He had inhaled it himself at a meeting of the Edinburgh Medico-Chirurgical Society, shortly after its anaesthetic effects had been discovered. It produced an unpleasant dizziness resulting in much staggering about. This caused some short-lived hilarity but he had not fallen asleep as others had done. He had wondered if perhaps he was resistant to its effects in some way.
Raven watched as Simpson poured some of the fluid onto a piece of sponge. The air was immediately filled with a pungent aroma, which was welcome in that it partially masked the other odours still permeating the place. The sponge was then held over the patient’s nose and mouth. She recoiled initially at the fumes, before the young girl said gently: ‘It’s the ether, Ellie, like Moira had.’
The agent’s reputation evidently preceding it, she breathed in the vapour eagerly now, before passing quickly and easily into sleep.
‘It is important to administer a narcotising dose,’ the doctor said, ‘thereby avoiding the potentially troublesome primary stage of exhilaration.’
He spoke of ether with knowledge and enthusiasm, just as Henry had implied. There were those who were already dismissing it as a passing novelty, but clearly Simpson was not among them.
He indicated that Raven should take command of the soporific sponge while he busied himself at the other end.
‘Ether is most helpful when turning or using instruments,’ he said as he reached his hand into the patient’s uterus. The lack of response from Mrs Fraser, in contrast to her previous tortured writhing, convincingly bore this out.
‘I’ve found a knee,’ the professor reported, smiling.
With Simpson’s activities largely obscured by the blanket, Raven looked down at the sleeping woman; except she wasn’t sleeping. She lay completely still, almost as though she was suspended in some realm between life and death. She had become an effigy of herself, a figure cast in wax. Raven found it hard to believe that she would ever wake up, and with alarm recalled Henry’s mention of a recent death from the stuff.
A few minutes later Simpson announced that the feet and legs had been delivered. The body and head soon followed in a gush of blood and amniotic fluid which formed a puddle at the doctor’s feet.
Simpson produced the infant from beneath the blanket, rather like a stage magician revealing a dove from an upturned hat. It was a boy. The child began to cry, lustily. The ether evidently had little effect on him.
The baby was swaddled and handed to the young girl, who had been standing statuesque and wide-eyed while the delivery was in progress. She stirred herself now and began singing softly to the child, seeking to soothe its angry bawling.
The mother slept on while the placenta was removed and the baby cleaned and dried. Then she woke as if from a natural sleep and seemed surprised to the point of confusion to find that her ordeal was over.
As the child was placed in the delighted mother’s arms, the young girl went to summon the new father. Mr Fraser stepped tentatively into the room at first, almost in a state of disbelief. He looked to Simpson as though for permission, before approaching closer and placing a hand gently onto the head of his newborn son.
Raven was surprised to see tears welling in Mr Fraser’s eyes. He hadn’t thought him the sort. That said, there had to be a great well of relief gushing through him, as the outcome in cases of obstructed labour was always far from certain. Raven was more surprised to feel tears well up in his own eyes. Maybe it was an effect of all that had happened last night, but he felt this dank and squalid place transformed briefly into one of hope and happiness.
Mr Fraser wiped his eyes on his grubby sleeve then turned to shake the doctor’s hand while fumbling in his pocket for the fee that was due. Raven caught a glimpse of the modest specie in the man’s dirt-smeared palm. It seemed a paltry sum to offer a man of Dr Simpson’s reputation, particularly as he had performed the delivery himself.
Simpson also appeared to be examining the proffered coins. Clearly it wasn’t enough, and Raven was bracing himself for an awkward exchange. Instead the doctor reached out and gently closed Mr Fraser’s fingers around the money.
‘Naw, naw. Away with ye,’ he said, smiling.
He picked up his bag, waving to Mrs Fraser who was now nursing her infant son, and led Raven from the room.
They stepped out into the Canongate, Raven enjoying the feel of a cool breeze upon his face. He imagined it blowing away all that had adhered to him in the preceding hours, feeling as though he had been confined inside Mrs Fraser’s womb itself.
Simpson was looking about for his carriage, which was not where they left it, the coachman having perhaps decided to take a turn to relieve the monotony during the many hours they were inside. Raven cast an eye about the street also, which was when he noticed a small gathering outside a close across the road. Evie’s close.
He drifted nearer, as though conveyed there by an involuntary compulsion. There were two men carrying out a body swathed in a shroud, a cart waiting by the roadside. The shroud was grey and tattered at the edges, one that had been used many times before. Nothing fine, nothing new to clothe poor Evie, even in death.
There were several familiar faces standing on the pavement, other prostitutes. Some he had known through Evie, and some he had merely known. Evie’s landlady was there too, Effie Peake. Raven kept his head down. He did not wish to be recognised, and even less to be hailed.
There was an officer of the police standing at the mouth of the close, watching the corpse being loaded onto the cart. Raven overheard someone ask him what had happened. ‘Just another deid hoor,’ the officer replied neutrally, not even a note of regret in his voice. ‘Killed herself with the drink, looks like.’
The words echoed and echoed around Raven’s head. He felt a hollow open up inside him, something deeper than shame.
Just another deid hoor.
That was not the woman he knew. Evie deserved to be more than that.
SIX
She much preferred watching Dr Simpson work, but that was a relatively rare occurrence. He mostly saw the well-to-do patients upstairs, where Jarvis had the equivalent to Sarah’s role. To be fair, Jarvis was better equipped to deal with the clientele up above, being seldom cowed by their complaints. He exhibited a healthy disregard for their position in society and as a result was seldom intimidated, browbeaten or lost for words.
Jarvis was a tall man, which made it difficult for others to physically look down on him. He was also very particular about his appearance, carrying himself with great elegance and dignity, and was confidently articulate. Sarah often thought that with a different set of clothes Jarvis could easily pass for a member of the upper orders himself. On one occasion she had seen a gentleman approach the butler, waving a rolled-up newspaper in a rather threatening manner. ‘I have been waiting to see Dr Simpson for more than an hour,’ he had said, ‘which I find to be quite unacceptable. I have come all the way from Jedburgh.’
‘Is that so?’ Jarvis had replied witheringly. ‘The last patient was from Japan.’