A sudden, fearful death (27 page)

She turned the handle and went in.

He was sitting behind his desk,
papers spread in front of him. He looked up.

"Oh—Miss—er ... Latterly.
You're the Crimean nurse, aren't you?"

"Yes, Sir Herbert." She
stood straight, her hands clasped behind her in an attitude of respect.

"Good," he said with
satisfaction, folding some papers and putting them away. "I have a
delicate operation to perform on a person of some importance. I wish you to be
on hand to assist me and to care for the patient afterwards. I cannot be
everywhere all the time. I have been reading some new theories on the subject.
Most interesting." He smiled. "Not, of course, that I would expect
them to be of concern to you."

He had stopped, as if he half
thought she might answer him. It was of considerable interest to her, but
mindful of her need to remain employed in the hospital (and that might depend
upon Sir Herbert's view of her), she answered as she thought he would wish it.

"I hardly think it lies within
my skill, sir," she said demurely. "Although, of course, I am sure
it is most important, and may well be something I shall have to learn when the
time is fit."

The satisfaction in his small
intelligent eyes was sharp.

"Of course, Miss Latterly. In
due time, I shall tell you all you need to know to care for my patient. A very
fitting attitude."

She bit her tongue to refrain from
answering back. But she did not thank him for what was undoubtedly intended as
a compliment. She did not think she could keep her voice from betraying her
sarcasm.

He seemed to be waiting for her to
speak.

"Would you like me to see the
patient before he comes to the operating room, sir?" she asked him.

"No, that will not be
necessary. Mrs. Flaherty is preparing him. Do you sleep in the nurses'
dormitory?"

"Yes." It was a sore
subject. She hated the communal living, the rows of beds in the long room, like
a workhouse ward, without privacy, no silence in which to sleep or to think or
to read. Always there were the sounds of other women, the interruptions, the
restless movements, the talking, sometimes the laughter, the coming and going.
She washed under the tap in one of the two large sinks, ate what little there
was as opportunity offered between the long twelve-hour shifts.

It was not that she was unused to
hard conditions. Heaven knew the Crimea had been immeasurably worse.

She had been colder, hungrier,
wearier, and often in acute personal danger. But there it had seemed
unavoidable; it was war. And there had been a comradeship and a facing of
common enemies. Here it was arbitrary, and she resented it. Only the thought of
Prudence Barrymore made her endure it.

"Good." Sir Herbert
smiled at her. It lit his face and made him look quite different. Even though
it was only a gesture of politeness, she could see a softer, more human man
behind the professional. "We do have a few nurses who maintain their own
homes, but it is not a satisfactory arrangement, most particularly it they are
to care for a patient who needs their undivided attention. Please make
yourself available at two o'clock precisely. Good day to you. Miss
Latterly."

"Thank you, Sir Herbert."
And immediately she withdrew.

The operation was actually very
interesting. For over two hours she totally forgot her own dislike of hospital
discipline and the laxness she saw in nursing, living in the dormitory, and
the threatening presence of Dora Parsons; she even forgot Prudence Barrymore
and her own reason for being here. The surgery was for the removal of stones
from a very portly gentleman in his late fifties. She barely saw his face, but
the pale abdomen, swollen with indulgence, and then the layers of fat as Sir
Herbert cut through them to expose the organs, was fascinating to her. The fact
that the patient could be anesthetized meant that speed was irrelevant. That
release from urgency, the agonizing consciousness of the patient's almost
unbearable pain, brought her close to euphoria.

She watched Sir Herbert's slender
hands, with their tapered fingers, with an admiration which was akin to awe.
They were delicate and powerful and he moved rapidly but without haste. Never
once did he appear to lose his intense concentration, nor did his patience
diminish. His skill had a kind of beauty which drove everything else from her
mind. She was oblivious of the tense faces of the students watching; one
black-haired young man standing almost next to her kept sucking in his breath,
and normally the sound of it would have irritated her beyond bearing. Today she
hardly heard it.

