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 no warning 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’s surgery 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.
He gave her a fleeting smile. “I came to see if you needed help so you can freshen up before dinner. Where’s Horace?”
Nora huffed. “Lord knows. I thought he’d be back with you.
I’m changing Mrs. Hooper’s bandages and then I need to give her a dose of laudanum.
I think we can safely decrease the concentration.
I probably won’t have time to come to dinner.
You can tell Mrs. Phipps to leave me a tray.
” She stepped into the dispensary and opened the closet where they stored all their sheets and bandages.
“Don’t forget to write those down for Mrs. Hooper’s bill.” Daniel nodded toward the open book that she’d pushed to one side of the nearby work table. He was constantly urging Nora and Horace to use it more faithfully.
She displayed her heavily laden arms. “I can hardly write with my hands full,” she pointed out.
“I’ll put it on the ledger for you,” he offered.
“Or—” Nora tamped down on her words, certain it was the heat melting her tolerance into a thin puddle, not her husband. “You could help me change the bandage and I’ll record it when we’re done.”
Daniel lifted an eyebrow in acknowledgment of her tone but said nothing. Nora thought longingly of the cadaver’s ice room. She’d happily eat her dinner with him instead.
“How was the lecture?” Daniel asked, his voice maddeningly calm as he recorded the supplies in his precise handwriting.
She’d been trying to forget. “Hardly my best,” she admitted.
“I heard.” He put his hands into his pockets and looked at her expectantly—too much like a schoolmaster who’d asked for an explanation.
You’re just prickly today, she told herself. He’s not criticizing. “What do you mean, you heard?”
“Adams and Howe came to Bart’s afterward. They were discussing it. Energetically.”
Her chest seared as she held her breath—the same paralyzing heat that gripped her whenever she’d failed.
Had they discussed it privately with Daniel, or broadcast their complaints to a room full of doctors?
It wouldn’t be the first time this had happened. “And?” she asked stiffly.
Daniel’s brow creased. “They claim you turned the lecture over to a midwife.”
The heat reached her face, a torrent of words coming with the rush of blood. “I did not turn it over. I asked a question, and she answered.”
In her mind’s eye she replayed Mrs. Franklin at the dissection table, explaining the birthing position as she held the crude model of the baby. Perhaps it was more than just an answered question…
“Might want to tweak your methods,” Daniel suggested. “Adams, in particular, wasn’t happy deferring to untrained midwives.”
“Adams isn’t happy deferring to anyone,” Nora pointed out, though she hardly knew the man.
She knew only that he refused to discuss his methods—including the use of short forceps—selling them exclusively to a tiny selection of high-paying students, while she worked endless hours in a charity hospital.
She glanced at the open ledger—nothing entered yet today. She ought to remember to charge for things. “I assure you, Mrs. Franklin is well trained in the matter under discussion.”
Daniel held back a reply, doubt in his eyes. “Adams did attend your lecture and pay for your expertise. Wouldn’t you say that was liberal of him?”
“Should I write him a thank-you note?”
Daniel glanced up at her, the air growing almost as hard as the brass mortar and pestle resting between them. “Don’t be like that.” He sighed. “You have doctors willing to listen to you because of your expertise, but asking them to attend a lecture from a neighborhood woman—”
“I didn’t—”
“They seemed to think you did.”
“And what did Horace say?”
Daniel shifted his head. “He reminded them the value of a good midwife.”
“As you should have done!” Nora sensed tears marshaling along her eyelashes, threatening to charge.
“Nora.” His voice softened. “I’m not trying to make you cry. It’s just…you don’t need to make enemies, especially of doctors willing to listen to you. I’m certain if you reach out and explain to Adams that it won’t happen again—”
Her head snapped up, a strand of hair falling loose and sticking to her perspiring face. “You weren’t there. Did it ever occur to you to defend me like Horace did? Why do you assume I was in the wrong?”
“Nora!” It was the closest thing to an outburst she’d heard from him. “I defend you day and night. You have no idea. And I never said you were wrong. Just that this isn’t the place—”
“This isn’t the place?” she demanded, pointing at the floor. “For whom did Horace build this hospital?” She dropped the bandages onto the table, one rolling away and falling to the floor.
“For you, Nora. I haven’t forgotten.”
She thought guiltily of the ledger, then quashed the emotion. “Just checking that you remembered. You can finish here. I’m changing for dinner.”
She wasn’t one to storm away, and Daniel wasn’t one to sympathize with displays of temper, but a moment later she was mounting the stairs like a thunderstorm, promising herself she’d reach the privacy of her own room before she let the rain fall.
She didn’t count on blundering full force into Horace as she turned the corner at the top of steps. He grunted, and she instinctively clasped his coat to keep him from falling.
