Where the Light Enters

by Sara Donati

  The housekeeper had other ideas. She sat Elise down at a dining room table where she found a silver coffee urn, a pot of milk, sugar lumps on a dish painted with daisies, a plate of buttered toast points, and an egg in its cup, the top already neatly sliced off.

  “Don’t say you don’t want it,” the housekeeper told her. “Mrs. Griffin thinks you need to eat, and so you shall.” The woman didn’t introduce herself, nor did she smile.

  And it was true; warm food steadied her nerves and helped her order her thoughts. She went to find Mrs. Griffin in her parlor in a better frame of mind, her hands steady.

  The old woman put her book aside, looked Elise up and down, and pointed a wobbling finger to a chair that sat directly opposite her. Something like a confessional, but without the screen. It was an unsettling thought, and Elise wondered where it had come from.

  “So,” said Mrs. Griffin. “Tell me. How does everyone on Waverly Place get on?”

  Elise scrambled for the right amount of information. “They are all glad that Dr. Sophie will be home soon. And very sad about her husband.”

  The small red mouth pursed. “He was a treasure, that one. Just like his father. They die young, the Verhoevens.”

  “You know his family?”

  Mrs. Griffin chose to ignore the question. “Tell me about your training with the Sisters of Charity.”

  Exactly the kind of question she was hoping would not come her way, but there was no help for it.

  “At ten I began as a boarding student,” Elise began, her tone as cool as she could make it. “At fourteen I became a postulant, and at that point I was put to work in the infirmary, mostly cleaning. At sixteen I began as an assistant in the apothecary and started instruction in nursing. Then I was apprenticed under Sister Beatrix. The apprenticeship lasts four years, a combination of study and clinical work of increasing responsibility. When I finished my apprenticeship I began my novitiate. I was still in training, you understand. When I made my first profession they sent me to the Foundling, where I was for two years, and then I went to the orphan asylums at the cathedral.”

  “And then?”

  “Then I left the convent and accepted a nursing position at the New Amsterdam Charity Hospital. I was there until I began at Woman’s Medical School last fall. With the support of your scholarship.” She reached for a warmer tone. “For which I thank you.”

  Mrs. Griffin waved this away. “Tell me why you want to be a surgeon.”

  Elise sat up a little straighter. “I don’t want to be a surgeon.”

  One sparse white brow shot up. “You want to look after colicky babes in arms?”

  “I am training to do that and more, but my interests are elsewhere.”

  “Elsewhere.”

  They looked at each other for a long moment. Oddly enough, Elise realized that her anxiety had given way first to irritation, and now to a reluctant amusement.

  “Where exactly are your talents?” asked Mrs. Griffin.

  “I said nothing of talents. I said that I had other interests.”

  “Have you no talents?”

  “I didn’t say that, either.”

  “You don’t say much at all.”

  “I am here to answer any question you care to ask, Mrs. Griffin.”

  “Very well. What are your particular talents?”

  “You will know better than I do what the faculty think of my performance.”

  “Ah,” said the old lady. “But I want to know what you think. Unless you have nothing positive to say for yourself?”

  Elise’s pulse began to make itself felt in her wrists, but she forced herself to speak in a natural tone, at a reasonable speed.

  “I am good at puzzles,” she said. “I have a talent for taking a lot of what may seem like unconnected information and finding a pattern. I like the challenge of diagnosis. I believe I have something of a talent for it, but it will take a great deal of work and study before I could be considered a forensics specialist.”

  Mrs. Griffin tapped the arm of her chair with one fingertip. “Which of your teachers do you like least?”

  Surprise stole away her breath for a long moment. “I’m not willing to answer that question.”

  “Very well. Which of your teachers like you the least?”

  Elise went very still. What had Anna advised her to do? Answer briefly, thoroughly, be honest, and then be quiet.

  “Dr. Janeway.” She forced herself to look straight at her inquisitor.

  “And why would that be?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Surely you have some idea,” said Mrs. Griffin.

  “I don’t,” Elise said. “Surely.”

  “Is she unfair? Does she insult you?”

  “No,” Elise said. “But there are other ways to show that you dislike a person.”

  “Such as I’m showing you now.”

  Again, Elise had to catch her breath. “I don’t know you well enough to tell. Don’t you like me?”

  At that the old woman smiled so broadly that her face drew back in folds like the bellows on a concertina.

  “I do like you,” said Mrs. Griffin. “You remind me of myself at your age, prickly, protective of your friends. Driven, and able to step away from what is comfortable to pursue your interests. I never had the chance to study medicine, but you are making the most of the opportunity, and I approve. Your scholarship is secure. So go on now, go home to Lily Quinlan. You’ve earned your rest.”

  * * *

  • • •

  IN THE FOYER the butler handed Elise her bag, which he must have collected from the sidewalk where she dropped it. She was resisting the urge to check the books for water damage when the door opened and a man came in. He had a smudge of soot on his face and another on his coat; the hat he held in his hands looked like it had been dipped in an ash barrel.

