Chapter 27 #2
“Me neither.” Nora shifted. “I’ve been thinking.”
Daniel’s eyebrows lifted. She could almost see the anxiety tightening around his chest. “Nothing terrible,” she promised.
At least, she hoped not. “I think…I think maybe there’s another way.
” One that didn’t involve giving up. Or giving in, because she was not signing Adams’s petition or abandoning midwives like Ruth.
“Adams and his colleagues are right. Unlicensed practitioners are dangerous.” She didn’t say that she was happy to lump Adams in with the shamsters, although what kind of care was he offering if he didn’t physically examine his patients?
But Daniel was right. She wouldn’t win a brawl.
“And?” Daniel prompted.
“We’re overrun, Daniel. There aren’t enough doctors to deal with the sickness in London. What doctor wouldn’t be relieved to be spared an eleven-hour delivery?”
“I would,” he admitted. “Especially today. If anyone comes—”
“Our hands are full already.”
“Yes.” He offered a rueful smile. Hope quickened her breathing.
“In Italy, midwives attended the lectures and trained with the doctors.”
“Yes, you’ve told me.”
“So we’re drawing a battle line where we should be greeting an ally. Abolishing a trade when we could train, license, and partner with midwives instead.”
He exhaled in thought, his eyes softening.
“If we could just arrange a discussion,” she began. “A public one people could attend.”
“You mean a spectacle.” He twisted his wedding band around his finger. “That’s risky. For all of us.”
She couldn’t argue. Public lectures and symposia could be volatile events.
Her first and last one had been a disaster that spurred her flight to Italy.
The discovery that Daniel had lied, taking credit for the hernia surgery that was more Nora’s than his so they could publish their findings, had nearly cost him his career.
“It would be different. I’m licensed now, and we aren’t trying to hide anything. Everything I’d be presenting is backed by the Italian medical establishment. Once doctors learn of the possibilities—”
“If Horace arranges a lecture, doctors will come,” Daniel admitted. “But that would be intentionally gathering a mob that’s already against us.”
Nora pictured the angry doctors circled around her in the lecture theater. “Adams made this dispute public. Maybe we need to use that to our advantage.”
She had another idea, but she was scared to use it. Don’t be a coward.
“I don’t want to keep books for your aunt, but I did think of a way we could collaborate.” It was like offering to partner with a bear—a fierce creature capable of lumbering along benignly until it wasn’t. Nora didn’t want to end up being devoured.
Daniel shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
“Suppose she arranged the lecture.”
He said nothing for a long, long moment. Nora couldn’t tell if that was good or bad. “Why do you suggest that?”
“Horace will attract a good number of doctors and scientists. But if the event is organized by your aunt, women will come, too—members of Parliament. And their wives. Women who chair philanthropic societies and—”
“I see what you’re driving at.”
“Yes. And I can explain how training midwives will help doctors and patients. Especially in times like these, when doctors are overtaxed.”
Why wasn’t he grinning as brightly as she was? It was a brilliant tack—capturing all the wind of Adams’s ire and using it to blow her toward her own harbor.
“And we would get Aunt to agree, how?” Daniel asked as he stuffed his hands deep in his pockets. “She’s already offended.”
“You’re her favorite. Surely—”
“I was her favorite. You didn’t see her yesterday. I chose you over her, and she felt it keenly.” He’d told her about his father and aunt making their terrible appearance at the hospital, but she hadn’t realized how deeply it affected him until his dark eyes dropped from hers.
“I’ll go apologize.” Nora squared her shoulders, pretending a courage she didn’t possess. “I’ll find a way to win her over.”
Daniel raked a hand through his carefully combed hair. “Nora, she’s firmly on the other side. Adams is her friend and personal physician. We’ve lost this one.”
Nora studied the two feet of emptiness between them. She’d already sacrificed too much to this argument. Courage might fail her, but stubbornness never did. “I’ll find a way.”
