ON OCCASION, DR. ENOCH Leng enjoyed taking the reins of his four-in-hand barouche himself, feeling the power of the fine horses under his own hands. This evening, he headed across Chatham Square and angled down Chatham Street at a fast trot, Munck sitting beside him. Not far past the square, he was obliged to stop, due to a commotion in front of Fatty Walsh’s Saloon. This was often the case in the slums of the Five Points. Leng watched with interest as a superannuated whore was chased from the saloon by a group of drunken ruffians shouting catcalls and abuse. A crowd of gawkers had also gathered, temporarily blocking Leng’s progress as they watched the pursuit of the prostitute who, weeping, tried to escape her harassers. Such displays of human cruelty only further confirmed his deepening sense of Weltschmerz.
Soon the commotion had passed southward into the Fourth Ward, and Leng was able to proceed, turning right onto Baxter and then left onto Park Street. Midway down the block rose the forbidding, four-story brick façade of the House of Industry. He pulled the carriage up to the arched portal and turned the reins over to Munck, then alighted, clapped on his top hat, and pulled the visitor-announcement chain on the door. A moment later, the door opened half a dozen inches and the rubbery face of Royds appeared in the gap, creased with anxiety. Leng expected the man to open it the moment he was recognized, but instead Royds began to stammer.
“Dr. Leng, good to see you, Professor, very good indeed, sir …” His voice seized up.
“Is something the matter, Royds?” Leng asked.
“Well, Dr. Leng, sir, there’s been a terrible tragedy …” Again he seemed to freeze, at a loss for words.
“What sort of tragedy? Are you going to admit me, man, or just stand there gaping?”
Leng heard a voice sound out from the darkness beyond. “Who is that?”
“Ah, sir, it’s the Mission doctor, sir—”
“Open the door so I can see him.”
Royds eased open the door, and the light from outside revealed an extraordinary figure—a thin man, imperious, clothed in clerical severity, with reddish hair and a short beard, staring down at Leng with glittering eyes: one green, the other milky blue.
“Who are you, sir?” the man demanded.
Stepping farther into the entrance hall, Leng lost none of his composure despite this odd turn of events, arranging his face into an agreeable expression and removing his top hat. “Dr. Enoch Leng, at your service. May I enter?”
“Please do, Doctor. I am the Right Reverend Percy Considine. Come to my office and we shall discuss your business, whatever it may be.”
At this, the reverend turned on his heel with a swirl of his black cassock and retreated into the darkness, Leng following. Royds, he noted, scurried away as soon as he could.
The reverend led him out of the entrance hall, down the east corridor, and into Miss Crean’s office, where he seated himself behind her desk with a flourish and held out his hand to indicate where Leng was to sit.
“Now, Dr. Leng, you may not know this,” the man said, “but tragedy has visited the House of Industry.”
Leng kept his features arranged in as pleasant an expression as possible. “I had not heard.”
“The details are strictly confidential—for the present. Suffice it to say, Miss Crean passed away quite suddenly, and I am her replacement, appointed by the Methodist Judicial Council. You can imagine, Dr. Leng, that I am still getting acquainted with the particular affairs of this mission. I regret to say I’m not familiar with you or your business here.” He clasped his large hands. “So tell me, Doctor: what can I do for you?”
“Thank you, Reverend Considine,” said Leng. “I am very sorry to hear of Miss Crean’s passing, and I offer you my condolences.”
“No such condolences are necessary. As it happens, I was here to replace her.”
Leng was taken aback. “Indeed? May I inquire as to what happened?”
“You may not. It is church business, and as such must remain private.”
“I see. Well then, allow me to congratulate you on your assuming the duties of director.” Leng paused. “I am a doctor of, if I may say, excellent repute, who offers his therapeutic services pro bono to the unfortunate girls of the Mission. I am credentialed at Bellevue Hospital and am an adjunct at Columbia, with advanced medical degrees from Heidelberg and Oxford, specializing in mental alienation and psychosurgery. I would be most happy to present you with my credentials.”
“That won’t be necessary, Doctor. I naturally accept your word.”
“Thank you. In my private clinic, I sometimes offer treatment to a very few patients from the Mission and House of Industry. In addition to Bellevue, of course.”
“And you are here today, sir, on what purpose?”
“My hope today is—as has been my practice of some time now, as indicated—to tour the wards, examine any new arrivals, and if necessary transfer to my clinic any worthy Christian girl in urgent need of medical attention. As you know, many of the impoverished inmates rescued from the streets bring with them mental and physical diseases in need of management—especially epidemic diseases that can spread quickly.”
Considine frowned. “Do you have a contract with the Mission?”
“No, Reverend. It was all handled informally, since no payments or obligations were involved—and since, to put it plainly, the Mission has little money to spend on medical care. This has been a way for me, as a devout Methodist of the Wesleyan Church, to offer such talents as God has given me. To live my life, as the Discipline instructs us, ‘to continue to evidence the desire for salvation.’”
“And you believe that removing these lost, sinful souls from the House of Industry, where they are put to hard work in service of the Lord, and in hopes of redemption from their wicked ways, will somehow bring them to salvation?”
“Naturally. By healing their bodies and their minds, I can help them on their journey toward becoming good Christian ladies. And, if I may say so, I have seen the effects of such healing—through my observation of the results.” He smiled piously, carefully hiding his growing disdain of this cleric.
“You mean to say, sir, that by overindulging them, by offering them luxury, by providing them soft beds and medicines and fine food, that somehow you are preparing them for redemption?”
“I would not go so far as to call their hospital quarters luxurious, or their food fine. But as the body is the temple of the soul, then: yes, Reverend, I do believe I am doing God’s work.”
“Sir, I take exception! Rather, what we must do is give them ‘a desire to flee from the wrath to come, and to be saved from their sins,’ as is stated in the same Book of Discipline you have just quoted. Doctor, cosseting these wicked women only leads them farther down the path to perdition. Why, the only charitable, Christian thing I can perceive Nurse Crean to have done in her tenure is to move the Mission offices here—to the House of Industry—where we can keep a closer eye on their labor!” Considine’s voice was rising in volume. “Doctor, I have only been here a day, but it took me far less time than that to observe these women are used to wallowing in depravity and sin—Sabbath-breaking, gaiety of apparel, profanation, brawling and quarreling, and worst of all—worst of all—the accursed thing … You know that of which I speak!”
Leng remained quite still, gazing into the reverend Considine’s face. Clearly, he had suffered some injury to the dead, milky eye; he wondered what it might have been, and whether it was the source of the man’s fanatical nature.
The reverend was now in full throat. “As the Discipline instructs us: Look round and see how many of them are still in apparent Danger! And how can you walk, and talk, and be merry with such People? Methinks you should set on them with the most vehement Exhortations!”
He rose from his chair. “Now, Dr. Leng, prithee get thee hence! I doubt not that your intentions are honorable, but I fear your practice is sadly misguided. Ponder my words and, above all, read and study the Discipline. Because verily, verily, I say unto you: no longer shall this mission be a place from which depraved souls shall be permitted to wantonly fly to sanctuaries for mollycoddling of the body—while their minds remain fettered by filth and wickedness!”
Leng understood that no argument he could muster would move this sanctimonious creature, especially now that he was roused into self-righteous fury. There was nothing for it but to rise stiffly and offer his hand. “You have explained your position, Reverend. I wish you good day.”
Considine stood across the desk, cassock and vestments wrapped around him like a shroud, his face pale and beaded with sweat. He looked down at the hand and, seeming to recollect himself, took it in his own, clammy and wet, and gave it a limp squeeze. “Dominus vobiscum, Doctor.”