Una fretted away the rest of her shift, of little use to anyone. She knew as soon as she’d left Superintendent Perkins’s office Dru had been summoned to give her accounting of the day’s events. When she found out Una had implicated her in Mr. Knauff’s death, would she point the finger back at Una? It had been Una, after all, who’d cut her off halfway through the report to show her the pathologist’s notes.
The notes! Una still had them tucked beneath her apron. If someone found her with them, she’d be expelled for sure. Especially if Dru told Miss Perkins about their scheming to uncover some illusory killer at Bellevue. While the second-year was changing a patient’s bandages, Una stuffed the papers into the furnace, watching them catch fire and burn.
She crouched beside the furnace, peering through the grate until her cheeks stung from the heat. Dru would tell Miss Perkins everything. She, like Una, had no choice. Not if she wanted to remain at the school. Which one of them would Miss Perkins believe? Una had the advantage of having told her version of events first. And she knew from experience just how big an advantage that was.
* * *
When the night nurse arrived for duty, Una forced her mind to focus long enough to tell her about the more serious cases on the ward who would need special care through the night. In truth, she hadn’t expected to make it to the end of her shift without being called again to Miss Perkins’s office to face dismissal. She lingered on the ward as the lights were dimmed for the night. Una could hardly breathe for all the guilt inside her. Guilt over Mr. Knauff’s death. Guilt for implicating Dru, the one person at the training school who’d been kind to her from the start.
Una walked the short distance from the hospital to the nurses’ home alone. Inside, it smelled of ham and boiled cabbage, but she hadn’t any
appetite. She dreaded seeing Dru. Would she ever be able to forgive Una for this betrayal?
As she stood in the foyer removing her coat, she heard not-so-quiet whispers coming from the library. Una crept closer and listened.
“You’re kidding!” one of the women said.
“Nurse Roe confirmed it,” another of the trainees said. “She works with Drusilla on ward ten. Drusilla was called to Superintendent Perkins’s office late in the afternoon and never returned.”
“But how do you know she was expelled?”
Expelled! Una clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a gasp. She’d thought the worst that might happened to Dru—if Miss Perkins believed Una’s version of events—was a demotion to probationer again. Dru had never once been in trouble, after all, or received less than exemplary marks on her examinations.
“She fainted upon hearing the news. An orderly was called to lift her from the floor to the chair and fetch smelling salts. He told Lula in the kitchen who told . . .”
Una pulled her coat back on and hurried to the front door. If Dru had truly fainted, Una must be sure she was all right. She opened the door and nearly collided with Nurse Hatfield.
“And just where are you going at so late an hour, Miss Kelly?”
“Back to the hospital. I heard Dru is unwell.” She tried to step around Nurse Hatfield, but the woman blocked her path.
“You cannot see Miss Lewis. At least not tonight.” “She did faint, then?”
Nurse Hatfield nodded. Una stepped back into the foyer, and Nurse Hatfield followed, shutting the door behind them.
“On account of being expelled?” Una asked, her voice warbling.
“That, perhaps, had something to do with it. But a larger part is owed to her fever.”
“Fever?”
“Yes. Typhus, we suspect.”
Una’s limbs went cold. Half of those who contracted the disease died. “But how—”
“There’s been an outbreak in the city going on some many weeks. Even a trainee as imperceptive as you must have heard.”
“Yes, but typhus patients are sent directly to the Island. How would Dru have—”
“Two weeks ago a patient was misdiagnosed and brought to Bellevue.” Nurse Hatfield shrugged out of her coat and peeled off her gloves. Her voice was tired, matter-of-fact, but not unkind. “Miss Lewis cared for him before the true nature of his ailment was discovered. He was immediately transferred to Riverside Hospital, of course. But apparently too late.” She turned to Una and smirked. “I’m surprised Miss Lewis didn’t tell you about the incident.”
Una swallowed her tide of anger. Knocking loose Nurse Hatfield’s teeth might feel good, but it wouldn’t help anything. And she was right. Why hadn’t Dru told her? Fear of having caught the illness must have weighed heavily on her mind. How hadn’t Una noticed?
She looked down to hide her reddening cheeks as shame quickly consumed her rage. Had she not been so preoccupied with her own moroseness, with Deidre and the ridiculous idea of murder, she might have noticed. Dru had been unusually tired of late. Pale too and distractible.
“Has she been taken to Riverside too?”
“No, we’ll nurse her here in the Sturges Pavilion.” “Can I—”
“No. Only those with the utmost skill and care are permitted to attend her.” With that, Nurse Hatfield strode away. She stopped halfway down the hall and said over her shoulder, “Oh, and you might do well to pack up your valise tonight. Superintendent Perkins wants to see you again first thing tomorrow. I don’t imagine it’s good news.”
