by Emma Fraser
‘Are you a doctor?’ Dr Harcourt asked.
‘No, but—’
‘If you’re not a doctor,’ Dr Harcourt cut her off, ‘then may I suggest you leave the diagnosis to us?’ She turned to the nurse, who was looking sympathetically at Jessie. ‘Could you pass me a tongue compressor, Nurse?’
The nurse already had it in her hand. She gave it to the doctor and smiled reassuringly at Jessie behind the other woman’s back.
Dr Harcourt used a pair of jaw clamps to hold Seamus’s mouth open. When her child didn’t respond to the invasion, Jessie’s chest squeezed so hard she thought her heart would stop beating.
‘Swab, Nurse,’ the doctor demanded. She swabbed the back of Seamus’s throat and placed the sample in a glass tube. ‘I shall have this tested for the diphtheria bacillus. In the meantime we’ll have to wait.’
Jessie wanted to shake the doctor. She knew it was diphtheria, and even if it wasn’t, her child was struggling for breath. When she’d been a nurse she’d seen a doctor cut a hole in a child’s throat to help it breathe. It had worked and the child, who had been on the point of collapse, had made a full recovery.
‘He’s only taking one breath every thirty seconds,’ Jessie shouted at the doctor. She knew it wasn’t helping but she couldn’t stop herself. Couldn’t the woman see what was as plain as day? ‘He needs a hole in his throat to help him breathe. And he needs it now. If you won’t do it, get me a doctor who will – or, God help me, pass me a scalpel and I’ll do it myself.’
‘If you don’t calm down, I’ll have to call Matron,’ Dr Harcourt said.
Just then Seamus shuddered and stopped breathing.
The nurse stepped forward and felt for a pulse. She looked at the doctor and shook her head.
‘Do it now,’ Jessie said, ‘for God’s sake, while there’s a chance!’
The doctor paled. Silently the nurse handed her a scalpel.
Jessie could see that the doctor’s hands were shaking. She looked at the instrument in her hand as if she’d never seen one before. ‘I need to call the senior doctor. I’ve never performed a tracheotomy.’
‘There’s no time to call another bloody doctor!’ Jessie yelled. She took a deep breath and forced the anger and fear from her voice. ‘Cut just below the carotid cartilage but above the thyroid gland.’ Still the doctor hesitated. She looked at the nurse, who nodded.
‘Now, quickly,’ Jessie said, ‘cut that way.’ She indicated with her finger, wincing as the scalpel sliced through her baby’s skin and blood spurted. ‘Now find a tube. Push the thyroid out of the way and place the tube in the hole. Go on!’
The doctor did as Jessie suggested. Jessie heaved a sigh of relief as air rushed into Seamus’s lungs. God willing, he would be all right.
Three hours later Jessie was holding her dead baby in her arms.
Shortly after the doctor and nurse had left them, Seamus had opened his eyes briefly, then simply stopped breathing.
Jessie had run into the waiting room shouting for help, but it was too late. There was nothing anyone could do for her child.
She wrapped his still warm body in his blanket and held him close to her heart. Then, not knowing what else to do, headed home. She could barely see her way through the tears.
The doctor hadn’t acted quickly enough and now Seamus was dead. Jessie would never see her little boy grow into a man, never see him smile again, breathe in his distinctive smell or feel his podgy hands touching her face.
Why had she gone against Tommy and taken in washing? Had she carried disease home with her from the washhouse?
If Mam had been alive she would have said Jessie should be glad that God wanted Seamus with Him. But Jessie wasn’t glad at all. It was as if someone had plunged a knife into her breast and removed her heart. She wanted no part of a God who had seen fit to rob her of her only child.
She wanted her mam. But most of all she wanted Tommy.
Jessie sat with Seamus on her lap. He was already cold, his tiny nails tinged with blue.
His cradle was by her side and she lifted his blanket to breathe in his scent. His breakfast bowl was still on the table. His tiny clothes, which she’d washed that morning before going to the washhouse, still hung on the line above the range.
