The Moon by Night

by Lynn Morris

  “It has?” Cheney exclaimed, astounded. “I didn’t know that, Dev. You never told me.”

  He shrugged. “I wasn’t sure that it ever happened to anyone else. You’re the first physician I’ve ever heard mention it.”

  “So what happened? To your two patients, I mean?” she asked anxiously.

  He reached out and took her hand. “They died.”

  She was looking up at him with distress when Dr. White came rushing into the little hallway. “Here you are, Dr. Duvall! And Dr. Buchanan—here you are too! What a surprise! Of course, I mean, a pleasant surprise, but, I—”

  Dev let Cheney’s hand go, stepped back, and smiled coolly at the flustered intern. “Yes, how can we help you, Dr. White?”

  She took a deep breath, then answered quickly, “There’s an elderly gentleman in the dispensary with angina pectoris, and I’m unsure about medication for him.”

  “All right, we’d better go see about him,” Dev said, motioning them ahead of him.

  All three of them headed for the dispensary. Dr. White said in a low voice to Cheney, “And, Dr. Duvall, I would appreciate it if you would look at Mrs. Brownlee for me, to confirm my diagnosis. She’s the lady with the infant boy and the toddler. Anyway, she does have influenza, but I also think that she’s got a septic sore throat.”

  “Oh no,” Cheney groaned. “I had truly hoped that that wouldn’t start spreading around. Did you know that Mr. Reese has it?”

  “No, ma’am,” Dr. White groaned, echoing Cheney.

  Cheney sighed. “It’s after eight o’clock. Do we still have dispensary patients?”

  “Not now, except for Mrs. Brownlee and the elderly gentleman—I forgot his name,” Dr. White answered. “I just now got all of them attended to and their medications doled out. I kept the angina and Mrs. Brownlee to see if we should admit them.”

  They were approaching the nurses’ station. Timothy Orr and Miss Nilsson were seated at the desk, checking the patients’ files for medication orders. At nine o’clock the night prescriptives were given. Dr. Gilder stood at the counter with a couple of patient files. One was opened, but he was talking to Timothy and Miss Nilsson. His back was to the hallway leading to the men’s ward, so he didn’t see the three doctors coming.

  “—kissed her! Right on the mouth! In broad daylight, in his room, where anyone could have come in.”

  Cheney and Dr. White were in front of Dev. When Cheney comprehended what Dr. Gilder was saying, she stopped, staring at his back, stunned. Dr. White slowed to a stop and looked around, trying to appear as if she didn’t know anything. Dev neatly stepped around them, grabbed Dr. Gilder’s shoulder, and spun him around. “Dr. Gilder, how many dispensary patients did you see today?”

  “Dispensary—but, none, sir,” he said frantically. “I-I didn’t work in the dispensary today.”

  “Why not?” Dev snapped.

  “I-I don’t know,” he answered helplessly.

  “You don’t know,” Dev repeated acidly. “You don’t know much of anything, Dr. Gilder. So you need to be quiet and listen instead of talking just to hear the sound of your own voice.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Go get the carts ready for medication rounds. Then do them.”

  “Do-do them?”

  “Rounds,” Dev said. “Both wards.”

  He marched into the dispensary, trailed by Cheney and Dr. White like wisps from a candle flame that’s too high.

  They worked on—including Dr. Gilder, who was supposed to get off shift at six o’clock—without a break for any of the four doctors. They did, indeed, have to admit Mrs. Brownlee, along with her baby and four-year-old son, because her husband had deserted them and she had no one to take care of the children. They also admitted Mr. Riordan, with the angina pectoris, for overnight observation.

  Cheney was very glad to see ten o’clock come, because she knew Cleve would come in to give them a break. She was terribly hungry, and besides she wanted to see Shannon and find out how she had fared at Roe’s all day long.

  Cleve came in at ten-twenty. Cheney and Dev were giving Mrs. Brownlee and her two children exhaustive examinations when he appeared at the door of the cubicle. “Dr. Duvall, Dr. Buchanan, may I speak to you for a moment?”

  Both of them looked up with alarm and then with comprehension. They went outside with Cleve, but before he could say a word, Dev said, “You’ve got influenza. Go home.”

