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She coughed. “Mrs. Jenkins.”
My brows furrowed in confusion for a moment. Until I understood and nodded. “I can’t say I blame you. What’s your given name?”
“Lucia.”
“A beautiful name for a beautiful lady.”
She barked a laugh and then groaned in pain. “Not. Now. No.” She was breathless and wheezing, which wasn’t a good sign.
“Let’s get you up and into your hospital gown.”
I did my best to gently remove her shirt and skirt and schooled my expression so she couldn’t see my anger and upset at the sight of her bruised and battered body. Her abdomen looked particularly distended and colorful. She whimpered and flinched, and tears continued to stream from her swollen eyes.
“I’m sorry.” I whispered, my heart clenching at the sight of her crying.
Her brown eyes met mine, and I saw the understanding and pain in them.
“You’re … a beautiful girl,” she wheezed. “And simply being in your presence … lessens my pain. You are right to nurse. To stay away from men. They do nothing but take. Take beauty and damage it.”
Her chest was rattling with every inhale as I tied the gown and settled her into the bed. “Lucia, I’m going to find the doctor. I don’t like the sound of your chest.”
I turned to leave, but she grasped my wrist with surprising strength. “No. Don’t go.”
“I won’t be long,” I promised.
“No. Stay. Please. Doctor said … he’d come back.” She could clearly see the indecision in my gaze, because she added, “I don’t want … to be alone.”
I couldn’t refuse her, so I nodded and positioned her upright in the bed, adding pillows behind her from the surrounding beds and replacing the cold compresses to her skin.
“Tell me … about yourself. Distract me.”
For the next thirty minutes, I sat in the chair next to the bed, holding her hand, and wittered on about myself. I told her how I became interested in nursing, the suffragist rallies I had attended, the books I was reading, and the even the gossip in the hospital.
She was engaged in my stories, appropriately adding comment and displaying emotive reactions, but her breathing worsened, and my worry increased.
“Claudia, I’m going to be sick,” she groaned, interrupting me, and I leapt to my feet, grabbed a bucket, and placed it under her bent head. I pulled her hair out of her face as she heaved.
It came out red.
Blood.
“Lucia. I must insist that I find the doctor. You’re vomiting blood and that can be very serious.”
She couldn’t respond on account of the liquid she was spewing from her mouth. Shivers wracked her slight frame, and sweat beaded on her brow. I couldn’t wait for a decision from her. I raced into the corridor and shouted at the first member of staff I saw to find Doctor Adams and bring him to Mrs. Jenkins.
I dashed back to her, lifting my skirts in sweaty palms to run.
She was crying again. “Please.”
I didn’t know for what she begged, but guilt battered me anyway. I apologized and stroked her hair, whipped her brow and her lips with a damp cloth.
“Don’t. Leave,” she gasped.
“I won’t leave you now. Someone will get the doctor, and he will see you right.”
Her eyes were cloudy with pain, and I saw the doubt, the fear, but she nodded and bent her head over the bucket again. I muttered reassuring babble on repeat, to rouse her spirit, calm her worry, and give her something to hold on to. But with every passing second, I could feel her pulse weaken in the wrist I held.
When the doctor finally arrived, I updated him rapidly. He nodded. “We must make Mrs. Jenkins as comfortable as we can.”
