Anatomy: A Love Story(7)

Hazel responded with a small, requisite curtsy before her attention returned fully to the strange beggar man. Hazel wondered what could be going on. Was the beggar a ward whom Lord Almont was taking on? A recipient of one of His Lordship’s charities? A man applying for a service position and about to be roundly dismissed? Hazel couldn’t imagine that Lord Almont was the one who actually did any of the hiring. And why did her uncle require a doctor’s examination?

“Are we ready to proceed?” the doctor asked quietly.

For the first time, Hazel noticed the doctor’s face: it was heavily pocked and scarred, with deep red lines and ridges. He wore a satin patch over his left eye, but Hazel could make out red swelling from outside its edges. The doctor’s hair was long and lank and dark, held back by a black ribbon at the nape of his neck. In his hand, he held something that looked like metal clamps, glinting in the light that came through the house’s entryway windows. His coat was stained at its edges, rust colored.

The beggar’s eyes were wide, revealing irises surrounded by white. In his lap, he wrung a brown hat, as if he were trying to dry it from the wash. After a few seconds of terrified silence, he nodded to the doctor, leaned back, and opened his mouth.

“Perhaps the lady—” Lord Almont began, but before he could get out the rest of the sentence, the doctor had already completed his task: he had inserted the clamps into the beggar’s mouth, given a quick twist, and pulled out a molar with a sickening crack.

The basin that Samuel had brought out immediately served its purpose. The beggar brought it up below his chin and used it to catch the blood and drool that came running from between his lips. He hadn’t even had time to scream.

The doctor sniffed and examined the tooth, which was still glistening with blood. “Quickly now,” he said to Lord Almont. “We must act while the tooth is still fresh from the mouth if we hope to affix it to your gum.”

Lord Almont dutifully reclined and opened his mouth.

The doctor applied a silvery paste to the bottom of the tooth and plugged it somewhere deep in Lord Almont’s mouth with a small scalpel. The beggar whimpered softly behind them.

“Now,” the doctor said as he finished, “no chewing meat for a month, unless your cook does it soft. Keep to clear liquors, and no tomatoes.”

Lord Almont rose and straightened his tie. “Certainly, Doctor.” From within his breast pocket, Lord Almont pulled out a few coins, examined their value, and then handed them to the beggar from as far as the extension of his arm would allow. “I believe this is the market rate for a molar these days?”

Hazel thought the lord seemed mighty keen on keeping his distance from a man whose tooth was now in his mouth. The beggar, tears dribbling silently down his cheeks, thrust the coins into his purse and left.

“My apologies, Hazel,” Lord Almont said again, once the echo of the closing door faded, “for exposing you to that dreadful scene. Although Bernard did mention you tend to go in for that sort of thing.” He rubbed the outside of his jaw. “Ghastly business, but a small price to pay for one’s health and well-being. I don’t believe you know the esteemed Dr. Edmund Straine of the Edinburgh Medical Society? Dr. Straine, may I present Miss Sinnett, the daughter of my sister Lavinia.”

Dr. Straine turned toward Hazel. He hadn’t finished putting away his equipment, and he still had a small scalpel in his hand, dripping red, as he barely lowered his neck in acknowledgment.

“How do you do?” Hazel said. Dr. Straine did not reply. His good eye went directly to the ink stains on Hazel’s hands. She hurried to hide them in her skirts. The doctor’s already-thin lips somehow became even thinner.

When the doctor did speak, it was again to Lord Almont. “Do be mindful of the toll chewing will take on the tooth, Your Lordship.” Without another word, he picked up his bag, turned on the heel of his boot, and exited through the room’s back door with a sweep of his black greatcoat.

“Not much bedside manner, I’m afraid,” Lord Almont whispered after Straine had left. “But I’m told he’s the best in the city. A protégé of the great Dr. Beecham himself, if you can believe it, before he died. You’ll stay for tea, of course?”

It had been two years since Hazel’s father began his post on Saint Helena—as captain of the Royal Navy assigned to oversee Napoleon’s imprisonment—and since then, Lord Almont had taken it upon himself to watch over his niece. Hazel found herself taking the carriage into Edinburgh once or even twice a week to join the Almonts for tea or supper, to sit in the morning room and read Lord Almont’s books, to accompany Bernard to whatever social events seemed to be unavoidable. At least George’s memory didn’t hover thick as smoke in Almont House the way it did in every room of Hawthornden Castle.

When she married Bernard and eventually became the new Lady Almont, the bad memories could close like the covers of a heavy book. She would get a new name and a new home. She would have a new life. She would be a new person, a person whom sadness would be unable to find.

“Ah, Bernard!” Lord Almont said as his son appeared at the top of the stairs. “Will the two of you be lunching here? I’m sure Samuel can alert the cook?”

“Actually, Uncle,” Hazel said, “I was hoping Bernard might escort me on a walk.”

Bernard hopped down the last stair and extended his elbow. By the time the pair of them exited the hall, the servants had swept away all trace of the surgery performed just minutes ago.