I talked to her while I made my examinations, soothingly, and after a little she began to answer me, though still in whispers. She was thirteen. Yes, Mr. Bradshaw had took her to his bed. She hadn’t minded. He said his wife was mean to him, and she was—all the slaves knew it. Mr. Bradshaw had been nice to her, gentle-like, and when she fell pregnant, he’d taken her from the laundry and put her to kitchen work, where she’d have good food and wouldn’t have to break her back with the heavy linens.
“He was sad,” she said softly, looking up at the ceiling while I wiped away the filthy trickle between her legs. “When the baby died. He cried.”
“Did he,” I said, in what I hoped was a neutral voice. I folded a clean towel and pressed it between her legs, throwing the wet one she’d been wearing into my bucket of vinegar and water. “When did the baby die—how long ago, I mean?”
She frowned, the expression barely rippling the pure young skin of her forehead. Could she count? I wondered.
“Be some time before the sausage-makin’,” she said uncertainly.
“In the fall, then?”
“Yessum.”
And it was mid-December now. I poured water over my dirty hand and dribbled a bit of soap into my palm. I really must try to get a nailbrush, I thought.
Mrs. Bradshaw had come back but hadn’t come in; I’d pulled the curtains over the front window, but her shadowed outline was plain on the cloth, the jaunty feathers in her hat stuck up like a silhouette cowlick.
I tapped my foot thoughtfully, then shook myself into order and went to open the door.
“I might be able to help,” I said without preamble, startling the woman.
“How?” She blinked at me, and, taken unawares, her face was open, troubled but without the pinched look she’d worn earlier.
“Come inside,” I said. “It’s cold out here in the wind,” and guided her in, a hand on her back. She was very thin; I could feel the knobs of her spine, even through her coat and stays.
Sophronia was sitting on the table, hands folded in her lap; when her mistress came in, she bent her head, looking at the floor again.
I explained the nature of the difficulty, so well as I could—neither of them had any grasp of internal anatomy at all; it was simply a matter of holes to them. Still, I managed to get the general point across.
“You know that a wound can be stitched, to hold the skin together while it heals?” I said patiently. “Well, this is much the same kind of thing, but made much harder by the wounds being inside and the tissues being very thin and slippery. It would be very difficult to mend—I’m not sure I can do it—but it is at least possible to try.”
It was—just. In the late nineteenth century, a physician named J. Marion Sims had more or less invented the entire practice of gynecological surgery, in order to address exactly this condition. It had taken him years to develop the techniques, and I knew them—had done the procedure more than once. The catch was that you really needed good, solid anesthesia in order to have a chance of success. Laudanum or whisky might answer for cruder, swifter operations, but for painstakingly delicate surgery like this, the patient had to be completely unconscious and immobile. I would have to have ether.
I had no idea how I was going to make ether, living in a small rented house with a number of people whom I really didn’t want to risk blowing to bits. And the thought of what flammable ether could do—had done—made me break out in a cold sweat. But seeing the faint hope rise in both their faces, I made up my mind to do it.
I gave Sophronia a small jar of beeswax ointment for the skin of her thighs and told them to come back in a week; I would know then whether it was possible. I saw them out, and as they went away down the street, Mrs. Bradshaw reached out unconsciously and touched Sophronia’s shoulder in a brief caress of reassurance.
I took a deep breath and resolved that I would find a way. Turning to go inside, I glanced the other way down the street and saw a tall young man whose lean ranginess struck me with a sense of instant recognition. I blinked once, and imagination promptly clothed him in scarlet.
“William!” I called, and, picking up my skirts, ran after him.
HE DIDN’T HEAR me at first, and I had time for doubt—but not much; the set of head and shoulders, that long, decisive stride . . . He was thinner than Jamie, and his hair was a dark chestnut, not red, but he had his father’s bones. And his eyes: hearing me at last, he turned, and those dark-blue cat eyes widened in surprise.
“Mother Cl—” He cut the word off, his face hardening, but I reached out and took his big hand between my own (rather hoping that I had got all of the slime off).
“William,” I said, panting just a bit, but smiling up at him. “You can call me what you like, but I’m no less—and no more—to you than I ever was.”
His severe look softened a little at that, and he ducked his head awkwardly.
“I think I must call you Mrs. Fraser, mustn’t I?” He detached his hand, though gently. “How do you come to be here?”
“I might ask the same of you—and perhaps with more reason. Where’s your uniform?”
“I’ve resigned my commission,” he said, a little stiffly. “Under the circumstances, there seemed little point to my remaining in the army. And I have business that requires somewhat more independence of movement than I should have as one of Sir Henry’s aides.”
“Will you come and have something hot to drink with me? You can tell me about your business.” I’d rushed out without my cloak, and a chilly breeze was fingering me with more intimacy than I liked.