“He’s on the Matthew Ward today,” the nurse snapped in reply and turned to the broken arms and gout-swollen toes that awaited him.
Lily found her own way into the core of the hospital. It was like a great, stunningly engineered machine built of bodies and bleach instead of grease and metal. Men and women buzzed up and down the halls with quick efficiency, bees in a well-ordered hive. Trolleys zipped to and fro across well-scrubbed tiles. Brass plates by the doors to well-appointed offices gleamed with the identity of their prestigious occupants, names accented by the addition of “Sir” or a row of illustrious initials. The potted palms that punctuated the hallways were a glossy, well-watered green.
Only the smell broke the spell of precision the place cast—an odor of harsh cleansers overlaying that pervasive funk of age and death that no place of healing could ever really escape.
She had to catch an orderly by the sleeve to get directions to the Matthew Ward.
It was a bright space with pale blue walls and beds full of patients suffering from pneumonia and rheumatism.
Lily spotted Dr. Gardner at once. The big Ulsterman was perched on the edge of a cot holding a very small, very pale child.
“It is rotten,” he said, his voice a soft, gruff rumble from his chest. “It tastes absolutely vile. Don’t let her tell you any different.” He glanced toward the nurse who stood frowning behind him, holding a small vial in her hand. “But you need it to make you better, lad. You want to get better, don’t you? And get back out to setting firecrackers in postboxes?”
“Have you done that? How’s that work?” the boy demanded, rising with sudden interest.
“Toss that down like a good soldier and perhaps I’ll tell you.”
Lily waited by the door until the boy had finished the vial, face pinched with distaste. As the physician rose, she stepped forward.
“Doctor Gardner?”
“Miss Albright. I should not have expected to see you here.”
“I brought you lunch.” She raised the bag, now well spotted with grease.
“I see you have. Come, let’s go into my office.”
Dr. Gardner’s domain was something different than the plush seats of power Lily had passed on the lower floor of the hospital. Instead of gleaming oak and soft leather, his space was crammed with file cabinets and a chipped pine table in dire need of refinishing. The room looked as though it had been converted from a closet, though Lily could discern that there was a clear order to the seeming clutter.
He tore the bag open carefully, picking out a chip and pushing the sausage roll to Lily.
“You can have this if you like. I haven’t been much for eating flesh since seeing what Mr. Wu can do with animals. I also suspect it blocks up the heart.”
“I’m not actually hungry.”
“So to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? I presume it was not simply to play lunch-maid.”
“I’m hoping you can help me find a patient.”
“I can try. Who are you looking for?”
“I don’t actually have a name,” Lily admitted.
“That makes it more of a puzzle. If you haven’t a name, what do you have?”
“I know it’s a female. Someone suffering from both syphilis and the after-effects of having been in a fire.”
“We don’t treat many syphilis patients here. They mostly end up at Lock Hospital. What makes you think she’s at St. Bart’s?”
“Frankly, I’m not even sure the person I’m looking for exists, but you’re the only one I could think of who’d indulge me even this far, so I had to try.”
“Well.” He popped another chip in his mouth, then rose heavily from his chair. “Let’s try, then. Shall we?”
The Records Desk was located at the other end of the hospital, another long walk along hallways buzzing with quietly urgent activity. It was a dark room that smelled of ink and glue.
“Mr. Gleeson,” Dr. Gardner said in greeting as he entered.
“Oh. It’s you,” the thin man behind the desk replied flatly, blinking at them through his spectacles.
“Have we any syphilitic females on the wards at the moment?”
“Five, I believe,” Mr. Gleeson replied shortly.
“Are any of them burn victims?”
Mr. Gleeson moved unerringly to one of the tall steel cabinets that lined the back of the room. He pulled open a drawer, flipping expertly through the files. He pulled one, glanced at it, then returned it to the drawer, slamming it shut with a clang.
“No,” he replied shortly.
