Raised in the reign of the second Edward, the old St Magdalene almshouse now resembles those it was built to shelter: decrepit, destined for inevitable disintegration and death, and a drain on parish resources.
How can this place possibly be the location of the strange little ceremony Nicholas has been sent here to perform, a ceremony that – the warden of St Tom’s was careful to point out before he left – dates back several hundred years and is an honoured tradition? According to the warden, the Magdalene almshouse does not actually belong to the hospital, yet by some ancient concord, drawn up so long ago that the original document is in French, a physician must be delegated on one particular day each summer and winter to administer free medical care to the inhabitants. Apparently, says the warden, it’s something to do with the bishopric of Winchester, which used to own the land the almshouse is built on. The hospital’s reward is a basket of perch.
London is full of such odd little contracts, not all of them observed, especially when real coin is required as settlement. Today’s duty has fallen to Nicholas, as St Tom’s only physician. He wonders idly how he’s meant to carry a basket full of fish all the way back to Thieves’ Lane. It is only when he’s joined by two men and a woman that he can be sure the warden hasn’t played a practical joke on him.
One of the men is a dun-robed clerk from Winchester House, presumably here to ensure the ceremony is carried out according to custom. With him is a woman in a winter gown of russell worsted, worn over an unassuming farthingale. Nicholas has the impression he’s seen her before, but he can’t place where or when. But he certainly recognizes her companion. It’s Gabriel Quigley, Lord Lumley’s secretary. Nicholas hasn’t seen him since the lunch at the Guildhall the previous summer.
Quigley is a stick of a man in a severe legal gown and ox-leather boots buttoned and pointed at the sides, his skin pitted by the small-pox – grey in body and mind, by the look of him. He stands beside the Winchester House clerk with a sour expression on his face, like a third-tier lawyer hired to fight a suit he doesn’t believe in.
At first Quigley doesn’t recognize Nicholas. And why should he? Nicholas has changed dramatically since they last met. Only when Nicholas gives his name and calls himself doctor, for the first time he can remember since his fall, does Quigley nod in vague and dismissive recollection. Nicholas knows what he’s thinking: what transgression have you committed, what dreadful professional failure, to end up working at a place like St Thomas’s on Bankside?
‘And what brings you to the liberty of Southwark, Master Quigley?’ Nicholas enquires pleasantly.
‘I am here upon Lord Lumley’s business,’ Quigley says, implying that if he were not, he wouldn’t come within a mile of the place. ‘His Grace’s late wife – the Lady Jane FitzAlan – made a charitable annuity to this place. Lord Lumley has seen fit to maintain it, in her memory – and as a favour to Lady Vaesy, who first brought the needs of these poor souls to Lady FitzAlan’s attention. I am here to escort Lady Vaesy as his proxy.’
‘And the bishop is most honoured by her presence,’ says the clerk from Winchester House, whose own master is also far too busy to attend in person.
Now Nicholas realizes why the woman looks familiar to him. He makes an extravagant knee to her. He might be in Southwark, he might no longer be welcome at the grand ceremonies of the College of Physicians, but he hasn’t forgotten his manners.
Katherine Vaesy nods in appreciation. She is a comely woman, he can’t help but notice, though her features carry a brittle sharpness about them, like someone familiar with pain, a survivor perhaps of a cruel illness that has left its traces in her eyes and the lines around them.
‘Gentles, please – time is pressing,’ says the Winchester House clerk impatiently. ‘May we begin?’
Nicholas does what he can for the inmates, their faces blank and uncomprehending as he treats rashes, scalds and lesions with some of Bianca’s potions he’s brought with him in his bag. Lady Vaesy and Gabriel Quigley hand out a single farthing to each one he treats.
‘This is a strange place in which to find the man my husband once told me might make a fine physician,’ Katherine says, as a patient offers Nicholas an elbow to inspect – a raw chafe that looks as though it’s been allowed to fester for weeks.
‘It suits me, madam – for the present. Besides, I’m sure Sir Fulke was being unnecessarily generous.’
‘They say you came to Southwark out of grief, Dr Shelby. Is that so?’
Her directness causes him to press too hard on the limb he’s inspecting. The patient yelps. Nicholas mutters an apology. ‘Would you rather have had me come for the gaming and the bear-pit, madam?’
She shakes her head. ‘Not if your grief is so shallow it can be eased by such distractions. There is nobility in suffering. There is God’s grace in it. Don’t you agree?’
‘Not particularly, madam. Do these poor souls look noble to you? The rest of the world seems to have forgotten all about them.’
Katherine’s brow lifts a little. ‘To bear great tribulations with a martyr’s grace, Dr Shelby? To be frank, I find that an inspiration.’
‘And to be equally frank, as far as tribulations are concerned, I’d happily have done without mine, however noble they might make me.’ Nicholas lets go of the elbow. Katherine rewards the woman with a farthing from her alms bag.
‘I heard you’d given up physic altogether,’ she says. ‘Not that you can call this physic, of course.’
‘Why not? It’s doing more good than treating some comfortable fellow who’s feeling a little down because his mistress won’t reply to his letters. And yes, I have had patients like that.’
Katherine Vaesy’s laughter sounds as out of place in the Magdalene as rough soldiers’ song in a chapel. ‘Forgive me, Dr Shelby,’ she says, ‘in the presence of physicians, I’m in the habit of speaking plainly. I’ve found it the only way of being listened to.’
‘Cruel, madam – but probably justified.’
‘You may not know it, Dr Shelby, but you were the topic of plain speaking amongst my husband’s friends and their wives last summer – just for a day or two.’
‘Really?’
‘Oh yes. The men thought you dangerously over-sentimental. The women all wanted to cradle your head upon their bosoms.’
‘It’s nice to be appreciated.’
She smiles. ‘I think we have something in common, Dr Shelby: you in your exile in Southwark, me in mine at Cold Oak manor. Perhaps we should get together and celebrate the benefits of solitude.’
Is the great anatomist’s wife suggesting an association? Nicholas wonders. He remembers it was common knowledge amongst the young physicians that Vaesy and Lady Katherine were on barely better terms than Spain and England. He decides the best course of action is to pretend he hasn’t heard her.
Once the physic is dispensed and the alms distributed, Nicholas assumes that the ritual is complete. He can’t wait to escape. The dark interior of the Magdalene stinks, and the overseer seems more interested in the ale jug on his table than the inmates he’s supposed to care for. Nicholas is also worried Katherine Vaesy might ask another of her uncomfortably direct questions. But there remains one final piece of the ritual that must be observed.
‘It’s time for the fish,’ says the Winchester House clerk sonorously. ‘And the signing.’