The Eulogist Read online

  “Well then, sir, I would be much beholden for any expediting you could yield.”

  Mr. Peckham rose, walked around his desk, and slapped James on the back. “That is the spirit. You get my drift. You will get the loan; I will secure the contracts; and you will propose to Hatsepha next Sunday.”

  * * *

  “You have sold your soul,” I said to James when he told me.

  “What would you have me do, Livvie? I’m sleeping on a sofa in the parlor, the baby wails all night, and I have no possibility of capital other than what Peckham might avail.”

  “Hatsepha Peckham, James? Really?” I shook my head. “She probably gets into bed at night wearing flounces and a bonnet.”

  But I could see there would be no argument. James was right. We were a family of limited prospects. Without the workshop, we were penniless. Erasmus was broke, and tutoring barely gave me purse money. If James did not marry Hatsepha, I feared I might have to walk the streets.

  * * *

  On the fourth Saturday of October, we sat in the front pew of the First Presbyterian Church. Hatsepha looked like a doily in her wicker-puffed sleeves, her hair all loops and curls. Julia, holding the baby whom they had christened William, sat next to me. Usually silent as a monk, the child let out a sudden squall that interrupted the vows, muffling those spoken by James, who was already known for paying lip service to the Lord.

  In the end, it was worth it, for Peckham came through. By the time the calendar turned the page on the decade, Givens and Sons was being rebuilt, and at a better location that would afford wider distribution for James Givens’s cunning little wicks. That these candles eventually would be forgotten as the genesis of his empire I find a little sad, for it was said that everyone looked more beautiful by the light of a Givens candle, and I rue their passing to this day.

  Chapter 12

  1830

  One early morning the following spring, I was walking home from the market when a cab rushed by. Laden with baskets, I nearly collided with the carriage as it sped around the corner. Carrots and apples flew into the air.

  “Feckin’ Betty,” yelled the driver at me as the horse trotted on.

  “‘Feckin’ Betty’ indeed, you feckin’ Catholic,” I muttered as I picked up the fruit and vegetables. The Papists were arriving in droves to work on the canal and, in my opinion, bringing nothing but trouble.

  From inside the cab, an arm emerged holding a cane that soundly rapped the driver, who reined the horse to a stop. The door of the cab flew open, and out stepped Dr. Silas Orpheus. “Are you hurt?”

  “No thanks to your yahoo driver, sir.”

  “Why, it is Miss Olivia Givens, denouncer of the faith.”

  “Ha!” said I, retrieving a turnip. “Are you my religious conscience, Dr. Orpheus?”

  “God save us if I am,” he said, dismissing the driver with a wave of his hand. “May I walk with you?”

  I straightened my bonnet, recalling the morning after William’s birth when I had emerged in disarray from the privy. “You mock me, sir.”

  He picked up one of my truant apples and bit into it. “Miss Givens, I may think many things about you, but I would never mock you.”

  We walked together up the sidewalk past prim brick houses.

  “It has been almost a year by my count, Miss Givens. How goes your sister-in-law? Is she well after the birth?”

  “She would be better for the presence of her husband.”

  “I heard he was offered an appointment in the Methodist church. Forgive me, but your brother does not strike me as someone particularly well suited to the bureaucracy of the cloth.”

  “Indeed, he refused it. Why settle down when you can gallivant up and down the river?” I glanced at the doctor. His hair was the color of straw, but neatly cut—a bit of gray showing about the ears. “You seem to know much about my family, sir, while I know nothing about yours.”

  He waved this off. “I hear you tutor children. Tell me, do you teach them to be heathens?” Silas Orpheus went on. “The first time I noticed you was at the Owen–Campbell debates. You were the woman who stood.”

  My cheeks burned. I knew as well as anyone that no decent woman could pass muster socially without proclaiming herself a devout Christian. But there it was.

  “If you asked my brother James for his account of that evening, he will tell you I must have seen a mouse and leapt to my feet.”

  “Did you see a mouse?”

  “Everyone prefers a rodent to the alternative. How dreadful that I should think for myself and rise in support of Mr. Owen.”

  “But you did rise, Miss Givens. You did. Brava! I, for one, am in complete agreement.”

