The light through the chink in the curtains was broadening across the floor. In another hour or so it would be time to get up and face the day. Fill her mind with that. It was always better to be busy. There were battles worth fighting; there always were. She would speak to Fermin Thorpe again. The man was impossible to reason with because he was afraid of change, afraid of losing control and so becoming less important.
It would probably mean more of the interminable letters, few of which ever received a useful answer. How could anyone write so many words which, when disentangled from their dependent clauses and qualifying additions, actually had no meaning?
Florence Nightingale was confined to her home-some said, even to her bed-and spent nearly all her time writing letters.
Of course, hers were highly effective. In the four years since the end of the war she had changed an enormous number of things, particularly to do with the architecture of hospitals. First, naturally, her attention had been upon military hospitals, but she had won that victory, in spite of a change of government and losing her principal ally. Now she was bending her formidable will towards civilian hospitals and, just as Hester was, to the training of nurses. But it was a battle against stubborn and entrenched interests that held great power. Fermin Thorpe was merely one of many, a typical example of senior medical men throughout the country.
And poor Florence’s health had declined ever since her return. Hester found that hard to accept, even to imagine. In Scutari, Florence had seemed inexhaustible-the last sort of woman on earth to succumb to fainting and palpitations, unexplained fevers and general aches and weaknesses. And yet, apparently that was now the case. Several times her life had been despaired of. Her family was no longer permitted to visit her in case the emotion of the occasion should prove too much for her. Devoted friends and admirers gave up their own pursuits to look after her until the end should come, and make her last few months on earth as pleasant as possible.
Time and again this had happened. And lately, if anything, she seemed to be recovered and bursting with new and vigorous ideas. She had proposed a school for training nurses and was systematically attacking the opposition. It was said nothing delighted her as much as a set of statistics which could be used to prove the point that clean water and good ventilation were necessary to the recovery of a patient.
Hester smiled to herself as she remembered Florence in the hot Turkish sun, determinedly ordering an army sergeant to bring her his figures on the dead of the past week, their date of admittance to the hospital and the nature of their injuries and cause of death. The poor man had been so exhausted he had not even argued with her. One pointless task was much like another to him, only his pity for his fellows and his sense of decency had made him reluctant to obey. Florence had tried to explain to him, her pale face alight, eyes brilliant, that she could learn invaluable information from such things. Deductions could be made, lessons learned, mistakes addressed and perhaps corrected. People were dying who did not need to, distress was caused which could have been avoided.
The army, like Fermin Thorpe, did not listen. That was the helplessness which overwhelmed her-injury, disease and death all around, too few people to care for the sick, ignorance defeating so much of even the little they could have done.
What an insane, monstrous waste! What a mockery of all that was good and happy and beautiful in life!
And here she was, lying warm and supremely comfortable in bed with Monk asleep beside her. The future stretched out in front of her with as bright a promise as the day already shining just beyond the curtain. It would be whatever she made of it. Unless she allowed the past to darken it, old memories to cripple her and make her useless.
She still wanted to wake Monk and talk to him-no, that was not true, what she wanted was that he should talk to her. She wanted to hear his voice, hear the assurance in it, the will to fight-and win.
She would have liked to get up and do something to keep herself from thinking, but she would disturb him if she did, and that would be the same thing as having deliberately woken him. So she lay still and stared at the patterns of sunlight on the ceiling until eventually she went back to sleep again.
When she woke the second time it was to find Monk waking her gently. She felt as if she had climbed up from the bottom of a well, and her head still hurt.
She smiled at him and forced herself to be cheerful. If he noticed any artificiality about it, he did not say so. Perhaps he was thinking of Miriam Gardiner already, and still worrying about what he could do to help her and what he would say to Lucius Stourbridge.
It was midmorning, as she was coming down the main corridor, when she encountered Fermin Thorpe.
'Oh, good morning, Miss-Mrs. Monk,' he said, coming to a halt so that it was obvious he wished to speak with her. 'How are you today?' He continued immediately so that she should not interrupt him by replying. 'With regard to your desire that women should be trained in order to nurse, I have obtained a copy of Mr. J. F. South’s book, published three years ago, which I am sure will be of interest to you and enlighten you on the subject.' He smiled at her, meeting her eyes very directly.
They were passed by a medical student whom he ignored, an indication of the gravity of his intent.
'You may not be familiar with who he is, so I shall tell you, so you may correctly judge the importance of his opinion and give it more weight.' He straightened his shoulders slightly and lifted his chin. 'He is senior consulting surgeon at Saint Thomas’s Hospital, and more than that, he is president of the College of Surgeons and Hunterian Orator.' He gave the words careful emphasis so she should not miss any part of their importance. 'I quote for you, Miss-Mrs. Monk, he is'-his voice became very distinct-' ’not at all disposed to allow that the nursing establishments of our hospitals are inefficient or that they are likely to be improved by any special Institution for Training.’ As he further points out, even sisters in charge of wards do, and can, only learn by experience.' He smiled at her with increasing confidence. 'Nurses themselves are subordinates, in the position of housemaids, and need only the simplest of instructions.'
Two nurses passed them, faces flushed with exertion, sleeves hitched up.
Hester opened her mouth to protest, but he continued, raising his voice very slightly to override her. 'I am perfectly aware of Miss Nightingale’s fund for training young women,' he said loudly. 'But I must inform you, madam, that only three surgeons and two physicians are to be found among its supporters. That, surely, is an unfailing mark of the regard in which it is held by professional men who are the most highly qualified and experienced in the country. Now, Mrs. Monk'-he pronounced her name with satisfaction at having remembered it-'I trust you will turn your considerable energies towards the true welfare of both the nurses here and the patients, and attend to their cleanliness, their sobriety and their obedience to do what they are commanded, both punctually and exactly. Good day.' And without waiting for her reply, which he seemingly took for granted in the affirmative, he strode away purposefully towards the operating theater, satisfied he had dealt with the subject finally.
Hester was too furious to speak for the first few moments, then, when she could have spoken, no words seemed adequate to express her disgust. She marched in the opposite direction, towards the physicians’ waiting room.
There she found Cleo talking to an old man who was obviously frightened and doing his best to conceal it. He had several open ulcers on both his legs which must have been acutely painful and looked as if they had been there for some time. He smiled at Cleo, but his hands were clenched till his knuckles were white and he sat rigidly upright.
'You need them dressed regularly,' Cleo said gently. 'Gotta keep them clean or they’ll never heal up. I’ll do it for you, if you come here and ask for me.'
'I can’t come ’ere every day,' he answered, his voice polite but with absolute certainty. 'In’t possible, miss.'
'Isn’t it, now.' She regarded him thoughtfully, looking down at the worn boots and threadbare jacket. 'Well, I suppose I’ll have to come to you, then. How far, is it?'
'An’ why would you be doing that?' he asked dubiously.
' Because those sores aren’t going to get any better otherwise,' she replied tartly.
'I in’t askin’ no favors,' he said, bristling. 'I don’t want no nurse woman comin’ into my ’ouse! Wot’ll the neighbors think o’ me?'
Cleo winced. 'That you’re damn lucky at your age to be pulling a nice-looking woman like me!' she snapped back at him.
He smiled in spite of himself. 'But yer can’t come, all the same.'
She looked down at him patiently. 'Call yourself a soldier, and can’t take orders from someone who knows better than you do-and make no mistake, I’m your sergeant w’en it comes ter them sores.'
