Lethal Remedies

by M. Louisa Locke

  Work today hadn’t gone well. The law firm’s full-time clerk had misfiled some documents that put Nate seriously behind in getting a trust ready to be signed. Then, in his rush, he made two errors of his own, which necessitated that the document be completely rewritten. This, in turn, meant that he’d had to work right through lunch and dinner again, in order to do the preparation needed for a preliminary hearing in court in the morning. As it was, he was still going to have to put in a few more hours before he came to bed.

  But being here, now, with these two, made everything worthwhile.

  Annie looked up and smiled, and his heart did its familiar flutter.

  She is so lovely.

  For once, she didn’t look tired, and he’d been glad to hear the excitement in her voice as she told him about Dr. Brown’s request that she help straighten out the financial mess at the Pacific Dispensary.

  As Annie got up and carried the now-sleeping Abigail over to the small crib they kept at the foot of the bed, she whispered, “Let’s go down to our office. Kathleen has volunteered to sit up here with Abigail to make sure she’s solidly asleep. She said she needed to do some mending. I will finish telling you about what I learned from Dr. Brown before you start back to work. I am correct that you weren’t planning on coming to bed anytime soon, aren’t I?”

  Nate shrugged. This was a never-ending argument between the two of them. Maybe if Annie had this new puzzle to work on, she wouldn’t resent his working such long hours.

  He said, “You mentioned something I could do for Dr. Brown? I’m not sure I have the…”

  Annie glared at him and said, “Shh. Don’t you dare wake Abigail! If you would turn down the lamp on the table and ring Kathleen, I will follow you down in a moment and tell you all about it.”

  Chapter 4

  As Annie came down the stairs to join Nate in their office, she thought about when she first inherited the O’Farrell Street house from her aunt and how she had turned the small informal parlor on the first floor into Madam Sibyl’s domain. There, for over two years, she met clients and pretended that the domestic and financial advice she gave came from reading clients’ palms or casting their horoscopes. She had needed Madam Sibyl’s income to supplement the money she made from turning the old home into a boardinghouse. In time, she had grown more and more uncomfortable with the pretense this required. In addition, she was afraid if she finally agreed to marry Nate and word of what she was doing got out, it would hurt his chance to build a successful legal career.

  Now that they were married, the room acted as their joint office. Before Abigail, she had met some clients here and during the day did her economic research, while Nate tended to use the office in the evenings and on weekends. When they weren’t using it, Nate’s sister Laura studied for her university classes here, often joined by her beau, Seth Timmons.

  Annie loved that this old parlor once again sheltered a courting couple. She had fond memories of how, before they married, Laura would stick her head into the room to see if she could catch them kissing. Annie got a good deal of pleasure when she could now turn the tables on her sister-in-law.

  As she opened the door to the office, she smiled, thinking of last Sunday when she made the reserved Mr. Timmons blush because she caught him with his arm around Laura.

  Then she saw that Nate had already spread his papers out on his desk, and she sighed. He glanced up at her entrance and gave her an apologetic look. Getting up from the desk, he drew her to one of the two upholstered chairs set in front of the fireplace. He’d gotten a substantial fire going, welcome on a chilly February night.

  “All quiet?” he asked as he sat down in the other chair.

  “Yes, although we will probably hear her if Abigail wakes up and starts to fuss. Our daughter has a set of powerful lungs on her.”

  “Yes, although she’s been pretty quiet at night as of late, don’t you think?”

  “Well, she isn’t teething at the moment. Thank goodness. But Nate, after talking to Dr. Brown today, I’ve decided it’s time to start putting Abigail to sleep in the nursery at night. I will ask Kathleen to move into the room tomorrow. But I will make her promise to tell me if she finds it is too much for her, taking care of Abigail at night and still fulfilling her other duties during the day.”

  “Didn’t you say that Mrs. O’Rourke believes that little Tilly is ready to do more?”

