by Kaite Welsh
“Why is that? I mean, I’ve noticed, of course I have, that there’s some coolness between the two of you. But why?”
I didn’t want to dwell on that, not in this lovely warm room with this sweet, pretty woman who was so innocent of the seedier side of life. I selfishly wanted to keep Elisabeth just as she was and not tarnish her with my sordid history.
“Julia and I knew each other in London, a little. She heard some gossip, and has decided to make up her mind about me.” An awkward silence fell between us. This was not the first time I had been in her company, but it was the first time we had been alone. The company I had kept in London—friends who had not so much as met my eyes before I was bundled out of the city like an embarrassment—would have laughed to see me so diffident and tongue-tied, but enforced solitude had left me stiff and reticent.
“I do hope I’m not imposing,” I said in attempt to change the subject, hating the reliance on my uncle’s goodwill for forcing Elisabeth to entertain me.
She shook her head. “You’re not. Truthfully, it’s nice to have the company. Randall’s at his club,” she added. “He won’t be back till quite late.” Something in the way her smile stretched tautly across her face suggested this wasn’t an infrequent occurrence. Could Chalmers really have bored of his pretty young wife so soon? He had not, if his impeccable frockcoat was anything to go by, tired of her money.
By the time my uncle’s carriage drew up, Elisabeth and I were gossiping like old friends. I hadn’t felt so welcome somewhere in months, and I left with a warm feeling in my stomach that felt a little like friendship.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
If I had hoped that I could spend my evening studying in relative peace, those hopes were dashed before I was ten paces into the hall. Aunt Emily met me with more animation than I had seen her show in my life, and the letter she held bore my name on the front in unfamiliar handwriting. It had also been opened, but I made no comment on the fact. If the author was who I suspected it to be, I was going to have to choose my battles. True to form, the badly spelled and rather uninspired note was signed by Miles Greene, and I pasted a smile onto my face before meeting Aunt Emily’s excited gaze.
“What good manners!” she said. “And he has such a . . . distinctive hand.” That was one way of putting it. Either his social awkwardness extended to letter writing, or the trembling in his hands was symptomatic of something. No wonder his parents were so desperate to marry the poor boy off. I would have to pay closer attention to him at our next encounter, which seemed inevitable now—I had no intention of giving up my putative medical career in order to play nursemaid to an ailing husband.
“How delightful.” I smiled weakly.
“You must compose a reply at once,” she ordered. “Fetch your writing desk and I shall dictate something suitable. Mona!” She wandered off, calling for the parlormaid to bring us tea and cake. With a heavy heart I obeyed, and ten minutes later we were ensconced in the parlor with too-sweet weak tea and the beginnings of the blandest letter I had ever written.
“You mustn’t sound too keen,” Aunt Emily cautioned, as if she wasn’t writing the whole thing herself anyway. “Discretion is the order of the day in matters of the heart. Better he think you cold and uninterested than forward.” Had I formed any sort of attachment to Miles bar some grudging sympathy, I might have disagreed with her advice. As things stood, I felt that the colder, the better.
After an hour of agonizing over the perfect phrasing, and consulting everything from etiquette guides to the Bible, the doorbell rang.
I had forgotten that today was the day that Dr. Radcliffe was due to call.
“If you’ll excuse us, Mrs. Fitzherbert.”
He followed me upstairs as I made my way to my bedroom, my legs like lead.
He closed the door behind him, and I felt the knot of panic tighten. The room, with its lit fire, felt hot and oppressive. I moved to the window and fumbled with the catch, opening it in the hopes of gasping in some fresh air.
I felt myself yanked back by muscled arms, well used to manhandling unruly patients.
“Might I ask what you were about to do, Miss Gilchrist?”
I could smell coffee on his breath, mixed with the sweat from his skin, and the lingering odor of snuff on yellowed fingertips.
“The room is a little warm, Dr. Radcliffe. I simply wanted some air.”
