The Girl in His Shadow

 by Audrey Blake

It is mid-nineteenth century London.  A London surgeon, who does a lot of free work with the poor finds a young girl barely alive, suffering from a plague, the rest of her family has died from the disease.  He decides to bring her home much to the chagrin of his housekeeper.

The housekeeper eventually warms to the girl, treating her as a daughter.  The doctor is a surgeon but also a scientist.  He pays gravediggers to bring him corpses so he can study them and learn more about diseases.

As the girl grows she assists the doctor in his work in his clinic as well as his scientific inquiries.  She basically runs his office and keeps his lab clean.  She also draws sketches which the doctor often includes in his papers.  The girl also does some simple procedures like stitches or removing stitches.

The doctor is highly regarded in the medical community but there is another surgeon, a rival, who thinks he is dangerous and often criticizes his experimentation.

One day the girl is shocked and dismayed to find another doctor arrive on the premises as an Intern to the surgeon.  She feels she will not longer have the freedom and opportunities she had before as women are forbidden to practice medicine.

Eventually the young doctor does find out what she does and what she knows, he is shocked and wonders if he should report the doctor but he is loyal to the doctor.

Eventually a case occurs in which the older doctor is put under investigation.  To "protect" the doctor the young girl admits she is the one that did the surgery on a twisted bowel.  Up to this point surgery on the abdomen has been forbidden.

The older doctor's reputation is damaged, the young doctor's fiancee cancels their engagement.  The young girl is offered the opportunity to go to Italy and be trained as a surgeon by an Italian doctor.  She is in love with the young doctor but asks him to wait for her.

It was an interesting story, if the ending was somewhat predictable.