Edge of Time (Langston Brothers Series) (7 page)

He cleared his throat.
“
Of course. Do excuse my rudeness.
I’m completely forgetting my manners.
“Marissa,” his eyes fixed on her oddly tight-lipped face, “
This is Miss Kirsten Jamison. Kirsten, Miss Marissa McClafferty, who has come from Atlanta to stay Mrs. Harris, her aunt, whom you already know.” Once more, he slipped his arm free of Kirsten’s grip.

“Now,” he added, smiling at Marissa, “if I haven’t scared you away, may I give you a tour of the hospital?”

“I... Yes. Of course, Doctor.” He wondered at the toneless voice, at the way her eyes avoided his direct gaze. She seemed... different, somehow today. Was it the thought of working with him as her superior that made her act so strangely?

He turned back to Kirsten, whose presence she had never explained. She frequently dropped in to visit, and good manners forced him to acquiesce unless he was in surgery. “Good day, Kirsten. Please give my best to your mother.”

“Oh.
”
T
he
brunette
pouted. “May I not take the tour as well?”

“No
,” Craig said brusquely. “Miss McClafferty is not here on a social visit, but to learn if she is willing to work among the patients.” He nodded politely and once more said, quite firmly, “Good day, Kirsten,” before turning completely away from her.

*
             
*
             
*

Marissa made a concerted effort to breathe normally and nod politely as the
Brunette’s
gaze raked her from head to toe, then appeared to dismiss her as of no consequence. Kirsten fluttered her lashes at Craig and murmured a sweet farewell to him, one th
at suggested without words
she’d be seeing him again in a very short time.

Marissa wanted to smack the woman, even as she sashayed away, skirts swinging.
Stop it,
she ordered herself.
You are here to concentrate on the hospital.

Hospital?

The term, in her opinion, scarcely applied. The building consisted of thre
e large over-filled wards, one
o
n
each floor. On the first floor, a room toward the back served as an operating room. There were a few small offices for the physicians and officers, and a couple of even smaller rooms where the doctors on duty could catch a few hours of sleep. With all the windows tightly closed, and filthy, a more desolate place she’d never seen. But it wasn’t just the forlorn misery pervading every corner of the building, but the smell.

Death.

Death had a very distinct odor, one Marissa could never quite describe but never failed to recognize, and this “hospital” reeked of it.

“This place is beyond belief,” she said, sweeping her eyes across the first ward. “Completely unacceptable.”

“Excuse me?” Craig sounded more than a little incredulous.

“This,” she gestured broadly to the room, “is totally unsatisfactory. When is the last time the floor has been so much as swept, let alone washed? Is this the dark ages? Do you use a common axe for surgery or even bother cleansing or anesthetizing your patients before operating?”

“Well, forgive me if this isn’t London proper or wherever the hell your father studied but we do the best we can with what we have.”

“The best you can? I doubt that. Has it escaped your attention
Doctor
that this man has a raging infection and debridement is necessary to treat his wounds?” She jabbed a finger toward an orderly in the process of changing a dressing, and a thick layer of purulent slough was easily visible even from her vantage point a few feet away.

“Debridement?” Captain Langston’s tone rose. “Are you mad? That is a protective layer over the wound, created by the body!”

“Protective layer!” she exclaimed, eyes flashing, “That is
staph! An infection
, Doctor.” She turned away
.
“Oh, my God, I
am
in the dark ages,” she groaned, mostly to herself. “How could I forget that Penicillin won’t be invented for another sixty, or so years?”

“Marissa,” Genie laid
a restraining hand on her elbow.
“I thin
—
”

Marissa sucked in a deep breath.
“Sorry, Genie,” she whispered. “I
forgot myself.” L
ouder, she added, “But would you just look at the filthy state of this room? Old bandages lying all over the floor, no doubt infested with bacteria to spread infection.” Marissa shuddered. “You call
this
a hospital, Dr. Langston? Why have these orderlies not been instructed to clean this place up? Don’t they
—
and you
—
know that cleanliness is key to preventing infection?”

“My orderlies have other duties.” Blue eyes flared with outrage. “They are not charwomen!”

“Neither am I, but I’ll be here first thing in the morning to start.”

“Start?” Craig spat angrily. “I don’t think I want you working here.”

“Too bad.
You hired me and now you’re stuck with me
.” Their eyes locked,
sparking with challenge.

