Where the Light Enters

by Sara Donati

  Sophie’s posture relaxed and she leaned back, one finger tracing the edge of the table. “My first memories are from the apothecary. It was my mother’s domain, and she liked to keep me nearby. There was a little table in the corner where I had some things, books and pencils and paper, and I sat there and pretended to be the doctor. So when Mrs. Lee said we were going on an outing and we would be stopping at an apothecary, I could hardly wait.”

  Elise could imagine that much exactly. The offer of something not just familiar, but beloved, must have been a balm to a child so scarred by loss.

  Sophie was saying, “This city was so intimidating at first—you’ll understand what I mean by that. Everything is so big, as if it were all built for giants. I thought an apothecary would be like home.”

  She gave a small laugh. “In fact when the door opened all the familiar smells were there: alcohol, mineral oil, vinegar, juniper, musk, woodbine, rosemary, lavender, a hundred scents from the corrosive to sickly sweet.”

  Sophie looked out the window, but Elise had the sense she was seeing something in her mind, a memory she didn’t often indulge.

  “You were disappointed?”

  She shrugged. “Apart from the smells, it was nothing like home. There were clerks in white aprons, very formal, all of them men. Cabinets and shelves that reached to the ceiling, with carved oak ladders hooked into a track so they could be pushed back and forth. And there wasn’t one colored person, anywhere.”

  “Except Mrs. Lee,” Elise offered.

  “Oh, yes.” Sophie smiled. “I depended on Mr. and Mrs. Lee, especially in the beginning when I was so homesick. I suppose I still depend on them today for the same reason, because they remind me who I am.”

  Elise hesitated just a moment. “When I was in the convent I saw so many children who had lost their parents without warning. The asylum terrified them. A hundred times bigger than any building they had ever known, and nothing familiar. Many of them turned to stone, is how it struck me.”

  Sophie pushed her coffee cup away from herself, her gaze fixed on her gloved hand. “I was fortunate compared to those children you saw day by day. I had Aunt Quinlan and Aunt Amelie, I had Mr. and Mrs. Lee, and most of all I had Anna and Cap. They reminded me what it was to play and be a child. If I had wanted to isolate myself they never would have allowed it. And then there was school, and finally medicine.”

  She glanced out the window. “Mr. Smithson died while Anna and I were in the middle of our licensing exams. You would have liked him. Everybody did. He was very formal but so kind and attentive, without exception. He was respectful to Mrs. Lee and to Aunt Amelie, and he treated Anna and me with great seriousness. Once we started to study chemistry we could go to him with questions, and he was so delighted to be asked, it was as if we were doing him a favor. When we were accepted to medical school he brought us flowers, to the house, and congratulated us. And he congratulated Amelie, for inspiring us to pursue medicine.”

  “Someday I hope to meet your aunt,” Elise said. “I’ve heard so many stories.”

  “Yes, well, I hope it won’t be much longer until you do. I’m sorry you never got to meet Mr. Smithson. I certainly learned a lot from him. Did you notice the door behind the main counter when you were there?”

  Elise’s memories of the quarter hour she spent in Smithson’s were spotty. She had had the Bellegarde baby to look after, and the lights were low.

  “I was distracted, I confess. I didn’t notice much at all.”

  Sophie ducked her head. “We were children but that door interested us, because it had the word private painted on it. Forbidden fruit was a great temptation.”

  “I would assume it led to the offices and the family apartment,” Elise said.

  “Certainly, but as children our imaginations won out over common sense. It wasn’t until the summer before we started medical school that Mr. Smithson invited us to see the rest of the shop. Behind that door was his office, storerooms, stairs that led to the apartment where the family lives, and then the compounding laboratory. That was the first time I saw the younger Mr. Smithson.

  “He sat on a stool under a large gaslight surrounded by jars and canisters and weights and measures. We watched him for a full minute and then Mr. Smithson took us to his office. And I remember this part very clearly. He apologized for his poor manners, for not introducing us to his son.”

  Sophie lowered her voice and took on a cultured British accent. “‘You must never interrupt an apothecary while he is compounding. That’s how mistakes are made and people die.’”

  Elise had to smile. “It sounds as though Mr. Smithson had flair for the dramatic.”

  “I suppose so,” Sophie agreed. “He did manage to startle me, but then he explained and he was so serious that I have never forgotten exactly what he said.”

  “Don’t stop now.” Elise turned a hand palm up. “I’ll wonder for ages.”

  Sophie cleared her throat and went on. “He said, ‘Every script must be followed exactly. If the physician has ordered camphorated tincture of opium but the apothecary reaches instead for opium tincture, the patient will be given a twenty-five-fold overdose of morphine. A fatal overdose. So the rule is inviolate: never disturb the apothecary while he is dispensing.’”

  “We haven’t gotten as far as writing scripts in pharmacology,” Elise said. “But they are already putting the fear of hellfire into us about it.”

  “And well they should,” said Sophie. “You wouldn’t want anything less.”

  Elise drank the last sip of her cooled coffee. “So how long is it since you last visited Smithson’s?”

