The Nightingale Girls

CHAPTER Fifty-Six



‘I’M SO SORRY,’ Helen said.

She had never felt more wretched in her life than she did at that moment, sitting across the table from Charlie in the brightly lit cafe where they’d shared so many happier times. They had been sitting there all evening, and Antonio the proprietor was wiping tables, ready to close up.

But neither of them wanted to leave, because they knew it was the last time they were going to be together.

‘I don’t understand,’ Charlie said again, his voice choked. ‘I thought you loved me?’

‘I do, more than anything.’ Helen had only begun to realise how much now she knew she was going to lose him.

‘Then why can’t we be together?’

Helen sighed. They’d talked about it endlessly, going round and round in agonising circles, both of them getting more and more upset and frustrated.

‘How can we stay together when I’m going to be in Scotland? I couldn’t expect you to wait for me.’

‘You know I’d wait for ever for you.’

Helen shook her head. ‘It wouldn’t be fair on you. You deserve to be free, to find someone else.’

‘How many more times do I have to tell you? I don’t want anyone but you!’ Charlie ran his hand through his hair, exasperated.

‘We have to make a clean break. It’s for the best,’ Helen said firmly.

In her heart she desperately wanted to ask him to wait for her. But she knew she couldn’t. Whatever Charlie might say, he was bound to find someone else while she was away. And painful as it might be now, she knew it would be a lot worse to have to find out in six months, or a year’s time that he’d stopped loving her.

Charlie stared down into his empty teacup. ‘It’s not fair,’ he said. ‘Why does it have to be Scotland? Why can’t your mum just let you carry on your training here?’

Because she wants to punish me, Helen thought bleakly. ‘She thinks it would be best.’

‘Is it because of me?’ he asked.

Helen looked into his blue eyes, so sad and desperate for reassurance. ‘It’s my fault,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have started seeing you behind her back. I should have known she’d find out, and that she’d be angry with me for lying to her.’

‘You hardly lied to her, did you?’ Charlie reasoned. ‘Not telling her something isn’t the same as telling her a downright lie.’

‘Not as far as my mother is concerned. She likes to know everything about my life.’

Charlie thought for a moment. ‘What if I was to talk to her?’ he said suddenly. ‘Perhaps if I was to meet her, let her see I was a decent sort of bloke, she’d change her mind and let you stay?’

‘You don’t know my mother.’ Helen shook her head. ‘She never changes her mind about anything. Once she’s decided something, that’s it.’

She wondered what her mother would make of Charlie anyway. To Helen, he was the most handsome, wonderful, loving man in the world. But no one would ever meet Constance Tremayne’s impossibly high standards.

‘It sounds as if you’ve already given up?’ he said. ‘Don’t you want us to be together?’

‘You know I do.’

‘Then fight!’ he urged, gripping her hand. ‘Helen, I’m ready to try anything, do anything, it takes to keep you. And all you’re doing is sighing and shaking your head and telling me it’s all useless, that it won’t work. Why don’t you stand up to your mother, tell her you won’t be pushed around any more?’ He sent her a hurt look. ‘Unless you really don’t care about me?’

‘That’s not fair!’ she protested. ‘Of course I care about you. I love you.’

‘But not enough to stand up to your mother?’

Helen swallowed hard. Charlie was right, she was being a coward.

Millie had told her much the same thing the day before.

‘You don’t really want to leave, do you?’ she had said, her big blue eyes swimming with tears.

‘Of course I don’t.’ A year ago, Helen might not have cared what happened to her. But over the past months she had made good friends at Nightingale’s, and now she knew she would be heartbroken to say goodbye.

‘Then tell her you’re not going,’ Millie shrugged, as if it was the easiest thing in the world. ‘She can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do.’

‘You don’t know my mother.’

‘I know that if I really wanted something, I wouldn’t let anyone stand in my way,’ Millie had said firmly.

It was easy for her, Helen thought. She hadn’t been brought up under an iron rule. The idea of making her own decisions was so strange to Helen, she wasn’t sure she would even be able to do so without Constance Tremayne’s approval.

They were both silent, lost in their own thoughts. Helen glanced up at the clock on the wall, ticking away the minutes treacherously. Soon she would have to be getting back to the hospital.

