Free The Nightingale Sisters by Donna Douglas

over Sister Hyde’s harsh comment when she got back to the bathroom.
    ‘It’s not fair,’ she protested, taking off her stiff cuffs and rolling up her sleeves. ‘She made me sound like some silly girl who is just doing this for fun. For heaven’s sake, if I were out for fun, do you really think I would be here, disinfecting patients’ sores and killing head lice?’
    ‘You mustn’t blame Sister Hyde,’ Helen said. ‘She’s dedicated her whole life to nursing, and she expects the rest of us to do the same.’
    ‘Who says I’m not devoting my life to nursing, too?’
    Helen sent her a sceptical look. ‘Everyone knows you’re going to marry Sebastian as soon as you finish training.’
    ‘You’re going to marry Charlie.’
    ‘Not for a few years. We agreed to wait before we got engaged, so that I could really make a go of my nursing.’
    ‘I might do the same.’
    ‘Do you think your grandmother would allow that?’
    Millie was silent with resentment as she started to rinse the woman’s hair.
    Helen leant forward to peer at her. ‘Are you crying?’
    ‘Certainly not. I’ve just splashed myself in the eye, that’s all.’ She wiped her streaming nose on her sleeve.
    She wouldn’t give Sister Hyde the satisfaction of seeing her cry. Then she really would think Millie was an idiot.
    ‘She said she wasn’t crying, but I knew she was,’ Helen told Charlie later. ‘Poor Benedict, Sister really tore her off a strip. I’ve never seen her in such a temper.’
    They were sitting in their favourite café, the place where Charlie had proposed nearly five months before. The cockney-Italian café owner had had a soft spot for them ever since, and often let them stay behind after hours while he cleaned up around them.
    ‘I reckon that Sister of yours could do with a sense of humour,’ Charlie grinned. ‘It sounds like a right lark to me.’
    Helen smiled in spite of herself. ‘It was, but it could have been very serious. As nurses we can’t afford to make mistakes like that. Someone could have died as a result of Benedict’s reading a label wrongly.’ She twirled a teaspoon between her fingers. ‘The worst thing is, I can’t help feeling it was all my fault.’
    ‘How do you make that out?’
    ‘I told her about William’s new girlfriend. She put on a brave face, but I know she took it badly.’
    Poor Millie. However much she might protest otherwise, Helen knew she still had feelings for William. She wished now she hadn’t tried to keep them apart. She’d only done it because she was worried her brother would break Millie’s heart, like he’d hurt so many girls in the past. But perhaps if she’d stood back and allowed the relationship to take its course, Millie would have realised for herself what he was like. Then her friend wouldn’t be feeling so sad now.
    ‘She would have found out sooner or later,’ Charlie said pragmatically. ‘Better it came from you than anyone else.’
    ‘That’s true,’ Helen admitted with a sigh. ‘William does seem rather besotted with this new girlfriend of his.’
    ‘What’s she like?’
    ‘I only know what he’s told me. She’s a doctor and they met at university. They got back in touch recently, and William apparently fell head over heels in love.’
    ‘How long’s it going to last this time, I wonder?’ Charlie’s mouth twisted.
    ‘That’s the thing. I think he’s really serious this time. He wants to introduce her to our mother. He’s never done that before.’
    ‘I hope she’s a brave woman,’ Charlie remarked. ‘She’s going to need to be.’
    Helen looked across the table at him. He was smiling as usual, but she knew how hurt he was by the way her mother treated him.
    Perhaps it was because he didn’t come from the right background, or because an accident had left him disabled, or just because he had given Helen the confidence to stand up to her mother at last. But whatever the reason, Constance Tremayne made it clear she disapproved