It, too, was heavenly. Perhaps I would no longer consider Herbert House a place to seek out fine dishes. “Mrs. Roper, your cooking will make this hospital famous.”
Her cheeks were pouched like a chipmunk’s from smiling so hard. “I am still working on a mutton jelly. Tomorrow I plan to work on some flavorful broths. Perhaps something that would be a good tea substitute for those who want too much of it.”
“Well done,” I repeated.
Yes, Polly Roper would make us famous. Unless she’d had anything to do with Nurse Bellamy’s death.
Between luncheon at the Herbert home and sampling Mrs. Roper’s wares, I was quite sated. Mary and I went back upstairs, and now I was determined to reach my study to accomplish some work. But Marian Hughes found me.
“Miss Nightingale, you should know that Miss Jarrett is in very restless sleep. She’s having terrible nightmares over her attack.”
That wasn’t surprising. “Mrs. Roper has made a new lemonade. Get a cup of it and wake Miss Jarrett to drink it. It will settle her nerves, I believe.”
Hughes nodded, then added shyly, “And Miss Nightingale, I have a sample uniform to show you. When you have a few moments…”
I realized I wasn’t going to accomplish anything I had planned for that day because the interruptions wouldn’t cease. Cyril Matthews might have to wait until tomorrow. However, I was most interested in seeing what Hughes had produced. “Bring it to me in twenty minutes.”
Twenty minutes later, Hughes, Mary, and I were in my study. I opened windows while Mary turned the gas lamps up as far as they would go to ensure as much light as possible. Meanwhile, Nurse Hughes unfolded her cloth bundle, revealing to me a uniform that was … interesting, to say the least.
Actually, it was dreadful.
It wasn’t the design that caused me to wince; it was the awful color of the uniform. I had asked for gray. This was an odd shade that, when the fabric was shifted in different directions, had a green cast to it. It wasn’t simply plain as I had wished; it was spectacularly … ugly.
However, she had followed all of my specifications precisely, and it was well constructed. I inspected the stitching on the inside of the dress, and it caused me to stop, blinking, not sure if what I felt was disbelief or terror.
Hughes’s stitching was a zigzag pattern identical to that I had seen in Nurse Bellamy’s clothing. Clearly Hughes had known Bellamy to a greater extent than she had admitted. It didn’t mean she was guilty of anything, but the subterfuge was troubling.
CHAPTER 16
“What is this?” I demanded, thrusting the fabric out to the nurse.
“Miss?” she said, her colorless gaze switching between Mary and me in confusion. “It is the uniform you wanted.”
“So I see. This stitching, though; where did you learn it?” It wasn’t my real question, but I would get to that.
“I-I-I’ve always sewn that way, Miss. I came up with it myself. I find it holds a seam well, although you can’t use it in every situation, certainly not in tight corners or small armholes or—”
“Yes, yes, I see,” I interrupted, not interested at all in a sewing lesson. “How well did you know Nurse Bellamy? Tell me the truth this time.”
“Miss Florence,” came Mary’s voice floating quietly to my ear. “Perhaps we might wish to let Nurse Hughes sit down for a moment.”
I was instantly embarrassed. My temper was frayed into tatters, it would seem. “Yes, of course. Sit down, Nurse.”
Hughes took a chair gingerly, as if she’d been beaten and was covered in bruises. Why was I ill-treating someone with so much promise? Was Caroline Bellamy’s death completely destroying my focus?
“My apologies,” I began, still holding the dress in my hands. “You have made a well-constructed uniform, although I do wonder at your choice of fabric color.”
“You do not like it,” Hughes said, glancing down, crestfallen.
I would not be dishonest to spare her feelings, but I did check my caustic tongue. “It is an unusual color to be sure, just not what I had in mind when I asked for gray. Where did you purchase it?”
“I asked Miss Jarrett to place the order for me some weeks ago. She has much better grammar and handwriting than me. I had it stored in the linen room and had planned to use it for some nice curtains I thought to make for my room. I thought the color might be close enough to what you wanted.” Hughes bit her lip. “So you do not want me to make the uniforms, then?”
