The Unquiet Heart

by The Unquiet Heart (retail) (epub)

  ‘Ah,’ he grinned. ‘Don’t expect it to be so easy tomorrow – in my experience, you can pull the wool over a mother’s eyes once and once only.’

  ‘That sounds as if you speak from experience. You must have run her ragged.’

  ‘The trick is not to get caught in the first place.’ He frowned. ‘Then again, mine was never as terrifying as yours. Has Miles met her yet? She could be just the thing you need to put him off for good. They do say women turn into their mothers.’

  I thought about the woman I had come face to face with after not seeing her for a year. I hoped I would never recognise myself in her.

  Two hours later, it was as though we had never spoken. Professor Merchiston stood in front of a bubbling test tube, pontificating and scrawling equations and formulae on a blackboard, and I scribbled down notes as fast as I could.

  The stink of formaldehyde and ammonia made me feel dizzy. I wasn’t the only one – Moira looked positively green, and it was clear that none of us could concentrate.

  ‘What the bloody hell is wrong with you all?’

  ‘It’s the smell,’ I offered. ‘It’s a little overpowering.’

  ‘It’s your corsets. Damn things are laced too tight. You girls will cause yourselves an injury if you’re not careful.’

  It wasn’t until I saw Caroline Carstairs go as bright red as her hair and Alison Thornhill shaking with giggles that I realised how inured I had become to Professor Merchiston’s outbursts of coarseness.

  ‘Frankly, I don’t give a damn whether you show up to my class in dresses, trousers or the finery of a sultan from the East provided you’re here to work. Arrange yourselves more comfortably, if you like. I will be waiting outside in the quad when you’re ready; send someone to fetch me. I won’t take this out of your lecture time, but please arrive attired more practically in future.’

  Within minutes, the lecture theatre became more like the dressing room of a music hall as blouses were discarded and dresses tugged off the shoulders and dropped to the waist.

  ‘He shouldn’t notice what we’re wearing,’ Edith scowled. ‘And he certainly shouldn’t draw attention to it.’

  ‘He’s a doctor, you goose,’ Julia laughed. ‘He’s hardly going to miss the fact that some of his students are a different shape to others.’

  I stood there awkwardly as everyone began to undress. If I went home with so much as a corset lace out of place, my aunt’s maid would report it.

  An odd expression passed across Julia’s face, and I realised she thought my reluctance was because of her. She certainly seemed more comfortable than I would have been in the company of a room full of men adjusting their undergarments. My thoughts flashed to Merchiston and the night I had discovered him in the boxing ring, stripped to the waist.

  On second thoughts, perhaps loosening my stays wasn’t such a terrible idea.

  Julia’s eyes were firmly on her boots, and I realised that what I had thought was anger was really terror: that she or Edith would somehow give themselves away. No wonder she pushed everyone away with her sharp tongue.

  I groaned inwardly and decided to offer an olive branch that only they would recognise.

  ‘Latymer, give me a hand. I know you think my laces are as loose as my morals, but I still can’t bloody breathe.’

  ‘I’m trying to be nice,’ she hissed angrily.

  I rolled my eyes. For someone with a secret, she was terrible at deception. ‘You used me as a distraction for months. I understand if you need to keep up the pretence occasionally.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ She raised her voice. ‘Frankly, I’m surprised you bothered with it at all, Gilchrist. Does your fiancé mind that he’s getting second-hand goods?’

  Ouch. Well at least she was entering into the spirit of things. The others were watching, the atmosphere tense as they wondered whether we were about to reignite our antipathy.

  ‘Insult me as much as you like, just loosen the bloody thing!’

  ‘Oh, honestly,’ Alison snapped. She had been off with me ever since she learned of my engagement and even our collective light mood didn’t seem to have reached her. ‘Some of us want to learn, not act the goat.’

  Nudging Julia out of the way, she yanked my laces back into place tighter than before.

  ‘So now you’re chumming up with Julia, after the way she treated you?’ she whispered in my ear.

  ‘The way you let her treat me. Maybe she just respects me because I stood up to her.’

