The Nightingale Girls

CHAPTER Fifty-Seven



SHE RAN ALL the way back to the nurses’ home, her mind in a whirl. Had she really just accepted Charlie’s proposal? She could scarcely believe it. She’d never done anything impulsive in her life.

As she lined up with the others for her turn in the bathroom, she could barely stop herself from laughing out loud. She had no idea what she had let herself in for. She’d left Charlie promising to borrow a car to get them to Gretna Green. All she had to do was to pack and be ready to leave at teatime the following day.

But tomorrow was also the day she was due to meet her mother to go through the arrangements for her move to St Andrew’s.

One way or another, I’m going to Scotland, she thought, smiling at herself in the bathroom mirror as she brushed her teeth.

Millie had, as usual, ignored the ten o’clock curfew, to meet her aunt for dinner, but Dora was already in bed when Helen crept back into their room just as Sister Sutton was calling for lights out.

She undressed quickly in the dark and changed into her flannel nightdress, shivering in the cold. It was a warm summer’s night, but their attic bedroom was freezing as usual.

Moving quietly so as not to disturb Dora, Helen eased open her wardrobe doors and groped in the dark for her few items of clothes. There wasn’t much to pack, at any rate. She carefully pulled her suitcase out from under her bed, and had just opened it when Dora’s voice came sleepily out of the darkness.

‘What are you doing?’

Helen looked up sharply. She could see Dora lying on her side, her eyes glinting in the gloom, watching her.

‘I thought you were asleep.’

‘I guessed that.’ Dora sat up, pulling the blanket around her chin. ‘Are you going somewhere?’

‘I – just thought I’d get ready for Scotland.’ At least it wasn’t a lie, she told herself.

Dora faced Helen in the darkness. ‘I thought you weren’t leaving for a few days yet?’

‘I’m not.’

‘So why have you started packing in the middle of the night?’ Helen heard the shrewd tone of Dora’s voice. There was no fooling her. She had far too much East End cunning for that.

‘You’re up to something, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘It’s all right, you don’t have to tell me. Not if you don’t want to.’

Helen hesitated. She knew she could trust Dora. She seemed like the kind who would be good at keeping secrets. She scrambled into bed, shivering as her bare feet touched the icy starched linen sheets.

‘I’m running away,’ she said.

Dora listened carefully as Helen explained her plan to elope with Charlie to Gretna Green.

‘It all sounds very romantic,’ she said finally.

‘It’s the only way we can be together,’ Helen said.

‘And what will you do when you’re married? Have you thought about that?’

‘I—’ Helen faltered.

‘You won’t be able to continue your training. Not up in Scotland, or down here, or anywhere else.’

‘That doesn’t matter,’ Helen said bravely. ‘As long as I’m with Charlie.’

‘You might say that now, but how will you feel in a few years’ time? You’d be giving up an awful lot to be with him, remember?’

‘It would be worth it.’

‘I hope you’re right. I hope your Charlie is worth burning all your bridges for, because that’s what you’ll be doing, make no mistake about that.’

Helen heard the bedsprings creak as Dora lay down again. She lay on her back too, staring up at the ceiling in the darkness. She could feel some of her confidence ebbing away. Dora was right. Once she married Charlie her life would change completely. She would not just be giving up nursing, she’d be giving up everything. Her mother would never speak to her again, and she’d make sure the rest of her family didn’t either. Much as Helen loved Charlie, was she ready to throw in her lot with a young man she had known a matter of months?

‘I’ll tell you something else, too,’ Dora said. ‘If you do a flit now, you’ll be proving your mum right, won’t you? You’ll be proving that Charlie is a bad influence and that you can’t be trusted to think for yourself.’

Helen watched the shadows deepening on the sloped eaves. Dora was right again, she thought miserably.

‘So what can I do?’ she whispered.

Dora rolled over on to her side to face her in the darkness. ‘Talk to your mum. I know you think you can’t do it, but you can,’ she urged, as Helen opened her mouth to argue. ‘What’s the worst she could do to you? Rant and rave a bit, perhaps. Give you a good hiding. But whatever she does, it can’t be that bad. All you’ve got to do is stand up to her.’

Stand up to her? Helen’s heart beat faster at the thought. ‘I’m not sure I can,’ she whispered.

‘It’s either that or lose Charlie,’ Dora said. ‘It’s up to you which you think you can bear.’

After a sleepless night of tossing and turning, Helen made up her mind. She had arranged to meet her mother during her afternoon break, after dinner. But late in the morning there had been an emergency on the ward, and Helen had been kept on to help deal with it. She had missed dinner but was still five minutes late as she hurried to the courtyard to meet her mother. Her stomach began to flutter when she saw Constance sitting on the bench under the trees.