“I didn’t say that. I want you to make another one, but next time show me the fabric first.” I gently laid the uniform across her lap. “Now, let’s discuss you and Miss Bellamy. You must have been more friendly with her than you told me before, at least enough to have made a dress for her.”
She shook her head. “Actually, I adjusted a couple of her own skirts for her. I have made things here and there for the staff, when I’m asked. She had recently come into some very nice dresses—very fine silk poplin. They were used, but hardly. Caroline never told me—”
“Nurse Bellamy,” I corrected, holding back a sigh.
“Yes, Miss. Nurse Bellamy never told me how she got them, but she showed them to me while we were still at Cavendish Square.”
Was that significant? I had no idea. The dresses were no longer among her things.
“Beyond clothing, did the two of you have anything in common? Did you socialize?”
“A little. She wasn’t much of a socializing sort. I don’t think she cared much for working at the hospital. We walked to Regent’s Park Zoo together once and had cups of chocolate at a café on the way back.” Hughes began folding the dress I had so rudely shaken at her a few minutes before.
“And did you learn anything about her?” I was frustrated to have to draw each piece of information out of her. Surely she understood that I was asking her to tell me what she knew about the enigmatic Caroline Bellamy.
“Well, she did tell me that she didn’t have much money, but none of us do. I don’t know if she had any schooling.” Hughes frowned, trying to remember.
Thus far, I wasn’t learning anything.
“Oh, yes, Nurse Bellamy did once tell me that she had a scheme for lifting herself out of the Establishment and into a better life. She wouldn’t tell me what it was, and I figured it was just boasting. Plenty of women do it, Miss Nightingale. Our lots are sometimes harsh, and we think if we can imagine a way into society and then think on it hard enough, it might come to pass. Of course,” she added, “employment at the Establishment is already a step up, which is why I thought she was just being silly and trying to impress me.”
I didn’t care that Nurse Bellamy found employment at the Establishment not to be high enough for her. I was still focused on Hughes telling me that Bellamy had found a scheme for riches.
I needed to talk to Nurse Wilmot, whom I still had not confronted after Persimmon Jarrett had revealed she had overheard a plot between her and Polly Roper.
I hated the thought that my newly invigorated cook might have to be fired.
* * *
Again I was prevented from doing what I wanted to do, this time by the late afternoon mail delivery. Inside the stack of bills to be paid and letters for inmates was a letter to me from my mother.
I considered just tossing it up in my bedchamber to read later but then decided it was always best to drink a necessary poison without first dwelling on how terrible it would taste.
It was nothing unexpected, just a reiteration of how disappointed she was that I wasn’t writing to her daily and how beneficial Mary would be in my life.
Poor Mother. If she only knew.
Ah, but then my mother reached the real point of her letter.
—and it has come to our attention that someone has died at the Establishment, and not a patient. Neither you, daughter, nor Mary has written to me of it. Me, your own flesh and blood, Florence. Without an assurance that I am mistaken in the gossip I have heard, I must assume that I was CORRECT in saying that this positio
n is too DANGEROUS for you, and surely you will AGREE to this.
Mother ranted a bit more, but I was already folding the letter back up. Presumably it was Lady Canning keeping my mother informed. I couldn’t say that I blamed her. If anything happened to me, my parents would throw her into the Thames themselves. She absolved herself of any guilt by telling mother everything. I had no time to haggle and bicker with Mother over this.
The already-indispensable Mary was still at my elbow, quietly waiting for whatever I needed.
“Goose, will you take care of this?” I handed her the letter.
She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and quickly scanned Mother’s missive. “What do you wish me to do?”
“Write to her. Tell her I’ve said to you that ten people could be murdered in my bedchamber while I sleep, and still I will not give this up and return to Embley Park.”
