he medical men, all of them now dishevelled and blood-spattered, emerged onto the Grassmarket, which was busy with carters and street-traders going about their business. It seemed incredible that the rest of the world could carry on as if nothing had happened: small-scale horror and tragedy swallowed up by the day-to-day affairs of the city.
Simpson suggested that they repair to a local hostelry for a restorative to raise their spirits, nominating an establishment he had frequented as a medical student.
Baxter’s tavern sat rather incongruously beside Cranston’s Teetotal Coffee House, which Raven noted with some satisfaction had little in the way of customers. Given the nature of the afternoon’s proceedings, he had no doubt which he would rather patronise but did have his concerns regarding who he might see in the alehouse, or more pertinently who might see him.
Entering at the professor’s back, he scanned the room from the doorway, ready for a sharp departure. Simpson seemed to be on friendly terms with both proprietor and clientele. He ordered a round of Edinburgh ales, which he took an age to bring across due to how many conversations he struck up between the gantry and their table. Raven drank deeply, thirstier than he realised and in need of the comforts alcohol could offer.
Beattie seemed altogether less traumatised by the outcome of the case. Perhaps this was because he had been a participant throughout rather than merely an impotent witness, and perhaps his greater experience of such things had inured him to the emotional effluent. He seemed unperturbed by the spit and sawdust of the pub, despite his expensive outfit suggesting he might be used to more salubrious surroundings. There was an awkwardness about his gait in keeping with a pronounced quickness to all his physical movements that reminded Raven of a small bird: fleet but restless, as though wary of predators.
Up close and in clearer light, Raven enjoyed a closer appreciation of his boyish visage, which revealed the man to be not so youthful as he first appeared. Initially he believed he had encountered another prodigy like James Duncan (though hopefully not such an obnoxious one), but he could now see the lines around his eyes, suggesting Beattie might be in his late twenties.
Simpson asked Beattie a little about his background, beginning with the seemingly inevitable question regarding his father’s occupation.
‘My father is dead, sir,’ Beattie replied. ‘Indeed, I lost both my parents when I was twelve. However, I am fortunate in having a benefactor in the form of my uncle, a Mr Charles Latimer, who is a man of some property in Canaan Lands on the Morningside.’
Raven hoped Beattie’s uncle wore his largesse more lightly than Miserly Malcolm, who turned every penny spent on his nephew into a token of his sister’s failure and poor judgment in her choice of matrimonial partner.
‘You don’t sound as though you hail from these parts,’ Simpson suggested.
‘No. I was schooled in the south of England, but my mother grew up here. I attended university in Edinburgh to be closer to my uncle, who has become frailer over the years.’
In the manner peculiar to all medical men, Simpson ignored all reference to finance and property and asked for details regarding the uncle’s debility.
‘He suffers from a severe form of rheumatism which causes him much pain. He has tried all manner of therapies in his attempts to find relief. He most recently embarked upon a trip to Austria to try a water treatment promoted by a fellow named Priessnitz. Runs a therapeutic establishment somewhere in the mountains.’
‘Did your uncle find any of this helpful?’
‘He found his pain to be somewhat improved but his spirits more so. It makes me think that there may be something in it – cold baths, simple diet and the withdrawal of all internal medicines. His response to these therapies – and more pertinently the sum he paid for them – leads me to envisage that there might be a lucrative market for hydropathic treatments.’
Simpson rubbed his chin, fixing Beattie with a thoughtful gaze.
‘It could perhaps be argued that it was the withdrawal of his usual medicaments which resulted in his improvement, and not the regular soaking with cold water. We are perhaps too ready to dose our patients with powerful purges and bleed them to the point of depletion, don’t you think? My friend and colleague Dr George Keith is a great believer in Nature’s Method and the idea of masterly inactivity on the part of the physician.’
‘Primum non nocere,’ nodded Beattie in agreement.
Do no harm: the Hippocratic injunction.
Simpson took a gulp from his ale by way of toasting the sentiment, draining the last of it.
‘Forgive me, Dr Beattie, I have just spied a good friend at another table. But before I go, let me say I have very much enjoyed meeting you this afternoon. You must come to dinner at Queen Street.’
‘I would be honoured,’ Beattie replied with a quiet grace.
Raven could only imagine how he might have spluttered his response had someone so feted extended such an offer. This together with his fine garb suggested it was not the first time Beattie had been invited to dine in estimable company.
They watched the professor stride across the tavern and loudly hail a fellow on the other side of the room.
‘The professor is a man of broad acquaintance,’ Beattie said, as though this was in some way amusing. ‘I wouldn’t have thought him comfortable in a place like this these days. He is reputedly much in demand among the ladies of the aristocracy.’
