Her companion did not respond.
Sarah took a deep breath and explained that there were already more patients waiting than could reasonably be seen upon Dr Simpson’s return, thinking while she did so that she might have been better fetching Mr Jarvis to deal with this.
Both ladies now looked at her as though she was being deliberately obstructive. Did they think she was lying about the doctor’s absence and the waiting patients?
The lady with the large hat looked down her aquiline nose and spoke firmly. ‘My dear girl, I am sure we can be admitted. Take my name. Dr Simpson knows me!’
Sarah looked back at the accumulated mass of human misery already installed in the waiting room. There were almost as many upstairs too.
‘Madam, Dr Simpson knows the Queen,’ she said, then closed the door.
SEVEN
‘Where do you hail from, Mr Raven?’ the doctor said as the coach set off.
Raven tried to sit up more erectly in his seat.
‘I was born in Edinburgh, sir.’
‘And what does your father do?’
‘He is no longer with us,’ he replied. ‘But he was a lawyer.’
Rehearsing this lie brought him back to last night in that alley not a hundred yards from here. It would have to serve once again, however. The truth was for another time, once Raven had enjoyed the chance to cultivate a reputation based upon his deeds rather than his provenance.
‘In Edinburgh?’
‘Originally. But lately in St Andrews.’
This at least had a modicum of truth to it. His mother lived there now, reliant upon the generosity of her brother. He truly was a lawyer, and a miserable, pious and self-righteous one at that.
‘I once contemplated studying the law,’ Simpson mused wistfully.
‘Really? For how long?’ Raven asked, wondering how the man could possibly have accommodated more than one field of study given his relative youth and famously prodigious career.
‘Oh, at least the length of a day. An early encounter with the operating theatre had me racing off to Parliament House to seek employment as a clerk.’
Raven responded with a smile, no doubt a lopsided one given the burden on his cheek. He too had little love of the operating theatre. Much as he had admiration for the swift and steady hand of the surgeon, he had no wish to spend his time excising tumours and hacking off limbs. The barbarity of it appalled him, for no surgeon was as steady and swift as to spare the patient unimaginable torment.
‘What brought you back?’ Raven asked with genuine curiosity.
‘The desire to alleviate pain and suffering, and the belief that one day we will find a means of achieving it.’
‘And are you of the belief that ether has done that?’
‘It is a step in the right direction but I believe we can do more. Now we understand that the inhaling of certain chemical compounds can produce a reversible insensibility, I am sure that if we experiment we will find something better than ether. It was one of the reasons I decided to take on an apprentice again this year. I need as many hands as possible to assist me in my search.’
This was not Raven’s primary interest in working with the professor but he quickly warmed to the idea. If he was involved in the discovery of a new anaesthetic agent, his success in the profession would be assured. A share in the patent, aye, that would be the keys to a fortune.
‘And do you believe you can succeed?’ Raven asked, the prospect of such riches prompting a cautious scepticism.
The professor leaned forward in his seat. ‘I believe that with a passionate desire and an unwearied will, we can achieve impossibilities.’
The door to 52 Queen Street opened the moment the doctor’s carriage pulled up outside the house. A young woman in a starched cap stood in the doorway adjusting her apron as Raven stepped down onto the pavement. She recoiled momentarily at the sight of him and a sadness fell upon Raven as he realised that this was something he would have to get used to.
The dog ran into the house first, followed by the professor, who shrugged off his coat and handed it to a male servant who had materialised behind the young woman as though from thin air. He was tall, clean-shaven and immaculately dressed, which only served to emphasise Raven’s state of dishevelment. The man stared down at this unkempt new arrival with unguarded disapproval.
‘Jarvis, I’ll take tea in my study,’ Simpson said.
‘Very good, sir,’ he replied, before nodding at Raven, who was still loitering on the threshold. ‘And what would you like me to do with that?’
The doctor laughed. ‘This is Mr Raven, my new apprentice. He won’t be joining us for dinner as I believe he’s in need of his bed.’
Simpson met Raven’s eye with a knowing look. Raven endured a moment of concern regarding just what the doctor knew, but mainly what he felt was relief.
‘Show him up please, Sarah.’
The doctor proceeded along the corridor towards the back of the house. ‘Jarvis will arrange to have your belongings collected,’ he said over his shoulder.
‘That is assuming you have any belongings worth collecting,’ the butler said, closing the door.
Raven followed the housemaid up the stairs to a bedroom on the third floor, the ascent sapping the last of his energy so much that he feared she might have to grab his lapels and drag him up the final flight. She breezed fussily ahead of him into the room and placed a towel onto a chair before he could sit on it, any concerns about offending him apparently trumped by the state of his clothes.
‘We’ll need to draw you a bath,’ she said, evidently deeming his current condition an affront to the crisp white sheets adorning the bed. Raven hadn’t seen linen so clean in a long time. He could think of little he wanted more right then than to crawl underneath it, but was too weak to argue. He sat holding his head in his hands, only vaguely aware of the bustle around him.
When he raised his head once more, he saw that a hip bath had been placed before the fire and filled with warm water. The butler helped him off with his clothes and offered an arm to steady himself as Raven climbed over the side. There appeared to be petals and twigs floating in the water, which caused him to pause with one foot in.
‘Camomile, rosemary and lavender,’ Jarvis offered by way of explanation. ‘Sarah says it will help with the bruising. And the smell.’
Raven sat down in the warm, fragrant water and felt his aching muscles begin to relax. He could not remember having a bath quite like this. At Ma Cherry’s, an old tin tub would be grudgingly filled with tepid water, just enough to cover the buttocks and feet. He could still hear the old sow’s sighing and tutting as she hauled in the cans, as though bathing was some strange and alien practice he was inexplicably insisting upon. From the smell of her, it was certainly strange and alien to Mrs Cherry.
A sponge and a bar of soap had been left just within reach, but Raven felt disinclined to move. He allowed his good eye to close and time to drift. He heard the tread of footsteps in and out of the room a couple of times but he chose to ignore them. He then felt the sponge move across the tops of his shoulders.