Chapter One Hundred Two: Freely Bleeding

“We should do some blood letting,” he said grimly.

“Why?” I asked.

“It is the only thing that will help.” The white haired doctor lifted Nathaniel’s eyelids, one at a time, noting with a grunt the jaundice, a sickly yellow where white should be. He wearily sat back down in the worn wooden chair I had placed by the bedside.

“But how will it help?” I had not seen blood letting benefit anyone. Not ever.

“Madame, leave this sort of thing to the professionals. You should not have to worry yourself with the why’s and wherefore’s…”

He reached into his valise and pulled out a brass encased fleam. The blade clicked open with a fling of the wrist. He held it at the ready.

“I need a bowl.”

“Wait. I…..”

“Bring me a bowl!” he said sharply as he dug into Nathaniel’s forearm. “I don’t have all day. There are other patients to see.” He clamped a hand over the oozing blood then looked over at me expectantly. 

Nathaniel groaned and shifted. 

“Please be quick or this will stain….” he warned.

I shook off the shock and grabbed the basin off of the dresser, the one used for washing up. I felt numb.

“Here.”

“Thank you.” He said it deliberately in mock gratitude. “Now I need some fresh linen and clean water.”

I stood watching the blood flow down the arm in a weak rivulet, forming a deep scarlet pool in the creamy porcelain bowl below. 

“Now?” the doctor prompted.

I left to grab the required items, placing the wash pitcher with the clean water on the floor next to him, then handing over a few strips of clean linen. He put down the fleam and took the linen, draping it over his dark brown pants leg. 

“Just a few minutes more…”

Eventually he took a strip of linen and wrapped it tightly about the wound. Blood quickly oozed through as he wrapped another strip around that one.

“Come.” He motioned me over. “Apply pressure here.” I placed my hand over the indicated spot as he tied the bandage tightly. “He is a free bleeder, as most people in this situation are. It will take time for the oozing to stop. If it bleeds further, apply more pressure until it stops.”

I kept my hand on the bandage, holding tight.

The doctor quickly washed the blade and then his hands using the pitcher and bloody wash basin. Standing up, he dried them both on the towel on the dresser.

“I will see myself out, Madame…?”

“Brierly. Madame Brierly.” I sat down in the chair he had vacated.  “I am his wife,” I added by way of explanation.

“I gathered,” he said dryly. He looked at me pityingly. “I will be back tomorrow to check on you both.” With that, he nodded his head and left. I heard the door close softly behind him.

I moved my hand from the bandage and watched as the red spot on the white bandage widened. I clamped my hand back over it quickly, holding tighter this time. 

It felt as if I was holding on for dear life, holding on to a dream long past. Hope was oozing away beneath my fingers…

But there was no other choice. 

Or was there?

I relaxed my grip, then let go. Blood soaked the bandage, then dripped to the floor. 

Chapter Eighty-Nine: History

  
“What happened to you?” 

The woman’s eyes darted fearfully from the trees in the distance, then to my face, then back to the trees again.

Yet she remained silent.

I tried again.

“Why are you here?”

She grimaced, wrinkling her forehead, but never acknowledged my question.

Her brown hair frizzed out about her ears, the bits that had slipped out from the large braid that ran down her back. 

She seemed terribly normal. 

She fed herself. She didn’t make odd noises or weep and wail incessantly. She groomed herself as much as was allowed here, brushing her hair every morning and evening. I had watched her walking from one woman to the next, whispering God knows what into each ear, patting shoulders, offering encouraging smiles.

“What is you name?”

She sighed a great sigh, then closed her eyes.

“Zenobia,” she spoke softly.

“Zenobia? That is your name?” 

What an odd name.

She nodded slowly. 

It was quiet except for the birds in the trees.

Her eyes opened suddenly. “I gave myself the name. She was an ancient Persian queen.” The woman fixed me with a piercing gaze, waiting expectantly. 

