The gate was swarming with dried brambles; a blackberry bush crept along the fence unfettered, ignored, so that its prickly branches formed a barrier to the cottage garden. Miriam reached out, pinched a stem, and pulled it back so that Audrey could go through the arbour gate, ducking as she did so.
“This is taking discretion a bit far, I’d say,” said Miriam as she followed her in. They’d entered a wild garden, faded sprays of blues, pinks, the brown-tinged petals of red geraniums left to die on the stem, feathery tufts and leggy plants—leeks, sweet William, fennel—gnarly clumps of greenery, one species crouching into the next, and a broad bed of parsley that seemed intent on bringing a sense of order to the garden. Farther down a pathway there was a table on which stood a teapot, two cups, two plates, empty save for some crumbs. There were blankets draped around two chairs, the late season heat bringing everyone outdoors.
“Hello?” Miriam called out, but her voice was timid, as if there was something untoward in the scene. “We should go knock on the door,” she said, turning to Audrey, but at that moment a woman appeared with a tray.
“Oh,” she uttered, now holding the tray like a shield.
“We’re here for Dr Whittaker.” Audrey stepped forward.
The woman eyed Miriam and Audrey, the tray lowered to her side.
“He’s not available at the moment,” she said. “He’s ill.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. We’ll come again another day.”
The slow whine of the door opening drew their attention, and a man walked out to them, his step slow and deliberate, his eyes sweeping the ground before him.
“What is it, Alfred?” The woman went to him, held her hand out to his.
“I’ve come for my tea,” he said, then sighting the two strangers, smiled. “We have guests.”
“You should be resting now.” Her hand firmer on his, the other against his back as she guided him inside.
Audrey and Miriam exchanged glances, both now aware that their trip had been a waste.
“The autumn joy are beautiful.” Miriam walked farther along the path, reaching out to the plants along the way. She went to the end of the garden, to the rose bush that climbed the trellis. She leaned into one, sniffed deeply, and turned back to Audrey.
“No scent,” she said. “It’s such a disappointment, one expects it always, then nothing with these new breeds.”
They’d come to see Dr Whittaker unannounced because they’d heard he’d retired, and they’d had hope of convincing him to perform one more abortion. There was no reason to expect that he would agree to it, even if he wasn’t incapacitated as he obviously was, but they could do nothing but try.
It was gossip they were going on, gossip about the abortionist outside Farnham. Audrey had seized on this lead, one that would put into practice what she preached, and they’d made inquiries. Miriam had asked Mildred, who near laughed in her face, her arm sweeping across the room where two of her children were in a battle over a toy, the other hand resting on the mound of her stomach. What would she know of such a thing? she said. But she did know someone who might know something. Within a few days they had directions to Dr Whittaker’s.
“We can’t help you, I’m afraid.” The woman reappeared, speaking to Audrey while Miriam was still down farther in the garden. “How far along?” she gestured.
The sun was low in the sky, the light intense in the garden so that the woman held a hand out to block the glare.
“I’m Audrey Wentworth and that is Miriam Thomas. We’re here for someone else.”
“Edith Whittaker.” She placed the dirty dishes on the tray and motioned for the two women to sit. She told them that the last procedure he’d done was two years ago, the decline rapid and startling since. Hardly anyone came around anymore. She figured news like this, of the doctor’s downfall, spread like influenza. Gossip. The rot of it. The way people cling to it as if it connected them somehow, like the mesh of spider silk, loose and awkward. “I thought no one came around anymore because they knew not to,” she said without rancour.
She’d been his nurse as well as his wife. Loneliness spanned her days now, she admitted. She missed the patients, the feeling of usefulness.
“It’s a servant.” Miriam’s tone abrupt, rude. Audrey looked at her sharply, but there was no response to the rebuke. “She was assaulted. She’s quite desperate. We told her we would try to help. Dr Whittaker was her last chance.”
Edith scooped crumbs from the table, flung them into the flowers, her eyes flicking toward Miriam, then over to Audrey.
“I am sorry,” she said, finally, looking toward the house. “For him, for me, for the young servant woman.” She paused as she heard a motor car passing by. “I can’t get used to them yet,” she said. “The noise startles him—the airplanes, too.”
“How did you know?” Audrey asked. “How did you notice his mind was going?”
“Incidents like this. We’d have tea, then ten minutes later he’d ask when it would be ready. At first it was hardly noticeable, a forgetfulness we all expect. Then names forgotten, a look he’d get as if stranded in the forest. In the examining room he rallied. The routine of everything saved him. Though the last one I had to take over.” Her eyes lowered, then she got up and crouched in a nearby bed of herbs and pulled out a handful of leaves.
“Pennyroyal,” she told Audrey as she handed them to her after wrapping them in a cloth. “Tea infusion thrice daily for the next week. This garden looks a mess, but it’s our pharmacy. Groundsel for menstrual cramps, feverfew for fevers, migraine headaches, and problems with menstruation and labour. Shepherd’s purse for headaches and bladder infections, and burdock for colds, rheumatism, and stomach ailments.” She was pointing and pulling at the plants as she identified them.
“Come back for more if you need it,” she said. “It doesn’t work for everyone.”
Audrey was clutching the pennyroyal as they left. Edith walked them to the gate, absently picking at stray weeds and deadheading the flowers. The afternoon had dissolved into a mood of melancholy, the regrets almost too abstract for them to speak of.
“Come back again,” she repeated. “I have other remedies if this one fails. Parsley. Cotton root bark, blue cohosh, mugwort.”
Miriam stepped through the gate and paused, a thought forming. She turned to the doctor’s wife to speak to her, but she was already stepping back into her garden.