The Twisted Root

2

Hester shifted from foot to foot impatiently as she stood in the waiting room in the North London Hospital. The sun was hot and the closed air claustrophobic. She thought with longing of the green expanse of Hampstead Heath, only a few hundred yards away. But she was here with a purpose. There was a massive amount to do, and as always, too little time. Too many people were ill, confused by the medical system, if you could call it by so flattering a word, and frightened of authority.

Her desire was to improve the quality of nursing from the manual labor it usually was to a skilled and respected profession. Since Florence Nightingale’s fame had spread after the Crimean War, the public in general regarded her as a heroine. She was second in popularity only to the Queen. But the popular vision of her was a sentimental image of a young woman wandering around a hospital with a lamp in her hand, mopping fevered brows and whispering words of comfort, rather than the reality Hester knew. She had nursed with Florence Nightingale and had experienced the despair, the unnecessary deaths brought on by disease and incompetence rather than the injuries of battle. She also knew Miss Nightingale’s true heroism, the strength of her will to fight for better conditions, for the use of common sense in sanitation and efficiency in administration. Above all, she fought to make nursing an acceptable profession which would attract decent women and treat them with respect. Old-fashioned ideas must be got rid of, up-to-date methods must be used, and skills rewarded.

Now that Hester was no longer solely responsible for her own support, she could devote some of her time to this end. She had made it plain to Monk from the outset that she would never agree to sit at home and sew a fine seam and gossip with other women who had too little to do. He had offered no disagreement, knowing it was a condition of acceptance.

They had had certain differences, and would no doubt have more. She smiled now in the sun as she thought of them. It was not easy for either of them to make all the changes necessary to adapt to married life. Deeply as she loved him, sharing a bedroom-let alone a bed-with another person was a loss of privacy she found not as easy to overcome as she had imagined. She was not especially modest-nursing life had made that impossible-but she still reveled in the independence of having the window open or closed as she wished, of putting the light out when she chose, and of having as many or as few blankets over her as she liked. In the Crimea she had worked until she was exhausted. Then she had lain on her cot hunched up, shaking with cold, muscles too knotted up to sleep, and had to arise in the morning when she was still almost drunken with tiredness.

But to have the warmth, the gentleness, of someone beside her who she knew without question loved her, was greater than all the tiny inconveniences. They were only pinpricks. She knew Monk felt them, too. She had seen flashes of temper in his face, quickly smothered when he realized he was thinking only of himself. He was used to both privacy and independence as much as she was.

But Monk had less to forfeit than Hester. They were living in his rooms in Fitzroy Street. It made excellent sense, of course. She had only sufficient lodgings to house her belongings and to sleep in between the private nursing cases she had taken after being dismissed from hospital service for insubordination. He was developing a good practice as an agent of enquiry for private cases after his own dismissal from the police force-also for insubordination!

For him to have moved would have been unwise. People knew where to find him. The house was well situated, and the landlady had been delighted to allow them an extra room to make into a kitchen, and to give up having to cook and clean for Monk, a duty she had done only from necessity before, realizing he would probably starve if she didn’t. She was very pleased to have both the additional rent and more time to devote to her increasingly demanding husband-and whatever other pursuits she enjoyed beyond Fitzroy Street.

So Hester was, with some difficulty, learning to become domestic and trying to do it with a modicum of grace.

Her real passion was still to reform nursing, as it had been ever since she had come home from the Crimea. Lady Callandra Daviot shared her feelings, which was why Hester was standing in the North London Hospital now waiting for Callandra to come and recount the success or failure of their latest attempt.

She heard the door opening and swung around. Callandra came in, her hair sticking out in tufts as if she had run her fingers through it, her face set tight and hard with anger. There was no need to ask if she had succeeded.

Callandra had dignity, courage and good humor, but not even her dearest friend would have said she was graceful. In spite of the best efforts of her maid, her clothes looked as if she paid no regard to them, merely picking up what first came to her hand when she opened the wardrobe door. Today it was a green skirt and a blue blouse. It was warm enough inside the hospital for her not to wear whatever jacket she had chosen.

"The man is a complete idiot!" she said furiously. "How can anyone see to diagnose what ails a person for any of a hundred diseases and still be blind as a bat to the facts before his face?"

"I don’t know," Hester admitted. "But it happens frequently."

The door was still wide open behind Callandra. She turned on her heel and marched out again, leaving Hester to follow after her.

"How many hours are there in a day?" Callandra demanded over her shoulder.

"Twenty-four," Hester replied as they reached the end of the passage and went through the now-empty operating theater with its table in the center, benches for equipment, and the railed-off gallery on three sides for pupils and other interested parties to observe.

"Exactly," Callandra agreed. "And how much of that time can a surgeon be expected to care for his patient personally? One hour if the patient is important-less if he is not. Who cares for him the rest of the time?" She opened the farther door into the wide passageway that ran the length of the entire ground floor.

