The Bone Garden: A Novel

Thirteen

EVEN A DISINTERESTED OBSERVER would be able to tell, with merely a glance, that the four young men who stepped into the Hurricane that night were not of equal standing. If a man could be judged by the quality of his topcoat, that alone would have set Norris apart from his three classmates; certainly it set him apart from the illustrious Dr. Chester Crouch, who had invited his four students to join him for an evening round of drinks. Crouch led the way across the crowded tavern to a table near the fireplace. There he shrugged off his heavy greatcoat with the fur collar and handed it to the girl who had scurried over the instant she'd spotted the group step through the door. The tavern maid was not the only female who'd taken note of their entrance. A trio of young ladies— shopgirls perhaps, or adventurous country visitors— were eyeing the young men, and one of them blushed at a glance from Edward, who merely shrugged at their attentions, so accustomed was he to looks from the ladies.

By the light of the roaring fire, Norris couldn't help admiring Edward's stylish neck stock tied ŕ la Sentimentale, and the green topcoat with the silver buttons and velvet collar. The filth of the dissection room had not stopped Norris's three fellow students from wearing their fine shirts and Marseilles waistcoats while they'd cut into old Paddy. He himself would never risk a disastrous stain on such expensive muslin. His own shirt was old and frayed and not worth the price of Kingston's cravat alone. He looked down at his hands, where dried blood was still caked beneath his fingernails. I shall go home with the stink of that old corpse clinging to my clothes, he thought.

Dr. Crouch called out: — A round of brandy and water for my excellent students here. And a plate of oysters! —

— Yes, Doctor, — the tavern girl said, and with a sly glance at Edward, she hurried past crowded tables to fetch the drinks. Though equally fashionable, Wendell was too short, and Charles too pale and timid, to attract the same admiring looks. And Norris was the one with the worn coat and rotting shoes. The one not worth a second glance.

The Hurricane was not a tavern that Norris frequented. Though he spotted here and there a shapeless coat or the faded uniform of a half-pay officer, he saw a crowd that was largely high-collared and well shod, and he spotted more than a few of his fellow medical students eagerly scooping up oysters with hands that only hours ago had wallowed in the blood of cadavers.

— The first dissection is merely an introduction, — said Crouch, raising his voice to be heard in that noisy room. — You cannot begin to understand the machine in all its brilliance until you've seen the variability between young and old, male and female. — He leaned toward his four students and spoke more quietly. — Dr. Sewall was hoping to secure a fresh shipment next week. He's offered as much as thirty dollars apiece, but there's a problem with supply. —

— Surely people are still dying, — said Edward.

— Yet we're faced with scarcity. In past years, we could rely on suppliers in New York and Pennsylvania. But everywhere now, we face competition. The College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York has enrolled two hundred students this year. The University of Pennsylvania four hundred. It's a race to acquire the same merchandise that every other school is scrambling for, and it gets worse every year. —

— There's no such problem in France, — said Wendell.

Crouch gave a sigh of envy. — In France, they understand what is vital to the common good. The medical school in Paris has full access to the charity hospitals. Their students have all the bodies they could possibly use for study. Now, there's the place to learn medicine. —

The serving girl returned with their drinks and a platter of steaming oysters, which she laid on the table. — Dr. Crouch, — she said. — There's a gentleman wishes to speak to you. Says it's his wife's time, and she's in distress. —

Crouch glanced around the tavern. — Which gentleman? —

— He waits outside, with a carriage. —

Sighing, Crouch stood up. — It appears I shall have to leave you. —

— Shall we accompany you? — asked Wendell.

— No, no. Don't let the oysters go to waste. I'll see you all in the morning, on the ward. —

As Dr. Crouch walked out the door, his four students wasted no time attacking the platter.

— He's right, you know, — said Wendell, plucking up a succulent oyster. — Paris is the place to study, and he's not the only one to say it. We're at a disadvantage. Dr. Jackson has encouraged James to complete his studies there, and Johnny Warren will soon be headed to Paris as well. —

Edward gave a dismissive snort. — If our education is so inferior, why are you still here? —

— My father thinks studying in Paris is an unnecessary extravagance. —

Merely an extravagance for him, thought Norris. For me, an impossibility.

