The Curse of the Wendigo (The Monstrumologist #2)(100)

“Your guilt serves no purpose. Will it resurrect the child or change the past? You did exactly what I would have done—what anyone would have done in the circumstance. Suppose you had picked up the child and left. How many more victims might have fallen that night because of your misplaced altruism? There are hard choices to be made in life, Will Henry, and monstrumology has more than its fair share of them.”

He waited for me to respond. He knew I would agree; I always agreed with him. If the house were on fire and I told you to throw gasoline upon it to quench the flames, you would cry, ‘Yes, sir! Yes, sir!’ and blow us both to kingdom come!

“I should have saved him,” I said.

“Saved him? Saved him from what? You had no idea at the time if John was in that building.”

“I should have saved him,” I repeated.

“Very well. Assume for a moment you did. And assume you managed to find to whom he belonged. And now you may assume he would not live to see his first birthday regardless, for those are the odds, Will Henry; that is the grim fact of the ghetto. You would have saved him from one monster only to deliver him to another no less murderous.”

I shook my head. “I should have saved him,” I said a third time.

His face grew red; his dark eyes flashed. He was not prepared, perhaps, for my obsequious response to his demand that I become less obsequious!

“Why?” he demanded.

“Because I could have,” I answered.

They were laid to rest side by side, my master’s two loves, in the Chanler family plot, for the father of the most wayward son is a father still. The elder Chanler did not speak to Warthrop, except for a few threatening words upon the conclusion of the graveside service, to the effect that he intended to strip him down to his last piece of silver. Warthrop’s reply: “Seems only just, but I beg you to leave me at least my microscope.”

Von Helrung was in attendance, as well as several other monstrumologists, including the survivors of the hunting party. Dobrogeanu shook my hand gravely and pronounced the doctor fortunate to have found a most resourceful and brave assistant.

Lilly had come along too. I was never sure how she’d managed to arrange it, but she hopped out of the hansom wearing a black dress with a matching black ribbon in her curls, and during the service she sat next to me, at one point pulling my hand into hers. I did not try to pull it away.

“So you are leaving,” she said. “Was it your plan to leave without saying good-bye?”

“I serve the doctor,” I answered. “I have no plans of my own.”

“I think that is the most pitifully tragic thing I’ve ever heard anyone say. Will you miss me?”

“Yes.”

“You’re just saying that. You won’t really miss me.”

“I will miss you.”

“Are you planning to kiss me good-bye? Oh, sorry. Is your doctor planning for you to kiss me good-bye?”

I smiled. “I shall ask him.”

She wanted to know when she would see me again. Would she have to wait a whole year? “Unless the doctor’s business brings us here sooner,” I answered.

“Well, I can’t promise you anything, Will,” she said. “I may be entirely too busy to fit you in. I will be dating in a year, and I expect my calendar will be quite full.” Her eyes danced merrily. “Are you coming back for the next congress? Or will your doctor leave the Society now that he’s lost his little vote?”

It was true. The doctor had failed. Von Helrung’s resolution had passed by the narrowest of margins, sounding, to Warthrop’s mind at least, the death knell of monstrumology. He might soldier on in exile, a solitary vessel of reason in a sea of superstition—but what would be his reward? What meager solace could he take in his principles when the one thing he’d lived for had been snatched away in the space of an hour?

He took the news as hard as I’d expected—though his reaction took me completely by surprise.

“I have committed a grievous error, Will Henry,” the doctor confessed on the eve of our departure for home. “But unlike yours in the tenement, mine can be rectified. It is not too late.”

His face glowed beneficently in the eldritch autumn light eking through the window that overlooked the park. He spoke with the firmness of one who had perceived his way with untarnished clarity.

“John asked a question of me before he died, a question to which I had no answer: What have we given? I must admit, I am not the kind of man to whom a question like that makes sense. To me, it was just another bit of his gibberish. Your father understood, though, and paid the highest price for his gift. You see, Will Henry, it is not what we give but what we are willing to give. What we can give.

“You abandoned that child in the hall. The gift was within your power, and you withheld your hand. You cannot take that back now, any more than your father can take back his gift to me. But I am not so helpless. I have a choice still—to answer John’s question.”

He drew close to me. “I have lost—everything. John. Muriel. Even my work, the one thing that has given me solace through the lonely years—even that I have lost. You are all that’s left for me, Will Henry, and I fear I will lose you, too.”

“I’ll never leave you, sir,” I said. And I believed it. “Never.”

“You do not understand. Tell me again why you should have saved that child in the hallway.”