Fire by Night

by Lynn Austin

  “Letters. Big deal,” he said, dipping his pen into the inkwell.“You upper-class, high-society folks love your letters of introduction, don’t you? I have enough papers cluttering my desk already.”

  “But if you would read them you would see that I—”

  “Have you done any real nursing work for any of these people?” he asked, pinning her with his gaze. “Are you trained? Experienced?”

  “I—I would like very much to learn.”

  “I’m a physician, not a teacher,” he said, looking away again.“Come back when you’ve been trained. Good day.”

  Julia sat down in the chair in front of his desk and removed her bonnet, cloak, and gloves as if he’d invited her to stay. Dr. McGrath ignored her, dipping into the inkwell and scratching his pen across the pages as if she’d gone—although he surely knew she was still there.

  She glanced around the untidy office while she waited and spotted a photograph on his desk—a pretty, dark-haired woman holding a small girl on her lap. Julia glanced at the doctor’s left hand, holding down the page he was scribbling on, and saw a gold wedding band. She picked up the picture for a closer look. “Is this your wife and child?”

  “What a ridiculous question. Why would I have a photo of someone else’s wife and child on my desk?”

  She bit back an angry reply. “They are both very pretty. What’s your daughter’s name?”

  “Are you trying to annoy me, Miss Hoffman? Because you’re doing a first-rate job of it.”

  “It isn’t Miss Hoffman,” she said, suddenly remembering Miss Dix’s words. “It’s Mrs. Hoffman. I’m married.” The lie came remarkably easy to her.

  “Is that so?” he said in a disinterested tone.

  “Yes. My husband is Lieutenant Robert Hoffman,” she said, giving him her cousin’s name and rank.

  “Does the good lieutenant know that you’re away from home, bothering busy doctors when they’re trying to work?”

  “I haven’t heard from Robert since he was captured at the Battle of Ball’s Bluff last October. He’s in Libby Prison in Richmond.”

  He glanced up at her again. She hoped his attitude would soften after hearing her tragic story; instead, he said, “And so sweet little Mrs. Hoffman wants to be a nurse.”

  “Yes, Doctor. Very much so.”

  He bent over his work again, silently writing for five long minutes. Julia waited until he blotted the ink and moved the paper he’d been working on from one stack to another. Then she said, “All I’m asking is for you to give me a chance, Doctor. I admit I don’t know much about nursing, but I’m willing to learn.”

  He studied her for a long moment, then stood abruptly. “Very well, then. Come with me, Mrs. Hoffman.”

  Julia’s heart soared with happiness as she followed him into the ward in the former hotel’s dining room. It had been emptied of tables and jammed full of beds, all filled with ailing men. Some of them talked quietly, many of them were coughing, most simply lay there doing nothing at all and might have been asleep. The doctor stopped beside a small cabinet of medical supplies. The ward matron saw him and hurried over. She was a small, round woman with gray threads in her dark hair. “Is there something I can do for you, Dr. McGrath?”

  “No, thank you. Mrs. Hoffman is going to help me change Private Jackson’s dressing.” Julia saw the matron’s carefully neutral expression change to one of concern. “Are you a relative of his?” she asked Julia.

  Before she had a chance to reply, Dr. McGrath said, “No, Mrs. Hoffman is applying for a position as a nurse.” He smiled, and Julia had never seen a grin quite as nasty as the one that spread across his face.

  The matron’s face went rigid. She made no attempt to hide her dislike for the doctor before quickly striding away. Julia’s joy began to fade. She was starting to dislike this man, too. He scooped up a pair of scissors, a brown medicine bottle, and a wad of gauze from the supply table, then beckoned for Julia to follow him.

  The patient they stopped beside was very pale, his body wasted to skeletal thinness. Dr. McGrath greeted the soldier with genuine warmth, smiling as he met the man’s gaze. “How are you doing today, Jackson? The nurses treating you okay? The food all right?”

  “I can’t complain.”

  “Good. Good. Listen, I’ve come to have a look at your leg if you don’t mind.” He set his supplies on the bedside table and pulled back the covers. Julia braced herself, certain that the soldier’s leg would end in a bandaged stump. It did.

