by Merry Farmer
“Are you interested in hospitals, Lady Alexandra?” the boob, Lord Angus, asked her.
Alex clenched her teeth and took a few seconds to compose herself before her temper could draw her to stand and walk over to the idiot to punch him in the nose.
“My daughter had a passing interest in medicine,” her mother answered, mouth tight.
Alex arched an eyebrow, close to quivering with rage. “I have a degree in medical science, Lord Angus, and a license to practice medicine. In fact, in Hampshire, before being dragged up the breadth of the country to sit idly in my dear cousin’s garden last week, growing more useless and indolent by the moment, I was a doctor with my own practice.”
“Alexandra,” her mother hissed, attempting to silence her as ever.
“Which is exactly the point,” Elizabeth said, ignoring Alex’s bite. She, at least was on Alex’s side. “I’m shocked that no one has given you a tour of the hospital. I would have taken you myself, but since you arrived last week, we’ve been so preoccupied with parties and shopping and entertaining fine guests, such as yourself, Lord Angus, that there hasn’t been time. I was certain someone else would tell you all about it.”
“If only they had,” Alex said and sipped her tea. She hoped that raising the cup to her mouth to hide half of her face would steer the conversation well away from her. In fact, she wished all conversations would steer away from her. She had no idea how ladies could simply sit and pose and be so useless all day when the real world was out there, pulsing. It had only been a week, but if something didn’t change soon, she would be forced to take drastic measures.
“A female medical doctor is quite unusual,” Lord Angus said, crushing Alex’s hopes of disappearing. “Why, I didn’t realize that medical colleges would even allow female students.”
“They do,” Alex replied, as flat as she could.
“I was so proud of Alexandra when she wrote to tell me she got in to Winchester Medical College,” Elizabeth prattled on, always the center of attention and the focus of the conversation, as usual. “She’s ever so smart. She eclipses me at every turn.”
Alex owed it to her cousin to share a genuine smile with her. Elizabeth didn’t mean to be vapid, she’d been born to it. It irritated Alex to no end, because her dear cousin had it in her to be just as innovative and revolutionary as she herself wanted to be. Elizabeth was bright, quick, and industrious. She had taken over from her father more effectively than any brother could, and she was a pure genius at avoiding marriage, which Alex and Elizabeth both knew would spell the end of Elizabeth’s freedom and ascendency. Why she chose to devote so much of that energy to gossip and meddling in the lives of the people around her, Alex would never know.
“If you haven’t had a chance to visit the hospital as of yet,” Mr. Throckmorton said beside her, “then I urge you to visit as soon as possible.”
“Oh?” There was a look in the man’s eye, like the spark of an idea, that made Alex reassess him.
“I happen to be friends with Dr. Marshall Pycroft, the chief doctor and administrator of the hospital. I just came from there. He is sorely in need of qualified help.”
“Is he?” Yes, Mr. Throckmorton was a bird of a different feather than she had thought if he suggested that she, a woman, should look in on a hospital that was in need of staff. “I shall have to check into it.” As soon as possible too. She scouted the garden, looking for an excuse to leave the party.
“Alexandra,” her mother snapped.
Alex met her eyes. There was more in that one harsh look than anyone sitting nearby could possibly guess at. That look and her name barked like that held years-worth of disapproval and discouragement. It held scolding that Alex was far too old to endure, and the powerlessness that came with being an unmarried woman under the protection of a mother who had always ruled with an iron hand.
“If you need syrup for your cough, Mr. Throckmorton, because of the dust, does that mean that construction is still under way?”
Elizabeth’s nosy question was just the relief Alex was looking for. Chances are it was deliberate on Elizabeth’s part. Alex would thank her later.
“A few projects are still underway,” Mr. Throckmorton answered, “but rest assured, the hotel will be completed in time for its opening in a few weeks.”
