H
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Mr. Cavendish calls again, once while Ally is out, when, George says, he and Uncle James had a long conversation about Mr. Turner’s shipwreck paintings, and then one day when Ally returns from the hospital at tea-time, having been there since eight o’clock the previous evening. She walks home through a slow winter sunset, the bare branches of the plane trees black against a glowing sky. She and Dr. Stratton lost the patient, a maternity case who haemorrhaged after a long breech labour. The baby lives, for the moment, as, it turns out, do three of its siblings, now in all probability cases for the Children’s Home. She drops her shoulders, allows her arms to swing a little as she walks, and draws deep breaths of the cold. Good doctors can set aside both triumph and defeat. It took her half an hour to coax a cry from the baby and she is far from sure that her work was in its best interest.
She hears his voice in the drawing room as she closes the front door, and almost decides to slip straight to the kitchen and coax tea and toast from the new cook, who shows signs of being impressed by her work where the others have tended to see a poor relation. She can’t hear the words, but Mr. Cavendish is speaking fast, energetically, the way Papa and Aubrey used to talk about painting and design. The way people talk about work when it’s going well. She finds herself walking, not creeping, up the stairs.
He’s sitting on the Ottoman in the bay window, his red hair extravagantly back-lit by the pink sky. Horizontal sunbeams pick out each droplet in the steam twisting from his tea-cup.
He stands up, holds out his hand. ‘Miss Moberley! Mrs. Dunne told me you were at the hospital.’
Ally hopes he doesn’t have damp palms. She dislikes shaking hands. ‘I was at the hospital.’ He doesn’t. ‘I stayed on to see through a maternity case.’
‘A happy ending?’
‘No.’ She sits down. By this time of day, she usually prefers to keep going until after dinner following a night’s work, but she’s too tired now. She must sleep very soon. Aunt Mary pours a cup of tea for her. ‘People say working women give birth easily, that it’s the rich who make a fuss, but it’s not true. Poor diet and overwork make nothing easier.’
‘Ally,’ murmurs Aunt Mary.
Ally frowns. Is there blood on her skirt, is her collar awry?
‘Oh. Forgive me, Mr. Cavendish. I spend too much time at the hospital and forget what subjects are considered proper for polite conversation. It is a very pretty sunset, is it not?’
He sits forward. ‘Indeed, Miss Moberley, it would be better for all of us were there more overlap between what is correct and what is important. Do you find that maternity cases do better in the hospital than at home?’
She sips her tea, comforting and too hot, glances at Aunt Mary.
‘Go ahead, my dear. Consider me your antediluvian aunt.’
‘The charity cases do, of course. At the very least we offer rest and cleanliness. Otherwise, the mother and infant may share a bed with other children from almost the very moment of birth. And where it is necessary, we can make a case to the Foundling Hospital for infants who would in all probability face a brief and uncomfortable future.’
‘Really, Ally.’
She sits back. ‘I am sure Mr. Cavendish knows that babies are not found under gooseberry bushes, Aunt Mary.’
Amusement plays about his eyes. ‘I believe I do, yes. And that they do not always appear at correct moments, or indeed in correct arms. George tells me you have contributed also to rescue work, Miss Moberley?’
‘Ally, what have you told the boy?’
Ally tries to remember. ‘Very little, Aunt Mary. But he hears things at school and he is at an age to be curious. I told him to ask Uncle James. It is my mother’s work, Mr. Cavendish. I do not try to combine medicine with any other calling. And you? Surely your work leaves little time for charitable concerns?’
‘Little time for organised philanthropy. I try to be mindful of the needs around me, and mindful also that my mindfulness does not in itself help anyone and indeed denies me the excuse of ignorance for my inaction.’
They smile at each other.
‘Ally, have a sandwich,’ says Aunt Mary. ‘I am sure you did not eat lunch.’
T
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It is, she has found, possible to mistake other men for him. He has a type, a genus, that makes it hard to be sure until she can see his face that the compact body, red hair, and bobbing stride are Tom. Half the men in London, this part of London, carry a briefcase and wear a black coat and hat. He is, as ever, exactly to time; crowds dissolve before the omnibuses Tom rides, shoe-laces untangle themselves, verbose suppliers remember important appointments. If a thing won’t work, he says—keys, the lid of Aunt Mary’s sewing box—there is a reason, and then it is his practice to find the reason and resolve the difficulty. In most cases, things do work for him, not only the tools and machines that realise his calling but the small intricacies of daily life. His clothes do not get lost at the laundry, his letters do not miss the post. Dear Miss Moberley, I hope to call on you this afternoon and thought that as the sun seems likely to shine you might enjoy a walk in the park. He takes the weather seriously. She moves back, behind the curtain, just as he glances up before stepping under the portico and onto the step. She pauses before the mirror as the doorbell rings, pushes strands of hair back into her chignon and tugs her waistband smooth, merely
