The Eulogist Page 9

  Curiosity overwhelmed my skittishness, and I peered in close.

  With efficient detachment, Silas pulled apart her thighs and pushed her legs up until they assumed the skewed posture of a rag doll. I averted my gaze. When I looked again, he was removing an object with forceps. It was dark and spiky. “What do you think, Miss Givens? Thornbush? Thistle?”

  I glanced at the woman’s eyes that in life might have been lively with humor or sly with mischief. The hair was in braids. In all likelihood, the body was found in a pauper’s grave.

  “Whatever it is,” said Silas, “this thing was meant to induce bleeding and no doubt caused her death. There’s nothing much left of the fetus. I would say she succeeded in her effort, partially at least.”

  My mother had bled out when she was six months along with a stillborn child that had looked fully formed.

  “A prostitute,” I said flatly.

  Come here, Pretty Face. You there! Handsome! I’ll cook your biscuits.

  Silas must have gleaned judgment in my expression, for he said, “People will sell anything if there is a market, Miss Givens.” He dropped the thorny object into a jar, set down his forceps, and began to wash his hands in the basin. Feeling ineffectual, I tried to muster an argument.

  “Would it were not the case,” said I, “that women must be forced to sell themselves. Miss Fanny Wright says—”

  Orpheus laughed at the mention of Fanny Wright. “Miss Fanny Wright is a bit naive, don’t you think?” He turned back to me. We were face-to-face, close as air. He went on. “It is one thing to stand in opposition to Christianity as you have done. Another altogether to truly understand people too compromised to worry about the condition of their souls. If there is a God—and like you, I wonder—would He not want us to turn our efforts toward saving each other rather than madly fretting if we ourselves are saved?”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I studied the dead woman. She had a turned-up, childish nose. Floating on her grayish skin was a smattering of freckles. I brought out my piece of lace and breathed deeply of the lavender.

  * * *

  I arrived home to find Julia waiting at the top of the stairs.

  “It is not what you think,” said I.

  “Hurry,” she said, “before Mrs. Humphries sees you.”

  It was fine for Erasmus to stay out all night, but a single woman returning at this hour would be grounds for eviction.

  Julia looked at me closely. “You took some care with your outfit, Livvie.”

  Indeed I had. Swallowing my pride, I had accepted Hatsepha’s offer of finer gloves, a jeweled and feathered comb, a fan, and a necklace—all in the service of a masquerade of which Hatsepha was ignorant and of which she would have no doubt disapproved.

  “Why, Livvie,” said Julia, her voice rising in concern, “is that blood on your hem?”

  Chapter 13

  1832

  Eighteen thirty-two began with one of the coldest winters I have endured. For two years, I had continued to assist Silas Orpheus in Tilly’s stead. Every few weeks or so, a resurrectionist would procure a body, especially in the months when the ground was too hard for burials and it was easier to “nick a stiff” from the icehouse than dig up six feet of soil. In order to work in the basement, we piled on woolens of every description, our skin chafing under knitted garments.

  It was in January when, as usual, I left the boardinghouse dressed in a manner befitting a prayer meeting and hurried to the medical college basement. My head ached from the frigidity. The lips of the corpse would be no bluer than mine.

  “Who is it?” I asked Silas, who was standing over the table.

  Betraying excitement, Silas pulled back the sheet to unveil the body of a Negro. We had never before had a black man on the table. In fact, it was commonly assumed that autopsying a Negro would avail few insights as to the afflictions of our own race.

  “He was retrieved from the river,” said Silas. “He must have frozen almost immediately. See how perfectly intact?”

  I thought back to the floating body my family had seen when we first came down the Ohio. “A runaway?”

  “Perhaps. He fell through the ice floes. The man who delivered him must have thought it easier to palm him off on me rather than drag the body back to Kentucky.”

