Arthur stands, and wriggles to shuck the shirt from his back. The room is stuffy with heat, all odours oppressing—wax, charcoal, the men themselves.
“Yes, it’s sweltering.” Charles pulls at his necktie. “I have struggled to sleep this week.”
“The days are no better,” says Arthur. “The stench from the Thames is enough to stymie reason in the courts.”
“I read that the politicians are struggling too.” Tom sips languidly at his brandy.
“Father says Parliament has almost lost sight of the reasoning behind extending the male vote,” Arthur says. “The heat and stink make all of them irritable—Liberals and Conservatives both—what with amendments to Disraeli’s bill being proposed and defeated, members of Parliament no longer knowing what they’re voting for—”
“It’s chaos on the streets too,” Tom adds. “The demonstrations in Hyde Park, the weather becoming hotter and hotter, the stench affecting breathing …”
“The heat poses a threat to the health of many,” says Charles. “My young and elderly patients struggle particularly.”
“As do the impoverished,” Tom inserts.
The physicians chat on and Arthur leans against the cool wall and allows his mind to float, relaxed in the company of his friend and his father-in-law.
It’s a regular occasion now—just like his weekly luncheon with Tom—this evening appointment. “The three bachelors”, they sometimes laugh over late supper, before taking brandy in his Portland Place library and sharing news and opinions. Tonight it’s been easy talk: Cissy’s approaching wedding with the Earl of Whatley—A fine match for her! pronounced Charles; his own niggling concern for his father’s wellbeing; Beatrice’s support of votes for women—Tom’s disbelief, Did she tell you she signed the suffrage petition last year?; Edith’s letters to Charles, reporting on their daughter’s progress …
It’s the second year now, Emmie with her mother at Almsford for spring and summer’s beginning, his own hurried visits to her there, letters back and forth, the planned Rochdale family reunion at Hierde House in July. Once Disraeli’s bill is settled—and it must be settled soon, one way or the other—he will escape from the city and travel with his wife to Herdley.
It’s not ideal, this separation, and he chafes against it at times, but he is prepared to suffer it for her sake, if the countryside has helped heal her and continues to provide comfort. He could endure almost anything for her sake. And they will be together for several months, soon enough, then they can explore their rediscovered passion for each other, even if both are still hesitant, even if she is still haunted by a pain he cannot begin to imagine. Nevertheless, they are already able to share the new words that come slowly, like a language both must learn, at night, in their bed—he asks her where he can place himself; she tells him where he might touch.
And now it returns to him—her words, her hands, her opening—and his body aches with longing.
“… since he was expelled from the Obstetrical Society.”
Tom’s words catch at him. Arthur calms himself, returns to his armchair to listen.
They all feel it on these evenings, the pressure to discuss Isaac Baker Brown—the desire to account for, and maybe leave behind, that terrible time—though Arthur can barely trust himself to speak on the matter.
“Yes, I hear of the decline in his fortunes.” Charles speaks tersely. “I’m not sure that expulsion was the best outcome, y’know, yet the ill-feeling made it inevitable.”
“And with good reason,” says Tom. “It must be admitted that he conducted himself in a most ungentlemanly, even criminal, manner. The advertising and promoting, the failure to protect the sensibility of the weaker sex, the operating on women of unsound mind when his Surgical Home is not even licensed, the … demeaning of women’s reputation with this claim about their purported practices—never proven, of course.”
Charles’s eyes shift about as Tom speaks; he shuffles his feet and resettles his compact, cocky body in the chair. “It is plausible,” he says, “that excessive … that overstimulation plays a part in causing the disorder in some women, or maintaining it, once established.”
“Plausible? Perhaps, perhaps not. This is not proven. And, even so, all these women acting thus? And then so many ‘cured’ by the barbarous excision, as Brown insists?” Tom shakes his head. “I have little sympathy for the man at this juncture.”
“Baker Brown is prone to exaggeration,” says Charles, “but I remain convinced of the benefits of surgery in the case of severe hysteria.”