  “It has to be six years. Mrs. Lee stopped trading there after Mr. Smithson died. You know, I just realized I don’t know why she changed apothecaries. And that’s the second time that subject has come up today. Now.” She reached for her reticule. “It’s time I let you get on with your day. But first, I haven’t asked you about your studies. Anything particularly interesting coming up?”

  Elise was so pleased to be asked that she couldn’t regret the additional delay. She said, “Some promising lectures by visiting physicians, a Solange Latour—”

  “From Paris, yes. You’ll find that interesting. What else?”

  “Dr. Kingsolver is doing a bowel resection and I’m scheduled to assist, oh, and I had an invitation to join a study group at Bellevue.”

  Sophie’s head came up suddenly. “Really? That is unusual, and a great compliment. Which study group?”

  “Forensic science,” Elise told her. “The group attends one of Dr. Lambert’s autopsies every week. We can ask questions during the procedure and then we meet in his office to discuss the findings. I’m the first female they’ve invited to join the group. You look startled. Is there something wrong?”

  “No,” Sophie said, quite firmly. “If I’m startled it’s just that they are finally waking up at Bellevue, and taking note of promising women medical students. I think you will learn a great deal and I know you will make the most of it.”

  * * *

  • • •

  WHEN SOPHIE SAID good-bye to Elise she turned her back on Smithson’s and started east on Waverly Place. Her supplies were very low, yes, but just now she was more in need of her Aunt Quinlan than morphine or chamomile. As she walked along the north side of Washington Square Park on what was truly a beautiful spring day, she made an effort to order her thoughts.

  Once she had told Anna about Nicholas Lambert’s proposal, Sophie had decided that the best course of action was to keep the whole odd and unhappy experience to herself. There was no need to bother Aunt Quinlan with it, she told herself. Except now there was a reason: it seemed that Lambert had turned his attention to Elise Mercier.

  She reached Roses before she had come to any resolutions but was still glad she had come. The smile on her aunt’s face was enough to brighten her spirits and put
the world back into working order.

  “Aren’t you the prettiest thing to come through my door.” Aunt Quinlan held out a hand and beckoned Sophie closer. She was sitting in her favorite chair in the garden with a light shawl around her shoulders and an unopened book in her lap.

  Sophie leaned down to hug her aunt—gently, gently—and kiss her cheeks, butter soft and flushed with color.

  “The garden is your natural habitat,” Sophie said. “You don’t look a day over sixty.”

  “Oh, you sweet talker. Sit down, Sophie, and let me get a good look at you.”

  The bright blue eyes were as keen and probing as ever.

  “You would have made a good doctor,” Sophie teased her. “What’s your diagnosis?”

  “You are coming along,” said her aunt with a kind smile. “Slowly but surely. Mrs. Lee is off to do the marketing, but you could fetch us both some iced tea if you’ve got a thirst.”

  * * *

  • • •

  DISPATCHED TO THE kitchen, Sophie stood for a moment and listened to the house. It was rarely so quiet, but as always it was full of familiar, beloved smells. A shudder ran down her spine, a flow like cold water: regret, that this was no longer her home, and never would be again.

  When she put the tray with the glasses of chilled tea down on the table between the lawn chairs she said, “I love this house. I was so fortunate to come to you, after.”

  She had never talked to anyone except this woman she called her aunt—in truth, her grandmother’s half sister—about the last months of the war. It was a full two years before she had come so far, but Aunt Quinlan had never pressed her. There were no questions, subtle or direct; it was Sophie’s story to tell, or to keep.

  And now suddenly the need to talk about the past was like a fist in her belly, pushing up and up. For some reason that was unclear to her, she had told Elise about her early memories of her mother’s apothecary. With that brief mention she had opened a door and summoned the dead, and they were here now all around.

  Aunt Quinlan knew all this without words. She watched Sophie struggle with it, keeping silent vigil and waiting. Always waiting, and ready.

  “I have been thinking about home today.” She said this as if picking up a conversation that had gone silent for no more than a moment. “Really I was thinking about Mama. And I realized that I need to talk to you about something. Or actually, Elise made me realize it.”

  One hand came to rest on Sophie’s wrist. Once this hand had wielded paintbrush and charcoal and pencil, but no longer.

  “Go on, girl. I’m listening.”

  Sophie told the story of Nicholas Lambert. His visits and increasing familiarity, and the offer he had put before her.

  “Anna says it was rude and insensitive to come to me with such a proposal when Cap is so recently gone,” she finished.

  “And what do you say?”

  “I’m angry.”

  “At Nicholas Lambert?”

  In her surprise Sophie fumbled her glass and almost spilled her tea. “Well, at Nicholas Lambert. Who else?”

  Aunt Quinlan drew in a long breath and held it for a moment. When she let it go she shook her head. “It takes time.”

  A shiver of irritation moved over Sophie’s skin.

  “The look on your face,” her aunt said with a soft smile. “I’m sure I wore the exact same look in the months after Simon went and got himself killed in that logjam.”

  Sophie tried to compose her expression, but it was a lost cause. “I don’t follow.”

  “You will in time. Let’s put it aside for now, because I have the sense there’s more to this story.”