Alex let herself drift off once more as Elizabeth pried for gossip about the hotel, and as Mr. Throckmorton catered to her every whim. The man was besotted, which seemed like a terrible shame in the light of how he’d just proved himself to be more than most men Alex had run across. Few of the gentlemen of her acquaintance would admit that a woman had a brain, much less that she could be a physician. Lord only knew how hard it had been to prove that to the faculty and her fellow students in Winchester. And even though the best position she could get upon graduation was that of country doctor—after dozens and dozens of applications to hospitals and institutions across southern England had been rejected—she missed medicine the way she would miss a child that had died.
In the end, she couldn’t stand the ache of knowing there was a hospital that needed help so close by. As the others rambled on about the hotel, she stood, put her teacup aside, and wandered off, heading back to the house. She couldn’t wait another second, couldn’t possibly stand the agony of being kept from the one thing she loved for a moment.
“Alexandra!”
Her mother caught up to her as she crossed through the hall, after ordering Hugo to have the governess cart brought up for her. Alex stiffened her back and prepared for battle.
“Mother,” she greeted her mother with as pleasant a smile as she could fake.
“Why have you left the party? Lord Angus was just telling us about his horses.”
Alex sighed. “I am not interested in Lord Angus’s horses. I am not interested in Lord Angus.”
“Well you should be,” her mother snapped. “I’ve never been more humiliated in my life. I asked Lady McGovern especially to bring her son so that the two of you could meet.”
Alex clenched her jaw. Every other day, her mother had never been more humiliated in her life.
“No, Mother,” she said.
Her mother drew back, blinking rapidly. “What do you mean, ‘no, Mother?’”
“I mean no, I will not blithely marry the first man that you thrust at me. I have no wish to marry at all.”
“Well, I never,” her mother sputtered and snorted. Her eyes held all of the fire and fury of a dragon about to strike.
“And that is precisely the problem,” Alex snapped. “You never. You never think before you act, you never consult me, and you never give a care to my wishes.”
Her mother’s face flushed red with anger. “I think of nothing but you, my dear,” she said just above a whisper, her voice tight. “I think of you every moment of the day. Everything I do is for you, to prevent you from ruining yourself beyond all repair.”
“Choosing to work, to be a doctor, is not ruining myself beyond repair,” Alex rehashed the same argument she’d been making for too many years. “It is making something of my life and helping those who need me.”
“You can help those who need you by becoming the wife of a gentleman, and then using your position to spearhead as many charitable campaigns as you would like,” her mother said, as though completely baffled by her daughter’s thinking.
Hugo stepped in through the front door. “The cart, my lady,” he announced.
“Thank you, Hugo.” Alex nodded to him.
“Cart?” Her mother’s eyes went bright with alarm. “What do you need a cart for? We have guest.”
“I only wish to get out and enjoy the fresh air and scenery,” Alex lied. Her mother had lived in daily fear that Alex would pack her things and flee without warning since they had arrived in Cumbria. Those fears were well-founded.
Her mother narrowed her eyes in suspicion now. “Let me fetch Hilda to go with you,” she said, referring to her maid.
“No, Mother. The governess cart is
waiting, and I would only bore her. I’m not in the mood to converse.”
“You wouldn’t have to converse with Hilda, she’s just a maid,” her mother argued.
“No,” Alex replied. It was final.
She turned on her heel and marched out past Hugo, through the front door, and to the drive. The governess cart was waiting, the reins held by a groom. She helped herself up into the seat and took the reins, snapping them over the horse’s back to move on before her mother could stop her. She didn’t look back.
If she had thought things through a little more clearly, she would have asked Mr. Throckmorton exactly where the hospital was in town. She was certain it couldn’t be that hard to find, though. She drove into town, ignoring the enticing displays in shop windows, designed to lure ladies into spending more than they could afford, and searched instead of the sick and injured.
Aside from a near miss with another carriage at a dangerous corner, she was able to find the huge gray building with the words Brynthwaite Hospital above the door without incident. It took somewhat longer to find a place to leave the cart without it obstructing traffic. Fortunately, there were mews nearby. By the time she finally marched through the hospital’s doors, her heart was in her throat and every instinct to heal that she had was buzzing.