Arthur sees it again of his father-in-law: Charles must be right. Having argued for Emily’s operation, he has no choice now but to stand by his guns, to make concessions only when it comes to Baker Brown’s character—and even then only small allowances—not his surgical “solution”.
“We must disagree on this”—Tom making his point—“even if we share concern about his future and, more so, that of his family.”
“Yes, it is wrong that his whole family must shoulder this shame. But I do feel for the man, y’know, and I cannot imagine his career will recover.” Charles’s expression is uncharacteristically pensive. “It’s a tremendous cost for ambition and rash, misguided action. But does that make Mr Baker Brown a bad man? You are not yet fathers … do not yet know what pushes you on as the head of a family.” He looks down at his hands. “In some ways, y’know, I believe Baker Brown to be an ordinary person. He loved his children; he struggled—as we all do, yes?—through doubts; he made mistakes, yet hoped to better himself. Should we punish him further when he has already fallen? When he might be already broken?”
So, Arthur sees, it is not just about being proven right: Charles can see himself in the aspirations of Baker Brown—in his pushy self-promotion, his desire to insert himself in society. But, in possession of all the facts, would Charles have countenanced inflicting harm on his own daughter?
“These are difficult questions,” Arthur begins, “yet I find it impossible to think kindly on the man.” He falters for a moment: “It is difficult … It frustrates me that I do not understand the medical details more fully and that I am unable to comment with authority. I am no physician or nerve specialist, just a husband whose wife was endangered.”
“Which makes you more entitled than anyone to have an opinion on the matter,” says Tom. “You have seen the situation from the inside—comprehend the implications of the operation more than most.” Tom plays his fingers on a side table, considers. “If you wish, though—if you do want to understand Brown’s unravelling from a more … medical perspective—I have articles you might read. From last year and into this.”
Arthur feels a pulse of resistance. “Perhaps,” he says slowly. “I wonder though. Do I really want to know the whole palaver? Make an effort to fathom the man and his actions?” He stands. “Still, I appreciate the offer, my friend. I’ll think on it.”
He walks to the window; peers through it as the meandering conversation of his companions resumes; wonders if Emily is looking out into a clearer, cooler night, and missing him.
Arthur’s eyes flick over and through sentences, wanting to leave the words behind as quickly as they leap from the pages into his mind: regrettable spirit of exaggeration … moral questions … erroneous physiology … completely unjustifiable … removal … without the cognisance … highest degree improper … even left worse … and whole paragraphs filled with high-minded censure—
the disgust which reasonable and thinking men must feel at the public discussion, before mixed audiences, of sexual abuses. It is a dirty subject, and one with which only a strong sense of duty can induce professional men to meddle; and then it needs to be handled with an absolute purity of speech, thought, and expression, and, as far as possible, in strictly technical language.
Sexual abuses. Dirty subject. Arthur thinks back to the appointment with Isaac Baker Brown: the insidious suggestions and the slurs cast on his wife—all in her absence and without the capacity to defend herself. How does Emily feel now, reading words about women meant only for men? Is she offended by the intimate language? Made angry at what might have been, had they gone ahead? Should he have kept them to himself, these articles? Emily had thought not: she ’d been insistent when she noticed the British Medical Journal papers piled on his study desk, apprehending their content before he could stop her. I need to understand the matter more fully, she ’d said, and went on to challenge him by asking how he could have assumed she would not take an interest in the surgeon’s fate, when theirs had been intertwined with it—almost disastrously so. He ’d felt sheepish as he brought the medical articles into their own private Hierde House drawing room and away from the questions of Beatrice or Father, but reluctant too, that impulse to shield her from harm still adamant.
Now his wife looks up; says, “It is unequivocal, Arthur,” and reads out loud,
Both of them declared they had not practised self-abuse. They were not in any way benefited by the operation. They further stated that the operation was performed without their being at all aware of its real nature.
