“No, never! Yes. Must act now! Damn it, David, this will cripple everyone!” Lilian is almost as explosive with Dr Hardie as with me. “No, agreed. Some kind of united front— That set of Sunday excursionists? Well, if you think…? New president? Hmmn! Yes, a good standing, I suppose. Hmmm. If you propose him, perhaps… Me? David, really—! Oh, damn it, if you’re determined…”
The mouthpiece clattered, the telephone tinged. Lilian stalked back in, grumbling under her breath.
“David agrees we must oppose this, he wants some sort of public front. He says, the Automobile Club.” We had joined as a matter of course, when the state Club was founded, in 1905, though Lilian missed the actual meeting due to an acute appendicitis. But four years later the Club seemed practically moribund. “David says they need a new president. He wants to propose Feez.”
She raised her brows. I said, “Do you have time to finish your tea, dear? Mr Feez is eloquent in court, as we know from that battered-child case. And perhaps, for what you plan, a barrister would be a better choice than an automobile seller.”
“That’s so.” Lilian began gulping tea. “But I’ll have to waste time at the blasted meeting, and confound it, Jo!” She banged the cup down. “David means to nominate Feez, but he wants me to second it!”
“A very good idea. It’s always difficult to speak publicly, I know, but this is only to say, ‘I second’. And people do respect you, you know.”
“Hmmph!” The cup clattered down again. “Hopkins, or Bancroft or—Eleanor Bourne could do it—!”
“Doctor Hopkins can hardly propose his own successor. Doctor Bancroft is not a Club member. Nor is our dear Eleanor, even if she is now the Children’s resident physician. Now, Lilian…”
“Oh, very well, blast it.” She flicked her eyebrows at me. “I’ll do as I’m told.” The teasing glint vanished. “But I must be off. A very tricky tonsilitis at the Mater, Jo, I may be late for consulting hours. I know your Playgrounds group meets today. Will you have time to keep an eye out here?”
“Of course, my dear. Telephone if you seem likely to miss altogether.”
“You are an angel, Jo.” She rose from her chair; paused, turned, and dropped a kiss on my brow. “I know I’m testy and impatient and swear like a trooper, and you’re always so forbearing. I really don’t deserve you, dear.”
I stood up myself and gave her a hug. “Never speak of unequal deserts,” I said, “between us.” I kissed her properly. “Now off you go, and bon chance at the Children’s Hospital.”
I did not bother to add, forget the meeting till the time comes. That ogre would vanish the instant Lilian donned her surgical mask.
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The prevalence of male persons engaged with automobiles, and the male tendency to speechify, lengthened the eventual meeting predictably. Luckily it was at the dear old School of Arts, whose wide verandah and plenitude of fans mostly dispelled the October heat. I had made the heat reason to coax Lilian into a silk organdie evening-waist, whose ivory shade flattered her auburn hair, while the delicate fabric and fuller sleeves softened her somewhat angular figure. Reaching up to adjust the large bow that replaced her usual tie, I could not help patting her cheek and murmuring, “You really look very well, my dear.”
The now looming ordeal ensured she arrived tight-lipped and pallid, but I managed to deflect all but a couple of well-meaning queries on whether she still had headaches from the dog-cart accident—fractured skull or not, it had been almost ten years! Nor, now the male doctors have finally acknowledged Lilian as a respected practitioner, did the usual number of foolish persons offer such remarks as, “Woman driver, y’know, t’isn’t natural.” And, “Ought to leave medicine to the men, haw, haw, haw,” or, even worse, “By Jove, Miss Cooper, all you really need’s a wedding ring.” To which Lilian, goaded, had once retorted, “I could wear it on my big toe!”
These perils eluded, we went to ground halfway up the crowded hall. Avoiding such anodynes as, “You will only have to stand up for five seconds,” I kept my mind on ensuring neither of us fell asleep before the actual appointments began.
Dr Hardie, his thick blond moustache abristle, had likewise spied out our seats in one sweeping glance, then confined his attention to the crescent of worthies on the hall platform. The then-president, Dr Hopkins, took the chair. Various persons orated about the dangers of the imminent Bill, of giving automobile or motor-cycle dealers office in the club, and the state of roads, signage, petrol and tyre costs. However, I had only extricated four moths from my hair before the real business commenced.