“Thank you. You’ve been most helpful,” Dr. Gardener replied without a hint of irony.
Lily felt panic at the thought of this lead, however tenuous, being so easily cut off. She pushed her mind back to the corridors and charred ruins of the clinic—to the horror of the cold-tiled basement.
Her thoughts latched onto the image of the operating tables with those antennae-like stirrups attached to their bases.
“What about complications from abortion?” she cut in.
Mr. Gleeson raised his eyes, frowning at her.
“If you would please answer the lady, Mr. Gleeson,” Dr. Gardner cut in gently.
Gleeson returned to his files, snapping open another drawer. His thin fingers skipped to another folder, which he plucked loose with a snap. He glanced over it, then closed it again.
“One of the syphilitic patients has had a hysterectomy.”
“Any other complications?”
“She is reportedly suffering from the aftereffects of smoke inhalation.”
“You didn’t think that worth mentioning before?” Lily cut in, irritated. “When we asked about a burn victim?”
Mr. Gleeson snapped open the file, scanning it once more before closing it again.
“She hasn’t got any burns,” he declared flatly.
“Thank you, Mr. Gleeson,” Gardner said patiently. “That sounds like our girl. Can you tell me where she is?”
“Sitwell Ward. Under Dr. Burton.”
Dr. Gardner stepped back out into the hall, Lily following.
“It would have to be Burton’s ward,” he said under his breath.
“Is that a problem?”
Dr. Gardner began to walk, Lily falling into step beside him.
“The hospital is not a whole body, Miss Albright. Our wards are little fiefdoms and the resident lord is often quite jealous of his territory. Our Dr. Burton happens to be, as he will happily remind you, the great-grandson of the tenth Duke of Argyle. And he does not believe that the son of a Belfast tailor should be considered an equal to his Eton-and-Oxford-educated self, regardless of my years of study and practice.”
“I see.”
“Which is only to say that this could turn a mite uncomfortable.”
“How uncomfortable?” Lily asked, taking his arm and pulling him to a stop. “I don’t want you taking any risks for me.”
Dr. Gardner stepped neatly out of the way of a rattling gurney.
“I was under the impression that the endeavor you are engaged in had rather high stakes. Or were we digging up graves in Abney Park for the fun of it?”
“It wasn’t my idea to bring you into that.”
“You’d have had Lord Strangford manage it on his own?”
“I tried to talk his lordship out of the whole notion,” Lily countered.
“So the aim of all this must not be so significant, then.”
“No,” Lily admitted. “It is significant. But the chances I will succeed in it are . . . low. I will not see anyone else put themselves at risk for the sake of it, personally or professionally.”
Her thoughts flew back to the night before, to Sam’s head snapping under the force of a blow. To the birds that had fallen, the pale bodies littering the dark ground.
The doctor gently took her arm, guiding her to the side to avoid a nurse spinning out a door with a load of clean towels in her arms. He was a large man, towering over Lily, but moved with the thoughtless gra
ce of a dancer.
“I’m not sure you understand how this works, Miss Albright.”
“How what works?”
“The Refuge.”
Lily felt her defenses snap up, readying her for battle.
“What does any of this have to do with The Refuge?”
“Those of us who are part of that place—when we are asked for aid, we give it. No matter how much we remain in the dark as to why. We do it because we’re the only ones who understand what it’s like to know the impossible things. Things nobody ought to know.”
“I’m not part of that.”
“Ah. I see.”
His tone set her teeth on edge.
“What do you see, exactly?”
He stepped her out of the way of a trolley full of rattling sample jars.
“Perhaps that’s a conversation for another time. Come along. I’ve only twenty minutes left of my lunch.”
Lily stopped, holding back. A pair of nurses nearly bumped into her from behind, stepping around her with a glare of irritation.
“I told you I won’t have you taking any risks for my sake.”
“I am not taking them for your sake. I am taking them for the sake of whomever you are trying to protect.”