“Can I help you, ma’am?” a gruff old nurse asked Alex as she stood in the crowded waiting room, taking it all in.
Two contusions, a few skin irritations, but mostly coughs that sounded similar in nature. An outbreak of influenza? No, the patients didn’t seem flushed or listless enough. Perhaps widespread hay fever, then? Or a minor but persistent bronchial complaint?
“Yes.” Alex brought herself back to the task at hand. “I’m here to see Dr. Marshall Pycroft.”
The nurse clucked and shook her head. “What do you people think this is, a social club? It’s a bloody hospital! Or at least it would be if you folks would let the doctor do his job.”
Alex raised her eyebrows. “Is Dr. Pycroft available?”
The nurse sighed and pushed past a bench full of coughers to trundle off down the hall to one side. Alex watched her go, unclear whether she had been dismissed or whether the nurse had gone to fetch Dr. Pycroft. It didn’t seem to matter, not when there was so much to be done before her. She tugged off her gloves and marched to the end of the row of coughers.
“How are you feeling?” she asked a middle-aged man with a red, bulbous nose. “Is the cough in your lungs or higher? Is it dry or moist?”
By the time the nurse returned, a harried, dark-haired man with a moustache scowling behind her, Alex had interviewed more than a dozen of the coughers, ascertained that their symptoms were similar and indicative of some sort of contagion, and formulated the best course of treatment. She had only just started telling some of the sufferers to take a syrup of black cherry and slippery elm, when the nurse gasped and barked, “What are you doing?”
Alex stood and ignored the nurse in favor of extending her hand to the man.
“Dr. Marshall Pycroft, I presume?” she asked, excitement and promise racing through her.
“Yes.” He stared at her. “And you are?”
“Dr. Alexandra Dyson.” It felt so good to utter those words again that her head went light.
The reactions around her were just as satisfying. Dr. Pycroft’s brow shot up. The nurse gasped and murmured “Dyson!” Several of the patients around her hummed and smiled, as though her questions and advice suddenly made sense.
“Doctor Dyson?” Dr. Pycroft asked, shaking her hand.
“Yes.” There was no point waiting for pleasantries to tackle what she’d come here for. “I believe several of these patients are suffering from bronchitis, Dr. Pycroft. I’ve seen the symptoms before in my practice in Hampshire. Do you have a quantity of black cherry and slippery elm syrup that could be dispensed to them or is there a chemist nearby where they could purchase the needed medicine?”
Silence. Dr. Pycroft stared at her. The nurse gawked as if she was a side show at the circus. Even the coughers stopped coughing to see what would happen next.
“Our dispensary is sadly depleted,” Dr. Pycroft began slowly. “I’ve had little time to take stock and send for fresh supplies these last few weeks.” Without pausing, he launched right into a suspicious, “Why are you here?”
This would work. Alex knew it like she knew most of the patients in the waiting room needed nothing more than rest, liquids, and a few simple remedies.
“I just met a friend of yours, a Mr. Throckmorton, up at my cousin’s house. He informed me that the hospital was in need of qualified medical help. I am a doctor. I am looking for a position. I’ve come to see if we might come to an understanding.”
“A doctor?” The nurse finally found her voice. “But you’re a woman.”
“I am,” Alex conceded, glancing to her, then back to Dr. Pycroft. “I take it you do not see a wide variety of female physicians here in the north?” It was a tasteless dig at the provinciality of Cumbria, but if it got her the job, she would stoop to feigned snobbery.
“No,” Dr. Pycroft asked. “We do not. Come with me, Dr. Dyson.”
Thrilled at the progress she was making, Alex followed Dr. Pycroft as he turned and stormed through the waiting room and down the hall where the nurse had disappeared earlier. The size and scope of the hospital began to sink in to Alex as they passed several examination rooms and a large staircase. She could hear activity from the floor above, and the occasional murmur of someone in one of the rooms or another.
“You have quite a bit of space,” she observed as Dr. Pycroft led her on.
