The William Monk Mysteries_ The First Three Novels - Anne Perry [217]
She could not swallow her anger. “But patients may die! Or at best become sufficiently worse that they cannot easily be saved!”
“Then you will send for me urgently! But you will do nothing beyond your remit, and when I come I will decide what is best to do. That is all.”
“But if I know what to do—”
“You do not know!” His hands flew out of his pockets into the air. “For God’s sake, woman, you are not medically trained! You know nothing but bits of gossip and practical experience you have picked up from foreigners in some campaign hospital in the Crimea! You are not a physician and never will be!”
“All medicine is only a matter of learning and observation!” Her voice was rising considerably now, and even the farther patients were beginning to take notice. “There are no rules except that if it works it is good, and if it does not then try something else.” She was exasperated almost beyond endurance with his stubborn stupidity. “If we never experiment we will never discover anything better than we have now, and people will go on dying when perhaps we could have cured them!”
“And far more probably killed them with our ignorance!” he retaliated with finality. “You have no right to conduct experiments. You are an unskilled and willful woman, and if there is one more word of insubordination out of you, you will be dismissed. Do you understand me?”
She hesitated a moment, meeting his eyes. There was no uncertainty in them, no slightest flexibility in his determination. If she kept silent now there was just the possibility he might come back later, when she was off duty, and give Mrs. Begley the quinine.
“Yes, I understand.” She forced the words out, her hands clenched in the folds of her apron and skirt at her sides.
But once again he could not leave well enough alone even after he had seemingly won.
“Quinine does not work for postoperative fever infections, Miss Latterly,” he went on with mounting condescension. “It is for tropical fevers. And even then it is not always successful. You will dose the patient with ice and wash her regularly in cool water.”
Hester breathed in and out very slowly. His complacency was insufferable.
“Do you hear me?” he demanded.
Before she could reply this time, one of the patients on the far side of the ward sat up, his face twisted in concentration.
“She gave something to that child at the end when he had a fever after his operation,” he said clearly. “He was in a bad way, like to go into delirium. And after she did it four or five times he recovered. He’s cool as you like now. She knows what she’s doing—she’s right.”
There was a moment’s awful silence. He had no idea what he had done.
Pomeroy was stunned.
“You gave loxa quinine to John Airdrie!” he accused, realization flooding into him. “You did it behind my back!” His voice rose, shrill with outrage and betrayal, not only by her but, even worse, by the patient.
Then a new thought struck him.
“Where did you get it from? Answer me, Miss Latterly! I demand you tell me where you obtained it! Did you have the audacity to send to the fever hospital in my name?”
“No, Dr. Pomeroy. I have some quinine of my own—a very small amount,” she added hastily, “against fever. I gave him some of that.”
He was trembling with rage. “You are dismissed, Miss Latterly. You have been a troublemaker since you arrived. You were employed on the recommendation of a lady who no doubt owed some favor to your family and had little knowledge of your irresponsible and willful nature. You will leave this establishment today! Whatever possessions you have here, take them with you. And there is no purpose in your asking for a recommendation. I can give you none!”
There was silence in the ward. Someone rustled bedclothes.
“But she cured the boy!” the patient protested. “She was right! ’E’s alive because of ’er!” The man’s voice was thick with distress, at last understanding what he had done. He looked at Pomeroy, then at Hester. “She was right!” he said again.
Hester could at last afford the luxury of ceasing to care in the slightest what Pomeroy thought