An Improper Death (Dr. Alexandra Gladstone Mysteries Book 2) (18 page)

“Perhaps it’s the delirium,” Alexandra said. “A pneumonia patient is often out of her head.”

“Out of her head you say? Sure she is at times. But I knows me own mum, don’t I? She was in her own mind when she asked for you. Don’t you see? ’Tis her last request I’m trying to grant her. She’s entitled to that, ain’t she?”

Alexandra sensed a hint of guilt in what he was saying. He must have known his mother’s life was miserable living with his wife, Edith, and he was now, in some way, trying to compensate for that. “Have you any idea what is it she wishes to tell me?” She was already reaching for her cloak. “Fin,” she said when he didn’t answer. She assumed he hadn’t heard her, but when she looked at his face, she knew he had, yet he seemed reluctant to speak.

“’Tis something about the admiral.” His voice trembled slightly. “She says ’tis something you should know. Says she cannot go to her grave until she’s sure you understand.”

Alexandra felt her heart miss a beat. What could Mary Prodder possibly know about Admiral
Orkwright? She’d had no association with him, except that she’d been Jane Orkwright’s dressmaker. It was possible, of course, that either Jane or the admiral had confided in her, but about what?

Alexandra took the time to tell Nancy she’d been called away. She was careful not to mention that Mary Prodder wanted to tell her something about the admiral, though. It would take too long to convince a curious and perceptive Nancy that there was no reason for her to come along as well. She left her instructions as to what patients she must see for her during the morning rounds. Nancy was more than competent but would not attempt to minister to patients in a way that was beyond her skill and training. She knew without asking that Nancy would open the surgery for the usual afternoon hours, and she would also not step beyond her rightful bounds, leaving the sickest of the patients for Alexandra when she returned. Alexandra gave her instructions to give her apologies to Mr. Forsythe, who would be arriving soon and to explain that she’d been called to
Bradfordshire to see Mary.

It was not until the mention of Mary’s name that Nancy became insufferably inquisitive.

“Mary’s in hospital, isn’t she? Are the physicians there not capable of treating her?”

“Mary is dying, Nancy. I suspect there is nothing any physician can do, neither I nor the ones in
Bradfordshire.” Alexandra silently chastised herself for even mentioning Bradfordshire or Mary Prodder.

“Then why—?”

Rob, who had delivered a load of coal to the kitchen was now enjoying a cup of tea Nancy had given him. He interrupted Nancy before she could complete her question. “’Tis a deathbed confession, ain’t it? I seen it before. There’s many a old lady or old man I seen dying what wants to unburden theirselves and tell you the wicked things they done before they croak. ’Tis like if they give you their secret, God and the devil won’t hold it against ’em.”

“Rob!” Alexandra spoke sharply. “You’re being disrespectful to the dead and dying. I’ll have no more of it.” In spite of her reprimand, Alexandra knew that Rob, as well as little Artie, as orphaned urchins of the piers before they came to her, had seen more than their share of death among the poor.

Nancy, who under most circumstances, would have been the first to scold, was, instead, preoccupied. Finally, she spoke, as if the truth had just come to her. “Rob tells the truth, does he not? She wants to tell you something! She knows something about Mrs. Orkwright and the admiral!”

“So now you are clairvoyant, are you?” Alexandra gave her a friendly smile. “You know what someone eight miles away wants to tell me. Perhaps I should save myself the trouble of the journey and simply listen to you.” Alexandra was trying to hurry out of the kitchen.

“Oh that’s it, all right. I can tell when I’ve hit upon the truth when you take that attitude.”

Alexandra resisted the temptation to ask Nancy to clarify what she meant by
that attitude
. It didn’t matter. Nancy was about to reveal that bit of truth to her anyway.

“Remember the time when we were children and I guessed that you were secretly reading that naughty French novel your father had forbidden you to read?”

“Nancy, I don’t believe it’s necessary to recall old—”

“‘Oh, Nancy,’ you said. ‘If you are so clairvoyant you can tell me what book I’m reading, why not just tell me the story and save me the trouble of reading it,’ you said. And that’s how I knew.”

“The doc reads naughty books?” Rob said, then laughed until he made tea come out his nose.