  “This is Nurse Hoffman,” the doctor continued. “She’s going to help me remove your dressing so I can have a look.”

  “How do, ma’am,” Jackson said.

  “Um …very well, thank you.”

  Dr. McGrath scraped an empty chair across the floor to the bedside and motioned for Julia to sit. He handed her the scissors. She cut through the knot in the gauze dressing and began carefully unwinding the layers. The room fell quiet. Too quiet. She was aware of the patient’s whistling breath, rustling like dry leaves.

  “Where are you from, Mr. Jackson?” she asked, trying to ease the tension.

  “Buffalo, New York, ma’am.”

  “I’ve never visited Buffalo, but I hear it’s nice. What sort of work do you do there?”

  “Well, I worked as a carpenter …before the war, that is.”

  “And do you have a family back home?”

  “A wife and three young ones. They—”

  It was the last thing Julia heard. When she removed the last layer of gauze, a powerful stench hit her like a fist, knocking the breath right out of her. She tried to stand, to flee from it, but the room tilted crazily, then suddenly went black.

  “Mrs. Hoffman …Mrs. Hoffman.” Julia opened her eyes to Dr. McGrath’s smirking face. She lay in a heap on the floor beside the bed and he crouched alongside her, slapping her cheeks.

  “Ah, good. There you are. Let’s sit you up.” Julia’s head whirled as he lifted her to a sitting position. The smell that had so overpowered her was everywhere. She quickly covered her mouth, barely managing to choke back her lunch.

  “She all right, Doc?” Private Jackson asked.

  “She’s fine. If you’ll excuse us for a moment, Jackson, I’ll see that she gets some fresh air. I’ll be right back.”

  Julia felt the strength in Dr. McGrath’s arms and shoulders as he hauled her to her feet. The smell that had escaped from beneath Jackson’s bandage encircled her like a living thing, pursuing her. There was no escape from it. She wanted to run from the ward before she vomited, but her legs were much too unsteady. As Dr. McGrath propelled her to the front door, she was forced to swallow the bitter mouthful a second time. When he finally flung open the creaking door, Julia desperately gulped the damp February air.

  “There you go,” the doctor said cheerfully. “A few deep breaths and you’ll be on your way home. Today’s lesson was on gangrene— you can tell it by the smell. Quite distinctive, wouldn’t you say?” She hated his mocking tone. No wonder none of the nurses liked him.

  “You may let go of me now,” she said, peeling his hands off her waist. “I’m all right.”

  “Of course you are.” He retrieved her bonnet and cloak from his office just a few steps from the door and shoved them into her hands. “Here you go. And now I suggest you return to your mansion in …Philadelphia, wasn’t it? Wait there for your missing lieutenant.”

  Julia could barely speak through her anger. “Are you saying I can’t work here?”

  “I never imagined that you’d still want to.”

  She drew a shaky breath and exhaled. “Yes. I would very much like to. Now that I know what gangrene smells like I’ll be better prepared for it the next time.”

  “I doubt that,” he said. “Listen, I can play this little game for as long as you wish, Mrs. Hoffman.”

  “I am not playing a game.”

  He shook his head, his annoying smirk back in place. “I don’t believe you. I can’t think of a single plausible reason why
a wealthy Philadelphia socialite would give up her servants and her diamonds and her ball gowns—and put on a ridiculous dung-colored dress, I might add—unless she was playing some sort of game. My guess is you’re trying to impress someone.”

  Julia didn’t dare argue with him because he was right. He was trying to make her so angry she would stalk away and never return, but she refused to give him the satisfaction. Besides, she wanted to stay, despite what he’d just put her through. She longed to show him that she was serious, that her compassion was genuine.

  “May I ask you something?” she said.

  “What?”

  “Will Private Jackson live?”

  The doctor studied her for a long, uncomfortable moment until she felt herself squirm beneath his gaze. He shook his head. “No. We’ve sent for his wife. She’d better come right away if she wants to see him alive.”

  “I’m sorry,” Julia said, and she was. “He seems like a nice man.”She drew another deep breath. “What time shall I come tomorrow?”

