Anne Perry - A Sudden, Fearful Death

She remembered the nurses lying in narrow cots by candlelight, huddled in gray blankets, talking to each other, sharing the emotions that were too terrible to bear alone. It was a time which had bumed away her innocence and forged her into the woman she was-and Prudence had indelibly been part of that, and so part of her life ever afterwards.

But as far as indication of a change in her ideals or her personality, Prudence's letters offered nothing whatsoever.

Reference to Sir Herbert Stanhope was of a very objective nature, entirely to do with his medical skills. Several times she praised him, but it was for his courage in adapting new techniques, for his diagnostic perception, or for the clarity with which he instructed his students. Then she praised his generosity in sharing his knowledge with her. Conceivably it might have sounded like praise for the man, and a warmer feeling than professional gratitude, but to Hester, who found the medical details both comprehensible and interesting, it was Prudence's enthusiasm for the increase in her own knowledge that came through, and she would have felt the same for any surgeon who treated her so. The man himself was incidental.

In every paragraph her love of medicine shone through, her excitement at its achievements, her boundless hope for its possibilities in the future. People were there to be helped; she cared about their pain and their fear-but always it was medicine itself which quickened her heart and lifted her soul.

"She should really have been a doctor," Hester said again, smiling at her own memories. "She would have been so gifted!"

'That is why being so desperate to marry just isn't like her," Faith replied. "If it had been to be accepted into medical training, I would have believed it. I think she would have done anything for that. Although it was impossible-of course. I know that. No school anywhere takes women."

"I wonder if they ever would…" Hester said very slowly. "If an important enough surgeon-say, someone like Sir Herbert-were to recommend it?"

"Never!" Faith denied it even while the thought lit her eyes.

"Are you sure?" Hester said urgently, leaning forward. "Are you sure Prudence might not have believed they would?"

"You mean that was what she was trying to force Sir Herbert to do?" Faith's eyes widened in dawning belief. "Nothing at all to do with marriage, but to help her receive medical training-not as a nurse but as a doctor? Yes- yes-that is possible. That would be Prudence. She would do that." Her face was twisted with emotion. "But how? Sir Herbert would laugh at her and tell her not to be so absurd."

"I don't know how," Hester confessed. "But that is something she would do-isn't it?"

"Yes-yes she would."

Hester bent to the letters again, reading them in a new light-understanding why the operations were so detailed, every procedure, every patient's reaction noted so precisely.

She read several more letters describing operations written out in technical detail. Faith sat silently, waiting.

Then quite suddenly Hester froze. She had read three operations for which the procedure was exactly the same. There was no diagnosis mentioned, no disease, no symptoms of pain or dysfunction at all. She went back and reread them very carefully. All three patients were women.

Then she knew what had caught her attention: they were three abortions-not because the mother's life was endangered, simply because for whatever personal reason she did not wish to bear the child. In each case Prudence had used exactly the same wording and recording of it-like a ritual.

Hesjer raced through the rest of the letters, coming closer to the present. She found seven more operations detailed in exactly the same way, word for word, and each time the patient's initials were given but not her name, and no physical description. That also was different from all other cases she had written up: in others she had described the patient in some detail, often with personal opinion added-such as: "an attractive woman" or "an overbearing man."

There was one obvious conclusion: Prudence knew of these operations, but she had not attended them herself. She had been told only sufficient to nurse them for the first few hours afterwards. She was keeping her notes for some other reason.

Blackmail! It was a cold, sick thought-but it was inescapable. This was her hold over Sir Herbert. This was why Sir Herbert had murdered her. She had tried to use her power, had tried once too hard, and he had stretched out his strong beautiful hands and put them around her neck-and tightened his hold until there was no breath in her!

Hester sat still in the small room with the light fading outside. She was suddenly completely cold, as if she had swallowed ice. No wonder he had looked dumbfounded when he had been accused of having an affair with Prudence. How ridiculously, absurdly far from the truth.

She had wanted him to help her study medicine, and had used her knowledge of his illegal operations to try to force him-and paid for it with her life.

She looked up at Faith.

Faith was watching her, her eyes intent on Hester's face.

"You know," she said simply. "What is it?"

Carefully and in detail Hester explained what she knew.

Faith sat ashen-faced, her eyes dark with horror.

"What are you going to do?" she said when Hester finished.

"Go to Oliver Rathbone and tell him," Hester answered.

"But he is defending Sir Herbert!" Faith was aghast. "He is on Sir Herbert's side. Why don't you go to Mr. Lovat-Smith?"

"With what?" Hester demanded. "This is not proof. We understand this only because we knew Prudence. Anyway, Lovat-Smith's case is closed. This isn't a new witness, or new evidence-it is only a new understanding of what the court has already heard. No, I'll go to Oliver. He may know what to do-please God!"

"He'll get away with it," Faith said desperately. "Do you-do you really think we are right?"

"Yes, I do. But I'm going to Oliver tonight. I suppose we could be mistaken-but… no-we are not. We are right" She was on her feet, scrambling to pick up her wrap, chosen during the warmth of the day and too thin for the chiller evening air.

"You can't go alone," Faith protested. "Where does he live?"

"Yes I can. This is no occasion for propriety. I must find a hansom. There is no time to lose. Thank you so much for letting me have these. I'll return them, I promise." And without waiting any longer she stuffed the letters in her rather large bag, hugged Faith Barker, and bolted out of the sitting room down the stairs and out into the cool, bustling street.

“I suppose so," Rathbone said dubiously, holding the sheaf of letters in his hand. "But medical school? A woman! Can she really have imagined that was possible?"

"Why not?" Hester said furiously. "She had all the skill and the brains, and a great deal more experience than most students when they start. In fact, than most when they finish!"

"But then…" he began, then met her eyes and stopped. Possibly he thought better of his argument, or more likely he saw the expression on her face and decided discretion was the better part of valor.

"Yes?" she demanded. "But what?"

"But did she have the intellectual stamina and the physical stomach to carry it through," he finished, looking at her warily.

"Oh I doubt that!" Her voice was scalding with sarcasm. "She was only a mere woman, after all. She managed to study on her own in the British Museum library, get out to the Crimea and survive there, on the battlefield and in the hospital. She remained and worked amid the carnage and mutilation, epidemic disease, filth, vermin, exhaustion, hunger, freezing cold, and obstructive army authority. I doubt she could manage a medical course at a university!"