Where the Light Enters

by Sara Donati

  “Anna.”

  She raised a brow at him as she might at a clueless student, but a dimple ruined the effect.

  He groaned. “Tell me then, if you must.”

  “There’s a theory that spermatogenesis requires a lower temperature than is normal for the internal organs, which is interesting.”

  “Because?”

  “In a male fetus the testes do actually develop in the abdomen.”

  With her fingertips she traced him, head turned to one side.

  “Anna.”

  “It seems they take shape alongside the mesonephric kidneys and descend through the inguinal canal to the scrotum a few weeks before birth. A premature birth often means undescended testes, but there’s a surgical procedure that was developed in Germany that has been very successful. When the right patient comes along I will attempt it, if I can get someone with more experience to guide me. The trick has to do with division of the processus vaginalis—”

  “Anna!”

  She turned her face to him, struggling to school her expression but failing. Her dimples, out in full force, gave the game away.

  “Very funny,” he muttered, and flipped her onto her back. With her wrists pinned over her head he kissed her so thoroughly that she began to move like the tides, beckoning.

  “Now,” he said, poised at the quick of her. “What was it you wanted to tell me about? Spermatogenesis?”

  “I leave the demonstration of that process to you,” she said, and drew him down and down.

  * * *

  • • •

  MUCH LATER THEY went to unearth what Mrs. Cabot had left for them: bread, a plate of cold beef, a bowl of cheese curds and pickled onions, and a crock of chutney. Jack was hungry and ate with great pleasure, but Anna found it hard to focus on anything at all while her body was still thrumming with his attentions.

  Jack was in a talkative mood. He asked about everyone at Roses, if they had had any more mail from Greenwood, what surgeries she had scheduled for the next day at the New Amsterdam.

  That reminded her of Elise and her story about the Shepherd’s Fold.

  “There was something,” Anna said. “You won’t like it as much as my lecture on the development of male reproductive organs. You remember the baby born on the morning Sophie came home? From the wreck of the Cairo?”

  “Hard to forget.”

  “It turns out he isn’t an orphan. The father came looking for him at the New Amsterdam.”

  Jack’s expression shifted, as if some puzzle had suddenly solved itself.

  “Now it makes sense,” he said. “Oscar figured out right away that he couldn’t be dead.”

  Anna had to laugh. “I know his knowledge of the city shouldn’t surprise me anymore, but how did he come to that conclusion?”

  “The family wasn’t in mourning, and in the French Quarter mourning is a serious business. So the brother lied to you.”

  It was something they both experienced in their work; people lied routinely, even when it made no sense. The reason why a person lied was often more important than the lie itself.

  “Elise and Sophie think it’s a religious matter, that her family didn’t like her marrying a Catholic. But the important point is that Elise went with the father to get the boy, and he had been handed off to the Shepherd’s Fold.”

  Jack put down his fork. “So now you’ve got my interest. Go on.”

  “I think there are three people at the center of the original mystery,” she said. She outlined her reasoning on this, touching on the mother, who was dead; the brother, who had gone back to France; and the husband, who had been away at sea and was unaware of his wife’s situation.

  “Possibly the mother-in-law or the uncle—the baker, I can’t recall his name—could fill in the blanks. Of course that won’t be of much help as far as the Shepherd’s Fold investigation is concerned. And really, that’s the crucial issue.”

  She recounted as much detail as she could, pausing to answer Jack’s questions about paregoric and its effect on infants and children.

  “It doesn’t surprise me if Crowley’s up to his old tricks,” he said. “The problem is that he’s learned to stay within the letter of the law.”

  “Maybe not,” Anna said. “Elise never saw any of the children outside the nursery. They could all be half-starved. There has to be a way to expose him.”

  “Sure,” Jack said. “Get somebody from the inside to testify against him. Maybe then it will stick.”

  “You don’t think Elise should go the SPCC and talk to Elbridge Gerry?”

  “Not yet,” Jack said. “I’ll talk to Elise as a first step.” He got up and looked at himself. “But I should get dressed first.”

  “You’re going to talk to her now?” Anna tried and failed to hold back a yawn.

  He leaned over and kissed her head. “Better to get the story while the memory is still fresh. Go to bed, Anna. I won’t be long.”

  * * *

  • • •

  JACK CUT THROUGH the gardens to the back door at Roses, knocked, and let himself in. Mrs. Lee was just folding a dish towel, ready to shut down the kitchen and call an end to her day. Mr. Lee would be waiting for her in the little cottage in the garden. Jack liked to think of them there in the evening, but it occurred to him now, and not for the first time, that they were getting older and that the work would be too much for them, sometime in the not-so-distant future. A subject he needed to raise with Anna, but at the moment Mrs. Lee’s smile wasn’t in the least weary.

  “You stop by to see the aunt, she’s in her study.”

  “I was hoping to catch Elise,” Jack said.

  “Then go on through to the parlor,” Mrs. Lee said. “I’ll send her down to you.”

  * * *

  • • •

  ELISE DID LOOK weary, her eyes shadowed and a little dull. Jack understood that medical school was not for the weak-willed or easily discouraged, but he had come to know Elise well, and he thought of her as something akin to a younger sister. He had no doubt she would be equal to the challenges.