“How do you know I’m trying to protect anyone?”
“Because you’ve made it quite clear this afternoon you have no interest in being under obligation to me or anyone else. And yet you already are. I do not believe you would have overcome your distaste of that for your own sake. Ergo, someone else’s well-being must be on the line.”
“I think your logic is flawed.”
“Well, I never did have much of a head for it. But I’m right. So stop balking and come along. We haven’t got all day.”
The Sitwell Ward was located on the next floor down. Like Dr. Gardner’s ward, it sported rows of tall, spotlessly clean windows through which the afternoon sun poured down onto the rows of beds. Dr. Gardner lead the way, walking with an easy pace down the central aisle. It looked as though he were merely stretching his legs, but Lily saw the way his eyes scanned across the charts that hung on clipboards at the end of each bed.
They were only halfway down the row when a nurse in a starched gray dress and white apron marched over.
“Dr. Gardner. Is there something we can do for you?”
“Just accompanying a friend of mine on a visit to one of your patients, Matron Roberge.”
“I see. Which patient would that be?”
Lily could hear the sharp disapproval in the woman’s tone. Clearly, her loyalties lay firmly with Dr. Burton, and not the Belfast tailor’s son who had just strolled into her ward.
Lily moved a few steps past them, making her own quick scan of the clipboards.
“Miss MacAlister,” she cut in, stopping at one of the beds. “I’m her cousin.”
The matron turned an unwelcoming gaze on her.
“I was under the impression it was Mrs. MacAlister.”
She placed a subtle but unmistakable emphasis on the title.
“Yes. Well,” Lily paused meaningfully, glancing to the woman on the bed, who was watching the exchange with dull disinterest.
The matron took in the unimpeachably respectable cut of Lily’s walking dress. She glanced at the brass watch that hung from a sturdy cord around her neck.
“You may have fifteen minutes. Then we must begin changing the linens.”
“Thank you, Matron,” Dr. Gardner said.
Lily moved closer to the patient. She was pale, thin as a famine victim, her dull brown hair falling lankly around her face. Vivid lesions stood out against the pale flesh around her mouth. The rest of her skin was covered with a fine mist of sweat. She breathed quick and shallow. Her eyes slid over to Lily as she lowered herself into the chair beside the bed.
“You’re not my cousin,” the woman rasped.
Behind Lily, Dr. Gardner moved to the window, his hands clasped at his back, gazing down at the courtyard.
“I had to say that so they would let me talk to you.”
“Bernadette’s man died in the mines. She left the baby with Gran and tumbled down the well.”
“Who’s Bernadette?” Lily asked.
“My cousin.”
“Mrs. MacAlister . . . I need to know if you were ever in another hospital. Before this one.”
“I don’t like hospitals.”
“What about a hospital over in Southwark?”
The woman seemed to shrink into the bed.
“Don’t know anything about that.”
Lily felt her pulse jump.
“You mustn’t worry. No one will know. It’ll be our secret, sacred as confession.” She moved closer. “It was the one off Borough High Street, wasn’t it?”
“They were supposed to help me with the baby.”
“But they did more than that, didn’t they?”
She looked away.
“He said it was best I let them take her out of me. That she’d only have been born with the pox herself and died in miserable pain.”
“Your little girl,” Lily offered.
It felt wrong. She was playing a part—the quiet, sympathetic listener, like a priest in his dark box. But every sense was sharp, her attention as avid as a gull at a picnic. The woman in the bed was raw, exposed like a nerve and just as vulnerable. She was also confused, half-lost in some dark wood of the soul. This was an exploitation, but Lily didn’t have time for guilt. She had to know.
“Once it was done, why didn’t you go?”
“He said they’d treat me, with a warm bed and three meals the meanwhile.”
“And did they treat you?”
She shook her head. Her eyes fastened onto Lily’s, sharpening with rage.
“He poisoned us. Put his devil poison into our veins.”