Since the lesser offices were apportioned first, it seemed another aeon before Dr Hopkins reached, “And, gentlemen, the nominations for President?” Over the general buzz Dr Hardie fairly trumpeted, “Mr Arthur Feez!” Beside me Lilian rose to her feet, just escaping unseemly haste, to follow up with a crisp, “Seconded!”
She sat down on an expulsion of breath only I could have heard. I patted her hand, which, as I had expected, was trembling. She in turn patted me convulsively. The gentlemen turned the matter over for a few minutes. Then, amid general applause, Mr Feez was voted in.
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The rest of the meeting passed on plans to rent rooms for the secretary, Mr Moloney, and measures, some actually practical and politically tactful, to contest the Bill. When we finally reached open air Lilian undid her high collar and drew a long, audible breath.
“Thank God that’s over!” She did mutter, since we were still in the crowd. “David can take it from here. Come, Jo, I’ve another full card at the Lamington tomorrow morning. I only hope the Peril starts.”
Lilian has a foible to buy yellow cars, and it is a foible of Brisbane persons to christen each the Yellow Peril. Discovering which, Lilian’s somewhat uproarious sense of humour led her to dub our vehicle the Peril, though only in the best of moods. To my mind its chief peril is the damage repeated crank-turning can do to my or Lilian’s skirts, when we are not at home, with liberty to call on Harry the gardener’s strong back.
That night unfortunately proved no exception. After five tries Lilian began kicking the front tyre and using “bloody” every second word. More fortunately, her sixth attempt pre-empted my own second trial. I advanced the throttle a little, shut the spark and adjusted the choke as Lilian clambered hastily in. Slamming the door, she pushed in the clutch and panted, more than somewhat maliciously, “Now I really would like to run that fat pachyderm down. Just pray, Jo, that we don’t encounter the Scythian!”
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Plans to resist the Bill had culminated in a request for Mr Moloney to write strong if politely worded letters to all State Parliamentarians who might support us: this took less time than one would have liked. Dr Hardie kept us up-to-date. Lilian was in too much demand for more than occasional fulmination on a dire future. That is, until the Woolloongabba emergency.
We had just sat down to a somewhat belated Saturday luncheon, and were planning the afternoon excursion, with another basket of toys for the wards at the Children’s Hospital, one of Lilian’s favourite charities; then the telephone rang.
Lilian sighed and rose. I set the dish-cover over her roast lamb and potatoes. The conversation was exceptionally brief. An instant later Lilian’s head shot round the door.
“Jo, can you fetch the car? Get Harry to crank for you. Annie Davis just pulled the copper over on herself.”
“Oh, Lilian! Of course!”
I seized my emergency hat from the hall and scurried for the back door. “Mrs Tanner, can Harry please crank the car at once? A bad burn in Woolloongabba.” Lilian had delivered twelve-year-old Annie, seen her through diarrhoea and diphtheria, and Mrs Davis had been an early patient at our first rooms in Russell Street. Mrs Tanner shouted and Harry raced from his own lunch.
Another miracle, the Peril started at second crank. I shoved in the clutch, found the elusive reverse gear, and had us round at the George
Street gate as Lilian, bag in hand, came racing down the steps.
“Jo, you love!” The bag landed in the tonneau and I just cleared the driver’s side before Lilian landed too. With a roar the wheels flung gravel as Lilian swept us round for the Victoria Bridge.
“I keep telling these women, don’t let your children in the laundry! And especially while the copper’s alight! Ahh!”
With a ferocious swerve we skirted a slow wagon and whipped into the Queen Street turn. Dust and a pair of cyclists scattered. Lilian jammed her hat down like a jockey and put the car at the Victoria Bridge, I held on and begged divine Providence to keep us clear of police. I knew God himself could not make Lilian slow down on a call like this.
As we feared, the full copper-load had been on the boil when Annie, trying to help her mother by fishing a sheet up with the copper stick to test its progress, had overset the lot. Though an oversize borrowed apron intercepted the main splash, her half-bare legs had not escaped.
