The Twisted Root

is largely made from ignorance and meanness of spirit. I am sure you have more sense than to pay attention to them. I am here because I have some practical experience in nursing people after severe injury, whether caused by battle or surgery, and as a consequence have learned some methods that work rather better than those currently practiced here at home."
    "You may imagine so." Thorpe looked at her icily. His light brown eyes were large but a trifle deep-set. His lashes would have been the envy of many a woman.
    Hester raised her brows very high. "Is it not better that the patient lives than that he dies?"
    Thorpe half rose from his chair, his face pink. "Do not be flippant with me, madam! I would remind you that you have no medical training whatsoever. You are unlearned and totally ignorant, and as a woman, unsuited to the rigors of medical science. Just because you have been of use abroad to soldiers in the extremity of their injuries while fighting for Queen and country, do not imitate the unfortunate Miss Nightingale in imagining that you have some sort of role to teach the rest of us how we should behave."
    Hester was quite well aware of Florence Nightingale’s nature, far more so than Fermin Thorpe, who knew her only through her voluminous correspondence to everyone even remotely concerned with hospital administration. Hester knew Miss Nightingale’s courage, her capacity for work and her spirit which fired the labor and sacrifice of this; and also her inexhaustible nagging and obsession with detail, her high-handed manner and the overwrought emotions which drained her almost to the point of collapse. She would certainly outlast Fermin Thorpe and his like—by sheer attrition, if nothing else.
    Experience of the Crimea, of its hardships and its rare victories, above all of its spirit, calmed the retort that came to her tongue.
    "I am sure Miss Nightingale believes she is sharing the reward of experiences you have been unable to have for yourself," she said with curdling sweetness, "having remained here in England. She has not realized that her efforts are not welcome."
    Thorpe flushed scarlet. "I’m sure she means well," he replied in a tone he presumably intended to be placating, although it came through his teeth. "She simply does not realize that what was true in Sebastopol is not necessarily true in London."
    Hester took a deep breath. "Having been in both places, she may imagine that, as far as the healing of injury is concerned, it is exactly the same. I suffer from that illusion myself."
    Thorpe’s lips narrowed to a knife-thin line.
    "I have made my decision, madam. The women who work in this establishment are quite adequate to our needs, and they are rewarded in accordance with their skills and their diligence. We will use our very limited financial resources to pay for that which best serves the patients’ needs—namely, skilled surgeons and physicians who are trained, qualified and experienced. Your assistance in keeping good order in the hospital, in offering encouragement and some advice on the moral welfare of the patients, is much appreciated. Indeed," he added meaningfully, "it would be greatly missed were you no longer to come. I am sure the other hospital governors will agree with me wholeheartedly. Good day."
    There was nothing to do but reply as civilly as possible and retreat.
    "I suppose that man has a redeeming virtue, but so far I have failed to find it," Callandra said as soon as they were outside in the corridor and beyond overhearing.
    "He’s punctual," Hester said dryly. "He’s clean," she went on after a minute’s additional thought.
    They walked hastily back towards the surgeons’ rooms, passing an elderly nurse, her shoulders stooping with the weight of the buckets she carried in each hand. Her face was puffy, her eyes red-rimmed. "And sober," Hester added.
    "Those are not virtues," Callandra said bitterly. "They are accidents of breeding and circumstance. He has the opportunity to be clean and no temptation to be inebriated, except with his own importance. And that is of sufficient potency that after it alcohol would be redundant."
    They passed the apothecary’s rooms. Callandra hesitated as if to say something, then apparently changed her mind and hurried on.
    Kristian Beck came out of the operating theater, but he had his coat on and his shirt cuffs were clean, so apparently he had not been performing surgery. His face lit when he recognized Callandra, then he saw