Harry had done as asked—uniting them with a terrible secret.
Now, beneath the gilding light of late summer, with Harry’s head cradled in Julia’s skirts and her ragged scars concealed beneath her violet sleeves, Nora could hardly imagine something so dark or terrifying touching either one of them.
Queenie rooted at Harry’s knee, nudging his trousers with her stubby black nose as if begging to be included.
Nora sighed inwardly, the air trapped against her sore heart. The worst part was knowing the rigid distance between her and Daniel was of her own making, reinforced every day this week by her clipped words and averted eyes. But until he understood what it meant to blindly support Adams over her… Her blood rose unbidden once more. She thought the anger had burned out, but it was smoldering beneath the ashes.
Daniel doesn’t trust my ability.The fact that he’d assumed her wrong from the start… But it was more than that. She hadn’t confided her plans to him, either. Perhaps they’d stoppedtrusting each other. “I should go back to the clinic,” Nora announced. “Will you make sure Queenie gets put away?” She didn’t wait for an answer as she started resolutely across the lawn, her chest heavy and sore. The two lovers likely preferred to be alone anyway.
Chapter 9
Nora meant to sit across from her husband at dinner and attempt some form of rapprochement debating the merits of a report on a cesarean section (not hers, but by a foreign doctor who’d consulted her) in the latest edition ofThe Lancet. Unfortunately, the consumption patient on the ward, Meg Prather, had suffered another hemorrhage, coughing up an alarming amount of blood. John, the orderly who slept in the ward most nights, came with the bad news in the middle of their soup. It was Daniel’s turn for emergencies, but this one required at least two sets of hands. Instead of finding amity over the latest journal and roast lamb, she and Daniel passed each other water and bandages as Daniel applied a menthol plaster to the girl’s chest while Nora gave her a small dose of ether to calm the throat muscles.
“We can’t let her choke on the blood while she’s not able to cough,” Daniel said as the girl succumbed to the fumes of the vaporizer.
“I know,” Nora agreed. “But if we let her keep coughing at this rate, she’ll open a fresh hemorrhage.”
They met eyes over her motionless body. The girl was only eighteen, but she looked even younger than that. Nora told herself the girl’s pale face was peaceful and sleeplike, but the stillness reminded her too much of death.
“If she stays in the city, I don’t see her lasting much longer.” Daniel spoke low so other patients wouldn’t overhear.
“They can’t afford to send her anywhere else. Our hospital is a spa compared to their flat.”
Meg’s chest spasmed, and Nora used a rubber tube and bulb to draw more secretions and blood from her throat.
“We need to roll her,” Daniel said, pushing Meg’s left shoulder upright.
Nora flinched as he pounded Meg’s shoulders. Even his attempts to help felt like criticism.
“We could take her out to the garden during the day and let her take a sunbath. It’s not the seaside, but it might do her some good,” Nora suggested as she packed away the ether mask. But this lingering summer heat only magnified the stench of the Thames and the filthy streets. Sewage and sour river smells wouldn’t have the same benefit as clean sea air with the tang of salt.
“Maybe she’s not the only one who needs to leave the city.” Daniel dipped his eyes as he listened to Meg’s chest through his wooden stethoscope. His voice carried softly to Nora’s ears, something vulnerable in the words.
“What do you mean?” she asked as she measured the pulse in Meg’s thin wrist.
“Perhaps you and I could get away from patients and papers for a bit. We could visit my family’s house in the country, go riding, walk the woods.”
She saw it for a moment—the picture he painted. Bluebells in the shady ferns of the forest, rowing across the small lake as trees burst into autumn color around them, and listening contently while Daniel demonstrated his expansive knowledgeof flora and fauna. She’d never learned to ride, but Daniel had offered to teach her. “With your surgery schedule at Bart’s and the clinic—”
“I know.” He sighed, putting away the stethoscope. “There’s fluid in the lower-right lobe. That must be where the hemorrhage originated.” His face resumed a businesslike expression, the supplication gone from his tired voice.
Nora thought of Harry’s head in Julia’s lap. “You’re right, though.” Her words were quick, lacking her usual confidence. “We should go. Before winter. Perhaps next month when the worst of the heat is over?”
Daniel lifted his head, and she was startled by the relief softening the corners of his eyes. He’d been as troubled by this standoff as she.
“I’ll ask Harry and Horace to cover the clinic. Is she waking?” It had been ten minutes since Meg inhaled the ether, and Daniel was impatient with the anesthesia. He worried over the prolonged sleepers more than Nora did.
“Not waking, but her pulse is normal and strong. The sleep will do her good. You finish your dinner. I’ll stay with her.”
Daniel carried his chair to Nora’s side and set it down with a soft thump. “I’ll wait with you, and we’ll eat together.”
They hadn’t discussed Ruth Franklin, Dr. Adams, or the midwives at all, but Nora didn’t want to. She wished only to sit here with their shoulders pressed together and their fingers interlocked as they waited for their patient to awake.
Besides, this compromise might break if she mentioned Ruth would be visiting here tomorrow.I’ll be more careful this time, Nora told herself. Adams and the rest wouldn’t be here.
***
“I like the notion of learning for myself.” Ruth Franklin’s lips pursed. “But I’m afraid it’s likely to stir up trouble.”
