Where the Light Enters

by Sara Donati

  Bellegarde swallowed so that the muscles in his throat worked hard. “I have no reason to stay,” he said. “I’m already gone.”

  * * *

  • • •

  LUCIE BELLEGARDE, A widow of some sixty years, was as familiar to Elise as her own aunts and grandmothers. A country woman, practical, efficient, religious, and now devastated by the loss of a bru—a daughter-in-law—she had clearly loved and cherished. She wept over her grandson, but silently.

  The news of the tragedy spread very quickly. Within minutes the apartment above the boulangerie was crowded with mourners, men gathering in the parlor and women in the kitchen surrounding a quietly weeping Lucie Bellegarde. Some mumbled over rosaries, some talked quietly together, but a few of them came to Elise. She sat with the sleeping baby in her arms and answered the same questions over and over again: how the boy’s mother had died, what had become of her body, where the baby had been since that terrible day of his birth.

  “Catherine was such a sweet girl,” one of the older women said.

  “For a Protestant,” mumbled someone closer to Elise’s own age. This comment earned her furious scowls from all the others.

  “Justine,” said a woman who Elise guessed must be her mother. “Your jealousy makes you ugly. Go home.”

  Tears shone in the girl’s eyes as she turned and began to work her way to the door.

  Clearly the Bellegarde marriage had been an unconventional one. At home unions between Protestants and Catholics were very rare, and almost always meant that the couple had to find somewhere else to live. How a young Protestant woman from France had come to marry a rough French Canadian sailor was a question she would have liked to ask, but could not.

  Most of the women drifted away to see to the food, and in short order dishes and platters began to appear on a long table. Elise’s stomach growled, but the noise was lost in the murmur of two dozen voices, all of them speaking Québécois. As Elise herself was speaking, for the first time in many years. That it came back to her so easily was a surprise; she had been so young when she left home and enrolled in the convent school that her memories had taken on a patina, it seemed to her now, a dull glow that dampened details.

  “And who are you?” one of the old women asked, her hand closing over Elise’s wrist.

  That was the question. She could tell the old women who were looking at her with open curiosity what she was not: she was no longer a nurse, a nun, a daughter, or a sister. Over the years she had forgotten her mother’s face and would not recognize her brothers if she saw them on the street.

  But Québécois was still her language, the one that she heard in her dreams, that came to her when she was in pain. She spoke to them in the language of their homeland, and it was that connection that concerned them. With a newly hoarse voice she named her parents, her godparents and her grandparents, her aunts and uncles, and every name brought a reaction: here a nod, there a smile, and once, when she mentioned a particular uncle, raised brows. She gave them the news she had of home, and they returned that favor.

  “And how did you know our Catherine?”

  “I didn’t,” Elise said, and told them what she knew of Catherine Bellegarde’s injuries in the shipwreck and her death.

  “You see,” the oldest of the women said, raising a finger to the others. “I said it, did I not? They sent someone to steal her away home to the Calvinists. Oh, the wretches.”

  Elise knew where this conversation would go. Her people never tired of rehashing history, and would argue for hours about battles won or lost a hundred years ago or more. In that moment she wanted very much to go back to Waverly Place, to her own bed where she would sleep after such a long and difficult day. There were Bellegarde cousins here, women who were well versed in the care of infants. But they wouldn’t know why he slept so deeply or what it meant.

  In the end she took the grieving grandmother aside and explained what to do if certain symptoms occurred, and how to find Elise if she was needed.

  She had no idea where Denis Bellegarde might be but didn’t seek him out. Instead his uncle caught up with her as she started down the stairs to the street. He took her wrist and pressed coins into her hand, curled her fingers closed over them.

  “This is not your neighborhood, you aren’t known here and it is dangerous for strangers.” His smile was meant, she knew, to soften a harsh message. “I will get you a cab.”

  Because he was right, she went along. Because the French Quarter was one more place she didn’t really belong.

