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She was gentle with him, averting her eyes where practically possible. When he was ready and the sheets pulled up to his chest, only his shoulders and arms above them, she stepped back and made room for Magnus to begin.
Hester looked at Radnor. His face was totally calm and he stared back at her coldly, almost contemptuously. Only his almost skeletal hands on the sheet in front of him gave him away. They were locked rigidly, the rope-like blue veins standing out.
‘I will begin in a moment,’ Magnus told him. ‘I have to take a small amount of blood from you. I will look at it, then as soon as I am certain, I will prepare. It must all be fresh, and absolutely clean, you understand? Do not move.’ He did not wait for Radnor to reply, but turned away from him to Hester. ‘Mrs Monk, the syringe, if you please.’
Hester passed him the long, thin needle with its tiny clear glass tube on the end. She was familiar with it only as it was used to give medicine directly into the bloodstream, or as had proved so tragically fatal, opium in its most virulent form.
Very carefully Magnus took Radnor’s arm, bent it at the elbow and then felt for the vein. It took him several moments to find it to his satisfaction. He sank the needle into it.
Radnor winced, but the movement was so slight Hester, watching his face, barely saw it.
Magnus pulled the handle of the syringe back very slowly. The glass tube filled with blood so lacking in the dark red of health that he needed no more than half the instrument full to satisfy his need for knowledge. The last shred of doubt vanished. Bryson Radnor was dying of the white blood disease.
Magnus removed the needle and pressed a piece of surgical lint over the mark. ‘Mrs Monk, will you come and assist me to prepare the equipment?’
Hester followed him out of the room and into the next one from it. She stared at the pale blood in the glass tube that Magnus had drawn from Radnor, the knot inside her stomach clenched tight.
‘I want you to go back and explain to Radnor what I am going to do,’ Magnus said gravely, as if he had not noticed her emotion. ‘I will put another needle into his arm. It will remain there for the best part of an hour, or possibly even longer. He must keep calm, and on no account remove the needle. You will watch his progress closely. See that his temperature is steady, and his heart rate. If he becomes feverish, nauseous, clammy, or has difficulty in breathing then we will stop immediately. It will mean that the treatment will not succeed. Have I explained myself clearly, Mrs Monk? Do you understand your duty?’
She hesitated. She wanted to argue, tell him that she did not know what the treatment was, but she knew that she had no right to know. It was experimental, but Radnor had little to lose. Untreated, the disease would kill him within weeks.
‘Are you going to explain it to Miss Radnor?’ she asked.
Magnus turned away and concentrated on what he was doing. His powerful short-fingered hands were absolutely steady. ‘The scientific side is my concern, Mrs Monk. I find people . . . difficult. I rely on you to take care of his fears, or . . . or apprehension. And there may be a great deal. Some patients have a feeling that amounts to dread. It is a symptom that the treatment is failing.’
‘I can’t explain what I don’t understand,’ she said with rising alarm.
‘You don’t need to,’ he replied, trying to sound reasonable, but his impatience showed through the thin veneer of courtesy. ‘Just keep him calm. I’ve watched you. You are good at it. You like people. To me they are –’ he shook his hand as if to brush away flies – ‘cases! I am trying to heal them. I have to look at their bodies, think rationally, disregard fear or pain, except as they are symptoms of their disease. Pity is natural, but it is of no use to me. Just do your job, Mrs Monk. Keep the man calm, steady, as unafraid as possible. If you do not do that, I cannot help him. Do you understand?’ He stared at her for a moment, his hands still, the contraption, the jars and bottles forgotten.
‘Yes, Dr Rand, of course,’ she said quietly, as she would have to a child, someone else’s child whom she did not much like.
She found Bryson Radnor lying motionless with his eyes closed. She stood beside him and wondered if he were praying. Would it be for help? Or to make some peace with his Maker, and deal with life’s regrets; all the things not said, not done?
He became aware of her and opened his eyes. The instant she saw them, the idea that he had been praying vanished.
‘Come to comfort me?’ he said sarcastically. ‘Tell me God loves me, or some such tripe?’
‘I have no idea what God thinks of you,’ she snapped back at him. The words were out before she gave them consideration.
To her surprise he smiled. ‘Of course you haven’t. But I’m surprised you have the nerve to say so. What are you supposed to do for me? You must have a purpose. God knows, you’re not here as an ornament.’
‘I imagine you buy ornaments,’ she replied. ‘If you want them. If they break, you replace them. I am here to help you behave appropriately, so the treatment has a chance to work.’
‘I have never in my life had any woman tell me how to behave!’ he said witheringly, his eyes sharp in spite of his distress.
‘So I assumed,’ Hester answered coolly. ‘Certainly no one made much of a job of it.’
He grunted. ‘Were you really in the Crimea?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why? God-awful place. Totally pointless war.’
‘I didn’t go to fight,’ she told him. ‘I went to nurse the wounded.’
‘Very noble.’ The sarcastic edge was back in his voice again. ‘Found yourself a husband, did you?’ He was watching her closely, his eyes searching for emotion in her face, perhaps for the vulnerability he could probe. Was that resentment of life, because he could feel it slipping out
of his hands?
