The Witch’s Daughter

by Paula Brackston

‘It’s not that simple. There is a great deal you don’t yet understand.’

  ‘Tell me.’ She leaned forward again, holding my gaze. ‘Please, tell me.’

  The afternoon had begun to wane and sultry summer clouds darkened the sky. I waved my arm in a slow, expansive movement and the candles placed around the room gained tongues of fire. Tegan gasped but sat still.

  ‘There are witches who use their healing magic to great effect, Tegan. And there are those who would use it in the very opposite way.’ I shook my head. ‘Such power is terrible. It is against nature. It is a desecration of the craft. It is to be feared.’ I let my eyes be taken by the dancing flames of the candles and started to tell my tale.

  Fitzrovia, London, 1888

  1

  The cadaver had already begun to stink. Eliza stepped aside to allow the men to manhandle the corpse off the handcart, through the doorway, and into the coolness of the morgue. The left arm of the deceased brushed against her brown skirt as he was carried by.

  ‘Put him over there, please.’ She pointed at a vacant wooden table in the near corner. ‘Gently now.’

  ‘Don’t you fret yourself, ma’am.’ The older of the two men treated her to a toothless grin. ‘The odd knock or bump ain’t going to bother this fella no more.’ He grunted as they swung the body up onto the scrubbed surface.

  Eliza peered down at the figure. In the low gaslight, his features were softened, but there was no mistaking the face of someone who had lived a cruel life. All his woes were etched around his eyes and across his forehead, and his own aggression dragged down the corners of his thin mouth. Small flecks of light glinted off the backs of the lice that inhabited his hair. The noose that had dispatched him to another place had burned a vivid line around his neck. His clothes were filthy. Eliza pitied him his lonely end. What had brought him to the gallows she did not know. Whatever his crime, it seemed unreasonably cruel to deny the man a burial. But such was the fate of murderers with no one to claim the body or pay funeral costs. His destiny was to be an instrument of instruction for the medical students of the Fitzroy Hospital, who would pore over him, greedily slicing his organs, delving and probing and dissecting without a care for who he was or where he had come from. Eliza wondered how she herself would look if the story of her own life were so clearly written on her face. She fancied she would be too hideous to contemplate. Instinctively, her hand went to her hair. She let her fingers trace the broad sweep of pearl white that she did her best to conceal, tucked into her neat bun. It was indeed a mark of her history. A legacy of the moment of her transformation all those dark years ago. Aside from this memento, her appearance had changed little. She was no longer a girl but a woman. It seemed her body had continued to grow into maturity, and then the aging process had slowed. The magic that sustained her, which give her the eternal existence Gideon had spoken of, also gave her continued youth and strength. Eliza had observed that she aged outwardly no more than five years or so for every century she lived.

  She became aware that the two men were still standing behind her, shuffling their feet.

  ‘Oh, please go up to Mr. Thomas. He will see you get your money.’

  ‘Thank you, ma’am.’ They touched their caps and scuttled away.

