“Then it is as well I am going out for the day.”
Lisa looked from Mrs. Warner, who had dropped her gaze to her teacup, to Dr. Warner, who had returned his attention to the letter, and asked in the silence, “Would you care to share your news, as disappointing as it is, sir?”
Mrs. Warner could have kicked her cousin’s shin for asking, but she forced a smile, said nothing, and picked up a slice of bread smothered in jam. And as Lisa had leaned in and continued to look at him expectantly, it was all the encouragement the physician needed to vocalize his frustration. So he told them.
The letter he waved about and then dropped on top of the pile of newssheets was from the Fournier Foundation. At this, both Lisa’s and Mrs. Warner’s ears pricked, because Fournier Street was where the de Crespigny family home was located, and where Mrs. Warner was bound after breakfast. The very same, said her husband. The foundation’s head of trustees lived in Fournier Street, an elderly physician by the name of Bailey. And it was at this Fournier Street address where the trustees met to discuss and decide on the allocation of funds, of which there was a finite amount each year.
The Foundation provided grants to those of the medical profession attending on the sick poor, and more importantly, to physicians engaged in anatomical research. There were strict criteria to meet, and if a candidate’s application made it beyond the first round, the foundation’s trustees visited the applicant’s premises, conducted interviews with the principals, and assessed the merit of the establishment and the research being carried out. And because the money was ongoing for three years, with yearly reviews and goals to be met, every physician in London and beyond submitted a funding application. Only three dispensaries and anatomy schools were funded in any one year, and there was also the awarding of scholarships to the five most promising students of medicine in that year, who were given a stipend to assist them in completing their medical education and training without the hardship usually attendant on students. And once they passed their examinations before the Company of Surgeons, these scholarship holders agreed to be indentured for the first three years of their working life by attending on the sick poor.
“The work of this foundation is—” Lisa began and had her sentence completed by her cousin, and it was not what she was thinking at all.
“—costly.”
“—is enormously worthwhile,” Lisa finished, her enthusiasm causing her to interrupt her cousin. “Surely providing bright young men with the funds they need to focus on their anatomical investigations without their mind being clouded with the mundane worries of debt—whether to spend their meager allowance on books or bread—must give better focus to their studies?”
“That is very true,” Dr. Warner agreed with a smile, Lisa’s keen interest lifting some of the gloom from his shoulders about the letter’s depressing outcome.
“This Dr. Bailey must be a very wealthy gentleman indeed,” Mrs. Warner added, focused on monetary considerations. “Such scholarships and funding as required by the dispensaries must run into the hundreds of pounds, if not more than a thousand in any given year.”
“Dr. Bailey is the foundation’s figurehead, my dear,” Dr. Warner explained. “And while it is the board of trustees which approves and allocates the funds, where those initial funds originated, and who created the Fournier Foundation, remains a mystery, to me and to my colleagues. And we are unlikely to be provided with an answer because the gentleman in question who has generously donated his largesse to this beneficial enterprise wishes to remain in the shadows. It is not even certain if Dr. Bailey knows the man’s identity. But you are quite right, my dear, the foundation’s charitable assistance must run into the hundreds of pounds, if not a thousand per annum.”
“And you wrote to this foundation and requested funding for your endeavors,” Mrs. Warner said with a bright smile.