  Normally, Silas would make a scalpel cut in the shape of a Y starting from each shoulder, meeting under the pectorals and extending to the pubis. This time, he started the incision behind one ear, drawing the blade across the top of the head to the other ear and peeling back the skin.

  “What are you looking for?” I said. The dead man’s skin was very dark and he had red-rimmed staring eyes as if he had gazed longingly at the sky as he sank beneath the surface.

  Silas took out a saw. “Chasing down old wives’ tales. Looking for clues. Very little work has been done on the African race, Miss Givens. One would think we might know more, given the investment and their proximity. But look at your face! Are you intrigued or appalled?”

  Both, I supposed, though I flinched when he gave the saw an enthusiastic thrust that sprayed blood onto my smock. As he pulled off a section of the skull, I knew what he was after. Excuses. Absolution. Evidence of difference.

  “It looks like any brain,” I said when he was done.

  * * *

  All that winter, Julia had wrapped William in layers of blankets and muttered through chattering teeth, Too cold! Too cold! We must pray for spring.

  Julia would barely let go the child, though William was nearly three. He would run to me when he saw me, and peer around the door when I had my students during the day. Some of the students called him “Silly Willy” and it stuck, and comically, too, for never was there such a sober child, yet still so free with affection. That Erasmus could father such a little judge caused no end of mirth, with Julia often saying, “It shall be upon this boy that I shall rely, for his father is useless.” She would lay her head on my chest in a way that comforted both of us, and sigh, “And yet Erasmus is so lovely.”

  Eventually, winter relented, but had we known that the severity of season augured worse to come, Julia mightn’t have prayed so hard for warmer days, for with warmer days came the thaw, and with the thaw came a flood such as Noah might envy, breaching the banks and lapping all the way to Third and Vine Street, ruining domiciles, drowning man and beast alike. When the surge receded, it left behind a vile, odiferous sludge. Then came the boats, many of them carrying immigrants—not only English and Europeans, but refugees fleeing the eastern seaboard, escaping a new and horrible scourge.

  Cholera.

  The newspapers blasted the story of plague striking Canada and New York, now half emptied out. The presence and spread of the disease were blamed on the lower classes—those too dissipated of soul and practice to incur salvation and remain free of infection. Those who could flee did so. Some pulled up stakes and ventured to our little patch of “virtue,” as Cincinnati was perceived to be.

  “It shall come,” said Silas Orpheus.

  Of course he was right. It came, but not immediately. News spread about a New York that was brought to its knees, a Philadelphia that was stunned, a Washington that was in chaos.

  During that spring and summer, Silas and I autopsied three cadavers to observe the rotten liver of the inebriate, the wizened cranium of the syphilitic, the clotted arteries of the corpulent. We sliced into the chambers of seminal vesicles, Silas joking that these were a man’s treasure troves. One swift kick by a horse in the wrong place, and they’ll be crushed and rendered useless. My brother knows this only too well.

  The intimacy of our inquiries had afforded a peculiar camaraderie, though I still knew little of this man who was prone to irony and yet had a cool quality that I ascribed to his scientific disposition. Together, we focused on theories and suppositions, the peeling away of viscera, the exchange of conclusions, usually limiting our opinions to the task at hand.

  Impatient with my ruse of attending prayer meetings and socials,
I had once again taken to wearing pants and a coat purloined from Erasmus, ostensibly for patching.

  On those nights when I snuck out, I returned with equal stealth.

  It was on such a black night that Silas accompanied me after a particularly difficult dissection involving the extraction of tumors. The streets were empty. It must have been nearly morning.

  “Have you a wife, sir?” I asked. In spite of our sharing the investigation of the most private parts of bodies, Silas would steer any inquiry about his family back to the circulatory system or the etiology of disease.

  “Are you proposing, Miss Givens?”

  Fortunately, he could not see me grow pink in the darkness. It was a warm night made warmer by the absence of breeze. In all our time together, he had never spoken of a wife or children, and so I assumed not, and though he had once accused me of boldness, I had, in fact, been too timid to ask.