  “Yes, she thinks she can take over some of the ironing and take care of all the early morning chores, lighting the fires and such, on her own.”

  “So that should make things easier on Kathleen.”

  “Yes, but Nate, as soon as I get back to working full-time, I want us to go over the budget. I would like to increase Kathleen’s wages, maybe even hire another servant part-time, the way I hired Tilly. Three of the boarders may only be children, but with nine boarders and our family of three, there are quite enough people living in this house to warrant another maid, at least part-time.”

  Seeing Nate frown, she hurried on. “I’m not saying this has to happen right away. And the last thing I want to do is put more pressure on you. However, when Dr. Brown told me what the Pacific Dispensary paid an auditor last year, I realized it might be time to raise my rates a bit. It isn’t the 1870s anymore, the city’s economy is no longer depressed, and the stock market is booming. So there’s no reason I can’t charge more for my services.”

  “You are certainly worth it,” Nate said. “My income should continue to increase as well. Uncle Frank was quite pleased with the firm’s earnings this quarter. He even hinted he might give me a slightly higher percentage in the future, since I’m pulling my fair share in income.”

  “Oh, Nate, that’s wonderful! And about time. I also thought we should clear out the box room in the attic. Most of it can go to the junk and rag man, but anything that might still be of use should fit in the basement, behind the laundry room. That way we can give the room to Emmaline. I’m certain her guardian, Mr. Livingston, will be more than happy to pay to furnish it, as well as cover the increased room and board we can then charge. That will make up for the income we lost from Mr. Chapman and Mr. Harvey leaving.”

  This past August their two male boarders had to move out so that Nate’s sister could move into their room at the end of the hallway. This let Annie turn Laura’s former room into the nursery. Another reason it was absurd that she’d not been able to bring herself to make the full use of that room before now.

  Over a year ago, Emmaline had come to live with her aunts, the elderly dressmakers, Miss Minnie and Millie Moffet, and she had been sleeping on a small cot in their workroom in the attic since then. Annie didn’t know why she hadn’t thought about clearing out the attic box room for the young girl before now.

  She really hadn’t been thinking straight for a very long time.

  Nate said, “Sounds like a good idea. Any other grand plans you’ve made today that I should know about?”

  Annie laughed. “Not tonight. I need to finish telling you about my conversation with Dr. Brown and then let you get to work.”

  Leaning forward to feel the warmth of the flames, she said, “The source of all the problems seem to be with this treasurer who turned in her resignation this morning, this Mrs. Argenta Branting.”

  “Any relation to Jasper Branting, one of the owners of the West Coast Wire Works?” Nate asked. “The one who is always making the news because of his work for the Democratic Party?”

  “Yes, the very one. She’s his wife. She was elected to the dispensary’s board of directors a couple of years ago. From what Dr. Brown said, most board members don’t really do much besides meet once a year to hear the annual report and help persuade their wealthy friends to donate during fund-raising events.”

  “That’s been my impression of what most charitable boards are like. Uncle Frank belongs to a number and often does free legal work for them, draws up their by-laws and such. He actually told me I should join a couple of charities and go to their function
s because it was a good way of getting new clients. As if I had time to do that sort of thing.”

  “Nate, you know that not too long ago you thought about getting into local politics. Volunteering to serve on a local board of directors seems like a more admirable route to community involvement. However, the point I wanted to make is that when Mrs. Branting got on the board, she began to cause difficulties. Seems she has very distinct ideas about how the dispensary should be run…or not run. Apparently, she feels that the size of her pocketbook and her husband’s civic prominence gives her the right to dictate policy to Dr. Brown and the other two attending physicians, who are the ones in charge of the day-to-day running of the dispensary.”

  “Oh, I can see how that could be a problem.” Nate chuckled.

  “To make matters worse, she got a couple of her friends onto the board as well, and they follow her lead. Dr. Wanzer, who, along with Dr. Brown and Dr. Bucknell, founded the dispensary, was particularly incensed when Mrs. Branting announced at a board meeting that it wasn’t a good use of membership dues to start the training school for nurses.”

