In the Shadow of the Lamp (28 page)

And it’d maybe work out for Emma, if Will could take care of her. I tried to imagine it, imagine him looking at her the way he looked at me. But I couldn’t. He was my friend first. I knew it didn’t make sense for me to be jealous. Still, even though I figured he’d look for comfort in someone else’s arms, why did they have to be Emma’s?

But I had plenty of other things to think about. Not least of which was how could Mrs. Drake talk to me when she was already dead and on her way to being buried? I decided I must have so wanted to see her, and I hadn’t slept the whole night before, that I imagined it all. I had to believe that, anyway. Stranger, perhaps, was how I knew that something else was inside Dr. Maclean and had to come out before they sewed him up for good. Miss Nightingale called it intuition. But she punished me nonetheless, and it surely had nothing to do with nursing.

As soon as I got off the boat at Scutari I was treated like I had the pox. No one talked to me except to ask for the salt at meals, and the nuns even crossed themselves when they saw me. I don’t know how they found out everything that had happened, but I overheard enough of their whispers to know they had.

After so many adventures in Balaclava, everything seemed different. I didn’t know myself anymore. Used to be I could fall asleep as soon as my head hit my pillow. Now I lay awake every night until late, listening to the sounds of the night, trying to make sense of everything.

I thought of what I could say to my mum when I got back. Surely she’d take me in? I could maybe train for a midwife now I had more experience. It was a way to get by. I’d help her, and be a good girl, teach the little ones their letters just like I learned mine. The more I thought it through, the more I wanted to go home, until it became like an ache that wouldn’t go away. But still the storms continued and the ships were full. I kept my valise packed, just in case.

Mrs. Bracebridge made sure I was busy in the wards and was kind enough, but I couldn’t talk to her—not after she’d taken such a chance on me and I ended up a disappointment. The doctors were all too occupied with the sick and wounded, and I didn’t know any of them well enough to talk to, to find out more about how I might have known enough to reach into Dr. Maclean’s wound like that.

Dr. Maclean. I couldn’t help wondering if he was better, and whether he would stay in Balaclava or go home. If he stayed in Balaclava, there was no chance I’d have to face him again, so that was what I hoped for most—and feared.

I kept trying to imagine both Will and Dr. Maclean in my mind, but the harder I tried, the less I could picture them. I’d suddenly find Will’s eyes in Dr. Maclean’s face, or feel the imprint of Dr. Maclean’s lips as I remembered Will’s kiss. What did it mean? I couldn’t be in love with anyone if I was so mixed up that way. And maybe I didn’t want to be. Maybe it was never my lot to find a husband. Plenty of girls didn’t.

Then I’d start back in again, picturing the moment when I’d see my mum and the little ones, my brother Ted and my dad. Would I get the strap? Or was I too old for that now? What would they know, other than what I told them? Would I lie?

While I waited and thought, the worst jobs in the Barrack Hospital fell to me. I supposed it was only fair. I had to clean the linens when men soiled them and shovel up the bodies of rats that ate the poison put out for them. I was more like an orderly than a nurse, but the work felt good. It stopped me from thinking and brooding, my mind going in circles like a dog chasing its tail.

Since no one talked to me, I didn’t get much news either, about the war or what was happening outside the hospital wards. I was surprised, then, when one afternoon Miss Nightingale walked into the common room. A few of the nurses—the Sellonites mostly—got her a nosegay, picked from the spring flowers that had already started poking up in the mud of the parade ground. I sat by myself in the corner, working my way through a pile of socks to darn.

“Molly! You’re still here?”

I stood and curtsied. “Yes, Miss Nightingale. There were storms and no room on the one steamer that left. Mrs. Bracebridge says I’ll go next week.”

She looked upset, more upset than I thought she would at finding me still there. I wasn’t causing any trouble. No one could say a word against me since I’d been back at the Barrack Hospital.

I didn’t find out what made her act so oddly to me until the next day, when I was on the wards cleaning up as usual, and I overheard two orderlies talking.

