And yet the injustice lingered, and as I undressed for bed that night, I thought of what a prize like that might have meant for me. My family wasn’t scrimping and saving every ha’penny for my education, but my position was still precarious. All it would take was one infraction too far for me to find my fees for the term hadn’t been – wouldn’t be – paid. For all my lofty ideas of independence, I was entirely reliant on their goodwill, and I knew just how fragile that was.
Being welcomed back into the bosom of my family with my marriage to Miles would mean more than just having my parents acknowledge the existence of their eldest daughter once again. As it stood, I was written out of my father’s will completely, and while I was hardly waiting for him to expire – not, given his total silence over the past year, that it would make a difference to our relationship – there was no denying that the prospect of an inheritance would give my future some security.
A small bequest from my grandmother was all I had guaranteed, and even that wouldn’t be mine for another few years; my father was administering it until then. I knew my fees and expenses came out of it, but he had never told me how much it was and it had never occurred to me to ask. Even when I was cast out of my home, I had always been provided for, had never worried where my next meal was coming from or where I would sleep. For the past year, all I had thought about was surviving: surviving the ‘treatments’ at the sanatorium, surviving my exams. Surviving Fiona Leadbetter, and now surviving this wretched engagement. If I were to have a future, it would have to be planned for, and I knew that I could not rely on anyone but myself.
I needed to find out the total of my bequest, and if there was any way for me to take control of it sooner. Once I finished my studies, I would need money to support myself – my aunt and uncle had made it crystal clear that hosting a university student was one thing, but having a fully qualified doctor under their roof would be beyond the pale.
It wouldn’t be enough to graduate with a degree and high marks. As a woman, the bare minimum wouldn’t suffice, nor would I have a supportive family willing to give me food and lodgings while I began to make my way in the world. I could see now that preparing for a career meant so much more than simply good marks and a passion for my subject – the matter of the Harkup prize had taught me that. I needed to start planning for my future, and that meant saving whatever money I could in advance of the days when my aunt and uncle grew tired of the girlish fancies of work and independence that I stubbornly refused to grow out of.
As I removed my earrings, pretty enamel pansies that didn’t dangle or get tangled up in my hair but still probably looked far too feminine for such an august institution as the University of Edinburgh, a thought occurred to me. I didn’t have an extensive collection of gems, but surely there were some things I could sell if need be.
I opened my jewellery box and examined the contents. I ran my pearls through my fingers, the beads glowing a soft rose in the firelight. They were the most precious thing I owned and I couldn’t bear to part with them. But much good they would do me if I were living in penury, unable to afford food and coal. As for the rest, it was all pretty but not deeply sentimental – a gold fern brooch with diamonds studded on the leaves to represent dew, a bracelet of amethysts set in silver, a strand of opals and garnets and a pair of silver filigree earrings. It wasn’t much – unlike Aurora, I didn’t have enough that it would be easy to dispose of a few items and have it go unnoticed. But a brooch could fall off into the street, a necklace could snap. And a pawnbroker could give me a reasonable sum that I could hide in a textbook until I needed it.
I surveyed my wardrobe, wondering what I could do without. Even if I couldn’t sell the finer of my dresses – which I supposed were technically the property of Aunt Emily and Mother, who had after all paid for them in the first place – I couldn’t take them with me, either. Even Julia and Alison rotated between two evening gowns on the rare occasions we had cause to wear them, and from what I had seen, their rooms had only a fraction of the space in my bedroom here.
If push came to shove and I needed to find alternative accommodation, what would I take? Plain, serviceable skirts, smart enough for a ward round or to see patients; one evening gown for any formal events. I could sew well enough to keep them looking fresh for a couple of seasons, providing fashions didn’t change too dramatically between now and 1896. I didn’t need the soft kid gloves or the linen handkerchiefs. I had brought little with me from my old life – just my jewellery and bible and a few books. Somehow I had put down roots here, built a life and acquired possessions. But I knew I would throw all my worldly goods into a knapsack and carry it on my shoulder like Dick Whittington if I had to.
