by Sara Donati
“But he might be doing far worse than dosing those children with paregoric, given his record,” Elise said.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Sophie agreed. “I’m sorry to say that this isn’t the last time you’ll run into this kind of situation. It will become clearer when you do your home visits rotation.”
“What you must do is to talk to Oscar and Jack,” Anna said. “Mr. Gerry has called on them many times to handle sensitive situations. They often go along with the society agents when they have an arrest warrant or an order to take a child into custody.”
Sophie was trying not to smile when she said, “Mr. Gerry has a nickname for Oscar. He calls him Leeches.”
“That’s a story I’ll have to hear,” Elise said.
“We only know it from Jack,” Sophie said. “So you have to take the details with a grain—”
“Or ten,” Anna muttered.
“—of salt. He and Oscar were asked to go with one of the society agents to Dobbs Ferry to arrest a man who had taken in a little girl after her mother died quite suddenly. This was four or five years ago. What was his name, do you remember?”
Anna tilted her head to one side. “Reynolds? Redmond? Wait, it was Rudd. Frederick Rudd.”
“Mr. Rudd, then,” Sophie said. “He claimed the girl had no living relatives and was like a daughter to him. He was going to raise her alongside his own children and she’d want for nothing. He would not hear of her being sent to an asylum and he refused to obey the order to surrender her. That’s the story he told the newspaper reporters, but none of it was true.”
Frederick Rudd, Sophie went on to say, turned out to have no children, no work, no home, and a great deal of affection not for the girl, but for the money she would inherit from her mother’s estate.
“So Jack and Oscar went to Dobbs Ferry to arrest Mr. Rudd,” Sophie went on. “He looked like somebody’s beloved grandfather, a short stout man with round pink cheeks and blue eyes and a white beard, like an elf in a Swedish children’s book. As they were taking him away to police court, a reporter stopped Oscar to ask if they might be mistaken. The little girl had just lost her mother, wouldn’t it be kindest to leave her where she was, with a family friend she was attached to?
“And Oscar paused and looked like he was considering this, thinking it through. Finally he said, ‘Why sure, you could say that the two were attached. The same way a leech attaches itself to suck out your life’s blood.’”
Elise hiccuped a laugh.
“They reported that word for word in all the papers and the story brought in a surge of contributions to the society. You can imagine how pleased Mr. Gerry was about it,” Sophie finished. “There’s no shortage of cruelty cases, but never enough working capital, so the contributions were very welcome.”
“Talk to Jack and Oscar about what you saw at the Shepherd’s Fold,” Anna said again. “They might have some idea of how to proceed, and when or whether you should approach Mr. Gerry at the SPCC offices.” She frowned at her clasped hands. “But the situation with Catherine Bellegarde’s brother is a different matter entirely. What a lie to tell, one that sends her to a pauper’s grave and his nephew to an asylum.”
Elise drank the last of her tea and put the cup and saucer down. “I think I can explain, at least in part. It’s a religious matter.”
“Yes,” Sophie said. “Of course. Catherine and her brother must be Protestant.”
Elise nodded. “I heard something about this in Lucie Bellegarde’s kitchen. Catherine was from an old Huguenot family; it’s entirely possible that they sent her brother to rescue her.”
Anna looked nonplussed. “Rescue?”
“According to the old women at the boulangerie, yes,” Elise said. “Catherine’s brother stole her away and was taking her home to France against her will.”
“There is no love lost between Protestants and Catholics in France, I understand that,” Anna said. She paused, her expression shifting suddenly. “A year ago I might have been surprised by the willingness to condemn a child to a life in an orphan asylum rather than see him raised as a Catholic, but we’ve seen the opposite happen. Right here.”
Elise was sorry to have reminded Anna of the way the Catholic Church had interfered in her own life. Sophie seemed to be thinking the same thing, because she changed the subject.
“These strangers in Lucie Bellegarde’s kitchen just told you the story?”
Elise shrugged. “They see me as one of their own kind. All the while I was in the apartment above the boulangerie it was filling up with relatives and friends. The mood was solemn, you understand, but it was loud and emotional and crowded and hot and—like home, I suppose is the only way to describe it.”
“It made you homesick,” Sophie suggested. “I understand that perfectly.”
“It was odd,” Elise admitted, “to be in a room where everyone was speaking the language I grew up with. The Bellegardes moved here from Quebec twenty years ago but they haven’t given up any of the old ways. Food and drink, the fabric of their clothing, the way curtains hang, the crucifix on the wall, everything, really. Just like home. Or what used to be home.”
From the door Mrs. Lee said, “Come and eat, the three of you. And Elise, you can tell this story all over again for Mrs. Quinlan and me. It’s been a slow day around here for news.”
Elise said, “It’s not pleasant.”
Mrs. Lee dismissed this excuse with a wave of her hand. “You been here long enough to know how it works.”
Anna took her by the arm and explained. “When you sit down to a meal Mrs. Lee cooks,” she said, “you owe her a story, not a fairy tale.”
