The Art of Dying

by Ambrose Parry

  ‘I am seeking some information regarding a nurse whom I believe used to work here. Her name is Mary Dempster.’

  Miss Peat’s teacup stopped halfway to her mouth. She placed it down upon the saucer calmly, but it was obvious that the very mention of the name had unsettled her.

  ‘What kind of information do you require?’ she asked, trying just a little too hard to appear unperturbed.

  ‘It is of a sensitive nature. I am curious as to whether there were any disciplinary issues, or whether any matters regarding this nurse’s conduct ever gave you concern.’

  ‘I run a tight ship here, Mrs Banks. It would be inappropriate to discuss disciplinary issues with a member of the public.’

  ‘There were disciplinary issues, then?’

  Miss Peat took another sip of tea, allowing herself a moment before she responded.

  ‘As I said, it would be improper to answer that question in discussion with someone who has just walked in off the street.’

  Sarah feared this was as far as it would go. She could tell Miss Peat had a fierce sense of propriety, as necessarily fastidious about her position as she was about the cleanliness of her hospital. Nonetheless, there was a hint of regret in her demeanour, a distinct sense of conflict within.

  Sarah was inspired to persevere, realising that there was a way to make that very propriety work in her favour.

  ‘I appreciate your discretion, Miss Peat,’ she said. ‘However, were I to inform you that I was perhaps enquiring as a prospective employer of Mary Dempster, as someone possibly intending to take her into my household …’

  Miss Peat nodded eagerly. ‘Then I would be duty bound to tell you of the grave reservations I would have about you employing someone I had cause to dismiss.’

  ‘Let us imagine, then, that I am indeed making such an enquiry.’

  Miss Peat’s gaze flicked left and right, as though she suspected there were other eyes upon them.

  ‘I had recently taken up the position of head nurse when she began working here, and initially I believed she would make an excellent addition to the staff. It is exceedingly difficult to attract the right type of woman to the job. Despite what is generally held to be the case, nursing does not come to all women by intuition.’

  ‘What altered your opinion? Why was she dismissed?’

  ‘She was dismissed for dishonesty and theft. A locket belonging to a recently deceased patient was found in her possession. But in truth, what troubled me about Mary was not what she was dismissed for but the multiplicity of incidents for which she was not.’

  ‘I’m not sure that I follow.’

  Miss Peat cleared her throat, sipped her tea again and continued.

  ‘Things could never be proven against her. There was always someone else positioned to take the blame. My suspicions would point towards her, but evidence and accusations always fell upon others; often people to whom she bore ill will. A thief is not to be tolerated, but I believed Mary to be something far more sinister. She was a practised deceiver, a manipulator who sought to conceal her true actions.’

  ‘We are not merely talking about theft here, are we?’ Sarah asked.

  Miss Peat shook her head.

  ‘Initially she made herself indispensable; she was cheerful, hardworking and was popular with the medical staff, who spoke highly of her abilities. She joined the hospital apothecary on his rounds, expressing a desire to learn as much as he was willing to teach her. She was uncommonly knowledgeable as a result. But as time went on it became clear that she was often less than truthful, and she frequently displayed a reckless disregard for doses of prescribed medicines. It was my suspicion that she also tampered with fever charts and the ward journals.’

  ‘Why would she do such a thing?’

  ‘I think she fancied herself a doctor.’

  Miss Peat’s words hung in the air a moment.

  ‘There are few things as hazardous in a hospital as one who believes herself clever and does not comprehend the depths of her own ignorance. I believe she was instigating treatments that had not been sanctioned by the medical staff and that she preferred to work at night so that her actions could be hidden. There was a concern that more deaths occurred when she was on duty, but such a thing is difficult to prove when death is such a frequent visitor to the wards already.

  ‘She covered her tracks well, I’ll say that for her. But I will tell you this, for this much I do know – she is a dangerous woman. For surely there is nothing more dangerous than a woman who has ambitions above her station.’