  The boardinghouse came into sight. With any luck, Humphries would be asleep, and I could creep in.

  “I shall leave you here, Doctor, that we might continue this charade another day.”

  Clumsily, I pulled down my hat and strode away. I wasn’t but forty feet when Silas called after me. “Miss Givens,” said he. “I have neither time for a wife nor the means for children. I am a man of limited interests and singularity of mind.”

  So composed was I, and so determined not to betray relief, I did not break my stride. I turned the corner. In the window of the room where Julia and Erasmus slept, the glowing nub of a candle betrayed a vigil—not for me, but for the husband who might be out all night or gone for days.

  The day had not yet dawned as I shut the door behind me. I am sure I looked more like a scarecrow than a man, for when the housemaid, Katy, saw me as she lit the morning lamps, she let out such a screech that I turned to see if something worse lurked behind.

  “Oh Lord, oh Lord,” said she. “Pray do not hurt me.”

  “You silly girl. It is I. Olivia Givens.”

  I pulled off my hat, and out tumbled my hair. But the girl could only gape, no doubt on account of the pants. I had forgotten about them, so accustomed had I become to the freedom of having legs. I would have given her a slap, too, but Humphries came running, her one eye racing about.

  “What . . . is . . . this?” she demanded. I could not tell if she was more affronted by the unseemliness of the hour or my attire. Or perhaps it was the smell.

  I strove to think up some excuse (helping my brother? breaking in a new horse?), but nothing plausible came to mind, so I instead rose up and turned the tables.

  “How is it, Mrs. Humphries, that you have hired such a squawker that one cannot visit the privy without waking the entire house?”

  “The privy?” said Humphries. “In that garb?”

  “Whose business is it what garb I wear when risking life and limb to relieve myself?”

  The eye narrowed. “Why not use the chamber pot until the sun comes up?”

  “What a question,” said I. “I suppose you want details.”

  “I suppose you want to explain that smell,” said she.

  “It is your privy,” said I. “If it is unclean, am I to blame? And have you not read the notices about cleanliness? The plague is coming, Mrs. Humphries. Mark my word. And if it comes to this house, you have only yourself and this girl to blame.”

  At which point, Katy burst into tears, providing me with an opportunity to sashay up the stairs.

  * * *

  After that evening, I did not hear from Silas Orpheus for almost a month. Accustomed to seeing him every few weeks, I worried that he might have become ill. Goodness knows we were hearing awful news from other cities, but I had no good excuse to send word other than feigning illness myself. Instead, I waited.

  I was sitting in the parlor, a copy of Galen’s medical treatise before me on the desk, when the doctor came to call. Katy showed him in and curtsied grandly, but I pretended not to notice. Silas glanced at the ancient book upon which my eyes were fixed. “I never cease to be amazed by your curious mind.”

  “You think all women are fools?”

  “Only a fool would think it of you.”

  I scrabbled about for another path by which to vent my annoyance at the absence of the doctor. “Is our city so riddled with maladies that you can be so seldom spared to call on me? It must be titillating company—even if rigor has set in.”

  He sighed. “You have quite a tongue, Miss Givens . . .”

  “I should think it my finest part. If you care not for my tongue, sir, then you care not for my eyes that see all too clearly. Perhaps you care for my too-big hands or my mannish height or my—”

  Which is when he reached down and kissed me. Evidently, he cared for my lips.

  I shall not say I found it unpleasant. I had never forgotten that kiss in Ireland—a taste of onions and grass. Silas Orpheus tasted like soap. And here I was at twenty-eight, practically ancient, unable to breathe, not to mention speak, and in the parlor of the boardinghouse, where anyone could walk in, as Mrs. Humphries immediately did.

  “Well!” she said.

  “It is not what you think,” I said, pushing away.

