“Cleveland Street?” I asked, perplexed. “What is in Cleveland Street?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t say pretty words ta me. I won’t go ta live inside Strand Union. Myself and Betty here are just fine.”
The young girl who had earlier held out her palm to me gazed at me with her dull, vacant eyes.
I realized now what the woman was refusing. “I’m sure you are doing just fine, and I would never suggest that you go to a workhouse,” I immediately said to placate her understandable fears. “My name is Florence.”
At first, she said nothing and just stared at me, as if weighing my sincerity. Finally, she said grudgingly, “Berenice. Berenice Porter.”
“Truly?” I said. “How regal. Why, you share a name with a queen of Egypt.”
Clearly, she had never heard this before, and the implied compliment cracked the frosty reserve around her by an inch.
“Didn’ta know that,” she said. “Betty here is named for my mama, Elizabeth.”
“Another great queen,” I assured her. “I only ask how long you have been here because you may have seen a young man in a servant’s uniform come through here.”
“Your beau?” she asked. “Left you, did he?” Her presumption of my troubles melted her just a little more.
“No, no, nothing like that. He worked as a manservant for Sid—for someone I know. He may have been here to … I don’t know … talk to a priest about his gambling. Or he may have been asking questions about an attack that occurred over on Broad Street. Did you hear about that?”
She poked a tongue into one cheek, contemplating. “You mean that high-and-mighty who was attacked? Sure, we all heard about it.”
If only I could find someone who had actually witnessed it. “One of Mr. Herb—one of the high-and-mighty’s servants was in Soho to investigate it. His name was Fenton.” I described him for her.
Betty tugged at her mother’s dirty sleeve and leaned over to whisper in her ear. Berenice nodded. “That’a be right, sweetheart.” She looked back at me. “Betty remembers that we saw him over at the flush toilet on Great Chapel Street.”
“How far away is that?” I asked.
“Maybe a few blocks that way.” Berenice pointed back in the general direction from which Mary and I had come. “I remember him now because his clothes were fine, like yours. And he had them lips like it was hard for him to talk. He was asking about a woman—no, a man.”
“You’re sure he was asking about a man, then?” I asked.
She bit her lip for a moment. “Yes’m. I’m sure it was a man. I think.”
“And did Fenton say why he was looking for this man?”
She shook her head. “’Twern’t none of my business,” she explained. “I wouldn’t ask you why if you asked me about someone, neither, miss.”
“And had you seen the man?”
Another shake of the head. “No.”
“Do you remember how he described the man?”
Berenice looked up again, remembering, then shook her head once more. “Don’t remember that it was an unusual-like description.”
I rose unsteadily, feeling a little stiff from having knelt for so long. “You’ve been very helpful.” I started to pull more coins from my pocket, but an idea popped into my mind fully formed.
I wasn’t sure it could work, but it was worth a try. “Mrs. Porter, do you have any employment?”
“I’m not so special for you ta call me that. It’s just Berenice. And no, not since Mrs. Burington fired me for Betty tippin’ over a potted fern. The girl was just clumsy was all. Mrs. Burington wouldn’t give me no character, either.”
Without a character reference, it was difficult for household servants to find employment elsewhere, and some employers wielded the threat of no reference like a medieval battle-ax. “You were a maid, then?”
She nodded. “Went into service after my husband was lost three years ago helpin’ ta lay the telegraph cable across the Channel.”
“If I could find you a position where your employer will not be too particular about a character, would you be interested?”
Berenice was suspicious again. “What’ll you expect of me in return?”
I smiled. “You have already paid me in full by talking to me. I’ll visit this gentlemen tomorrow to ask him about hiring a maid; then I’ll be back to fetch you.”
“That’ll be all right, then,” she said, but there was no confidence at all in her voice.
Now I did press a couple of coins in her hand, a silent deposit on a promise I hoped I could keep.
