A Nurse for James Read online

  “We’ve had a good life together Mrs. Coleman and I.” The doctor bestowed a benign smile on his wife.

  It seemed strange a husband calling his wife Mrs. Maybe it was an English thing? They were obviously a devoted couple. She wondered whether they had children or not.

  “This won’t do, Miss Myers. You need a good strong cup of tea and so do I,” Mrs. Coleman said. “Your room will be upstairs. I got young Maggie, our maid, to make up the bed for you and tidy it up. Most of the rooms up there aren’t used anymore. I got her to put you in the room overlooking the back garden because it has a pretty outlook.”

  “Thank you. Mrs. Honeycutt’s driver left my trunk on the porch. I might put it inside the door then maybe Maggie and I can get it upstairs between us. I don’t have a lot of things in it. I can easily carry my carpet bag.”

  The doctor nodded. “Sounds sensible. I don’t have any patients to see this afternoon, so you can get yourself settled in.”

  “Could you wheel me into the kitchen, Miss….”

  “Ashley, please call me Ashley.”

  “I can make the tea, I’m particular how I have it. I just need to get to the kitchen. I’m not a complete invalid, William worries too much about me.”

  “You don’t realize how ill you’ve been.”

  “I’m old, William and so are you. We’ve had a long, happy life and can’t expect to last forever. Come along, Ashley, I’m choking for a cup of tea.”

  “Yell out when it’s ready. I just want to read the latest medical journal. It only came yesterday, and I like to keep abreast of new developments.” He wandered off.

  “Push me into the kitchen, dear, then bring your luggage inside. If you leave it outside some vagabond might come along and steal it.”

  Ashley wheeled Mrs. Coleman into a gleaming, spacious kitchen with a modern cook stove with plenty of bench space. A large kitchen dresser had diamond leadlight doors.

  “This is nice, I’ve never seen such a fancy kitchen before.”

  “Put the brake on, dear, I don’t want this chair to roll off with me in it. I can potter around, I’m alright if I have something to hold on to.”

  “Could I help?” The old lady was quite tottery, her knotted hands didn’t look capable of doing much.

  “I look worse than I am.” She gave a sweet smile. “William likes to spoil me.”

  What a lovely lady, determined, too, by the way she wanted to perform tasks, which were obviously difficult for someone in her condition.

  “Now I’m here to help, you can take it a little easier.”

  “Yes. Maggie is a good, willing worker, but isn’t too bright and needs to be instructed. It’s getting beyond me, so I need someone to organize her. Williams needs help in the surgery as well. He doesn’t see many patients now, just a few who have been coming here for years, and some of the poor who can’t afford to pay for treatment.”

  Pretty tins lined the mantel over the stove, all neatly marked. Sugar, tea, coffee, salt and mixed herbs. A rose patterned china teapot sat on the dresser with two matching cups, saucers and plates.

  “Oh, before you go. In the bottom shelf of the dresser are more teacups, get a set out for yourself.”

  Ashley did as requested and also carried them over to the bench at the side of the stove.

  A small table with four chairs sat in the corner, obviously they ate some of their meals here.

  Mrs. Coleman followed her gaze. “William and I mostly eat out here. We do have a formal dining room, which we rarely use now. Well, only when visitors come, and they are few and far between.” She sighed. “We have outlived most of our friends, and our daughter shifted away when she got married.” She took a deep breath. “I shouldn’t be chattering like this. Off you go and bring in your luggage.”

  Ashley left the kitchen and made her way to the front door and opened it. She was able to lift the carpet bag with ease, the trunk entirely a different matter. After a lot of tugging and pulling, she got it inside. Fortunately, although slightly built, she was quite strong. Mopping floors, cleaning out fireplaces, not to mention washing windows and numerous other nursing duties had seen to that.

  Back in the kitchen, the tea was brewing in the pot. “I’ll pour if you like,” Ashley said.

