The Beauty Doctor

by Elizabeth Hutchison Bernard

  He raked his long fingers through his hair and began to pace back and forth beside the bed. His head was bent, shoulders slumped.

  “Things will work out, Franklin. The police will find Mrs. Moser. She probably went away somewhere to recuperate alone. You saw how upset she was. She didn’t want anyone to see her, not until she was better—but she’ll come back, and everything will be all right.”

  He stopped in his tracks, looking at her with bloodshot eyes. “You don’t know that.”

  “Franklin—” She hesitated. She had to do something to help him. “I understand how you feel. Really I do.”

  He snorted. “You couldn’t possibly.”

  “But I do. It’s why I decided that I could never become a doctor.”

  He frowned angrily. “What are you talking about?”

  “My father. When he died . . . it was my fault. I killed him.”

  She couldn’t believe that she had finally said it. She had told him what she’d thought she never could. She’d not done it to relieve her conscience—only to make him understand that he was not alone.

  “You what?”

  “I thought Father was having a seizure. I gave him potassium bromide. But it was his heart. I made a fatal mistake. Afterward, I wasn’t fearless. I didn’t keep going. I kept looking back. I did exactly what you say a doctor should never do. I gave up.”

  He stood there for a moment, as if frozen. Then he ripped off his tie and tossed it onto the bed. Looking down at her with smoldering eyes, he seized her by the hair, pulling her head back to kiss the hollow of her throat. When he let go, she fell onto the pillow, waiting for whatever he might do next. Ready to offer whatever he needed of her.

  “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I was worried you’d think poorly of me. You wouldn’t want me around your patients. Or maybe I just couldn’t say the words. I couldn’t bear to hear them myself.”

  “So you can accept it?”

  She wasn’t really sure what he meant, what he wanted her to accept. If it was her own failure, she wasn’t convinced she ever would. But if it was that Franklin Rome was not perfect, that he, too, could make a mistake—yes, she could accept that. She had been wrong to think of him any other way. In fact, it was a relief to realize that he was only human.

  And that tonight, he needed her.

  CHAPTER 18

  “This is my Auntie Riana.”

  It was the next morning, around half past nine. Paddy and Shaena stood at the door to Abigail’s apartment along with a woman wearing a garish, tattered cape over her shabby dress. Her age was difficult to guess. It was not only that she bore the wearied expression of hardship so common among the immigrant poor; it was so much worse than that.

  “Maybe you could fix her,” Paddy said.

  “Please, come in. All of you.” Abigail stepped aside for them to enter, grateful that Franklin had awakened early and left over an hour ago. But Paddy was supposed to bring Shaena to have her stitches removed at six this evening. Why had he come now?

  “Thank you, ma’am,” the woman said, bowing her head as they crossed the threshold into the sitting room. She held Shaena’s hand. Paddy looked nervous. Quickly, Abigail closed the door.

  “I don’t want to be bothering you, ma’am.” The woman kept her head down, unwilling to meet Abigail’s eyes. “But I seen what you done for Shaena, my little niece. She’s starting to heal up nice. You done a good job.”

  Eagerly, Abigail kneeled down to examine the little girl’s face. Everything looked exactly as it should. No sign of infection, and the edges of the wound were perfectly aligned.

  “It doesn’t hurt like before,” Shaena said sweetly, her eyes wandering to the open doorway of the bedroom. “You still have that bed with all the feathers?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Can I sleep in it again sometime?”

  Abigail smiled. “I don’t see why not. In fact, you can lie in it while I remove these stitches. Would you like that?”

  Shaena glanced up at her auntie, who answered with a slight nod. Turning back to Abigail, she said, “Can I go there now?”

  “We’ll go in just a minute. But first, I have something for you.”

  She stood up and hurried over to the small closet by the front door, took out a small bag, and brought it to Shaena. “This is for being my very best patient.”

  The child reached into the bag and pulled out a soft stuffed animal, a furry gray kitten. She squealed and hugged the toy to her chest.