"The resident medicine officer-" Hester began.

"Apothecary!" Callandra said dismissively, waving her hand in the air.

Hester closed the door behind them. "They prefer to call them resident medicine officers now," she remarked. "And the nurses. I know your point. If we do not train nurses, and pay them properly, everyone else’s efforts are largely wasted. The most brilliant of surgeons is still dependent upon the care we give his patients after he has treated them."

"I know that." Callandra hesitated, deciding whether to go right, towards the casualty room, or left, past the postmortem room to the eye department and the secretary’s office and the boardroom. "You know that." She decided to go left. "Dr. Beck knows that." She spoke his name quite formally, as if they had not been friends for years_-and not cared for each other far more than either dared say. "But Mr. Ordway is very well satisfied with things as they are! If it were up to him we’d still be wearing fig leaves and eating our food raw."

"Figs, presumably," Hester said dryly. "Or apples?"

Callandra shot her a sharp look. "Figs," she retorted with absolute certainty. "He’d never have had the courage to take the apple!"

"Then we would not be wearing the fig leaves, either, heaven preserve us," Hester pointed out, hiding her smile.

"Marriage has made you decidedly immodest!" Callandra snapped, but there was satisfaction in her voice. She had long wished Hester’s happiness, and had once or twice alluded to fears that her friend might become too wasp-tongued to allow herself the chance.

They reached the end of the corridor and Callandra turned right, towards the boardroom. She hesitated in her step so slightly that had Hester not felt the trepidation herself, she might not have noticed it at all.

Callandra knocked on the door.

"Come in!" the voice inside commanded.

Callandra pushed it open and went inside, Hester on her heels.

The man sitting at the large table was of stocky build, his hair receding from a broad brow, his features strong and stubborn. His was not a handsome face, but it had a certain distinction. He was extremely well dressed in a suit of pinstriped cloth which must have been very warm on this midsummer day. His white collar was high and stiff. A gold watch chain was draped across his broad chest.

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.

"Those are not virtues," Callandra said bitterly. "They are accidents of breeding and circumstance. He has the opportunity to be clean and no temptation to be inebriated, except with his own importance. And that is of sufficient potency that after it alcohol would be redundant."

They passed the apothecary’s rooms. Callandra hesitated as if to say something, then apparently changed her mind and hurried on.

Kristian Beck came out of the operating theater, but he had his coat on and his shirt cuffs were clean, so apparently he had not been performing surgery. His face lit when he recognized Callandra, then he saw her expression.

"Nothing?" he said, more an answer than a question. He was of barely average height. His hair was receding a little above his temples, but his mouth had a remarkable passion and sensitivity to it, and his voice had a timbre of great beauty. Hester was aware that his friendship with Callandra was more profound than merely the trust of people who have the same compassion and the same anger, and the will to fight for the same goals. How personal it was she had not asked. Kristian was married, though she had never heard him speak of his wife. Now he was regarding Callandra earnestly, listening to her recount their conversation with Thorpe. He looked tired. Hester knew he had almost certainly been at the hospital all night, seeing some patient through a crisis and snatching a few hours’ sleep as he could. There were shadows around his eyes and his skin had very little color.

"He won’t even listen," Callandra said. She had been weary the moment before, and angry with Thorpe and with herself. Now suddenly her voice was gentler, and she made the effort to hide her sense of hopelessness. "I am not at all sure I approached him in the best way…."

Kristian smiled. "I imagine not," he said with mild humor, full of ruefulness and affection. "Mr. Thorpe has not been blessed with a sense of humor. He has nothing with which to soften the blows of reality."

"It was my fault," Hester said quietly. "I am afraid I was sarcastic. He provokes the worst in me-and I let him. We shall have to try again from a different angle. I cannot think of one yet." She looked at Kristian and forced herself to smile. "He actually suggested that we should busy ourselves with discipline in the hospital and being of comfort to the patients." She gritted her teeth. "Perhaps I should go and say something uplifting?" Her intention was to leave Kristian and Callandra alone for one of the few moments they had together, even if they were only able to discuss the supply of bandages or domestic details of nurses’ boarding allowances, and who should be permitted to leave the premises to purchase food.

Callandra did not look at her. They knew each other too well for the necessity of words, and it was far too delicate a matter to speak of. Perhaps she was also self-conscious. So much was known, and so little said.

Kristian’s mouth curled in acknowledgment of the absurdity of it. Hospital discipline was a shambles where the nurses were concerned, and yet rigidly enforced upon the patients. Patients who misbehaved, used obscene or blasphemous language, fraternized with patients of the opposite sex, or generally conducted themselves in an unseemly fashion, could be deprived of food for one meal or more. Alcohol was banned. Smoking and gaming incurred discharge altogether, regardless of whether the person in question was healed of his or her illness.

