The Serving Girl // Book 2 in the Rosie Grey series

Chapter Twenty-Four

"Can you pass me the bandages, Rosie? These aren't enough," Doctor Ealing said as he tried to unravel a bandage with one hand whilst keeping his hand clamped around an injury.

"Yes, sir," I replied. I scurried to the other side of the room, past Robert, and to the cabinet. Pulling out a handful of white bandages I approached Doctor Ealing and dumped the bandages in the pile.

"Thank you. I'm going to need you to hold this, I can't do both."

Doctor Ealing moved to one side as I shuffled closer to him, I could smell the oil on his hair as I pressed my hands against the man's leg whilst he wrestled with the bandages. Robert hovered nearby, two of his fingers resting on the man's neck whilst he bit down on a cloth to keep from screaming. The man had been bought into the office several minutes before with his leg bleeding profusely all over the floor. Whilst Doctor Ealing preferred to keep me out of way due to my lack of medical knowledge, he had recruited me into helping as the injury needed an extra pair of hands. Robert had been charged with making sure the man stayed alive whilst I had been asked to do the dirty work. Par for the course of being a servant.

With my hands pressed over the bleeding wound, Doctor Ealing unravelled one of the bandages added a small square of cloth to the centre of the strip of bandage. He placed the roll of bandage to the side and grabbed his suture needle before leaning over me. Blood gushed over my fingers and up my wrists whilst also soaking the front of my apron, I knew Miss Jenkins would kill me when she saw the state I ended up in. My ventures to the office were supposed to be organisation and that would be it, dust should have been the only thing on my apron, not blood. Still, I couldn't argue against Doctor Ealing and I had seen worse injuries at the factory.

"Right, I'm going to need you to keep pressure on it whilst I suture this up. If you move, it could be catastrophic, do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Alright. Robert, how are we doing?"

"He's pale and his pulse is racing. The sooner we get this done, the better," Robert said.

"Agreed. Remember, keep still."

I nodded and pressed my hands a little harder against the cut. Doctor Ealing manoeuvred around my hands with his suture needle as he made an attempt to suture the injury within the man's leg. He worked with lightning speed to put in two small sutures to keep the blood from spurting everywhere and he had tied the thread off, he nodded to me and I slowly took my hands off the wound. My hands were sticky with blood as Doctor Ealing pressed the pad of cloth to the wound and slowly round the bandage over the man's leg, tying it off at the end to keep it secure.

With the bandage secured, Doctor Ealing moved up to Robert and muttered something in his ear. Robert nodded and quickly scampered away to one of the cupboards, returning minutes later with a small jar of liquid which he passed over to his father. I watched as Doctor Ealing removed the cloth from the man's mouth and lifted his head slightly, pouring the liquid into his mouth and coaxing him to swallow it. Robert, meanwhile, moved away from his father and towards me though he had a small glint in his eye like he was up to something.

"Well, that was more than you get paid for," he muttered.

"Hm, definitely not what I expected to happen today. Here was me thinking all I could do was paperwork and the occasional drawing," I replied, stifling a laugh.

"Don't give up your day job. Miss Jenkins is going to kill you."

"Probably, I don't think I can convince her it was an accident."

"I expect not."

"Mr Crawly will need to stay here for a little while, I've sent a runner to the hospital and they should be sending a cart to collect him later on. Rosie, can you scrub the floor for me? I know you're here for paperwork and organising, but I cannot have patients being treated in this. You can put your apron in to soak for the rest of the day. If Miss Jenkins asks, the fault is all mine."