  “Training school?” Nate said. “Like the ones that woman, Florence Nightingale, set up in England?”

  “Yes. Up until Dr. Brown and Dr. Wanzer started a program as part of the hospital services the dispensary provides. A woman would have to go back east or all the way to England to get medical training as a nurse.”

  “And Mrs. Branting is against training nurses here on the west coast?” Nate sounded surprised.

  “Evidently, she believes that nurses don’t need to be professionals. Something about the woman who nursed her mother, despite a lack of training, having ‘healing hands.’”

  Nate snorted.

  Annie said, “My reaction as well. I asked Dr. Brown why the woman, if that was her attitude, supported the dispensary at all. You would think that she would be against the whole idea of women becoming physicians.”

  “Maybe she became a member because her husband wanted her to…just the way Uncle Frank wants me to do something similar, for the benefit of the firm.”

  “That’s certainly possible. However, Dr. Brown says Mrs. Branting is a militant women’s rights supporter. So I couldn’t help but wonder if it was a kind of class snobbery on her part. Women of the ‘good classes’ could become physicians, with enough training to compete with men, but those of the working classes should be used for menial jobs—and paid accordingly.”

  “If so, I wonder what Mrs. Branting paid the woman who nursed her mother?” Nate said. “In my experience, often the wealthier a person, the more stingy they are with their money.”

  Annie laughed. She loved it when her husband understood exactly what she was trying to say. “Yes, I think it is all about money. And, because she has been a generous contributor to the Pacific Dispensary, she feels she should have more say on how their income is spent. For example, Dr. Brown said Mrs. Branting objected when Dr. Wanzer went back east last year to tour other training schools for nurses and was partially compensated for some of her expenses by the Board.”

  “Ah, and now Dr. Brown and Dr. Wanzer are both taking a similar trip,” Nate said, leaning forward to poke at the fire.

  “Yes, although they are paying their own expenses this time. But that didn’t satisfy Mrs. Branting. Today, when she came to see Dr. Brown, she told her that she was resigning from the position of treasurer because she feels that the dispensary is being mismanaged. She also dropped the bombshell that she wasn’t sure there would be enough money in the bank to cover next month’s bills.”

  Nate nodded. “I know the type. She helped cause the problem but is looking for someone else to blame. But I have every confidence you will straighten out their financial difficulties. What I don’t see is how this has anything to do with me or how I can help.”

  The clock on the mantel chimed nine, and Annie sighed. She should let him get back to work, but she really had been enjoying talking about something other than Abigail’s teeth or eating habits or her failure to take an afternoon nap.

  Nevertheless, she got right to the point. “Dr. Brown hoped you could help by giving her some legal advice. It turns out, at least according to Mrs. Branting, that another one of the causes of the financial difficulties the dispensary is facing is that a Mrs. Truscott had a very expensive operation at the dispensary last fall, but her husband has refused to pay her bills, evidently in a very offensive letter.”

  Nate said, “Ah, and Dr. Brown would like me to draft a nice, professional, lawyerly request for payment? Get them back in the black? That’s easy enough, if you can get me the information on the bill and the correspondence with the patient’s husband. I will be glad to see what I can do.”

  “That’s what I thought you would say. I’m to meet Dr. Brown at the dispensary tomorrow morning, get a tour, and she will show me the office, where I can start going through the files. I will look for any information relating to the Truscotts’ bill, especially this letter from the husband that upset Mrs. Branting so much. Personally, it sounds to me like the woman suddenly realized she was going to have to explain to the board how she let the finances get in such disarray and decided to use this letter as her excuse to resign.”

  Nate leaned over and patted her hand. “I have every confidence you will straighten everything out.”

