“Why does she dislike you?” I asked, thinking that Margery Frye had an equal dislike.
She shrugged. “Because I do not permit her to know me well. Mims has an overwhelming curiosity that will one day result in a bad end for her.”
I had many questions. “What is it she seeks to know that you keep a secret? Is there something unsavory about you of which I should be aware?”
Harris gazed steadily at me, as if considering whether to share something, but ultimately simply responded, “I am like most women, Miss Nightingale. Not a saint nor a demon. I do not allow little chits like Nurse Frye and Mims Jarrett to affect my life or work or relationships.”
A supremely unsatisfying answer. “Do you therefore deny that you are involved in an illicit scheme here at the Establishment?”
Harris finished wrapping John Wesley’s knee and expertly wound the end of the muslin back through the bandaging to secure it before answering. “There is no answer that would assuage your concerns, madam, as I intend to leave my past in the past and will dredge it up for no one. I am prepared for immediate dismissal if you deem it necessary.”
Now I was really curious about a background so mysterious that Harris refused to discuss it at all. But I did understand the fierce desire to keep emotions and hurts buried. Provided there weren’t evil deeds mixed into the burial dirt.
“You are a good nurse,” I admitted. “I’ll not pry into your affairs as long as they don’t interfere with this hospital’s operation.”
She nodded solemnly, and our bargain was struck. How had she maneuvered me in such a way? Wasn’t I supposed to be interviewing her intensely, if not outright castigating her?
My attention turned back to the long-suffering John Wesley.
I had finally made my decision. The doctor might be insulted if I summoned a surgeon without his recommendation, but I could deal with his potential dander later. The area surrounding Upper Harley Street was attracting many medical men. It did so not only because of its beautiful, spacious Georgian-era buildings that enabled doctors to double up private residences and surgeries, but also because of Upper Harley Street’s accessibility to major train depots like Euston Station. Unfortunately, I had met few of these men thus far, and only a Mr. Fox came to mind. I opened my mouth to ask Harris to go out with another nurse to summon Mr. Fox, even if I knew nothing of his reputation, good or bad.
To my great relief, which I expressed in an unceremonious whoosh of breath, Dr. Killigrew arrived in that moment, accompanied by both his leather bag and a man he introduced as Mr. Brewster, a surgeon.
“When Charlie described John Wesley’s condition, I assumed something was fractured,” the doctor said.
Charlie stood in the doorway, twisting his cap in his hands. “You’ll be all right then, J-J-John Wesley,” he said. “The surgeon will f-f-fix you right up.”
I didn’t like the fear and mistrust that flickered in John Wesley’s eyes at Charlie’s words.
With Nurse Harris, Mary Clarke, me, the doctor, the surgeon, and of course poor John Wesley in the room, things were a bit crowded. I could at least shoo off Charlie Lewis, which I did.
Mr. Brewster immediately undid Harris’s painstaking work, then prodded and manipulated John Wesley’s leg, to which the boy responded with howling pain. Men were so rough and tumble with one another, even in such delicate situations. How in heaven’s name did soldiers injured on battlefields manage to survive medical ministrations? No doubt most of them would prefer being left alone with their infections, wounds, and pain over being treated by one of these medical men.
“There, there,” the surgeon rebuked him. “Be a brave lad, and don’t cry like a little girl.”
“No, sir,” John Wesley said, trying to sound stout. “I won’t cry.”
Tears streamed silently down the boy’s face, and I admit I felt great anxiety for him. Children are not only innocent but completely uncomprehending of why illness or accident has befallen them. Yet, they are far sweeter recipients of care than many adults who understand perfectly well that they are not immune to cholera, carriage accidents, or death in childbirth, no matter what their station in life. Perhaps it is that children must be unquestioning of their elders. Or perhaps it is because they do not yet have those fully blossomed traits of selfishness, pride, and anger.
Regardless, John Wesley’s pain could cause me to weep in a way that Ivy Stoke, Hester Moore, or Alice Drayton never could.
