My brother-in-law and I had never known quite what to do with each other. For Laure’s sake we refrained from outright hostility, but mostly I tried to keep out of his way. If I visited it was while Huntley was out or else I asked Laure to come to me. Today was an exception. Circumstances must be serious for Huntley to send for me.
I hadn’t seen Laure since the funeral. I counted back the days. Eleven. How could I have been so neglectful? I’d been grieving in my own way, hiding out in the museum with my hearts. I had just finished compiling one hundred of Howlett’s cardiac cases, classifying them by anomaly and summarizing the findings. He’d been so pleased when I told him he had set off immediately to find me a publisher. But here was the price I would pay for the luxuries of work and solitude.
I walked west from Union along Sherbrooke Street and was now beginning to climb Mountain Street. Sunlight stroked my head; it glinted off the snow that covered the roofs and window ledges of the houses, giving them the appearance of gingerbread. It was too bright a day for calamities I told myself, much too bright, much too sunny.
Huntley’s property was considerable, encircled by a fence. His father had purchased the land and the impressively improved house for the couple right after their wedding. Huntley and Laure referred to it as a “prize.” On the top floor were six bedrooms and two lavatories with running water and toilets. The lighting was electric and the furnace burned oil. It was a house in which to start a dynasty Huntley had joked when he and Laure gave me a tour after my return from Europe.
After five years of marriage there was still no hint of a dynasty. No Stewart heir had been produced. Huntley’s mother had talked with Laure, plying her with questions. Grandmother had advised prayer, that time-honoured tool for all troubles. But Laure’s menstrual cycle had been spotty since girlhood. The difficulty could not be cured by prayers.
In the middle of the door was a heavily oxidized bronze knocker in the form of a fish, imported from London. Huntley was a collector of antiques. His house was full of ornaments that Laure spent much of her time organizing for maids to clean and polish. After my second knock with the fish Peter swung the door open, blinking in the glare off the snow. I peered past him into the house, expecting to see Laure, but the hall was dark and ominously still.
Huntley’s voice broke the silence. He came into view, shaved and formally dressed. He did not smile or offer a greeting so I repaid him in kind.
“Where is she?”
“Your sister,” he said, avoiding any mention of his own relation to Laure, “has locked herself in the bedroom and refuses to come out. The situation has degenerated to the point of absurdity. She has been in there ever since she got home from St. Andrews. At first I ignored it,” he said, describing the strategy one might employ with a difficult child. “Your sister can be mercurial, as you know. I’ve found when I ignore her she comes around in a day or two. This time, unfortunately, she has not.”
I removed my boots and walked to the stairs. Huntley blocked me. “I must warn you, Agnes. It’s bad this time. Worse than it’s ever been.”
I shook free of him and ran, taking the stairs two at a time. Huntley followed close behind.
The bedroom door was locked so I rattled the doorknob and knocked. “She’s in here?” I asked when there was no answer from within.
Huntley nodded. “It’s day eleven.”
“Eleven!” I tried the door again, this time frantically. “Does she have food in there, or water?”
Huntley shrugged. “Mary brings a tray three times a day and leaves it outside the door but she never touches it. Two days ago she chased the poor woman away with a knife.”
“A knife?” I couldn’t picture it. My wisp-thin sister threatening to stab a servant? “She faints at the mere thought of blood.”
Huntley shook his head. “She’s lost her mind, Agnes. I think she’s finally gone.”
Behind the door floorboards creaked. Someone was standing there and listening.
I bent to the keyhole but could see only black. “Laure?” Silence followed, punctuated by the sound of my breath. “It’s me,” I tried again. “Agnes. It’s safe now. You can open.”
There was a pause and then finally Laure spoke in a voice so small it could have been a child’s. “Is Huntley with you?”
I glanced behind me. Huntley’s hands were clasped at his back. He was chewing on his lip. “Yes,” I said. “He’s right here, Laure. He’s worried sick about you.”
There was a second’s pause and then the sound of furniture being dragged over the floorboards.
“She’s barricading,” said Huntley.
“What is going on in there? Open up. No one is going to hurt you, Laure.” The dragging noises stopped. I waited, counting breaths.
“Go away,” cried Laure. “I’m armed.”
Huntley shook his head and looked down the corridor. When he faced me again he was crying. I was shocked. “I never bargained for this. I should have listened to my mother instead of following my foolish heart. Where did it lead me?” he said, shrugging and looking at the ceiling. “To this awful, barren place.”
I got up from my knees and pulled him out of earshot. He was obviously too distraught to think about my sister’s feelings. His lower lip was sticking out.
He pulled his arm from my grasp and straightened his shirt cuffs. “All I wanted was a life with children and a wife who loved me. Instead, what did I get?” His eyelids fluttered closed.
“Hush,” I said sternly. “That’s enough.”
But Huntley wasn’t done. “I’ve worked to get where I am now. I studied hard. I excelled at McGill. You knew me there. Do I deserve this? I’m president of the Metropolitan Club, for God’s sake. This can’t be happening!”
“That’s enough,” I said again. It was all I could do to keep myself from shaking him. “She’s in mourning, Huntley. Grandmother’s death has shaken her.”
