This Golden Land (51 page)

S
HE WAS HERE AGAIN, THE INTRIGUING YOUNG WOMAN WHO
had caught his eye.

     Sir Marcus had finally learned her name, Miss Hannah Conroy, and as he conferred with Dr. Soames, he watched the young lady's progress across the hospital lobby and up the stairs to the floor above. He was intensely curious about her.

     She had been here before, each time looking very much out of place. After all, a hospital was, by definition, an institution for the destitute—for people who could neither afford to pay a doctor to come to their home nor to pay someone to take care of them. As a result, visitors to Melbourne's Victoria Hospital were generally of the lower class, usually ragged, a few even drunk and rowdy. Which was what made the attractive young lady—always well dressed with gloves and a bonnet, and a dainty parasol hooked over her arm, clearly a woman of breeding and gentility—appear so out of place. Surely she was not here to visit a family member. Sir Marcus Iverson, distinguished director of the hospital with a private practice of his own in
the better part of town, could only surmise that the young lady in the pale yellow gown and looking not a bit wilted in the November heat, was here out of Christian charity.

     But she carried a leather satchel, which intrigued him all the more.

     As she reached the top of the stairs, Hannah paused to press a handkerchief to her throat. Summer seemed to have arrived before its time. Or perhaps the perspiration was due to her excitement at having found her dream home in the country at last.

     Hannah currently had a residence off busy Collins Street, living upstairs with an office downstairs, where patients visited five mornings a week. She had brought Mrs. Sparrow, her housekeeper in Adelaide, with her, and had hired two maids. Now she was thinking of hiring an assistant to help her with patients, as she had once assisted Dr. Davenport. From the moment Hannah had decided, that miraculous dawn at Coober Pedy, that she would refer to herself as a health practitioner, her road had taken an upward turn. Not only were women crowding into her waiting room, they were inviting her into a popular social circle as well. Many of her patients were wealthy, many had become her friends.

     But many were also poor, as Hannah did not discriminate, and Nellie Turner was one such, presenting herself at Hannah's office a month ago, asking Hannah to be her midwife when the time came. But when Hannah returned home this morning from a visit to patients in the countryside, she had been told that Nellie had gone into premature labor and had been taken by friends to Victoria Hospital.

     That was why she was here today, to make sure Nellie was all right after giving birth. And as she made her way down the rows of patient beds in the female ward, Hannah thought of the beautiful property she had encountered on the road to Bendigo—a clover farm that also ran a few sheep and cattle, with a handsome homestead that compared with Seven Oaks. Hannah had stopped her carriage and looked out over the paddocks and green fields and had known at once she must have it. The name of the farm, carved in wood
over the gate, was Brookdale, and a "For Sale" sign was tacked to a pole. From a neighbor Hannah had learned that the owner's name was Charlie Swanswick and that he was eager to sell. The only problem was, Charlie was up in the goldfields, with thousands of other men, and no way to find him. There had already been two other parties making inquiries, the neighbor said, so if she was interested, Hannah had better hurry up and find Charlie.

     As soon as she finished checking on Nellie Turner, Hannah was going to find an agent to go north, locate Charlie Swanswick, and make an offer on the property.

     As she passed between two rows of beds, twenty to each side of the room, occupied by patients suffering from dysentery, pneumonia, influenza, and broken bones, she smiled at the visitors who had come to take care of their loved ones. Since it was the responsibility of family and friends to see that a patient was fed, bathed, and nursed back to health, the ward was a noisy place, with children running about while husbands fretted over wives and mothers fussed over daughters. The only hired person on the ward was a plump woman in a long gray dress with a white mob cap covering her hair as she swished a wet mop over the floor. Hospital attendants had little to do with the patients other than emptying chamber pots and cleaning the floor.

     As Hannah neared the bed at the end of the row, she was surprised that Nellie's baby wasn't tucked into the bed with her. "Hello, Nellie," Hannah said quietly and she slipped off her gloves and rested her hand on the young woman's forehead. The patient, with eyes closed, did not respond. To Hannah's shock, the forehead burned with fever.

     She counted Nellie's racing pulse, and then drew the blankets down to gently palpate Nellie's abdomen, causing the girl to moan.

     Hannah froze. Nellie was exhibiting the classic symptoms of childbed fever. How was that possible? Hannah was suddenly thrown back to the night her mother, Louisa, lay burning with fever, two days after giving birth to Hannah's baby brother. John Conroy had worked night and day to save them, only to lose them both to a disease that had no known cause, no cure, and that was fatal in every case.

     She turned to the attendant and said, "Please fetch Dr. Iverson. He's downstairs, in the main lobby."

     Hannah reached into her bag for her stethoscope, saying, "There there," as she placed the bell to Nellie's chest and listened. The labored breathing was another unmistakable sign of childbed fever.

     "My dear madam, what do you think you are doing?"

     Hannah straightened and saw that Marcus Iverson had arrived at the bedside, a dignified gentleman of around fifty, tall, imposing. He was the director of the two-story, eighty-bed hospital and despite his sometimes severe bearing and aloof manner, was known for his kindness and compassion. Hannah had noticed that he always took the time to reassure the patient with a gentle touch, a word of comfort. In London, she had seen doctors make rounds and not even acknowledge the person in the bed.

     Hannah also liked the fact that Dr. Iverson always wore a clean frock coat, trousers and white shirt when he made rounds, and insisted his medical staff do the same, even though it was contrary to popular practice. Marcus Iverson's other revolutionary ideas included emptying bedpans more than once a day, feeding patients who had no family and friends to bring meals, and changing the sheets between bed occupancies.

     Hannah removed her stethoscope and said, "Mrs. Turner has a high fever and severe abdominal pain."

