Chapter 17
Nora glanced at the clock. The immovable minute hand had mysteriously twined itself around her spine like a vise, her muscles tightening with every tick.
She strained to carry on two conversations at once—one outward with Lillian and Joan, the other internal as she reviewed several versions of explanations from Daniel.
Infuriatingly, mercifully—despite her need for explanations—he kept his distance, half-concealed by an urn filled with palm fronds, carrying on with his parents and his aunt and the Russells.
But Nora read his discomfort from fifteen feet away, betrayed by the small twitch at the bottom of his jaw.
Stalling.
He lingered half an hour later than they’d agreed upon. By the time he finally brought Nora her shawl, her tendons were carved from stone.
They ducked into their carriage in a stiff, icy silence. Their driver was half-deaf, but Lillian was not, and the house windows were all open. Nora waited until they exited the drive before she attempted any words at all.
“What did you mean when you said you signed the petition?”
Daniel inhaled. “I got cornered by Adams soon after he started it. I’ve meant to tell you, but… I was going to tell you tonight.”
She stared wordlessly, so many questions battling for dominance that none emerged.
“He makes a decent point, Nora, and any medical laws take ages. That’s to our advantage.
It would be a miracle if anything actually passed Parliament in Mrs. Franklin’s lifetime, and signing helps you avoid a row with the other doctors.
” He looked so confident in his explanation.
“I just did it to silence your detractors.”
“You signed it and disagreed with it?” This from a husband who’d stood up to his parents and warded off the entire medical establishment to protect and marry her? Afraid of Adams?
“I told him I disagreed with parts of it. I only agree that women—and men,” he added quickly, “who aren’t trained shouldn’t be able to pretend to have skills they don’t. The same as barbers who are still taking out teeth and setting bones.”
The driver took a side lane, and the rhythmic clopping of the mare’s hooves turned into a dull squelch as the carriage settled into the heavy ruts.
“Dannazione,” she muttered under her breath. Cursing worked much better in Italian.
Daniel didn’t ask for a translation.
“Did you think for a moment how it will appear, signing a petition opposing their practice just as I’m starting classes to enhance their training?” Nora demanded. “We’ll look like fools.”
“Classes? What are you talking about?” Daniel crossed his arms, and Nora realized she was doing the same, locked in place.
“It only makes sense if doctors are fussing about licenses. Give midwives classes and lectures so people know the good ones from the bad.”
“The Royal College of Physicians will hardly take kindly to that.”
“That’s why we need examples to help them see—”
“I only knew you had invited them to your open lectures. When were you going to tell me this plan?” The shadows were too deep to see his face, but she didn’t need to. Accusation rang clear in his voice.
“When?” Her voice climbed and sharpened. “You want to know when, after you didn’t tell me you signed a petition written by a doctor who’s maligning me to everyone he knows? Mr. Roland won’t even let me speak to his wife anymore. He threatened to write a letter—”
“I know,” Daniel said heavily. “He’s still submitting it. But he agreed not to expose you by name because I signed. He’s only going to refer to you by initials, like you did with his wife.” He had the audacity to look relieved.
“Daniel!” she snapped. If only he could hear himself. “You knew he was writing to oppose me and you still—”
“Did the reasonable thing,” he finished curtly.
She nearly yanked the bell to stop the carriage and leap out. “I’m being perfectly reasonable. I haven’t signed anything we agreed not to.”
“I never said I wouldn’t sign it,” he blurted out. “You never asked my opinion, Nora.”
She froze as if struck. “You agree with Adams?”
The pain in her voice unlocked his arms, and he held up a hand in supplication. “Partly. When caring for patients, everyone must be accountable. We must be sound and scientific.”
“And I’m neither?”
Even in the darkness of the enclosed coach, Nora saw Daniel roll his eyes. “Please don’t do this. I’m trying to have a fair discussion.”
“I’m not fair now, either?” It seemed much more unfair to take the enemy’s side with no warning. “I put up with your impossible relatives all evening. Your mother and aunt attacked me, pushing me to renounce medicine, after all my work, so I could keep their books!”
“Attack? I thought it a generous offer. And it doesn’t mean you have to accept.”
“What a relief,” Nora spat out sarcastically. She needed air, but hard darts of rain had begun smacking the side of the carriage, and she couldn’t open the window.
“I only mean that they meant it as a compliment,” Daniel said finally, rubbing the back of his neck.
Nora released a strangled scoff.
“Our world is so distant from theirs. They’re trying to find a way to reach you.” He glanced at the roof as the sound of the rain increased. “You’ve hardly made any effort to befriend them.”
Nora pressed her lips together. “Would you find it a compliment if they offered you the position? If they tried to rip you from medicine? They want me to give up my own hospital.”
“Words, Nora.” He sighed. “You needn’t load them with such powder. They’re not ripping anything. They offered you a prestigious position that would help women.”
Something crept into his weary voice that sent jolts of warning through her stomach.
“Do you agree with them about that as well? That I should stop practicing?”
Daniel gave an evasive groan. “That’s an absurd question. And I don’t think we should discuss it now.”
She stared at her husband—a person she’d known when she woke up this morning. Tears dove onto her lashes, hovering at the edge of a cliff before plunging down her face.
