Una plopped down beside Dru at the table in the library. “What’s on the docket for tonight?”
“Dr. Janssen is giving a lecture on the vascular system tomorrow, so I figured we ought to do a little primer.”
Una sat back and loosened the laces of her boots. She hadn’t any idea what the vascular system was but knew Dru would soon enlighten her. If having to slow down and explain things—sometimes two or three times— bothered Dru, she made no show of it. She always left room for Una at her table and had two cups of warmed milk and honey for them to sip while they studied. Una would have preferred brandy or at least strong coffee. But not since early childhood had anyone bothered to make Una a cup of anything, so she wasn’t about to complain.
The other probationers didn’t take to Dru any kindlier than they did to Una. Sure, Dru yapped as much as a Tammany politician on election day. And used a roll instead of her knife to steer peas onto her fork like all countryfolk did. (Better than her fingers, which Una would just assume use if she weren’t trying to be ladylike.) And was cheerier than anyone in their right mind ought to be. But Una suspected the real reason was jealousy. Pure and simple. She could see it in the other women’s pinched faces every time Dru answered a question correctly or got full marks on an examination.
Petty fools the lot of them—which suited Una fine. She had Dru and her big brain all to herself.
But tonight, Dru didn’t seem quite herself. She wore a heavy, closed- lipped smile instead of her usual bright one. Her gaze wandered restlessly about the room. Mr. Gray’s book of anatomy—usually already opened to the exact page they needed, with several others marked for reference—sat pushed back and closed. Instead of opening it, Dru circled a spoon through her milk, round and round and round, long past the point of dissolving the honey. The steady tinkle of the spoon against the cup harried Una’s nerves
and drew stares from across the room. When at last Dru set aside the spoon, she didn’t even drink but pushed the cup and saucer away.
Una grabbed the book and thumbed through the pages to the table of contents. The Vascular System, a general anatomical introduction, page seventy-five. The introduction began with several drawings of tubelike structures, some straight and banded, others branching out and twisting like tree roots. Dru glanced at the drawings, then quickly away.
“Okay, what’s wrong?” Una said. “Hmm?”
“You’re not acting at all like yourself.”
Dru straightened and dredged up another halfhearted smile. “It’s nothing.
I’m sorry. Where were we?” “We haven’t even begun.”
Dru reached for the book, but Una got to it first, leaning forward and planting her elbows atop the pages. “It’s not nothing.”
“Careful, you’ll wrinkle the pages.”
Una grabbed the corner of the top page and started to tear it from the spine. Dru stayed her hand. “Okay, okay . . . it’s just, well, the vascular system.”
“You got something against the vascular system?” “Not the whole system. Just . . . well . . . blood.”
Una started to laugh but then, registering the pained expression on Dru’s face, faked a cough instead. “Blood?”
“Shh!” Dru looked over at the trainees seated at the other end of the library, then leaned closer. “The sight of it makes me sick. Once I actually fainted.”
“But you grew up on a farm. There must have been blood everywhere.
Pig blood and chicken blood and goat blood and—”
Dru shushed her again, but the first sign of a real smile played on her lips. “It’s not animal blood that gives me trouble. Only human.”
“That’s why you turned all pasty-faced our first day at the hospital. What have you done since? You must be sick all the time on the ward.”
“I haven’t seen much blood. I mean, not really. Not up close. Have you?” Una thought back to the operating theater: the dirty sponges, the surgeon’s slick hands, the slow stream of blood trickling off the table into the trough of sawdust below. And then there were all the bloodied dressings she’d changed while Miss Cuddy was off retching into a bucket. Most
probationers, Una realized, had spent the last three weeks doing little more than dusting. “Er . . . not much. A spot on the sheets now and then.”
“Even that doesn’t bother me. Once it’s out of the body, that is. It’s just seeing it flow out of the body that—” She stopped and gagged. “Oh, Una. What am I going to do? If I get sick or swoon on duty, I’ll be expelled for sure.”
Not necessarily, Una thought wryly. But then, Miss Cuddy’s infirmness was only temporary. “You didn’t think about this when you applied to be a nurse?”
“Of course I did. But I wanted to be a nurse so badly. I thought . . . I
hoped once I got here my affliction might be cured.”
This time, Una did laugh. “You thought by seeing more blood you’d suddenly get better?”
“Well . . . yes. Like the more times you eat brussels sprouts, the less awful they taste.”
Una had never heard of brussels sprouts, let alone eaten them. If she didn’t like the taste of something, she spat it out and didn’t touch the food again. But maybe Dru had a point. Like during her stint at Blackwell’s Island. One night sleeping on that flea-ridden straw and she itched so badly she’d have peeled off her skin with a razor if one were at hand. But by the end of her stretch, she hardly noticed the bites.
