Chapter Fourteen
The room smelled not so much clean as it did of the effort that had been made to purge it, as if of some great filth.
The smell was literally blinding, because it was the first thing Hannah noted as she opened the door, and it made her close her eyes and want to close the door instantly again, with herself on the other side of it.
For it was a reek of disinfectants: of camphor and sulfur, ammonia and turpentine, all overlaid with a hint of asafetida.
But she walked in anyway. Because she had to. And at least it was not crowded.
Hannah sat gingerly at the edge of her chair in the waiting room, and tried to look unconcerned.
She decided to pretend, to ease the moment for herself, that she was there to ask a question about her sister.
That was it. Her poor married sister who was suffering from morning complaint and so was unable to come in herself.
Just thinking that caused her hands to relax their death grip on the handle of her pocketbook, and she could feel the lines of tension at her mouth ease, too.
Yes. She was there for poor Annabelle’s sake.
If she could act it, she could in some way believe it, if only until her turn came to see the doctor.
In that way the other two women waiting—the plump matron on the couch and the thin, anxious girl on another chair—would see that this casual looking stranger who had just come in was never there to seek a consultation for herself.
But the moment the inner door opened, and a white-smocked, white-hatted nurse stepped out and stared at her, Hannah’s imaginary sister perished, along with all her courage.
“Yes?” the nurse asked, frowning and gazing at a paper she had in her hand, and then back to Hannah again.
“I…I wish to arrange for a consultation with Dr. Singer,” Hannah blurted, and then nervously eyeing the two other women in the office, dropped her voice and added, “I have read her book, but require further consultation.”
She held herself stiffly and hoped the doctor wouldn’t be free for another year, and hoped she could be seen immediately, and prayed she looked correct enough to be seen anytime at all.
She’d dressed with care, after bathing until her skin squeaked.
She’d taken off her military-styled winter pelisse to reveal a severe blue walking dress, in the latest style, with its material swagged high in back to compensate for the loss of the bustle.
For effect—since she’d excellent eyesight— she’d added a lorgnette on a chain about her neck, had arranged her hair in a high pouf at the top of her head, and set a pert blue hat sailing atop it.
Kyle had flattered her for looking dashing, but she’d hoped to look like nothing more than a fashionable, respectable young matron.
But few respectable matrons had such a flair for dressing, or moving, as she did, nor such shining hair, nor such alabaster skin and speaking eyes.
The nurse stared at her. Whomever the young woman was, she thought, she was clearly, someone.
“Indeed?” she said, for though she was impressed, she was still a nurse and so could never let a patient have the upper hand. “And the name, please?”
“Nora Coates,” Hannah said promptly, taking the name of the young consumptive in Stolen Hearts without blinking.
“If you would be so kind as to wait a moment,” the nurse said, and after beckoning the nervous young woman to her and handing her a packet of medicines that seemed to make her more nervous, before bidding her good day, she disappeared within the consultation room again.
“I haven’t very long today…” Hannah began to say when the nurse appeared again, but she was silenced by her saying, “Quite all right, Miss Coates, the doctor will see you now. Mrs. Gaynes,” she added over her shoulder as the plump woman shifted in her seat, “your appointment is not until the half hour, and the doctor will see you then.”
Hannah had chosen Dr. Margaret Singer because of her sex as well as her book.
Surely, she’d thought last night, as she’d stared at the photograph of the stern, but clear-eyed older female that faced the title page, she’d be able to explain her problem to a woman far better than to a man.
Especially since Dr. Singer’s preface was all to do with the problems of womankind that men just did not or would not understand.
The book was dedicated to her own sister, with the lines: “Whose faith in the physical redemption of women by correct living has been an inspiration to me.” Hannah had never felt the least yearning to be a suffragette, if only because the problems of females in the real world had little to do with those of women in her theatrical world.
But the preface had inspired her, and suffused with female-fellow feeling for the first time, she’d put down the book, jotted down the address, and decided to arrange for a consultation as soon as she could.
Her first sight of Dr. Singer, looking exactly as she had in that photograph except for wearing a white smock rather than a black dress, reassured Hannah, and gilded the doctor with that aura that usually comes with fame or reknown.