How was it possible that her child had been alive only hours before and was now lying dead in her arms? Where was his soul? Had it gone to Heaven? Were Mam and Dad comforting him? She couldn’t bear to think of her baby on his own.
She’d passed her neighbours on the stairs but she’d not told them about Seamus. Not when she couldn’t believe he was really dead. If she’d told them, someone would have run for Tommy and he’d be here with her. Tommy. Tommy. Her heart ached with such pain she thought it might shatter. How would he take Seamus’s death? He worshipped their baby.
She heard his footsteps on the stairs and sucked in a breath. She would need all her courage in the next few minutes.
The door burst open and Tommy came in. He was whistling and at first didn’t notice that she hadn’t got up to greet him as she usually did by flinging her arms around him.
He dropped his lunch tin on the kitchen table and went to the basin to wash his hands. ‘How is my dear wife today?’ he asked. ‘And the little man?’
Her silence made him turn. His eyes darkened. ‘Jessie?’
She simply could not find the words to tell him.
‘Jessie!’ He was beside her. He took her hands in his and rubbed them. ‘What is it, dear? Tell me!’
‘Seamus got sick,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t here. I was at the washhouse. Upstairs was watching him.’
‘The washhouse?’ Tommy frowned. ‘Why were you there?’
‘It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I wasn’t here when he got sick.’ She was still pressing Seamus to her.
Gently Tommy took him from her. He pushed aside the blanket until he could see Seamus’s face. The world slowed as she looked at her husband. She watched every second of his dawning realisation.
‘Seamus?’ His voice was soft. ‘Seamus!’ Tommy was shouting now. ‘For God’s sake, Seamus, wake up.’ He looked at Jessie in desperation.
‘He can’t wake up, Tommy. He’s gone.’ She knew she didn’t have to tell him.
Tears were streaming down his face. ‘Not our little boy, Jessie. Not our little boy.’
She held out her arms and her husband, still holding their dead child, came into them.
Chapter 19
Edinburgh, spring 1914
Every bone and muscle in Isabel’s body ached. It had been another long, hard day and the thought of waiting for a tram was more than she could bear. She scanned the road for a hansom cab among the horse-drawn carriages and motor vehicles adding to the thrum and noise of the city – not to mention the casualty toll at the hospital. Only today a woman had been admitted after being hit by a motor-car. She had had a compound fracture of her tibia and Isabel had set the bone. The great Dr Inglis herself had watched Isabel work and had seemed impressed. She wasn’t to know that Isabel remembered everything that her father had shown her in minute detail.
Under her fatigue she felt the glow of satisfaction. Every day she was acquiring new skills, although she wished she could learn them faster. Soon she’d be on her own with no one apart from herself to rely on. She had graduated MB ChB from Edinburgh University and could now call herself Dr MacKenzie. It still thrilled her every time someone addressed her by that title.
After graduation she had taken a dresser’s post at Dr Inglis’s Edinburgh Hospital and Dispensary for Women and Children. When she’d completed her time there she would spend a year as house officer at Leith Hospital. After that? She wasn’t sure.
Spotting a free cab, she raised her hand.
Ten minutes later, Isabel paid the driver and ran up the steps into the house her brother had secured for her and her mother. In the hall she removed her gloves. The Scotsman was on the table and she lifted it, smiling as she read the headline: Suff
ragette arrested after breaking windows of Kibble Palace in the Botanic Gardens. Held in Duke Street Prison.
After years of putting up with the rude and unchivalrous behaviour of her fellow male students, Isabel’s sympathy was all for the suffragettes. Men could only conceive of two types of women: the ones they put on a pedestal as the epitome of fem-ininity – and the rest. The only men who had ever treated Isabel as an equal were her father and Andrew. And Archie.
‘There you are, darling.’ Her mother came into the hall and wrinkled her nose. ‘You smell rather pungent. I suggest you have a bath before dinner. Andrew has come up from Cambridge with two of his friends and I’ve invited them to dinner.’
‘How long is he staying?’ Isabel asked, immediately feeling happier. She loved the younger of her two brothers dearly and wished she saw more of him. He’d completed an arts degree but had decided to stay on at Cambridge and take another – in law this time. ‘I hope it’s for more than just one night.’