“Seems funny to have a doctor as a patient. They say he wanted to stay, in Balaclava, but Miss Nightingale convinced him to come here for care.”

My ears burned. I continued what I was doing as best as I could, but I kept tucking in the sheets around one soldier so long he likely thought I was sweet on him.

“Aye. He wasn’t no favorite with Dr. Menzies, though. Bet he’s sorry he’s got to care for him!” The two men laughed.

I knew right away they were talking about Dr. Maclean.

He was there. In the Barrack Hospital. Only walls and stairs separated me from him. My palms tingled. The sick men around me faded from my sight. Where was he? I wanted to go to him. That was what Miss Nightingale feared. That’s why she didn’t want me to be here still. What was she afraid of? He hated me, I was sure, after the business with Will. But then why did I feel this tug, like a rope was tied to my heart and he was at the other end of it?

I didn’t dare just go and find him. I was only permitted to do the tasks Mrs. Bracebridge gave me, then go back to our quarters. But I’d already ruined everything, and would be going home with my head hanging soon enough. What worse could come of it?

Worse would be if somebody stopped me from finding him. So I’d make sure they wouldn’t.

I finished up as quickly as I could in the wards, then went back for tea. No one talked to me, as usual. Mrs. Clarke slammed my plate down in front of me, which was also usual. Anyone who did something to upset Miss Nightingale was in her bad books for good and all.

I went to bed, just like nothing had changed. Only I planned to use the tricks Emma taught me to sneak away. I knew Miss Nightingale might be up, since she went around the wards at night checking on the men. But I had to take that chance.

As soon as I heard the other nurses snoring or just breathing slow and regular, I quickly slipped out from beneath my sheets, balled up my covers so it looked like I was still there, and stole out into the corridor.

Trouble was, I had no idea where to find Dr. Maclean. I knew at least that he wasn’t in any of the wards I’d been in that day. That left the sick wards, and two or three where the newly wounded came in. I guessed it would be one of those. But the longer I was out, the more chance someone would see me and I wouldn’t get to him.
There must be a way to find him faster
, I thought.

The wards were quiet. Only the occasional moan or the soft sound of a man crying held back during the day so the others wouldn’t hear. The rats weren’t scrambling. It seemed that Miss Nightingale’s presence in the hospital was enough to put everyone—even the vermin—on their best behavior.

I found what I thought was nearest to the center of all the wards, on the ground floor. Then I closed my eyes and tried to imagine Dr. Maclean. At first, all the little night noises distracted me. The dream murmurs of the soldiers, starting out indistinct, became louder and louder, and I could hear all of them, all at once—just as I’d heard the whispers on the battlefield in Balaclava. “My poor wife.” “The lads at home won’t believe this.” “Where is the nurse? I need water!” “I wish I could see my boy Tommy …” The words piled up on each other and jumbled together until I couldn’t tell anything. None of them sounded like Dr. Maclean. Perhaps I was wrong. Imagining things again, just as I had imagined Mrs. Drake after she was already dead and gone. But I had to keep trying, just a little while longer. I squeezed my eyes shut so tightly a tear trickled out of the corner of one of them.

“Molly.”

I heard it. Plain as day. It was the only word I could hear distinctly over the noise inside my head. I willed him to say it again. I put my hands over my heart.

“Molly.”

Now the word came from a direction. From the left, up higher. I didn’t want to break the spell I’d put myself under to hear it, but I had to move. I had to hurry to wherever Dr. Maclean was. I opened my eyes.

The ward was there, just as before. But now, a soft, pinkish glow seemed to spread out in front of me, like a road of light. It was leading me, I knew it. I glanced at the men, asleep or unconscious in their beds, to see if they noticed it. There was no sign that anything disturbed them. I moved forward toward the glow. Each step I took made it retreat. It was like trying to follow a rainbow, only it gets farther and farther away the more you run toward it, and then it disappears. I didn’t want this pathway to disappear, but I had to continue and try.

