Prayers for the Dying

by Tracy L. Ward

“I wish you’d tell me what happened between the two of you,” Julia said, stepping toward him. “You used to work so well together.”

  Ainsley straightened his stance and felt a stab of pain in his left flank. He rubbed his backside and knew he’d develop a bruise. “Just posturing,” he said dismissively. “Simms doesn’t work well with others.”

  As Julia stepped toward him Ainsley glanced to the door, making sure they were alone, before leaning in to plant a kiss on the crest of her cheek. When he pulled away, breathing in the scent of her, he saw a budding smile on her lips.

  “You should visit me more often,” he said, bending over to pull the dossier and scattered papers from the floor. “But I have a feeling you have not come merely for a kiss.” He winced as he began to walk down the main aisle toward his tools and now-empty examination table. He slapped the file down next to his tools.

  “Ms. Katherine didn’t show up this morning,” Julia said, following him.

  That was the third nurse they’d lost in as many weeks.

  “Lady Margaret didn’t wish me to bother you, but I came anyway.”

  As Ainsley washed his hands, he sensed Julia coming up along beside him. “Who is with Father now?” he asked, reaching for the towel.

  “Lady Margaret, of course.”

  He circled the examination table, all the while aware of how Julia’s eyes followed him.

  “She does not sleep,” Julia continued. “I have scarcely seen her eat more than a thimbleful of anything in the last three days. I am worried for her and I think you should be too.”

  “Has she asked you to tell me these things?” Ainsley asked.

  “No, of course not.”

  “We must tread carefully,” Ainsley said, reclaiming the file folder. “I promised Margaret I wouldn’t jeopardize your trust. She needs your discretion in all things.”

  Julia wrinkled her nose at the accusation. “Have I been anything but discreet?”

  Ainsley gave a slow exhale. “That isn’t what I mean. We had an agreement.”

  Muscles in Julia’s neck flexed as he spoke.

  “She won’t say anything about us to Father or Daniel, but she needs you as her lady’s maid. That means you aren’t permitted to tell me—”

  “Yes, I understand. This isn’t about anything like that.” Julia rounded the examination table. “There is something else at play, more than just Lord Marshall’s condition.”

  Ainsley took a seat on the high stool at the desk near the window and slapped the papers down. Julia came to his side. “I believe it involves Dr. Davies.”

  Recently appointed to the University of Edinburgh, Dr. Jonas Davies was one of Ainsley’s colleagues from medical school. Equal parts adversary and confidante, Davies had helped Ainsley on more than one occasion, proving his loyalty to not only Ainsley, but also the entire Marshall family. Ainsley had long known Jonas was smitten with Margaret. Only recently had Margaret spoken of her mutual affection. Their friend’s removal from London took place near the exact time Lord Marshall returned to the city suffering the recent attack of apoplexy. The Marshalls had become so all consumed with their patriarch’s condition that a proper send-off was near impossible.

  Reminded of his own shortcomings as a friend, Ainsley rubbed his forehead. “I wrote to him,” he said, trying to reassure himself that he meant well, “but I have yet to put it in the post.”

  “Lady Margaret doesn’t talk about him any longer,” Julia said.

  “She used to speak of him often?”

  Julia raised her eyebrows. “I’m not supposed to say, remember?”

  Caught by his own principles, Ainsley shook his head.

  “She needs a break from all this,” Julia said, “a reliable person to take the lead on Lord Marshall’s care. It should never have been placed on Margaret’s shoulders alone.”

  “She isn’t alone,” Ainsley interjected. “We are all helping as best we can.”

  “Yes but…” Julia hesitated. “Daniel is free to come and go as he pleases, and you escape to your work. Where is Lady Margaret’s reprieve?”

  Ainsley nodded, finally understanding what Julia was telling him. “All right,” he said, “I will make enquiries. See if we can find someone on a more permanent basis. You wouldn’t have anyone you can recommend, would you, seeing as you seem to have all the answers?”

