Page 2 of Blueprints, Battlelines and Ballrooms
‘They re-broke my shoulder,’ she whispered to the wall, and the pain bit almost as bad as it had back then.‘Pinned my leg, used splints and plaster casts.But the pain stayed inside me, in all of me, even in the unbroken parts.They let my blood because they thought it might be bad, but it made no difference.And when my husband died, they told me the pain was my grief, and that it was my own fault I wouldn’t heal because I would not let him go.’Florence hunched over as much as she could, to the point where the stiffness started, and kept her focus on the peeling edges of the faded pink wallpaper.If she closed her eyes, she’d see the memory, so she kept them trained on the wall.That way, she did not have to look at her parents or at this new medical man they had brought to inflict his knowledge on her.
The doctor walked his fingers over her skin, his pressure firm and needling.Florence flinched when he pushed too hard.
‘They used wire?’
A long pause, just long enough for a nod.
‘And the doctor had been trained?’
Had the doctor been sober?That might have been the better question.
‘The apothecary thought rheumatoid might have set in,’ her mother said.‘He recommended these.’
One of them—probably the doctor, for there was no tenderness in the touch—pulled her chemise across her back and tugged the blanket up again.He moved roughly, but that was a comfort in itself.Many a doctor or their assistants chose an overlytenderbedside manner.
Florence gritted her teeth as she sank to the side.She could stay here, stare at the wall, and let the three of them try to resolve the problem that was her.
Damn that thought to blazes.
Flattening her palm against the wall, she heaved herself onto her back and, with an almighty effort, onto her opposite side so that she could watch them all from her horizontal vantage point.
The doctor was holding her pills at arm’s length.He set the glass bottle back on her dresser, then tapped the lid.
‘Don’t take any more of these.Mercury will not help you.It may be making things worse.’He picked up another bottle and shook his head.‘Or these.I would like to look at your blood.Not let it,’ he said with a knowing smirk as she shied.‘Just a small vial.We can tell from your blood if there is rheumatoid.I don’t think so, but at least we will know.Coming off the pills will not be easy.’He addressed this last sentence to her parents.‘If she cannot sleep, give her a little laudanum, but not too much.No point in treating the pain if she develops an addiction.’
Her parents muttered and mumbled something obsequious as the doctor tucked his coat over his arm and collected his bag.His enthusiasm was not pure self-aggrandisement, but it wasn’t free from it either.He tugged his hat with that common air they all shared—the mark of a man who paid respect but, deep down, considered himself superior.
‘Are you going to cure me, doctor?’She pushed herself up a little, even though the movement made the pain grind like stone on stone.‘I demand your honesty.My parents delight in deception, but I am tired of it.’
‘A cure?Not with pills or exercises.There are theories on surgery and antiseptic, and new procedures all the time.The only way is to operate to repair the damage.I have a friend, incredibly talented.He offers consults to many fine families.If I speak with him, I think he will be interested in your case.He likes a challenge.But surgery with a private physician comes with a fee.’He scrawled something on a note, tore it from his book, and passed it to her father.
Florence closed her eyes against her father’s pathetic frown as her mother covered her mouth with a littleoh.She sank into the pillow and used her good hand to pull the quilt a little higher, covering her head so she did not have to hear their stilted goodbyes.
He genuinely believed he had the solution that would grant her a better life, but it was all the same.Underneath his words lay the same diagnosis she’d been given since she’d first crunched into the dirt and the townsfolk had bent over her anguished, contorted body.
Broken.She was broken.
Florence splashed another handful of cold water onto her face, then rolled her shoulder.The joints clicked, and the bone rubbed, but the swelling that had sent her to bed and made her parents call the doctor had settled.She stared at the gaunt woman in the mirror, skin pale, yet smooth from rest.At her faded freckles and the sweaty clumps of knotted auburn hair.
‘No maid today, Florrie,’ she muttered.‘No mind.We can manage this.’Then she grasped her brush and set about dragging the horsehair bristles over the tangles.It had taken years for her hair to regrow past her shoulders, as the surgeons had demanded her humiliation by lopping it off prior to surgery.No matter how bad it got, she would not have her hair cut again because of a little swelling and a fever.
