The Heart Specialist

by Claire Holden Rothman

  His eyes widened with respect. Yes, I thought silently. I had met these men and dissected specimens alongside them with no help from him or from McGill.

  I told him about my return to Canada. This part came out disjointed, punctuated by the blowing of my nose. I had stopped crying but my mouth was dry from emotion and from talking so much. I didn’t stop, however. I had never done this before, never put into words the story of my life as if it might be something worth listening to.

  Howlett’s eyes had been averted throughout most of my talk, scanning the walls and ceiling, fixing on his desktop. When at last I stopped for air he turned to me. “Commendable.”

  Commendable. A single word but it meant the world at that moment, erasing his complicity in the McGill fiasco, erasing the fact that he had not tried to contact me all these years, even after he learned I was the daughter of his mentor. Commendable. Compensation indeed.

  He sucked on his pipe and struck a match, releasing a fresh cloud of smoke into the room. “And now?” he asked from under a hazy halo. “What are you doing with yourself now?”

  It was imperative to keep his dark eyes on me. I could hardly believe how close we had grown in twenty minutes’ time. It was as if he had known me forever. What could I say that might bring us closer still? He wouldn’t want to hear about my clinical practice, of that much I was sure. I wasn’t exactly a paragon of success. The museum was a better bet, even if my role there to date had been largely that of charwoman.

  Howlett continued to draw on his pipe. He did not seem bored, although his gaze had remained oblique, settling now on a bookshelf, now on the skylight or the back of my chair. I talked about Dr. Clarke and the generosity he’d shown me. I told of the chaos of the museum in my first few days there, of the slow and difficult restoration of order. I spoke of the specimens: jars standing in row upon row, awaiting my attention. People thought it strange that a young woman would choose to spend her time in a room full of pickled remains. They couldn’t understand it. What they didn’t know I whispered in a voice so small he had to lean forward to hear was that these had been my playthings as a child.

  Howlett laid his pipe down on a small white plate on his desk and smiled. “Honoré’s study,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said, picturing it.

  He nodded solemnly but soon his smile returned. “You were always different, weren’t you Agnès? You rather liked it there. That’s why this makes such sense. It’s as if Providence itself were guiding you. You’ve been lucky.”

  The dusty old museum at McGill was suddenly given dignity. Howlett pulled a journal down from one of his shelves. “There’s a piece in here you must read about the pathology museum in London,” he said. “I practically lived there during my stint in that city as a student. It was marvellous, a shrine to death and life both. The mysteries of nature revealed.” He fixed me with his laughing eyes. “There’s nothing like it in America, Agnès. Perhaps it’s time we changed this, you and I?”

  I nodded, only half believing that I was speaking with the great man. He was interested in my work to the point of suggesting a partnership. The sense of intimacy was palpable and I decided to show him the heart. The moment could not have been more propitious, but suddenly the bell rang, announcing dinner.

  We both started. Howlett put his pipe on the plate and stood up. “We must go. Kitty will be waiting in the dining room and she likes me to be prompt. But we will continue this discussion, that much I promise you.”

  I could hardly breathe I was so happy. I picked up my briefcase and rose to my feet with him. Years ago this man had spurned me, shutting me out of the place I longed to be, and now here I was in his study, telling him the story of my life as if he had intended it all along, as if I were someone worth attending to.

  As I proceeded toward the door his hand alighted on my hip. He was looking straight ahead, intent on moving us both into the corridor, so it wasn’t really improper, but I was shocked. Sounds became amplified. The smell of pipe smoke was particularly strong. The floral print on the walls in the hallway jumped out in heightened gaudiness. Through it all I was aware of one thing above everything else — the burning spot beneath his hand where my iliac crest jutted out.

  I repeated his wife’s name over and over in my head like a prayer. Howlett was married. I was about to sit down to a meal his wife had overseen. At that very moment she was waiting for me in her dining room, perhaps trying to imagine me just as I was trying to imagine her. The hand was still on my waist, exerting its pressure and heat. I shut my eyes.

  THE MAHOGANY TABLE GLEAMED. A five-pronged candelabra blazed in the centre. The silver place settings shimmered. At the head of the table stood Kitty Revere Howlett, watching us enter.

  She was as stunning as the table she had laid for our benefit. She had fine golden hair. Her dress was elegant, made of pale velvet that drew attention to her perfect skin. I felt hunched and dumpy beside her. I was suddenly aware of my own hair, which was more ragged than usual as I had had but one hand with which to tend it back at the hotel. I wanted to hide my laughable excuse for a dress. My hand was bundled in gauze that was now a filthy ash colour. I was poorly coiffed, underdressed and entirely inadequate. How could I have thought Howlett would be attracted to me? I had been dreaming, that was all, forgetting for one delirious moment that a woman in my position could not afford the luxury.

  While Howlett carved the meat Kitty showed me to my chair. She glanced more than once at my satchel, offering to have the manservant put it in the vestibule, but I explained that I did not wish to part with it. I placed it at my feet, leaning it against a table leg.

