A Flaw in the Blood (10 page)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I
 
MUST GO TO ST. GILES,
” Georgiana said frantically. “Where is my wrap?”

“But you haven't eaten!” Fitzgerald protested. “There's nothing more you can do for Lizzie—she's gone, Georgiana. She's
gone
.”

“I might examine her.” She moved swiftly to the hall. “Certify the death. It's the least I can do—having failed to save her life.”

The bitterness in the words chastened him. “You mustn't blame yourself, lass. She was
exceedingly ill
.”

Georgie stopped short, her bag in her hands. “Who else am I to blame? Do you seriously imagine that Uncle John ever lost a patient?”

“O'course he did!”

“Not within my knowledge! And I have so few patients as it is—” She swallowed convulsively. “Only the desperate are willing to trust a woman doctor. And when I fail, I am judged far more severely than a man should be.”

“You judge
yourself
too harsh, surely?”

“Patrick—that girl was fourteen! She had her whole life before her.”

“And what a life it was! She was on the brink of death when you went to her—and not because of anything you did.”

“How
dare
you?” she flashed. “How dare you presume to suggest that Lizzie, being only a girl of the streets, is better off dead? Oh, God, when I see the mess men make of the world! —Pray make my excuses to Gibbon, Patrick.”

“Wait,” he ordered, as she grasped the doorknob. “I'll fetch a cab.”

He hastened into the scullery.

“Gibbon, Miss Armistead has been called out to a patient. The hour grows late, and I must ask you to ready the
Dauntless.
”

“The
Dauntless,
” the valet repeated. “Where bound, on such a miserable night?”

“Sheppey. We'll meet you at Paul's Wharf no later than half ten. Bring a carpetbag with everything I'll need for Shurland, there's a good lad.”

“You're never taking that lady to Shurland Hall, Mr. Fitz!” Gibbon burst out, shocked.

“I must. It's the very last place anyone will look. Eat the dinner yourself, like a good chap.”

“I wish I'd never followed you onto that roof,” Georgiana muttered as he settled her in the hansom a quarter-hour later. “If I'd spent more time with Lizzie— If I'd made certain the sutures were properly set—”

“You did your best, Georgie; the girl didn't die at your hands.”

“No. She died for lack of them.”

He could feel her seething beside him as the horse put its head down into the sleet, and turned toward Seven Dials.

“Tell me about the Prince's boy,” he commanded. “Must be full young; I've never seen so much as a picture of the lad.”

“Yes . . .” She marshaled her thoughts, recalled from some distant place. “He is perhaps eight years old—the youngest but one of the Royal children.”

“Very well. And the Consort consulted you because . . . ?”

“Uncle John was present at Leopold's birth.”

Memory dawned. “The famous anaesthesia! John
did
set the cat among the pigeons when he exposed the Queen to mortal risk, and all for the sake of a trifling bout of labour.”

“Yes. There were those who maintained that an eighth lying-in could never be so troublesome as to warrant the attendance of even a
doctor,
let alone such extraordinary measures as Prince Albert employed. Anaesthesia! When the monarch might die under its influence! The Consort—and Uncle John—should have been accused of murder, if Victoria had slipped away. But she did not: and was indeed so bewitched by the effects of chloroform that she demanded its use in her final accouchement—with Princess Beatrice.”

“And the Consort thought of you—?”

“Perhaps a year since. More—eighteen months, I should guess. He wished to know whether Prince Leopold would ever outgrow his present indisposition.”

“What's wrong with the child, then?”

“A frailty in the tissues of the skin, which causes them to fray and bleed, almost without ceasing. The poor little fellow is as delicate as a piece of china.”

Fitzgerald frowned. “That's right ghastly. Why have I never heard word of it?”

“The boy's condition is not generally known.”

“Then how were you expected to offer an opinion? You've not seen the lad?”

“Indeed I have. Prince Albert sent Leopold to Russell Square in the care of his governor, the day after I had his letter.” Georgiana glanced sideways at Fitzgerald in the darkness; her words were visible as chilled smoke. “Highly singular behaviour on the Consort's part, I admit. The boy has been in the care of a stable's worth of doctors from the time he was born. I must impute the Prince's decision to the degree of anxiety concerning the boy's health.”

