A White Room

by Stephanie Carroll

  Oliver touched Lottie’s arm. “That detective man, that docta, and that big ol’ lawyer had everyone fooled, so they left.” He sighed.

  “Why would the Bradbridges do such a thing?”

  “They the only doctors in town now,” Lottie said. “Everyone gotta go to the Bradbridges or die.”

  “I can’t believe the younger doctor, Walter Bradbridge, would do such a thing.”

  “He does whatever his father want him to. Like a dog,” Lottie shook her head.

  “So that’s what John does for a living? He puts people in jail for that?”

  “I hear you husband works on sometin’ else.” Oliver scratched the back of his head.

  “What?”

  He hesitated and looked down with one hand on his chin, clearly pondering how to word it. Lottie and I stood there waiting. The fly buzzed.

  “What?” Lottie demanded.

  He shook his head and leaned close and whispered into her ear.

  She dropped her eyes. “Oh.”

  “What?”

  “Abortionists.”

  I shook my head. “What?”

  “He takes people that do that to court.” Lottie pursed her lips.

  “Abortionists? Here?”

  “Might be more common than you think,” Lottie said, and I remembered what she’d told me. “Plus, some them folk travel.”

  Oliver scratched the back of his neck. “I think it takes a lot to find ’em and then take ’em to jail, and by then someone else is doing ’em. There’s always someone, right?” He looked at his wife.

  Lottie didn’t respond.

  “And my husband handles those cases?” I recalled conversations I’d overheard and felt a sense of relief. He wasn’t a bad person. “Isn’t that good?”

  Lottie hesitated. “Sure. Suppose.” She straightened her frame. “But that ain’t no matter. What is, is you like Mr. Nelson.” She gestured toward me. “You know things. You—you could help people who don’t need a doctor but need the little stuff. I know I said I wouldn’t ask after the Whitmays, but there’s so many people needin’ help and can’t afford a Bradbridge for the small stuff. They charge a whole dollar just for showin’ up.”

  “Uh…” I thought about it. I could help with minor problems. I knew enough from school, but would that be the right thing? Would that be dangerous? “I—no, no. They should be seen by someone who knows what they’re doing. I can’t.”

  “No, you can. Think of Mr. Turner and the Whitmays. You helped them. You helped them when no one else would.”

  “No, no.” I lifted my hands. “I couldn’t—I mean—well…I—no, I couldn’t.” I really couldn’t have after what they’d told me about John and Mr. Coddington. “My husband?”

  Lottie’s hopeful expression fell.

  “Forgive us, Mrs. Dorr.” Oliver squeezed Lottie’s shoulder. “We shouldn’t have asked you. It’s too much.”

  “Oliver, hish up.” Lottie shifted her weight toward me. “Listen, these people can’t afford no doctor, and with Mr. Coddington runnin’ the show ’round here. Ain’t no physician seein’ no one without a price, not if they were dyin’.”

  I shook my head. “I—I—”

  “And they have—people dyin’ without help. Why you think Mrs. Whitmay dead?” Lottie said.

  I glanced at Oliver. “I thought the untreated ailments were all minor?”

  Lottie’s voice lifted in frustration. “Sometimes the small stuff gets big when you can’t afford to get fixed up.”

  “But if I—if I did that—just for people who really needed it—what would happen? What if someone found out? They’d think I’m crazy for sure. I could go to jail. What about my husband? Would he go to jail or send me there?”

  They looked at each other, Lottie’s hand to her chin.

  “It would only be for emergencies.” Lottie spoke slowly, reassuringly. “Only when people really need it. You already done that.”

  I thought for a moment. I wanted to help people. Helping the Whitmays and Mr. Turner had been rewarding. The experience with Lottie had changed my life. “But my husband?” No, I didn’t care what he thought, I reminded myself.

  “He ain’t worryin’ about these little things.” She motioned toward the unconscious Mr. Turner. “He worryin’ about the biguns. We’re talkin’ desperate people, and we talkin’ stuff so small, nothin’ like what them big bad abortion doctors doin’.”

