Chapter 10
Nora stirred and reluctantly pulled herself from bed, her mind a confused blur of the twins she and Mrs. Howell had delivered the night before. Working alongside Ruth, and now also Mrs. Howell, she’d attended five births these past two weeks.
Last night’s, though… The blur was fading, and the case, unfortunately, was the kind that was hard to forget.
A living child behind a dead one. Not a rare anomaly, but Nora had never been able to simply keep on when a life expired before it even began.
These infants sat in her thoughts for days, and even once they faded, they’d reappear in her memories years after.
She’d breathed for this baby just as Ruth taught her—tried to rub animation into her back and limbs, only giving up when her hands cramped, leaving Mrs. Howell to bring out the other child.
Nausea crept over her chilled skin, but that was probably just this elixir of grief and failure and fatigue. She stumbled to her washstand and splashed her hands and wondered what particular brand of crisis had kept Daniel out of their bed. By the time she’d returned last night, he was gone.
The door creaked behind her.
“I missed you. How was—” Halfway into her turn, she stopped. It wasn’t Daniel. It was Mrs. Phipps, bearing a tray with toast and eggs. “Breakfast? On a tray?” Nora asked.
“You had a terrible night.”
Nora flinched. “How did you know?”
Mrs. Phipps balanced the tray on the bed and turned her attention to fluffing the pillows. “I’ll sit a bit.” Her elliptical response—more a sidestep than an answer—settled in the quiet room.
“Watch me eat, you mean.”
“These sad cases. They always put you off your food,” Mrs. Phipps said.
“I know you had one because you tend to forget to remove your boots downstairs after you’ve lost someone.
” She nodded toward the tangle of leather and shoestring on the floor.
“Mother or child?” Nora saw in her face the hope it wasn’t both.
“One of a set of twins,” Nora confessed.
Mrs. Phipps folded her hands. “Eat some breakfast. You’ve plenty of time. Harry already checked the ward patients, and Horace is in the theater doing heaven knows what. You can give yourself an hour or two.”
Nora managed a sideways smile. “I’ve taken a couple already.” The clock showed that the time was terribly late.
“The world won’t break if you take another.”
Like a child, Nora sank onto the rumpled blankets and took a sip of tea. Mrs. Phipps was right. She had no appetite whatsoever.
“The toast,” Mrs. Phipps commanded, as crisp as the browned crust.
Nora relented. She didn’t want it, but Mrs. Phipps would stay until it was gone, and if she was stealing an hour, Nora wanted at least some of it to talk to Horace. It helped on days like today.
***
She found him alone in the surgical theater, working with a corpse, not a patient.
Lingering at the threshold, she took a moment to observe him unseen.
Usually at least one person shadowed him, listening and learning.
Today he mumbled alone, his back insufficiently broad to hide the miniature body before him.
A child. Nora’s mouth drooped, even as her nose twitched at the smells of early decay and something else in the air. Singed hair. Burnt flesh.
Her frown deepened.
Today’s lecture subject must be a burn victim. Nora turned up her cuffs, wondering if she really ought to help with this one. Burns were especially distressing, even on the dead, but more so on a child.
Horace glanced over his shoulder, his face unreadable. “You coming? Or are you going to dillydally some more?”
Of course he’d known she was here. Silly of her to think he was too distracted. “The burns surprised me.”
“Never be surprised; it is an unattractive quality for a doctor. Treat every case as if it were precisely what you expected.” Horace bent and peered at the small raw stub that remained of the child’s left ear.
“What happened?” Nora asked. His commands, though brusque, always helped steady her.
Horace tsked. “She was home alone, cooking for her younger siblings when her clothes caught fire.” He pinched his mouth together, a sign Nora recognized as his own concession to grief.
“It’s a wonder the whole building didn’t go down.
Every year, I’m amazed there isn’t another Great Fire that turns the entire East End to rubble. ”
Nora studied the hopelessly disfigured face before them. Nothing could have saved her. “What are you doing with her?”
Horace pointed his thin probe at the burnt face. “I want to attempt to reconstruct a nose with skin from her leg. See if we can update Professor Bünger’s method. Should be a well-attended lecture.”
Her stomach tightened. Sometimes Horace wandered too far into the realm of madness. Rhinoplasty on a burnt child, however interesting it might be, seemed a callous experiment.
“Do you really think—”
“I want your help with this,” he said, cutting her off. “There will be others, which you know very well. Not so burned as this, of course, but unless we try and practice some cure, they will be doomed to live and die in disfigurement.”
With a sigh, she picked up a damp sponge and wiped a smear of ash from the girl’s blackened arm. The small limb rested stiff and cold in her hand.
Horace studied the skin of the upper leg, looking for the least affected area, before marking a spot with a charcoal pencil and drawing a precise ellipse, pinching the skin. “It’s similar to nose skin. Or perhaps the stomach?” He moved his inspection to her abdomen.
“Daniel said you lost a wealthy woman at Bart’s to burns last week.” Nora felt like she’d hardly seen her husband since he’d told her about the case, and that was days ago. “Why do burns almost always befall the girls?”
Horace grunted. “I’ve told you not to wear silly costumes, haven’t I?”
Nora blew out a breath. Flowing gauze skirts and voluminous sleeves caught fire much more often than narrow trousers and heavy work coats.
