arah looked about for Raven, unable to find him in the throng that had spilled out of the Reverend Grissom’s service. The Sheldrakes had gathered their staff and were proceeding in the direction of Blair Street, Milly walking with her head bowed. She did not glance back.
Sarah located him emerging from a close across the street, his countenance a grim contrast to the departing worshippers. Their expressions befitted those who believed they had just communed with the Lord, while Raven’s intimated dealings altogether less holy.
Sarah felt vindicated in her instinctive impression that there was something restless and impetuous in Raven. She estimated that both of these traits had played their part in whatever had led to his face being wounded, but she also doubted he would tell her the truth about it. There was a swirling fog of dark secrets behind his hazel eyes.
She would admit that there was undoubtedly something kinder in there too, though at Queen Street, anyone might seem warm next to Dr James Duncan – or Dr James Matthews Duncan as he was now insisting upon. That one was restless and impetuous also, but driven entirely by ambition and the desire to make a name for himself, as evidenced by his concern that his name itself should be distinct.
Raven, by contrast, was striving on behalf of a woman who was too dead to thank him for it. Perhaps he was trying to atone for not having helped enough to keep her alive. Sarah knew to be wary of such motives, noble as they may seem. They said the road to Hell was paved with good intentions, and she suspected Raven had the recklessness to take her there with him if she did not step carefully.
‘Did you speak with her?’ he asked.
‘Rose was pregnant,’ Sarah told him. ‘She feared she would be dismissed as soon as it was discovered. Milly told McLevy as much, and now he is apt to conclude she drowned herself.’
Raven took a moment to absorb this.
‘I have a suspicion Evie might have been pregnant too.’
‘How do you know?’ Sarah asked, before realising what the question might imply.
‘It would not have been mine,’ he answered evenly. ‘I told you, I was no longer using her in that way.’
‘Then what makes you think . . .?’
‘I don’t know. It just fits. But what does not is the idea that Rose drowned herself. That would not explain the contortions, similar to Evie’s.’
‘You said you suspected they both might have been poisoned. Is it not possible that they took a poison to kill themselves?’
Raven considered it. ‘Theoretically, yes. But the same one? And one that appears to have racked them with pain? Why choose to die in such a horrible manner?’
‘Perhaps they were misled into believing it would ease their passing, like opium.’
‘I find it too hard to accept that Evie would end her own life. Why would she need money so urgently if she planned to kill herself?’
‘I find it difficult to believe the same of Rose, but how can anyone know what they might do in a position of utter desperation? To be with child but having no means of supporting it or herself once she was dismissed.’
‘Professor Ziegler at the Maternity Hospital did say he had known young women to kill themselves,’ Raven admitted, his voice taking on an apologetic tone. ‘In some cases they could not even face the prospect of their families discovering their condition. It seems such a resort of final despair, though.’
‘What other resort would be open to a girl like Rose?’
Raven gave her a look that said she already knew the answer to that question; and knew also that it could not be spoken aloud in the hearing of strangers.
They increased their pace, putting some distance between themselves and the departing worshippers.
‘Desperate women explore all manner of options before self-murder,’ he said. ‘There was a newborn’s leg found recently in a gutter near the Royal Exchange. I suspect the poor mite was done away with by its mother.’
It was not the first time Sarah had heard of such a thing.
‘The mother must have been able to keep her condition secret, though,’ she said. ‘I doubt that would have been an option for Rose. She feared she would be dismissed long before such a horrible course would even have been open to her.’
‘There are other desperate measures,’ Raven said. His voice was low even though there was no one close by. It was an invitation to complicity.
‘Indeed,’ Sarah replied, by way of accepting.
‘Though if they had chosen to go down that route, it might have ended just the same for them. My friend Henry recently encountered two cases of young women who died from attempted abortions.’
Sarah was trying to imagine the fear and hopelessness Rose must have felt, asking herself what she might do in the same situation. She suspected there was nothing she would not consider. That was when an idea struck her.
‘What if they took a poison not in order to kill themselves, but believing it would purge the burden they carried?’
Raven turned in response. She could tell the notion was not outlandish.
‘Women have taken all manner of concoctions in the hope that they might induce a premature labour,’ he agreed. ‘Thus far they have either been utterly without effect or harmful only to the mother.’
‘Nonetheless, one could charge a great deal for a pill or a draught that promised to solve such a problem, as long as the buyer believed in it. Could this have been what Evie needed the money for?’
‘Evie was no gullible fool. But desperation is often the mother of misplaced faith. I think you could be right.’
Raven gazed up towards the grey skies, as though answers might be hidden behind the canopy of clouds.
‘I just wish we knew what manner of poison she might have taken.’