Chapter 12
chapter
St. Helier
Ivy stroked Penny Surcouf’s little pink cheek. “Her color’s returned,” she said to Penny’s mother, “and her eyes are bright. She’s made a full recovery from the diphtheria.”
Aunt Opal had also come through the worst of it, but she would remain in Overdale Isolation Hospital for a few more weeks. If Ivy hadn’t sent her to hospital when she had . . .
A tiny shudder, and she worked up a smile for her three-year-old patient. “Be sure to drink all your milk, Penny, so you grow big and strong.”
A knock on the examination room door. “Another patient, Ivy.”
The third time Fern had interrupted, and Ivy stiffened. “In a minute, Mrs. Le Corre.”
“I’m sorry to be such a bother.” Mary Surcouf wrestled her daughter’s arms into a tiny blanket coat. She blinked rapidly, her eyes red.
Ivy settled a hand on Mary’s arm. “You are never a bother. You love your daughter, and you’ve been worried about her.”
She nodded a trembling chin. “I—I thought I was going to lose her.”
They’d come dangerously close. “Look how much better she is.”
“Thank you.” With a watery smile, Mary departed with her daughter on her hip.
Out in the surgery’s waiting room, Fern stood before a seated young man. “I do apologize. Ivy is running late again. I’m afraid she’s rather easily distracted.”
Ivy gaped at her sister. Aunt Ruby said she’d talked to Fern about this. All Ivy wanted was harmony in the family, but Fern kept striking discordant notes.
The young man stared at Ivy. “I—I’ll come back another day.” He dashed out the front door.
Fern clucked her tongue as she returned to the receptionist’s desk. “We can’t afford to keep losing patients due to your tardiness.”
Struggling for words, Ivy glanced at her wristwatch. “I’m only ten minutes behind.”
Fern sat and wrote in the appointment book. “He didn’t want to wait.”
Ivy squeezed her eyes shut. After she prayed, she smoothed her white coat and approached her sister’s desk.
Fern had styled her sable hair in a fashionable roll framing her lovely face, and Ivy unstuck her tongue from the back of her teeth.
“He didn’t leave because he had to wait.
He left because you made me sound unprofessional. ”
Fern’s mouth puckered on one side as if to say that Ivy had brought it on herself.
No, she hadn’t. “You called me ‘Ivy,’ not ‘Dr. Picot,’ although I’ve reminded you not to do so—and although I always call you ‘Mrs. Le Corre.’”
Long black eyelashes fluttered. “It’s hardly—”
“You said I was easily distracted. That doesn’t inspire confidence in me as a doctor.”
“Then make a better effort.”
Ivy’s hands coiled at her sides. “I am never distracted when seeing patients. They have my full attention, which is why I took longer with Mrs. Surcouf. She needed reassurance after her little girl almost died.”
“You have more than one patient.” Fern waved a hand toward the door. “Well, you did until Mr. Wilson left.”
All her life, Fern had sloughed blame off her own back and onto Ivy’s. Not today. Ivy wiggled her shoulders to release the weight. “He left because you belittled me.”
Fern gasped. “How can you speak to me like that?”
“How can you speak about me like that?” Ivy’s voice strengthened.
“We don’t have time for this.” Fern shoved back her chair and stood. “You need to start your rounds.”
Ivy braced herself against the desk. She’d seen patients in the surgery for four hours straight. “After lunch.”
“You’ll have to eat on the way.” Fern handed Ivy her timetable and marched toward the kitchen. “I prepared your lunch.”
Ivy scanned the timetable as she walked. This was all wrong. She’d told Fern home visits required thirty minutes. With all the niceties, they took longer than appointments in the surgery, with the offer of tea and the polite refusal, the decision on where to sit, and the “never mind the cat.”
And this timetable? Twenty minutes per visit, precisely enough travel time, without even fifteen minutes for sketching—much less eating lunch. All the way to Gorey to see . . .
Ivy paused in the kitchen door. “Didn’t you ask these three patients in Gorey to make appointments here in the surgery?”
“I couldn’t possibly.” Fern bustled about the kitchen. “One is the wife of a jurat. She’s far too important.”
Ivy forced herself to breathe, to sort her thoughts into words. “She isn’t an invalid, and I often see her in town.”
Fern closed a cabinet and gave Ivy a pointed look. “Dad never refused a request for a home visit.”
Dad had plenty of petrol. “I told you to change my timetables and to ask these patients to come to town. You haven’t done so.”
Fern curled her upper lip. “How disrespectful of you. Dad would be appalled.”
Why couldn’t Ivy take her words back into her mouth? Restore peace?
But why should she take back truthful words, gently spoken?
Because she wanted to return to the way things once were, when she’d leaned on Fern, leaned on Dad.