  “I’m so sorry,” he said contritely. “I tried to ignore it so that it would follow the rule that if you ignore it, it’ll go away.”

  “It didn’t,” Cheney said. “I hate it when it ignores the rule.”

  “Me too,” Cleve said hoarsely, then sneezed, honked into a handkerchief, and went on, “I’m going to go on home, gargle, medicate myself, sleep, and try to get better by tomorrow night. I feel bad about this, Dr. Buchanan, because I’ve got weekend duty.”

  Dev shrugged. “It can’t be helped, and it’s not your fault. Just go on home, and for heaven’s sake don’t fret about it. You know that just aggravates a condition. We’ll take care of the on-call duties.”

  “Okay,” he said tiredly. His normally red-cheeked, cheerful face was pale, and his eyes were fever-dulled. “I do feel rotten. Good night.”

  Cheney said, “Dev, I know it’s impossible for you to stay here an entire weekend. I’ll just take the on-call, and Cleve and I can work out how to make it up.”

  “The best way would be for Dr. Pettijohn to take one night and you the other,” Dev said thoughtfully. “In fact, since he took off early today he shouldn’t mind taking all day tomorrow and tomorrow night. Dr. Gilder and Dr. Varick could probably take Sunday morning, and you could take Sunday afternoon and night.”

  “Sounds fine to me,” Cheney said. “I did promise to go to—Of course, you know. We’re all going to Fidelio tomorrow night, aren’t we?”

  “Yes. Victoria invited her parents and our parents too,” Dev said.

  “Oh, I didn’t know Mother and Father were coming,” Cheney said. “Good. I don’t get to see them nearly as much as I’d like. And I know you don’t either. We’d better get in touch with Dr. Pettijohn. Do you think we should send him a message tonight?”

  Nurse Nilsson came up to them as they stood outside Mrs. Brownlee’s cubicle. “I’m sorry to interrupt you,” she said, “but there are two gentlemen and a lady in for emergency treatment. They had a brawl in a tavern, and they’re all three beat to pulp,” she said with relish. “Dr. Gilder thinks the lady’s hand may be broken.”

  “No, Cheney, I’ll go,” Dev said as she started down the hall. “You see to the Brownlee children. Get all three of them settled down for the night. As soon as I can, I’ll get Pettijohn’s address from the office and send him a message to come in tomorrow morning.”

  ****

  But in the morning Dr. Pettijohn did not come in for the simple reason that the messenger sent that night to 23 Morton Row found no one at home. Dev sent another messenger at five in the morning. No one answered the door and no lights were on in the house. The messenger said it looked deserted.

  At six-thirty in the morning Dev finally had a few minutes to go downstairs with Carlie to bring some items up from storage to stock the much depleted supplies on the wards and in the emergency/dispensary clinic. He saw the laudanum carboy on the table. He had completely forgotten about it.

  He thought it had been moved.

  Cheney’s invisible mice, he told himself sarcastically. Now I’m not seeing them too.

  “Let’s start here, Carlie,” he said wearily. “Take this carboy of laudanum and pour it into quart bottles. But filter it through cheesecloth, because I’m afraid there might be some glass in it.”

  Carlie never questioned an order, so he nodded and went to fetch the bottles, funnel, and cheesecloth.

  Dev looked at the bottle again. There was no moisture around the neck. He picked it up. It left no telltale ring on the varnished oak table.

  Yep, he thought wi
th unusual flipness, definitely the invisible mice…or…what was it Cheney said Carlie had told her…

  Moon ghosts?

  Nineteen

  Laudanum, Brandy, and Wormwood

  On that fateful friday, Dr. Marcus Pettijohn had received his regular hospital salary of $38.50, and had also—with his heart in his throat—given Mevrouw de Sille a statement of account. He simply couldn’t wait until the fifteenth to see whether or not she was going to be an easy touch.

  He had explained, with every appearance of being deeply troubled, “You see, Mevrouw, it’s only the seventh and I generally issue statements on the fifteenth. But since you are such a special patient—and such a special lady, if I may be so bold—I thought that perhaps we might get this distasteful business over with. Instead of my usual retainer of twenty-five dollars per week, the bill is only a lump sum of sixty dollars for the month, because I do feel badly about the insult you have sustained to your delicate sensibilities, for which I feel at least partially responsible.”