“I did,” he replied but with less enthusiasm than she was exhibiting on the expectation of a favorable outcome. “I requested monies to provide for an anatomical instructor and a morbid anatomist. The former would ease my teaching load, and the latter I could set to work making the wax models of specimens necessary for instruction. There is a new technique using various colored waxes of differing injection sizes. But it is necessary for the injection to be heated to a liquid, but not boiled, or that is likely to destroy the texture of the vessels to be filled…”
This was when the dear doctor lost the full attention of his wife, who now had only one ear to the conversation, daydreaming about the mysterious benefactor of the Fournier Foundation, wondering if he was a bachelor, married, a merchant who had made his money in any number of trade ventures, or perhaps he was a benevolent ancient nobleman with no children whose inheritance was not entailed and could be used to good purpose elsewhere other than his estate…
And because she was daydreaming, Mrs. Warner did not make immediate comment when her dear doctor revealed with a downturn to his mouth that his application had been rejected on the grounds that the foundation had met its quota for the year. It was politely suggested that Dr. Warner apply again next funding cycle, which was an entire year from now. Valuable time and opportunity to acquire unique anatomical resources—by which Lisa knew the physician was referring to human specimens—would be lost between now and then. And as this was the second application he had submitted and which had been rejected, and for the very same reason, Dr. Warner had his suspicions that his applications were not being put under the right noses.
“Do you mean Dr. Bailey’s nose, sir?” Lisa asked, who had been all rapt attention while the physician described in superfluous detail the method of mixing the dyes for the purpose of injecting the different anatomical specimens.
Dr. Warner hit the side of the table with his palm, which jolted his inattentive wife from her private reveries. He smiled across at Lisa. “Precisely! That is indeed the nose I am talking about.”
“Dear me, Dr. Warner! You gave me such a fright just now,” Mrs. Warner complained, and to mask her inattentiveness added with a girlish pout, “I do believe it has upset my digestion.”
“I do beg your pardon, my dear,” the physician replied sheepishly, and pushed aside his plate of unfinished egg and toast.
“Perhaps if you were to invite Dr. Bailey to dinner, sir, you could find the opportunity to show him the dissecting room and your anatomical work?” Lisa suggested in the protracted silence between husband and wife, looking from the physician to her cousin and back again. “As a fellow medical man, he could not but be impressed by your great work, surely?”
“An excellent notion, and one I had—”
“Why indeed have we not had Dr. Bailey to dinner, Robert?” Mrs. Warner interrupted, perturbed it was left to Lisa to make such a suggestion. “I have never heard of this Fournier Foundation before today, and perhaps if we had invited the trustees earlier, you may have expected a different outcome to your application?”
“An invitation was extended to Dr. Bailey, and regretfully he declined,” Dr. Warner explained patiently. “I did not wish to bother you with the disappointment, my dear—”
“You are as ever attentive to my feelings, my dear Dr. Warner,” his wife said sweetly. “Surely he would not refuse a second time, not if we were to invite a few of your colleagues who might be known to Dr. Bailey and his trustees. I have always found that men are much more persuadable and malleable after a good dinner, though persuasion does not always lend itself to action—”
“Yes. Yes. Well. Well. We won’t have that opportunity now,” Dr. Warner blustered and coughed into his fist, cheeks bright, because Lisa was listening intently to a conversation he now considered had crossed the divide of what was polite at the breakfast table before a nineteen-year-old girl, though he had never deemed detailed discussion of medical matters in the same light. “I will do as you suggest, my dear, and issue a second invitation, and hopefully, regardless of the failure of my application, he will accept.”
“He may see the dinner invita
tion as a gesture of goodwill? That you bear him no ill will despite the rejection of your application,” Lisa suggested, quickly putting aside her mug of hot chocolate and her napkin and scraping back her chair when her cousin rose from the table. “He could not then, in good conscience, refuse the invitation.”
Dr. Warner, also up on his feet, beamed at Lisa. “By Jove, that is exactly what he will see it as! That has decided me. I shall write to Dr. Bailey tonight.”
Minette Warner looked at Lisa and smiled thinly. “And here was I thinking breakfast was a dull affair for you… Not so, it seems. Something to be reconsidered when you return from Hampshire. Now off you go; I wish to have a private word with Dr. Warner. And you must have a hundred and one tasks to do for the good doctor before he sees his first patient of the morning.”
