Chapter 30
It all came together quite a lot faster than Mae felt properly prepared for, even though she knew, logically, that she was very well prepared, all around.
The entire business had become such a buzz of happening throughout the clinic, and even farther beyond to the doors of Holy Comfort and the Becks’ gambling clubs as well, that she found the oddest people stopping by the clinic to give her well-wishes, advice, and even, in some instances, offering up their own medical peculiarities to aid her cause.
“I’ve an odd hammer toe. Oddest you’ve ever seen,” a man would say, waiting by the door at the crack of dawn.
And then in the evening, as she departed, a woman would emerge from the shadows, whipping away a scarf to present an impressively large goiter, wiggling her eyebrows as though she knew she had a treasure in her throat.
The whole thing was just as heartening as it was ridiculous.
And beside it all was Roland. Perhaps the most surprising thing about all of this, from beginning to end.
“I’ve been thinking quite a lot about what happens after we’ve reached an accord,” he’d said to her over the dinner they had shared in the classroom next to the nursery on the night before the meeting.
“When they wave the white flag, so to speak,” he’d said, picking up the towelette to demonstrate, “am I to go back to working nights at the Vixen, whilst you work days here? We’ll never see one another properly again. ”
It had been a question without an answer, at least not for now, but the very fact that he had asked it made her heart race.
He did not wish to live in the hours when she slept. It sounded like he did not wish to go back to his old life at all, even if he had loved it well enough for many years before.
“You won’t need me here as security,” he had continued. “I hope. Perhaps Winston isn’t the only one who could benefit from a bit of medical education, hm? I know where the kidneys are, but only because I’m good at striking them.”
“Mae,” came Hannah’s voice, bright and clear, startling Mae back to the present, to the morning of the meeting, to her bedroom in Soho and the clothes laid out on her bed. “You’re miles away. We need you alert today.”
“I am alert,” she assured her friend. “I am.”
“I think you should wear the gold,” Hannah said, frowning at the selection of dresses. “I know it is a bit much for daytime, but it does present an air of authority.”
“She will be wearing gold,” Vix said from a horizontal lounge over all of Mae’s pillows. “Just not up top. We want respectable, not ostentatious.”
“Oh, is that what we want?” Rosalind said doubtfully, her eyes scanning over Vix’s own sumptuous attire.
Vix flashed her a smile. “Rosalind, have I ever told you how adorable it is when you take out your little kitten claws and try to swipe? I love you so.”
“What about the satin paisley?” Hannah suggested. “Where is that one, Mae? Cream with yellow patterns?”
“Oh,” said Mae, blinking. “In my wardrobe. I thought that one looked a bit girlish.”
“Girlish is good,” Vix said without moving from her pillows. “We want them to see you as innocent as well as capable. Guilt is a powerful motivator.”
“Here it is,” said Rosalind, pulling it out and knocking free a stack of books from the base of the wardrobe in the process. “Oh, goodness. I’m sorry, Mae. Ooh! What is this?”
Hannah came forward to take the dress, peering down at the books that had fallen. “We’ve read those,” she observed. “Vathek. Zofloya, The Monk.”
“Not this one, though,” said Rosalind, kicking them aside daintily with her toe. “Who is Fanny Hill?”
“Oh, God!” Mae exclaimed, lurching forward. “One even I shouldn’t have.”
“Excellent,” said Vix. “Who gets it first?”
Mae laughed with a bit of nervousness as Rosalind bent down to pick it up, turning it curiously in her hands. “Won’t someone help me into my chemise and corset? They were gifts from Vix.”
“Ah, a distraction,” Vix observed. “I shall read it first if it’s that embarrassing.”
In the end, Mae would have to leave them behind to enter Guy’s. Only her grandfather would be with her, looking very fine himself in a crisp gray tweed and starched cravat. Even his wispy, wild white hair had been combed and pomaded into order, for perhaps the first time in Mae’s living memory.
“We’ll be waiting for you at the clinic,” Hannah told her when they parted ways. “We’ll all be waiting for you there.”
“But only because we know you’ll be victorious,” Vix said to her. “And wish to hear it relayed in glorious detail. Take care of Dr. Casper. He is the only man I can ever love if anything happens to Ambrose.”
And her grandfather had turned red again, and whispered as they walked away, “Do not tell your grandmother.”
She thought perhaps the unforgiving steel of the whalebone was the perfect choice to keep her heart from hammering free of her chest this day. Two sets of ribs, she thought. Just what every woman needs in moments of uncertainty.