“And what did you conclude?”

“Nothing very extraordinary. When I examined the child, his knees were swollen and discoloured from the blood that seeps into his joints. He cannot often walk without the aid of a cane—and the usual romping of an eight-year-old is entirely forbidden to him. The slightest bruise or fall may send him to bed for weeks. I gather that the pain at times is excruciating.”

Fitzgerald pulled his hat from his head and rubbed ineffectually at his temples. “But why did the Prince consult
you,
Georgie? You've no authority on such stuff, surely?”

She hesitated, unwilling to admit incompetence. “Because of Uncle John. The Prince was a great believer in science—and you know that Uncle regarded statistics, the data associated with all manner of disease, as the key to its explication. The Prince assumed that I am blessed with a similar genius.”

The hansom clattered over the paving stones of Tottenham Court Road, heading south. “And what did you tell His Royal Highness?”

“—That statistically speaking, such illnesses are quite often found among
multiple members
of families. There may be a record of the progression of disease through generations. I suggested the Consort might wish to consult the Royal genealogies, in order to apprehend the progression of Leopold's illness. I then informed him that Uncle John had taken certain notes—conducted private researches—after having witnessed the child's birth in '53 . . .”

That was Snow's habit. The man scribbled lectures to himself during the course of every day—essays on future endeavours, a lifetime of possible projects carefully collated in a series of notebooks. Until he ran out of time to live.

“Prince Albert asked to see Uncle's notes,” Georgie said.

“He's a braver man than I. John's fist was impossible to read.”

“I sent them by messenger to Buckingham Palace. They were not returned. A letter, excessive in its politeness, informed me that the Prince had thought it advisable the notes be burnt.”

“The rogue! Infernal cheek!”

“He then departed with the Queen for an extended visit to the Princess Royal in Berlin, and his brother in Coburg. You will recall the period—he had an unfortunate accident there, much publicised in the newspapers.”

September 1860, Fitzgerald remembered: an overturned carriage—the Royal Family abroad. “But, Georgie, love—to burn John's private notations? What right—”

“I have a copy of them, somewhere in the ruin of my library.”

Fitzgerald gave a bark of laughter. “So you expected the Prince to destroy the originals?”

“No. Over the past several years I undertook to set in order all of Uncle's writings, with a view to eventual publication—I thought it only proper, for the future of science. But there is a great number of notebooks still to be got through, I'm afraid. I have not had sufficient time—”

“Never mind that, now. What did himself observe at Prince Leo's birth?”

She clasped her gloved hands together. “He wrote about the chloroform first. The Queen's spirits and health are profoundly deranged by pregnancy, Patrick, and the Consort wished to spare her as much distress as possible—that was why Uncle was called in. April 7, 1853. A year before the Great Cholera Epidemic; five years before Uncle's death.”

“And the labour went well. But the child?”

“There were any number of doctors and personages in attendance—but Uncle John was the first to notice Leopold's peculiarity. When the umbilical cord was severed,
it would not stop bleeding.
”

“And that is unusual?”

“It is potentially fatal, Patrick! Perhaps two minutes should have sufficed for the flow to cease. The cord withers over a matter of days, and the stump falls off. But from Uncle's notes, it appears that Leopold oozed blood from the abdomen—that the wound refused to heal—for nearly a month. His christening was postponed. The registration of his birth was delayed. The Queen—who is always wretchedly despondent after her confinements—kept to her rooms. And the Royal Physician—Sir James Clark, who has served Victoria from the first day of her ascension—privately declared Uncle John's chloroform to be the cause.”

“Men have committed suicide for less,” he observed.

She laughed; they both knew John Snow would never have killed himself over a rival's rumour. “Uncle told Prince Albert that some flaw in the child's blood vessels, perhaps, produced the painful result. He embarked on research—but so little has been published in this country regarding the malady. He learned of
German
families where it recurs from generation to generation—and solely, it seems, among
males.
Indeed, Leopold's disorder is sometimes called ‘the German disease.’ ”

“Then the Consort's to blame for his son's illness? Poor wretch.”

