Renegade (14 page)

“No! I don’t want her to touch me!” the blond child screamed immediately after bloodying my nose. “I only want Dr. Anderson.”

I fought tears as well as a burning desire to curse. The kick, unbelievably forceful for a four-year-old, caused
the whole middle section of my face to feel as if it were on fire. The boy had dealt the blow just as I had attempted to listen to his heart with a stethoscope.

Dr. Anderson calmly handed me a tissue.

Dr. Davis, who had just entered the room, stood against a wall and tried to look concerned but I saw that she was repressing amusement. Her look made me wonder if the little fiend had ever injured her.

After I wiped the blood away, Dr. Anderson examined my nose briefly. “Not broken, merely bloodied. It will be sore for a day at least. It will bruise.”

I blushed, embarrassed. Although we had several children at Whitechapel Hospital, I had just exhibited what very little experience I had in pediatric care. Mostly, I had cared for women and newborns.

Nicholas screamed at his mother when she chided him for his bad behavior.

“Shhhh … hush, Nicholas,” Dr. Anderson said, taking the stethoscope from my hands and kneeling so that she was eye-level with the boy. “You have hurt Miss Sharp very badly.”

“I dun care,” he retorted, glaring at me.

“I said hush.” Dr. Anderson firmly placed the stethoscope upon his chest.

He quieted as she listened to his heartbeat.

“Abbie,” Dr. Anderson said, “come here.” She shot a dragon-gaze at Nicholas. “You remain still, my young man.”

When I listened through the stethoscope, I heard a tiny whistling sound amidst the regular strong beat of the little boy’s heart.

“Heart murmur,” Dr. Anderson said, standing. “It’s a small leak, brought about by a tiny hole in the heart valves. Specifically, this one is a mild systolic heart murmur. I have every hope that it will close on its own before he turns seven.”

She looked reassuringly at the mother. “Still, we will monitor it nonetheless.”

Almost immediately after we left Nicholas, I had to rush to a delivery with Dr. Davis.

Though that particular delivery went smoothly, we had three more that were rather complicated. One of the mothers truly was only a girl—thirteen. The baby came out stillborn. But we were mainly relieved that the girl survived the birth.

Before the last delivery of the day, our throats parched, Dr. Davis, Dr. Carmichael, a medical student named Anna, and I escaped for a few minutes to drink some water. As small talk commenced, my ears pricked when the conversation turned to the murders in Highgate Cemetery.

“The police think it is an escaped lunatic,” Dr. Carmichael said excitedly

Anna chuckled. “Are we certain it’s not our very own Tillie from ward four?”

Some laughter, as Rachel explained to me that Tillie was an absolutely insane former prostitute in her eighties who essentially lived at the hospital.

“Well, at least this will slow up the body thieves,” Dr. Davis remarked, smiling.

“Whitechapel Hospital will lose all their suppliers,” Anna said quickly.

The scandal with the Member of Parliament’s son must be quite public by now
, I thought. A silent awkwardness set in as they all remembered that I had worked at Whitechapel Hospital.

Dr. Davis was the first one to break the silence: “Apologies, Miss Sharp. We all forgot.”

“It’s fine.” I actually cared very little. We all knew that this sort of thing might happen at any hospital.

“Dr. Anderson has told us that Whitechapel Hospital is similar to New Hospital. Is that true?” Dr. Davis asked.

“Very true. Have you never visited?” I asked, looking at all three of them.

“Never,” Dr. Davis replied. Anna and Dr. Carmichael both shook their heads.

“But we spoke to Dr. Bartlett once at a dinner party at Dr. Anderson’s home,” Dr. Davis said. She cast a smiling glance cast toward the others. “And a few of his young physicians, specifically a Dr. St. John, was there. Did you happen to work with him?”

“The pale one?” Dr. Carmichael nearly cut Dr. Davis off. “Yes, he’s quite handsome, but Hettie, you should give up on him. He’s pale as a marble statue and cold as one too. I had to deal with him when he met with Dr. Anderson to discuss some new ways of organizing our delivery room. He’s not merely a physician—he has a seminary degree. Trust me, the poor man is all work and godliness.”

I smiled a little, thinking of Simon-the-enigma.

“Well then the other one, the dark haired one, he seemed more human, did he not?” Dr. Davis asked Anna.

William. My heart began pounding and I felt my possessive instincts rise. Then I felt foolish, hating my pettiness, my jealousy. I should not care so much.

“Oh, not much more,” Anna replied. “But he seemed mysterious, intense. And he seemed to think of women more than Dr. St. John.”

I became dizzy. Had I become consumed, addicted to William, the same way that all other women were? Love was perhaps a grand game of bees and nectar to him, and I myself had almost been swept away.