My mind wandered, imagining her in rich Persian regalia, riding a great white horse, commanding vast armies. When I did not answer, she coughed, bringing me back to the asylum. “Well? You are…?”

“Oh!” My cheeks reddened. “I am Evelyn.” 

“That isn’t made up, is it? It’s rather plain.”

“No.” I shook my head. 

“You need a new name…” Her voice trailed off as the orderly came back through looking even more sour.

It was hot outside on the porch, but after several weeks here I knew that it was preferable to the suffocating wards and spent as much time out of doors as I was allowed.

I decided to try again. “Why are you here?” I asked tentatively.

She gazed at me suspiciously. 

“Why do you care?”

“I don’t think you are insane…”

She smiled sadly, pushing back a bit of hair from her damp forehead. 

“Depends on who you ask,” she replied, laughing.

We fell silent as a dour female orderly with a pinched face strode purposefully past, shoes clacking on the wooden veranda.

“How long have you been here?” I ventured once the orderly was out of earshot.

“Six years.”

My heart sank.

Six years?

“Why?”

Zenobia took a deep breath. “Because I would not give my husband what he wanted.”

“What did he want?” I pressed.

“A son.” 

She pointed to a stooped young woman with golden hair and vacant eyes. “She has been here three years. We call her Theodora. She sank into a deep melancholy after the birth of her first baby. Her husband took a mistress. She was placed here to keep her out of the way. Now another woman, her rival, is raising her child in her family home.” Zenobia shrugged. “She will never leave. Over there by the doorway, that one is Hippolyta. She had several lovers. The wife of one grew jealous and made a report. In the process she was deemed mentally deficient and imprisoned here two years ago. She had no family that would take her. She will also probably never leave.”

She paused to look around.

“That one, Hatshepsut,” she nodded her head to an elderly, wraithlike figure, “Refused to marry an earl. Her family had her committed decades ago.”

She turned back to me. “How did you get here?”

“I am not entirely sure. But Dr. Jenkins and I have…. we have a history.” I told her about Edinburgh, about the Crimea, about my daughter, about the surgery here. “Did… Did that happen to you?” 

“It happened to all of us, one by one, since that man arrived…” She spoke softly, her eyes darting around, watchful and guarded again. 

Zenobia rose from her seat. “Excuse me. I must go.” She started to walk away but stopped short suddenly and turned, smiling. “Hedwig.”

“I beg your pardon?”  I was confused.

“Your name. Hedwig. The Polish queen who crowned herself the King of Poland. That will do nicely for you, I think.” She paused. “We are not normal. We are exceptional. All of us.”

And then she was gone.

Chapter Eighty-Seven: Tethered

  

There were voices: a man and a woman, speaking in hushed tones. I tried to focus, to listen to their conversation through the fog in my head.

“The incision seems to be healing well now, Doctor.” The woman, whispered.

A man’s voice responded, softly, “Excellent. Maybe now she will not endanger herself by moving around.” 

“Shall we remove the restraints?” 

Were they referring to me?

“No. Not yet.”

I could hear the nod of the crisply starched cap, even though I could not see it.

Did I dare open my eyes?

It was then that I realized they were moving away. My opportunity to ask questions…

“Where am I?” I blurted out, looking about.

The man had turned away and was walking toward the bed across the ward, his back to me.

“You are at The Royal Asylum For Women.” The nurse spoke kindly, brushing hair back from my forehead.

“Why?”

“You had an acute attack of abdominal dropsy brought on by a neurosis.”

“Where is my daughter?” 

“Safe.”

“What does that mean?” I demanded.

“She is being cared for elsewhere.”

“By whom?” 

“I do not know.”

“Bring her to me!” Anger crept into my voice.

“I cannot. You are not able to care for her in your condition,” she said sternly.

“My condition.” Fear suddenly replaced anger. “What is my condition?”

“You have had a surgery.”

“What kind of surgery?”

“Dr. Jenkins performed a hysterectomy.” She looked at me pityingly. 