As Mr. Brewster completed his examination, Mary finally emerged from behind the curtain, flecks of vomit drying on her dress. She sat in her chair once more and gamely bent down and recovered her pen and notebook.
I returned my attention to the surgeon as he made his pronouncement. “The boy has an open fracture of the patella, very dangerous. The area is swollen and bruised and will soon be infected. There is some hemarthrosis, so I will have to drain some blood collected in the joint space.”
I swallowed. It would provide John Wesley with relief, but the procedure would be inordinately painful.
“You’ll be a brave man about it, won’t you?” the surgeon said to John Wesley, who only nodded mutely in return.
I nearly dropped to my knees in gratitude when Dr. Killigrew suggested, “Brewster, I have a new syringe I would like to experiment with. Why don’t I give the boy some morphine before you begin ham-handing him?”
The surgeon took no offense and stepped away to give Killigrew room. The physician went into his bag and withdrew a metal syringe.
“This is Alexander Wood’s new version of a syringe,” the doctor announced, holding it in the air as if those of us watching were medical students. I suppose in some ways most of us were learning all the time.
“The Scotsman has been experimenting with using syringes to inject opiates directly to pain areas and has had great successes in trials performed on his wife. So today let us see what we can do for Master John Wesley.”
Killigrew handed the syringe to me, so I knew he expected me to do the actual work for him. While I screwed the needle into the base of the device, he dug around in his bag for a vial of morphine. I inserted the syringe and pulled up on the wood plunger to draw the contents into the chamber until it was full. I noticed that the needle was finer than any I had seen before and also made of metal instead of the usual ivory.
Dr. Killigrew forced the boy downward onto his back so he would not be witness to his own injection. “Insert the needle at a place near the fracture and press the handle to release some of the morphine. Then move to another nearby location and inject more, and so on. He will get immediate relief at the injury site and should only feel the first prick or two.”
I asked Dr. Killigrew how much of the opiate he intended to have injected into John Wesley’s kneecap. He shrugged. “Syringefuls until he is more or less unconscious. A precise dosage isn’t important.”
I went to work on poor John Welsey while Dr. Killigrew stood back at a physician’s distance and observed. The boy grunted out a long “uhhhh” when the needle first penetrated his skin. I endeavored to hold it as still as possible while I depressed the wood plunger to inject the opiate.
As Killigrew had predicted, the boy rapidly lost sensation in his knee. “Stop now?” I suggested as I finished off the contents of the syringe.
“No, let’s do some more in his arm until he appears to be asleep. Since the morphine is injected rather than passing through the digestive system, it is not addictive.”
We refilled the syringe together, and soon John Wesley was unresponsive and breathing deeply.
Mr. Brewster then set to work with his own bag of scalpels, probes, tubes, and glass jars, all of which he put to good use as he spread John Wesley’s wound open further. Into it he inserted one end of a tube. The surgeon then knelt on the ground and placed the other end of the tube into his mouth and began sucking on it.
His face grew red from the effort, even as John Wesley lay there, oblivious. Eventually the surgeon removed the tube from his mout
h and inserted it into the mouth of a jar, shoving it deep inside. The sound of blood splattering against the glass was loud, but not as loud as Mr. Brewster, who repeatedly spat against the floor.
“Forgot my pump,” he said by way of explanation.
The room was becoming noxious, between the odors of blood, spirits, and Mary’s vomit.
Poor Mary. Maybe she, too, needed some morphine injected into her. She was a putrid shade of green again from observing the surgeon’s work.
Mr. Brewster now crouched over John Wesley so that we could not see what he was doing. We heard the clinking and scraping of tools; then he requested my assistance. “Find thread and needle,” he said, nodding at his bag. I searched through the chaotic jumble, so unlike Dr. Killigrew’s well-ordered carrying case, until I found the items lying at the bottom of the bag.
Mr. Brewster set to work securing John Wesley’s skin together over his attempt to repair the fracture. Fortunately, the boy continued to sleep peacefully.