  I glanced at Mr. Turner and wondered what would have happened if he hadn’t gotten any help because he couldn’t afford it. It would have been wrong not to help him or anyone else. I narrowed my eyes at Lottie. “Only emergencies.”

  She nodded.

  “Only when there is absolutely no other option, when it’s impossible to get professional help—and no one can know.”

  Lottie’s lips curled into a mischievous leer. “We’ll be crafty ’bout it.”

  Twenty

  1899

  Grantville College

  Grantville, Missouri

  The infirmary superintendent, Mr. Schafer, scrutinized me through a pair of thin-rimmed spectacles.

  I squirmed in front of his oversize desk as I filled out a volunteer form.

  “Are you one of the nursing students?” he asked.

  I lifted my gaze and shook my head. “No.” My college courses consisted of etiquette and watercolor, the latter of which proved only a sad reminder of my lack of talent.

  Mr. Schafer twitched his wiry mustache. “Usually those are the girls I get.”

  I signed the form and pushed it forward.

  He slid the paper off his desk and snapped it vertical. “Hmm. Well, maybe we can find some use for you.”

  I clenched my hands under his desk.

  “Come on then.” He stood and gestured for me to do the same. He guided me to the infirmary, where there were tall windows on one side of the room. There were ten iron rolling beds, five on each side of the room. They had thin mattresses encased in crisp sheets.

  “We have two on-call physicians and two nurses.” Mr. Schafer strode down the middle of the room and I followed. The clacking of our shoes on the wood panels echoed a little, and a chemical smell pinched at the inside of my nostrils. “A part-time nurse and a full-time head nurse.”

  We entered a small room with filing cabinets, books, and papers stacked everywhere. The blinds on the slender window were closed. Note cards, an inkwell, and a cup of pencils cluttered the windowsill. Amid the mess, a pristine woman worked at her desk, tiny in comparison with Mr. Schafer’s.

  “This is our head nurse,” Mr. Shafer said. “Miss Mary McKenzie, this is Miss Emeline Evans.”

  The nurse stood and circled the desk. “Good morning, Miss Evans. How lovely of you to volunteer.” She wore a stiff white shirtwaist with billowy sleeves, a caramel-colored skirt, a full-length apron, and a little white cap. “What year are you?”

  “She’s not a nursing student,” Mr. Schafer peered over the rim of his glasses.

  I lowered my eyes and fought the urge to sprint out of the room.

  “Is there anything she can do, or should I send her back?”

  Miss McKenzie shifted. “I’m sure I could find something.” Her voice sounded buoyant.

  Mr. Schafer shrugged, turned on his heel, and left.

  I relaxed a little.

  Ms. McKenzie went to a filing cabinet across from her desk and slid open the top drawer. “Here’s where you will find new-patient forms.” She drove her hand in and removed a single sheet of paper and pointed to the top line. “And fill these out. Simple.”

  I nodded.

  “And…” She looked around and jumped at the sight of a stack of papers on a table to the right of the filing cabinet. “Right now you can help me by folding these fliers and sticking them in some envelopes.” She started removing books from the table, along with a stack of jostled newspapers with headlines that screamed “GERMS.” She scooped them up and piled them on the corner of her desk. She grasped a chair and sc
raped it across the floor to a position in front of the table.

  I seated myself, picked up a flier from the table, and skimmed it. “Grantville physicians will be at Merchants Hall on September 17th,” it read. “One Day Only. All persons should be seen by a physician once a year.”

  Ms. McKenzie returned to her seat and scooted the chair close to her desk.

  I watched her while I creased and pressed the fliers. I observed her ring finger—bare. My Aunt Cheryl once told me that the only well-off women who weren’t married and worked were ugly, dumb, or otherwise defective. However, Miss McKenzie had a heart-shaped face with bright brown eyes, pronounced cheekbones, and pink lips.

  Her eyes popped up, and I plunged back into my task.

  “Are you interested in nursing?”

  I fumbled with the envelope. “Uh—my dormitory chaperone suggested I volunteer somewhere.” I shook my head and raised my shoulders. “I thought this seemed interesting.”