Oh, God.

Surely not. Why? And not the Dr. Jenkins I had known from another life… Stuart Jenkins? Surely there were plenty of other Dr. Jenkins in this world. 

Please… 

At the sound of his name the man turned around and began to walk back to my bedside.

His face.

It WAS him!

He smiled pleasantly as he approached.

My mouth filled with bile.

“Ah, Mrs. Aspern. Awake are we?”

“You had no right!” I screamed at him. Others in the ward shifted in their beds uncomfortably, taking notice. I tried to sit up but my arms were tied down to the bed. I jerked at the leather wrist restraints so hard that the bed frame rattled. 

“Oh, yes, I did. I have every right as your treating physician.”

“You hack!”

“I have removed hundreds of uteri in my career. In fact, every woman in this ward right now, has had this same procedure by me. I think I am able to judge well enough when one is causing problems.” He stared down at me haughtily. “And yours most certainly was causing all manner of infirmary.”

He reached a hand into his pocket and pulled out the old pessary, dropping it onto my abdomen. It hurt greatly as the heavy, metallic weight hit the incision. The padding from the bandages was not enough to break the fall.

I winced.

“It was probably simply pinching the vaginal mucosa, causing your pain, but it was easy to see that your uterus and ovaries were sitting too low in your pelvis, causing you fits of hysteria. You should feel much better from now on.” Another smile spread across his face.

“You did not ask my opinion!” I hissed through clenched teeth. 

It was rape. It was worse than rape. This man had had his hands inside of me, stolen from me without my consent.

A glint appeared in his eye as he leaned in close to my ear. He whispered slowly, threateningly, “The feeble minded are never able to make their own decisions.” 

Chapter Eighty-Six: Out

 

My eyelids felt weighted with lead, heavy. I willed them to open but they would not. I decided to focus on my other senses. 

There was an odor. That smell. I knew it from somewhere…

From where?

The Crimea! I was back in the Crimea.

Footsteps faded away to the left, echoing off of hard, antiseptic surfaces. 

I tried again on the eyelids, this time they opened a bit, revealing a long crack in the stained plaster overhead. It was a rusty red, like blood. My heart shot out of my chest, racing into my throat. This was not the Crimea.

Panic dragged me awake and I bolted upright.

Where was I?

Pain slammed through me, suddenly, and I cried out, falling back onto the bed.

Pain? From where?

I moved a hand down to my abdomen and pelvis. There was a large bandage there.

Oh, God! What did they do?

The walls of the long room were an odd greenish gray. I could not tell if that was because of the fading light filtering through the dirty windows or from some terrifying paint job. I looked around. There were other beds, other women.

A hospital ward.

“Psst!”

The woman to my right stared unseeingly at the ceiling, unresponsive. She was almost translucent. Her gray hair was thin and carefully arranged about her head, combed out over the pillow.

Was she dead?

I wanted to touch her waxen skin but that was impossible from where I lay.

“Hello?” I ventured, a bit louder. No movement. Not even a blink. I gave up on her and turned to my other side.

“Pssst!”

The woman to my right had bright orange hair. She stirred, looking over at me, but her eyes were glassy and vacant. 

This was not going well. 

A moan escaped from somewhere. It echoed off of the bare walls and floor. I went back to examining the crack in the plaster overhead. Surely someone would be through soon?

Anne! Where was she?!?!!?

I swung one leg and then the other over the side of the bed, doing my best to ignore the pain that seared through my pelvis. Standing, my legs felt unsteady. I took a tentative step forward only to have the knees buckle and I tumbled to the floor. 

Think!

Try as I might, I could not pull myself back up. I felt warmth gushing from between my legs as redness soaked through my white shift and pooled around me on the cold floor. Short shallow breaths were all that I could manage. Colorful bursts of light flashed into my line of sight then closed off into a lengthening tunnel of dark gray.

Get up, damn it!

