The Anatomy of Deception (11 page)

I took her hand and bowed, unsure if I was being mocked. How could anyone be sure of anything, standing amid the wealth of the pharaohs in a room the size of an operating theater, opposite a rich and beautiful woman who expected me to be witty and entertaining?

“I believe I warned you to wear armor, Ephraim,” said the Professor.

“Oh, I hope I am not as frightening as all that,” Miss Benedict said.

“Perhaps you would like to escort Dr. Carroll into the drawing room to join the other guests?” suggested Mrs. Benedict.

“I would be happy to, Mother,” Miss Benedict replied. She took my arm properly, not like Monique, but I found the very propriety somehow more discomfiting. The drawing room was cavernous and created the illusion of seeing those inside as at a distance, in the manner one would observe an acquaintance walking on the other side of a boulevard. The ceiling was at least twelve feet high, ringed with dentil molding. A chair rail divided the walls between the buff-painted bottom third and the deep green brushed silk wallpaper that covered the rest. Another immense crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, again lit by electricity rather than gas or candle.

What must it be like, I wondered, to live in such luxury?

The guests had divided themselves into two groups, split according to profession. Drs. Mitchell and Agnew stood in a small knot near the door, chatting and sipping champagne with their wives. Mitchell was invariably the first person to be noticed in any gathering. Tall and gaunt, he wore an imposing full gray beard and had more than once been compared to Uncle Sam or President Lincoln. I’d once overheard a student exclaim that to sit in Weir Mitchell’s class was “like being taught neurology by Jehovah himself.” Agnew, short, bald, and jovial, with a full white mustache, was a perfect match for his short, jovial, white-haired wife.

The Mitchells and the Agnews apparently knew Miss Benedict well, and everyone spoke quite cordially. There was an ease to their manner, a nonchalance that I knew I must perfect if I was ever to fit into this society. I did not say a great deal, preferring to observe, but nor did I embarrass myself.

“Excuse me, please,” said Miss Benedict after a few minutes, “but I must introduce Dr. Carroll to our plutocrats.” She nudged me gently from the physicians and escorted me toward a group of six people across the room.

The three couples varied greatly in age. Abigail Benedict led me first to a wizened, sallow man named Elias Schoonmaker, who, from the tone of his skin, appeared to be suffering from a liver disorder. His head bent slightly forward when he spoke, eyes rolled upward, as if he were a stern clergyman passing judgment on a sinner. His wife was a squirrel-like woman whose dress and demeanor seemed more suited to the Puritan era.

The second couple was much younger, in their early thirties. The man was tall, full but not fat, clean-shaven, with dark hair parted on the side. He wore spectacles, but they did not obscure a pair of powerful Benedict blue eyes. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Carroll.” He thrust his hand forward. “I’m Albert Benedict.” His smile held charm and distance. “I’m a great admirer of your profession. How thrilling it must be to save a life.”

I acknowledged the compliment, but there was a serrated edge to Albert Benedict’s casual manner that was unsettling, as I assumed it was meant to be.

“The excitement of science,” he continued, too enthusiastically, “so much more vital than the idle pursuits.”

Miss Benedict’s jaw tightened. “My brother is a banker, Dr. Carroll, which is hardly an idle pursuit,” she responded immediately. “Of course, it becomes a bit more idle when one works for one’s father.”

“It is true,” her brother agreed amiably. “My father’s dynastic aspirations have eased my path to glory, Dr. Carroll. Everyone, I suppose, tries to hitch their wagon to some star or other. Success comes simply in choosing the right star.”

I felt a momentary flush as the Professor flashed in my mind. Miss Benedict opened her mouth to respond, but before she could get the words out, her older brother, ever
smiling, shot her a brief but frozen glance and broke off the exchange. Albert then introduced me to his small and fragile-looking wife, Margaret, whose elaborate pearl choker served only to make her appear more birdlike. Margaret Benedict was extremely polite, with the perfect diction and practiced gestures that bespoke a finishing school education. They stood together but, instead of appearing as a unit, she and her husband seemed to occupy separate space.

The third man was the most striking of the three. He was no more than fifty, but with a bearing so severe that the upper half of his face appeared not to move when he spoke. Miss Benedict introduced him as Jonas Lachtmann.

“A pleasure to meet you,” Lachtmann said to me, managing to sound disagreeable while attempting to be cordial. “And this is my wife, Eunice,” he added, gesturing to an attractive but lifeless woman with graying strawberry blond hair.