Lisa obediently bobbed a curtsy and departed, leaving behind a mug of hot chocolate she had been enjoying. She collected up her writing box with its quills, ink, and paper and made her way across the passageway and through to the dispensary, which occupied the front rooms of the lower level of the double-fronted townhouse. Here she deposited her writing box in her usual corner, where she offered her services as amanuensis to any who required it, took her apron off its peg, and quickly put it on over her gown. A check of the pins holding the lace cap to the crown of her head, and she bustled about performing her duties—seeing to the scent bottles and tussie mussies, that water jugs were filled, and soap, pumice, and towels provided in each of the curtained treatment cubicles—and all this accomplished without getting in the way of the medical assistants who were preparing for the first influx of patients.
And as the door to the dispensary was unlocked to admit the first patients of the day, Lisa’s thoughts were all about the week after next. In a week’s time she would be on her way to see Teddy, and to a place so vastly different from this that she found it difficult to imagine it at all. Just as a mere five days ago when she and Becky had set off for Leicester Square, she could hardly have imagined what would occur within the walls of Lord Westby’s townhouse. That incident had slipped her mind since receiving Teddy’s letters. Yet it came hurtling back to the forefront of her thoughts, when not five minutes after the dispensary opened, the crowd was made to part to allow two oversized men to enter the waiting room ahead of everyone else.
They were so out of place that Lisa blinked, and then she gave a start of recognition. They were the lads, the two servants sent for to assist the gentleman she had helped at Lord Westby’s residence. Surely they were not flesh and blood but conjured up, for how did they know where to find her? After a quick look about the already crowded room, their gaze locked on hers, and that same spark of recognition was reflected in their eyes. There was nothing for Lisa to do but stand her ground and let them come to her.
Wide-shouldered and a good head taller than those around them, they were also healthy, upright, and mobile, which was in marked contrast to the persons shuffling in behind them. Their size and vigor might ensure everyone got out of their way, but it was their clothing that made people stare. They were dressed in suits of livery of black cloth with elaborate silver lacings and silver buttons, which was a proclamation of the wealth and importance of their master, and it gave them right-of-way to do and say as they pleased, their height and the size of their fists merely reinforcing this.
The two lads came straight up to Lisa. And when they were in front of her they did not speak, but stood aside to allow a gentleman she had failed to see because he was obscured by these tall wide blocks, to step up to her, and make her a bow. She held her breath and her heart gave the oddest little leap, hoping for a moment it might be the handsome gentleman she had assisted at Lord Westby’s. And then her pulse quickened, and not in a good way, wondering if he had come in search of her and Becky over his misplaced catalog to the Portland auction. And then the gentleman removed the perfumed handkerchief he was holding up to his nose, and she breathed a sigh of relief mixed with disappointment. She did not know this man at all.
The stranger gave an imperious lift of his brows, and asked, “Are you Lisa?”
She nodded and bobbed a polite curtsy. Then added, because he continued to regard her as if he required more from her, “Lisa Crisp.”
He inclined his head in thanks for this information, then said before turning on a heel and expecting her to obey,
“Follow me, Miss Crisp. My master is desirous of a word, in private, in his carriage.”
SEVEN
‘SHE—REFUSES?”
“Yes, my lord.”
Lord Henri-Antoine stared at his major domo framed in the carriage window as if the man were speaking any language but one he understood, and he understood at least five. He waited for further explanation.
“Miss Crisp is unable to leave the premises.”
“Unable?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Is she recently crippled?”
“Not crippled.”
“Then she is not unable, she is unwilling.”
Michel Gallet dared to smile. “I did point out that difference to her. However, she will not budge.”
“Then have her carried out here.”
“Kicking and screaming—”
“She’s not the screaming sort.”
“Is she not, my lord…?”
Henri-Antoine was not fooled by his major domo’s light tone of inquiry. He set his teeth and waited for the man’s smile, and his gaze, to drop.
“Apologies, my lord… What would you have me do?”
