A Corruption of Blood

by Ambrose Parry

  He knew that to do right by both the women he loved, he had to cleave to Eugenie and let Sarah go.

  As he had done so many times before, he saw Eugenie at her window as he approached, though his arrival was unexpected on this occasion. She was looking out on St Andrew Square, lost in her own thoughts. He wondered if those thoughts were of the walks they had shared, and the possibility that they might share nothing further.

  A coachman came hard along St David Street, bellowing his warning to a man crossing the road who appeared heedless of his approach. The sound was enough to break Eugenie from her trance, and at that point she noticed Raven gazing up at her.

  In the past she would have beamed in response. Today, she looked anxious, as though his appearance was portentous in some way. He felt a tightness in his chest. To see her worried was to put worry in him.

  He beckoned her down as he used to, offering an apologetic smile. His heart leapt to see it reflected.

  Surely he could love Eugenie as a wife and Sarah as a friend. His feelings for Sarah, even as they were expressed physically this afternoon, did not diminish how Eugenie made him feel. He needed to have faith that Sarah was right: that the same would be true of Eugenie with regard to Gideon.

  They walked together through Princes Street Gardens, the sun finally breaking through the lightening clouds. Raven recalled that this was the professor’s prescription for those with illnesses more imaginary than real, many of whom paid the professor handsomely for it. He was not sure what it said that it was making him feel better.

  Eugenie took his arm as they walked, Raven grateful to be walking on her right. Her grip would not have been so welcome had it been upon his other arm, where Sarah’s careful stitches sat beneath the sleeve of his shirt, and he did not wish to have to explain himself if he were to wince at Eugenie’s touch.

  He could feel the heat of her hand through the material of his coat. He relished the sensation, officially sanctioned now that they were betrothed, but such pleasure also provoked a feeling of guilt regarding what he had just shared with Sarah.

  Raven tried to clear his mind by thinking of what Sarah had told him: that his past with her did not matter, only his future conduct with Eugenie. The worry was, it was hard to feel like it was the past when it had reached such a recent culmination.

  Neither he nor Eugenie had said anything of substance since she emerged from her father’s house. There was a sense of mutual comfort, the reassurance that they still wished to be in each other’s company, but also a feeling of trepidation, of approaching something dangerous that would have to be broached for that comfort to mean anything.

  Raven decided that he was not going to press her. He felt it was incumbent upon Eugenie to speak, even if it was to say that she wished to keep this matter private.

  She slowed her pace and looked at him.

  ‘I feel as though I am trapped between Scylla and Charybdis,’ she said.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘I owe you the truth if I am to be your wife, but I am afraid that you will not want to be my husband once you know it.’

  ‘Eugenie, there cannot be much that I have not already surmised, and yet here I stand. You are not diminished in my eyes. It is not as though I have never known the touch of another.’

  ‘I speak of more than mere touch.’

  ‘I understand.’

  He squeezed her hand gently as he spoke.

  ‘Your father said you were “complicated” but he did not elaborate on what this meant. I know he sent you away, and I was told that it was to deter suitors. But it was not for that reason, was it?’

  Eugenie’s eyes filled. He led her to a bench where they sat down, still close but no longer touching. He gave her a moment to compose herself, taking in his immediate environment. They were surrounded by trees and flowers, the combined scent of them heavy in the air. There were few that Raven was familiar with. Roses, a willow tree. The rest he did not recognise, would not be able to put a name to even if his life depended on it. Sarah would know, he thought, and immediately felt a stab of guilt, a disloyalty to the woman sitting beside him.

  The sound of a train whistle cut through the quiet, a plume of smoke rising as an engine made its way towards the station at the far end of Princes Street.

  ‘I had a baby,’ Eugenie said eventually.

  It was almost a relief to hear it, proof that he was not in thrall to some far-fetched fantasy.

  ‘How could you still want me for a wife now,’ she asked then, ‘knowing what I have done? What kind of woman gives away her own child?’

  Raven was all too familiar with the consequences of the body’s reproductive urges. He was forced to confront them on a daily basis in his professional life and no one, irrespective of status, was exempt. He was surprised she would not anticipate his compassion as a result. But then the personal and professional were often quite separate spheres.

  ‘What kind of woman? A frightened one. One who is unready for a life not of her choosing, for consequences disproportionate to her actions.’

  He offered her a handkerchief. She wiped her nose and dabbed at her cheeks.

  ‘What you say is true. I was terrified. I did not want a child. All throughout my pregnancy that thought persisted. I do not want this. I tried not to think of there being a child inside me, only of the life my father assured me I could return to after my confinement in the country. But when I held her in my arms, I did not want to let her go. I have never felt such love. My father took her, though, mere moments after. He told me to put her from my mind and look to the future this sacrifice allowed.’

  She held herself straighter, looked Raven in the eye.

  ‘I present myself as acerbic. Harsh, even. I am inappropriate sometimes, and often disrespectful to my father, as though I care nothing for trivialities or conventions. It is all a sham, to hide how much I do care. How much I hurt. I would like to tell you that not a day goes by without my thoughts turning to that little girl and where she might be now, but in truth many such days go by. It is how I live with myself. Father assured me she was going somewhere safe, somewhere she would be loved. But when one does not know . . .’

