Each night for the next three days, Una and Dru stole into the kitchen and performed the same test. Six seconds stretched into eight and ten and then fifteen. Dru protested each time that it was madness for Una to cut herself on her behalf and thanked her profusely afterward, saying she’d never had a better friend.
Una wished she’d knock it off with this friend business. It gave her dyspepsia. This wasn’t friendship. It was business. If Una was to stay in the training program, Dru had to stay too.
But fifteen seconds staring at a measly finger wound wasn’t the same as seeing a man whose leg had been gnawed off by a machine or assisting as the surgeon operated. Eventually Una would run out of fingers, and she wasn’t about to go cutting anyplace else. No, they needed a more radical plan to cure Dru once and for all.
Una thought about this the next day on the ward as she helped Nurse Cuddy—whose morning sickness had finally begun to ease—prepare a patient for an enema. Perhaps she and Dru could sneak into the operating theater during a procedure. But two extra nurses—whether squeezed in among the gawking medical students or standing off to the side of the stage
—were sure to draw notice. They might ride out with Conor in the ambulance. But there was no guarantee whatever emergency they were called to would involve blood. They could sneak into a bar in the Bowery or Hell’s Kitchen. A fistfight was sure to break out once everyone got good and liquored. But Una couldn’t risk being seen in either of those places, and she suspected Dru would sooner quit the training program than step into a saloon.
“Hold him still,” Nurse Cuddy said, pulling Una from her thoughts. They had rolled the patient onto his side with his knees drawn up. Una cradled the man while Miss Cuddy delivered the enema: milk and eggs thickened with arrowroot to supplement what little nourishment the man could take by mouth.
Dr. Pingry and his interns arrived soon after for rounds. While they quizzed Nurse Cuddy about this patient’s elevated heart rate or that patient’s pus-filled wound, Una snuck off to do her own chores—dusting and bed making and bandage rolling. But her gaze drifted back to the men, Dr. Westervelt in particular. She was sure he’d recognized her last week in the operating theater. Why hadn’t he said anything to Dr. Pingry or Nurse Hatfield? She didn’t trust a man who had dirt on someone and didn’t use it to his advantage. Then again, what advantage was there to getting her expelled? Perhaps he hadn’t mentioned the incident to her or her superiors because in his hoity-toity world she, a probationer, was insignificant.
Una plunged her dust rag into the bowl of disinfectant with more force than intended. Carbolized water sloshed over the sides, spilling onto her apron. She heard a low chuckle and turned to see Dr. Westervelt gawking at her, covering his laughter with a fist.
No one else seemed to have noticed. They stood around a nearby bed peering at a sickly patient who’d only yesterday been up and lively. “An early case of pyemia,” Dr. Pingry was saying. “Wouldn’t you agree, Dr. Westervelt? . . . Dr. Westervelt?”
He cleared his throat, returning his gaze to the patient. “Yes . . . er . . . most assuredly.”
“And what treatment regimen would you recommend?” Dr. Pingry’s voice was sharp.
“Er . . . debride the wound and irrigate it with a disinfectant of five percent carbolic acid.”
“Not cupping or bleeding?”
Una moved closer with her rag, absentmindedly dusting a nearby table as she listened to their conversation. If they bled this man, that could be the ticket to curing Dru of her squeamishness. Una would only need to sneak her over to watch. But glancing sideways at the men, she saw Dr. Westervelt draw in a tight breath like a man steeling his courage.
“No,” he said. “I would recommend neither of those things.”
Dr. Pingry seemed to puff up like a toadstool. Clearly he wasn’t used to being told no. “You and your modern notions. Your grandfather cured many a man of pyemia, and he did so without listening to the council of charlatans like that damned Lister. Your father, on the other hand . . .” He let his voice trail off, then turned to Miss Cuddy. “Half an hour of dry cupping will do wonders for this man. See to it straightaway.”
Dr. Westervelt’s neck had reddened at the mention of his father. Had the conversation happened in an alley over a game of pins, it would have ended in fisticuffs, Una ventured. But then, neither man seemed the back-alley type.