At the expression of shock on her face, I added, “This is a critical moment for you. For if you report this to Mother, she will dismiss you as completely unable to manage me. Do not protest; I know that was the reason for your hire. I would, of course, hire you from my own purse immediately.” That purse, ironically, was a generous allowance from my father, but I wouldn’t quibble about such details now.
Mary gasped. “Miss Florence, you are testing my loyalty.”
I nodded. She was truly the only one at the Establishment I did trust at the moment, but I had to know that she was truly, unequivocally, on my side.
She folded the letter and thrust it deep into her dress pocket. “I am your dedicated friend, Miss Florence, and even if your mother tries to attach my head to a pike, I’ll not abandon you. I will write to her of your intent to remain at the Establishment.”
I smiled and embraced her for the first time. It was good to have a friend at hand. She could never replace Liz Herbert, but my time at the hospital would be much easier if I could empty my mind of its troubles on someone who did not either report to me or have power over me.
* * *
As if the Establishment had turned into an orphanage ward full of unhappy infants, now I was summoned to Ivy Stoke’s room. I left Mary behind so I could visit the inmate privately.
“Miss Nightingale, I believe I am getting worse. The air is so thick in here, don’t you thiiiiink?” She was wheezing again. The window was only cracked open, so I threw up the sash to let in more fresh air. She was not comforted by that, so I retrieved one of Killigrew’s specially prescribed cigarettes and offered it to her. She made all manner of exaggerated expressions as she smoked it.
I waited impatiently for her to finish. I had so much to do.
“Oh, Miss Nightingale!” she exclaimed. “Have I shown you the new trick Jasmine can perform? If I hold up a little piece of meat from my tray, she will put her paws together as if in prayer, saying grace. It is the most amusing thing…”
I escaped Mrs. Stoke, but before I could finally seek out Nurse Wilmot, I was stopped short by a scene I was surely not supposed to see.
I backed up on my toes to maintain silence and peered into the library again.
They must have believed themselves to be hidden in between two rows of bookcases, but it was a plain and terrible vision for me.
For there were Charlie Lewis and Clementina Harris, leaning in close together and whispering. I couldn’t make out their words, nor could I read Harris’s expression, since her back was to me. But there was no mistaking that hair. Charlie was apparently taken with it, for he gently reached for one of her long, auburn loops.
I would not watch any further. I tiptoed away, disappointed. I was very unhappy with this, and not because of any awakened longing for Richard. I could not have this sort of congress between my staff members. The mission of this hospital was to care for sick women, not to be a sanctuary for secret trysts.
Moreover, I wanted my nurses fully focused on their work, not daydreaming and wondering when they might catch a glimpse of their lovers in the corridors.
Perhaps another requirement for nurses should be that they be reserved in nature and free of romantic entanglements.
I did hate the idea of losing a worker like Harris, though. Even as comely as she was, she had the many innate qualities that made her a good nurse.
At the rate that I was making these judgments, I would end up with no one except Mary by the time it was all over.
* * *
I searched around for Nurse Wilmot but was unable to find her. I returned to my study, where Mary was tidying up around my desk.
I expressed my frustration at being waylaid so many times before having time to find Wilmot, then being unable to find her. A tiny part of me worried that she had permanently fled.
“Oh,” Mary said. “I know where she is. She took Miss Drayton for a walk. Said they would return in an hour or so.”
“An hour!” I burst out angrily. “You are saying that my nurse took an inmate—who is wandering in her mind—out into the congested streets of London for a walk? Heaven knows what could happen to Miss Drayton if Wilmot loses sight of her for even a moment. And I’ve sent word for Miss Drayton’s sister to pick her up…” I could only imagine the scene when Alice Drayton’s sister arrived, only to find there was no one to take home.
I felt like a firework that had just had a lit match put to its wick. I took a calming deep breath. It would do no good for me to behave like a madwoman, as good as venting my anger and frustration would feel.
“Miss Florence, may I show you some more work I did on your investigative charts? I filled in more blanks and—”
I held up a hand. “Not now, Goose. I need to clear my mind.”
