More Than a Dream (16 page)

‘‘In a moment.’’

‘‘Help her into the scrub room. Patrick, bring in a chair. Elizabeth, you need your head between your knees—now.’’

She felt herself half walking and half being carried to the chair. As she sat down, someone pushed her head down between her knees. Her apron smelled of blood and disinfectant. Her stomach pitched and tossed like a small boat on rough seas.

The bite of smelling salts cleared her head.

‘‘Breathe!’’ The doctor’s voice came firm but gentle in her ear.

She sucked in a deep breath and coughed on the fumes. Raising her head was impossible with someone’s hand firmly planted on the back of her neck.

She sniffed again, her eyes and nose both dripping, and dried her eyes with the edge of her apron. ‘‘I’m fine now, really I am.’’ She sniffed again.

‘‘Good, then come up easy.’’

Mortification burned her face and flamed her neck. She forced herself to look up, much preferring to slither out under the door and up to her room.

‘‘Did I look that bad?’’

Again that twinkle in his eyes. ‘‘Yes. You were whiter than that apron of yours when it is clean.’’

‘‘I am so embarrassed.’’

‘‘Ah, child, don’t be. You did an excellent job, and it was hot enough in there to boil water. I’m going to suggest we get some fans to blow over chunks of ice to cool that room. I read about that somewhere. And that refrigeration they have now—I read about a new device that is small enough for here. I shall have Althea install one. While she hesitates to spend any money for the good of the staff, it will help with patients too.’’

Elizabeth turned to thank the nurse who’d been fanning her with a folded newspaper.

‘‘Dr. Rogers, you are needed on the burn ward.’’

Elizabeth turned with a start. Dr. Rogers! How wonderful that sounded. She gave the messenger a questioning look.

‘‘After what you did in there, you surely can be called Doctor, can you not?’’

Elizabeth shrugged, untied her apron, and tossed it in the laundry basket while at the same time reaching for a clean one. How much cooler she would be if she could jettison the skirt and petticoats she wore beneath it. Cooler but definitely not proper. She clenched and straightened her right hand. What if Dr. Fossden had not been there to take over?

By the time she collapsed on her bed that night, she’d delivered a baby, cared for her burn patients, ordered more morphine for the unspeakable pain they were in, set a green-stick fracture on a boy who fell out a window—said his older brother pushed him—and found time to comfort a little girl who had witnessed a beating. Her father was now in jail, and her mother was asleep in the ward after surgery.

For the first time since starting work a week earlier, Elizabeth got a full night’s sleep. And this was to be her day off. A note that had been slipped under her door asked her to meet for dinner with Dr. Morganstein and Mrs. Josephson, her benefactress from the hotel where she and her mother had stayed two years before and would again when her six weeks with the Alfred Morganstein Hospital for Women was up.

Elizabeth washed and dressed, wishing for her tub at home where she could soak up to her neck with fragrant bath salts and bubbles to float down her arm, which of course would mean she had time for such luxuries. At least the water felt cool on her skin, and she no longer wore freckles of dried blood.

I must be grateful for the smallest mercies,
she reminded herself while fixing her hair in front of the mirror. Today, a mercy is that I do not have to wear that triangular kerchief on my head. She fluffed her fringe and then the rest of her hair, running her fingers through the weight of it and flipping it in the air. The motion tingled her scalp and let a breath of coolness blow in. But before leaving the room, she knotted it into a bun set high on the top of her head, keeping her neck free to absorb any cool air that strayed her way.

On the way down to the dining hall, she swung by the office to see if she had any mail. Two envelopes lay on the desk, one with her name penned in her mother’s handwriting. Seeing the Northfield stamp, she felt a slight stab of guilt. She’d not written home other than that brief note to say she’d arrived. She slit open the envelope and removed a sheet with her mother’s name printed at the top.

July 2, 1895
Dearest daughter,

I know you are working so hard and long that you have no time to write, but I have wonderful news for you, at least in your estimation. You have been accepted at Northern Medical School in Minneapolis. It makes me happy for you to have a dream come true, and for the rest of us, happy that you will be closer to home than Pennsylvania. I have enclosed their letter so that you may write back your acceptance. I’ve also included the address for the school on the East Coast so you can send your regrets.

Everything is going along well here. Thorliff has moved into the Stromme place to help out with Henry’s care until school starts, and then surely there will be another young man who needs a place to stay and earn his room and board.

Cook says to tell you that she will have your favorite things ready for you when you come home, which to all of us, cannot be any too soon. I am looking forward to our Chicago shopping expedition like we did last year. I covet our times together.

Your father sends his love. Oh, and remember the family whose boy died of the croup? She had another baby. He’s healthy and it was an easy birth. Dr. Gaskin was pleased.

Another piece of news—I keep running on here. Your father and I made the final decision to change churches. We are now members of the Congregational Church. Pastor Johnson is such a good friend and a fine example of a humble man of God. So opposite from Pastor Mueller. I know this news will please you.

