Connie’s Courage. Annie Groves

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      Giggling together they hurried down the corridor, whilst Connie ignored the small inner voice trying to warn her that she was asking for trouble.

      ‘I’m on one of the Nightingale Wards this afternoon, what about you?’ Josie asked, as she and Mavis caught up with them, a few moments later.

      ‘We’re on the same,’ Connie told her, trying not to laugh as Vera pulled a mocking face behind Mavis’s back, when she answered that she was working in the operating theatre.

      As they came up from the tunnel that connected the nurses’ home to the hospital, Mavis almost bumped into a young policeman who was standing close to the tunnel entrance, holding his helmet beneath his arm.

      ‘Steady, miss! I mean, Nurse,’ he apologised, dipping his head politely, his face red with self-conscious embarrassment. His reaction caused first Vera, and then Connie, to burst out into fresh giggles.

      ‘Ouch, Mavis, I think he took a bit of a shine to you,’ Connie teased her good-naturedly.

      ‘Yes, a big red shine by the looks of his face!’ Vera added, as they both went into gales of laughter.

      There was a faint tinge of colour on Mavis’s own face, but she maintained her dignity, and kept her head held high as she stepped past the unfortunate young man, leaving Vera and Connie to giggle in her wake.

      Cursing himself under his breath, Frank Lewis watched the girls walk away from him. He had only been working in the area for a few days, and his sergeant had told him that the hospital would be part of his regular beat.

      He was waiting for his sergeant now, the older man having told him that he had a bit o’ business to attend to. Frank suspected that the bit of business was probably a cup of tea and a gossip, but he knew better than to suggest as much.

      If all the nurses were as pretty as the serious-eyed brunette he had just bumped into, his hospital beat was going to be a very pleasant one indeed!

      ‘Oh, that Sister Miller, she knew my shift was finished, but she made me go and clean the sinks before she’d let me go,’ Connie puffed, as she hurried into the bedroom and immediately began to pull off her cap and gown and start to tidy herself up.

      ‘I told my ward sister that I’d got me monthlies,’ Vera giggled. ‘I told her I were too sick to finish me shift and that I might be sick. Mind you, I’d have loved to see the face of those miserable besoms I’ve had to run round after this week, if I had been!’ Vera continued. ‘Women’s wards, I hate em’. You don’t know how lucky you are working on men s, Connie.’

      ‘Vera, Connie, please don’t do this,’ Mavis begged them worriedly. ‘If anyone should find out …’

      ‘No one’s going to find out!’ Vera told her, confidently tossing her head. ‘Connie’s finished her shift, and I’m in me bed poorly.’

      Behind Mavis’s back, Vera pulled a face at Connie.

      ‘Oh, I do hope you don’t get into trouble,’ Josie told them. ‘Mavis told me this morning that she was really worried about what you’re doing and that she thinks it is wrong!’

      Connie could see a pink tinge of embarrassment on Mavis’s face, and, for a moment, she hesitated. But Vera was tugging her arm, impatient for her to finish getting ready.

      Quickly Connie put on the pretty summer dress she had saved up so hard to buy. She had fallen in love with the Herrick’s cotton the minute she had seen it, and not just because the familiar name had reminded her of Preston where the company owned a large mill; the white background with its dainty sprigging of tiny pink flowers on green stems, suited her colouring perfectly, and she had enough of an eye for such things to have immediately changed the original pink ribbon trim for a much softer green – even if her sewing skills were such that she had stabbed her finger a dozen times, at least, whilst sewing on the new ribbon.

      Vera, in contrast, was wearing a much fancier dress in blue silk ornamented with bunches of flowers.

      ‘Blacking on your eyelashes!’ Josie exclaimed. ‘But what if it rains? You’ll end up with awful smudges!’

      ‘Do you think I need a bit more rouge on my cheeks, Connie?’ Vera asked her self-critically, after giving Josie a withering look.

      ‘Rouge! You’re wearing make-up!’ Josie exclaimed in shock. ‘But, Vera, that’s ever so fast.’

      ‘No, it’s not. All the nobs are doing it!’ Vera told her. ‘Do you want some, Connie?’

      Cautiously Connie dipped her fingertip in the proffered cream powder and rubbed it carefully into her skin.

      ‘Connie’s looks better than yours,’ Josie pronounced judiciously. ‘She’s not used as much as you, Vera.’

      Finally they were ready to leave, but not before Vera had insisted on adding another smear of Vaseline to her carefully rouged lips, and demanding to know if her hair looked all right.

      Ten minutes later, they were standing at the bus stop, arm in arm, Connie’s eyes bright with excitement, as they waited for the bus that would take them to the city centre.

      Since it was a warm, late summer evening, there was no need for them to wear heavy coats over their summer dresses.

      ‘If you ask me, it’s a good thing we’re both fair,’ Vera commented smugly as they climbed on the bus. ‘I mean, that way we go together, don’t we? I’d hate to have red hair like poor Josie’s, or brown like plain Mavis.’

      ‘She isn’t really plain,’ Connie objected. ‘She’s quite pretty.’

      Vera gave her a sharp-eyed look but didn’t say anything, turning her attention instead to trying to persuade the bus conductor to reduce their fare.

      ‘We’re poor probationer nurses,’ she wheedled. ‘You never know, one day you might have a horrible accident and we could be the ones to look after you.’

      The conductor’s heartfelt, ‘I’d rather be dead,’ made them both giggle as they hurried to their seats.

      They got off the bus in Bold Street, and Vera complained, ‘Oh, my poor feet. These shoes are crippling me!’

      ‘I told you they would be too tight,’ Connie reminded her promptly. Unlike Vera, she had no special new shoes to wear, and had had to make do with her summer shoes from the previous year. Not that she minded too much. As she had already told Vera, being on their feet so much and for such long hours tended to make them swell, which in turn made new shoes uncomfortable.

      ‘It’s all right for you. You only take size two and a half. My feet have gone huge since I started at the Infirmary,’ Vera retorted.

      Connie gave her dainty feet a discreetly smug look. Her mother had always said that dainty feet were the hallmark of gentility, and that no lady ever admitted to requiring a shoe size above a three.

      ‘I take after my mother,’ Connie responded automatically. ‘She had small feet.’

      Her mother! Connie’s eyes clouded.

      ‘What’s wrong?’ Vera СКАЧАТЬ