“Lights out?” Lawson muttered.
“Right,” Michael replied, and groped for the flashlight lying between them. He found it, flicked it off, and the dazzling snow globe vanished in an instant, replaced by a blackness and a stillness as profound, Michael could not help but reflect, as the grave.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
June 21, 1854, 1:15 a.m.
ELEANOR AMES HAD been employed at the Establishment for Gentlewomen during Illness, located at No. 2 Harley Street, for only less than a year, but it was a sign of Miss Nightingale’s confidence in her that she had been appointed the night nurse. Although it meant staying awake until dawn, Eleanor was honored, and pleased, to have that responsibility. And, truth be told, she enjoyed the relative tranquillity of the night hours. Apart from having to administer the occasional medication, or change a soiled poultice, her duties were largely spiritual in nature; some of the patients, restless and distressed at the best of times, became even more so after dark. Their private demons seemed to descend as the night wore on. And it was Eleanor’s task to keep these demons at bay.
Already she had looked in on Miss Baillet, a governess who had lost her position in Belgravia after a violent seizure had afflicted her, and Miss Swann, a milliner who was suffering from a high but utterly inexplicable fever. The rest of the night she had simply patrolled the wards, making sure that all was well, and tidying up the dispensary. As superintendent, Miss Nightingale had made it abundantly clear that the hospital was to be spotlessly clean and orderly in every way. She insisted upon fresh air being let into the wards (or as fresh as you could get in London), especially at night; she was equally adamant that all beds be made up daily, fresh linen bandages be applied to every wound, and well-prepared, nutritional food be served at every meal. In many circles, Miss Nightingale’s ideas had been greeted with skepticism, or a shrug—even the doctors who cared for the patients seemed to think it all irrelevant, though harmless. Eleanor, however, had come to embrace the Nightingale ideals, and was proud to be among the young women—and at nineteen, she was among the youngest—to have been accepted into the hospital’s training program.
Locking up the dispensary (particularly the laudanum, which was much in demand as a sleeping draught by certain patients), she caught a glimpse of herself in the glass of the cabinet. Her dark hair, so tightly pinned under the white bonnet, had begun to come undone, and she had to stop to tuck it under again. If Miss Nightingale came down from her rooms on the top floor and found her night nurse looking disheveled, she would not be pleased. And for all her tender solicitude toward the patients, Miss Nightingale was not someone by whom you wished to be reprimanded.
Eleanor turned down the gas lamp and went out into the hall. She was about to go upstairs and straighten the solarium—Miss Nightingale was a great believer in the restorative power of sunlight—when she happened to glance toward the front door. Through its glass panels, she thought she saw a coach stopping, directly in front of the steps. As she watched, she saw three men stepping down, and, to her surprise, mounting the stairs. Did they not know that visitors were only allowed during the afternoon hours?
Apparently not, because even as she moved to forestall the sound—she did not wish any of the patients to be unnecessarily awakened—she heard the front bell tinkling, and almost at the same moment a fist hammering on the wooden portion of the doors. She saw a muttonchopped face peering in, and heard a voice call out, “Assistance? May we have some assistance?”
Just as the fist was raised again, she unlatched the door and threw it open. A big man with a florid face—the one who had been demanding assistance—looked suddenly abashed, and said, “Please pardon our intrusion, Miss, but we have a companion in need of attention.” That companion, also in a red cavalry uniform, was holding his hand over one arm, while another soldier held him by the elbow, as if to steady him.
“This is a hospital for women,” Eleanor said, “and I’m afraid—”
“We’re aware of that,” the florid man said. “But this is in the nature of an emergency, and we did not know where else to turn.”
She could see blood seeping from a wound on the blond soldier, who suddenly looked familiar to her. Why, he was the same man who had stared up at her a few hours earlier, when she had leaned out to close the shutters.
“There is no physician on the premises,” she said. “And there won’t be until tomorrow morning.”