“Let us sit,” said Felicity, pointing at the steps to the Redpath Building where honours classes were given. “We are early.”
I squinted at the sun. “Is that not Laure up ahead?”
We advanced toward my sister, who was standing alone on the stairs, looking out over the city. She seemed taken aback to see us.
“She looks like a Rossetti painting,” said Felicity. “Only the courtly lover is missing.”
I laughed. Laure did look beautiful. No one would dare hum the buttons-off-her-boots song at my pale and golden sister.
“Done for the day?” I asked, arriving at her side.
Laure nodded. She was sixteen. Grandmother had enrolled her in a British-literature class offered by a fellow whom the students had nicknamed Easy-A Atkins.
“Your sister’s a celebrity,” said Felicity, huffing up the stairs. “Her name’s in all the papers.”
“So I heard,” Laure replied. “Professor Atkins spoke of it in class this morning. He says she is overreaching.”
“He is parroting the editors at The Herald.” Felicity’s face darkened. “He is not alone, although some of his colleagues have been daring enough to disagree. A number of the governors and professors feel it is high time that the McGill medical faculty let women in. The medical schools of Europe have done it for years. There are hundreds of female physicians in Vienna and London. The University of Toronto now admits us. Even stodgy old Queen’s University in Kingston does! It puts McGill to shame.”
Laure was about to continue, so I checked her. “I must hear what was printed. Read.”
Felicity folded the topmost paper so that the wind would not take it. “The Gazette is the best. They have predicted that you will succeed. There is a long quotation from Mr. Hugh McLennan, who is awfully influential in this city, waxing lyrical on your behalf. The headline comes from him. ‘McGill must heed Modernity’s call.’”
I raised my hand against the sun. “And The Herald?”
“Not so good, although I admit I only skimmed it. The Herald reporter interviewed local doctors, a disappointingly dour bunch.”
“Read on, Felicity. I need to hear it, if only to plan my next move.”
She smiled. “You would have been a good military leader, Agnes. Pity you will not get the chance.”
“Hardly,” I said. “I much prefer mending wounds to inflicting them. Now do your worst.”
Felicity sighed, bending her head to the task. “It starts with a venomous profile,” she said, skimming and synthesizing. “Your Fortnightly articles are strident. I quote, ‘Surprising in a girl born and bred in the small town of St. Andrews East, whose great grandfather founded its Presbyterian church.”
I flushed. The Herald man had engaged in some research. He had erred on my birthplace but he was right that my mother’s grandfather, Joseph White, had been an early settler. Along with a handful of other Scottish families he had established the town of St. Andrews East, naming it after the patron saint of Scotland when he arrived off the boat from Glasgow in 1818. A year later he personally laid the cornerstone for the first Presbyterian church in the province of Lower Canada. This lore was well known to people in and around St. Andrews East. It would not have been difficult to discover. But what would have happened had The Herald stumbled upon the story of my father? I had considered this possibility and felt grateful, for once in my life, for the cloak of the White family name.
“‘Miss Agnes White,’” Felicity continued, “‘is attempting to enter the McGill Faculty of Medicine. Young women have attended the university since 1884, when Donald Smith (Lord Strathcona) endowed the institution with funds for separate undergraduate arts classes. Now, only a few years after this concession, Miss White wishes to extend her reach.’”
“There is the line Professor Atkins was parroting. Makes me sound like Lucifer.”
“There is more,” said Felicity. “They seem to have conducted a poll of prominent Montreal physicians. Dr. F. Wayland Campbell, dean of medicine at Bishop’s College, thinks the introduction of women into the profession would be a fiasco. I quote, ‘Can you think of a patient in a critical case waiting for half an hour while a medical lady fixes her bonnet or adjusts her bustle?’” Felicity made a sour face, then resumed.
“The man who heads McGill’s physiology department says that bringing girls into the faculty would be ‘nothing short of calamitous.’ Oh Agnes, it makes me want to scream.” As she skimmed the next paragraph her eyes opened wide. “Oh no.” She pushed the pages away.
