“Those wounds are all yours, dear,” Julia said, her white teeth on display. “But you should take a hairdressing class from me.” She turned her attention to Mrs. Parley, who sucked in her breath as the needle entered her scalp. “I’ll show you how to pin it when he’s finished,” Julia promised, distracting the woman from the burn of the silk sliding through her skin.
When the last knot was tied and Mrs. Parley sent on her way, Nora drew Mrs. Franklin back into the hall. “I didn’t mean to interrupt the tour.” She shook her head with a silent laugh. “But as you can see, it’s never dull in clinic.”
Mrs. Franklin’s eyes crinkled. “Certainly not.”
Nora pointed across the hall. “Here’s our newest addition—a ward for patients who require longer care. It used to be the kitchen and pantry of the neighboring home before Horace joined the houses together. We left the stove and hearth to heat the large room.” Nora opened the door into the long room lined with beds, a few guarded by dressing screens. “We’ve only four patients now.” She thought of Mr. Lampley lying in the dark, frozen ice room. The undertaker was supposed to collect him tomorrow.
“We don’t often have funds or time to keep ten patients, plus run the clinic, so Dr. Trimble is a district doctor as well. Dr. Croft and my husband also work at St. Bart’s Hospital. That leaves me most days to manage this.” Nora gestured to the large room—chamber pots that needed to be emptied, bandages to change, patients too weak to feed themselves.
“You need more hands,” Mrs. Franklin stated.
It was as precise a diagnosis as Nora had ever heard. “I say that every day, Mrs. Franklin,” she admitted.
“My name is Ruth,” the midwife said after a pause. “Mrs. Howell and the others call me that. I’d like you to as well, if you will.”
Nora’s eyebrows lifted. “Happily.”
“I don’t stand on formality,” Ruth continued. “When you work with people in their most intimate moments—”
“You needn’t call me Mrs. Gibson. Or Doctor,” Nora added. “Nora will do.”
“Good.” Ruth pinched her lips in thought as she surveyed the room. “You have as fine a facility as I’ve seen. Why don’t you advertise it more?”
Nora paused while their consumption patient gave a mighty series of coughs from the far end of the room. “As things stand, looking after the patients we have takes nearly all my time. Until we’ve paid off more of the debt we accumulated building it—”
“Aye,” Ruth said with a nod. Her brown eyes slid to where John, the orderly, was dozing in a hard chair. “You need more hands.”
Chapter 7
Nora nudged the thick pile of straw at her foot, prodding a sharp stalk away from her ankle. The overturned bucket she sat on dug uncomfortably into the back of her thigh, but that was a minor detail compared to the relief of resting her feet for the first time in hours. A single struggling candle burned away just enough darkness to illuminate the shape of Mr. Lampley lying atop the stone table to her right. The ice room remained as dark and cold as a cave even in the unrelenting summer heat. So long as she was quiet, no one would suspect her hiding spot.
She nibbled away at her beef sandwich and cast another look at the corpse. He was in the moderate stages of rigor mortis, limbs tight and rigid but not yet stiff as bone. He’d passed quietly, his weak, whistling heart finally wheezing out its last slow thud.
“This is the nicest part of my day,” she confessed to him, aware of the pathos of that truth.
After saying goodbye to Ruth, a string of loud, demanding patients had managed to descend on her all at once just after Harry departed, leaving her the only doctor home. Horace had promised to return after the bone spur surgery at Bart’s, but he’d done what he did best—vanish without a trace, with nowarning or note. She’d expected him three hours ago.
Most likely he’d caught wind of some interesting case at another hospital or across town and followed it like a will-o’-the-wisp across London, forgetting Nora entirely.
“He doesn’t mean to be inconsiderate,” she reassured the deceased man, as if he’d noted her complaints. “He would have done the same to anybody. There is no priority in his life above curiosity.” She took a minute to bite and swallow, noticing the play of warm candlelight on Mr. Lampley’s white hair. “As much as I’d love to stay and have dessert with you, I have patients.”
Nora carefully blew out the candle and felt her way to the door in the blackness. She caught the handle and took one deep breath, bracing herself for the work ahead.
As soon as she entered the hallway, she heard the plaintive coughs of her next patient, a young woman named Meg, afflicted with consumption. At least the humid misery of London this August was good for one person. Nora had never seen Meg’s color this good. Some doctors swore brisk, dry air aided consumption recovery, but Nora’s patients all breathed easier in the summer months.
She wished she could prescribe all her consumptives a month or more of fresh sea air, but Meg’s family could hardly scrape together the small fee to pay for her food and linen washing while in hospital. A stay at the seaside was out of the question.
Meg’s chest rose and fell evenly, pulse steady and slow enough to indicate restful slumber. Satisfied, Nora continued on to the next occupied bed, where a middle-aged woman stared blankly at the aisle, probably too overcome with heat to read the book abandoned in her lap. Nora had done Mrs. Hooper’ssurgery herself—a hernia repair, one of her specialties, since it was the first internal procedure she’d ever attempted.
“A little feverish,” she said, feeling Mrs. Hooper’s brow and noting the flush on her cheeks. “Nothing alarming. Let me examine your dressing.”
Still draining. The gauze needed changing. She’d have to fetch more bandages from the supply room.
She slipped into the shadowy hall, grateful clinic hours were over and no one had pounded on the door with burns or broken bones, when the sound of hurried footsteps on the stairs warned her of her mistake.
Shouldn’t have even thought it.
“Nora?” Daniel strode into the hall, looking almost as starched as when he’d left that morning. Nora glanced hopelessly at her stained apron and limp, rolled sleeves.