  “And yet you did not stand.”

  “I beg your pardon, there were no seats available. I stood for the entire night.”

  “Then you did not applaud.”

  “How would you have noticed?” said Silas Orpheus. “Your attention was on the mouse.”

  We had arrived back at the boardinghouse, where I continued to reside with Erasmus and Julia, who by then had a room of their own. James, now married, had absented himself. I did not miss the tension between him and Erasmus. As soon as James wed Hatsepha, Mr. Peckham insisted that his daughter and son-in-law move to the up-and-coming Key’s Hill neighborhood, where the air was noticeably fresher. He proceeded to build them a house in the Empire style of such proportion that I, as befitting a spinster sister, could have moved in and scarcely been seen, but I demurred, preferring to stay in town rather than suffer Hatsepha at breakfast.

  Before bidding me good-bye, Silas Orpheus hesitated. “Miss Givens, forgive my medical prurience—how is it that you became so bold?”

  “You speak as though it is a pathology.”

  “It certainly is unusual in a woman.” He crossed his arms and raised his eyebrow—either in amusement or appraisal. “I should like to feel your glands.”

  He must have taken my stunned silence as acquiescence, for he touched my neck. I recalled the day when Hatsepha’s phrenologist had palpated my skull to determine my character and now wondered if Silas Orpheus could feel my pulse that was, at the moment, elevated. “And who prods you, Dr. Orpheus? If I may be ‘so bold’ . . .”

  He laughed. “No lady you would recognize as such.”

  “Then perhaps you should confine your inspections to another sort,” I said, pulling back.

  “My interests range to every sort.”

  “Really? And in the evening? How do you amuse yourself?”

  I was not sure I wanted to hear, for I had my suspicions. The brothels in Bucktown outnumbered acorns in autumn, and not only barkers and boatmen frequented them.

  “In the evenings, Miss Givens, I steal corpses.”

  * * *

  “Try again, Henry,” I said. “You must carry the remainder like so.”

  The boy was less doltish than the others. The education of children was a noble endeavor, but it chafed at me. While I labored with my charges over simple tasks, James was poring over his ledgers, adding up the columns that attested to his wealth. Erasmus was often riding for days along the river, perhaps to seek out converts, while Dr. Orpheus, in flagrant defiance of the law, engaged in the most interesting pursuit of medical science. Such was the world of men.

  “Very good, Henry,” I said. “You are a good boy. But the day is done. Run along.”

  With a shout of glee, he rushed to the door. I wished I could run along with him. He flung the door open just as Julia arrived, holding her whimpering bundle.

  “Oh, Olivia, would you mind?” She pushed William upon me so she could remove her bonnet. Her glorious hair was stuffed into a cap. Ever since the birth of the child, she was resigned to mortifying herself into homeliness. If I had half her looks, I would have paraded them—but dourness had settled upon her with marriage.

  Erasmus, when present, seemed little affected by Julia’s appearance. His awareness of his wife and child was as an afterthought. Certainly, he seem
ed fond, but his fervor was otherwise directed, though I knew not where. I saw the tracts he read. If we had been shocked by his impulse toward Methodism, the feeling paled in comparison to our concerns about his budding interest in abolition.

  Don’t let James see you reading that drivel, I had said more than once. He’ll have a fit.

  He minds his business. I’ll mind mine.

  “I ran into Dr. Orpheus today,” Julia said, adjusting her skirts upon the settee and reaching for the child. “He asked about you.” She looked at me slyly.

  “Did he, now? And did he tell you he almost ran me down in the street?”

  “Ah,” she said. “Perhaps that’s why he wants to call.”

  When she said no more, I said, “Julia!”

  She laughed. “I believe he is calling this evening.”

  * * *

  In spite of my desire to affect nonchalance, I had on one of my two good dresses and my cameo pin when the doctor called after supper. He seemed as ill at ease as I. I had the impression he had little experience with light talk (which came at some relief to me since I was so poor at it as to be considered dumb). Stiffly, we cast about for common ground, with him finally asking about our passage some eleven years earlier, and me recounting the high point of my hanging from the halyard, my skirts flying up while the sailors looked on—a story that delighted the doctor, who then shared an escapade involving a burning barn. So convivial grew our conversation that it seemed quite natural for me to ask about the dissections. This resulted in his coughing into his hands and looking about before leaning forward and saying in a low voice, “I don’t suppose you’d like to accompany me.”

