City of Dreams (30 page)

“In here.” He opened the door wider and held the candle for her to see the way.

In essence the room was as it had always been when Christopher lived alone but for old Selma—a table, a few chairs, the floor covered by a Turkey carpet that Nicholas had brought back from one of his earliest voyages—but Jane had added those touches lacking since his mother died. The brasses shone, there was a freshly laundered cloth on the table, even some sprays of pussy willow cut a few days before and about to erupt into bloom forced by the warmth of the fire.

“Pleasant enough,” Bess said, giving everything a frank appraisal.

“It is now,” Christopher said. “Jane’s brought the place to life. Selma was always willing, but I never knew what to tell her. Besides, she’s old. My mother-in-law gave us two young house slaves as a wedding present. They have made a difference.”

“Indeed. They always do. May I sit?”

“Good God. Of course. I’m sorry. Would you like something? A toddy, perhaps. I can rouse someone to—”

“No. Let them sleep. You’ll get a better day’s work out of them tomorrow. Besides, if it were only a toddy I wanted, I’d not have come.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

Bess had taken a chair beside the fire. Christopher put the candle on the table next to her and took the chair opposite. She wore no cap. He noted that her hair was still bright red, laced with only a few strands of gray, but her face was pale, the skin drawn tight over bones that seemed sharper than he remembered. “Very well, tell me.”

“They say that young as you are, you’re the finest surgeon in the city.” She sat back, studying him as if she’d never seen him before. “Is it true?”

“I try very hard to do the right thing for my patients.”

He should have known it was to do with illness. He’d hoped it was somehow connected to Tamsyn. Foolish. His skill with the knife: stupid of him not to have realized earlier. “Your color is not good,” he said bluntly. “I thought it was the cold, but you’ve been by the fire for some minutes and it has not brought a flush to your cheeks. What other symptoms have you?”

“I’m not a very red Bess these days,” she said with a small chuckle. “And no surprise. I’ve been so much bled it’s a wonder my veins aren’t empty.”

Christopher sat forward. “When was the last time?”

“The Sunday five days past.”

“The blood thins in cold weather. I thought everyone knew it was unwise to bleed at such times. Even medical doctors from Edinburgh.”

“Everyone does know, Zachary Craddock included. But in some instances, when the need seems great …” Without any warning, Bess began unlacing the bodice of her dress. “It’s best you see for yourself.”

Christopher was startled for only a moment. Then he sat back in his chair, looking not at her but at the fire.

Bess understood his courtesy. “All right,” she whispered after a few moments. “Now.”

She was not corseted and had opened her chemise as well as her bodice. The breasts she bared were huge and pendulous. She seemed shamed not by the showing of them, but by the way they looked. “You may not believe it, but time was when I had pappes a man would find exceeding pleasing. But that was before I suckled four babes. And before this.” She reached up and with her left hand lifted her right breast and pulled it aside. The lump she exposed was the size of a large, lopsided egg. It stood out from the taut flesh.

Christopher leaned forward and put out his hand. “May I?”

“I wouldn’t have come if you might not.”

The growth was hard and unyielding. That could be a good sign, but the lump was also very smooth and that was definitely not good. Christopher had learned not to show his concern, and his face gave nothing away.
Encysted Tumours borrow their Names from a Cyst or Bag in which they are contained. If the Matter forming them resembles Milk-Curds it is an
Atheroma;
if it be like Honey,
Meliceris;
if composed of a fatty Substance,
Steatoma,
which unlike the first Two is decidedly Firm to the touch. Suety Tumours, are also recognized by being Pock-Marked and full of Indentations. They cause no Illness to the Patient and are easily Excised, even from the Breast.

“Well,” Bess said, “what opinion have you?”

“None yet.” Christopher stood up and palpated the growth with the fingertips of both hands. Bess winced.
The
Scirrhus
may be distinguished by its want of Inflammation in the Skin, its smoothness and slipperiness deep in the Breast, and generally by its pricking Pain. As the Tumour degenerates into a Cancer, which is the worst degree of
Scirrhus,
it becomes unequal and livid and, the Vessels growing varicose, at last ulcerates.
“How long have you had this?”