  “What do you say, Shaena?” prompted her auntie.

  “Thank you.”

  “Thank you who?”

  “Thank you, Miss Platford.”

  “What about the soda shop?” Paddy piped up, a frown creasing his forehead.

  “Not at nine in the morning, Paddy,” Abigail replied. She almost scolded him for coming early, but then changed her mind. At least he had come, and there had been no harm done. “We’ll save that for another time.” She patted Shaena on the shoulder. “Go on and take Kitty with you to bed. Don’t forget to take your shoes off before you get in. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  The little girl scampered off to the bedroom. Reluctantly, Abigail turned her attention to the woman Paddy called Auntie Riana.

  “I assume you’ve come about your nose.”

  A tear escaped over the rim of the woman’s lower eyelid and slid down her cheek.

  “Is it syphilis?” Abigail asked, knowing Riana would accept the bluntness of her inquiry as being necessary, though she already felt reasonably sure of her diagnosis. In its advanced stages, the disease could destroy the nose, leaving a gaping, irregular hole. Those afflicted often wore a crude nasal prosthesis to spare others the horror of looking at their shocking deficit. Riana wore no such apparatus this morning.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m ashamed to say that it is. But whatever you may think of me, I’m not a whore. I never been. It’s my husband what gave it to me. I swear.”

  “I’m not here to judge you,” Abigail replied hastily. “But I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

  “Why not?”

  “You could fix it,” Paddy piped up. “You make nice stitches.”

  She had to be firm. They had to understand. “No, Paddy. I’m not a doctor. I can’t just decide to operate on somebody anytime I want. It doesn’t work like that.” She turned back to Riana. “You must go to the hospital. Someone there will help you.”

  She shook her head. “No, ma’am. I don’t like hospitals.”

  “She won’t go near Bellevue,” Paddy said. “Not since they finished off Mum.”

  “But it’s the only way,” Abigail objected. “If you want me to, I’ll go with you. I’ll speak to them.”

  “I don’t want nothing to do with that death trap or any other of them so-called hospitals for the poor. They’d take one look at me and give me the black bottle for sure. If that’s all I got left, I’d rather do myself in. At least there’s some dignity in that.”

  Abigail remembered what her father had told her about the “black bottle.” Rumors about it abounded in the tenements, especially among the Irish. It was said that the hospitals gave you a drink from the black bottle when they wanted to get rid of you quickly.

  “What about Dr. Rome? He’s a good doctor.” Paddy gave Abigail a steady, hard look.

  “Dr. Rome is a beauty doctor.”

  “But Auntie wants to be beautiful.”

  “It’s not that, ma’am.” Riana hung her head. “I only wish I could walk down the street without people staring at me. Without me seeing that look in their eyes and knowing what they’re thinking. That I’m some kind of a monster, or worse than that.” She looked up again. “But are you saying, ma’am, that the doctor you work for don’t know how to fix a problem like mine?”

  Abigail recalled the two techniques she had read about in the book by Joseph Carpue. They were quite complicated. One used a tissue flap brought down from the forehead; b
ut taking the flap so badly disfigured the upper third of the face that some doctors preferred the other approach, called the Italian method. It was first described in the late 1500s by an Italian surgeon with a long name that she couldn’t remember, and it required that a flap still attached to the forearm be grafted onto the face. It was uncomfortable for the patient, since the arm must be kept bent in an awkward position for several weeks until the graft could be detached from its source and then molded into a nose. Judging from the illustrations she’d seen, the result of either technique was only a rather crudely sculpted nose, but compared to having nothing at all it was a decided improvement. At least one could be seen in public and maybe resume a more normal kind of life.

  But, of course, repairing the nose would not cure syphilis; nothing could do that.

  “Ma’am?” Riana lifted her chin, forcing Abigail to confront her in all her misery. “I think maybe you’re saying Dr. Rome don’t want nothing to do with somebody like me. Is that it? Because if it is, I understand. Really I do.”