“There's no lack of German blood in the Royal line,” Georgie said impatiently. “Indeed, there is little else. But Uncle John could not discover a disorder similar to Leopold's in any of his Hanoverian ancestors—nor among the Saxe-Coburgs, either.”

“But if Leopold has been ill from birth, why should his father demand John's notes
then
—and destroy them?”

“He must have regarded them as dangerous,” Georgie said simply. “To the child, or . . . others.”

She did not need to say
Victoria
. Fitzgerald was silent a moment. “What did you tell your Prince, once you knew he'd burned John's papers?”

“That if Leopold could not be cured, the boy would certainly die. I said it was imperative that the Consort make inquiries in Germany, if need be—that he canvass his relations in Saxe-Coburg—that he move heaven and earth to learn more of his son's illness. That was a year ago. This September, the Prince hired a young German doctor by the name of Gunther—and sent him to the south of France, with Leopold,
for the boy's health
.”

“You think he'd heard of a cure there?”

“Perhaps. Patrick—” She reached for his hand and clasped it. “Having told you everything, I still understand nothing.”

“Not to worry, me darlin',” he said, with a conviction he did not feel. “We'll work it out together.”

They had arrived in St. Giles.

Button Nance's rooms were cold, and the little girls were curled together near the dead hearth. They stared at Georgiana when she opened the unlatched door, but did not speak a word, their great eyes shining faintly in the gaslight from the street below. The acrid odour of wet charcoal lingered in the closed air of the room, a gutter perfume. There was no sign, Fitzgerald noticed, of Davey.

“It is all right,” Georgie said carefully as she entered. “I've come to see Lizzie.”

“A deal of folk've come to see Lizzie,” one of the girls said in a paper-thin whisper. “But Lizzie's dead.”

“Where is your mother?”

“Gone t'pub.”

Georgie hesitated, then moved softly toward the inner room.

The cold in the bedroom was bitter as a tomb. One of the windows had been left open, and a sulfurous fog wafted about the head of the dead girl like an emissary from Hell, waiting to snatch what remained of her. The delicate hands were raised on either side of her head, fists clenched as though in agony; but Lizzie's face, Fitzgerald saw, was wiped clean of both pain and hope, and the eyes stared blankly at the grimy ceiling.

A pillow lay beside the bed, on the bare floor. Without thinking, he picked it up.

Georgiana examined the body, and finally, with a sigh, closed Lizzie's eyes.

“I don't understand it,” she said. “There is no visible sign on the face or limbs of what killed her. But look at her hands! It is as though she died in a convulsive fit.”

“Perhaps she did. You said she suffered from a poisoning of the blood.”

“Yes—but you can see from the clarity of the tissues around the nose and mouth that the fever had subsided at the last. She did not die in delirium. Indeed, I should have said she was
improving
—but for the fact that her heart has stopped.”

“I'm that sorry, Georgie.” Fitzgerald's fingers kneaded the goose-down pillow uselessly. “Do you trust this Button Nance with a certificate? Or should we knock up the coroner and trust it to him?”

“Where did you find that?” she demanded suddenly.

“Find what?”

“That pillow!”

Fitzgerald glanced down. “Sure, and it was on the floor.”

“Not this morning.”

There was a quality to Georgie's voice that raised the hair on his neck. “What would you mean?”

“I mean,” she replied deliberately, “that nothing clean or fine has ever been found in these rooms.”

“So it was brought here by someone else? And what of that? The child said they've had a deal of folk in to see Lizzie.”

“After she died—or while she was yet living?” With an expression of distaste, Georgiana reached for the pillow. “Patrick—look at her hands.”

As he watched, Georgie lowered the thing gently over Lizzie's head. It rested perfectly on her balled fists.

“She fought him as he smothered her,” she whispered, “but he was too strong—”

“Do you accept, finally, that you're as much at risk as I am?” he asked as they climbed back into the waiting cab.

“What of that?” she demanded contemptuously. “It is Lizzie, poor child, who has paid for my sins—whatever they might be. Can you explain, Patrick, why it is invariably the innocent poor who suffer in this world of ours?”

“Because they've nobody to protect them. Will you leave London with me now, Georgie?”