“Maybe I should just hand my resignation in to Miss Perkins now and spare myself the embarrassment,” Dru said and began to cry.
Una searched through her pockets and handed Dru her hankie. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
But it was clear from Dru’s crying, which progressed now into full- fledged sobbing, that she was serious. What would Una do if Dru did leave? Whose tests would she cheat from? Who would help her understand all this medical jabber? What kind of noisome woman would take Dru’s place as her roommate?
Una couldn’t let that happen. She swiveled in her chair to face Dru, reaching out a tentative hand. What was she supposed to do with this blubbering mess? How was she supposed to comfort her? Thieves didn’t cry. Not unless it was a part of their act. Didn’t matter if they were men, women, or children. Una gave Dru’s shoulder a few quick pats the way she’d seen coachmen do with an unsettled horse.
Dru took that as an invitation to hug Una and sob all over her collar. Una tensed. The women across the room gawked and whispered. Una returned their unkind stares until they looked away. She recalled how her mother had rubbed her back in slow, steady circles when Una was sick and did the same for Dru. At first, her crying intensified—loud and shuddering—and Una feared she’d done something wrong. But after a minute or so, Dru calmed, and her tears slowed.
She drew back and wiped her cheeks. “I don’t know what I’ll do if I can’t be a nurse. It’s all I’ve ever wanted since the first time I—”
“I know, I know. Since the first time you read that Miss Eveningbird’s—” “Nightingale.”
“Nightingale’s book. Don’t you think there were things she wasn’t good at when she first started nursing over there in . . .”
“Crimea.”
“Crimea. Exactly. Why, I bet she couldn’t tell an under sheet from an upper sheet. And you know Miss Hatfield would find issue with the way she tucked in her corners.”
Dru chuckled. She dabbed her eyes once more, then handed Una back her hankie. “Thank you. I’m so lucky to have a friend like you.”
Una’s shoulders, which had only just begun to loosen from her ears, tightened again. “I . . . It’s nothing.”
“I still don’t know what I’m going to do, though.”
“How many times have you been sickened like this?” “Twice.”
“Only twice?”
“After fainting that time when I was thirteen, I’ve been careful to look away at the first sight of blood.”
“Thirteen! You mean to tell me it’s been a decade since all this happened?”
Dru nodded sheepishly.
“Hell—er—goodness, you might be cured already.”
“Do you think so? It doesn’t seem like the sort of thing that just goes away.”
“Only one way to find out.”
Una grabbed Dru’s hand and dragged her to the kitchen. The room was empty, but she could hear Cook Prynne puttering around in the cellar below.
No time for ceremony, then. She seated Dru on a low stool—less distance to fall if she swooned—and rummaged through the drawers and cupboards.
“What are you doing?” Dru asked behind her, a note of unease in her voice.
“You’ll see.” She found a knife, tested its sharpness, then sliced the pad of her pinky finger. The cut stung, but only a little. She hadn’t gone very deep. More importantly, a steady stream of blood trickled down her finger. She turned from the cupboard with her hand outstretched.
“Una, you’ve cut your—” Dru rose, wobbled, and quickly sat back down.
Her face had gone the color of ash. She started to turn her head. “No, don’t turn away. Look.”
Dru winced, but trained her eyes on Una’s finger. She lasted six seconds
—Una counted under her breath—before whipping her face away and clutching her stomach.
“It’s hopeless,” Dru said between uneven breaths.
“Nonsense.” Una washed away the blood at the sink. The cold water stung her finger anew. Six seconds. Certainly not a feat to brag about, but it was a start.
She’d spied a bottle of cooking sherry at the back of one of the cupboards when looking for the knife and poured Dru a small glass. After a few sips, Dru looked well enough to stand. They snuck into the demonstration room, and Una grabbed a scrap of tow from one of the shelves. She handed it to Dru. “You do it.”
“But I can’t.”
“The cut is hardly bleeding anymore. Besides, you said you wanted to be a nurse, right?”
Reluctantly, Dru took the tow in one hand and Una’s pinky finger in the other. Her skin was clammy, and her hand trembled. She bound Una’s finger with all the grace of a drunken ox.
Una laughed, examining her handiwork. Here was a woman who could recite every bone in the body, who knew the difference in exact degrees between a cool and temperate bath, who could mix a bowl of antiseptic faster than anyone at the school, and she couldn’t dress a simple cut.
“Hopeless, like I said.”
Una held out her hand. The loose dressing sagged. “On the contrary, it’s a thing of beauty.”
Dru’s expression tottered. Una winced, fearing another crying fit. Instead, Dru laughed. Una joined in, laughing until her ribs ached.
“No more talk of resigning, you hear?” Una said when their laughter petered out. “We’ll get you used to the sight of blood one way or another.”
“Not before you run out of fingers.” Una feared she was right.
