"You don't know about Frenchmen?" she whispered, eyes wide and horrified. "Oh, but of course, you wouldn't. Your husband is so gentle and so kind.…he wouldn't, I m-mean I know he d-doesn't trouble you that way…" Her face was suffused with a rich peony that reached from chin to hairline, and the stammer was about to strangle her.
"Do you mean…" I began, trying to think of some tactful way of extricating her without entangling myself in speculations about the habits of Frenchmen. However, considering what Mr. Hawkins had told me about Mary's father and his plans for her marriage, I rather thought perhaps I should try to disabuse her of the notions that she had clearly picked up from the gossip of salon and dressing room. I didn't want her to die of fright if she did end up married to a Frenchman.
"What they d-do…in…in bed!" she whispered hoarsely.
"Well," I said matter-of-factly, "there are only so many things you can do in bed with a man, after all. And since I see quite a large number of children about the city, I'd assume that even Frenchmen are fairly well versed in the orthodox methods."
"Oh! Children…well, yes, of course," she said vaguely, as though not seeing much connection. "B-b-but they said"—she cast her eyes down, embarrassed, and her voice sank even lower—"th-that he…a Frenchm-man's thing, you know.…"
"Yes, I know," I said, striving for patience. "So far as I know, they're much like any other man's. Englishmen and Scotsmen are quite similarly endowed."
"Yes, but they, they…p-p-put it between a lady's l-l-legs! I mean, right up inside her!" This bit of stop-press news finally out, she took a deep breath, which seemed to steady her, for the violent crimson of her face receded slightly. "An Englishman, or even a Scot…oh, I didn't m-mean it that way…" Her hand flew to her mouth in embarrassment. "But a decent man like your husband; surely he would n-never dream of forcing a wife to endure s-something like that!"
I placed a hand on my slightly bloated stomach and regarded her thoughtfully. I began to see why spirituality ranked so highly in Mary Hawkins's catalog of manly virtues.
"Mary," I said, "I think we must have a small talk."
I was still smiling privately to myself when I walked out into the Great Hall of the Hôpital, my own dress covered with the drab, sturdy fabric of a novice's habit.
A good many of the chirurgiens, urinoscopists, bonesetters, physicians, and other healers were donating their time and services as a charity; others came to learn or refine their skills. The hapless patients of L'Hôpital des Anges were in no position to protest being the subjects of assorted medical experiments.
Aside from the nuns themselves, the medical staff changed almost daily, depending upon who found themselves without paying patients that day, or who had a new technique that needed trial. Still, most of the free-lance medicos came often enough that I learned to recognize the regulars in short order.
One of the most interesting was the tall, gaunt man whom I had seen amputating a leg on my first visit to the Hôpital. Upon inquiry, I determined that his name was Monsieur Forez. Primarily a bonesetter, occasionally he would attempt the trickier types of amputation, particularly when a whole limb, rather than a joint, was involved. The nuns and orderlies seemed a bit in awe of Monsieur Forez; they never chaffed him or exchanged rude jokes, as they did with most of the other volunteer medical help.
Monsieur Forez was at work today. I approached quietly, to see what he was doing. The patient, a young workman, lay white-faced and gasping on a pallet. He had fallen from the scaffolding on the cathedral—always under construction—and broken both an arm and a leg. I could see that the arm was no particular challenge to a professional bonesetter—only a simple fracture of the radius. The leg, though, was something else; an impressive double compound fracture, involving both the mid-femur and the tibia. Sharp bone fragments protruded through the skin of both thigh and shin, and the lacerated flesh was blue with traumatic bruising over most of the upper aspect of the leg.
I didn't wish to distract the bonesetter's attention to his case, but Monsieur Forez appeared sunk in thought, slowly circling the patient, sidling back and forth like a large carrion crow, cautious lest the victim not be really dead yet. He did look rather like a crow, I thought, with that prominent beak of a nose, and the smooth black hair that he wore unpowdered, slicked back to a wispy knot at the nape of his neck. His clothes, too, were black and somber, though of good quality—evidently he had a profitable practice outside the Hôpital.
