We each took a glass and, before we drank, she held hers up and said, “To new acquaintances.” At the first sip, I recognized that what had just crossed my palate was related to what I had imbibed with Turk two nights earlier in name only.
As we stood off to the side, observing the scene, Miss Benedict informed me that Elias Schoonmaker was a Quaker from Malvern, one of the newly fashionable towns on the Main Line. Schoonmaker had amassed a sizable fortune in supplying lumber to fuel the building boom. He was considering an additional endowment to the university because he was envious of the other Quaker in Baltimore, even though the other Quaker had been dead for almost two decades.
“And Jonas Lachtmann?”
“Jonas is an extremely unappealing man. He is a speculator … quite pedestrian. He will make money in anything … land, grain, railroads … he has no interest in producing something tangible, only in making money from those who do. If there is a new hospital facility, Jonas is sure to find a way to profit by it.” Before I could ask, she added, “He disapproves of his daughter’s friendship with me. He thinks Rebecca is being inappropriately influenced.”
“I am sure he is misguided in that sentiment.”
She laughed. It was deep, throaty, and enticing. “My brother and I do like each other, you know,” she said, in a quick pivot. “He can be horribly bossy though. Albert thinks he’s Father.”
“And it is your role to prevent his delusions from progressing.”
She placed her hand on my shoulder, a remarkably forward gesture, but one that sent a charge through me. “Why, thank you, Doctor. Your description is perfectly apt.”
At that moment, Hiram Benedict and Mrs. Benedict entered with the Professor and another woman, obviously the aforementioned descendant of Paul Revere. Although I learned that she had been considered a “Boston beauty” in her youth, Grace Revere Gross was, in fact, a plain woman, thickset with a broad, square face. Her deep maroon gown was of a hue dark enough to suggest mourning, but not so much so as to render her unapproachable. She had taken the Professor’s arm, and seemed enthralled with him in a manner quite transparent in one so recently widowed. At the sight of her father, Miss Benedict removed her hand to her side.
“I’m sure your doctor will like her,” she whispered, gesturing toward Mrs. Gross. “She’s extremely rich.” Before I could protest, she asked abruptly, “Do you dine at Barker’s often?”
That this beautiful heiress had frequented the same establishment as I had with George Turk defied belief. “No, it was my first time,” I replied, unwilling to expose my lack of sophistication by elaborating further.
Miss Benedict tilted her head for a moment and stood perusing me as if I were a curious tissue sample. Finally, she asked “Are you an art lover, Dr. Carroll?”
“I think I can appreciate a fine painting, but I am scarcely a connoisseur.”
“Let me show you something then,” she offered, leading me once more across the vast drawing room out into a hall. I stopped when I noticed a photograph on the wall of three soldiers, one of whom was instantly familiar.
“That is General Grant,” I said, and then noticed the tall thin officer next to him in the picture. “Your father?”
“Yes.” Miss Benedict nodded. “Father was a colonel. That picture was taken in Virginia just before General Lee’s surrender.”
“Your father was present at the surrender?” I felt as if someone were squeezing me about the chest. The privileged in peace seemed to be privileged in war as well.
“Father had distinguished himself at Petersburg, so he was promoted to General Grant’s staff and served in the honor guard at Appomattox,” Miss Benedict replied with obvious pride. Then she grinned, gesturing to the trim officer in the photograph. “As you can see, he did not always appear as he does today.”
“My father served with General Grant as well,” I blurted before I could stop myself, “although earlier in the war.”
Miss Benedict insisted on hearing particulars, so I was compelled to recount the tale of my father’s service—although I did so in far less detail than with Turk—his return home, and my birth on July 2, 1863, the first day of the bloody struggle at Gettysburg. When she pressed for more, I explained how the Reverend Audette had noticed my promise in school and had sponsored me, even providing the funds for me to journey to Chicago to study at Rush Medical College.
“Your life could have sprung from Horatio Alger,” Miss Benedict remarked, and once again I was uncertain if I was being praised or mocked.