  Eliza checked the watch she wore pinned to her dress. She must not keep Dr. Gimmel waiting. She hurried up the stairs from the basement into the main body of the hospital. The Fitzroy, as it was known locally, had been open as a teaching hospital for only four years, but the building was not new. Funds had dictated that part of a street of townhouses be bought and modified to produce a space that could accommodate both patients and students. Consequently, with its many floors and narrow hallways, the Fitzroy presented unusual challenges when taking patients to and from the operating theater, or to the mortuary. The theater itself had been constructed for the purpose of surgical procedures and was well planned and equipped. By the time Eliza entered by the side door to collect her white apron, the room was already a-buzz with eager pupils. The smell of carbolic mingled with that of sweat and polished wood. A short oak partition screened off the area where the nurses, dressers, and surgeons donned their theater garments. Nameplates above a row of pegs identified the owner of each apron or coat. Once a week, all the bloodstained clothes were taken to be laundered, though some doctors became superstitiously attached to a particular coat and would rather proceed with it in its gory state than give it up. Eliza harbored no such sentimentalities. She had learned a very long time ago, from her mother, that cleanliness was inseparable from healing. It astounded her that the medical profession had only recently woken up to this fact, and some still stubbornly persisted in their own dirt-ridden ways. She wrapped her spotless apron around herself and tied it tightly at the small of her back. Despite being better qualified and more experienced than many of the medical staff working at the hospital, she knew it would be provoking to dress in a surgeon’s gown rather than a nurse’s uniform. It was hard enough gaining acceptance in such a man’s world without drawing avoidable criticism. She covered her hair with a fresh white cap and went through to the theater proper. There was barely a space empty in the rows of tiered stands that formed a semicircle in front of the operating table. Since it had become a legal requirement that a practicing doctor should have a minimum of two years’ anatomical instruction, there had been no shortage of students. As was her habit, Eliza briefly searched the muddle of faces, checking for new students, for someone unfamiliar, someone set apart. She had felt safe since coming to the Fitzroy, but the habits of suspicion and wariness were deeply established after all these years. She had never fully shaken off the sense of being pursued. She knew it would be dangerous to do so. She was accustomed to ignoring the ribald remarks thrown in her direction. Aside from an elderly nurse who was now busy pouring sawdust into the blood box beneath the operating table, she was the only woman present. She was aware that some of the young men saw her only as a female, as someone to be seduced or ignored depending on taste. She was also conscious that many resented her presence, and some were fiercely jealous of the regard in which she was held by Dr. Gimmel. It was no secret that he saw her as his protégé and took pride in her skill as his most talented pupil. In truth, Eliza believed he enjoyed scandalizing some of his fellow surgeons. She counted herself fortunate to have such a mentor. So fortunate that she had so far decided against going into practice herself. While women were now permitted to work as doctors, they seldom practiced as surgeons. By staying at the Fitzroy as Dr. Gimmel’s assistant she had the opportunity to perform operations she would never have been able to carry out anywhere else.

  As Eliza sprayed quantities of carbolic over the table and into the air, she continued to search the faces looking down at her. She noticed two new students sitting together, both possessed of the same abundant red hair, and remembered there were two brothers starting their studies that morning. Then, on the edge of her vision, a lone figure caught her attention. He sat near the back of the amphitheater at a distance from the others. He was tall and wore a dark frock coat with restrained but elegant collar and silver buttons. He carried a black cane on which he now rested both hands in front of him. Even in the clammy confines of the amphitheater, he had chosen to remain in his cape and top hat, the silk of which gleamed under the gaslight. Eliza knew at once that he was watching her. Not in the casual, time-passing way some of the others might but intently. Closely. With acute interest. She tried to shake off the sudden feeling of unease that had settled about her and was relieved to see the door of the theater open. Phileas Gimmel, FRCS, strode into the room followed by an orderly wheeling the hapless patient.

  Dr. Gimmel was a man who commanded respect without ever appearing to wish for it. He had about him the air of one who was driven, one with boundless enthusiasm for his profession and a genuine desire to impart his wisdom to others. He had also a roguish gleam in his eye and a ready smile that had quelled the nerves of many a student and patient alike. An awed hush descended as
the great man took center front, addressing the students as if they were his audience in a rather different sort of theater.

  ‘Gentlemen! How happy I am to see so many eager and attentive faces. It gladdens my heart to know that such fine young men have the vocation to come here and to learn all that medical science has to offer. One day, some of you will, God willing, be standing on this very spot, poised on the threshold between life and death that all surgeons must tread. It is upon the arrival of that moment that I ask for your most earnest concentration today, gentlemen. For when that moment comes, you will stand here alone. The responsibility for your patient will rest on your shoulders, no matter how ably you are assisted.’ He paused to glance at Eliza. ‘All that you will be furnished with is the knowledge and experience that you gain in this place of learning. I can teach only those who would learn, gentlemen. To learn, you must be humble. You must be prepared to admit your ignorance. You must allow yourselves to be filled with the vital information presented to you via the skills and dedication of those who have gone before you down the long path to enlightenment.’

  He turned and nodded to the nurse. She and the orderly raised the moaning patient out of his chair and onto the table. The man was gray with pain and clutched at his stomach with both hands. Dr. Gimmel continued. ‘We have a straightforward case before us this morning, Gentlemen. Our patient, as no doubt even the slowest among you will already have observed, is a young man of lean build, in good health except for the severe abdominal pain that has brought him to us. After a thorough examination, I have concluded that the appendix is inflamed, dangerously so, and to leave it in situ would be to pass a death sentence upon this poor fellow.’

  On cue, the patient let out a plaintive cry. Dr. Gimmel nodded.

