Charles Finch - A Stranger in Mayfair

“The doctors said she was quite healthy, and of course we watched her nutritional intake most strictly-most strictly-fascinating paper I read from Germany about prebirth care, they translated it over here-we gave her good dairy and beef, not too many vegetables-hearty fare, you understand-and I fully expect everything to go well-I feel quite certain it will.”

Lenox and Lady Jane nodded thoughtfully and said “Oh, yes!” and “Mm, mm” in all the right spots.

When the carriage arrived only a couple of minutes later at the massive Bond Street house, McConnell darted out and into the door, apparently quite forgetting about his guests.

“He’s got the nerves of all first fathers,” Lady Jane said quietly as they walked up the steps to the open door. “I’m glad we came.”

Lenox nodded, but saw something different in his friend’s mien than Jane did. He saw a man looking for redemption, both for not preventing the loss of Toto’s first baby (even though every doctor had concurred that it was an act of God) and for something greater: his whole mess of a life, which had begun so promisingly when he was a young surgeon and made such a happy, spectacular marriage, but which had somehow gone awry. This was his chance to amend all that. It was a fresh start.

Jane rushed straight upstairs to the vast second bedroom, which had been arranged for Toto’s comfort and where a small huddle of doctors and nurses, all hired at great expense from the best hospitals in England at McConnell’s insistence, consulted with each other. As for the doctor and his friend, their fate was to wait hour upon hour in McConnell’s study.

It was a wonderful room of two levels; first a comfortable sitting room with desk and armchairs, plus a comprehensive laboratory against the back wall, and then, up a winding marble staircase inlaid with cherubim, a library full of scientific texts. The ceiling, twenty-five feet above them, was a white Wedgwood design.

“Would you like a drink?” asked McConnell, heading for the table with the spirits on it.

“Not quite yet-Thomas,” said Lenox hastily, “before all that will you show me what you’ve been working on?”

McConnell looked at him inscrutably. “Of course,” he said after a moment. “Although I shouldn’t touch any chemicals-I’ve been staying away from them for the past few weeks, and before that scrubbed my hands and arms very thoroughly whenever I worked at my table. For Toto.”

Against the back wall were three long wooden tables, very rudimentary things. Stacked above these were many small shelves, on which were lined hundreds, perhaps thousands, of bottles of chemical. On the tables themselves were chopping blocks, microscopes, scientific instruments, and formic-acid-filled jars, some otherwise empty, some containing samples. In all, a first-rate chemical laboratory.

For a diverting half hour McConnell explained his various endeavors. His face brightened, and soon he was lost in the world of his work. It wasn’t the same as surgery to him-Lenox had known him then-but it had its own merits.

After that Lenox acceded to the inevitable drink, a gin with tonic water, and he and McConnell sat, sometimes talking easily, sometimes silent. At one thirty Lady Jane came in and told them, very hurriedly, that all was well. Perhaps fifteen minutes later one of the doctors strode in with a quick step, causing McConnell to gasp and rise to his feet, but the news was the same. At two o’clock they had a plate of cold chicken and a bottle of white wine sent up and ate. After that, time seemed to slow down. Each had a book, but neither read much.

At three Lenox nodded off. McConnell coughed softly, and Lenox startled awake. It had been an hour since they had seen anyone and half an hour since they had spoken to each other.

“What names have you thought of?” asked Lenox.

McConnell smiled privately. “Oh, that’s Toto’s bailiwick.”

There was a pause. “Are you very anxious?”

It was a personal question, but the doctor merely shrugged. “My nerves have lived in a state of high tension for nine months now. Every morning when I wake up I’m afraid until I check that all’s well, and every night I lie in bed worrying. At school, were you nervous during the examinations? I was always worse off the day before.”

“From all Jane says, things have gone well. My one regret about the summer is that we couldn’t be here with you and Toto.”

“We saw very few people-it was nice, very nice.” Unsaid was that they had grown more comfortable with each other, that the pregnancy had consecrated their rapprochement. “Her parents have been wonderful.”

“Did you let them know?”

“This evening? Yes, I telegrammed them straight away, same to my father and mother. Her parents are on their way, and my father sent back his felicitations. Really I desire it to be two days from now and all well. What a terrible thought, to wish time away when life has so little of it anyway…”

“Why don’t I step out and find a doctor?”

Just as Lenox said this, though, there was a wail at a far corner of the enormous house. Both men rose to their feet by instinct, and McConnell took a few steps to the door, pain and worry fresh again in his eyes.

“I’ve no doubt all is well,” said Lenox.

There was another wail, long and loud. “One day men will be in the birthing room,” said McConnell.

Lenox was shocked but said only, “Mm.”

“I’ve seen a birth.”

“It’s better to let the doctors and the women handle it.”

“Don’t be retrogade, Charles.”

Don’t be radical, Lenox wanted to say. “Perhaps I am,” was all he uttered in the event.

There was a third wail, and then a fourth some seconds later. McConnell paced to and fro as Lenox sat down again.

“The noises are quite normal,” the doctor said, “but I never cared when I heard them before. It’s awful to say-these women were patients of mine-but it’s true.”

A fifth wail, and then an even more terrifying sound: footsteps in the stairwell.

McConnell rushed to the door and flung it open. In his mind Lenox said a short prayer.

Outside of McConnell’s study was a wide, rarely used salon, covered with eighteenth-century paintings in the bold Continental style. The doctor striding across it seemed like a figure out of myth, his loud steps and white robe in the dark room somehow laden with meaning.

“I congratulate you!” he called when he was close enough to be heard. His voice echoed across the vast empty room. “It’s a girl!”

By the time Lenox left at 6:00 A.M. several things had happened. McConnell had burst out of the room and gone to see his wife and child, and come back fifteen minutes later positively beaming (“An angel! Both of them, two angels!”). Lady Jane, eyes rimmed with red, had come down to see Lenox and tell him all about the child, and then the two had agreed, in a hushed embrace, never to fight again. At last Lenox himself had seen the baby, a rosy-skinned, warm-bodied dab of human life.

Most importantly, the child had a name: Grace Georgianna McConnell. Already they were all calling her George (“Though we must never let the child think it’s because you wanted a boy,” admonished Jane). Her father seemed ready to burst with pride, happiness, and, perhaps most powerfully, relief, while her mother was (apparently) a composed, albeit slightly shaken, picture of maternal bliss. Lenox himself was immensely happy.

He left early to try to get home so that he could sneak a few hours’ sleep. There were important meetings to attend that morning. As he went, Lady Jane was curled up in the second bed in Toto’s room, sleeping across from the new mother, the crib in between them. Toto’s hand was draped into it. As for McConnell, he had let the women sleep and been full of action. He gave the servants the day off, handed each of them a double florin, and ordered a crate of Pol Roger for them from the shop down the street, then sent eight telegrams to his friends and family. After that he ordered his horses up (apparently forgetting the day off-but nobody minded) with the plan of calling on these friends and family before the telegram could. It was as this plan was hatching that Lenox left.