Katherine Keenum (32 page)

*   *   *

For Jeanette, sight of the solitary figure in the shadows mended an afternoon that had frayed ever since she had seen Dr. Murer leave without waiting for her. Although she had kept up light social banter with Carolus’s other pupils, it had hurt when Lucille Dobbs asked, “Where’s your friend?”

“He’s my cousin’s friend,” she had answered, petulantly, and immediately wished she had said, Which one? Now that she knew he had stayed, she glowed as he came toward her.

“Edward, my dear, how perfect! You haven’t left,” cried Cornelia. She reached out the back of her hand. “We are on our way down to thank the orchestra and send them over to pillage the refreshment marquee. The caterers are sorting out a light supper for us and the staff. You come, too. You can’t claim another engagement or you wouldn’t still be here.”

“I don’t,” said Edward, bringing the backs of her fingers to his lips. “And if I had one, I would throw it over.”

“Edward! I am going to make a cavalier out of you yet!” laughed Cornelia. She clasped Marius’s arm tighter and leaned a little against her husband while she spoke. It contented Mr. Renick for his wife to be surrounded by unthreatening admirers on the order of Hippolyte Grandcourt or this newest favorite, Edward Murer. They affirmed her worth and kept her entertained. As for Cornelia, she knew why he stayed. That his happiness sprang from sources other than herself in no way displeased her. A matchmaker she might not be, but she was no less excited by the scent of romance in the air than any other hostess.

The Renicks continued down to the musicians’ tent, with Edward now between Miss Palmer and Miss Pendergrast; but while Cornelia thanked the musicians, he excused himself for a moment and seized his chance to speak to Marius.

“Renick, there is something I must tell you,” he said, in a low voice. “In the library a while ago, that journalist, Dolson . . .” Marius Renick bent his head closer to listen. Edward had been reluctant to speak; it was more distasteful than he had foreseen. “I saw him pocket something of yours from a case. I spoke to him.”

Mr. Renick pulled back and held up a hand. “Jacques told me. Thank you. Hastings and I will take careful inventory of the portables after supper. We always do. If anything is missing, the police will be informed where to look.”

Edward nodded. In the face of such efficiency, his sympathy swung back a little toward the outlaw and certainly to Miss Dolson.

“You look sad,” said Jeanette, taking him by surprise when he rejoined her.

“Do I? A bad habit.” As he looked into her face, his own became gentle. “No, Miss Palmer, I have never been happier.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Aftermath

T
hat night, Jeanette went to sleep reliving the party, always with Dr. Murer beside her or coming toward her or unwilling to leave her; sometimes they did not follow Mlle. Bernhardt into the house at all. Over the next few days, fantasy overlay memory more and more, though it never altered the departure points nor belied certain moments. If pressed by conscience, Jeanette might have admitted that making herself the object of romantic attention was half the pleasure of her daydreams. Nevertheless, she also believed in the magical air that had enveloped her and Dr. Murer on their walk through the back orchard, in the secret garden, on the terrace at twilight. And she responded to him—
him
, Dr. Edward Murer, so different from anyone else she knew.

*   *   *

Early the next week, Edward called on Cornelia in the Poutery to offer congratulations on the success of the party.

“Darling, wasn’t it splendid?” she said, as she reclined on her chaise longue. “I can rest on my laurels until we leave town in July. Pure heaven. Now, quick. Effie Pendergrast will be along any minute, and before she gets here, I want to know every detail about the thieving Mr. Dolson. Marius says you were an eyewitness.”

Edward kept his eyes on his hat as he casually set it down beside his chair. “I hate to snitch, Cornelia.”

“Of course you do, so hurry while we’re alone, and you’ll be spared dear Effie’s exclamations.”

Reluctantly, Edward described the scene in the library. He recounted only the actions, none of the insults.

“Where was poor Miss Dolson during all this? I can’t help wondering about that girl and whether her friends should be warned.”

Edward froze, wondering for an instant whether Cornelia could know about the laudanum. “Warned in what way?”

“Warned to help her or warned to stay clear, I suppose. It all depends on whether she’s innocent or an accomplice.”

“She was resting her forehead on the back of a chair.”

“In protest or on purpose not to see?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. She seemed . . . unwell.”

“I’m making you uncomfortable, darling. Don’t worry. I’m a banker’s wife. I’ve had years of practicing discretion.”

“You never gossip, do you, Cornelia?”

“I certainly never pass along rumors or anything harmful if I can help it, but I’ll tell you a secret. If you drop incidental tidbits of information every now and again, and seem willing to listen, people will tell you the most extraordinary things. I’m a suction pump, not a fire hose. Dearest Effie, good morning! We were just wondering when you might be along. I have a thousand thank-you notes to sort and whatnot.”

