To Kill a Queen Read Online Free PDF Page B

sharp triangles of stone. Brown followed Vince's gaze.
    'Cairns, doctor,' said Brown in answer to his question. 'Monuments put up by Her Majesty to mark some memorable event in her family's stay at Balmoral. Yon's Beagmill.'
    Lachlan reined in the cart opposite a handsome granite building set back from the road.
    'Until tomorrow, then, gentlemen. We will look by for you at nine.'
    Faro and Vince walked up the drive to the main door. Embedded in stone letters: 'The Prince Consort Cottage Hospital. 1860.' Inside a wooden board with a Royal coat of arms declared the establishment 'dedicated to the alleviation and treatment of illness and disease among Her Majesty's loyal servants and tenants'.
    The hospital had two strictly separate wings, whose entrances bore the words 'Men' and 'Women' also carved indelibly in stone, the sexes sharply and properly divided.
    Although undeniably small, Faro observed that the wards were a considerable improvement on the housing conditions prevailing in many a Scottish town.
    For the poor of Edinburgh's High Street with their squalid tenements and wynds supporting ten of a family in one dreadful room, such cleanliness and orderly comfort would have prompted thoughts that they had died and gone to heaven.
    Prince Albert's main concern had been the health of the young: too many infants died at birth or succumbed to the many diseases of infancy. Among Britain's poor, to have survived forty years was to have reached old age, and many were consigned to earlier graves by neglected illness and hard work. Ironic, was the whisper, that for all his good works, the Prince had died at forty-two of typhoid and, some hinted, of medical mismanagement.
    A decade later, residents were either extremely healthy or regarded hospitals with suspicion. Wards were rarely more than one quarter filled and patients fell into categories of broken limbs, amputations (through horrendous accidents with farm equipment) but rarely the old and infirm.
    The latter were something of a rarity, usually incomers or foreigners to the district, since hardy local folk never gave up, and old Balmoral servants preferred to die in Royal harness. Or in extremities of age, they drifted into a happy second childhood under the careful and loving attention of the younger members of the family.
    The Prince had provided the hospital with a doctor and three nurses. He had liked his doctors to be young and imaginative, perhaps even a little rebellious in the cause of medical progress. The present incumbent, who was approaching his seventieth year, had been prevailed upon to take a short holiday and to employ a young assistant.
    While Vince's Dundee appointment as factory doctor eminently qualified him for such responsibility, the unhappiness in his personal life had also taken toll of his never-abundant self-confidence. He had it on good authority, however, that should he prove worthy of the hospital appointment and Dr Elgin's esteem, then he might be offered a permanency.
    Was it the Balmoral connection that attracted Vince, a step nearer his ultimate dream, the goal of Queen's physician, Faro wondered. He entertained some misgivings about his young stepson hiding himself away in a country hospital instead of a large town where he could gain experience and expertise in medical diagnoses.
    The hospital seemed ideal for a family man, a middle-aged doctor and a countryman at heart, rather than a young man at the beginning of his profession. Vince, Faro suspected, would soon become bored.
     
    'Dr Elgin,' the nurse-in-charge informed Vince sternly, 'was not expecting your arrival until tomorrow. He is now off duty for the evening and is only available in case of an emergency.'
    'Then please do not disturb him on my account. I have lodging for the night and will present myself tomorrow.'
    Consulting notes on the desk, the nurse said, 'Not before eleven, if you please. Eleven o'clock is when Dr Elgin completes his morning rounds,' she added, directing them