  * * *

  • • •

  THE NEXT MORNING before rounds started Dr. McClure took the time to elaborate on Elise’s sins. The other students listened attentively; Elise listened without bowing her head or looking away and did not offer any excuses; she had overstepped in diagnosing and treating the syphilitic newborn on her own, and it would only make things worse to deny that. But she was very relieved that Dr. McClure knew nothing of Denis Bellegarde’s visit or how she had assisted him.

  It was all she could do to bite back a smile when she saw Sally Fontaine rolling her eyes behind McClure’s back.

  As punishment she was to spend the day in the wards. Emptying bedpans, bathing patients, and delousing was work assigned normally to the beginning nursing students to test their mettle. Many medical students would have balked. Elise wondered what it meant that she didn’t mind.

  She was handed a challenge straightaway: a little girl who was being admitted because of a deep cough and diminished breath sounds in both lungs.

  Mariah would not survive another winter living out of doors, but there was a stubborn spark in her, a contrariness that might just carry her through. Without any trace of self-pity she answered Elise’s questions, telling a familiar story. An absent father, a mother in jail, two older brothers who were all who stood between Mariah and an asylum. A fate they would not consider.

  In her six years she had never slept in a bed or seen a bathtub, and thus, surrendering her clothes did not strike Mariah as a reasonable request. She haggled for a quarter hour, demanding coin in exchange for the rags she wore, stiff with dirt and full of holes, crawling with lice. Elise decided that it made no sense to fight this particular battle, and handed over a nickel that the little girl examined closely before tucking it away in a knotted rag that must serve as a handkerchief.

  “I see you’ve extracted another toll.” A doctor stood at the end of Mariah’s bed, arms crossed, chin lowered to his chest. “How much did she finagle out of you, Candidate Mercier?”

  Elise hadn’t forgotten about Gus Martindale, but for some reason it hadn’t occurred to her that she might run into him while she worked. And yet here he was, grinning at Mariah. There was no other word for it really; they were looking at each other like compatriots in crime.

  “Dr. Martindale,” Elise said. “Is Mariah your patient?”

  “She is,” he said. “I need to listen to her lungs.”

  “Do you think it could wait until she’s had her bath?” Elise raised her eyebrows in the hope he would take her meaning. Lice were terribly democratic and would gladly abandon Mariah for a healthy male who got close enough.

  Mariah said, “She don’t want my crawlies to get on you. So come back later after she’s scraped me down, is what she means.”

  Elise bit her lip, but Gus Martindale laughed outright.

  “I’ll do that,” he said. “Candidate Mercier, I’ll see you in an hour or so.”

  When he had left the ward Mariah gave Elise a suspicious look. “Candidate? That’s the oddest name I ever heard. Ain’t you American?”

  * * *

  • • •

  WHEN ELISE HAD finished with Mariah—an adventure that required three changes of bathwater—she was sweaty and streaked with dirt, but the girl was transformed. Every single nit and louse had been combed out of the girl’s hair and eyebro
ws, her nails were free of filth and clipped short, and layers of grime and been stripped away. Now she was in a freshly made bed in a clean linen shift that she petted like a beloved cat. After repeated soaping and rinsing her hair had turned out to be a rich deep sable brown with glints of gold in it.

  Now the question was whether she had pneumonia or tuberculosis. Gus Martindale would make that determination without Elise’s assistance, and then he would decide how best to treat her. In the end, no matter the diagnosis or treatment, Mariah would go back to live on the streets.

  Do your job, Elise told herself. Do what you can.

  What she could not do was wait quietly until Dr. Martindale found his way back to Mariah’s bedside. She went on to the next newly admitted patient.

  * * *

  • • •

  NEAR THE END of the day she admitted a twenty-five-year-old mother of four who was in kidney failure and despairing about what would become of her family.

