The Heart Specialist

by Claire Holden Rothman

  Mrs. Froelich sat down at the table and proceeded to rub at the soot until her rag was black. Four words shone through: Honoré Bourret, Medical Surgeon. She handed me the door plaque. “He is still alive?”

  I nodded, although I had no way of being sure. The old woman was about to ask me more, but now it was my turn to be tight-lipped. Perhaps they knew nothing about my family and I did not particularly wish them to find out.

  “Thank you,” I told her quite genuinely, taking the plaque and standing up. “You have been most kind.”

  The tailor asked one last time if he could fit me for a dress, but I shook my head. I could probably have used one that day, but this was beside the point. Mr. Froelich and his wife had given me something far more valuable, which perhaps they suspected as they showed me to the door.

  BY THE TIME I made it back to school it was past ten. What a strange morning it had been. I had hoped to lay something to rest but instead it felt more alive than ever. The Froelichs’ shop had stirred memories I had not even known I had and a longing so sharp it made me feel weak.

  I entered the school from the back. In the yard girls were arranging tables and cutting lilacs to place in pots on the auditorium stage. The girls in my class had all fixed their hair and dressed, and for the first time in my life I noticed what they were wearing. I wondered if any of these dresses were the work of the bent old tailor. When I entered the auditorium a girl by the door stopped me and said I was wanted at the main office.

  Grandmother, Laure and Miss Skerry were standing in a group, looking starched in church clothes. Running was out of the question so I walked fast, eyes latching onto the figure whose letters had bolstered me for the past eight months. It was strange to see Miss Skerry outside of the Priory. She was smiling warmly, but on her head was a derby hat with an elastic under the chin that made her look ridiculous.

  “Good heavens,” said Grandmother as I approached. Laure stood beside her, her mouth frozen in an awful, forced smile.

  “I cannot say that they are flattering.” Grandmother’s eyes were the colour of forget-me-nots, with pinprick holes at the centre. “Do you wear them all the time?”

  She had not even said hello. “I take them off when I sleep,” I said. My glasses had been a point of contention from the start. Grandmother had a country woman’s preconceptions on the subject of eyes.

  “Surely it is unhealthy to keep them on so long,” Grandmother said. “I have heard it warps the eyeballs.” The headmistress, who was standing with us, tried to explain that this was not the case and that no damage would come of it, but Grandmother would not be swayed. “She will not wear them on the stage today. She must look her best, Miss Smith. People will be watching.”

  Miss Smith said she thought the glasses were flattering, but that it was entirely up to me and my family what I should wear. “She is our top girl, after all,” Miss Smith said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “She has a duty to look her best.”

  The discussion over the glasses and my appearance did not end there. Grandmother, Laure and Miss Skerry followed me to my room, which was empty, I discovered with relief. The thought of Janie Banks Geoffreys watching me while I dressed was more than I could bear.

  Laure immediately started rummaging in the closet, cooing over my roommate’s dresses. She found the white Sunday frock Grandmother had made for me and laid it on my bed. “How do you want your hair, Agnes?” she asked, turning me around and eyeing me thoughtfully.

  I hated every second of it. I had many positive attributes but my looks were not among them. No new dress or hairstyle was going to hide this fact.

  Despite my protests Grandmother confiscated my glasses and manoeuvred me into the white frock. Laure, meanwhile, began twisting and braiding my hair. Miss Skerry took no part in these operations, but occupied herself by flipping through my year’s worth of exercise books and scholarly manuals. I interpreted this as a subtle form of solidarity, although it was hard to say for sure. Miss Skerry’s face was now as blurry as everything else in the room.

  “My brain has won the prizes,” I observed.

  Grandmother shot a meaningful glance at Miss Skerry. “This school,” she said, “has not been an unmitigated success, Georgina. Agnes’s time here has done little to smooth her edges.”

  “That’s unfair,” I shot back. “What I need is a real place of learning, where substance is valued, not appearance.”