“I first noted it when Tamsyn was two months with child. The wee babe, as her father calls her, is a month old.”

“Lift your arm, please.” He prodded the soft underarm flesh gently but firmly. There were at least three knots, possibly more. “I take it Craddock’s been treating you?”

Bess nodded. “I went to him when no simples of mine proved effective. I think the thing had been with me some three months by then.”

“And growing all the time?”

“Yes. Considerably more in recent weeks.”

“And what does your son-in-law prescribe?”

“Frequent bleeding and strong purges. And for some time he cupped it every second day until the lump was blistered all over. When that did nothing, he used the lancet four times. He tells me medical doctors from Edinburgh do not require barbers for such things. They are themselves schooled in what he calls the benign use of the knife. Anyway, it makes no matter. The thing does not burst. It only oozes a small amount of liquid and blood, then dries at once.”

“Clear liquid or cloudy?”

“Clear. A drop or two, no more. The poison will not be drawn, though Zachary started at once with poultices of mustard and flax and has continued the prescription. In fact I’d been using poultices before I consulted him. Hog dung. There is no more powerful drawing medicament.”

“Does Craddock know you are come to me?”

Bess shook her head.

“So I thought.”

“I’m my own woman, Christopher Turner. Fatherless since the age of four and husbandless these twenty years. Zachary Craddock is married to my daughter, not to me.”

“Yes, of course.” He started to draw her chemise closed. “There’s nothing more examination can tell me. You may restore your clothing, Cousin Bess.”

“The question,” she said brusquely, “is whether you can restore my health.”

There are some surgeons so disheartened by the ill-success of this Operation that they decry it in every Case, and even recommend certain Death to their Patients, rather than a trial.
“It is rather late for surgery. The likelihood of a successful outcome is burdened by the length of time—”

“Christopher: can you cut it out of me, or can you not?”

He drew a long breath and looked not at her but at the fire. “I cannot excise a tumor such as this. It is embedded too deep. It would be a cruel lie to say otherwise.”

“And if it continues to grow, it will kill me, will it not?”

His mouth was too dry for speech. Christopher nodded.

“Sooner rather than later?”

He nodded a second time.

Bess finished lacing her bodice. She stood up. “Very well. Thank you for giving me your opinion. I take it …” She hesitated. “I presume your refusal to cut is based on no ill will.”

“It is not, Bess, for I bear you none.” Craddock had been Tamsyn’s choice as much as her mother’s. Christopher had not fooled himself about that. “Besides, I’ve never refused any as I thought I could help.”

She nodded. “The whole town says as much. Forgive me.”

They walked together to the door. Christopher took the old cloak from the wall and wrapped it around her. “I’ll walk with you, shall I?”

“No, you shall not. Thank you, but I prefer my own company at the moment.” Bess pulled up her hood. Christopher opened the door.

The snow had stopped falling and the wind had died; the cold seemed yet more intense. It stung the nose and the throat to breathe it. He watched her take a step into the night. Red Bess. There was none like her; quite possibly there never would be. And even if only by adoption, they were kin. “Cousin Bess, wait a moment.”

She turned back to him and he saw on her face something he had come to recognize, sometimes to dread. The look of intense, almost unreasoning hope with which so many patients confronted him. “Yes?”

“There is a chance. It’s very small.”
The Success of this Operation is exceeding precarious, from the great Disposition there is in the Constitution to form a new Cancer in the Wound or some other Part of the Body. There are those who will not recommend this surgery for Fear that their Reputations will be harmed by the low Rate of good success. But the Instances where Life and Health have been preserved by it, are sufficiently numerous to warrant the Recommendation of it.
“Almost no chance at all. I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that.”

“My granddaughter Sofie Craddock is a month old,” Bess said softly. “Yesterday I held her and she seemed to smile. A touch of the colic, no doubt, but the real smiles are coming. I am forty-nine years old. With luck I might expect a few more years. Any chance is worth the taking.”