For nurses, drunkenness was a different matter. Part of their wages was paid in porter, and they were largely the type of person of whom no better was expected. What other sort of woman scrubs, sweeps, stokes fires, and carries slops? And who but a maniac would allow such women to assist in the skilled science of medicine?

Hester marched off, actually to the apothecary’s store, leaving Callandra alone in the corridor with Kristian.

"Have you heard from Miss Nightingale?" Kristian asked, turning to walk slowly back towards the surgeons’ area of rooms.

"It is very difficult," Callandra replied, trying to choose her words with care. The entire country had a burning respect for Florence Nightingale. She was the perfect heroine. Artists painted pictures of her bending over the sick and injured heroes of the recent war in the Crimea, her gentle features suffused with compassion, lit by the golden glow of a candle. Callandra knew the reality had been very different. There was no sentimentality there, no murmured words of peace and devotion. Miss Nightingale was as much a fighter as any of the soldiers, and a better tactician than most, certainly better than the grossly incompetent generals who had led them into the slaughter. She was also erratic, emotional, hypochondriacal, and of inexhaustible passion and courage, a highly uncomfortable creature of contradictions. Callandra was not always sure that Hester appreciated quite what a difficult woman Florence Nightingale was. Her loyalty sometimes blinded her. But that was Hester’s nature, and they had both been more than glad of it in the past.

Kristian glanced at Callandra questioningly. He knew little of the realities of the Crimea. He was from Prague, in the Austrian principality of Bohemia. One could still hear the slight accent in his speech, perfect as his English was. He used few idioms, although after this many years he understood them easily enough. But he was dedicated entirely to his own profession in its immediacy. The patients he was treating now were his whole thought and aim: the woman with the badly broken leg, the old man with the growth on his jaw, the boy with a shoulder broken by the kick of a horse (he was afraid the wound would become gangrenous), the old man with kidney stones, an agonizing complaint.

Thank God for the marvelous new ability to anesthetize patients for the duration of surgery. It meant speed was no longer the most important thing. One could afford to take minutes to perform an operation, not seconds. One could use care, even consider alternatives, think and look instead of being so hideously conscious of pain that ending it quickly was always at the front of the mind and driving the hands.

"Oh, she’s perfectly right," Callandra explained, referring back to Florence Nightingale again. "Everything she commands should be done, and some of it would cost nothing at all, except a change of mind."

"For some, the most expensive thing of all," he replied, the smile rueful and on his lips, not in his eyes. "I think Mr. Thorpe is one of them. I fear he will break before he will bend."

She sensed a new difficulty he had not yet mentioned. "What makes you believe that?" she asked.

Even walking as slowly as they were, they had reached the end of the corridor and the doorway to the surgeons’ rooms. He opened it and stood back for her as two medical students, deep in conversation, passed by them on their way to the front door. They nodded to him in deference, barely glancing at her.

She went into the waiting room and he came after her. There were already half a dozen patients. He smiled at them, then went across to his consulting room and she followed. When they were inside he answered her.

"Any suggestion he accepts is going to have to come from someone he regards as an equal," he replied with a slight shrug.

Kristian Beck was, in every way, intellectually and morally Thorpe’s superior, but it would be pointless for her to say so, and embarrassing. It would be far too personal. It would betray her own feelings, which had never been spoken. There was trust, a deep and passionate understanding of values, of commitment to what was good. She would never have a truer friend in these things, not even Hester. But what was personal, intimate, was a different matter. She knew her own emotions. She loved him more than she had loved anyone else, even her husband when he had been alive. Certainly, she had cared for her husband. It had been a good marriage; youth and nature had lent it fire in the beginning, and mutual interest and kindness had kept it companionable. But for Kristian Beck she felt a hunger of the spirit which was new to her, a fluttering inside, both a fear and a certainty, which was constantly disturbing.

She had no idea if his feelings for her were more than the deepest friendship, the warmth and trust that came from the knowledge of a person’s character in times of hardship. They had seen each other exhausted in mind and body, drained almost beyond bearing when they had fought the typhus outbreak in the hospital in Limehouse. A part of their inner strength had been laid bare by the horror of it, the endless days and nights that had melted into one another, sorrow over the deaths they had struggled so hard to prevent, the supreme victory when someone had survived. And, of course, there was the danger of infection. They were not immune to it themselves.

Kristian was waiting for her to make some response, standing in the sun, which made splashes of brightness through the long windows onto the worn, wooden floor. Time was short, as it always seemed to be between them. There were people waiting-frightened, ill people, dependent upon their help. But they were also dependent upon being adequately nursed after surgery. Their survival might hang on such simple things as the circulation of air around the ward, the cleanliness of bandages, the concentration and sobriety of the nurse who watched over them. The depth of the nurse’s knowledge and the fact that someone listened to what she reported might be the difference between recovery or death.

