THE men had gone, but the doctor had still not arrived. Marianne, who had seen all manner of injuries during her time at the workhouse, and knew the dangers of uncleaned wounds, had set water to boil and gone in search of clean linen, having first checked that the baby was still sleeping.
When she eventually found the linen cupboards on the attic floor, she grimaced in distaste to see that much of the linen was mired in cobwebs and mouse droppings, whilst the sheets that were clean were unironed and felt damp.
Her aunt would certainly never have tolerated such slovenliness and bad housekeeping. This was what happened when a man was at the mercy of someone like Mrs Micklehead. Against her will Marianne found that she almost felt slightly sorry for the Master of Bellfield—or at least for his house, which must once have been a truly elegant and comfortable home, and was now an empty, shabby place with no comfort of any kind.
She made her way back down the servants’ staircase to the attic floor and along the corridor to the landing. The departing men had left the door to the master bedroom open, and she could hear a low groan coming from it.
Quickly she hurried down the corridor, pausing in the doorway to the room.
The Master of Bellfield was still lying where the men had left him. His eyes were closed, but his right hand lay against his thigh, bright red with the blood that was now soaking through his fingers.
Panic filled Marianne. He was bleeding so much. Too much, she was sure.
Whilst she hesitated, wondering what to do, someone started knocking on the front door.
Picking up her skirts, Marianne ran down the stairs and across the hallway, turning the key in the lock and tugging back the heavy bolts so that she could open the door.
‘Doctor’s here, missus,’ the man who had been knocking informed her, before turning his head to spit out the wad of tobacco he had been chewing.
Marianne could see a small rotund bearded man, in a black frock coat and a tall stovepipe hat, emerging from a carriage, carrying a large Gladstone bag.
‘I understand there’s been an accident, and that the Master of Bellfield has been injured,’ he announced, without removing his hat. A sure sign that he considered a mere housekeeper to be far too much beneath him socially to merit the normal civilities, Marianne recognised, as she dipped him a small curtsey and nodded her head, before taking the bag he was holding out to her.
‘Yes, that’s right. If you’d like to come this way, Doctor. He’s in his room.’
The bag was heavy, and she could see the contempt the doctor gave the dusty hallway. She vowed to herself that on his next visit she would have it gleaming with polish.
‘You’re new here,’ he said curtly as Marianne led the way up the stairs.
‘Yes,’ she agreed. Taking a deep breath, she added untruthfully, ‘Mr Denshaw sent word to an employment agency in Manchester that he was in need of a new housekeeper. I only arrived last night.’ She hoped that the sudden scald of guilty colour heating her face would not betray her.
She paused as they reached the landing to tell him, ‘The master’s bedroom is this way, sir.’
‘Yes, I know where it is. You will attend me whilst I examine him, if you please.’
Marianne inclined her head obediently.
The sheet was red with blood now, and the man lying on the bed was unconscious and breathing shallowly.
‘How long has he been bleeding like this?’ the doctor demanded sharply.
‘Since he was brought here, sir,’ Marianne told him, as she placed the doctor’s bag on a mahogany tallboy.
‘I shall need hot water and carbolic soap with which to wash my hands,’ he told her disdainfully, as he went to open it. ‘And tell my man that I shall need him up here. Quickly, now—there is no time to waste. Unless you wish to se your master bleed to death.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Marianne almost flew back down the stairs, thankful that her ankle, whilst swollen, was no longer bothering her. Opening the front door, she passed on the doctor’s instructions to his servant.
‘Probably wants me to hold him down,’ he informed her. ‘You wouldn’t credit the yellin’ and cursin’ some of them do. Shouldn’t be surprised if he has to have his leg off. That’s what happens to a lot of them.’
Marianne shuddered.
By the time she got back upstairs, with a large jug of hot water, some clean basins and the carbolic, the doctor was instructing his servant to remove the scissors from his bag and cut through the fabric of his patient’s trousers so that he could inspect the wound.
One look at the servant’s grimy hands and nails had Marianne’s eyes rounding with shock. What kind of doctor insisted on cleanliness for his own hands but seemed not to care about applying the same safeguard to others? Marianne’s aunt had been a friend of Florence Nightingale’s family, and she had been meticulous about adopting the rules of cleanliness laid down by Miss Nightingale when doctoring her own household and estate workers. She had also been most insistent that Marianne learn these procedures, telling her many times, ‘According to Florence Nightingale it is the infection that so often kills the patient and not the wound, and thus it is our duty to ensure that everything about and around a sick person is kept clean.’
Impulsively Marianne reached for the scissors, remembering those words now. ‘Maybe I could do it more easily, sir. My hands being smaller,’ she said quickly.
Before the doctor could stop her she placed the scissors in one of the bowls she had brought up with her and poured some of the hot water over them, before using them to cut through the blood-soaked fabric.
The air in the room smelled of blood, taking Marianne back to scenes and memories she didn’t want to have. The poor house, with its victims of that poverty. A young woman left to give birth on her own, her life bleeding from her body whilst Marianne’s cries for help for her were ignored.
Her hands, washed with carbolic soap whilst she had been downstairs, shook, the scissors slippery now with blood. How shocked her aunt would have been at the thought of Marianne being exposed to the sight of a man’s naked flesh. But of course she was not the young innocent and protected girl she had been in her aunt’s household any more.
Soon she had slit the fabric far enough up the Master of Bellfield’s leg to reveal the wound from which his blood was flowing. Not as fast as it had been; welling rather than pumping now.
‘Come along, girl—can’t you see that there’s blood on my shoes? Clean it up, will you?’ the doctor was ordering her.
Marianne stared at him. He wanted her to clean his shoes? What about his patient’s wound? But she could sense the warning look his servant was giving her, and removing from her pocket the small piece of rag she had picked up earlier, intending to use it to clean the top of the range, she kneeled down and rubbed it over the doctor’s shoes.
‘Good. Now, wipe some of that blood off his leg, will you, so that I can take a closer look?’
Marianne could hardly believe her ears. Surely he wasn’t expecting her to wipe the blood from her employer’s leg with the rag she had just used to clean his shoes? Indignation sparkled in the normally quiet depths of her dark brown eyes. She turned to the pitcher of water she had brought upstairs and poured some into a clean bowl.
‘Of course, sir,’ she told him. ‘I’ll just wash my hands first, shall I?’ she suggested quietly, not waiting for his permission but instead rubbing her hands fiercely with the carbolic soap. She poured some water over them, before putting some fresh water in a clean bowl and then dipping a new piece of sheeting into it.
The only wounds she had