  Dr. McGrath hesitated, then said, “I don’t have any openings for nurses at the moment, but we need a supervisor for the linen room.”

  She was sure it was an insult, another one of his games. Julia determined to beat him at it this time. “The linen room will be fine. What time should I come?”

  “Six A.M.”

  “Very well, Doctor. Good day.” She turned to go.

  “Mrs. Hoffman…” he called after her, “be sure to bring your own smelling salts tomorrow. The hospital doesn’t stock them, and I’d rather not have to slap your dainty little face again.”

  Chapter Eight

  Fairfield Hospital

  February 1862

  Dr. McGrath’s office was dark, deserted. The coat-tree inside his door stood empty. Julia huffed in frustration. She had risen before the sun, skipped breakfast, and walked two blocks through frozen mud and icy wind to hail a cab in order to get to the hospital by six o’clock—and Dr. McGrath wasn’t even here. If his rude behavior yesterday was an indication of his true character, she might have guessed he’d tell her to come early and then be deliberately late himself.

  She stood in the hallway for a moment, debating what to do. Except for the distant sound of men coughing in the wards, the hospital was quiet. Since Julia had no idea where the linen room was or what she was supposed to do there once she found it, she decided to take a seat in the doctor’s office and wait for him. She had just removed her cloak and hat and hung them on the doctor’s coat-tree when the ward matron she’d seen yesterday came into the front hall. She was a plain-looking woman in her forties with thick dark brows and a careworn face.

  “Oh …hello,” the woman said. “I thought I heard the door. I’m Eleanor Fowle. How may I help you?”

  “I’m …I’m Mrs. Robert Hoffman,” she said, deciding to continue the lie. “But please, call me Julia. I’m looking for Dr. McGrath.”

  “You were here yesterday, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, I applied for a position as a nurse. The doctor told me that I could begin working this morning as a supervisor in the linen room.”

  “The linen room? Are you sure?”

  “That’s what he said. What time does Dr. McGrath usually arrive for his morning rounds?”

  Her dark brows creased in a disgusted frown. “It all depends on how drunk he got last night.”

  Julia was so surprised by the matron’s words and the blunt way in which she spoke them that she couldn’t reply.

  “I’ve shocked you. I’m sorry,” Mrs. Fowle said. “But it’s the truth, and you may as well know it. He played a mean trick on you yesterday with Mr. Jackson, and the doctor is even meaner when he has a hangover—which is quite often, I’m sorry to say.”

  “What about the job he offered me?” Julia asked, hearing the tremor in her voice. “Was that just a mean trick, too?”

  “Well, we are desperate for help in the linen room, but I don’t think it’s a job you would be suited for.”

  Julia felt as though the floor beneath her had given way. This had all been a joke. Dr. McGrath had no intention of hiring her as a nurse. She longed to turn around and march away from this miserable hospital, but where would she go?

  “To be honest,” Mrs. Fowle continued, “I think the doctor is using the linen room the same way he used poor Mr. Jackson yesterday. He’s trying to scare you off.”

  “But why not just send me away? Why all these games?”

  Mrs. Fowle released a long sigh, shaking her head. “Because Dr. James McGrath is a bitter, meanspirited man. He doesn’t need any other reason than that. If you’re wise, you’ll leave before he arrives.”

  The matron was right—Julia should leave. She should give up the idea of becoming a nurse and go home. It’s what everyone had been trying to tell her from the very beginning. But the thought of admitting defeat made her angry. “May I ask, Mrs. Fowle …if Dr. McGrath is so horrible, why do you stay here and work with him?”

  “Because our soldiers need me,” she said without hesitating. “I came to Washington City to take care of my husband after he was wounded at Bull Run. He died from his wounds, but there were so many others who needed my help that I simply couldn’t abandon them.”

  Julia felt her feet touch solid ground again. The soldiers needed her. She’d run away from them once, and she was not going to do it again. “If I did decide to stay,” she said, “if I took the job in the linen room, do you think the doctor would eventually allow me to work as a nurse? Because that’s what I really want to do—to help wounded soldiers, like you do. I applied to Miss Dix, but she told me I was too young. And in a roundabout way, she suggested that I look for a position here.”