She turns several pages one-handed and scans to where her other hand has fixed a passage. “And, look here,” she says. “This poor woman was operated on in July of 1865, but it says that by January 1866, she was worse than ever. January 1866, Arthur. It could have been me; it could have been us!”
The image comes to him again—his Emily lying unrobed in a narrow bed in Baker Brown’s “Home”, her eyes wells of despair, accusation. He shudders as he thinks of their alternative fate: of her alone, without his defence or protection; of her insupportable pain, stretching into the future. What if reading this reminds her too? Brings back the old, paralysing terror, just when she is regaining trust and reaching for him again, her body restored to itself? Should he not continue to fend for her? Encourage her to plan for the future; to leave the past well enough alone?
He studies his wife across the drawing room table. She is reading again, her finger moving across the page, emotions passing fleetingly over her expressive face: surprise, dismay and then, unexpectedly, an ironic twist of the mouth. It reassures him, the fleeting smile, reminds him of her cleverness—a resilient intelligence that seems to have only strengthened through her ordeal, when it might have faltered, or become bitter. She is becoming her own person, he sees now; is no longer the girlish woman he fell in love with and married.
He turns more pages of the article before him, picking up the tone and trajectory, the playing out of the whole sorry affair in reports and letters from medical men, the pages brimming with righteous indignation and contempt: her firm determination … promised it would effect a cure … lamentable failure … wives and daughters … unjustly taxed with filthy habits … wantonly exposed … worse than futile operations … theories as wrong as they are filthy—
He stands and strides to the window, unable, suddenly, to contain his revulsion.
How had Baker Brown been allowed to carry out these operations? And for so long?
The Naze is solid and certain against the vivid blue sky. They should walk Hierde Hill after luncheon, he and Emily. If he strides on ahead, perhaps he can exercise the fury that has suddenly gripped him. Exorcise it from his body. Return to her, hold her hand, feel calm; reclaim—
“Here it is!”
He goes to her. Looks over the netted and beaded gold of her chignon.
APRIL 6, 1867
The Obstetrical Society
MEETING TO CONSIDER
THE
PROPOSITION OF THE COUNCIL
FOR THE REMOVAL OF
MR. I.B. BROWN.
He places his hand on her shoulder as they take in the words, feel the gravity of the occasion. Then they slowly make their way through the pages, her finger tracing the names of the eminent men gathered from all around the country to determine the fate of this one contentious surgeon. [A]mong women … we have constituted ourselves, as it were, the guardians of their interests, he reads, and in many cases, in spite of ourselves, we become the custodians of their honour. Then the interjection of the mass of men—their hearty approbation: hear, hear—and the words that follow:
We are, in fact, the stronger, and they the weaker. They are obliged to believe all that we tell them. They are not in a position to dispute anything we say to them, and we, therefore, may be said to have them at our mercy.
Arthur squirms a little as he reads, uncomfortable in a way he would not be were he alone. It is reading the words through Emily’s eyes, he realises; understanding how close being protected is to being patronised—even, perhaps, controlled. He flicks the thought from his mind.
“And here, Arthur. About operating on lunatic women.”
He takes the chair next to his wife and reads along with her: Baker Brown finding himself on the horns of a dilemma, trying to win … recognition? acclaim? while disavowing wrongdoing—he took credit with the public of having cured cases of insanity, yet to screen himself from legal proceedings he denies it before the Commissioners. And then the surgeon’s response to his accusers, page upon repetitive page of it—common fairness … fair play … common fair play as an Englishman … open and honest worker … painful position … not kind … fair opportunity … honest and open worker … honest man—without properly addressing any of the charges against him, and all the while, the wandering, plaintive, even wheedling address interrupted by cries of protest, of indignant men rising in judgement against him.
“He only made matters worse for himself by conducting his own defence so ineptly,” Arthur says. “Still, they were divided. This one”—he points out the passage—“defended Brown’s right to speak—to be uninterrupted. And here, the suggestion that he acted out of ignorance, not malice. But the remainder? I think they ’d made up their minds.”
