The Nightingale Girls - By Donna Douglas Page 0,165
When she’d told him she was grateful, she’d meant so much more than that. She simply couldn’t have got through the past couple of weeks without him. The relief when she saw him that day, standing in the hall, dressed in his shooting tweeds, having driven all the way down from Scotland just to be with her. From that moment she’d felt as if she could breathe again, as if everything would be all right simply because he was with her.
And he had been with her ever since. His reassuring presence was always at her side as she sat with her father. He had held her when she’d cried tears of despair during the darkest moments, and he was the one who made her laugh when she’d desperately needed cheering up. Somehow he always knew what she was thinking, and the right thing to say to make it better.
She looked across at his finely drawn profile as he gazed down the line, waiting for the train, committing to memory the long, straight line of his nose, the curve of his lips and the sharp angle of his chin. As if he knew he was being observed, he turned to look at her with a puzzled smile, his fair brows drawn over warm grey eyes.
She suddenly realised how much she’d miss that smile, miss him. That was the real reason she had been so reluctant to go back to London. It wasn’t the thought of saying goodbye to Billinghurst that upset her, or even of leaving her father. It was the thought of going through a whole day without seeing Seb.
‘What is it?’ he said.
‘Nothing, I just—’ Millie struggled to find the right words. Oh, God, why had she left it until now to realise how she felt? It was so typical of her, always the last to catch on, as Dora would say.
And now she’d left it too late. The train was approaching, the tracks rumbling. All along the platform the passengers were starting to galvanise themselves.
‘Seb,’ she started to say, but he was already gathering up her cases.
‘What will you do when you get to London?’ he asked. ‘You will take a taxi, won’t you? You can’t possibly struggle on the bus with all this luggage.’
‘Seb—’
‘Do you think you’ll be able to telephone when you get back to the hospital? I know your father will be worried about you, even if he says he isn’t.’
‘Seb, listen . . .’ Her words were drowned out by the hiss of the train’s brakes as it rumbled to a halt. People were starting to move, doors opening and banging shut, porters busy with luggage. Seb loaded her cases on to the train, not looking at her, as if he were determined to keep himself busy and detached.
‘Seb!’ Everything suddenly seemed to go very quiet as Millie screamed out his name.
He turned to face her. ‘Yes?’
‘Would you mind awfully doing something for me?’
‘What’s that?’ He smiled at her, his kind, handsome face squinting in the sun.
‘Shut up and kiss me,’ she said.
Chapter Fifty-Five
VERONICA HANLEY MARCHED up the worn stone steps to St Oswald’s Church Vicarage and rapped smartly on the door with far more confidence than she was feeling. For all she had travelled the world with her father’s regiment, she was never really at ease outside the familiar surroundings of the Nightingale Hospital. She felt uncomfortable out of uniform, too, in her squashed hat and old coat that smelt of mothballs.
For tuppence she would have turned around and got straight back on the bus to Bethnal Green. But she’d come all this way and now she had to see it through. Show some backbone, as her father used to say.
She hoped Mrs Tremayne would forgive the intrusion. She hoped even more she would forgive what Veronica had to say.
The housekeeper showed her into the drawing room, a beautiful sunny room with French windows that opened out on to the garden. Veronica stood for a moment, admiring the beautifully manicured lawn, trimmed by immaculate borders, not a flower out of place. It was exactly the kind of garden she herself would have designed, appealing to her sense of order.
‘Miss Hanley?’ Constance Tremayne greeted her from the doorway. She looked rather put out to see her. ‘This is most unexpected,’ she said in a cool voice. ‘You’re lucky to have caught me, I’m due at a charity committee meeting in an hour.’