  “Thank you, dear. Don’t tell William, but it is a struggle sometimes. I’d like to move in with our daughter who lives in Pennsylvania, but he doesn’t want to leave his patients.” She smiled. “That’s where you come in.”

  “I’m happy to do anything to help both of you.” She would prefer nursing duties although she didn’t mind household chores, having been used to it. A spinster aunt had brought her and Richard up after their parents had died, Mama in an accident, and Papa from the coal miner’s disease, black lung.

  Richard had been left an annuity by his wealthy Godfather, which paid most of their expenses. Aunt Lil lived by the motto cleanliness is next to Godliness, and idle hands did the work of the devil. After Richard was killed the money dried up. By this time Aunt Lil had passed away.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Coleman. What did you say?”

  “I asked if you would mind telling William his tea is ready.”

  “I’m sorry, of course I will. I was daydreaming.”

  “Sad thoughts?”

  Ashley nodded. She suddenly felt like weeping for Richard and all the other young men who had been lost in the war.

  “Constance told us about your brother. I’m sorry my dear, war is a terrible thing.”

  “Yes. I’ll get Dr. Coleman.” She hurried out of the room so as not to break down in front of this kindly lady. You need to get on with your life. Forget the past.

  How could she? Except for nursing she had nothing to look forward to except spinsterhood. So many men had been killed, the pool of eligible males was greatly reduced. The competition for husbands would be fierce, unless she was prepared to go out West and find herself a cowboy or a rancher.

  She tapped on the surgery door. “Dr. Coleman, your tea is ready.”

  “Thank you. There’s an interesting article from this Lister chap about germ control in hospitals.”

  “Antiseptic?”

  “Yes, I’m inclined to agree with him.”

  Dr. Coleman was rather vague sometimes and inclined to wander from topic to topic, she had quickly noticed.

  Back in the kitchen as they drank their tea Ashley said. “Miss Harrow said you were in the Crimean War.”

  “I was.”

  “You were too old to go, William.”

  “Now, Mrs. Coleman, I might have been old as you call it, my dear, but my surgical knowledge saved the lives of many soldiers.”

  “Did you know Florence Nightingale?”

  “The Lady with the Lamp, the soldiers called her. Yes, indeed I did. A remarkable, compassionate woman who changed the face of caring for sick and wounded soldiers.”

  “I know, she was my inspiration for wanting to become a nurse. Well, my brother, too.”

  “Constance told me he was an army surgeon.”

  “Yes, he was.”

  “The war took quite a few of our most talented doctors. It will take years to replace all that lost medical expertise. I was so pleased when I heard Constance was starting a nursing school.”

  “No more war talk,” Mrs. Coleman said. “It’s too depressing. Young ones like Miss Myers….”

  “Call me Ashley, please.”

  “You need to look to the future, Ashley, not be tied to the tragedies of the past.”

  “Bravo, Mrs. Coleman,” the doctor said. “Very well put.”

  Ashley gratefully drank the tea and nibbled on cookie.

  “After we finish up here, you get yourself set up in your room. Maggie did us a nice stew for supper, as you Americans call it. It just needs heating, so no rush. Have a lie down if you feel like it.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Coleman.” She couldn’t believe how kind these people were. Miss Ha
rrow must have been glowing in her recommendation. Besides Florence Nightingale, Constance Harrow and Clara Barton were the kinds of women she aspired to be. Brave, compassionate and willing to stand up for what they believed in.

  Ashley finished her tea. “Perhaps I will go to my room now and get organized.”

  “Yes, up the stairs, last room on the right. It overlooks the garden and you can see the mountains in the distance.” Mrs. Coleman smiled. “I’m sorry I can’t take you up. We live downstairs now, so you’ll have the whole second floor to yourself.”

  “What if you need me at night?”

  “I’ll be there to help Mrs. Coleman. It’s during the day when I’m out that we might need you.”

  “The old fool still does a few home visits.” Her smile took the sting out of her words. “To gossip rather than dispense medicine more like.”

