The Art of Dying

by Ambrose Parry

  Foremost in her mind of late had been the names of two other women: Charlotte Siebold and Elizabeth Blackwell.

  It was a cold morning, with a blustery wind whipping off the river, but that also meant there was no fog, meaning she could see all the way across the Forth to Fife.

  Sarah’s view had never been clearer.

  She had lived such a little life, its boundaries extending no further north than Perth, no further south than Musselburgh. Until speaking with Mrs Glassford, she had never even thought about those geographical boundaries, had fixed instead upon the other restraints that had been placed upon her. Sarah had been excluded from lessons on all but sewing and cooking since the age of eleven, even though she had outstripped the boys in every subject. Raven, by contrast, had been all over Europe, educating himself at the greatest institutions.

  She had been like an incurious prisoner with no notion of the richness, breadth and wonder of the lands beyond the walls inside which she was confined. But now Mrs Glassford had shown her the gate, and Archie had given her the key.

  EIGHTY

  aven was sitting at his desk surrounded by piles of paper. He had not thought that Quinton would be missed, but since his departure the general disorganisation that plagued Dr Simpson’s affairs had returned. Raven sighed, put his pen down and rubbed his eyes. He looked at the clock on the mantelpiece and then checked the time on his pocket watch, calculating how long Sarah had been gone.

  He got up from behind his desk, stretched to ease the ache in his shoulders, and walked to the window. He looked out into the street hoping for some sign of her but there was none. He felt a now familiar creeping anxiety about where she might be and what might have happened to her. He was struggling to rid himself of a constant sense of foreboding. He knew it was irrational – she had recovered from her illness – but black thoughts persisted nonetheless.

  He thought about grabbing his coat and hat and heading out in search of her. Nonsense, of course, as he had no idea of where she might be and had more than enough work to contend with without embarking on some fruitless pursuit. She insisted on walking every day when he thought she should be resting, but he knew better than to argue with her when she had set her mind on a course of action.

  ‘There is no need to worry, Will. I’m quite well,’ she had said when he questioned her intentions to venture out unaccompanied on a briskly cold day. ‘But by way of a concession to your fussing, I promise to stop by on my way home.’

  She was dressed head to toe in widow’s black. Raven thought she had never been more beautiful. He could not look at her without thinking of how close he had come to losing her entirely.

  She had looked around the room, taking in the general disorder.

  ‘In any case, you are the one who appears to be in need of assistance.’

  It was a fair comment, but Raven doubted Dr Simpson would be in any hurry to hire another secretary.

  He heard the doorbell ring and looked hopefully out into the hallway, but it was Jarvis who came striding towards him clutching a rectangular package wrapped in brown paper.

  ‘A parcel for you. All the way from Naples,’ the butler said with an undisguised degree of curiosity and an utterly unfamiliar leavening of admiration. ‘A book perhaps,’ Jarvis suggested, ‘though it seems a little light for that.’

  Still wary of what any overseas mail might reveal, Raven accepted the package and retreated to the privacy of his room before opening it. He pulled carefully at the wrapping, mindful of damaging whatever might lie beneath, and upon exposing one side of the contents found himself greeted by the sight of his own face.

  It was a painting, and the unexpected appearance of his own features was not the only aspect he recognised. The style and the brushwork were unmistakably those of Gabriela, which sent a thrill through him. The painting depicted him lying in repose, his eyes looking to the distance. She always said his thoughts were elsewhere, and now she had illustrated it.

  He had not sat for her, and he deduced from the posture that she had sketched him while he was sleeping, then created the rest from memory. It was a flattering and affectionate portrait, one that made him yearn for her company, though not in the physical way he once had. He missed her wisdom, her unorthodox perspective. He thought he could smell her upon the canvas, but perhaps it was that she had often smelled of oil paint and he associated it with her.

  Raven delicately pulled away the rest of the wrapping, whereupon a letter fluttered to the carpet. He rested the picture against the wall and bent to pick it up.

  It bore no return address. He surmised that she could not afford to disclose her precise location for fear that the information might be intercepted, and when he read on, he understood just how well her fears were founded.

  Dear Will,

  I wanted to reassure you that I am alive and well, and to send this as a token of my gratitude for your actions.

  Though I did not know it at the time, the men who set upon us were neither vagabonds nor strangers, their attack neither random nor robbery. They were led by my husband’s brother. As you might already have learned, the police believe that he intended to abduct me, but they are wrong. If this were the case, Javier would not have been so ready with his pistol.

  My husband wishes to marry again. As a prominently devout Catholic, his religion and position forbid him from divorce. However, his piety does not preclude plotting to murder his wife in order to rid himself of an impediment to future marriage the old-fashioned way.

  I have no doubt Javier meant to kill me. He and his men posed as thieves in order to disguise their actions and their motives, that my intended death would have been attributed to common robbers.

  I do not know what happened in that alley when you ran down there after them, but I know that had you not done whatever you did, Javier would have found a way to finish his mission. I would be dead by now.

  This painting is a paltry offering, for I owe you my life.

  I hope that all you missed and all you sought were awaiting you back in Edinburgh.