We continued on to a sitting room that opened onto the hall, and Miss Benedict directed my attention to two paintings hanging next to one another on the near wall. The first was a richly detailed depiction of two men in a racing scull, resting over their oars after obvious exertion, drifting down a river that ran through a public park. Looking closely, I could detect the exhaustion in their faces, and it gave them a nobility that was emotive. A broad oak tree grew on the far bank, its rippled reflection perfectly reproduced on the water’s surface. Small, flat clouds peppered the sky and, from the golden hues, it must have been late in the day, early autumn perhaps.
The second painting was a portrait of a young woman with fair hair, head and shoulders only, set against a darkened background. Whereas the first work was remarkable for its realism, this canvas used broader swatches of color and was therefore more suggestive. The subject of the portrait was obviously quite beautiful, although the artist seemed to be attempting to capture a resolute mood, a combativeness that I found both jarring and arresting. There was something else, however, something …
“Does the painting shock you, Doctor?” Miss Benedict asked, breaking into my thoughts.
“Who sat for this portrait?” I asked.
“It’s Rebecca Lachtmann,” she replied. “Jonas’ daughter.” The disquiet she had exhibited in speaking with her brother and Jonas Lachtmann had returned.
“Rebecca Lachtmann?” I repeated. “Your friend who’s on holiday in Italy? Are you sure?” I cursed that the cadavers in the Dead House had been removed before I could get a close look at the young girl.
“Am I sure she’s my friend or am I sure she’s in Italy?”
“Italy,” I said.
“Yes,” she replied evenly. “I am quite sure. Do you know her?”
“No,” I said, drawing back from the portrait, relieved. “I thought for a moment I might, but I couldn’t.”
“All right then, Dr. Carroll,” said Miss Benedict, “if you are sufficiently recovered, which of these paintings do you prefer?”
“Well, they’re quite different,” I began, looking at each more carefully, “both excellent in their own way … but I believe I would choose the first.”
“Bravo, Dr. Carroll. You have chosen the work of one of America’s foremost artists. That was painted by Thomas Eakins.”
I knew of Eakins, not for scenes of rowers, but for his infamous medical painting, “The Portrait of Professor Gross,” which depicted an actual bone resection performed by Samuel Gross, late father-in-law of the Professor’s dinner companion this evening. It was a huge canvas, over six feet wide and eight feet high, and had been completed thirteen years earlier to be exhibited at the national centennial. At the time, the painting had so scandalized Philadelphia for its excessively realistic portrayal of gore and suffering that the overseers of the exposition had refused to display it. The patient in the image was etherized, with a long retracted incision in his left leg, Gross, his hand wet with blood, standing over him holding a scalpel. The patient’s mother could be seen cringing pathetically in the shadows. Scandal or no, for its realism and unflinching portrayal of a surgeon at work, “The Portrait of Professor Gross” was now the most well-known painting of its kind in the nation. The artist himself had attended the surgery and had included himself in the composition. Mrs. Gross’ late husband was visible in the gallery as well.
I also knew that Thomas Eakins and scandal were easy companions. He had been forced to
resign three years ago as director of the Philadelphia Academy of the Fine Arts after he produced a fully nude male model for his female students to draw. After the outcry and his dismissal, the artist had been so distraught that he was sent to the Dakotas for a rest cure by Weir Mitchell himself. Upon his return, he had retired to the seclusion of his studio. His reputation had never fully recovered, although I had heard at the hospital that he had recently been commissioned by some of Agnew’s students to create a portrait of their beloved professor.
Eakins’ notoriety notwithstanding, I found myself turning from the rowers and once again examining the portrait of the young woman. The eyes on the canvas seemed to be staring directly at me. The overall effect of the subject’s unwavering gaze was of slight incongruence, an imbalance that was almost certainly intentional. It made the face at once familiar and distant.
“Who painted this one?” I asked.
“I did,” replied Abigail Benedict.
