“It’s here,” someone whispered, the words carrying unnaturally in the silence.
Two ladies stood, edging their way to the nearest exit. All around, faces jerked left and right, accusing their neighbors with every glance.
“No need to alarm yourself,” Nora began, then bit her lip as more people began creeping toward the door. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re scheduled for another ten minutes. Then we’ll be opening the discussion for questions—”
Well, that horse was out of the barn. No one paid her any heed.
The club president stood and raised his arms. “If you can please remain in your seats…”
If anything, that seemed to send more people on their way, shoving toward the exits. Even the balance of people still in their seats eyed the doors.
Someone could get hurt if this didn’t stop.
“Please remain calm,” Nora said. When no one even glanced her way, she shouted, “You don’t need to stay. But you must exit in an orderly fashion!”
“Let me through!” a man bellowed, just as someone on the opposite side of the room slipped in the mayhem.
Nora’s legs quaked beneath her. She’d never seen a crowd lose their heads this quickly, though she’d read of mass panics in the newspapers.
“Good Lord,” she whispered as someone let out a terrified shriek.
Horace and the midwives were safe in the nearly deserted front row, joined by Harry and Julia. Harry stationed himself between them and the fleeing crowd, fists clenched to deter all comers.
Nora’s hand flew to her stomach, resting there uncertainly as she searched the crowd. The top row was mostly cleared, but she couldn’t find Daniel.
Chapter 32
“What’s wrong with these people?” Aunt Wilcox gripped her necklace and glared at the man shoving past her. “Show some decorum, sir!”
Daniel pulled her a little closer, grateful she’d allowed him to hook a hand through her arm. “We’d better move away from the doors.” They’d get trampled, trying to exit that way. Aunt’s dress had a train, which had been stepped on already as they were jostled down the row to the stairs. “Come along.”
He tugged her into a clear space at the end of a row, then recognized his mistake. Someone had seen the opening first. Two women, skirts hitched over their arms, charged toward them, one wielding an umbrella.
“Mildred?” Aunt Wilcox gasped.
“This way!” Daniel tried to move aside, but the women hurtled past, pushing Aunt Wilcox into his shoulder. He crashed against the body behind him, and it gave way with a clatter and a yelp.
An elderly gentleman with a frail, emaciated face lay sprawled at his feet, blocking one side of the stairs. As Daniel dove toward him, a fleeing woman trod on the old man’s shoulder with a high-heeled shoe, provoking a scream of pain.
“Get back!” Daniel shouted, but no one heeded. “Let me help!”The man who’d fallen batted him away, unable to distinguish him from the column stampeding for the nearest door. Ignoring his feeble defensive blows, Daniel wrapped his arms around the man’s waist and tugged him into the row, away from the pushing crowd.
“Are you in pain, sir?”
Nothing but incoherent mutterings in response, so Daniel maneuvered him into a chair, noting his dilated eyes and the tremors of his body.
“Mr. Brandon?” Aunt Wilcox said. “Mr. Brandon!”
Daniel hushed her. “Something may be broken,” he whispered, unable to explain more as another party, bent on escape, surged toward them. “You cannot pass here,” he said, hands extended, using his surgical theater voice, the one that sent dressers and orderlies running. The man in the lead checked, considered, then retreated out the other end of the row.
Aunt Wilcox heaved a sigh of relief. “They’ve turned into complete imbeciles. After sitting here for an hour, do they think—”
“People aren’t reasonable when it comes to cholera,” Daniel said.
“So I see. You’d better tend to Mr. Brandon.”
His shivering was worse, and judging from the man’s age, he was a prime candidate for a fractured hip. Daniel had no tools with him. “Just a few moments, Mr. Brandon,” he said, taking the man’s hands. “When things clear out a little…”
What then? He had no medicines. No bag. They’d have to carry the man to a coach. If Brandon had broken his hip, there was little to be done. Bedridden for months, the odds of him succumbing to pneumonia were practically certain.