She seemed so lost in thought she didn’t notice Helen until she had walked right up to her.

‘Mother?’

Constance looked up. ‘Oh, Helen. There you are.’ She had braced herself for the inevitable telling off for being late, so her mother’s wavering smile caught her completely off balance.

‘I – I’m sorry I’m late,’ she stammered. ‘There was an emergency.’

‘It doesn’t matter. These things happen in a hospital, don’t they?’ her mother dismissed it. ‘Have you had anything to eat?’

Helen shook her head. ‘There wasn’t time.’

‘Then you must have something.’ Constance stood up, picked up her handbag and hooked it over her arm. ‘Come along.’

She led the way out on to the main road, striding purposefully ahead, with Helen trailing behind. ‘Now,’ she said. ‘Where would you like to go?’

Helen stared at her, dumbfounded by the question. Her mother never asked her opinion about anything. ‘I – I don’t mind,’ she managed finally.

‘Then I suggest we find somewhere close by since I think it might rain.’ Her mother held her hand out and squinted up at the sky.

Helen looked up into the grubby clouds overhead. This wasn’t right. There was something very strange going on, she could feel it. And it was nothing to do with the weather, either.

As they approached the cafe, Helen realised with panic that it was the same place she and Charlie had been the previous night.

‘Should we go somewhere else?’ she suggested quickly.

Her mother frowned at her. ‘I didn’t think you had any preference?’

‘I – I don’t, but there’s another place on the other side of the park which I’ve heard is very nice,’ she invented hastily.

‘Nonsense, we’re here now.’ Constance was already opening the door. The bell over the door jangled, making Helen jump. She prayed the proprietor wasn’t around. She let out a sigh of relief as the curtains at the back of the cafe parted and a young girl appeared, carrying a tray laden with pots of tea.

As luck would have it, her mother chose exactly the same table in the window where Helen and Charlie had sat the day before. Helen picked up the menu and perused it listlessly, waiting for her mother to order.

The waitress came over, her pad poised. Helen listened as her mother went through her usual tiresome routine, questioning the girl closely about the freshness of the sandwiches and the quality of the tea: ‘Is it Indian? Do you warm the pot first? So many places don’t, and I can always tell, you know.’

Helen tuned out, gazing through the window at the street. Rain had started to spatter down on the pavements, sending people running for cover into doorways and under trees.

She wondered what Charlie was doing now. Had he kept his promise to find a car in which to make their escape? She smiled at the thought of what he was prepared to do to make sure they stayed together. With all the effort he was making, the least she could do was talk to her mother. And if her plan worked, they might not have to leave London at all.

‘Helen?’ Her mother’s sharp voice brought her back to reality. She looked up. Constance and the waitress were looking at her expectantly.

‘What do you want to order? The waitress doesn’t have all day, you know.’

Helen looked back at the menu in a panic. Her mother had never asked her what she wanted before, she’d always chosen her food just as she chose everything else.

‘Just a pot of tea and a toasted teacake, please,’ she said finally.

‘That’s hardly adequate, is it?’ her mother commented disapprovingly, her mouth tightening as the waitress went back to the kitchen with their order. ‘You’ll be fainting later on the ward.’

But she didn’t summon the waitress back, or change Helen’s order. Helen stared at her.

‘Are you all right, Mother?’ she asked worriedly.

‘Yes, of course. Why shouldn’t I be?’ But Constance was fidgety and ill-at-ease as she fiddled with the buttons on her gloves. She didn’t seem quite as sure of herself as usual.

The bell jangled, and Helen felt an icy chill run down her spine when she heard the cheery Italian cockney lilt of Antonio the proprietor’s voice.

‘It’s raining cats and dogs out there,’ he announced to the customers sitting at the tables. ‘You’re in the best place, I reckon.’

Helen didn’t dare lift her head to look at him as he bustled past, his arms full of cardboard boxes. She prayed he wouldn’t see her.

‘Now,’ her mother said. ‘About St Andrew’s.’

Helen felt her palms turn clammy with fear. It was now or never. Panic and nerves made her forget the speech she’d spent all night carefully preparing. Suddenly it felt as if her tongue had swelled up in her mouth, making words impossible.

‘Mother, I’ve been thinking,’ she started to say. But at that moment, Antonio appeared from behind the curtain again. He caught Helen’s eye, and grinned broadly.

‘Hello there,’ he greeted her. ‘Back already, I see. Here, Jenny,’ he called back through the curtain to the waitress. ‘Here’s that girl I was telling you about. The one whose boyfriend proposed last night.’

The deathly silence that followed seemed to suck all the air out of the room. Helen stared down at the wooden table, not daring to meet her mother’s eye.

‘Proposed?’ Constance said coldly.

‘I can explain,’ Helen said, and then realised she couldn’t.

