Victor looked down at the floor and found the broom scraping up against the Persian rug. He had run out of room again. He turned and found that Henry had moved up behind him, effectively trapping him.
“Is there anything of you left, Victor?” He puffed on the cigar, exhaling the heavy smoke in a cloud that stung Victor’s eyes.
Don’t look up. If you meet his eyes, he’ll know what you are.
But Henry’s hand was under his chin, forcing his head up. Victor kept his gaze trained downward. “I didn’t think they would do this to you. I want you to know that. I thought they would simply kill you. I didn’t want your death, but I made my peace with it. But this...” Henry shuddered, the vibration of it traveling down his arm to the hand that still held Victor’s jaw. “I am so sorry, my old friend.” Henry took in a ragged intake of breath, and Victor couldn’t help it—he looked up.
Henry was crying. His pudgy face was reddened, the protuberant blue eyes bloodshot and moist. “Is there anything of you left? Are you... Do you suffer, being as you are?” He took a quick puff of the cigar, and at first Victor thought it was to comfort himself, but then Henry held the glowing cigar tip so close to Victor’s face that the heat of it burned his cheekbone.
“Do you feel fear anymore? Hatred? Do you feel anything, Victor?”
A test. One more test to pass. He’d always been good at tests. There were students who weren’t, students who spent all their waking hours in the library, studying and preparing, but balked when the appointed hour came and the exams were passed out. There were others who didn’t study until the last moment but met the challenge with raw nerves and adrenaline. Victor had been the third kind of student, the kind who was always working, so that tests required no additional preparation, the kind who turned the paper over and faced the ticking clock with neither fear nor bravado. He had been, in effect, a student Bio-Mechanical, emotionless and determined.
He faced the test of the burning cigar with a stone face. What did a burn matter to him, now? It was nothing. It would heal.
He hoped that Elizabeth couldn’t see anything from underneath the desk.
“God damn it, Victor, don’t you even have a shred of self-preservation left?” Ironic, that echo of his own words to Elizabeth. “What if I take out your eye? Will that make an impression?”
From underneath the desk, Elizabeth gave an audible gasp, and Henry turned toward the sound, his voice shrill with surprise. “Who’s that? Who’s hiding in here?”
“It’s me,” she said as she came out from her hiding place under the desk. She confronted him, shoulders back and chin up.
Henry’s face was mottled with angry red. “You stupid bitch. What are you doing here?” He spat the words at her.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
Henry shoved her back against the desk, cornering her. “You brainless whore—” he began, but that was as far as he got. A low growl issued from Victor’s mouth as his left hand hauled back and smashed into Henry’s chin. There was a look of almost comical surprise on Henry’s face as he fell back, his head striking the wood floor with a sharp crack.
As Victor stood, stunned, Elizabeth crouched beside Henry. His old friend was sprawled with his arms over his head, face wiped clean of all expression. He used to sleep like that. For a moment, Victor was transported back to Eton, lying in the bed across from Henry’s, listening to his breathing deepen into snores. They had been as close as brothers then. How had it come to this?
Elizabeth placed two fingers over Henry’s carotid, then looked up him. “I feel a pulse, but it’s weak.”
He knelt beside her, then leaned over to check for breath sounds. Nothing. “Here,” he said, pulling off his jacket and rolling it under Henry’s neck, to open the airway. His hands came away stained with red.
“Should I try to staunch the bleeding?”
“First, we have to get him breathing.” Sitting behind Henry’s head, Victor began to mechanically go through the motions of the Silvester method of resuscitation, crossing Henry’s palms over his chest, then lifting them high over his head.
“It’s not working,” said Elizabeth. “What about trying Fothergill’s method of mouth to mouth?”
He moved aside to give her room. “Show me.”
Elizabeth tilted Henry’s head back and pinched his nose shut before covering his mouth with hers. She blew into his mouth, paused to take a breath, and then repeated the process three more times. “Is it working? Is he breathing?”
Victor put his ear to Henry’s mouth. “Wait...yes!”
She sat back on her heels as Henry opened his eyes and blinked. His gaze was vague and unfocused for a moment, and then his throat worked. Just in time, Victor turned him so that he could vomit onto the floor.
Henry wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then looked back and forth from Elizabeth to Victor. “What...what happened?”
“You don’t remember?” Elizabeth asked. Victor met her gaze for a moment, and then, as if by unspoken agreement, he stood and shuffled off to a corner.
Henry frowned and looked around the room. “Are we in Moulsdale’s office?”
“Yes.”
He must have amnesia from the head injury, thought Victor.
Elizabeth must have understood at once, because she added, “You asked me to meet you here.”
Oh, clever girl, thought Victor. Henry would be suggestible now.
“I did?” Henry winced, as if thinking were physically painful.
“Yes, and then you...you tried to kiss me, and when I pushed you away, you fell back and hit your head.”
It was plausible enough, but would Henry believe it?
Elizabeth played her part well, looking down as if embarrassed. “I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“No...no, I don’t seem to recall...” Henry put his hand down in the pool of his own vomit, flinched, and then looked up at her in embarrassment. “I seem to have been ill.”