  Ashley took her leave of this lovely couple. She collected her carpet bag, which she could easily carry upstairs herself. The trunk would have to wait until Maggie was available to help.

  Upstairs, she quickly found her room, spacious and pretty, with sprigged wallpaper. Polished honey colored floorboards were covered by a large floral rug. The windows overlooked a large garden with neatly kept grass and flower beds.

  An enormous tree spread branches over what looked like the outhouse. Behind a wire enclosure several chickens scratched around. She couldn’t believe her luck in gaining a position like this, and all thanks to Constance Harrow. The woman was a saint.

  The large bed was covered by a pretty, pale pink quilt with matching bolsters. For her, this was luxury indeed.

  Chapter Three

  The next morning, Ashley arrived in the kitchen where the appetizing smells of ham and eggs made her mouth water.

  The Coleman’s were sitting at the table tucking into the food. A tall girl with carrot-colored hair was leaning over the stove. Was that pancakes she was cooking?

  “Ah, Ashley you’re here. Maggie, meet Miss Ashley Myers, the nurse I was telling you about.”

  The woman swung around, well, she was a mere girl, maybe sixteen or so. Her smile was friendly and lit up an otherwise plain, freckled face.

  “Good morning, Maggie. Mrs. Coleman has told me how much you do for them. I’m happy to help you in any way I can, in between working in the surgery.” That was the best way of putting it. I wouldn’t want her to think I’m trying to take her job.

  “Pleased to meet you, Miss.” She bobbed her head.

  “Well, that’s it, we’ll be one big happy family.” The doctor beamed. “I’ve got surgery in an hour, if you’d like to take a look at how I run my practice.”

  “I can’t wait to start. Do I need to do anything for you first, Mrs. Coleman?”

  “No, thank you. If I need help, Maggie is here.”

  “When you’ve finished breakfast, I’ll help you with your trunk, Miss.”

  “Oh good, I don’t want to leave it in the hallway for patients to trip over.”

  “That would be one way to drum up business,” the doctor said with a smile and a twinkle in his eye.

  Maggie placed a plate of ham and eggs in front of her and she ate hungrily. Pancakes with maple syrup were washed down with two cups of tea. “My goodness.” Ashley patted her stomach. “I’ll get fat if I keep eating like this. Thank you, Maggie, it was delicious.”

  “Our Maggie is a real gem. She has a handsome beau, too,” Mrs. Coleman said.

  Maggie blushed.

  “Teddy is a nice lad,” the doctor said. “He does a few bits and pieces outside for us.”

  ****

  The doctor’s surgery was in the front room of the house, his waiting room across the hallway in a smaller room. He had instructed Ashley to take patient details and keep a record of their medication. His patient card system, which he kept in a large set of drawers, was in alphabetical order. The drawers covered the whole of one wall in the surgery, but the room was separated by an ornate oriental room divider.

  Ashley did a quick flip through the cards and noticed that several patients had numerous cards tied together with twine, obviously long-time patients. Fortunately, Dr. Coleman was happy for her to wear a white apron over her gown and her white gathered hat. “We must have you looking the part,” he had joked.

  The first patient, elderly Mr. Rutledge hobbled in holding on to his wife’s arm. He was suffering gout. Ashley introduced herself as Dr. Coleman’s new nurse. The man grunted while his wife smiled. Going by the notes on his card this patient failed to take the medicine the doctor had prescribed on numerous occasions, instead partook of some herbal remedy given to him by a neighbor who got it from an Indian Medicine man.

  There were several patients with differing complaints of varying severity. One woman had a large boil on her neck and Ashley helped prepare the instruments so it could be lanced.

  The last case of the morning was a thin, miserable looking thirty eight year old man, Jake Evans, who had a hacking cough, the same as her father had suffered – coal miner’s cough or black lung, from working underground in the Beveridge colliery near Frostburg. There was no cure. Who would know better than her? All the doctor could do was prescribe medicine to ease the cough.