“Perhaps they hoped he ’d change after the faults in his action and behaviour were pointed out. And when he didn’t, he became the enemy, or the buffoon.” She indicates: I must admit Mr. Brown, no doubt, is “owdacious.”
It is a relief to laugh along with the roars of laughter, but he can sense the men’s dismay too—their fear at this chaotic intrusion into that principled world—just as he can feel their own, his and Emmie’s. And he can feel the desire to be done with it, this impossible subject, in the men’s demand for a vote and some kind of reckoning that would settle the matter, especially here, in these words. “They’re right, you know,” he says.
“Arthur?”
“He took up the role of good Samaritan voluntarily and yet he appeared to have no remorse. No compassion at all for the women whose lives he affected. Ruined, in some cases. As they say”—he runs his finger under the words—“our sympathy should be with the women in this position and their friends, not with those who are instrumental in producing such unhappy results.” He scans the next column of print, is brought up abruptly at the words an account of the operation, thinks to warn Emily. But she is reading it already, they both are—the pair of hooked forceps … and a cautery iron—
“Oh! No … Arthur …” Her words are choked with distress.
He picks up her hand, squeezes it. “You don’t have to read it,” he tells her.
“I think I must.” Her voice trembles, but is resolute. “I had an escape; the least I can do is acknowledge their suffering and allow myself to be affected by it.”
She turns the page and they read together,
After the clitoris and the nymphæ were got rid of, the operation was brought to a close by taking the back of the iron and sawing the surfaces of the labia and the other parts of the vulva [cries of “Enough”] which had escaped the cautery, and the instrument was rubbed down backwards and forwards—
“You’re right,” she says. “And so are they. It is enough.” She turns from the pages and he wraps his arms around her, his brave wife. “What follows, Arthur?”
He looks down the column, leaning his cheek against her head. “Brown defending himself”—he reads aloud the clumsy, fumbling words—“there was no terrorism, and no large fee taken; for I think I only had ten guineas—certainly not more than twenty [a laugh]—for the operation.” He scans the columns. “More skirmishing over details of letters and statements—the surgeon’s denials—and then the vote. For the removal, 194; and against, thirty-eight. Only five non-voters.”
It would be pitiable, really, if it were possible for him to feel pity for the man.
But no. He will not understand Baker Brown—will not excuse his behaviour, or forget the damage he has done to those most vulnerable. The surgeon’s book returns to him, and the woman’s words: I would like to have my hands untied; I will be very quiet. No. He will not forgive the man, even if others might.
He stands, drawing Emily up with him, and folds her in his arms. They sway and press against each other, and he feels the comfort of it running through his body.
“Do you ever worry about it, Emmie?”
“Hm?” Her voice is muffled against his chest.
“Do you worry that it might return?”
He holds his breath, waiting for her reply.
“Oh, of course, Arthur, but less and less all the time.” She lifts her face. “And I know it wouldn’t be the same if it did recur. I would know what to do—and what not to do—straightaway.”
“And our love-making?”
“I have thought about this, Arthur, and tried to remember the very beginning.” She fixes her eyes on his; lets him know, in this way, that he must attend closely. “I do not know that the pain was to do with pleasure, with excitement. Not solely, in any case. It was there constantly … only made more severe with any touch or pressure.” Her hand is warm against his cheek, her touch tender. “It is true I could not tolerate anything that made it worse, but it was Mr Baker Brown, I think, who channelled our thoughts in this singular direction, who momentarily fed the distrust which had grown between us.” She smiles at him. “But we know better now, don’t we?”
Arthur senses something stretch, rise within him. Like a bird that has been grounded, remembering it has wings.
“Indeed we do,” he says, and kisses the top of her head. “I will always put you first, my love. I will always care for you above all others.”
They walk to the sofa and sit closely, arms about each other.
“I wonder, Arthur.”
“My dear?”
“Will sense ever be made of such an illness?”
“Surely one day,” he replies.
What else can he say?