* * *
We returned to a minor scene of chaos at the Establishment. One of the inmates, a Mrs. Foliot, had been vomiting regularly for the past two hours, and most of the staff were convinced she had cholera. The woman had been moved into a room far from the other inmates so that they would not be disturbed by the sounds of her violent heaving.
Leaving Mary in the library, I went to check on Mrs. Foliot myself. The woman was exhausted and glassy-eyed. I gently pinched the skin on her arm. It bounced back reasonably well, but she felt overly warm.
“Have you been evacuating your bowels?” I asked.
Mrs. Foliot blushed to the extent that her ashy skin would allow. “Such an intrusive question,” she said.
“Yes, and a vital one for you to answer,” I said. “If we are to make you well again.”
She nodded. “Yes, I have been … evacuating.”
“Is it runny?”
Another nod.
“Is it milky? As though it’s water that rice has been rinsed in?”
Now she frowned. “No, not at all.”
“Have you eaten any supper?” I asked.
“No, but I shall tell you a secret,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper. “I didn’t like the luncheon tray that Nurse Lambert brought me earlier, so I went down to the kitchens and found some leftover mutton and potatoes. It was cold, but still very tasty.”
I sighed and left Mrs. Foliot’s room, seeking out Nurse Lambert. “Mrs. Foliot is suffering from nothing more than food poisoning,” I said when I found her. “I think she went rummaging in Cook’s scraps for her supper. I’ll need to see to it that she wraps them more tightly before discarding them.”
Lambert exhaled in relief. I gave her instructions to have the woman drink as much broth as she could tolerate and then slowly introduce some bland foods like rice seasoned with a little butter and nutmeg, plus perhaps some restorative jelly. Dr. Killigrew could check on Mrs. Foliot on his next visit.
My nurse nodded her understanding, then said, “I’m glad you’ve returned, Miss Nightingale. Might I have a private word with you?”
I hoped she wasn’t planning to terminate her employment with me. “Of course. Take care of Mrs. Foliot, then meet me in my private study.”
Mary was waiting for me in the library, as I had assumed she would be. Now that I was assured no one in the hospital appeared to have contracted cholera, I let her know that I would return shortly and retreated up to my study. There was a single piece of folded paper on my desk, with my name scrawled across the front.
I unfolded the letter and read:
Dear Miss Nightingale,
I regret that I missed seeing you upon my visit this afternoon. Please be assured that all has been done according to your wishes, and everyone at the Hospital anxiously awaits the arrival of you and your nurses tomorrow. Can you send word as to what time this will be?
Your Servant,
Stephen Goodfellow
I wondered how much had really been accomplished at Middlesex Hospital in a mere day. Poor Mary would have to wait, for after I was done with Nurse Lambert, I would have to gather up the nurses I wished to take with me to the other hospital tomorrow and tell them what was planned.
For the moment, though, I was in peaceful solitude. From a drawer, I slid out Richard’s letter again.
My dearest Flo,
I hope that you will be happy to hear from an Old Friend,
who continues to hold you in the highest regard.
I recently saw your dear Sister and Mother, both on holiday in Brighton, where Annabel and I were also on a month’s stay. Parthenope gave me a most favorable report on your activities, although I did sense that she misses you terribly.
Over the past couple of years, I have been trying my hand with poetry. I include here one of my favorites. Might I impose on our bonds of friendship to have you read and critique it before I make a decision about publishing a small volume of my work? I believe this poem will strike a chord in your heart.
I trust I will have your thoughts and opinions in my hand at the soonest convenient time.
Yours Always,
Richard
I also reread his poem, a flight of fancy about sailing along the Nile, a place I myself had once visited.
I had a dream of waters: I was borne
Fast down the slimy tide
Of eldest Nile, and endless flats forlorn
Stretched out on either side,—
Save where from time to time arose
Red pyramids, like flames in forced repose,
And Sphinxes gazed, vast countenances bland,
Athwart that river-sea and sea of sand.
