A Sudden, Fearful Death

"You mean the Prudence you knew would not have behaved as she seems to have?" Hester asked.

"Exactly. That is exactly it. Do you understand?"

"No-if only we had access to those letters. We could read them again and see if there is anything in them at all to explain when and why she changed so completely!"

"Oh they don't have them all," Faith said quickly. "I only gave them the ones that referred most specifically to Sir Herbert and her feelings for him. There are plenty of others."

Hester clasped her arm, forgetting all propriety and the fact that they had known each other barely ten minutes.

"You have them! With you in London?"

"Certainly. They are not on my person, of course-but in my lodgings. Would you care to come with me and see them?"

"Yes-yes I certainly would-if you would permit it?" Hester agreed so quickly there was no courtesy or decorum in it, but such things were utterly trivial now. "May I come immediately?"

"Of course," Faith agreed. "We shall require to take a hansom. It is some little distance away."

Hester turned on her heel and plunged toward the curb, pushing her way past men arguing and women exchanging news, and calling out at the top of her voice, "Hansom! Cabby? Over here, if you please!"

* * * * *

Faith Barker's lodgings were cramped and more than a trifle worn, but scrupulously clean, and the landlady seemed quite agreeable to serving two for supper.

After the barest accommodation to civility, Faith fetched the rest of Prudence's letters and Hester settled herself on the single overstuffed sofa and began to read.

Most of the detail was interesting to her as a nurse. There were clinical notes on a variety of cases, and as she read them she was struck with the quality of Prudence's medical knowledge. It was far more profound than her own, which until now she had considered rather good.

The words were familiar, the patterns of speech reminded her of Prudence so sharply she could almost hear them spoken in her voice.

She remembered the nurses lying in narrow cots by candlelight, huddled in gray blankets, talking to each other, sharing the emotions that were too terrible to bear alone. It was a time which had bumed away her innocence and forged her into the woman she was-and Prudence had indelibly been part of that, and so part of her life ever afterwards.

But as far as indication of a change in her ideals or her personality, Prudence's letters offered nothing whatsoever.

Reference to Sir Herbert Stanhope was of a very objective nature, entirely to do with his medical skills. Several times she praised him, but it was for his courage in adapting new techniques, for his diagnostic perception, or for the clarity with which he instructed his students. Then she praised his generosity in sharing his knowledge with her. Conceivably it might have sounded like praise for the man, and a warmer feeling than professional gratitude, but to Hester, who found the medical details both comprehensible and interesting, it was Prudence's enthusiasm for the increase in her own knowledge that came through, and she would have felt the same for any surgeon who treated her so. The man himself was incidental.

In every paragraph her love of medicine shone through, her excitement at its achievements, her boundless hope for its possibilities in the future. People were there to be helped; she cared about their pain and their fear-but always it was medicine itself which quickened her heart and lifted her soul.

"She should really have been a doctor," Hester said again, smiling at her own memories. "She would have been so gifted!"

'That is why being so desperate to marry just isn't like her," Faith replied. "If it had been to be accepted into medical training, I would have believed it. I think she would have done anything for that. Although it was impossible-of course. I know that. No school anywhere takes women."

"I wonder if they ever would…" Hester said very slowly. "If an important enough surgeon-say, someone like Sir Herbert-were to recommend it?"

"Never!" Faith denied it even while the thought lit her eyes.

"Are you sure?" Hester said urgently, leaning forward. "Are you sure Prudence might not have believed they would?"

"You mean that was what she was trying to force Sir Herbert to do?" Faith's eyes widened in dawning belief. "Nothing at all to do with marriage, but to help her receive medical training-not as a nurse but as a doctor? Yes- yes-that is possible. That would be Prudence. She would do that." Her face was twisted with emotion. "But how? Sir Herbert would laugh at her and tell her not to be so absurd."

"I don't know how," Hester confessed. "But that is something she would do-isn't it?"

"Yes-yes she would."

Hester bent to the letters again, reading them in a new light-understanding why the operations were so detailed, every procedure, every patient's reaction noted so precisely.

She read several more letters describing operations written out in technical detail. Faith sat silently, waiting.