It could be the answer to my prayers – a gruelling road and one without the security or luxury I was accustomed to, but surely I could do it if I needed to. My fees were twenty-five pounds a year, refectory meals five pounds, and then there were textbooks on top of that. I resolved to ask Alison how much her boarding house cost; even if that proved too much, surely there were cheaper options?
And yet I had never cooked a meal or built a fire. I could open up a man’s chest, remove his organs and sew it back up with the hand of a seamstress, but I had never darned a stocking or boiled an egg. Until I came to Edinburgh and began volunteering at St Giles’ Infirmary, I had never swept a floor, and it wasn’t until I had to manage on the meagre allowance Aunt Emily gave me every month that I had balanced a budget.
How clever it was, to keep us helpless and reliant on the social hierarchy that allegedly offered us freedom, trapped in a delicate web that held us in place. Lacking the skills to support ourselves, no wonder the security of home and hearth was so seductive.
The freedom my peers enjoyed was tantalising, but I couldn’t afford to be reckless. If I could only save enough money to keep myself for a year, I could worry about the future when it arrived. I couldn’t do that even keeping aside the shillings my aunt grudgingly gave me for expenses, and I couldn’t wait four or five years before I had my own income.
I needed something that would horrify my family and risk my total expulsion from any safe harbour they could offer. Something that would guarantee my survival no matter what.
I needed a job.
Chapter 30
‘How on earth are you planning on doing that?’ Elisabeth stared at me in utter bewilderment. ‘I don’t even know where one would start.’
‘Neither do I,’ I groaned. ‘It isn’t exactly something they taught us at finishing school.’
‘Could you ask at the university? Surely they must be able to help.’
‘Somehow I suspect they won’t have anything suitable. Bad enough I want to study, that I plan on practising medicine in a few years, without hoping to work now. Can you imagine Professor Williamson’s expression? He’d collapse in a fit of apoplexy!’
She thought for a moment. ‘I don’t suppose you could chaperone? You’re a little young and horribly unmarried, but if I recommended you . . .’
‘They want respectable women of clear virtue,’ I reminded her. ‘Not lady medics engaged to a murderer whose virginity is a thing of the past.’
‘Sarah, if you need money—’
‘Then I shall earn it. I need a friend, not a benefactor.’ I squeezed her hand. ‘But if I ever show up on your doorstep with nothing more than the dress I’m wearing and a bag full of textbooks, I reserve the right to pretend I never said that.’
‘Well you won’t starve in this house,’ she laughed, pushing another slice of cold game pie towards me. I accepted with relish, both metaphorical and literal.
When Randall arrived from his club, smelling of tobacco and whisky, he found us making increasingly elaborate plans for my future, helped in no small part by a bottle of very good sherry.
He frowned. ‘Is this about the Harkup prize? I don’t agree with the dean’s decision, but it is final. No doubt Miss Latymer is disappointed, but at least she can still afford the fees.’
&nbs
p; ‘You mean her parents can.’
He looked bewildered. ‘Of course that’s what I meant.’
We were all of us at the mercies of others. If Julia’s family knew the true nature of her friendship with Edith, she would be as cut off and powerless as I was. Perhaps we should band together, a merry tribe of inverts and harlots, living off our wits. Or perhaps that was the fastest route to the workhouse.
‘I need a source of income that doesn’t depend on how pleased my family is with me on any given day,’ I explained. ‘I can’t risk being foisted onto another man I don’t love without any recourse but my own intellect. I need to know that I can support myself now, not in four or five years when I finish my studies, especially when I can’t guarantee I’ll make it that long.’
‘There must be something you can suggest, darling.’ Elisabeth gave her husband a pleading look, and I could see him begin to thaw.
