‘And there’s still Aberlady,’ said Dr Antrobus.
‘I’m afraid Mr Aberlady has already been anatomised,’ I said.
‘Oh.’ Dr Cole looked disappointed. ‘By whom?’
‘I attended to the matter this morning, with Dr Graves and Dr Proudlove.’
‘Proudlove?’ Dr Antrobus sounded surprised. ‘Didn’t know he was back on the waterfront.’ He stared at me. Then, ‘Do we need an acting apothecary?’ he said, to no one in particular. ‘We managed well enough when Aberlady wasn’t here.’ He put his feet up on the chair opposite, so that I might benefit from the sight of the soles of his boots. ‘Besides, Proudlove knows how to run an apothecary. Get him to do it. Or that pestle girl. What’s her name?’
‘Oh, come now, Antrobus,’ said Dr Cole. ‘You can’t let a girl run an apothecary.’
I laughed. ‘Quite so,’ I said. I shoved Dr Antrobus’s feet off the chair and dropped myself into it with an air of bored familiarity. ‘The place was a complete shambles! Lord knows what Aberlady had been teaching her. I don’t blame you for missing the ward rounds either. If Sackville’s not around then why bother? There’s no one else worth impressing, from what I can make out.’
‘You met Dr Rennie, I take it?’ said Dr Cole.
‘Yes.’ I raised my eyebrows. ‘Does he know what day of the week it is?’
‘Only on a Wednesday,’ replied Dr Cole. We laughed.
‘He’s not so bad,’ said Dr Antrobus, watching me, unsmiling.
‘But as a surgeon?’ I said. ‘Once upon a time I have no doubt he was quite brilliant. But now? I’d not like to have him bending over me with a knife in his hand!’
‘You’d not want Antrobus here, either,’ said Dr Cole with a wink. ‘Last week he severed a fellow’s artery. The man bled to death before our very eyes—’
‘Don’t exaggerate,’ said Dr Antrobus, frowning. ‘I sorted it out straight away.’ He shrugged. ‘He still didn’t make it.’
‘Sackville was furious. Another death in the annual reports! It’s enough to make the subscribers put their shillings and goodwill straight back into their pockets.’
‘Anyone might make such a mistake,’ I said. ‘It’s far too dark down there for surgery.’ I snatched up a chestnut from the stove top, snapping off its hot crisp coat with my fingers. ‘First nuts of the season?’ I said. I tossed the shell into the hearth. ‘Always the best.’
‘And what’s this Birdwhistle tells us about Siren House?’ Dr Antrobus said. ‘I believe you’ve been sniffing around there too, Mr Flockhart.’
‘My dear Dr Antrobus,’ said Dr Birdwhistle, clearly discomfited at being revealed to be a tittle-tattle. ‘I merely said that I had seen Mr Flockhart this morning already—’
‘Asking questions, you said.’
I leered. ‘I knew one of the girls in her old life.’
‘Is that the job of an apothecary?’ said Dr Antrobus. ‘To ask questions?’
‘She drowned,’ said Dr Cole. ‘Her lungs were full of water, the post-mortem was quite clear. And as for Aberlady – a week at the Golden Swan on Spyglass Lane is enough to make anyone lose their mind.’
‘I believe the girl used to work here, on the Blood,’ I said.
‘Really?’ said Dr Cole. ‘What was her name?’
‘Mary Mercer.’
He frowned, as if trying to dredge up a memory. ‘Can’t say I remember. What about you, Antrobus?’
‘The name means nothing to me,’ said Dr Antrobus. ‘But they come and go, Mr Flockhart. The job doesn’t always suit them. The Blood’s not a place for the faint hearted, after all.’ He smiled, so that I knew he had witnessed my recent ignominious revival on deck.
‘Even a pretty girl like that?’ I said, pretending I had not noticed. I grinned again, and adopted what I hoped was a lascivious expression. I hated playing the part, but what else might I do? If I tried to interrogate them I would learn nothing. I had met men like these two before – young, arrogant, uninspired – feigning a masculine bonhomie seemed the best way to cultivate their confidence in me. ‘I think I’d have remembered her!’
‘Perhaps Birdwhistle remembers her,’ said Dr Antrobus.