     Sir Marcus gave Hannah an arch look. "And what is your authority here?"

     "I am a midwife. I was to deliver Mrs. Turner's child, but I was away in the country."

     Sir Marcus pursed his lips as he absorbed this unexpected information—Miss Conroy resembled no midwife he had ever seen—then he addressed the patient. As Dr. Iverson laid a gentle hand on Nellie's forehead, keeping his expression impassive, her eyes snapped open, wide with terror. "Am I going to die, sir?" Nellie asked in a tremulous voice.

     "Not at all," he said, patting her shoulder and turning away. He addressed Hannah. "You believe this is a case of childbed fever?"

     Hannah folded her stethoscope into her bag. When she had re-defined her profession from midwife to health practitioner, she had retired the blue carpet bag and replaced it with a handsome leather satchel. "I believe that is what we have here, doctor, and as you know it is highly contagious."

     Giving her a brief, puzzled look, he nodded, sharing her concern over this unexpected turn. The patient had been healthy the day before. What had happened since then?

     To the ward attendant, he said, "Instruct Mrs. Butterfield to prepare chlorine sheets and arrange to have bellows brought in and a boy to operate them."

     Hannah knew that hanging sheets soaked in chlorine around an infected patient, and filling the air with pungent fumigating smoke, were the standard practice for fighting infectious fevers. Nonetheless, she reached into her bag and brought out a small bottle of her iodine preparation. "Dr. Iverson, might I ask you to instruct your doctors to wash their hands in this before they examine the other patients? Especially if they see to Nellie first."

     "Why?"

     "As an extra precaution, in case the fever is not spread through the air but on human hands."

     He looked at the small bottle, finding himself more aware of the slender hand that held it than the medicine itself, taking note that there was no wedding band. "What is it?"

     "An iodine solution that I have made myself. It is a mild antiseptic." Strange talk from such a lovely young lady, Iverson thought. "I am not convinced that hand washing has any significant impact, negative or positive, on a person's health," he said. "But I have read the recent literature from Europe, and some put forth a good argument for the so-called germ theory. And as you say, extra precaution cannot hurt. However, I cannot subject my staff to an unknown formula that, for all I know, will cause the flesh to fall off their fingers. But I
will
order a basin of chlorinated water to be placed at the entry of the ward."

     He paused, giving Hannah a frank study, suddenly realizing that she seemed familiar to him, as if they had met before, then he said, "I am curious. Might I ask how you know about childbed fever?"

     Hannah handed him her card. He lifted an eyebrow as he read it. "Health practitioner? What exactly does a 'health practitioner'
do
, Miss Conroy?"

     Hannah thought Sir Marcus handsome in a severe way—
patrician
was the word that came to mind—and when he lifted his eyebrow in that manner,
he reminded her of Lord Falconbridge. "I deliver babies," she said, "but I also manage wounds, dispense medicines, give advice on health and hygiene, and instruct families in how to take care of their loved ones who are sick."

     His dark eyes scrutinized her. There was that nagging feeling again that they had met before. "And what is your training?"

     Hannah had learned how to offer a professional presentation of herself. Whereas she would have once said, "My father was a doctor," she now replied, "I apprenticed with my father, who was a medical doctor. I trained at a London Hospital. I assisted a ship's surgeon for six months. And in Adelaide, I was a medical assistant to a prominent physician."

     Iverson gave her a thoughtful look. Miss Conroy did not look like a flimflam artist or a charlatan. She had seemed to know how to properly use a binaural stethoscope, and she
had
correctly diagnosed childbed fever.

     He didn't know what to make of her. Sir Marcus was fifty-two years old and considered himself a man of the world. And yet never in all his experience had an unescorted lady boldly introduced herself to him, offering her card! But, according to her
curriculum vitae
, for want of a better term, she was a professional woman, in a league by herself, and he was both baffled and intrigued. Miss Conroy was attractive, in her mid-twenties, and unmarried. Calling herself a health practitioner, showing resourcefulness and courage. A young lady with a head on her shoulders. And who was somehow familiar to him. "I beg your pardon," he said, "but have we met?"

     "We have. It was at the home of Blanche Sinclair, last year, a fête that she held for a charitable cause."

     "Yes, I remember now. Forgive me." Sir Marcus was astonished with himself. When he had decided to put Blanche Sinclair out of his mind, apparently he had put her friends out of his mind as well. But that meeting, last year, at Blanche's residence came back to him now, and his first impressions of Miss Conroy as being an attractive young lady, friendly but reserved, and that he had sensed a curious sadness about her, as if she had just lost something or someone dear to her.

     "Will you be attending the charity ball tonight, Dr. Iverson, at Addison's Hotel?" Hannah asked.

     Sir Marcus had received Blanche's invitation and had immediately thrown it away, having no intention of attending her charity ball tonight, or any other event that Mrs. Sinclair might put on. Not after what happened a year ago. But now, with the charming Miss Conroy smiling at him in what looked like such an inviting way. . .

     "If my schedule allows," he said, recalling the old expression about cutting one's nose off to spite one's face. It would be foolish to deny himself the pleasure of this young lady's friendship because of his ill feelings toward Blanche Sinclair.

     Sir Marcus found himself, in the next moment, thinking of the amateur rowing competition that was going to take place on the Yarra River next month. It would be Melbourne's first sweep-oared regatta and was to be modeled after the Henley Regatta held annually on the Thames. He wondered if Miss Conroy would like to accompany him and share a picnic lunch on the river's bank.

     As he slipped her card into his pocket, Sir Marcus said, "You understand, Miss Conroy, that Nellie is now a patient of this hospital. She is no longer your charge, so I will have to ask you not to disturb her or interfere with my staff in any way."