Thoughts grew fuzzy then faded away. 

Blackness overtook me again.

Chapter Seventy: Innoculation

“Haven’t you registered her birth?”

The shopkeeper at the millinery shop was a middle aged woman with greying black hair and an extra wide double chin peeking out from the tightly wrapped black shawl about her neck. She stared at me with a single eyebrow raised.

“Registered?” Confusion and some degree of panic washed over me. Was there a rule or law I had broken? “How?”

The woman rolled her eyes. Yes. I saw her do it! She had not been terribly friendly to me and I had wondered about her…

It had not occurred to me, though, that I was required to register. Surely they would just know? From the midwife? From the Reverend after the christening?

No. I suppose not.

“How?” I asked again.

“At the registrars. You register at the registrars.” She spoke slowly, enunciating carefully. “That will be two pounds twenty.” As I dug for the correct change, she added, “You probably don’t know then that you will have to show proof of vaccination.”

“Vaccination?” I lost count of the money and sighed, starting again.

“Smallpox.”

Oh, smallpox.

I paid for my purchase, a new dark blue silk bonnet trimmed in velvet, and travelled home as quickly as I could. My breasts felt heavy, I knew it was time to feed.

On my arrival at the cottage I was greeted by a cooing, giggling baby girl who was obviously delighted to see her mother. I took her from the maid and sniffed her white capped head. Heaven.

Three months old, today.

I put little Anne to my breast. I winced as the sudden sensation of pins and needles signified the let down of milk. Fists balled tight, she slurped greedily, her eyes blinking as they watched me closely.

Smallpox vaccination. I had not even entertained the idea of her ever contracting smallpox. She could, though, couldn’t she? She would be forever disfigured, scarred for life with pockmarks over her face and entire body… if she lived through it.

The vaccination was required? Since when? Was it safe?

By the time Anne was finished with the second breast, she was dozing peacefully. I placed her in the cradle by the fire and went in search of the housekeeper.

I found her in the kitchen head bowed over a chicken carcass, readying it for roasting for dinner. She was deftly wrapping the legs with twine but looked up when I entered.

“Did you know that I needed to vaccinate Anne and register her?”

“Yes, ma’am.” She waited silently, not sure if she should keep working.

“I will need to see a doctor to vaccinate her?”

“Well, you could see one of the public vaccinators but I wouldn’t go and do that.” She went back to the twine and whispered, “They kill people.”

“What? They kill people?”

She tied off the knot. “Oh, miss, I knew of a baby whose arm rotted off when they took him to the public vaccinator and another who died with convulsions eight days later.”

“What do they do?” All of my medical training had been on the battlefields of the Crimea. I had no knowledge of smallpox vaccination practices.

“Oh, ma’am, it’s terrible! They cut the arm and inject lymph from another person into it. Such screaming.” She shook her head disapprovingly.

She tossed the bird into a roasting pan after rubbing it with salt and pepper and sprigs of rosemary and slid it into the oven. The heavy metal door slammed loudly.

Wiping her hands on her apron, she turned back to me.

“It’s the law, though. Bless those fools who think they know better than us folks.”

At that precise moment Anne began wailing.

“Here, you should give her another dose of this.” The maid handed over a large brown bottle. It read:

Atkinson & Barker’s Royal Infants’ Preservative

It is no misnomer Cordial! —no stupefactive, deadly narcotic! —but a veritable preservative of Infants!

I turned the bottle of dark liquid to read the ingredients. None were listed.

“How long have you been giving this to her?”

“Almost a month now, three times a day.” She grinned proudly then busied herself with some potatoes in a pail.

I left the bottle on the table as I left to console the sobbing child, resolving to ask the druggist about the ingredients next time I was in his shop. If that was why she stopped fussing so suddenly back then, I just might be a believer.

Chapter Sixty-Nine: A Need

“…the love of the Father. In that line, grace is sufficient. It by definition must cover all manner of….”