I had anticipated more than the usual burn horrors, especially with a child we knew and cared for. We entered to very little noise beyond the usual babble of distraught family. But when Lilian shook her head at Mrs Davis and said in her usual brusque manner, “Miss Bedford will help me, please take the others out in the back yard,” I did wish fervently that we employed an assistant nurse.
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“Oh, Doctor Lilian, it hurts—!”
“We’ll fix that, Annie. Let me take a look.”
Small for her age like so many ’Gabba children, Annie was a mere huddle of wet garments on the big patchwork quilt. As I squeezed past to the tiny window and drew back immaculately frilled white curtains, Lilian already had her bag open, scissors in hand. “Don’t worry about your mother’s apron. She’ll get another one.”
And as always, her voice had changed. However often I hear it, the way she addresses children always astonishes, sometimes moves me to tears. No longer brusque or impersonal, though as always steadfastly confident; rather as if she and the child were equals, confederates in a medical magic that no adversary can defeat.
Four quick snips parted the big sacking apron’s strings. As I reached her side she handed off the scissors without looking and began, with deceptive speed yet amazing delicacy, to free the apron itself.
I took the wet cloth one-handed. She reclaimed the scissors. Annie moaned and turned her head sharply so my pulse leapt at the first dreaded signs of pain biting through the shock. Lilian murmured, “Not long now, Annie,” and I held my breath in earnest as the scissors, lightly wielded as a scalpel on flesh, cut away Annie’s over-washed, over-skimpy gingham dress.
Annie whimpered as air reached her skin. Lilian murmured, “Miss Bedford and I saw you born, Annie. We know how you look.” The cotton bloomers parted. Lilian muttered, “Jo,” and I dropped the apron and went round the bed so I might hold the girl still.
With that same deceptive speed and lightness Lilian drew away both garments at once.
Scarlet skin glared up at us, but there were no huge bursting blisters, no seared-through, seeping flesh. Annie squirmed and moaned, but she did not writhe, let alone scream aloud.
For one instant I saw Lilian actually taken aback. Then she breathed, “Well, well.” And with that surgeon’s speed, settled her next step.
“Jo, get the Vasoline. Annie, just a couple more minutes now. I shall cover this for you.” The scissors went down and Lilian’s own hand flew into the bag for the big bundle of gauze and lint.
With the same speed she smeared Vasoline thick on three big gauze sheets, gathered the first, and with a, “Here we come, Annie,” lowered it, feather-light and swift, over the girl’s stomach and waist. A second followed over the lower abdomen and upper thighs, the third over the legs. Light swathes of bandage followed atop; at last, with equal speed and care, we lifted Annie off the ruined clothes and wrapped her round.
“Now, Miss Davis,” the familiar little formality elicited a sketchy smile, “I shall give you a ‘potion’, as I used to. Presently, you’ll feel much better; then, I shall want you to go to sleep. Can you do that?”
Annie’s eyes were round, though not, I imagine, much more so than mine. She nodded gravely. Lightly, tenderly, Lilian brushed back the girl’s disheveled hair. “All over, pet.” In one hand she scooped up her medical bag, in the other, the ruined garments. “We’ll ask your mother for a water-glass.”
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“Quite astonishing, Mrs Davis—yes, Aileen, then, I did remember!” Lilian’s composure was still some way from her usual medical face. “Severe inflammation, especially on the body, but very much better than I feared. I’ve applied Vasoline, with very light dressings. She should be kept quiet. Is there a truckle bed you could fit beside the crib?” She meant, back in the main bedroom. “Here’s a light dose of laudanum: a teaspoon in a glass of water now, then as necessary during the afternoon and evening. I’ll call tomorrow, for a dressing change.”
There she paused, with a somewhat puzzled frown. “Aileen, when it happened. Exactly what did you do?”
Mrs Davis’s broad, sun-weathered face screwed up in alarm. “Why, why, Doctor, was there wrong… Could I have—what should I have done?”