‘You’re a first-year medical student,’ he sighed. ‘There’s not very much your lot are qualified to do, especially not when you’re . . .’ He waved a hand at me, too embarrassed or apologetic to refer to my sex by name. Honestly, how did men ever practise medicine when they were so squeamish?
‘You know, if Gregory is dragging you around police morgues and prisons, he should at least be compensating you for your assistance.’
It was hard to tell which of us was more horrified.
‘I am not his assistant!’
‘That’s quite unacceptable!’
‘I’ll have you know that he’s assisting me, not the other way around.’
‘An unmarried woman cannot spend the majority of her time in the company of . . .’ Randall trailed off and glared at me. ‘Sarah, your commitment to Miles’ innocence does you credit, but there are some tasks that Professor Merchiston is better able to undertake, and investigating a murder is one of them.’
I shook my head. ‘I can get closer to the family than he can.’
‘Just because you can doesn’t mean that you should. If your aunt – or, God forbid, your mother – knew that you were putting yourself in danger like this, she’d lock you in your room and barricade the door.’
Which was why I had no intention of letting them find out about my illicit activities. And however much Randall disapproved of them, I knew he wouldn’t put my studies at risk.
‘Like it or not, I am involved.’ I took a deep breath. ‘Aurora’s blackmailer is targeting me.’
‘Over what?’ Randall looked utterly bemused, and I realised that while I thought news of my degradation had spread far and wide, it had not reached him. Elisabeth, gem that she was, had kept my secret from the person closest to her.
Still, I didn’t relish telling my story to his face. I looked at her pleadingly and she nodded.
‘Later, darling,’ she murmured. ‘Did they write to you at home?’
‘Blackwell, the maid, put the letter in my reticule. I found it yesterday.’
Elisabeth’s eyes widened. ‘That sweet girl is involved? How awful.’
‘She had no choice. She was being blackmailed as well, but instead of money – which she doesn’t have – the writer asked her to put the letter in my bag. She has a child who lives with her sister, and if news of him got out, Aurora would dismiss her on the spot.’
‘Does she have any idea who it was?’
‘Not one. She’s terrified, though, poor thing.’
‘I really think that this is a matter for the police.’
‘And then her secret becomes public and she loses her position? No. That’s unacceptable, Randall, she’s as much a victim as Aurora, but she has so much more to lose, and I can guarantee that the police won’t care what happens to her.’
He sighed. ‘At least a job would keep you out of trouble. The Royal Infirmary has been employing typewriters to type up their records. A medical background like yours would be a boon, not to mention it would give you clinical-adjacent experience.’
‘I’ve never used one of the machines before,’ I said uncertainly.
‘There’s one in the medical school you could practise on,’ Randall offered, warming to the idea. ‘It can’t be that hard for a bright girl who can manage surgery and chemical equations. And I’d be more than happy to refer you to the hospital administrator.’
‘And it’s a woman’s job, so no one can possibly complain,’ I added wryly. ‘Don’t worry, Randall, I don’t see myself as above it. I’ll take in mending if I have to! I’ll scrub the floors of the mortuary. While I’m dependent on my family, I’ll always have to abide by their rules. Even marriage would give me more financial freedom.’
‘Not in Scotland,’ Elisabeth said grimly. ‘Here, a husband still holds the purse strings. The money and property I brought to my marriage is mine and mine alone, but any financial decision has to have Randall’s approval.’
‘Which I will always give,’ he said gently.
‘But I wish you didn’t have to!’ The normally mild-mannered Elisabeth looked irate. ‘I may not have a university degree, but I’m not a child or an idiot – yet in the eyes of the law, I’m both. It’s ridiculous that you can countermand decisions over the land I own back in Canada, a country you’ve never even set foot in.’
I thought about Merchiston’s proposal, and wondered if he knew what he was asking me to give up. I hadn’t told Elisabeth for fear she would convince me to reconsider, but the secret was weighing on me like so many others. Tempting as the prospect was, so was my own income and the freedom that would give me, even before I qualified! It might not be much, but what it would buy me was priceless.
