The boiler house, laundry, and kitchen occupied the lawn behind the main hospital building. Despite the high brick wall that blocked First Avenue and the other nearby streets from view, Una could hear the clatter of horse hooves and rattle of wagons. Vendors called out over one another, peddling matches and buttons and roasted chestnuts to passersby. A mule brayed. An organ grinder cranked his machine. The muffled sounds were so close and familiar yet seemed to belong to another world. Her world.
In one arm, Una carried the linen basket, heaped to the brim. In the other, the straw-filled mattress, doubled over and tucked against her side. She waddled more than walked, stopping every few steps to rebalance her load. What in damnation was she doing here? This wasn’t how she’d imagined things would work out. Waking up at the hateful hour of dawn. Dusting and cleaning like a maid. Squirming beneath Nurse Hatfield’s barbed gaze until everything was just so. Not even Una’s comfy bed and Cook Prynne’s warm meals were worth all this trouble. Hell, even life on the Island would be easier than this.
But as soon as Una shouldered open the laundry’s door and stepped inside, she knew that wasn’t true. Half a dozen women hunched over washboards and wringers, sweat matting their hair. Others churned vats of boiling water and linen, their cheeks reddened from the sweltering steam. They were bone-thin, these women, with vacant eyes and flea-bitten skin. Workhouse women, carted over from the Tombs or ferried in from Blackwell’s Island. They carried out their assigned tasks—washing, churning, wringing—like women half-dead.
Una handed over the soiled bedding and hurried out. Her throat was tight and armpits sweaty, and not just from the hot, lye-smelling air that followed her out. If the coppers found her, she’d have nothing but a lifetime of suffering and drudgery to look forward to. Just like these laundry women. Her uniform might be scratchy, her roommate a chattery bore, Nurse
Hatfield an insufferable prig, but Una mustn’t forget what awaited her if she failed here.
When she reached the third floor, Una smoothed her apron and straightened her cap before knocking on Superintendent Perkins’s door. Upon entering, Una was relieved to find Nurse Hatfield was not there, though she suspected the head nurse had filled Miss Perkins’s ear with enough poison to expel Una thrice over. She’d have to do her very best cajoling if she hoped to stay.
It was a larger office than Una had expected with a polished oak desk, several bookshelves, and a separate sitting area with cushioned chairs and a lacquered tea table. The usual bric-a-brac hung on the walls: needlework, pictures, old-fashioned wood prints, a plainly carved cross. The wards were dressed much the same, with the addition of various placards put up by religious societies quoting Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the book of Psalms. Several large windows looked out over the back lawn and cityscape beyond, but only one was unshuttered.
Miss Perkins gestured to a straight-back chair opposite her desk, and Una sat. She folded her hands in her lap, as much to still their trembling as to appear ladylike, and met Miss Perkins’s gaze with an innocent expression.
“Nurse Hatfield tells me you’ve had some difficulties today,” the superintendent said. As during the interview, her voice, her posture, her face offered few clues to what she was thinking. She’d make a good conwoman.
“I had trouble seeing Nurse Hatfield’s demonstration this morning from the back of the room and got a few things mixed up. I’m quite confident now that I know the proper order of things. It shan’t happen again.”
“Perhaps your unfortunate position in the demonstration room had something to do with your tardiness.”
“I was only a minute or two late. My roommate couldn’t find her cap, and we—”
“But Miss Lewis wasn’t late.”
“We found her cap in the very nick of time, and she hurried off to lecture, but I still had my—”
“Miss Kelly, I did not bring you into my office to hear your excuses.” Her eyebrows had pulled together to form a furrow that deepened as she spoke. “Either you are suitable for this program or you are not. Your behavior today leads me to believe the latter.”
Una leaned forward in her chair. She’d taken the wrong approach but still wasn’t sure what the right approach was. Flattery? Obsequiousness? She felt the same sweatiness and throat tightening as she had at the laundry. “Please, Miss Perkins, give me another chance.” Her voice quavered without artifice. “I am suited to this program. I promise.”
Superintendent Perkins leaned back in her chair and steepled her hands. Seconds ticked by, but she seemed in no rush to speak. Una sat as still as she could, hoping the woman would read her desperation as earnestness.
How foolish Una had been to think that she could dally her way through the program unnoticed. More foolish still to underestimate Miss Hatfield and the grudge she held against Una. Neither mistake would Una make again. If she weren’t expelled first.
At last, Superintendent Perkins spoke. “Nursing is not a divertissement for bored young women. It is a profession. A calling. Inefficiency and insubordination will not be tolerated. If I see you in this office again—for any reason—before your month’s probation is up, you’ll be dismissed. Do you understand?”
“Yes, thank you. Yes.” Una stood before Miss Perkins could change her mind. “You shan’t regret this, I promise.”