  Abigail felt awful to hear her speak that way, even if it might be true. “That’s not what I meant at all. But Dr. Rome is a very busy man—” She stopped, ashamed of what she was saying. But it would be wrong to give Riana false hope.

  Riana grabbed Abigail’s hand, squeezing it tightly. “I still think you’re an angel of mercy, ma’am. What you done for my little niece—God hisself couldn’t have fixed her any better.”

  Her humility made Abigail feel all the worse. If only she and Franklin could be of service to this woman who had nowhere else to turn! If they could help restore her to at least some semblance of what she was before, give her a chance to live again, for however long she had left. What greater purpose could a doctor have?

  And why should she assume Franklin wouldn’t agree?

  Franklin looked up from his newspaper as Abigail entered his private office with their morning tea. She had expected him to be exhausted from such a late night and too much to drink. Yet he appeared just the opposite, his body and spirit restored. His smile was particularly warm. Perhaps he was thinking, as she had been earlier, about what happened between them last night. There had been a change. The balance had shifted. Their bond felt so much deeper now, each having confided to the other the worst of their guilt and fear.

  Which was why, this morning, she finally had worked up the courage to tell him about Paddy and Shaena. She would have to, if she wanted his help to save Riana.

  “We’ll operate on the twins tomorrow!”

  She stood frozen with the tea tray in her hands, too astonished by his announcement to set it down.

  “You have nothing to say? No complaints about working on a Saturday? Nothing?” he quipped.

  “It’s just that it’s so sudden. I wasn’t expecting it. I—I’m surprised.”

  “I thought you might be. I’ll be happy to explain—but after you pour me some tea, my dear.”

  Her hands were shaking just enough to rattle the teacups as she set the tray onto the cluttered desktop. Hastily, she poured him a steaming cup of jasmine. Their fingers brushed as he took it from her, but she felt nothing.

  “I’ve been thinking about it all morning,” he said. “Joe has to be handled just right. From what I’ve observed, he needs to be kept in a constant state of excitement. Otherwise, he’ll find something new to amuse him. Operating on the girls now—one of them, that is—should keep him interested, thereby encouraging him to move faster on my project.”

  “Sounds like you have it all figured out,” she said weakly, sitting down on one of the side chairs.

  He smiled. “It seems that it’s no longer enough to be an accomplished beauty doctor; I must now be a psychiatrist as well.”

  Abigail didn’t doubt that he was right. A psychiatrist for Joe might certainly be in order. But at that moment, all she could think about was tomorrow, when she would be standing at attention opposite him, with Valencia and Melilla on the table between them.

  “I’ll operate on Melilla first,” he said, seeming not to notice her unease. “I want to start with the physically weaker of the two. Because, you know, the second surgery will be in front of an audience. I don’t want any slip-ups.”

  She nodded, too numb to speak.

  “By the way, don’t say anything to the twins. No sense in getting them excited—or nervous. I don’t even plan to tell Joe for a couple of days, when it’s all over and I know that everything is fine. Which reminds me, I’ve got to start looking for an ace photographer. I want some really dramatic shots, all the best angles—once the swelling goes down, that is. Imagine seeing them side by side, two heads on the same body, one nose beautiful, the other . . .” He rubbed his palms together, his excitement growing. “I’m willing to bet that after those first photographs are released to the press at the Institute’s grand opening, they’ll be plastered across the front page of every newspaper in the country. The calls for consultations will come flooding in. You see, first you’ve got to get their attention. The pictures of the twins will most certainly do that! And then you close the sale. Pose the question, What is beauty worth? The answer will be obvious.”

  “Really? And what is the answer?”

  “I can tell you exactly how a woman thinks,” he said with a self-satisfied smile. “If those Siamese twins can do it, with so little to gain, then why shouldn’t I, with so much?”