  “Hello, Cronje,” he said to the butler, though he was looking at Elise. “I stopped to have a look at the disaster. Has everyone survived the excitement?”

  Then Elise realized that she recognized him. “Dr. Lambert,” she said. “Hello.”

  He gave a little bow from the shoulders, in the particular way of European men. “You must be one of my Aunt Griffin’s scholarship students.”

  Dr. Lambert had an open, friendly smile, an unusual thing, in her experience. Male doctors treated female medical students like serfs or ignored them entirely.

  He asked, “But why do you look so familiar?”

  She held out her hand. “I am Elise Mercier. I’ve been to some of your lectures on forensic science and I hope to hear more of them.”

  He looked at her more closely as he took the hand she offered and shook it. “Aren’t you Anna Savard’s fledgling?”

  Elise admitted that she was, and couldn’t hide her surprise that he made the connection.

  “I’ve known both Drs. Savard by reputation for some time,” he told her. “But I first met them last year. I was on the coroner’s jury for the Campbell case. You must have heard something about it.”

  “Quite a lot,” Elise said. “And I read the post-mortems you wrote.” It struck her then how odd that sounded. “I board with Dr. Savard’s aunt and so I often had the chance to talk to her at meals, about my studies, mostly. She offered to show me the case her husband was working on. For its educational value.”

  “Is that so?” His gaze had not so much sharpened as cleared, as if his mind had been called back unexpectedly from some more pressing business. “Something to discuss another day. If you’re so inclined.”

  “I would welcome the opportunity.” Elise hoped he would not notice how color flooded her face. Not out of embarrassment, but excitement and pleasure.

  “It’s good to see intelligent young women taking an interest in forensics,” he said. “You certainly would brighten up the
place. As it stands we’re pretty dull. So stop by my laboratory the next time you’re in the neighborhood, I’ll show you around.”

  Elise found it hard to swallow just in that moment. “I will, and thank you kindly for the invitation.”

  His grin was more than a little cheeky, but he softened the effect with another bow.

  * * *

  • • •

  FOR THE ENTIRE walk home, Elise thought about the Campbell case. It was a year ago that Anna had shown her Dr. Lambert’s post-mortem report on Janine Campbell’s suspicious death, and she could remember parts of it still word for word. It had disturbed her to the point of nausea at the time, but it stayed with her for different reasons altogether. The Campbell post-mortem had made her see death in a new way.

  The dead were not silent, if you knew how to listen. They had stories to tell, but she was just starting to learn that particular language, written as it was on the body itself. There had been more deaths like Janine Campbell’s and with every post-mortem, Elise’s sense of the mind responsible for the crimes had grown a little clearer. And then the murders had stopped. Probably because the guilty party—the detective sergeants had focused on a prime suspect very soon once the investigation began—had died.

  She had always thought she would work with children, but more and more she felt herself leaning toward the laboratory and the things to be learned in the morgue. If she were to tell her family about this interest in post-mortems—reading them, watching them, and maybe, someday, performing them—they would be shocked and disturbed. As she herself would have been not so long ago.

  * * *

  • • •

  WHILE ELISE WATCHED the fire on Seventeenth Street, Anna Savard had back-to-back surgeries that kept her on her feet from six until eleven. When she finally left the operating room, she found her husband waiting for her. Jack Mezzanotte was the soul of calm in an emergency, but just now he was having trouble schooling his expression.

  She stopped. “What’s wrong?”

  “Some good news for a change. The Cassandra has come in.”

  Anna let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Sophie was home, finally. She shrugged out of her surgical smock, yanking to free herself of the tangled wrist ties, and handed it to a nurse passing by.

  “I need twenty minutes to write my surgical notes and orders.”

  He made a sweeping gesture with both hands, and she ran off for her office.

  Sophie was home. Anna was so happy and agitated that she fumbled her pen and ended up with ink spatter on her cuff. A few deep breaths and she dove in and was just finishing the paperwork when an orderly came knocking at her door so hard that it flew open and bounced back from the wall.

  “Dr. Savard,” he gasped. “Dr. Savard just came in, and she needs a surgeon.”

  At first Anna could make no sense of this. “Wait,” she said. “Wait. Do you mean the other Dr. Savard who used to be on staff here? Dr. Sophie, here? Is she injured?”

  The orderly shook his head so that his hair flopped from one side of his head to the other. “She’s fine. But she’s got a half-dead lady with her and another doctor and the navy and the police, too.”

  Anna thrust her papers into his hands with instructions to deliver them to the surgery matron and then dashed for the stairs. Sophie was here. With the navy, apparently. But if Anna fell down the stairs in her rushing and broke her neck, this odd idea would never clarify itself, and so she focused on putting one foot down after the other.

  Once on the landing that looked out over the lobby Anna could see why the orderly had been so panicked. The crowd was mostly men: police and sailors and worst of all, reporters. Sophie was home less than an hour, and already the reporters were nipping at her heels. But there was Jack, his expression dark as he herded the newspapermen to the doors, deaf to their protests. Another reminder of how well she had married.