  You once asked me if it is possible to become someone else. You were clearly fearful of your own nature, but your nature is the reason I am still here to write this.

  I told you that you must first ask yourself who you wish to become. In truth, I believe that you are already who you need to be.

  Yours,

  Gabriela

  Raven read it several times, hearing her voice clearly in his head. He was relieved that she was alive and at liberty, but this was tempered by the understanding that her self-imposed exile meant that they were unlikely to cross paths again.

  It struck him that the two women he trusted most had now both told him not to fear his own nature. He would be a fool not to embrace such advice. He was not sure he shared Gabriela’s confidence when she said that he was already the man he needed to be, but with Sarah by his side, perhaps such a thing was within his grasp.

  He folded the letter and placed it in his breast pocket for now, not wanting to abandon something precious to the chaos of his desk. He thought of how the place missed Sarah. How he missed Sarah. And with a smile he saw what ought to have been obvious.

  Soon enough he would be setting up his own practice here in Edinburgh, a challenge he could face with greater confidence if he might recruit Sarah to the cause. With Archie gone and with the prospect of motherhood lifted from her too, she would be in need of a new purpose.

  He thought of her frustrations over the ambiguity of her position at Queen Street and how her role was perceived, with some people still thinking her a housemaid and others a nurse. He had come up with the perfect solution for both of them. He would offer her the formal position of his assistant, a suitable vehicle for her burgeoning knowledge and experience.

  Raven went to the window again, more impatient now than ever, aching to see her face when he made his proposal. Sarah would be delighted. He couldn’t imagine her wanting anything more.

  EIGHTY-ONE

 
he port of Leith was a teeming ferment, as always, but on this occasion Sarah saw something more than just the crowded foreshore. On past visits she had been afraid of its bustle: the aggressive profanity of the sailors, the burly stevedores hurling crates, the porters threatening to run you over with their handcarts. What she recognised today was that this was a portal through which she could already glimpse the wider world beyond. On the wharf she saw men of different races, saw unfamiliar and exotic styles of clothing, heard languages she did not understand.

  She walked through the swinging double doors of the General Steam Navigation Company, finding herself in a busy lobby around which dozens of conversations loudly reverberated. She gazed up at the walls, adorned with notices, schedules, advertisements and route maps, and it was as she examined one of these last that she came to appreciate how small her own world truly was. This was not due to the sight of Scotland’s tiny size in the greater scale of the globe, but of the more mundane deduction that she was on the wrong coast for her intended destination.

  She would have to sail from Glasgow or Liverpool, which was not a problem, but she felt diminished that this hadn’t even occurred to her, as her life had never given her reason to investigate such things before.

  She approached one of the desks, where the smartly dressed clerk greeted her with a friendly smile.

  ‘How can I help you, ma’am?’

  ‘I am making a preliminary enquiry with regard to booking passage, though from a look at your maps, I realise I might be on the wrong side of the country.’

  ‘I am sure we can point you in the right direction regardless. What would be your intended destination?’

  Sarah swallowed, fearful her voice would dry.

  ‘New York,’ she replied.

  ‘Yes, that indeed would depart from the west coast, but we can certainly assist with a booking. Can I have your name?’

  ‘It’s Sarah.’

  He stared expectantly at her, the pause becoming awkward in its length until she understood he was awaiting more.

  ‘Sorry. Sarah Fisher.’

  ‘And would that be “Miss” or “Mrs”?’

  It seemed a simple enough question, and yet it was far from it, and not something a man was ever forced to reckon with. She had reverted to her own surname, as Archie requested, but the thorny issue of her title persisted. She pondered briefly which appellation would provide the greatest protection to a woman travelling alone.

  ‘It is “Mrs”,’ she said.

  For now, at least.

  One day, she vowed, it would be neither. One day, it would be ‘Doctor’.

  EPILOGUE

  shaft of sunshine plunged through a single window into the otherwise stark-walled chamber as Dr David Skae took his seat. Glancing up, he could make out the national monument atop Calton Hill, a permanent sentinel overlooking the facility that shared its name. The room in which they had convened was abutting the outer wall of the jail; those confined to the cells would enjoy no such view.

  Dr Skae sat at the centre of a long table, flanked on his right by Auberon Findlay, Procurator Fiscal, and on his immediate left by Dr Alasdair Drake, Skae’s assistant. Next to him at the end of the table was Frederick Nicholson, a lawyer representing the subject.

  Skae was Physician Superintendent of the Edinburgh Asylum and had been invited here by Nicholson to make an assessment of Mary Dempster’s fitness to face the charges against her.

  In the past, fiscals had resisted the likes of Skae’s involvement in such matters, but the McNaughton Rule six years before had changed all that. McNaughton had been acquitted of attempting to murder Prime Minister Robert Peel, his pistol shot fatally injuring Peel’s secretary Edward Drummond instead. McNaughton was ruled to have been guilty but insane, labouring under the delusion that Peel in fact intended to murder him. The case had established a precedent that Nicholson had invoked with regard to his client.