Nancy, however, didn’t laugh, and neither did she scold Rob for his bad manners. She simply looked at Alexandra, holding her gaze for a moment before she spoke. “She knows something. A dressmaker always does.”

Chapter Sixteen

The hospital at
Bradfordshire was in what had originally been a middle-class residence. It had undergone a minimum amount of remodeling to create two sizable rooms or wards, one for men and one for women. Other rooms accommodated a few offices and supply rooms, a dining area for staff, and a kitchen which served the entire facility. The blue-cold air that knifed through all the rooms in winter yellowed into a damp and stagnated heaviness in summer.

In spite of its physical disadvantages, and in spite of the fact that it was small, relative to London hospitals, it was, nevertheless, considered a good hospital. Dr. A
ugustus Julius Holmes was the senior physician. He was widely respected, and, under his leadership, Bradfordshire Hospital had flourished.

Dr. Holmes had been Alexandra’s mentor while she did part of her training at
Bradfordshire. Her late father had arranged that mentorship for her. Her father had been her first and primary teacher, but he insisted that Alexandra have training and tutelage under someone else as well. Augustus Holmes was his choice, and Alexandra was well aware that, had it not been for the fact that he was her father’s friend, she would not likely have had the opportunity to study with him, simply because she was a woman.

He was not alone in his prejudice. Many university classes were forbidden to her because of her sex, and she was allowed only the lesser title of Surgeon rather than Physician.

When she stepped into the familiar dark and dank environs of the receiving room at Bradfordshire Hospital, she was greeted by Rosalind Sullivan, a robust woman of about fifty, who was the head of the nursing staff.

“Oh, you’re here!” Nurse Sullivan rushed toward Alexandra with open arms and gave her an almost debilitating hug. “You’re here to see Mary Prodder?”

“Yes, her son came for me. He says she’s asking for me.”

“It’s so good of you to come, although you needn’t have really.” Nurse Sullivan took Alexandra’s cloak and handed it to a boy of about twelve who had been hovering nearby. “See that it’s hung up nicely,” she said over her shoulder. Then to Alexandra: “Poor Mary’s out of her head.” She leaned closer to her and whispered, “Lung fever, as you might have guessed. I’m afraid her remaining time is only a few days at best.”

“Will she recognize me?” Alexandra walked with the nurse toward the women’s ward.

“Not likely,” Nurse Sullivan said.
“Although one never knows.” She picked up one of Alexandra’s hands and gave it a gentle pat. “Still, it is so good of you to come. If she does recognize you, it will make her passing more peaceful, I’m certain. The poor woman almost gets to the point of raging when she’s asking for you.” She shook her head sadly. “Of course she’s not in her right mind when she does that. The fever, you know. I dare say she may not even awaken while you’re here.”

Nurse Sullivan opened the door to the women’s ward and stepped aside to allow Alexandra to enter. Little had changed except the faces of the patients since Alexandra had worked and trained there five years ago. The long room, smelling of fever and various bodily excretions, was lined with cots on both sides, and on the cots
lay women, primarily of the lower working classes, of varying ages and in varying stages of ill health.

One woman sat up in her bed keening and rocking rhythmically back and forth. A few tried to sleep in spite of the moaning and crying of others. Some wore bandages, and many of them stared at her with empty eyes and pain-wracked faces.

Mary Prodder was in a bed near the opposite end of the room. A young nurse bent over her, adjusting the splint on her leg while Mary took in her breath and let it out in a cacophony of rasping, rattling sounds. As Alexandra approached her bed, she saw that Mary was sleeping restlessly.

Nurse Sullivan signaled for the young nurse tending her to leave, and then she herself moved away quietly, leaving Alexandra alone at Mary’s bedside. After only a few seconds Mary seemed to sense someone was there and opened her eyes. Alexandra thought she saw a spark of recognition and took her hand, holding it between both of hers. Mary closed her eyes and appeared to be drifting into her restless sleep again. The sleep was interrupted with a rattling cough, and she had to help Mary up to a sitting position to keep her from strangling on the pus-filled phlegm that came from her lungs.

When the coughing fit was over, Mary lay back on the pillows exhausted. Her face was pale and damp with sweat, and her eyes squeezed shut against the pain. She opened them suddenly and stared at Alexandra. It was impossible to tell whether the wild expression denoted recognition or confusion.