Was Richard trying to torture my heart in repayment for all the vacillating I had done when I held his own heart in my hand? Why else would he reinsert himself into my life like this?
Unless he was trying to truly extend the olive branch of friendship to me. That thought pained me almost as much because it suggested that he was genuinely over any romantic feelings for me. As for myself, I could not say that I had completely buried him in my mind.
I also found it curious that he was sending me poetry to critique. Our verbal sparring had always been over weighty matters such as church doctrine. I knew he delighted in poetry, ballads, and other rhythmic works, but our discussions together had tended to be much more like intellectual battles.
Perhaps he was letting me know that he didn’t care for the effort of engaging in such battle with me anymore. Or he was taking a soft, deferential approach to disarm me.
Or perhaps I was overthinking this. I shook my head in exasperation. Soon I would need to create a chart to analyze the sum total of possible motives Richard Monckton Milnes might have had in contacting me in order to decide the most likely answer.
I folded up his letter once more, promising myself that I would make a decision on how to respond in the next few days.
I sat and made notes to myself for several minutes, including a reply to Dr. Goodfellow at Middlesex. I was truly enjoying the quiet of my room and was particularly pleased with the bright light emitting from my gas lamp after so much time at St. Luke’s today.
Nurse Lambert tapped lightly at the door, and I beckoned her in. She sat down, looking around almost furtively. Or maybe it just seemed that way because she was in yet another odd cap. This one had a comb attached to the crown of her head, with a long length of cream-colored lace sewn to it. The lace covered much of her hair and dangled down both sides of her face. It reminded me of a Spanish mantilla veil. Or a tablecloth. Perhaps she was preparing her head to accommodate a tea service.
But the head covering did disguise most of her birthmark.
“What can I do for you, nurse?” I asked, putting aside my papers.
Louisa Lambert sat down across from me, fidgeting with the wide lace ends of her cap.
I knew I really should insist that she wear a plain white head covering, but I didn’t want to discourage her. There would be time enough to work on her appearance once she was more confident in her work.
“Miss Nightingale, I haven’t breathed a word of this to anyone, because I know you would not want gossipy rumors spread.”
I kept my features neutral, but already my insides were churning. What now?
Lambert tied the long lace ends of her cap together under her chin. She looked even more like a Spanish matron, but at least she was no longer fidgeting.
“But you will want to know this. It regards Mrs. Maddox, the woman we cared for in Soho.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to chastise my nurse for not reporting on a patient’s condition immediately upon noticing it, but then I realized that this probably had nothing to do with the woman’s cholera.
“Did she do something to you? Or to Nurse Harris?” I asked.
Lambert shook her head inside her lace tent. “No, miss. She said something to me. It made me think that perhaps she is not addled in her mind at all, but that something has made her very, very cross.”
I hadn’t overhead anything while we were there, although admittedly I had been paying most of my attention to George Maddox, not his wife. Still, their quarters consisted of two tiny rooms. How could I have missed hearing something of importance at the ranting volume level Isabel Maddox employed?
“What did she say?”
Lambert leaned forward, cupping her hands together in her lap. “She—she grabbed my chin, pulled me to her, and whispered in my ear. I was most upset, miss, thinking that any vapors in her mouth would poison me with her illness. Well, and it was quite disgusting up close.” Lambert wrinkled her nose at the memory.
“And what she whispered upset you?” I hoped to move her along.
“Not for my own self, but perhaps for someone else. I think that although she seems to be sick in her mind … I’m not sure she is. In fact, I believe she knows something—or has done something—for which she feels guilty. Or at least angry.”
“Nurse, please simply tell me what she said.” My impatience always simmered just below the surface of my skin, although in my defense, it was these sorts of verbal expeditions I had to go on that tended to stoke the fires.
“She said that her revenge was complete, that she had accomplished what she needed to before dying.”
That sounded completely like a deranged rant to me. “What made you think it wasn’t the act of a sick woman?”
