My Name Is Mary Sutter Read Online Free PDF
Author: Robin Oliveira
beside his own fire right now, looking through his microscope. “Miss Sutter, you have my deepest respect and gratitude. But I cannot help you.”
“Dr. Blevens, do you know of the woman Miss Nightingale?” Mary asked.
“Do I seem as illiterate as all that?”
“Have you read her Notes on Nursing ?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I have.”
Mary registered surprise, but forged on. “One of the reasons my mother and I are the best midwives in Albany is that we read the latest medical literature.”
“You speak, Mary, as if our accomplishments were daggers,” Amelia said.
Mary Sutter laid her hands in her lap and rearranged her expression into one of tolerant hospitality, but behind the benign visage sparkled the same intense determination she had shown in Blevens’s rooms that afternoon. She fixed him with a stare.
“Are you aware, Dr. Blevens, that in the last year, Miss Nightingale has refused to leave her room?” Mary asked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Miss Nightingale, brilliant lecturer, member of the Royal Statistical Society, the woman who saved the British army in the Crimea, has shut herself in a hotel room in London and refuses to leave it. I am not saying that she is mad. Apparently, she is quite coherent. But averse to society for some unrevealed reason.”
“It is possible the war both made and unmade Miss Nightingale. The deprivation, the difficulty—”
“That’s possible, but I believe Miss Nightingale has hidden herself away from society in order to be heard. I think she knows that people would not listen quite so intently to her if she were always parading her achievements in front of everyone. I myself think that no woman should have to hide.” A pause. “Or perhaps Miss Nightingale is mad. It’s interesting that no one really knows.”
Glasses clinked and throats cleared. Jenny wiped her lips with her napkin. The halting silence around the table was characterized not by shame, but by a vague weariness. Mary unfurled was formidable and her family all knew it and, it seemed, sometimes despaired of it.
“I do beg your pardon, but are you suggesting that my refusal to help you will somehow render you mad?” Blevens said.
“I fail to see how comparing female intelligence to madness is going to help your case, Mary,” Thomas Fall said, emerging from the hush to jolly along his future sister-in-law.
James Blevens raised his hands in concession. “You did not want me at your table tonight, Miss Sutter. You have had to endure my company after I disappointed you.”
“How? How did he disappoint you?” Amelia asked, but Thomas Fall stepped in once again.
“Our Mary is not quite as inhospitable as she seems.” Thomas threw Mary a gentle smile, which she returned with a flicker of her own. “If you wish to receive a pass from Mary, you need only be a woman in the last throes of childbirth. She likes the needy best, I think.”
“Yes, she was remarkable today,” Blevens said. “As I suspect she usually is.”
His compliment earned him no correspondent smile from Mary, who took a sip of wine and looked away. Amelia reached her hand to Mary, but Mary shook her head.
Taking charge of the table, Thomas abruptly changed the subject, accustomed, it seemed, to navigating the family’s more difficult shores. “Dr. Blevens, before we all go off, I’d be happy to take you out to Ireland’s Corners. I keep orchards on the Loudon Road. Apples and cherries. I have hopes that the New York Railroad will one day extend a line northward. Think of the prospects of fruit picked in the morning being delivered to Manhattan City by evening of the same day.”
“Is this a family business?” Blevens asked. He reached for a glass of water, giving sidelong glances to his dinner companions, all of whom suddenly held Thomas Fall in a sympathetic gaze.
Thomas set down his fork. “It was, yes. But last October my father and mother died in a carriage accident. Hit by a runaway.”
“I beg
“Dr. Blevens, do you know of the woman Miss Nightingale?” Mary asked.
“Do I seem as illiterate as all that?”
“Have you read her Notes on Nursing ?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I have.”
Mary registered surprise, but forged on. “One of the reasons my mother and I are the best midwives in Albany is that we read the latest medical literature.”
“You speak, Mary, as if our accomplishments were daggers,” Amelia said.
Mary Sutter laid her hands in her lap and rearranged her expression into one of tolerant hospitality, but behind the benign visage sparkled the same intense determination she had shown in Blevens’s rooms that afternoon. She fixed him with a stare.
“Are you aware, Dr. Blevens, that in the last year, Miss Nightingale has refused to leave her room?” Mary asked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Miss Nightingale, brilliant lecturer, member of the Royal Statistical Society, the woman who saved the British army in the Crimea, has shut herself in a hotel room in London and refuses to leave it. I am not saying that she is mad. Apparently, she is quite coherent. But averse to society for some unrevealed reason.”
“It is possible the war both made and unmade Miss Nightingale. The deprivation, the difficulty—”
“That’s possible, but I believe Miss Nightingale has hidden herself away from society in order to be heard. I think she knows that people would not listen quite so intently to her if she were always parading her achievements in front of everyone. I myself think that no woman should have to hide.” A pause. “Or perhaps Miss Nightingale is mad. It’s interesting that no one really knows.”
Glasses clinked and throats cleared. Jenny wiped her lips with her napkin. The halting silence around the table was characterized not by shame, but by a vague weariness. Mary unfurled was formidable and her family all knew it and, it seemed, sometimes despaired of it.
“I do beg your pardon, but are you suggesting that my refusal to help you will somehow render you mad?” Blevens said.
“I fail to see how comparing female intelligence to madness is going to help your case, Mary,” Thomas Fall said, emerging from the hush to jolly along his future sister-in-law.
James Blevens raised his hands in concession. “You did not want me at your table tonight, Miss Sutter. You have had to endure my company after I disappointed you.”
“How? How did he disappoint you?” Amelia asked, but Thomas Fall stepped in once again.
“Our Mary is not quite as inhospitable as she seems.” Thomas threw Mary a gentle smile, which she returned with a flicker of her own. “If you wish to receive a pass from Mary, you need only be a woman in the last throes of childbirth. She likes the needy best, I think.”
“Yes, she was remarkable today,” Blevens said. “As I suspect she usually is.”
His compliment earned him no correspondent smile from Mary, who took a sip of wine and looked away. Amelia reached her hand to Mary, but Mary shook her head.
Taking charge of the table, Thomas abruptly changed the subject, accustomed, it seemed, to navigating the family’s more difficult shores. “Dr. Blevens, before we all go off, I’d be happy to take you out to Ireland’s Corners. I keep orchards on the Loudon Road. Apples and cherries. I have hopes that the New York Railroad will one day extend a line northward. Think of the prospects of fruit picked in the morning being delivered to Manhattan City by evening of the same day.”
“Is this a family business?” Blevens asked. He reached for a glass of water, giving sidelong glances to his dinner companions, all of whom suddenly held Thomas Fall in a sympathetic gaze.
Thomas set down his fork. “It was, yes. But last October my father and mother died in a carriage accident. Hit by a runaway.”
“I beg