“Jonas is one of our leading citizens,” interjected Abigail Benedict. Whereas she and her brother had carped at each other in sibling irritation, her hostility for this man was conspicuous and profound.

Lachtmann did not reply. Provoked or not, it was obvious that no one outside the family took liberties with Hiram Benedict’s daughter.

“And how is Rebecca?” Miss Benedict continued, and then turned to me in explanation. “Jonas’ daughter is on holiday in Italy. She is one of my best friends.” She exhibited no outward change in demeanor, but I sensed this subject was disturbing to her, although she herself had raised it.

“She is quite well,” Lachtmann replied, refusing to warm even to the subject of his child.

“I believe she has gone into the countryside on her way to Rome, my dear,” added Mrs. Lachtmann stiffly. “That, at least, is what she intended in her last letter from Florence. I think the mails are probably even less reliable there than in the rest of Italy, which means they are not reliable at all.”

“I hope that the travel has not been too oppressive,” Albert
Benedict remarked. “Europe can be quite difficult for the uninitiated.”

Mrs. Lachtmann smiled, although it fixed on her face as a pinched line. “Our daughter seems to be enjoying herself.”

“Please convey my best regards when you next write to her,” Benedict said.

“Yes. Philadelphia is not the same without Rebecca. Everyone says so, don’t they, Albert?” added Margaret Benedict.

Before he could answer, Miss Benedict interrupted. “As much as I know how much you’d all like to chat with Dr. Carroll,” she said, her unease now a bit more apparent, “I’m going to tear him away.”

She led me, seemingly with relief, across the room to a table at which a retainer was pouring champagne. It was a thrill to be alone with Miss Benedict. She seemed content to be in my company and I had never met a woman as beautiful or sophisticated—or so desirable.

We each took a glass and, before we drank, she held hers up and said, “To new acquaintances.” At the first sip, I recognized that what had just crossed my palate was related to what I had imbibed with Turk two nights earlier in name only.

As we stood off to the side, observing the scene, Miss Benedict informed me that Elias Schoonmaker was a Quaker from Malvern, one of the newly fashionable towns on the Main Line. Schoonmaker had amassed a sizable fortune in supplying lumber to fuel the building boom. He was considering an additional endowment to the university because he was envious of the other Quaker in Baltimore, even though the other Quaker had been dead for almost two decades.

“And Jonas Lachtmann?”

“Jonas is an extremely unappealing man. He is a speculator … quite pedestrian. He will make money in anything … land, grain, railroads … he has no interest in producing something tangible, only in making money from those who do. If there is a new hospital facility, Jonas is sure to find a way to profit by it.” Before I could ask, she added, “He disapproves of
his daughter’s friendship with me. He thinks Rebecca is being inappropriately influenced.”

“I am sure he is misguided in that sentiment.”

She laughed. It was deep, throaty, and enticing. “My brother and I do like each other, you know,” she said, in a quick pivot. “He can be horribly bossy though. Albert thinks he’s Father.”

“And it is your role to prevent his delusions from progressing.”

She placed her hand on my shoulder, a remarkably forward gesture, but one that sent a charge through me. “Why, thank you, Doctor. Your description is perfectly apt.”

At that moment, Hiram Benedict and Mrs. Benedict entered with the Professor and another woman, obviously the aforementioned descendant of Paul Revere. Although I learned that she had been considered a “Boston beauty” in her youth, Grace Revere Gross was, in fact, a plain woman, thickset with a broad, square face. Her deep maroon gown was of a hue dark enough to suggest mourning, but not so much so as to render her unapproachable. She had taken the Professor’s arm, and seemed enthralled with him in a manner quite transparent in one so recently widowed. At the sight of her father, Miss Benedict removed her hand to her side.

“I’m sure your doctor will like her,” she whispered, gesturing toward Mrs. Gross. “She’s extremely rich.” Before I could protest, she asked abruptly, “Do you dine at Barker’s often?”

That this beautiful heiress had frequented the same establishment as I had with George Turk defied belief. “No, it was my first time,” I replied, unwilling to expose my lack of sophistication by elaborating further.

Miss Benedict tilted her head for a moment and stood perusing me as if I were a curious tissue sample. Finally, she asked “Are you an art lover, Dr. Carroll?”

“I think I can appreciate a fine painting, but I am scarcely a connoisseur.”

