NO CURE FOR THE DEAD
A FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE MYSTERY
Christine Trent
For the millions of nurses in the world who endure exposure to disease, pestilence, and all manner of miasmas, simply for the love of their patients.
Especially the nurses who work in the MedStar Health System, who exhibited this love during my mother’s final years.
It may seem a strange principle to enunciate as the very first requirement in a hospital that it should do the sick no harm.
—Florence Nightingale, Notes on Hospitals, 1863
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I had been casting about for an idea for a new historical mystery series to complement my Lady of Ashes series about a Victorian undertaker when Florence Nightingale popped into my mind. This was not entirely a coincidence, as my mother—whom I lost in October 2015—had been a nurse in her earlier years. During her long-term illness, we spent an inordinate amount of time in hospitals in the MedStar system. Over the course of about ten years, I met numerous nurses who gave their all under sometimes very trying circumstances. I believe my mother lived longer than might seem possible because of the tireless work of so many caring nurses. To you all, I offer my sincere—if inadequate—thanks for tending to, and loving, my mother.
I tentatively proposed the idea of fictionalizing Florence Nightingale to my agent, Helen Breitwieser, who said, “Eureka!” With that same enthusiasm, she shared the project with Faith Black Ross at Crooked Lane Books, and I am deeply grateful to both of them for their passion in turning Florence Nightingale into an amateur sleuth.
This marks my tenth published book, and with each one, I receive the help of numerous people. The Hair Company actually books my appointments for extra time so that I can sit in a chair and spend time writing while the chaos of a salon whirls around me. Jackie and Lauren, you are the best.
I know it is cliché to talk about writers sitting in coffee shops to write, but I do find that I can get a lot done in one, particularly at the BTB Coffee Shop. Penny, Heather, and the rest of the crew make sure I am well fed and well caffeinated during the hours I spend there.
The usual suspects—my husband, Jon; my brother, Tony; and a plethora friends—all pitched in in different ways to ensure I delivered my manuscript on time. I’m especially grateful to my sister-in-law, Marian, who combs through each of my manuscripts with a meticulous thoroughness that is astounding. Love you, sis.
I am also blessed with an amazing assistant, Ruth Martin of Maplewood Virtual Assistance, who manages me so quietly and efficiently in the background that I hardly know she’s there. I would be lost without her.
Cruce, dum spiro, fido.
CHAPTER 1
September 1853
Some said I must have been possessed by a demon to take on the position as superintendent at the Establishment for Gentlewomen During Temporary Illness. On exhausting days like this, I was in total agreement.
Shaking out my hat and gloves on the stoop outside the Establishment, I determined that the smuts swirling through the London air in a never-ending cloud of ebony flakes were the most repellent thing I’d ever encountered. They say it’s even worse once winter sets in. I had been out for a mere hour to visit my family’s banker, and in my short walk to and fro had accumulated enough coal dust in my hat and on my gloves and shoulders to form a diamond.
Satisfied that my accoutrements were as clean as possible for the moment, I twisted one of the massive brass knobs to open one side of the equally massive mahogany entry doors. The building offered a grudging, creaking acceptance of my entry, and I tossed the hat and gloves onto the mirrored stand along one wall of the spacious vestibule. I had been employed as the superintendent of the Establishment for only a week and breathed a sigh of relief to be back. I was eager to return to my growing list of plans and tasks for the hospital.
The week prior to my arrival had been taken up by a move from the old Cavendish Square location to this one in Upper Harley Street. The front part of the new facility had a gleaming white front and was full of multipaned windows. It had once been the glorious home of some Georgian-era lord, but it had fallen into disrepair, been sold at auction to the Establishment committee, and then hastily reconstituted into a small hospital. It had been joined in the rear to another abandoned home, and the intent was to eventually turn that rear section into a proper surgery and add more wards.
I had been permitted no opportunity to advise on the alterations to the old home, and now I was faced with making adjustments after the fact. However, it was my first chance at the life I had craved for years, and I was not about to complain.
Upper Harley Street might be a newer location with more beds, but it was still in terrible need of proper sanitation and organization. Worse yet, the nurses hardly knew how to take care of themselves, much less the women who came here to convalesce from a variety of ailments. Some of the ailments were real and some were most certainly imagined, but all of the patients—or inmates, as they are known—had been given the same level of inadequate care prior to my arrival. I planned to change all of that, quickly.
The walls of the corridor I now proceeded down on my way to the hospital library were a glaring example. Covered in what probably had once been a cheerful yellow wallpaper, the walls were now dingy, and the framed landscapes on them were covered in dust. Disgraceful.
The odor of the building was the same no matter which of the four floors I walked, and I paced through them all daily. I fully intended to replace the stench of stale urine and unwashed linens that had befouled Cavendish Square with the orderly smells of carbolic soap and vinegar. Heaven only knew how long that would take, especially since it was blended with the odor a building takes on when it has been abandoned for a long time. It is a peculiar smell—the essence of loss and despair.
