Chapter 23 Insufficient Blood
Insufficient Blood
Setbacks, Harry. Setbacks.
We have, of late, been experimenting with bones.
It is a promising line of inquiry—we’ve found that they can, if submitted to an altered version of chromatic decoction, sometimes produce a stream of chroma serum—much more than blood.
When people say It’s in my bones , they have no idea how right they are.
But the effects remain temporary, uneven, and insufficient. To be any use, either for dye production or for Pike’s medicinal needs, we would need much, much more from them. And we are at our wits’ end to do so. More electrical power means more serum, but I am already taxing my rig to the utmost.
Our research has slowed to a crawl. For one thing, we cannot get blood so easily as in times past. Miss Figg did not respond to my last three orders, so I went and visited her shop.
“Uncle is selling his practice,” she told me, her hands occupied with mixing some remedy. “I must seek a new situation. Sorry, Miss Bennet, no more blood for you.”
“Oh,” I said in dismay. “Oh dear. I am sorry to hear it.”
She laughed a little. “I’m sure you are. You know, it couldn’t have lasted much longer anyhow. More and more blood you wanted, more and more and more, and even our stupidest patients began to ask why we bled them so much these days. You’ve sucked this town dry.”
She has always been an odd, rude little thing, but I am in no position to complain.
“What sort of situation do you seek? Perhaps I can help.”
“Nay.” She grinned. “I know your father’s income. He couldn’t afford me, even if you and your mother are half our practice. Not to worry, I shall soon find something very suitable.”
“Right. Well. I certainly hope so.” And I left her.
Pike was alarmed when I pulled him aside at the next ball and told him of the shortage. After thinking on it for a few minutes, he told me, “Leave it to me, Miss Bennet. Perhaps I can obtain what you require.”
“What we require,” I pointed out.
“Well, quite.”
“How can you? There is no other apothecary.”
“Not here, but I am often in London upon business. I shall speak to medical students of my acquaintance. They are always hard up.”
Thus far he has not produced more blood, but it hardly matters, for I cannot access my laboratory in any case.
Georgiana’s illness has laid her low at last. I thought, given how close we have become, I might now be admitted to nurse her, but she refuses.
She only tells me through the door that she will be better in a few days.
Perhaps that closeness, as I have sometimes conjectured, exists only in my head.
So I have found myself with something I have not had since I was eleven or so: free time. It is fine, amber late summer weather, and I have been wandering the country lanes.
It was on one such wander that I formed a new acquaintance of a kind. I was traversing the road through the woods near the river when I spotted a young woman standing in the lane.
“Good day,” I said.
“Dia duit.”
She must be Irish, I realized, for my feet had taken me near Pike’s factory. It was soon to begin production, and he had imported several dozen young Irishwomen to work it.
It sounded like dia daitch . Pretty. I am, of course, fluent in Latin, and my French and German are quite good, but this was a language I had never heard a word of before. If my mind had a stomach, it would have growled. “Dia duit,” I repeated carefully.
The girl burst out laughing, then quickly covered her mouth. “I suppose my pronunciation is terrible,” I said, and tried again. “Dia duit.”
“Dia duit,” she repeated slowly, and I copied her. We went back and forth a few times.
The tight, pinched look on her face relaxed a little. She almost smiled. I suppose it must be awfully difficult, starting over somewhere no one speaks your language.
She taught me a few more words of her tongue—it was hard going, for it is a lovely but strange language, with a slow, dreamy rhythm and vowels that sound different to me every time she repeats a word.
You would love it, I think, Harry, for it is very musical, though not on my tongue.
She did her best not to laugh at my attempts.
In return, I taught her a few words of English. Hello. Goodbye. My name is Mairead.
Is that not funny? Her name, in English, is Mary, too. That is not so extraordinary of course—every fifth girl here in Meryton is another Mary. Still. It echoes in my mind.
Then a bell rang.
Instantly, Mairead’s smile vanished. “Slan,” she said, and darted back down the lane, quickly swallowed up by the trees.
Since that day I have gone back several times, hoping to see her again.
Something about her tugs at my mind. Boredom, I suppose—with no new books and no Georgiana, my mind has seized this new language like a dog chews a bone.
In any case she’s a good sign. Pike’s factory plans proceed briskly, which means he is still in possession of his faculties.
Hopefully he can source us some more blood as he promised.
(Next morning)
Had a gift from Pike. A hamper of pheasant and fine fruits of the season. Mamma does not know whether to be indignant at being treated like poor relations who must be sent hampers or hopeful that this means that Pike is sweet on me.
As soon as she’d emptied the hamper, I left her and Cook to their surmises and took the basket up to my room. Sure enough, it had a false bottom.
Blood. Phials and phials. No names, but he’s labeled them Subject A , Subject B , Subject C , et cetera, so I ought to do all right. Pike must know an awful lot of medical students. And I can hear G stirring upstairs. Back to work.
Slan, Harry. That means goodbye.