‘Two or three days, I think. You know he doesn’t like to be held to his plans.’ Although the words were said disapprovingly, her mother’s eyes were soft.
She still looked good for her age, with unlined skin and glossy dark brown hair. She had become used to being a widow and, after the appropriate period of mourning, had immersed herself happily in Edinburgh society again.
Upstairs her maid had lit the fire in Isabel’s room and was laying out her dress for dinner. ‘Shall I get your bath ready, Miss?’ Ellie asked. ‘You haven’t long if you want to be ready by seven.’
‘Thank you.’ By the time Isabel had undressed, Ellie had the bath ready.
‘Could you take away my dress and brush it down, then come back to help me with my corset?’ Isabel asked.
‘Certainly, Miss. I’ve laid your russet silk on the bed. It shows off your colouring.’
In the bath, Isabel pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them. If Andrew hadn’t been visiting, she would have had dinner in her room. There were lecture notes that she wanted to go over, but they would have to wait until later.
Her mind wandered back to the newspaper article. She wished she could join in the fight for the vote alongside the Pankhursts and others. She wasn’t sure what breaking a few windows and dropping acid into letterboxes was supposed to achieve, but peaceful protests weren’t working either. However, as a doctor, she couldn’t afford to draw that sort of attention to herself.
Out of the bath, she started to dress and Ellie reappeared to tie the ribbons of her corset, then helped her into her dress and began to brush Isabel’s hair. ‘I don’t know why you cut it, Miss. It’s such a lovely colour. Like honey. It suited you much better when it was long.’
‘I can’t have my hair in my face when I’m working, Ellie. You know that.’
‘If I was you, Miss, I wouldn’t work. Not if I didn’t have to.’
Isabel smiled at her maid’s reflection in the mirror. ‘And I, dear Ellie, couldn’t bear not to.’
Isabel flung open the drawing-room doors. The three men in the room turned towards her, but the only one she was interested in was Andrew. Losing all sense of propriety and decorum, she hurried towards her brother.
‘Darling sis! How well you look tonight.’ Andrew wrapped his arms around her, then whispered in her ear, ‘At least you’re not wearing one of those drab suits you’ve taken to lately. Well done.’
‘Idiot,’ Isabel murmured. ‘You know they make me look professional.’
Even in her second-best evening gown she wasn’t nearly as glamorous as her brother. Andrew always dressed in the latest fashion and tonight was no exception. He was wearing the conventional starched white shirt and silk cravat but his jacket was a flamboyant red instead of the more traditional black. His hair was fashionably cut and his fine, almost effeminate features were more beautiful than those of any woman’s Isabel had ever seen.
‘It’s lovely to see you too,’ Isabel said aloud, ‘but what brings you and your friends to Edinburgh? I thought you preferred London when you were free.’
‘We do, but we thought we’d come for the weekend, me to see you and Mama, and Simon to see his family.’
Aware that she had been remiss in greeting their guests, Isabel turned towards the other men in the room.
‘May I introduce the Honourable Simon Maxwell?’ Andrew said. ‘I believe Mama knows his mama, Countess Glendale from Skye. Can you imagine it? It took us until last year to discover we shared a connection.’
The room closed in on her. She reached for a chair knowing that if she didn’t sit her legs would give way. Simon Maxwell? Son of the Maxwells in Skye? Charles’s brother?
Simon stepped forward, took Isabel’s hand and bowed. He didn’t look anything like his brother. Where Charles had been good-looking, Simon had tomato-red hair and freckles. She remembered meeting his exquisitely beautiful twin sister, Dorothea. Her red hair had been like burnished gold.
‘It’s good to make your acquaintance.’ She held out her gloved hand, praying that it wasn’t trembling. Thank Heaven no one had noticed her agitation.
‘And I yours, Miss MacKenzie. May I introduce Baron Maximilian Hoffman?’ Simon said, gesturing to the man standing by the fire. ‘He’s a chum of ours from London.’