“Yes. A side effect of the head injury. Do you want me to help tidy or...?”
“No, no, just leave me, I’ll take care of it.”
She stood up, a little unsteadily, and walked toward the door. Victor found himself holding his breath, and then, just when he thought she was safe, Henry called out.
“Miss Lavenza.”
To her credit, she didn’t flinch as she looked back over her shoulder at Henry. “Yes?”
“Do you mind not speaking of this?”
She nodded, as composed as any English lady at tea. “Of course not. It was all a misunderstanding.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
Then she was gone, leaving Henry and Victor alone. Henry got up slowly, holding on to the edge of the table for support, and then swayed for a moment. He gave a visible start as he noticed Victor in the corner. “Victor!” He hesitated and then repeated his name, this time as a question. “Victor?”
Victor shuffled over with the broom, and began clearing away the vomit. The broom wasn’t the right tool for the job, and he was really only making things worse by spreading the sour-smelling liquid around until it mixed with the blood from Henry’s laceration, but that only added to the impression that he was a dull-witted moron.
After a moment, Henry straightened his coat and left Moulsdale’s office, giving Victor one last inscrutable look before he closed the door.
Once he was alone, Victor found some paper in Moulsdale’s private lavatory and used it to clean up properly. He thought, on balance, that he was relieved that he hadn’t actually killed his murderer. Perhaps he did have a trace of conscience left after all.
23
Henry Clerval spent a week recuperating from his injury, but no one seemed to miss him or ask after his welfare. When he returned to class, he was more subdued and polite with Lizzie than he had been previously. She hadn’t seen Victor e
ither of the two times she had gone to the laboratory, but once she had seen the back door slam just as she arrived, and she knew that he was avoiding her, either because he thought he would hurt her...or because he thought something else might happen if they were alone together.
She wanted to tell him she wasn’t afraid, but what could she do? Demand that he spend time with her again?
Most unsettling of all, these thoughts were wrapped up in fantasies of Victor holding her in his arms again. Kissing, it seemed, was as intoxicating as gin, at least for her. Other girls didn’t seem quite so obsessed with it, although boys were meant to have nothing else on their minds. Late at night, when she lay in bed, she imagined Victor’s body, both the parts she had seen and the parts she had yet to see, and then worried that this was yet another strange and mannish thing about her.
She had to fight back the urge to confide at least some of this to Aggie. Her roommate might seem sophisticated in the ways of men and women, but Lizzie didn’t think that Aggie’s broad-mindedness extended to Bio-Mechanicals. Yet the temptation to talk to Aggie kept growing stronger, particularly now that she worked alongside her in the infirmary two days a week. All the other medical students had been paired with older nurses—to prevent any hanky panky—but an exception was made for Lizzie.
Not that there was much time to talk about personal matters on infirmary days. By eight in the morning, there was usually a small line of people already waiting outside Ingold’s gates to be admitted. The second years and the more experienced nursing students were given the job of sorting the urgent complaints, usually broken and dislocated bones, burns, miscarriages and acute appendix cases, from the chronic complaints, which usually consisted of older people with various kinds of bronchial difficulties. Most of the patients were seen and then discharged within the same day, unlike the soldiers who remained in their ward for months, receiving surgeries and prosthetics and learning how to use them.
The infirmary was one of the brightest areas at Ingold, set in a long hall lined with large windows. Proper circulation of air was considered of paramount importance in treating the sick, but drafts were dangerous for patients, so there was a small potbellied coal stove in the center of the room. There were twenty-eight beds in the ward, but only five of them were occupied at the moment, Lizzie noticed as she entered. On one, an elderly gentleman with a bandage on his forehead was reading the York Herald and tutting to himself. Across from him, a middle-aged man with a long, narrow face was drinking a cup of tea and tucking into a plate of eggs, while his neighbor, a heavyset man with a thick mustache that met his sideburns, looked on with obvious jealousy. He had a bowl of what smelled like beef broth and nothing more.
“But why, Mama?” This complaint came from a young boy with his arm in a plaster cast. His mother, a thin woman in a dark dress, looked absolutely exhausted. “I can’t stay more than another five minutes, luv. Your sister can’t watch the babies for more than a few hours. She’s only nine.”
* * *
Aggie and another student nurse were stripping one of the narrow beds, while the patient observed them from a cane-backed wheelchair that creaked under his muscular frame. One of his feet was bandaged and visibly shorter than the other.
“Hello, Lizzie,” said Aggie, looking up as she shoved the soiled sheets into a laundry cart. There was a fine sheen of perspiration on her forehead. “Come to watch us nurses and see what real work looks like?”
“You’re acting as though this is my first time here.”
“First time in ages,” muttered Aggie. “Suppose doctors don’t really need to spend any time with actual patients.”
Lizzie knew better than to take this bait. When it came to a battle of insults, Aggie was sure to win. “And how is the patient feeling today?”
“Better now I’ve got another pretty girl to look after me!” This patient’s round baby face seemed a bit incongruous atop his solid blacksmith’s physique. He was probably no more than sixteen or seventeen, and possibly younger even than that. His short, fair hair was the buttery blond that usually darkened with age.