  FORTY-EIGHT

  aven was finishing off a hurried lunch when Jarvis appeared and handed him a letter. He reached for it eagerly, anxious for news of Gabriela. He looked at the stamp in the hope of seeing King Friedrich Wilhelm, but was disappointed.

  ‘From Albany Street,’ the butler said pointedly.

  He opened it hurriedly and immediately recognised that the hand was not Sarah’s. The signature confirmed that it had indeed come from Archie, asking Raven to bring him a stock bottle of chloroform at his earliest convenience. Raven wondered why the man had not asked his wife to pick up a bottle from Duncan and Flockhart’s. It was equidistant and she was well enough known at the pharmacists’ premises as not to be denied. Then it struck him that perhaps Archie did not wish her to know how much of it he was getting through.

  Raven suppressed a sigh and started upstairs to retrieve a bottle from the sideboard in Dr Simpson’s office. It being the afternoon, the professor was at the university giving a lecture. If Raven recalled correctly, at this point in the syllabus it would be about fibroid tumours of the uterus. The professor continued to be one of the more popular lecturers at the university. He was an engaging speaker whose skilful use of anecdote and personal experience illumined what in another’s hands would be deathly dull. Raven recalled how inspired he had been by Simpson’s words and his manner when he sat before him as a student, and then how proud he had been in assisting at those same lectures as his apprentice. He had dutifully collated and carried the copious notes for each talk, never to see the man refer to them.

  These thoughts served to emphasise how the professor was lacking his usual sparkle. Raven felt again a degree of shame that he had been slow to come to his defence, and grateful that Sarah had been so insistent. He was impatient to tell Dr Simpson about how they intended to exonerate him, but was wary of being premature in his announcements. He did not have the hard proof he required yet, but once he did, the denials and objections of the likes of Miller and Duncan would surely be swept aside as their peers digested the significance of Raven’s discovery.

  He strode into Simpson’s study and was startled to find it occupied, Mr Quinton seated at the professor’s desk. Quinton looked up from the document before him, peering over his spectacles like some feather-bare raptor.

  Raven recovered from his fright and made for the sideboard, bending to retrieve the bottle he required.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Quinton asked, with a tone that implied he had the right to know.

  ‘I might ask you the same question,’ Raven replied.

  ‘I am attempting to bring order to this chaos,’ Quinton said, gesturing to the storm of papers that was Simpson’s desk. ‘And you?’

  ‘I require a bottle of chloroform.’

  ‘Then you must fill in the ledger to say you have removed it.’

  ‘What?’ Raven asked, though he had by now noticed the book that was sitting atop the sideboard.

  ‘It is important that we keep track of the consumption of supplies, particularly those which might be expensive. Have you any idea how much money is spent on medicines in this household?’

  Raven had to rein in his incredulity.

  ‘That’s because we treat patients, Mr Quinton. We are doctors. I appreciate that such extravagances might be inconvenient when totting up the numbers, but treating disease is not something that ought to be subordinate to the exactitudes of petty accountants.’

  Quint
on ignored this outburst.

  ‘Without a record being kept there is no way of knowing whether those purchases are being dispensed appropriately, or whether they might have been misused or even resold.’

  Raven stood up, the bottle of chloroform gripped in his hand.

  ‘Are you accusing me of selling on medicines at a profit? Would that I had the time.’

  ‘It is for the protection of your own reputation then that every purchase henceforth should be logged, and each item that is removed for consumption be logged too, with the reason noted, that I might ensure the figures correspond. Who is this chloroform for?’

  ‘A patient. One who is in great need of it.’

  ‘I wish to have a name.’

  Raven felt exasperated that this self-important cypher should be proving an impediment to taking care of a sick man.

  ‘I am taking it to Dr Banks, Sarah’s husband. Are you content that I should dispense it to treat him, or would his suffering make for neater figures on the page?’

  Quinton narrowed his eyes. ‘Ah, yes. I have observed that you and Mrs Banks have quite the rapport. Is Dr Banks aware of how much time you have been spending with his wife?’

