aven shifted in his seat, putting down his finished cup of tea upon the silver tray with a loud finality that he hoped would be the cue to move things along. Beattie did not seem to notice, but his patient started a little at the sound, and from that Raven suspected she was as nervous about the planned procedure’s commencement as he was about further procrastination. Only Beattie seemed relaxed, though on this occasion his confident manner was not proving as infectious as usual.
They sat in a drawing room on Danube Street. It was Raven’s first venture behind the grand doors of the New Town in any kind of a professional capacity. Everywhere wealth was ostentatiously displayed. A gilt-edged mirror spanned the width of the fireplace, emphasising the height of the ceiling, while vast landscape paintings lined the walls. From the ceiling hung two matching glass chandeliers, each large enough to kill a man should they fall, and Raven gauged that if the furniture was pushed back there would be enough room to perform an eightsome reel.
Raven told himself he was anxious to get started, but in truth he was just anxious. This in itself was annoying him, as such anxiety was needless. He had administered ether at least a dozen times now, with no ill effects, and though Henry’s report of a death in England preyed on his mind, Simpson was adamant that the case had been mismanaged and the agent itself was safe.
Nonetheless, a nagging voice kept asking why, if there was no risk attached, he had not told Simpson he was doing this. The stark answer was that he needed the money more than he needed the professor’s permission. Perhaps if there had been a salary attached to his position he might have felt differently, but right now he feared Flint’s ire more than that of his employer.
The maid who answered the door to them had given Raven a disdainful look when she saw him. He had felt the sting of the slight, thinking that his problems with housemaids were becoming more general – did they communicate with each other? Was Sarah part of a coven of like-minded insurgents? – until he remembered that his face was still conspicuously bruised. The swelling had gone and his features had regained their usual symmetry but the purple on his cheek had transmuted into an array of yellow, green and brown which he had to admit was far from attractive. His nascent beard could only be expected to cover so much.
Beattie greeted the mistress of the house, Mrs Caroline Graseby, with an easy familiarity more akin to friend than physician and Raven wondered how long he had known her. She gazed upon the man as though eager for his approval, which seemed odd for a woman of her stature and wealth.
Raven had heard Mina talk about how certain women would fuss over Simpson, hungry for his attention. Beattie could not boast Simpson’s accomplishments, but given his fine dress and youthful countenance, it was possible to imagine rich and bored ladies manufacturing complaints in order that he might minister to them – with their husbands footing the bill.
Beattie had warned Raven that she was extremely nervous about medical matters, and to this end asked him to call him only by his first name. ‘A certain informality puts her at ease, as would the avoidance of the word “doctor”.’
They had all sat down and taken tea together, which Raven thought an odd prelude to any form of surgical procedure. Mrs Graseby sat by the fire sipping her Darjeeling. Beattie, Raven noticed, sat in close proximity to his patient and touched her hand frequently when speaking. He enquired after her health and made conversation about the weather and acquaintances they had in common. She did not address him as Dr Beattie, rather as ‘Johnnie’, which sounded not merely informal but a pet name. Given the nature of what Beattie was about to do, Raven wondered how this sat with the professional detachment Beattie had previously espoused. Perhaps how Beattie behaved and what he genuinely felt were two different matters; certainly there was little doubt the man knew how to present a version of himself appropriate to the company before him.
Raven was beginning to wonder whether this visit would turn out to be a mere prelude to carrying out the procedure at a later date, when Beattie put down his cup and declared: ‘I think we had best be about our business.’
At this point Mrs Graseby visibly paled and dabbed her lips repeatedly with her handkerchief. ‘I suppose we must,’ she said, rising from her chair. She looked to Raven with apprehension, as though he might step in and call a halt. ‘The room has been prepared,’ she added quietly.
She led them from the drawing room towards the back of the house, past a portrait of an austere-looking individual with an ostentatious moustache. She noticed Raven studying it.
‘My husband,’ she said. Raven had assumed it was her father, given their respective ages.