I walked carefully. It was torture, because I wanted to run. The light led me up the stairs to the third floor, through a ward to a room in one of the towers. It wasn’t the tower that contained the medical offices. It was in the opposite corner to the tower we lived in. I thought that tower was dilapidated and not used for anything but storage. But that’s where the light told me to go and every now and then I heard his voice saying “Molly.”

I didn’t dare call out in answer, not wanting anyone to know I was there, so I just concentrated on answering him with my heart.

At last I reached the entrance to the tower. The glow didn’t stop, but instead of a narrow path in front of me, I could see it outlining the closed door. I found I was breathless, as if I’d run all the way, but I knew I hadn’t.

My heart pounded. I no longer heard the call of “Molly.” I reached my hand out to grasp the doorknob. What if someone else was in there? What if I had been fooling myself and I wouldn’t find Dr. Maclean at all, but some other poor soul?

It was too late to change my course. I pulled the door open, prepared for nothing and everything.

The bright light I had seen around the door vanished as soon as I opened it fully. Inside, there was only a single lamp on the table next to the bed. I forced myself to look at who was in that bed.

“Molly.”

This time, it was only just above a whisper, not the cry that had brought me there. I walked to Dr. Maclean’s bedside. They had shaved off his long beard. He was very thin. “I had to find you,” I said. This was no time to waste words.

“I’m glad. I wanted to see you one more time.”

Talking apparently pained him. “What happened? I thought they said you would recover?”

He smiled weakly. His brown eyes had lost the depth I once saw in them, as if everything he ever was now sat on the surface. I reached out to touch his hand, lying on the covers like a lifeless thing. “They told me what you did. It was very brave. I would have died within hours if you hadn’t.”

“But … Why aren’t you well?” My cheeks were wet, but it didn’t feel as if I was crying.

“They want to try another surgery. I don’t think I’m strong enough to survive it.”

I squeezed his hand. He gave the smallest answering pressure. “No!” I said. “This can’t be everything. What is it worth then?”

“What is what worth?” He shifted and winced. I immediately adjusted his pillow, my nursing habits too hard to shake off.

“This feeling, this love I have for you. And all you taught me to do. And in the end, I couldn’t save you.”

“It’s worth all the world, Molly. And you did save me.”

“But here you are, and you’re—”

“Dying. Yes. Don’t cry, Molly. There’s nothing anyone can do. But I did want to tell you one thing before it’s too late.” He lifted his head. I helped him, since it clearly cost him great effort. “I would have asked you to marry me. We have a connection, you and I.”

I couldn’t speak. Tears locked my throat so I could hardly breathe. Finally I took in a raw, rasping breath that was more like a sob and cried, “No! You can’t leave! What will I do without you?” Pinpoints of light danced in front of my eyes. I forced myself to take a slow breath. “Take … me … with you! Take me with you!”

If anyone saw what I did next they would have thought I’d gone mad. I reached my arms out and spread myself over Dr. Maclean like a human blanket, touching every part of him I could, as if I could transfer the life I felt coursing through me into him, as if he could draw upon my strength and live.

“Ah, Molly!” Dr. Maclean said, and gently moved me so that I lay next to him instead of on top. His arm wrapped around me, and he lightly stroked the side of my hip with his hand. “I always wanted to hold you like this. But now … Stay with me. I can pretend. I can imagine what might have been, with you at my side.”

Now tears flowed down his cheeks. They weren’t hot, like my tears, but cold. They sparkled in the lamplight. “Let me keep you warm,” I said, and put my arm around his shoulders. He nestled his cheek against my hair.

“Thank you,” he said. “You have beautiful hair. I’ve not seen much of it until now.” Then he turned his head and kissed me, so lightly I might not have known, except that I wished for it so much.

“Just be quiet. Lie still. All will be well yet, you’ll see,” I said, murmuring to him as if he were my child and just wanted soothing to go to sleep.

I don’t know how long we stayed like that, what time it was when I awoke, and what time it was when I finally realized that Dr. Maclean had died in my arms.