“You’ll catch a chill,” he said, as though I were a child or simple-minded. He pushed past me and pulled the window shut. “We’ll have no more of that.”
I realized that he had thought I was going to jump. I tried not to shudder as he moved me to the bed, remembering another cold night and another open window.
And then the medicine and the restraints, the ghastly sanatorium in the countryside where I floated in a haze of laudanum and despair for months. I realized, as I let him maneuver me onto the bed, that such thoughts plagued me less and less as I adjusted to my new reality. True, life in the Fitzherbert household was repressive, and the prospect of trading it for life as Mrs. Miles Greene was worse, but I felt alive and glad to be so for the first time since I could recall.
“Remember,” he said, as I struggled to remove my undergarments, “you’re the patient here. I suggest you abandon any fanciful notions of doctoring and let me do my job. Now please, lie still.”
At least his hands were warm, I told myself as he began his examination. He hummed a jaunty tune under his breath as he peeled away my dignity like so many onionskins, and I closed my eyes, trying to imagine myself elsewhere, anywhere. If I resisted, would he call me hysterical? If I did not, would he take it as further proof of my immorality?
The sense of being restrained, if not physically then with fear, was so familiar to me I could taste it. Dr. Waters, the staff in the sanatorium, Paul. How could Lucy and girls like her bear it, day after day? The profaning touch of strangers’ hands against her skin, clutching and tugging and pushing and pulling?
A sharp pain stabbed me between my thighs, and I fought not to cry out. I refused to let myself associate it with the movements of Radcliffe’s hands beneath my skirts. I couldn’t think about what he was doing or I would go mad.
Finally, satisfied with my current chastity, he asked questions as I dressed behind a screen, a laughable attempt at modesty. How was I sleeping, what were my bowel movements like, did I have a good appetite? I answered in as much detail as required, waiting for the moment when he would leave to report back to Aunt Emily and I could call for Agnes to run my bath so I could scrub away the memory of his touch.
I wondered if his visits would increase now that my relatives had found me an adequate husband. Agnes came with the hot water and told me that Aunt Emily wanted to see me in the parlor.
To my relief, the good doctor had gone to torment some other poor creature.
“Dr. Radcliffe was most pleased by your improvement.” Aunt Emily smiled, as though it had been nothing more than a piano lesson. Dr. Radcliffe would say whatever kept him in his rich patron’s good graces, but I knew better than to say that. I loathed his touch, but I needed his approval. “He says that he can’t think of a reason why any future husband would need to be . . . ah . . . informed of your condition prior to the wedding night.” In other words he was satisfied that I was neither pregnant nor riddled with venereal disease, as he doubtless believed I deserved to be. “Still, he is most concerned that your studying is delaying any full recovery.”
I bit back a sigh. “Aunt Emily, I feel perfectly well.”
“You work far too hard,” I was told for the second time that day. “And Dr. Radcliffe agrees that your health is still fragile. You must take care not to overexert yourself, especially now that . . . well, now that you’re out in society again.” Whose society, I could easily guess.
I smiled weakly. “I’ll do my best.”
I followed Aunt Emily in to dinner, my thoughts tangled and thorny.
Miles was rich, well connected; my guardians approved. He was almo
st everything I had given up hoping for. And if he wasn’t particularly handsome or a witty conversationalist—well, plenty of women married dull men and had a happy life, why should I be any different? This was a chance to escape my disgrace, to be accepted back into my family, to pretend that the past year had never happened.
But it had. And out of all the shame and hurt I had created a new sort of life, one I was not willing to give up so easily.
It was just a letter, I told myself. A polite note that his mother had probably dictated, just as Aunt Emily had crafted my response. It didn’t mean the loss of my freedom or abandoning my studies for hearth and home. But I still rubbed the third finger of my left hand as though the wedding band was already tightly around it, permitting no escape.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The corridors of the Old College were quiet as I strode through, determined to beard the lion in his den. My finished—and rather good, I thought—essay was finished a day early, thanks to two hours and a lot of crumpets in a teahouse on George IV Bridge. It was my perfect excuse to catch Merchiston off guard. I had little to go on; that was true. But he had visited Lucy—that much was certain—and Ruby McAllister, who dealt with rowdy, lust-fueled men every day, was frightened of him.