“I thought you might,” said Effie, cheerfully. “And Dr. Murer, I’m so glad you’re here. Oh, dear, I hate to ask favors, and wouldn’t ordinarily, you know that; only we’ve come up shorthanded for Thursday . . . I should have thought of you sooner. Well, of course, you haven’t been living in Paris.”

Prompting brought out that the McAll Mission held a free medical clinic at one of its halls every month. It was staffed by volunteers, many of whom were dedicated and reliable, but among whom there was often a last-minute cancellation.

“I have no license to practice in Paris,” said Edward, not sorry for a legitimate excuse to beg off.

“Oh, that doesn’t matter. We always have a supervising physician on the spot. What we need is help treating the minor cases of ringworm and catarrh, that sort of thing. Mr. Winkham comes to help dress running sores. If I could assign you to healing salves—”

“It sounds perfectly ghastly,” laughed Cornelia, “but then Effie is the saint, not I.”

Edward was of much the same opinion, yet mention of Mr. Winkham put the request in a different light. Obliging Miss Pendergrast might be prudent when he hoped to draw closer to Miss Palmer, and perhaps Mr. Winkham would know something worth learning about the Dolsons. The last thing he wanted was to be further implicated in their affairs; and yet some nagging sense of responsibility, or perhaps only curiosity, drew him on. He agreed.

*   *   *

On Thursday at midday, Edward crossed the Canal Saint-Martin into industrial Paris in search of a mission hall in the tannery district. He was unprepared for the level of squalor or the stench. Decomposing animal waste befouled the greasy river Bièvre. In the factory blocks, stringy, half-clad tannery workers appeared to be strong, their skin pickled to a leathery brown toughness by their trade; but elsewhere, too many sullen, stunted men stood listlessly in doorways to dank basements, and too many furtive women and children looked famished for a piece of bread as gray as themselves. If Miss Pendergrast put up with this regularly, she was a tougher bird than he had realized.

The mission hall proved to be the ground floor of a narrow old building. He had been directed to look for a poster of Abraham Lincoln mounted in a window (pictures of Jesus tended to be defaced by anticlerical vandals); a line of dirty children, men with concave chests, and downtrodden women with babies on their hips identified the place just as surely as any street number or poster. At the head of the line, he tipped his top hat, saying, “
Excusez-moi, s’il vous plaît
,” and shouldered his way inside without meeting anyone’s eye. From his time in military hospitals, he knew better than to let irregular bids for attention start up.

Inside the door, he was greeted by an Englishwoman in a gray dress, white apron, and starched white cap. “You must be Dr. Murer,” she said. “Thank you very much indeed for coming. The other medical staff are in back in the scullery.” When she saw him survey the room, she added, “This place was built as a tavern; but the Lord be praised, we’ve turned it to better use.”

The main front room was bare of decoration and dingy but scrubbed clean of surface dirt. Most of the wooden chairs used at prayer meetings were folded against the wall, with a few left ready to be occupied once the doors were open. Screens had been set up for privacy during examinations.

In the back, Effie introduced Edward to the other volunteers. The deal table around which they were gathered held medical supplies, towels, basins, and a pile of white aprons. “I’m in charge of all this,” she explained, as she handed him an apron, “and you’ll be working with Nurse Finch. Dr. Murer speaks French like a Parisian, Miss Finch; it should be such a help.”

But not like a Belleville native, thought Edward. He hoped that between visual cues and whatever dialect an experienced volunteer had picked up, the two of them would understand enough to do some good. After doffing his hat and exchanging his coat for the apron, he washed his hands at a dry sink. Under Effie’s supervision, water was constantly brought in to be heated and the slops emptied by a pair of neighborhood boys hired for the afternoon.

“Dicey water supply in the neighborhood,” remarked the supervising physician, cheerfully. “We must all hope there’s no infection at the pump.”

From Effie’s table, Edward picked up washcloths, alcohol, gauze, and a variety of salves. Just as the teams were being dispatched to their stations, Mr. Winkham came in, taking off his coat as he hurried to the back. At sight of Edward, he stopped. “Dr. Murer! Ah, but, of course, you are a friend of Miss Pendergrast.”

There was no time to talk. Edward hoped to catch Winkham before it was time to leave; but for the rest of the afternoon, he and Nurse Finch were confronted with abrasions, eczema, boils, infected wounds, inflamed eyelids, impetigo, and a growth that was claiming half of an old man’s face. He and Winkie assisted the surgeon in setting a drunken man’s broken leg. Everything had to be dealt with in the face of crying children and always with an awareness that the line outside was long.

*   *   *

At the end of the afternoon, last cans of hot water were brought in for a rough sort of scrub-up. Edward admired the Christian zeal of those who would stay on to share a cold meal of bread and bologna sausage with the locals who came for an evening prayer service, but he would not be among them.