  “Hmm.” She made a check in an open file in front of her. “Usually girls choose to do something for the spring festivities, or at least that’s how it was when I was a student.”

  I shrugged. “I just wanted to do something different.” The truth was I had thought college would be an escape from the expectation to dedicate my life to the pursuit of a husband. As it turned out, though, for girls college served as another opportunity to seek out suitors. My mother had constantly prodded me about it in her letters, and all my classes were just fancy training for future wives. I had come no closer to finding a suitor at Grantville College than I had at home, and I was agitated by the mere thought of it. I had wanted to escape and instead found myself surrounded by girls fluttering and tittering over social engagements and hairstyles, but the nursing students were different. They did not flutter or titter. They carried books and walked across campus quickly to be on time for classes that actually mattered.

  “Do you like science?”

  I shrugged. “I have not had the opportunity to form an opinion.”

  “Now is the time.”

  “What’s it like being a nurse?”

  “It’s wonderful. It’s not like it used to be when people despised women in medicine.” She folded her arms and leaned back in her chair. “People respect women nurses now…as much as anyone can respect a working woman. Nursing schools want unmarried middle-class women, not men.”

  “Really?”

  “And the pay is much higher than a secretary or telephone operator, enough to live.”

  “Do you live on your own?”

  “I rent a room.”

  “Is it hard?”

  “I have to be frugal. I don’t get to enjoy every meal, but my landlady bakes me treats out of pity. I have enough entertainment with books from the library, and several of my friends from school live nearby. We meet for tea and card games, and we try to save enough money to attend the theater sometimes.”

  I smiled, dreamy at the thought of living so modestly, so independently.

  “And I get to make people feel better, all day,” she said.

  “Is it difficult? Or…disturbing?”

  She leaned forward. “School was difficult.”

  “You said you went here?”

  “They only teach introductory courses here. You have to go to a hospital-based school before you can apply for a nursing license. It takes about three years, and the hours are grueling, but you get to have hands-on experience with patients. The nursing students provide almost all of the hospital labor, even in surgery.”

  “That’s astounding. I didn’t—”

  “Ms. McKenzie!” A flustered woman I recognized as a teacher burst into the office. “Come quick.”

  Ms. McKenzie stood, and I raised my hands but hesitated, unsure what to do with them. She grabbed a clipboard and hustled to the filing cabinet, yanked out a sheet of paper, clipped it to the board, and thrust it at me. “Come on. First patient.” She and the other woman rushed out.

  I followed them into the main infirmary room with all the beds. I halted at the sight of a woman about my age writhing in pain. She lay on the first bed to the left with her foot propped on a stack of towels. Her shoes and stockings had been removed and her peach-colored skirt hiked up, revealing her white petticoats underneath. A piece of glass the size of a silver dollar stuck out from an open wound on the side of her right foot.

  The teacher paced back and forth. “I don’t think I can look. Blood makes me faint.”

  “Emeline, I need to call in the doctor for this.” She motioned to the teacher. “Mrs. Simon, come with me, please.” She touched the frantic teacher on the back and directed her toward the door. “I’ll be right back, Emeline.” As she passed me, she whispered, “Try to distract her.”

  I swallowed and inched toward the patient.

  The bed’s metal frame squeaked as she clenched it and shifted. She had a small round face and golden, curly hair falling out of a tousled pompadour.

  I studied her foot. The shard of glass had embedded itself near her heel. Blood and dirt were caked along the side and bottom of her foot, but the wound wasn’t gushing. It glistened. I realized it didn’t bother me to look at it.

  I lowered myself into a chair. “I didn’t get your name.”

  “Lucille…Mills,” she said as she crinkled her face.

  I wrote it down. “I’m Emeline Evans.”

  She grimaced.

  “What happened?”

  “My friends and I were having a picnic, and I took my boots off to feel the grass.…We were being foolish, playing around, and I just stepped on it.”

  I blinked and widened my eyes, surprised that she had taken her shoes off in public. Intrigued and kind of in awe, I wanted to ask her more, but I realized discussing how she’d done it wasn’t doing much to distract her. “How long have you been at Grantville?”

