Chapter 15
After five courses sitting between Daniel’s father and his formidable aunt, Nora craved Daniel’s easier company. As the remains of a cream tart congealed on the fine china, Daniel’s aunt pushed back her chair and stood. “Shall we?” She pointed the question to the women.
Tea with the ladies first in the drawing room, while the gentlemen remained at the table for tobacco and port.
It wasn’t a custom they kept at home, and longing for her dressing gown and bedroom slippers already, Nora held in her sigh.
This was easily the best evening she’d spent in her in-laws’ company, and she couldn’t ruin it with waning enthusiasm.
Tacking an agreeable smile to her lips, she stalled until Joan reached her.
As they fell into step, her sister-in-law sent her a mischievous look.
Before Nora could install herself safely next to Joan on the sofa, her mother-in-law captured her arm in a soft grip.
Hiding a start, Nora turned with raised brows.
“Yes, Sarah?” Though Daniel’s mother had asked her to call her Mama, Nora simply couldn’t bring herself to do it.
She’d called no one by that name since she was eight years old.
Replacing Mrs. Gibson with Sarah had been hard enough.
“Are you eating adequately? I’m not sure my son is taking sufficient care of you…” Sarah Gibson’s eyes spanned Nora’s waist, measuring the inches. The secret possibility she’d still not confessed to Daniel made her wary of attention on her figure.
“Dinner was excellent,” Nora returned, smoothing any crispness out of her voice.
“You know, you and I haven’t exchanged a word—”
“Not easy, all the way across the table,” Nora said.
“You must sit with me now,” Sarah commanded, steering her across the drawing room, where Aunt Wilcox was already ensconced in an armchair.
A satisfied look passed between the older ladies, sending a frisson of danger tiptoeing up Nora’s spine.
She glanced back—but the doctor’s wife had persuaded Joan to seat herself at the piano.
No escape. Lulled by food and kindly chatter throughout dinner, she hadn’t prepared herself for a private conversation with the other significant women in Daniel’s life.
Unbidden, she thought of Horace, who was probably back at home, reading in the library beside his stuffed zebra, Enzo. She wished she could trade him for her current company, or have him suddenly appear—wombat in one hand, medical journal in the other—and startle this sedate company into commotion.
Nora held back a snort. If she could manage Horace, she could surely find a way to satisfy Daniel’s relatives for another hour.
Daniel’s mother deposited her in a cramped little chair angled between herself and Aunt Wilcox, and the familiar sensation of preparing for a surgery washed over Nora: lungs filling, ears tuned to every sound, her eyes alert and focused.
“What a lovely dinner,” she began. “Thank you so much for having us.”
“Lord Parkins was dull as soup,” Aunt Wilcox countered in a voice too flat to travel to any other ears in the room. “Joan teased him all night and he didn’t even realize.” She pursed her lips and cast a small glare across the room at her niece.
“I’m sorry I missed that.” Nora gave a small, conspiratorial laugh that died under the weight of Sarah’s disapproving frown.
“The girl is incorrigible. I wash my hands of her.”
Nora swallowed, rearranging her face to the proper soberness. She could do with a sip of port like the men.
“I was seated with Dr. Russell and his wife.” Sarah’s lip twitched almost imperceptibly, but the negligible movement sent a twinge through Nora’s stomach.
“He suspects that you are the doctor mentioned in some medical articles of late.” Her gray eyes looked cold as river rocks, despite her demure smile. “Do tell.”
Nora froze, sensing a trap.
“Hardly interesting,” she lied. “Only a scientific discussion on childbirth. I’m sure it’s not pleasant conversation for your drawing room.”
“Dr. Russell appeared very interested. He said that you’ve put yourself at odds with London physicians.”
Nora resented the familiar heat and panic that overtook her whenever someone ambushed her. It made it impossible to speak intelligently. “I’d rather not—”
“Don’t be defensive, dear. This isn’t an attack.” Aunt Wilcox possessed the most agile eyebrows. They angled down as if looking at Nora from a hundred feet above.
Sarah tittered, fussing unnecessarily with her bracelets. “You’re my daughter in-law. I’m trying to know you better.”
“I didn’t know you followed medical debate,” Nora asked more than stated.
Sarah plucked again at a bangle, but Aunt Wilcox, made of sterner stuff, snorted instead of dithering. “We hardly follow it. But it does seem to follow you. It must be exhausting to pit yourself against the world so relentlessly.”
Nora schooled her face, refusing to show Aunt Wilcox how her arrow had landed. “I’m afraid it comes with the calling of medicine sometimes,” she said cautiously.
Aunt Wilcox folded her hands, wrinkled fingers rearranging around her large collection of rings. “I’m quite impressed with your intelligence,” she said. “I’m very modern myself, as you know.”
“Of course,” Nora choked out.
“I have friends intrigued by your experience and ability,” Aunt Wilcox informed her. “Members of my society.”
“It’s a service society,” Sarah put in. “The British Ladies’ Society for Promoting the Reformation of Female Prisoners.” She stopped to draw breath.
Nora’s spine stiffened. Every sentence of this conversation was a blind turn. She’d already lost her balance several times. “I’ve heard of them. And of course, I’m familiar with the reputation of the late Mrs. Fry. She was fighting for separate female prisons, I understand? It’s a brilliant idea.”