  “Not at all,” she said wearily, for she was very ill. “I can see that you are a true gentleman, Dr. Pettijohn, and would never have any hand in such a shabby doings as have been going on with my former physician. If you would be so good as to hand me my reticule, I will gladly settle my account right now.”

  As she slowly and painfully made out a bank draft, Marcus’s plan had sprung full-grown into his exultant brain. He had been so excited that he couldn’t stay at the hospital, couldn’t possibly stay at that dreary place talking to those dreary people attending to those dreary patients.

  Leaving Mevrouw’s room, he had been obliged to walk very slowly up to the nurses’ station, trying all the while to contain his excitement, but it hadn’t worked. When he got there, all he could manage was to say, “I’m afraid that I must leave early today, Mrs. Flagg. There are some things of a personal nature that I must attend to.” And he had spun on his heel and hurried, almost run, out the door. Behind him he heard the bewildered nurse stammer, “But…but Dr. Pettijohn, you mean now? You…you haven’t updated the patient files—”

  Over his shoulder Marcus had said, “Dr. Gilder can attend to everything.” He had rushed madly up Seventh Avenue, his head whirling with ideas and plans and possibilities. He had gone first to the City of New York Bank and Trust to cash his draft on the de Sille account as well as his salary draft. When he left the bank holding the money in one shaking hand, he thought in a slightly manic way, It’s almost a hundred dollars! I’ve never had so much money in my life!

  As he was pushing through a crowd to board the train, he realized first that he was still wearing his hospital coverall and had forgotten his hat, and second that it would be foolish for him to hold this immense treasure in his hand. Some low person would certainly slit his throat for such a huge amount of money. Carefully, uncaring of how odd he looked, he stepped back into an alley, unbuttoned the first button of his coverall, stuck his money into his shirt, buttoned it up to the neck, then buttoned his coverall up to the neck. Joining the crowd again, he shoved aside an elderly lady so that he could get onto the already crowded horsecar.

  Normally the ride to Morton Street on the train seemed endless to Marcus. He hated the stink of the other passengers, the stink of the streets, the smell of raw sewage and rotting garbage and horse manure. He hated the crowded horsecars. Except for passionate interludes, Marcus hated to be touched and hated touching other people.

  This peculiar fastidiousness would have seemed an impossible barrier to any medical student at the time, but in an earlier age it was not only uncommon for a physician to touch his patient, it was considered rather barbaric. In the previous century physicians had generally listened to their patients’ complaints, made a diagnosis, prescribed for them, and collected their fee. Only barber-surgeons actually touched patients. And in fact, some of that attitude still existed in a modified form at L’Hôpital de la Charité. Medical theory was stressed more than actual down-and-dirty clinical work. And that had suited Marcus Pettijohn just fine.

  But now, for a change, he barely noticed his surroundings or the press of sweaty bodies or the dingy seats and walls or the smells. He was gloating over his plan, his lovely new plan, adding a finishing touch here, redefining a detail there, smoothing over a rough spot on the other hand.

  At Morton Street he jumped off the horsecar before it came to a complete stop and almost ran up the street. The row house he and Manon had rented after they had faced the brute reality that they were about to be kicked out of their luxurious hotel suite was the third in a row of five old narrow four-story brownstones and the last on this stretch of the west side up to Houston Street that hadn’t been turned into two-family flats, or even worse, the dread tenement. Marcus fully suspected that Grimes would raise the rent sometime soon in order to force the single families out so that he could make over the block into tenements, which would give him a much greater income than what he collected for the five single-family row houses.

  As he bounded up the steps, he noticed that the drapes were closed, which was unusual. Manon doesn’t even get up to open the drapes anymore, he thought with disgust. But Marcus was determined that guilt over Manon would never ruin his plans again. He had done everything a man could do to make a good home for his family—even including a child that was not his and for whom he certainly bore no responsibility—but Manon had ruined everything. So now, when thoughts of her intruded on his excitement, he was able, with a clear conscience, to reject them.