I abruptly left her standing there. I went to my room and changed into a better day dress, selecting one of deep burgundy edged in black piping. I also grabbed my black cloak from its hook. The September weather was becoming very chilly.
I was under no illusion that I would be able to find Nurse Wilmot and Alice Drayton. There was no point in even attempting to search the streets, alleys, and shops that lay scattered across the neighborhood. I stood on the stoop of the Establishment, watching as an omnibus turned the corner from Harley Street into Weymouth Street, its ten or so passengers sullen and quiet in the nippy air.
As usual, coal smuts drifted through the air, landing invisibly on my ebony cloak.
Across the street, a boy stood next to an iron barrel that contained a brightly burning fire. He warmed his chapped hands over it, for a moment not caring about hawking the newspapers stacked on the ground around him.
A carriage being pulled by two horses hurried by, the driver sitting with his coat collar pulled up so far it was as though he had no neck.
I smelled the roasting of meat in the distance. Lamb, in fact.
Now I knew I was hungry, for my stomach responded longingly to the meat’s aroma.
Perhaps I would find the street vendor offering the lamb and buy a pasty or two for myself.
But then I realized that the fragrant aroma was actually coming from inside the Establishment.
Mrs. Roper, you are outdoing yourself, I thought.
And, with that, I no longer felt a desire to leave. I would eat here much as I slept, worked, studied, and supervised here. I went inside, shaking my cloak off on the stoop first before passing back through the door.
How had everything changed in just a few minutes?
There stood Alice Drayton, dressed and wearing a hat, leaning on Nurse Wilmot with one arm and holding a walking stick with the other. Charlie Lewis was just bringing her trunk into the entry hall.
“Where—where did you come from?” I gasped.
Wilmot looked at me quizzically. “From Miss Drayton’s room, Miss.”
I exhaled impatiently. “Did you not take Miss Drayton off the premises?”
“Yes, but not very far. And we had a nice read with the spiritualist, didn’t we?” she hinted, turning to the inmate.
Alice tittered. “That Madame LaMotte was quite interesting. An
d that gentleman with the long mustache whom we talked to was so very kind, wasn’t he? Even when he—”
Nurse Wilmot stopped her with a conspiratorial, “Now, we won’t want to be telling the secrets of your fortune, will we, Miss Drayton?”
“What?” Alice Drayton was already confused again, and I had little interest in more details of their visit with a fortune-teller now that the inmate was safe at the Establishment again. Obviously I couldn’t speak to Wilmot about what she was doing with Polly Roper as long as my nurse was with Charlie and Miss Drayton. I left them to rejoin Mary in my study.
I learned later that Alice’s sister had never arrived, and eventually Miss Drayton was moved back to her room. Alice seemed quite content that her sister had neglected to come for her, and she chattered quite happily when I visited her after she was reinstalled in her room. As for me, I realized that I had been entirely too hasty about ejecting the inmate. Physically recovered as she might be, perhaps it made sense for me to keep not only my nurses, but the inmates as well, close at hand until I determined who had killed Caroline Bellamy.
CHAPTER 17
I was unsure if Cyril Matthews would appreciate my appearing unannounced at the Royal Exchange but plowed ahead anyway.
The Exchange was just as busy and clamorous as it had been on my first visit. I quickly made my way up to Roderick Alban’s offices, hoping that I would miraculously manage to find Mr. Matthews, and only Mr. Matthews, there.
The door to Alban’s rooms was ajar, and I knocked lightly on it. Receiving no response, I removed my gloves and shoved them into my reticule so that I could rap more loudly. Still no answer. I was disappointed that no one was in, but it had been foolish to think I could expect a busy man to be sitting behind a desk all the time, as though he had nothing to do but wait upon me.
I knocked once more and called out, “Sir? Mr. Matthews? Mr. Alban?”
Still no answer.
Now I was downright curious. Why would the door be open if no one was there?
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