Dr. Pingry patted his waistcoat and grumbled. “Still can’t find my damned watch.”
“It’s eleven thirty, sir,” Dr. Westervelt said, pointing to the wall clock hanging nearby.
“I’m perfectly capable of reading the time. Let’s break for lunch. And I suppose you’ll be wanting to take part in all that transfusion nonsense this afternoon.”
“Yes, sir. If possible, sir.”
Dr. Pingry turned his narrowed eyes upon the senior intern Dr. Allen, who hadn’t the courage to speak but only nod.
“Very well. But mark my words, the infirm require less blood, not more.” Una, who’d continued to listen to their conversation as she dusted, perked up at the mention of blood again. Nonsense or not, whatever this
transfusion was, she and Dru must attend.
Dr. Pingry strode from the ward, Dr. Allen following at his heels. Dr. Westervelt remained behind. He took another gander at the man’s wound before reapplying the dressing. “Some beef tea too,” he said to Miss Cuddy. “If he’ll take it. And a charcoal poultice for the wound. After you’ve finished the cupping, of course.”
Miss Cuddy nodded and hurried to the storeroom. Dr. Westervelt turned to go.
“Doctor,” Una called, remembering her quiet-as-a-mouse nurse voice only after several nearby patients startled awake. She reassured them with an apologetic smile and hurried after the doctor.
He stopped beside the door, his somber expression brightening. “Miss Kelly, what can I do for you?”
Drat, he remembered her name. Better if she were just one, indistinct face among the sea of nurses scurrying about. But speaking boldly to Dr. Pingry, sneaking into the operating theater, and spilling carbolized water all over herself didn’t exactly help her blend in.
“You and Dr. Pingry were speaking about a transfusion. What is that?” “We take the blood of one man and give it to another.”
“All of it?”
He laughed, his too-perfect teeth flashing. “No, only a little.” “How?”
“Cannulas are inserted into both men’s veins and connected by a long tube. The blood of the donor flows into the veins of the other man.”
Una grimaced. Maybe Dr. Pingry was right. This transfusion procedure sounded like something out of Frankenstein. “Are they dead?”
Another laugh. “No, I assure you, both parties are very much alive.”
However monstrous the procedure sounded, it was the perfect opportunity to fix Dru. “And it’s happening this afternoon?”
“Why? Do you plan on sneaking in to watch like you did in the operating theater?”
The hint of a smile betrayed his mocking tone, and though she couldn’t quite tell if he fancied her or simply thought her strange, now was the time to seize whatever advantage she had. She looked down at her feet a moment, then flickered her gaze shyly upward. “Actually, I was hoping you would take me. And my . . . er . . . classmate, Drusilla. Nurse Hatfield would never permit it otherwise. My classmate and I, we’re both quite interested in matters of the vascular system.”
Dr. Westervelt eyed her with suspicion. “Is that so?”
She continued her coquettish game, shuffling a foot over the floorboards and looking away, only to boldly meet his eye again. “It would be most edifying to watch the procedure alongside so esteemed a physician as yourself.”
“‘Esteemed’?” His expression darkened. “I think perhaps you mean my grandfather.”
Una floundered. She might as well have stepped knee-deep in manure. “I
. . .”
He started to walk away.
“I care as much about your lineage, Dr. Westervelt, as I do a flea on a horse’s rear.” She winced at the ill-chosen expression but continued with the truth. “I . . . I very much wanted to see that procedure, and you’re the least odious physician I know.”
He stopped but didn’t turn around. Una cursed under her breath. She should never have let her mouth run like that. Calling a doctor odious, even if he were only a junior intern, was not the sort of nurse-like behavior Miss Perkins would condone. He shook his head slowly, and Una cursed again,
her stomach plummeting. But then, instead of turning around and berating her or stomping upstairs to the superintendent’s office, he chuckled again.