— Have you no wish to go? — said Wendell. — To learn at the feet of Louis and Chomel? To study fresh cadavers, not these half-pickled specimens practically rotting off the bone? The French understand the value of science. — He tossed the empty oyster shell onto the platter. — That is the place to learn medicine. —

— When I go to Paris, — Edward said with a laugh, — it won't be to study. Unless the subject is female anatomy. And one can study that anywhere. —

— Although not as thoroughly as in Paris, — said Wendell, grinning as he wiped hot juices from his chin. — If tales of the enthusiasm of French women are to be believed. —

— With a large enough purse, one can buy enthusiasm anywhere. —

— Which gives even short men like me hope. — Wendell raised his cup. — Ah, I feel a poem coming on. An ode to French ladies. —

— Please, no, — groaned Edward. — No verse tonight! —

Norris was the only one who did not laugh at that. This talk of Paris, of women who could be bought, reopened the deepest wound of his childhood. My mother chose Paris over me. And who was the man who'd lured her there? Though his father refused to speak of it, Norris had been forced to come to that inevitable conclusion. Surely a man was involved. Sophia had been barely thirty, a bright and lively beauty trapped on a farm in quiet Belmont. On which of her trips to Boston had she met him? What promises had he offered, what rewards to compensate for the abandonment of her son?

— You're awfully quiet tonight, — said Wendell. — Is it about that meeting with Dr. Grenville? —

— No, I told you it was nothing. Just about Rose Connolly. —

— Oh. That Irish girl, — said Edward, and he grimaced. — I have a feeling Mr. Pratt has more evidence against her than we're hearing. And it's not just about some fancy bauble she's stolen. Girls who steal are capable of worse. —

— I don't know how you can say that about her, — said Norris. — You don't even know her. —

— We were all on the ward that day. She revealed a complete lack of respect for Dr. Crouch. —

— It doesn't make her a thief. —

— It makes her an ungrateful little brat. Which is just as bad. — Edward tossed an empty shell onto the platter. — Mark my words, gentlemen. We'll be hearing more about Miss Rose Connolly. —

Norris drank too much that night. He could feel the effects as he walked unsteadily home along the river, his belly filled with oysters, his face flushed from the brandy. It had been a glorious meal, the finest he'd enjoyed since arriving in Boston. So many oysters, more than he ever thought he could consume! But the glow from the alcohol could not ward off the bone-chilling wind that blew in from the Charles River. He thought of his three classmates, bound for their own far superior lodgings, and pictured the cheery fires and the snug rooms that awaited them.

An uneven cobblestone caught his shoe and he stumbled forward, barely catching himself before he fell. Dazed by drink, he stood swaying in the wind, and gazed across the river. To the north, at the far end of Prison Point Bridge, was the faint glow of the state prison. To the west, across the water, he saw the lights of the jail on Lechmere Point. Now, this was an uplifting view, to see prisons in every direction, a reminder of how far one could fall. From a gentleman to a mere tradesman, he thought, is just a matter of a wrong turn at business, a poor hand at cards. Forfeit the fine house and carriage, and suddenly one is merely a barber or a wheelwright. Take another tumble, incur another bad debt, and one wears a pauper's rags and sells matches on the street or sweeps dust for a penny. Yet another tumble and there one will be, shivering in a cell on Lechmere Point or staring through prison bars in Charlestown.

From there, one can tumble only one step lower, and that is into the grave.

Oh, yes, this was a grim view, but it was also what fed his ambition. He was driven not by the lure of endless platters of oysters or a taste for fine calfskin shoes or velvet collars. No, it was this view in the other direction, over the precipice, to where one might fall.

I must study, he thought. There's still time tonight, and I'm not so drunk that I can't read just one more chapter in Wistar's, cram a few more facts into my head.

But when he climbed the narrow stairs to his freezing attic room, he was too exhausted to even open the cover of the textbook, which sat on the desk by the window. To save on candlelight, he stumbled around in the dark. Better not to waste the light and wake up early, when his brain was fresh. When he could read by daylight. He undressed in the faint glow of the window, staring out across the hospital common as he untied his cravat, unbuttoned his waistcoat. In the distance, beyond the black swath of the common, lights flickered in hospital windows. He imagined the shadowy wards, echoing with coughs, and the long rows of beds where patients now slept. So many years of study lay before him, yet he had never doubted that he was meant to be here. That this moment, in this cold attic, was part of the journey he'd begun years ago as a boy, when he'd first watched his father slice open a slaughtered pig. When he'd beheld its heart still quivering in the chest. He had pressed his hand to his own chest, and felt his own beating heart, and had thought: We are alike. Pig and cow and man, the machine is the same. If I can only understand what drives the furnace, what keeps the wheels turning, I will know how to keep that machine working. I will know how to cheat Death.