"I wish he wasn’t such a fool!" Callandra said with sudden anger. "It doesn’t matter a jot who you are, all that matters is if you are right. What is he so afraid of?"

"Change," he said quietly. "Loss of power, not being able to understand." He did not move as another man might have, looking at the papers on his desk, tidying this or that, checking on instruments set out ready to use. He had a quality of stillness. She thought again with a hollow loneliness how little she knew of him outside hospital walls. She knew roughly where he lived, but not exactly. She knew of his wife, although he had seldom spoken of her. Why not? It would have been so natural. One could not help but think of those one loved.

A sudden coldness gripped her. Was it because he knew how she felt and did not wish to hurt her? The color must be burning up her face even as she stood there.

Or was it an unhappiness in him, a pain he did not wish to touch, far less to share? And did she even want to know?

Would she want him to say aloud that he loved her? It could break forever the ease of friendship they had now. And what would take its place? A love that was forever held in check by the existence of his wife? And would she want him to betray that? She knew without even having to waste time on the thought that such a thing would destroy the man she believed he was.

Nothing could be sweeter than to hear him say he loved her. And nothing could be more dangerous, more threatening to the sweetness of what they now had.

Was she being a coward, leaving him alone when he most needed to share, to be understood? Or being discreet when he most needed her silence?

Or was friendship all he wanted? He had a wife-perhaps all he needed here, in this separate life from the personal, was an ally.

"There are still medicines missing," she said, changing the subject radically.

He drew in his breath. "Have you told Thorpe?"

"No!" It was the last thing she intended to do. "No," she repeated more calmly. "It’s almost certainly one of the nurses. I’d rather find out who myself and put a stop to it before he ever has to know."

He frowned. "What sort of medicines?"

"All sorts, but particularly morphine, quinine, laudanum, Dutch liquid and several mercurial preparations."

He looked down, his face troubled. "It sounds as if she’s selling them. Dutch liquid is one of the best local anesthetics I know. No one could be addicted to all those or need them for herself." He moved towards the door. "I’ve got to start seeing patients. I’ll never get through them all. Have you any idea who it is?"

"No," she said unhappily. It was the truth. She had thought about it hard, but she barely knew the names of all the women who fetched and carried and went about the drudgery of keeping the hospital clean and warm, the linen washed and ironed and the bandages rolled, let alone their personal lives or their characters. All her attention had been on trying to improve their conditions collectively.

"Have you asked Hester?" he said.

Her hand was on the doorknob.

"I don’t think she knows either," she replied.

His face relaxed very slightly in a smile-humor, not happiness. "She’s rather a good detective, though," he pointed out.

Callandra did not need to tell Hester that medicines were missing, she was already unhappily aware of it. However, it was not at the forefront of her mind as she left Callandra and Kristian and went to the patients’ waiting room. She resented bitterly Fermin Thorpe’s admonition to her to go and offer comfort to the troubled and moral guidance to the nurses, although both were tasks she fully believed in and intended to carry out. It was their limitations she objected to, not their nature.

She passed one of the nurses, a comfortable woman of almost fifty, pleasant-faced, gray-brown hair always falling out of its pins, a little like Callandra’s. Had their backgrounds not been so different the resemblance might have been more apparent. This woman could barely read or write, not much more than her name and a few familiar words of her trade, but she was intelligent and quick to learn a new task, and Hester had frequently seen her actually tending to patients when she knew there were no doctors anywhere near. She seemed to have an aptitude for it, an instinctive understanding of how to ease distress, lower a fever, or whether someone should eat or not. Her name was Cleo Anderson.

She lowered her eyes now as Hester passed her, as if she wished to avoid attracting attention. Hester was sorry. She would have liked to encourage her, even with a glance.

There were some patients in the waiting room already, five women and two men. All but one of them were elderly, their eyes watchful in unfamiliar surroundings, afraid of what would happen to them, of what they could be told was wrong, of the pain of treatment, and of the cost. Their clothes were worn thin. Here and there a clean shirt showed under a faded coat.

Some of their treatment was free, but they still had to pay for food while they were in hospital, and then, after they left, for medicine as well if it was necessary.

She chose the most wretched looking of the patients and went over to him.

He peered up at her, his eyes full of fear. Her bearing suggested authority to him, and he thought he was about to be chastised, although he had no idea what for.

"What’s your name?" she enquired with a smile.

He gulped. " ’Arry Jackson, ma’am."

"Is this your first time here, Mr. Jackson?" She spoke quietly, so only those closest to him would overhear.

"Yes, ma’am," he mumbled, looking away. "I wouldn’t ’a come, but our Lil said as I ’ad ter. Always fussin’, she is. She’s a real good girl. Said as they’d find the money some’ow." He lifted his head, defiantly now. "An’ she will, ma’am. Yer won’t be done short, wotever!"