  She hung her head again.

  ‘Some nights I cry at the thought of her missing me, and some nights I cry because I know that she does not.’

  Raven struggled to find something to say, some words of comfort, but could not summon anything that might ease this kind of pain. He reached for her hand and squeezed it once more, encouraging her to go on.

  ‘There was a time when I begged him to tell me something of who her new parents were. He told me he did not know, only that she had been given to someone who would provide a good life. There had been an intermediary used to prevent such information becoming known. It was for the benefit of both parties, he told me, as well as for the benefit of the child. A clean break, he said. A chance to cauterise the wound.’

  ‘Do you think that your child was given to Dr Simpson? I know that he discreetly arranges such things.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘No. It was arranged with someone from outside of the city. Clandestine meetings at a railway station where a substantial amount of money was paid for the services provided.’

  She sniffed, dabbed at her eyes again.

  ‘Sometimes when my father was angry with me, he would complain not only about how I had brought disgrace upon the family, but how much money it had cost him to hide it.’

  Raven remembered what Sarah had told him about the woman from the perfumier who met with an intermediary at a railway station. A large sum had changed hands then too, for purposes of discretion.

  Raven wondered why Dr Todd had not gone to Dr Simpson. The fostering services that he provided were no secret amongst the medical men of Edinburgh. Perhaps that was the problem. Edinburgh medicine was a small world, riven with rivalries and professional disputes. And perhaps Dr Todd wished to keep this from his colleagues, reluctant to seem diminished in their eyes, whet
her he trusted them to keep a secret or not.

  Was this the information Sir Ainsley Douglas was hoping to wheedle from Dr Simpson? And if so, how was he planning to use it against his own physician?

  Raven realised that there was a question he must ask now, or forever hold his peace. There might never be another opportunity.

  ‘I hope you understand why I have to ask you . . . who was the father?’

  Eugenie removed her fingers from his, clasping her hands together in her lap.

  ‘I will not say. I would not say then, much to my father’s anger and frustration, and I will not say now. If you still wish to marry me, you must reconcile yourself with not knowing.’

  Raven sighed. ‘What troubles me is that I think I do know.’ He rushed on, not wishing to be interrupted. ‘I believe it was Gideon, and that is why you requested I help him. I fear that you love him still and I worry that if I cannot save him, you will resent me for it. And if I do save him—’

  Eugenie stopped him before he could finish.

  ‘It was not Gideon.’

  That gave him pause.

  ‘Your father suspects that it was. I think that is why he was so quick to believe Gideon guilty of the poisoning. He already thought badly of him.’

  ‘You have it backwards,’ Eugenie replied. ‘He assumed Gideon was the father because of our long association with the family and because he already thought him a scoundrel. I often suspected this was because privately my father did not think so highly of Sir Ainsley either, making it easier to believe the worst of his son. Not that he had the mettle to put his suspicion to the test. If he genuinely believed Gideon responsible, he should have challenged Sir Ainsley and insisted that his son do the honourable thing, but he was too cowardly. Sir Ainsley’s riches and influence kept him loyal and obedient.’

  ‘Are you sure your father said nothing? The butler at Crossford House told me that Gideon got a girl in trouble, a girl his father considered unsuitable, and that was why he was sent to Tobago.’

  She laughed at that, relief and anger curiously mixed.

  ‘Then you can be most solidly assured it was not Gideon. My confinement was almost two years ago. Gideon was sent to Tobago last summer.’

  Raven felt a rush of relief, which only lasted until he calculated that there was no reason why Gideon could not have been responsible for both. If he was unconscionable enough to get one girl pregnant . . .

  It was as though Eugenie read his mind. She took his hand again, looking him deep in the eye. She needed him to believe her, and he did, because he needed to believe it too.

  ‘Will, it was not Gideon. I have never liked him in that way, nor he me. I knew him as Amelia’s little brother. I asked you to help because I always felt for him. He seemed delicate and sensitive, and I saw how his father treated him. I know how badly he can behave, but I always thought there was something better within him; that the boy I used to talk to at the summerhouse might emerge if given the chance.

  ‘I also hoped it would be a comfort to Amelia if she learned her brother was innocent, but I realise now that I was mistaken. I have come to appreciate that Amelia’s opinion of Gideon was always closer to yours – and that perhaps you and she are right. I thought her disdain derived from mere envy because he was the favoured one. But I have come to accept that, as the person who knew him best, she must have seen something in Gideon that made it possible to believe he would do such a thing. And I suspect you must have seen that in him too, long before you met me.’

  Raven chose not to respond directly to this. It was not something she ought to be burdened with. But he realised, amidst another wave of relief, that she would not hold it against him should he fail to clear Gideon’s name.

  ‘Amelia’s judgment would appear damning of more than just Gideon,’ he said. ‘She seems to wish to dissociate herself entirely from her family.’

  ‘I witnessed a change in Amelia over the years,’ Eugenie told him. ‘A harshness of tongue and an air of indifference that I found myself imitating. But I know from my own experience that it is a mask, a hard shell to protect something soft and vulnerable inside.’

