Bittersweet by Colleen McCullough Read Free Book Online

nurses are, what the Sister-in-Charge is like, and which West Enders are on duty. There’s no underlying foundation of knowledge.”
    Grace sniffled. “That’s not likely to happen to us,” she said mournfully. “My head aches from all the terms and diseases.”
    “Go on, Grace, your head aches because it’s got something to do with itself apart from swooning over Rudolph Valentino.”
    “I love the tuition,” said Tufts, nose in Gray’s Anatomy .
    “If you drip sausage fat on that page, Tufty, you’ll be in hot water,” said Edda, face menacing.
    “When have I ever lost a drop of sausage fat?”
    Their instruction went on; Dr. Finucan never flagged.
    “There are no medicines or pharmaceutical techniques worth a pinch of pepper,” he said, “for any of the major killers. We know what germs are and can destroy them in our surroundings, but not once they’re inside our bodies. A bacillus infecting tissue, like pneumonia in the lungs, is untreatable. We can look at the thing under a microscope, but nothing we can administer by mouth or skin or hypodermic injection can kill it.”
    For some reason his eyes went to Tufts — a perfect matron!
    “As I am Corunda’s Coroner, I conduct autopsies, which are surgical dissections of the dead. The other name for autopsy is post mortem. You’ll learn your anatomy and physiology standing around the morgue table. If the dead person is an itinerant without family or friends, I’ll carve the corpse minutely to show a particular system — lymphatic, vascular, digestive, for example. We’ll have to hope that I get enough indigents, but usually I do.”
    He gazed at them sternly. “Remember this, nurses, always! Our subject under the knife is one of God’s creatures, no matter how humble. What you see, what you hear, what you touch and handle is, or was, a living human being and a part of God’s grand scheme, whatever that may be. Everyone is worthy of respect, including after death. Nurse Latimer, you must remember that the patient’s wishes count as well as your own. Nurse Treadby, that not all children are angels in character or inclination, Nurse Scobie, that there are times when your most cherished systems will not work, and Nurse Faulding, that even the foulest messa patient can produce has its place in God’s plan.” He grinned. “No, I am not religious like your father, ladies, for the God I speak of is the sum-total of everything that was, or is, or will be.”
    A fine man, was Edda’s verdict, echoed by Tufts; to Kitty he was a little bit of a spoilsport, but to Grace he was the Voice of Doom reiterating the background chorus of her nursing life — messes, messes, and more messes.
    Of one thing they were very glad: though Matron, Dr. Campbell and Dr. Finucan knew they were twinned sisters, no one else did. A whole world existed between St. Mark’s Rectory and Corunda Base Hospital.

I n Edda’s opinion, no man could hold a candle to Jack Thurlow, whom she had met on the bridle path along the Corunda River when she had been all of seventeen. Then as now, he was riding a tall thoroughbred of dappled grey with a blackish mane and tail, the kind of horse Edda, astride fat old Thumbelina, would have given much to own, and knew she never could.
    Still she could remember the day: winter coming, and the long, graceful canes of weeping willows were flying yellow leaves like a blizzard of slender darts. The river water was as clear as glass, freshly shed along the crest of the Great Divide whose rounded old mountains hunched against Corunda’s eastern rim. A magic world of sharply tangy winds, the far-off breath of snow, pungently redolent soil, a streaming mackerel sky …
    He was cantering down the bridle path, so she first saw him through the rain of frozen willow tears. Sitting his horse so well, his brown, sinewy arms loose across his mount’s neck, barely holding the reins. Horse and rider were old friends, she thought, pulling Thumbelina off the path