“Very well. I’ll speak to Nurse Hatfield about the procedure,” he said over his shoulder. “But you must do me a favor in return.”
Una hesitated. Rule number fifteen: Never indenture yourself to anyone. But Dru needed this and she needed Dru. “If you get my colleague and me in to see this transfusion, I’ll do you any favor—within the bounds of decency—that you ask.”
“We have a deal, Miss Kelly,” he said and strode away, leaving Una to wonder just what this favor might be.
* * *
Dr. Westervelt was true to his word, and two hours later Una and Dru stood beside him in a small room on the second floor. The drapery had been drawn open, and sunshine lit the room. A bed sat near the window, and in it lay a pale, sickly-looking man. Another man, undressed down to his shirtsleeves and trousers, sat a few feet away from the bed. Supplies glinted on a nearby table alongside two porcelain pitchers of water and an empty metal basin polished to a high sheen. Half a dozen doctors and two nurses fretted about the room, smoothing the bedsheets, checking the sickly man’s pulse, inspecting the instruments like actors readying props for a show.
“What if I swoon in front of all of these people?” Dru whispered to her.
Earlier, when she’d told Dru about the procedure and her plan to get them inside, Dru had come up with dozens of excuses why she couldn’t possibly come. The windowsills needed another dusting. The chamber pots a fresh scrubbing. The ventilation close monitoring. Never mind that her ward gleamed from floor to ceiling, and there wasn’t a draft to be found. Una had to all but drag her away.
Now she reached out and squeezed Dru’s cold, shaky hand. “You won’t pass out. Besides, they’re all too bothered to notice anyhow.”
“But what if—”
“Just lean back against the wall real calm like, and I’ll brace you up.” Dru nodded but didn’t look all that convinced.
“You sure your friend wants to be here?” Dr. Westervelt asked her a few minutes later when Dru began to pant. “If she gets any paler, they’ll mistake her for the patient and wind up transfusing her.”
“She’s fine. Overexcited is all. What’s taking so long anyhow?”
Just then the door opened, and another man entered, carrying a big black box with three wooden legs. He pried the legs apart and stood them on the ground.
“We had to wait for the photographic department to arrive.” Dr.
Westervelt nodded to the newly arrived man.
Una’s skin prickled with a sudden chill. The only other time she’d been around a photograph machine was at police headquarters. No wonder the doctors and nurses were in such a dither. At least she, Dru, and Dr. Westervelt stood against the back wall safely behind the camera’s big glass eye.
The photographer, a lanky man with deep-set eyes and a hooked nose, strode around the room, observing the interplay of light and shadow, adjusting things this way and that. Meanwhile, two doctors led the seated man to a scale and jotted down his weight.
“That’s the donor,” Dr. Westervelt said to her. “They’ll weigh him again after the procedure to determine how much blood was taken.”
“How can they assure the blood will flow from him to the patient and not the other way around?”
“Gravity. There are several stopcocks fitted along the transfusion apparatus and a rubber bulb to help control the flow as well.”
“And the donor. He won’t be harmed in the process?”
“Some have swooned or developed an infection at the site of blood withdrawal, but a powerful and heavy young man like this should be just fine.”
“But if it’s dangerous, why not use animal’s blood or that of a dead man?”
“They’ve tried animal-to-human transfusions in the past without success,” Dru said before Dr. Westervelt could respond. “Lamb’s blood, dog’s blood, bull’s blood. All were lethal to the recipient. The blood of a deceased man cannot be used because of issues with coagulation. Once the heart stops beating, the blood immediately begins to clot. I’ve read of experiments with phosphate solutions to defibrinate . . .”
Una hadn’t the slightest idea what she meant by coagulation or defibrinate but was glad to hear Dru prattle on more like herself. Dr. Westervelt seemed duly impressed. The two of them chatted quietly until the photographer announced he was ready, and the procedure began.
