The numbers had no room for kindness and humanity.
“There will be donations. There always are, in these cases.”
“Donations cannot be controlled,” she protested. “Cannot be relied upon.” She would see the disparity every day in the ledger. It would be her job to collect when she could.
“I’m sorry, Miss Shoringfield—Jane. I don’t claim to have an answer.”
She grimaced, ducked her head. “And neither do I. But I have a mind for sums. If I were your wife, I feel that it might lead to tension. Anger. Misunderstandings. I apologize, this isn’t something I anticipated when I made my proposal. Work has always been straightforward, and yet this is … not.”
It would not be appropriate for me to marry you. The words were so close, so ready to come out. This was foolishness. They were at odds with one another after only a day. Fondness was too much to hope for, but she needed them to agree with each other. Anything else was less than optimal.
“I will understand if you’ve reconsidered my suit,” she said, too embarrassed and stubborn by half to break the arrangement herself.
“I have not.”
Her heart sped.
“To be clear,” he added, “I am still not sure I wish to marry at all. But if we were to proceed, is it not natural to expect that we would learn over time how to sort all of this?”
Her mouth was dry. Her head ached. She wanted too many things all at once, and couldn’t see any of them clearly. “And what of your other misgivings?” she pressed instead. “The issue of—consummation?”
His gaze dropped, and he blushed. “I am sure that if we decided the marriage must be consummated, we could find a way for it to be consummated on mutually beneficial terms. There is room for me to see you as more than my employee, while still respecting your desire for distance. Don’t you think?”
His patient logic stunned her once more into silence. She searched his face, looking for some explanation. What had changed, over the course of one blood-soaked surgery? How had they transformed from him arguing against the idea, and her for it, to her trying to poke holes in both of their defenses?
Perhaps they agreed on some deeper level than she had been focused on.
“You would still consider me, knowing I will never stop talking of bills and expenses?” she ventured. “That I may not always see our patients as people?”
“Knowing that you are, in fact, human, and not some fevered fantasy of a lonely mind?” he responded.
Human. He heard her monstrousness and thought instead that she was human. He had come up against the limits of her plan, a plan that had felt so thoroughly considered until she’d actually met him, and devised ways that they could still proceed.
“You have clearly given this some thought since yesterday. Beyond my initial arguments.”
“More today—particularly since about halfway through my discussion of post-surgical care with Mrs. Renton,” he confessed, still not looking at her. “It occurred to me that your starting premise had merit. Marriage is always a business arrangement, of a kind, and not only do you have the skills to recommend yourself to me, you are … quite nice to be around.”
“Quite nice to be around,” she echoed. She wasn’t sure that she had ever been described in quite those terms.
“That is to say,” he continued, “if I didn’t enjoy speaking with you, your skills would have made it hard not to hire you, but marriage would have been out of the question. But as I do, even if the marriage would never be more than a strange employment arrangement between us, with a single legal obligation met, I don’t necessarily object to it being called a marriage.”
“I see,” she said. And she did; she saw more murkiness, more blurring of the original boundaries. She could still demur, could still apologize and terminate the courtship. She could still walk away, try again with someone else, hope for something less awkward and convoluted.
But Dr. Lawrence understood her. Perhaps it had been the blood, or the fear, or simply the work, but he saw her now in a way she would not have chosen to be seen, and he did not turn away. He didn’t think her a child in need of protection, the way the Cunninghams still did, and he did not think her a monster because her brain focused on logistics instead of emotion.
She hadn’t realized such an outcome was possible. And if the original lines were blurred, what did it matter if the truth of the arrangement continued? Them, married, with polite kindness between them. Him, understanding her, respecting her.
“I’m glad you’re still considering it,” she said. “I … it did feel good, to help Mr. Renton.”
“Yes,” he said. “It did. How do you feel now?”
She took inventory of herself. There was still blood on her skirts. Her hands still ached from gripping the retractors. Before all this, there had been a man, and he was alive now. She had done that, in part. “Proud, I suppose,” she ventured. “And before, almost ecstatic. But it’s layered with my fear of failing a patient, with my worries about the accounts.”
“Open up to the positive emotions. Focus on them,” he said. “This is the best part. It’s like having a sun inside you. Let it light you up.”
“What did you call it? Feeling alive?”
He stood. “Alive, yes. It thrives off itself. You’re alive, and they’re alive, and so you feel them being alive as if it were yourself, and it doubles. It’s intoxicating.”
Jane stood up as well. The chair and footrest were close enough that standing put her just a few inches from him. The effect was disorienting.
“Intoxicating?” she asked.
“It can make you do very silly things,” he said, his gaze dropping for a moment to her lips. Her heart fluttered in her chest, despite herself.
Then he shook himself and stepped back, one hand rubbing the nape of his neck. “That is, try to enjoy the feeling, but be careful on your walk home. I don’t want you back in my surgery today.”
“Are you sending me away?”
“Yes,” he said. “Wouldn’t you agree it’s for the best? We both have much to think about, and I have my work to attend to. As do you, I’m sure.”
“I—Yes. I do,” she said. “When shall I return? Tomorrow?” He hesitated, and her heart sank. “That is, if you think working together would help you in your decision.”
“I do,” he said. “If you think it would help you, that is.”
“I do,” she said, perhaps too quickly.
He smiled, perhaps too widely.
“Then I will send for you as I can. Keep thinking on your fiscal dilemma.”
“I will.” It and all the rest.
CHAPTER FIVE
JANE WORKED ALL that evening in an attempt to set her mind to order, and late into the morning the next day. She wrote out final bills for Mr. Cunningham’s clients and prepared a clean account book to begin his judgeship with. Each itemized document brought with it the memory of Dr. Lawrence’s ledgers and his challenge to her. As much time as she spent with her head bowed to her work, though, she also found herself looking out the window, measuring the gait of every man who passed, searching for Dr. Lawrence’s dark hair and stained coat—just in case he happened to walk by.