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“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 wa
s 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.