‘Dr Birdwhistle,’ said Dr Birdwhistle.
‘He’s more likely than any of us to know these trollops. Perhaps it’s in one of his confessions.’
‘Confessions?’ I said. ‘How intriguing.’ I addressed Dr Birdwhistle. ‘Tell me more, sir!’
‘It is quite simple,’ he said stiffly. ‘The girls’ pasts are written down, in detail, in the Case Book at Siren House.’
‘By you? You old rogue!’ I seized another nut, and winked broadly at Dr Cole.
‘Any one of us might take it down,’ said Dr Birdwhistle. His face was crimson, his mouth a tight rosebud of disapproval. ‘All of us on the Blood are associated with Siren House. In the main the confessions are taken down by myself, but occasionally the medical men here step in. The girls often find work here after their spell at Siren so it behoves us all to know something of their pasts.’
‘And what do these confessions contain?’ I said.
‘The girls are encouraged to say as much as they can about the road that led them to Siren House. It is all noted down, and then they are charged never to speak of it again. When they emerge from the parlour after confession they are emerging into a new life, their histories trapped – imprisoned, if you will – in the pages of the Case Book.’
‘And who has the Case Book?’
‘I am the custodian.’ He patted his waistcoat pocket, and I heard the muffled sound of keys moving against one another. ‘It is kept locked away at all times.’
‘You know, I think I remember the Mercer girl, now you come to mention it,’ said Dr Antrobus suddenly. ‘Kept herself to herself, as I recall. You remember her, Cole. Didn’t mix much with the others.’ He grinned. ‘You quite liked her, I seem to think—’
‘What, that dark haired minx? The small one? Was she from Siren House? She never said—’ Dr Cole blushed. ‘Yes, I—’ He swallowed. ‘Was it her on the slab? I didn’t recognise her at all, I’m afraid. I suppose it was rather dark in there, and there were so many students, and Dr Graves always takes the head, you know.’ He smiled, though had the grace to look sheepish, and when his face settled I was of the impression he was more perturbed than he admitted, though whether that was because he had been revealed to be callous, because he had been found out to have fancied a whore, or because he had actually had feelings for the girl, I could not say.
‘I thought she was pretty enough,’ he said. ‘Certainly a cut above the others we usually get. But I’d not have expected her to run away simply because I—’
‘You what?’ said Dr Birdwhistle.
‘Nothing.’ Dr Cole looked uncomfortable. ‘Nothing at all.’
‘Perhaps she ran away because of you,’ said Dr Birdwhistle, his face redder than ever. ‘I would!’
‘You have nothing to fear from me, Dr Birdwhistle!’ He gave a bark of laugher.
‘Really, Dr Cole, this is not the first time.’
‘I can’t help it if they take a fancy to me,’ said Dr Cole. He smirked, evidently pleased, no matter what he implied to the contrary. ‘The girl made her expectations quite plain. Naturally I rebuffed her.’
‘In case you hadn’t noticed, Dr Birdwhistle,’ said Dr Antrobus, sitting back with his elbows on the arms of his chair. ‘There are brothels aplenty round here. On both sides of the river. We might catch the pox for a few shillings ashore easily enough without having to associate ourselves with anyone on board.’
‘And yet why not?’ I said. ‘If it’s being given out for free.’
‘For heaven’s sake, sir!’ cried Dr Birdwhistle. ‘Are you no better? Have you no shame? This is a hospital, not a . . . a . . . a place of assignation.’ He snatched up his bible. ‘I feel a reading is required.’
The two medical men groaned. ‘Oh! Not here, man,’ cried Dr Cole, pelting Dr Birdwhistle with a ches
tnut shell. ‘Anywhere but here.’ He and Dr Antrobus grinned at one another as Dr Birdwhistle scuttled out.
‘And yet,’ Dr Antrobus addressed me as the door banged closed, ‘as I’m sure you noticed, Flockhart, he is the only one amongst us who has the pox.’
I had indeed noticed: Dr Birdwhistle’s eyes, red-rimmed and watery behind his thick spectacles, their pupils unresponsive to light, in addition to his perpetually nodding head, a symptom caused by labouring blood vessels and flaccid heart valves. To anyone acquainted with the wards set aside for venereal cases the signs were unmistakable.
