Cocaine Blues by Kerry Greenwood Read Free Book Online Page B

enjoyable, for a time, and reminded herself that she had seen Marcel Duchamp checkmated by a child in a Paris café. That, Phryne thought, must be worth a certain number of small sins. She stood hurriedly for the final hymn, and the church began to clear. Mr Sanderson offered her his arm, and Phryne accepted.
    ‘I believe that I have a left a card with your wife, Sir,’ she smiled. ‘I’m sure that we shall meet again.’
    ‘I hope so, Miss Fisher,’ said the MP in a deep, rich voice. ‘I’m always disposed to like a young woman who can sing. Besides, I believe that I knew your father.’
    ‘Indeed, Sir?’ Phryne showed no sign of horror that her working-class past was to be revealed, and the MP admired her courage.
    ‘Yes, I was introduced to him when he was leaving for England; some little trouble with the fare. I was delighted to assist him.’
    ‘I trust, Sir, that he remembered to repay you?’ asked Phryne frigidly. Mr Sanderson patted her arm.
    ‘Of course. I regret mentioning the matter. May I escort you, Miss Fisher?’
    ‘No, Sir, I am going to the Queen Victoria Hospital. But perhaps you could remind me of the way?’
    ‘Straight up the street, Miss Fisher, and turn into Little Lonsdale Street and thus into Mint Place, just past the Town Hall. A matter of half a mile, perhaps.’
    ‘Thank you, Sir,’ smiled Phryne. Then she released herself, and walked away, a little offended and saddened. If her father had left debts of honour all over Melbourne, then establishing herself in society was going to be difficult. However, she was inclined to like Mr Sanderson, MP. He had a hearty voice and an open and unaffected manner, which must be an asset to any politician. And perhaps he could give her lunch at the Melbourne Club, the bastions of which Phryne had a mind to storm.
    She climbed the hill to the Museum, located Mint Place with a certain difficulty, and announced herself at the desk in a ramshackle building, smelling rather agreeably of carbolic and milk.
    It was partly wood and partly brick, and seemed to have been built rather on the spur of the moment than to any pre-arranged plan. It was painted buttercup-yellow and white inside.
    Dr MacMillan appeared, dressed in a white overall which became her well, and gentleman’s trousers with a formal collar and tie showing above a tweed waistcoat.
    ‘This way, dear girl, and I’ll show you a consulting room, a ward, and the nursery, and then we’ll go to luncheon,’ said Dr MacMillan over her shoulder as she took a set of oilcloth-covered stairs like a steeplechaser.
    For all her age and bulk, Dr MacMillan was as fit as a bull. They reached the top in good order and Dr MacMillan opened a painted door and disclosed a small white room, windowless, equipped with couch and chair and desk and medicine cabinet.
    ‘Small, but adequate,’ commented the doctor. ‘Now to the nursery.’
    ‘Tell me,’ asked Phryne, ‘how did this hospital for women come about? Was it a charitable endowment by the old Queen?’
    ‘It was a surprising thing, Phryne—could only have happened in a new country. Two women physicians began a practice here in Melbourne, and the medical establishment, being what they still are, blighted and hide-bound conservatives, would not allow their femininity to sully the pure air of their hospitals. Nurses, yes. Doctors, no. So they set up in the hall of the Welsh Church—the only hall that they could get, I’ve felt kinder toward the Welsh ever since—and they had one tap and one sterilizer and, pretty soon, more patients than they could cram in. They were sleeping on the floor, and there were deliveries on the hour. But they didn’t want only a lying-in hospital, and they petitioned for a general hospital. Parliament refused them any funds, of course. So they petitioned the Queen, and every woman in Victoria gave her shilling, and the old Queen (God bless her) gave them their charter and the right to call it the Queen Victoria