  “I hope so, because Mrs. Branting has threatened to remove her financial support from the dispensary if Dr. Brown doesn’t figure out how to solve the financial problems before the board meeting on March 15. Dr. Brown fears she might convince a good number of her friends to withdraw their support from the Pacific Dispensary, as well, which could be a disaster.”

  Chapter 5

  Thursday morning, February 23, 1882

  Pacific Dispensary for Women and Children

  * * *

  Her husband had wanted Annie to take Kathleen with her for her nine o’clock meeting with Dr. Brown at the dispensary or at least go in a cab. But Annie rebelled, not wanting to waste money on a cab on this perfectly fine morning, and she needed Kathleen back at the boardinghouse to put Abigail down for her morning nap at ten.

  Instead, she had walked the two blocks east on O’Farrell to catch one of the North Beach and Mission horse cars that went down Stockton. She did have to transfer at Folsom, but this second car, going west, stopped just half a block from the dispensary, which was on Thirteenth Street.

  This route was familiar to her, since it was the most convenient way to the popular Woodward’s Gardens. She looked forward to the time when Abigail was a little older and she could take her to the Gardens, see how her daughter reacted to the ostriches that roamed the grounds.

  The whole trip to the dispensary took less than twenty minutes, and Annie had found it quite exhilarating to be out, all by herself. Despite it being the end of February, the sun shone brightly, and as she stepped off the horse car, she found herself taking deep breaths as if the very air was a tonic. Just a short way down the street, a large building had a sign over the front porch, proclaiming that it was the Pacific Dispensary for Women and Children.

  The building sat in the middle of a large property, and Dr. Brown said that the owner had given them a low monthly rent, as long as they would pay for the necessary structural changes to outfit the building for their purposes. Thankfully, one of the dispensary supporters was married to a builder who donated much of the work that went into converting what had been two row houses into a single building with over twenty rooms.

  The dispensary building was set at some distance from the neighboring houses, and the lots right across the street were currently vacant, although she supposed that at the rate the city was growing, someone would build there soon. She noted to herself that she really should look into the current cost of properties in this part of town; they might be a good investment for those clients who liked to invest in real estate.

  Good, my brain is actually beginning to work again, finally!

  As Annie turned into the walk
that led up to the dispensary’s front porch, she noticed a smaller sign with an arrow pointing to the right, where the sidewalk split off to go around the side of the house. Underneath the arrow, the sign said, Dispensary Hours: Monday-Saturday, 8-12, Resident Physician: Dr. Ella Blair.

  Annie was tempted to follow the arrow, see what kind of patients were waiting to be treated, but Dr. Brown had instructed her to go in the front door. A moment after she pulled the front door bell, the doctor appeared, welcoming her into a large, wood-paneled foyer.

  “I am so glad you could come to see exactly why I am committed to keeping this facility going,” Dr. Brown said as she took Annie’s coat and deposited it on one of two hall stands.

  “To your right is our reception room, where new patients come when they are being admitted or where visitors can wait when their family members are undergoing operations. Women who support the dispensary volunteer to staff this room during the day, and they will also take interested persons on tours. But I wanted to show you around myself and introduce you to our staff. I can’t tell you how pleased we all are that you have agreed to straighten out our financial records.”

  Annie hoped Dr. Brown’s optimism was warranted, because the Pacific Dispensary for Women and Children was clearly a much larger enterprise than she had imagined. In her experience, the larger the organization, the larger the potential for financial disaster.

  “The dispensary office, where all the financial records should be, is right behind the reception room, but we will end our tour there,” Dr. Brown said, walking down a gas-lighted hallway that went to the right of the central stairway that dominated the foyer. “On this first floor, we have the hospital wards for adult women who are here with acute or chronic illnesses requiring skilled nursing care. We also care for patients who have undergone a surgical operation. For example, we currently have an elderly patient whose heart is failing and a young teacher who is recovering from eye surgery. In the past, before we moved to this building, we often had to send such patients to one of the over-crowded city hospitals or try to nurse them in their own homes.”