“Let me show you something then,” she offered, leading
me once more across the vast drawing room out into a hall. I stopped when I noticed a photograph on the wall of three soldiers, one of whom was instantly familiar.

“That is General Grant,” I said, and then noticed the tall thin officer next to him in the picture. “Your father?”

“Yes.” Miss Benedict nodded. “Father was a colonel. That picture was taken in Virginia just before General Lee’s surrender.”

“Your father was present at the surrender?” I felt as if someone were squeezing me about the chest. The privileged in peace seemed to be privileged in war as well.

“Father had distinguished himself at Petersburg, so he was promoted to General Grant’s staff and served in the honor guard at Appomattox,” Miss Benedict replied with obvious pride. Then she grinned, gesturing to the trim officer in the photograph. “As you can see, he did not always appear as he does today.”

“My father served with General Grant as well,” I blurted before I could stop myself, “although earlier in the war.”

Miss Benedict insisted on hearing particulars, so I was compelled to recount the tale of my father’s service—although I did so in far less detail than with Turk—his return home, and my birth on July 2, 1863, the first day of the bloody struggle at Gettysburg. When she pressed for more, I explained how the Reverend Audette had noticed my promise in school and had sponsored me, even providing the funds for me to journey to Chicago to study at Rush Medical College.

“Your life could have sprung from Horatio Alger,” Miss Benedict remarked, and once again I was uncertain if I was being praised or mocked.

We continued on to a sitting room that opened onto the hall, and Miss Benedict directed my attention to two paintings hanging next to one another on the near wall. The first was a richly detailed depiction of two men in a racing scull, resting over their oars after obvious exertion, drifting down
a river that ran through a public park. Looking closely, I could detect the exhaustion in their faces, and it gave them a nobility that was emotive. A broad oak tree grew on the far bank, its rippled reflection perfectly reproduced on the water’s surface. Small, flat clouds peppered the sky and, from the golden hues, it must have been late in the day, early autumn perhaps.

The second painting was a portrait of a young woman with fair hair, head and shoulders only, set against a darkened background. Whereas the first work was remarkable for its realism, this canvas used broader swatches of color and was therefore more suggestive. The subject of the portrait was obviously quite beautiful, although the artist seemed to be attempting to capture a resolute mood, a combativeness that I found both jarring and arresting. There was something else, however, something …

“Does the painting shock you, Doctor?” Miss Benedict asked, breaking into my thoughts.

“Who sat for this portrait?” I asked.

“It’s Rebecca Lachtmann,” she replied. “Jonas’ daughter.” The disquiet she had exhibited in speaking with her brother and Jonas Lachtmann had returned.

“Rebecca Lachtmann?” I repeated. “Your friend who’s on holiday in Italy? Are you sure?” I cursed that the cadavers in the Dead House had been removed before I could get a close look at the young girl.

“Am I sure she’s my friend or am I sure she’s in Italy?”

“Italy,” I said.

“Yes,” she replied evenly. “I am quite sure. Do you know her?”

“No,” I said, drawing back from the portrait, relieved. “I thought for a moment I might, but I couldn’t.”

“All right then, Dr. Carroll,” said Miss Benedict, “if you are sufficiently recovered, which of these paintings do you prefer?”

“Well, they’re quite different,” I began, looking at each more carefully, “both excellent in their own way … but I believe I would choose the first.”

“Bravo, Dr. Carroll. You have chosen the work of one of America’s foremost artists. That was painted by Thomas Eakins.”

I knew of Eakins, not for scenes of rowers, but for his infamous medical painting, “The Portrait of Professor Gross,” which depicted an actual bone resection performed by Samuel Gross, late father-in-law of the Professor’s dinner companion this evening. It was a huge canvas, over six feet wide and eight feet high, and had been completed thirteen years earlier to be exhibited at the national centennial. At the time, the painting had so scandalized Philadelphia for its excessively realistic portrayal of gore and suffering that the overseers of the exposition had refused to display it. The patient in the image was etherized, with a long retracted incision in his left leg, Gross, his hand wet with blood, standing over him holding a scalpel. The patient’s mother could be seen cringing pathetically in the shadows. Scandal or no, for its realism and unflinching portrayal of a surgeon at work, “The Portrait of Professor Gross” was now the most well-known painting of its kind in the nation. The artist himself had attended the surgery and had included himself in the composition. Mrs. Gross’ late husband was visible in the gallery as well.