He’d not lose another.
***
Daniel wrestled his watch out of his pocket, from beneath a handkerchief, a thermometer, and hard candy. Half past 10:00 p.m. It had taken him an hour and a half to travel less than two miles. He counted the hours. Nora had been fine at 2:00 p.m., so she’d been sick less than eight hours. But that was more than enough time for cholera to kill.
The water in the kitchen should be seething by now. He’d need it to get through the long night. Horace wasn’t coming, not in this weather. Maybe not even tomorrow. And Harry wouldn’t think to—not with Daniel and Nora already treating the case. No one else knew Nora was ill.
Daniel reasoned through the possibilities as he filled two kettles and brought them upstairs. He’d divide himself—thirty minutes with Nora and then fifteen with his aunt. He couldn’t change their bedding on such a schedule—Aunt would have to burn all three mattresses when this was over—so he’d focus only on keeping their fluids up.
When he returned with the tea, he stripped Nora down to her shift so she could rest easier, and propped her up. She could still sip so long as he held the heavy cup. She drained five ounces of steaming, bitter brew in minutes.
Daniel sighed with relief. “That’s good,” he praised her. “Can you take any more?”
She gave an exhausted shake of her head, squeezing her face in misery. “The cramps,” she panted.
“I know,” he lied, and pressed her face to his chest. She resisted enough that he leaned back and realized she was still trying to speak, the words labored and slow.
“I need Latta’s solution. And Aunt, too. Just a bit of salt and bicarbonate in the water. The same saltiness as blood.” She paused to catch her breath. “Transfuse it into my vein, not muscle.”
“Transfuse it?” Daniel startled. He’d assumed she meant a mixture to drink. “Into a vein?” Was she delirious? “You know how badly transfusion experiments have gone, putting anything into a vein.”
Nora sank into the pillow, at the end of her strength. “It worked,” she managed to whisper. “I gave it to Aunt.” Just when he thought she’d gone back to sleep her lips parted. “Aunt? Pritchard? Are they—”
Daniel swallowed. “Doing better.”
Not entirely a lie. He believed wherever Miss Pritchard was now, it had to be better than the pains of her deathbed.
Nora’s lips relaxed into the ghost of a smile. “It worked.”
Daniel’s heart twisted. “Did you give the solution to both of them?” He’d repeat nothing with a 50 percent mortality rate.
Nora tried to focus her yellowed eyes. “Just Aunt.”
Daniel exhaled. Only if necessary.
He slanted his watch to catch the firelight. After eleven. Time to check Aunt and dose her with tea. “Sleep for a few minutes. I’ll be right back,” he promised. But she’d slipped under the waves of sleep before he finished speaking.
***
Daniel returned as quickly as he could, within his allotted fifteen minutes, but he could tell at a glance Nora had declined considerably. Her color had blued in the small span of time, and her heartbeat was so fast and feeble he struggled to measure the beats.
His throat seized, but his hands moved with speed and certainty, plying her with liquids. Barely any made it past her throat. He’d have to spend at least half an hour coaxing moisture back into her mouth just to help her to swallow, and by then… Daniel withdrew the glass-and-metal syringe from his bag and studied it at length.
While he often used it to measure medicines, draw out swelling from afflicted organs or joints, and irrigate wounds, he’d only administered fluids with it orally. He’d certainly never imagined using it to propel foreign liquids into a patient’s bloodstream, especially his wife’s. And then there were the logistics—he’d need to cut into a vein to introduce the bronze tip of the syringe. Daniel rubbed his eyes, trying to picture the procedure. If he hadn’t studied the horizontal slice across his aunt’s arm, he wouldn’t believe Nora had done anything so foolhardy. It was entirely possible Aunt had survived out of luck or coincidence, but he couldn’t trust either, not in Nora’s case.
He filled a teacup with water and slowly tipped in some salt, unable to measure because of the pounding of his heart. He’d seen a transfusion experiment in Paris once and witnessed the patient’s immediate reaction. She’d nearly died of it.
He’d try to replicate Nora’s recipe, but that didn’t compel him to put it in her body. He could—no, there was no chance she’d be able to drink it. Everything he’d given her earlier hadgone straight through her, the bed soaked and nearly odorless. Her bowels were stripped bare. If he didn’t act now, there wouldn’t be another chance.
“Let it work,” he prayed. With reluctant hands and disjointed thoughts, Daniel filled the barrel of the syringe. He turned up the wick and positioned the lamp to throw all its glow onto Nora’s wasted arm.So thin. It looked normal just this morning.
Quietly. That was what Horace always said. To treat things with the least intervention possible. He’d likely strike the syringe from Daniel’s unsteady grip. And yet his hands kept moving, ignoring Horace’s imagined prohibition, winding a strip of linen around Nora’s arm and pulling it tight. He watched, waiting an age for a vein to emerge. He flicked the hollow of her elbow, trying to provoke it to the surface. Nothing. He’d have to go in and find it, then.
He rubbed his eyes until gold sparks scattered his vision. No more delays. Time for decision.
“Please,” he murmured as he pressed the scalpel to her cold flesh. A bead of blood bloomed slowly, dark and reluctant. He deepened the cut, searching for the lighter blood of the vein, and she flinched but didn’t wake. Blood started to flow, and he tamped down the opening until he could fit the tip of the syringe inside the open vein. He pulled the plunger up to be certain he was in the vein, watching red blood swirl with the salty mixture, still tempted at the last moment to divert the fluid under the discolored skin.
“Please be right,” he pleaded with Nora. With trembling fingers, he depressed the plunger while holding pressure on thetip to decrease the bleeding. He got through half the syringe and jerked it out, breathing heavily as he bandaged the wound, already regretting his impulsiveness. Sweat moistened his hands as he searched intently for any signs of distress.