When at last Sir Herbert was
finished he stood back, his face radiant with the knowledge that he had
performed brilliantly, that his art had cut away pain, and that with careful
nursing and good luck the wound would heal and the man be restored.

"There now, gentlemen,"
he said with a smile. "A decade ago we could not have performed such a
protracted operation. We live in an age of miracles. Science moves forward in
giant steps and we are in the van. New horizons beckon, new techniques, new
discoveries. Right, Nurse Latterly. I can do no more for him. It is up to you
to dress the wound, keep his fever down, and at the same time make sure he is
exposed to no chill. I shall come to see him tomorrow."

"Yes, Sir Herbert." For
once her admiration was sufficiently sincere that she spoke with genuine
humility.

The patient recovered consciousness
slowly, and in considerable distress. He was not only in great pain, but he
suffered nausea and vomiting, and he was deeply concerned lest he should tear
the stitches in his abdomen. It occupied all her time and attention to do what
she could to ease him and to check and recheck that he was not bleeding. There
was little she could do to determine whether he bled internally except keep testing
him for fever, clamminess of skin, or faintness of pulse.

Several times Mrs. Flaherty looked
in to the small room where she was, and it was on the third of these visits
that Hester learned her patient's name.

"How is Mr. Prendergast?"
Mrs. Flaherty said with a frown, her eye going to the pail on the floor and the
cloth cover over it She could not resist passing comment. "I assume that
is empty, Miss Latterly?"

"No. I am afraid he has
vomited," Hester replied.

Mrs. Flaherty's white eyebrows
rose. "I thought you Crimean nurses were the ones who were so determined
not to have slops left anywhere near the patients? Not one to practice as you
preach, eh?"

Hester drew in her breath to wither
Mrs. Flaherty with what she considered to be obvious, then remembered her
object in being here.

"I thought it was the lesser
evil," she replied, not daring to meet Mrs. Flaherty's icy blue eyes in
case her anger showed. "I am afraid he is in some distress, and without my
presence he might have torn his stitches if he were sick again. Added to which,
I have only one pail, and better that than soiling the sheets."

Mrs. Flaherty gave a wintry smile.
"A little common sense, I see. Far more practical use than all the
education in the world. Perhaps we'll make a good nurse of you yet, which is
more than I can say for some of your kind." And before Hester could
retaliate, she hurried on. "Is he feverish? What is his pulse? Have you
checked his wound? Is he bleeding?"

Hester answered all those
questions, and was about to ask if she could be relieved so she might eat
something herself, since she had not had so much as a drink since Sir Herbert
had first sent for her, but Mrs. Flaherty expressed her moderate satisfaction
and whisked out, keys swinging, footsteps clicking down the corridor.

Perhaps she was doing her an
injustice, but Hester thought Mrs. Flaherty knew perfectly well how long she
had been there without more than momentary relief, for the calls of nature, and
took some satisfaction in it.

Another junior nurse who had
admired Prudence came in at about ten o'clock in the evening, when it was
growing dark, a hot mug of tea in her hand and a thick mutton sandwich. She
closed the door behind her swiftly and held them out.

"You must be gasping for
something," she said, her eyes bright.

"I'm ravenous," Hester
agreed gratefully. 'Thank you very much."

"How is he?" the nurse
asked. She was about twenty, brown-haired with an eager, gentle face.

"In a lot of pain,"
Hester answered, her mouth full. "But his pulse is still good, so I'm
hoping he isn't losing any blood."

"Poor soul. But Sir Herbert's
a marvelous surgeon, isn't he?”

"Yes." Hester meant it.
"Yes, he's brilliant." She took a long drink at the tea, even though
it was too hot.

"Were you in the Crimea
too?" the nurse resumed, her face lit with enthusiasm. "Did you know
poor Nurse Banymore? Did you know Miss Nightingale?" Her voice dropped a
fraction in awe at the great name.