“I’m sorry.” The impact loosed one rogue tear. It tickled the top of her cheek, but if she wiped it, he would notice. “I had no idea you were home.”
“Quite right. Or you and Daniel wouldn’t be carrying on like that.”
Nora released his lapel and brisked her hands over her face. “You heard?”
As he flicked one eyebrow in answer, she noticed an uncharacteristic hollowness to his eyes. His usually animated face was stiff with distant thought.
“What’s wrong?”
“Horace, where have you been?” Daniel’s voice made them both turn. His hands, deep in his pockets, and his heavy tread told Nora he dreaded finishing their quarrel, but he wasn’t the type to turn away from a fight. Not an important one.
“I was near the docks. Dr. Berry wanted a second opinion.”
The tension in Nora’s spine wavered. Interesting cases took precedence over personal matters. Just now, she’d welcome a new topic.
“Anything unusual?” Daniel pressed.
Horace sighed, leaning on his cane. Sensing a longer answer, Nora pointed to the study down the hall. “Sit down.” She could do with a moment off her feet, too.
Horace waited until they were all seated before speaking. “They took Berry and me out on a dinghy. Didn’t want to berth the ship until they knew what to do with the body.”
Nora’s eyebrows shot up.
“When I saw it, I thought he’d been dead and drained a week already—a dried husk.” Horace’s jaw flexed, as if fighting against the escaping words. “He only died last night.”
“What killed him?” Daniel asked.
Horace gave a long blink and shifted his eyes. “Cholera.”
With breathless speed, Nora’s vision jolted from the well-lit study to a dark, closed room.
A woman’s shrunken hand—her fingers weathered ropes, the skin leathery and tough—hung over the side of a soiled bed.
She willed herself not to peer at the woman’s motionless face.
She’d died with her eyes open and Nora didn’t want to see the lifeless rings of color, the same color as her own.
“Nora?” Horace barked.
She turned her head, and the dead woman disappeared like vapor.
“Are you all right?”
“How many?” she asked. A jade bowl filled with roses sat on the nearby table. Mrs. Phipps must have changed the flowers today.
“Just the one. The ship came from Rotterdam, and apparently the sailor took sick almost immediately. None of the other sailors showed symptoms. They would have put the body overboard last night, but he’s the first mate and has family in London. The crew thought they’d want a proper burial.”
“Are you certain it was cholera? There’s other illnesses that cause purging… What about dysentery?”
Horace inhaled deeply, shoulders rising.
“I have no doubt. They described him passing what can only be rice water stools. Death came in less than two days. And the condition of the body… Berry already knew. He just wanted confirmation. They’re bringing the body along soon.
You can see for yourself before the family comes for it.
” Horace tugged on his beard. “I wish families would believe me when I tell them they don’t want to see someone in that state. They always insist.”
Nora closed her eyes to push out the memory of her mother’s shriveled arm and open eyes. It didn’t work. She shuddered. And yet… “I want to see it.” She wouldn’t believe until she assessed it herself. If there was anything else plausible… Horace had been wrong before. Rarely, but still…
Daniel steepled his fingers. “I need to study it as well. I haven’t seen a case in years. I only saw one body at the Sorbonne. Never the disease in action. I was far from London in ’32—” He cut off abruptly, his eyes dropping to his fingertips.
1832, the year Nora had lost everything. Most of the time she didn’t think of it—concentrating instead on her new life. Practically a rebirth. But the description of the withered body dredged up an old despair.
The tears she’d reserved to shed over Adams and the idiotic doctors threatened again—but this time for more visceral pains. She swallowed hard and stood. “I’m washing up now. Send for me when the body arrives.”
“Nora, I’m—” Daniel started, but she waved his attempted solace away.
“We should try to arrange a lecture—let as many students as possible see it so they recognize the signs. You’ll ask if the family will let us keep the body until burial?
” That was usually Horace’s job—to coolly overlook the human suffering in lieu of science.
Her words lined up in such an orderly fashion, as if they weren’t broken shards of glass in her throat.
Horace knuckled his chest—his angina again—and gave half a grimace. “One thing at a time. For now, let’s count ourselves fortunate there’s only one body.”
“So far,” Daniel said, then glanced carefully at Nora.
They’d laid her father to rest first. He was only one body. Until—
Horace glared at his fist, clenched tight on the handle of his cane. “I’ll write to doctors I know in Rotterdam, find out if it’s spreading there. But I haven’t heard anything. And it doesn’t seem to have survived the sea crossing.”
“Thank God,” Daniel whispered.
Nora glanced at his relieved face. He had no idea. Whatever he imagined cholera to be, she knew it was worse.