However, what was unique to the place, and it was oddly comforting to me, was that instead of unvarying wards full of beds in long orderly rows, the large rooms of the home had been carved into smaller rooms. Thus, each inmate had privacy, almost as if she were being treated at home. It meant fewer inmates could be accommodated, and was certainly more work for the nurses, who must constantly enter and exit rooms rather than shifting from bed to bed, as was typical. But in the experience of my youth, caring for family members and local villagers, I had done exactly that—gone from home to home and room to room.
I had many ambitious plans for refurbishing the Establishment, but right now I only wanted to confirm a theory about the spread of malaria. The supposition had popped into my mind while I waited in the bank’s lobby to conduct my business.
The sound of my heels echoed on the oak floors as I made my way to the library. The floors were scraped and worn, as though large trunks had been carelessly dragged along them by servants. It made for a very poor presentation to inmates and visitors to the facility. I made a mental note to ask the hospital’s committees for money to have the floors refinished. I sighed at the thought of the verbal battle this would entail, not only with Lady Canning, who had originally conceived the idea for the hospital and who chaired the Establishment’s ladies’ committee, but also with the men’s committee. Those gentlemen in a short time had already proved to be very miserly fellows.
I was halted in my mission by the distinctive thud of the door knocker, a silly thing in the shape of a leopard’s jaw. It was obviously an absurdity of the original owner, and I intended to have it replaced with something far more dignified.
I hurried back to the door and opened it. Before me stood a scowling, middle-aged woman wearing a bonnet that seemed far more fashionable than her dress. I wondered if she had borrowed the hat.
“Miss Nightingale?” the woman asked, still looking all th
e world as if she were angry with me.
“Yes, how may I help you?” I did hope she wasn’t about to ruin my day.
“I’m here to apply,” she said stoutly, her threadbare reticule slapping against her midsection as she crossed her arms in front of her.
I raised an eyebrow. “To apply for what, Mrs.…?”
“Gilbert. Maisie Gilbert. I understand you’re the new superintendent here. My husband has left me and I need work, so I’ve come to join as one of your nurses.”
This was curious. I had not advertised for any new staff members. So much had been happening that I hardly knew who was on staff as it was.
“I see,” I said.
As I considered the woman before me, she began scowling again. “Will you not let me in?”
I opened the door and stepped back. “Of course.”
Maisie Gilbert swept in and surveyed the entry hall with apparent disdain. “This does not look like a hospital. I have visited St. Barts, you see.”
I was actually amused by the woman as I shut the door and turned back to address her. “Indeed?” I asked. “The more important question is, for whom have you served as a nurse?”
I could tell she was resisting the urge to roll her eyes. “I cannot say that I have taken on a position in the formal sense. But I did my father’s bedside vigil in the weeks before he died, putting cold compresses on his head and reading to him.”
“Is that all?” I said.
Gilbert looked at me uncomprehendingly. “Is that all? What do you mean? What more is there to nursing?”
I sighed. “Mrs. Gilbert, today I intend to instruct my nurses on the proper cleaning of a hospital. Are you experienced with stewing rhubarb to make a rust treatment?”
“What? Rhubarb is for pie and jam.” I had thrown her a little off balance.
“I see. Today my nurses will also learn how to remove stains from our inmates’ clothing by rubbing raw potatoes on them before sending the clothing off with the laundress. Are you willing to learn to do this?”
Now Gilbert was distinctly uncomfortable. “Miss Nightingale, I don’t mean to tell you your business, but this is all work for the maid and the laundress.”
“Is that so? When I have trained them on both of these cleaning techniques, I intend to show them how to make medicinal plasters. Have you made one before? A blend of wax and healing ingredients laid atop a thin slice of leather and applied to the affected area.”
“I—er, Miss, a nurse just sits and watches the patient and brings him some food and maybe serves up some physic prescribed by the doctor, which is always delivered by the chemist.”
I clasped my hands together in front of me. “Not in my hospital, Mrs. Gilbert. I have plans to train up women to become not just caretakers of the ill but healers of them.”
Mrs. Gilbert’s expression returned to incredulity. “That is simply ridiculous. Decent women won’t do such work. You’re fortunate enough that a respectable woman like me has graced your doorstep. Don’t think I don’t know what most nurses are like. Mucking about with wax and leather—it’s preposterous and I’ll not be part of it. I’m certainly not that destitute that I need to reduce myself to such circumstances. I’ll go and live with my cousins first.”
I went back to the door and swung it open wide. “Then that,” I said firmly, “is exactly what you should do. Good day, Mrs. Gilbert.”
She swept back out in a huff, and I was none too happy with the encounter, either.
With the door firmly closed on Mrs. Gilbert, I retraced my steps back toward the library. A nurse scurried down the corridor from the opposite direction, dropping into a quick curtsy as she approached me. She had likely been a maid in some London household that had gone bankrupt, or perhaps she had been terminated for some sort of improper behavior. I hoped it was the former.
“No need for that. Nurse Hughes, isn’t it? You need only nod and acknowledge me with a ‘Good afternoon, Miss Nightingale.’”
The nurse, who was clearly wearing an old maid’s uniform that had recently been embellished with some ribbon trim and a lace collar, bobbed her head up and down and seemingly parroted me. “Yes, Miss Nightingale. Good afternoon, Miss Nightingale.”