  The little boy was to dine with us, which struck me as odd. He was no older than five or six, too young to endure the conversation of adults. His nose barely cleared the table. Revere they called him, after his mother’s family name.

  I smiled at him but he was too shy to look directly at me. I must have intimidated him earlier during the shootout in the vestibule. Kitty meanwhile hadn’t a retiring bone in her body. She asked all kinds of questions, notably about my accident at the hospital. What a shame it was, she exclaimed, that I had injured myself on holiday.

  “On business,” I said reflexively. “Officially I’m here for McGill.”

  “Why yes, of course,” said Kitty, slightly taken aback at the correction. “Willie mentioned that. You’re a doctor in Montreal.”

  The little boy looked up at me, his mouth dropping open in surprise. “Like Father?” The words came out before he could stop them and he blushed with embarrassment.

  “Like Father, yes,” said Howlett, still at the sideboard carving.

  “But she can’t be,” the boy persisted.

  Perhaps he didn’t know that women could be doctors. Or he’d believed me to be a sharpshooter. His reasons were to remain a mystery because at that moment Kitty intervened, shushing her son and warning him to mind his manners.

  “I am a doctor,” I explained, ostensibly to the mother but also for the benefit of the silenced boy, “but I run a museum as well. That’s my principal occupation. Your husband knows our collection.”

  “A museum,” Kitty said. “How marvellous. And what sorts of things do you have on display?”

  I glanced at Howlett but he was at the sideboard, his back turned to me. I was on my own. Surely Kitty wouldn’t want to hear about diseased organs at a table laid with such care. Rivers had warned me to avoid talk of medicine tonight but Kitty looked at me with anticipation.

  “Things of use to students,” I said vaguely, waving my good hand. “We’re part of the medical school.”

  To my relief Kitty let the subject go. She was probably one of those women who had a list of things appropriate for discussion at mealtimes and pity the guest who strayed.

  “Willie was at McGill as you no doubt know. He absolutely loved his time there.”

  Howlett chose that moment to interrupt with a platter of steaming chicken. You could see the order of his mind even in this sim
ple task. Thin slices of breast were arranged in one corner, drumsticks and dark meat in another. Stuffing was piled neatly at the centre. “Here you go, ladies and gent,” he said, laying the platter on the table and bowing theatrically. “One beautifully roasted bird, care of your most excellent hostess, Kitty Revere Howlett.”

  Kitty blushed and then recited grace. I could not pass plates and serving bowls on as well as the others. I had to take each dish in my good hand, place it on the table, take up the serving spoon or fork with the same hand, serve myself, return the spoon, then pass the dish on to Howlett on my right. The little boy watched intently, cringing when I raised my bandaged hand.

  After we had all served ourselves silence descended. Howlett and his child were reserved with Kitty, as if the dining room were foreign territory. Howlett seemed to watch his wife for cues. The little boy remained wordless too, his eyes darting from his father to me and then to his own feet, which he swung back and forth beneath the table. He was not one bit interested in his food. I chewed bravely. I had as little appetite as Revere seemed to have and the bandage exacerbated my innate clumsiness.

  What did one do at such a dinner? How did one behave? Unlike Laure and Grandmother I had been born without this sixth sense. I was capable of committing serious blunders without being aware of them. I praised the food. That was a safe bet, and Kitty seemed to appreciate it. I said how much I liked Kitty’s house. Words tumbled from my lips. I sounded insufferably dull! How lovely, I heard myself declare, were the dolls that Kitty kept on the landing.

  Surely Howlett would hurl something at me — a forkful of peas, a bun, anything to get me to stop? What I would have given to talk about medicine again, to learn about his work at Johns Hopkins and the differences he’d noticed between medicine practised in Baltimore and Montreal. He was writing a textbook. He was teaching. There were hundreds of thing to be discussed. I looked up but Howlett was chewing placidly. Kitty, to my astonishment, was smiling warmly at me. She was so pleased in fact that she decided to reward me by directing the conversation to a topic she thought might interest me.

  “Willie is all for women studying medicine.” This unwarranted comment sailed out of the blue and into the dining room. A candle dripped onto the polished tabletop. Kitty obviously knew nothing of my past and its intersection with her husband. While she reached to straighten the candle Howlett served himself seconds.

  “We’re fully capable,” I said carefully. I wasn’t sure of Howlett’s views on the matter and did not know Kitty well enough to guess her opinions either. “We can be every bit as intelligent as men.”

  Kitty nodded, but her brow creased slightly. “Yes, but I worry about all that knowledge. I’m not sure I could bear to know the things you’ve had to learn.”

  “But that’s the point of it,” I said. Kitty had hit a nerve. “Knowledge is precisely why I do it.”

  Howlett moved his eyes from his plate, a slow, warning glance.

  The candles threw shadows around the room. Kitty’s face seemed suddenly older, more angular. She no longer looked at me. “There was a girl last year,” she said. “You remember her, Willie. The Jewish one. Stein I think she was called.”

  “She was uncommon,” said Willie.

  “They’re all uncommon. But this one was so completely and utterly brain. No heart, no grace. Nothing to her apart from intellect. She was quite aberrant.”