“There was more. She also muttered something about having invested greatly in something and not receiving the return she had expected. Her whispering was rather wild, so it was hard to follow her, but I took her meaning to be that someone had disappointed her.”
“Financially? Romantically? In another way?” I still wasn’t convinced.
“I don’t know.” Lambert shook her head in frustration.
My nurse meant well, but a sick woman’s defeats or failures were none of our business.
“Even if what you suppose is accurate, what do you propose that this means for the Establishment?” I asked.
Lambert frowned and bit her lip. “Nothing directly, miss. I’m just worried for that man and his son.”
“I appreciate your concern for them, but our job is to tend to the sick, not to sort out domestic disputes.”
Nurse Lambert took a deep breath and nodded, shifting her glance away from me as she returned to fidgeting with the ends of her lace cap.
“Is there something else?” I probed gently. “Was there more that she said?”
She shook her head no, her gaze still cast downward.
“Nurse, what is it?” I asked.
Lambert finally raised her anguished gaze to mine. “I worry, miss, that I might turn out like Mrs. Maddox.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“I could end up sick. Alone. Alone because I have never married—and aren’t my prospects dimming now that I’m in my third decade?—or alone because I have a husband as helpless as Mr. Maddox. At first, I didn’t find it odd that he wouldn’t approach his wife’s sickbed. After all, we see many sick women whose husbands just stand in the doorway until the doctor gives them a diagnosis, something upon which the husband feels he can then act. But Mr. Maddox, he … he … well, don’t you think he seems a bit afraid of his wife?”
I paused to consider what she had said. True, the man had not entered that back room on the two occasions we had been there, and he had expressed himself weakly against her tirades, but did tha
t mean anything?
“First, I believe you can have a very fulfilling life here in the hospital, Nurse Lambert. I, too, have dimming prospects, but you will find that the work here can consume all your thoughts and attentions. It can help to drain the well of loneliness on a continual basis, I assure you.” My statement had proved mostly true in my own life, even if I had a letter in my desk that might suggest otherwise.
“Second, what you must learn as a nurse is not to allow your patients’ personal lives to permeate your soul, else you will become as tumorous and fevered as they are. You must keep a clear mind and eyes. It is good for both yourself and your patients.”
Lambert nodded, her expression a mixture of disbelief and hope.
* * *
I resisted the urge to completely collapse in the chair next to Mary’s in the library, instead mustering the energy to sit down as sedately as possible.
Mary wasn’t fooled for an instant. “Miss Florence, you need tea and biscuits.” She jumped up before I could protest and ran off to the kitchens, leaving me alone with my thoughts once more. I must have instantly dozed off, for I found myself coming to as she reentered the room, managing a tray with two cups, a teapot, and a variety of breads and cakes on it. Two slices of rabbit pie had also been added to the tray, the rich, aromatic gravy spilling out on the plates and causing my stomach to rumble.
I dove in with more gusto than that with which I normally approached food. How long had it been since I’d last eaten?
My companion and I devoured most of what was on the tray, and I felt thoroughly revived. Once Mary had returned from delivering the remainder to the cook, we sat down to talk.
I began by relating to Mary all that had occurred outside her presence—from Sidney Herbert’s visit to my time at Middlesex Hospital. Setting up Middlesex properly had no bearing on Sidney’s case, but I had become accustomed to telling Mary everything. Plus, she would probably end up there with me the next day anyway.
For her part, Mary read to me her notes from our visits with Oswyn Davies and Henry Whitehead. She looked up at me when she was done. “And you told Berenice that you would help her find employment.”
I nodded. “I have a plan. Overall, it seems we have a jumble of information, about both helping to care for the cholera outbreak and trying to assist Sidney in uncovering his wife’s attacker. Other than Fenton dying of cholera, the two seem unrelated, so we must devise a way of keeping them separate.”
A Murderous Malady Page 15