Chapter 29
Roland waited until the inspector had gone and Winston had returned to his towel full of needles, which Sally handed him with narrowed eyes and a huff.
He was going to ask. He was ready to, but Mae came to him first, taking his hands and smiling up at him like he was the very sun itself, and he lost all powers of speech.
“I have something to show you,” she whispered. “Come up to the classroom.”
She pulled a stack of loose papers from the medicine cabinet and hopped up the stairs with him trailing after her, unable to hide the smile that was growing on his face at the swish of her skirt and the spring in her step.
She seemed so much restored lately, since their night together in Soho.
She seemed hopeful again.
Ezra was at the chalkboards when they entered, writing vowel lessons on one of the new chalkboards opposite example words of each vowel sound on the other one, in a different color of chalk, while Dinah watched from atop one of the desks, her feet swinging.
“You have to caveat the double O sound in a clinic, Ezra,” she taunted. “Yes, it makes the sound in fool, but English is stupid, and it also makes the sound in blood.”
He paused, frowning and looking over his shoulder at her. “Blast,” he said. “You’re right.”
“Double O,” she said, pointing at the chalkboard and then at him. “Bloody fool.”
“All right,” said Mae, clearly hiding a laugh. “Go back to the nursery before there’s an incident.”
“Fine,” Dinah said with a sigh, flouncing off the desk with a smirk. “But I’ll be back.”
“I’ve no doubt you will,” Mae replied, watching her go and swinging the door shut behind her. “Little minx.”
“She fancies you, you know,” Roland said to Ezra, moving to claim his favorite high-backed chair from its place by the wall. “She wouldn’t needle you like that if she didn’t.”
Ezra’s color rose, pink dots forming high on his cheeks. “She doesn’t,” he said. “She only fancies men who are beautiful or muscled. I am neither.”
“You could become muscled,” Mae said reasonably. “It’s just a matter of usage.”
He turned to stare at her for a moment, blinking slowly. “Is that true?”
She grinned. “We’ll talk about it later. I wanted to show Roland something, and I’m glad you’re here too, as it involves you. Will you take a break and join us?”
He nodded, dropping the pink chalk and walking over as Mae spread her sheets of paper out on one of the desks, admiring them like she was revealing a mural made of several individual pieces.
Roland scooted the chair closer, peering down at them. The first was a list.
Melvin Rockwell - Malaria/Ague
Titus Jones - Shoulder cyst/unspecified growth
Joe Parsons - Foot amputee, two years old, fully healed. Ready for prosthetic improvement
Elizabeth Windgate - Persistent Asthma
Iris Warwick (age 10) - Suspected Allergy to Sunlight
Harold Barring - Gout
Misc. Referral Concepts - Ganglions, Roseola, Recurring ear infections (esp. children), Ulcers, Complex Persistent Coughs, Cancers, growths, and parasites of all sorts
“Roland Reed,” he added, glancing up at her. “Double chicken pox.”
She tittered, tossing him a look. “Winston Ulrich. Immunity to chicken pox.”
“What are these?” Ezra asked, twisting the list around to face him. “Things you can’t cure?”
“Yes and no,” Mae said. “They are things that are chronic. Persistent. Things that can be studied over time or repeatedly. And these are patients I have spoken to who have consented to being studied in such a way, though Mr. Parsons did request compensation if it happened during working hours.”
“Smart man,” said Roland, scratching at his arm where Mr. Parsons had left his mark, once upon a time. “Sharp, even.”
Mae gave a tiny cough, tossing him a glance so heated that he somehow stumbled while being completely seated in his chair.
“My thinking is that as the clinic has grown, it has become more of a burden to manage triage in the front chamber,” she said.
“We are best suited for emergencies or standing appointments, but because of where we are at the crux of Clerkenwell and St. Giles and Soho, we often are swarmed with people who are not necessarily seeking care with urgency nor are they facing predictable, ongoing treatment. So, I have devised a way that may thin our herd, so to speak, while also placating the powers that be. Outbound referrals.”
Roland blinked, glancing up at her. “Outbound permanently?”
She shook her head. “No. If they mistreat any of our references, we will take them back. That is my stance. My hope is that developing a bit of humanity around the practice of teaching cases might eventually spread to all of them, though of course, I am only a woman, not a wizard.”
