Anatomy: A Love Story(52)
She had kissed Jack Currer in a grave, and he had kissed her back, and even with everything else they had faced, that moment was the hardest Hazel’s heart had beaten the entire night.
When Hazel made it back to the main house of Hawthornden Castle, opening the creaking wooden door as silently as she could, she found Charles asleep on the velvet bench in the hall by the library door. Iona was fast asleep right beside him, with her head leaning on his shoulder. Hazel closed the door slowly and took off her boots so she could sneak up to bed without waking them.
24
WITHOUT A FRESH BODY TO STUDY, Hazel devoted all her time and attention to diagramming and preserving the organs of the one body she and Jack had successfully retrieved. She pulled samples from every one of its fever sores and submerged the scabs in various solutions: alcohol, tonics, salt, and—on a whim—powdered wortflower root.
But one body wouldn’t suffice if she wanted to pass the Royal Physician’s Examination. Hazel ordered copies of the latest books on physiology from Paris and Philadelphia and Rome and spent as many hours as she could studying them. She read and reread the edition of Dr. Beecham’s Treatise that Dr. Beecham had given her so often the pages became soft from the oils of her fingers. She memorized the notes in the margins, mostly small, meaningless annotations. (Small venous system written beside a diagram of the gallbladder; Mercury tonic? on the page about treating the common cold.)
But still, Hazel was finding it more and more difficult to focus. It seemed with every blink came another nightmarish image of eyes sewn open in blind horror, thick black string pulled through paper-thin eyelids. Hazel read into the small hours to stave off nightmares. When she wasn’t thinking of the gruesome body, she was thinking of Jack’s lips and the way her heart had flipped in her chest when he was pressed against her. Neither of those things would help her pass the examination. She couldn’t let herself dwell on them, not for the time being.
And so Hazel held books while walking and read in bed late at night until the tapers burned themselves to stubs. On more than one occasion, Iona had to replace the book in Hazel’s hands at breakfast with a piece of toast to ensure that Hazel was well fed enough. Iona also insisted that Hazel go to Princes Street Gardens on what might be the final reasonably nice day of the year, when the weak sun managed to eke out a bit of warmth in a sleet-gray sky. “Come on, miss,” she said, already preparing Hazel’s boots. “You can’t stay cooped up here all winter. You can take your books down to the gardens! Now, won’t that be nice?”
“Iona, my books are heavy. They weigh a ton. I couldn’t possibly haul them out to an appropriately pleasant spot on the grass—the horses wouldn’t be able to pull me and my books in the carriage to get there.”
“Well,” Iona said slowly, “perhaps you could take only one book with you to read at the gardens. After all, you’ll only be there for the afternoon.”
Hazel choked on her tea. “One book? One book? Now you’re being absurd. What if I finish it? Or what if I find it impossibly dull, what then? What am I supposed to read if I either complete the book I brought or I otherwise discover it to be unreadable? Or what if it no longer holds my attention? Someone could spill tea on it. There. Think of that. Someone could spill tea on my one book, and then I would be marooned. Honestly, Iona, you must use your head.”
“Two books then, miss.”
Hazel sighed but eventually agreed, and she headed off for the city with three books in the carriage, fully aware that Charles and Iona were probably grateful to have the castle more or less to themselves for a few hours.
* * *
EVEN WITH THE SPECTER OF THE Roman fever hanging over Edinburgh, Princes Street Gardens was still bustling with picnickers and strollers, women walking briskly in pairs, carrying parasols—all people celebrating what almost certainly would be the last day before spring that the sun would shine, however faintly, from behind the clouds and the smoky haze. How were they all so content? How did the rich so easily dismiss the chaos and terror within their city?
And yet, Hazel thought, here she was herself, enjoying the unseasonably warm weather, trying to study. Pass the examination, and then worry about the rest, she told herself. Just pass the examination.
Hazel found an isolated spot on the grass beneath a large leafy elm tree and spread her books out in front of her: Dr. Beecham’s Treatise, a second anatomy textbook, and a novel called Sense and Sensibility, published anonymously and credited only to “A Lady.” Hazel liked the author, whoever she was, and had brought the novel along as a reward, should she succeed in completing her review of the pulmonary system.
Hazel settled onto the grass and pulled out Dr. Beecham’s Treatise to refresh her memory regarding the arteries of the lungs, but before she could even flip to the relevant pages, a shadow came over the book, and Hazel looked up to see Hyacinth Caldwater standing over her and cradling a newly enormous pregnant belly.
Hazel swallowed the lump of bile that made itself known in her throat.
“Oh, Hazel, darling!” cooed Mrs. Caldwater. “The social scene has been positively abuzz since your engagement! You left before the dancing! Are you quite well? And more important: Have you set a date? Because I simply must clear my social calendar, I simply must. There’s no doubt your wedding will be the event of the season. I imagine the London set will be coming up for it?”