The Death of Jane Lawrence(6)

“Is essentially the same thing.”

“It certainly is not,” he said. “I’m not sure what kind of man you take me for, but I wouldn’t—a nurse in my employ—such intimacy—it’s insulting, Miss Shoringfield.” But he didn’t sound insulted. He sounded—

Flustered.

Frustrated.

He’d clearly been thinking about the implications of a marriage since last night’s talk. She should have been relieved that he’d come to the same conclusion—that intimacy was not appropriate or desirous—but instead she felt her own cheeks burning. Best to get this out of the way formally, though. She removed her glasses, rubbing them clean on her dress. “I suppose a marriage would need to be consummated, legally,” she conceded.

Dr. Lawrence choked, then turned back to stare at her incredulously. “You suppose,” he echoed.

“I am sure, though, that we can find a way to balance the statutory requirements with how we wish to conduct the marriage. But if you feel I misrepresented anything last night—”

She was interrupted by a sharp, loud banging on the front door, followed by the harried ringing of the bell and Mr. Lowell’s footsteps, fast and heavy, in the hallway. A muffled cry of pain from outside. The doctor’s troubled expression disappeared, his features blank and still save for the focused light in his eyes. He rolled up his sleeves.

“Miss Shoringfield,” he said, voice wholly transformed. “Please go into the operating room; leave both doors wide open. There are aprons and gowns in there. Have one ready for me.”

“I—”

The front door opened, and Jane could hear screaming.

“Now, Miss Shoringfield.”





CHAPTER THREE


JANE SPRANG INTO action, dashing across the hall to the operating theater. Mr. Lowell had left one door open, and she pulled the other one out of the way. She could hear a woman talking, fast, voice high-pitched in panic, as Jane looked around for the aprons. She found them on a coat stand out of the way, and pulled down one of them, then turned as the cacophony reached the doorway.

Mr. Lowell and another man were carrying the screaming patient, a heavy-boned, broad-shouldered laborer who was clutching his belly. “Get it out!” he cried. “Get it out, I didn’t mean it!” Blood pulsed from between his fingers, through the soaked fabric of his shirt, spattering on the floor.

Jane swayed on her feet, then clenched her jaw, determined to stay upright.

Behind the man an older woman clasped bloody hands around Dr. Lawrence’s forearm. “I heard him screaming from the woodshop,” she said. “He had the knife, he was cutting, I don’t know—”

“Get it out!” the man bellowed again, thrashing. Mr. Lowell nearly lost his grip.

Dr. Lawrence turned to the woman and murmured something with a nod of his head toward the door. He pried her fingers up so slowly Jane wanted to scream along with the patient, but when he was free, the woman disappeared back into the hallway.

He crossed the floor to where she stood, as behind him Mr. Lowell and the volunteer assistant hoisted the bleeding man onto the table.

Trembling, Jane draped the apron over Dr. Lawrence’s head, and he turned so she could fasten it down the sides. Then he took her by the hand and pulled her over to a filled basin.

“Antiseptic. Wash your hands, Miss Shoringfield. Thoroughly. Rub under your nails, too.”

She did as she was told, then tuned back to the table. Mr. Lowell had strapped the patient down at the chest, wrists, and legs. The volunteer who’d helped carry the patient stared as the man thrashed and howled. Mr. Lowell pulled a protective cover off an array of tools.

“Mr. Rivers,” the doctor said, and the volunteer dragged his gaze away from the patient. “Please step outside. Miss Shoringfield, with me.” Dimly, she realized she hadn’t thought to grab an apron for herself, but one look at the patient told her why the doctor hadn’t reminded her.

They didn’t have time.

Through the sodden, gaping fabric of the man’s shirt, Jane could see that his belly was split open. A makeshift bandage had been wrapped around it, but he had torn at it, pressing the ragged edges inside the flesh. Dr. Lawrence surveyed it in barely two seconds.

“Miss Shoringfield, I need your hands,” he said. Before she could question him, he took one of her hands in his, clamping it over one side of the slit in the patient’s belly, fingers around the separated flesh. She held on even as the man gave another bellow and the slippery skin heaved in her grip. Dr. Lawrence guided her other hand to the other side. “Hold the wound open. Mr. Lowell, wash your hands, then get me a flushing bulb.”

He grabbed up a pair of shears and made quick work of the patient’s shirt, then cleared the rest of the bandage away from the wound. Jane’s fingers trembled. Blood covered her hands, seeping beneath her nails, and it stank. Spirits take her, but it stank. She’d never seen this much blood in her life, and it was slippery, and hot, and more of it forced against her hands and pooled in the too-large gap in the patient’s skin with every rapid, desperate pulse of his heart. He was still conscious beneath her hands, still screaming, still moving, and every heaving breath he took made the inside of his wound rise and fall with it.

Mr. Lowell returned to the table and passed Dr. Lawrence a glass tube with a rubber balloon set above it. Dr. Lawrence squeezed the balloon and water surged into the wound, diluting the blood and forcing it from its pool.