“You? I didn’t mean to …”
“Not at all.” She spoke without a trace of annoyance. “Thomas is one of our great painters. I studied with him, as a matter of fact. As an additional matter of fact, it was he with whom I was dining at Barker’s two nights ago … when our paths crossed the first time.”
I wanted to respond, but could not turn my attention from the painting. I moved closer and then farther away, but the power emanating from the canvas did not diminish with distance. “The portrait is …” I searched for the right word.
“Thank you, Dr. Carroll, but I already know it’s good.”
Suddenly, I realized why I was having a difficult time turning away.
“Eakins replicates reality. You distort it,” I offered, “but in doing so, you create an effect more commanding.”
“Reality is unimportant.” There was an urgency in her voice that I had been unused to in women, but now reminded me of Simpson. “Truth is what an artist seeks. This is a wondrous age, Doctor. For the first time in centuries, we are not merely painting differently, but instead introducing an entirely new way to see.” As she spoke she moved her hands in broad strokes, as if holding a paintbrush to a spectral canvas. “Art, although Thomas is slow to appreciate it, is no longer merely an effort to reflect life, but to interpret it, to find truth under the skin. Even more exciting is that, in doing so, painters have demanded that their audiences no longer be merely passive observers but, through their imaginations, participants in the process.”
“Anyone who can exhibit such ardor can hardly be engaged in an idle pursuit,” I noted.
Abigail Benedict reached out and her fingertips touched my cheek. The breath went out of me. “That is very sweet of you,” she said softly. “Albert doesn’t really mean what he says, you know. My brother is actually quite proud of my painting, but is intensely jealous of the freedom.”
“The freedom to create?”
“Yes, that. But also the freedom to live. He is the older. He feels his life was preordained. I do much as I please. It is sometimes … hard for him.”
A bell rang and I heard a servant announce dinner. As we returned to the drawing room, Hiram Benedict appeared at our side. He glanced at me as if I were a flea. Miss Benedict took his arm, much as she had taken mine. They made an unusual pair, the outsized, imperious banker and his bohemian daughter, but, whatever their differences, he obviously adored her and did not think me a suitable escort, even to fill a chair at a dinner for sixteen.
We made our way through a glass-roofed vestibule, which contained an enclosed goldfish pool, into a palatial dining room, even more opulent than the drawing room. Members of the seemingly limitless staff stood along the wall as we entered.
We took our places behind our chairs and I peered down at an array of silver as varied and extensive as instruments in a surgical tray, polished to an even higher sheen. I held out the chair for Miss Benedict. She and I were seated at the far end of the massive mahogany table, near her mother, her brother, and his wife. The Professor sat diagonally across at the other end, next to Hiram Benedict, with Mrs. Gross next to him. Jonas Lachtmann was seated opposite the Professor.
Dinner was a nearly three-hour affair. I believe I witnessed more food at the Benedict home that evening than I would have seen in a month in Marietta. The meal began with fried smelts with tartar sauce, turtle soup, another fish course, and then a meat course, a poultry course, vegetables, and salads, followed by a variety of desserts. There were at least six wines served. Conversation was light and social, as befitted mixed company. Notwithstanding her remark when we had been introduced, Miss Benedict did not ask me about modern medicine, but rather joined in the general banter.
When the desserts were done, Mr. Benedict suggested we adjourn to the drawing room for brandy and cigars, and that the ladies retire to the parlor. Everyone made for their respective destinations, although Miss Benedict made little secret of her distaste for the convention.
Once we had been served our brandies, it did not take the elder Benedict ten minutes to come to the point. “So, Osler,” he said, “have you decided for certain to leave us? Or might we be permitted to use our powers of persuasion to keep you in our wonderful city?”
This degree of bluntness would disconcert most, but the Professor was at home with direct conversation.
“I am flattered that you think enough of my abilities to want me to remain,” Dr. Osler said. “Whatever decision I make will not be easy or without regret. My associations here have been the most rewarding of my life. But the Johns Hopkins Hospital and eventually the medical school will be unique. The position offered me might easily be described as once in a lifetime.”