  The saddest part of all was that the man had several young children. “I don’t know what we’re going to do,” said his wife, while the man was being seen. “We’re struggling now, as Jake is working for my brother, who can’t give him many hours.”

  “I’m sorry. What happened to his job at the mine?”

  “When he couldn’t work underground anymore, the mine people put him off. We had to move out of the house the mine provided, not that it was much of a place. There was nothing else left for us to do except move here and live with my brother and his family.”

  She wrung her hands. “It’s hard being crammed into one room.”

  The woman seemed to want to talk and Ashley listened with growing anger.

  “We’re not the only ones, there are dozens in our position and worse. Homeless and destitute some of them are, while the mine owners make more and more money.”

  It wasn’t right, the mine owners should at least be made to pay these men a pension, not just toss them aside when they could no longer work. Miss Harrow had once mentioned the plight of some coal miners, cheated and ill-treated by greedy mine owners. Just like Papa.

  The authorities should step in and do something about it she had said. They never did. Some of the politicians were probably living off money that had come from the mines.

  Ashley noticed Dr. Cole didn’t take any money from obviously poor patients, in fact she had seen him discretely hand Mrs. Evans some money. “Our little secret,” he had said.

  Maggie had rushed up as the couple were about to leave and pushed a bag into the man’s hand. “Mrs. Coleman thought you could do with a few vegetables from the garden.”

  Jake hesitated. Pride was probably the only thing the poor man had left.

  “For the children,” Maggie said. “We can’t use all the stuff that we grow ourselves.”

  “Thank you and God bless you all.” The man’s voice wavered, and his wife’s lips trembled.

  “Mr. Evans will be coming back at the same time next week. Write it on his card, please. I’ll see you then, Jake. Make sure you take the medicine I gave you.”

  After surgery finished, Ashley cleaned up for the doctor. Anger burned through her at the thought of people getting rich on the backs of these miners who they treated like slaves. The northern states had fought to free black slaves from the plantations of the south but allowed a similar injustice to prevail here in the mines and factories. I’m going to do something about it she vowed. One of these days.

  ****

  James stared in the mirror and didn’t like what he saw, a disheveled wreck of man. If only his West Point friends could see him now. A purely academic observation as most of them had perished in the war.

  What a strange
thing fate was. What were the odds of having a fellow graduate from West Point finding him wounded on the battlefields, particularly when they were on opposing sides? They hadn’t seen each other in years but the brotherhood had obviously still been strong.

  He closed his eyes and could still remember the balls and parties he had attended. Young officers from the Academy were always acceptable partners for society misses. He’d lost count of the number he had attended and the beautiful young women he had escorted. It was at one of these functions that he had met Kathleen and become smitten.

  Why did he keep thinking about the past? Probably because he had no future.

  He glared at his reflection in the mirror. He always felt bad after a visit from Doc Branson. Maybe he should get a medical opinion from someone else. The Doc had treated him since he was a boy, had moved in the same social circle as his parents. Maybe that was why he was more generous with the laudanum than other doctors would be. Laudanum and hiring a nurse were the only ideas the old fool seemed to have.

  Well, he could forget about any nurse. Over my dead body will I allow a nurse into my home. How many times did he have to tell Branson? It was like banging his head against a brick wall.

  Maybe he could get a dog for company? He didn’t want the company of humans except for Florrie and Martin. A dog would probably force him to leave the house to take it for walks. Long walks in the grounds might just be the thing to calm his nerves.

  There again, if the animal barked too much it would make him jittery as he couldn’t tolerate noise.

  A dog had to be better than a nurse. At least it wouldn’t nag and complain. Maybe if he suggested this to Doc Branson he might give up on the idea of a nurse?

  He had been a generous benefactor over the last couple of years to a couple of old dears who ran a sanctuary for abandoned dogs. It would be easy to obtain a suitable one from them.

  It was certainly worth thinking about.

  ****

  Things settled into a routine for Ashley over the next few months. She helped Maggie with a few household duties, attended Mrs. Coleman’s needs and did the morning surgery.