‘The man’s losing his mind,’ said Dr Cole, plucking up The Times morning edition that lay on the floor beside his chair.
‘It’s often a symptom,’ said Dr Antrobus. He closed his eyes. ‘Lord knows what goes on in his head.’
I went up to the apothecary and attended to my duties there, preparing remedies and doses until after one o’clock, when Mrs Speedicut came up with two of the nurses. We took the medicine down onto the wards. By this time the students had arrived, and the place was busier and warmer than ever, though everyone noticed how much cleaner the wards looked, with their newly scrubbed floors and windows. Mrs Speedicut glowed, and nudged her fellow harpies in the ribs. And yet the place still stank, so I opened all the windows, in the hope that the breeze might ventilate the place. But the river was like a sewer that day and what blew in from outside was far worse than the smell we had to contend with inside, and so I acquiesced to Mrs Speedicut’s wishes and the place was shuttered once more.
Dr Cole and Dr Antrobus walked the wards. There was still no sign of Dr Sackville who was presumably engaged in the more salubrious surroundings of his private practice. I saw Dr Rennie standing in the shadows – at least, I thought I saw him, for when I looked again he was gone.
‘Where’s Proudlove?’ said Dr Cole, though he sounded irritated rather than urgent. I saw him look at his watch, and shake his head, and say with some satisfaction that it appeared Dr Proudlove was not coming that day, and that his students would only become medical men if they followed himself or Dr Antrobus that afternoon. The students did as they were instructed.
I went upstairs to the apothecary. Already the place had become a sanctuary to me, a blessed place of light and air after the close quarters of that dark and foetid hulk. The shelves that lined the walls beneath the windows were filled with medical books. Culpeper’s Complete Herbal, Orfila on poisons, Mckendrick’s Pharmacopoeia, Dent and Micklewhite’s Materia Medica – all were old friends to me. Those dealing with poisonous beasts and insects, parasites, and the climate and geography of foreign places were unknown, but were nonetheless reassuring in their solidity; the bottles and drawers that surrounded me a comforting, familiar world. And yet how safe was I? How safe was Will? Might I too return one evening to find the place filled with the fumes of poisonous seeds? Would I go up to the Basin and find Will drowned? We were no closer to finding out what had happened to Aberlady, no closer to understanding the relations that existed between those on board. I realised how much I had taken for granted at St Saviour’s, and at Angel Meadow. I had been familiar with those places, and with the people who worked there. But here? Here I was an outsider: no one knew me, no one trusted me, and no one would tell me anything. But I had already thought about that, and while my efforts to ingratiate myself with the resident doctors might take some time, help was approaching at that very moment in the form of a fat old woman in a filthy apron.
There was a knock at the door, and the handle rattled. ‘Come in,’ I cried, though she already had. I pulled a chair towards the stove, and handed her a cup of strong coffee. ‘Do sit down.’ I glugged a measure of gin into the hot, black liquid and tossed her a pouch of her favourite Virginian shag. ‘And tell me everything.’
I was caught between the different worlds that coexisted in any hospital. I was not a patient – thank God, for once one entered a hospital there was every chance one would not be leaving it again. Equally, I was not a consultant. The authority and glamour, such as it was, that came with the post of physician or surgeon would always elude me, and I would never be treated by any of them as an equal. But even as I was marginalised by medical men, it was me, as the apothecary, who was meant to run the hospital. Only the apothecary was there all day, every day. As a result, I was far above nurses and orderlies, and despite my dislike of hierarchy I could not, in all conscience, claim any of them as my friends. Still, time and long familiarity had resulted in an uneasy comradeship between myself and the woman who now sat before the apothecary stove. Like a truffle pig in a forest she would have unearthed more in one morning than I might have found out in a month.
‘You are glad to be back in a proper hospital, madam?’ I said.
‘Proper?’ she laughed. ‘Suppose it’s more of a proper one than Angel Meadow Asylum, but that’s not saying much.’ The smile slipped from her lips. ‘How long do I have to stay here?’ she said. ‘There’s snakes, you know!’
‘The snakes are confined,’ I said. ‘Which is more than can be said for the people. I need you to tell me what you know.’
