The Nightingale Girls - By Donna Douglas Page 0,144

through her utter disappointment. Even worse, when she’d called that morning to make sure her mother was still coming, Hemmings the butler had told her that Mrs Lane was indisposed.

Lucy stared at the plaque, her eyes misting. No prizes for guessing why her mother was unwell. She shuddered to think of the servants putting her to bed and then gossiping downstairs about all the empty bottles in the drawing room.

Katie O’Hara clattered into the dining room with some of the other first years, laughing and chattering together. They stopped dead when they saw Lucy.

‘Hello,’ Katie greeted her. ‘I thought you’d be out celebrating? Wasn’t your father supposed to be taking you to The Ritz?’

Lucy stared down at her plate. ‘He had to attend an important business meeting.’

‘That’s strange. I thought you always said he’d drop everything for his precious little girl?’

‘He wanted to come but I insisted he had to go to his meeting,’ Lucy lied. ‘Sometimes work has to come first.’

‘So no one was there to see poor Lucy collect her prize.’ Katie seemed determined to make her suffer, her mouth turned down in a parody of pity.

‘At least I won a prize,’ Lucy snapped back.

‘I’m surprised you didn’t win one for showing off,’ Katie retorted.

‘I can’t help being the best, can I?’

‘No, but you can help bragging about it.’ Katie O’Hara was usually a mild-mannered kind of girl who seemed to take everything in her stride. But for some reason her Irish temper took over today. ‘We’re all just about sick of you, do you know that? You seem to think we’re all so impressed by who you are and what you’ve got, but we’re not. To tell you the truth, we’re tired of hearing about it.’

Lucy stared at her, shocked. She knew she laid it on a bit thick with the other girls sometimes, but she didn’t think they resented her for it so much. Seeing the spite in Katie O’Hara’s face shook her.

‘You give yourself all these airs and graces, but just because you’ve got this and that and your dad’s got a fancy title doesn’t make you better than us,’ Katie went on.

‘I – I didn’t say I was,’ Lucy stammered.

‘Not much, you don’t! You never miss a chance to tell us how grand you are, what a great life you have. You’re always looking down on us, making out we’re all peasants, not fit to clean your boots! What makes you so special?’

Lucy thought about her father, who barely remembered she existed, and her mother, too preoccupied with her own misery to spare any thought for her daughter. The last thing she ever felt was special.

‘This is pointless,’ Dora said, when they’d searched the ward and all the side rooms for the third time. ‘He’s hardly going to be hiding under a bed, is he? He’s probably legged it by now.’

‘You’re right,’ Millie said. ‘We should spread out and search the whole building.’

‘What about the patients?’

They looked back down the ward. Fortunately none of the men seemed to have noticed that someone had escaped from their midst as they snoozed or read their newspapers.

‘You stay and keep an eye on everyone. I’ll go and search for Mr Abbott,’ Millie said. She already felt guilty enough that it was her fault he was on the loose.

‘I’ll come with you,’ said William. ‘I’m not having you tackle a desperate criminal by yourself.’

‘You don’t have to.’

‘I want to.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, just get going, will you?’ Dora snapped.

‘And make sure you’re back before Sister Holmes!’

They hurried along the corridors, checking all the side rooms and store cupboards.

‘This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t kept me talking in the kitchen,’ Millie accused William as they puffed and panted up a flight of stairs to the roof.

‘It wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t told Mr Abbott you and Amy were in charge of the ward alone.’

They reached the roof and stopped for breath. ‘There’s no sign of him up here,’ William said, looking around as Millie doubled over, holding her side.

‘Where else could he be? We’ve searched everywhere else.’

‘There’s one place we haven’t looked.’

Millie followed William’s gaze down to the garden party below.

‘He might be mingling with the guests, waiting for his chance to escape. We’re going to have to go down there and look for him.’

‘Can’t you go on your own?’ Millie pleaded. ‘If Sister or Staff see me at the party they’ll have my guts for garters.’

‘That might be a bit difficult, since I have no idea