Huntley tossed his head. “It’s not just your grandmother. The balance of her mind was already disturbed.”
I suspected that the mean-spiritedness Huntley had always reserved for me might be something he directed at others too. My suspicions were now confirmed. My poor sister had received this treatment at a time when she was utterly vulnerable. “You might show some compassion,” I said sharply.
“I’m just telling the truth. You girls grew up motherless. A trauma like that marks someone. Your father abandoned you. The Whites seem like a stable lot but you two didn’t start your lives as Whites, did you? You had another name once. A French one.”
So Huntley knew about the past. It made sense that Laure would have told him.
“She is grieving, Huntley. It won’t help matters to be hard on her.”
He was past listening. He seemed to have forgotten I was beside him and addressed his next words to his feet. “I should have seen the signs but I was blinded by her beauty, distracted from what was obvious to anyone with eyes. Damn the day I first met her.”
I sent him away. It took some time as he was determined to articulate fully the blame for this situation. What concerned him most was the blow to his reputation.
When the hall was empty I knelt down by the keyhole. I could see nothing but I felt my sister’s presence, and once or twice the creaking floor confirmed that she was near. A long period of coaxing ensued until finally she spoke.
“Is he still there?” Laure’s voice was like a stranger’s.
Huntley was gone. I repeated it until she was calm. Finally she unlocked the door.
After I had squeezed through the narrow space between the wall and a heavy mahogany dresser with which she had barricaded the door I was struck by the whiteness of the room. A mirror on the wall where the dresser had stood was draped with a sheet. A bedside table was also covered, as was the little desk by the window. The bed, mattress and pillows stripped bare, was the only piece of furniture left exposed. It was as if the room had been prepared for a lengthy absence.
Laure stood in the middle
of this strange decor in her nightdress. She was terribly pale, with eyes sunk in their sockets, suggesting dehydration. Her hair hung in unwashed strands. Her feet were bare. I gave an involuntary cry and ran toward her but she fended me off, waving what seemed to be a knife.
I froze. This was the procedure I had been taught in Zurich when I was a medical resident for several months in an asylum. Freeze when a patient turns violent. Use only the voice. Remain calm and reassuring. The knife was not a knife. It was a silver-tipped letter opener. Laure’s arm was trembling. She was exhausted, on the verge of collapse. There were marks on her forearm, partially healed gouges. Self-mutilation. The letter opener was more dangerous to her than to anyone else.
I began to talk, using the skills I had learned in Switzerland. They seemed to come reflexively, which made sense in a way because the person I was using them on was Laure, my little sister, whom I happened to know better than my own self. I got the letter opener away then took her in my arms. It was surprisingly easy, for in the end every person, no matter how full of fear and aggression, wants comfort and support.
Laure’s words were disjointed, the story she recounted revealed deep paranoia. Huntley had turned the household against her in a campaign to drive her insane. People had been sneaking into her bedroom and damaging the furniture. The damage was always just enough that she alone would notice. It consisted mainly of nicks in the wood, small gouges and scratches that appeared overnight. She had locked the door but obviously Huntley had the key for he kept up with his work. It was done while she slept. She was trying to outsmart him. That was why she had draped the furniture with sheets. “He wants to drive me crazy,” she whispered, jerking out of my arms. “Then he’ll send me packing to get rid of me.”
“You mustn’t listen to that nonsense. Huntley is upset. He is not thinking about what’s coming out of his mouth.”
“He knows what he is doing.” She paused and looked up at me. “We’re defective, aren’t we, Agnes? We shall never fit in.”
I did not answer. Unlike my sister I did not consider “fitting in” a worthy goal. Quite the contrary.
“I thought I could do it when Huntley started courting me,” said Laure, “but I was wrong. We’re stained. We stain others.”
“Nonsense.” I put a hand on her arm to steady her. “You have a medical condition, Laure, a condition that affects fertility. It is not your fault.”
Laure began to weep. “He talks of sending me away.”
When I took her in my arms it was like rocking a child. Over Laure’s shoulder the room came into view: the letter opener abandoned on the mattress, the shrouded, wounded furniture. Huntley was right. There was more to Laure’s state than mourning. These were the hallmarks of psychosis. He was rejecting her because of it. He claimed to be so solid and yet was bolting.
“It’s all right,” I said, rocking us both, comforting myself as much as her. “It’s all right, Laure. I’m here.”
I HAD NO IDEA how I’d manage but I knew that Laure couldn’t live under Huntley’s roof any longer. So I bundled her into a dress and a shawl and fixed her hair as best I could. I was keenly aware of the irony of doing my sister’s toilette, haphazard as it was that day. She sat utterly uninterested, allowing me license with her combs and pins as if her appearance no longer meant a thing.
In the vestibule Huntley came to talk to us while I was searching for Laure’s boots. He had been alerted by Peter that Laure was out of the bedroom. “You got her out.”
I was on my knees rooting in the coat closet. Beside me Laure cringed, trying to get away from him. “Yes,” I said, fishing out a pair of women’s galoshes. “You can address her directly, Huntley. She still speaks English.”
Huntley stared at the galoshes. “What are you doing with those?”