Was he sleeping too peacefully? As the surgeon knitted John Wesley’s knee together, I moved so that I was near the boy’s head. “Dr. Killigrew,” I said, directing his attention to the boy. “Look at his lips. They have a blue tinge.”
I ran my hand down the boy’s arm and held up his hand. “His fingertips, too.”
The doctor pursed his lips as he looked at the grimy little hand in my own. “Perhaps a little too much morphine, eh? It should dissipate.”
His tone was unconcerned, and I wondered whether he was disguising his own unease. However, by the time Mr. Brewster had completed his stitching, John Wesley’s skin had regained its normal color again. Within a few minutes, his eyelashes began to flutter and his fingers jerked involuntarily.
Dr. Killigrew nodded in satisfaction. “The boy should recover well. Keep his diet sparse until I return again next week. Everyone here seems to be a bit accident-prone, eh, Miss Nightingale? Perhaps this is the last of it.”
I had no response for him.
“Miss Nightingale,” Mr. Brewster said, holding out his closed palm to me. I offered him my open one and he dumped the contents of his hand into it. Bits of shattered bone sprinkled my palm. He used his other hand to brush what was stuck on his hand into mine. Nurse Harris immediately opened a desk drawer to retrieve a piece of linen and wiped my hand clean, pulling all of the pieces into the cloth and tying it up for disposal.
As Dr. Killigrew and the surgeon packed their respective bags and departed, I determined that I would keep a close eye on John Wesley. I felt as though his “accident” was somehow my fault, if it was related to Nurse Bellamy’s death. And how could I think otherwise?
I sent Nurse Harris to the kitchens to have some beef tea and toast made. “Not a speck of grease in the tea, mind. Tell Mrs. Roper that. Have her cool the tea completely so that the beef fat can be removed, then reheat it to a good, hot temperature. And do not allow her to blacken the bread. It should be a nice brown.”
She nodded and started to leave. “And a bowl of groat gruel,” I added. “Oh, and a small cup of sherry.” I had no idea what might appeal to the boy.
She acknowledged this request, too. “Nurse,” I said, causing her to turn back to me a second time. “Make it all as tempting as possible. A fresh clean cloth covering the tray, spotless dishes, and so on.”
This time I allowed her to escape to obey my directives. I was now alone with Mary and a partially conscious John Wesley. Mary was only in slightly better condition than the boy, but she looked up from her notebook and asked, “Do you want me to write down the diet you have ordered for John Wesley?”
“Yes, but I want to ask you first … why were you at the Establishment when John Wesley was hurt? Why were you not at your lodgings?”
Mary reddened, which was actually an improvement over her previous complexion. “Oh, Miss Florence, I didn’t want you to know I was here, but, well … Miss Jarrett let me rest in one of the library chairs. I was worried about you and wanted to be nearby in case you needed me. I know I am of little significance in your care, especially with all of the nurses here, but if you had required any little thing that I might have been able to provide, I couldn’t have lived with myself if I hadn’t been here. I remember once while my darling Milo was ill. I had left him sleeping and went for a walk for some fresh air. When I returned, the poor angel had fallen from the bed and hurt his hand. I never forgave myself for not being—”
“Mary.” I stopped her train of thought, for I knew the next station would be Melancholy. “You really are a silly goose, but you’re my goose and I appreciate your concern.”
She blushed again. “I just want to be useful.”
John Wesley was becoming restless, enough so that he began thrashing to and fro on the bed as he awoke more.
I sat on the edge of the bed next to him. “There, there, poor lamb,” I murmured, stroking his head. “The doctor says you’ll be fine as a fiddle soon.”
“Yes, Miss,” he croaked without opening his eyes. Whereas his lips had been blue, now they looked parched.
“Nurse Harris has gone to get you some good beef tea. That will help.”
He opened his eyes briefly and nodded before settling back into sleep again.