  “I wanted to talk to you about the Bellegarde infant,” Jack said to her now. “It won’t take long and you can get back to your books.”

  “Anna told you I was at the Shepherd’s Fold?”

  He nodded. “She did, but you tell me too.”

  She started with Denis Bellegarde, a merchant sailor who had come to the New Amsterdam looking for his son, his anger and determination, her decision to go with him, and the roundabout search for the boy that ended at the Shepherd’s Fold. Jack asked questions when she hesitated, and she gave him clear answers.

  “The Shepherd’s Fold disturbed you,” he said when he had heard the whole story. “But you can’t explain why?”

  “Not very clearly, but I’ll try. It was unnatural. The quiet was unnatural. And the paregoric used so liberally. And Reverend Crowley’s mother, she—” Elise shrugged. “I’m repeating myself, but she struck me as off, somehow. I’ve known a lot of older women who care for children. There are some who are cruel and small-minded, but those words aren’t quite right for Mrs. Crowley. And that’s all I have, just my sense that things aren’t right.”

  Jack closed his notebook. “Maybe Crowley’s out of luck, this time.”

  Elise’s surprised expression told Jack that she had been expecting him to reject her concerns.

  She cleared her throat. “Anna and Sophie wondered if I should report what I saw to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.”

  “That’s one way to go,” Jack said. “But let me think about it and talk to Oscar. It’s a complicated business.”

  “Yes, I get that now, after talking to Sophie and Anna.”

  He looked at her, head cocked to one side. “Some people would be satisfied to hand the matter over to the police and be
shut of it.”

  Elise considered. “Anna has a saying. ‘The easiest solution is usually the wrong solution.’”

  “That’s a new one on me, but it sure does sound like Anna. So let me promise you that I won’t forget about this. Ask me in a couple days what I’ve been able to find out.”

  “If I can be of assistance, please call on me.”

  “Anna won’t like it if you put yourself in harm’s way.”

  “I think that depends on the circumstances,” Elise said. “She might not object at all. In the end, though, even if she objects she would not try to stop me.”

  Because that was true, he left her to consider the situation and its uncertainties.

  29

  FOR THE FIRST time in four months Elise had an entirely free day: no lectures, no lab work, and no shifts at the clinic or at the New Amsterdam. No Dr. McClure. Her next exam was weeks away, when she would have to demonstrate her ability to perform a blood cell count with a hemoglobinometer. A challenge for another day.

  And folded into her therapeutics text she had an invitation to join a study group of Bellevue medical school students. She had read it ten times before she dared believe it was in earnest. Finally she had shown it to Sally Fontaine, who had laughed out loud at her.

  “Aren’t you the clever one. Maybe you can get me in too, at some point, but until then, I’ll want to hear every detail.”

  The first session was the day after tomorrow, but for today, at any rate, she would put that out of her head too. There were errands she really couldn’t delay any longer, and three of them must be addressed before the day was done: she needed a new nib for her pen, she was almost out of paper for note-taking, and most importantly, if she didn’t find a pair of shoes better suited to the hours she was working, her feet would simply fall off.

  This kind of outing—a day going from shop to shop before she could be sure about how to spend her limited funds—would bore most people, but for Elise it was exciting. Before she came to Waverly Place she had never been asked to make a choice or state a preference. Her clothing, the food she ate, the work she did, how and when she did it, everything was preordained down to the last detail.

  So she would gladly spend a half day looking at note paper and steel pen nibs. By the newspaper advertisements it seemed there were hundreds to choose from, and she was determined to spend her money wisely. Then she would visit Mr. Fiske, a shoemaker on Fourteenth Street Anna had recommended. He would not just measure her feet but also make a mold of them, so that her shoes would fit her exactly.

  For this service Elise would have to pay six dollars, a price so high that she was at first sure she must have misunderstood. As a trained and experienced nurse working full-time her salary had been fourteen dollars a month.

  She said as much to Anna, who shrugged, philosophically.

  “Never economize when it comes to your instruments or your shoes.” And then, after a moment: “But it is a significant expense. I’ll send word to Mr. Fiske to expect you, and ask him to send me the bill. And please do not waste your time worrying about this. I am happy to be of assistance. If you must, add the cost to that account book you’re keeping.”

  Because Elise did keep track. There were many things not covered by her scholarship that she hadn’t anticipated, but Anna and Mrs. Quinlan had known about all of it, and assumed those costs without discussion. Their generosity sometimes took her breath away.

  She had labored over the letter she wrote to her family to explain her change in circumstances, her decision to leave the convent and take up the study of medicine. In return she expected a tearful letter from her mother and instead heard first from her father. He demanded to know more about these strangers who were willing to support her while she was in school. In his cramped handwriting he had put down his question in no uncertain terms: what did they ask of her in return?

  Mrs. Quinlan hadn’t been surprised. “I expected as much. Any parent would be concerned. If you give me his address I will write and explain. I’ll get Sophie to translate it into French. And I think a letter from Father Beaufils from St. Gaspard de Paul would be a good idea. I’ll send him a note and ask him to call. You should be here for that, so the priest can see for himself that you are flourishing.”