  I couldn’t tell her the truth behind my half-hearted truce with Julia and Edith. I had arrived in Edinburgh with a secret of my own that had spread like wildfire – mostly thanks to Julia – but it was the ones I kept for others that surrounded me like a wall, keeping everyone else out.

  ‘I’ll fetch the professor,’ I muttered. At least there was someone in this wretched university who understood me.

  The air smelled of hops from the brewery, of a city in full flow and the sweet scent of tobacco from Merchiston’s pipe. When he saw me, he blew a perfect ring of smoke and tipped his hat.

  ‘Am I to assume that you are as decent as overeducated bluestocking wenches can possibly be, or are you luring me into a den of iniquity?’

  I smiled, and there was a warmth in it I could not imagine flickering to life with my fiancé. ‘I would never embarrass you by assuming you needed the assistance, Professor.’

  Chapter 11

  Candlelight glinted off polished silver, forks clinked off plates and conversation buzzed as sixteen people sat down for dinner in gowns and jewels that would feed the city’s slums for the best part of a decade. Aurora Greene’s tinkling laugh rang off the crystal chandelier and even the bubbles in the champagne seemed to sparkle.

  One wouldn’t think that a little over a week before, a girl had been found outside with her head bashed in. Here, life went on as normal.

  ‘An unfortunate state of affairs,’ Aurora had sighed over afternoon tea, ‘but one can hardly expect the household to go into mourning over one dead servant.’

  My mother had nodded approvingly as I sat in miserable silence, reflecting that along with Aunt Emily they resembled nothing more than a better-dressed version of Macbeth’s three witches. Instead of a cauldron, they had bone china and Darjeeling tea, but they had conjured up a feast that would have put all the kings of Scotland, murderous or otherwise, to shame. The message was clear – anything untoward that might have occurred in these refined streets had absolutely nothing to do with the Greene family themselves.

  ‘I hope you will forgive my absence at your supper, Mrs Greene,’ my mother said. ‘I was too unwell to travel alone.’

  I suspected the cause of her sickness had less to do with some winter virus and more to do with the prospect of eating haggis, but it was hardly the most egregious lie any of us were telling.

  ‘Not at all. Your presence was missed, of course, but with such a lovely young couple pledging their troth, the atmosphere was quite merry.’ I concluded that either Aurora was delusional or she was describing another dinner party entirely.

  ‘My sister speaks very highly of your family. I do hope that you find Sarah a welcome addition.’

  ‘She’s delightful, Diana. Why, I consider her a daughter already.’ Aurora smiled warmly, and I was discomfited to realise that her affection for me was genuine. Another stab of guilt then, this time for the family I was deceiving.

  If my mother was surprised that someone should feel so warmly towards me, at least she didn’t let it show.

  ‘She and Miles are such a sweet match,’ Aunt Emily chimed in. ‘I think we can look forward to a long and happy marriage.’ Personally, I was looking forward to the sweet release of death.

  ‘It was a shame that our evening was spoiled by such a tragic occurrence,’ I added. From the way the awkward silence fell, you would have thought I had mentioned an embarrassing personal ailment rather than a murder.

  ‘We are assured that the matter is in hand,’ Aurora said tightly. ‘We
must try not to dwell on it.’

  ‘And are such events a regular concern?’

  My mother sounded positively bored, picking some imaginary fluff from her skirt and discarding it onto the floor. But the barb behind her remark was pointed, and Aurora paled.

  ‘Not in the slightest, Mrs Gilchrist! My household only employs the most upstanding of characters. We would never have admitted someone we believed to be consorting with such unsavoury elements.’

  ‘Let us remember that Miss Wilson was the victim here,’ I pointed out. ‘She can’t be blamed for her own demise.’

  My mother opened her mouth to correct me, and then quickly reconsidered. Checkmate, Mother. She could hardly imply that any woman touched by scandal was not unblemished without reminding the assembled company of my own past.

  There was no such badinage at this party, where I was to be shown off on Miles’s arm for the first time. I wasn’t sure what the guests were more eager for – gossip about the macabre crime that had occurred or a chance to gawk at Miles Greene’s tainted bride-to-be.