"I’m sure," she agreed softly. "But it wasn’t money I was concerned about."

A spasm of pain shot through him, and for a moment he gasped for breath. She did not need Mr. Thorpe’s medical training to see the ravages of disease in his gaunt body. He almost certainly had consumption, and probably pleurisy as well, considering the way he held his hand over his chest. He looked considerably over sixty, but he might not actually have been more than fifty. There would be little the physician could do for him. He needed rest, food, clean air and someone to care for him. Morphine would help the pain, and sherry in water was an excellent restorative. They were probably all impossibly expensive for him. His clothes-and even more, his manner-spoke of extreme poverty.

He looked at her with disbelief.

She made up her mind. "I’ll speak to Dr. Warner and see if you shouldn’t stay here a few days-" She stopped at the alarm in his face. "Rest is what you need."

"I got a bed!" he protested.

"Of course. But you need quiet, and someone who has time to look after you."

His eyes widened. "Not one o’ them nurses!" The thought obviously filled him with dread.

She struggled for an argument to persuade him, but all that came to her lips were lies, and she knew it. Many of the nurses were kindly enough, but they were ignorant and often hard-pressed by poverty and unhappiness themselves.

"I’ll be here," she said instead. She had placed herself in a position where she had to say something.

"Wot are yer, then?" His curiosity got the better of his awe.

"I’m a nurse," she answered rashly, and with a touch of pride. "I was out in the Crimea."

He looked at her with amazement. The word was still magic.

"Was yer?" His eyes filled with hope, and she felt guilty for how simply she’d done it, and with so little consideration of what she could fulfill. If only they could persuade Thorpe to see how much it mattered that all nurses should inspire this trust, not in miracles but in competence, gentleness and sobriety.

But how could they, when they were given no training and it was so blatantly apparent that the doctors had little but contempt for them? The anger inside her was rock hard; unconsciously her body clenched.

Harry Jackson was still staring at her. She must talk to him, reassure him. No one could heal his illness. Like half of the people in this room, he was long past that kind of help, but she could comfort his fear, and for a time at least alleviate his pain.

The physician came to the door and called the first patient. He looked frustrated and tired in a clean frock coat and trousers that were a little wrinkled at the knees. He also knew he could do little that was of real help.

Hester moved to another patient and talked with him, listening to his tales of family, home, the difficulties of trying to make ends meet, let alone to pay for medicine, when you were too sick to work.

A nurse walked through the room carrying an empty pail, its metal handle clinking against the rings that held it. The woman was stout, dark, about forty. She did not look to either side of her as she passed the waiting people. She hiccuped as she went out of the far door. She was in a world of her own, exhausted by hard physical labor, lifting, bending, carrying, scrubbing. Mealtimes and, more important, drink times would be the highlights of her day. Then she could share the odd joke with the other women, and the brief euphoria of alcohol which shut out reality.

It was all a long way from the dream of a sweet-faced woman with a lamp in her hand who would murmur words of hope and miraculously save the dying.

And that too was a long way from the passionate, tireless, short-tempered, vulnerable woman who sat in her house passing out orders, pleas and advice-almost all of it good-and being stoically ignored by men like Fermin Thorpe.

It was six o’clock before the last patient had been seen. Hester had managed to persuade the physician to admit Harry Jackson for a few days, and she savored that small victory. She was consequently smiling as she tidied the waiting room.

The door opened, and she was pleased to see Callandra, who now looked even more disheveled than usual. Her skirt was crumpled, her blouse open at the neck in the heat, and she had obviously been working, because her sleeves were rolled up and stained with splashes of water and blood. Her hair was coming out of its pins in all directions. It needed taking down, brushing, and doing again.

Absentmindedly, Callandra pulled out a pin, caught up a bunch of hair and replaced it all, making the whole effect worse.

She closed the door and glanced around to make sure the room was empty and all other doors were closed also.

"He’s gone," Hester assured her.

Callandra rubbed the back of her hand across her brow.

"There’s more medicine gone today," she said wearily. "I checked it this morning, and again now. It’s not a lot, but I’m quite sure."

Hester should not have been surprised, but she felt a cold grip inside her close tighter. It was systematic. Someone was taking medicines every day or two and had been doing so for a long time, perhaps months, possibly even years. A certain amount of error or theft was expected, but not of this order.

"Does Mr. Thorpe know yet?" she asked quietly.

"Not about this," Callandra replied. "It’s getting worse."

For a wild moment Hester actually entertained the idea that the thefts could be used to pressure Fermin Thorpe into seeing the necessity for training and paying better nurses. Then she realized that disclosure of the problem would only end in a full-scale investigation, possibly involving the police, and all the present staff, innocent and guilty alike, would suffer, possibly even be dismissed. In all probability not one would be able to prove her honesty, still less her sobriety. The whole hospital would grind to a standstill, and no good would be achieved at all.