  The simple truth was, Elise would never be able to repay these kind people, even if she could return every penny ten times over. The only thing she could reasonably do was to prove that she was worthy of their faith in her, and that meant being a helpful presence in the household and excelling in her studies. Which in turn meant that she couldn’t pretend she didn’t need a new pen nib, and paper, and serviceable shoes.

  It also meant that she must work harder to get along with Dr. McClure. Or at least not to antagonize her directly.

  On Friday evening Elise fussed over the clothes she would wear on her Saturday outing, counted and recounted the money she had for her purchases and horse car and elevated train fares, and finally she went to bed as excited as a child looking forward to boating in Central Park or the wax figures of queens and pirates and monsters at the Eden Musée. Then she woke deep in the night, soaked in sweat and gasping.

  Other people talked about their dreams, but Elise rarely remembered hers. She had never had a nightmare, to her knowledge. Her brother Michel’s night terrors she did remember, and now she realized how callous she must have seemed in her inability to imagine what he suffered.

  Elise forced herself to take deep breaths. She filled her lungs and then exhaled as slowly as she could manage, once, twice, three times. When her heart rate had slowed, she lay back down in the dark and tried to gather her thoughts.

  She had dreamed of the Shepherd’s Fold and the long hallway on the second floor. In life it had been preternaturally quiet, but in her dream she heard a dozen or two or three dozen children wailing in pain and fear. Very young children begging for help. Elise went down the hall from door to door, but the doorknobs had been removed from all of them. When she crouched down to look through the empty socket, she found an eye looking back at her, swollen and rimmed red with bloody tears.

  In her dream she had startled and stepped away, bumping into the serving girl called Grace, who had suddenly appeared behind her. Grace was wrapped in a shroud of billowing silk, as thin and white as the skin that shone through it. Behind her was another figure wrapped in silk, and behind that one another, and on and on, in a line that stretched down the hall—suddenly many miles long—to dissolve into shadows.

  The urge to flee was overwhelming, but her feet wouldn’t obey her. She was bound to stay just where she was, listening to the screams of children in agony while the maidservant, neither alive nor dead, whispered in her ear.

  Awake, shivering, she tried to make sense of it. She had walked away from the Shepherd’s Fold determined to investigate and find out more. That much she had done, by going to Sophie and Anna to tell them what she had seen and what she feared, and by answering Jack’s questions.

  He had asked her for time while he worked out the best approach, but it seemed Grace was impatient. The servant girl who had been at the asylum for all her life because she was useful. The girl who visited Elise’s dream in a silken shroud.

  * * *

  • • •

  ON SATURDAY MORNING Elise dressed, had breakfast with Ned Nediani, Jack’s sister Bambina, and Mrs. Quinlan, sitting down just as the clock struck six. While they took turns telling her about the previous evening’s ceremony at the Cooper Union, Elise applied herself to poached eggs fresh from the hens who roamed the garden.

  “Two certificates of merit?” she asked. “Rather greedy of you, Ned, to grab two for yourself.”

  “That is not in the least amusing,” Bambina huffed.

  “But it is,” Mrs. Quinlan corrected Bambina, a gentle chiding. “Between friends, it is certainly amusing.”

  Bambina only pursed her mouth.


  “Oh, she’s grumpy this morning,” Ned said to the table. “But we have to make allowance for our Bambina. She can’t help it, she was born without a sense of humor.”

  At that the corner of Bambina’s mouth twitched but in a truly unamused way, and Elise decided that it was high time to extract herself. She didn’t need Bambina’s temper to ruin her day before it started.

  Then at the last minute she changed her mind. Instead of heading for the Sixth Avenue elevated train, Elise turned south on Wooster Street to walk along the eastern edge of the park.

  Washington Square was an odd place. Along the north side of the park were elegant brick town houses where some of the city’s most established families had been living for generations, but on the south side things were far more colorful: a home for troubled girls, taverns, lodging houses where a wooden pallet in the cellar could be had for seven cents a night, restaurants where a nickel bought a hearty meal of soup and bread.

  From one corner to the next the neighborhood shifted: the signs in shop windows were no longer in English, and the scavengers digging through the trash in the gutter called to each other in French.

  Elise turned onto Great Jones to cut over to Greene Street, where she slowed her pace in order to study the taverns as she passed them: the Taverne Alsacienne, the Slide, and the Flat Iron, places with such terrible reputations that Mrs. Quinlan’s stepdaughter Margaret had given Elise a very stern lecture about keeping her distance.

  Margaret would be disappointed in Elise’s inability to subdue her curiosity, though at this hour of the morning there was almost nothing out of the ordinary to see. Bartenders and dancers, prostitutes, confidence men and pickpockets were gone to bed, leaving the factory workers, stable hands, charwomen, street cleaners, coalmen, delivery drivers, and ticket clerks whose workdays were already begun. The neighborhood was noisy even this early, all windows open at sunrise to let in the cool of the morning.