  It was clear I wasn’t what they expected, and it was pleasant to bathe in the compliments about my gown and figure without feeling they concealed a barb about my vanity or virtue. I wore cornflower-blue silk trimmed with white lace; a lapis lazuli brooch was fastened at my throat and the ropes of my grand-mother’s pearls glowed in the candlelight. The drape of fabric over bustle and corset gave my figure the illusion of curves, and hair that had looked like lank straw when I had arrived home from my lectures now shone like pale gold. The brooch brought out my eyes – I had always thought their colour insipid, hardly the kind of thing suitors would write bad poetry about, but catching my reflection in a mirror, I saw them sparkle.

  In contrast to the Burns supper, which had been an intimate gathering, this dinner party boasted the cream of Edinburgh’s polite society. Aside from my family and the Greenes, I didn’t know a soul. Then again, neither did my mother, and yet she had taken the assembled gathering to her bosom, dispensing advice on dresses and child-rearing and matchmaking with the practised ease of someone who had known the parties involved since the nursery. She was in her element, I realised sadly. An element she had never fully inhabited even when she was parading me around parties just like this back when I was untouched by either a man’s hand or the corroding influence of a university education. I knew that I had not been the daughter she wanted, but I had never truly understood that it was a loss for her too.

  She caught my eye, and I found myself placing my hand on Miles’s arm and giving him a brilliant smile. I felt her warning gaze melt into one of pleasure, and even the way my fiancé started and choked on his drink at the unexpected affection couldn’t mar that longed-for moment of approval.

  It vanished the moment another guest turned her attention to me.

  ‘A doctor, you say?’ The widowed society lady opposite me gazed over her pince-nez. ‘How frightfully . . . ah . . . enterprising of you.’

  The table did not fall silent, the company we were in being far too well bred for that, but there was a distinct lowering of voices, a pause between sentences and a sense that one’s companions were listening to another conversation entirely.

  ‘I think it’s marvellous!’ gushed her daughter, a sweet girl of nineteen and therefore practically an old maid herself. ‘A woman storming the medical establishment alone, planting her flag upon the mountain of knowledge. What could be more thrilling?’

  I was about to point out that I was hardly alone in my endeavour, but her mother raised an eyebrow at me. I was clearly supposed to say something, although exactly what mystified me.

  ‘It’s jolly hard work,’ I offered. ‘Not in the least bit glamorous.’

  ‘And nothing at all compared to the delights of marriage and motherhood,’ she pointed out.

  Oh yes. That. I smiled weakly in what I hoped looked like agreement.

  ‘Well, when you graduate I expect you to let me know the moment you open your practice. I’ll be your first patient!’

  The older woman frowned. ‘You’ll do nothing of the sort, Charlotte.’

  The girl bowed her head, chastened. Once her mother’s attention was elsewhere, she leaned over and whispered, ‘All my friends think it’s awfully daring. You must have luncheon with us and tell us all about it.’

  It was the most enthusiasm I had heard about my chosen profession all night. I smiled warmly at her but she had already turned to her companion, who was expounding on the benefits of some faddish new diet or other. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to be stopping him devouring the saddle of mutton in front of him.

  I had barely consumed a mouthful all evening – every time I tried, another of Aurora’s guests asked me a question, ranging from the fatuous to the downright patronising. One thing no one mentioned, however, was what on earth I was doing in Edinburgh when there was a perfectly good medical school – one designed exclusively for ladies, no less! – in London. If gossip about my scandal and its resulting exile had made its way to the dining tables of Edinburgh’s highest echelons, everyone was far too polite to mention it.

  I glanced over at Miles, wondering how he was faring. He looked lost as one of his father’s friends addressed him on the subject of hunting, and I realised that the hum of conversation and the clatter of cutlery, combined with the fact that this man was half-cut already, prevented him from following along with the discussion.

  Well, I was no stranger to interrupting men’s conversation. I angled myself so that Miles could see my face and made sure I spoke slowly and crisply.

  ‘I always rather thought that shooting grouse and pheasant one must get terribly cold and damp. At least when one rides with the hunt, there’s a bit more movement.’

  ‘Ah, but that’s what a wee nip of whisky is for, lass! A dram or two of Macallan and ye could be in Burma, not the Highlands! What’s your poison, laddie? Are you a Scotch or a brandy man?’

