Chapter 35
THE THIRTY-FIFTH CHAPTER
Many will swoon when they do look on blood.
—William Shakespeare
As You Like It
Absolutely not,” Valerius said when I presented my plan to him. “You must be barking mad.”
“I am not. I simply want you to go to Pandora’s Box and ask a few questions for me. Surely that is not too much to ask.”
“But it is! Putting aside for just a moment the wild impropriety of what you are asking, it is dangerous.”
I sighed and pushed away my dessert plate.
I had not expected him to be so difficult.
I had presented him with a definite plan, beautifully conceived and completely financed by me.
All that was required of Val was a little pretense.
He had only to present himself at the brothel and request the company of a young lady.
Once in private, he could ply her with a handsome gift of money to answer a few questions I would provide.
It all seemed quite uncomplicated to me.
He need not even scruple to undress the poor girl.
She would earn her fee for nothing more strenuous than a little conversation, and the proprietress need never know.
I pointed all of this out to Valerius. He said nothing, but sat, contemplating his pudding.
“I cannot,” he said finally. His eyes did not meet mine. “I wish I could oblige you, but I cannot, Julia. Please do not ask me.”
“No, no, of course,” I said, my voice chill with anger.
“I have asked too much of you. A few questions of a poor prostitute, that was all. But there are other questions, you know, Valerius. Questions that I could ask you. Questions about the night you came home with a bloody shirt and a feeble explanation. Oh, I believed it the first time. But not the second.”
He had gone very white, his lips bloodless where they pressed tightly together. He said nothing, and I went on, keeping my voice low and smooth.
“I did not ask, Valerius, even though I realized then that there were many such nights, many such shirts. And I did not ask about Magda, even when I found arsenic in her room and she admitted that she wanted to poison you—even then I did not ask.”
He started, his complexion draining to white. “What? What do you mean about Magda?”
I took a sip of my wine. “She kept arsenic in her room. She meant to kill you with it because of what you had done to Carolina.”
“Carolina! You cannot think I had anything to do with that awful business!”
I did not listen to his words. I had expected a denial.
Instead I watched his skin, observing the warm flush of colour into his pale cheeks, the wildness of those lovely eyes.
I had always known when Valerius was lying as a child.
His neck would grow spotted red, even to the tips of his ears.
But now, as his natural colour came flooding back, it did not deepen.
His neck and ears were pale and unblemished.
“She said that you…” I paused. Had she ever named him? I thought back on our conversation. Had either of us?
Val leaned forward, earnest but not pleading. “I promise you, Julia, I had nothing to do with Carolina’s exhumation. What I have done is terrible enough, but never that.”
I looked at him sharply. “Valerius, we must have truth between us. Tell me. All of it.”
He nodded, and I saw a gravity in his face I had not seen before. For the first time, I saw the man and not the child.
“I cannot go to Pandora’s Box for you, because I am too familiar there. They know me.”
I took another sip of wine, rough against my dry throat. “Go on.”
“You know that Father will not permit me to open my own practice. You cannot imagine what that means, to be denied the chance to do the only thing that I can do well. And I can do it. I could be a very fine physician, Julia.”
He spoke quietly, without pleading. I gave him credit for that much. There was no petulance in his tone, only the sober dignity of a grown man.
“Are you saying that you do not patronize this place as a client? That you are their physician?” I tried to mask the incredulity in my voice, but I heard it, and so did he.
He smiled faintly. “Julia, if you could but see them, you would understand why I am not tempted. They are pitiful creatures, most of them. Pretty enough, for a few years, when they are young, before disease and rough trade coarsen them. That life ages them quickly. And there are so few people like Aunt Hermia who care to help them. She gives aid to those who have already left the trade. I do what I can for those still in it. I spend a few days each week at Pandora’s Box, administering treatment to their prostitutes and to those from the other brothels run by the same owner.
Sometimes I am called in the evenings, if there is an emergency.
The proprietress pays for their medical care, but I give the money to Aunt Hermia for her mission. It is all I can do.”
He paused, gauging my reaction. I did not give him one, for I did not yet know what to think.