My mind was elsewhere, bathed in joy of an irreverent kind. My heart sang. It had worked!

I had taken the risk to keep from becoming a prisoner to my own body and it had worked.

Baby Anne was at home with the maid and the cook. It felt good to be out and about, even if it was only to church.

A cough from Mrs. Fenuiel beside me brought the elaborately carved pulpit back into focus. The Reverend Drummond smiled benevolently upon his congregation from his lofty perch. He paused as he turned another page of his sermon notes.

When only his head is visible above his robes, he makes quite the pleasant visage.

I shifted in my seat, testing. I could not feel it inside, even when sitting for long periods of time on a hard wooden pew.

Each day that passed the pessary was less noticeable until I lost track of its presence entirely.

Well, maybe not entirely.

I had inserted a finger to feel its shape while lying on the bed in my shift that night and every night thereafter. It was a solid metal pillow with a central hole. I was not certain what exactly it was constructed of, as I was too afraid to pull it out. There was no telling if I would be able to get it back in properly and having to explain to the good doctor how it had “fallen” out would be too mortifying.

Furthermore, I had no intention of keeping my appointment to follow up with the doctor on Tuesday next. Looking him in the face after he had examined and felt of me down there was too much. The device was working. That should be sufficient.

“Let us pray.” The Reverend’s eyes fixed on mine for a moment. Did I look distracted? Surely he was used to distraction. I bowed my head dutifully.

What would it be like to be naked, body entwined with his in a passionate embrace?

My cheeks reddened. Why did that pop into my head? Here? In God’s house? Was what the doctor warned true? Was I becoming a whore? And then a new reality dawned on me. With a pessary occupying space, I could not make love to any man even if I wanted to.

I must not allow myself to want it.

I focused on the rise and fall of his voice, eloquent words masking their own intent.

Reality. I could never be a vicar’s wife. That was not me. I lacked the faith and fortitude. I lacked the innocence and capacity for love of humankind. I could not be his lover.

But protection. I longed to feel loved, safe, protected. God alone could not provide me with these very carnal, human things. Bernini had been wrong. I was fairly sure that even Saint Teresa in her ecstasy probably still felt unfulfilled. I felt the rocking of a ship in the dark. My face on his chest. His heartbeat. I could remember the intense pleasure of the very moment Anne had been wrought, but his features, the details, were lost to me already. Sadness stuck in my throat.

A hand touched the cold, hard oval pinned to my bodice.

There you are.

“Amen.”

No. I did not want to leave this darkness…

Swells of organ music.

I must remain faithful to his memory.

Dutifully, I filed out of the pew, into the aisle, and out the door with Mrs. Finueil on my arm to exchange brief pleasantries with the Reverend Drummond. As we set foot on the steps the sun caught in my nostril and I sneezed.

I smiled.

Chapter Sixty-Eight: The Object

He lifted the edge of my chemise. Cold, bare fingers pried apart the lips and probed deep inside.

Relying on the digits, rather than his eyes, he proceeded to examine every nook and cranny of my nether regions.

“Bear down,” he said tersely.

I complied.

I looked up at the ceiling overhead rather than make eye contact with him. The whole process was terribly humiliating. A strange man’s hand doing things that brought back memories of prior lovers, long gone. These hands, however, were not loving or gentle.

“Relax.”

Easier said than done. I felt like I needed to break wind, but there was a doctor’s face down there…

His fingers dug deep and high again, painfully this time, pressing toward my back.

The fingers were slowly withdrawn. In their place a cold, rigid metallic device was inserted and I felt myself pried open, wide. The instrument was shifted around. Finally, the prying sensation relaxed only to be traded for a sharp pinch that made me jump involuntarily.

“Almost done.”

A fullness then as something else was inserted. Hard. Metal. But this was smooth, almost pleasant, and weighty. It was shoved higher inside with fingers and held there with constant pressure for a minute or two.

