(Author's Note: I'm sorry I've been the biggest bitch on the planet lately. My month can be summarized with the immortal words of Nirvana: 'I hate myself and want to die.' I'm trying to write more in an effort not to focus on the overwhelmingly crappy real world. Hey, why don't we hold a little reviewer contest? I told you what band was responsible for the first two chapter titles/ songs… who can name all the others? Come on, no google allowed. Someone must have as much of a music obsession as I do. It's going to get tricky in a few chapters.)
London, 1869
The mirror above the washbasin in William's room reflected a solemn boy of twelve. Glasses now perched on his narrow face and he had a habit of biting his lip when he was nervous.
He was going to Eton.
Eton had been his father's school. William's father would be dead three years that Christmas. William wondered if what Father O'Neil said was true, that suicides don't go to heaven. He said they were murderers as surely as if they had butchered their own mothers in the street. William liked to imagine his father in heaven, though. He liked to pretend he and Victoria were watching over him. As if by being dead, Henry Merchant cared that he had a son.
William's father came from a family of tarnished glory. William's grandfather had been a French nobleman, one of the last of the king's musketeers. When the musketeers were disbanded and found themselves outlawed by the very court they had spent centuries protecting, most fled the country.
William's grandfather, Jean-Christian LeMarchand, took his wife and infant son Henri and fled to England. There he translated their names and lived just outside of London. John Merchant spent the rest of his years crafting some of the finest swords in Europe. Almost none of his beautiful creations would ever see battle, however, they became showpieces of the gentry. They would sit above mantles and against the hips of English lords, never to be drawn.
John taught his son the art of the blade and Henry passed it down to William for the handful of years before his death. Henry had been a cold instructor finding nothing but fault in his son's efforts. After Henry's death William has a series of fencing instructors who all insisted he was a natural.
William always wondered who was right.
But Henry had gone to Eton and now William was going too. William had always excelled in his studies with tutors and he was eager to enter a real classroom for the first time.
He couldn't wait to go to school.
* * *
The mirror in the lavatory in the third wing of the boy's dorms reflected a pale face covered in blood. William quietly cleaned up his cuts and gingerly felt his bruises.
He hurt everywhere.
William's mother hadn't told him that he would be one of the youngest students ever accepted at the school. She hadn't explained that everyone else was much larger than he was and she didn't know that no one liked being shown up by someone so much smaller.
They beat him bloody.
William's mother hadn't told him that teachers carried canes and were quite enthusiastic about putting them to use. The other boys were very creative in finding ways to get William into trouble. They swatted him suddenly so he cried out in class; they stole his class work and made faces at him when he tried to recite.
His very first night at Eton, William learned something that would serve him throughout his existence, something to fuel him when he had nothing else to run on.
He learned how to hate.
* * *
London, 1877
William had gone on to Oxford and then to the medical school in Edinburgh, as his mother wished him to. He interned at the university hospital and that was where he met Dr. Michael MacTavish. MacTavish was in the market for an apprentice and was very willing to let William serve his residency at his practice in London.
Doctor MacTavish and Doctor Merchant had a busy office near parliament. Day after day they saw a range of complaints from toothaches to gangrene. William hated it.
He didn't hate medicine itself for it was far too interesting. It was the drudging from day to day only seeing problems and ugliness that got to him. William had the mind of a dreamer trapped in a very practical profession.
He had started writing poetry at a very young age. His mother had always encouraged him but when it came to earning a living she put her foot down. He needed a position that generated enough money to keep their small household running. William still loved poetry and would scribble a line when it captured his fancy.
But there was precious little to write sonnets about while elbow deep in an autopsy for the Scotland Yard.
It was at a party that William found his true calling in the medical field.
French titles were back in fashion and William's had been noticed by several social busybodies putting together a small gala so William had been invited.
He had wanted to R.S.V.P a polite refusal but Dr. MacTavish had insisted he attend. If William wanted to find himself a wife, he needed to actually meet a woman first.
It was loneliness that won out in William's heart and he went, hoping to find someone to talk to.
The party turned out to be a royal bore. Sweets and savories were nibbled upon. Brandy was sipped. Political chatter was made, William felt as though he had fallen into a cloying, sticky substance that muffled the world around him and made it impossible to move. He'd just picked up his notebook to write that thought down for a possible poem when a commotion startled the entire room.
“DOCTOR! DOCTOR MERCHANT, COME QUICKLY! She's having an attack! Oh, my goodness it sounds as though she is near death!” Madame Plumfield came screaming out of the servant's hall and William jumped to his feet, griping his black medical bag.
He was led to a tiny room in the servant's quarters where a lanky young woman writhed in agony on the cot. The white of her eyes whirled like those of a spooked horse. William immediately administered laudanum.
Once she had stilled her wild motions, he began an efficient examination. Finding the problem obviously in the abdomen that she curled around, he gently began probing the area. The woman let out another wail and he carefully released the pressure. Not the appendix then, he thought looking closer and drawing up her sweat-soaked dressing gown. It had to be an infection of some sort.
William realized with a jolt what the problem was. He drew back carefully and looked the woman in the face. Her eyes were open and on him. She knew that he knew.
“Please? Please Doctor-Sir. Please, you can kill me now but don't tell.”
When a woman found herself in trouble out of wedlock, there were places she could go. They were all worse then the last. Butchers and old woman dispensing poison like the Holy Communion. Actual doctors did not perform abortions. To do so would be a hanging offense on the grounds of murder.
Even having knowledge of such a thing… William knew he should contact the authorities and have this woman and whomever she had gone to arrested.
“Please? Please, Doctor-Sir, it wasn't my fault. If the missus finds out it's my job. Just kill me now but don't tell.”
Her grip on his hand was cold and clammy and it fluttered weakly like a bird.
“Sshh, no one's going to die.” He muttered pulling down her shift. The woman had his sympathy suddenly. Her plight was so hopeless was it any wonder she would commit an act so desperate?
He would need to open her up and drain the infection before he could even begin to repair the damage done.
He called for Madame Plumfield and told her to boil water, he said the girl had a hot appendix and needed surgery.
William rolled up his sleeves and prepared to damn himself again.
* * *
The woman's name was Sarah. He found that out when another girl appeared at the office door after hours. Sarah had told her a good doctor in town could take care of her problem.
William cursed, he would be in Wentworth Prison before the week was out if the girl couldn't keep her mouth shut.
The new girl cried, though, and he quickly softened his tone. He thanked God that MacTavish had gone home hours ago.
She stuttered and told him that she didn't have any money but she couldn't have the child, she couldn't.
When he asked why, she told him it was unnatural. Her own father was also the baby's father.
William sat down hard in the office chair. Dear God.
What was he to do? He told her to change into on of the clean surgical gown and he got up to scrub his hands.
* * *
At least once a week after that someone showed up at his office door needing his skills. Some of their stories were easy to justify. William didn't even blink when he had to terminate a pregnancy due to rape.
But after a while, he stopped needing justification. The streets were awash with hungry, suffering children. Maybe he was doing them all a favor by ending them before they ended up in a factory somewhere fixing cogs for less money a day then it took to feed themselves once.
William already knew he was damned, he'd known it for years. Better he then the innocent girls he saw every week.
They could move on, grow up and find a husband. They would pray for their sin and still go to heaven.
William knew he was hellbound. He just wished the time on earth were a bit easier to make the trip worth it.
* * *
|
