The Way of All Flesh

by Ambrose Parry

  ‘Sarah, a woman’s God-given role is to be a wife and mother. Any profession is a poor substitute for that. And what sort of profession would be suitable for a lady? Governess? I shudder at the very thought.’

  Mina turned back to the mirror and adjusted her hair, pinning a loose strand back into position.

  Sarah poured the tea, thinking how narrow Mina’s assessment of a woman’s role was, how restrictive. Why couldn’t a woman aspire to more? Why shouldn’t she? Why did Raven get to do whatever he wanted? She was convinced that they were of similar backgrounds and she was damn sure they were of similar intellect, yet he had opportunities that were denied to her, and seemed not always to appreciate his privilege.

  Sarah bent down to retrieve a stray pin from the carpet. As she did so her hand brushed against the new dress. She wondered if she would ever wear a garment made from such fine material. She was surely not destined to remain as she was, the hired help, condemned to domestic servitude for the rest of her life. Yet how was she to escape? If a man of means offered to take her away from all of this, would she not leap at the chance? Or would that merely represent the exchange of one form of servitude for another, albeit one with greater comfort and fewer chilblains?

  Would it be possible to meet a man who would accept her ambitions to educate herself and be of use? Did such a man exist? If he did, she was sure she hadn’t met him yet.

  She also thought of Mrs Lyndsay’s admonitions about seeking to better herself. Should she just be grateful for what she had, accept her position in society that God had seen fit to give her and avoid the trouble that would inevitably come her way should she try to change things?

  She handed the stray pins to Miss Tweedie, who, having wrapped the new dress in a protective layer of brown paper, made her farewells and left the room.

  Sarah decided to turn the conversation back to Beattie, a sure way to restore Mina’s good humour.

  ‘It is a blessing that you should both have found each other, is it not?’

  ‘Truly. I shudder to think how capricious fate can be.’

  ‘You both deserve such happiness. It warms the heart to know that Dr Beattie should be able to put such painful tragedy behind him.’

  Mina gave her a quizzical look. ‘What tragedy?’

  Sarah froze for a moment as it dawned that Beattie had not told Mina about his previous engagement. She cursed her own foolishness: she could suddenly see all of the reasons he might choose to keep it from her. Why he had chosen to confide in Raven was a more curious question, but no matter.

  ‘That he lost his parents so young,’ she said, by way of covering her misstep.

  ‘Yes. His life has not been easy. But I am sure that it is about to improve.’

  As she left the room and made her way downstairs, Sarah thought about how Mina had looked in her new dress. She radiated the joy of being admired, esteemed, raised above her peers. If love was a potion that could be bottled and sold, it really would be the cure for many a drawing-room malady.

  She tried to assuage her doubts about Beattie. It was a good match in many ways, after all, and perhaps he did love Mina in a way he could love no other after losing his first intended wife.

  Unlike Raven, Sarah was prepared to accept that her instincts were not infallible. But they were seldom completely wrong.

  Thirty-Seven

  The girl on the table in front of Raven looked fourteen at the most, and plainly terrified.

  ‘Lynsey Clegg. Been living on the streets for months,’ Mrs Stevenson had told him earlier. ‘Thrown out by her father when it was discovered she was pregnant, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was responsible for her condition too.’

  Mrs Stevenson did not say what her grounds were for believing this. She didn’t make such accusations lightly, however, and Raven had come to learn that she made it her business to find out as much as possible about the women who passed under her roof.

  Lynsey was slight, about four and a half feet tall with a skinny frame that spoke of years of malnourishment. It would have been impossible for her to disguise her condition long past the quickening.

  ‘The child is breech,’ Ziegler observed quietly. ‘I anticipate problems delivering the head.’

  He kept his words out of the girl’s hearing, but Raven did not imagine she would have picked up much anyway. She was nearly hysterical from the pain and her growing panic.

  ‘She is not built for this. She has such a narrow pelvis. She is but a child.’

  ‘Ether?’ Raven suggested, the word emerging before he could question himself.