Alexandra, still holding her hand, spoke to her softly. There was no response aside from the wide eyes that watched her still. She placed a hand on the woman’s chest and tapped the back of it with the fingers of her other hand, listening for a response. It was as she had expected, dull with no resonation, denoting a congested lung. She got the same result when she tested the other side, and when she placed a hand on Mary’s head she felt the heat of a dangerously high fever. With her stethoscope on Mary’
s chest, Alexandra heard a resonating
whoosh, whoosh
from both lungs.

Mary, quite unexpectedly whispered her name, “Dr. Gladstone,” and the remarkably audible sound heard through the stethoscope confirmed for Alexandra that the lungs were congested and inflamed.

She removed the stethoscope from her ears and replied in a quiet voice, “Yes, it’s Dr. Gladstone.”

“It was my fault, you know, because…” Mary was interrupted by a fit of coughing, a rattling, moist sound that produced nothing. She flailed about restlessly.

Alexandra tried to quiet her. “Hush now, Mary.” She stroked her forehead, pushing back a tuft of sweat-dampened grey hair.

“I always hated Papa, and that’s the reason I did it. I know ’tis my fault, but I have scars, see.” She tried to raise her gown as if to show her the scars Alexandra had seen before, the same ones Mary had said were caused by a fall from a horse. “You mustn’t blame her.
’Twas me told her about his heels.” Again Alexandra stroked her head and tried to soothe her, but Mary continued her ranting. “He hated me the most because I was the oldest. We tried to grab Papa’s heels, but he was too quick.”

“Yes, yes. Now please don’t fret about it,” Alexandra said, remembering her own conclusion she’d drawn about the scars.

Mary fell into another fit of coughing, and when she finally stopped, she was exhausted. “He’s in hell, Papa is,” she said in a choked whisper. “I saw him there with my own eyes.” Then, after a pause, she added. “You don’t believe me.”

“
Shhh, it’s all right. He can’t hurt you.” Alexandra didn’t try to imagine the hell that haunted Mary. She had seen enough of suffering to know that the best one could do was speak platitudes to try to help ease the pain. Mary had said nothing about the admiral as Fin had suggested. Her mind was fever-clouded, and it was likely anything she’d said about the admiral was irrelevant.

“Do you think Mama will be there?” Mary rolled her head violently back and forth on her pillow, still talking nonsense. “I didn’t see her there.”

“No, of course not. It’s all right. You must rest.”

Still, Mary refused to heed her. She kept up her ranting. “I will be there, you know. I will be in hell with Papa soon.”

“You’ll be in heaven, Mary, not hell.” Alexandra knew the platitudes all too well.

“It was Annie that helped me put him in there. It wasn’t right, you know, for him to be naked.”

The mention of Annie suddenly got Alexandra’s attention. “Who, Mary? Who are you talking about? You and Annie put someone where?”

Mary lapsed into another seizure of coughing and couldn’t answer at first. When she tried to speak, Alexandra leaned close to hear her words, but the cough kept Mary from saying more. Alexandra called for a
nurse, and the young woman in the crisp white apron who had been with Mary earlier heard her and came to the bedside.

“Bring her the
gelseminum and aconite formula, please,” Alexandra said. “For her cough.”

The nurse gave her a puzzled look. “Excuse me, but I…” She stopped speaking when she saw the stethoscope around Alexandra’s neck. “Are you new here? Why aren’t you in uniform? All nurses are to wear white smocks or—”

“I am Dr. Gladstone, this patient’s doctor from Newton-Upon-Sea.”

The young nurse blushed. “I’m sorry, ma’am—I mean Doctor. I didn’t know. You see, I…I’ve been told to watch Mary’s
cough and see that she gets…”

“The
gelseminum and aconite,” Alexandra said, finishing the sentence the nurse seemed unable to finish. “Please see that she gets it as soon as possible.”

The nurse hurried away to fetch the medicine, and Alexandra turned back to Mary, whose fever-brightened eyes were fixed on her. “
I done it.” She wheezed and gasped for air. “Not her. I couldn’t die with you thinking she done it. Then she helped me get him in the boat.”