  Sophie sat back. “Yes. I had coffee with Elise this morning. In passing she mentioned that she was invited to join a study group at Bellevue. A forensic science study group, under Nicholas Lambert.”

  One white eyebrow arched up. Aunt Quinlan had been listening to stories about the way hospitals and medical schools functioned—or failed to function—for many years; she understood how unusual such an invitation was.

  “Who sent the invitation?”

  “I don’t know for sure,” Sophie said. “But I don’t see how it could be anyone but Lambert. She doesn’t know the students who are already in the group.”

  They were silent for a long moment. “So you are torn about what to do. If you warn her—”

  “It will sound as though I don’t think she’s earned the invitation,” Sophie finished for her. “And if I don’t say anything, and something should happen—”

  “Do you think him capable of intruding on her person in that way?”

  Sophie bit back a laugh. “Last week I wouldn’t have thought him capable of proposing I become his mistress.”

  “True,” said her aunt. “But making an ill-considered proposal and interfering with a much younger woman, a student, those are two very different things.”

  Sophie’s irritation began to climb again. “You think I should give him the benefit of the doubt?”

  “I think you should trust Elise. Is it your sense of her that she would be easily seduced?”

  That question brought Sophie up short. Elise was sensible, intelligent, and ambitious; she wanted to be a doctor. But she was also inexperienced and unaware.

  “In the past year I’ve come to know her very well,” Aunt Quinlan went on. “And I can’t imagine she would let her career plans be threatened by a flirtation.”

  “But, Auntie,” Sophie said, “she has no idea what it means to flirt. If someone she likes and admires makes an overture, do you think she would be immune? Just the opposite. She’s vulnerable because she has never been exposed.”

  “Yes,” said her aunt. “That is a valid point. Will you raise this subject with Anna?”

  Sophie almost laughed at the idea. “And risk her seeking Lambert out in order to slap his face? No. However much I dislike his behavior toward me, I wouldn’t put him in the path of Anna’s righteous indignation without more evidence.”

  “On that we can agree,” said Aunt Quinlan. “But you could talk to Jack and let him handle it. He sees Dr. Lambert quite often, and men speak among themselves in such situations in ways that are . . . effective.”

  Relief flooded her from head to foot. “Of course,” she said, leaning forward to clasp her aunt’s wrist. “They do, don’t they. I knew you’d have an answer. I’ll talk to Jack about it on the way to Greenwood. Which reminds me that Sam Reason will be starting soon. I seem to be surrounded by difficult men, all of a sudden.”

  “I put my money on you,” said Aunt Quinlan. “Without hesitation. You will deal with them all and set things right. I don’t doubt it for a moment.”

  * * *

  • • •

  THE NEW YORK EVENING SUN

  CRIMES AGAINST NATURE

  ONE MORE CHILD THROWN PARENTLESS UPON THE WORLD

  Today another baby, a girl of just six months, was delivered into the care of Matron Roosevelt at police headquarters. She was abandoned by her unnatural mother among the shrubbery in Washington Square Park and found by a patrolman. The baby was wrapped in muslin with the words BELLEVUE HOSPITAL stamped on it.

  It is assumed the mother was one of the hundreds of destitute outdoor poor who go to Bellevue and come away with another child they cannot care for. This newest of the children dependent on charity will go to the nursery on Blackwell’s Island. If she survives as long as a year she will be sent along to an asylum, and grow up never knowing the name of her mother and father.

  In exactly this way hundreds of infants are left to die of neglect and their unnatural mothers are never brought to account.

  32

  SAM REASON SAT at the table in the study and listened as Sophie listed for him, in exacting detail, the work he was here to do. She outlined the way she categorized correspondence and how each should
be handled; she talked about preliminary plans for the McCune-Smith Program and showed him her lists and notes; and finally she brought out the folder of paperwork about the running of the household. To her relief he took all this in stride.

  He asked reasonable questions and as far as she could tell, he found nothing lacking in her plans. Nothing seemed to strike him as unusual or untoward or poorly conceived. If he thought her plans could be improved he kept that to himself. It should have been a relief, but instead Sophie felt a rising sense of unease.

  She said, “You are the expert in these matters given your experience with the Society for the Promotion of Education among Colored Children, and I am happy to hear your preferences or suggestions. As far as the rest of it goes, I will depend on your expertise with accounts and bookkeeping. Do you anticipate any problems, things I might have overlooked?”

  His expression was impossible to read, she decided. He might be laughing at her or raging at her or perfectly content, there was no way to know.

  “Mr. Reason,” she said, her tone sharper than she intended. “Do people ever tell you that you’re inscrutable?”

  Had she expected a smile? All she got was a raised brow.

  “Yes,” he said. “On occasion.”

  Sophie resisted the urge to throw up her hands. “Very well. What questions do you have for me?”

  It seemed he had spent as much time planning for this first meeting as she had, because he did have questions. A full sheet of them, written out in his impeccable hand.

  “In order to get started there are a number of things I’ll need,” he said, sliding the paper across the table toward her. “If you’d look at this list and give me your thoughts I can get started.”

  Sophie looked over the piece of paper. Nothing on the list surprised her, though she had the distinct impression that he had been anticipating just that reaction.