Aunt Wilcox bowed her head solemnly, pausing a moment, as if silently joining a prayer at church. “A remarkable woman,” she said.
“Remarkable,” Sarah echoed. “And your aunt—”
Daniel’s aunt, Nora silently corrected.
“I’m quite involved in the work,” Aunt Wilcox said.
“Progress has been made, but there’s much to be done.
Prison conditions are only half the battle.
Once the women are released, there is the need for teaching work skills, schooling for their children, obtaining respectable employment—not to mention inspecting prisons across the kingdom and petitioning the Crown when they are not complying with the Gaol Act.
” She paused, gauging Nora’s reaction. “I was with Mrs. Fry, you know, when she addressed the select committee of the House of Lords, but that was probably before you were born.”
Nora worked some moisture into her mouth as Joan’s piano music lifted its plaintive notes. “How incredible,” she said. “I didn’t know.”
Aunt Wilcox acknowledged the compliment with the smallest of nods.
“Please don’t take it unkindly if I say there is much you don’t know, being brought up as you were.
I would never dispute Dr. Croft’s genius—he’s endorsed by many distinguished persons—but I think it a shame you were raised so far from ladies’ influence. ”
Nora opened her mouth, ready to spring up in defense of Mrs. Phipps, who was as principled and genteel as any woman in the room.
Aunt Wilcox cut her off with practiced efficiency.
“However, it’s not too late for you. We’ve lost our treasurer.
I put your name forward, and in spite of your unusual credentials and the fact that you’d be a brand-new member of the society, the board members are disposed to consider you for the position. ”
“As society treasurer?” Nora frowned, glancing between the two women, unable to hide her bafflement.
“You see, I’ve never kept books.” At least, not well, according to our ledgers.
“That’s very kind of your friends, but I’m afraid I’m unqualified.
” Their magnanimous smiles melted, morphing into affronted frowns.
Nora tried again, tripping over her clumsy words.
“It’s obviously very important work, but I’m responsible for a private hospital and lectures… ”
Daniel’s mother wore her offense visibly on her pinched lips and stiff cheeks.
Nora scrambled for a peace offering. “I could apply for membership. It’s a worthy cause.”
Aunt Wilcox frowned deeply, but Nora couldn’t tell if it was in thought or disapproval. Nora held her breath, the seconds expanding in the perfumed air of the drawing room.
Aunt Wilcox leveled her heavy gaze. “You see, child, we had hoped to persuade you to put down some of your other causes and adopt this one.”
“What other causes?” Nora asked, bristling at the older woman’s tone.
Aunt Wilcox pursed her lips. “There’s no point pretending. We know you’ve earned the displeasure of most of the respectable doctors in London. You cannot fail to realize some of that disapproval taints our family.”
“A discussion is hardly censure,” Nora countered.
Aunt Wilcox snapped her fan open. “I came here with hopes you’d put your intelligence to work in ways other than the brutalities of medicine. You can be exceptional and renowned by other means. Like Mrs. Fry.”
“I wouldn’t call my work brutal—” Nora objected.
“There will be children eventually,” Sarah pointed out, confirming Nora’s fears over her earlier interest in her waistline. “Aunt’s society would give you an outlet for your considerable talents, as well as a level of respectability.”
Nora coughed, searching for air. “Do you mean to say I’m not respectable?”
Aunt Wilcox silenced them both with an upraised hand. “If Nora joined our society, we could channel her talents in a more”—she gave Sarah a knowing look—“admirable direction. If she took up the cause of women with us, she could be an inspiration instead of a singularity.”
Singularity.
Tears gathered, but not only in her eyes. She felt them in her shaking chin. Her burning skin. Too emotional. Too weak.
“Sarah misspoke,” Aunt Wilcox soothed. “You are certainly respectable. She meant to say we could give you a level of protection.”
The loose curls around Nora’s ears wavered as Aunt fanned the air. “Protection from what?”
“That’s an odd question for a woman who is the object of a circulating petition,” Sarah’s quiet words sizzled like the air before a lightning strike.
“I’ve heard patients have been slow to accept you, and Dr. Croft’s usually successful clinic is struggling financially,” Aunt Wilcox added. She left the last words unsaid—because of you.
Nora fixed her eyes on the drawing room door, willing the men to enter.
“I have plenty of female patients,” she defended. “Only the males are reluctant.”
“Of course they are. As I’m sure we all predicted.
” Aunt Wilcox had a way of pushing you through your worst pains briskly and efficiently.
“But if we could win over some influential women, we may be able to help fund your clinic so you can hire other doctors to do the menial work. You can run it as you would a charity.”
“Abandoning surgery?”
Sarah’s eyes rolled upward as if she were praying for strength. “Lord, yes. You’ll have to, once you have children, so I don’t see—”
They didn’t see at all. Had no concept of the elation of freeing someone from pain or even closing the door against death with a resounding thud. They were done prancing around the truth and it emboldened Nora. “I can’t be a treasurer,” Nora said. “I don’t have the time or training.”
They didn’t see at all.
“That’s no obstacle,” Aunt Wilcox said impatiently. “If you can run your small hospital, surely you can learn to keep financial records. Every good housekeeper can manage that.”