“What do you mean?” Lily demanded.
“Syphilis is treated with mercury,” Dr. Gardner cut in quietly from behind her, still looking out the window. “It is not a pleasant course. And it is largely ineffective.”
Mrs. McAllister struggled to sit up, looking around, her breath rasping in her chest. “Where’s Gran? Must tell her about the baby . . .”Her hand fluttered to her flat abdomen. “Always said it would come to that. But she’ll not turn us away. Not . . .” Her wandering gaze fell on Lily and her brow furrowed with confusion. “Who are you, then?”
“Something isn’t right here.” Dr. Gardner turned from the window.
“What do you mean?”
“Those sores around her mouth are indicative of the secondary stage of the disease. But this mental confusion . . . I wouldn’t expect to see that until later. Much later.”
The doctor glanced over at the nurse’s desk. The matron scribbled in a logbook, pausing to give some sharp order to a waiting underling.
He moved to the end of the bed, picking up Mrs. MacAlister’s chart. He flipped through it, eyes quickly scanning the pages.
“Secondary syphilis. Distress of the lungs due to smoke inhalation. Well, that much is rather obvious.”
He let the pages fall back into place. Lily glanced over to see the matron glaring in their direction, eyes locked onto Dr. Gardner. He set the clipboard down on the hook, moving back to the window.
“She’s showing jaundice,” he said. “That’s the yellowing in her eyes. Syphilis doesn’t cause jaundice, either. Can you touch her?”
“What’s the big man saying?” the woman demanded, frowning at Dr. Gardner.
“Nothing you need mind,” Lily smiled. She took her hand, patting it gently.
“Is she warm?” Dr. Gardner asked.
“Yes,” Lily replied. The frail fingers in her palm burned like brands.
There was a clatter. Lily looked over at the nurse’s desk to see the matron rise from her chair, turning on an elderly orderly who stood quaking by the remains of a shattered chamber pot. The acrid smell of it floated to her from across the room.
She glanced back to Dr. Gardner. She cou
ld see him fight a quick inner war. With a final glance at the distracted matron, he sat on the edge of the bed, the springs sagging under his weight.
“Mrs. MacAlister. I’m Dr. Gardner. Would you mind terribly if I checked your pulse?”
The woman didn’t answer, just slid her hand from Lily’s and extended it halfheartedly toward him.
The doctor took her small, thin wrist, holding it delicately in his massive hands.
His eyes closed.
Lily’s senses flared to attention, her skin tingling. She was aware of every detail of the room—the sharp smell of ammonia, the scrape of the broken pieces of stoneware being picked up from the floor.
She was suddenly and entirely certain that Gardner was not counting the beats of this woman’s heart.
He was doing something else.
His body was still, his breath deep and even. The moment stretched, slow and quiet, seeming to last forever though the hands barely twitched on the clock over the door.
Then it was done.
He opened his eyes and gently set the patient’s arm back down onto the bed.
He looked over at Lily.
“This woman has malaria.”
The pronouncement was so unexpected, it took Lily a moment to be certain she had heard it properly.
“But she’s from Southwark. Who gets malaria in Southwark?”
“Mrs. MacAlister, have you ever traveled out of the country?” he asked.
The woman shook her head dreamily.
“Haven’t been back to Ireland since I was a girl. My da said he’d whip me raw if I showed my face there again.”
“Anywhere else?”
“An’ if they’d only shift the ‘ackney Road and plant it over there—I’d like to live in Paris all the time.”
She sang tunelessly, her voice a hollow reed, but Lily still knew the tune. It struck her like a blow, drowning her in the perfect recollection of another voice lilting through those words.
A woman sitting at a vanity table, running a silver brush through a mane of glorious red hair. Her mother’s bell-like tones dancing through the bawdy lyrics of an old music hall number.
Lily pushed the memory back, forcing herself to focus on the matter at hand.
The Fire in the Glass Page 35