  Julia smiled. “Unfortunately, I do not,” she said. “Perhaps Mrs. Holliwell knows if one of the girls has taken some nursing courses.”

  Mrs. Holliwell was head mistress at the foundling home where Julia herself was raised and where Ainsley’s mother had been patron.

  “Perhaps.”

  Julia took two steps closer to him, close enough that her body was pressed into his. “Thank you,” she said softly.

  Ainsley watched as she placed her hand on top of his and pulled it toward her lips. After kissing his knuckles, she leaned in to grace his cheek with her own. Ainsley relished the feeling of her bare skin brushing his and began planting kisses on her cheek. As she melted in his arms, he left a trail of kisses down her neck to her collar. Holding her to him, he kept her from pulling away or slipping to the floor. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and buried her face in his neck as he doted on her, licking the skin at her throat and shoulder.

  She was the first to come to her senses, pushing him from her and murmuring for him to stop. “Someone may come in,” she said unconvincingly.

  Ainsley found himself smiling as he moved his attentions toward her bosom.

  “Peter. Peter!” She slapped him furiously now, tapping his chest quickly to get his attention. He pulled away in time to see Crawford enter at the back of the room. Once she was released from his grasp, Julia stepped back and plucked a small jar from the top of his desk. “What is this then?” she asked, clearing her throat somewhat to hide the slight shake in her voice. She held the jar up to the light streaming through the window.

  Ainsley thrust his hands in his pockets and stood up. “That is a growth removed from a man’s testicle,” he explained. “He died in great agony.”

  With subdued revulsion, Julia returned the jar to Ainsley’s desk. “Oh.”

  Crawford stopped a few paces from them and eyed Julia suspiciously. “Women do not belong in the morgue,” he said.

  From the corner of his eye, Ainsley watched Julia square her shoulders and elevate her chin slightly. “I imagine at least half of us in here are of the fairer sex,” she corrected.

  A scowl slid over Crawford’s face as Ainsley bowed his head slightly, stifling a laugh.

  “Who are you and why are you here?” Crawford asked, any ounce of patience vanishing quickly.

  Before Julia could reply, Ainsley stepped forward, placing himself between her and his supervisor. “She came to see me, sir,” he said. “I didn’t see the harm in allowing her entrance.”

  “We haven’t the time to dally,” Crawford glowered. “Can’t you see they are turning to mush before our very eyes?” He turned in place to survey the room. “Get them out, Ainsley. Get them out and in the ground before we have an epidemic on our hands.”

  Ainsley nodded, agreeing with his supervisor’s emphasis on speed. There would always be more bodies and the living begging for answers from them. The longer it took to process, the higher likelihood that any evidence that could bring those answers was melting away in the summer heat. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I will hasten to finish.”

  Crawford grunted and began to turn but stopped, taken aback by Ainsley’s agreeance. So rare was such an occurrence Ainsley was sure Crawford would remain to argue with him out of habit alone. “Good,” the senior doctor said after a pause. “Thank you.” He pointed his thumb over his shoulder at Julia as he turned. “And get her out of here.”

  The couple released a unified breath as the door closed behind him. “Do you think he knows?” Julia asked.

  “I highly doubt it,” Ainsley answered. “These days he barely pays attention to anything beyond his bottle
of brandy.” Without much thought, he began turning the small lead statue in his pocket over with his hand. He saw Julia’s gaze drawn to it as she turned to face him.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  Ainsley’s hand quickly enveloped the statue in a fist but he did not pull it out. “What do you mean?”

  “In your pocket,” Julia said, smiling at first. “I know you took something from that man.”

  He bit down on his inner cheek and his eyes shot up to the ceiling.

  “No point in hiding it,” she said, smiling from one side of her mouth. She stepped toward him, eyeing him as if a jaguar readying to pounce on its prey. She pressed an open palm into his chest as her torso collided with his. Looking up at him, she smiled and used her other hand to trail down his arm to the hand that was still in the pocket of his trousers. “I just want to see it,” she said softly, “please.”

  “Damn it.” Ainsley pulled out his hand and opened it, palm up.

