Dr. Lawrence looked up at her, grim-faced. “His pulse has grown very weak. I have attempted purgatives and bleeding, but there has been no improvement. He may have a hemorrhage in his gut, either that we missed or that I caused.” He delivered the facts in a rush, controlled but too rapid for confidence. “I will need to open him up. Retractors, if I may impose upon you again, Miss Shoringfield?”
Jane found them laid out on a nearby counter. She was back at his side in seconds. He worked the stitches open, and a slow-moving gout of filth oozed forth, clotted into masses and stinking of death. It was impossible for Jane to make out any other details, but Dr. Lawrence swore, then demanded, “The bulb, the flushing bulb. Jane, take it, fill it with water, just water.”
Her hands refused to still as she grabbed up the equipment, as she turned on the tap, as she manipulated the fine glass-and-rubber instrument. Where was the confidence that he could create in her? Dying on the table, curdling in her heart. Slipping away, too fast.
She handed the equipment to Dr. Lawrence.
Black filth ran from Mr. Renton’s abdomen as Dr. Lawrence worked the bulb. She looked for any hint of red or healthy pink beneath the skin and found none. He plunged his hands into the wound and methodically slid his fingers along sick-slick organs, feeling where he could not see.
“If we can clean the rot, if I can find the perforation—”
Mr. Renton’s chest rose and fell, shallowly, slowly. The doctor pushed his hands deeper.
His chest moved slower still, shallower still.
Dr. Lawrence swore.
Mr. Renton’s chest moved not at all.
It was a small change, from shallow breaths to nothing, and yet without that last vital scrap, Mr. Renton was transfigured. Dr. Lawrence kept working a few desperate moments longer, and then he pulled his hands out entirely. They were black.
“He is gone,” the doctor said.
Jane looked between the corpse and Dr. Lawrence, simultaneously numb and on the verge of tears, and then retreated to the sink, turning on the spigot and washing her spotless hands as if they were coated in blood.
When she was finished, she turned around to find Dr. Lawrence unmoved.
“This is my fault,” he said.
Behind him, Dr. Nizamiev arched a brow but said nothing. She was watching Dr. Lawrence with predatory focus. For what, Jane couldn’t say. If Dr. Nizamiev had been a surgeon, Jane might have seen competition, or judgment, but no. No, it was something unidentifiable that nevertheless left Jane uneasy.
“I moved too quickly during the initial surgery,” Dr. Lawrence continued. “I flushed the wound at the start, but not at the end. The wound was befouled. I could have caught this.”
“Dr. Lawrence,” Jane murmured.
He did not respond, stalking past her to wash his own stinking hands. He scrubbed hard with lye soap.
“May I see the specimen?” Dr. Nizamiev asked.
“The patient is dead,” Dr. Lawrence snapped, turning the tap off sharply and rounding on her, his fingers clutching tight to the sink rim behind him. “There can be no certainty. You might reach Camhurst before midnight if you set out now; I apologize for calling you out unnecessarily.”
Dr. Nizamiev did not look frustrated, as a woman called away from the capital for nothing and sent back unceremoniously might. She also did not look sad for the corpse between her and Dr. Lawrence, or uncomfortable, or much of anything at all. “You sent for me for a reason, Augustine,” she said after the silence had stretched far too long.
“I said that it was a small chance,” Dr. Lawrence said, voice clipped. He shed his soiled apron and tossed it into the laundry hamper with startling ferocity.
Dr. Nizamiev glanced at Jane, though Jane had made no motion or sound. Uncomfortable, Jane, too, shed her apron.
“And your own research?” Dr. Nizamiev asked.
“Abandoned. You’ll forgive me, but I am not one for company today,” Dr. Lawrence gritted out.
“Next time,” the woman said, approaching Dr. Lawrence in an almost inhuman glide, “wait to ensure your patient will survive before you send for me, then. I do not appreciate being called out on a maybe, when you are not willing to stand beside your instinct. You know that I have never cared for playing games.”
Dr. Lawrence clenched his jaw, but nodded and gestured Dr. Nizamiev out of the room. He walked her to the door, Jane following them both.
Before he showed the specialist out, Jane thought she heard him mutter, “I called you here to set my fears at ease, not stoke them.”
“I am not here for your comfort,” Dr. Nizamiev returned. And then she was gone, sweeping out to her carriage.
Dr. Lawrence stared after her, his breathing harsh and shallow. Jane drew up beside him. She should have commented on Dr. Nizamiev’s strangeness, or perhaps asked questions about what her specialty was, exactly, but she could not find the words.
The triumph of yesterday was sour. Everything had gone wrong. She wanted to roll back time.
“I must call upon the undertakers,” he said softly. “And Mrs. Renton, too, I must send word to her.”
“Of course. I—Should I return home, then?”
He turned to her at last, and seemed about to take her hands, but clenched his at his sides instead. “Jane, I am sorry that you had to witness death here today. I am sorry, so sorry, that I could not save him.”
“It would have been magic, if you had.”
He flinched. “I should not keep you.”
No, of course not. She took a deep breath, turned to go.
And then he said, “But I am weak, and I would ask that you stay. You do not have to assist me today, or work, but I do not want to … I don’t think you should be left to deal with this loss alone.”
His voice bled with pain.
She didn’t want to leave his side, not now, for a hundred selfish and virtuous reasons all twined together. And more than that, she couldn’t imagine going home, returning to Mr. Cunningham’s office, holding the death of Mr. Renton inside of her.
“Of course I’ll stay,” she said, turning back to him. “I can even come with you to visit the undertakers.”
“No, the weather is beginning to turn once again. I will go to them when it passes.” Outside, the gathered clouds had taken on the fullness of impending rain, blotting out the sun. “I’ll clean up, prepare the surgery for other visitors. Mr. Lowell will be back within half an hour and can take over for a short while, and then we can sit together. Upstairs, to the right of the landing, is my personal study. There is whiskey there, and books. Please, make yourself comfortable. I will not be long.”
Jane nodded, though she watched uneasily as he passed through the operating theater doorway once more. Saving Mr. Renton had given her such pride, and his death now perverted it, made her feel hollow and dirty. She was happy to flee the sensation, climbing the stairs to Dr. Lawrence’s study.
The walls were crowded with shelves, and on all of them were books piled upon books. His desk here was a smaller thing, but more well-loved. Behind his desk, as he had promised, was a decanter and two glasses. Jane poured herself a draught despite the early hour.
She sipped at it, standing before a glass-fronted cabinet. Within were many strange things she did not recognize: several branches with thick blisters on their bark, a stone cracked open to reveal a lattice of brilliant crystal, a string of something white and creased like cauliflower. What first appeared like a strange red flower in full bloom resolved on closer inspection to be a wax model of a human head, the nose gone and the skin falling away from disease.