A flicker of warmth shot through me as a new possibility occurred to me. I could have both, if only I were willing to break society’s rules. I could have my independence, my career, and Merchiston in my bed, provided he was willing to overlook the fact that it would not be a marital one. If my aunt and Aurora could use my barrenness to their own advantage, why couldn’t I? Free of the one dreaded consequence of sex, why not be the woman they thought I was, the one that terrified them? I would have a job and a lover instead of a husband and a gilded cage of a home.
If my friends could hear my thoughts, they would be scandalised. Well, let them be. I was beginning to realise that the troubles I had fought to overcome might after all be my most powerful weapon. Paul Beresford, Alisdair Greene, even Gregory Merchiston all wanted me to sacrifice my propriety for their pleasure. It was time to make sacrifices for my own.
Chapter 31
I wasn’t thinking about propriety when I burst into Gregory Merchiston’s office the next day. But as he looked up from his task, I wished I had been.
From his haggard complexion, it looked as though the female students hadn’t been the only ones partaking in the demon drink of late. I remembered the twisted parody of my friend I had met in his study, and felt a stab of guilt that my rejection had prompted another bout of overindulgence.
One shirtsleeve was rolled up, and a thick leather belt was wrapped around his forearm, the strap clenched between his teeth. The other hand held a needle. As I stared at him, he mumbled something against the leather that sounded distinctly like an obscenity.
I could see a faint trail of bruised indentations. Whatever his treatment was, it wasn’t the first time he had used it.
Our eyes locked, and I could see a flicker of defiance, as though he were daring me to stop him. He pushed the syringe’s plunger and I watched as the needle pierced the median basilic vein. He let out a sensuous, ragged sigh of relief, and despite the circumstances I found my own body reacting to his drug-induced pleasure. After a few moments, he looked up and gave me a wolfish grin.
‘Professor, are you ill?’
He inhaled deeply, and I forced myself not to notice how his muscles shifted under the starched cotton of his shirt.
‘On the contrary, Miss Gilchrist. I’ve never felt better.’
Gone was the lethargic slump of a man. In his place was Gregory Merchiston as I had first met him – sharp
as a knife and just as dangerous. As he talked, I moved to the desk and examined the abandoned vial.
‘Cocaine? Professor, I don’t think—’
He waved his hand, pooh-poohing my concerns. ‘You sound like Randall. He’s such an old woman. You’d think he’d never touched anything stronger than weak cocoa in his life. The stories I could tell you about when he and I were under-graduates, Sarah! There was a prank with the dean’s trousers and a goose . . .’
Whatever madcap japes he and Randall Chalmers had performed were lost in the annals of history as he stood abruptly and faced me.
‘What are you doing here anyway? Don’t you have an incarcerated fiancé to visit and a murder to solve?’ He lowered his voice, eyes dark and his face so very, very close to mine. ‘Or have you reconsidered your decision?’
‘If I had, this would hardly be inducement to take your hand,’ I snapped. ‘You’re forgetting, Professor, I know what that stuff is and what it does to you. I could give you chapter and verse on why it isn’t a suitable hangover cure. Oh, don’t look at me like that, your breath reeks of whisky.’
‘I’m trying to help you, Sarah! Or did you forget that there’s a murderer on the loose with an interest in the very family you’re supposed to be marrying into?’
‘The last time I checked, I was the only one doing any detective work,’ I replied hotly. ‘And I’m managing to do it without resorting to stimulants.’
‘I can’t sleep,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘And when I do, I can barely open my eyes. Tell me, what bloody use am I to you as professor or partner if I’m bleary-eyed and stifling a yawn?’
‘Then get some rest,’ I said softly, laying my hand on his arm and rubbing the bruised area gently with my thumb, resisting the urge to kiss it better. ‘Let someone else take over your lectures today and let Mrs Logan fuss over you.’
‘Is that your diagnosis, Doctor Gilchrist?’
The Unquiet Heart Page 21