“Yes, I know which one you are speaking of,” Dr. Carmichael said, giggling. “Those eyes—fiery green. I felt almost as if I could not move when he looked at me. But he wasn’t a physician, Hettie. He was some eccentric nephew of Dr. Bartlett’s.”

Only a small sense of relief overcame me as I realized that they were not speaking of William. I remembered, suddenly, vividly, seeing Max at the Conclave’s home. At that point, at Dr. Bartlett’s dinner party, I hadn’t known him, and I had been struck by his arresting gaze. As I recalled how he had terrorized me thereafter, a fresh wave of nausea swept over me. The dizziness remained.

Control, control,
I reminded myself, feeling their eyes upon me. I took a great gulp of my water, which was now warm.

“Excuse me,” I said evenly, taking a deep breath as I left the room.

That evening, Grandmother was only marginally happier that I was working at New Hospital rather than Whitechapel Hospital. Although she would prefer for me not to work at all, to abandon my desire to attend London Medical School for Women, she knew better than to push the matter. She was, I imagined bitterly, particularly happy that I no longer worked alongside William Siddal.

“But your nose, Arabella. It is hideous. You look like a common hooligan who has been in a street fight.”

I sighed and ate my roast beef. I had eaten very little all day and felt absolutely famished. Every muscle in my legs ached and I just wanted to crawl into bed. When I’d first arrived home from work, Richard had winced a bit when he opened the door, and only then had I seen my reflection in the entranceway mirror. My nose was dark, purplish, swollen, and the purple had spread a bit to my cheeks like a stain.

“I’ll be certain to have Ellen bring you some ice before bed. You simply must take down that swelling, otherwise everyone will think you are the Elephant Man’s sister.” She spoke in a clipped voice about her day, about her cribbage game with Lady Violet and Lady Catherine, and I struggled to stay awake.

Apart from my exhaustion, I knew that I had to speak to Simon about the murders, about what had happened with Abberline—about how the Inspector knew about the symbol. But by the time I had reached Kensington after work and stopped by Simon’s home, it was almost dinner time. His maid told me that he would be staying late at the hospital, and that he might be home the next morning.

The rest of the week continued, where I worked to exhaustion all hours of the day. I stopped by Simon’s house on Thursday night, but he was once again at the hospital. He seemed to be there all the time lately.

But then, at the end of the week, on Friday night, I had another nightmare—and it was then that Max returned to me.

Part II

“No doubt we seem a kind of monster to you.”

—The Princess

Twelve

I
t’ll be raining soon. Pourin’ down. Best to hurry up and get these in while we can, before we get steeped,” Donnie shouted as the swollen storm clouds above began to rumble.

Donnie and the other two fishermen pulled in the last of their nets. It had been a slow night for them. Disappointing catches. Unpredictable currents. Nonetheless, they had caught a respectable number of cod.

After anchoring their boat, they walked along the rocky beach, toward the path to the nearby town of Bromwell.

“Good e’enin. Have to be gettin’ home,” Donnie said. His home was located not far from the beach, on the fringe of town. As the oldest of the fishermen, at twenty-nine, he was the only one married, and therefore not able to go with the others for a pint at the pub. “Don’ ye stay out too late!” he said before taking leave of them. “Early morn agin tomorrow.”

“Aye, we won’t,” Franklin and John assured him. They had become used to these long days on the boat. It wasn’t even summer, and yet their skin was already burnt from the hours out on the ocean, under the blazing sun.

Soon the rain Donnie had predicted began, and a full-blown, late March lightning storm flashed through the sky. Franklin and John began running, taking a shortcut to town that led through a small forest near the beach. Yet Franklin paused, despite the rain. Something in his peripheral vision had caught his attention. He’d seen it in the white flash of the lightning … on the wet rocks of the shoreline, just beyond the trees.

He peered through the black branches.
No. It couldn’t be …

Lightning flashed again through the sky, and the young man’s eyes widened.

A creature, feminine and monstrous, sat on one of the rocks. Her skin, slick and scaly, shone in the lit-up sky. He saw her breasts, and how the talons of her dragon-feet rested on the rock. Fear and fascination almost overwhelmed him, particularly when he saw that her eyes were upon him, watching him.

Then the flash of lightning was over, yet he couldn’t stop staring at the rocky place.

The lightning flash came again.

She was gone.

“What is it, man?” John asked him. “Ye look as if you’ve seen a spirit.”

“Nay, not a ghost.” Franklin still couldn’t peel his eyes from the spot.

“Selkie?” John chuckled.

“Nay.” Franklin laughed nervously—everyone in Orkney knew of the selkie legends. It was a common bedtime story: seals turning into beautiful women on certain nights of the year. But this was no seal. All he could think about was her breasts. And her talons.