Tess Gerritsen: The Bone Garden: A Novel

Rose wiped away tears and walked back to Aurnia's bed, past a woman vomiting in a basin, another whose leg was red and swollen with erysipelas. Women in labor, women in pain. Outside, the cold rain of November fell, but in here, with the woodstove burning and the windows shut, the air was close and stifling and foul with disease.

Was I wrong to bring her here? Rose wondered. Should I have instead kept her at home, where she would not have to listen all night to these terrible groans, these pitiful whimpers? The room in their boardinghouse was cramped and cold, and Dr. Crouch had recommended Aurnia be moved to the hospital, where he could more easily attend her. — For charity cases such as your sister's, — he'd said, — the cost will be only what your family can bear. — Warm meals, a staff of nurses and physicians— all this would be waiting for her, Dr. Crouch had assured them.

But not this, thought Rose, looking down the row of suffering women. Her gaze stopped on Bernadette, who now lay silent. Slowly, Rose approached the bed, staring down at the young woman who, only five days ago, had laughed as she'd held her newborn son in her arms.

Bernadette had stopped breathing.

— HOW LONG CAN this blasted rain keep up? — said Edward Kingston, staring at the steady downpour.

Wendell Holmes blew out a wreath of cigar smoke that drifted from beneath the hospital's covered veranda and fractured into swirls in the rain. — Why the impatience? One would think you have a pressing appointment. —

— I do. With a glass of exceptional claret. —

— Are we going to the Hurricane? — said Charles Lackaway.

— If my carriage ever shows up. — Edward glared at the road, where horses clip-clopped and carriages rolled past, wheels throwing up clots of mud.

Though Norris Marshall also stood on the hospital veranda, the gulf between him and his classmates would have been apparent to anyone who cast even a casual glance at the four young men. Norris was new to Boston, a farm boy from Belmont who had taught himself physics with borrowed textbooks, who'd bartered eggs and milk for lessons with a Latin tutor. He had never been to the Hurricane tavern; he did not even know where it was. His classmates, all graduates from Harvard College, gossiped about people he did not know, and shared inside jokes he did not understand, and although they made no overt efforts to exclude him, they did not need to. It was simply understood that he was not part of their social circle.

Edward sighed, huffing out a cloud of smoke. — Can you believe what that girl said to Dr. Crouch? The gall of her! If any of the Bridgets in our household ever spoke that way, my mother would slap her right out into the street. —

— Your mother, — said Charles, with a tone of awe, — quite terrifies me. —

— Mother says it's important that the Irish know their place. That's the only way to maintain order, with all these new people moving into town, causing trouble. —

New people. Norris was one of them.

— The Bridgets are the worst. You can't turn your back on 'em or they'll snatch the shirts right out of your closet. You notice something's missing, and they'll claim it was lost in the wash or that the dog ate it. — Edward snorted. — Girl like that one needs to learn her place. —

— Her sister may well be dying, — said Norris.

The three Harvard men turned, obviously surprised that their usually reticent classmate had spoken up.

— Dying? That's quite a dramatic pronouncement, — said Edward.

— Five days in labor, and already she looks like a corpse. Dr. Crouch can bleed her all he wants, but her prospects do not look good. The sister knows it. She speaks from grief. —

— Nevertheless, she should remember where charity comes from. —

— And be grateful for every crumb? —

— Dr. Crouch is not bound to treat the woman at all. Yet that sister acts as though it's their right. — Edward stubbed out his cigar on the newly painted railing. — A little gratitude wouldn't kill them. —

Norris felt his face flush. He was about to offer a sharp retort in defense of the girl when Wendell smoothly redirected the conversation.

— I do think there's a poem in this, don't you? ‘The Fierce Irish Girl.' —

Edward sighed. — Please don't. Not another one of your awful verses. —

— Or how about this title? — said Charles. — ‘Ode to a Faithful Sister'? —

— I quite like that! — said Wendell. — Let me try. — He paused. — Here stands the fiercest warrior, this true and winsome maid… —

— Her sister's life the battlefield, — added Charles.

— She— she— — Wendell pondered the next verse in the poem.

— Stands guard, unafraid! — Charles finished.

Wendell laughed. — Poetry triumphs again! —

— While the rest of us suffer, — Edward muttered.

All this Norris listened to with the acute discomfort of an outsider. How easily his classmates laughed together. How little it took, just a few improvised lines of verse, to remind him that these three shared a history he was not part of.

Wendell suddenly straightened and peered through the rain. — That's your carriage, isn't it, Edward? —

— About time it showed up. — Edward lifted his collar against the wind. — Gentlemen, shall we? —

Norris's three classmates headed down the porch steps. Edward and Charles splashed through the rain and clambered into the carriage. But Wendell paused, glanced over his shoulder at Norris, and came back up the steps.

— Aren't you joining us? — said Wendell.

Startled by the invitation, Norris didn't immediately answer. Though he stood almost a full head taller than Wendell Holmes, there was much about this diminutive man that intimidated him. It was more than Wendell's dapper suits, his famously clever tongue; it was his air of utter self-assurance. That the man should be inviting him to join them had caught Norris off guard.

— Wendell! — Edward called from the carriage. — Let's go! —

— We're going to the Hurricane, — said Holmes. — Seems to be where we end up every night. — He paused. — Or have you other plans? —

— It's very kind of you. — Norris glanced at the two men waiting in the carriage. — But I don't think Mr. Kingston was expecting a fourth. —

— Mr. Kingston, — said Wendell with a laugh, — could use more of the unexpected in his life. Anyway, he's not the one inviting you. I am. Join us for a round of rum flips? —

Norris looked at the rain, falling in sheets, and longed for the warm fire that would almost certainly be burning in the Hurricane. More than that, he longed for the opening that had just been offered him, the chance to slip in among his classmates, to share their circle, if only for this evening. He could feel Wendell watching him. Those eyes, which usually held the glint of laughter, the promise of a quip, had turned uncomfortably penetrating.

— Wendell! — Now it was Charles calling from the carriage, his voice raised in an exasperated whine. — We're freezing here! —

— I'm sorry, — said Norris. — I'm afraid I have another engagement this evening. —

— Oh? — Wendell's eyebrow lifted in a mischievous tilt. — I trust she's a charming alternative. —

— It's not a lady, I'm afraid. But it's simply something I can't break. —

— I see, — said Wendell, though clearly he didn't, for his smile had cooled and already he was turning to leave.

— It's not that I don't want— —

— Quite all right. Another time, perhaps. —

There won't be another time, thought Norris as he watched Wendell dash into the street and climb in with his two companions. The driver flicked his whip and the carriage rolled away, wheels splashing through puddles. He imagined the conversation that would soon take place in that carriage among the three friends. Disbelief that a mere farm boy from Belmont had dared to decline the invitation. Speculation as to what other engagement, if not with a member of the fair sex, could possibly take precedence. He stood on the porch, gripping the rail in frustration at what he could not change, and what could never be.