The Outlandish Companion - Diana Gabaldon [124]
“What HAPPENED?” he demanded rhetorically. “You want to know what HAPPENED? We just come from the Clinical Nursing final, that’s what!”
The Clinical Nursing final was a hands-on exam, in which each student demonstrated expertise in bedside routines such as bathing dressing etc., using a lifelike dummy as a subject. It was a very important exam, since all students were required to pass this course in order to stay in the nursing program.
“8 cont.”“I did it perfectly!“ Wally declared, breathing heavily through bared teeth. ”I washed her face and her hands, I combed her hair, I took her vitals, I checked for bedsores—and I kept talkin’ to the dummy all the time, callin’ it “Mrs. Johnson,” sayin’ “Now, we’ll just take a look here, Mrs. Johnson, ”just like we’re sposed to. I did it all just exactly right, right up till I gave Mrs. Johnson the bedpan!”
He turned to face the class, fists raised in outraged protest to the universe.
“Lookit me!” he yelled. “I’m thirty-five years old! I been divorced three times, I got a wife and two kids! I been in jail, I been in gangs, I lived through stuff would kill most people! And now I’m about to fail my course and ruin my life because I FORGOT TO WIPE A GODDAMN DUMMY’S ASS!!”
9I was therefore pleased—though not surprised—to read, a couple of years ago, of studies being done in which dogs were trained to sniff patients, in order to aid in the detection and diagnosis of certain conditions.
PART THREE
FAMILY TREES
Author’s Note: I am indebted to the Editor of The Baronage Press1 for great assistance in the research and preparation of the material on the history of the Randall, Beauchamp, and Fraser families, and particularly for the elegant depictions of the arms of these families.
Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp
BEAUCHAMP2
he Domesday book, compiled some twenty years after Duke William’s conquest of England, shows Hugh de Beauchamp to have been well rewarded for his loyalty. Walter, believed to have been his third son, although not so proved conclusively, held Elmley Castle in Gloucestershire and was granted further lands and offices by Henry I, which he was able to pass on to his son William. In the conflict between King Stephen and the Empress Maud, William took Maud’s part and suffered the loss of Worcester Castle and much else, but all his honors and estates were restored by Henry II, so that he was able subsequently to bequeath to his son, another William, the office of sheriff in Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Gloucestershire, and Herefordshire.
The second William died early, leaving his son Walter still a minor. Walter was briefly succeeded by his elder son, Walcheline, who died in the same year as his father, and then by Walcheline’s only son, William, husband of Isabel, sister and heiress of William Mauduit, Earl of Warwick. The eldest son of this alliance, William, the first Beauchamp Earl of Warwick, founded one of the most powerful English families of the High Middle Ages. The third son, Walter, a crusader, married Alice de Tony, and his third son and eventual heir, Giles, had a son, John, whose elder son, William, was sheriff of Worcestershire and of Gloucestershire. William’s son John was elevated to the peerage in 1447 as Lord Beauchamp of Powick.
The brother of William, sheriff of Worcestershire and of Gloucestershire, was Walter, whose elder son, William, married Elizabeth de Braybrooke, heiress to the St. Amand barony, and was subsequently summoned to Parliament in her right as Baron de St. Amand. Their son Richard was attainted in the first year of the reign of Richard III, but was restored immediately Henry VII became king. He had no children other than his illegitimate son, Anthony St. Amand, and as no other heirs were known, the barony of St. Amand has been judged extinct, but his will shows that he bequeathed a cup to his “niece Leverseye,” a girl who is assumed to have been his wife’s niece but, it has always been accepted, might have been the child of an unknown sister of his own.
It was not until quite recently, when Dr. Quentin L.