  He opened the door and stepped into the tiny foyer, noting that the dark was even more impenetrable than usual. He went upstairs to the parlor. “Manon? It’s like a dungeon in here. Why are you sitting in the dark?” He didn’t enter the parlor, just stood at the door, his hands on his hips.

  “Marcus? What are you doing home so early?” Manon said, slurring her words heavily. “Is that you? All I can see is a white blur.”

  Angrily he went to the window and yanked open the drapes. The cheerless winter sun lit Manon’s recamier, and though the light was dim, she weakly threw one hand across her eyes. Back by the dark fireplace, Solange cowered by Lisette’s cradle. There was no fire, and the room was freezing. Solange was wrapped in Manon’s mantle, with the shawl tied over it. One of the flannel squares that Marcus had brought home to make blankets for Lisette was wrapped around her feet. She had folded and piled the other three flannels on top of and around Lisette so snugly that all that could be seen of the baby was a round little face.

  As Marcus stood there, anger rising hot in his breast, he took in all the squalid details of the room. Manon stank. The dirty diapers were even worse than the sewer rot that he always choked on when riding the train home. The sour reek of raw whiskey hung like a pall on the air. Solange looked terrified. Why should she be so tiny, so frightened, so cowed? Neither he nor Manon had ever raised a hand to her! All he had ever done was try to make a better life for them all!

  He looked down at Manon, his eyes blazing. With her hands shaking, she grabbed the smaller bottle of absinthe and turned it up. The bottle clattered against her teeth, and the staccato chatter angered Marcus even more.

  “Why is there no fire, Manon?” He kept his voice low and even, but it dripped with such venomous disgust that Manon flinched as if he had struck her.

  “I-I was unwell. I just…must have dropped off to sleep, and the fire died,” she stammered.

  He made a cutting motion with one stiff hand, and her mouth clamped shut. “No,” he said between gritted teeth. “The hearth is as cold as a snowbank. Your children are going to freeze to death, Manon, while you drowse here in your little land of laudanum dreams.”

  “No…no…Solange—”

  “No. Not Solange. You get up, if you still can, you fat stinking cow, and get downstairs to the coal cellar right now. You bring up the coal, and you build the fire, and you fill up that coal box. Do you understand?”

  She started to get up, but her legs were so unsteady that they gave way,
and she sprawled, heavily and awkwardly, back on the couch. After a sharp indrawn breath of fear, she covered her face in her hands and began to cry. Harsh gasping sobs tore from her.

  Marcus’s effeminate features were twisted with loathing and anger. Unbuttoning his coverall and throwing it on the console table, he marched out the door and stamped down the hallway.

  Solange heard him go down to the cellar. Hurriedly she unwrapped her feet and ran to her mother. “Maman, Maman, you must stop crying,” she whispered desperately. “Please, Maman, try. Try to stop crying. You have to ask him about the rent, Maman. You have to tell him that Grimes came and shouted and we had to hide. Please, Maman, please….”

  Maman cried a little while longer, but finally Solange’s desperate pleas filtered into her drug-addled consciousness. “Oh, however shall I ask?” she moaned. “He’s so angry. He…he…he said I w-was a fat…fat—”

  Solange took Manon’s hand. Somehow she managed to speak quietly and calmly, though her eyes were stretched wide with panic and she kept swallowing convulsively, almost gulping, with fear. “Maman, you’re lovely. You’re the most beautiful woman that he has ever seen. Remember? He said that to everyone. He’s…he’s just angry. But today is Friday. He gets money on Fridays, didn’t you say? Money for Mr. Grimes?”

  Sniffling, her nose and eyes a glaring red, Manon nodded. With effort she heaved herself up into a more graceful position and dabbed at her streaming eyes and nose. “Yes, my baby, today is Friday. And he did come home to us, didn’t he? Perhaps he’ll give us the money.”

  “Maman, if he doesn’t, you must ask him. You must!”

  “All right, I will if I have to…. Solange, is there anything left in that blue bottle? The small one? No? Is there another one? I think it’s blue bottles….” With her fat hand she pawed helplessly through the litter on the table.

  “There are four more down on the floor underneath the table,” Solange answered. “But wouldn’t you like to wait until—”