  ‘It is a misfortune, without a doubt, for any man to find himself with such an ailment. It is, however, this patient’s great good fortune to find himself so afflicted within the reach of the ever-outstretched arms of the Fitzroy. Fear not, my good man.’ He laid a palm briefly on the patient’s brow. ‘Your troubles will soon be at an end.’

  Eliza stepped forward with a tray bearing a blue glass bottle and a piece of lint. She watched the doctor as he carefully placed the lint over the patient’s mouth and nose and applied measured drops of chloroform. An image flashed through her mind of another operation some fifty years or more earlier, before she had come to the Fitzroy. Before surgery had been blessed with effective anaesthesia. She remembered the haste with which the surgeon had been forced to proceed. She remembered the screams rising to shrieks as the bone saw had hacked its way through the patient’s thigh. She remembered the terror on the young man’s face and the way he strained and struggled against the ties that bound him until pain and exhaustion mercifully caused him to lose consciousness. Those had been dark days for surgical procedures. Eliza had quickly learned, however, that there were ways she could ease such terrible suffering. Mesmerism had been widely practiced for years, and though frowned upon, it was legal. She had been able to present herself as a mesmerist and so use the craft to benumb the patients and render them in all ways senseless. As mesmerism became outlawed, she had been forced to cease the practice for fear the true nature of her skills would be uncovered. It was only the use of first ether and then chloroform that had allowed her to resume her work.

  Now she watched as the young man on the operating table slipped peacefully into a deep sleep. It was later his true courage would be tested, during the dangerous days of recovery. If indeed he was to survive the surgery itself.

  Dr. Gimmel proceeded confidently, continuing to address his students as he worked. He took a scalpel from the tray and made a deft incision. The nurse leaned forward to clear blood from the wound. Eliza placed a set of retractors in the surgeon’s outstretched hand.

  ‘As you can see, gentlemen, however effective the applied anaesthesia, the surgeon still faces the ever-present hazard of blood loss. Indeed, uncontrolled bleeding remains the second most common cause of fatality in the operating theater. No doubt you will have read all this many times in your studies, but there can be no substitute for seeing it for yourselves.’

  As he spoke, blood ran in a syrupy stream off the table and onto the doctor’s shoes. Without pausing in his work, he used a foot to nudge the sawdust box into position. One of the paler students fainted.

  ‘Happily, the area in which our efforts are focused today does not involve any of the major arteries, and therefore we can continue secure in the knowledge that what we are seeing here, though dramatic, is in fact superficial in terms of blood loss. Ah, there is the offending item.’

  Eliza passed him a scalpel and a clamp. He grasped the gut above the swollen appendix and then attempted to make another incision to remove it. To Eliza’s horror, she saw him miss his target and nick a piece of healthy intestine. The doctor hesitated, then tried again, frowning, head low, peering into the abdominal cavity. More blood flowed. Seconds passed in unusual silence. A droplet of sweat followed the curve between Dr. Gimmel’s eye and nose and stopped, dangling, at the edge of his nostril. At last his scalpel found its mark. Eliza caught the removed body part in a dish while the surgeon stitched the severed gut. He straightened up. ‘My assistant will now close the wound for me. Observe and learn, gentlemen. Acknowledge that needlework is no longer the preserve of the female of the species. You yourselves will be required to produce such neat and effective sutures as Eliza is now so ably doing.’ He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, leaving a bloody smear across his brow.

  Later, in the doctor’s study, Eliza sat at the small desk by the open window and wrote up notes on the morning’s work. From the street came the clanging of the omnibus headed for Shoreditch and the rattle of the ever-busy wheels of the hansom carriages behind sleek horses. The weather was warm, and Eliza thought briefly of how pleasant it would be to walk through the leafy coolness of Regent’s Park. The rose garden was past its best by this time of year but was still scented and full of cheerful blooms. She promised herself a trip there on her next free day. Behind her, seated at his broad mahogany desk, Dr. Gimmel was atypically subdued. Eliza watched him as he sat, spectacles in hand, rubbing his closed eyes. She knew he was troubled by what had happened during the appendectomy, but it was not for her to broach the subject. Had his mistake been an isolated event, she might not have given it much thought, but this was not the first time she had witnessed him make an error at a sensitive moment in surgery. He was still the brilliant, visionary man who had inspired her nearly five years earlier. He still emitted the same verve and courage that pushed him to pioneer techniques and procedures other surgeons might shy away from. But something had changed. Something in his abilities had altered in recent months, and the results were alarming.