He slipped off his suspenders, stepped out of his trousers, and draped them over the chair. Shivering, he climbed under the blanket. With a full stomach, and his head still swimming from brandy, he fell asleep almost instantly.

And almost instantly was awakened by a knocking on the door.

— Mr. Marshall? Mr. Marshall, are you there? —

Norris rolled out of bed and stumbled in a daze across the attic. Opening the door, he saw the elderly hospital groundsman, his face lit eerily by a flickering lantern.

— They need you, up at the hospital, — said the old man.

— What's happened? —

— A carriage has turned over near the Canal Bridge. We've got injured comin' in, and we can't find Nurse Robinson. They've sent for other doctors, but with you being so close, I thought I should fetch you, too. Better a medical student than nothing. —

— Yes, of course, — said Norris, ignoring the unintended slight. — I'll be right there. —

He dressed in the dark, fumbling for trousers and boots and waistcoat. He did not bother with a topcoat. If the scene were bloody, he would have to shed it anyway to keep it clean. He pulled on an overcoat against the chill and made his way down the dark steps, into the night. The wind blew from the west, thick with the stink of the river. He cut directly across the common, and his trouser legs were soon soaked from the wet grass. Already, his heart was pounding in anticipation. An overturned carriage, he thought. Multiple injuries. Would he know what to do? He didn't quail from the sight of blood; he'd seen his share of it in the slaughtering shed on the farm. What he feared was his own ignorance. He was so focused on the crisis ahead that at first he did not understand what he was hearing. But a few paces later he heard it again, and stopped.

It was a woman's moan, and it came from the riverbank.

A sound of distress, or merely a whore servicing a client? On other nights he had spied such couplings along the river, in the shadow of the bridge, had heard the whimpers and grunts of furtive ruttings. This was no time to spy on whores; the hospital waited for him.

Then the sound came again, and he stopped. That was no carnal moan.

He ran to the riverwalk and called out: — Hello? Who's there? — Staring down at the river's edge, he saw something dark lying close to where the water lapped. A body?

He scrambled over the rocks, and his shoes sank into black mud. It sucked at his soles, the cold seeping into cracked and rotting leather. As he slogged toward the water, his heart suddenly pounded faster, his breaths accelerating. It was a body. In the darkness, he could just make out the shape of a woman. She was lying on her back, her skirts submerged to the waist in the water. Hands numb with cold and panic, he grabbed her beneath the arms and dragged her up the bank until she was well free of the river. By then he was gasping from exertion, his own trousers soaked and dripping. He crouched down beside her and felt her chest for a heartbeat, a breath, any sign of life.

Warm liquid bathed his hand. Its unexpected heat was so startling that at first he did not register what his own skin was telling him. Then he stared down and saw the oily gleam of blood on his palm.

Behind him, a pebble clattered on rocks. He turned, and a chill lifted every hair on the back of his neck.

The creature stood on the bank above him. Its black cape fluttered like giant wings in the wind. Beneath the hood, a death's-head stared, white as bone. Hollow eyes looked straight at him, as if marking him as the next soul to be harvested, the next to feel the slash of its scythe.

So frozen in fear was Norris that he could not have fled, even if the creature had swooped at him, even if the blade had, in that instant, come hissing through the air. He could only watch, just as the monster watched him.

Then, suddenly, it was gone. And Norris saw only a view of the night sky and the moon, winking through a filigree of clouds.

On the riverwalk, lamplight appeared. — Hallo? — the hospital groundsman shouted. — Who's down there? —

His throat shut down by panic, Norris could produce only a choked: — Here. — Then, louder: — Help. I need help! —

The groundsman came down the muddy bank, lantern swaying. Holding up the light, he stared down at the dead body. At the face of Mary Robinson. Then his gaze lifted to Norris, and the look on the old man's face was unmistakable.

It was fear.