  ‘We work together. And what damn business is it of yours?’

  ‘You might have heard that I have discovered serious financial discrepancies. I am making it my business to be vigilant. I am on the lookout for impropriety and immoral conduct. Compromising behaviour is often at the root of financial dishonesty.’

  ‘I would recommend you visit the kitchen,’ Raven told him.

  ‘Does Mrs Lyndsay have specific information, or are you making an accusation?’

  ‘She usually has a large stock-pot on the stove around this time of the day. The ideal size and temperature for you to go and boil your head.’

  FORTY-NINE

  s Sarah made her way back out of the Infirmary, she passed the entrance to one of the wards, beds lined up either side. She saw a doctor making his rounds surrounded by a gaggle of young students, all jostling for position, trying to hear what the great man said. A nurse stood to the side, awaiting his command. She imagined the place much later in the day, all but deserted, lamplit and quiet, and thought about Mary Dempster recklessly experimenting with medicines, the effects of which she did not fully understand.

  Sarah had mixed feelings about putting all of this before Raven. Was it enough to convince him that the nurse was somehow implicated? And if she was continuing to instigate her own treatments, what was she administering that was proving to be so detrimental to the health of her patients? On the other hand, it did provide an answer of sorts as to why she was doing it and why the symptoms experienced by the patients did not correspond with any of the commonly known poisons. And yet, even if all that were true, it did not explain why her sister seemed afraid of her.

  Her thesis about deliberate poisoning seemed to be floundering, but the elusive nurse still seemed to be key to the whole thing.

  As Sarah strode across the courtyard, she noticed movement from the porter’s box. He had seen her approach the gate and was coming out to talk to her again.

  ‘Are we going to be seeing more of you, then?’ he asked.

  Her blank look invited him to elaborate, though she suspected that little invitation was ever necessary.

  ‘I assumed you were speaking to Miss Peat about taking up a job here,’ he continued, pointing back towards the Infirmary as though she had forgotten where she had just come from.

  ‘I was merely making some enquiries.’

  ‘Well, if you’re interested in working in this place, Miss Peat is not really the one to give you the full picture. A good woman, for sure, and a formidable one, but she doesn’t know everything that goes on under her nose, much as she’d like to think so. If you want to know how things really are, you ought to eavesdrop on the nurses’ common room. It’s on the second floor. I say common room, for that’s what they call it, but it’s merely a disused store-room – one they make sure nothing ever gets stored in. A little cubby hole where they sit and drink tea. Or more likely gin if they’re there overnight.’

  Sarah thanked the porter and turned back to the hospital again, this time climbing the stairs to the second floor. A pair of orderlies were transporting a patient along the corridor, the patient uttering oaths about what he considered to be rough handling. Beyond them she saw two women in aprons and caps hurrying towards a door at the end of the corridor. They disappeared through it before Sarah could reach them.

  It was roughly where the porter had described, but with nothing to identify it, there was no way of knowing what lay beyond. She was about to knock when the door opened again and a young nurse emerged dressed in a plain cotton gown and the same apron and cap as the previous two women.

  Behind her, Sarah could see half a dozen nurses sitting and standing inside the cramped space. It did indeed look like a store cupboard. There was no window, though in its favour it did seem warm and snug.

  ‘I think you might be in the wrong place, ma’am,’ the nurse who had opened the door told her. ‘The wards are back there.’

  Sarah drew some confidence from being addressed as ma’am.

  ‘I think that I am in exactly the right place,’ she said. ‘I’m not here about a patient. I am attempting to locate a nurse who used to work here by the name of Mary Dempster.’

  ‘Never heard the name,’ the nurse said, then turned and asked the room: ‘Somebody here asking after a Mary Dempster. Anybody remember her?’

  A heavy-set, stony-faced woman stepped forward.

  ‘What do you want with her?’

  Sarah fought off an urge to turn and retreat, instead stepping fully inside the room.

  ‘I need to ask her some questions regarding her care of a patient.’

