She turned and watched a chilly drop of water wander from his hair, down his ear. “I’ll be cautious. But I am staying.”
Mrs. Phipps groaned.
“I’m not being difficult or stubborn. I’m a doctor, too. This is what I must do.”
“Horace,” Daniel pleaded, “can you—”
“No. He can’t.” Nora gripped his fingers, though he didn’t respond in kind. “Do you think it would be some relief to me, Daniel, if my family perished again and I survived? Once is more than enough.”
The sweet-scented room rang with silence, eyes darting to her and away again.
“You all forget that I remember having cholera. I watched the life drain from every person I loved and then lay in a room with their dead bodies. I understand the patients’ suffering in ways no one else can. If anyone should avoid the patients, it’s Horace, who’s still recovering—”
Horace snapped his paper until it creased, his face serious and somber. “You remember one room of the epidemic. One poor family that happened to be yours. I treated a dying city. God forbid it rages like that again, but need I remind you I’ve survived more cholera than you, without ever contracting it? I stand the best chance here.”
Her parted lips froze. “I just want to help,” she finished feebly.
“I know,” he said with a rare touch of sympathy. “I wanted to help them all, too.” His words hung unfinished, balanced precariously over their heads.
She swallowed, the colors of his age-marked face and silver beard the only things she saw now. “But?”
“I failed far worse than you can imagine. You survived, but you don’t know the stories of the hundreds I lost. You were the only lucky one who came back from being that far gone.” Ghosts—the ones who had expired—traipsed across his face with heavy, silent steps, her parents and brothers and grandmother gliding among them. “The only one,” he repeated.
She dropped her eyes, holding back shadowy memories of her brother, Peter.Later.“We’ll do better this time,” she insisted. “We know more.”
Horace chewed the bottom corner of his lip and shifted on the hard bench. “Do we?”
“I agree that it’s dangerous for all of us,” Harry said, staring stolidly at the empty seats across the theater. “But we are all willing to face the risk. That’s why it’s only fair that whatever we decide, we all agree.”
Nora shifted, impatient at the thought of days of debate, because so far, the only clear thing was that none of them could propose a plan to please everyone. “Deliberation—waiting—is also a decision. I’m not sure it’s the best.”
Daniel rubbed his forehead. “Haste never helps anyone.”
“Cholera will be hasty even if we aren’t. If we don’t treat them, it will spread faster,” Nora argued.
Horace scowled. “It will spread no matter what we do. That is entirely beyond us.”
“I’m not leaving.” Nora’s voice faltered as she recalled her desert-dry mouth, a vise of pain tightening around her forehead. She licked her lips. “We have to stay together. In case.” If any of them took sick—and there was far too great a chance they might—who would tend them? She certainly didn’t trust any other doctor to treat the people she loved best.
Shoulders tight, she braced for their arguments, but none of them had anything to counter that.
Chapter 24
Nora dodged the thin streams of water as she opened a ward window. She needed to keep a supply of fresh air for Meg despite the ghastly weather. Daniel thought the windows were better closed; Horace, open. She traded on and off, depending how strong the rain flowed and how thick the smells of human suffering and nursing gathered in the basement ward.
As if sensing contagion teeming in London’s low streets, the autumn sky had refused to close, letting loose a scrubbing downpour that tested the patience of even the hardiest city residents. The roads ran with foul water, sweeping away sewage, manure, and years of coal dust rinsed loose from roofs and pediments. For the first time in her memory, Nora saw the gilded numbers of the Southwark Cathedral clock peeking through the coat of black grime. But the storms didn’t cleanse the city of cholera; they flooded it with contagion.
For a few days after their tense discussion in the theater, everyone at 43 Great Queen Street held on to hope that the cases were isolated. When King’s College and Bart’s received notices of cholera patients from every doctor on staff, they admitted the grim truth—the Blue Death had sauntered back to England after seventeen years’ respite. Horace gathered with other fellows of the Royal College for a five-hour-long boxingmatch of ideas and theories. Amid their squabbling, they managed to organize a count of the cases. One hundred eighty-nine cases three weeks ago. Now, in mid-October, one thousand six hundred.
Nora positioned a bucket to collect the drips and adjusted the nearest pastille burner so stray drops wouldn’t catch it and extinguish the sharp smell of cloves. A distant grumble of thunder rattled the sky as she wiped the windowsill. At least her pregnancy demanded little attention so far. At ten weeks, she still suffered nothing other than an occasional burst of nausea or fatigue that passed within an hour. She turned back to Meg to watch her reaction to the windy, wet air. The girl closed her eyes and breathed in gratefully.
“I’m going to leave this open for a few minutes while I go upstairs. If it gets too cold, ring your bell,” Nora instructed.
Meg nodded and Nora slipped out, eager for a quiet lunch with Mrs. Phipps to prove she wasn’t working too hard. The more Mrs. Phipps saw Nora with her feet up, the less she begrudged her remaining in London.
“I’ll pour the tea,” Nora said, striding into the dining room. A bright blur caught her eye—a shade of blue silk that would never adorn Mrs. Phipps.
“Julia?” Nora gasped.