  “Form is as necessary as substance,” said Miss Skerry, who in the four years that I had known her had never shown more than a rudimentary concern for her clothes. “The two are halves of a whole.”

  “A school tunic is fine apparel for an educated mind,” I shot back. “Just as glasses are fine for eyes that like to read.”

  Miss Skerry shook her head. “As the French say, Agnes, there is no need to crash through open doors. You are at the centre of the honours today. I am afraid I have to agree with your grandmother. You must look the part.”

  Just before eleven they led me down the stairs to the main floor, where a crowd milled outside the auditorium. A couple of girls waved, but they were so blurred that I could identify only one of them — Felicity Hingston, the sole student at the academy who came close to being a friend. Over six-feet tall with skinny, hairy arms and legs, she was difficult to miss. She had been top-ranked in academics prior to my arrival.

  The blur was a comfort in its way. It reminded me of childhood, when all I could make out were basic shapes and I had not suspected there could be more. My dress was now transparent in spots with sweat. We all trotted up to the front to get our diplomas, but then I was forced to rise a second time — and a third, and a fourth — until the sweat was running freely down my sides. I won all the academic prizes that year.

  Each time my name was called I had to rise from my seat and walk up the centre aisle through throngs of girls. I was aware I looked ridiculous. My dress was too tight, exposing a body I usually hid in my loose-fitting tunic. The auditorium was as hot as my grandmother’s kitchen on pie day, and people were getting audibly restless. By the time I was summoned up for my final prize and valedictory speech, a few of the girls actually groaned.

  The audience began to applaud as they had for the other prizes, but mechanically this time, just going through the motions. I could hear rustlings and muffled laughter. I could not see, of course, which may have been a blessing, but by the time I made it to the front of the room it was obvious that most of my classmates were not feeling friendly. After all, I was responsible for holding them there in the sweltering heat, and most of them were not bookish or concerned with school grades. Miss Symmers registered none of this. She stood above me smiling. I was supposed to collect the purse, the one that would pay my way to McGill, and then give my speech. I had rehearsed it many times, but all of a sudden it did not seem so straightforward. I stood at the podium, gazing out at the sea of glistening, blurry faces and realized I could not remember a word of it. I had scribbled the main points on cards, and I read from these now in a pinched and little voice. Not the speech I had painstakingly planned, but a choppy, truncated thing that could not have made much sense to anybody bothering to listen. Miss Symmers smiled bravely through it all and then came forward to embrace me, but I was already lurching away, heading for the exit. I fled blindly, without a plan, my heart pounding so hard it drowned out all other sounds.

  The first thing I saw with any clarity after the fiasco was Miss Skerry’s face. She had raced after me, following me outside with my glasses. Laure came out next and gave me an unexpected hug. I had taken refuge under a willow at the far end of the school’s playing field. During the school year I had come here to read. It was at the edge of the school grounds where few girls ventured. Its branches dipped all the way to the grass, providing a natural cover.

  “Your headmistresses will worry,” said Miss Skerry. “We ought to go and tell them you’re all right.”

  I shook my head. My pride was still stinging so we stood together under the will
ow as the others began to file outside. Miss Skerry spoke softy to me, telling me it was all right, commending the speech, even though I felt I would die of shame for making such a hash of it. Eventually Miss Skerry sent Laure to tell Miss Symmers and Miss Smith where we were and to collect my purse.

  “How will I face them?” I asked when we were alone.

  Miss Skerry shrugged. “You’ve done nothing wrong, Agnes. I think you should go out there. Enjoy the graduation. Rejoice in the fact that you will be moving on to bigger and better things.”

  I shook my head, having none of the faith of my former governess. Grandmother was quite adamant that my future held a move back to the small and dismal St. Andrews East.

  We stood for a while longer behind the branches. A canvas awning had been set up in the middle of the field, under which tea and sweets had been laid out on a table. Several girls from the next grade down were serving food.