“Can I help you, miss?” A white-haired man with a puce complexion peered at me through his spectacles curiously.
“I’m on my way to meet with Professor Merchiston.” I smiled sweetly. “Don’t worry, I know the way.”
“Are you sure, my dear? He doesn’t usually see private patients in his university rooms.”
“I’m not a private patient. I’m one of his students.”
He shook his head. “I’m terribly sorry, but I can’t possibly allow you to meet with him unchaperoned.”
“You were perfectly happy to let me see him alone when you thought he might be examining me,” I pointed out. His expression clouded.
“Is there a problem, Miss Gilchrist?”
I turned to see the man himself, irritation scrawled across his face.
“I was on my way to see you, Professor. This gentleman was kind enough to show me the way.” I gulped. “Thank you for your time, sir.”
As the older man stalked off, muttering angrily under his breath, Merchiston turned to me curiously.
“You’re a braver man than I, Miss Gilchrist. Professor Herbert has sent down five students this week already.”
When he was amused, I realized, his countenance was quite pleasant. His normal sardonic smile twisted the contours of his face, but here he merely looked pleasantly surprised at my daring. It was almost enough to make both my apprehension and my suspicion melt away, and I resolved to inquire as to his association with Lucy in the most innocuous way possible.
“Perhaps it would behoove him to be a little more polite to the students he hasn’t expelled, then,” I muttered sulkily.
Merchiston turned to me with an expression of exaggerated shock. “Polite? To a student? Miss Gilchrist, you’re here to be bullied, harangued, overworked, and publicly humiliated in the hope you might learn something. If you want manners, go back to the drawing room. Failing that . . .” He jerked his head toward his office and I scurried after him, his black coattails flapping in the breeze and making him look even more like Poe’s raven than normal. As the door swung shut behind me, I began to have second thoughts about my plan.
I had never been inside Merchiston’s office before. It was a small, strange room, a clear indication of his place in the pecking order here. His height meant that he dominated the space, looming over his desk until he sat in his chair, motioning carelessly for me to follow suit.
“What can I do for you, Miss Gilchrist? Or are you here purely to frighten septuagenarian professors and cause chaos wherever you go?”
“My essay on the history and administration of chloroform,” I said, handing over my spurious excuse for visiting him.
“Early,” he commented. “To what do I owe the honor?”
“I didn’t want it to get lost in the pile tomorrow,” I replied innocently. The answer wasn’t as glib as it seemed—more than one female student had been forced to redo her work after the original was “misplaced”—usually at the hands of one of the male students, but occasionally a deliberate act on the part of an unsympathetic faculty member.
Luckily, he accepted my answer without argument. I paused, reluctant to leave now that I had gained a private interview with him.
“Was there something else you wanted?”
I blushed. There was nothing feigned about it—now that the moment came to confront him, I could barely get the words out.
“It is of a rather delicate nature. That is, I . . .”
He sighed heavily. “Miss Gilchrist, I am a physician. If you anticipate being indisposed for tomorrow’s lecture, simply say so. Unlike some of my colleagues, I do not consider your natural monthly courses to be any barrier to your fitness as a doctor. Drink some beef tea, ensure that you are fully rested, and I will expect you in my lecture on Monday having made up any work that you were forced to miss.”
It would never cease to amaze me the mystical properties otherwise sensible, educated men ascribed to a perfectly natural function. If all women were really laid as low every month as men seemed to think, the world would grind to a halt in weeks.
“Actually, it pertains to a patient I attended at the Saint Giles’s Infirmary. A patient who later turned up in the university dissection room.”