Isabel tore her gaze away from Simon. A tall man with a beaked nose and white-gold hair was watching her with narrowed, speculative eyes. ‘Dr MacKenzie,’ he said, with a bow. ‘I have heard a great deal about you.’ His irises were an unusual shade of blue – like that of a winter sky. He stepped towards her. ‘Are you feeling quite well? You look a little pale.’
‘Oh, Isabel is always pale, Maximilian. She works too hard,’ Andrew said cheerfully.
Simon had sat down again and was talking to Mama, Isabel saw; he was leaning forward with the appearance of a man who was riveted by what his companion was saying. Dear God, why did Andrew have to be friends with him?
‘Your brother tells me you’re a doctor,’ the baron said, his eyes not leaving her face.
Isabel ran her tongue over dry lips as she struggled to compose herself. Somehow she had to get through the next couple of hours without calling attention to her distress. She forced into her voice a gaiety she was far from feeling. ‘Andrew, don’t tell me you’ve been boring your friend with details about your family. I can’t imagine that the baron would find us very interesting.’
‘On the contrary,’ he protested. ‘I am very much interested. I, too, am a doctor. I’m here to work with Dr Cairn at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.’
Despite her agitation, Isabel was impressed. Many doctors fought to work with Dr Cairn, but few were chosen. ‘What is wrong with the hospitals in Germany?’ She cocked her head to one side and managed a smile.
The baron lifted an eyebrow. ‘Nothing at all. You must know that many of your famous professors studied at our universities and many more continue to do so. It is, after all, where Wilhelm Röntgen made the discovery that led to X-rays.’
‘And we have Joseph Lister, James Simpson and William Macewen – among others,’ Isabel responded lightly.
The baron grinned. ‘You are correct. But is it not better that we share expertise? I am here to teach the latest techniques in abdominal surgery. I trained under Billroth’s successor in Vienna. That is why Edinburgh has invited me to work at your famous hospital.’
‘You’re already a surgeon?’ Now she was truly impressed. Billroth and his methods were considered to be at the forefront of advances in surgery. Isabel wished she could be allowed to watch Dr Hoffman operate, but for all the small concessions the hospital had made to the women doctors, access to theatre wasn’t among them.
‘I am.’
‘Then how did you meet my brother?’
‘At a London club. Even doctors have to relax.’ His blue eyes were teasing. ‘And my mother is English. She takes a house in London every summer.’
That explained his accentless English.
‘Shall we go in to din
ner?’ Isabel’s mother asked, rising to her feet and taking the baron’s elbow. ‘You young men must be ravenous after your journey.’
Isabel tried not to flinch when Simon held out his arm for her. She felt awash with shame and guilt, as if the very presence of Charles’s brother was mocking her. But why should she feel ashamed? She had done nothing wrong. Besides, if Andrew and Simon were friends, Simon was a decent man. That much she had to believe.
As usual only gas lamps and silver candelabra lit the large dining room, the one room in the house that her mother had refused to convert to electrical lighting, deeming it far too harsh for dining. Secretly, Isabel thought the sooty light of the gas lamps on the dark, heavy furniture and the crimson velvet drapes made the room oppressive rather than warm. The only relief was the reflection of the light on the silverware and the polished crystal glasses laid out perfectly on the brilliantly white damask tablecloth.
Her father’s chair at the head of the table was, as always, left empty. Instead Andrew sat next to her mother with Simon opposite him, which left the baron to take the chair across from Isabel.
Talk at the table was the usual mix of who was engaged to whom, how the London season was going and whose party had been the most successful. Mama hung on every word. Isabel, on the other hand, could hardly swallow a mouthful of the smoked partridge or the roast pork that followed.
‘Andrew and I have news,’ Simon said, smiling disarmingly at his hostess. He paused to ensure he had everyone’s full attention. ‘We intend to train as pilots with the Royal Flying Corps.’
Isabel’s mother froze. ‘Whatever for? I thought you were helping your father and Richard with the estates. And, Andrew, I thought you were going to do articles?’
He sighed. ‘I can do that at any time, Mama. Simon and I have decided that joining the corps will be a good way of seeing the world before we have to settle down. If there’s going to be a war, and we believe there will be, we want to be in right from the start.’