  “If you’re sure that’s what you want,” Mrs. Fowle said doubtfully. “I’ll put in a good word for you when there’s an opening. In the meantime, I should warn you that your job in the linen room won’t be easy.”

  “I appreciate the warning, but I would still like to stay.”

  Mrs. Fowle smiled for the first time. “I believe you’ve won this round, Julia. Dr. McGrath will certainly be surprised to learn of your decision. Have you eaten?”

  “No, there wasn’t time. He told me to be here by six.”

  “Absurd man. Come on,” she said, turning toward the ward. “The cooks always feed the nursing staff first—and it’s usually ready about now.”

  Most of the patients appeared to be sleeping as Mrs. Fowle led Julia through the ward and into the hotel kitchen. She smelled bacon and coffee and heard the clatter of dishes even before she passed through the swinging kitchen door. Two other nurses were already seated at a small wooden table, and Mrs. Fowle introduced Julia to Annie Morris and Lucy Nichols, the matrons of two other wards. The women explained to Julia that they were both widows with grown sons or sons-in-law serving in the army. Mrs. Fowle told them Julia’s story, and they discussed Dr. McGrath while they ate thick, tasteless flapjacks and bacon.

  “There is more than a hint of mystery surrounding that man,” Mrs. Morris said. “I understand that he once had a thriving medical practice and was quite well renowned—until he got drunk and killed a wealthy patient he was treating. There are even rumors that he spent time in prison for it.”

  “He’s certainly mean enough to be an ex-convict,” Mrs. Fowle said.

  “I’ve never heard anything about prison,” Mrs. Nichols said. “I was told that he became a drunk after his patient died. And that he’s been drinking ever since because of it.”

  “I don’t suppose it matters one way or the other,” Mrs. Fowle said, shaking her head. “Regardless of his past, his drunkenness and boorish behavior are inexcusable.”

  Julia took a bite of bacon. It was as tough as leather and much too salty. “If it’s common knowledge that he drinks too much,” she said, “why does the army allow him to run a hospital?”

  “Oh, he’s a very skilled physician when he’s sober,”Mrs. Nichols said. “After Bull Run they needed every doctor they cou
ld get their hands on and weren’t about to turn one away. He’s a contract surgeon— which means he hasn’t actually enlisted in the army.”

  “And even though he’s vulgar to the outside world,” Mrs. Morris added, “I must say that he’s wonderful with the patients. Very gentle, very kind to them.”

  “I’ve been here for almost as long as he has,” Mrs. Fowle said, “and I’ve seen several wonderful nurses leave because they couldn’t tolerate his bullying. But at the same time, his hospital has one of the lowest death rates of any in the city.”

  Julia’s curiosity was piqued. She wondered if she could find out the truth about the doctor’s past somehow and use it to her advantage. She already considered Dr. McGrath her enemy and would use any ammunition against him that she could in order to secure a job as a nurse. “Where is he from?” she asked.

  Mrs. Fowle shrugged. “He won’t talk about himself at all—and you’ll get your head bitten off if you ask. But I’ve seen the letters he gets every week from Mrs. James McGrath, and the return address is New Haven, Connecticut.”

  “I saw a picture of his wife and daughter in his office yesterday,” Julia said. “She looked like a lovely woman.”

  “Yes, I’ve seen it, too,” Mrs. Fowle said. “But that’s another mys-tery. For as long as he’s been here, he’s never once talked about his family or gone home to visit them. The letters arrive every week like clockwork, but wouldn’t you think his wife would want to come here to live—or at least visit him? After all, that’s why many of us came, to be closer to our husbands.”

  “No, think about it, Eleanor,” Mrs. Morris said. “As horrible as that man is, I’d keep my distance, too, if I were his wife. And I’d be grateful for every mile there was between us.”

  “You seem like a nice young lady, Julia,” Mrs. Nichols said. “Take my advice and look for work someplace else. He only offered you this awful job to try to get rid of you.”