“Fine,” Craig ba
rked.
“But I won’t tolerate another outburst like this and I will not have you questioning my medical judgment in front of the patients.”

Marissa just narrowed her eyes. It would be a cold day in hell before she kept quiet about the deplorable conditions of this
hospital
,
but there were other means of getting what she wanted. Nurses had methods of steering obstinate doctors to their way of thinking. Craig Langston would never know what hit him.

*
             
*
             
*

The hour was late when Marissa ventured from the porch to the yard to amble leisurely with her thoughts. In truth she was hiding. Genie had not so gently lectured her about the need to control her temper and avoid another outburst like the one that afternoon.

“When Dr. Langston says they’re doing the best they can with what they have he means it,” Genie had said. “And you’d be wise not to draw attention to yourself by referring to things which do not yet exist. Penicillin, Marissa, really!”

She cringed, more than a little chagrined by the memory, but Genie was right, and if she wanted to blend in
—
which really she didn’t, but had to
for the time being—
she would have to be mor
e careful. S
he should probably apologize to Craig,
but she really h
ated
to apologize, especially when she was in the right. Well... at least she wasn’t
technically
wrong, or wouldn’t be wrong in about fifty years. That must count for something.

Sighing heavily she rotated her head to ease the tension in her neck and shoulders. Tomorrow was going to be a disaster. She really should just put her foot down, refuse to take the job and put all time and energy into going back to the future.
Back to the future
—
how cliché.
But a little voice at the back of her mind, her conscience, the same streak of good Samaritanism that had made her stop to help those kids on the road, which had landed her here in the first place, just couldn’t let her leave those wounded souls. She’d made the mistake of meeting the gaze of the patient with the horrible wound. His gray eyes had held such deep pain
,
they belied the youthful features that told her he could not be more than fifteen.

How could she not care?

Too cold to continue avoiding the other occupant of the farmhouse out-of-doors Marissa turned to wander back to the house when a glint of light caught her eye.

God!
Those damn haunted woods never failed to put her heart in her throat!

But realization dawned that it was not silly superstition causing her fear but the illuminated form of a man digging in the woods.
A ghost?
Or more realistically a lantern flickering through the mist, but… The old legend burned in her mind. Breaking into a run, Marissa fell flat on her face when Genie’s old rooster began to crow. Piling the heavy layers of her skirts over an arm, she clambered breathlessly up the stairs and into the house.

“Genie!” Marissa sucked air into her lungs and rushed across the sitting room to
the window facing the woods. “There’s a ghost,” she gasped. “I
n the woods! Look!”

“A ghost?” Genie
rose in surprise,
peer
ing
through the window at the poorly lit figure in the woods. “That’s no ghost. It’s a man. How long has he been digging out there?”

“I don’t know.” Marissa’s shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I just noticed the light of his lantern and came right in to tell you.” Even as the words left her mouth the lantern light began to move and disappeared into the depths of the thicket. “You don’t think that could be a gho
—
”

Genie raised a dismissive hand before Marissa could finish the thou
ght. “I don’t believe in ghosts
. Do you know how to handle a gun?”

“Yes,” Marissa replied without hesitation.

“Good.
” Genie
crossed
the
room and
bolt
ed
the door. “We’ll keep Jim’s hunting rifles close tonight and it may be a good idea to stay in town with Carolyn for a few days.”

“Is there a sheriff we can talk to tomorrow?” Marissa swallowed the nerves wrapped securely about her windpipe.

Genie nodded before ushering her charge off to bed, advising a good night’s sleep.

I wish I could sleep,
Marissa thought, twisting and turning, tangling the covers. If she wasn’t haunted by visions of being murdered in the dark of night she was haunted by visions of the hospital’s miserable occupants. The huge gray eyes of that one boy… He, especially, haunted her.

Tiring of the futile quest for sleep Marissa left her bed long before sunrise. It was raining again. Flipping the lid of the old steamer trunk she began sifting through the contents in search of suitable clothing. What did one wear to work in a 19
^th
century hospital? Longingly she fingered the scrubs
—
her only link to the future
—
tucked carefully into the side of the trunk. The airy, easily washable garments would have been exceedingly preferable to the heavy gowns she was required to wear. What a stir she would cause if she did show at the hospital wearing her ER scrubs. Then Craig Langston would really have a reason to fire her on the spot…
Tempting
.