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The expression on his face tightened when he recognized Callandra. It positively flinched when he saw Hester behind her.
"Lady Callandra ..." He half rose from his seat as a gesture of courtesy. She was not a nurse or an employee, however much of a thorn in his side she might be. "What can I do for you?" He nodded at Hester. "Miss Latterly."
"Mrs. Monk," Callandra corrected him with satisfaction.
His face flushed slightly and he gave a perfunctory nod towards Hester in mute apology. His hand brushed the papers in front of him, indicating how busy he was and that only polite-ness prevented him from pointing out the fact that they were interrupting him.
"Mr. Thorpe," Callandra began purposefully, "1 have just spoken again with Mr. Ordway, to no avail. Nothing I can say seems to make him aware of the necessity for improving the conditions—"
"Lady Callandra," he cut across her wearily, his voice hard-edged. "We have already discussed this matter a number of times. As chairman of the governors of this hospital, I have a great many considerations to keep in mind when I make my decisions, and cost has to be high among them. I thought I had adequately explained that to you, but I perceive that my efforts were in vain." He drew breath to continue, but this time Callandra interrupted him.
"I understood you perfectly, Mr. Thorpe. I do not agree. All the money in the world is wasted if it is spent on operating upon a patient who is not adequately cared for afterwards...."
"Lady Callandra ..." He sighed heavily, his patience exceedingly thin. His hand moved noisily over the papers, rustling them together. "As many patients survive in this hospital as in most others, if not rather more. If you were as experienced in medicine as I am, you would realize that it is regrettably usual for a great number of patients to die after surgery. It is something that cannot be avoided. All the skill in the world cannot—"
Hester could endure it no longer.
"We are not talking about skill, Mr. Thorpe," she said firmly. "All that is required to ease at least some of the distress is common sense! Experience has shown that—"
Thorpe closed his eyes in exasperation. "Not Miss Nightingale again, Miss... Mrs. Monk." He jerked his hand sharply, scattering the papers over the desktop. "I have had enough letters from that woman to paper my walls! She has not the faintest ideas of the realities of life in England. She thinks because she did fine work in utterly different circumstances in a different country that she can come home again and reorganize the entire medical establishment according to her own ideas. She has delusions both as to the extent of her knowledge and the degree of her own importance."
"It’s not about personal importance, Mr. Thorpe," Hester replied, staring straight at him. "Or about who gets the praise— at least, it shouldn’t be. It is about whether a patient recovers or dies. That is what we are here for."
"That is what I am here for, madam," he said grimly. "What you are here for, I have no idea. Your friends would no doubt say it is from a devotion to the welfare of your fellow human beings in their suffering. Your detractors might take the view that it is to fill your otherwise empty time and to give yourself a feeling of importance you would not have in the merely domestic setting of running your own household."
Hester was furious. She knew perfectly well that losing her temper would also lose her the argument, and it was just possible that Thorpe knew that also. Personally, she didn’t think he had the wit. Either way, she had no intention of catering to him.
"There are always people willing to detract with a spiteful remark," she answered with as good a smile as she could manage. "It is largely made from ignorance and meanness of spirit. I am sure you have more sense than to pay attention to them.
I am here because I have some practical experience in nursing people after severe injury, whether caused by battle or surgery, and as a consequence have learned some methods that work rather better than those currently practiced here at home."
"You may imagine so." Thorpe looked at her icily. His light brown eyes were large but a trifle deep-set. His lashes would have been the envy of many a woman.
Hester raised her brows very high. "Is it not better that the patient lives than that he dies?"
Thorpe half rose from his chair, his face pink. "Do not be flippant with me, madam! I would remind you that you have no medical training whatsoever. You are unlearned and totally ignorant, and as a woman, unsuited to the rigors of medical science. Just because you have been of use abroad to soldiers in the extremity of their injuries while fighting for Queen and country, do not imitate the unfortunate Miss Nightingale in imagining that you have some sort of role to teach the rest of us how we should behave."
Hester was quite well aware of Florence Nightingale’s nature, far more so than Fermin Thorpe, who knew her only through her voluminous correspondence to everyone even remotely concerned with hospital administration. Hester knew Miss Nightingale’s courage, her capacity for work and her spirit which fired the labor and sacrifice of this; and also her inexhaustible nagging and obsession with detail, her high-handed manner and the overwrought emotions which drained her almost to the point of collapse. She would certainly outlast Fermin Thorpe and his like—by sheer attrition, if nothing else.
Experience of the Crimea, of its hardships and its rare victories, above all of its spirit, calmed the retort that came to her tongue.
"I am sure Miss Nightingale believes she is sharing the reward of experiences you have been unable to have for yourself," she said with curdling sweetness, "having remained here in England. She has not realized that her efforts are not welcome."
Thorpe flushed scarlet. "I’m sure she means well," he replied in a tone he presumably intended to be placating, although it came through his teeth. "She simply does not realize that what was true in Sebastopol is not necessarily true in London."
Hester took a deep breath. "Having been in both places, she may imagine that, as far as the healing of injury is concerned, it is exactly the same. I suffer from that illusion myself."
Thorpe’s lips narrowed to a knife-thin line.
"I have made my decision, madam. The women who work in this establishment are quite adequate to our needs, and they are rewarded in accordance with their skills and their diligence. We will use our very limited financial resources to pay for that which best serves the patients’ needs—namely, skilled surgeons and physicians who are trained, qualified and experienced. Your assistance in keeping good order in the hospital, in offering encouragement and some advice on the moral welfare of the patients, is much appreciated. Indeed," he added meaningfully, "it would be greatly missed were you no longer to come. I am sure the other hospital governors will agree with me wholeheartedly. Good day."
There was nothing to do but reply as civilly as possible and retreat.
"I suppose that man has a redeeming virtue, but so far I have failed to find it," Callandra said as soon as they were outside in the corridor and beyond overhearing.
"He’s punctual," Hester said dryly. "He’s clean," she went on after a minute’s additional thought.
They walked hastily back towards the surgeons’ rooms, passing an elderly nurse, her shoulders stooping with the weight of the buckets she carried in each hand. Her face was puffy, her eyes red-rimmed. "And sober," Hester added.
