Sarah Rayne - What Lies Beneath

‘Oh, no,’ said Serena politely. ‘But I still don’t care for the sound of it. Is there nothing else?’

‘Well,’ said Dr Martlet, with even more reluctance, ‘there is something called the mercury cure.’

‘Mercury doesn’t sound particularly unpleasant. Isn’t it sometimes called quicksilver?’

‘Yes. I’ve never actually administered it – I’ve never even seen it administered – but I will be straight and tell you it’s not pleasant. I think it’s possible to give it by injection, but as far as I know most physicians make use of an infusion box. The box is about so big.’ He described with his hands a squat structure, roughly oblong in shape, to Serena’s eye like an oversized chair. ‘The patient is enclosed inside it for a number of hours and a mercury solution is heated underneath. The mercury turns to vapour so that the fumes are absorbed into the skin and lungs. It’s a little like the principle of inhaling friar’s balsam from a boiling kettle for a bad chest.’

‘I understand.’ Serena did not think this sounded so terrible.

‘Lady Cadence, this is a painful and exhausting treatment,’ said Martlet very earnestly. ‘And I really am concerned about the risk to the child.’

Risk to the child . There it was again, the trickle of acid into her mind, a little stronger this time, a little more insistent. Serena stared at Dr Martlet and thought: but what you don’t know, you stupid man, is that I don’t care about the child. And if this treatment dislodges it before it can even draw breath—

She snapped off this thought before it could develop, but the child had stirred uneasily and a dull pain rippled through Serena’s stomach. She ignored it and said, ‘Please tell me about this mercury treatment. Could it be administered here?’

‘I should think so,’ said Martlet. ‘It would be a bit of an upheaval, but the equipment could be brought by carriage or carter. I’d have to call in a colleague to supervise everything – probably someone from Guy’s. How would you feel about that?’

A strange doctor who would need her to undress, and who would see the ravages of the disease… Who might make one of those painful intrusive examinations to determine the unborn child’s condition… I can’t bear it, thought Serena.

But a moment later, in the remote voice she used for giving orders to Mrs Flagg or Hetty and Dora, she said, ‘I should have no objection. I understand the risks. Please arrange this mercury treatment for me as soon as you can.’

‘Lady Cadence,’ he said, ‘are you sure?’

‘Perfectly sure,’ said Serena and again felt the child move restlessly.

The equipment for the treatment was conveyed to the house a week later.

Gillespie Martlet’s colleague from Guy’s Hospital was a portly gentleman who brought with him the aroma of cigars and claret. With him came his assistant, a youngish man, who carried the contraption up the stairs with Dr Martlet’s help. Dr Martlet suggested Flagg should be called, but Serena could not bear any of the servants to be part of this or to realize what was happening, and she had given them all the afternoon off. Dora had told her Mr Flagg had bought tickets for an afternoon performance at one of the music halls. Serena had said, ‘I hope you have an enjoyable afternoon,’ and had called Flagg to her room to give him a small sum of money. ‘Perhaps you could have afternoon tea somewhere after the music hall,’ she had said, and Flagg had said that was very kind, milady, and they might go along to Lyons Corner House at Marble Arch, which Mrs Flagg always thought very genteel and where the cakes were particularly good.

Dora and Hetty had cleared out a small room on the second floor the previous day. It had been a nursery-maid’s room when Crispian was small and Jamie used to stay with them, but it had been unused for years.

‘The doctors have said a separate room must be set aside for the actual birth,’ said Serena to Dora. ‘I know it’s a good four months away, but since Dr Martlet is bringing a medical gentleman to the house, the room had better be ready for him to see.’ This explanation had seemed to satisfy Dora, and the walls were washed down and the floor thoroughly swept. Flagg, puffing like a grampus, carried in a bedstead, which Hetty made up with clean sheets. There was a marble washstand in the corner with clean towels and soap, and before the servants went off to their music hall Hetty brought a can of hot water, wrapped in flannel to keep it warm.

Serena had been aware of the child stirring all through the morning, almost as if it knew something distressing was ahead, and when the wooden contraption for the treatment was carried in, something at the pit of her stomach clenched in painful spasm. She gasped and bit her lip, but the pain passed and no one seemed to notice. The portly doctor, who was introduced as Mr Josiah Jex, listened to her heart with a stethoscope and looked into her eyes and ears.

‘No dizzy spells, Lady Cadence? No palpitations or swoons? Good. Now then, I believe Martlet is a little concerned about giving this treatment to a lady in your condition, but you seem fairly robust to me. Your pulse rate is a little fast, but I dare say you’re apprehensive about what’s ahead. Very understandable. I’ll make sure the little one is just as healthy before we go any further, though.’ He placed the stethoscope on her stomach to listen to the baby’s heartbeat, then nodded and straightened up.

‘Is it all right?’ said Serena, trying to read his expression.

‘Oh, yes,’ he said, reassuringly. ‘A perfectly good regular heartbeat. I think we can proceed. You understand what we’re going to do, I think? Martlet explained it all?’

‘Yes.’

The wooden box had been set in the centre of the room. Serena hated it at once. It was about the height of her shoulders, roughly square in shape, with a hole at the top where the head of the patient would protrude. At the front was what looked like a hinged flap, with a catch to hold it in place. The whole structure was mounted on small legs so that it stood about eight inches off the floor, and underneath it, on some kind of metal sheet, was a grid like a flattened brazier, with small pieces of charcoal laid out on it.

‘I’ll ask you to undress down to your underthings,’ said Josiah Jex. ‘First we shall paint a mercury solution directly onto the worst affected parts. Rather cold initially, I’m afraid, but I’ll be as gentle as I can.’

The mercury felt cool and not unpleasant against her skin, but when he asked her to lie back on the bed and spread her legs apart, Serena said, ‘Must I?’

‘We do need to treat all the areas,’ said Jex, glancing at the assistant. ‘We’ll be very quick and very gentle, I promise.’

‘We’re very used to treating people,’ added the young assistant. ‘Ladies and gentlemen both.’

They spoke kindly, but Serena thought that of all the humiliations and discomforts she had had to endure, this was the worst yet. To lie on a narrow bed, wearing nothing but a chemise and drawers, while two men moved their hands intimately between her thighs and saw the ravages the disease had inflicted on her skin, was deeply embarrassing and shameful. They both wore thin cotton gloves, but Serena could still feel their hands through the fabric. Josiah Jex’s hands were warm and fleshy, the assistant’s thin and probing. Several times she flinched as they applied the mercury with a small soft brush, but she managed not to resist or cry out. She was thankful that Dr Martlet had waited outside for this part of the treatment; these two men were strangers and she was unlikely to see them again, which made it seem impersonal. But when finally she was allowed to sit up, her whole body felt as if it had been punched.