“We intend extensive improvements and expansion of the facilities here,” said Albert Benedict with a nod toward Schoonmaker. “If you remain, your degree of authority will be every bit as great as in Baltimore, perhaps even more so.”
“And in a city with far greater resources,” added Jonas Lachtmann.
“Will there be women in the student body in Baltimore?” interjected Elias Schoonmaker, and the room fell silent.
“Definitely so,” the Professor replied easily. “There will soon be any number of women doctors in America, Mr. Schoonmaker. We must give them the best training available.”
Schoonmaker was about to retort, “Not here,” when Mr. Benedict spoke over him. “A progressive notion, Dr. Osler. Quite in tune with the times.”
“Is it equally progressive to employ drug addicts?” Schoonmaker asked sourly. “It sounds to me that the Baltimore hospital will have no moral standards whatever, Dr. Osler.”
It was Agnew who responded. “Dr. Halsted has been cured, Mr. Schoonmaker. He is no longer dependent on drugs and will not be in the future. And let us not forget that he became addicted only because he insisted on experimenting on himself rather than on a patient. Local anesthesia will be a great boon to doctors and patients alike. Halsted was experimenting with a new drug called cocaine, an extract of the coca plant, to find the proper dosage.”
“He had no way of anticipating the effect,” the Professor added. “Coca leaves have been used for centuries as a medicinal agent, but it has only been in the last decade that we have succeeded in extracting the active agent. The drug continues to exhibit enormous promise. When Dr. Halsted discovered he had become addicted, he immediately checked himself into a hospital. As to his current condition, he has been living with Welch in Baltimore, and Welch has assured me that he has remained in perfect health.”
“That’s curious,” said Mitchell, frowning. “I saw him here in Philadelphia not two weeks ago.”
“Impossible,” replied the Professor.
“No. Not impossible at all. He was right on Market Street. We spoke briefly, and he told me that he had been doing some private consultations.”
“Ah, that explains it then, eh?” The Professor smiled. “I was under the impression that he had already joined the Hopkins staff full-time.”
“Drug addicts are never cured,” Schoon
maker insisted. “We don’t need men like that. We have many fine surgeons on staff already.”
“Like Wilberforce Burleigh?” The words were out of my mouth before I knew it.
“Dr. Burleigh is an exemplary surgeon, young man,” Schoonmaker shot back. “He once performed eighteen successful operations in a single day. He also happens to be one of my closest friends.”
The Lord must truly be merciful because, at that moment, there was a knock at the door, which then instantly flew open to reveal Abigail Benedict in the doorway. She was wearing a wrap, bright red with long tassels, a blaze of color against the black dress. “If you don’t mind, gentlemen, I’d like a walk in the garden. I’m going to borrow Dr. Carroll.”
No one objected, least of all me.
Miss Benedict led me through the halls out into a garden at the back of the house. It was thickly set with shrubbery and ornamental trees, pathways meandering through, all surrounded by a high brick wall. The air smelled of pine. A strong late-winter chill was about, but walking in the garden with Abigail Benedict had rendered me insensible to the elements.
She waited until we could neither be seen nor heard by those inside. Flickers of light from the house played across her face. “Fascinating, wasn’t it? Welcome to polite Philadelphia society.”
“You heard?”
“Elias would have been audible in New Jersey. He loathes modernity, an unfortunate point of view for a man seeking posterity by endowing a hospital. He’s never had to be polite to anyone, so he isn’t. Dr. Osler is hardly the first person he has repulsed with his behavior.”
“An odd choice to persuade Dr. Osler to remain here,” I offered, daring to show nothing of the attraction I felt for her.
“My father had little option. Elias insisted on being present. After all, it is his money.”
“Lachtmann too seems an ill-considered choice.”
Miss Benedict moved to the far side of an elm, even deeper into the shadows. “Jonas can actually be quite effective and even charming when he chooses to be.”
The Anatomy of Deception Page 9