  Bringing their sitting to order, Findlay read out the ruling verbatim: ‘“To establish a defence on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that, at the time of the committing of the act, the party accused was labouring under such a defect of reason, from a disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act she was doing; or, if she did know it, that she did not know she was doing what was wrong.”’

  A thorough and exacting process was about to be undertaken, though there were those who had observed to Skae that it might be better if this case never came to trial. Society saw women as gentle creatures, given naturally to their appointed duties of tenderness and nurture, and it charged nurses with absolute trust in the care of the sick. Skae well understood the motivations of those who did not wish such comforting assumptions to be shattered by public exposure of Mary Dempster’s deeds. And as for what was alleged to have motivated her, it would be a grave offence to most sensibilities to be forced to confront such notions.

  Nonetheless, Skae would not let his verdict be subordinate to such considerations. His professional reputation, and thus the integrity of his other work – his detailed study and classification of mental disease – relied upon his clinical judgment.

  ‘Before we commence,’ Findlay stated, ‘for what it is worth, I would like to remind Dr Skae that there is already a confession, of sorts.’

  ‘It cannot be regarded as in any way reliable,’ Nicholson objected. ‘It was intended as a piece of misdirection, not as a sincere account of my client’s conduct or motives.’

  ‘It most certainly was not that,’ Findlay scoffed. ‘It pointedly did not include an explanation of her methods. We have Mrs Banks to thank for deducing that. The only thing it is reliable proof of is Mary’s intention to effectively change her identity and resume her activities under a new guise, seeking her gratification elsewhere. One might suggest that deploying such elaborate stratagems in order to avoid detection is proof that she well knew what she was doing was wrong.’

  Nicholson opened his mouth to speak once more, but Skae interrupted.

  ‘What I might infer from this feigned confession remains to be seen, and will only be considered once I have a fuller picture.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Nicholson acknowledged.

  Dr Drake looked to Skae, who gave him a nod of assent. They were ready.

  A short time later the prisoner was brought in, flanked by two guards. They were hardened and muscular types, used to dealing with violent men. Their brawn struck Skae as disproportionate and unnecessary. Mary looked all the more slight walking between them, and yet she did not appear cowed or intimidated. She seemed strangely care-free, which caused Skae to make the first of his notes.

  She was released from her shackles and took her seat.

  Skae instructed the guards to leave the room. They seemed reluctant, and he had to remind them that whatever danger she posed, it was not through her physical capabilities.

  She looked curiously at Skae, sizing him up as though she were the one here to make an assessment of him.

  ‘Good morning, Mary. I am Dr Skae. As your lawyer Mr Nicholson will have explained to you, I am here to listen to your account of your actions and to advise upon whether you might be regarded as fit to stand trial upon these charges. Do you understand?’

  She nodded.

  ‘I would advise you to be as forthcoming, honest and cooperative as possible, as we agreed,’ Nicholson told her.

  There had been some discussion two days before, regarding the extent to which the lawyer should brief her ahead of this session. The McNaughton Rule offering her only chance to avoid the rope, Findlay was concerned that she had incentive therefore to feign a degree of madness. Skae had assured the fiscal that he was adept at detecting pretence, and warned Nicholson that such behaviour was likely to be interpreted as proof that she was of sound mind.

  ‘On my left here is Dr Drake,’ Skae told her. ‘He will be transcribing all that you say, so that we have a record of your account that can be reviewed later. But before we commence, might I enquire if you are
healthy, and whether you have been treated well?’

  ‘I have stayed in better accommodations, where I have been treated worse,’ she replied.

  ‘It is important that you feel comfortable and able to talk freely. That you do not feel intimidated.’

  She smiled, as though grateful for his concern but eager to dismiss it.

  He had encountered patients who did not experience human emotions the way others did. A sign that they had no empathy was often that they did not feel fear.

  ‘You seem calm, despite what is at stake here. Do you know what it is to be afraid, Mary?’ he asked.

  She sat up straight and cleared her throat.

  ‘There is not a woman in this realm who does not understand what it is to be afraid,’ she began. ‘No, not even she who reigns over us, for she was not born sovereign …’

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  ames Young Simpson was Professor of Midwifery at Edinburgh University and lived with his family and various pets at 52 Queen Street from 1845 until his death in 1870. The anaesthetic properties of chloroform were discovered in his dining room on 4 November 1847. His name became synonymous with this discovery, which became a point of contention for those who felt they had contributed to it but were denied the recognition that they were due.

  In 1852, Simpson was accused by Professor William Henderson, Professor James Miller and Dr James Matthews Duncan of negligently contributing to the death of a patient by the name of Mrs Johnstone, wife of a doctor and fellow resident of Queen Street. A bloodstained mattress was cited as evidence. In response to this Simpson published a pamphlet comprising all the correspondence pertaining to the incident, including a letter from the patient’s husband which exonerated him completely and finally laid the matter to rest.

  James and Mary Quinton agreed to adopt a child, arranged and paid for by the Simpsons, and James Quinton was appointed as Simpson’s secretary until it became apparent that he was misappropriating funds in an attempt to pay off his debts. According to one account, when his larceny was uncovered, Simpson found him hiding from his creditors in an attic and paid him five pounds to leave Edinburgh.