  I spotted Grandmother walking across the lawn with the two headmistresses. Laure ran up to them and gave them the news of where I was and they turned and peered in my direction. They crossed the field with Laure to seek me out. Grandmother was not quite as willing as my teachers to forgive my gauche departure. She walked over to the table and started a conversation with Mrs. Banks Geoffreys. I raked my fingers through my hair, pulling loose a braid.

  “Your hair!” said Laure, who had just made it back to the tree with Miss Symmers and Miss Smith. She retrieved a fallen ribbon and approached to reattach it, but I shook my head. “Oh Agnes,” she sighed. “I was just trying to help.”

  I pulled out the other ribbon and pins, letting my hair down just as my headmistresses ducked under the branches into our hiding spot.

  “I can fix it,” said Laure, more to the headmistresses than to me.

  “I’m very good with hair.” And right there in front of them she began to braid it again, smiling sweetly as if she really had it in her power to set every awkwardness aright.

  “She’s always been like this,” my sister explained, tugging at me fiercely. “She’s never cared about ordinary things.”

  Miss Skerry intervened. “Agnes is not an ordinary girl, Laure. That has been clear for years now, and frankly it is what I appreciate most about her.”

  Miss Smith laughed. And Miss Symmers, bless her, reached into her pocket and took out the purse for McGill. “It is true you are not ordinary, Agnes. Extraordinary is the word that best fits.”

  As soon as Laure finished we walked out into the sunshine. The playing field had been recently mowed and mounds of cut grass were giving off a fresh, hopeful smell. In front of us groups of girls were laughing and talking. Some of them looked my way and waved. I waved back, then lifted my hair so the breeze could reach my neck. Suddenly I felt much better.

  Janie Banks Geoffreys and two other girls approached us. They had seen Laure with her golden hair and fine looks and wanted to meet her. “It’s a pleasure, I’m sure,” Janie said, nodding her head once as if not wanting to show more enthusiasm until Laure had been assessed. “Are you a genius too, like your sister?”

  Laure blushed. “Heavens no,” she said innocently. “Agnes is the clever one.”

  Janie Banks Geoffreys smiled, but Miss Skerry’s expression turned fierce. Laure was just doing what girls did — downplaying her abilities — but Miss Skerry did not approve. Intelligence, she had told us repeatedly, was nothing to be ashamed of.

  “Your sister is certainly special,” said Janie.

  “Oh yes,” said Laure, not catching the underlying insult.

  Janie was paying me back for forcing her to endure me as a roommate all year. She was not smart enough to think up a decent jibe. All she could manage was this sarcasm, a word whose Greek root, I had recently learned, meant to tear flesh like a dog. I longed for McGill, where a mind like Janie Banks Geoffreys’s would be barred from entry.

  Miss Skerry’s hands twitched at her sides. She saw exactly what Janie was up to. She seemed about to intervene, perhaps to put Janie in her place, when Grandmother walked over. “Your mother pointed you out to me when I was at the tea table,” she said to Janie. “I am so pleased to meet you.”

  Janie stepped back, eyeing her. Her friends exchanged glances.

  “Your mother and I had a lovely chat.”

  Janie’s eyes narrowed. The sensual mouth stretched into a practised smile as she waited to see where the conversation would go. She had not made up her mind whether she should be polite to Grandmother or dismissive.

  “It is my understanding that you are to attend McGill this fall,” said Grandmother.

  “She is?” I said before I could stop myself. Janie Banks Geoffreys could barely spell. If she had not cribbed my notes, she would never have passed the year.

  “I’ll be an occasional,” Janie said, shrugging, as if anyone or his pet dog could gain admission.

  “So your mother said. Well I think it is marvellous. I had no idea so many girls from your class had applied. I thought Agnes was the only one.”

  “Oh no,” said Janie. She nodded at the girl to her left. “Marianna’s going too. There will be four of us including Agnes.”

