Nightingales Under the Mistletoe Read Free

waiting outside Matron’s office when Jess got there. One carried the evidence of her crime, a broken thermometer in a receiving dish.
    As Jess joined the end of the line, the two nurses beside her were whispering between themselves.
    ‘What did you do?’ she heard one say to the other.
    ‘Helped myself to the leftovers from a patient’s plate. I couldn’t help it, Sister had cancelled my dinner break and I was starving. Now I’m going to lose half a day’s leave over a wretched potato!’
    All too soon it was Jess’s turn to be summoned to Matron’s office. Miss Jenkins sat behind her desk, all dressed in black. She was older than Miss Fox, more solidly built and a great deal grander. Her face was unsmiling beneath her elaborate starched linen headdress as she regarded Jess over the rim of her spectacles.
    ‘Who are you?’ she demanded.
    ‘Jago, Matron. I’ve been sent from London.’
    ‘Another one?’ Miss Jenkins tutted. ‘We’re already quite overrun as it is. Honestly, doesn’t Miss Fox need any nurses? She seems very keen to send you all down here.’
    ‘I’m sure she just wants to help you, Matron.’
    Jess realised it was the wrong thing to say as soon as she saw Miss Jenkins’s pale blue eyes harden.
    ‘Are you suggesting I need help?’ she snapped. ‘Perhaps you don’t think my nurses are up to the job?’
    ‘No, I didn’t mean—’ Jess started to say, but Miss Jenkins cut across her.
    ‘That’s the trouble with you London nurses, you think you know everything. I daresay you’ve come to teach your country cousins a thing or two, have you?’
    Jess again tried to protest, but Miss Jenkins was still speaking.
    ‘Let me tell you something, Jago. I have been running this hospital for thirty years, and I think I know what I’m doing. And I must say, I’m rather sick and tired of outsiders coming down here and telling us our business. As if your London training somehow makes you better than everyone else!’
    She stopped abruptly, her cheeks flushed pink. ‘Very well,’ she said, more calmly. ‘Since you’re here, I suppose you should make yourself useful. Report to Sister Allen on Female Medical, I daresay she’ll know what to do with you. Send in the next girl on your way out, please.’
    And that was it. Jess was still in a daze as she headed out of the front door and back down the stone steps.
    She hadn’t expected Matron to clasp her to her bosom and thank her for coming to the rescue. But it would have been nice to feel she was actually wanted …
    ‘Watch out!’
    Jess swung round to see a bicycle hurtling towards her. The rider was pedalling furiously, gathering speed, almost as if he wanted to knock her down. Jess barely managed to spring out of his path as he flashed past.
    ‘Look where you’re going!’ she called out. ‘You could have sent me flying.’
    ‘You shouldn’t be dawdling, should you?’ the young man shouted back over his shoulder as he barrelled past.
    ‘And you shouldn’t be riding on the path. You’re a menace!’
    But he was already gone, his scarf fluttering behind him like a pennant in the dawn light.
    She found the Female Medical ward on the top floor of the main building. Like the wards at the Nightingale in London, it was a vast, high-ceilinged room, smelling of polish and disinfectant. Forty beds faced each other in two rows running along its length. In the middle of the ward stood a long table and the ward sister’s desk.
    Sister Allen was as pleased to see her as Miss Jenkins had been.
    ‘And Matron sent you to me, did she?’ she sighed. She was in her late twenties, sandy-haired and freckled. ‘Well, I suppose she had her reasons. You can start by helping Maynard with the baths. Then do the beds and get the patients ready for the doctor’s round at half-past ten. Do you think you can manage that?’
    ‘Yes, Sister.’
    ‘Hmm.’ Sister Allen looked as if she very much doubted it. ‘Well, ask Maynard if you get stuck. Don’t