The doctor’s office was spare, but a glance at the room beyond, with its examination table and glass cabinets full of awe-inspiring racks of bottles and syringes, caused Hannah to jerk her gaze back to the doctor again.
“Sit down Miss Coates,” the doctor said at once, “and please tell me your history and where your problem lies.”
Hannah relaxed. She was always very good with rehearsed material. She sat in the chair facing the doctor.
“My health seems excellent. I am a widow of some years standing, Doctor,” she said, as she smoothed her skirt, “but my husband abandoned me several years before that unhappy fact. He claimed he could not get me with child—or even successfully attempt to—because of a fault in me, which he did not specify. But as I am now contemplating matrimony again, you can understand I don’t wish to have my new husband suffer the same disappointment. ”
There. She’d said it as discreetly as she could, but she’d said it. She waited for the doctor’s words.
“I see,” Dr. Singer said, pursing her lips and staring at Hannah with suddenly sharp, cold black eyes. “Did you consult a physician while you were married?”
“Ah, no, I was young,” Hannah said distractedly, biting her lip, “and too embarrassed, you see. But my husband saw his physician, and his physician made the diagnosis. And it must be so, because,” she said, lowering her eyes, “before he died, he’d fathered a child on another woman.”
“I see,” the doctor said, studying Hannah. “Your menses, are they regular?”
“Yes,” Hannah answered.
“And normal in flow, or painful? Are there any irregularities?”
“Once in a great while they are irregular,” Hannah said, blushing, because despite the need for it, this was not a thing a lady ever discussed with a stranger, “and at times, painful, but then I have a spoonful of Mrs. Pinkham’s and am fine the next day.”
“I see,” the doctor said. “How, may I ask, do you pass your time now, my dear?”
“I am employed by Mr. K-Kenneth Howard, a theatrical impresario,” Hannah said, catching herself in time. As the doctor only stared at her, she added hurriedly, “My family is in the theater, it is a world I know quite well.”
The doctor began to nod wisely. Then she looked at Hannah and smiled. It was a wonderful, knowing, sympathetic smile that warmed Hannah’s heart as it raised her spirits, and caused her to return it.
“I see. The theater. The bad hours. The poor diet. The lack of exercise and the lack of fresh air. Do you lace tightly, my dear?” the doctor asked.
“Why, yes, I suppose I do,” Hannah said doubtfully, her smile fading, because she’d the sudden idea that things were going terribly wrong.
“No, no, and no!” the doctor said, rising and pacing the room like a small, agitated fury.
She reached to a rolled-up chart on the white wall and pulled it down with a snap.
She tapped the illustration of a corset with one hard finger.
“Look!” she cried, and then tapped an adjacent drawing of a curled-up spine shown through a transparent female body, with a welter of colorful internal organs clinging helterskelter to it.
“The evils of constriction! The womb, the bowel, and the stomach, crushed! Throw the corset on the fire, along with fashion’s rule.
Men do not consider that the flower they admire is being crushed so that they may admire it.
Bloomers,” she said sagely, “so that the internal organs can breathe free. Bate’s waists, flannel union suits, and no more lacing.
Lacing! There’s your bar to conception, my child, there it is! ”
“Ah, but…,” Hannah said anxiously, “it’s not only that I can’t conceive, you see, it’s…”
“Exercise,” the doctor said, nodding her head.
“Indian clubs and set-ups, daily, for at least an hour. Eight glasses of water a day. Purify the body, within and without. And deep breathing. D-eeeep breathing,” she said, illustrating as she spoke it.
“No more red meats and wines, they are poison. Water, digestive crackers, as Dr. Graham preached, keep the bowels regular and the pores open. That is the road to health. I will give you a regimen, and you may commence. Next time, we shall see your progress.”
“Ah, but,” Hannah said, closing her eyes so she couldn’t see the doctor’s expression as she said what she had to, “How will that help my prospective husband?”
“You’ll be healthy and sound when you wed, and will be able to bear him a fine infant, if you follow my regimen,” the doctor answered.
“My late husband said he couldn’t…consummate our marriage, and I wanted to know if I am…am, put together right,” Hannah blurted in an agony of embarrassment.
“When are you to be wed?” the doctor asked.