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Mrs. Flaherty’s face creased with irritation. She had heard these arguments before and they were fanciful and completely impractical.
“All very nice, your ladyship,” she said tartly. “But we have got to deal with what we have, and we have laziness, drunkenness, thieving, and complete irresponsibility. If you want to help, you’ll do something about that, not talk about situations that will never be.”
Callandra opened her mouth to argue, but her attention was distracted by a woman halfway down the ward starting to choke, and the patient next to her calling out for help.
A pale, obese woman appeared with an empty slop pail and lumbered over to the gasping patient, who began to vomit.
“That’s the digitalis leaves,” Mrs. Flaherty said matter-of-factly. “The poor creature is dropsical. Passed no urine for days, but this will help. She’s been in here before and recovered.” She turned away and looked back toward her table, where she had been writing notes on medications and responses. The heavy keys hanging in her belt jangled against each other. “Now if you will excuse me,” she went on, her back to Callandra, “I’ve got a great deal to do, and I’m sure you have.” Her voice on the last remark was tight with sarcasm.
“Yes,” Callandra said equally tartly. “Yes I have. I am afraid you will have to ask someone else to lecture the nurses, Mrs. Flaherty; perhaps Lady Ross Gilbert would do that. She seems very capable.”
“She is,” Mrs. Flaherty said meaningfully, then sat down at her table and picked up her pen. It was dismissal.
Callandra left the ward, walking along a dim corridor past a woman with a bucket and scrubbing brush, and another woman seeming no more than a heap of laundry piled up against the wall, insensible with alcohol.
At the end of the corridor she encountered a group of three young student doctors talking together eagerly, heads close, hands gesticulating.
“It’s this big,” one red-haired youth said, holding up his clenched fist. “Sir Herbert is going to cut it out. Thank God I live when I do. Just think how hopeless that would have been twelve years ago before anesthetic. Now with ether or nitrous oxide, nothing is impossible.”
“Greatest thing since Harvey and the circulation of blood,” another agreed enthusiastically. “My grandfather was a naval surgeon in Nelson’s fleet. Had to do everything with a bottle of rum and a leather gag, and two men to hold you down. My God, isn’t modern medicine wonderful. Damn, I’ve got blood all over my trousers.” He pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket, dabbed at himself without effect, except to stain the handkerchief scarlet.
“Don’t know why you’re wasting your time,” the third young man said, regarding his efforts with a smile. “You’re assisting, aren’t you? You’ll only get covered again. Shouldn’t have worn a good suit. I never do. That’ll teach you to be vain just because it’s Sir Herbert.”
They jostled each other in mock battle, passing Callandra with a brief word of acknowledgment, and went on across the foyer toward the operating theater.
A moment later Sir Herbert Stanhope himself came out of one of the large oak doorways. He saw Callandra and hesitated, as if searching his mind to recollect her name. He was a large man, not especially tall but portly and of imposing manner. His face was ordinary enough at a glance: narrow eyes, sharp nose, high brow, and receding sandy hair. It was only with closer attention one was acutely aware of the power of his intellect and the emotional intensity of his concentration.
“Good morning, Lady Callandra,” he said with sudden satisfaction.
“Good morning, Sir Herbert,” she replied, smiling very slightly. “I’m glad I’ve managed to see you before you begin operating.”
“I’m somewhat in a hurry,” he said with a flicker of irritation. “My staff will be waiting for me in the theater, and I daresay my patient will be coming any moment.”
“I have an observation which may be able to reduce infection to some extent,” she continued, regardless of his haste.
“Indeed,” he said skeptically, a tiny wrinkle of temper between his brows. “And what idea is that, pray?”
“I was in the ward a moment ago and observed, not for the first time, a nurse carrying a pail of slops the length of the room without a lid.”
“Slops are inevitable, ma’am,” he said impatiently. “People pass waste, and frequently it is disagreeable when they are ill. They also vomit. It is in the nature, both of disease and of cure.”
Callandra kept her patience with difficulty. She was not a short-tempered woman, but being patronized she found exceedingly hard to bear.
“I am aware of that, Sir Herbert. But by the very nature that it is waste expelled by the body, the fumes are noxious and cannot be good to inhale again. Would it not be a simple thing to have the nurses use covers for the pails?”
There was a burst of raucous laughter somewhere around the corner of the corridor. Sir Herbert’s mouth tightened with distaste.
“Have you ever tried to teach nurses to observe rules, ma’am?” He said it with a faint touch of humor, but there was no pleasure in it. “As was observed in the Times last year—I cannot quote precisely, but it was to the effect that nurses are lectured by committees, preached at by chaplains, scowled on by treasurers and stewards, scolded by matrons, bullied by dressers, grumbled at and abused by patients, insulted if old, treated with flippancy if middle-aged and agreeable-natured, seduced if young.” He raised his thin eyebrows. “Is it any wonder they are such as they are? What manner of woman would one expect to take such employment?”
“I read the same piece,” she agreed, moving to keep level with him as he began to walk toward the distant operating theater. “You omitted to mention that they are also sworn at by surgeons. It said that too.” She ignored the momentary flicker of temper in his eyes. “That is perhaps the best of all the arguments for employing a better class of woman, and treating them as professionals rather than the roughest of servants.”
“My dear Lady Callandra, it is all very well to talk as if there were hundreds of wellborn and intelligent young women of good moral character queuing up to perform the service, but since the glamour of war is past that is very far from being the case.” He shook his head sharply. “Surely a moment’s investigation would show you that? Idealistic daydreams are all very pleasant, but I have to deal in reality. I can only work with what there is, and the truth is that the women you see keep the fire stoked, the slops emptied, the bandages rolled, and most of them, when sober, are kind enough to the sick.”
The hospital treasurer passed them, dressed in black and carrying a pile of ledgers. He nodded in their direction but did not stop to speak.
“By all means,” Sir Herbert continued even more brusquely, “if you wish to provide covers for the pails, do what you can to see that they are used. In the meantime, I must report to the operating theater where my patient will come any minute. Good day to you ma’am.” And without waiting for her to reply, he turned on his well-shod and polished heel and went across the foyer to the far corridor.
Callandra had scarcely drawn breath when she saw an ashen-faced woman, supported on both sides by solemn-eyed men, making her painful way toward the corridor where Sir Herbert had gone. Seemingly she was the patient whom he had expected.