Mrs Speedicut filled her pipe and settled back in her chair. She told me that she knew some of the nurses on board already. ‘From St Saviour’s,’ she said. ‘They wanted new nurses when St Saviour’s moved over the river, and some of them what had worked at old St Saviour’s came up to the Blood. Betty Tompkins. Martha Fisher. Jess McGinley – Jess’s bunions, sir! You should see them—!’
‘Never mind Jess McGinley’s bunions,’ I said, anxious to avoid an inventory of her old cronies and their ailments. What she was really saying, however, was that gossip had ensued. She told me what I already knew – that Dr Rennie was losing his mind, that dementia assailed him in waves, sometimes engulfing him completely, drowning the present, so that his own name became mysterious to him and those he had known all his life were transformed into complete strangers. At the same time, old memories glittered like jewels glimpsed in the deep, so that he dived down for them, seizing them as they swam into view and holding on tight – until they were sucked from his fingers by the undertow and he was hurled back up, up into the present, disoriented and afraid. He lived at the bottom of the ship, his rooms neatly ordered and comfortingly familiar, and to which he would repair in times of stress or anxiety. He still operated, said Mrs Speedicut, though only with Dr Antrobus, Dr Cole or Dr Proudlove at his side.
‘There’s something between him and that Dr Sackville, though no one knows what since whatever it is it’s so far back no one can remember,’ she said. ‘Both of ’em learned their trade with one o’ them famous doctors in town.’
I knew this too – my father had told me – though what ‘something’ there was between Dr Sackville and Dr Rennie I had no idea. Possibly it was nothing more sinister than two old men who had known each other all their working lives. Possibly.
‘And Dr Sackville?’
She told me that Dr Sackville was wealthy, successful, admired. He arrived in a coach on those days when he was on board, and had numberless women patients lolling on sofas in the elegant boudoirs and drawing rooms of the west. He had no need to come to the Blood at all, though he did. He and Dr Birdwhistle were forever in disagreement about the running of the ship – the former saw no need for ‘religious cant’, the latter insisted upon it. ‘Came down bothering the patients with his Bible first thing this morning,’ she said. ‘Then he vanished. Off to Siren House, the girls said. Two hours later back he comes, spouting on about Matthew this and Job that and chapter this and verse that. He just gets in the way. Ain’t nobody interested. He made all those who could get out o’ bed, go up on deck and into the chapel. Draughty place, so it is, and most of ’em should o’ stayed in their beds. I told him so, too.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Don’t think much of him. Nasty little runt of a man. I seen the way he looks at them younger nurses too.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like he wants to eat them up. Besides.’ She
frowned. ‘I knows the pox when I sees it.’
I asked her about the others. Did they share Dr Sackville’s antipathy towards the curate? What were they like towards each other? She told me that Dr Cole and Dr Antrobus hung upon Dr Sackville’s every word, Dr Proudlove did too, when he was given the chance. All three of them had no connections, no family money behind them, no reputation to draw upon. They needed patronage, as well as success, if they were ever to get on, and so they clung to the Great Man’s coat tails in the hope that they might somehow be swept along into prominence. So far, none of them had seen a change in fortunes. It was no more than I had suspected. In a competitive profession, it was common for younger doctors to attach themselves to a more revered medical man, though why Dr Sackville chose to associate himself with a rotten old hulk like the Blood was still unclear. Dr Rennie knew the answer, I was certain, even if he did not realise it himself.
‘And what of Mr Aberlady?’ I said. I bent closer. ‘What can you tell me about him?’
‘Not much,’ she said. ‘Hard working. Kind. Took on that Pestle Jenny, despite what the others said.’
‘What did they say?’
‘That he was wastin’ his time. A girl as apothecary!’
‘Did he have any enemies?’ I knew even as I spoke that it was not the best of questions. In a competitive profession everyone had enemies, whether they knew of them or not.
‘They say he and Dr Proudlove were friends,’ she said. ‘And Dr Cole and Dr Antrobus too. All the younger doctors together.’
‘Together?’ I said. Mrs Speedicut nodded. And yet Dr Rennie had said that John Aberlady had had no friends on board the Blood.
‘And Mary?’
‘That dead girl?’
The Blood: What secrets lie aboard? (Jem Flockhart Book 3) Page 13