* * *
Una passed a sleepless night and picked over her breakfast the following morning. Not even a steaming cup of Cook Prynne’s coffee could thaw her cold and twisted insides. She daren’t arrive late to Miss Perkins’s office, but each step to the hospital and up its unending stairs tested her will. Dru had been expelled and lay sick—maybe dying. Was Una to be expelled as well?
Miss Perkins admitted Una after her first, timid knock on the door. Like yesterday, she did not offer Una a chair.
“I’ve considered the events of yesterday’s tragedy with great care,” she said. Her expression was grave, and her eyes had the watery, red-rimmed
look of one who hadn’t slept.
Una nodded, unable to speak.
“As you know, this is not the first time your suitability for this profession has been called into question.”
“Please, Miss Perkins, I promise to be more—”
The superintendent held up her hand. She stood from her desk and walked to the window. A ring of delicate frost edged the glass, aglint in the morning light. “I’ve watched you these many weeks, Miss Kelly. This incident notwithstanding, you’re unquestionably good with the patients. Never unctuous or aloof. You’re calm under pressure and have taken well to your lessons, thanks in no small part to Miss Lewis’s tutelage, I presume.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I have no doubt you could become a fine nurse someday. However, I find myself questioning your heart.”
Her heart? What did that mean?
Miss Perkins sighed and turned from the window. “We spoke at length yesterday, Miss Lewis and I, before she took ill.”
Una winced. Whatever Dru had said, it couldn’t be good. Not that Una could blame her after she had fingered Dru in Mr. Knauff’s death. Rule number one: Look out for yourself above all others. Una had lived her life by those words. Why, now, did they suddenly sound so hollow?
“Please, Miss Perkins, I can explain. I . . . that is . . . we, Dru and I— Miss Lewis, I mean, we—”
“There’s nothing left to explain. Miss Lewis took full responsibility for the unfortunate accident of Mr. Knauff’s death.”
Una blinked. “She did?”
“She confessed to thinking the procedure would take place the morrow following his transfer, not that afternoon, and fed him his full dinner before bringing him to your ward. She also owned to not relaying that most important bit of information to you when handing over his care on account of being distracted.”
“And did she say what . . . er . . . caused her distraction?”
Miss Perkins glanced again out the window. Una followed her gaze. Morning’s mist had retreated from the lawn and the Sturges Pavilion—a long, single-story brick building opposite the Insane Pavilion—shown in plain view.
“Of that, she wouldn’t speak. I can only speculate it was her illness. The disease can render one quite insensible.”
“If that’s the case, then must she be expelled?”
Miss Perkins turned back to Una, her weary eyes hardened. “That is not your concern, Miss Kelly. We’re here today to discuss your fate, not hers. Lucky for you, not only did Miss Lewis take responsibility for yesterday’s tragedy, but she also spoke quite highly of you and your skill.”
“She did?”
“‘Uncommonly brave and true of heart,’ I believe is how she put it. So, despite my misgivings, I’m allowing you to stay.”
The coffee Una had drunk at breakfast rose into her throat, tinged with blistering bile. Dru had kept the secret of Deidre and their investigation into her death despite the threat of expulsion. That alone was enough to make Una sick with guilt. But to have spoken kindly of her when Una so little deserved it—she couldn’t comprehend it.
“I . . . thank you for another chance.”
“Thank Miss Lewis when she recovers. If she recovers. Until then, see that you live up to her estimable opinion of you.”
* * *
That evening, Una resolved to see Dru once her work on the ward was done. She waited until after the other trainees had left the hospital, then crept across the lawn to the Sturges Pavilion. Inside, the lights had been dampened to a soft glow. The night nurse went about her duties, paying Una no mind. Dru’s bed was set several feet apart from the others at the far end of the ward. Una pulled up a chair beside her and took her hand. Dru stirred, moaning softly, but didn’t wake. Her skin was hot and sticky. An angry rash showed around the sweat-soaked collar of her bed dress.
All day Una’s throat had been choked with bile. Now, she felt something different—a trembling and tightness that threatened to give way into a sob. But Una had her rules—number three: Don’t cry; number seventeen: Never show weakness—and, with considerable effort, she managed to push down the pesky feeling.
It wasn’t her fault Dru was sick. Typhus, cholera, smallpox—even though Bellevue wasn’t a pest hospital, there was always a risk to staff. The nurses were no exception. Then why did Una feel so goddamned guilty?
She squeezed Dru’s hand, brushed the dampened hair from her face, and promised to return tomorrow.
“I’ll fix this,” she whispered before standing to leave. “Somehow. Some way.”