If you cannot find time to write, you can always call on the telephone, and we will gladly pay the charges. We can get some use out of the thing besides calls from here to the office.

Always remember that I love you.

Your mother

You are not to feel guilty for not marrying. You are not to feel
guilty for not marrying
. Elizabeth repeated the words as she opened the next letter, which was from Thorliff, of all people. She stared off into space, thinking of her mother’s inferences and her own certainty that marriage was impossible.

But why is it impossible?
The little voice sounded so reasonable.
Male doctors are married
.

But Dr. Morganstein isn’t
. The inner discussion picked up the tempo.

Perhaps she never met a man she wanted to marry. You haven’t
.

She glanced at the envelope in her hand. Her mother’s words teased their way past her defenses. Marrying a good friend is a good basis for— Elizabeth cut off further thoughts and ignored the slight feeling of warmth. Surely it was due to the weather and not any thoughts of Mr. Bjorklund, as if not using his Christian name would keep him at arm’s length. As if he’d ever been any closer than arm’s length, which was absolutely proper. She almost stamped her foot for emphasis.

Whatever is the matter with you today?
When there was no answer, she began reading.

July 3, 1895
Dear Elizabeth,

I hope all is going as you wished at the hospital. I have to admit that the office and your home are strangely silent with you gone. Your father mentioned the other night after supper how he misses your playing the piano. Dr. Gaskin has been asking after you when he calls on Mr. Stromme. I have moved into his house to help for now. He has regained some of his speech and spends most of his day on the front porch, where half the town calls on him. One almost never sees him sitting by himself. I help him down there before I leave for work, and he holds court all day. I have been practicing my croquet. Your father and I play a match most evenings after supper when I eat there instead of with Mr. Stromme. I know we hear a lot of the local news at the paper, but Henry gleans it all. One just has to listen a bit more carefully than before the stroke. Dr. Gaskin is most pleased with his progress.

I had a letter from home, and Astrid is hoping and praying they can come visit me this summer. I end up feeling so guilty that I do not go home, not like I have had any time to do that. Things are so much busier at the paper with all the new printing contracts. The new press has made such a difference in the amount and quality of printing we can do, as you well know. Your mother has suggested that we put a line of cards and stationery into production. You must admit that poses intriguing possibilities. I read that Mark Twain is lecturing in Chicago. I hope you can find time to go and then tell me all about it.

Oh, and congratulations on your acceptance in Minneapolis. I know you will turn a staid place like that upside down.

Your friend,
Thorliff

Elizabeth tapped the edge of the envelope on the side of her finger as she entered the dining room. A basket of muffins sat by the coffeepot kept warm by a small fat candle burning on the stand under it. A bowl of canned peaches, a pitcher of milk, and a pan of oatmeal above another candle gave her choices to make. The quiet of the room seemed more important than the food. At the first bite she realized how hungry she was and thought back to the night before. Had she eaten supper or not? Not, she decided as she spooned in the oatmeal, alternating with bites of muffin and sips of coffee.

When nearly finished she took out the pad of paper she’d stuffed into her pocket in the office, along with a pencil, and wrote to her parents, to Thorliff, Dr. Gaskin, and to Thornton. She’d respond to the medical schools next but needed ink to write those letters.

She thought of going outside for a walk but chose instead to return to her room for a nap before dinner.

‘‘Ah, you look rested again.’’ Dr. Morganstein met her at the door to her private quarters. ‘‘I was growing concerned for you.’’

‘‘Thank you, but as Shakespeare said, sleep knits up the raveled sleeve of care. Sounds like I was looking pretty raveled.’’

‘‘But not now. Ah, the resilience of youth. Come, Issy is already here and looking so forward to a good visit with you.’’

Arm in arm they entered the sitting room that looked more like a garden room with its white wicker furniture, green walls with white trim, blooming geraniums on the windowsills, and spider plants flowing over white stands. Three violets topped a chintz-covered round table, along with framed pictures of family members. A large oval picture of a little girl sitting on a bench seat, hands and ankles crossed and a bow in her hair, caught Elizabeth’s attention.

Dr. Morganstein’s gaze followed hers. ‘‘Ah, that is my sister at age five, most likely the only time she ever sat that still.’’

‘‘I thought it might be you.’’

‘‘We did look a lot alike. I am the elder and tried to keep her within bounds.’’

‘‘At which she failed miserably.’’ Issy Josephson, eyes twinkling over her pince-nez glasses, shared a smile with Althea and joined them in front of the portrait. She reached for Elizabeth’s hand and cupped it in both of hers. ‘‘You know, ever since I saw you at the hotel, I have felt a new surge of joy for living. You are contagious, my dear, and I thank you for that.’’

Standing between the two women who’d been friends for far more years than she’d been on the earth, Elizabeth wanted to put her arms around their waists and hug them both. And so she did, surprising them as much as herself.

‘‘Dinner is served,’’ announced the smiling maid. ‘‘And Mrs. Cuvier says you should hurry so the souffle
don’t fall.’’