  * * *

  Two weeks later, I alit from a carriage, allowing Silas Orpheus to take my hand. He was a slender man with attenuated fingers that he constantly ran through his hair. We huddled like fugitives—which of a sort we were. Ostensibly, we were going to the opera.

  “Not terribly romantic, I fear,” said Silas, holding a lantern as we entered a stark white room in the basement of the new medical college. He offered to take my cloak, but I pulled it tight.

  “Why is it so cold?” said I. My heart beat with expectation. Not since Fanny Wright had given her astounding speech had I felt so invigorated.

  “Well . . .” Silas cleared his throat. “Were it not for the cold . . .” He indicated the table at the center of the room, the mounded sheet draping it.

  Had we been discovered dissecting an unauthorized cadaver, Silas Orpheus’s career would lie in ruins. Religious belief had it that mutilated corpses could not participate in the Resurrection, but given the condition of most bodies after a day or two, I doubted many were fit for heaven.

  “I thought your girl would be here,” I said. “The midwife?”

  “Tilly? Unfortunately, no. But if it doesn’t make you squeamish, perhaps you’ll be willing to step in?”

  A little too quickly, I said, “Of course.”

  By the light of the lamp, Silas drew back the sheet to reveal the ashen body of a man, bearded with soot-colored hair and skin like wax. He watched my reaction closely. “You are a radical, Miss Givens. Most ladies would swoon.”

  I was prepared to feel dizzy like the time that the prognosticator at Trollope’s Emporium studied my hand and told me I was destined to influence the lives of young people but have no children of my own. My nerves, however, remained calm—steadied, no doubt, by my fascination. “How did he die?”

  Silas hung up the lamp to free his hands. “You remember the brick wall that collapsed day before yesterday?” He adjusted the man’s head to the side. It was squashed like a pumpkin.

  Everyone had heard about the accident—how a group of immigrants had perished when the mortar failed in the construction of a new hotel. Buildings were flying up and toppling down in almost equal proportion. Now this poor man was, for the second time, a victim. Nameless, unclaimed, he had been snatched before burial by a couple of opportunists who had sold him to the porter of the medical college. This was good news for Silas Orpheus, who normally had to wait for a condemned murderer to be executed before being legally donated to science. The fact that most bodies were those of criminals assuaged some religious misgivings, but deceased convicts were in short supply. To avoid drawing attention to themselves, the “resurrectionists” hired by Silas Orpheus confined their searches to paupers’ graves.

  “May I touch him?” I said.

  Silas nodded. I placed my fingers upon the face. Regardless of how this man had died, no anguish was apparent. He seemed peaceful—complacent, even. I might as well have been touching clay.

  “These human remains are a gift to us,” said Silas. “Clandestine gifts, but gifts nonetheless. As such, their lives shall have meaning.”

  “You imply no one would weep at their graveside.” I considered telling him that my mother had been buried in such a grave, and that we had all wept profusely, but he was already opening his kit.

  “I have a theory about disease in relation to the circulatory system,” said Silas. He laid out an array of instruments: a scooper, a saw, three blades of alarming sharpness. “One thinks our veins might carry contaminates just as the river bears detritus.” Pointing out the darkness of the lower extremities, the pallor of the face, he explained the postmortem pooling of blood. “It separates,” he said. “Like oil and vinegar.” Selecting a straight razor, he set to work with some urgency, all the while assuring me it was not much different from carving a turkey. “Did you know the word ‘ghoul’ is from the Egyptian myth about a cannibalistic grave robber?”

  I stood very still, my breathing shallow. The kerosene light flickered. A drop of perspiration fell from Silas’s brow.

  No blood oozed from the incisions. With a metal instrument like giant forceps, Silas pried apart the ribs. “Look, look, look!” he said.

  The heart was smaller than I would have imagined, dwarfed by the liver and the stomach. There was an excessive amount of intestine.

  “You will need your handkerchief,” he said.