“No, no, not wrong! But I was prepared for a great deal more damage— So tell me, please. Between when it happened and when we arrived: what did you do?”
“Why, I run down the street to the pub to beg a moment of their telephone, I hated to leave her but I knew we must fetch you soon as we could. I left her with Mary and Beth, Mary’s only nine but steady as can be, I knew they’d not let her—damage herself.”
“Then what did they do?”
“Why—why—so far as I can tell, nothing! Only, when I come back, they’d been dousing her with the cold water bucket; she was dripping all over, and Mary says to me, ‘It hurt her so much and we couldn’t find the salad oil so we took the buckets and poured water on her, Mama, and see, it’s better, shall we not go on?’”
She stared at Lilian, anxious, half-bewildered. “So when I had her inside, and—and the pain getting worse, Mary says, ‘Let’s do more water, Beth,’ and I let them, having nothing better, till, till we heard the car. Oh, Doctor, did I do wrong?”
“No!” Lilian exclaimed. “No, not wrong! What you did was right—righter than I can explain.” A faraway look filled her face. “But, Aileen, if you ever meet another such accident, don’t wait. Use the bucket instantly.”
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“Do you think, Lilian, we could waive the fee?”
“Of course, Jo. Mrs Davis is prouder than Lucifer, but I’ll say there was so little to do, it would be a token at best.”
“And we will bring some replacement clothes, too.”
“Mmm. Certainly.” But Lilian had grown increasingly vague. As the little picket gate clicked behind us she muttered, “That girl, that Mary. I believe, I do believe, she’s made a medical break-through. I swear, Jo, she may be an accidental genius!”
“Genius, Lilian?”
“Genius, Jo. No blisters, no skin loss, not a quarter of the usual pain! Cold water! Maybe running cold water, perhaps first thing, on a burn. We must experiment, Jo. This could prove an entire new treatment. I may have to write a paper, drat it. But if it works more than once, other people must know—oh, blast and damn!”
We had reached the car, parked somewhat crookedly in the dusty street beside the neighbour’s picket fence. Now, around its back, appeared a familiar blue-clad, notebook-wielding shape.
Lilian’s face went from medical euphoria to a thunderous frown. “Yes, Constable?” Scythian could have whistled out on the ice. Higgins actually drew himself up.
“A complaint, Doctor. There was cyclists on Queen Street when you come round that corner. Driving without due care and attention. You nearly skittled ’em both.” As Lilian’s eye flashed and I guessed her teeth had clenched, Higgins raised his voice.
&nbs
p; “And you was clocked over Victoria Bridge doing sixteen miles an hour, Doctor! Twice the speed limit! On a Saturday arvo—afternoon—with pedestrians and horsecabs from here to kingdom come! You coulda killed someone!”
“Sssss!” But before I could speak Lilian had stamped round the bonnet and almost up against Higgins’ heaving chest. “Do you have children, Constable?”
“What’s that gotta do with—”
“Everything! Do you have children or not?”
It came in such a tone I dared not intervene. Higgins himself very nearly recoiled. Then produced a reluctant grunt.
“Girls?”
“Orright, I got kids, girl and two boys! What’s that got to do with…”
“How old’s the girl?”
“Look, Doctor—”
“Humour me, Constable.” A less humorous tone I could not imagine. “How old is she?”
Higgins shuffled feet and pencil and would clearly have loved to exceed his position and return as good as he was getting. At last he growled, “Eight this year.”
Lilian’s back stiffened with a snap and she pointed furiously over the tumbledown picket fence, past faded zinnia flowers to the recalcitrantly dusty, out-at-elbows little Woolloongabba house.
“In there’s a twelve-year old girl, Constable, who just pulled a copperful of boiling water on herself! Have your children ever been burned?” Higgins actually took a step back. “Have you seen what it’s like?”
Higgins’ face spoke for itself. Lilian’s voice suddenly went soft and she almost whispered, “How long would you want your daughter to suffer before a doctor arrived?”
Higgins did hold his tongue, but his neck reddened, up and out to the tips of his ears. I too wanted to cry, Oh, a foul blow, Lilian! But I still dared not speak.
Cranky Ladies of History Page 17