When Dora looked up, she saw that Albert’s eyes were crinkled, and she thought he might be smiling at her from beneath his scarf. “I think you must be one of the only other people in the world who finds it so, Miss Ettings,” Albert said. “Elias is so very good at convincing people to despise him.”
Dora smiled faintly back at him. “I have been contrary since I was very young,” she said. “The moment that it became clear to me how much the Lord Sorcier wanted me to hate him, I think I must have become determined to do the opposite.”
Albert laughed. “He has never had a handle on you, Miss Ettings,” he said. “Not since the moment he met you. I will admit, I have a contrary nature of my own—I love to watch him struggle with you. It’s as entertaining a show as anything I’ve ever seen.”
Dora raised her eyebrows at him. “You hide your contrariness well, Mr Lowe,” she said. “I am impressed.”
Albert became absorbed in his work again shortly thereafter. Miss Jennings and Susan came and went more than once while Dora walked with him, pulling down sheets and replacing them with fresh ones. Occasionally, Dora caught Miss Jennings glancing her way, but it was clear that the former governess was being quite casual in her duties as chaperone. Once, Dora pressed her hand to Albert’s shoulder while Miss Jennings watched, just in case the chaperone was supposed to report back to Auntie Frances and the countess on Dora’s efforts.
After a time, Albert and Dora came to a boy with a great gash on his leg, which was bleeding sluggishly beneath a cloth. Albert gently pulled the cloth away, while Dora held the boy’s hand and pulled down her scarf to smile encouragingly at him.
“My name is Dora,” she told him. “What is yours?”
The boy’s eyes glanced warily towards his leg, but he forced them back to Dora in short order, trying not to seem afraid. “Roger, m’lady,” he mumbled. The words sounded clumsy, and Dora suspected he wasn’t often prone to such politeness.
“I am sorry that you’re hurt, Roger,” Dora told him. “You are being very brave so far, though. I’m quite impressed.” This made Roger straighten slightly in place, and Dora was surprised to feel a distant hint of pride herself. She was really barely a lady, and most men tended to give her strange or pitying glances as soon as they saw her mismatched eyes. But Roger had no concept that Dora might be anything but utterly respectable, and his odd need to impress her made the smile on her face somewhat more genuine.
Nearby, Albert winced at the sight of the injury. “This will need stitches,” he said. He looked towards Dora hesitantly. “Are you up to helping with that?”
Roger blanched at the suggestion, and Dora tightened her hand on his reassuringly. She knitted her brow. “I can perform all manner of different stitches,” Dora informed Albert. “But I have never tried to stitch up skin before. I am willing to try it, I suppose.”
Albert blinked at her. “I was certainly not suggesting you should stitch him up yourself!” he said, aghast. “I only hoped for you to hold the skin together for me while I did the deed.” He paused, and added: “That is bad enough, I realise.”
Dora nodded. “I can do that,” she assured him. “Please, don’t worry yourself on my account.”
Albert insisted that they wash their hands in hot water first—Dora asked him why and was bemused at his honest reply: I haven’t the first idea, he said, but another surgeon recommended it to me, and it seems to work well enough. This, Dora thought, was a refreshing thing to hear. She could not think of any other gentleman who had ever admitted to her that he did not know something.
Poor Roger nearly fainted when he saw Albert pull out that wicked-looking needle. Dora tried to console him, but he was already wiggling around in discomfort. “You’ll need to hold still,” Albert told him, gently but firmly.
The gash on the boy’s leg was objectively awful to look at. Dora inwardly blessed the missing half of her soul for once, as she reached down to pinch at the bloody edges of the gash with her fingers. Roger let out a soft whimper as Albert began to sew him up, and Dora became aware that other inmates were watching them with fascination. How awful, she thought. Though I suppose they must have little else of interest to watch.
Thankfully, Albert was quick about his work. He tied off the stitches and wiped down the injury. “This should suffice for now,” he told Roger. “But if it starts to smell, or if it becomes even more painful, you should tell the workhouse master to fetch me right away.”
“He won’t fetch you,” Roger said wryly. “It’d be troublesome on him.”
Albert sighed. “I’ll come and visit again soon, then,” he said. “Just to check.”
As they went on, Dora frowned at Albert from beneath her scarf. “You learned surgery during the war, Mr Lowe,” she said slowly. “But I was told that you’re a physician now.”
Albert shook his head ruefully at that for some reason. “I prefer surgery,” he said. “I know my physician’s credentials are considered more respectable—but truly, Miss Ettings, proper physicians have the strangest medical ideas. Their obsession with bleeding confuses me terribly. I have never known bleeding to improve a patient... though I suppose it certainly quiets them.” He considered this very seriously, and then added: “On that note, I might prescribe bleeding for Elias one of these days. But only because he could sometimes use quieting.”
Dora snorted, but did not otherwise respond.
Their rounds went on, even into other rooms. Dora soon realised that there were multiple sick rooms—in fact, it seemed that there were almost more sick and injured people