  As she ran down the last flight of stairs and pushed her way through the crowd, snatches of conversation came to her: survivors and wrecked and miracle. At the heavy double doors that led to the operating rooms, another orderly stood watch.

  “Mr. Mitchell,” she said, fighting to contain her agitation. “Where is my cousin?”

  He pointed to the first operating room.

  Other hospitals had surgical suites or large lecture halls with rows of seats encircling an operating table. Here the operating rooms were small, barely large enough for the patient, the surgeon and nurses, and equipment. And here was a stranger, standing in the way of the medical students trying to prepare the room. He wore the uniform of a shipping line’s captain, his posture as stiff and disapproving as a statue. Two others like him stood nearby.

  Behind them was the operating table, and behind the table where a young woman lay was Sophie, frazzled, travel-worn, and beautiful. Beside her was yet another stranger, a young man who looked as if he had not yet recovered from a serious illness.

  All Sophie’s attention was on the patient, her head tilted to one side as she concentrated on what the stethoscope was telling her.

  The woman took a shallow, hitching breath. There was a long pause, and she took another and let it go in a way no doctor could mistake. In response, the young man next to Sophie swayed on his feet, and the circulating nurse caught his arm and pulled him to the side and then out of the room.

  It was then that Sophie raised her head and saw Anna. Her expression was all relief and thankfulness, the very things Anna was feeling.

  “What is this?” Anna asked. “Who is your patient?” As she reached the table she saw the pregnant belly that had been blocked from her sight.

  “Eclampsia,” Sophie said, explanation enough for the death of a young healthy woman in the last weeks of a pregnancy. “That was this lady’s brother who just left. He has given permission for a post-mortem Caesarean.”

  Beside her a nurse held up a fresh surgical smock. Anna thrust her arms through the sleeves and went to the sink, where she began to scrub her hands and forearms with all the speed she could muster.

  “Are you the surgeon?”

  Anna glanced over her shoulder to the ship’s captain. “You are?”

  “Captain Barton Fontaine of the Cassandra. Now—”

  “Do you have any legal standing here?” Anna asked him, her voice as sharp and stern as she could make it. She turned to see his face consumed by a deep frown.

  “That’s not rele—”

  “It’s the only relevant question. I assume you do not have legal standing. Please take your companions and leave this room immediately. We have no more than five minutes to deliver this child if it is to have any chance of survival.”

  “But are you sure the mother is—deceased?”

  Everyone in the room turned toward him, as if he had suddenly broken into song.

  Sophie said, “Your ship’s doctor is in the lobby; send him in, if you doubt our word. And waste the little time the child has, while you’re at it.”

  * * *

  • • •

  SECONDS LATER, HER operating room free of strangers, Anna took a deep breath and picked up a scalpel from the tray of sterilized instruments. With one sure stroke she made a vertical midline incision from umbilicus to the pubic symphysis.

  Then she glanced at Sophie. “Tell me.”

  “Survivor of a wrecked ship. Three days waiting for rescue.”

  With a few more strokes of the scalpel Anna dissected layers of muscle to expose the uterus. Working together she and Sophie used their hands to pull the incision wide, and then nurses stepped in with retractors to free Anna’s hands.

  She palpated the gravid uterus very carefully and picked up the scalpel again to make an incision that resulted in a gush of warm amniotic fluid over her hands. It was clear, to her surprise and pleasure. The baby hadn’t been stressed enough to empty its bowels and darken the w
aters with meconium, which could have proved fatal.

  Sophie let out a long sigh as Anna grasped the child securely by head and shoulders and drew him, strumming with life, out of his mother’s still body.

  He was well formed, quite large as was usually the case with eclampsia, with rounded elbows and knees and a head full of dark hair. He was alive, and vigorous, and whole.

  Sophie came around the table to clamp the umbilicus and cut it. The boy’s eyes, wide open, met Anna’s gaze. Orphaned before he took his first breath, he opened his mouth and roared.

  3

  THE LOSS OF a mother at birth was not unusual in a hospital that treated the poor: women who were undernourished, overworked, susceptible to infection and disease. There was a routine: medical students took over suturing and preparing the body for the morgue, and a wet nurse took over the care of the infant.

  It was Mrs. Quig who came in to get him, a wet nurse well liked for her plentiful milk and a kindly disposition. She would bathe and dress and swaddle the boy, and then, settled comfortably, she would put him to the breast. Throughout his first weeks she would do these things for him, in her own home. If he survived eight weeks he would go to a foster home or an orphan asylum. It was a process Anna knew in detail, because just a year ago she had taken responsibility for two orphaned Italian sisters, and then spent months searching for their brothers. It had been an education that she hadn’t sought out, and now would never be free of.

  A knock on the door and Mr. Mitchell leaned in to say that the coroner had arrived and wanted to speak to Sophie.

  “In a minute,” Anna said. “We need to wash.”

  As they stood side by side at the sinks Anna bumped her cousin with a shoulder. “I am so glad to have you home.”