But to lean on God? What would the Lord have her do? Wouldn’t he want what was best for the patients—not for their convenience but for their health and peace of mind? If Ivy’s own health and peace of mind suffered, her patients would suffer too.
“Ivy!” Fern stood in front of her, shaking a lunch basket. “You’re daydreaming again.”
Ivy stared at her sister and stretched herself tall and straight. “I love you, and I respect you, but you need to respect me too. I will see the patients in Gorey today, but whilst I’m away, please ring the patients I mentioned before and redo tomorrow’s timetable as we discussed.”
“Discussed?” Flinty sparks flashed in Fern’s eyes. “We discussed nothing. You laid out orders as if I were your servant.”
“Please. I need you to—”
“Yes. You need me.” Fern shoved the basket into Ivy’s hand. “Don’t forget that.”
“We need each other. Without you, I can’t practice medicine. But without me, there would be no practice at all.”
Fern dropped a curtsy. “Yes, Your Highness. I’ll return to scrubbing the scullery.” She stormed out of the room.
Ivy groaned and braced her shoulder against the doorjamb. Leaning on the Lord might be right, but it was far more difficult.
Overdale Isolation Hospital
Tuesday, December 22, 1942
Ivy reviewed Aunt Opal’s chart at Overdale Isolation Hospital with Dr. Noel McKinstry, Jersey’s jovial Medical Officer of Health. “When can she be discharged, Dr. McKinstry? Before Christmas?”
“Perhaps. She’s making excellent progress,” Dr. McKinstry said in his Irish accent. “Thank goodness you made the diagnosis so early.”
“Are you talking about me, Doctors?” Although thin, Aunt Opal’s voice no longer rasped.
Ivy smiled at her aunt. “It’s called consultation.”
“Gossip.”
Ivy smiled to see her aunt’s sense of humor returning. For over a dozen islanders, diphtheria had led to a miserable death. “Dr. McKinstry and I are deciding when to send you home and bring relief to these poor nursing sisters.”
A nursing sister in her crisp white apron pushed a cart down the aisle of the crowded ward. “We all adore Mrs. Jouny.”
Even so, the nursing sisters were working horrific hours during the epidemic—which was worsening in the damp weather.
Dr. McKinstry returned the chart to its hook on the footboard. “A few more days, Mrs. Jouny. Good day, Dr. Picot.” He moved to the patient in the next bed.
Aunt Opal rolled the top of her blanket in her hands. “I so worry about Arthur.”
He was rather pathetic without his wife. “Fern and Aunt Ruby take turns bringing him dinner, and Charlie and I visit whenever we can.”
“I know, but Christmas.”
Ivy patted her aunt’s blanketed knee. “Aunt Ruby will host a lovely holiday.”
“Your sister too.” Aunt Opal’s pale lips spread in a smile. “Arthur said she’s hosting her own dinner this year.”
“She is.” Fern’s dark mood had passed, and she hummed and sang as she made La Bliue Brise festive. “She invited several people who have nowhere else to go.”
“How kind of her.”
“Yes, and mysterious.” Ivy lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “She won’t tell us whom she’s invited.”
“What would we do without our Fern?”
“Indeed, what?” Ivy’s smile twitched. She said goodbye to her aunt and made her way outside. After she brushed leaves off her bicycle seat, she coasted downhill along Westmount Road, then pedaled along The Parade toward King Street.
Despite her improved mood, Fern hadn’t made any of Ivy’s requested changes and blithely switched subjects if Ivy made inquiries.
Recently, when Ivy visited her more ambulatory patients, she explained her situation and asked whether they’d be willing to come to town in the future.
Almost all agreed, some with apologies for their lack of consideration, which Ivy defused.
Only a few insisted on home visits, and Ivy would continue to oblige them.
Over time, her rounds would become less frenzied.
The streets of St. Helier teemed with shoppers even though the shops were all but empty, including the elegant de Gruchy department store, which had once sold the finest suits and dresses.
Now clothing was rationed and scarce. Long queues trailed from the grocers as people waited to purchase their extra Christmas rations of four ounces of chocolate and four ounces of sugar, a delight since rationing provided only three ounces of sugar a week.
Ivy cycled past Carter’s Chemist’s. Miss de Ferrers hadn’t summoned her for a clandestine medical visit in weeks. Did any escapees even remain in hiding?
In the past few weeks, the Germans had rounded up two dozen escaped Russian workers. Although they promised the escapees would not receive severe punishment, only closer confinement and the loss of certain privileges, no one believed them.
Ivy longed to know if Henry and the other two patients she’d treated had evaded arrest. But inquiring about such matters would yield no answers.
A young man with honed features strolled down the pavement, and his gaze pierced Ivy as if he’d heard her thoughts. His shiny new shoes and crisp new civilian coat announced his German nationality, his membership in the secret police.
Ivy’s bicycle wobbled, but she kept her expression blank.
Since when did caring for the oppressed become a crime?