I picked them up and began to read. The longest and most damning quote was from Dr. Gerard Hingston, Felicity’s father, who happened to be senior surgeon at the Montreal General Hospital and who swore he would die rather than see a daughter of his enter the profession.
“Oh Felicity,” I said, laying down the wind-whipped page.
“He knows,” said Felicity, biting her lip. “It was madness to think I could hide it from him.”
“Maybe he just said it like that. He has no proof.”
“It is likely because you two are friends,” said Laure. “He must have heard you spend time in Agnes’s company.”
Felicity stood up. “I should go.” Before I could say a word she scuttled up the stairs.
“So it is true that she wants to be a doctor?” asked Laure, once Felicity was out of earshot.
I nodded, sighing.
“I cannot imagine it,” said Laure, frowning. “I heard one is forced to cut open bodies. One has to touch them bare-handed!”
I did not respond. Laure was so obtuse sometimes it was impossible to have a meaningful discussion.
“Frankly I find her disrespectful. I have never had a father, Agnes, but I should hope that if I did I would try to honour him.”
“Following in his footsteps is a kind of honouring.”
“Not when one is a girl. Read his words, Agnes. He would rather die.”
I stopped listening. With Laure I was forced to do this when our views diverged too much. I knew I ought to go and find Felicity to comfort her but I had a suspicion that I might be the last person she would wish to see right now. I hunched down on the step.
The wind was tugging the pages, pulling them from my hands. I pushed my glasses farther down my nose and began to read. The ultimate quote in the article came from Principal Dawson, the man who was teaching me zoology. “Sir Billy,” as he was nicknamed, would not upset McGill for the sake of a single, impatient girl.
“You are infamous.”
A figure I knew well had stopped on the path below and was grinning at me. It was Huntley Stewart, editor-in-chief of The Fortnightly and nephew of Martin Stewart, The Herald’s publisher. Many of the girls in my class envied me the chance to work with him. He was good-looking, I had to admit, surveying his tailored suit and the signature red tie. He looked more dashing and older than many of the boys on campus. But looks were no reason to like a man. Huntley and I shared a deep mutual mistrust. When it was first suggested that I serve on his editorial board he had fought it with every ounce of his strength. At present he tolerated me, especially when we were under deadline or the paper had to get to press, but he certainly had no love of me.
“So you want to be a doctoress?” he asked.
The sun was almost directly overhead and his figure pulsated, a dark shape burning into my retina. I did not know Huntley’s views on women entering the professions. We had not discussed the issue, but I could tell from his tone that his words were no compliment.
“Who would have guessed your stockings were so blue?”
There it was. His own colours showing through. I couldn’t resist a riposte. “Actually they are not,” I said, lifting my skirts high and giving him an eyeful of lumpy beige leggings. “I’m in a brown study today.”
He laughed and turned away just as Laure bent forward, trying to cover me.
“It is a lost cause,” Huntley said, his face still averted.
“Don’t be so sure.” I rose to my fe
et, pushing Laure away.
“I was not addressing you,” he said. “It is poor Laure my heart goes out to.”
Time stopped on the Redpath stairs. The sun was high and so strong now that black holes opened in my vision. Huntley was grinning, poking his chin at me. Laure was studying her shoes.
“You know each other?”
Huntley nodded. “I only learned yesterday that you two were related. The resemblance is not obvious.”
“Huntley asked to escort me home,” said Laure, changing the subject. “Grandmother gave him permission.”
“Grandmother knows?” The holes in my vision were growing steadily larger. I removed my glasses and rubbed them vigorously. “Forgive me,” I said, leaning hard against the banister. “The sun’s in my eyes.” I mopped my forehead, gathered the newspapers and my books, and began to climb the stairs.
At the door to the Redpath Building I turned. Laure and Huntley were now halfway down the hill beside a yew tree. My sister’s hand was tucked inside Huntley’s arm and he was whispering in her ear. Laure laughed, throwing back her head so that the sun caught in her hair. Felicity would have smiled to see the two of them, beautiful Laure and Huntley, in this familiar tableau.