* * *
• • •
THE WHITE PLAINS COURIER
HORRID DISCOVERY IN TRAIN DEPOT
Yesterday a gruesome discovery was made in the baggage room at the White Plains train station. Station-master Matthews grew suspicious of a trunk giving off a foul smell and opened it to discover the decomposing body of a young woman. The police and coroner were called on immediately and the body was transported to the city morgue.
The victim was a young woman of perhaps twenty-one years, with thick dark hair and a light complexion. In life she was five feet two inches tall with a womanly figure. Her clothing was of excellent quality. There was no pocketbook or any kind of identification found with her. The manner of death has not yet been determined.
The police are treating this as a criminal investigation, and are currently attempting to verify where the trunk originated, and which train it arrived on.
28
ON A BRIGHT spring afternoon alive with birdsong and a breeze that set the new foliage on the trees dancing, Sophie finished writing the tenth letter of the day and declared herself off duty. When Sam Reason took up his role as her secretary, he would find her correspondence up to date and organized. She was acting like a housewife who swept and dusted before the charwoman comes in, but she couldn’t help herself.
For a long moment Sophie looked out onto Stuyvesant Square, and let her mind wander, as it often did, to Nicola Visser of Oyster Bay. She had heard about Jürgen Visser’s call at Waverly Place from both Anna and Aunt Quinlan, told in such vivid terms that she imagined she could see him and his children, three people paralyzed by grief. Something she understood too well.
The chances that they would ever discover what had happened to Mrs. Visser were so slim as to be almost nonexistent. It was a hard truth, but in law, as in medicine, things went wrong: a young girl dropped dead with no warning and the autopsy told them nothing; a large sum of money disappeared from a shop or a valuable statue from a church, and the thieves were never identified. It was the nature of the beast; they could agree that this was a murder as cruelly calculated as could be imagined and at the same time acknowledge their limitations. Of course, Oscar would still pursue the case.
Sophie pic
ked up a book and went out to read on the terrace, determined to relax in the fresh air and free her mind of problems she could not solve. For a while she watched Pip capering over the lawn in pursuit of a butterfly until he disappeared behind the hedges that separated the garden from the stable and outbuildings. He paused to cast a glance back at her, not so much looking for permission, she was quite aware, as making a decision for himself: yes, she was safe here without him. For a while. He could visit Noah Hunter.
Sophie was sure that Pip saw far more of Noah Hunter than she did herself. He kept busy out of sight, but there was evidence of his industry in the neatly clipped hedges and raked lawn, a repair to the woodwork in the dining room, the carefully groomed carriage horses he called Dolly and Peach. Only once had she asked for the carriage, and it had appeared at the front door exactly at the time she indicated, so beautifully polished that it reflected sunlight. Mr. Hunter wore neat clothing appropriate to his role as her driver, greeted her with a nod, helped her into the carriage and out of it again, and otherwise offered no comments.
She spent a good amount of that journey wondering if she should be trying to talk to him. She had always talked to Mr. Lee, after all. In the end she decided that it would be wrong to force a conversation. Her curiosity about him did not give her permission to intrude.
Pip took another approach and sought out Noah Hunter when and as he pleased. Part of this had to do with Tinker, Noah Hunter’s dog. Tinker was middle sized, with a wavy auburn coat and a perfect understanding of his role in the household. Pip and Tinker, each dignified when alone, played together like puppies.
“Thundering through the garden like buffalo,” Laura Lee said, with considerable affection. “And they keep watch over us all, on a schedule, I swear. Not so much dogs as nurse-maids with a lot of troublesome children to look after.”
Pip had been much the same at the sanatorium, visiting all five of the patients morning and evening, but always coming back to Cap. She wondered if Pip thought of Cap. To put the question out of her head she opened the book she had brought with her. Then she closed it again to wait for her vision to clear of tears.
When she looked up Laura Lee was standing in the door to say she had a visitor. One Laura Lee didn’t especially like, from her expression. Somehow Sophie knew before she heard the name: Nicholas Lambert.
“Send him out here to me, please,” Sophie said. “Offer him coffee or tea, if you would. And don’t make faces, Laura Lee. Sometime you’ll have to explain to me why you dislike him.”
She really was curious about Laura Lee’s reaction to Dr. Lambert, who seemed to be one of those people who made friends without much trouble and was liked by everyone. He was unfailingly polite to Laura Lee, and she was stony-faced in return.
Now as he walked toward her Sophie tried to see him as Laura Lee might. A man of something more than middle height, not muscular but with a wiry strength. He had good teeth that showed in an easy smile, and a high, clear, very fine complexion that many women would envy. Very nicely dressed, a little old-fashioned but not so much that he stood out. Except for the fact that he wore gloves, expensive gloves of a fine supple leather so pale in color that from a distance he might seem to be barehanded. If he were to take the gloves off, his hands would draw attention, as was the case with any doctor who followed antiseptic protocol.
Now as Nicholas Lambert walked toward her, he took off his hat and brushed it against his leg. It was the first nervous habit she had seen from him. A man coming to ask a favor, or share difficult news. She was curious, but not especially alarmed.
“This is a pleasant surprise.”
“Is it?” He sat down across from her. “That’s good to hear.”
