The Purpose of Miss Shepley

Chapter Fourteen (part II)

Mrs. Burke dressed me in flurry, quickly getting me into my pink linen, my airy shawl, and the pretty bonnet Miss Ward had made for me. There was no time to fuss over my hair, alas, though she did manage to pinch my cheeks six separate times before she released me. I was downstairs again in twenty-nine minutes.

We went on foot, I on Doctor Brown's arm, and Daisy beside me. The university grounds began where University Circle ended, and so it was only a matter of passing nineteen skinny townhouses, and only a few minutes more to the hospital.

The hospital was a rather small building on the south side of the grounds -- built there for the light -- and very spare inside. The floors were plain dark wood, the walls plain white plaster. This was for cleanliness, Doctor Brown explained, and also to prevent overstimulation. Above all, he said, the sick and the injured needed rest.

He took us, first, through a surgery theater, where rows of chairs were angled to look down at a table, about as long as a man and not much wider. A pair of young women were on their knees scrubbing the floor of it, their hands red. The stink of some cleansing solution was thick in the air -- almost as thick as the stink of burnt flesh.

We went through a recovery ward next, where the injured and ailing were laid out in rows on little beds. There was also a sick ward, but Doctor Brown said he wouldn't expose us to the sweats and rashes.

We followed him as he made his rounds, standing at the foot of each bed while he took pulses, prodded bellies, looked in eyes and mouths... At length, he made his way round to the Captain of the Watch.

The man's head was almost entirely swaddled in bloody strips of linen, but still, he leered at a pretty nurse who poured water into a cup for him. She bent low to hand him the cup, and he planted his hand on her breast, squeezing it and cackling with delight.

Without even a flicker of emotion, the nurse plucked the hand off of her, as if it were only a babe's, and then she went on to the next patient.

I glanced at Daisy, pulling a wry face. Daisy also showed not even a flicker of emotion. I wondered if she hadn't seen it, somehow, but this seemed impossible -- she studied the patient too intently.

Doctor Brown pulled a stool up to the side of the Captain's bed. He smiled brightly, asking, "How are you today, Captain?" his manner lively and chummy and wholly unlike Doctor Brown.

The Captain smiled and answered back in a cheerful stream of pure gibberish. He gestured with his left hand and laughed, and Doctor Brown laughed with him, though surely he could not have understood him any better than I did.

Doctor Brown prodded his belly and looked in his eyes, murmuring, "Good... Good. Follow my finger...? Good... And what day is it today, do you remember?"

The Captain grinned rather wolfishly and said, "Midsummer."

"Oh, it's past that, sir," Doctor Brown told him. "It's the nineteenth of Haying, now. Remember, I told you yesterday...?"

And the man nodded soberly, saying, "Yes, yesterday. Yes today hang... Hang... Haying... Wretched horse. Hang that horse! Wretched horse..."

"I'm sure the horse has been dealt with, Captain. I can inquire if you like."

The man scoffed, "Bah. It's beautiful horse. Wretchedful beautiful horse, it's beautiful horse."

Doctor Brown picked up the man's right hand, feeling his pulse. At length, he concluded, "Well, it's been a pleasure as always. Will you shake my hand, sir? There... That's it. Thank you for your service, sir."

Doctor Brown let the Captain's hand drop -- just a few inches -- and it fell, dead and heavy, to his chest.

"I'll visit again tomorrow," he said, rising to his feet. "Remember your manners, now. The nurses here are respectable women."