6
APRIL 1890
The sun was spotting Felicity’s nose with freckles. Neither of us had thought to bring hats, and our winter white skin was drinking the light as we walked up the hill from Sherbrooke Street.
“A robin,” Felicity said, pointing.
A red-breasted bird was pecking at the soggy lawn. I should have been happy at this sign of spring. The snow had been gone for two weeks now and buds were vulnerable and glistening on the bushes and trees. Montreal was opening into life and all I wanted was to lie down in a corner, shut my eyes and sleep.
“It is my first one this spring,” Felicity added, breathing harder as the climb up Mountain Street steepened.
I shot her a dark glance. She was trying to distract me from the fact that my life had just been gutted. We had come from Dean Laidlaw’s office at the faculty of medicine. That morning we had left for the meeting so full of hope that the sky and sunshine and pungent spring smells had seemed like portents that we could not fail. Now they seemed like a bad joke.
Over the past three weeks I had worked harder than I had worked to that point in my life. Felicity Hingston and I were chief organizers of what the newspapers were calling the latest “women’s campaign.” It was ironic because when you came right down to it I did not much care for women. Apart from Felicity Hingston, Georgina Skerry and perhaps two or three women I had met at McGill, they were flighty, silly creatures on whom I determined never to depend. The fact that I was a woman was an accident so far as I was concerned.
In an initial meeting the dean of medicine could not have been more clear — under no circumstances would McGill allow me into classes with men. I had not been surprised. I had returned immediately with an amended request. Would McGill consider setting up separate classes for female students? Dean Laidlaw replied that while this was possible the cost would be prohibitive.
I requested a figure.
In three short weeks Felicity Hingston, a group of society ladies led by Mrs. W.H. Drummond, the wife of a well-known Montreal physician, and I had organized, raising one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It was a substantial sum, surprising us even more than it would the dean. But it still fell short of the astronomical quarter of a million dollars demanded by McGill. Today we had gone to the dean to ask for an extension.
Dr. Laidlaw had kept me waiting for close to an hour. Eventually he sent his secretary out to inform us that one hundred and fifty thousand was still insufficient. If we did not bring the full quarter million to McGill by noon the following day the application would be considered null and void.
Several yards ahead, Felicity stopped in front of Mrs. Drummond’s brownstone. “What time is it?” she called, gazing at me down the hill. “We are dreadfully late, I fear.”
I took out my grandfather’s pocket watch and snapped open the lid. I did not want to attend this party, which Mrs. Drummond and another society lady named Miss Rosa McLea had planned as a celebration and a rally of the troops prior to the final victory. How could I face these women who had invested so much time and effort in me?
“Quarter past three,” I said. The party had begun over an hour ago.
Two men were squatting in the sunshine on the porch, having a smoke. Their faces were partially shaded by caps, but I would have recognized the broad shoulders and necktie of the taller one anywhere. Huntley Stewart waved a cigarette in greeting. “Agnes White. I was beginning to think you had chickened out.” He threw his burning butt into the bushes and reached into his pocket for a pen.
I nodded at him curtly. Huntley Stewart would gloat when he heard of my defeat. He would not make it too obvious of course, because of Laure, but he would find ways to rub salt in the wound.
“Give us a quote,” said Huntley. “How’s the campaign faring on the eve of delivery day?”
I looked at him more closely. It made no sense. He sounded as if he were scrounging quotes for a story, and yet The Fortnightly had been put to bed for the summer. I had done the layout for our last issue.
“I am working for The Herald now,” he announced, as if reading my mind, “covering the city desk. And this,” he said, gesturing to the ill-shaven older man slouching next to him, “is Andrew Morely of The Gazette. I told him you and I are old friends.”
Typical Huntley. His smooth talk masked a rougher reality. It was only because I was newsworthy copy that he was claiming a connection.
“A pleasure, I am sure,” I said, offering my hand. I recognized the name. It was he who had written the piece interviewing certain professors and governors at McGill and suggesting my campaign might end successfully. Perhaps he was not all bad.
