Chapter 6 #2
“Don’t go. You’re just who we need,” Julia called after her.
Nora leaned into the room, still hesitant. The place was crowded, with Julia and Harry bent over a seated female patient.
“You can prevent a disaster,” Julia said. “My husband is trying to cut this lady’s hair.”
“She needs sutures,” Harry said, scissors poised a few inches above the patient’s long, brown hair.
“Please don’t cut it off,” the woman pleaded.
“Mrs. Parley,” Harry said with exaggerated patience. “I am holding a bandage to your bleeding head. Your husband will not appreciate me sending you home in this state to spare a few curls.”
“You don’t understand.” Julia blocked the scissors, hands spread protectively over Mrs. Parley’s tresses. “If you take off that entire piece, she can’t put her hair up at all. You need to take locks from the middle so she can use this piece to hide it.”
“Do you often get this kind of trouble?” Mrs. Franklin whispered to Nora.
Nora grinned, holding in a laugh. “More often than you’d think.” Julia was the real expert at these impromptu hairdressing consultations, even if she was less skilled at wielding the curved needle.
“She’s bled through this one,” Harry said, tossing aside a wad of folded linen and reaching for another. “Nora, can you interject some reason?”
“This is Dr. Trimble and his wife, Julia, who assists us in the clinic,” Nora whispered to Mrs. Franklin. “I’m afraid I—”
“Go right ahead,” Mrs. Franklin said, obviously highly entertained by the scene already. “I can wait.”
Harry removed the soaked bandage, revealing a gaping cut at the base of Mrs. Parley’s occipital bone—which Nora could see glistening white—flowing with unstanched blood before he quickly covered it again. The woman flinched as Harry pressed hard on the back of her head.
“What happened?” Nora demanded.
“It was stupid of me. I was just down the street when I dropped my package. I stooped to get it and didn’t see the railing above me. I saw stars for a moment.”
“That will do it,” Nora agreed. “Dr. Trimble’s right. We’ll need to cut the hair for him to close the wound safely.”
“Thank you.” Harry huffed.
“But we don’t need to make a hack job of it,” Julia objected. “Let Nora cut it.”
“Please let her,” Mrs. Parley begged. “I’m proud of my hair.”
“Proud enough to bleed to death,” Harry grumbled.
“He’s teasing,” Nora reassured as the woman’s eyes went wide. “But it won’t stop bleeding on its own.”
“Just trust me,” Julia said, taking the scissors and passing them to Nora. “I’ll be certain no one ever knows until it grows back.”
Harry relented and looked on skeptically as Julia directed while Nora cut and shaved until just the straight split was bare.
“This is a novel one,” he muttered in mock complaint. “If you’d like to consult on all my head wounds, there’s plenty to be found in local pubs.”
“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.”