The donor rolled up his shirtsleeve, exposing his inner arm. A doctor grabbed a scalpel from the supply table and made several superficial cuts in the bend of the donor’s elbow until a vein was exposed. A basin had been placed on the floor beneath the donor’s outstretched arm. Blood dribbled from the cuts, pooling at the man’s elbow and dripping into the metal basin. Plink. Plink. Plink.
Dru sucked in an audible breath and whipped her head to the side, her gaze falling to the floor.
Una took a step closer so that their shoulders were touching and grabbed Dru’s hand. “Don’t look away.”
Dru mewled softly, keeping her face to the floor.
“Come on. You have to look. He’s about to puncture the vein.” When Dru still didn’t look, Una added, “I think it’s the femoral vein, right? Or maybe the pedal vein.”
“Don’t be a goose, the pedal vein is in the foot. They’re using the brachial vein.” She peeked over as if to be sure.
“And what’s that thing the doctor is using? Looks like a lapel pin to me.
Or maybe he got into his wife’s needlework.”
Dru gave an exacerbated huff and turned her full gaze on the man. “It’s a cannula. Sharp at one end like a needle but hollow so the blood can flow through.”
They both watched as the doctor inserted the cannula into the vein. Blood spurted from the opposite end of the cannula once the tip was inside. Dru swayed but did not look away. The doctor fastened a tube to the end of the cannula, the pale rubber darkening as it filled with blood. A stopcock halted the flow halfway down the tube.
The sickly man’s vein was similarly cannulated. Both sets of tubing were joined at either end of a rubber bulb and the stopcocks opened. Blood flowed between the men, aided by the occasional squeeze of the bulb. Una held fast to Dru’s hand. Her face remained pallid, and sweat dappled her forehead. But she hadn’t fainted.
“Miraculous, isn’t it?” Dr. Westervelt whispered to Una.
She nodded, though until that moment, she’d been too focused on Dru to appreciate what they were watching. Here was a dying man, pale and shriveled, who might yet live on account of another man’s blood. How many other men and women might be saved? Her thoughts strayed unbidden to her mother, or rather the charred body that had been her
mother. Might there someday be a cure for fire-eaten flesh? Might Una herself administer such a cure? She pushed the ridiculous thought aside. She was here only in hiding. Hers was the life of a thief. Always had been. Always would be.
The doctors clustered around the men while the nurses wiped away the blood splatters and covered the exposed veins with gauze. Once the scene appeared more orderly, the photographer positioned himself and the back end of his camera under a black drape. “Look at the patients, not me,” he called out from beneath the fabric. The doctors and nurses refocused their attention on the procedure. The photographer tinkered with the hidden mechanisms of his camera, then flung off the drape. “This needs more gravitas.” He pointed at Una, Dru, and Dr. Westervelt. “You three, go stand in the back behind the others.”
Una’s stomach clenched.
“Oh no,” Dr. Westervelt replied. “We’re not involved in the procedure. We’re only here to observe.”
“Then observe from over there.” He gestured impatiently toward a narrow strip of space between the group and the far wall.
Dr. Westervelt glanced at the doctor who was compressing the bulb between the men’s arms. With a nod, he moved across the room and squeezed himself into the empty space behind the others.
“Well?” the photographer said, eyeing Una and Dru, who hadn’t budged. “Move it along. This man doesn’t have an endless supply of blood.”
“No, we can’t,” Una started to protest. “We—”
“It’s all right,” Dru whispered. “I shan’t faint.” She tugged Una toward the back of the group.
“Remember, eyes on the men,” the photographer instructed, disappearing again beneath his drape.
Una’s pulse thrummed in her veins. Pressed against the wall between Dr. Westervelt and Dru, she felt like a trapped mouse under the paw of an alley cat. She dreaded being captured in another photograph but had no way to escape.
“Hold still!” the photographer shouted.
Una dipped her chin and edged closer to Dr. Westervelt—closer than was strictly proper—so that his shadow would obscure part of her face. Damn Dru and this entire absurd plan. The camera’s shutter snapped open.
A moment later, it closed, capturing Una’s likeness and the rest of the miraculous scene forever.