“You are going to offer this?” Ezra said, a little frown on his face. “To Guy’s?”
She nodded. “And St. Bart’s. You do not agree?”
“I do not think you should offer something for nothing,” Ezra said carefully. “Especially after being mistreated for so long. I think you ought to position it as a trade, not an offer.”
Roland straightened, considering this. “The lad has a good point,” he said, rubbing at his chin. “A very good point. Mae, you are in the position to ask for things.”
“Like what?” she said, frowning. “More supplies? Perhaps regular deliveries?”
Ezra and Roland both shook their heads.
“Supplies are covered by Mrs. Beck’s charity endeavors,” Ezra said. “We do not need funding, we need the things that cannot necessarily be outright bought.”
“Like respect,” Roland provided, though he knew that wasn’t exactly helpful as soon as her lovely brow furrowed.
“For example,” he said, lifting a finger, “we stop paying for night patrols and they give us a medical student or two for the night shifts. The student gets their teaching case experience during the witching hours, and because one of their own is working inside, they won’t resume attacks. ”
“Oh,” said Mae, staring at him wide-eyed. “Oh, that is brilliant, Roland.”
“Well,” he said with a shrug and half a smile. “I wasn’t going to say so.”
“No,” said Ezra. “I mean, yes, that is damned genius and we should definitely add it to the list, but that’s still a trade, not a demand. They need to retract those articles they wrote about us. About you.”
“A retraction is going to wound their pride,” Mae reasoned, chewing at her lip. “It might be more sensible instead to suggest they cosign our rebuttal. They save face and we nudge the narrative back into place over time.”
“That’s fine and well,” Roland said. “But hardly worth being on the table at this meeting. People forget gossip in a matter of weeks, most of the time. Mention it, yes, but it’s not your demand.
Just another thing they need to set right.
We’re still balancing the scales with that one, not demanding recompense. ”
Mae sighed, digging her fingers into her hips and tilting her head back to look up at the ceiling. The streaks of talc and flecks of black thread on her apron shone in the shafts of afternoon light. “I can’t think of anything,” she confessed, frowning heavenward. “Am I bad at wanting things?”
“Certainly not,” said Roland in a low voice that made Ezra clear his throat and turn pink again.
This got a laugh out of Roland and a snapping glare from Mae.
“If we weren’t already overwhelmed with students, I’d say they should send us referrals in turn,” Ezra managed, attempting to steer the conversation back to comfort. “Training the injured and permanently ill for better vocation is a worthy cause, but one we’re already drowning in.”
“Education,” said Roland thoughtfully. “Now that is an idea. We can ask them to sponsor education for our healers, not our patients, couldn’t we?”
“I don’t follow,” said Ezra. “Our healers are already trained.”
“Today they are,” said Roland. “Nothing is permanent. And new innovations are always happening, aren’t they? We want to be prepared for Dr. Bethel retiring one day. For the clinic expanding and needing more hands, and so on, too.”
“Winston,” said Mae softly, seeing directly through all of his careful explanations. “You want to send Winston to school.”
He looked back at her and deflated a little, realizing there really was no need to build a facade around his ultimate desire. “Yes,” he said. “He deserves a chance to be a real doctor, Mae. Doesn’t he?”
She was still for a moment, as though each word were landing in her ears with a buffer of seconds between them, her big dark eyes blinking slowly, and then she stepped around the desk, bent down, grabbed his cheeks, and kissed him very hard on the mouth.
Poor Ezra cleared his throat three times and stared at the floor. “It is a good idea,” he mumbled. “Winston’s a good boy.”
Mae pulled back from the kiss, her eyes sparkling and her dimples deep in her cheeks before she released Roland’s face and turned back to her sheets.
“So let’s make amendments,” she said, tapping them.
“This one is the draft of the official letter I’ll bring.
Ezra, I’ll need you to help me pretty up the language.
Roland, if you can think of any other patients for the list, we will add them now.
And this is just my thinking sheet. I’ll add all our new ideas here. ”
“I’ll get you a quill,” Ezra said, lurching up and darting to the sideboard in enthusiasm for his task. “This is thrilling. I almost want to cancel today’s class.”
“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t. There is time. We want to get this right. I want to get this right.”
Roland reached out and took her wrist, sliding his fingers down until they laced through hers. “You will,” he assured her. “We all know that you will.”