Silence for the Dead(30)

Why had none of the men admitted to having nightmares?

“Doctors.” Matron approached us, only slightly reddened from her climb up the stairs from the lower reaches of the house. “You are finished, I see.”

“Yes,” Dr. Oliver replied. “We are ready for the weekly debriefing.”

“Certainly.” She looked at me in a signal of clear dismissal, for which I could have kissed her feet. “Thank you, Nurse Weekes.”

“Actually,” Dr. Thornton said, “I’d like Nurse Weekes to accompany us to the debriefing. I believe it could be beneficial to her training.”

Matron was already flushed, so I couldn’t tell whether her color deepened. “That won’t be possible.”

“I do believe I have Mr. Deighton’s authority, Matron, in matters of protocol.”

“You do, of course. What I meant is that Nurse Weekes can’t be spared just now. She goes on night shift as of tonight and is scheduled to take some rest before her shift begins.”

That stunned me out of my exhausted reverie, but before I could open my mouth, Matron had turned her gimlet stare on me. “Come with me, Nurse Weekes.”

We stood at the foot of the servants’ stairs before she spoke again. “I’ll send Nurse Beachcombe to you when I can. She’ll tell you what’s required on night shift. You’re to report at eleven, after the others have gone off duty.”

“This is it, isn’t it?” I said, childish in my outrage. “This is my punishment. The incident report wasn’t good enough for you. Why don’t you just sack me and have done with it? Or is it because you’re so understaffed?”

Matron sighed. “Please go now and prepare for night shift.”

“What was it?” I said to her. “What made you hate me so? Was it the fact that I was requested by the doctors without your clearance? Or was it that I actually cleaned that disgusting lav?”

She looked at me for a long moment. I knew nothing of Matron; I didn’t know where she came from, or whether she had a family or friends, or even what her first name was. I realized as I looked into her hard, square face with its blunt fringe of hair that this opaqueness was utterly deliberate on her part. If she had her way, I would learn no more about her than I could learn from the statue of Mary on the front lawn. For a second she seemed about to say something; then she changed her mind, her eyes glittering as she looked at me.

“You have a great deal to learn, Nurse Weekes,” she said.

I turned to stomp up the stairs, but she gripped my arm. “Dr. Thornton left his notebook in the common room. Please fetch it; then, for God’s sake, go.”

I fetched the notebook, the fine leather smooth and heavy in my hand. I was in such a storm of emotion that I had nearly left the empty common room again before I realized what I was holding.

I remembered Dr. Thornton scribbling diligently all afternoon, his pen scratching. I felt queasy, not with unease at what I was about to do, but with a horrible, creeping suspicion. I opened the notebook.

There was a page of names, the names of our patients. Beside each was a thick black check mark.

And the rest of the pages—four in all—were covered in inky doodles, of clumsy giraffes and splotchy elephants, a dog sitting on his hind legs begging, a cat with long whiskers. A hillside dotted with trees and houses.

I snapped the book shut, and I did not notice that my hands were shaking.

? ? ?

There was no point in undressing, as I’d only have a few hours to sleep, so I dropped onto my narrow bed in the nursery, untying my boots and letting them fall to the floor. I lay on top of the thin quilt fully clothed and rubbed my eyes.

Exhaustion took my body, but my mind was alive with all I’d seen. Something in me was shifting, changing. I felt as if I’d been touched with an electric wire. I’d never sleep. I rolled over and reached down, finding the book and the locket under the bed.

I pulled both of them onto the bed next to me and propped myself up on an elbow, opening the book. Practical Nursing: An Everyday Textbook for Nurses. I ran my finger down the table of contents.

Nina had told me there would be no time to read at Portis House, and she’d been right. I owned no books myself, but I had perused the shelf of books in the common room—Ethan Frome, The Thirty-Nine Steps—and silently selected the ones I wanted. Books were a means to an end, even novels; for the more a person knew, the less she could be taken in.

Treatment of infectious disease. Bandaging practices. The lancing of boils. On disinfection. Correct suturing. I’d been caught unawares earlier when Dr. Thornton had expected me to inject a patient and I’d hesitated. I’d been lucky neither man had noticed. I turned to the chapter titled “Intravenous injections” and began to read.

Footsteps approached from the hall and I flipped the book shut, shoving it under my pillow just as Martha came to the door. “Matron sent me,” she said. “Do you want the curtains shut?”

“No,” I said. “I won’t sleep.”

“It doesn’t help much anyway,” she agreed. “Matron says I’m to bring you supper if you like.”

I’d been sent away before supper. Matron wanted to get rid of me that badly. I had no wish to put yet more work on Martha, who had handled night shift already. “I’m not hungry.”