‘I think you’d better.’ Her mother waited expectantly, her face taut with suppressed emotion.

But before she could begin to speak, the bell over the door jangled again and in walked Charlie, leaning heavily on his stick, his hair dripping from the rain.

‘And here’s the fella who proposed!’ Antonio called out in delight from behind the counter. ‘Hurry up, Jenny, you’re missing all the fun here!’

Everyone in the cafe fell silent, watching them, as Charlie made his way over to their table. Helen held her breath.

‘What are you doing here?’ she whispered. ‘How did you know where we were?’

‘I followed you from the hospital.’ He turned to Constance, who was sitting as rigid as a statue opposite them. ‘Hello, Mrs Tremayne. My name is Charlie Denton. I’m pleased to meet you.’

He held out his hand. Mrs Tremayne stared at it with contempt, as if he’d tried to present her with a dead fish.

‘I wish I could say the same about you,’ she said tightly.

Charlie’s hand fell limply back to his side, but he refused to be intimidated. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt, Mrs Tremayne, but I have something to say to Helen,’ he continued bravely.

‘Can’t it wait?’ she pleaded, glancing nervously around the busy cafe.

‘No, it can’t.’ Charlie took a deep breath. ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ he said. ‘I’ve decided I don’t want to marry you.’

‘What?’ Helen and her mother chorused in shock.

‘Jenny!’ Antonio bellowed through the curtain. ‘Put that bread down and get out here now!’

‘I mean, I do want to marry you, one day. But not now. Not like this.’ He turned back to Mrs Tremayne. ‘Do you mind if I sit down?’ he asked. ‘I can’t stand for very long on this leg of mine.’

Helen’s mother gave a nod and Charlie drew up a chair and lowered himself heavily into it. He turned to Helen again. His face was haggard, with purple shadows under his blue eyes. Helen guessed he’d had a sleepless night too. ‘I’ve been thinking about it,’ he said. ‘I love you, Helen. Too much to want to run away and elope.’

‘Elope?’ she heard her mother say faintly.

‘When I marry you, I want it to be because we both want to,’ Charlie went on, ‘not because it’s the only way we can be together. And I want all our families to be there, too, to see us make our vows to each other. Even you, Mrs T.’ He smiled at Constance. ‘I want the whole world to see how much I love you. And I want you to finish your training first,’ he added. ‘Because I reckon you’re a wonderful nurse, Helen, and you deserve to do it.’

There was a long silence. Someone sighed on the other side of the cafe. Out of the corner of her eye, Helen could see Antonio wiping away a tear with his grubby apron.

She and Charlie both turned to look at her mother. Mrs Tremayne sat ramrod-straight. Helen saw the icy look in her eyes and realised with a feeling of creeping dread that she was going to put Charlie firmly in his place.

‘We’ve heard a great deal about what you want, young man,’ she said in a clipped voice. ‘Have you considered asking my daughter what she might want?’ She turned to Helen. ‘What do you have to say about this?’

Helen looked from Charlie’s beseeching face to her mother’s stony expression. She could feel him silently urging her on, willing her to speak her mind.

She swallowed the dry lump of fear that clogged her throat. ‘I don’t want to go to Scotland,’ she managed finally. ‘I want to stay at the Nightingale and finish my training.’

She steeled herself to look at her mother, waiting for the thunderclap of rage to crash over her head. Constance’s face remained impassive.

‘Very well,’ she said.

Helen and Charlie looked at each other. ‘Do you really mean it?’ Helen whispered. She was sure it couldn’t be that easy.

‘Of course. Surely you didn’t think I was going to frog march you off to Aberdeen without your agreement, did you?’ Constance looked incredulous. ‘If you would rather stay at the Nightingale, then I will speak to Matron and arrange it. I’m sure she will have something to say about the matter, but no doubt we will come to some sort of understanding.’ Her lips thinned. ‘But I expect you to work very hard during your final year. And if I hear anything to suggest otherwise,’ she sent Charlie a stern look, ‘I will be forced to reconsider.’

‘Yes, Mother.’ Helen could feel happiness bubbling up inside her. She wanted to hug her, but didn’t think Constance would welcome such a public display.

Or perhaps she would. Five minutes ago she would have been certain that her mother was going to send Charlie packing and probably banish Helen to a convent for even daring to think about elopement. But here she was, calmly accepting it all.

Helen reached for Charlie’s hand under the table and held on to it tightly. She couldn’t imagine what might have brought about her mother’s change of heart, but she was grateful for it. The waitress brought over their tray, and set down the tea in front of them. Constance put her hand against the side of the pot, testing it.

‘You haven’t warmed this pot, have you?’ she snapped. ‘I told you, I can always tell. Take it away at once.’

Helen smiled to herself. It was good to see her mother hadn’t changed completely.