The Essex Serpent(39)

‘You’ve no use for his name whatever. When I discover who sent for you … you’re not going in. I will not let you. No-one ever treated a wound of the heart and had the patient live, not all the better men than you. And he is a man – he is not one of your dead toys – and think of the reputation of the hospital!’

‘My dear Rollings’ – this was said with such exquisite politeness that Spencer fairly recoiled – ‘you could not stop me if you tried. I will waive my fee, if they give me permission; and they will, because they will be desperate. Besides: the Royal Borough has no reputation at all save the one I’ve given it!’

Rollings shuffled in the doorway as if he wanted to swell to fit each corner and turn to steel, flushing such a deep and meaty red Spencer came near in fear that he might faint. ‘I am not speaking of rules,’ he said: ‘I’m speaking of a man’s life – it is not possible – you will ruin your reputation – it is his heart! It is his heart!’

Garrett had not moved, only seemed in the dim corridor to have grown not larger but more massy, more dense: he had not lost his temper, but seemed almost to thrum with a great store of energy barely suppressed. Rollings sagged against the wall: he knew himself bested. Passing him with a look that was almost kindly, Garrett crossed swiftly into a small room, scrupulously clean. The bright antiseptic air smelt of carbolic acid, and of lavender scent rising from the handkerchief drawn through the hands of a woman seated by the patient’s bedside. She leaned forward at intervals, confidingly, whispering to the man beneath the white sheet: ‘Shouldn’t think you’ll be long off work – we won’t bother them yet.’

Maureen Fry, in a dress starched stiff as card and thin rubber gloves, stood at the window adjusting a cotton blind to let the late sun in. She turned to greet the men with a placid nod: if she’d heard the intemperate wrangling just beyond the closed door it was clear she’d never acknowledge it. ‘Dr Garrett,’ she said; ‘Dr Spencer. Good afternoon. You of course will prepare before examining the patient, who is doing nicely.’ She handed Spencer a small file on which was recorded the declining pulse, the peaking temperature. Neither Garrett nor Spencer were fooled by a form of words calculated to convey nothing at all to the mother: he was not doing nicely, and likely never would again. ‘His name is Edward Burton,’ she said: ‘Twenty-nine, and in good health: a clerk in the Prudential Insurance Company. He was attacked by a stranger as he walked home to Bethnal Green; they found him on the steps of St Paul’s.’

‘Edward Burton,’ said Luke, and turned to the man beneath the sheet.

He was so slight that he hardly lifted the white cloth covering him, but tall, so that his feet and shoulders were visible. His collarbones were sharp, and between them the declivity of his throat fluttered visibly. Spencer thought: He’s swallowed a moth, and felt sick. A high colour spread across the patient’s cheeks, which were broad and high, and marked with moles in black clusters. His hair had begun to recede early, leaving a white stretch of forehead on which beads of sweat stood out. He might have been twenty; he might have been fifty; he was probably more beautiful at that moment than he had ever been before. He was conscious, and had about him an air of great concentration, as if the expelling of breath were a skill that had taken years to perfect. Listening carefully to his mother, he interjected where she paused, but only to say something about crows and rooks.

‘He was all right a few hours ago,’ said his mother, apologetically, as if they’d missed seeing him at his best and would go away disappointed. ‘They put a plaster on. Can you show them?’ The nurse lifted first the thin arm, and then the sheet. Spencer saw a large square plaster fastened over the left nipple and extending a few inches down. There was no blood or suppuration: it looked as if a cloth had been draped over him as he slept. His mother said, ‘He was all right when they brought him in. He was talking. They patched him up a bit. There wasn’t much bleeding, there wasn’t much of anything. They put him away in here out of sight and I think they forgot about us. He’s just getting tired, that’s all. Why didn’t anyone come? Why can’t I take him home?’

Gently, Luke said: ‘He is dying.’ He left the word in the air a while to see if she’d take it up, but she only smiled uncertainly, as if it had been a joke in poor taste. Luke crouched by her chair, and touched her lightly on the hand, and said, ‘Mrs Burton, he’s going to die. By morning, he’ll be dead.’

Spencer, who knew how eagerly Luke had awaited a wound like this – had seen dogs and corpses cut and probed in preparation, and once let Luke stitch and restitch a long cut of his own to perfect his needlework – saw his friend’s patience with astonishment and love.

‘Nonsense!’ the woman said, and they heard the fabric of her handkerchief tear between her fingers. ‘Nonsense! Look at him! He’ll sleep it off!’

‘His heart is cut. The bleeding is all in there, all in here’ – Garrett thumped his own breast – ‘his heart is getting weak.’ Reaching for words she might understand he said, ‘It will get weaker and weaker like an animal bleeding in the forest, and then it will stop and there’ll be no more blood anywhere in him, and everything – his lungs and his brain – will starve.’

‘Edward –’ she said.