They turned the corner to the hospital, its big brick walls looming in the sky, and her heart did its level best to escape, staying constrained only on merit of well-crafted lingerie. She took a shallow, shivering breath and felt her grandfather squeeze her hand as they neared the entryway.
She told herself to breathe and be steady.
But she wasn’t.
And she didn’t.
Until she saw him.
Roland was not making a spectacle of himself. He was leaning against the railing by the doors, wind winding through his pink-gold curls, which had been tied back today, giving him the look of a gentleman.
He turned as they approached, even though they did not call out greeting, and met her eyes with a soft smile.
Only then did she breathe.
Only then was she steady.
“Roland,” she said as she climbed the final stair. “I didn’t think you would come.”
“I’ll be outside,” he told her as her grandfather slid away from her to open the doors, giving them a brief moment of privacy. “But I couldn’t stay away.”
“Roland …” she said again, her eyes moistening.
“No tears,” he instructed, leaning forward to cup her cheek and wick away the threat of them from her lashes.
“You are strong. Today is your day. And you look …” He paused, taking a step back as he took her in, turquoise eyes sliding over the paisley dress and the neat coil of her hair. “You … Mae!”
She blinked. “What?”
He only met her eye in response, a knowing glint flashing there. “You are wearing it.”
What a shame that she could not answer, she thought, turning and racing into the embrace of the hospital. What a shame that duty called.
What a shame that she only had one heart to beat like a war drum at a single given moment.
Such was life.
They were led through a series of polished, echo-filled hallways, past two large surgical theaters and a lecturing auditorium, and up a set of rear stairs to the offices by a quiet little man who had been awaiting them near the entrance.
Mae glanced several times at her grandfather, at the way his face softened and his eyes shifted around these halls, at the way his gait seemed to change the farther inside they got.
She wondered what he saw here. What he felt.
She wondered if any of it was regret.
They stopped outside a heavy wooden door with a brass nameplate mounted at its center. Dr. Henry Cecil, Chief Surgeon.
She blew out through pursed lips air that felt cold, despite its previous tenure in the warm embrace of her lungs.
“They are ready for you,” the little man said, knocking and turning the knob. “This way, please.”
Mae nodded and stepped across the threshold, from polished marble floors to thick, tufted carpet, into the brass-and-oak embrace of the office itself.
Inside, three men awaited them.
One, behind the desk at the center of the room, must have been Dr. Cecil, a severe-looking man with gray at his temples and gold at his cuffs.
Another middle-aged man was standing near the window, his hands clasped behind his back, and a third, younger man was seated in a leather armchair across from the desk, his ankle drawn up over his knee.
The youngest man looked the least willing to be present, his glossy brown hair in an uncombed flop over his forehead and his cheeks still pink with what looked like last night’s revelry.
She suspected that he was her tormenter, purveyor of frogs and pig guts. The younger Mr. Cecil.
“Good afternoon,” said Dr. Cecil, coming to his feet and walking around the desk to greet her grandfather, his hand outstretched. “You must be Alvin Casper. It is an honor, sir.”
“I am,” he replied, wary. “And this is my granddaughter, Mae.”
“A pleasure,” she said, keeping her hands folded in front of her, knowing very well her place.
But to her surprise, the doctor extended his hand to her too. “I hear,” he said, “that you diagnosed posthumous thrombotic embolism last month, young woman. Is that true?”
“Oh,” she said, surprised as she pulled her hands apart and proffered one to be shaken. “Yes, I … the coroner …”
“Mr. Richards is well known to us,” he said with a curt nod. “He is very impressed with you. May I present Dr. Wendell Davies of St. Bartholomew’s, and my son Cary, who is here at my own behest, for reasons I’d wager you are already familiar.”
She blinked a few times, still gripping his hand. “I thought the inspector might be present?” she said, glancing around as though Irving might pop out from behind a tall plant.
“He has done his bit,” Dr. Cecil declared. “Won’t you please sit? I must confess, I am eager to hear what you’ve brought us today.”
She glanced at the younger Cecil, who grinned at her lazily from his perch, making not a single move to adjust his posture as she placed herself politely in an armchair identical to the one he sat in. He winked at her.
She cleared her throat and turned her attention to the older men.
Stabbing a man would not serve her today.
But maybe she’d tell Roland about it later. Not for any particular reason.