  Julia nearly giggled at her triumph and quickly stepped back with the small figurine in her hand. “It looks like a religious relic,” she said almost immediately. Within seconds, however, her celebratory expression vanished and was replaced by something far more serious. “It’s Saint Christopher,” she said.

  Ainsley shrugged. “What does that mean?”

  “He’s the patron saint of travellers,” Julia explained, rolling the figure over in her hand. Ainsley watched as she bit her lower lip.

  “How do you know that?” Ainsley asked.

  “My brother and I were raised Catholic before being sent to the orphanage,” she said. Julia rarely spoke of her life in the foundling home and had never mentioned what life was like before. Ainsley had always imagined she was very young when she was placed in Mrs. Holliwell’s care.

  “You are Catholic?” Ainsley asked, somewhat cautiously.

  Julia nodded. “You are sure you found this on the man?”

  “Yes,” Ainsley said. “You saw me.”

  She closed her eyes momentarily before giving it back to Ainsley. “I should go,” she said, offering a forced smile. “Ms. Nelson will be wondering what is taking me so long.” She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek before retreating down the main aisle.

  “Let me give you a few shillings for a hansom,” Ainsley offered, following her.

  “No, it’s all right,” she said, turning at the door. “I walk quickly.”

  “But the heat.”

  Julia laughed. “You are such a sweet man,” she said. “I will be fine.” She blew him a kiss and was gone before Ainsley could say another word.

  Chapter 3

  Margaret sat in her father’s room, which in recent weeks had become her hideaway from the rest of London. While seated in the red, high back, upholstered chair placed between the window and the bed, Margaret could will herself to concentrate on one single, solitary thing—her father’s recovery—and stave off the bitterness and heartache that fought to overwhelm her.

  The previous year had done its worst and tested the young heiress in more ways than she ever dreamed imaginable. There was once a time, when she was cooped up at The Briar, that she craved interesting things, anything to break the monotony of her country existence. She had cursed her mother’s reclusive nature and her father’s bitter avoidance of them. She had envied Peter his medical degree, which included his recently won position at the hospital, and had even spat a curse at her eldest brother, Daniel, for being so well suited to his role as the future earl. Margaret had begun to begrudge anyone who led even a slightly more entertaining life than her and, now, ten months on and possessing many stories of her own, she was ready for it to return to the way it had once been—painfully predictable and dull as tombs.

  Not one month before, she had been the happiest of women, convinced the man who stole her heart would manage to steal her away as well. She wanted to go with him and had found herself counting the hours until such a time as he could whisk her away to Scotland as they had planned. She’d even packed a small valise with a modest, if somewhat austere, trousseau tucked in its folds. The bag remained hidden in the shadows under her bed, still packed. Any hope she had had of one day making a journey north with it had vanished in the days following her father’s return to London.

  How could she have left him in such a state? The once noble peer, member of the House of Lords and Earl of Moncliff, had been reduced to nothing more than a murmuring invalid who could neither eat nor use the chamber pot on his own. With a deceased mother and only brothers to call family, Margaret knew rather quickly that the lion’s share of their father’s care would fall to her. At first, she did not mind. She saw it as a duty, the mere repayment of lifelong support bestowed upon her since birth, but as the days passed she feared the reality was becoming far worse than she imagined.

  They could not keep a staff of nurses, once promised to them by their family physicians. Attending chamber pots and administering sponge baths was far less appealing to the current generation of young women, it would seem. Wooed to the profession by Nightingale and her contemporaries, many girls, once it was realized they would not be attending the wounds of strapping young men in uniform, left the service and took up jobs in the factories instead.

  “It’s noble work, miss,” Katherine had said when Margaret met her in the hallway the evening before, “steady work with only slightly worse pay. And I won’t be expected to see to anyone else’s business, if you know what I mean. That should be worth its weight in gold, don’t you think?”