Henri-Antoine glanced over his major domo’s left shoulder to the small crowd gathered on the pavement by the steps up to the entrance of Warner’s Dispensary. They were a ragged lot, with dirty faces and tired expressions, their interest in the shiny black lacquered Berlin with its matching four grays mingled with a wariness, no doubt as to the reason why such an impressive vehicle was in this part of the city, and at this early hour, too.
He rarely ventured into this part of London—he had no need to, and when he did, it was only to visit Westby’s lodgings. And he never came by carriage, but had burly chairmen in his employ take him up in his private sedan chair. His townhouse in Park Street was a mere thirty minutes west by such a conveyance, yet Warner’s Dispensary here in Gerrard Street was a world away from the elegant houses, wide streets, and orderly, well-dressed pedestrians who inhabited the rarefied Westminster address where he lived. But such transportation would not do for a private word with Miss Lisa Crisp. It never entered his head that it was the four liveried postillions, the wide-shouldered lads, and most importantly his esteemed self, that were attracting more attention than his elegant town carriage.
He set his shoulders against the velvet upholstery with an annoyed sigh and had half a mind to tap the headboard with his gloved knuckle and be off. What was he doing here anyway? He was under no obligation to Miss Lisa Crisp. And if she didn’t possess the good manners to come outside so he could have a civil word with her—after all he was the one who had called upon her—he need not exert himself further. He wouldn’t. The act of coming here was more than enough of an acknowledgement of her good deed on his behalf.
And yet there was something—he could not put his finger on precisely what, but it greatly unsettled him—that made him resist giving the signal to his driver. Part of it was chivalry, instilled in him from the cradle, to do the right thing, to behave as a gentleman ought, and thank her in person. Part of it was curiosity, to want to put a face to the name Jack had given him of the girl who had come to his assistance when he had been at his most deplorable. And, if Jack were to be believed, Miss Lisa Crisp was a rare female indeed—calm, capable, cheerful, and not at all repulsed by his condition. That she worked amongst the sick poor no doubt accounted for that. Still. He wanted to see her for himself. He wanted to know if she equated to the Botticelli angel who had appeared out of his epileptic delirium as he staggered from Westby’s drawing room. But most of all he wanted this feeling of disquiet and restle
ssness, a feeling that left him anxious for no apparent reason, to go away forthwith. And for some unfathomable reason this feeling had everything to do with the unflappable Miss Crisp.
He sat forward, his major domo still up on the carriage step at the window patiently waiting further instructions.
“I’m not going in there!” he blurted out, which said more about his troubled thoughts than his present predicament.
“A sensible decision, my lord. The place is jammed with all manner of diseased riff-raff, and the air is fetid.”
“And yet Miss Crisp is in there amongst this riff-raff? Is she fetid, Michel?” he asked, hopeful of an affirmative response; it would give him the excuse he needed to leave at once.
“No, my lord. Quite the opposite. She is the spring flower blooming amongst the rotting refuse.”
“Of course she is,” Henri-Antoine muttered.
“Shall I try again to make her see reason…?”
Henri-Antoine nodded, a frown between his dark brows, gaze on the dispensary’s front door which was being opened and closed with alarming regularity. “Do that.” Adding in a complete reversal, “And you had best try your damndest, because if you can’t persuade her, and she still refuses to come out, I will have to go to her.”
“Is that wise, my lord? The level of miasma in such a place as a dispensary must be beyond what any healthy man can tolerate who is not used to being surrounded by illness. And for you to breathe such air would surely severely compromise your health, and thus I must counsel against putting yourself in a most dangerous situation.”
There was that damned word again—wise—Jack, his servants, everyone around him, used it too often. If he were wise he’d not have got himself drunk, and smoked enough cheroots to burn his throat. If he were wise he’d have left Westby’s drawing room well before the onset of an attack. If he were wise he wouldn’t be here now, outside a London hôtel-Dieu.
Satyr’s Son: A Georgian Historical Romance (Roxton Family Saga Book 5) Page 9