I handed them to Laure, who began putting them on. “She needs them to protect her shoes.” I was now rummaging for a coat.
“Hold on,” said Huntley. “You can’t just take her.”
I turned. “I’m not taking her, Huntley. She’s coming with me freely, of her own volition. It’s quite obvious she can’t remain here with you. She’s stopped eating and sleeping. She needs care.”
“There are places for this kind of thing.”
I was a full head shorter than he was but I stepped forward. I could smell the scent he’d applied after his morning shave. I could practically count his nostril hairs. “I won’t allow that, I’m afraid.”
Laure began to cry.
“She’s ill,” said Huntley. “She needs a doctor.”
I stared at him in wonder. “And what in the name of God am I?”
“Look here, Agnes, you work full time at that museum. You’re not really a doctor of the type your sister needs right now. And besides, I can’t have news of this leaking out. If you take her from me and keep her like a pet in your flat the whole city will hear of it. I’ll be the talk of the town.”
So that was it. Huntley Stewart had scandal on his mind. He wanted to send Laure far away, out of sight and mind, where the stain could be hidden, or at least covered up, and perhaps, with time, forgotten.
A plan came suddenly into my head. “She needs a place that is calm,” I said, choosing words calculated to soothe Huntley as well as my poor sister. “Why couldn’t she move out to the Priory until she feels strong again? Is that far enough away? It will allay gossip more than any institution, Huntley. You can tell people she’s organizing Grandmother’s things. Out there we will hire someone to give her proper care.”
Huntley seemed relieved. He summoned a cab for us and saw us off at the front door.
15
APRIL 1900
There were three of them come to visit me for the final tutorial of the term. I had opened my window wide, which under the circumstances turned out to be a mistake. Sunlight was streaming into the room and the air carried a smell of earth and rotting leaves. The chirpings of starlings threatened to drown out my words. Beside me at the table the young men fidgeted and sighed. Academically they were the three weakest boys in their year. They probably ought to have been plucked in their first year but for some reason had been permitted to remain.
The one named Hornby picked dried mud from his boot. Beside him Sean Falconbridge rolled his head on a stubby neck as if he found it too cumbersome to hold upright. Only the third boy, Derek Sloan, looked at his notes, but these were indecipherable so they weren’t much help. Ordinarily I would have made tea but these three cared so little I didn’t make the effort. What was I to do with students like these? Their exam was five days off and they were hopeless, no better now at diagnostics than they had been in September when they had started pathology.
Set out before us on the table were three lab jars, each one containing a heart. I nudged the smallest one toward them as one might push a bone toward a sleeping dog.
This heart was one of my prizes. No bigger than my thumb and mounted to reveal the hidden defect. Howlett’s work. My best pieces came either from him or from my father. In fact, all three hearts we were looking at today had been supplied by them. The donor of this one was an infant who died the day she was born.
I looked at Falconbridge and requested the cause of death.
He shrugged. Derek Sloan said stenosis but didn’t know what it meant. Hornby just stared blankly.
I gave hints. “Think of wires crossing. Think of the arteries.”
They still didn’t know so I explained. It was transposition of the vessels, a problem afflicting about a tenth of infants with congenital defects. The aorta and pulmonary artery switched places, emerging from the wrong ventricle. Newborns with this problem would be blue from head to toe, although their hearts would sound perfectly normal.
The boys were scribbling in their notebooks when Dr. Clarke looked in. They all stood up, showing more energy than they had all morning.
“Good day, gentlemen,” said the dean. He smiled and dipped his head at me. “Sorry to interrupt your work, Dr. White.”
/> Work was hardly the word for it but I kept silent, especially when I saw that he was not alone. Standing behind him was a dark-haired boy.
I sensed right away that there was something wrong with this person although at first I could not identify what it was. He looked far too young to be enrolled in the medical faculty. Tousled curls that looked none-too-clean extended to his shoulders. His clothes were several sizes too big, accentuating his look of a street urchin. The suit was a decent one, or had once been, but was now so worn I couldn’t help thinking he never took it off. His shirt collar was grimy and frayed. But what bothered me, I finally realized, was his face. It was expressionless, betraying no hint of feeling or emotion. His eyes were active enough. They took in the boys standing by the table and the glassed-in cabinets full of labelled jars. They did not rise to meet mine.
“I want to introduce you to Jakob Hertzlich,” said the dean.
I took the young man’s hand, which was dry and cool even on as hot a day as this. The tip of his middle finger was stained yellow and his jacket carried the stale smell of cigarettes.
“Jakob is joining the faculty,” continued the dean.
I looked at him more closely. He wasn’t as young as I’d first thought. Perhaps in his midtwenties. Too old for a student. Surely he wasn’t a professor. His clothes had been slept in. I was sure of it. He smelled slightly rank.
“At long last, Dr. White, you will have help. Jakob is your new assistant.”
I stared at the dean and then at the young man who was continuing to avoid my gaze. He had reached into his pocket and pulled out an oval tin, which he shook lightly. Then he popped something in his mouth. What a strange person he was. All the time his fingers worked the tin his eyes roved.
The Heart Specialist Page 15