“Mary, what are you saying? You did what? Tell me, please.” Mary’s gaze now appeared to be unseeing, in spite of the fact that her eyes had not moved from Alexandra’s face. In the next instant the nurse returned with a bottle of medicine and a spoon. Mary immediately reached for Alexandra’s hand and went into another coughing spell. The nurse quickly uncurled Mary’s
fingers from Alexandra’s hand, and, giving her a knowing look, she turned to Mary with the bottle and spoon, crooning her own platitudes.

“Excuse me, but I must talk to Mrs. Prodder,” Alexandra said.

By now, the nurse had taken full charge. She gave Alexandra an unflinching look of authority and said, “I shall lose my position here if I don’t tend my patients as instructed.”

Alexandra knew the rules, and she knew the nurse was only doing her duty. She glanced at Mary, who was shaking her head again, trying to refuse the medicine and talking incoherently to someone seen only by her. In the middle of her confused speech, she turned her fever-brightened eyes to Alexandra and said, “It was me what killed the admiral! I will burn in hell for that.”

“Hush now,” the nurse said before Alexandra could respond. “You’re just talking nonsense, my dear. ’Tis the fever makes you talk that way.” She glanced at Alexandra. “Poor dear is always talking nonsense about some admiral.” She then succeeded in grasping Mary’s head and holding it still with one hand long enough to force the spoon full of medicine into her mouth with the other. Mary coughed, expelling most of the medicine, and the nurse had to begin again. By the time the medicine was finally administered, she fell into an exhausted but restless sleep.

Alexandra couldn’t move her eyes from Mary’s sleeping form, and the words she had just uttered resonated in her mind. Mary had killed the admiral?
For what possible reason? It was impossible to believe such a thing. Yet, the night she was found on the ground with a broken hip was the same night the admiral had died. Was that what she’d been doing that night, rather than staying late with a client to fit a dress? Alexandra didn’t know how long she had waited at Mary’s bedside before Dr. Holmes approached her.

“Alexandra, my dear,” he said, walking toward her with a portly dignity that was perhaps a little too theatrical. He did so enjoy his role as master teacher. He took her hand and, bowing over it, brushed it with his lips.
“How lovely that you’ve come to visit us.”

“Mrs. Prodder is my patient.” Alexandra spoke as she allowed him to lead her away. She soon realized they were going to his office, an inner sanctum reserved for the doctor and his colleagues and to which she was never invited as a student.

He hesitated just before entering, long enough to order tea, then turned back to Alexandra. “Ah yes, Mary. Fractured hip and lung fever.”

“Interesting, isn’t it? How the two so often go together.”

He offered her a chair, then sat down opposite her behind his desk. “If you understand the cause of lung fever, or to speak in medical terms, pneumonia, it isn’t at all surprising.” Dr. Holmes had slipped into his professorial tone of voice.

“I’ve been wondering lately, if we really do understand the cause,” Alexandra said. “I’ve begun to think that the inertia that results from confinement to one’s bed affects the lungs by allowing certain fluids to settle there.”

Dr. Holmes frowned. “Alexandra, my dear, you are aware, I’m sure, that all the texts say that pneumonia is most often caused by exposure to cold and moisture.”

“Of course.”

“The relationship you’ve noticed of inertia to the disease has to do with the bowels, not chest fluids. When a patient is bedfast, proper evacuation may cease due to lack of exercise, and the resultant toxins in the body can result in fevers, such as the lung fever Mary has. You can rest assured, however, that we’ve given your Mary the proper laxatives and purges.”

“Of course, I didn’t mean to imply—”

Dr. Holmes waved a hand, a dismissive gesture. “No, no, of course not, and let me add that your observation of the relationship was quite astute of you, but modern science has supplied the answer.”

“Perhaps,” Alexandra said, still mulling it in her mind. “Nevertheless, I’m quite concerned about Mary. There’s congestion in both lungs, and she hallucinates.”

“You’re quite right to be concerned,” Dr. Holmes said, “but again I assure you, she’s receiving the best care available. In the final analysis, as with all patients, it remains in the hands of God as to whether or not she recovers.” He gave Alexandra a scrutinizing look. “You seem uncommonly concerned, my dear. I’m sure your father warned you, as have I, that there is mental and spiritual danger if one becomes too personally involved.”