He replied with a mirthless laugh. “Space has never been a problem. We could house half the county in here if we packed them in tight enough. Folks come from miles away for treatment. No, space is not the problem.”
“Staffing is, I assume,” Alex answered.
Another grim laugh. “I am the only doctor for this entire hospital,” Dr. Pycroft told her, turning the corner into a wide, clean office. “If you can believe it. We’ve several nurses and a handful of porters who border on competent, but one doctor. Me.”
“So you are in the market for a second,” she asked, eyes bright.
Dr. Pycroft leaned against the edge of the room’s desk, crossing his arms and staring at her as if she were about to point and laugh at him.
“I’ve no time for pranks, Dr. Dyson,” he cut right to the point. “I’ve no time for ladies playing physician for their own amusement. You may have a medical degree—some women do these days—but I won’t have you larking about in my hospital, doling out cherry syrup when it suits you and leaving as soon as you’re bored. Hospitals are no laughing matter. They’re not like the tender charities you ladies like to dabble in.”
Alex stood straight. “I may be a lady by birth, Dr. Pycroft, but I am a doctor by calling. As such, I am well aware of the realities of medicine. I am not squeamish and I assure you, I am very serious. I want to work at this hospital.”
He was silent. Alex clenched her jaw and held herself rigid as he examined her. More than a few of her colleagues in medical school had raked her with glances that were intended to do everything from intimidate to scandalize. She’d received more indecent comments and proposals than she had compliments or accolades. Dr. Pycroft’s look was calculated, assessing. He was taking her seriously. It was as encouraging as her world got.
“Where did you study?” he asked suddenly.
“Winchester Medical College,” she answered without blinking. “Class of ’91. I have been practicing in rural Hampshire for these past three years.”
“What brings you to Brynthwaite?”
“My mother,” she answered, failing to keep the bitterness out of her voice. She cleared her throat and elaborated. “My father passed away several years ago. Weeks before I graduated, as it happens.” A twinge of the old grief, at the tragedy of her father never getting to see the daughter he was so proud of achieve the goal that had been his d
ream as much as hers, hit her. “My mother would have preferred to say in Hampshire, but as the widow of a second son, she soon found her finances in dire straits. My father’s brother, Lord Thornwell, offered us a home at Huntington Hall, so here we are.”
Dr. Pycroft nodded. “You were willing to leave your practice to come live in a grand house?”
“No, I was not willing,” she said, frowning, wondering if she liked the man or not. “I was forced to come here on the threat that if I didn’t, my income would be cut. My position in Hampshire was not enough to provide for a living, and there were few who were willing to shelter a single female doctor.” And damn them all for turning their backs on her when she had done so much for them.
“This is not easy work, Dr. Dyson,” Dr. Pycroft went on. “The hospital is under-funded and frequently without all the supplies I would prefer we had. We see a variety of cases, though, and perform a full spectrum of surgeries. Do you think you can keep up with the intensity?”
“Yes,” she answered without reservation. In fact, the very word ‘surgery’ sent a thrill through her that most women would only feel at the prospect of a coming-out ball. “I will not disappoint you, Dr. Pycroft.” Although she may disappoint everyone else.
Dr. Pycroft pushed away from his desk. “I am in desperate need, Dr. Dyson, and so I will take you on provisionally.”
Joy burst in Alex’s chest. Even a provisional hire was pure heaven. “Thank you, Dr. Pycroft.” She couldn’t help but smile.
His face softened a hair at the expression. “I will, of course, be checking your license and your credentials at my soonest possible convenience. If I find anything out of order, you will be asked to leave. Can you start on Monday?”
“Monday?” Alex asked. “I can start right now. You certainly need someone to assist with the patients in the waiting room.”
Dr. Pycroft turned and blinked at her as he stepped back out into the hall. “Right now? Dr. Dyson, you are not dressed to attend to the sick.”
Alex glanced down at her afternoon dress. He was right. It was more suited to the tea her cousin was probably still hosting. She couldn’t wait to get the useless thing bloodied.