"Yes," Hester said with
very slight amusement. "I knew them both. And Mary Seacole."

The girl was mystified. "Who's
Mary Seacole?"

"One of the finest women I
ever met," Hester replied, knowing her answer was borne of perversity as
well as truth. Profound as was her admiration for Florence Nightingale, and
for all the women who had served in the Crimea, she had heard so much praise
for most of them but nothing for the black Jamaican woman who had served with
equal selflessness and diligence, running a boardinghouse which was a refuge
for the sick, injured, and terrified, administering her own fever cures,
learned in the yellow fever areas of her native West Indies.

The girl's face quickened with
curiosity. "Oh? I never heard mention of her. Why not? Why don't people
know?"

"Probably because she is
Jamaican," Hester replied, sipping at the tea. "We are very
parochial whom we honor." She thought of the still rigidly absurd social
hierarchy even among the ladies who picnicked on the heights overlooking the
battle, or rode their fine horses on parade the mornings before—and after, and
the tea parties amid the carnage. Then with a jolt she recalled herself to the
present. "Yes, I knew Prudence. She was a brave and unselfish woman—
then."

"Then!" The girl was
horrified. "What do you mean?

She was marvelous. She knew so
much. Far more than some of the doctors, I used to think—Oh!" She clapped
her hand to her mouth. "Don't tell anyone I said that! Of course she was
only a nurse ..."

"But she was very
knowledgeable?" A new and ugly thought entered Hester's mind, spoiling her
pleasure in the sandwich, hurrying as she was.

"Oh, yes!" the girl said
vehemently. "I suppose it came with all her experience. Not that she
talked about it very much. I used to wish she would say more.... It was wonderful
to listen to her." She smiled a little shyly. "I suppose you could
tell the same sort of thing, seeing as you were there too?"

"I could," Hester agreed.
"But sometimes it is hard to find words to convey something that is so
dreadfully different. How can you describe the smell, and the taste of it, or
being so tired—or feeling such horror and anger and pity? I wish I could make
you see it through my eyes for a moment, but I can't. And sometimes when you
can't do a thing properly, it is better not to belittle it by doing it
badly."

"I understand." Suddenly
there was a new brightness in her eyes and a tiny smile as something
unexplainable at last made sense.

Hester took a deep breath, finished
the tea, then asked the questions that crowded her mind. "Do you think Prudence
knew enough that she might have been aware if someone else had made a mistake—a
serious one?"

"Oh . . ." The girl
looked thoughtful, turning the possibility over in her mind. Then with a
thrill of horror she realized what Hester meant. Her hand came up sharply, her
eyes wide and dark. "Oh no! Oh dear Heaven! You mean did she see someone
make a real mistake, a dreadful one, and he murdered her to keep her quiet? But
who would do such a wicked thing?"

"Someone who was frightened
his reputation would be ruined," Hester answered. "If the mistake was
fatal ..."

"Oh—I see." The girl
continued to stare at her aghast.

"Whom did she work with
recently?" Hester pursued. She was aware that she was treading into a
dangerous area, dangerous for herself if this innocent, almost naive-seeming
girl were to repeat the conversation, but her curiosity overpowered her sense
of self-preservation. The danger was only possible, and some time in the
future. The knowledge was now. "Who had been caring for someone who died
unexpectedly?"

The girl's eyes were fixed on
Hester's face. "She worked very close with Sir Herbert until just before
she died. And she worked with Dr. Beck too." Her voice dropped unhappily.
"And Dr. Beck's patient died that night—and that was unexpected. We all
thought he'd live. And Prudence and him had a quarrel.... Everyone knows that,
but I reckon as if he had done anything like that, she'd have told. She was as
straight as they come. She wouldn't've hidden it to save anyone. Not her."

"So if it were that, then it
happened probably the day before she was killed, or even that night?"