They entered a smaller chamber at the back of the house which appeared to have been cleared of all furniture with the exception of a daybed and a small side table. Beattie asked for a larger one to be brought in so that he could lay out his instruments, and there ensued a degree of fuss as a servant searched upstairs for a table of suitable size before manoeuvring it into the room.
Raven was still unclear as to the precise nature of the procedure that Beattie intended to perform, and had initially been told little about the patient herself apart from the fact that she was young and in good health. He had pressed Beattie for more details as they made their way to the house, but the only thing he had been forthcoming about was the reason for his reticence.
‘If this procedure is successful – and I have every confidence that it will be – then there will be demand for it, and I will only profit fully from my innovation if I am the sole doctor who can offer it.’
‘I am not going to be able to replicate your technique if I can’t see it,’ Raven had argued. ‘All my business is at the other end, so you could at least tell me the generalities of what you are attempting.’
‘A fair point,’ he conceded with a sigh. ‘I will be performing a manipulation to correct a retroverted uterus, which I have assured Mrs Graseby will increase her chances of conception. Her husband is keen for a son and heir, and is frankly becoming impatient with what he considers a failing on his wife’s part.’
‘And will Mr Graseby be present?’ Raven had asked, thinking he could do without the pressure.
‘Gods, no. He is overseas. America, I think.’
Raven watched as Beattie laid out a selection of probes and a uterine sound. How this manipulation was supposed to assist with conception he wasn’t entirely sure, but whatever was intended did not seem unduly complicated and was therefore likely to be achieved quickly.
Raven removed a bottle of ether and a sponge from his bag, Simpson’s voice sounding in his head as he did so. The only difference between a medicine and a poison is the dosage.
Mrs Graseby lay down on the daybed and placed her handkerchief across her eyes. Her respiration was shallow and rapid and Raven could see small beads of perspiration on her top lip. He realised, perhaps a little belatedly, that she was unlike anyone he had anaesthetised before. For one thing, she had not been in labour for several hours and she was considerably more nervous than her predecessors. In many cases they had been so desperate for oblivion that they had forcibly pulled Raven’s hand towards their own faces. Mrs Graseby, by contrast, initially turned away as the sponge was brought near, whimpering into her pillow.
‘Now, Caroline,’ Beattie said in a firm tone. ‘You know this must be done.’
Mrs Graseby swallowed then nodded. She took a couple of breaths of the ether but then attempted to move Raven’s hand away. Speaking to her in a calm tone, as he had seen Simpson do, he brought the sponge in closer to her nose and mouth, and within a few minutes she appeared to succumb.
Beattie began the procedure and Raven felt for the pulse at the wrist. All was well.
‘I notice there is no painting of her,’ Raven said quietly.
‘No,’ Beattie replied. ‘It’s an expensive business, so they often don’t commission one of the wife until she has brought forth an heir. And survived it.’
‘Unless it’s a love match,’ Raven suggested, deducing that this was most probably not.
‘One should never assume in such matters,’ Beattie replied. ‘But no, I suspect not in this case.’
‘She certainly seems taken with you,’ Raven ventured, injecting a note of humour into his tone.
Beattie seemed bemused in his response. ‘It is a double-edged sword,’ he said. ‘Women tend to think my appearance boyish and their maternal instinct draws them to me. It is therefore easy to strike up a rapport but there is a danger they may misinterpret my intentions.’
‘And is such attention so unwelcome?’ Raven asked, curious at Beattie’s thin-lipped expression and, he would admit, a little envious.
‘When a woman is attracted to my boyishness, that often goes with a tendency to regard me as junior, as trivial. Even worse is when the woman is young and trivial herself and thinks me an ideal match. You might imagine such attentions flattering, but I have quite had my fill of flirtations.’
Raven thought of how Beattie had talked so long with Mina at dinner, and suddenly saw their conversation in a different light.
His reverie was interrupted as Mrs Graseby uttered a moan and her hand shot up in apparent response to something Beattie was doing. It caught Raven on the left side of his face and he shouted out, more in surprise than pain, the noise causing Beattie to drop the instrument he was holding.