“What do you say, Winkham, will you do me the honor of dining with me? There’s an Alsatian brasserie near Le Halles that serves a meal hearty enough to meet my needs after all this.”

“Brew on tap?”

“German.”

“I’m your man.”

An hour later, they were seated at a table in Les Vosges, with mugs of beer, a basket of rye bread, and dishes of grilled bratwurst smothered in sauerkraut, dumplings in cream gravy, and stewed partridges. At first, conversation naturally focused on cases from the afternoon. Winkie went on to tell Edward stories from previous clinics, and from there they moved to general matters of public health—the need for clean drinking water, unadulterated food, better air and less crowding. “I know when I get back home I can’t reform society by myself,” said Winkie, “but I do believe a man can make a difference in his own patch.”

Edward gradually drew him around to his boyhood. It seemed that the school he and Robbie Dolson had attended was neither the best nor the worst England had to offer. “Much better than a scholarship boy like me could have hoped for, but less than Dolson thought his due. He used to complain that his guardians meant to hold him back while his cousins advanced in the world, and he may have been right. Judging by his income since, though, I’d say there was always less money than he thought.”

“Or that his share of an inheritance was mismanaged.”

“He’d say embezzled. I wouldn’t know. What I can tell you is that he took me home with him once at the holidays, and it was the high point in my boyhood in a lot of ways. Just the two of us together the livelong day.” Winkie softened with a wistful nostalgia. “I’m a city boy. I’d never been bird-nesting before, nor staked out a badger’s earth to watch for the badger. Well, and the house, of course: I’d never been in a house like that—portraits on the wall, mounted deer’s antlers. And a library.”

“Were you boys allowed to pull books off the shelves?”

“Free run, and I’d say it was that summer’s reading set me on my path. Up to date on his science the uncle was, educated cove, for all he was a farmer. But the best thing, of course, was meeting Emily. Best or worst.” Mr. Winkham hung his head. “Wear my heart on my sleeve, I do.”

“Miss Dolson is a lovely girl,” said Edward. “I saw her the other day.”

“You did?” Mr. Winkham looked up avidly. “Where? I haven’t seen either of them for weeks. How was she?”

“On laudanum.”

Winkie bent his head and crashed his fist on the table. A few people glanced over, but Les Vosges was a noisy restaurant. He choked down his emotion.

“It doesn’t have to be harmful in itself.”

Winkie stared wordlessly at nothing. “No,” he said finally, “it needn’t be.” A great sadness in his voice contradicted his words.

“It was her cough, she said. Is she consumptive?”

“Not that I know of, no,” said Winkie. “Of course, I haven’t examined her medically. She needs to eat better, anybody can see that, and her physical ailments aren’t helped by the damp and mildew of the holes they’ve been living in lately. Rob’s been down on his luck.”

“I wonder about that. They were oddly dressed, but not what you’d call shabby. It was at a party, and according to Miss Palmer, Miss Dolson was in the latest fad from London, while I’d say your friend was in antique costume on purpose. He looked more like he was playing a part than strapped for cash.”

“Oh, that’s Rob for you, all right. He spent one term in a silk velvet cutaway taken from an old press at his uncle’s. Look, Dr. Murer, why did you invite me here?”

“I might as well come clean: The party was at the house of some people named Renick.”

“I don’t move in those circles.”

“Well, you’d better know that I found Mr. Dolson putting a small gold box of theirs into his pocket.”

“God almighty.” Mr. Winkham stared for a moment. “Are you sure? Believe me, that would be a new low. Dolly likes to play with fire and always has—flouting rules he finds irksome, dodging the landlord, that sort of thing—but not theft.”

“Poaching.”

“Oh, well, poor man’s sport. Poaching has its own rules. Look, I’ll admit Rob cadges money and he’s worse than most about repaying. But outright stealing? I’d swear his sense of his own superiority wouldn’t let him.” In a momentary silence, Winkie read Edward’s face and knew that Dr. Murer had seen what he had seen. His shoulders drooped. “Rob has fallen in with bad company lately.”

“You were anxious about him the last time I saw you, before Christmas.”

“Was I?” Winkie looked up, then remembered the meeting at Amy and Sonja’s studio. He hunched over his mug and turned it back and forth between his hands.

“Another beer?” asked Edward.

Winkie shook his head. “Coffee. I’m on duty at the hospital tonight.”

“You were pushing yourself that hard this afternoon when you had to work tonight?” asked Edward. It was his turn to sit and stare.

“All part of the training to my mind,” said Winkie. “Can’t sleep during an epidemic.” He regarded Edward as if sizing him up. “You know there are organized gangs of thieves in Paris.”

“Ever since the Middle Ages.” Edward signaled to the waiter for coffee.