  He became aware of her watching him and hastened to recover his more usual humor.

  ‘So, Eliza, my dear, let us see what challenges await us tomorrow.’ He picked up the appointments book in front of him, squinting at his secretary’s writing. ‘A kidney removal in the morning—a private affair, not for our students, alas. And after luncheon, aha, a new patient. And an interesting one. Her own doctor has referred her to me. He writes, “Miss Astredge is a young woman of good family whose life has afforded her thus far every care and privilege, and yet she fails to thrive. Indeed, her general health seems to be failing with alarming rapidity. She does not complain of any pain or even discomfort, but she is clearly suffering, and if matters are not addressed, well, we can assume the outcome will be tragic.” He offers no suggestion as to what malady the poor woman suffers from. That we shall have to determine for ourselves.’

  ‘Do you suspect cancer?’ Eliza asked, crossing the room to stand before him.

  Dr. Gimmel smiled, the sage with his favorite pupil once more.

  ‘And if I do,’ he asked, ‘where might I look for it in this case?’

  ‘I would suggest the liver.’

  ‘Your hypothesis being?’

  ‘It is well
known that cancer of this organ may not present pain until late in the progression of the disease. The symptoms are also concurrent with the failure of the liver, allowing the patient to take no nourishment from food, despite a normal appetite.’

  ‘Excellent, Dr. Hawksmith. I fear you will have my place at this desk before very long if I do not keep my wits about me. You will assist me in my examination of this young woman on the morrow. For today, we have achieved sufficient, I believe. You may take the afternoon off.’

  ‘But your ward rounds … and I understood there was a further procedure scheduled for three o’clock.’

  Dr. Gimmel waved aside her protestations. ‘Nothing that will not wait. I fear I am not at my best today. Fatigued from our busy week, no doubt, nothing more.’ He stood up. ‘Nevertheless, I will surprise Mrs. Gimmel by arriving home early, and so allow her the pleasure of fussing over me, just this once.’

  Eliza picked up her large leather bag, dropping an anatomy book into it before snapping shut the clasp. For a fleeting instant, she considered taking that walk but quickly decided the park would wait. There were more useful ways she could employ this unexpectedly vacant afternoon.

  She stepped lightly out of the main door of the hospital and turned left along the noisy street. A bat-eared boy selling newspapers shouted from atop an upturned box. A gypsy woman attempted to press lavender into Eliza’s hand. Even in the wide avenues around Fitzroy Square, there was a rush of traffic. Carriages, hansom cabs, omnibuses, and wagons jostled for position, ignoring shouts from pedestrians who struggled to negotiate the mêlée. Eliza walked the two short streets to the Tottenham Court Road, where she caught the eastbound omnibus, paying sixpence for an inside seat. The vehicle clattered over cobbles and past lofty buildings, clearing a path through the constantly moving landscape of figures. It headed up the incline through High Holborn and made its halting progress through the city. Eliza was unaccustomed to traversing London at times other than rush hour and was pleasantly surprised by the relative lack of people. It was not until she alighted on Whitechapel Road that the swirling humanity around her became more familiarly dense and frenetic. Here were narrow alleys and crowded routes, not the broad avenues of Fitzrovia. Gone were the elegant tall houses with their raised ground floors and imposing front doors. Here the dwellings were built with consideration only for quantity and a degree of shelter. Rows of small cottages stood backs to one another as if braced against assault, feet in the street, two small rooms downstairs and two smaller and low-ceilinged up. Aside from these were the dour tenements and the workhouses, the breweries and the warehouses, and the almighty factories, those machines of commerce that drove the engine that carried the wealth from the aching muscles of the poor to the velvet-lined coffers of the rich. Eliza picked her way through the fast-moving current of people. She found a certain security in being among such a mass. Here, women, men, and children alike became part of a huge single body, no longer individuals, rather pieces of a colossus, the living, breathing, breeding giant that was the city’s poor. Here, she was hidden. Here, she could remain undetected. Undiscovered. Safe. What hope had any man of seeking out a solitary figure in such chaos? Even one possessed of such powers as Gideon Masters. Here at least, Eliza could let down her guard, if only fractionally.