Though I am yet to see much evidence of it, Raven thought.
‘He is of humble origins though,’ Raven said. This was another of the factors that had drawn him to the professor. If Simpson could rise to such stature and wealth from ordinary beginnings, he had reasoned, then perhaps a keen apprentice might learn to follow his path.
‘The son of a village baker,’ Beattie stated. ‘A seventh son and the last of eight.’
This was more than Raven knew, and it showed.
Beattie flashed him a self-conscious smile. ‘It is always wise to learn as much as you can about the great names in your field, in case fate should throw you into their company. Though being found blood-spattered and helpless at the foot of a patient’s bed – a patient I failed – is not the best first impression I could have hoped to make upon the man.’
‘Well, it can’t have been so bad if he invited you to Queen Street. And frankly, I was amazed at how calm you seemed amidst it all. I can’t keep my mind from returning to that room and of thinking about how it is likely to go for Mrs Williamson.’
Beattie supped from his beer, an equanimity about him that further belied Raven’s early impression of his youth.
‘I very much doubt she will live,’ he said. ‘Even despite the attentions of Dr Simpson.’ His tone was even, as though discussing something third-hand rather than a woman whose blood even now daubed his shirt.
‘Does it get easier, then?’ Raven asked.
‘Does what?’
‘Dealing with such suffering. When I witness a case such as we just left, it holds me in its grip long after, and I fear the cumulative burden. Yet you were reasoned amidst it all and seem unaffected now.’
Beattie regarded Raven for a moment, giving some thought to his answer.
‘Each man only has so much pity to give, and in our profession we encounter every day some tragedy upon which one might spend a large portion of it.’
‘Are you saying that in time I will become numb to this? For I am not sure I would wish that either.’
‘It is not so much a process of becoming numb, but of a perspective that is harshly learned through your own wounds rather than those you might treat. When you have known true sorrow, the plight of a patient, no matter how pitiful, will not hurt you like you have felt hurt before.’
Raven thought he had known sorrow enough, but if he was still so vulnerable to the sufferings of others, then perhaps he had not known as much as Beattie. He said he had lost both his parents at the age of twelve, but something about the man suggested there was more than that. He was curious to know, but did not feel it his place to press.
‘And if I have not yet felt true sorrow?’ Raven asked.
‘Be grateful, and do not wallow in the misery of others. I am sincere in this. The patients require a distance from you, that you may exercise your judgment and skill undistracted by your emotions.’
Raven knew this was right, though it was not easy to hear. He knew there was much he could learn from a doctor such as Beattie, but equally, seeing how he conducted himself was a stark reminder of how far he had to go.
‘So you’re set on a career in midwifery yourself?’ Beattie asked, this change of subject accompanied by a lightening in the tone of his voice.
‘Yes. I had thought of surgery, but it is decidedly not for me.’
‘Good choice. There is a brighter future in this profession than among the sawbones. Financially speaking, I mean.’
Raven took in Beattie’s expensive garments and wondered whether these had been paid for by his uncle or by his earnings.
‘I have not seen much evidence of that so far,’ he confessed. ‘Unless some day I can be the one delivering those aristocratic ladies, but that seems likely to be a long way off.’
Beattie had an impish grin, the lines around his eyes more distinct as he smiled.
‘This is a wider field than you understand, one that is even now opening up to new and lucrative possibilities. You need to think beyond babies and more about the women who bear them. There are all manner of new and exotic treatments for the various maladies the fairer sex seem prone to. Galvanism, uterine manipulation – scientific treatments for that perennial female affliction, hysteria. There is much money to be made from unhappy women and their exasperated husbands.’
Raven made no reply, causing Beattie to continue in a similar vein.
‘Success is all about identifying opportunity,’ Beattie told him. ‘Talking of which, this ether stuff is promising is it not? Think of what a price patients would put upon the oblivion you can provide during a procedure.’
‘Those who don’t have a religious objection,’ Raven muttered.
‘It’s potentially a gold mine,’ Beattie went on, paying no heed. ‘I gather the dentists in this town can’t get enough of it. You must be getting rather adept at its administration, working with Simpson.’
‘He has been training me in its use, yes. When it’s a complicated case, that is often the only thing he lets me do myself.’
‘Don’t complain. I’m sure it will prove a valuable skill.’
‘Though maybe not as valuable as dousing rich people in cold water,’ Raven replied.
Beattie laughed, and suggested they have another ale. Raven would have dearly loved to. This was an acquaintance he would do well to cultivate, but he had other business to attend, and he would need all his wits about him for it.