  Ziegler merely nodded.

  The contrast was, as always, astonishing. The girl went from torment to easeful sleep in a matter of minutes, and remained oblivious of the violent manoeuvres Ziegler was necessarily inflicting upon her. Despite all of this Raven could not help but think about Mrs Graseby. He remained ignorant as to what had gone wrong, what had caused her adverse reaction and why it had proven fatal after she appeared to rally. But then, such ignorance was the very reason he should not have been administering ether unsupervised.

  Ziegler brought forth a baby girl and handed her to a nurse while he delivered the placenta. Raven hoped the infant would see more than fourteen years before she was giving birth too. The mother started to come around, her oblivion one last sleep before waking up in a new world.

  Having swaddled the child, the nurse held her out towards her mother. The girl simply looked afraid of it.

  At that point, they were interrupted by Mrs Stevenson, hastening towards them down a corridor and calling out as she ran: ‘Dr Ziegler! You are needed urgently. You too, Mr Raven.’

  In the lobby of Milton House, just inside the door, a young woman lay writhing upon a cot, while alongside her stood a burly fellow, clutching his hat nervously.

  ‘He carried her here,’ Mrs Stevenson informed them.

  ‘They wanted to call for a doctor,’ the man said, ‘but I suggested I fetch her here, as that would be quicker. We came from just along the street.’

  ‘Who is she?’ Ziegler asked.

  ‘Her name is Kitty. That’s all I know.’

  There was a smell of brick dust about the man, and he had the rough hands of a labourer.

  ‘And who are you?’

  The man paused, mulling it over before venturing his name.

  ‘Mitchell, sir. Donald Mitchell.’

  Ziegler examined the woman, as much as she would allow. She was squirming in pain, sweating and incoherent. He asked her some questions, but it was as though she was not in control of her faculties. Ziegler looked again at the man who brought her in.

  ‘What can you tell us? What did you see? What do you know of her?’

  Again, he seemed reluctant to answer. Raven reckoned he knew why.

  ‘Were you with her, sir?’ he asked pointedly, so that the man could make no mistake as to his meaning.

  He eyed Raven with surprise, but the surprise of one who has been caught out.

  ‘I was with another,’ he admitted. ‘Across the landing. We heard her cry out like the very devil was about her. I kicked in the door because I feared she was being attacked, then when we discovered her ill, as I say, I opted to bring her here directly.’

  Raven contrasted this with his own conduct, sneaking away so that he was not seen. He liked to think it would have been different had Evie not already been dead, but had no doubt that Mitchell was a stronger man than he, in many ways.

  They wheeled Kitty to a room where they had better light, though at this hour that was not saying much. She seemed to pass out momentarily, which allowed Ziegler an opportunity to put his hands about her.

  ‘She’s pregnant. Past the quickening.’

  The calm did not last. As soon as her eyes opened again, her body buckled and twisted on the bed as though indeed the devil was not merely about her, but inside her. Raven watched her contort herself and felt sure he was witnessing what had happened to Evie before he got there that night.


  ‘Did you take a draught or a pill?’ he asked her. ‘Did you seek to rid yourself of what grows in your womb?’

  Her eyes fixed on his long enough for him to believe she had heard the question, but she offered no word of answer.

  ‘She wouldn’t tell you if she had,’ said Mrs Stevenson. ‘For fear.’

  ‘We are here only to help you, Kitty,’ he insisted. ‘Please, if you took something, let us know.’

  At that point, the convulsions worsened as though Raven’s words had angered the demon that possessed her. Her limbs became rigid, her head thrown back.

  Ziegler tried to dose her with some laudanum but her jaw was clamped shut. Her convulsions continued unabated and it was clear they were powerless to intervene.

  ‘There is nothing we can do,’ he said quietly. ‘You should leave now, Raven. Go home and rest, for this all begins again tomorrow.’

  ‘I would stay,’ Raven replied. ‘If there is nothing else anyone can do, then this much I can offer.’

  Ziegler looked upon him curiously for a moment, then nodded by way of acquiescence.