  ‘A fool’s errand,’ the woman told her. ‘Even if you find her, you’re unlikely to prise any truth from her.’

  ‘That’s unfair,’ said a red-haired woman standing against the wall. ‘You never took to her because the patients liked her more than they liked you.’

  ‘The patients like an enema more than they like you, Gertie,’ chimed another, prompting much laughter.

  ‘Merry Mary, they called her,’ the red-head went on. ‘She was always cheerful on the ward. Small wonder they were going to like her more than Grumpy Gertie.’

  ‘She was a snake,’ Gertie said, fixing her eyes on Sarah and ignoring the rest. ‘She got my friend dismissed for a thief. And all the time it was her that was stealing things. Or have you forgotten that, Mhairi?’ she demanded of the red-head.

  ‘I am told she works privately these days,’ Sarah said. ‘Might there be any way of discovering who she is working for now?’

  ‘Why don’t you ask Nora, there?’ said Mhairi. ‘She was Mary’s little sweetheart after all.’ She laughed, a scoffing, almost snarling quality to it.

  Sarah looked at the older woman Mhairi had indicated, sitting in the corner, sipping from a mug. From the smell of it, she was drinking something other than tea.

  Gertie announced that she had to be getting back on the ward.

  ‘I hope you’re not after her for work,’ she said, brushing past. ‘You’d be wiser inviting the devil himself into your house.’

  ‘Or your bed,’ said another voice, to further giggling.

  Sarah drew closer to the woman in the corner.

  ‘You’re Nora? You were Mary’s friend?’

  Nora’s face became pinched. ‘No, I damn well wasn’t. None of them believe me, and yet still they have their sport.’ She looked past Sarah to address the others. ‘Can’t have it both ways. Can’t say it didn’t happen and then call me names like it did.’

  ‘Believed you about what?’ Sarah asked softly.

  Nora waved a dismissive arm. ‘I’ll not throw myself open to anyone else’s ridicule.’

  Sarah cast an eye around the gathering, clearly a harsh jury of Nora’s peers. She remembered from the schoolyard how people sought any
kind of weapon they could use against you: something you said, something you did, something you wore. Making up a story and pretending they all believed it. Pretending not to believe your own story just so that they could call you a liar for telling it. Most people quickly learned not to draw attention to themselves, for fear of supplying ammunition.

  Sarah spoke loud enough for all to hear.

  ‘It strikes me that if you were willing to tell me this story, then that would be proof enough that it must be true. For why would you subject yourself to further scorn if it were a lie?’

  Nora appeared to draw some promise of vindication from this logic. She paused for a moment, staring into her cup. Then she spoke slowly, quietly, as though telling her story required effort.

  ‘It happened when I was here as a patient. I had to have treatment for a problem,’ she said. She nodded at her lap. ‘Down below.’

  She paused again and looked at Sarah to ascertain whether she understood. It was an ongoing source of bemusement to Sarah that most people lacked the rudimentary vocabulary necessary to accurately describe their own anatomy, or if they did know the correct terms, were disinclined to use them.

  ‘There is no need to be delicate about it,’ Sarah told her. ‘I work for Dr Simpson, the obstetrician.’

  ‘I had a cancerous ulcer,’ Nora clarified. ‘It was treated with silver nitrate. The night after it was done, I was suffering dreadfully. The pain was terrible. Mary Dempster was the night nurse. She gave me some medicine to drink. I took it, but she kept coming back and bade me drink more. Said it would put an end to my suffering.’

  ‘Can you tell me what the medicine was?’

  ‘I don’t recall. I was beside myself with pain.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘Here we go,’ Mhairi muttered. Sarah shot her a look, fiercer than she intended. Her curiosity was making her bold.

  ‘My eyes became heavy and I had a drouth like you wouldn’t believe. My mouth was parched, all the moisture in it dried. I could barely speak; my tongue couldn’t form the words. My arms and legs felt heavy; I couldn’t move them however much I wanted to. And then I was aware of the covers being pulled back and I felt the mattress sag.’