  ‘She has suffered a great deal,’ Raven suggested. ‘The loss of her husband, and before that the loss of her mother. I can understand why she will barely let go of her son, as she came close to losing him too.’

  Raven remembered what Dymock had said about Margaret Douglas, his implied accusation towards Dr Todd.

  ‘Do you know what happened to Amelia’s mother?’ he asked.

  ‘What happened? What do you mean? She died young, before her time. It was a tragedy that shook the whole family. I do not think they have recovered from it yet. But whatever changed in Amelia seemed to precede the loss of her mother. It began when we were both around twelve or thirteen. No longer little girls but beginning the transition to womanhood. I think that was when the reality of her situation struck her: the different roles allotted to the son who would inherit and the daughter whose only purpose was to marry and have children.’

  ‘Does she know of your secret?’

  ‘No. You are now one of a very select few. My father, his sister who I was sent to stay with, a midwife I never saw before or since. Some household staff in Perthshire who were told a fabrication about my husband being dead. No one else.’

  She paused, as though deciding whether to reveal something further.

  ‘Not even the father knows,’ she said. She looked at Raven to gauge his response. She hurried on. ‘In fact it suited me that my father blamed Gideon, because it kept him from suspecting the truth, and that in turn allowed me to keep it from the man responsible. He was engaged at the time. Though he loved me, the marriage was important to both families, and I would have been . . . yes, unsuitable. I could not betray him by revealing what had happened between us. I would not reveal it then and I will not reveal it now.’

  This was more, far more, than Raven had anticipated being told. His fears had largely been confirmed and yet what he felt was not disappointment but admiration. He could see just how strong and honourable she was.

  ‘He is married then?’

  ‘Yes. With a child, and another on the way, I’m told.’

  ‘What you did for him was an act of love.’

  Eugenie saw the question in this acknowledgement.

  ‘I will not attempt to deceive you, Will. I think of him still, as I think of that little girl. But I have thought of them less and less since meeting you. I no longer need to dwell on what might have been, the life I might have lived.’

  She grasped both his hands in hers.

  ‘Ours is what is here and now.’

  FORTY-ONE

  arah climbed North Bank Street, passing the Bank of Scotland building on her left, the New College of the Free Church off to her right. She had decided against taking the carriage out again. The rain had stopped, and she felt the need of some fresh air. She was deliberately keeping to the main roads and broad thoroughfares. There would be no shortcuts through narrow alleyways for a while.

  She thought about what she and Raven had just done. Conventional wisdom would dictate that it was wrong, even sinful, but she knew that she did not regret it. Physical intimacy had forced an honest discussion that might not have happened otherwise. Everything seemed clearer now than it had been before.

  Why was intercourse regarded as so precious, as though it were the greatest bond? She and Archie had made love, but it was not the sweetest thing they had shared. Equally she knew that in Raven’s case, it was not mere lust for Sarah physically that was causing him conflict with regard to Eugenie. She used to wonder whether sexual congress changed everything between two people, or whether it was a sign that everything had already changed between them. Now she had lain with Raven, what was confusing was that it seemed to have changed nothing.

  The great fears for most women after such a deed, out of wedlock, were pregnancy and disease. She was afraid of neither. Raven’s brave intervention during her recent preg
nancy had saved her life, but in all likelihood had cost her the possibility of ever conceiving again.

  After her initial embarrassment, Sarah had decided she would not feel guilty about what they had done, and nor would she entertain shame. Shame was a blunt instrument wielded by men to keep women in their place, and that they should be made to feel it when pregnant was particularly galling. The rounded belly, the indisputable evidence of indiscretion that women were forced to carry while the men responsible could retreat into the shadows, deny all knowledge and continue their lives undisturbed.

  Though perhaps they were not always undisturbed. She thought of Gideon, accused of fathering a child and being sent to Tobago as punishment. Gideon was apparently as loose with his morals as he was with his money, so it could be any number of women who had succumbed to his charms and been left to bear the consequences alone. Did Raven think it might have been Eugenie? That would certainly exacerbate his concerns.

  Having made this connection, she realised that it was not merely Eugenie’s residual love for Gideon that Raven was afraid of.

  Sarah stopped outside the denoted building on Melbourne Place, where she experienced the same feeling as when Christina had sent her to Dickson’s Close. Had it not been Lizzie who supplied the address she would have assumed a mistake had been made.

  She examined the building for signs of its use as a brothel but there were none. It was a three-storey townhouse, four steps up to a front door, all gleaming black paint and brass fittings. It looked as though a lawyer or a doctor might reside within – but that, Sarah assumed, was the point.

  Hiding in plain sight. A respectable veneer concealing something sordid and debased.

  Sarah was not as morally outraged as some by the concept of prostitution but in practice it seemed to be a form of enslavement, an occupation of last resort, whereby women were used, abused and then discarded when they became old or diseased. Raven had joked about how fierce Lizzie was, but Sarah could not but think how afraid she must have been as she took strangers, unknown and probably undesirable, to her bed; if even a bed it was. How much of that fierceness was the result of fear, the result of having been a prostitute?