‘For God’s sake, Raven. Keep her still, will you.’
Raven quickly poured more of the ether onto the sponge and pushed it roughly onto the writhing woman’s face. Within a few breaths she had quietened again. Beattie looked up at Raven as though he would like to stab him with the implement he had retrieved from the floor.
‘I shouldn’t be much longer here but I am at a critical point in the procedure. Please ensure that she does not move again.’
Beattie’s face was flushed and Raven decided not to argue with him. He merely nodded and continued to feel for the pulse. He noticed that it had become quite rapid, much as his own in the last few minutes, but even as his calmed, Mrs Graseby’s continued to increase.
‘Is everything all right down there?’ Raven asked. ‘There isn’t any bleeding is there?’
‘There is but a little,’ Beattie replied, a little testily.
A few minutes later he threw his instruments down on the table and wiped his brow.
‘I am done,’ he declared.
‘I am worried about the pulse rate,’ Raven told him. ‘It is very high.’
‘It is the ether. You must have given her too much.’
‘I don’t think so,’ he argued, though in truth he knew he couldn’t be sure.
They looked at each other as Beattie wiped his hands. ‘There is no bleeding,’ Beattie said again. ‘We must simply wait for her to recover.’
The next few hours were among the worst that Raven had ever known. Mrs Graseby remained drowsy, never fully regaining her senses. Her pulse rate remained high and her pallor corpse-like.
‘All will be well,’ Beattie assured him, no more flustered than had she been suffering a nosebleed. ‘Time and patience are all that is required. You should leave her in my care and get yourself home.’
Raven had no intention of abandoning her in this condition, and steadfastly refused to move from her bed. Finally, however, her pulse began to slow, which he reported to Beattie with some relief.
‘She will rally now,’ Beattie insisted. ‘Go back to Queen Street and get yourself some rest. You look quite spent.’
‘I would rather wait until she is fully awake.’
‘Your work is done, Will. But I will send for you as soon as she opens her eyes.’
Raven did as he was bid, feeling the burden begin to lift as he made the short walk back to Queen Street. He suspected that his anxiety had been magnified because he was working for the first time without Simpson’s supervision, but perhaps taking difficult steps on your own was the only way to learn. Nonetheless, he knew he would not feel entirely secure about it until he had returned to Danube Street and seen Mrs Graseby fully conscious again.
He ate little at dinner, which piqued the unwanted interest of Mina.
‘Are you troubled by indigestion? You might care to try one of my stomach powders. I got them from Duncan and Flockhart and they work very efficiently indeed.’
Raven respectfully declined and excused himself as soon as he deemed polite, unable to concentrate on the conversation. He retreated to his room, waiting impatiently for word and emerging to disappointment twice when the doorbell rang with messages for the professor.
The longer he waited, the more he began to fear, as it did not augur well if it was taking this long for Mrs Graseby to recover. That said, it was possible Beattie had been tardy about remembering his promise, and was engaged in further flirty conversation with his patient.
Finally, at about ten o’clock, there was a third ring on the doorbell. A few moments later Jarvis knocked on Raven’s door.
‘Dr Beattie is here to see you,’ he said quietly. Raven wondered anxiously what he might infer from the butler’s soft tone, but told himself his quiet delivery was more a reflection of the hour. Nonetheless, he hurried down the stairs and found Beattie awaiting him in the half light of the hallway.
He was clutching his hat. Raven’s stomach turned instantly to lead.
Beattie waited until they were alone, and when he spoke, his words were barely above a whisper.
‘She did not recover.’
‘Dear God. How?’
‘I fear it was the ether.’
Raven felt himself shrink, the darkness around threatening to swallow him. ‘I am finished. I will have to tell Dr Simpson.’
Beattie gripped his arm and whispered into his ear. ‘You will tell no one. I brought you into this. I will see you are not blamed.’
With this, Beattie walked to the door and closed it quietly behind him. As Raven watched him withdraw, he felt an undeserving gratitude, but no relief and absolutely no comfort.