“Don’t know why you bother with all that.” Frowning, Horace waved his scalpel at the ruffled collar and neat pintucks peeking above the top of her apron.
Nora rolled her eyes. “If I dress too fine, I’m silly. If I dress too plain, I’m unwomanly.”
Horace sniffed.
“I know you don’t think it matters, but it does,” she argued. “I can’t treat anyone unless they come to me in the first place.”
“They don’t come for your wardrobe, my girl. And I don’t think she cares one whit for this conversation.” Horace motioned to the lifeless corpse. “How cruel to make her listen to such vacuous fluff.”
“And what would you discuss with her instead?” Nora crossed her arms, waiting.
“I’ve been telling her about useful plants. Ironweed. Heal-all. Goldenrod.”
Nora hated that her mouth dropped open right after his comments about not being surprised. “You haven’t.” Nora scanned him for signs of bluffing.
“I certainly have,” he murmured. “It’s what I did when I thought you were as good as dead from cholera. You weren’t awake for most of it, but we discussed the making of paint pigments. I figured you’d be interested due to the supplies in your family’s flat. I was right, wasn’t I?”
“You never once told me…” She’d seen him muttering away over corpses for more than a decade, but always assumed he was taking mental notes of anatomy—not carrying on conversations.
Horace glanced at her with his sharp eyes.
“There are thousands of years of human knowledge to cram into a mere sixty or seventy years of mortality. Might as well review every fact we can, when we can, with whomever we can.” His nose wrinkled.
“You’re getting sloppy. If I see another novel in this house—”
Nora colored. “I hardly read any. They’re mostly Julia’s.”
“Hardly isn’t none. If you’ve spare hours, you should be studying. You’ll have plenty of time to rest during your confinement.”
Nora’s gaze jerked from his careful fingers to his face, which betrayed no emotion.
“My what?”
Horace lifted the girl’s arm to clean her tiny fingers. “Your pregnancy.”
Nora’s nostrils flared, his words ricocheting through her brain. “I suppose when the time comes—”
“You truly don’t know?” He looked at her over his spectacles, mildly curious.
She pressed her hand to her hip. “Horace!”
Redipping his sponge, he wrung it out again. “I’d say you’re four or five weeks along. Check your dates.”
“You can’t possibly—” Her voice rose with warning.
Horace shrugged. “You’ve overslept twice. You eat less. You cover your nose more frequently here in the theater, and there’s some slight edema around your nostrils—”
Nora’s hand flew to her nose, relieved to feel it the exact size and shape she remembered. Edema indeed!
“And I used the water closet after you,” Horace added, as if a detective with a case tidily solved.
“What does the water closet have to do with it?” she asked, instantly regretting it.
“I could still smell your urine. I’ve never been wrong about this before.”
“Lord give me strength,” Nora muttered. She shook her finger at him. “Don’t start any rumors, Horace. If I were expecting—and I’m not—I’d certainly know before you.”
Horace shrugged, conceding. Too easy. He never gave up a bone without a growl.
Nora continued washing the cadaver, her thoughts numb.
Despite his claim, Horace was wrong every day.
He’d mistaken Lady Gallatin for a shopkeeper just last week.
He’d told the family of a girl with an abscess on her foot she’d likely die—because he’d confused them with the relatives of a man suffering from heart failure (they looked nothing alike).
And Mrs. Phipps had caught him eating off a Wedgwood serving tray he’d confused with a plate.
But.
None of those were medical diagnoses.
“When do the students and doctors arrive?” she finally asked when she found her voice again. Anything to change the topic.
“Just after one. Will you sit in?”
Nora sighed. “I better. You can’t be the only person in this house who knows how to build noses.”
He gave an approving grin. “I’ll let you try it yourself tonight after they leave.”
Good. She needed more time with the scalpel. Already her fingers felt overlarge and fumbling at the thought of parting skin and muscle. She’d done too much gross motor practice lately and too little of the fine movements required by a surgeon.
“I need to see to the clinic.” She excused herself, but didn’t exit the corner door to the back staircase. Instead, she slipped into the parlor and paused in front of a mirror. The one above the Japanese table, where the light was best. She tipped her head carefully, scrutinizing her profile.
“What are you doing?” Mrs. Phipps asked, appearing in the reflection over Nora’s shoulder.
Nora continued her inspection of the ball of her nose. “Checking to see if my nose is swollen.”
“Did you hit it?” Mrs. Phipps’s brow creased with worry.
“No. But Horace says it’s bigger. Do you think it is?” Unconsciously, her hand wandered to her waist. Her skirt fit as well as ever, but it would, even if he was right.
Mrs. Phipps pursed her lips until they nearly disappeared. “What did he say to you?”
“Absurdities, as usual. He diagnosed me with—” Nora blushed. Mrs. Phipps had never been married, and speaking of such things seemed insensitive. But Mrs. Phipps waited, frowning, for Nora to finish. “He thinks I’m with child.”
Choking, Mrs. Phipps forced out a strangled cry. “I’ll thrash him. He told you?”
Nora’s mouth dropped open. “He told you?”
“That man!” She flung up her hands. “I ordered him to let you figure it out on your own.”
Nora stumbled backward. “What do you mean?” There was no reason to think—
Mrs. Phipps’s frustration melted into an appeasing smile, and she stepped closer to Nora, dropping her voice into a confidential tone. “I know you’ve been distracted, but I oversee the laundry, dear. You’re a week late.”