William Monk 04 - A Sudden Fearful Death

his face. His modesty and dry humor appealed to her and she felt he was greatly skilled at his profession. Sir Herbert Stanhope she liked less, but was obliged to concede he was a brilliant surgeon. He performed operations lesser men might not have dared, and he was not so careful of his reputation as to fear novelty or innovation. She admired him and felt she should have liked him better than she did. She thought she detected in him a dislike of nurses who had been in the Crimea. Perhaps she was reaping a legacy of Prudence Barrymore’s abrasiveness and ambition.
    The first death to occur after her arrival was that of a thin little woman, whom she judged to be about fifty and who had a growth in the breast. In spite of all that Sir Herbert could do, she died on the operating table.
    It was late in the evening. They had been working all day and they had tried everything they knew to save her. It had all been futile. She had slipped away even as they struggled. Sir Herbert stood with his bloodstained hands in the air. Behind him were the bare walls of the theater, to the left the table with instruments and swabs and bandages, to the right the cylinders of anesthetic gases. A nurse stood by with a mop, brushing the hair out of her eyes with one hand.
    There was no one in the gallery, only two students assisting.
    Sir Herbert looked up, his face pale, skin drawn tight across his cheekbones.
    “She’s gone,” he said flatly. “Poor creature. No strength left.”
    “Had she been ill long?” one of the two student doctors asked.
    “Long?” Sir Herbert said with an abrupt jerky laugh. “Depends how you think of it. She’s had fourteen children,and God knows how many miscarriages. Her body was exhausted.”
    “She must have stopped bearing some time ago,” the younger one said with a squint down at her scrawny body. It was already looking bloodless, as if death had been hours since. “She must be at least fifty.”
    “Thirty-seven,” Sir Herbert replied with a rasp to his voice as though he were angry and held this young man to blame, his ignorance causing the situation, not resulting from it.
    The young man drew breath as if to speak, then looked more closely at Sir Herbert’s tired face and changed his mind.
    “All right, Miss Latterly,” Sir Herbert said to Hester. “Inform the mortuary and have her taken there. I’ll tell the husband.”
    Without thinking Hester spoke. “I’ll tell him, if you wish, sir?”
    He looked at her more closely, surprise wiping away the weariness for a moment.
    “That’s very good of you, but it is my job. I am used to it. God knows how many women I’ve seen die either in childbirth or after bearing one after another until they were exhausted, and prey to the first fever that came along.”
    “Why do they do it?” the young doctor asked, his confusion getting the better of his tact. “Surely they can see what it will do to them? Eight or ten children should be enough for anyone.”
    “Because they don’t know any differently, of course!” Sir Herbert snapped at him. “Half of them have no idea how conception takes place, or why, let alone how to prevent it.” He reached for a cloth and wiped his hands. “Most women come to marriage without the faintest idea what it will involve, and a good many never learn the connection between conjugal relations and innumerable pregnancies.” He held out the soiled cloth. Hester took it and replaced it with a clean one. “They are taught it is their duty, and the will of God,” he continued. “They believe in a God who has neithermercy nor common sense.” His face was growing darker as he spoke and his narrow eyes were hard with anger.
    “Do you tell them?” the young doctor asked.
    “Tell them what?” he said between his teeth. “Tell them to deny their husbands one of the few pleasures the poor devils have? And then what? Watch them leave and take someone else?”
    “No of course not,” the young man said irritably. “Tell them some way of …” He stopped, realizing the futility of what he said. He was speaking about women of whom the great majority could neither read nor count. The church sanctioned no means of birth control whatever. It was God’s will that all women should bear as many children as nature would permit, and the pain, fear, and loss of life were all part of Eve’s punishment, and should be borne with fortitude, and in silence.
    “Don’t stand there, woman!” Sir Herbert said, turning on