Chapter Text
“One does not sleep well, sometimes, when one is twenty-nine on the morrow, and unmarried, in a community and connection where the unmarried are simply those who have failed to get a man.”
- The Blue Castle by L.M Montgomery
Southwark, London. May 1823
Penelope Featherington stepped out of the hired hack onto busy St Thomas Street, lifting her skirts to avoid a puddle in the granite road. She wrapped her cloak tighter around her shoulders to cover the fine fabric of her most plain dress, a dark green woolen walking gown with a simple lace trim. Her Fleet Street publisher had warned her against traveling to this side of the Thames but even so, she had not imagined such poverty and destitution. St Thomas’ hospital was known for its charitable works – indeed, her father had once been a supporter of the hospital’s finances before his untimely death in her youth - and she supposed that much of their work meant tending to the poorest of the poor.
But she had never expected that people would live in such filth. The stench alone almost had her climb back into the carriage and order the driver to return to Mayfair with haste, but she had only dared travel this far from her usual haunts – and completely unchaperoned – out of desperation. There were few doctors who would see an unmarried woman without the presence of an older male relative, and even fewer who could be trusted for their silence.
Penelope hoped a generous donation to the St Thomas Hospital would ensure the discretion of the practitioners, for she did not want word of her illness to reach her mother. Already a spinster at 28 and a burden on her mother’s coffers, she dreaded Lady Featherington’s response would be relief at the severity of her suspected ailment rather than concern for the welfare of her third daughter.
Feeling the keen gaze of a man leaning against the building to her right, she hurried across the road to the entrance of the hospital.
She had never in her life entered such a building before – for the higher classes of society could afford private doctors to tend them in their own homes – and was glad of it. The sight of rows upon rows of beds, all filled with bodies in numerous states of sickness sent a feeling of queasiness to her stomach. Penelope mumbled a quick prayer of thanks for her good fortune to have been born the daughter of a baron and the position it granted her in society, plain and undesirable in marriage as she was. And then another for the funds she had acquired in her years of work as the secret authoress of the most popular society papers in London, a fortune which would thankfully keep her off the streets even if she never made a match on the marriage mart.
A flutter in her chest disrupted her chain of thought, her hand quickly rising to press against the ache and she grimaced, catching the attention of a passing nurse.
“Are you quite alright, Miss?” The nurse’s speech was notably coarser than her own.
Penelope nodded and pulled a note scribbled on cheap paper from her pocket. “I am well, thank you. Could you please direct me to the office of Dr. Finchley? I have an appointment for half two.”
The nurses eyes widened. Appointments were quite uncommon at St Thomas’, with most patients only seeking care under the most desperate circumstances when the cost could be justified. She took in the fine trim on the hem of the young woman’s pelisse and settled her gaze on Penelope’s lower abdomen for a moment before gesturing down the corridor. Her steps echoed on the tiles as the nurse returned to her duties with a slight shake of her head.
The old doctor sighed as he opened his door to admit his next appointment. Why was it always the plain ones getting themselves into such scrapes, he thought, stepping aside to allow the red haired woman entry.
“Sit.” He ordered gruffly. She hung her cloak on a hook and did so on the wooden examination table.
Crooked fingers extended and bushy white eyebrows were raised over a small pair of spectacles as he held out his hand for his payment. Pink lips rounded into an ‘oh’ of surprise as she handed over a small purse of coins. He counted them quickly and nodded. “Lie down.”
Lie down? Penelope was quite surprised by his coarse manners and brisk nature – surely her family doctor had never spoken to her in such a way – but did as he ordered.
Immediately, his bony hands started to probe and push at her abdomen and she tried to squirm away in protest. He flattened one hand to hold her down and continued his examination.
“How long?” Finchley asked with a raised eyebrow, his distaste clear. “My services will be of no help if it has passed twelve weeks.”
Impossibly, red eyebrows rose higher in surprise and she gripped his wrists as the woman realised what he was asking.
“I am not with child.” Penelope whispered harshly as she flushed. Confused, the doctor stepped back and pulled his hands from her tight grip.
“Then why the need for my discretion?” No names, she had insisted in her note, and a generous donation to the hospital as payment – it was not his fault for having made such assumptions.
“I—I simply do not wish to concern my mother,” She said quietly as she sat up. “She can be rather sensitive.”
Not with child, then. An illness that could upset the sensibilities of a society woman? Dysentery, perhaps? Or female hysteria? He gestured for her to continue. When she did not, he rolled his eyes quite rudely. “Symptoms, girl.”
“Oh! My apologies. It usually starts with a general feeling of weakness and light-headedness." So far consistent with hysteria, he thought with a grimace. Pelvic massages could be so tiring, especially for a man of his age. “My chest aches and it becomes difficult to breathe. And sometimes,” She continued, “It feels quite like my heart is a bird about to take flight and escape from within my chest. That is the only way I may explain it."
That caught his attention, flowery language aside. While pains and dizziness were symptoms of hysteria - and a few dozen other conditions - heart palpitations were less easily explained and far more dangerous. He pressed two fingers against her wrist to take a pulse. Perhaps a pelvic massage would not be necessary after all.
He frowned as he took count, repeating his measurement on the other wrist to be sure. Even resting, her heart beat too quickly - a sign the body was trying to restore balance to her humours including the blood. Finchley shook his head and dropped her hand, instead taking up his quill and writing pad and scribbling down a note for her father or husband.
“I am sorry.” Finchley said in a low voice, almost gentle – or at least not as abrasive as before. A shadow seemed to fall over her face as she took in his tone. “There is nothing I can do for you.”
He handed her the folded note and her cloak and pushed her out the door. What a shame, he thought; plain as she was, not even forty years of medicine could lessen the sting of giving one so young a death sentence.
Penelope stared at the note in shock as the carriage jolted over the uneven stones of the road, the words swimming on the page. An irregular rhythm, said one phrase that remained fixed in a sea of cursive. Fatal, said another. She clenched her eyes shut and reached out to grip the leather lining of the door to steady herself.
Dear Sir,
I regret to inform you that your wife/daughter is suffering from an irregular rhythm of the heart which will in time prove fatal. The cause of such ailments is difficult to determine but I expect a humoral imbalance to be responsible. Physical and intellectual activities that cause excitement or distress must be avoided in order to prolong life. Any shock could cause the organ to fail entirely. I suggest bed rest and weekly bloodletting to reduce the strain on the heart until her time passes.
Regards,
Dr John Finchley
St Thomas’ Hospital, Southwark
A cough from the hack driver startled her and she realised the carriage had come to a stop on the street outside her place of residence. She handed the driver two shillings and watched the space where the carriage had stood as it continued down the street, dazed.
Penelope could scarcely believe it; she had not been this thrown since the death of her father.
Her life nearly over, and before it had ever really begun? She stumbled on a crack in the pavement and tripped, bruising her knee and hitting her hip on the stone as she blindly reached out to break her fall but missed.
“Penelope!” A low voice called, but it did not shake her from her melancholic thoughts or break through her pain. She felt as though she had overindulged on the sweet wine served at one of Lady Danbury’s balls - and was unsure if the dizziness was caused by her heart or from sheer disbelief.
Later, though she could not recall how she had returned to her bedchamber, her last thoughts before giving in to the pull of sleep were of concerned green eyes and rough fingers touching her cheek.