‘I’m sorry.’ Charlie threaded his fingers through hers. ‘I shouldn’t have got angry at you. We haven’t got that much time left together, I don’t want to spend it arguing.’

‘I do love you,’ Helen said unhappily. ‘And if I had my way, we’d be together every minute of the day, but . . .’

‘Then let me come with you,’ Charlie cut across her words, his fingers tightening around hers. ‘If you have to go to Scotland, then so will I.’

Helen stared at him. ‘I couldn’t ask you to do that.’

‘You’re not asking me, I’m offering. I could move up to Scotland, find digs near your hospital.’ His face was eager. ‘Then we could see each other all the time, and no one would be able to say anything about it.’

‘But my mother—’

‘What would she know about it? She’d be miles away. Don’t you think it’s a good idea? It’s so simple, I don’t know why I haven’t thought of it before!’

He laughed in delight, but Helen was hesitant. ‘How would you live?’

‘I’d get a job, of course. I know I might not be able to run around like I used to, but there’s bound to be some kind of work I can do.’ He grinned. ‘I could be a haggis-maker. Or a sporran-hunter. Or – I don’t know – Scotland’s only one-legged bagpipe player. I could do something, anyway.’

His good humour was so infectious, Helen smiled in spite of herself. But deep down she was still wary. ‘What about your family? You wouldn’t be able to see them as much as you do now.’ She knew how close Charlie was to his parents and brothers and sisters, and how much it would hurt him not to be with them.

‘So what? I’d be with you, and that’s what’s really important.’ He beamed at her. ‘What do you think?’

Helen chewed her lip. She desperately wanted to say yes, but she knew that would just be selfish. ‘You’re a Londoner, you’d be lost in Scotland.’

‘I’d be lost without you.’

Antonio, a big man in a greasy apron, began cleaning their table. ‘Haven’t you two got homes to go to?’ he said irritably.

‘I’m sorry.’ Helen instantly started to get up, but Charlie held on to her hand, pulling her back down into her seat.

‘I can’t let you go,’ he said quietly.

‘I can’t let you go, either.’ Her heart was already aching at the thought of never seeing him again.

‘Then marry me.’

Everything seemed to stop dead in that moment. Even Antonio stopped wiping their table and looked up.

‘What did you say?’ Helen frowned.

‘Marry me.’ Charlie’s eyes shone, full of hope. ‘I dunno why I didn’t think of it before. It’s obvious, isn’t it? We could get wed, and then we could live in Scotland as man and wife, and there’d be nothing your mum or anyone else could do about it.’

‘She could try to stop the wedding.’

‘Not if we eloped.’ He grinned at her. ‘Where is it couples run off to? Gretna something?’

‘Green,’ Helen said faintly. ‘Gretna Green.’

‘That’s in Scotland, isn’t it? We could get wed on the way, and then turn up as a married couple.’

‘But I couldn’t!’ Helen whispered, shocked. ‘My mother . . .’

‘Your mother wouldn’t know a thing about it. And by the time she found out, it would be too late.’ Charlie grinned. ‘Come on, what do you say?’

‘I – I don’t know what to say.’ Helen gaped at him, then at Antonio, who was staring openly now. She was too overwhelmed by the idea that someone actually loved her enough to want to marry her to think of anything else.

‘Then say yes.’

Helen opened and closed her mouth, but no sound came out. In the end it was Antonio who spoke up.

‘Blimey, mate, if you want the young lady to accept your proposal then you’re going to have to come up with a better one than that!’ he laughed.

Charlie glanced at her. Then, with a great effort and hanging on to the back of the chair for support, he slowly lowered himself on to his good knee.

Helen felt as if she were in a strange dream as he took her hand in his.

‘Helen Tremayne,’ his voice was solemn, but his eyes sparkled with mirth as they met hers. ‘will you please do me the great honour of agreeing to run away with me and be my wife?’

Helen looked down at him. All kinds of thoughts went through her head. This was impossible, impulsive, complete madness and they would never get away with it. She could almost see her mother, face pinched with disapproval, dismissing the idea on her behalf.

‘Yes, please,’ she said.