  “Do not include me,” I said, unable to lift my gaze from the lawn.

  “As a matter of fact, Agnes,” said Grandmother brightly, “you will be joining them. My mind was quite changed by my chat with Janie’s mother.” McGill, Mrs. Banks Geoffreys had explained, was safe for girls. They were sheltered in separate classes, and unlike the men there was no pressure to take a degree. Most girls took only a course or two. Of those who had applied the previous year more than half were now engaged.

  Miss Skerry was standing behind Janie and her friends, leaning against a tree. When I looked over at her she grinned.

  I grinned back. Life was full of irony, another word that happened to come from Greek. Janie Banks Geoffreys would attend university, and — irony of ironies — I would be indebted to her for life. I squinted into the sunlight, blurring the governess’s small, oval face against the backdrop of leaves until her grin, like that of Lewis Carroll’s cat, was the only thing I could see.

  5

  FEBRUARY 1890

  Puddles had sprung up all over campus, making the ground glitter. I was walking with Felicity Hingston, trying to listen to what she was saying, but I had to concentrate on keeping my feet dry, and Felicity’s voice kept merging with the water rushing off the mountains.

  “You have got to read them, Agnes,” Felicity said, waving several newspapers that billowed madly in the wind. “The Gazette and The Herald have full-page stories. They even published your picture.”

  Felicity stopped to show me. My graduation photograph from Misses Symmers and Smith’s stared at me with squinty eyes. I had been chubbier when it was taken and incapable of smiling. I immediately pushed it away. “I am so ugly!”

  Felicity laughed. “It is quite the mug shot, isn’t it? You look all of twelve years old!”

  “There ought to be a law against school-graduation photographs. They are painful.”

  “Well,’’ said Felicity. “Forget your mug. The articles are far more flattering. You have stirred up quite a controversy.”

  I groaned. Controversy was the last thing I needed right then. We fell silent as two young men came into sight, walking downhill in our direction. They gave us a wide berth, stepping to the very edge of the path. Instead of addressing us directly they started humming.

  Felicity Hingston hunched her shoulders, looking up only after they had passed. Her cheeks were an angry red. “I cannot stand that.”

  I nodded. In and of itself the tune was innocuous, but the way McGill boys flung it at us was far from anodyne. “She walks abroad a dandy with no buttons on her boots.” It was so catchy that sometimes I caught myself humming it.

  It was sung when a girl was inappropriately dressed. I buttoned up my coat. I had attended McGill for four years now, with a year’s delay at the start of my studies due to a smallpox epidemic that had swept through Mo
ntreal in the autumn of 1885. They were four of the most splendid years I could have imagined, but almost every week that song had been flung at me. Perhaps my stockings were snagged, or my boots showed flecks of mud, or my sleeve inadvertently revealed an elbow in the library. I had never attended much to these matters, but the McGill boys were like watchdogs, reminding me and the other women enrolled in the Donalda degree program that our presence was a privilege we must earn at every step. The “controversy,” as Felicity called it, would not help matters.

  I had excelled academically, which had not come as a surprise, but socially I had also blossomed. There were nine girls in my class. We were different from the occasionals, girls like my former roommate, Janie, who flitted around campus like butterflies for a session or two and then disappeared. The Donaldas, of which my year was the third in McGill history, were all as serious about learning as I was. And they liked me. Twice I had been voted class president. For the first time in my life I had friends, peers who understood me. I was active on campus and in the fall had become the first female editor of McGill’s paper, The Fortnightly.

  This spring I would graduate. I had packed my final term with science courses, supplementing Latin (Horace’s Epistles) and philosophy (the presocratics all the way to nineteenth-century positivism) with zoology (a course taught by McGill’s principal, Sir William Dawson), physics and math. These choices were not whimsical. I had a plan.

  In February I had screwed up my courage and written the university registrar requesting admission to McGill’s faculty of medicine. Three days later a written answer came back: a curt, unequivocal “No.”