Pain nibbled along her arm.She slowed until it settled, then continued brushing.Her parents, doctors, and surgeons… they all focused on the triumvirate of her broken shoulder, knee, and leg, but other parts of her had also been damaged, and on cold days, they all reminded her that they, too, suffered.Her ankle cried out that it had been twisted, and her ribs grumbled that they’d been cracked.Her wrist—thankfully her left one—insisted that she remember how it had borne the brunt of the fall yet had the grace to remain intact.All of her individual pieces made cantankerous complaints to one another until she paused, twisted her hair into a bun, and wriggled in a comb.Gradually, everything fell silent.By the time she had tugged off her chemise and replaced it with fresh linen, pulled the cord on the corset with the ties on the front, and wrangled her bodice and skirt to sit smooth, her joints had remembered that they were made to move and ceased their grumbling.
‘No more lying about,’ she chastised herself.‘Not if we’re going to take on this city.We cannot draw castles from bed.’And with one last nod at the mirror to confirm she looked like a healthy young woman so her mother would have no excuse to send her back to rest, Florence made her way downstairs.
Three, maybe four weeks had passed since their arrival in London.That first night, when the boat had sluiced its way through the icy Thames, had been a good one.She’d insisted on standing on deck as the yellow lights expanded into lit streets, while snow spun around her and settled along the ship’s rail.During one of her colder winters as a girl in Melbourne, she’d seen sleet as the wind off the Roaring Forties had turned the rain to ice—but never snow.Snow brought the same cold, but with a whisper, a gentle, frozen invasion that stilled the air and stiffened limbs.London had given them the most magical arrival, only to turn and slap her so hard she’d been struck immobile.For weeks, she’d only seen the city through a grimy window and through lids heavy with laudanum.
But not today.Today, a weak sun threw light across her bed, and she was up and ready to meet the world.The nausea and headaches had retreated as the blue pills loosened their hold.For the past two nights she’d slept without any tonics.Perhaps, in this city, this was who she would be.Not the weak girl, crippled by a buck from a skittish horse, but a resolute woman who became the very thing she wanted to be more than anything.Independent.
Florence walked through the small configuration of rooms that made up their new home.The living room, two bedrooms, and the dining room with courtyard-facing windows were cosy enough for the three of them, but she had no wish to sit and listen to her mother read announcements from the society pages today… or on any other day.Today, at least, she had the stamina to stay awake and plan an escape.She grasped the banister and tackled each step like a child might,left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot.Then she paused on the ground floor, just before the entrance.
That first night, before the pain had taken hold, Florence had wandered through their rented rooms while her father spoke of plans for his office on the lower level and made them promises of a proper home once he established himself.Her mother had said they’d moved to Paddington.‘Not the same as Paddington in Sydney, mind, a much nicer Paddington.No riff-raff.’In the weeks since, they’d had the hallway decorated with fresh wallpaper and hung framed pictures of her father’s more prestigious designs.The front room that faced the street had been furnished with some chairs and a desk—he’d meet investors in there, or potential clients.It was not a space for her.
Florence continued down the hall to the room at the back of the building, where she longed to spend her first morning out of bed.For all her mother’s approving talk, this one small room was likely why her father had rented the place.South-facing windows set into the opposite wall ensured that, even on dull days like today, sunlight poured into the space.A small stove glowed in the corner, and boxes, some empty, some stacked with papers, sat scattered about, their disgorgement interrupted.Books lined a tall case by the door.It looked a little like the office in Melbourne, with its dark wood rafters and dangling gas lamps.She’d liked that office much more than the one in Sydney.Melbourne had been full of optimism and hopes, full of grand schemes and beautiful designs.Sydney, not so much.
Two slanted drafting tables had been set up on opposite sides of the room.His, as always, sat at a ninety-degree angle to the window so that he caught the best light.Hers, as always, was positioned further back and closer to the stove.‘Your young eyes are better,’ he’d say, although he knew the warmth of the fire made sitting for long stretches easier for her to manage.
A large parchment of heavy cream paper almost filled her desk.Florence slid into the chair.The low end of the desk reached halfway across her chest—far too high for her to work at.When Father came in, she’d ask him to help her lower it.Her shoulder couldn’t manage the screws.She pushed the chair back and stood before the plan.