“That is fine.” He stood up. His shirtsleeves were rolled above his elbows, leaving his hairy forearms exposed. “You may dress now.” He indicated the screen behind me.

I rose up, gingerly, gauging the fullness still left in place as it shifted inside. Shame hung in the air between us.

Wouldn’t it slide out?

I kept my thighs closed tightly as I walked to the corner. My dress hung across the back of the chair, with the crinoline and petty coats piled in the floor. How many other women had stood in this room, violated and yet hopeful of a cure?

I could hear him bustling about, instruments tossed into a pail, washing his hands in the basin, papers rustling, an uneasy cough.

Mrs. Finuiel had patted me on the hand as she exited the carriage at the house for the christening luncheon. “You should go see Dr. Peevy, my dear. He helped me with my…. issues.” She had given me a knowing wink.

And here I was.

Reasonably confident by now that the pessary would not escape its new home, I stepped out.

He was shrugging back into his waistcoat, his sleeves now rolled down and secured about his wrists.

“This should help to move your uterus back into place. The exam I just performed and the pessary itself can cause an… er… an hysteria of sorts. If you find yourself craving some uh…. shall we say excessive stimulation, please return post haste. Otherwise I will plan to see you back in two weeks and we will make sure this is fitted to the right size.”

He pushed the wire framed lenses that framed his gray eyes further back up his nose then ran his hand through his longish gray hair as he showed me the door.

The walk down the dusty steps to the street and the carriage waiting below was brief but I could feel the object inside of me shift with every movement, acutely aware of it even as I sat down on the leather seat.

Does one get used to this presence with time, then?

I was not so sure.

Chapter Sixty-Four: Victorious

Pain wracked my body. It filled me to overflowing, consumed. I was certain I could not take more and continue living.

But I could.

I would.

I looked around the darkened room. Where was the air? I needed to breathe but I could not find the air.

“Have some laudanum, love.” Rough hands smoothed the sweat matted hair back from my forehead. A spoon hovered at my lips.

No!

“I am not dying yet,” I said through clinched teeth.

Pity in the eyes around me.

Was I dying?

I felt the urge to push. Screams flowed from my mouth involuntarily as I bared down. Again. Again. Again. No end.

And if I never see you again in this life….this, this moment will be enough. Do you even hear me? Do you hear my heart crying out for you in all of this pain and loneliness?

One last sob ripped from my throat.

Silence.

I could not see. My eyes were burning from the salty sweat that had run into them. I blinked. Once. Twice.

The midwife was smiling.

Smiling!

New cries filled the void left by my own. High pitched and plaintive and never before heard on this earth. Then there, in my arms, was my baby. So light and yet so heavy. Two brown eyes and a perfect little nose peeked out from the swaddling. Suddenly the face scrunched up like a wizened old man. A perfect little pout!

I pulled back the blankets and stared. At first there was relief. Everything was as it should be.

Then it was not.

A girl.

A girl?

Her hair was dark. Brown. She smiled up at me, but I felt nothing for her anymore.

This was not my baby. God owed me a boy. Not a girl. What would I do with a girl?

Levi had had blond hair, bright like the light from angels’ wings. It had been perfect even if the rest of him had not been. This baby I had carried was supposed to be a boy. With blonde hair.

Instead, I have this? Disappointment flooded my heart.

Why couldn’t you give me my angel?

I wrapped her up again and pushed her away. The midwife looked on and shook her head. More pity.

“Take her away!”

The maid scooped her up and stepped back, fear and uncertainty played on her young face.

“Go!” I waved my hand in dismissal.

Then something in my heart snapped. I felt it. Pain of another sort welled up and tears flowed, wracking my body with sobs. My breasts ached.

“My baby girl, give her to me!” The maid nodded, relieved, and passed the little bundle back.

I held her close. Her eyes fluttered closed as a triumphant half smile played on her tiny rosebud lips. A peaceful repose. Her first victory.

I would love her. She was all that I had left of love. She was mine.