The nurse’s plain face was worn thin with the endless days and sleepless nights of household service, making it impossible to know if she was twenty-five or fifty. She wore her hair back in a simple fashion, which I liked, although her expressionless face was unnerving. Her eyes were such a pale blue as to be nearly without color at all.
I really needed to sit down with each woman for a lengthy interview, not only to know each one personally but to determine whether they were fit for the sort of nursing role I intended to cultivate here.
As washed out as she was, the nurse did obey me without question, and thus seemed to have some promise. “Good afternoon to you, Nurse Hughes,” I replied, inclining my head.
Hughes caught herself in midbob and blushed, the pink tingeing her cheeks so that she appeared much more alive. She then hurried down the corridor away from me. At least she wasn’t slovenly, nor a slug. Yes, Nurse Hughes had promise.
I once again reached the library, which was tucked away at the back of the building. It was unusually dark and unoccupied in the middle of the day. The librarian, Miss Persimmon Jarrett, was probably pestering Cook, hoping to stuff herself with pigeon pie and custard tarts. The librarian was one staff member I had already come to know quite well, since the library was my favorite location in the building. Miss Jarrett had held some other sort of position at the previous location but had apparently pleaded for the role of librarian here, and it had been granted by the hospital committee.
She had an enormous capacity for food, yet nothing she ingested had any impact on her, for she remained as thin as an iron bedpost. I imagined Miss Jarrett would be killed in a jealous rage by another woman one day for her ability to consume so much without consequence. In the meantime, though, I preferred the library empty, and so was grateful for Miss Jarrett’s absence.
The library had been carved out of a previous ballroom and was a peaceful place for inmates to spend time outside their rooms in inclement weather. Its new walnut bookcases were pleasingly stocked, not only with the expected romance and mystery novels along with a smattering of religious texts, but also with medical texts and journals. I even noted a copy of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by that American authoress, Harriet Beecher Stowe. What a shame that the Americans were still arguing about a societal curse we Britons had eliminated two decades ago. The library was an unexpected benefit of my new position. What I especially loved were the two side alcoves—one on either end of the library. They were cozy square spaces lined with shelves and topped with horizontal windows whose panes filtered the sun. Those familiar and comforting rays, teeming with floating dust particles, provided a shadowy sort of light.
In each alcove were a small study table and chair crowded into an opening between two bookcases. The gasoliers that hung from the ceilings did not work anywhere other than in the main area, but that was to be expected of such newfangled machinery. Candles are so much safer and less costly, but they say gas is the future. I remain doubtful.
I was glad of every opportunity to settle myself among the tomes and read all I could about medicine, away from the suspicious looks of the Establishment’s committee members. Some of them had already appeared at random moments to inspect me, as if they still weren’t certain that a woman with a background as privileged as mine had any business embroiling herself in so lofty a field as medicine and so disreputable a pursuit as nursing.
Because Miss Jarrett wasn’t there, there were no lamps lit in the main room, so I searched around on the librarian’s messy desk, heaped with volumes needing repair, dripping glue pots, long needles, twisted thread cones, and stacks of paper that presumably detailed what books were in the collection. Eventually my hand stumbled upon the handle of a lamp. Lighting and holding it aloft, I made my way to my favorite alcove in the north end of t
he library.
It was here at the entrance of the alcove that I stopped so suddenly in shock that I nearly fell backward in my skirts. Recovering my balance and holding the lamp aloft, I tried to understand what I was actually seeing while willing myself to keep from screaming like a wounded soldier having a limb amputated.
Dangling from the chandelier, which had been nearly yanked out of the ceiling from the weight, was the body of a young woman. Her face was purple and bloated so as to be unrecognizable, her eyes half open. She spun on the rope at an inexorably slow pace as though she were looking deliberately about the room, taking inventory of the books on the upper shelves. Just behind her, the study table had been pulled away from the wall and now lay on its side in the center of the alcove, a mute but guilty participant in the dead woman’s jump. The alcove’s chair had been pushed neatly against a bookcase as if someone had been seated in it, watching the morbid proceedings as though they were nothing more than a stage play.
I took several deep breaths in an effort to calm my nerves.
Take charge, I told myself sternly. You are a nurse and the superintendent of the Establishment, not some young ninny to go running to her mother’s skirts.
But I was only a year out of my training at Kaiserswerth, and no one had ever offered a suggestion as to what to do when confronted with a suicide. At least not a suicide as astonishing as this one. I couldn’t possibly manage this by myself. I needed help, immediately. Heart still pounding and legs shaking, I walked as confidently as possible back out of the library. I summoned John Wesley, the Establishment’s errand boy, and sent him to fetch a constable, swearing him to secrecy about his mission.
Which undoubtedly meant that everyone in the building would know about it before the little jabbernowl returned with the officer.
I returned through the library, shutting and locking the door behind me. I gripped the lamp’s iron ring harder, determined to ignore my hammering heart and go and bravely inspect the body. I was a nurse, after all, and therefore accustomed to taking care of people. Most of those people were alive and relegated to beds, of course, not dangling lifelessly from the end of a coarse length of hemp.
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