  “It is exactly what you think,” said Silas Orpheus. “If she will have me.”

  This, of course, was quite impossible, as there had been no discussion. “Miss Givens!” said Humphries. “Surely, you could show some propriety.”

  “You must find me desperate, Dr. Orpheus. At my age . . .”

  “Miss Givens,” echoed Silas, and so plaintively, too, that blood rushed to my head along with the memory of my parents telling me I was a rude little girl for having spoken saucily to the minister. I lowered my eyes. Silas stood still as timber. “Will you, Miss Givens? Will you have me?”

  Humphries gathered up her skirt and, glaring at both of us, flounced off to gut a chicken.

  * * *

  I have never been one to pine for marriage, nor did motherhood enchant me. As I saw it, marriage was a function of economic dependence, and wrongly, too, since women rarely had money of their own. And though I was familiar with the sensation of longing, I associated it more with proximity to Julia. Perhaps it was her passion for Erasmus. Perhaps, too, I appreciated her loveliness with my own eyes. My ardor for Silas Orpheus sprang more from our shared inquisitiveness and from the freedom our forays provided, and I confessed as much upon the heels of his proposal.

  “Think of our marriage as a way for you to dispense with subterfuge,” said Silas. “You’ll no longer have the need of such . . . costumes.”

  “I rather like the trousers.”

  “Then by all means, wear them. What do I care? You have a mind, Miss Givens. If it weren’t for your sex, you would do well at medical school.”

  That he had a point about marriage benefiting our arrangement I did concede. His appearance was not displeasing. And I did enjoy our banter.

  But despite my age, I couldn’t have said yes even if I wanted to, for I was still under the guardianship of James, although I assumed my brother would be pleased.

  I assumed incorrectly.

  We called upon him in the office of his factory by the canal, James locking his thumbs as he heard Silas out. The bones of a fish and a brown apple core sat upon a plate that topped the papers on James’s desk. “I think well of you, Silas. You’re a good man. But what do you have to show for it?”

  Silas leaned forward. “I’m not without means. There is my mother’s legacy.”

  “Enough to live on?”

  “Had I not lent it to my brother. However, I have full expectation of reclaiming it.”

  Silas’s older brother, Eugene, had inherited the family farm (“Hemp,” said Silas. “Horses and the like . . .”), but had a bit of a problem with solvency (James cleared his throat at this), and so Eugene had prevailed upon Silas to part with a not insubstantial amount of money that he had yet to pay off.

  “But once he does . . .” said Silas.

  “Once he does,” said
James, rising, “you will retrieve your legacy, and we shall hope for the best.” And with that, we were dispatched.

  * * *

  As we made our way back across the dung-strewn street, I said, “Honestly. This from a man who married his fortune.”

  “He is just trying to protect you from opportunists such as myself.” Silas raised his eyebrow and smiled deliciously. “Little does he know how you spend your evenings.”

  But I was not ready to be cajoled. My older brother’s reservations only served to bolster Silas’s case, in my opinion. Now I was thoroughly ready to say yes. I turned to him to say as much when we were interrupted by a shout.

  “Why, Dr. Orpheus! If it ain’t!” Coming toward us was a young woman with sunburned skin and yellow hair braided past her shoulders. “I known you for an Orpheus soon as I seen you!” said she. “And you . . . livin’ away from Caintucky so long. Don’t say you don’t even recognize me.”

  “Madam?” said Silas with a curt little bow, raising his eyebrow at me in a question mark.

  “‘Madam’? Oh, dear me, no. I’m really jes’ a chit, but you ain’t seen me for ages.”

  “Forgive me?” said Silas.

  “Why, ’tis Bella! Bella Mason! The overseer’s daughter.”

  “Of course. Little Bella.” Silas made a motion with his hand as if the last time he’d seen her she’d stood only yea high.

  In truth, “little Bella” now stood nearly five feet ten and weighed, by my estimation, fourteen stone.