  “Do you pray?” the woman asked. Her name was Louise Parry, and she had left her home in the north of England and traveled so far with her four children, the youngest just three months old, to join her husband. It had all been so promising: he was an engineer with a very good salary, and on top of that, his employer had assigned him an apartment with two bedrooms. Could Elise imagine such a thing? Two bedrooms and a toilet, and running water, and a stove that warmed the space.

  Then Mr. Parry had leaned on an unsecured rail and fallen four stories to land on his head.

  “I’ve a cousin who’s looking after the children, but what will happen to them when I’m gone? Do you pray? Will you pray for me?” Mrs. Parry’s arms and legs were swollen and shapeless as overfilled balloons, but she pressed her palms together like a girl saying her prayers at bedtime.

  Elise said that she did and she would, but Mrs. Parry should try to sleep now.

  “They told me another baby might be too much for my kidneys,” Louise Parry whispered. “But God can do all things. I believe that. Do you? Do you believe that God can heal?”

  With a cool, damp cloth Elise wiped the sweat from Mrs. Parry’s brow. “Of course,” she said. “But you have to sleep, Mrs. Parry, to give your body a chance to heal. I’ll come and check on you in the morning.”

  Five minutes later she went back to ask the young mother and widow a question.

  “Do you have family in England who would take the children in?”

  She nodded, weakly. “I do. My parents and my sister, they want the children.” She broke off and her gaze slid away.

  Elise understood. Passage for four children to England would not be cheap, and they would need a chaperone capable of looking after a three-month-old. Something to think about other than the Shepherd’s Fold, Mariah Fitzgerald, or Gus Martindale, whose wife she so closely resembled.

  She said, “Mrs. Parry, what is your cousin’s name, the one who’s looking after the children? And would you give me an address for her?”

  27

  IT BEGAN TO rain just before Elise reached home, so she ran the last block and came into the hall, winded and dripping rain, to see Sophie in the parlor with Anna. They looked up, all smiles, and then the smiles disappeared.

  “You have heard of umbrellas,” Anna said, clucking as she took Elise’s satchel and set it aside.

  “Don’t scold her. At least not yet.” Sophie led Elise into the parlor, and together with Anna they stripped Elise of her wraps and shoes and wet stockings, deposited her in a chair by the fire, and covered her with a lap blanket. In no time she had a tray beside her with a pot of hot chamomile tea fortified with honey.

  “You look like you’ve been to the wars,” Anna said, handing her a teacup. “We’ve got a half hour at least before dinner, so tell us.”

  Elise let out a squawk of a laugh and realized that she was very close to tears. She forbade herself that luxury, sipped at the tea, and forced her gaze first to Anna and then to Sophie. To tell them about everything that had happened since supper in the garden shouldn’t feel so overwhelming, but somehow she couldn’t think where to start.

  “Whose rotation are you on?” Sophie asked.

  Anna leaned toward her cousin and mock-whispered from behind a hand. “Laura.”

  Sophie’s grim smile spoke volumes. “Too Sure McClure. I’m sorry.”

  “Too Sure McClure?” Elise couldn’t help it, she had to bite back a laugh.

  “A nickname she earned in medical school. Because she wants everyone’s opinion, and then she’ll do as she pleases. So Dr. McClure’s the reason for your long face?”

  But when Elise opened her mouth, a different story came out. “No. Or only partly. Catherine Bellegarde’s husband came to the New Amsterdam yesterday, looking for his son.”

  Sophie sat up, alarmed. She said, “Catherine Bellegarde’s husband?” At the same time Anna said, “Her brother said she was a widow.”

  “The brother lied,” Elise said plainly. She told the story as she would have recited a patient’s history: Bellegarde’s unexpected visit to the New Amsterdam, his insistence that his son be handed over to him, the fact that she had gone with him to the wet nurse who had charge of his boy, and the discovery of her death.

  “The landlady told me he had been entrusted to the Shepherd’s Fold.”