He sighed again. “Of course I don’t want you to give up the clinic and hospital. We’ve all worked too hard. I only meant they were trying to honor you in their way. You’re not used to them.”
Indeed, she was not. And apparently, she wasn’t entirely used to Daniel. As her silence stretched thin, he continued.
“Someday, when we have children, you’ll need a way to channel your talents.”
She jerked her head up, panic spinning in her chest. Had Horace told?
Oblivious, Daniel went on, “A prestigious society would let you keep your influence even when you’re not practicing. It is just something to think over. For the future.”
He blurred into the periphery as she followed the raindrops twisting down the window and catching the orange fire of the streetlamps. She wanted Mrs. Phipps and Horace to be right about the pregnancy, but when she thought of abandoning her patients, her calling…
His hand landed on her leg, and she flinched. He stubbornly kept it in place despite her frown. “I never wanted to argue with you. You know I adore you.”
Her eyes flashed to him, dull question marks.
He pulled his hand slowly back into his lap.
“When we have children, my medical career will be over?” Nora’s voice tasted like lead.
He looked at her as if peering at a stranger.
She knew the feeling.
“How could you perform surgeries with infants at your feet?” It wasn’t an angry question. Only a baffled one.
Magdalena. She has a son.
Nora’s eyes twitched.
Out of wedlock and raised by her lover’s wife. Humberto had never interrupted Magdalena’s career because she’d never done more than hand him off to others. Somehow, Nora had forgotten.
“Mrs. Phipps and Julia could watch our children. Or a nurse.”
Daniel kept staring, his eyes mirrors of her own disappointment.
The ride home would take the better balance of an hour.
Nora closed her eyes, fighting against the headache mounting behind her left temple.
Silence and dejection wedged themselves between her and Daniel, burrowing their sharp elbows onto the cramped bench.
Such crushing intruders made speech impossible.
After a drive as painful and prolonged as the time spent in the Gibsons’ drawing room, the familiar silhouette of 43 Great Queen Street finally loomed out of the humid night. The driver dropped them off at the covered side entrance.
Where the cadavers arrive.
Something in Nora felt lifeless enough to make it appropriate.
“Nora.” Daniel’s voice pricked the back of her neck as she stepped inside the shadowy corner giving access to the lift and back staircase.
Mrs. Phipps had decorated every square inch of the renovated home and hospital except here.
The new tiles the workmen had laid were blank—white with small black diamonds scattered in gloomy intercessions.
It was hardly Nora’s favorite place to pause.
No matter how much soap and lime the maids used, the lingering smell of rot tinged the air.
“Let’s not be angry with each other. We can each forgive—”
Her bowed head shot up, blurring the room. “Have I offended you? Do I owe you an apology?” She hadn’t used this acidic tone with him since the early days of meeting him—before she loved him—when he was simply a trespasser in the established routine she’d built with Horace.
“You won’t speak to me.” His mistake was the stern bite at the end of his sentence. “Yes, that is unkind.” When he was sad, she had no defenses whatsoever. But she could resist anger. Match it. Surpass it.
“Not speaking is the kindest thing I can do at the moment.”
She mounted the back stairs and pushed through the hanging curtain to the surgical theater.
“Nora,” he called behind her. Just as she emerged into the hallway off the parlor, Julia appeared in her wrap and slippers.
Nora rearranged her face so Julia knew the ominous glare was not for her.
“A messenger came for you a few minutes ago.” Julia lowered her eyebrows in concern as Daniel appeared, his expression equally perturbed. Her words slowed to a crawl. “The midwife, Mrs. Howell, asking for assistance. Harry’s getting dressed.”
Nora glanced at her taffeta dress. “Tell him not to bother. I’ll go right away, as soon as I change my clothes.
And tell the driver not to untack the horse.
” Nora could pack her bag in the dispensary and hang her dress on the linen wardrobe there.
No need to even go upstairs if Julia fetched her work clothes.
Julia sent her a questioning look before hurrying off.
“Harry could still go, if you want to talk.”
She hadn’t forgotten Daniel, though she’d angled herself to avoid seeing any part of him.
“Were you going to apologize?” She bit into the words like a hard apple.
Quiet. With her face pointed away from him, she had no idea what expression he wore.
“I was.” The courtesy in his voice made her close her eyes. She needed headache powders before she left.
“How benevolent of you.”
He sighed.
Whatever either of them did or said at this point would only damage things further. “I’m going to pack my bag.” She swept past him, her stiff chin wavering a millimeter.
If she let herself feel or think, she’d dissolve.
She’d walled off the terrible truth all evening—that she harbored a secret that now felt as disloyal as his.
Even as she accused him, she felt the hypocrisy burning a slow path through her soul, like a flame inching along a wick.
With stiff shoulders, she descended the dark stairwell to the back of the hospital, treading quietly to avoid waking any patients or drawing the orderly’s attention.
He’d pepper her with questions, and she could barely manage her own breathing.
When she left ten minutes later, Daniel was nowhere to be seen.
And when she returned in the murky hours of dawn, he’d been called away to his own case.
The late-October air stalked Nora into the parlor, where she dropped into the oldest chair in front of the hearth, the usually delicious smell of dank woodsmoke filling her only with foreboding. Despite the fidgety flames, she couldn’t warm herself.