  Raven sat with her for the next few hours, watching her tormented mercilessly, her body pulled around as if she was trying to escape her very being. Though she barely seemed aware he was there, he would not let her endure these throes alone as Evie had.

  Even the end was not a gentle fading, but a final, brutal jolt.

  Raven remained still alongside her, his heart anxious that she might resume her agonies. After a short time, he tested for a pulse and found none.

  ‘She has passed?’ Ziegler said, appearing in the doorway. He had absented himself upon Raven’s insistence, but Raven wondered whether he had ever been far.

  ‘Indeed. I will tell Mitchell.’

  Ziegler looked apologetic. ‘He left some time ago. It was mercy enough for him to bring her here.’

  ‘Did he tell you anything else? From where he brought her, at least?’

  ‘No. He did not wait long. I don’t think he knew her.’

  ‘Then have we any means of knowing who she was?’

  ‘Not unless someone comes to claim her remains.’

  Raven thought of Evie, hauled down the stairs wrapped in a soiled shroud and slung onto a cart.

  No funeral, no mourners, no headstone.

  ‘I never knew her surname,’ he said.

  ‘Mitchell didn’t give us it.’

  But Raven wasn’t talking about Kitty.

  Thirty-Eight

  The hour was getting late by the time Raven left the Maternity Hospital, sharp pangs of hunger bringing him back to more immediate concerns. Dinner would be over by the time he returned to Queen Street, but Mrs Lyndsay should be able to offer him something, he was sure. Perhaps Sarah might even keep some leftovers aside for him, though he knew not what he would tell her about today’s contradictory discoveries.

  What made it worse was that though he would be too late for the meal, he would most likely return in time for the testing afterwards. His brief exposure to the nasty stuff Duncan had concocted was sufficient to suggest that all his previous headaches would prove joyous memories compared to the after-effects of that.

  With this thought, he realised he had a means of avoiding it. Duncan had exposed him to a preliminary distillation, and Raven had been instructed to pick up a more refined sample. Professor Gregory might well have gone home by this hour, but he would take a walk up past the college building anyway. Either way, it would provide a plausible reason to delay his return until the testing was over and everyone had removed to the drawing room to smoke pipes and sip whisky.

  Professor Gregory’s laboratory was housed in a far corner of the university buildings, Raven attributing its remote location to the potentially explosive nature of his work. It was not easily found, Raven traversing a labyrinth of passages and stairs, though it was possible to discern that he was drawing nearer because the smells became stronger.

  The laboratory was the very antithesis of Duncan and Flockhart’s pristine premises: a claustrophobic and permanently cluttered chamber lined from floor to ceiling with bookcases and shelves, its floor an evolving hazard of boxes, crates and discarded equipment. The bookcases housed an extensive collection of ancient and in some instances dusty tomes, some of which Raven suspected had not been disturbed since being placed there, not by the incumbent, but by his predecessor.

  In the centre of the room was a large wooden table etched with stains and scorch marks. A stooped figure was holding a flask above a spirit lamp, the purplish flame licking the underside of the glass, which caused the liquid inside to bubble furiously as though incensed by the application of such heat. Raven waited in the doorway so as not to interrupt, but without looking up the professor beckoned him with a wave of his hand before brushing a long strand of black hair from his forehead.

  William Gregory was a thin man who appeared older than he was. He hobbled when he walked, the result of a childhood illness from which he had never entirely recovered, but he had a lively energy about him when his enthusiasm was piqued – usually by his work. His father James Gregory had been the renowned formulator of Gregory’s powder, the most prescribed medicine in the Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia and thus the standard by which James Duncan intended to measure his own success.

  According to Simpson, Gregory Sr had been by nature a belligerent man, prone to feuding with individuals and institutions alike. He had carried a cane and on one notorious occasion used it to attack the then Professor of Midwifery, James Hamilton, following a dispute. This resulted in a court hearing at which Gregory was ordered to pay Hamilton £100 in damages, which he said he ‘would pay all over again for another opportunity of thrashing the little obstetrician’.

