least you deserve, after all your hard work. She would be foolish not to offer it to you . . .’

‘She did offer it to me,’ Helen said. ‘But I turned it down.’

Constance shot her a disbelieving look. She couldn’t have looked more crestfallen if Helen had told her she was going to give up nursing and go on the stage instead. ‘But why? You didn’t! Oh, Helen, what on earth possessed you?’ She seized her daughter’s arm. ‘We must go back to see Matron immediately, tell her you’ve changed your mind . . .’

She caught Helen’s half smile and stopped. ‘Is this a joke?’ she asked suspiciously.

Helen grinned. ‘Yes, Mother, it is. You’ll be pleased to hear I have accepted a post in Theatre. But only because it’s my decision,’ she reminded her.

‘Of course.’ She could see her mother fighting to keep the self-satisfied look off her face. ‘Now, why don’t we have some lunch to celebrate your new position? Perhaps we could go to Fortnum’s?’

Helen glanced at her watch. ‘I’m sorry, Mother, but I have to catch my train in less than an hour.’

‘Oh? Where are you going?’

‘Southend. I’m going to visit Hollins.’

Her mother nodded understandingly. ‘How is she settling in at her new hospital?’

‘Very well, I think.’ Helen paused. ‘She’s very grateful to you for arranging for her to finish her training at the Victoria,’ she said. ‘If you hadn’t talked to the Matron there, she might never have been accepted.’

Constance waved aside her words. ‘Everyone deserves a second chance,’ she said quietly.

Including you, Helen thought. Her relationship with her mother might not be perfect, but at least they understood each other a little better. And she could see Constance was trying hard to be less overbearing, although there were times when she still couldn’t help herself.

‘And what about you?’ Constance asked. ‘Are you sure you’re doing the right thing, staying on at the Nightingale?’

Helen turned to her, surprised by the question. ‘Why do you ask that?’

‘I just wondered if, under the circumstances, you might prefer a change of scene? This place holds a lot of memories for you.’

Helen looked around at the courtyard, surrounded on all sides by a higgledy-piggledy sprawl of ward blocks, outbuildings and extensions.

Her mother was right, it hadn’t been easy coming back. Sometimes just walking across the courtyard she would remember the day Charlie died and the pain would make her stop and catch her breath. And she had managed to avoid Judd ward completely since her return. She wasn’t sure she would ever be able to set foot in that corridor again, or see those double doors without remembering that awful day.

But the Nightingale Hospital wasn’t just full of bad memories. There were good ones, too. Like the day she’d met Charlie, so full of life and laughter, on Blake ward. And their wedding day, poignant though it was, was one of the happiest of her life. Because she knew she was surrounded by loyal friends who had rallied round and stood by her. Friends she would have for the rest of her life.

It was those friends who helped her face each day. When she opened her eyes every morning and had to endure that awful moment of realisation that her dreams of Charlie hadn’t been real and that he was really gone for ever, they were there to distract her. And when she saw or heard something funny and stored it in her mind to tell Charlie, only to remember once again that he would never be there to share her funny or sad moments, at least she knew she wasn’t completely alone.

She would be in pain wherever she went. But at least at the Nightingale she knew she was among friends.

‘I think I’m in the right place,’ she told her mother.

After all, if you wanted to heal, where better to go than a hospital?

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Epub ISBN: 9781448165018

Version 1.0

www.randomhouse.co.uk

Published by Arrow Books 2013

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Donna Douglas has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between these fictional characters and actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

First published in Great Britain in 2013

by Arrow Books

Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,

London SW1V 2SA

www.randomhouse.co.uk