He nodded. “These things happen. Unfortunate, true, but not every family can afford a burial.”
“I believe she was murdered.”
He went very still, and in a quiet voice I told him what I had seen, watching him carefully for any flicker of guilt. When I had finished, I saw his fists clenched so hard his knuckles were white.
He was silent for a long time, as though he were trying to suppress what he wanted to say. Finally he spoke, and I realize that his voice was trembling with anger.
“Miss Gilchrist, that may be the most fantastical story I have ever heard. Perhaps you should stick to your textbooks and leave those sensational novels alone. Are your studies really so dull that you have to find excitement everywhere? For God’s sake, woman, you’re not even qualified to perform a proper autopsy, and yet here you are, shouting murder to all and sundry!” His jaw spasmed. “That poor girl probably saw more violence in a day than you’ve encountered in a lifetime. Of course she had bruises. I’m sorry to admit it, but there are plenty of men out there who enjoy inflicting pain on women, the more downtrodden the better. And if you’d suffered what she did, then perhaps you would have found comfort in a laudanum bottle as well. But please, don’t romanticize this. You’re talking about a girl’s life. It may not have been worth much to you, but please don’t turn it into something out of the worst kind of novel.”
“Her name was Lucy.” The mask slipped—just for a moment, but long enough to see the shocked recognition in his eyes. There was something familiar about those eyes, something I couldn’t place. Even the color was hard to pin down, somewhere between blue and gray, like the Scottish summer sky. “I believe you knew her.”
He turned from me, busying himself with some papers on his desk. “I am afraid you have been misinformed.” His voice was little more than a whisper.
“There’s a madam down in the Cowgate who would say differently, Professor.” I laced the word with all the venom I could muster. “And before you say you’ve never met her, I should point out that I saw you leaving her establishment.”
He whirled to face me, rigid with anger. “And your plan is to . . . what? Blackmail me? If this is some underhanded attempt to ensure your academic success, you’re wasting your time. Overactive imagination aside, you’re intelligent and dedicated. I suggest you stop wasting both your time and mine and return to the library.”
I reeled at the implication that I would stoop so low as to use a woman’s death to secure my own future. “My plan, Professor, is to find out
who murdered her and why no one reported it to the relevant authorities. Since Ruby McAllister has been less than forthcoming about her former employee’s acquaintances, you were simply next on my list.”
Merchiston’s eyes were as cold as ice, and the smile he shaped his lips into looked more like a grimace.
“Did you know that she was pregnant?” I asked, forcing the words out from between gritted teeth.
There was no disguising the look of horror that came over him, and he fought to take command of his emotions. How often, I wondered, did he lose that battle?
“You do realize that I could have you committed for these ramblings?” he said in a low, steady voice. “With your reputation, Miss Gilchrist, no one would bat an eyelid. Perhaps another rest cure in the country is called for—isn’t that how your family physician treated your last lot of wild accusations?”
He might as well have hit me for the effect his words caused.
“Get out of my office. If you attempt to speak with me privately again, I shall inform the dean that you made improper advances toward me and have you expelled from the university.”
I left Merchiston’s office, shaking. I had expected denial, surprise, not this vehement anger. I walked quickly down the corridor, mind racing, praying that I wouldn’t run into the irascible Professor Herbert. If I had, I knew that what little resolve I had would crumble, and I would be left a sobbing mess.
It would have been too much to ask for my reputation not to have preceded me, and the gossip started by Julia Latymer had plagued me ever since she recognized me in our first lecture. Until now, though, the faculty had made no mention of it. The discovery that Merchiston knew not only the rumors that had swirled around following that fateful night but also the punishment that followed made me want to vomit. He saw me as nothing but a hysterical little girl, making up stories to garner attention.
Or perhaps I hit too close to home when I had all but accused him of murder. I wondered with a shudder just how hollow those threats were. It seemed that my fate as Mrs. Miles Greene might have been more inescapable than I had feared.