  The more he talked, the more disillusioned Abigail became. Her earlier reflections now seemed nothing more than stupid sentimentality. Franklin had not been thinking of her this morning. He had only one thing on his mind—how to take maximum advantage of Valencia and Melilla’s inevitable celebrity.

  “You’re sure about all this, Franklin?”

  His smile faded. “I suppose you’re going to remind me that your friend Ludwik would not approve.”

  “No, I wasn’t going to say anything of the sort.”

  “What then?”

  “It’s just that I’m worried. What if something goes wrong? It would destroy your reputation. The Institute might not survive it.”

  He gave her a reproachful look. “You sound as if you haven’t confidence in me.”

  “It’s not that, of course. But no one could blame you for deciding not to operate. A doctor often has to reevaluate and alter his plans. You could find some other way to promote the Institute. Something less risky—and cleverer, too, I imagine.”

  “Are you done?”

  “I suppose so, but—”

  “Good. I’d like to finish reading my newspaper in peace.”

  It was clear that she had failed to budge him even an inch. She would have to try again later. Perhaps by tonight, when he came to her apartment, his enthusiasm would have cooled on its own. If not, she would do whatever she could to change his mind. It would be her last chance. Otherwise, the twins’ surgery would proceed tomorrow morning.

  But there was still the matter of Riana. Though she knew it might be smarter to wait, she had already prepared herself and wanted to get it over with.

  “I was wondering if you’ve ever done a nose reconstruction using a forearm flap. They call it the Italian method.”

  He set down his teacup, a frown etching his brow. “Why are you asking?”

  “Because I met a woman who needs such an operation.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “She’s suffering from syphilis. She hasn’t a penny and—”

  “I’m not about to operate on someone like that,” he said abruptly. “This is not a charity hospital.”

  “But, Franklin, the poor woman—”

  He shook his head. “Have you lost your senses? I’ve been doing everything possible to build an exclusive beauty practice! You see the class of people we’re attracting here. Do you think for one minute any respectable woman would want to lie on the same operating table as some lady of the night with a syphilitic nose? I’m about to create the most ambitious beauty institute the world has ever seen, and I assure you the sick
and indigent will not be welcome there—nor in this office either. If that’s the kind of medicine you prefer, then I suggest you join some holy order of sisters and become a missionary.”

  “You needn’t get so angry. I merely thought, as a doctor, you’d feel that some small part of your skills might be applied for the benefit of those less fortunate.”

  “If I might nudge your memory, you were the one who objected strenuously to my having operated on the ears of that young street urchin. Certainly he qualifies as one of those less fortunate of whom you speak. Look what I did for him! And did I ask for anything in return?”

  “Surely, you can see how different that was.”

  “Why is it different? Because you say so?” He gave her a defiant look. “My goal is to be recognized as the world’s foremost beauty doctor. Others have different goals, undoubtedly loftier in your opinion, and that’s fine. But I’m perfectly satisfied with mine.”

  “I see very little difference between an operation to create beauty and one to restore it.”

  “You’re becoming quite clever with words, but you’re missing the essence of what beauty surgery is all about. Would anyone look at the result of a nose restoration such as you describe and say, Oh, if only my nose could look like that? No, they would never call a nose like that beautiful.”

  “The important thing is not what others call it, but how the patient feels about it. And I believe that any nose, even an imperfect one, would make the woman in question feel a great deal better about herself.” Impulsively, she seized on another idea. “What about the twins? You’re willing to operate on them. Are they the type of clientele you’re hoping to attract to the Institute?”

  “The twins are a unique situation,” he replied stiffly. “Obviously, there is much to be gained by operating on them and in a very public fashion—proving in a most memorable way the miracles that a skilled beauty doctor can achieve. And by the way, for the purpose of our publicity, the twins are allegedly the secret progeny of foreign royalty. All very hush-hush, of course.” He chuckled, the cleverness of this little intrigue seeming to lighten his mood. “So you see, I intend to compromise none of the Institute’s reputation for exclusivity.”