"He’s going to find out soon," Callandra said, interrupting Hester’s thoughts. "They’ll have to be replaced."

"Have we any idea who it is?" Hester struggled for something tangible to pursue. "We’ve got twenty-eight women here doing one thing or another. All of them are hard up, very few of them can read or write more than a few words, some not that much. Half of them live in the hospital, the other half come and go at all hours."

"But the apothecary’s rooms are locked," Hester pointed out. "Are they stealing the keys? Or do you suppose they can pick the lock?"

"Pick the lock," Callandra said without hesitation. "Or sneak in and out when he’s got his back turned. He’s as careful as he can be."

"But he knows there are losses?"

"Oh, yes. He doesn’t like Thorpe any more than we do. Well, not much. He’ll not report it till he has to. He knows what chaos it will be. But he can’t carry on hiding it much longer."

There was a knock on the door. Callandra opened it, and Cleo stood there, a look of polite enquiry on her face. "Yer ’ungry, love?" she said cheerfully. "There’s a nice bit o’ cold beef an’ pickle goin’ if yer fancy it. An’ fresh bread. A glass o’ porter?"

Hester had not realized it, but at mention of the food she was aware of how long it had been since she last ate, or sat down comfortably, without the need to find words to comfort a frightened, inarticulate old man or woman, powerless as she was to give any real help.

"Yes," she accepted quickly. "Please."

Cleo jerked her hand to the right. "Along there, love, same as usual." She withdrew, and they heard her feet clattering away on the hard floor.

They went together up to the staff room and sat at one of the plain wood tables. All around them other women were eating with relish, and the porter glasses were lifted even more often than the forks. There was a little cheerful conversation in between mouthfuls, or during. They overheard many snatches.

"… dead ’e were, in a week, poor devil. But wot can yer ’spect, eh? ’Ad no choice but ter cut ’im open. Went bad, it did. Seen it comin’."

"Yeah. Well, ’appens, don’ it? ’Ere, ’ave another glass o’ porter."

"Fanks. I’m that tired I need summink ter keep me eyes open. I gorn an’ popped that ’at, like yer told me. Got one and tenpence fer it. Bastard. I’d ’a thought ’e’d ’a given me two bob. Still, it’ll do the rent, like."

"Your Edie still alive, is she?"

"Poorol’ sod, yeah. Coughin’ ’er ’eartup, she is. Forty-six, lookin’ like ninety."

"Yer gonner get ’er up ’ere, then, ter see the doc?"

"Not likely! ’Oo’s gonner pay fer it? I can’t, an’ Lizzie in’t got nuffink. Fred’s mean as muck. Makin’ shillin’s, ’e is, at the fish market most days, but drinks more’n ’alf of it."

"Tell me! My Bert’s the same. Still, knocked seven bells outta Joe Pake t’other day, and got ’isself locked up fer a while. Good riddance, I say. Yer got any more o’ that pickle? I’m that ’ungry. Ta."

Hester had heard a hundred conversations like it, the small details of life for the women who were entrusted with the care of frightened and ignorant people after the surgeon’s knife had done its best to remove the cause of their pain and the long road to recovery lay ahead of them.

"Perhaps if I got figures together?" Hester said softly, as much to herself as to Callandra. "I could prove to Thorpe the practical results of having women with some degree of training!" She kept her voice low, not to be overheard. "Women with an intelligence and an aptitude for it, like Cleo Anderson. I know it would cost more, as he would be the first to point out, but it would be richly rewarded. Money’s only the excuse, I’m sure of that." She was reaching for reasons, arguments, the weakness in his armor. "If he thought he would get the credit… if his hospital were to have greater success than any other…"

Callandra looked up from her bread and pickle. "I’ve tried that." A heavy bunch of hair fell out of its pins, and she poked it back, leaving the ends sticking out. "I thought I’d catch his vanity. Nothing he’d like better than to outdo Dr. Gilman at Guy’s Hospital. But he hasn’t the courage to try anything he isn’t sure of. If he spent money, and there were no results, soon enough …" She left the rest unsaid. They had been around and around these arguments, or ones like them, so many times. It was all a matter of convincing Thorpe of something he did not want to know.

"I suppose it’s back to writing more letters," Hester said wearily, taking another slice of bread.

Callandra nodded, her mouth full. She swallowed. "How’s William?"

"Bored," Hester said with a smile. "Longing for a case to stretch his wits."