“Does Aunt Hermia know?”
He turned his wineglass around in his hands, strong, capable hands—a healer’s hands.
“No. She thinks I am lucky at cards.”
“Probably best not to tell her. She would enlist you to physic the penitents at the refuge.”
Val smiled sadly. “I would have liked that, being open and aboveboard about the whole thing. Believe me, Julia, I never meant for it to come to this. I did not intend to deceive Father. I was offered the chance to work and I took it. I know it was stupid and rash, but I knew better than to ask Father. He would never have agreed.”
“Better to ask for forgiveness than permission,” I said quietly.
He continued to roll the wineglass in his palms, watching the wine turn through shadow and light, changing colour with the reflection of the candles.
“We’ve always found that the best way to handle Father, haven’t we?”
“I suppose. But what of the prostitutes? What do you do for them?”
The wineglass rolled to a halt, then resumed its slow revolution. “Whatever I must. Sometimes the men are rough and there are bruises, even broken bones to treat. Many of them are diseased, and must be dosed for it. Some are pregnant, and must not be.”
I held very still. “Abortions,” I said flatly.
He nodded.
“Oh, Valerius, how could you?”
It was a question, not an accusation, and he knew it.
“Because someone will if I do not, and likely it will be a drunken, ham-fisted old butcher who would perforate their wombs and kill them. At least if I do it, they don’t die.”
“No, they live to go out and get pregnant again!” I hurled at him before I could stop myself. I held up my hand before he could reproach me. “I am sorry. That was unkind.”
He shook his head. “No. It was true. That is the most difficult part, you know. Trying so hard to save them from themselves—healing the bruises and stitching up the wounds, hoping that this time, just perhaps this time, they will gather up whatever shreds of human dignity remain to them and leave while they still can. I always thought Aunt Hermia was daft for caring so much what became of her charges. I remember her coming home, weeping or creating a ferocious row with Father because one of her penitents went back on the game. I never understood why she couldn’t simply shrug and go on.
There are so many of them to save. And yet I find myself doing just the same.
I remember the faces and the names and the stories of every girl I have ever seen in that brothel.
Sometimes one of them does not come back and I pretend it is because she’s gotten away.
More likely it is because she died, or failed to please and was sold to a cheaper, rougher sort of place.
And I always hope, when one of them comes to me because she is with child that this time will be her last—that she will listen and learn.
I do my best to educate them, to help them prevent it from happening again. ”
“Are you successful?”
There was that faint, heartbreaking smile again.
“Once in a while there is a girl young enough to listen. And I hope that she will remember what I have taught her. And one day, if she leaves the game and marries and settles down to a respectable life, she will be able to have children, unlike many of her sisters.”
“Oh, Valerius. Why this? Why not the workhouses? Or the orphanages?”
The smile fell from his lips and his expression was one of raw, unblunted grief.
“Because of Mother.”
“Because she died in childbed?”
“Because I killed her,” he said very quietly.
“Don’t be stupid,” I told him sharply. “You were an infant. It was hardly your fault.”
He shrugged. “I know that now. But there was a maid at the Abbey, one of the local girls who worked in the nursery. She always used to look at me slyly and whisper to me how much everyone loved the countess, and how she had died because of me.”
“That was stupid and cruel—backstairs gossip, and completely untrue.”
“But you believed it,” he said softly.
“I was six years old! I also believed in fairy rings and wishes on clovers. As you say, I know better now.”
He nodded. “Well, when I began to study medicine, I wanted to know—everything. All about birth and why some women, with no medical care at all, can have a child as easily as breathing and why others, even with the best doctors, die from it.”
“You were her tenth child in sixteen years,” I pointed out. “Perhaps she was simply exhausted. In that case, blame Father.”
“I did, for a while, once I stopped blaming myself,” he said blandly. “But I did not much like that, so I decided to blame God.”
“When did you stop doing that?”
“Oh, I haven’t. It’s rather easy to blame someone you don’t have to see over Sunday dinner.”
“Yes, well, I shan’t criticize you on that score. I have been guilty of it myself.”