  Margaret could not find the words to agree. She did not care to argue and allowed the girl to leave. She had said nothing to Peter the night before, knowing there was little that could be done for it so late in the day. Margaret had taken on so much of her father’s care that it almost seemed a blessing to do so without the distracting flutter of someone else in the room.

  From her chair by the window, Margaret was granted a sufficient amount of light by which to read, which she did, out loud, as a way to quiet her mind and subdue the restless spirit of her father, who was not yet used to his immobility.

  A few grunts often escaped her father while she droned on. That day he seemed particularly unsettled.

  “He who repeats a tale after man,

  Is bound to say, as nearly as he can,

  Each single word, if he remembers it,

  However rudely spoken or unfit,

  Or else the tale he tells will be untrue,

  The things invented and the phrases new.”

  Lord Marshall writhed and squirmed, using the good side of his body to roll to the edge of the bed. Margaret lowered The Canterbury Tales and let out a huff as she watched her father struggle with such a simple task.

  “Pretty dull, isn’t it?” she asked, forcing a smile.

  Lord Marshall stopped his wriggling when Margaret stood. She placed the book down on the bedside table and stepped toward him. He watched intently as she came to his side, as if mesmerized by her presence and the long shadow she cast over him. A pat of drool formulated on the edge of his dry and cracked mouth.

  “I don’t have to read,” Margaret offered, stooping down to help him back into his place in the middle of the bed. Margaret could not imagine anything else she could do to help pass away the hours.

  Lord Marshall’s mouth opened and closed quickly, with only short huffs accompanying them. His neck twisted in an odd way as he tried to look at her, his eyes wild.

  “I wish you wouldn’t fuss so,” she said, taking a seat on the side of the bed. Using one hand, she lifted his head while the other adjusted his pillow. “Maybe we should try some more speech work, like Dr. Davidson suggested.”

  Margaret brought her face inches from her father’s and began to form shapes with her mouth, imitating some of the easiest sounds of human speech. “Mmmm,” she repeated slowly before pausing to give her father a chance to reply. “Mmmmargaret.” She smiled at the thought of hearing her father say her name again, but the eager anticipation vanished
when haggard sounds came from him, none of which sounded like an ‘M’.

  She patted the side of her father’s cheek, as if to subdue his frantic attempts to speak. “It’s all right, Father,” she said, fighting back tears. “Dr. Davidson did say it would take time.”

  Dr. Davidson had said a great number of things, most of which Peter disagreed with. During the family’s first meeting with him, Ainsley practically embarrassed her with all his pointed questions and contradictory theories.

  “Peter, calm down. Who’s the doctor here?” Aunt Louisa had said, raising an eyebrow and wriggling in her seat, eager to restore the doctor’s evaporating patience.

  The truth was the doctor knew only slightly more than Ainsley, who quickly devoured any book referencing the condition. The family soon realized not much was known about apoplexy. Some suffers regained mobility and speech while others where chairbound, requiring nearly constant care. Their father’s attack had been significant. Lord Benedict had said the Barbadian doctors suggested Lord Marshall had suffered several attacks in quick succession. This would complicate his recovery. The Marshalls had started off hopeful but grew less so with each passing day. Conversations changed from discussing his recovery to deciding what would ultimately make him more comfortable. All the while, Lord Marshall looked on, frustration building in his eyes and contorting his lax facial features into a near permanent scowl.

  Margaret tried not to look at her father with pity. She knew it must unsettle him to see so many people look to him as if he were a disappointment and not the man he was.

  “Perhaps we should have a turn in the garden,” she said, pulling forth a lighthearted tone. “I’d go for a walk along the pavement—”

  Lord Marshall’s eyes popped open in a panic.

  “—but Daniel said there was some sort of commotion a few houses down. At the Talbots’, I think.” Margaret had pressed her brother for the true reason, but she wasn’t about to relay that to her father, who already had enough worries. “I’ll have Cutter and Maxwell come help get you in your chair.”

  She squeezed his hand, a ritual she performed each time she meant to leave the room. Sometimes she lingered a moment or two longer in the hopes that he would squeeze back an acknowledgement, but he never did.