When Hester arrived home at Fitzroy Street it was a little after seven o’clock that evening. Monk had already returned and was waiting for her. There were faint lines of tiredness in his face, but nothing disguised his pleasure in seeing her. She still found it extraordinary; it brought a strange quickening of the heart and tightness in the stomach to remember that she belonged here now, in his rooms, that when night came she would not stand up and say good-bye, uncertain when she would see him again. There was no more pretending between them, no more defense of their separateness. They might go to the bedroom one at a time, but underlying everything was the certainty that they would both be there, together, all night, and waken together in the morning. She did not even realize she was smiling as she thought of it, but the warmth was always in her mind, like sunshine on a landscape, lighting everything.

She kissed him now when he rose to greet her, feeling his arms close around her. The gentleness of his touch perhaps surprised him more than her.

"What’s for dinner?" was the first thing he said after he let her go.

It had not crossed her mind that she would need to cook for him. She had eaten at the hospital as a matter of habit. The food was there. She was thinking of the missing medicines and Thorpe’s stubbornness.

There was food in their small kitchen, of course, but it would require preparing and cooking. Even so, it would not take more than three quarters of an hour at most. She could not bear the thought of eating again so soon.

But she could not possibly tell him. To have forgotten about him was inexcusable.

She turned away, thinking frantically. "There’s cold mutton. Would you like it with vegetables? And there’s cake."

"Yes," he agreed without enthusiasm. Had he expected her to be a good cook? Surely he knew her better than that? Did he imagine marriage was somehow going to transform her magically into a housekeeping sort of woman? Perhaps he did.

All she wanted to do was sit down and take her boots off. Tonight was her own fault, but the specter of years of nights like this was appalling, coming home from whatever she had been doing, been fighting for-or against-and having to start thinking of shopping for food, bargaining with tradesmen, making lists of everything she needed, peeling, chopping, boiling, baking, clearing away. And then laundry, ironing, sweeping! She swallowed hard, emotions fighting each other inside her. She loved him, liked him, at times loathed him, admired him, despised him … a hundred things, but always she was tied to him by bonds so strong they crowded out everything else.

"What did you do today?" she asked aloud. What was racing through her head was the possibility of acquiring a servant, a woman to come in and do the basic chores she herself was so ill-equipped to handle. How much would it cost? Could they afford it? She had sworn she was not going to go back to nursing in other people’s houses, as she had done until their marriage. Her smile widened as she remembered the day.

Automatically, she washed her hands, filled the pan with cold water and set it on the small stove to boil, then reached for potatoes, carrots, onions and cabbage.

Their wedding day had been typical of late spring: glittering sunshine gold on wet pavements, the scent of lilacs in the air, the sound of birdsong and the jingle of harness, horses’ hooves on the cobbles, church bells. Excitement had fluttered in her chest so fiercely she could hardly breathe. Inside, the church was cool. A flurry of wind had blown her skirt around her.

She could see the rows of pews now in her mind’s eye, the floor leading to the altar worn uneven by thousands of feet down the centuries. The stained glass of the windows shone like jewels thrown up against the sun. She had no idea what the pictures were. All she had seen after that had been Monk’s stiff shoulders and his dark head, then his face as he could not resist turning towards her.

He was leaning against the door lintel talking to her now, and she had not heard what he had said.

"I’m sorry," she apologized. "I was thinking about the dinner. What did you say?" Why had she not told him what she was really thinking? Too sentimental. It would embarrass him.

"Lucius Stourbridge," he repeated very clearly. "His bride-to-be left the party in the middle of a croquet game and has not been seen since. That was three days ago."

She stopped scraping the carrots and turned to look at him.

"Left how? Didn’t anybody go after her?"

"They thought at first she’d been taken ill." He told her the story as he had heard it.

She tried to imagine herself in Miriam Gardiner’s place. What could have been in her mind as she ran from the garden? Why? It was easy enough to think of a moment’s panic at the thought of the change in her life she was committing herself to and things that would be irrevocable once she had walked down the aisle of the church and made her vows before God-and the congregation. But you overcame such things. You came back with an apology and made some excuse about feeling faint.

Or if you really had changed your mind, you said so, perhaps with hideous embarrassment, guilt, fear. But you did not simply disappear.

"What is it?" he asked, looking at her face. "Have you thought of something?"

She remembered the carrots and started working again, although the longer it took to prepare dinner the more chance there was she could force herself to eat again. Her fingers moved more slowly.

"I suppose there wasn’t someone else?" she asked. The pan was coming to the boil, little bubbles beginning to rise from the bottom and burst. She should hurry with the potatoes and put on a second pan for the cabbage. If she chopped it fiercely it would not take long.

He said nothing for a few moments. "I suppose it’s the only answer," he concluded. "Treadwell must be involved somehow, or why didn’t he come back?"

"He saw his chance to steal the coach, and he just took it," she suggested, putting the potatoes and carrots into the pan, a little salt in it, then the lid on. "William?"

"What?"

How should she approach this without either inviting him to tell her to give up working at the hospital on one hand, or on the other, implying that she expected a higher standard of living than he was able to offer her?

"Are you going to take the case?"