At last deciding on his course of action, Monsieur Forez lifted his chin from his hand and glanced around for assistance. His eye lighted on me, and he beckoned me forward. I was dressed in a coarse linen novice's gown, and lost in his concentration, he did not notice that I didn't wear the wimple and veil of a nursing sister.
"Here, ma soeur," he directed, taking hold of the patient's ankle. "Grasp it tightly just behind the heel. Do not apply pressure until I tell you, but when I give the word, draw the foot directly toward you. Pull very slowly, but with force—it will take considerable strength, you understand."
"I understand." I grasped the foot as directed, while Monsieur Forez made his slow and gangling way toward the other end of the pallet, glancing contemplatively at the fractured leg.
"I have a stimulant here to assist," he said, drawing a small vial out of his coat pocket and setting it beside the patient's head. "It constricts the blood vessels of the surface skin, and drives the blood inward, where it may be of more use to our young friend." So speaking, he grasped the patient by the hair and thrust the vial into the young man's mouth, skillfully decanting the medicine down his throat without spilling a drop.
"Ah," he said approvingly as the man gulped and breathed deeply. "That will help. Now, as to the pain—yes, it is better if we can numb the leg, so he will be less inclined to resist our efforts as we straighten it."
He reached into his capacious pocket once more, this time coming out with a small brass pin, some three inches in length, with a wide, flat head. One bony, thick-jointed hand tenderly explored the inside of the patient's thigh near the groin, following the thin blue line of a large vein beneath the skin. The groping fingers hesitated, paused, palpated in a small circle, then settled on a point. Digging a sharp forefinger into the skin as though to mark his place, Monsieur Forez brought the point of the brass pin to bear in the same place. Another quick reach into the pocket of marvels produced a small brass hammer, with which he drove the pin straight into the leg with one blow.
The leg twitched violently, then seemed to relax into limpness. The vaso-constrictor administered earlier did in fact seem to be working; the ooze of blood from the severed tissues was markedly less.
"That's amazing!" I exclaimed. "What did you do?"
Monsieur Forez smiled shyly, a faint rosiness staining his blue-shadowed cheeks with pleasure at my admiration.
"Well, it does not always work quite so well," he admitted modestly. "Luck was with me this time." He pointed at the brass pin, explaining, "There is a large bundle of nerve endings there, Sister, what I have heard the anatomists call a plexus. If you are fortunate enough to pierce it directly, it numbs a great deal of the sensations in the lower extremity." He straightened abruptly, realizing that he was wasting time in talk that might better be spent in action.
"Come, ma soeur," he ordered. "Back to your post! The action of the stimulant is not long-lasting; we must work now, while the bleeding is suppressed."
Almost limp, the leg straightened easily, the splintered ends of bone drawing back through the skin. Following Monsieur Forez's orders, I now grasped the young man about the torso, while he maneuvered the foot and lower leg, so that we applied a constant traction while the final small adjustments were made.
"That will do, Sister. Now, if you will but hold the foot steady for a moment." A shout summoned an orderly with a couple of stout sticks and some rags for binding, and in no time we had the limb neatly splinted and the open wounds firmly dressed with pressure bandages.
Monsieur Forez and I exchanged a broad smile of congratulation over the body of our patient.
"Lovely work, that," I praised, shoving back a lock of hair that had come unbound during our exertions. I saw Monsieur Forez's face change suddenly, as he realized that I wore no veil, and just then the loud bonging of the Vespers bell rang from the adjacent church. I glanced openmouthed at the tall window at the end of the ward, left unglassed to allow unwholesome vapors to pass out. Sure enough, the oblong of sky was the deep half-indigo of early evening.
"Excuse me," I said, starting to wriggle out of the covering gown. "I must go at once; my husband will be worried about me coming home so late. I'm so glad to have had the chance of assisting you, Monsieur Forez." The tall bonesetter watched this disrobing act in patent astonishment.
"But you…well, no, of course you are not a nun, I should have realized that before…but you…who are you?" he asked curiously.
"My name's Fraser," I told him briefly. "Look, I must go, or my husband…"