  “Now, now,” objected Howlett. “That’s a little strong.”

  Kitty laughed. “You’re right. I sound old-fashioned, don’t I? But Miss White is different. That’s why I mention it. She’s not merely brain. She is obviously well brought up.”

  I felt like I was at a tennis match, watching the ball volleying back and forth across the table. I did not dare to say a word.

  “Dr. White is intelligent,” Howlett said smiling. “That much I can vouch for.”

  “Of course she is,” answered Kitty. “But she also likes dolls.”

  Blood rose to my cheeks. I checked Kitty’s expression but it contained no hint of irony.

  “Guinevere Stein failed to notice them when she came to tea.”

  “Gertrude,” Howlett corrected. “Gertrude Stein.” He turned to me and continued. “Bit of an odd duck with some rather strange opinions she insisted on airing at inappropriate times. She was asked to withdraw last spring.”

  “Yes,” said his wife. “And guess who did the asking?” She pointed at Howlett, raising her eyebrows significantly.

  Howlett shrugged. “She did not have the temperament to be a physician,” he said, absently pushing peas onto his fork. “Far too unconventional.”

  “Your dolls are wax,” I said, changing the subject.

  Kitty nodded. “The oldest one dates back to 1760.”

  I mustered the delighted surprise Kitty expected. “From England, I presume?”

  Again Kitty nodded. “Yes. Wax always means England. In France during the same period porcelain was used for the heads.”

  “My sister and I had wax dolls when we were growing up,” I told her. This was not entirely true. Laure had owned them. I had merely tolerated them as a border dividing her side from mine on the bed. But the lie seemed to work on Kitty, who offered me a second round of peas.

  I reached with my bad hand for the bowl, which was heavy and banged down on the tabletop, turning on its side, scattering its contents. I tried to wipe the mess with my napkin but Kitty stopped me. “It’s nothing,” she insisted. She was good in an emergency. Calm. A servant was called in and in no time the table was put to right. I resumed my seat. Kitty had just revived the conversation with a story about someone spilling gravy at her wedding lunch when Revere screamed.

  He was no longer in his seat. In the confusion over the peas no one had noticed that he’d vanished. I stared at Kitty, then at Howlett, trying to make sense of it. Howlett bent suddenly to peer under the table and then disappeared from view. “Little rascal!” he said laughing.

  “He’s under there?” Kitty was also trying to bend but her dress was too starchy to manage.

  By leaning back and twisting sideways I could see the boy. And what I saw made the blood stop in my veins.

  “What have you got there?” Howlett said. “Give it over.”

  He crawled beneath the table to join his son. There was a sound of tussling. I could only see part of Revere’s body, the part holding my satchel. He was trying to shove the bottle back inside, out of sight, but his father was too quick. The tussling stopped and there were several seconds of silence while Howlett registered what he was holding. He started to laugh.

  “My son’s been a snoop,” he said, standing and brushing off his pant legs. To my horror he placed the laboratory jar in front of him on the table. “I presume this belongs to you, Dr. White?”

  My face must have ignited. I looked at my hostess but Kitty had no idea what was happening. She was smiling, assuming we were still in the realm of normal social intercourse. Reluctantly I looked back at Howlett, whose eyes were dancing a wicked little jig. “It’s from the museum,” I said quickly. “I’m so sorry.”

  Kitty’s face changed. She peered at the jar then quickly looked away.

  Howlett was still smiling. “A remarkable specimen.”

  What could I have said? The worst thing that could have occurred had and there was no undoing it. What had I been thinking to bring this heart tonight?

  Howlett called to his son, who emerged from under the table after a bit of coaxing. The thing in the bottle was a heart, he explained. The boy asked if it was dead and his father nodded. Yes it was dead, but it wasn’t anything to fear. One could learn a good deal from studying it. That was, in fact, why it was in the possession of Dr. White.

  Revere glanced at me warily, most likely thinking me a witch with my bullet firing finger and this heart I was toting in a blood-smeared bag.

  Kitty Revere rose abruptly. “Enough, Willie. I do not consider this appropriate. That thing,” she said pointing at the jar, “does not
belong on a table where food is being served. I would be grateful if you and Dr. White removed it.”

  Howlett looked at me. His face was solemn now but his eyes gave him away. He stood, taking the heart in both hands and cradling it like a baby. “My dear,” he said to his wife. “We have upset you. Perhaps it’s best we retire to the smoking room with this offensive thing?”

  Kitty took her son and stood with her hands protectively on his shoulders while Howlett and I took our leave. I tried to apologize but it was clear that our time together was over.

  Unlike the other rooms of the Howlett house the smoking room was dark and almost claustrophobic. Stained wood panelled the walls. Burgundy curtains drooped heavily over the only window and the air smelled of cigars. Ashtrays, one still holding two blackened stubs, had been strategically placed on several small tables.

  I collapsed in an armchair and covered my face with my hands. “Forgive me,” I said. “I can’t believe I was so stupid.”

  Howlett laughed. “It wasn’t you,” he said, standing in front of me. “It was my son. Revere has the annoying habit of sticking his nose in things, just like his old man.”