  I held the lavender-perfumed linen to my nose as he had instructed and tried not to look away as he cut into the bowels and bladder. Even through my handkerchief, I nearly retched with the smell. And yet I felt exhilarated.

  Hours later, we stepped out of the building into the cold advance of dawn. A glum summer fog occluded the light. After the medicinal odor of death, the arousal of a new day held the promise of the living in the seasoned scent of river. Already, the city was bustling. While the night soilers were taking away chamber pots and emptying latrines, the grave robbers would be reinterring the remains of our autopsy, doubling up the purloined body in the respectable coffin of another.

  I gasped for air as if each breath were my last, overcome by the surge of my own blood, my lungs expanding, my beating heart. Two years earlier, I had failed to sympathize with the outpourings at the revival, but here I was, witnessing my own conversion. How fantastic that life perseveres in the face of corruption. Someday it would cease. All passion, all curiosity, all experience . . . gone. But for now, I was ecstatic.

  “I would give anything,” said I, trying to catch my breath, “to participate in this again.”

  “Miss Givens,” said Silas Orpheus, adjusting my cloak. “For the sake of propriety, I shall bid adieu before we reach your home.”

  * * *

  Three mornings later, the docter once again called just as my pupils were arriving. I hastened him into the dining room and told him to speak quietly.

  “Were you serious,” Silas Orpheus said, “about your offer to assist?”

  “More of a plea than an offer,” I whispered. “But why don’t you have your girl?” He looked perplexed. “The midwife . . .”

  “Ah. Tilly. Alas, she was with child. I had to send her back.”

  Seeing my face, he explained that Tilly had been on loan from his brother in Kentucky.

  “Indentured?” I asked, for indeed many of the English who migrated to America arrived beho
lden to their creditors and obliged to work it off.

  “She is my brother’s property,” said Silas. “As are her offspring.” When I said nothing, he said, “Ah yes. The radical Miss Givens. No doubt you hold with the sanctimony of the North.”

  Summoning the words of Fanny Wright, I raised my chin. “It does seem obscene to own another soul.”

  “Why ‘obscene’ if they’re fed and cared for? Oh, but I can read it in your face. ‘Slavery is inhumane’ and so forth. Never mind that I have spent my life with these people. Would you not concede that I’m more familiar with their humanity than you are?” Before I could answer, he changed the subject. “So tell me, Miss Givens, are you interested in my offer?”

  I dropped my eyes. “As you say, the girl’s fate should be no concern of mine.” In truth I had given slavery little thought. Choose your wars, James would say. Opting for the moment to dismiss Tilly and her predicament, I immediately said yes.

  * * *

  After that, Silas Orpheus called on Saturday evenings, purportedly for opera or theater. On the night of our fourth dissection, I donned my evening clothes in advance of a performance of Hamlet. As we broke off toward the medical school, Silas informed me the corpse we were dissecting was a woman. A female body was almost as taboo as that of a child. The only woman heretofore deemed so beyond redemption that she had qualified for legal dissection was an Englishwoman who had murdered her own children.

  “But surely women suffer from maladies uniquely theirs,” I said upon hearing how little study had been given to the female anatomy. “The benefits to science and therefore mankind must outweigh this superstitious nonsense.”

  “On this issue, I concur with your idealism, Miss Givens.”

  We descended into the basement of the lab. Silas pulled back the shroud to reveal a young woman whose pendulous breasts slumped to either side.

  I tried not to gape.

  As was our custom, we lit the lanterns, laid out the tools, nodded our heads in perfunctory and silent prayer. Clearing his throat, Silas picked up the scalpel and commenced to cut a straight line down the woman’s abdomen. The flesh split apart cleanly. Once he breached the abdominal cavity, Silas tossed the scalpel aside and began to explore with his fingers. “Please note the condition of her uterine wall.” If I had any illusion that Silas Orpheus regarded the female anatomy as more sacred than that of a man, I was quickly disabused. In the doctor’s hands, the body ceased to be human and became as earth. With bloodied fingers, he gripped and lifted her pelvis. “As for the vaginal opening . . . what is this?” He let out a long breath. “Ah. This woman was trying to abort.”