The Nightingale Girls - By Donna Douglas Page 0,65

everyone else seemed to regard as rather an embarrassment. Millie entertained him with tales of her training, and he filled her in with lots of amusing gossip about his undergraduate friends.

After dinner, it was time for dancing.

‘Please tell me your dance card isn’t already full?’ Seb said as he escorted her in to the ballroom.

Millie pulled a face. ‘It’s completely empty, I’m afraid.’

‘Then allow me.’ Seb took out his pen and scribbled his initials gallantly beside every dance.

‘You really don’t have to, you know. I’ll only stamp all over your toes,’ Millie warned him as they took to the floor.

‘Sooner me than some other poor blighter.’

‘Miss Farsley looks as if she is far lighter on her feet than I am,’ Millie commented, as the mysterious Georgina skimmed around them, whirled around the floor by another admirer. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t rather dance with her?’

‘Even having my feet crushed by you is preferable to fighting off her attentions, I assure you.’

‘Why don’t you want to marry an American heiress? It might be rather fun.’ Millie glanced at Georgina as they whisked by each other. ‘And she is very beautiful.’

‘So is a Ming vase, but I wouldn’t like to be married to one. Although come to think of it, I would probably get more entertaining conversation out of a piece of ancient pottery than I ever would out of Miss Farsley.’

Finally, after an exhausting couple of hours’ dancing, the clock struck midnight and they all poured out on to the terrace to watch the firework display the Claremonts had arranged.

‘Happy New Year,’ Millie said to Seb.

‘It will be for some people.’ He nodded over to where Sophia was entwined in the arms of her fiancé David, their happy faces illuminated by bursts of colour overhead.

‘Perhaps it will be for you, too?’ Millie smiled. ‘I think nineteen thirty-five will be the year someone finally notices your excellent qualities.’

He smiled back at her in the moonlight. ‘We can but hope,’ he murmured.

Chapter Twenty

‘TODAY I WILL be explaining the human reproductive system.’

A ripple of nervous giggles ran through the classroom, quickly silenced by Sister Parker’s stern look.

‘Really, Nurses, I fail to see what is so amusing. Reproduction is simply a function of the human body like any other. I don’t recall anyone being this giddy when I explained the digestive system,’ she reminded them. ‘Now, turn to page seventy three in your textbook. We’ll begin with the male sexual organs . . .’

There was a rustle of pages, and Millie pushed her book across the desk towards Dora. But she couldn’t bring herself to look down at the diagram in front of her.

‘As you can see, the male genitalia is comprised of the following . . .’

Someone in the back row gave an embarrassed cough. In front of her, Dora could see the tips of Katie O’Hara’s ears glowing red. Lucy Lane was making feverish notes, her pencil flying over the page as if her life depended on capturing every word.

Dora kept her gaze fixed on the colourful diagram of the respiratory system that was pinned to the wall opposite. She tried to fill her head with the song one of the older girls had been thumping out on the piano the previous night. Anything to tune out the words Sister Parker was saying.

Millie nudged her sharply. ‘You’re supposed to be writing all this down,’ she hissed out of the corner of her mouth.

Dora stared down at the blank page of her notebook. As she did, she caught sight of the diagram in the textbook.

A sudden, horrible image of Alf Doyle came into her mind, grunting like an animal as he pushed himself insistently against her. She clamped her lips together to stop the tidal wave of nausea that swept up into her throat.

The room was chilly but she could feel perspiration standing out on her brow. She gulped for breath, but the air was suddenly filled with the smell of Alf’s stale sweat and cigarettes.

‘Is something the matter, Doyle?’

Sister Parker was staring at her across the classroom, her brows meeting in a frown over the top of her pebble spectacles.

‘I – I don’t feel very well, Sister,’ Dora whispered.

‘For heaven’s sake!’ The Sister Tutor tutted. ‘I might have known someone would have the vapours, but I didn’t think it would be you. Go outside and get some fresh air, girl. But be quick about it.’

Dora stumbled to her feet and hurried out of the classroom. As soon as she felt the slap of