  Elise saw Anna’s expression darken, but she went on and described the small asylum, the odd atmosphere in the house, and how they had found Bellegarde’s son in the nursery. She felt her demeanor slipping away from her, calm giving way to unease that must radiate like a fever.

  “Go on,” Sophie said.

  “They feed the infants—probably all the children—paregoric to keep them quiet. The smell was unmistakable and I got the idea that they do this every day. It’s a wonder that they haven’t had any fatalities.”

  “That we know of,” Anna said.

  “That we know of,” Elise agreed. “Something needs to be done, but I have no idea where to start. And I see that you’re not surprised.”

  “We’re familiar with Crowley,” Anna said. And to Sophie: “You tell it, you are more familiar with the fine points of the good reverend’s practices.”

  * * *

  • • •

  “THE SHEPHERD’S FOLD used to be called the Good Shepherd’s Flock,” Sophie began. “When it was located farther uptown. Crowley moved the asylum to its new location a few years ago, after his most recent trial.”

  Elise said, “Trial? He has been arrested in the past?”

  “The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children has charged him I think twice—Anna?”

  “Yes, twice.”

  “Twice he was accused of beating and starving the children in his care.”

  The shock of this set Elise back for a few heartbeats. “I don’t understand.”

  “It is shocking, but not very complicated,” Sophie said. “The SPCC investigated Crowley and found evidence that he mistreated the orphans in his care. The case went in front of a judge. In the end the charges were dismissed.”

  She held up a palm to forestall Elise’s questions. “The politics of a case like this are very complicated. Churches get involved.”

  “Bishops get involved,” Anna said. “They will do almost anything to protect their reputations.”

  “But if he was harming children, how is that possible?” Elise asked.

  “It’s possible because the courts are deferential to the clergy,” Sophie said. “Crowley’s attorney brought in ministers who have large and influential congregations. That was enough to convince the court that he was a good Christian with only the best intentions. He had made mistakes, but without malicious intent and the other clergy would take on his case and see that he improved. The newspapers presented it exactly that way, and so Crowley walked away.”

  “And this happened twice,” Elise said.

 
“Yes,” Sophie said. “Because in fact, Crowley isn’t willing to mend his ways. He claims that his methods are founded in scripture and above the law. He didn’t say that in court, but only because he had an attorney who stopped him. After the second trial he changed the name of the asylum and moved it.”

  “Did no one testify on behalf of the children?”

  Anna’s stern expression softened. “Dr. Jacobi did, and a Dr. Tisza, who died last year. Judge Benedict chose to ignore their testimony.”

  Elise shook her head. “I realize that I’m repeating myself but I’m having trouble following. The judge just said I don’t believe you to the doctors who gave testimony?”

  “Carl Benedict is an anti-Semite, and quite open about it.” She took in the surprised expression Elise had not been able to hold back. “You didn’t realize that Dr. Jacobi is a Jew?”

  There was a small silence while Elise wondered if she needed to explain that this possibility had never occurred to her; until last spring when she met Jack’s mother she had never even seen a Jew, to her knowledge. If Dr. Jacobi was Jewish, she supposed many other people she knew might be as well.

  In fact, Elise knew Jacobi only indirectly, because he allowed women to attend his lectures on the treatment of diseases particular to infants and children. She knew too that he had mentored Sophie when she was a medical student, and that he was married to Dr. Mary Putnam, who was the professor most feared and respected at the Woman’s Medical School. In the fall Elise would be taking her first class from Dr. Putnam, a thought that could keep her awake at night if she dwelled on it.

  “Are you saying that I should go to Dr. Jacobi with this story of the Shepherd’s Fold?”

  Anna held up both hands in something close to alarm. “No, no. Not at this stage. In your place I probably would file a report with Mr. Gerry at the SPCC. But be aware, unless you have more than just your observations and suspicions, there’s little chance that they will be able to act. Not after two failures to convict.”