“You may not think so when you hear what I’m suggesting.”

Bess waited.

“I can cut off the whole breast,” Christopher said.

II

Have no truck with the Turners. Sally’s nearly last words. And here Bess was readying her bed for one of them.

“I’d no choice, Mama,” she whispered as she gave a final pat to the embroidered coverlet that had been a part of her trousseau. “I do not wish to die if it can be avoided. The thing is that simple.”

Bess heard a noise behind her. She’d sent Cuffy, the youngest house slave, after extra bedding and clean rags. “Good,” she said without turning around. “Put them down beside the fireplace near that old pail. That way they’ll be warm and dry and to hand if Mr. Turner wants them. And I think you’d better get some—Oh, it’s you. I was expecting Cuffy.”

Amba still spoke little English, but she had come to understand most of what was said to her. She lay the pile of cloths and coverlets beside the fire, then waited for another instruction. She looked eager but uncomfortable. Since her daughter was born, Amba had taken the place of Tom, driving the wagon, tending the fires, and doing some of the heavier work in the garden. Those things suited her better than fussing with the household linen.

She was built like a man, Bess thought, with muscles rippling beneath her sleek ebony skin. Or perhaps some strange but beautiful African beast. Amba had been broken to domestic service more easily than Bess might have imagined, but there was still a wild and foreign quality to her. She looked entirely unsuited to the plain gingham dress Bess insisted all her women slaves wear. That veneer of New York respectability didn’t cover much. Bess never looked at the girl but that she remembered her singing the Ashanti death chant for ten hours while her man burned slowly to death in front of her eyes.

“Thank you, Amba. Is Cuffy seeing to the hot water?”

The girl nodded. “Much water,” she said. “Plenty hot. Amba make big fire.”

“I’m sure you did. That’s everything, then. You may go. There’s work in the shed for you. I want those hoes sharpened before— Oh, my … I never …” The slave had gone down on her knees before Bess and was kissing her hand. “Get up, Amba. This is entirely unnecessary. You are to obey my orders, not worship me like some Roman prince. Is this what you do in your—”

“Mistress Red Bess not die,” the young woman said fiercely. “Amba make strong magic so Mistress live.”

She pushed something into Bess’s hand while she spoke. A lump of chicken feathers from the look of it, held together with what appeared to be dung. “Thank you, Amba. I appreciate it. I really do. Now, on your feet. Surely it’s time to feed that daughter of yours. I think I can hear her crying.”

The child, Phoebe, was past two years, and still avid for her mother’s breast. She’d been born less than a week after they burned her father, a few days after Amba was brought to Bess’s house. Bess stayed beside the girl throughout her labor, bathing her sweating face, giving her sips of a feverfew and henbane tea that somewhat eased the pain. She’d made the brew with her own hands. She delivered the babe as well.

That had been a bloody business. Amba was not formed as were women, black or white, born here in the colony, including Amba’s own newborn daughter. Bess didn’t understand that, and she and Amba didn’t have enough common language to discuss it. But the agony of labor and the joy of birth, those were things women required no words to communicate. Only after the babe was delivered and the cord cut and the swaddling seen to did Bess turn over the care of Amba and her child to the other blacks.

It was no less than she did for any slave she owned, but Amba saw only the fact that these were the first white hands to offer comfort rather than pain. “Mistress Red Bess not die,” she said again, then sprang up and ran from the room.

“Let us hope not,” Bess whispered after her. “I’d count it a great pity to be buried with one pappe when I might have gone to my maker with two.”

The lump of chicken feathers and whatever it was that glued them together was sticky in her hand, and it emitted an unpleasant smell. Having long been accused of practicing witchery, Bess had little confidence in it. She started to throw the fetish in the fireplace, then thought better of the notion. She went back to the bed instead and tucked the thing under her pillow. In these circumstances any assistance was welcome, and any chance, however remote, worth the taking.