Chapter 7 Benevolence, Barbaric and Otherwise
Benevolence, Barbaric and Otherwise
IT WAS mid-afternoon when Alwyn squeezed his way into the operating theatre.
Even there by the door, the collective heat of the bodies crowded into the attic space was stifling.
Medical students stood shoulder to shoulder on the tiered platforms, ready to watch the removal of a man’s shoulder tumour that they might someday perform similar surgeries.
Below, in the room’s center, a patient lay on the table, sweating and champing on a leather strap though he had been dosed with spirits already.
Four orderlies stood by, positioned to pin down his flailing limbs once his agony began in earnest. The white-aproned surgeon sorted through his scalpels while the scent of cauterization tools heating in the brazier foreshadowed the lesson’s gruesome finale.
Each time Alwyn entered this amphitheatre, he had to remind himself that what happened there was meant for good, even if it had every hallmark of torture.
He himself was not overly squeamish at witnessing the separation of flesh and bone, but many were.
Two years earlier, during a leg amputation, a student standing near him had grown more and more pallid as the ferrous smell of blood filled the air.
Quite suddenly, the fellow had fled, pausing at the exit to vomit into the concavity of his hat.
After walking out of the operating theatre on trembling legs, he had never been seen there again.
Keeping his position by the door, Alwyn hoped this procedure would be quick, primarily for the patient’s sake, but also because he wanted to ride out to Trippingham, then return to London before nightfall.
He had been meaning to call upon Miss Everson for the previous two weeks, but lectures, the observance of surgeries, and now, tending to Felix’s patients, had precluded all opportunities for courtship.
He had thought of writing to her, using his stubby pencil to scratch out a message on a page torn from the notebook he always carried.
He could readily envision her smiling face as she held the odd missive in her hand.
But he did not know how her parents would feel about a man sending their daughter letters, and he dared not risk their disapproval.
Just four weeks more? He ticked them off on his fingers. No, four and a half — and then I’ll be able to speak openly with them all.
His joy at this thought was interrupted by the surgeon calling the students to order, the scalpel he had chosen gleaming in his raised hand.
As the din died down, the patient emitted a groan, long and low, which rose from the floor like an eerie mist as the orderlies took their places around the table.
The surgeon, too, stepped up and the pitiable man’s excruciation began.
Utterly silent now, all of the students leaned forward over the railings, their gazes fixed on the center of the room. All except for one.
Standing on the highest echelon was a shorter fellow who was clearly paying no heed to the benevolent barbarity playing out below. It took Alwyn a moment to recognize that the boy with the careworn face was Sliger.
When the surgeon held a bit of the excised tumour high for all to see, Sliger pushed past the students hedging him in, and hurried towards the exit.
Perhaps he’s trying to keep his hat clean, Alwyn thought, watching him go. Pity that. Any doctor worth his salt will have to operate from time to time. Maybe I ought to go and encourage him.
Leaving the theatre, he found the boy out in the courtyard, staring at the pavers.
“It gets easier,” Alwyn said, drawing up beside him, glad to see there was no puddle of sick at his feet.
Sliger squinted up into the sunlight. “Huh?”
“Watching surgeries. By your second year, it won’t turn your stomach so much anymore.”
“I’m afraid I won’t get to test that theory.” Sliger smiled humourlessly. “It seems my first year here will also be my last.”
“What? Why?”
“I had a letter from my uncle this morning, saying he’s had a change in fortune and can no longer pay my room and board, so even though my father’s already paid the lecturers’ and hospital fees, I’ll be sleeping in an alley by week’s end. Ah, pustules! I really thought I was meant to be a doctor!”
“Then you must become one!” Alwyn spurred him, knowing well the depth and urgency of that very conviction. But seeing the look on the boy’s face, he realized that saying so was only rubbing salt in his wounds.
“There’s really no point in me blubbing on about it. I’ll be going home tomorrow.” Sliger shook his head. “Don’t know why I even bothered coming to theatre today.”
Pushing his hands deep into his pockets, he walked away, miserable.
Alwyn stood, watching him go, thinking hard as he was determined to help the boy. He did not like the plan he quickly formulated, but could see no way around it.
On today of all days! But if he does go home tomorrow, there’ll be no getting him back to London.
What about money? He patted the coat pocket where he always kept a few coins, and felt it was nearly empty.
He’d meant to go to the bank earlier that day, but had decided not to, content knowing he had enough to hire a horse to get to Trippingham.
And it must be closed now, so there’s no getting more coinage today.
Blast!
Though he felt his chance to go and visit Miss Everson slip from his grasp, Alwyn knew what he must do.
With Sliger now out of sight, he started towards the Grey Bull.
A few patrons in the taproom looked up when he hurried in, but a word with the barmaid got him a moment alone with the innkeeper in an anteroom.
“’Ow can I be of service, Mr Alwyn?”
Pulling a single sovereign from his coat’s inner pocket, Alwyn replied quietly, “Henceforth, I will be paying for the room and board of your lodger, Theodore Sliger. He is a first year medical student, so this arrangement could be a steady stream of revenue for you for years to come. However, you mustn’t say anything to him, or anyone else, about it. ”
“Then ’ow’m I s’pposed to ‘splain to ‘im why ‘e ain’t payin’ me nothin’?” the landlord asked, even as he reached for the coin.
“I’ll leave that up to you, but be sure you tell him today, as he thinks he’s off for home first thing tomorrow. And keep to mind that if you don’t abide by my terms, I’ll seek to lodge him elsewhere.”
“Why’re you doin’ this for ‘im?”
Training his eyes on the coin which felt very dear to him in that moment, Alwyn asked himself, Yes, why am I doing this for him?
Because if I don’t, he won’t become the doctor he knows he’s meant to be.
“Someone paid for my first years of school. Had they not, I wouldn’t have made it through.”
It was true — his father had been alive then and held the family’s purse-strings.
“So now that I’m at the end of my education,” he went on, “I’d like to do what I can to help another along with theirs.”
“’Right, but if he ain’t paid up on time ev’ry month,” the innkeeper said dropping the sovereign into his greasy apron’s pocket, “then out ‘e goes.”
“Understood,” Alwyn replied, then walked briskly out of the anteroom, hoping dearly that the next time he had the chance to go and call upon Miss Everson, he’d have a coin to hire a horse.