“I hear you are requesting an extension,” Andrew Morely said.
Throughout the week the papers had been full of wagers as to whether I would be able to get the money by the May first deadline. The sum demanded by McGill had somehow been leaked and rumours were now flying as to how much money I had gathered. On the street complete strangers approached me. Most of them congratulated me, but some, like the elderly gentleman who had cursed me today as Felicity and I left campus, were full of anger.
“How much have you collected so far?” asked Huntley.
That was a good sign. I had been careful recently with Laure, whom Huntley was courting, and no doubt was pressing for facts and figures.
“Much as I would love to stay out here chatting,” I said quickly, “we are late for an engagement.” I took Felicity by the arm and stepped toward the door.
“Wait,” said the Gazette man, holding Felicity’s other arm. “Perhaps this friend could stay and clarify some things. Could I ask your name?”
Felicity yanked free and continued walking. Throughout the campaign she had kept herself hidden, avoiding any meeting at which the press might appear. She had also left the visiting of donors to me, preferring anonymous tasks like drafting letters and planning strategy. Her father was keeping tabs on her. He had given her a single lecture during which he had called me “a nefarious influence” and had ordered her to stay away. This afternoon, however, convinced of success, she had dared openly to disobey him.
“Are you also a candidate?” Andrew Morely called after her. “There are five aspiring doctoresses, are there not?”
“Oh come on now,” said Huntley. “What harm can it do to give us names? You ought to show pride instead of hiding yourselves away.”
I lifted Mrs. Drummond’s shiny brass knocker and brought it down hard. Then I spent what seemed an eternity staring at the door, willing it to open.
The room was absolutely packed. Everyone was dressed in party clothes and the table that Mrs. Drummond had laid out was nothing less than astonishing. Cut fruit, including sunny yellow discs of what appeared to be pineapple, gleamed on china plates. There
were little triangular sandwiches, their crusts meticulously removed, and a vast spread of tarts, tea cakes and cookies. All in my honour. I could hardly bear it.
Grandmother was standing behind this well-stocked table in her familiar navy dress. What was unfamiliar was the smile beaming from her face. I lifted an arm to wave, but Mrs. Drummond appeared and clasped me in a clumsy, if well-intentioned, embrace. Mrs. D, as I called her, had been proprietary with me from the start, hugging me like a daughter, giving me tips on how to dress and what to say to Lady so-and-so or to her husband to win him to our cause. She even passed me clothes — discards from her own closet — which were slightly big but made from fabrics I could not have afforded myself.
“Mrs. Drummond,” I began. I said nothing more, for she had already turned her attention to Felicity. Mrs. D’s sister-in-law, Lady Dunston, now had me in her sights and Miss McLea was coming to shake my hand. No one mentioned the visit to the dean.
I was aching to cut through it all and unburden myself. “Mrs. Drummond,” I began again, reaching around her sister-in-law and Felicity. “I have bad news.”
Mrs. Drummond’s large brown eyes turned my way. “Now Agnes. You have only just arrived. Business can wait, can it not? Take off your coat. I will get you both some tea. And if I do say so, the jam cakes turned out marvellously.”
I looked over at Felicity, who at that moment was being dragged by well-meaning hands toward the table. Society women were odd. There was a protocol at these gatherings that they all mysteriously seemed to know. Each woman who walked in the door had to be greeted, seated and given tea before anything of substance could occur.
A short while later I was sitting on one of Mrs. D’s delicate carved chairs, a teacup balanced on my knee, listening to my hostess chatter about a cat she had just acquired. I glanced miserably across the room and saw Grandmother wending her way toward me with Laure.
“Agnes,” she said, walking up and clasping my hand. “You look splendid.” There followed a discussion of the dress I was wearing, which Mrs. D had given me. Grandmother had altered it, but now she pinched my waist. “It is loose,” she said unhappily. “My eyes are not what they used to be. I do not know how I missed it.”
The Heart Specialist Page 6
