The Anatomist's Wife Read Online Free PDF Page B

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    Mr. Gage moved toward a table positioned near the center of the cellar, where the
     body was laid. A sheet had been thrown over the corpse, but the blood had soaked through.
     There had simply been too much of it. He set the bucket he was carrying in his other
     hand down on the packed earth floor, sloshing the water inside it. The glow of the
     lantern he still held cast his shadow across the floor and up the dirt wall behind
     him. Dislike or not, I was glad he was there with me.
    He turned back to look at me. “Are you all right?”
    How many times had someone asked me that this evening? I swallowed the bile I tasted
     at the back of my throat and released my grip on the stair post. “Of course,” I replied.
     However, my voice lacked the certainty I had been aiming for.
    I crossed the room to set my bag down on another table, which was scattered with miscellaneous
     earthenware objects. The black portmanteau looked almost like a surgeon’s satchel,
     but it carried far cruder instruments than the fine sterling-silver implements my
     husband had used. Two kitchen knives, a pair of pincers, several small vials for collecting
     any samples, towels, an apron, and an old pair of my kid-leather gloves, which would
     most certainly be ruined after this.
    I tossed my shawl aside, despite the fact that I was still shivering from the cold,
     and quickly tied the apron around my body. Fortunately, the sleeves of my Parisian-blue
     gown were already short, so I would not have to wrestle with them. As I pulled the
     worn gloves onto my fingers and fastened them, I focused on my breath. It was sawing
     in and out of me at a rapid pace, and I knew I had to slow it, and my racing heart,
     if I was going to make it through this without completely panicking or, worse, passing
     out. I had never fainted in my life, and the indignity of the idea of doing it in
     front of Mr. Gage did much to snap me out of my stupor.
    I stepped up to the table and stared down at the bloody sheet, trying to imagine I
     was back in my husband’s private examining room. Sir Anthony had enjoyed the rush
     of performing his dissections as if he still stood in a crowded medical theater. He
     had rarely allowed an audience of any kind in those days while I stood behind him
     making sketches and taking notes. Later I understood why. But there had always been
     a showmanship to his movements, a pomposity to his voice, as if he were lecturing
     to an audience of hundreds. I had ignored the pretense and focused on the body before
     me, losing myself in capturing the beauty of the form, the harmony of the lines, the
     intricacies of its hidden mysteries. It was the only way I made it through those first
     few times. Looking down at Lady Godwin, I worried that none of the beauty that had
     so often called to me could be found on this table.
    I glanced up at Mr. Gage. He was studying the sheet in much the same way I was, with
     a mixture of curiosity and dread.
    “Are you ready?” I asked, pleased to hear how detached I sounded.
    He met my eyes, letting me know I was not alone in this, and nodded.
    Taking one last deep breath through my mouth, I steeled my nerves and reached out
     to slowly peel back the makeshift shroud.
    The first thing I noticed was the paleness of Lady Godwin’s face. Her skin had already
     taken on the opaqueness of death, except for a dull red bruise that had blossomed
     from her left eyebrow down to her cheekbone. Someone had closed her eyes and mouth,
     which allowed her expression to appear more composed, but I still couldn’t help but
     remember the mask of terror I had seen stamped there a few hours earlier. I quivered,
     feeling my impassiveness already begin to waver.
    My gaze slid down to where blood splattered her chin and lower face, to the ugly gash
     stretched across her neck. “He slit her throat,” I murmured, stating the obvious.
    I was inexperienced with such a sight. Sir Anthony had opened several cadavers’