"I already told you that. I wish I hadn’t, but I gave my word."

"Why do you regret it?" She kept her eyes on the knife, her fingers and the cabbage.

"Because there’s nothing I could find out that would bring anything but tragedy to them," he replied a little tartly.

She did not speak for a few minutes, busying herself with getting out the mutton first and carving slices off it and then replacing it in the pantry. She found the last of the pickles- she should have purchased more-and set the table.

"Do you think…" she began.

He was watching her as if seeing her performing those domestic duties gave him pleasure. Was it she, or simply the warmth of belonging, particularly after the unique isolation of his years without memory, the comforts of the past which did not exist for him, except in shadows, and the fear of what he would find?

"Do I think what?" he asked. "Your pan is boiling!"

"Thank you." She eased the lid a little. It was time to put the cabbage in as well.

"Hester!"

"Yes?"

"You used to be the most straightforward woman I ever knew. Now you are tacking and jibbing like…"

She pushed past him. "Please don’t stand in the doorway. I can’t move around you."

He stepped aside. "What do you think made Miriam Gardiner change her mind so suddenly?"

Fear, she thought. Sudden overwhelming knowledge of what promises she was making. Her life, her fortunes for good or ill, her name, her obedience, perhaps most of all her body, would belong to someone else. Perhaps in that moment, as she had stood in the sunlight in the garden, it had all been too much. Forever! Till death do us part. You have to love someone very much indeed, overwhelmingly … you have to trust him in a deep, fierce and certain way that lies even closer to the heart than thought, in order to do that. "William, do you think we could afford to have a woman in during the day, to cook for us and purchase food and so on? So that we could spend together the time we have, and be sure of a proper meal?" She did not look at him. She stood with body tight, waiting for his response. The words were said.

There was silence except for the bubbling of the water and the jiggling of the pan lid. She moved it a little farther off and the steam plumed out.

She wished she knew what he was thinking. Money? Or principle? Would someone else be an intrusion? Hardly. Everyone had servants. Money. They had already discussed that. He had accepted Callandra’s help earlier on as a matter of necessity. Now it was different. He would never permit anyone else to support his wife. They had battled over her independence already. She had won. It was an unspoken condition of happiness. It was the only thing in which he had been prepared to give ground. It was probably the surest gauge of his love for her. The memory of it filled her with warmth.

"It’s not important," she said impulsively. "I …" Then she did not know what else to say without spoiling it. Over-explanation always did.

"There’s no room for anyone to live in," he said thoughtfully. "She would have to come every day."

She found herself smiling, a little skip of pleasure inside her. "Oh, of course. Perhaps just afternoons."

"Is that sufficient?" He was generous now, possibly even rash. One never knew what cases he would have in the future.

"Oh, certainly," she agreed. She took a skewer and tested the potatoes. Not ready yet. "Could she have discovered something about Lucius that made the thought of marrying him intolerable?" she asked. "Or about his family, perhaps?"

"Not that instant," he answered. "No one was standing anywhere near her, far less speaking to her. It was just a garden croquet match, full of social chatter, very open, quite public. She couldn’t have surprised him with another woman, if that’s what you are thinking. And there was certainly no quarrel. Nor was it a question of being overwhelmed or feeling a stranger. She had been there many times before and already knew everyone present. She helped compile the guest list."

She said nothing.

"I want your thoughts," he prompted. "You are a woman. Do you understand her?"

Should she tell him the truth? Would he be hurt? She had learned that he was far more vulnerable than his hard exterior showed. He had courage, anger, wit. He was not easily wounded, he felt too fiercely and too completely for others to sway him. He knew what he believed. It was part of what drew her to him, and infuriated her, sometimes even frightened her.

But since they had been married she had learned the tenderness underneath. It was seldom in his words, but it was in his touch, the way his fingers moved over her body as if even in moments of greatest passion he never forgot her heart and her spirit inside the flesh. She was never less than herself to him. For that, she would always love him, hold back no portion of herself in fear or reserve.

But she could not have known that before. Miriam Gardiner could not know that. She turned around to face him.

"We don’t know what her first marriage was like, not truly," she said, meeting his eyes. "Not when the doors were closed and they were alone together. Perhaps there were things in that which made her suddenly afraid of committing herself irrevocably again."

His gray eyes searched hers. She saw the question in them, the flicker of uncertainty.

"You cannot know beforehand how well or ill it will be," she said very quietly. "One can be hurt." She did not say "Or be repulsed, exhausted, feel used or soiled," but she knew he understood it. "Perhaps they knew each other very little in that regard," she said aloud. Then, in case he should imagine she had the slightest doubt or fear herself, she put her arms around his neck and, brushing her fingers gently over his ears and into his hair, kissed his mouth.

His response spoiled the dinner and sealed his determination to begin looking for a woman to take over domestic duties from now on.