I decided it might be best if I loosened up his clothes and put him under the bedcoverings, which really needed to be changed after all of the surgeon’s messy work. As I pulled his sweat-stained collar away from his neck, I saw a gold chain encircling it and disappearing down against his thin chest.
How on earth did a waif like John Wesley have possession of a fine piece of jewelry?
I pulled the chain out of his shirt, only to discover there was a locket at the bottom of it.
I used a fingernail to pry open the oval locket, which had a floral etching on the front of it. Inside was a lock of hair on one side and a miniscule scrap of folded paper on the other. I gingerly unfolded it.
It is a strange sensation to be both thoroughly shocked and completely unsurprised at the same time.
* * *
The paper contained a poem written in tiny script.
I worshiped Caro from a safe place.
I dared not draw near,
For fear of being rebuffed.
But she invited me with her face,
The shadows became clear,
And now I am loved.
What terrible verse. It read like something a schoolboy would write. An educated schoolboy, for certain, but it was not the work of a sophisticated Lothario.
How had John Wesley come to be in possession of the locket Miss Jarrett had said Nurse Bellamy wore all the time?
I considered removing it from his neck but decided against it. It would be better to ask the boy about the necklace without dangling it in front of him.
I had just finished tucking it back into his shirt when Nurse Harris returned with a food tray, exactly as I had asked for it. Did the woman have no outward faults?
She set the tray on the desk, and soon the aroma of the plain food caused John Wesley to more fully awaken. But the tea, toast, and gruel couldn’t combat the odor of the vomit and blood. I gingerly helped him into a seated position and pulled a chair next to the bed so that I could feed him myself. “Nurse Harris—” I began.
As if reading my mind, she went to work at throwing the window open wide and removing the bedcoverings.
“Goose,” I said to Mary. “I’m afraid you will need to empty your chamber pot. I cannot allow it to remain in here.”
“Me?” Mary squeaked.
With great efficiency, Harris handed the bundled-up knot of soiled bed linens to Mary and said, “We will go downstairs, and I will show you where it can be emptied, in case you need to do so again.” Harris picked up the stinking ceramic bowl and escorted Mary out of the room.
The room already smelled immensely better. I offered John Wesley some beef tea, which he gulped out of the cup while I held it up for him. The gruel he rejected, but he was willing to nibble on the toast.
/>
Once he had a bit of nourishment in him, I said gently, “John Wesley, I couldn’t help but notice that you have a locket around your neck. It is quite handsome.”
He touched the locket through his shirt. “Yes, maum.”
“Who gave it to you?” I asked, not expecting the truth from him in my first probe.
“No one. I found it.” He reached for the second piece of toast I held in my hand, and I let him take it.
“You found it,” I repeated. “Where, exactly, did you ‘find’ a valuable gold locket, John Wesley?”
“It were just lying on the floor, as if it wanted me to find it. I didn’t sell it or anything.” Now he was starting to sound defensive.
I nodded. “You did right by not selling it. Because that locket is very important.”
His eyes opened wide. “Important?”
“Yes. It could be the very thing that helps me figure out what happened to Nurse Bellamy. You know who she is.”
He bit his lip. “That nurse what died.”
He swallowed the last of the toast, and I tried offering the gruel again. “She did die, and I’m worried that someone brought her to harm.”
He wrinkled his nose at the dish, and I put it down again. I would not offer it again. It was my philosophy that a patient should never be required to eat anything unappetizing, no matter how nourishing. “And … you think this charm”—he again touched his chest where the locket lay beneath—“made her die?”
“No, no,” I assured him. “But this looks to be Nurse Bellamy’s necklace, so I need to know how you came to find it. Perhaps then we can know who took it from her.”
Understanding dawned in John Wesley’s ten-year-old eyes. “So you mean whoever took it might of kilt her?”
“It’s possible, yes.” Now I offered him the sherry. He took a couple of sips and refused the rest, choosing instead to lay back against his pillow. He reminded me of a miniature adult, his forehead pulled together in a frown, obviously deep in thought.
No Cure for the Dead Page 16
