Hester found the encounter deeply distressing. She could not clear it from her mind, and at the first opportunity she recounted the entire interview to Callandra. It was late evening, and they were sitting outside in Callandra's garden. The scent of roses was heavy in the air and the low sunlight slanting on the poplar leaves was deep golden, almost an apricot shade. There was no motion except the sunset wind in the leaves. The wall muffled the passing of hooves and made inaudible the hiss of carriage wheels.
'It was like the worst kind of dream,' Hester said, staring at the poplars and the golden blue sky beyond. 'I was aware what was going to happen before it did. And of course I knew every word she said was true, and yet I was helpless to do anything at all about it.' She turned to Callandra. 'I suppose Sir Herbert is right, and it is a crime to abort, even when the child is a result of rape. It is not anything I have ever had to know. I have nursed entirely soldiers or people suffering from injury or fevers. I have no experience of midwifery at all. I have not even cared for a child, much less a mother and infant. It seems so wrong.'
She slapped her hand on the arm of the wicker garden chair. 'I am seeing women suffer in a way I never knew before. I suppose I hadn't thought about it. But do you know how many women have come into that hospital in even the few days I've been there, who are worn out and ill as a result of bearing child after child?' She leaned a little farther to face Callandra. 'And how many are there we don't see? How many just live lives in silent despair and terror of the next pregnancy?' She banged the chair arm again. 'There's such ignorance. Such blind tragic ignorance.'
'I am not sure what good knowledge would do,' Callandra replied, looking not at Hester but at the rose bed and a late butterfly drifting from one bloom to another. 'Forms of prevention have been around since Roman days, but they are not available to most people.' She pulled a face. 'And they are very often weird contraptions that the ordinary man would not use. A woman has no right in civil or religious law to deny her husband, and even if she had, common sense and the need to survive on something like equable terms would make it impractical.'
'At least knowledge would take away some of the shock,' Hester argued hotly. 'We had one young woman in hospital who was so mortified when she discovered what marriage required of her she went into hysterics, and then tried to kill herself.' Her voice rose with outrage. 'No one had given her the slightest idea, and she simply could not endure it. She had been brought up with the strictest teachings of purity and it overwhelmed her. She was married by her parents to a man thirty years older than herself and with little patience or gentleness. She came into the hospital with broken arms and legs and ribs where she had jumped out of a window in an attempt to kill herself.' She took a deep breath and made a vain attempt to lower her tone.
'Now, unless Dr. Beck can persuade the police and the Church that it was an accident, they will charge her with attempted suicide and either imprison her or hang her.' She banged her fist down on the chair arm yet again. 'And that monumental fool, Jeavis, is trying to say Dr. Beck killed Prudence Barrymore.' She did not notice Callandra stiffen in her seat or her face grow paler. 'That is because that would be the easy answer, and save him from having to question the other surgeons and the chaplain and the members of the Board of Governors.'
Callandra started to speak, and then stopped again.
'Is there nothing we can do to help Marianne Gillespie?' Hester persisted, her fists clenched, leaning forward in the chair. She glanced at the roses. 'Is there nobody to which one could appeal? Do you know Sir Herbert said his own daughter had been assaulted and had become with child as a result?' She swung around to Callandra again. 'And she went to a private abortionist in some back street who maimed her so badly she can now never marry, let alone bear children. And she is in constant pain. For Heaven's sake, there must be something we can do!'
'If I knew of anything I should not be sitting her listening to you,' Callandra replied with a sad smile. 'I should have told you what it was, and we should be on our way to do it. Please be careful, or you are going to put your arm right through my best garden chair.'
'Oh! I'm sorry. It's just that I get so furious!'
Callandra smiled, and said nothing.
The following two days were hot and sultry. Tempers became short. Jeavis seemed to be everywhere in the hospital, getting in the way, asking questions which most people found irritating and pointless. The treasurer swore at him. A gentleman on the Board of Governors made a complaint to his member of Parliament. Mrs. Flaherty lectured him on abstinence, decorum, and probity, which was more than even he could take. After that he left her strictly alone.
But gradually the hospital was getting back to its normal routine and even in the laundry room they spoke less of the murder and more of their usual concerns: husbands, money, the latest music hall jokes, and general gossip.
Monk was concentrating his attention on learning the past and present circumstances of all the doctors, especially the students, and of the treasurer, chaplain, and various governors.
It was late in the evening and still oppressively warm when Callandra went to look for Kristian Beck. She had no real reason to speak to him; she had to manufacture one. What she wished was to see how he was bearing up under Jeavis's interrogations and less-than-subtle implication that Beck had had some shameful secret which he had begged Prudence Barrymore not to reveal to the authorities.
She had still no firm idea what she was going to say as she walked along the corridor toward his room, her heart pounding, nervousness making her mouth dry. In the heat after the long afternoon sun on the windows and roof, the air smelled stale. She could almost distinguish the cloying smell of blood from bandages and the acridness of waste. Two flies buzzed and banged blindly against the glass of a window.
She could ask him if Monk had spoken to Mm, and yet again assure him of Monk's brilliance and his past successes. It was not a good reason, but she could not bear the inaction any longer. She had to see him and do what she could to allay the fear he must feel. Over and over she had imagined his thoughts as Jeavis made his insinuations, as he saw Jeavis's black eyes watching him. It was impossible to argue or defend oneself against prejudice, the irrational suspicion of anything or anyone who was different.
She was at his door. She knocked. There was a sound, a voice, but she could not distinguish the words. She turned the handle and pushed the door wide.
The scene that met her burned itself into her brain. The large table which served as his desk was in the center of the room and lying on it was a woman, part of her body covered with a white sheet, but her abdomen and upper thighs clearly exposed. There were swabs bright with blood, and a bloodstained towel. There was a bucket on the floor, but with a cloth over it so she could not see what it contained. She had seen enough operations before to recognize the tanks and flasks that held ether and the other materials used to anesthetize a patient.
Kristian had his back to her. She would recognize him anywhere, the line of his shoulder, the way his hair grew on his neck, the curve of his high cheekbone.
And she knew the woman also. Her hair was black with a deep widow's peak. Her brows were dark and unusually clearly marked, and there was a small neat mole on her cheek level with the corner of her eye. Marianne Gillespie! There was only one conclusion: Sir Herbert had denied her-but Kristian had not. He was performing the illegal abortion.
For seconds Callandra stood frozen, her tongue stiff, her mouth dry. She did not even see the figure of the nurse beyond.
Kristian was concentrating so intently upon what he was doing, his hands moving quickly, delicately, his eyes checking again and again to see the color of Marianne's face, to make sure she was breathing evenly. He had not heard Callandra's voice, nor the door opening.
At last she moved. She backed out and pulled the door after her, closing it without sound. Her heart was beating so violently her body shook, and she could not catch her breath. For a moment she was afraid she was going to choke.
A nurse passed by, staggering a little from fatigue, and Callandra felt just as dizzy, just as incapable of balance. Hester's words came back into her mind like hammer blows. Sir Herbert's daughter had gone to a secret abortionist and he had maimed her, operated so clumsily she would never be a normal woman again, and never be free from pain.