Pip came trotting up and settled at her feet, a diminutive soldier reporting for guard duty. Sophie glanced toward the hedges and saw Tinker standing there, alert and on watch. She had to smile to herself about this canine army of two, her guardians.
Over Laura Lee’s tray of coffee and cake they talked about nothing in particular. Lambert asked after her family, about Anna and Jack, about Elise Mercier’s studies. Through all this Sophie wondered if she had imagined his nervousness.
Finally she came out and asked a logical question. “Did you want to hear more about your aunt’s health?”
The suggestion seemed to surprise him. “Not really. Your notes were very thorough. Nothing alarming or unusual, for her age. Beyond the gastrointestinal discomfort. I haven’t decided yet if I want her to have the prescription.”
“Still trying to separate her from her pipe?”
He put back his head and laughed. “I’m no magician. That is a lost cause.”
“I feared as much. So this is just a neighborly visit.”
He pushed out a breath. “Yes.”
“Dr. Lambert—”
He held up a hand. “I thought we agreed to first names?”
“We did.” She managed a smile. “It slipped my mind. Let me start again. Are you quite well, Nicholas?”
“Do I seem less than well to you, Sophie?”
She hesitated. “Since you ask, I was thinking that you seem a little unsettled.”
“Do I?” For a long moment he seemed to be fascinated by the sparrows building a nest in an apple tree.
“A case you wanted to discuss?”
Turning back toward her he said, “A few of those, but that’s not why I’m here today. There’s something I’d like to talk to you about.”
It went through Sophie’s mind that she could stop him. Whatever he had come to say, she could simply refuse to listen. Plead a headache, an appointment, the urgent need to bathe her dog. But she could see nothing unusual in his expression and she would not be so silly or unkind.
“Should I be alarmed?”
He gave a small shrug of one shoulder. “I would like to ask you a personal question. If you choose not to answer, that will be the end of the discussion.”
“Very mysterious. Please go ahead.”
He held her gaze. “Do you think you might marry again, one day?”
In her surprise she let out what could only be called a gasp. “You’re right, that is a very personal question.”
“I don’t intend to ever take a wife. So you needn’t worry, I’m not proposing. Do you think you might remarry?”
Her voice coming hoarse, Sophie said, “Cap hasn’t been gone for six months, and you ask me this? The question is insensitive, at the very least, and it borders on rude. I should be affronted.”
Which meant, she realized as soon as she had said the word, that she was not. She was not even shocked, and he knew it.
“And why aren’t you?”
Sophie considered telling him the truth: she felt as if she had never been married in the first place. She certainly had never intended to marry, but Cap’s diagnosis had changed everything; he wanted her as his widow; she wanted the right to be next to him and to care for him as long as he lived. So they had married, fully aware that his health meant that they could never really be husband and wife.
When they were younger they might have married if she had been able to put aside her concerns about the repercussions. He had wanted that desperately; he had wanted her, as she wanted him. At eighteen, at twenty-two, at twenty-five they had come so close. Sophie remembered his kisses, long encounters in shadowy corners, the warmth of his mouth, the touch of his tongue sending shards of desire through her. Balanced precariously, always in fear of falling.
Then he had left to visit Japan, and come home three months later, far too thin, and with a cough. Once the diagnosis had been confirmed he had issued an ultimatum: he didn’t care who disapproved; they must marry, or separate. In refusing the proposal she had thought to protect his reputation, but in the end the separation was too much. Thus they had married and never kissed again.
To marry a second time, to enter into a full m
arriage, would seem to Sophie to be a betrayal of sorts. How could she allow any man to claim what had been denied to Cap?
He had assured her that it must be so, in clear terms.
“You can have five years,” he had said, trying to make her smile. “But not one day longer. Five years should be enough time to find a husband worthy of you. And if it should happen sooner, that much the better.”
Oh, Cap. What is the world without you in it?
Nicholas Lambert was watching her, his expression giving away nothing.
“I am affronted,” she said, the lie sitting like a hair on her tongue.
He studied her. “We are both physicians,” he said finally. “I would hope that we could discuss all aspects of human life and health.”
The first flush of real irritation came over her, but she forced it down. “And where would marriage fit into that discussion?”
“Not so much marriage,” he said, wrapping both hands around his teacup. “As sexuality.”
Sophie sat back in her chair and Pip jumped into her lap, breaking a rule because he sensed her discomfort.
“If I may go on,” Lambert said. “I’ll try to be succinct.”
She inclined her head, almost against her will.
“I am a man in good health, with normal inclinations. I have seen too many men who frequented prostitutes on my post-mortem table to ever entertain the idea of visiting a disorderly house. And as I said, I will never marry.”
He paused to clear his throat. “Celibacy is not a viable choice for me, I knew this already at a young age.”
Sophie hoped that her expression would be read as polite detachment.
“When I was younger I entered into an agreement with a lady, a widow, someone I met through friends. Eventually she decided to remarry, but first she introduced me to someone else, a lady in the same situation. There have been four such arrangements, all told. The last two were with colleagues. Physicians.” He cleared his throat. “Female physicians. Of course.”