“None of that, now,” said Sabina in her lilting Jamaican accent. “You’re going to make me jealous.”
“Say the word and I’ll post the banns.”
Sabina laughed as she and Aggie shook out a fresh sheet. “And what would your mother say?” Sabina sometimes did homework with Aggie, and Lizzie had learned that she had been inspired by Mother Seacole, a Jamaican woman who had tended wounded soldiers in the Crimean War, like Florence Nightingale. Sabina never complained about other students or professors treating her differently, but she didn’t seem to have many friends other than Aggie and Lizzie. Still, it was probably better for her here than it would have been back in the States.
“My mother would be shocked that any book-smart girl would have me.”
Sabina’s eyes sparkled with humor as she shook a pillow into its case. “Well, now, we don’t want to shock the poor woman.”
The young man glanced over at Lizzie. “What about you, miss? You look kindhearted.”
Aggie tucked the corner of the sheet neatly underneath the thin mattress. “Afraid she’s out of your league, Billy. Lavenza’s going to be a doctor.”
The young man whistled in surprise. “A lady doctor! Will wonders never cease. Don’t suppose you can discharge me? I’m right as rain now, just need a bit of cotton stuffed into the toe of my boot.”
The truth was, she felt useless on the ward. Unlike Aggie and Sabina, she wasn’t supposed to change bandages or make beds, and she couldn’t really diagnose an illness yet, or modify a real doctor’s orders. “Let me see what I can find out.”
She walked across to the room to speak to Sister Tuttle, more commonly known as the Turtle. The older nurse was standing by a large oak desk and writing in a ledger. She was a solid woman, built square rather than round, with a large bosom that seemed to have been formed out of granite rather than flesh. Even her iron-gray hair had a slightly helmet-like appearance under her nurse’s cap and veil.
After standing for two minutes while Sister Tuttle continued writing notes, Lizzie cleared her throat. “I beg your pardon, Sister.”
“Yes?” Sister Tuttle reluctantly dragged her eyes away from her figures. “May I help you?”
“I have a question about Billy Collins. He was asking when he could be discharged.”
A ripple of annoyance crossed Tuttle’s impassive features, and she turned back to her papers. “Can’t you see I’m busy? The patient will be seen in his turn.”
“Sister Tuttle?”
Lizzie and the Turtle both whirled at the sound of Shiercliffe’s severe voice. The head of the Nursing School looked unusually haggard and, for once, her lace veil was not lying perfectly straight down her back. “I’m here to do an inspection.” She walked down the center aisle between the beds, pulling off a glove to use one finger to check for dust along the bed frames. She moved past the little boy and the man with the heavy mustache before pausing at Billy Collins’s chair. “Your eyes seem a bit glassy. May I ask you to extend your tongue?”
“Seems a bit rude.”
“Nevertheless.”
Billy shrugged and opened his mouth. “Should I say ‘aah’?”
“That will do.” Shiercliffe’s heels clicked sharply on the floor as she made her way back to the Turtle’s desk. “Were you aware that you have a case of scarlatina on this ward, Sister?”
Tuttle looked confused for a moment, then said, “No, Matron.”
Shiercliffe sniffed, unimpressed. “We’ll need to isolate this floor, as a precaution.” Turning to Aggie, she added, “DeLacey, Lavenza, Hillier, you’ll need to leave immediately. Wash your hands and arms thoroughly with a carbolic solution.”
“Don’t worry, Billy. The sisters will take good care of you,” Aggie called over her shoulder. She kept the smile on her face until the ward
door closed behind them.
“Now that was just plain strange.”
Sabina looked worried. “I know. Do you think we missed something?”
“I suppose. Poor Billy. He was dying to get back to work.”
The next day Lizzie learned that the blacksmith’s apprentice was gone, his bed already stripped. Billy Collins, she was informed, had died in the night.
24
Lizzie had just sat down to lunch when she saw a resident run up to the dais where the faculty sat and whisper something in Moulsdale’s ear. The head of medicine looked down at his plate of cold ham for a moment, then dabbed the corners of his mouth with his napkin before pushing his chair back from the table. Grimbald and Shiercliffe were already up and moving toward the door. There were a few other professors at the table, mostly men in their mid to late thirties, and they waited for Moulsdale to move before following suit. Makepiece, of course, lived by his own schedule, and was not sitting with the rest of the senior faculty.
“Something’s going on,” said Byram, pushing away his half-eaten biscuit.
“What do you think it is?” Lizzie watched Moulsdale, who was now walking purposefully down the hall.
Will sat back with his tea, as if taking in a show. “Whatever it is, it’s got the faculty in a flap.”
“Come on,” said Byram, getting to his feet. “Let’s go find out.”
Will looked worried. “Won’t we get in trouble?”
“For following our professors?” Lizzie didn’t pause to see if Will was following. Instead, she lengthened her strides and quickly caught up with Byram. They were in the school’s main hall, standing beneath the massive iron candelabrum, just in front of the winding staircase that led up to the faculty rooms. “Where did they go? Did you see?”