***
Nora shortened her steps so she wouldn’t miss the rare dapples of sunlight playing through the last bright leaves of the year. She hadn’t walked a park on Sunday in too many weeks to count, but her steps fell quietly on the lawn of Green Park as Daniel stepped beside her, his sleeve brushing hers.
“One boy in a family of nine shows no symptoms. Why?” Daniel hid frustration well, but Nora heard it under his controlled words. He’d spent all morning in Lambeth, trying to pry a large family from cholera’s ruthless claws.
“Perhaps he’s like me and had it before?”
“One of the daughters looks like a miniature version of Julia. I can’t stand the thought.”
At the mention of Julia, Nora turned away.
She’d performed the promised examination Friday.
She tried to quell the memory of Julia waking, confused and groggy, demanding answers before she fully knew where she was.
Nora had stalled, telling her they’d discuss it when Julia could sit up and gather her thoughts, but she had clutched Nora’s sleeve, refusing to wait.
“What did you find?” she’d demanded. “Can I have children?” Her eyes had managed to bore into Nora’s soul for a moment before they rolled back from the effects of the ether.
Nora blinked, returning to the dry leaves littering the park lawn. She couldn’t relive the crushing despair on Julia’s face when she’d told her.
“I hope your patient pulls through,” she told Daniel, silently wishing the same for Julia. Her loss and her oppressed mood were as worrisome to Nora as any named disease. And Julia hadn’t wanted Nora to confide in any of the men, so for now, the two of them bore the heavy secret alone.
“How do you feel?” he asked softly, without any jagged edges of criticism. His eyes dropped to her abdomen.
She drew in a breath of relief. “Nothing as bad as cases I’ve treated.”
Daniel grinned at the good news. “And you’ve treated so many. I’ve almost adjusted to your flock of midwives following you like the students follow Horace.”
“The students follow you now, too,” Nora corrected.
He nodded modestly and moved on, never one to linger on praise. “I’ve been trying to share the news from Bart’s with you since yesterday, but I haven’t had the chance until now. Last night we were occupied discussing the midwives and a lecture—”
“News?” Her arms stiffened as she braced herself.
“Adams made a fool of himself yesterday when one of his students inverted a uterus and nearly killed a woman. Right there in Bart’s.”
“The entire uterus?” She’d seen small prolapses, but never that. “Did you have to remove it?”
Daniel recounted the incident with the vivid detail she loved, stopping frequently as she posed questions or rattled off exclamations of disbelief in Italian. When he finished, she’d forgotten the stinging chill of the autumn air and their recent arguments.
“Ruth would never have made such a mistake!” Nora declared, pleased by the agreement in Daniel’s face.
“The papers are going to sensationalize the murder trial of that fraudulent midwife, but at least now we have an account of a medical student making a dangerous error,” he said. “That should give you a bit of ammunition, should they fire shots at your midwives.”
Nora couldn’t remember the last time relief flooded her. The warmth expanded her lungs, as if she hadn’t truly breathed in weeks. “Does this mean you agree with me on the petition?” she asked cautiously.
Daniel laced his fingers together. “We need standards. And we need teachers like you.” His voice dropped and his small smile fell away. “The myriad of things that can go wrong…”
Most days, they could walk through the tragedies with a grim and factual acceptance, but on this cold October Sunday, reality fell as lifeless and smothering as the leaves around them.
“What if you get sick and I can’t save you?” Daniel asked quietly.
A stiff wind pushed between them, fluttering her lace collar. “I wonder the same about you,” Nora admitted.
Sunlight speckled his face as relentless thoughts marched over his forehead. He cleared his throat, fighting visibly for whatever he meant to say.
“I’m on your side, Nora.” He groped for her hand and found her. “We have no power over death, but we must stand together in life.”
It took a moment to absorb the words, let them travel through her.
She took his face in her free hand and kissed him where his widow’s peak swept down his brow. By the time she straightened, the breeze had dried her wet eyes and left her with a smile that felt like happier days.