  By contrast, William Gregory was known for his calmness and self-possession, having inherited only his father’s academic brilliance. Simpson told Raven that early in his career, he had developed a process to produce morphine in a high state of purity. However, Dr Simpson could not help but also impart that Gregory was an enthusiast for phrenology and hypnotism, and it was said that his choice of wife had been made only after phrenological examination.

  Raven approached, stepping around a three-legged stool upon which sat a beaker with a long retort just asking to be knocked over and smashed. Next to that was a pile of leather-bound volumes and what appeared to be two dead rabbits in a wooden crate. Raven wondered if they had been delivered thus on order, though he did not wish to dwell upon what purpose they were about to serve.

  Gregory removed the flask from the flame and held it up, swirling the contents under the dim light of a gas lamp, a look of dissatisfaction upon his face at the results.

  Raven took in the ramshackle chaos of bottles, jars and vials arrayed close to the professor. His eye was also drawn to several jars of a bright red powder, one he did not recognise.

  ‘Mr Raven,’ Gregory said. ‘Here at Dr Duncan’s request, I assume?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘He’s fairly got you people fetching and carrying for him. The initial distillation of this stuff was collected by some young girl. Gave me quite the interrogation, too. Would you know who that might be?’

  Raven could not help but smile. ‘She is Dr Simpson’s housemaid.’

  ‘Really?’ Gregory replied, given pause. ‘His housemaid. I wish my students were half so inquisitive. Or as informed. Now, where did I . . .’

  Gregory turned to the array of glass containers before him, reaching towards the vial Duncan was waiting for, but then his attention suddenly diverted to the red powder.

  ‘I forgot to say to the young girl when she was here. You must take this to Dr Simpson as a gift. I was sent a batch of the stuff by Professor Joao Parreira of the University of Coimbra in Portugal. We met in Paris over the summer.’

  ‘Is he a chemist?’

  ‘Yes, and an esteemed one, but this is not a chemical compound. It is a powder ground from dried capsicums: a powerful strain originally deriving from Africa,
I believe. They call it peri-peri.’

  ‘What does it do?’

  Gregory became animated, his face charged with enthusiasm.

  ‘It adds the most enlivening flavour to food. It is the stuff of miracles, believe me. It can transform the most miserable and mundane of stews into something that will delight your palate.’

  Having had his scale of miserable cuisine calibrated by life at Ma Cherry’s, Raven looked sceptically upon the jar Gregory was proffering.

  ‘Try some,’ he said, unscrewing the lid. ‘Just take a pinch.’

  Raven dipped three fingers into the neck of the jar and scooped out the equivalent of a teaspoon, transferring it swiftly between his lips.

  Gregory’s admonition – ‘I said just a pinch!’ – hit his ears at the same moment the powder had its seemingly incendiary effect inside his mouth. His tongue felt aflame and his eyes began to stream. He spat it out, but the burning continued.

  ‘Water,’ he coughed, to which an amused Gregory held out a cup. Raven poured it into his maw, but this only seemed to exacerbate the intensity, like pouring water upon burning oil.

  He would have to admit that there was an intriguingly smoky flavour about it, but worried that he was tasting his own burnt flesh.

  Gregory’s eyes were moist too, but merely from mirth at Raven’s affliction.

  ‘I won’t have to warn you to tell Dr Simpson’s cook she should use it sparingly.’

  Raven was sceptical as to whether Mrs Lyndsay could be prevailed upon to use it at all. She was a fine cook, but according to Sarah, extremely set in her ways. Nonetheless, Raven looked forward to offering a taste to Jarvis, and to Duncan. He would recommend a generously heaped spoonful to each of them.

  He replaced the lid and placed the jar in the pocket of his jacket so that his hands were free to carry the vial for which Gregory was now reaching.

  ‘I thought I could improve the distillation process, but in truth it is all but identical to the first attempt. I wasn’t so sure about some of the ingredients Duncan suggested. The combination struck me as potentially lethal, a danger he seemed to be blithely ambivalent towards.’