Ruth Morren - The Healing Season

“Yes. I do so love your visits.” Sarah played with the tassel at the end of her parasol. “What about Mama’s family?”

“Her parents had died after your mama ran away. They had no other children, so there was no help from anyone on that side. You were all alone in the world.” She wondered if Sarah would still believe every detail of this story as she got older. Eleanor hoped that with the repetition, each fact would become so engrained in Sarah’s memory, it would be impossible to question the veracity of the tale.

She patted her knees. “Well, we’d best continue back. Mama and Papa Thornton will wonder what’s keeping us. We don’t want to be late for tea.”

Sarah scurried up and gave Eleanor a hand. The two dusted the grass off each other’s skirts, then headed back to the carriage.

When they arrived at the prosperous farmhouse where Sarah lived, they were greeted by a married daughter of the Thorntons who had come by for a visit. Sarah ran off to show the woman’s two daughters her new parasol. Eleanor followed Mrs. Thornton and her daughter to the large kitchen in the back.

Mrs. Thornton poured them each a cup of tea. “Eleanor, you mustn’t bring Sarah so many fancy gifts each time you come to visit her. Her wardrobe can scarcely contain the gowns she has.”

“Oh, Louisa, I can’t help it. I see something pretty and I immediately think of Sarah.”

“It’s not right,” Mrs. Thornton said with a shake of her head. “She needs to live at her station. Look at my daughter Lydia’s children. They’re not poor by any means. They’re well dressed, clean and proper behaved. You couldn’t ask for anything more. But they’re not rich and they don’t go acting as if they are.”

Lydia nodded in agreement.

Eleanor pursed her lips. This subject had come up more than once of late. She looked forward to the day she could take Sarah away for good to live with her. Soon.

“Well, in another year or two, Sarah will be going away to Miss Hillary’s Academy for Young Ladies,” Eleanor replied in her most soothing tone. “There she will be on an equal footing with all the young ladies.”

“Humph,” was all Mrs. Thornton said. But she didn’t remain silent long. After a sip of tea, she added, “What good will it do Sarah to study amongst all those lords’ and ladies’ daughters, when she don’t come from the same world? When they have their come-outs, where will Sarah be? Right back in this village but with notions way above her station. She won’t be able to follow her new friends from the young ladies’ academy. They certainly won’t welcome her into their circle when they know her humble parentage. No high-and-mighty lord will have her for his wife.”

“There are plenty of respectable young gentlemen she can marry,” countered Eleanor, who had given her daughter’s future lots of thought over the years. “She could marry a solicitor or a—a—doctor—” A fleeting image of the one she had recently met invaded her thoughts. “There are many men who are not of the ton, but who are gentlemen nonetheless.”

“But will she have them if her head has been filled up with such notions of society, starting with all these tales of her own ma and dad? I’ve been saying it for years, dear Eleanor, you haven’t done her any good telling her those Banbury tales.”

Eleanor gave a careless laugh. “Louisa, you worry too much. I have it all figured out. Sarah will go to Miss Hillary’s school and she’ll move to London with me. By then I shall have a nice place in Mayfair. When it’s time for her come-out, I shall put out discreet inquiries and I’m sure we’ll meet several eligible young bachelors.”

“Who’ll be wanting to know the amount of her dowry.”

Eleanor sat up straighter in the ladder-back chair. “I have been putting money away for her since she was an infant. She’ll have her dowry.”

Once again Mrs. Thornton harrumphed, but said no more.

Ian walked into the operating theater at St. Thomas’s promptly at ten o’clock the next morning. The semicircular, amphitheater-style viewing area known as the “standings” was already crammed. Students, fellow surgeons, interns, some physicians and apothecaries stood leaning against the wooden railings on each of the five tiers rising from the operating floor.

The front row was reserved for the dressers of the other surgeons. His own, as well as his apprentices, already stood around the operating table, a plain, stout deal table half-covered in a sheet of oilcloth.

He glanced at its end. Good, no outside visitors today. Usually these special guests of his colleagues sat in chairs at one end of the operating table, but today they stood empty.

The hum of voices diminished only somewhat as he walked to the wooden pegs by the entrance. He removed his coat and rolled up his sleeves. Then he donned the coat hanging by the door. It was stiff with dried blood. He turned up its collar to protect his neck cloth. Over the coat he tied on a grocer’s bib and apron, then proceeded to wash his hands in the basin. Most surgeons laughed at this last step, but Ian’s fastidious nature demanded this measure both before and after surgery.

Ian walked to the table for his inspection. Sunlight streamed in from the skylight above, giving good natural light for the operation.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” he greeted his assistants.

“Good morning, Mr. Russell,” they replied, standing at attention.

The wooden box beneath the table had been filled with fresh sawdust. The tables beside the operating table were covered with green baize cloth and the instruments neatly laid out. Ligatures of various sizes; tourniquet and tape; knives and saws; tenacula, scissors, needles, and pins; rolls of lint and bandages.

On another table were basins of water, pledgets and sponges.

“Very good,” he told his assistants. For months after he’d arrived, he’d had to fight for adequate instruments and hygiene. After observing the conditions of La Charité, and the high standards of cleanliness maintained by the sisters who looked after the patients in the wards, he’d striven to institute such standards here, but it had been a steady uphill battle.

The patient was brought in and told to sit on the wooden table. Ian shook his left hand, the other lying in his lap inert.

“Good morning, Mr. Halliday. Are you ready?” At least the man looked strong and healthy. There was a good chance he would survive.

“Guess I’m ready as I’ll ever be. Make it quick, Doc.”

“It’ll be over in a few minutes.”

As Ian moved to his instrument tray, his assistant gave the patient the “physician’s stick” to bite on.

As soon as his assistants were ready, one supporting the man’s back and tying his good arm behind him, the other holding his thighs, Ian said a short, silent prayer and turned to his instrument table.

Another assistant drew up the skin of the man’s upper arm tightly and tied a tourniquet around it. A dresser bound a tape below this. Taking up a knife, Ian made a quick, clean incision, ignoring the patient’s sudden cry and involuntary jerk backward. The assistants held him firm. Ian took up one of the heavy, square-edged saws and bore down hard, sawing through the bone and sinew. Blood spurted out, spattering his apron, falling into the sawdust.

Ian took the needle and catgut held out to him by the dresser and secured the artery and some of the other vessels together.

His assistant loosened the tourniquet and the dresser cleaned the stump with one of the sponges. Ian drew the flaps of skin down over the stump and covered them with the lint. The dresser wrapped a damp pledget over this and then bound the stump with bandages.