Mrs. Franklin scoffed. “Work together? They don’t want usworkingat all. Ten years ago my patients were well-to-do women. Now the upper class think I’m a danger because their doctors say so. They won’t hire any of us, no matter how many women and children we’ve brought through.” The afternoon light from the high windows turned the woman’s dark eyes to a defiant amber as she spoke.
“I know.” Nora studied the three midwives who’d remained behind. Mrs. Bailey, the small, sharp-nosed one, hadn’t spoken, but Nora liked her keen eyes and furrowed brow. She’d not missed a word. Mrs. Howell was plump and motherly and placid. The sort of woman who’d calm a frightened patient merely by her presence. And Mrs. Franklin was as redoubtable as a general, according to Horace. She’d been with Daniel and Horace years ago on a particularly tragic case when they’d lost a mother to a massive and sudden hemorrhage. He said she’d performed like a seasoned surgeon.
“I know there is enough resentment to go around on both sides, but I’ve seen it accomplished—midwives and physicians helping one another. If we don’t show them the value of what you know, women will suffer at their most vulnerable moment—giving birth.”
“The doctors don’t—”
“I know they don’t care.” Nora cut Mrs. Howell short. “But this is women’s work. It always has been.” If only they could see Magdalena sweeping through the hospital wards, the students deferring to her expertise. “You understand a woman’s pain and needs in ways no man ever will. You can’t let them push you out of your place. We must make them care.”
Mrs. Bailey tightened her arms against her chest, doubt in every movement.
“Why don’t you have a look at our hospital?” The thought formulated as Nora spoke it, unfinished and unsteady. “I could show you our facility and offer you some tea.”
Mrs. Franklin accepted with a smile, but the other women exchanged glances.
“I’ve a newly delivered mother I need to visit. The child is a lazy one, refusing to suck unless I help, and I haven’t seen them since breakfast.” Mrs. Bailey’s words slurred with a gentle lisp—perhaps why she spoke so little.
“Would you like me to examine the child?”
Nora didn’t realize she’d blundered until Mrs. Bailey stiffened.
“I can manage.”
“Of course. I didn’t mean… Well, sometime I would love to see you work,” Nora rushed on. “And to show you around here—”
“We shared a hackney,” Mrs. Howell interjected, “so we should leave together. Perhaps we can see your hospital another day, love.” She gave the cadaver a doubtful look.
She’s not coming back, Nora realized, and the weight of the failed lecture doubled.
“You two go on,” Mrs. Franklin said. “I’d like to stay. I’ll find my own way home. It’s no trouble.”
When the other women left, Nora glanced at Mrs. Franklin. “Do you really wish to stay?”
“Very much. I’m interested to see what a hospital looks like with a woman such as yourself in charge. I learned the trade in my aunt’s lying-in house, you know, and she kept that place beautifully. I don’t know anyone now with enough work to keep that sort of place afloat.” Mrs. Franklin passed her eyes toward the door, unable to hide her curiosity.
“Well.” Nora quickly covered the cadaver with a sheet. Magdalena was right about needing more women beside her, and Mrs. Franklin was ideal. “I need to return this body to the ice room. I’ll show you about along the way.”
She unlocked the wheels and used her hip to get the cart rolling, but paused just before the curtains, realizing this room deserved some explanation. “Here in the theater, we do both live and cadaver demonstrations. There’s another smaller surgery in the clinic for routine procedures, which don’t have an audience.” Horace had designed the theater, and it was his pride and joy. Along with the laboratory and the conservatory…
“I had no idea it would be so spacious,” Mrs. Franklin said.
“Most days, we have a larger audience,” Nora admitted.
The theater had been built on the ground level, conveniently close to the clinic entrance and the ice room, with a drain set in the middle of the demonstration floor. The room was two stories high, to accommodate the rows of seating and high south-facing windows, which provided the best light while keeping out curious glances from the street.
Nora grunted as she pushed the heavy cart through the red curtains into the dim hallway. “There’s a lift just there. We use it to move cadavers like this one to the ice room and bring patients from the theater or the small surgery to the first-floor ward. We’ve ten beds there, but could accommodate twenty if necessary.”
Mrs. Franklin stepped onto the lift uncertainly. She jerked as Nora started the drum and the contraption slowly ground its way down. “It’s quite safe,” Nora assured her. “A winding drum. It’s run by a very small steam engine in the basement.”
“I see.” Mrs. Franklin fiddled with her cuff. The lift landed with a rattle, and Mrs. Franklin jumped out as soon as Nora slid open the gate. “Never been in a lift,” she explained.
Nora wheeled the cadaver into the ice room. “We’ve no lights in here because it is only for storing bodies. We keep it lined with ice year-round.” Mrs. Franklin peered into the dark room, where one other body lay—an elderly patient whose enlarged heart had given out yesterday. Nora closed the door, deciding to skip the adjacent dissection room. Medical students loved it, but Mrs. Franklin was in the business of living patients.
“Our dispensary,” Nora announced, showing her instead the organized cabinets and shelves of gleaming bottles, the center table for measuring and compounding. “Dr. Croft gave me charge of our hospital—”
“Because of his hand?” Mrs. Franklin asked.
Nora pressed her lips together. She didn’t like others speaking of Horace like an invalid. “He still oversees everything,” Nora said. “There are four doctors working here. Myself, Horace, my husband, and Dr. Harry Trimble, though they’reoften out attending patients in their homes or at other facilities. Dr. Croft’s practiced medicine for nearly fifty years, since he was sixteen. Most people today go to the Royal College, or some other college or hospital to get a diploma in surgery or as a physician or an apothecary. But Dr. Croft is licensed in all three.”