  “Huh?” She glanced over and gulped. “Oh, um…my first year.”

  “Me, too. Well, second trimester.”

  Her eyebrows dipped.

  “What are you taking?”

  Lucille focused on her foot. “Home finances, child education.”

  “Do you have Mrs. Kratz?”

  She dipped her head with a swallow.

  “Did she tell your class about her husband’s hair dilemma?”

  She shifted her eyes in my direction. “Yes.”

  “And the cream that turned his scalp yellow?”

  “Yes.” She giggled and loosened her grip on the bed. “She’s not too modest, is she?”

  I shook my head. “Do you think she tells everyone about it or just her students?”

  Ms. McKenzie returned, her skirts shuffling. She slowed and relaxed at the sound of our tee-hees.

  I shifted to face her. “Ms. McKenzie, have you ever heard of a balding remedy that turns the scalp yellow?”

  She held back a mischievous smile. “So you’re taking Mrs. Kratz then?”

  Lucille roared and I doubled over. Lucille even bounced her foot, but after a quick “ouch,” she propped herself up on her elbows and continued laughing. Her tears were gone and her cheeks flushed.

  “Well, you got this one to pep up.” Miss McKenzie propped her hand on her hip. “I think you’d make a fine nurse after all.”

  Twenty-One

  July 1901

  Labellum, Missouri

  Lottie’s craftiness consisted of a scheme in which she acted as the source of contact and connected families in need with me. Then I stole about town under my ridiculous pseudonym, “Mrs. Freeman.” Lottie insisted on my continued use of the name because it led people to expect someone different, not because she thought it absolutely hilarious. We crossed the “emergencies only” line immediately and never looked back.

  To arrange time to see these people, I had to neglect some responsibilities and rush through other duties, such as calls. The mattresses weren’t always flipped, and the mirrors acquired a little dust, but John wouldn’t notice anything. He wouldn’t realize it if I sto
pped cleaning altogether. He wouldn’t notice if I served cooked toad.

  During that first truly blistering-hot month of summer, I saw several women and children who were exhausted from the heat in the fields. I brought them water to drink, fed them sugary pastries and apples, and gave them damp rags to place on the backs of their necks. I mixed up an aloe jelly for their sunburns and gave them two old parasols for shade while they worked.

  There was a malnourished elderly woman, her lips endlessly chapped, plagued by head lice. I soaked her hair in kerosene oil and wrapped it up like that. I told her to keep the cloth on for a full night and day, and soak again at least three times to kill the lice and their nits. After a full day, the lice died and she thoroughly washed her hair using soaps I provided. I also gave her petroleum jelly for her lips and recommended she eat eggs and milk daily to keep the skin healthy.

  Lottie helped with a few calls involving a first-time mother frantic over her newborn’s colic. Lottie instructed the mother to feed more often for shorter periods of time and avoid cow’s milk. Lottie and I took turns visiting her and watching the baby so the exhausted mother could sleep or run errands. Lottie said I must always keep the baby moving gently with rocking and swaying, never bouncing. After my first deafening visit riddled with panic, I offered to do Lottie’s chores so she could take more shifts.

  After seeing a few people, I realized those who couldn’t afford doctors didn’t need the advice of a professional for things no worse than minor burns and shallow cuts, which were certainly not worth the expense. My experience from volunteering and knowledge of home remedies were more than sufficient to solve most ailments. I planned to refer to John’s medical texts if I came across conditions or symptoms I wasn’t familiar with, but many didn’t need medical assistance at all. I found myself a teacher on several calls, providing—ironically enough—lessons in home care. Many people were still poorly informed regarding germs. Much of what I saw could be solved with proper nutrition, diet, and a clean household.

  The Whitmays’ dilemmas stemmed from a lack of knowledge after the loss of Mrs. Whitmay, whose role, as a mother, was to tend to matters of health and hygiene. After our first meeting, I continued to look after the Whitmay children’s health, and Mr. Whitmay developed a profound trust in me. Thus when he discovered his daughter injured, he had Lottie send for me. I rushed over, and Mr. Whitmay hurried me in and pointed me toward his eldest daughter, Wendy.