  The truth was, Miles turned flushed and wobbly on anything stronger than a glass or two of demi-sec, but I was damned if this blustering sot was going to know that. ‘You rather enjoyed that single malt at my uncle’s, didn’t you, darling? Convalmore, I think you said? You must try some, Brigadier – my uncle has quite the well-stocked cellar.’

  ‘Quite d-delicious.’ If anyone noticed the grateful smile Miles shot at me, they would have dismissed it as young love. I squeezed his arm in support and turned the topic to the exploits of Brigadier Whomever-he-was in the Crimea.

  We carried on in that vein, with the brigadier proffering his sage advice in increasingly slurred tones and my repeating it back as if it were the most profound thought I had ever heard, allowing Miles to follow along and contribute where he wished. If I were to face a lifetime of this, my future husband would need to find some vastly more entertaining companions.

  It was with considerable relief that I allowed him to escort me through to the drawing room for post-prandial entertainment. Charlotte, the young woman who had promised to be my first patient, ran over to the piano with a delighted cry and begged the assembled company for an accompanist. Although she wrinkled her brow in seeming confusion about who to pick, no one was in the least bit surprised when the second son of a duke, who had been making eyes at her since the consommé, took his place at the keys.

  Music was preferable to charades – not least because Aunt Emily without fail chose to try and act out Martin Chuzzlewit; at this point the main pleasure was in stubbornly refusing to acknowledge that we all knew what she was incomprehensibly miming. With music, I could pretend to listen, focusing my gaze ostentatiously on the player or singer, while actually mentally reviewing my lecture notes. Provided I tapped my foot to an approximation of the beat and remembered to clap when everyone else did, I could pass an entire evening that way and be freshly prepared for the next morning’s classes.

  Despite my customary reticence, I found myself enjoying it. Alisdair had an impeccable baritone that seemed to enchant every woman in t
he room – had he been inviting them rather than the reluctant Maud of the song into the garden, I had no doubt that the drawing room would have been completely deserted by the third verse. Even Aurora joined in with a rather alarmingly coy rendition of ‘Jolly Good Luck to the Girl Who Loves a Soldier’.

  Inevitably, the happy couple was called up. I was uncomfortably aware of the fact that I had neither played nor sung in public for years, although Aunt Emily made me practise several times a week and Elisabeth had once coaxed me through most of the Edinburgh students’ songbook.

  ‘“Waiting at the Church”!’ one of Aurora’s friends called out. I could think of more appropriate songs than one about a woman who discovered on her wedding day that her husband-to-be was already married, but our audience seemed tickled at the prospect. I took the sheet music from the pile and glanced at Miles for confirmation.

  To my surprise, he played almost perfectly, and for a change his demeanour was almost relaxed.

  Alisdair was frowning, and after a moment I noticed him slip away – perhaps the golden child didn’t like the limelight falling on his younger brother for once. Something seemed to have happened to Miles that night; his stammer, though never entirely gone, had lessened and he moved with a confidence I had never seen before.

  We finished our song to a rapturous round of applause and found ourselves called upon for an encore. Together we got through ‘The Boy I Love is Up in the Gallery’ – was that a tear I saw Mother dash from her eye? – and I bobbed a cheeky curtsey before returning to my seat.

  ‘Perhaps you should consider a career on stage rather the operating theatre, Miss Gilchrist!’

  There was laughter, although I suspected as much of it was directed at the idea of me as a doctor as at the prospect of me as a music hall performer.

  It was fun – silly, frivolous fun, the kind I hadn’t had in over a year. If it weren’t for my engagement – and Clara Wilson’s recent murder – it might have been almost perfect. I could take some light-hearted ribbing about medical women and the general unsuitability of my sex to anything other than breeding and embroidery provided that when I left the party, I did so knowing I had to be up the next morning at a lecture. Even my mother was smiling, and the whole thing felt so close to how I always thought my life would turn out – tolerant if underwhelmed parents, laughter and excitement and studying – that for a moment I closed my eyes and let the sounds of the room flow over me like warm water. The music, the conversation, the laughter . . . and the harsh, irregular gasps of someone struggling for breath.